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

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Run your game. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Every football fan is different. Some won't wash their lucky mustard-stained jersey until the season's over. Some insist they can't sit down on third downs and some pick their favorite team because, I don't know, just like football fandom, nobody's life is exactly the same. And that's why State Farm gets to know you, not as a policy number, but as an actual person.

so they can help personalize a coverage plan that's just for you. Whether it's game day or just another Tuesday, State Farm has you covered. Hey, Fookland, you've probably noticed our new studio sponsor around the show, and that is fantasy jocks.com. They're your one-stop shop for championship rings, belts, jackets, you name it. You want to celebrate your fantasy season. You head over to fantasy jocks.com, and look, they want to do a special giveaway, one of their unbelievable...

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Welcome in, everybody. Welcome to the show. It is Thursday, and the fantasy footballers are back again, welcoming you into the studio with Andy, Mike, and Jason. We got a good show today, boys. I thought you were going to say, we got a good show today, baby. It's applicable? It's so often that Andy calls me baby. It's just what we assume now.

You could have gone with Amy Grant and just gone, baby, baby. Hit me one more time. The old Amy Grant reference. That's how we really pull people in here. We'll go back to what? That's early 90s? The young people love it. Baby, baby. The song's in my head now because I grew up, yeah, I grew up listening to that. All right, so we've got a great show. If you listen to the Tuesday show, you heard us.

Break down the AFC West and the NFC West divisions, the players on those teams, the projections for this upcoming year, how their teams have changed over the offseason, kind of giving you a lay of the land of some of the big changes in fantasy football. Some of the players we hope will bounce back, guys that we think maybe you'll have a...

a tougher year this year. And so if you haven't listened to that, go back, subscribe to the podcast, listen to that episode. Today, we are going through another couple of divisions, and I believe they are the AFC North and the NFC North. That is correct. So that's going to be a lot of fun. I'm excited to talk about... I want to talk Packers. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're a very interesting fantasy team. Generally, a lot of fantasy goodness.

for everybody. But last year, as we know, was a little bit of a downer. I like talking about the teams that have kind of some question marks around them and where they're going to be, because that's where you get big wins in fantasy football is. Can you gamble on these guys to bounce back? You know, Demarius Thomas was somebody we talked about on the last show. How does he project forward? Those type of players. So that's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to break down the divisions here very soon. Here's a quick question I got from at Roger Jr. 790 Owens.

That must be the character maximum on Twitter. He said which rookie has the best chance of a fantasy explosion this year that will make them a first or second round pick next year, and they cannot be named Elliot. All right. Who is it for you? For me, I'll jump in here, and it's the guy who has, I would say, the highest ceiling, and that would be D'Andre Washington.

Look, we were just getting hyped in the office for D'Andre Washington. His film, to me, is fantastic. He looks like a special type of a running back. I don't know if the size is completely there to be that three-down workhorse, but the off-season reports continue to be, you know, like...

Does Oakland really love Latavius Murray? I know that the metrics community, the fantasy community, we like him. But does the team actually like him where they were in on the DeMarco Murray sweepstakes? They were talking to Foster, I believe. They're always linked to high, big, sexy name running backs. They ended up with Washington in the draft. And if Murray falters, maybe he gets benched again like he did last year, Washington comes in and tears it up.

With that offensive line like we're going to talk about, or like we talked about last show, there's a huge opportunity there. And if Washington gets that opportunity, he'll be huge for fantasy. I'm going to go with a guy that's a little bit more surprising. You'll hear the Kenneth Dixons and the Devante Bookers probably a lot. I'm going to go with my boy Kenyon Drake, who is...

called right now just a pass-catching option who is behind J. Ajai for the Miami Dolphins. The reason I say that is just because, look, a team doesn't draft a running back in this day and age in the third round if they're not planning to use them. And so I think King and Drake, when I watch film, I realize he didn't have a huge body of work in college, but that's...

Part of why he was able to fall to the third, I think he's electric. If you get him in open space, he's going to be able to break things off. And Jay Ajai fell to the fifth round last year because he's got a possible knee problem going forward. And so if Chips fall right, Kenyon Drake could be that type of guy. I don't expect it to happen, but we're just projecting, you know, rookies that could be first round picks next year. Sure. I'm going to...

As much as I like that take, he at least has a young guy in front of him. I'm going to go with a guy that has an old guy in front of him. Yeah, this was my other option. Paul Perkins. Paul Perkins has found himself in what I think is a tremendous landing spot. I could have gone with Kenneth Dixon based on how I project Kenneth Dixon. So I thought you were going to go. But I'm going to go with Paul Perkins because I think of Rashad Jennings, he's on the wrong side of 30. When he's been given the opportunity, it's been an inconsistent thing for Rashad Jennings.

I just think that Paul Perkins has the opportunity to where if something happens to Jennings, which wouldn't be shocking, Perkins could be an every down back in New York on a very, very good offense that keeps their run defense and the linebackers honest with the amount of short passes that Eli Manning throws with O'Dell Beckham Jr. and Shepard and Cruz coming back. So I just think the opportunity for Perkins to succeed in the running game in New York is there as long as Jennings is not.

And so that's what you need to happen for one of these guys to come rising up. And it's kind of surprising to me that nobody went with a wide receiver. I honestly thought that the quick question was tailored to running backs because it's specified not Ezekiel Elliott. And I just feel like for a wide receiver to make that jump into a second round guy, O'Don Beckham did it? Yeah, sure. Guys have done it. Evans did it last year. And Jordan Matthews was a pick who

disappointed a little bit but for the most part rookie wide receivers to make that leap to a top two pick or top two round pick is very difficult where it would shock me if Perkins Dixon uh uh these Washington these names we're talking about if at least one of those guys

is not viewed as at least a second round pick. I think it would be surprising next year. Yeah, I think you're right. Before we get into the news, I want to remind everybody of how they can connect with this show, the fantasy footballers.

On the web, you can go to the fantasy footballers.com. You can check us out on jointhefoot.com, our fantasy football community, where we drop an extra episode every single week, some exclusive content over there, lots of giveaways, things like that. We are all about building the fantasy community to be the very best that it can be. I've been asked a lot on Twitter lately.

How do I get into a good keeper league, actually? People are asking, how do I get into a good keeper league? The people I play with don't want to be in a keeper league. They view it as maybe too hardcore or, you know, it's not like the office league you play in. My recommendation for you is play with some other people that listen to this show.

that are dedicated to those type of leagues. And you can find them by going to join thefoot.com and then going to footclanleagues.com. And we have a whole community that is starting leagues constantly that you can jump on there. Check us out on Twitter at the FF Ballers. We're going to start taking our quick questions from Twitter quite often. So those are the show questions we kind of start off the show with. And then make sure you check us out on YouTube as well. Oh, yeah.

Jason always is very excited about YouTube. I want those YouTube subscribers. He's very visual, not much of a book reader. Yeah, I mean, I might be the least attractive one of the three of us, but I still think you gotta go, I still think you gotta go look and see the set, see the studio. Well, we do put, look, we put a lot of work in the pod. We put just as much work into the video version of the show and making sure it's always improving. So please, check it out. Now we just need to put effort into like our bodies.

Like, just make an investment. We've made such an investment on the set. We're just coming in and shaming the set by putting ourselves in front of it. If you or someone you know works for a weight loss specialist who would like to sponsor the show, I'm telling you, I got plenty of weight to lose over here. All right, all right. Let's move on here. Let's get into the news. News and notes from around the league. All right. What's this first one here, Andy?

I believe this says that Givorius Allen will be taking passing downbacks from Justin Forsett. I don't actually think that that's how I read. It says. It said Ravens.com reported Ryan Mink has said Justin Forsett will open training camp as the clear lead dog. That parts and quotes, Foot Clan. Direct quote. I know you're both getting very excited over this. You warn our listeners to not pay attention to coach speak and then you...

indulge in it from time to time to laugh at me. Who would be the lead dog that they would give it to? The rookie coming in? Precisely. Oh, right. Like, that's what they do. No, that's what we're saying. That's what we're saying they won't do that. That doesn't make, that makes it not a surprise to me. You're saying it makes it not a surprise as a story. The story would come out. Yeah. They're never going to come out. Even if, even if the lead guy. Just like when Kenyon Drake was the lead guy in, what, in camp when no one else was there yet.

Or who was it? In Miami. In Miami. Yeah, Ajai wasn't around. Well, guess who's taking first team reps? Yeah, and I get that. I will cede that point. But I think the reality of this news coming out is that in practice in camp right now, it is how it started last year. Not a surprise, but you're right.

Is that guy? And he's going to have to... He should not be ignored. If he is not... If he plays poorly, which I definitely don't think is going to happen, then sure, that can go. If he gets injured, which could happen, then yeah, they've got guys to turn it over to. My point, though, in liking for set this year, is that his draft position, I think he enters the season with every opportunity to just be their lead running back this year. Yeah. Okay. And he's a starting running back who's being drafted in the middle of the seventh round.