Fantasy Football 2017 - Preseason Week 2 Recap + Rising Stars

watching Marchand get a hand off and run and the crowd go crazy. And I just wanted to stand up watching this preseason game and put my hands in the air and be like, yeah, Marshawn's playing football. That's all. You think he looked pretty good, Mike? Yeah. What did he have? Like two carries. Yeah, I think he had two kids. Look pretty good to me. Yeah. I'm not. I mean, if you want, my real honest assessment was on the first run, the tackle that brought him down, I was a little surprised.

All right, I'm going to talk about my one. Now, you can call it an overreaction, whatever you want to say. The Bears, the Cardinals. I think I'm going to hit this. For Arizona? No, not for Arizona. For Jordan Howard? I think I know I'm a little worried about Jordan Howard because he was one of the worst past catchers in football last year at the running back position. But they had to throw in the ball anyway. He was all they had. You saw Tareke Cohen.

For a second straight week, Mike, you talked about him last week. This week, he's good. I mean, it's not like the Cardinals. I mean, he got the start. And the Cardinals starting defense was out there. And they had problems. But Cardinals were a very good deal last year. And yet Cohen rushed 11 times for 77 yards, big play after big play. And if he doesn't get third down and this offense struggles, he only scored six times last year. So now give Jordan Howard five or six scores.

and not as many passing yards, you're going to have dud games. That's the problem. You're going to run into dud games with this offense. I mean, Glennon didn't look special again. I just am concerned about Howard. We say this every year. Somebody might say you're overreacting to the backup having a good game. Howard missed the game. He had an eye injury, not a serious injury. And that's fine. If you think it's an overreaction, draft Howard with confidence.

I just think we know, right? In the first two rounds, you're going to have running backs that bust based on what you expect them. Do I think Howard's going to disappear? Of course not. He's super talented. He's the starter. That's his job. But if I had to predict, I mean, I think I said it before, if I had to predict somebody to bust out of that first couple of rounds at the running back position, his chance of busting is there. I get it because it's bad offense. It's a lot of my opposition to Todd Gurley is bad offense. Good running back, but.

bad offense, bad quarterback. But from week, from game eight through the end of the season, Jordan Howard averaged, per game averaged over 100 rushing yards per game. He wasn't patting his overall total yardage with passing yards. And he was, I mean, he had, in that time, he had 15 receptions for 170 yards, which it's good. And it's opportunity that he's on the field. But I think that.

I think Jordan Howard is really good. I believe in the Chicago offensive line and that they will. Once the season's going, the ball is going to Jordan Howard. Everybody who's in the first two rounds has the arguments are all there for why they belong there. Otherwise, they wouldn't be there. I mean, so like Cohen's success to me speaks to Jordan Howard having success as well. Well, sure, and that's fine. And all I'm saying is that it's not a matter of making the case for Jordan Howard to me. It's a matter of saying, look,

Jeremy Hill and his yards per carry after his rookie season was through the roof. Didn't happen the second year. Todd Gurley, monstrous first year, didn't happen the second year. There were reasons for those things. You can make every case for Jordan Howard because all the stat lines are there. That's why we're drafted and where we're drafting him. I'm just saying if I had to pick somebody because somebody will bust. I'm picking Jordan Howard right now. We know that multiple people will bust. Yeah, Arizona Cardinals. Takeaways on the Cardinals side of the ball. Look, a lot of questions coming in about.

John Brown, Geron Brown, J.J. Nelson. Who is the guy to own? How confident are you in them? I've been touting Geron Brown. I've been sharing my lack of faith in John Brown to be able to stay healthy. As a whole, though, I need to make sure that I, you know, I'm clear. I don't expect the wide receiver two for the Arizona Cardinals.

to be very fantasy relevant this year. It strikes me, they'll have their games, but to draft them in a redraft league and a home league where you're going to rely on starting them week after week, I don't know that there's going to be someone there that gets the job done. This is David Johnson's team. Larry Fitzgerald will be moving, you know, the chains through the short slot slants.

Whoa. Yeah. Whoa. You just kept talking. Thanks, Dr. Seuss. You know, if you're in a best ball league where you don't have to choose the starts, I do think J.J. Nelson is a great ad. Even Geron Brown. I'm sorry, John Brown, if he falls where you don't have to pick the games where he's healthy. But I'm worried about that entire past catching role, which tarnishes a little bit. You know, I've talked about, I think a couple episodes ago, the conundrum between Eli Manning and Carson Palmer.

And, you know, the lack of wide receivers stepping up for Arizona leads me to have less faith in Carson. Or does it lead either of you to have less faith in the offense to the point of David Johnson? Maybe Lev Bell is a better pick. No, I still don't have concern for DJ. All right. Let's turn the page here. Let's go Denver, San Francisco. Takeaways from that game. Simeon seems to have secured this starting job. I've talked about this. Paxton Lynch is not good.

And Trevor Simeon is at least a capable quarterback. He will be able to move the offense. I mean, if they need him to go out there and Alex Smith it, fine, because they can do it. I'm not concerned of Demeris Thomas is still fine. Sanders is fine. And look, my belief in C.J. Anderson, and I know Jason, you're right in stars, DeAngelo Henderson, I think he's still going to be the clear backup. C.J. Anderson is great.

going to be the guy. And I won't argue his injury history, but he is a starting running back for a team that wants to run the ball. And I have to run the ball. And I think he's a solid running back. So I'm still very, very comfortable targeting Anderson as an RBT. Carlos Hyde worked as the main back at the first eight carries. We know this by now. Carlos Hyde will be the starter in San Francisco.

Did not look good, but then again, most of the time people don't look great against Denver. The one takeaway from the Niners side of the ball for me was Vance McDonald. He didn't have a great game, but he was targeted quite a bit. It was clear that Hoyer was looking his way, and it seemed like from what was coming out of camp the last week or two, I think that's a theme that they've been seeing in camp, and it showed up on the field. So Vance McDonald is a...

He's a guy that I'm targeting in bestball leagues where you want multiple tight ends. In redraft, though, are you? In redraft, there's just enough. There's too many guys that I like better. Okay. Like, there's too many free guys I like better, but I do believe Vance McDonald could very well be worth it. I just won't put my chips on him yet. But I'll be watching them week one, and he'll certainly play a few games as a streaming candidate for me this year. Falcons and Steelers. Saw some Hooper targets.

Looked pretty good. You didn't see Freeman. Still in the concussion protocol. Any takeaways on the Falcons side, or do you want to talk Steelers? I don't really have anything huge from the Falcons. Fitzgerald Touss started for Pittsburgh. James Connor got a lot of work. 20 carries 98 yards. I think that's the biggest story of this game is Jason. You've been kind of the big supporter of James Connor. How did you feel about his performances? The end numbers are.

Yeah, the numbers look a lot better than how he performed. He performed well against much inferior competition later in the game. Had some mistakes, had some drops. I do like him from college, and I like the role behind Levy on Bell. But I need to see him take over ahead of Fitzgerald Toussaint. And if he's not able to do that, then he's irrelevant. Because right now, if Lev Bell were to go down, I believe Fitzgerald Toussaint would be the guy.

That leaves Connor. Yeah, that doesn't help. And it's also good to see Martavis on the field. Yeah, doing work. Doing work. Yeah, I didn't have a lot of takeaways from this game because you didn't have Big Ben playing on one side. And then the other side, you kind of know what you have in these veteran teams that have most of the same pieces back from last year. They're good. All right. I will say this. Looking into schedules, the Steelers opening schedule looks great as a Brown's Week 1.

Browns Week 1, but I think their first like four weeks, they've got Baltimore and Jacksonville and the Browns and another one that wasn't scary. So a really good, you know, defense that most people might not even be drafting. All right. Last matchup here, the Saints and the Chargers. This game got started by an Alvin Kamara, 61, or sorry, a 50-yard touchdown, five carries for 61 yards and a touchdown. He also had a good reception in this game.

20-yard reception. He's just looked like an excellent running back. Yeah, I mean, he just looks like a good player. Also, we do have, I want to bring this update to the fantasy football community because they talked about this in the broadcast straight from the source. This is from Alvin Camara, who says his mom pronounced it Camara, but he has chosen to pronounce it Camara. I don't understand why you would change the pronunciation of your last name, but that's where we're at. I didn't know you could do that.

There are no rules. All right. Well, then call me Jason Moore. I'm going as Mike. This is the double-O. Mike Rigget. Mike Rigget. But it's funny. But it is Camara. Yes. If you look at the Patriots and the Saints, you see some commonalities with the just the depth they have at the running back position, how much they lean on them. It makes me, I mean, I'm sure the Saints want to use him. Yeah. I mean, the Saints want to use them in the offense. He's playing his way to the, you have to give.

This guy snaps. He is absolutely dynamic. I really liked him early in the draft process. Some analysts didn't get it with Camara, and I was always one of those guys saying, I get it. I look, and every time he touches the ball, I don't think he's going to be a workhorse, but especially in this role as a pass catching back for a team that utilizes the running back so much, he'll be fantasy relevant this year, and he's being drafted really late. All right. Any other takeaways here on the charger side of the ball? I mean, you didn't have Philip Rivers in there.

You couldn't see a whole lot from, you know, targets went all over the field to the receivers. So I think we'll wrap that up. We'll be into a big episode tomorrow, the My Guys episode. My Guys. We're all picking out some guys to plant our flag and watch this season. See, if these guys can deliver like we expect them to. It's a great episode. You do not want to miss it. Again, a quick reminder at the end of this show.

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