Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Early Breakouts for 2016, News, Mailbag

His time is that prolific guy is already gone. I mean, he's great as the Heinzord underneath high quantity. But Floyd's a guy who you look to in the red zone. You look to on the deep ball. I just really like him. Yeah, so let's talk about my guy. I have liked this guy for longer than most.

Because most people don't really like this guy at the level that I do. So maybe I'll be here at an island or maybe I can convince you. But going into last year... It's because he has those delicious locks of hair. Does he still have him? No, I don't think he does anymore. No, but he had long... He shipped him to Jason. Jason asked. Yeah, so last year coming in... Because he's going to wear, he's going to make a wig. We don't even know who you're talking about yet. Yes, one of the better values coming into last year, I believe that the tight-in position was actually Kobe Fleener. He had been very...

Well, that's part of it, right? I want people at the tight end. I want someone that nobody else wants, which means I can get him late in a draft. I would rather draft a guy nobody wants who's going to be great than a guy who's going to be great that everybody wants and I got to get him high. I can sell you something. I can have a product that stinks and nobody wants it. So there's a value there. All right. Well, let me sell you on his actual value here than Mike. Kobe. Kobe. So the last couple years, he has been on a team that does not.

actually use the tight end that much. Over the last three years, they've averaged about 60 receptions to the tight-in position. A little bit more, a little bit less depending on the year that you're looking at. Over those three, Kobe Fleener has been extraordinarily consistent, catching about 50 balls a year. And playing every game. Playing every game hasn't been hurt. And I don't know if you realize this. One of the things I really like about him is he is built to be a down-the-field receiver. He is six foot six.

250 pounds and he runs a 4-540. Whoa, I didn't. He is an athletic guy who has a very good, you know, ability to catch down the field balls. Well, so now he's changing. Yeah, he is. But now he's going from a team that didn't really utilize the tight-in in-rout running that much by comparison to pretty much the number one team for utilizing tight-in production down the field. The last three years for the New Orleans Saints?

They have over 100 receptions to the tight-in position. Ben Watson ran so many long rounds. Ben Watson caught 74 balls last year, and he's 34 years old. Listen to that conviction. Listen to that conviction. And now you have... Turn his mic down. Now you have Kobe Fleener, a 6-foot-6, 250-pound guy with 4-5 wheels coming in to a position that will be used. I love him. 200 receptions, 2,000 yards. I think he's going to have at least 75 receptions.

925 yards and 8 touchdowns, pretty much just a slight bump up from what Ben Watson did last year. And that will put him as an absolute top five tight-in next year. And I don't believe you're going to draft him earlier than the 10th tight-in. That's what I'm looking for. Kobe Fleener's my guy. I can buy into almost all of that. Almost. Well, my actual bigger problem is I don't think he'll be the 10th tied-in. I think he's going to, he will surge.

over the summer and people will, uh, in terms of where he's drafted. The shine will go on. Can I give you a quick list of names and see if you think by the time the summer comes, whether they'll drag. Yeah, I like that game. Obviously, Gronk. Uh, maybe, maybe. Yeah. So Gronk, Jordan Reed, Greg Olson, Tyler Eifer, Travis Kelsey. Those guys are gone ahead of them. Yes. For sure. I think Gary Barnage is, I don't. Okay, maybe, maybe not.

Amazingly, in average drafts, certainly not in ours, I think Jimmy Graham might get taken high. Maybe. Julius Thomas. Delaney Walker, yes. Yeah. Austin Safarian Jenkins. But he's in that six to, or six or seven range to 13. Yeah, Zach Ertz. Yeah.

If he searches out. If he searches out. So I think, yeah, I mean, maybe he, I would take him as high as the sixth or seventh tight-in. Would you take him over Gary Barnage? Yeah, yeah, I would. Okay. And that's, I like Gary Barnage. Right. Yeah. All right. Well, we did want to try to come up with a consensus. I don't, I'm going to be honest with you guys.

We have all this conviction with our individual breakouts, all three of us, and we agree with some, disagree with some. We came up with a name of a guy that we like, but I'm not all in. I'm not all in. So I don't know if we want to. We don't need to. Well, let's just. You've already brought it up. Let's just do this. We'll throw out another name that I think all three of us think could have a breakout. A hypothetical breakout. Which is Carlos Hyde. I like him, man. I like Carlos Hyde. I like Chip Kelly coming into town. High Snap.

offense. I understand that they don't have the greatest personnel, but I think Chip Kelly's play calling and the rate of which the players are called makes a big difference. You have more opportunity, and you look back last year. I try not to look back last year because he reminds me a lot more to Marco Murray than Ryan Matthews. I agree, but he ran so good before his foot injury. No, he didn't. Yes, he did. He did not. He had a breakout week one.

and then he slowed. The offensive line has not been fixed. If you don't have a... Yeah, his stats, how... I mean, yes, he's a good runner. I agree with you. But I don't know if the offensive line is there. The reason I'm tentative on it is simply, offensive line hasn't been fixed. Chip Kelly showed me he can mismanage a running back in the way that damages him for fantasy. And so if those things are fixed, then maybe I'm on board. I mean, DeMarco, Murray was still an RB2, right?

He met 0.0 percentage of expectations for anybody who had. I understand expectations. Certainly wasn't a breakout. Aren't we trying to set expectations right now? No, but I'm going back to the point that you said he damaged him and for as bad and terrible as we remember DeMarco being, he was an RB2.

That's my whole point, is that your memory is tainted because the expectations weren't made, yet he was still a serviceable running back for a majority of the year. Again, we talked about this name as a consensus for a reason. I like the talent of Hyde. He's a tackle breaker. He runs hard. He has to stay healthy. The offense of line has to provide, and then Chip Kelly's got to use them right. Those are the three pieces where if they happen in some capacity,

I'm with you. I think Hyde can all be in on it. I think Hyde can fill the role more like a Matthews than DeMarco Murray. I agree completely that Murray was not the right fit for his system. I think Hyde is more of that guy. So I like certainly younger. Our consensus should have been Latavius Murray, right? I mean, clearly he's the guy. Uh-huh. All right, let's move on to the mailbag. Mailbag. Mail bag, yeah.

Surprised you didn't yell Latavius' name. All right, if you have a question for the show. You're surprised Jason didn't? Yeah. Well, he's a little gunshot after that last mailbag attempt. Oh, I need to...

Join the foot show? Yeah, it was. All right. Well, let's go ahead and go to the mailbag. We want to answer some questions from the listeners. If you want to submit one, go to the website, The Fantasy Footballers.com, click the submit a question button or dial our voicemail line 302-464-T-FB. And we'll go ahead and answer a voicemail question to start us off. Howdy, boys? This is Chiefie from Dayton. Just got a keeper question for you. I'm in a 10-person, half-point PPR. No round penalty.

I have three guys to choose from, picked up Levi-on-Bel off-Wipers, Adrian Peterson, and Rob McGrady. Thanks, guys. Love the show. So no round penalty for him, and so you got Lev Bell, AP, and Gruncowski, and you need to pick one keeper. That's a tough one. You got more risk with Levian Bell as much as I'd love to sugarcoat that. You have a little bit more risk with the injury history recently.

I'm taking Levy on Bell. I'm still taking Levy on as well. In a redraft league, I have actually put Adrian Peterson ahead of Levy on Bell, just in my rankings. I believe they're both great, and they're both, you know, if you want to take either one of them at number one. All formats, all scoring formats? You're fine with? Yeah, I do. Just because Adrian Peterson, I feel like you know what you're going to get less risk than Levy on Bell and still phenomenal talent. That being said, if this is a keeper league,

Next year to keep Adrian Peterson versus if Levy and Bell has a great year, I'm going to go Levy on Bell as well. So it'll be a clean sweep for the bell. All right. Philip in Mesa, Arizona has a question for us. He said, I have picks 1, 10, and 26 in a 16-te team dynasty league. He may have an Ohio State fan that's willing to part ways with Gurley for that first overall. And so he simply wants to know who's more valuable, Gurley or Ezekiel Elliott. This is so obvious.

It's Gurley. Clearly Gurley. One of these guys... Not even close. Yeah, because when you draft that number one spot, you are hoping that the potential comes through. Well, it's already been actualized in Todd Gurley. The potential came through, and you saw he was great. And statistically, you don't have very many examples of rookie years as good as Gurley. So you're projecting, you know...

A needle and a haystack season. Fleece the guy. If you got to give your, you know, the number one and your second round pick, for me, I would. I would do it. Well, I would too. No, I would never give my first and second for that. Here's a hypothetical situation for you, though. Dallas takes EZE number four. If Dallas took EZE number four, I would only give the number one.

for easy. But I would rather have Todd Gurley, who I know. I've seen him in the NFL. I know he can be great. We don't know yet. I mean, Easy E going to Dallas, hey, that sounds great. But I'm still hoping that the potential is actualized. He would be a monster. A monster. Andrew in Portland, Maine says, gentlemen, love the show. Every time I get depressed, football is so far away. The fantasy footballers are there to pick me up with some killer analysis.

I am in a deep 10 team, two quarterback, two running back, two wide receiver, three flex league, and I'm looking at keepers. I have to choose two from the following all our round 15, 16 draft picks. Number one is David Johnson. Hmm, here. Sorry, got a little. You're supposed to read the rest. Oh, all right. Thomas Rawls? Oh, I mean, the rest of David Johnson, but now it's been lost. There it is. All right, Andrew Luck. That's got to be someone else.

Tony Romo, Keenan Allen, and then as Mike, as Jason said, Thomas Rawls. So David Johnson and Rawls are my picks. Ooh. David Johnson is in for me and... Yeah, it's absolutely David Johnson, Thomas Rawls for me. Well, you could go Lucker Romo, two quarterback league. Oh, it's a two quarterback league? Yeah, that's that listening thing you need to do. It's not my forte. I'm definitely going David Johnson and luck then. Really?

Yeah, without a doubt. And I'm going to actually change to that, too. Really? Yep. Two quarterback. As of today, if you knew Rawls was locked in like in a few, like a couple months, and you knew he was locked and loaded, he's healthy, he's ready to go. They're going to give him the ball and, you know, like they were last year, which, again, I still think the odds favor that, but I don't know it. Right. So I would take, I'd take Luck in Johnson. If I knew all that, I would still take Luck in Johnson. If I knew all that, it would be Johnson and Rawls, but because I don't, right now it's Rawls, or it's a.

Excuse me. It's David Johnson and Keenan Allen for me. All right. Patrick and St. Louis says he has to keep two. His options are Mike Evans, Brandon Cooks, Jeremy Hill, Devante Parker, Carlos Williams, and Chris Ivory. Oh, all right. So can keep them forever. Doesn't have to give anything special up for them. Says he loves this show, hashtag foot clan title. Yeah. So two options there. Well, it's really only one option because Mike Evans is a lock. I agree with you. Stone Cold lock of the week.

I think Brandon Cooks is a lock in this roster as well. Unless you want to go running back. Cooks over Parker? Yeah, absolutely. Really? Yeah. Cooks was, correct me if I'm wrong, but Cooks was the number 12 wide receiver this last year. I don't have a problem with Cooks. I projected Parker in that range. I projected Parker about 18. So for me, I still think it's once again, you're going to be able to draft Parker where you can't draft Cooks. So keep Cooks and draft Parker if you want them.

That being said, you've got two wide receivers kept. I suppose I was just thinking longer term. Yeah, you could be wrong. You might not be able to draft him in a better position in this league. Yeah, maybe not. But those would be my two. Evans certainly a lock. I would go Cooks over Parker. And Parker was my breakout. Yeah, I would go Evans and Cooks. I was thinking the only thing I was thinking was Parker just, I was thinking of Dynasty. And I like Parker more than Cooks.