Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - AFC & NFC North Previews, Fantasy News

Yes! Do you hear that? Yeah! Yeah, I forgot I had team name drops. Oh, yeah. That would have been excited that I brought them in right now. Something you could have told me yesterday! Bears! Well, so are we just not going to talk about Eddie Lacey? Bears. Okay, okay. We get it, Andy. You've got the power and you shouldn't. Well, you know, I have the clock in front of me, too. But we can't go to the Bears for it. No, that's fine. You got to talk about Eddie Lacey.

I think the bounce back is coming. I think the body of work spoke for itself, and the body spoke for itself last year. Look, the guy was not fit. He was not in shape and not ready to be an NFL running back. He's back. He is back. He has any money this year. Or he's an empty promise again.

He absolutely. He could be an empty promise. I think he has shown in this offseason, though, that he's ready to fulfill that promise. He's also in a contract year, which we've seen in the NFL. It makes a difference. These guys don't have guaranteed money. He is playing every play out there is to get paid and get another big contract. That's Mark Ingram's strategy. That works great. I was going to say, there was a running back who had two terrible years, just awful, awful years.

All of a sudden, he was in a contract year last year. Oh, I thought you were talking about C.J. Anderson. No, no, no. I'm talking about Dougie. I'm talking about Doug Martin, who was coming off of two terrible seasons. The fantasy community had written him off. We weren't drafting him again. And then he's in a contract year has a monster season. Buccaneers. All right, let's move on. We're talking bears. Quick, real quick. Give your vote for the wide receiver three for Green Bay. Devante Adams.

I'm going to vote Devante Adams, who stinks. And I will vote Jeff Janice. Okay. Jay Cutler and company, the Chicago Bears. Obviously, we're excited about Alshan Jeffrey. He's going high in a lot of drafts. What's his current ADP, Mike? Do you want to check that out for me? I will bet that for you. Check out Allison Jeffrey's current ADP. 208. Too low. Which actually, stay there. Stay at 208. All right. So Jeffrey is the headliner.

in this fantasy offense. But we need to talk about, and we talked about this on Tuesday. Jeffrey does not look like he's getting a long-term deal there. He's playing for a contract again. We always can enjoy that if we are both an NFL GM or a fantasy owner. Let's talk about Jeremy Langford, and let's talk about Jay Cutler. Because I don't think we've talked about J. Cutler enough on the show. Langford, we've talked about, but I think people are still asking the question because he went really late in our dynasty draft. I thought he was a steal in that draft, at least for the upside,

fantasy relevant games. I don't know why people are so polar about him. I don't know why they don't have excitement. I mean, I've seen more excitement for Bishop Sanking in an offseason than I've seen for Jeremy Langford. It's true. Last offseason. That's very, I'm not, I'm not saying you're wrong. Oh, I know. Oh, that's a gut punch. I also think you got a crazy good value on Zach Miller in that draft as well. Oh, thank you. And Zach Miller is, you know, no more Martellus Bennett.

This is a team that was very good rushing the ball last year in the top 11. It looks like they're 11th, actually. Rushing yards per game. Rushing yards per game. Kind of middle of the pack everywhere else. Didn't pass the ball to the level that you would have thought with Adam Gase and that offense. You had Elshend Jeffrey hurt. You had Eddie Royal hurt. You had Kevin White hurt. You had lots of injuries on this team. So what are we expecting from the Bears? And on top of that, you look at the offensive line, which was actually, you know, they were pretty good.

And I think that they've improved. They get Kyle Long, they move him back to guard. They get Bobby Massey from the Cardinals to play right tackle. He's okay. He's not an elite player, but I think he's good. He's good enough. So to me, look, you got Jeremy Langford, Cadeem Cary, Jordan Howard. Do you guys have any fear of the Cadeem Cary? I don't think so.

No, I think, I think Khadim Kare is a guy at best. So I'm not fearful of Langford losing it to carry. I'm fearful of the actual backfield just being a kind of three-headed monster. That's the fear. It's not that Carrie's going to do anything to take it away from Lankford. It's just that they'll just use all three guys.

And they'll be totally fine. Will they use all three? No, that's what I believe that's the case. Okay. I would take Langford, but I do believe that it's a very, it's a good possibility they'll just rotate. Let me, let me ask you this. Who is a better NFL player, not fantasy, NFL player? If you're an expansion team in the NFL and you've got to draft the player between Jeremy Langford and Matt Jones? I think I'm taking Jeremy Langford.

I would as well personally. I think he's a better pass catching back, more versatile. I think they're both about 6.5 out of 10 running back. Right. And the reason I ask is because they both were highly inefficient in their running games. And what happened in the off season was you had Jordan Howard drafted by the Bears and you had nobody drafted by Washington. And so I think, well, Marshall.

A seventh round guy. And look, he fell to the seventh. Maybe he shouldn't have been. But my point is I think that, you know, the fact that Howard has come to the Bears has really pushed people over the top of disliking Jeremy Langford. When Jeremy Langford took over in week seven, he had a great spurt, a great spurt in replacement of...

Matt Forte. But Matt Forte came back and they kind of mixed both in. That's a long part of the season. From week seven all the way through 17, 10 games, you want to guess where Jeremy Langford finished running back-wise over that entire three-quarters of a season? Oh, no. Are you counting his big games or are you counting after Forte came back? Just from when Forte left all the way through the rest of the season, even after Forte came back.

Okay, well, from when Forte left, he's going to average out higher than you would think because of the... Because of his big games. The big games, I mean, I'm trying to think of it, but he had like 70 yards through the air, 100 on the ground or so. It was an absolute average changing type of a game. But what's the answer? He was the 10th best back over that large of a stretch of the entire season. And to me, that says,

He has this skill set to do it in the NFL. He is good at pass catching. I think that he will come into the year and lead off. I don't expect him to finish as some extraordinary, you know, he got the opportunity and now he's a top five back. But I would be shocked if he finishes the year lower than an RB2.

and for where he's being drafted, that to me says there's a good enough baseline of security and a really nice ceiling for certain weeks or certain games as not your first running back on your team. Do you have something you wanted to add? I was just going to throw it. When Forte came back, if you average them out, I'm doing the average real quick in my head, but Langford was right around the 40%, maybe 42% snap percentage. So they didn't once win...

superstar Matt Forte came back. They didn't just completely abandoned Langford. Yeah, he'll be at 45 or 50 this year. I'm going to go 50. What week did Matt Forte come back? Well, I'm going with week 11 here because in week 10, Jeremy Langford had 80% of the snaps and he shot down to 45. Okay, here's the interesting thing. Let me put this on the line. We've got to move on. It's okay if we go a little longer today, but we're going to get on to the Lions. Langford and Hill.

Jeremy Hill. We talked about Hill earlier, so I want you to make the decision between those two guys, because they're back to back in our rankings. You're put on this spot. Who are you taking? Langford. I'm going to take Langford. Okay. Another guy that's right there in the rankings that I should bring up. Now Forte. So now you've got Forte in New York, Jeremy Langford. I'm going to take Langford. That's how I have it, but I have them two apart.

I think I'm going to, I don't know my rankings save right now, but I lean Langford. You do lean Langford in your rankings. Actually, Jason leans forte on his current rankings. I actually need to move Langford up just a little bit from where I had him. I would agree. And in that, I might or might not have already made several dynasty trade offers for Langford. All right. This joke has to happen every show. Just saying. Yeah, you know he acts on it. So let's move on. Lions. All right. Let's talk about the Lions.

You see that? You like that? That wasn't me. That was a special drop. Matthew Stafford. I'm rising. I'm rising on Matthew Stafford. Even more? I said it earlier. I take him over Big Ben. That's silly. It's Benanas. Yeah. That's Benannis. That's Benann's. That's right. That's Benannis. The same color adjacent shirt right now. Golden Tate, Marvin Jones, are his past catchers. You've got Eric Ebron. I think he's 23 years old this season. Drafted so high.

First round pick. Yep. Here's his opportunity. Standing before him in the red zone. You know, Matthew Stafford was on fire the second half of the season. I think he was 18 to 4 touchdown to interception ratio. They figured some things out. I like Marvin Jones. I don't like Marvin Jones as a wide receiver 1 or anything like that, but I think he's going to have his big games. I think he's very consistent. So speak to the past catcher. Speak to Stafford. And then I've got my questions for the running back core in Detroit.

Say this first. Last year, they were ninth in the league in passing yards per game, and they were 32nd in rushing yards per game. So they couldn't run the ball. Believe that's dead last. Yeah, they could not run it. It ruined their whole season, to be honest. So the first thing I want to talk about is Golden Tate, Marvin Jones. I've been reading and hearing some reports, some whispers in the bushes from Detroit that we're looking at a 1A, 1B type of a thing. And I understand. Who's the 1A? It's kind of cliche to say. But the reports were saying,

They don't know who the 1A is yet. So maybe Marvin Jones will be right alongside with Golden Tate. Marvin Jones is a guy we've been talking about for a while, I know that he's providing an excellent value. Look, I still love Golden Tate. I think Golden Tate is a hundred reception guy this year. I'm with Jason on that. But I think Marvin Jones can be very, very close, if not right up there at 100 catches as well. And Marvin Jones right now is going exactly.

50 players behind in your average draft position. So, you know, you go, who is it going to be Golden Tate? For you, it should be Marvin Jones. For you, the drafter, it should be Marvin Jones. Right. It should be Marvin Jones are going to get better value. You can grab Doug Baldwin or Jeremy Macklin instead of Tate and then grab and then also grab Marvin Jones late. I'm telling you, this Calvin Johnson retirement has totally like muddied the waters. You ruined everything, Calvin. For fantasy football perceptions. When a wide receiver leaves.

and becomes a headlining off-season acquisition like Marvin Jones was. You normally see disproportionate ADP on the front side. You normally see them going too high. And Marvin Jones is coming in and he's going 50 behind Golden Tade and the offense is changing. This is not the same offense that running last year. This is a clean slate for both those guys. Jim Bob Cooter is coming in. He's instilling his full system, not the play calls they had at the end of last year. I think that Marvin Jones...

And I don't even really want to be on the Marvin Jones bandwagon, but I have to be. Because I like Matthew Stafford. You guys both said those big, the big games from, or the big season that you're expecting from Tate, Jones being near there, that has to reflect on Stafford. Yes. But the, and I mean, the pieces are there. So I think you're right in that. It's will Eric Ebron step up? I'm more hesitant for Ebron. And we know that theoretic.

is going to be highly involved in the passing game. Can Abdullah step up and make the offense, make the passing game easier for Stafford and be involved in the passing game itself? All right. Final question for the Lions here. Let's talk running back. I want to talk about Zach Zinner. Zach Zinner looks like, to me, the guy that will have the opportunity to be the first down, second down, short yardage back, be the thunder to Abdullah's lightning in this offense. He was the preseason...

leader in yardage last off season suffered a gruesome injury. He broke four ribs, had a major chest injury. Punctured lung. Very serious injury. However, not to his legs. So recovering from that, he says he's healthy. I've come around on Zinner because, you know, Joyke Bell is not there anymore. And I don't think that, I think much like Mike believes Duke Johnson cannot be healthy in a three-down roll in Cleveland, I don't believe that Abdullah can be healthy.

can stay healthy and stay, I don't think it offers the lines the advantage that he offers them if he's used less frequently like an Andre Ellington style back. There were two guys, if you listened to this show early before the NFL draft last season, two guys that we kind of talked about who were.