Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Rising Stars, Preseason WK2, David Johnson Interview

I mean, I would look at him, honestly, Abdullah range. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Let's talk about the Falcons and the Browns. This game took place early in the week. We could have talked about it on Friday. We had the tips and tricks show. Let's talk about the Cleveland Browns. Let's talk about Terrell Pryor, Robert Griffin III, this offense. Gary Barnage making a really great touchdown catch on an RG3 throw. I know you guys came in here.

Humming your RG3 tunes. You know, I'm not. But I understand he did have one designed run that I saw. He slid at the end of it. It's probably he didn't get hurt sliding. Oh, come on. Terrell Pryor can run nine routes. That's it. That's all he needs to. Very, very well. He's extremely fast. So you guys geek out on the Browns and I'll pull you back to Earth.

I thought Griffin looked very good. I thought I looked accurate and decisive. I don't think you're thinking that Griffin's a quarterback one at the moment, but he is firmly in the quarterback two discussion for me. Robert Griffin, the third, or Alex Smith? I'm going to take Robert Griffin the third, and here's why. I'll take that upside too. Because of the upside. Alex Smith is pretty much going to be on waivers in most leagues. If I want Alex Smith, I can get him at any time. But should out of the gate, RG3 come and...

be running for, you know, 50 yards a game and throwing a couple touchdowns, some deep bombs. There is a world where RG3 ends up with high upside. There's no world where Alex Smith has a huge monster fantasy season. He's just going to be consistent and okay. I can get that off of the waivers. So that's why I would say I'd rather have RG3 than Alex Smith. It's, yeah, sure. And that makes sense. And I tend to.

I can buy into that logic. You had Nando Defino of the fantasy sports. I was going to say sports network came on last week, uh, two weeks ago on the MVP show. He said his MVP is going to be Robert Griffin the third. He also talked up. He also talked up Trell prior. Um, so Nando, you look smart for a week. Um, on the, on the, on the, preseason Griffin. Uh, on the Falcon side of the ball, was there anything special that you guys saw? Yes.

I am moving Devonta Freeman up my list. He looks good. He looks good. What did Mike just said? He looks good. I tried to get it in real quickly, so nobody heard me. Yeah, I had to call you out there. You know, we've been. Yeah, he's clearly their best running back for their scheme. Oh, yeah. He fits it well, and they like him. He's going to have a great season. All right, the Packers and Raiders played football as well.

It's funny because Mike has a note here that says Eddie looks back to me. Eddie looks back to me, says Mike. Eddie looks fat to me, says Andy. And you know what? Well, Eddie always looked fat. That's fine. No, we talked about this with, even with like David Johnson this week and the fact that, you know, Jerome Bettis always looked fat. But there was Jerome Bettis in shape and out of shape. And so if he's, I just think that the hyperbolic, you know, P9DX, slim and trim, Eddie, that doesn't.

The weight side of it? 185 doesn't exist. I mean, Eddie Lacey, I think, weighs about three ounces less than last year to my eyes. And that doesn't matter to me as long as he is in good physical condition. Eddie Lacey is never going to be a svelte, just rip, shredded up guy. His body type is not that. Well, and if he was, he wouldn't do what he does. Right. Like he'd be easier to tackle. Go watch the game. Eddie Lacey looks like he has that burst. That spin move looks.

Pretty nice to me. I'm back on board with Eddie Lacey and the Green Bay Packers. Eddie has to get out of the backfield. When Eddie gets out of the backfield and he gets downhill, he's the Eddie Lacey of old, the league winning Eddie Lacey. When Eddie Lacey can't break an ankle or an arm tackle real quick, somebody bursts through the backfield because he's too, he's not shifting enough. That's when Eddie Lacey got caught up and was not efficient last year. Now, James Starks? He looked. He looked great.

James Starks looked great to me. You had a couple really impressive runs up the middle that I liked. The backfield is going to be the same old backfield. I mean, in terms of the reps probably. So Eddie, I'll have every chance. And then we'll see what happens. I like him. Can I ask for some advice from the fantasy footballers? Sure. On the other side of the ball for the Raiders, I'm having a real hard time. I feel like I've got some kind of bias.

Some kind of bigotry against Michael Crabtree. Bigotry? I just, probably not the right word. Then that means it was the right word for me. You missed on that one. Personal bias against Michael Crabtree. The way that Andy you said last year. What happens is sometimes he wants to add a couple extra vocab words in. Like bias is 100% the perfect appropriate word. You just want to throw a couple more B words in. But the reality is I feel like there's more. It's not just like I'm biased only. I feel like I've got a hatred.

for Michael Crabtree. Like some kind of, so maybe bigotry is not the right word, but I feel like it's close. And I know, I can tell you why you have that. Tell me. Because when he came into the league for the San Francisco 49ers, he held out, like I don't even remember when the holdout ended because he wanted that money and he just came off as a diva.

A diva wide receiver. Came off like that in the field, too. And just super arrogant, did not perform right away. So you think this is deep in my subconscious. Yeah, I think it's the... I guess you could be bigoted against guys that have torn their Achilles. That would be possible. Yeah. So, but here's the reality. I have never once this offseason in a mock, in an NFL, in any live draft. I have never even considered taking Crabtree whenever he's on the board. I don't see the upside. But when I watch the game...

I feel like he's the first read, and he is super involved in the offense, and he was fine last year. So that's why I genuinely want to know your guy's unbiased. Like, what do you do with Crabtree? Because those kind of not huge upside wide receivers are the guys that I don't usually draft. Is that wrong of me? What should our listeners do? No, I get it, but it depends on the makeup of my team. I'm very happy if Michael Crabtree is my wide receiver three.

I think that the production will be solid. And also the problem with Crabtree is up against him is the rookie phenom superstar in Amari Cooper. And you think, okay, well, Cooper is going to be the man, the alpha of that team. All the offense will funnel through Mari Cooper because that's just where he was taken in the draft, all the hype of him in the draft. Is it fair that he's going 212 and then Crabtree is going 808?

That's ridiculous. Right. We talk about Golden Tate and Marvin Jones. You talk about Golden Tate Marvin Jones. Shouldn't you be taking Crabtree in the 8th? That's ridiculous. But the difference is that upside. We see, you know, Marvin Jones could end up being this huge red zone double digit touchdown guy. You don't see that with Crabtree. You just made the same argument about RG3 and Alex Smith. If you think that Cooper, see, Cooper's ceiling is unknown. Crabtree, you know, you're not going to get this 1,500 yard 10 touchdown season from Crabtree.

That's an impossibility in our minds. And I think it's probably an impossibility in real life. And so because that doesn't exist, he's not as attractive to fantasy owners. That's what it is. I mean, Cooper could go out and give you 1,500 yards and 12 touchdowns. Yeah, I mean, if you don't know. Right now, Crabtree is going right next to Sterling Shepard, Kevin White, and Deshaun Jackson, all three guys who have huge upside hope. We got to move on. Vikings, Seahawks. Revenge game. Man.

Blair Walsh, was he on hand? Is he? All right. Let's talk about this game. Kristen Michael. Yeah, that's the big one. Sometimes things happen in football that just work out for this show. And when Kristen Michael stays in the headlines, when Ariad Foster stays in the headlines, it's just more entertaining for this show. So Mike, see Mike and you, Mike, what do you think? He continues to look good.

Hashtag the Awakening continues. Oh, gosh. You even, look, I saw on my phone, we were in our chatting in our chat program. And my eyes, I could not believe what had happened when I get a message from Andy Holloway. It's like, Kristen Michael looks good. I feel like you saying that is like when I have to admit that Devonta Freeman looked good. Yeah, well, that's fair. I believe to quote you, you said, Michael looks like he's being shot out of a cannon.

And that is an accurate statement because he is exploding up the middle. Yeah, I mean, Jason did make a good point. He kind of always looked that way in preseason. They say something's happened. They say an awakening has taken place. They say, but does it mean anything in fantasy football? I will say this. I know you two are buying in to the possibilities. I am not yet. I'm still reserved.

I mean, it's not like we haven't seen it before. He always has been an athletic freak. He didn't show me patience. It just a big, big holes. You know, places to run. There was one nice square up the middle where I felt like there was a small hole and he got through it and busted for, you know, good 9, 10 yards. Let me ask you an easy question. I got a question for you, Jason. All right. What if Thomas Rawls goes down? Where would you put Chris? Let's pretend in a world where Thomas Rawls is.

gone for the first four games of the season. No, he's gone for the year. Right now. Right now. We're just pretending. Where do you draft Chris and Michael? What R.B. rank is he? If he was down. If he's the number one right now. I would probably draft him fifth round. I mean, I would take him past the Jeremy Lincoln. He's the number one in Seattle. You would take him past Jeremy Lincoln.

Yeah, I think I would rather have Jeremy Langford. But I see, that's high to me in the sense that I would take him over a lot of other guys even still. But if he goes down, I mean, I don't think he would be the end all be all. I mean, we saw that last. We saw the exact thing happen last year. And Chris and Michael was okay. He had some good games at the end of the year. But he wasn't the top fantasy running back. He was still splitting carries. All right. Give me the carry counts for Rawls and Michael.

Like in a single game. What do you think it'll break down to? Ooh, I think that Chris and Michael will get, I'm going to say, I would say 8 to 10 for Kristen Michael. That's about where I have. Here's the thing. Michael showed, they lined him up wide and they showed that he could catch the ball. He pulled it down, yeah. And Thomas Rawls is not involved in that part of the game. And if ProSise is not going to be involved in that part, Chris and Michael could be the third downback. True. People don't realize that. Thomas Rawls is still going in the middle of the third.

Are you willing to gamble your third round pick that Thomas Rawls is the man? Yeah. They're going to completely ignore what Krista Michael has done in the preseason in camp. Yeah. I'm willing to spend a third on Thomas Rolls, yes. Okay. And I just traded him this weekend. So I am not. I am more than happy to do that. You know, a backup is the only one playing right now. Thomas Rawls doesn't get the chance to be on the field right now. Right, but you're taking... You can make the exact same argument about Spencer Ware right now.

Are you willing to risk a first round pick on Jamal Charles with the way Spencer Ware has played this preseason? It's a little different. We have some history of Jamal Charles being great. My point was simply Thomas Rawls is going ahead of C.J. Anderson, Latavius Murray, DeMarco Murray, and Carlos Hyde. I would take him ahead of Hyde. For sure. I will take Latavius ahead of him. Who are the other two guys, C.J. Anderson? Yep. And DeMarco Murray.

Yeah, let's give me DeMarco ahead of him. I'll take DeMarco and Latavius and then I'll draft Brawls and then I'll draft CJ hide. All right, let's get into the Chargers and the Cardinal game. I guess I'd be remit. I left the Vikings off for no reason. Yeah, Jerich McKinnon looks okay. Yeah, AP didn't play. Teddy Bridgewater didn't play. There's not much we can take away from. Yeah, when you're starting running back, starting quarterback, don't play on a running heavy team. Yeah, but Blair Walsh. What do you think?

Chargers, Cardinals, the Cardinals offense continues to not score points, but they're barely out there. You know, David Johnson is just better than the other running backs. You know, all of the emails we had over the months of saying, what about Chris Johnson and Andre Ellington and David Johnson is just another species compared to those guys. He's going to have every opportunity to be the bell cow. Until he went out of the game, he was in on every single snap.

Yeah, and he's just, I mean, the difference when he hits the pile, when he hits a tackle, he's pushing two or three guys off. Jason said it last week. He thought Geron Brown would be the step in wide receiver three if a guy went down in Arizona. He looked really, really good to me. He made a couple of catches that I thought were.

stuff I hadn't seen from him before as opposed to JJ Nelson, who to me looked really bad in this game. Some of the routes and catches that I saw in training camp videos of Geron Brown blew my mind. The fact that he's now doing that in the preseason game, it looks like he's going to be a flex player if any of the three wide receivers go down for the Cardinals. All right. Melvin Gordon, to me, I mean, he's going to have every opportunity again. He looked okay. He's going to be their lead bat.