Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Free Agent Frenzy, DeMarco Murray, Jimmy Graham, Sam Bradford and more...

more money. Yeah, it's interesting. And I think that if there's a team that can probably support a multi-back mainstream system. And McCoy last year. Yeah. I mean, I guess you have to wonder what their commitment to Murray was in that cell, you know, in terms of are you the one and two down back? Are you being spelled by Ryan, I mean, how much money is Ryan Matthews going to get? And if you're Murray, I mean, after last year, do you think he really minds having another guy?

Carry some of the load. Not if he's getting paid. Not if he's getting paid. Keep your body in shape. So very interesting. So let's talk about the other just absolute, it almost feels wrong not to have spoken of it yet, but that's how amazing the current NFL situation is. I feel like we're living in Madden right now. Not the, not real life NFL, but, you know, a video game. There was that after we recorded on Tuesday, from about noon to about three o'clock, it was.

insane because that was yeah it was absolutely fantasy football trading going on and you had sue sign and then hello de nata comes over in a trade the bradford foals trade happens and you have this one jimmy graham one of the most dynamic mismatch creating unique players in football and fantasy football

Gets traded to the Seattle Seahawks for Max Unger, Studs Center, and a first round pick. What? Yeah. This is, oh, man. What were your reactions to that trade in a fantasy context? Well, I'm a lynch owner for a keeper league. Beast mode? For my top keeper league. And it was not something I wanted to see.

You have Jimmy Graham coming in. Jimmy Graham is now going to siphon touchdowns. And Max Unger, I mean, people maybe don't realize the importance of Max Unger to that Seattle offensive line. You looked at some of those stats. Unger is a top five center. He has been, and there is a dramatic dip. When Unger, and Unger was actually injured quite a lot last year.

which, and for those if you don't remember, because Lynch finished so hot, was there was, in the middle of the year, we were having Marshaun Lynch panic. I mean, he had two to three games skid of just, of garbage, of like running back for production. So I went and I looked through all the games, and I was cross-referencing when Unger was actually in, and I believe it was...

Let me count. So six games, Unger was in, right? In those games, Marshaun Lynch averaged five yards of carry. Right. Now, the games where Unger was not in, he Lynch averaged. Now, technically he averaged 4.4, I believe it was. But I threw out the Cardinal game because... Of that long run. Yeah, when you're talking about Beastquake 2.0. So outside of that, what did he average? Four.

So a whole yard difference. And the reason I threw out the Cardinal game is because everything was just skewed out of control. I mean, he only ran the ball 10 times for 113 yards, but 80 was one play. And that one play, the Cardinals had completely sold out to try and strip the ball. He's not normally going to bust that 80-yard run. So they lose Unger, and I've heard out of Seattle that he's pretty upset about that. And then if you remember last year, the Cleveland running game was actually...

pretty darn good to start the year, including Ben Tate's numbers. And then when they lost the secret world of Alex Mac, it was over. Another center they lost. They turned into the puddle from Ellis Mac. There you go. So just real quick, some numbers. So on the game on the 12th, I think it was against the Cowboys. Lynch was 10 for 61. Sounds all right, yeah? Except he had a 32-yard run. Take that out. I mean, you're nine for 20-something yards.

18 for 53, 14 for 62, 15 for 39. Here's a good game on November 27th, 20 for 104, and then next game a couple weeks later, 23 for 86. I mean, you can go through the numbers, and they're not impressive. They're not the impressive Lynch numbers that you're used to seeing. So there is... So you take away his center and then you put another, the singular, best goal line.

I think the top three... Well, I still think it's drunk, but... Well, the top three touchdown scores in football over the last three years are Des Bryant, Marchon Lynch, and Jimmy Graham. So you bring another one in, you know you're losing some. What was that? Nine throws to Jimmy Graham inside the opponent's one yard line. Eight touchdowns as a result of nine throws inside the yard line. And you're paying Russell now, right? You're going to pay him big money, and you're paying big money to Jimmy.

I think you're seeing a transition, not huge, don't overreact fantasy world. This is not going to become the New Orleans Saints in the Pacific Northwest. But you will see a transition. You saw it on the goal line of the Super Bowl. Some argue that it was Russell Wilson that they wanted to get the attention to get the win. He's their face. They're going to give him a weapon, and they traded a lot to do it. So Jimmy Graham, do you like him? Where do you move him? Is he your number two?

Jason, is he your number two tight end? I think he's my number two solely because I don't see anyone else that I would move ahead of him. He's still a freak. He's still going to get his targets. And like you showed on that spread map of how Russell Wilson throws, there's a reason that they were looking so desperately for a tight end. They were looking at other tight ends. They tried to trade for him last year. They believe they can use him well. He's, in my opinion, clearly going to be the number two tight end. However, I do think he takes a drop from...

from his value over the last few years. Now, last year might be somewhat accurate because he missed a couple games, had that weird goose egg. But I don't see him, like, before that trade, there was gronk, and there was Jimmy, and then there was the rest. Right now, I feel like there's almost three tiers in the first three players. There's gronk, and then there's the rest, which Jimmy is above.

That's probably a fair statement. I was going to ask you, I mean, you probably have Jimmy at number two as well, because I was going to ask you that Jimmy versus Julius in Jacksonville or Jimmy versus Kelsey. Greg Olson resigned. Greg Olson should have another good year. Owen Daniels is now in Denver. Where do you have Owen Daniels in terms of your top 10? Is he in it? I...

Oh, yeah, he's in it for sure. So he's climbed into the top of ten, where do you have him? I have Owen Daniels, I don't know, off the top of my head, maybe seven. That's just off the time of the head. I can really look at it because that just happened. And speaking to Jimmy Graham, I don't know if I have him too. Sam, our boy, Adam Azer, he tweeted out a stat. Jimmy Graham is moving from a top three passing offense the last three years.

to a team that is ranked outside of the 20s, or ranked outside of the top 20, the past four years. The entire dynamic of the Seahawks will not change, where I'm talking about panic for Marshawn Lynch. It's not, I'm jumping completely off the boat. It's just a concern that needs to be talked about. But for Jimmy Graham, you have concern now, too, of how many times a game does Russell Wilson actually throw the ball? I know that Jimmy Graham will...

probably be the number one target automatically, but he's not going to get the kind of yardage that you're used to in New Orleans. Yeah, if you had him, I agree, he'll probably step it down a little bit. He'll still be super valuable. I think what the implication is more is Russell Wilson as an offensive player as a fantasy quarterback. Last year with his legs alone, you just gave the stat outside the top 20 in passing. I think he was the number three overall. Bird, yeah.

Yeah, fantasy quarterback. So his upside is, he's never had a number one receiver. And no, I'm not counting Sidney Rice. He's never had somebody to throw to that is as capable as Jimmy, especially in the red zone. That's why Marcia Lynch gets the ball every single time, because he's capable in the red zone. You need to be able to give them both the opportunity to succeed. So in some regards, I don't see Marchion changing too much in production. They did just pay him a bunch of money. But I think Russell Wilson,

is the highest upside of this trade. For sure. So where do you put him standard leagues as far as ranking in quarterback? I put him at three. I put him at three. I put him behind Rogers in luck. So you draft, you're on the board and you can draft Peyton. I take Russell Wilson. Yeah. Which is strange for me to say out loud. Another concern for me with Seattle. Now, I'm...

I'm not saying that Zach Miller is Jimmy Graham. However, Seattle is known to make, in the P. Carroll era, Seattle has made several moves where they paid a high price to not use a guy. Like Zach Miller, I believe they gave him $7 million. They didn't use him at all. He got buried. They traded a one and a four for Percy Harvin, gave him a huge contract.

Now, granted, Harvin was injured for a lot of his tenure into Seattle. As was Miller. But they shipped Harvin out of town. I mean, and now they're paying a huge price. They're losing one of the best centers in the league. You're getting Jimmy Graham, who has a reputation for being soft. Who's a soft player coming to a team that their team identity is toughness, is strength.

is blocking. And you're going to put him on the field. That's another concern for Marshall Lynch is now you have a tight end in who is not the best blocker. I shouldn't say I need to look at his numbers. He's going to be running some routes. Yeah. He's going to clear out. I have... You're in wait and see. My head is still a whirlwind of trying to figure this out because I'm not completely sold on

Jimmy Graham just automatically being the number two tight end again. Well, let me sell you just for one second with a stat I just looked up, because I was curious how many points both of those teams put up this last year? You know, is there a huge discrepancy in points per game and yards? And so New Orleans last year did outscore Seattle. I think we would all expect that. They're a higher power offense. And they put up 401 points. They were the ninth highest in the league. Granted, that was with Jimmy Graham.

Right behind them was Seattle, scoring only seven points left with less with 394. So it's one touchdown less, but of course they didn't have Jimmy Graham. So I think going over, their yards, their total yards, there was 800 yards different. So I think the yards might change. But you've got to keep in mind that Jimmy moving switches the capability of the offense, and he might be able to make Seattle not just a defensive team. Does that, are you able to pull up?

2013's numbers. I sure am. Because last year was a really down year for the Saints and Jimmy Graham. I mean, you had goose egg games from Graham. That's very fair. If we use the numbers from New Orleans, well, here's something that I don't think we would expect. New Orleans this last year, 500 more yards than the year before.

Wow. Yeah, that's really surprising. However, they did score more two years ago. They scored 13 points more. So barely more. So the offense actually wasn't that same. Yeah, there's kind of a deceptive nature to Seattle's offense and our perception of them because they are, I mean, if you put them at number 10 in the league, that's a good scoring team. But.

A lot of that has been a situation where they're grinding out the clock and then scoring a lot of points late is the perception. So that's a really good stat. That's interesting to know. I think Jimmy, I think we all kind of expect maybe receptions and yards to go down a little bit and touchdowns to probably stay the same, maybe even go up based on the last underwhelming year from Jimmy. So we should move on a little bit here because there's apparently a million things to cover. Recent.

tweets say that Ryan Matthews has left the facility in Philadelphia. However, he might just be getting a physical, so we have no clue what's going on. Sam Bradford and Nick Foles were swapped in a trade that we didn't see coming. You got a take on that, Mr. Hitman? I have a stat total. Now, let's say if I told you there was a quarterback on what is...

been regarded as a low-powered offense, not a high-scoring. They're a good defensive team with, so think kind of the old school Ravens. Now, if I gave your quarterback a 90.9 quarterback rating, 32 touchdowns, nine interceptions, and almost 4,000 yards, would you take that? Oh, I love it. Every day. Now, that's the pace Sam Bradford was on in 2013. He got in, he, now,