Fantasy Football 2018 - Fantasy Wildcards & Dark Horse Teams

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Hey, this is David Johnson, running back of the Arizona Cardinals, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Coming to you from Draft.com Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah, welcome in. Oh, I feel like I won the lottery today. A draft lottery? Yeah, baby.

I'm a Sunspan again. Oh, we're reveling in the first time in franchise history that our hometown Phoenix Suns have won the biggest loser award. The NFL or the NBA draft lottery took place yesterday. We got the number one pick, guys. We won the lottery. Very excited. Very excited. And now football. It is Thursday, May 17th.

Welcome in to the Fantasy Footballers podcast. We are happy to have you join us today. It's going to be a great show. We announced yesterday that we had the rankings up on the website and the initial 2018 rankings. They're there. They're the groundwork, the foundation with which we, you know, the ultimate draft kit is built. And the response, I mean...

People are checking these out. We have been properly eviscerated for our various takes on Twitter, which is... Rightly so. Important. You have. Oh, all of yours are perfect. My takes are perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Kyle Rudolph and his family applaud you for all that you've done for him in the rankings. Build them up. And, no, we're excited. Today, we're kind of piggybacking on that release of the rankings because we have the wild card show today.

And we're speaking about players that were so difficult for us to rank. We're each going to talk about two guys that we found to be maybe the most challenging to position in our rankings, maybe guys that are going to bounce around a little bit. But I'm excited to get into some lively debates with you two fine gentlemen. Speaking of live. Oh, yes. If you miss Tuesday's show, number one, shame on you. Number two, you missed the big announcement. We're hitting the road.

We're seeing America. We're going on our first ever live podcast tour. You've got to head over to ballerslive.com. That's where you can grab your tickets. We're hitting up Minneapolis on June 21st, Dallas, July 13th, where we're helping kick off the National Fantasy Football Convention. Philly, July 26th, New York City, July 27th, back home in Phoenix, August 24th. Ballerslive.com has all the information you need for these tickets. It's the fantasy.

For the People Tour. Yeah, absolutely. Fantasy for the People Tour, presented by draft. We are so excited to get out there, shake some hands, give some hugs, throw water cups on people.

It's the best. It is. It's going to be great. We've had some awesome feedback already from listeners who are excited. So you're going to want to grab those tickets quick before they're gone at the various venues. And you can learn, like Mike said, about all of that at ballerslive.com. We make it easy. We make it simple. And we want to see you there. We're super excited. And big thanks to Draft for helping us get these shows going. Absolutely. All right. Quick question of the day, gentlemen. It's a good one. Who is your dark?

horse team for this season. So, you know, a dark horse team always emerges. The NFL is the league of parity plus the Patriots. And last year the Rams came out of nowhere to be that dark horse threat. So who do you got this year? I love this question because I've had this answer at the ready because I really do believe it. I believe that the moment that the draft was complete, regardless.

of your belief of whether or not the New York Giants should have taken Saquan Barkley second overall, which I firmly believe they should not have. I think their team in the short term this year is a huge bounce back candidate. You had their best offensive player last year in O'Dell Beckham Jr. gone. Then you had basically the second best, you know, you had Brandon Marshall gone. You had their third. That's quite.

It's quite a heap of praise to call him the second best. Well, let's put him third. Let's put him third. Second on the depth chart wide receiver. That's the way you go. That's fair. But even Sterling. Even Sterling Shepard was. Second on the dev chart, 50th in my heart. Missed a lot of time. And so their offense was horrendous. Their offensive line was horrendous. That made their defense worse. I mean, we've seen this a hundred times. When you have a terrible offense that can't.

stay on the field, your defense is set up to fail. So I think this is a defense that is a little bit underrated. Their offensive line has been improved. Odell Beckham is back. Saquan Barkley is the best running back they've had since Tiki Barber. Sure. So, you know, I think they're primed to make a move. It all comes down to Eli Manning. If you've got a half decent Eli Manning, I think you hit, you know, hit the mark with the Giants as a dark horse candidate. Interesting division.

I like to pick. Mike, I'm going with the Chicago Bears. I love what they have done this offseason. Weapons galore headlined by the big free agent pickup of Alan Robinson. They were actually, I don't know if people realize this, they were a top 10 defense in points.

And yardage. Where's the credit for John Fox, Mike? Oh, whatever. Give him some credit. Give him some credit. Top 10 defense. He backed that up with an offense that ranked 29th for points and 30th to do everything, Mike. Yes, you can. That's how you win a Super Bowl. And you get Matt Nagy in there from that delightful Andy Reed coaching tree. Get him to fix that offense. Leave the defense B. And, oh, of course, Jay Gris loves this pick.

But I am very excited to see what Mitch Trubesky can do with all this opportunity that the Chicago front office has given him. I was the first one to put in the Dark Horse pick. So I had my pick of the litter. The temptation was there. So you went with the kitty litter. I see. The temptation was to go with the Bears. Right. The problem is the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, and Green Bay Packers. So when you say Dark Horse.

I say six games against teams that are all going to be favored to beat them. It's going to be tough. But just like the Rams, you would have last year had said, Rams will they have to play against the Seahawks and the Cardinals? No doubt. No, I'm not meaning to disprove it. I just, why I didn't go that direction. Fair. I went with the Baltimore Ravens. I still think that they're one of the best coach teams. We, Jason, continuously.

revolts against Joe Flacco for good reason. His sucks. Their own general manager has revolted in a way by drafting Lamar Jackson. And yet, in spite of no offensive pieces and an underwhelming Joe Flacco, they were a 9 and 7 football team last year. They have a top 10 defense. They have revamped the offensive side of the ball. If they can get production from the wide receiver core, I don't see why this team can't compete for a playoff or even the division.

for that matter. I know Pittsburgh is the heavy favorite in that division. I don't see why Baltimore can't compete in every single game. That's what they do under this coaching staff. They're my dark horse team. I really like that pick. Oh, you really? I really like that pick when I saw it in there. It surprised me at first. But thinking about it, I mean, I said this, I think at lunch one day with you two gentlemen. As much as I hate Joe Flacco, it is possible that drafting...

Lamar Jackson behind him puts a little bit of pressure to actually air the ball out. And as bad as the wide receivers are this year, they're better than they were last year. So I think Joe Flacco could actually step up. You know, my projections have him stepping down. But it's within the realm of possibility. You can have both. You can have him step up like Alex Smith did last year and become this downfield threat and still leave. Right. You know, Alex Smith's still left. And Joe Flacco will get something on the open market.

if that's the direction they tend to go. So, Brooks, you need to throw a quick question in it on a future show and do the inverse of this. Not the dark horse that becomes good, but go ahead and give us the opportunity to pick a team that we think is going to collapse. In the question, do we have to just automatically omit the Seattle Seahawks? What's the opposite of a dark horse? A bright horse.

You don't, it's not a horse. That's not the opposite of a horse. What's the opposite of a horse? I think a duck. A bright duck. A bright duck. We need the bright duck. How can I have a horse have an opposite? Well, it does. A duck. It's clearly it. It's like an inside out horse. That's about as opposite as you. Oh. Just two notes. That's awful. For Jason. I got the visual.

for Jason. But it's still tried. Joe Flacko was the all-time passing leader for the Baltimore Ravens. Of course. Yes. He's also a Super Bowl champion. But here's the thing that I wanted to say. Since Harbaugh has taken over, you can look back. He has one losing season. Oh, Harba is an excellent coach. He's absolutely an excellent coach. That's why I like the pick. I mean, they were better than I, than you think they were last year. Surprise me. I had to double check that they were nine and seven because I didn't believe it.

All right, guys, it's time. Oh, I'm saying, no, breaking. Guys, why are the brakes working? Because I cut the brakes. Fantasy wild cards. That's what we're calling players. We had a difficult time ranking. Yeah, and not only, you want the, you want to hit me, y'all. Wild card. Not only a difficult time ranking because, you know, the situation is murky, but because the range of outcomes.

is why these are the type of players that we're discussing on today's episode that could help you win a championship or be a horrific pick and just implode and disappear. Yeah, and there's a reason you're listening to this show right now in May. You want to win your league. And I know that there is an element of luck that comes into play with fantasy football. We all recognize that. We all see that. But you know what Thomas Jefferson said? I want to know. Four score. No, no. He said,

The harder I work, I find the more luck I tend to have. And you're doing your work here. Is that a Facebook? Listening to the show. Thomas Jefferson quote. No. They just slapped his name on it. I was there when he said it. Oh, I don't doubt it. Time machine. Same year briefs were invented. You guys really need to. All right. There were straw underpants back then. One of the, we're starting with my wild card. I'm going to kick it off with the big name. Okay.

And I want this opportunity. I yearn for this opportunity to talk about Kareem Hunt. Okay. In what I'm calling my cauldron of concern for Kareem Hunt. Just imagine a brew and you're trying to mix it up and you're adding various parts to it. And I want people to understand, because I've already seen this, this has been one of the most predominant things on Twitter based on our rankings because I have Kareem Hunt currently at number 13.