Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Ameer Abdullah Interview, "Bland" Players, News & Notes

Well, but Larry Fitzgerald is coming to the end of his career. I mean, Baldwin's in his prime. I think if you polled people, they'd say that that is more money, not less than what they expected Baldwin to sign for. Right, exactly. They paid him to be a bad deal. It's a good deal. Not to just be, you know, an average slot receiver that he had been for most of his career. He got paid, certainly not, you know, to the level of a Julio Jones, obviously. Certainly not. Because he doesn't deserve that. You know, but this shows that he is an integral part.

of what they want to do, not just now, but over the next few years. They locked it up. I think it's a good sign, and I think people are getting a little crazy with Tyler Lockett, Love. Roy Cummings of today's big skin believes Austin Safarian Jenkins' attitude has potentially cost, has the potential to cost him his job. Really? So, yeah, really? That's just a little... You go and start insulting people's mothers on Twitter, and you think you got an attitude problem? That was after you got cut from practice.

I'm just adding to the flames that, you know, yep, we need to stay away. Come on, ASJ. Too many tight-in options to put any value to me in a draft on ASJ. A lot of hype around CJ Pro size running back, third round running back for the Seahawks. He has missed most of the offseason with a hip issue. That's something you have to monitor, right? I mean, when a rookie misses camp and misses, you know, you've seen it before with either rookies or new guys that come in as, you know, signed as a free agent. When they miss.

like, say, training camp on that first year. Look, you've got to move on with your game plan, make sure that your team is ready. They drafted enough running backs there. So, look, Pete Carroll came out. He said that they envisioned good things for him. I still think he is going to be the third down guy, no problem. But if he doesn't get back, you've got to pay attention to it. You can't ignore these things. Yeah, I still love pro seise. This is concerning, or should I call him, as some in the community have already referring to him, C.J. Goat Sice.

Really? Really? Why do they say that? Because it's funny, man. It's just funny. Some things aren't so funny. Oh, I think it's incredible. Like goat as in like greatest? Yes. Yeah. It's going to take me six to eight weeks to maybe appreciate that because he's a rookie. The New York... I saw CJ Procype, which I thought was much better than... That's fair. That's fair. That's fair.

All right. The New York Post, Paul Schwartz believes Giants running back, Andre Williams, is competing with Orleans Darkwa for one roster spot. What does the back foot look like in New York City? I just love this because Orleans Darkwa has been injured. Yeah, he's got an ACL issue. He's got an ACL injury. He's not in camp, and he's competing right now, as he should be. I mean, that is a fair competition now. That's pretty sad. Andre Williams. I think we open the season and,

It's very possible that neither of them are on the roster. And they roll with Jennings, another old man's strength, Vareen, and Perkins. Marcus Marietta told Mike Malarkey he would be willing to hand the ball off 40 times if that's what it took to win. We've talked a lot about the opportunities for the wide receivers in Tennessee and the problems with, well, maybe Marioita's consistency from a attempts standpoint.

What does this say about the running backs? Well, I love it. I appreciate that, Marriota. Being a team player, good strong team leader. Not good for my fantasy team. Good for DeMarco Murray. Yeah. And for the exotic smash mouth system, maybe we get a...

huge rushing attempts from Murray and Henry. Is Mario saying, hey, if we're going to win, we got to hand it off a lot? Oh, I mean, that's just like, look, I would hand it off a lot if it meant we actually won. I think he's a good guy. No, I think they're just bringing up the point of, hey, are you okay if you run an offense is based around the running game? Yeah. I guess it's just not news, though, because what quarterback would say like, no? It's news.

To me. It's news to me because it confirms that they're going to maintain a run first. This is exactly the situation you had in Seattle, where it was the Marshawn Lynch, smash-mouth offense, limited opportunities for Russell Wilson to throw the ball. What's funny is that Malarkey, if you go back and look at his history, he's actually been a passing heavy...

play caller, which is so weird because you don't associate that with him, but the stats don't lie. And I'm curious to see what the running versus passing splits going to be with Malarkey this season. All right. David Hellman of the Dallas Cowboys website says Ezekia Elliott might finish with 280 to 300 carries. If you could guarantee him 300 carries, where does he belong in the draw? Top. Probably top three. Yeah.

Absolutely. If you're going to get 300 carries, you're going to be the best running back in the league for fantasy. Do you remember off the top of your head the amount of carries that DeMarco Murray had? I'm going to go 326. Caries? During his big year. I know he was almost at 400 touches. If you include the playoffs, he was over 400. I'm trying to. But I think he was just over 300. Now you're making me second guess it. Because the number I had was 394. Was it? Yeah, that might have been total touches. I think that's total touches. That might have been total touches. Goodness.

But the willingness for that team to put the ball into the hands of the running back, run the offense that they want to run. No, he had 392 attempts. Wow! On the ground. Oh, I didn't know. I was right. Wow. I was Sampsonite. 392, and he averaged 4.7. That's a good year. So, still, 300 carries would be fantastic, and I would take that every long day. You know, honestly, I think if he gets...

up to 250, I view him differently right now. And I think DMC being injured helps that because it's going to give, you know, pretty much all the first team reps to Ezekiel Elliott, which we weren't seeing originally in their OTAs. So I think I need to bump Elliott up a little bit. I have them much lower than most people. And I've only got him listed with 200 carries. We have to keep in mind that this news is not saying, oh, this is going to happen. This is, you know, this is a beat writer trying to. Stoke in the flames. Yeah.

So, I mean, what do you, how many carries do you think he's going to get, Andy? 275 carries. All right, Mike? I think I have him around the 250 area. I have him as a top six running back. I love him. Probably going to put him right under the 250. The reason this is worth talking about is because he's a rookie and he's coming into the league and you want to know what the workload's going to be for a guy like that. There's a lot of people drafting him with that expectation. All right, last bit of news here I want to talk about. Not a lot of people talking about it.

But a lot of people not impressed with Robert Griffin, the third's offseason, not doing, not having any flashy plays, not, you know, this writer said underwhelming. You had the Cleveland Brown's former general manager, Ray Farmer, say that Josh McCown's a much better fit. Josh McCown's had a good offseason. What do we make of this? Because I think the offense is better with Josh McCown. I think Duke Johnson's better with Josh McCown. I think this is a really interesting that the...

uh it was the assumption every assumption was that griffin would be the starter and i think that's the assumption almost every single time when josh mccown is the the other option everyone just oh well it's not going to be mccown it's going to be mansell it won't be you can't go to mccown and mccown has for the last few years has been steady i mean he's been good not not great but he's been good he's been fine and we actually we talk about this um with with

Brandon Marianne Lee from Pro Football Focus and her fantasy football. We're talking to her on Tuesday's show. And she digs into this and has a really good take on it. But I think this is something that people need to track. It improves the skill players. I actually like Coleman more if I know that Josh McCown is the guy. Okay. McCown would actually be a great streamer at that point. Yeah. Well, McCown likes to throw the ball.

I mean, he likes to go deep. So is he a better fit for Hugh Jackson? That's the question. Will he throw the ball as much as we've seen him in the past with Hugh Jackson? That'll depend on the proficiency of Isaiah Crowell and Duke Johnson in that running game. And so we're going to talk to my man, the Abdullah Express. Amir Abdul, I am so excited for this. But before we do, we want to talk again to the footland about pristine oxen because they are the best memorabilia site on the web.

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footballers and use the offer code footballers today. So check that out. Your sleep matters, my friends. It matters. You talking to me? The fantasy footballers are extremely pleased to bring him on one of the favorites of the show. Amir Abdullah running back from the Detroit Lions. He's got a charity football camp that he's running for the Boys and Girls Club up in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska on July 9th and July. And there's also one on July 10th. How are you doing today, Amir?

I'm doing what? How are you guys going? Oh, we're doing great, man. Thank you so much for sharing some time with us. You are, like I said, you are a favorite of the show. Loved you coming out of college, loved the landing spot. And so how has the off season been treating you? What have you been working on? Off the off season's been pretty good, man. It's been all right. Can't complain too much. I had a little shoulder surgeon off season, so I've been bouncing back from that, but I'm almost back to.

full health, so that's good news. So what I've been working on is just explosive movements, flexibility, and overall I'm just trying to make myself the best athlete as possible. That's great, man. And what we love hearing from athletes, we love to hear that draft day story. So did you have one, you know, where were you, who were you with, what was going on? What do you remember about that day? Other than the whirlwind of emotions that were going on.

throughout the house, what I remember was I was in Birmingham, Alabama, with all my family. I'm the youngest of nine. I have six with his two brothers, so I was with him, so they were able to share their moments with me, so that was definitely special for me. But it was kind of stressful, you know, watching the draft going on, not knowing exactly where I was going to be picked. You know, you always went with an idea of maybe where you may land, but only God knows the faith, really. So when my name was finally called,

I was just relieved, really relieved, because I knew how hard I've worked to get to that point, and all the sacrifices I made to get me through that day. So all the emotions came out, feeling was happy for me, my love one with me, and no better way to share it in my opinion. Oh, man, it's unbelievable that you got to share that moment. That must have been just incredible. Incredible. So speaking for your rookie season, can you give us...

Give us your high. What was the best moments of your rookie year? And then follow that up with, what was the most difficult thing about transitioning into the NFL? The best season, I mean, I enjoy it at all. I enjoy it. The whole season was just learning, just learning so much. And even the bad things that I learned were end up being good things for me in the long run. You know, just learning with each game. Every game felt like a season for me. Right. So, I mean, that's probably the best thing.