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

for me and my rookie year, which is learning so much, and now I feel so much more confident in myself as a player heading into this next year. And the thing I probably struggle with the most was just the lack of help at times unless you go out to seek it. You know, a lot of guys don't just, you can't just sit back and expect someone to help you. You know, of course, you have your great teammates like Logan and Calvin Johnson and Matthew Staff that will come to you and if they see a shrug of us.

If you want help, you've got to find out, you've got to find a mentor. You've got to find someone who you feel like shares the same values as you and shares the same work ethic and the same passion for the game and ask them for help and kind of humble yourself. So that's something that I learned really quick. Yeah, I think that's super important. This is Jason, by the way. Who would you say, so you've been there now in the NFL for a year with the Lions? Who are the guys that are still on the team right now that you say,

Man, these guys are the best work ethic in, you know, for your offense. Who are those guys with the best work ethic for the Lions? No doubt. Not even offensively. I'm starting off a little defensively. It's global quaint. Global quake for sure. He's an absolute pro. It's just every day to compete at the bare desk because that's how it is. And then, that's the football league. It's finally the most competitive job market area. It's, you know, every day someone who is coming in. They're working guys out constantly.

And if you're not at your best, it can be the day that next not fast as you look, then go over Quinn, definitely take that each and every day that comes. Even in his, I think, if it's in the seventh or eighth year in the NFL, the approach every day still with that same attitude. Offensively, no doubt I'd be like to Stanford. You know, obviously he's the leader of our team in the offense, and he definitely owns it. Every day he's the first one at the fatalities. He's always working on.

quick releases, always working on, the playbook and suggesting little things to Jim Bob, the officer coordinator that may make an offense run even more efficiently than they is right now. That's a true mark of a great quarterback in my opinion, someone who's innovative, someone who's going to lead the team, someone who takes the game really seriously. Yeah, for sure. Has your work ethic changed it all? Did you come in just thinking, you know, look, I've already got it? Has it improved, or does it need to improve? What do you think about yours?

through your first year. A pretty hard worker, but the standard is definitely risen when you're in the same puddle with people like Riley Reef who will really work at their craft. Honestly, like I said, Matthew Staff, or people like Theoretic, who was really good at what he does, and he possibly works at what he does. It's not just a natural thing with him. He works at that stuff, and I could just go on and on. Even Marvin Jones, he just gathered what you can see what kind of work is that he is, and why he just got that nice contract is because how diligent.

a worker here. So then, you know, sharing the same huddle with those guys, your attitude and your motor has to, you know, kind of shift to meet that standard. Yeah, that's the great thing about having teammates that can drive you to do that. This is Andy, by the way. We're a fantasy football show. Is that something that you guys are aware of in Detroit? Is that something that you've followed or no guys that play? Yeah. I've joined that as though. It's something I've kind of removed myself from a little bit just because I'm playing now.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One of the things that, you know, our listeners, they have their fantasy team, so that's how a lot of players know you when you came out of college. One of the things that fantasy owners fear a lot of the times is change, and I think we can both admit there's been a lot of change in Detroit over the last year with Calvin's retirement, with the new offensive coordinator, with Marvin Jones, like you just mentioned, coming in.

to join the team. What types of things should fantasy owners be excited about from this new offense, from you specifically, and from some of your teammates? Everyone on the team is a playmaker in my opinion. It's like definitely anyone that is available to be placed in Detroit Lions' offenses. The dynamic player, obviously, Bill and Jake, Mama Jones, Marcel, Bito, Matthew.

Even on pedigree, even out of line. I mean, it's like T.J. Jones, there's a lot of guys that think they make a lot of plays. It's with a ball in their hands. And right now, we're all just working to be that guy. Everybody's working to be the guy, you know. So it's no telling me who will come out and prove themselves to be that ghost guy which Calvin was. But, you know, the good thing, the good problem is right now is everyone can be that guy right now. So go all. So Tennessee players could be looking for.

All lions in the first round. All lions all the time. So let me ask you this. One quick question on that with your backfield mate, Stephen Ridley, Zach Zinner. What's it like working with those guys? What have you seen from them so far? And what are you looking forward to? Looking forward to one, a fun running back room. Everybody's fairly young. Everyone's real violent. Everyone likes to joke and have fun and lighten mood. So that's the first thing for what you see is. And it's a stress-free running back room. You know, sometimes it's weird.

are just going to hold up the end of the bargain. You know, go in and the shot, no way in to make place, you know. I don't feel like this year to be any drop off anytime someone else is in the game which comes in. Obviously, you know what we need to do at you at high level. So with four backs there, you know, you've all got different talents. Who's the best goal line back there? Who do you think that third down guy is it? Who is it? Who is it? I mean, I have, I mean, I haven't put on past yet.

I can't say we're the best goal by that. We just went through OTAs and mini-camp, but I mean, all of us are capable of doing at some point this season. All of us want to be asked to do it. Yeah, well, we affectionately refer to you as the Abdullah Express on this show. So our listeners and us in particular, we want to see you get fueled up with a bunch of touches. So let them know that that's what the people want. The people want Abdullah getting the ball on his hands.

So we'll get you out of here. We'll get you out of here on this one. We're a history major when you were in college. I'm a little bit of a buff. I love the era of the 60s. Andy over here, our host, he loves the West, the Wild West. Do you have a particular time in history that you just are fascinated by? Yeah, I would definitely be proud to say the Rory 20s. Just because 20s, you have to come in America, which led the Model T.

and a lot of things, in my opinion. So I thought those are really interesting about how far we come now, but we're started with, in my opinion, in the Roaring Twits. Oh, that's great. No fantasy football in the 20s, though. Hey, we're almost to the new Roaring 20s. That's right. Let's see what happens. That's crazy. So, Amir, tell the people about this charity football camp that you got going on. Oh, yeah. Lincoln in Omaha on the dates of July, 9th, July 10th, Lincoln,

We want to be at Brian Heise on July 10, each on my father at Twitter, Amir Guapo, and the leak is in my body. You don't even also follow my Instagram. It's a username out of Maregwapo. Camp series is putting it all for us. It's going to be a great time from the ages of 7 to 18. Boys and girls are welcome. It's going to be a great camp, charity event with the youth most again and just see the one out there. Oh, man. We love it. Thank you again so much, Amir.

Big, big fans. We're looking forward for a monster season from you. So good luck, my friend. Thank you. You know, my favorite part of that interview with Amir Abdullah was basically when you, Andy, you asked them and you said, hey, you know, what should we expect from the offense? And he named these offensive players and he said, myself and Theo. And that was it from the backfield. He just said, me and Theo, you know.

Maybe I'm reading in too much, but it sounded like a two-man group there, which would be great. Yeah, that's very interesting. With all the reports coming out saying, you know, Abdullah, they want him to succeed. Look, the Lions spent a second round pick on Amir Abdullah. I know that it seemed a little cold there at the beginning. We're actually going to be talking about Abdullah a little bit later in these players where we're just not sure what to think about him. So I'll save that for that time.

All right. We're going to talk about him later, you're saying? Yes. So I'll get to share my opinions on him. You will be able to share your opinions. Great guy. Thankfully, he came on the show. I think he's a really talented player, and I'm very curious. He's a fun guy to talk about in the fantasy world. There's not many guys, you know, it was like CJ Spiller, right? Right. Many days ago where you just see. Electric. Electric. That's a good word for it. So, all right, let's go ahead and talk about some, what we're calling them, bland players.

You could describe them a number of different ways. Players that maybe don't get you too excited, they don't get you too down, but you're kind of hoping maybe someone else drafts them when you're hitting your middle rounds, when you're hitting the fourth, fifth, and six rounds in the draft. But maybe you shouldn't think that way. You could also describe it as confusing players. Players you just don't know what to do with. I think that that is almost more accurate. It's like, I just don't know. Well, here we are. Here we are. Let's figure it out. And we talked about him briefly earlier when Mike.

horribly unsuccessfully guessed the quick question answer. That's Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals, longtime elite wide receiving option over there. Somebody who came back from the dead, so to speak, last year with 145 targets, 109 catches, really surprising the fantasy world, especially in the first half of the season. So talk to me about Larry Fitzgerald, because there's so much hype. I mean, we've said it on the show. We're guilty of it, yes. We're a guilty of it because we, here's the question we ask about Arizona.

Is it John Brown or Michael Floyd? Right. What about Larry? Is Larry out there saying, hey, what about me? Yeah, and look, here's what Larry did last year. So he was 11th in the league in targets. He tied for fifth in receptions. That's pretty good. Yeah, I mean, that's a very high efficiency rate. Ninth in yards, seventh in the league and yards after catch. There's the number we were talking about. Tied for 12th in touchdowns. And like Andy said, people, we feel like he was just a monster.

for the beginning of the season, and then it really fell off. And I started diving into this a little bit more in trying to remember, you know, what happened to the Cardinal season? Well, 10 of the first 12 games, he was at 8 plus targets. Then in the final four games, it dropped to under 6. You know, you saw this huge drop-off, but you have to remember what did the final three games of Arizona's season look like.

You had the Philadelphia game. That was the David Johnson explosion, where the team did nothing but said, hey, David Johnson, you know, take us there. We're going to ride your back when he had over 200 total yards. The next game, Green Bay, that was the defensive domination where the defense scored twice, and the offense had to do very, very little inside of that game. Then next week, Seattle.

And that was where the Cardinals didn't have to do anything. The game didn't have to. They chose not to, it seemed like. Well, when I said they didn't have to, I'm talking about their overall record. It was locked up. What was going to happen? Their two seed. And the game, they got behind quickly. So they just said, they pulled the plug and they said, we're not going to play. So it seems like Larry just completely disappeared. But then, week one of the playoffs, their first game against Green Bay, Larry erupted.

erupted, and we remember the 75-yard catch and the touchdown in overtime. You can even take that away, and he still had 100 yards and two touchdowns in that game. So he was fully involved in a monster. So what I'm saying and proposing is the final three games were bad for Larry Fitzgerald, but maybe that was just a matter of circumstance, and we should stop overlooking Larry. So where is his current...

Draft position as of today. He is currently going at 603, and that is after Michael Floyd, but before John Brown. Okay, so would you take Larry Fitzgerald over Emmanuel Sanders? Oh, man. We're going to talk about him today, too, aren't we? Yeah, we are. Because Sanders is right in that category. I would take Sanders over Fitz personally. So after all, saying all that, does it change the order of the wide receivers in Arizona, though, for you? Because right now, you know, Michael Floyd.

Brown. They're both going ahead of him, aren't they? John Brown's going just behind him. Yeah, yeah. In average draft position, Brown is going behind him. Does that make Arizona like a great fantasy destination for a wide receiver's, but you don't know which one to take? Yeah, I think that's what it is. And maybe we all too badly as fantasy players want there to be the guy. And maybe perhaps it will just be an equal dispersion of you will have three solid options, but maybe you don't get a wide receiver one out of the team.

And you just end up with a bunch of guys in that two range. Interesting. Where do we have Larry? I don't have my rankings up. If someone has those up, wants to pull him up. I'll pull him up. I'm just curious where we have him today in light of those things. I think it's interesting. Sometimes we don't pay attention to the end of the season in both directions. Sometimes a guy plays better at the end. Sometimes he plays worse. We have him at 28, 30, and 27. So he's our consensus 27. So I think we've given him the respect maybe more than...

at-large, the at-large ADP. Even before I dug in and I was trying to really remember and see what happened for his entire season, I just felt like, I don't know if I want Larry on my team. But after really looking at the numbers and what happened, I do. If I'm in that 6-7 range and Fitzgerald is on the board, I would have no problem drafting him to my team. Would you take him over Decker, either of you?