Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - The Footies: 2016 Awards Nominations, Studs & Duds, Rising Stars

recovery time. It's a longer recovery time. But you usually see when all these different NFL players have gone through that second surgery, that is the final. You know, they play the rest of their career without having setbacks. Brandon Marshall said he's confident. He's still an elite receiver. Said he would, quote, play for free. His bills are paid. Once to be back, wants to win. Don't go. Yeah, where is it going to go? Don't go to the Jets. Yeah, I think he's still an elite receiver personally.

I have no problem with that, but he's not an elite fantasy receiver if he doesn't have anybody throwing him the ball. I think you'd like to see Marshall over the next two years because he says he wants to play until late 30s. If he stays, I'd like to see him go through that transition that Larry Fitzgerald went through because he could be an elite slot receiver too at 35 years old. I want to see it because then they can unleash Devin Smith. Robbie Anderson? No, no, no. Devin Smith. Okay.

Okay. All right. All right. Let's briefly work. I like Devon. Sorry. You do? Yeah, I do. He's very fast. So you were being serious? Yeah. That face was a serious face? That was the, yeah. It was the serious face. But I mean, his entire career has been derailed so far. He was the second round pick. Yeah, but I think he's good. You like him more than Rashad Perryman or somebody? I mean, because he's done nothing. All right. Weird. Let's talk about some stud muffins and some dud muffins.

I don't want to linger too long on week 17 unless it has kind of a forward look, but obviously a lot of owners won championships in week 17. So we want to highlight some of the big names. Also, very humorous. We looked at this before the show. If you take a look at the top 10, no, top 12, you can go to 13. Top 13 running backs in week 17. Do you want to know how many of the actual 2016 season top?

12 running backs are in that group. Yeah, you mean the running backs that were the best this year in fantasy football. Yeah, the top 12 running backs on this season. How many of them finished in the top 12 in week 17? I don't know. You'd be wrong. Seven? Well, you did the math. So you're a good actor. Five, four, no, three. Nope. I think there were two of them. Two. Yeah. Yay. Week 17. Mark Ingraham. Mark Ingram and Latavius Murray? No. Freeman. That's right.

Can, uh, you want to read back some of those names for the top performing running back to your top performing running back of the week as expected. Rex Burke had, uh, Devante Freeman, Char West. Ooh, Char West. Everyone's favorite. Yeah. Uh, Jerich McKinnon. Devonte Booker had a resurgence there. The big salad. Chondrone. Number six. DeAngelo Williams, the backup in Pittsburgh. Corey Grant. Ah, Corey Grant. The backup to the backup.

To the backup in Jacksonville. That's Char West as well. That's Rex Burkhead as well. All of these guys are like back up to the backup to the backup. Zach Zner, the backup to the backup. Zach Zner. And we just want to throw out the honorable mention of number 13. Aaron Rybkowski. Ah, Ripkowski. Started in 0.2%. Ripkowski and Zinn are giving white running backs a good name this weekend. Yeah. It felt like week three of the NFL preseason.

Oh, that's exactly what I felt like. I have never this entire year, and I would even go back to last year, I have never had a day of watching football as boring and disinterested as this week. I just could not get into all these games that don't matter. It was, it was, I mean, that's nailing.

it on the head. It was exactly like week three of the preseason. Who's picking Corey Grant? What fancy expert gets to roll out? That's why it's not exciting either. It's like, we don't get a rollout Corey Grant. Oh, I saw that Cory Grant game coming. No, I didn't. There was also very little playoff implications based on just on the outcome of the games. A few, but I mean, once Washington lost early, then it was blur. Yeah, we need to talk about some other quick. If you're in a, if you are in a week 17.

Championship League. I hope you won. Now bring up that it should change for next year. It's a good time. I think everyone at this time of year agrees. And if you don't, leave that league. Yeah. All right. So quarterbacks that did deliver? Aaron Rogers has been absolutely nuclear. In fact, you've got the three MVP candidates between Aaron Rogers, Matt Ryan, and Tom Brady that went morning, midday, and late at night.

And each one of them said, no, I'm the MVP. Oh, it's me. No, I'm the MVP. They were great. So you did have a little bit of fantasy relevance there. And then what? Alex Smith had a good game. Yeah, not too bad. Julian Edelman rewarded all of it. Oh, wait. No, it's week 17. Eight for 151. Big boy game. Michael Floyd. That block. Michael, Michael Floyd, the touchdown in the block. Oh, just showing America that what you can get done when you make.

Terrible life decisions. Nice reward. It's, yeah, that's crazy. I mean, I told you guys this. I think he's the best wide receiver on that team outside of Julian Edelman. As far as when you're talking from physically talented, physically talented, I would agree with that. Experienced. I agree with you. I do think he's better. I think he'll play a role in winning a Super Bowl if that team continues to progress. Yeah.

Doubt he's there next year. Julio is another big name that actually had a good game along with Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. Oh, man. You know, he is. Michael Thomas. Speaking of Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas and Julio Jones. Michael. Michael Thomas is the wide receiver number seven on the season, and he is less than nine points behind Julio Jones on the season in fantasy football. That is nuts. Sean Payton did one thing.

this year that uh in that where he was not lying you know the coaches lie all the time just i would say i feel like 90% of the information you're getting like where you get excited about it they have lied to you Sean Payton at the beginning of the year said if I played fantasy football I would get Michael Thomas on my team he spoke the truth nailed it he spoke

Mike Evans closed the year out with a great performance in our league form at a half point. He ended up the number one wide receiver on this season. Jordy Nelson ended up number two. So great year for Mike Evans, obviously. DeAndre Hopkins, seven for one, 23, maybe just to say, hey, remember me? Yeah. He had a nice 50-yard catch and run. Jarvis Landry, Golden Tate had good games. At the tight-in position, Zach Ertz, Kyle Rudolph, Antonio Gates, they all scored touchdowns. Ertz scored two of them.

Monster game, 134-1-39. Dennis Pitta did his occasional Dennis Pitta thing, 11 for 91. But let's talk about the tight-in position briefly in 2016. When you look at the number one tight-in, who was? Travis Kelsey. Zeus. Zeus was unleashed. He scored 221 fantasy points. But that was the lowest tight-end one season since 06 and the fourth lowest since 2000.

So when you put tight ends in perspective, you did not have a Gronkowskiian Jordan Reed-esque type of year from a tight-in position, which begs the question, and we'll talk about it obviously a lot in the off-season. But what does that do to the importance of the tight-end position in your draft and how you think about tight-ins? If this season showed, you know, obviously Grancowski was hurt. But if you had Rudolph and Kelsey and these guys finish where they finished, did everybody kind of...

put up similar numbers so it's not as important to have that. Could you not predict that kind of team defining tight end anymore? And so does that make it more risky to draft the guy high? It was just like Mike said early in the year. It might have even been pre this season. It might have been in the draft season where he just coined that this year we have the barfee tight ends. And that was that was the group. And I think looking forward to next year,

expectations, draft values of all tight ends will be a little bit lower than usual. And I think it should be because you've got all your guys. I mean, look, Greg Olson was like the safest pick. And he sure, he came out on fire, but he caused a lot of people to end up losing. He finished third. And all your top dogs, they didn't really perform. So next year, Granc will be drafted first, but you can't be sure of his health. Who's second? Greg Olson's a year older. It's probably.

be zeus because he finished one this year i just think i mean you have cameron bray as the best example of like he goes undrafted he was you know a top six tight end almost the whole season and you don't need to spend capital on a tight end i just think that that is the position where if you can go get a bargain because you're you're always going to have hype around five or six guys go get the bargain that is kyle rudolph or zackerts or somebody like that and

You know, stream if it doesn't work out. In a half point format, here's some guys that finished as a top 12 tight end that were basically not drafted. Cameron Bray, Martellus Bennett, Dennis Pitta, Antonio Gates, Jason Whitten, those were all top 12 options. Yeah, and there'll be more names next year. There'll be a lot of hype. Before we move on, we're going to do a Raising Canes Rising Stars and talk a few poopers before we get to the footy nominations, which I'm very excited about. Before we do that, I do want to thank.

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to create incredible home-cooked meals with Blue Apron, so don't wait. That's Blue Apron.com slash Ballers Blue Apron, a better way to cook. Raising Cain's Rising Stars of the Week. All right, my Rising Star of the Week. Oh, he burned bright in the week 17 matchup. Zach Ertz. Mr. 25%. Zach Ertz ended the season as the sixth best.

tied in in football despite missing two games during the regular season. Look, we saw what Kelsey and Rudolph could do to finish in that top three range. You now have seen consistency, actually, from Zach Hertz over the past two years. Despite missing two games, you got back-to-back years with 75 plus catches. And basically, he started the year pretty on fire, six for 58, got hurt, missed some time in that game, missed two games.

And then it looked like it took him about three games to get back into the swing of things. Now you go into another year next year with the same quarterback in system, another chance for him to show some consistency throughout the season. I'm just looking forward to Zach Ertz's 2017 campaign. I think he's the top five radar type of guy that you won't pay a top five price for. So Zach Ertz is my Raising Kane's Rising Star. Who do you got, Jason? Yeah, my Raising King Rising Star is the...