Keep/Trade/Cut + Hype Train, Excuse Wagons - Fantasy Football Podcast

The last show on the Fantasy Wildcards, I realized I was too low on Mark Ingraham. And I think it was because I was so high on J.K. Dobbins. I love the talent. I love the match for the... Mark, if you're out there, you need to know that I started to look at someone else. When the draft happened, I liked Dobbins, and he's an exceptional athlete with a lot of college production.

It took my eyes away from the truth, which is that, Mark, you are one of the best running backs out there, and I will draft you in the fifth round. You will be mine. I do feel like this past week has been the Mark Ingram Rediscovery Hour. And it has to happen every year. Yes. We have to ruin his ADP every year? We have to remember that we need to love Mark Ingram.

The comparison that came into my head when Jason was going through that was I remember year after year trying to have the explanation with myself, with you guys, because this was kind of before the footballers. But Marshaun Lynch, as a Seattle Seahawk, I'm not talking about the Raiders years, but it felt like the fantasy community every year we wanted to be the ones that made the call. This is the year that Marchion Lynch.

falls off. And I think I'm with Jason. I'm going to stop doing that with Mark Ingram. Could it be this? Look, Mark Ingram. You've been so good for so long and proved the doubters wrong. Me, myself. I've had doubt in my heart. And you came through with roses and grace and love. And touchdowns. And you eradicated that doubt.

And look, I'm not going to put it back there until you are the one who hand delivers the doubt as a dagger into my heart. And look, I won't ignore that it might come this year. But I'm with Jason, man. I'm back. I'm back with Mark. You know who I thought you were going to say? It reminded it wasn't Marshawn Lynch. It was Frank Gore. Frank Gore. Sure. Running back 12. Yeah. Every year he's, you know, running back. I'm just looking at our consistency charts. And it's like he's running back 16, 10, 17, 20, 13, 12, 19.

That was up, that was all the way up to his age 35 season. And every year when you got to like 29 years old was like, oh, he's done. 30 years old, he's done. Oh, he's the running back 10. Oh, he's, you know, it's like this is, I think Mark Ingram is really, really good. So yeah. I, I, did we sway you? He might be in our, he may become a Utica value at this point. No, I mean, I don't really disagree with.

You know, we want to predict, we want to be attracted to the younger player coming up into the system. But you have to acknowledge the value that exists. Now, Keenan Allen, just to kind of discuss the other players in this selection, we're at a time for everybody else. You don't normally talk about Keenan Allen in the fifth round. Right. That's what's baked into Keenan Allen this year. Keep trade cut at, you know, you're factoring where you draft him, right? Right. Wide receiver eight last year, wide receiver 12 the year before, wide receiver three the year before.

consensus-wide receiver 30 this year. Now, you look at the situation and you acknowledge, like you said, at the top of the show, Keenan's not going to catch 100 passes from some... It's not likely. Yeah. From some ensemble of Tyrod Taylor and Justin Herbert. So when you factor in value, both Ingram and Allen are both being forgotten to some degree. Yes. Right? Because Keenan Allen at least has the potential to be a lot better than where he's being drafted. Well, 100%. But you can probably trade him on the name.

Can you not? Better than Zacharts? I think the trade value is probably going to be better for Keenan Allen than Zacharts. I mean, obviously the value of all three is about equal. That's why they're all in the fifth round. But Keenan Allen's situation necessarily changed. Mark Ingram's situation did not. Mark Ingram was the lead dog and he had a good backup in Gus Edwards, who had 133 carries. If J.K. Dobbins comes in and has 133 carries, it's not coming away from Mark Ingram. It's coming away from...

Gus Edwards, whereas Keenan Allen, his quarterback is different. His quarterback might be a rookie or might be a lower volume passing option. That's 100%. So he would be my trade here. I don't know what to do with Zach Kurtz because I don't want him. I don't, you know, he's been so solid. There's no real pathway to a top three tight-in finish for him.

Other than a bunch of injuries to everyone else, I mean, obviously Dallas Goddard is such a problem there when it comes to the red zone. You know, if the touchdowns go the other tight ends away, then Zachert's ceiling is gone. And Zacherts has constantly been the beneficiary of being the last man standing, dealing with injuries around him or him being the clear and only primary target.

And now this year, what's funny is I feel like it could happen again. I mean, you've got a rookie in Jalen Rager who's unproven, who's going to be needed. You have a super old Deshaun Jackson, currently injured Alshan. So he could end up being every year. It's like, every year, it's like, well, he's going to need to be the only guy there to really sustain that target level. But he could, he could be the only guy there again. I just don't want to play that middle round, tight end game.

Yeah, 156 targets is what he had in 2018 to become the tight-in two that season. No Mark Andrews had emerged, no Darren Waller, some other options out there weren't available. Ertz in the fifth round seems exactly where he belongs and exactly where he'll finish. So I'll go ahead and keep Ingram as well. Yep, I'm going to keep Ingram. I'm going to trade. I think I'm trading Keenan, but that's, it's tough, man. It's tough. Okay.

Okay, okay. Let's move to the eighth round. One of these players I just drafted in the Fantasy Cares Eliminator League. Oh, interesting. So in the eighth round, we're looking at Jordan Howard running back for the Miami Dolphins, wide receiver, Brandon Cooks, the Houston Texans, and Josh Allen. Oh, excellent. An eighth round quarterback right now. He's our consensus, QB9. And then you have these interesting...

change team situations with Jordan Howard and Brandon Cooks. I took Howard with my last most recent pick in that league that was, I believe, the seventh or eighth round, so I was in the same zone here. Which is much better in the sense that I think these eliminators are like 17 player leagues. Yes. So the eighth round is not really like that I was saying. 17 team, team leagues are saying? Yes. I was mentioning the other day on our last show that I took the Tom Brady

gronk stack and someone was like, I thought you weren't drafting gronk. That league is very different, super incredibly tight and heavy, super deep, 17, it's, it's another world. It's a different beast. Yeah. So Jordan Howard, you know, Miami should be an improved team, huge amounts of draft capital, has Matt Berita in the back field as well, traded for him on draft day. We know the song and dance of Jordan Howard, somehow unwanted.

third most rushing yards since entering the league four years ago. He gets zero fantasy points for that stat this year. But it's an impressive stat of resiliency and being kind of under the radar and continually useful. Do you see a season for Jordan Howard where it's like Carlos Hyde last year in Houston? It's a good call. You ignore it, but then the volume is there and enough volume at running back.

You're going to outperform the type of average job position. I do see that. I think that's the perfect comp. You're talking about a guy in Howard who could very realistically be a 1,000-yard rusher this season for the Dolphins. They've done a lot of work on their offensive line. And Jordan Howard is...

He's never been bad. You know, it's so funny because he has crapped on a lot in fantasy. But he's never been bad. He was great for the Bears. He was really good for the Eagles. And, you know, he's not as old as you think is. So I think Jordan Howard, of these three, you know, he's one of the guys that I look at and say, yeah, in the right situation, I would want him to be a depth piece on my team. But of these.

three, there's only one guy I actively want. Like going into drafts, I'm not, I'm not going into a draft going, man, I hope I can walk out of here with Jordan Howard. You know what I mean? But for me, one of my later round quarterbacks I like is the stallion, is Josh Allen because, excellent, yes. You know, I believe in his talent. I think the fact that you, you kept all the other wide receivers that,

you brought in last year that helped him progress a little bit as a passing quarterback. And then you add Stefan Diggs. And when you combine that with the early season schedule, which is something that I look at for these later round quarterbacks and you start with the jets and the dolphins, Rams, Raiders, like I think he could get off to a hot start. So he would be my keep personally. So you'd keep Josh Allen. Who would you trade cooks?

I don't know that Cooks has any value. And then just cut Howard like everyone else to? No, I think I might trade Howard. Because people need running backs. When you leave a draft, people are like, oh, man, my team's good, but gosh, I've got no depth here. I think people would be willing to trade for that more than Cooks. Even though Cooks, all he's done in his career has been really good for different teams for different quarterbacks until this last season. And now he's got a great quarterback and has a chance to be the one.

But for some reason, I just don't want them. I don't know if it's injury risk or... It's a little bit of post-Hopkins trade stink. I mean, that's what's on Brandon Cooks right now. The kind of, you know, Mike talks about the hype. You can feel it in the air. You can feel the hair stand on your... There's no, no hair is standing on edge in Houston after that trade. But that probably means Brandon Cooks is undervalued in that capacity. By the way, I wanted to see just looking at the running game in Miami, what happened last year, Kaelin Belange, right?

I wanted to see how many opportunities Balaj had on the ground. He started the year with a similar situation to Howard in the sense of de facto starter. Do you remember his yards per carry? He had 74 cents. I'm going to guess it was 1.7. He was so bad. This was sub three. 1.8. Oh, baby. I was so hoping you would use that drop, Andy. Yeah, Brooks carved out your guys is simultaneous. What?

That was when I had not seen what, despicable me or something? Have you remedied that yet? I have not. We reacted appropriately for those who have seen. What? Yes, thank you. What I wanted to say about Brandon Cooks is the fascinating thing, Jason, you casually mentioned it, he's on a team that has a great quarterback. There is a great quarterback in Houston. A lot of vacated targets.

There's a lot of vacated targets, and there is seemingly not a pass catcher on this team that anybody wants to draft. The algebra is broken in that equation. Somebody is going to have value. We're not saying that I'm not saying someone's going to have Hopkins value, but somebody will have to step up on this team and likely end up as a strong wide receiver too. It's so stupid because, you know, I talk about marketing room, always outperforming. You've got Brandon.

Cook's here who four of the last five years has been a top 15 wide receiver. Like he's top 15 in fantasy four years in a row and then last year happened and everybody's off of them. And he's done it for different teams, different quarterbacks. Yeah, of all the, we always bring up how hard it is to change teams and the one player that's changed teams and put up a thousand everywhere he goes has somehow been Brandon Cooks. He's my keep. I'm going to keep him in the eighth round. I'm going to trade Josh Allen to Jason and I'm going to cut Jordan Howard because.

while Jordan Howard will have value, maybe surpassing our expectation, it will still not be special. Sure. Yeah, I do believe that Jordan Howard will be sneaky and outperform his ADP. But even though I have Cooks ranked very low, I think he's the player I would draft here just in this. Where are we the eighth round? Yeah. So I'm going to go after some upside. It's interesting because eighth round, Brandon Cooks, I would feel.

pretty comfortable having as my wide receiver too. When you think about constructing a draft strategy with running bets. And you would be loaded with running backs. Yeah, with running backs. And maybe you'd take that earlier tied in because you can snag a Kelsey or a kiddle and then build the running back core. And then all of a sudden you're sitting in the eighth round with Brandon Cooks as my wide receiver too with 150 vacated Hopkins targets. Like there are worse bets to make. I'll tell you, man. This conversation has made me question my belief in Brandon Cooks because.

You don't have to pay up. You're talking about an eighth round option here. You don't, you know, my worry with Cooks, a lot of it is the, you know, the concussion problems. You know, you could draft the guys who's a real problem. But when you're drafting in the eighth round, you're really wanting to go for upside. And if I don't get Josh Allen here, I very well can pivot to another. There's, you know, so many quarterbacks that I love it. If I left with Stafford versus Josh Allen,