Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Big Questions for 2015, NFL.com's Matt Harmon, Mailbag

Could that happen this year at the same time that some of these bigger names drop down? So I think this year and probably even more so next year, we talk about streaming and really that's just a matter of getting more value late in a draft. The big name quarterbacks are starting to come towards the end of their value where they're worth that name. Yeah, and then they're just a name. And see, I love that name, Sam Bradford, of a guy who next year I bet is being drafted as a top five quarterback. Yeah.

Yeah, that could be the case as long as he's healthy. Which, all right, here's the next question for you guys to talk about here. Which players drafted after the fifth round can break into the top 15? And Mike, you have some data as far as historically how many guys drafted after the fifth? So we're talking sixth and later. How many of those guys have broken into the top 15 at the running back or the wide receiver position? This is a really interesting. Yeah, last year in 2014, there were five running backs drafted after the sixth round.

or not drafted at all because you had Justin Fawcett and C.J. Anderson. So five guys drafted sixth or later who finished as top 15 running backs. There were five wide receivers drafted after the fifth round who finished in the top 15. That is interesting because a lot of those guys that happened to last year, the result was or the reason it happened was a lot of the times opportunity created by injury.

for one. And it's not necessarily things that are foreseeable, not something that we can hold on to now. So a guy that jumps out is like Ryan Matthews this season. If, if DeMarco Murray's gone, how is he not a top 15 running back? He completely is instantly. And the, if he's, I imagine he's drafted almost everywhere. But if there's, if there's ever a league where he's on the waiver wire and Murray goes down, that's like, wow. That's a full fab.

wallet that's going to get thrown at Ryan Matthews. Yeah, without question. Alan Robinson's another guy that right now is being drafted outside of the fifth round that we talked about yesterday, or we've talked about a lot, and we'll talk about today with Matt Harmon. But what are your thoughts on him?

On Alan Robinson? Well, we know he's a fan of the footballers or the footballers are a fan of him. I think you had it right. He loves the show. That's what I hear. Mutual, mutual love for the target monster. But he definitely has the ability to grow.

However, there is the same exact situation I see with Alan Robinson that I was saying with Mike Evans. There's not much change there. Now, the big change that does kind of improve is Cecil Short's leaving. So there's a lot of extra targets. So hopefully that is the reason why he takes a step forward. But I'll throw another name out there because I know two, at least two of the top 15 that did it last year who were drafted out were rookie wide receivers. I don't expect that to happen all the time. But a guy that's going really, really late who

You know, most of the rookie wide receivers, I just don't see them being able to surprise me with a top 15 year. But Devante Parker is really sneaky because that's going to be a good offense. He's a top 15 pick in the NFL. He could be the number one wide receiver on that team. I know, Andy, you said he was going to. We have a water bet you and I. That's right. I still think it's going to be Jarvis Landry, but that's a chip. You know, you talk about who are you going to take with the last pick in your draft? I'll take Devante Parker.

in the last pick of my draft and maybe have a top 15 wide receiver upside. He played yesterday. He played eight snaps, I believe, in yesterday's game caught a pass. Very good name to bring up. Yeah, so they're easing him in, and his value represents so much upside right now. The offense is great in Miami. We talk that up constantly. So another rookie is that Breschard Perriman. And so you got Devante Parker, Bershad Perryman.

You've got to go with Parker because Perryman's situation will be much better when he gets back, but the win is going to be back. He's still not practicing, so that's going to take some time where Devante Parker could sneak in in a couple weeks. You also look at volume, right? I mean, the guys that did it last year were volume guys. They got a ton of targets, the rookies that got there. So Perryman, I expect, could.

could go into that Tory Smith role and have a bunch of yards or maybe those big play touchdowns, but maybe not the same volume that could be there for Parker. You think Parker has more volume potential? I mean, with Landry and with Stills and Jennings and Cameron. I mean, I don't see that. The reason I say that is because we don't know how he's used, but there's more volume in the offensive passing, is what I'm saying. Now, maybe Tressman changes that in Baltimore, but Baltimore has been a run first team, and so we'll see that.

The wide receiver position, perfect transition here. We're going to go ahead and talk to Matt Harmon and discuss kind of what he sees on film from some wide receivers. You talking to me? The fantasy footballers are now joined by Matt Harmon, fantasy writer for NFL.com, and creator of reception. Why don't you say hello to the people, Matt? Hey, guys, how's it going? Excited to talk to you today. This is, you know, we're right in the thick of things.

Everything's kind of kicking off. The first game of the season, seven days away. That is music to our ears. So we want to introduce the listeners to kind of the reception idea. And we're going to talk about some sophomore wide receivers and what Matt thinks of them, how, for what he's studied on film. And they're kind of how he projects them for this year. So we're going to start it off with a guy who's...

Kind of a forgotten man, and that's Sammy Watkins up in Buffalo, who was a top draft pick, was hot off on fantasy rosters last year, but because of the quarterback position, people are, I think, scared off of him a little bit. So what did you see on tape for Sammy Watkins? And before you get into that, actually, just explain what the reception is. Yeah.

Reception perception is basically just an in-depth methodology for evaluating wide receivers. I track basically how often they run each route on the route tree, how often they get open on those routes, and then how often they beat both press, man, zone, and double coverage. And there's also other, you know, ancillary measurements, like how often they, you know, make contested catches, how often they break tackle. So it's basically just if you want to know about a wide receiver, you check out his reception perception and see, like, how he's,

basically does everything on the field, you know, and there's a lot of good, uh, wide receiver metrics out there. I do think lines are rather in-depth one. Um, so it's basically, yeah, just what I see on the film and then putting it into a hard data percentage point and to kind of let you know how they're used by their team and what they do well. Great. Um, yeah, and so as far as Sammy Watkins goes, he actually did not come out well in reception, um, and,

I think that I kind of surprised with people because he definitely had some big statistical game. A lot of his production came in four contests where he really went crazy against the Jets and some other teams. I think that kind of misleads people to what his season-long outlook was. However, I'm open to that being kind of a misnomer for his career because he was obviously injured last season. He was dealing with, I think, a hip flexor or hip pointer or something towards the end of the season.

And the hip is really important for a wide receiver because it's where you can generate a lot of your power when you're running routes. You know, you think of just guys running the post or a slant, how often they have to sink their hips and how often that, like, needs to be a fluid, flexible part of the body. So I'm open to that being kind of, you know, an outlier in terms of his career, how he looked as a route runner last year and getting open and everything like that. But the trouble, of course, with Watkins is that...

He's tied to really kind of a dreadful offense. Rex Ryan's the head coach there. Only one wide receiver, wherever went over 110 targets with the Jets when he was a head coach, and I was Eric Decker last year. So it's kind of, I don't really know what his opportunity is going to look like. He had 128 targets last year. I think he kind of struggles to see that many again. And obviously, I'm a big Tyrod Taylor fan. If you follow me on Twitter or read my work, you know that I'm really liking his.

early season outlook as a fantasy streamer or a DFS play because he can run. But while he looked good as a passer in the preseason, that's still kind of a question that we need to see answered. So there's a lot of risk with Watkins right now, and I'm usually finding myself shying away from him. So you're not targeting him? Where about in a draft would you be okay taking him?

I consider him more of like a seventh or eighth round pick, but usually at the height of his stock, he was going in the fourth round. Now you can kind of see him fall to the sixth round in some places, but I just think that's a little too early, and I think there are safer wide receiver targets in that range.

So moving to a guy who had huge success last year was Mike Evans. His situation is very different now. But he's being drafted extremely high. He's being taken as a wide receiver one. Are you buying into that at all? Or are you passing him for that value? I am buying into that. While I think that James might be his rookie year struggles, I'm sure he's going to throw a lot of interceptions. If you watch him in Florida State, he was a guy who loved to throw targets up to big players.

He and Kelvin Benjamin were very productive in Benjamin's final season at Florida State, and I really see Evans is kind of the bigger, more improved version, well, maybe not bigger, but more improved version of Kelton Benjamin. So he's a guy that I definitely think Evans is going to take that wide receiver one leap this year, especially on a per game basis. It might be a little bit, you know, there might be a little bit of fluctuation there because of the rookie quarterback struggles and everything, but I think his ceiling is just so tremendous.

and he can definitely win you weeks in games where Tampa Bay is going to be throwing to catch up. He has a very favorable quarterback schedule because he plays the NFC South. So I like Mike Evans kind of to make that leap into wide receiver one status. There's a little bit of risk there, but you can often get him in the third round, and I really like that. I'm buying into Mike Evans as well. I think he can have a successful year with James Winston throwing in the ball. He had success with just

garbage last year. Yeah. So a guy who graded out kind of low on your reception, who has a huge opportunity now that Jordy Nelson went down is Devante Adams in Green Bay. What do you have to say about Devante? Yeah, Devante Adams has been a tough one for me all year, all off season, I should say. You know, back in the beginning, he was kind of going in that eighth round range. Sometimes people would even push him in the seventh round, and I thought that was

crazy because there just were no targets available for him to take. But of course, now that's changed with the Jordy Nelson injury, so we kind of have to reevaluate. I would feel fine with him in like the fifth or sixth round range, but now people are pushing him up to the third or fourth round. And again, I just can't pay that price, given what we know about him from his rookie year. I think that the last thing that we remember about him is that him tearing up the Cowboys in the playoffs, but if you really look at the whole...

sample of his rookie year, there was a lot of inefficiency, there was a lot of poor route running and ability to, and he was struggling to beat number three corners last year. So I don't see how it's going to get that much better from year one to year two. I think often just projecting players to get better without any real evidence that they will is a dangerous proposition. So with the inflated price of Adams, I'm still kind of backing away because I just think in the third round and the fourth round, you can get much.

safer guys that are going to get a lot of targets too. I look at Amari Cooper in Oakland as a guy like he's going to be there number one. He's going to get a lot of targets. He's kind of going in that same range or a little later. I would much prefer to have him over Adams. And there are many situations. I find myself just not being able to take him at his asking price. I'm excited to see him with a more expanded opportunity and see if he has grown. But until I see it, I'm not interested in paying his redraft price. I will say,

He's very cheap on daily fantasy sites in week one. He's going to be in a lot of my DFS week one lineup because of the opportunity in line. But on a season-long basis, I think he's still going to be a volatile asset. So we can't let you off the phone. We're going to talk two more guys, and one of them has to be my man, Alan Robinson, in Jacksonville. I've been talking him up all offseason, how I think he's just going to be just...

showered, showered in targets. He's going to literally bathe in footballs from Blake Bortles. Talk a little bit about his outlook and how you're viewing him in drafts. Yeah, I love Alan Robinson, and I think anybody that followed, I think anybody that followed my work for a long period of time knows that he was the guy I pegged back in April before mini camps and everything as somebody that was going to really break out this season. If you just look at the stats,