Bold Predictions for 2020 + Rojo, Fantasy News - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/3

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to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Thursday, September 3rd, the fantasy footballers. One week. One week. One week. One week. One week. You know what I was doing last night?

I was watching the Patriots play the Ravens. Were you really? I was. It was spectacular. Sometimes I just, it hits no preseason, right? Right. And so that must have been, oh yeah, football. Oh, it was, it was a joyous occasion. Who won? I don't want to tell you. Oh, yeah. I don't want to spoilers here, Mike. I don't want to spoil that game for you. But it was definitely the game where the Patriots were undefeated. Yeah. And it was the Lamar Jackson is.

burning everything to the ground, can he take care of the Patriots? And he got the couple of rushing touchdowns that came through for another big fantasy day. We had our listener league draft yesterday. And for the first time in my life, I have Lamar Jackson on a fantasy roster. I just plain wanted to see what happens when you have Lamar Jackson. We talk about the quarterback and when you take them in drafts. But we also say, look, if you knew.

I would say this is my advice on that. If you knew Lamar Jackson will give you what he gave you last year, if that's what you believe in your heart, you should take him wherever the heck you want. Yeah. I mean, statistically speaking, his gap between him and the number two quarterback.

would have been big enough, not to mention his consistency, would have been big enough to justify taking him at the one-on-one if you want. And also, statistically speaking, it's not going to have it. It's impossible that he does it again. Right. Yeah, he's not going to throw for that many run for that many. I was, yeah, 9% touchdown percentage. Yeah, that's not happening. I was laughing because I remembered last year when Mahomes began the year, we, for the first two or three weeks, we were like, oh, yeah. Oh, no, he did it again.

ends up with the injury and the 5.4% touchdown percentage because, of course, that's normal. You're still the greatest player on earth. But what if, right? Every time somebody else takes Lamar Jackson, I'm like, ha, you took a quarterback early. Oh, crap, they have Lamar Jackson. That's what I end up thinking. We had some big news break late yesterday. We're going to talk about that at the top of the show. Today is the bold predictions show.

So we will each be bringing you a very spicy. Why is it spicy? Because it'll be wrong. That's why. I don't know. I will say this last year. And keep in mind, these are bold. We're trying to find things that are against the grain. That means low probability. But last year we hit on several of these. Low probability, maximum glory. Yes. What a great phrase, as Mama used to say.

Thank you, Andy. About all your predictions. No, last year, there were some hits. The year before, not so much. We'll get into that when we begin that segment. But we have a few reminders for you. Number one, if you want to play in the Meglabel, which is the largest fantasy football redraft league, there is, all the Foot Clan members, a part of the Megal Bowl. I'm in it. And Jason. And you're in it, Andy.

which I hope counts towards it. Oh, yeah, for sure. If you win, you get in the listener league next year. Oh, congratulations. Join thefoot.com for that. So that's exciting. Appreciate everybody who's following on Twitter at the FF Ballers, subscribing on YouTube. That's YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. And everybody that leaves the reviews on Apple Podcasts listens on Spotify, we appreciate you. All right. Oh, by the way. By the way.

Lots of drafts were happening last night. Oh, man. We were looking at the ultimate draft kit, like user accounts that were in there. You can see when drafts are happening. Yeah, we got to keep those servers strong. And what was wild is it goes right into our quick question because I was in fact in the middle of two drafts last night. Leonard Fournett.

Just sitting there because, look, he's still at the top of the list because of ADP and he had been cut from Jacksonville. What do you do with Leonard Fournette? Where do people end the game of chicken? And you draft Fournette hoping that he lands somewhere. And then in the middle of both of those drafts, boom, Leonard Fornett signed to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now he had already gone in the draft of like, you know, eighth or ninth round by the time the news broke. But also a few rounds earlier.

Ronald Jones had been drafted, and everyone in the chat is pulling their hair going, what does this mean? Who's the lead back? Is Ronald Jones gone for fantasy now? Is Leonard Fournett still gone for fantasy? It's so, Andy, I'll throw it to you because you have been the Ronald Jones guy of this show for multiple years. How are you feeling?

Walk us through. How did you feel when the signing happened and how are you feeling after you slept on it and had some time to think? Yeah, I've been thinking about this pretty constantly. Everybody wants the quick take. Got to take part in the CBS St. Jude Telethon last night. Want the quick take on the four net situation. And after thinking through this, looking at what's going on in the backfield, I'll make my case for what I think's going to happen. And then you guys can weigh in. Tell me if you agree, disagree how you're looking at it from a rankings perspective.

Number one, it doesn't seem like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, at a minimum, trust Ronald Jones. When you trust somebody, you probably don't draft Keishon Vaughn where they did. You probably don't sign LaShawn McCoy, and then you don't come along and you sign Leonard Fournette. So there is a trust issue there. Number two, Bruce Ariens loves experience. This team is an experienced football team. This is a team with a small window to win.

So when somebody like Leonard Fornett is out there and you can go acquire him for less than Carlos Hyde money to come in and stabilize a running back room, why not go do it? That's the take I think Bruce Ariens has for this team. Number three, we are nine days from the season. All reports from beat riders out of camp, take Bruce Ariens' own word for what you will. Which is not much. Which is not much.

But even like LaShaul McCoy talking about Ronald Jones and the steps he's taken and the way he looks in this back. Bruce Ariens coming out this morning. Rojo's our guy, blah, blah, blah. Here's how I think the backfield breaks down. I think Ronald Jones starts the year as the starter. I think he gets two thirds of the work on first and second down. I think Fournette takes the other third of first and second down work, and I think McCoy is primarily their third down back if he can get it done in that role. Kishon Vaughn is irrelevant. He will return kicks and stand on the sidelines.

I have Ronald Jones ranked in my top 30 still. Okay. I do believe that he is the better running back than Leonard Fournette for this offense. The kinds of boxes they're going to face, defenders, and the big playability of Ronald Jones, I believe, is superior than that of Fournet. So that's how I break it down. Now, it was panic alarm. And if you don't want to draft any of these guys because you don't have conviction that way, please don't. Count me in. I pass on Ronald Jones in our listener league.

And I'm super happy I did. Like I don't feel great with that situation. But if he comes out, and John Paulson pointed this out, he's going to come out as the starter. There's no question in my mind that he's going to start week one. If he has a nice week one, he has a soft week two matchup. You could have two strong weeks from Ronald Jones establishing himself. But I don't blame Bruce Ariens for wanting to add depth to this running back room that contains the experience of Kishon Vaugh and the age of LaShawn McCoy makes sense for them.

Yeah, what you were saying and how you described it is 100% identical to my belief. I think two thirds of the first and second down work go to Ronald Jones, one third to Leonard Fournett, LaShawn McCoy locking down the third role. That's how it starts the season. I do project that Leonard Fournet will take over that role. So after the start of the season, which means I'm O-U-T.

Gone. I am like, who should you draft? No one. That's, that is my opinion. That's where I'm landing. I am, I am gone. Bye-bye. See you later. Backfield of the bucks. So would you say that those with Ronald Jones and Fournette already, which is a large amount of fantasy football players, is there hope for them, Mike? Is there hope for them, Jason? Well, you're doing the old-fashioned Andy Holloway bar hang.

Just how long, how long can you stay up there? The answer is a lot shorter than you actually think. I, yeah. I think that by the definition of the word hope, this is the situation where you need it. You need hope. But I'm with Jason. I am, I'm out on this. I have Leonard Fournette projected to eventually take over the job, have more rushing touchdowns. So.

Maybe that's the guy you want to draft and hang on to. It's possible you could get both of those players for almost nothing. From the desperate owner, you could. And then you could end up with two players on your bench and you have no idea who you should ever be starting. We're back. We are back to Ronald Jones and Peyton Barber. Yeah, we are. Which last year, yeah, Ronald Jones was the wink, wink starter. He had some good games. And he had some great game. You never knew when it was going to happen. He was on the field.

like 45% of the snaps. It was an absolute just, it was a trap for fantasy purposes. So it's, it's hard to give the advice of saying completely avoid a backfield. There's at no point in the draft where these players have value to add to your fantasy team. But that is 100% where I am. If you, if you want to stick your hand in the mousetrap and you get the cheese without snapping your fingers,

Good for you. I'm not doing it. That's not where I get my cheese. Yeah, I'm going to the grocery store. I like that, though. And the funny thing is, is the way it ended up in my rankings, I think Ronald Jones ended up at 26. He ended last year at 26, which is in the barber system. And you did have a problem knowing when to start him. So it's almost like you'd rather him completely collapsed in week one or two. So you had one definitive starter in Leonard Fournette.

This is a high value backfield potentially. That is the one thing I will say. It wasn't necessarily a high value backfield last year. Yeah, I agree with that. And it sucks for Kishon Vaughn. He clearly has not shown enough. He was off to a rough start because he was on the COVID list for longer than most of these players were. So he was already behind. Plus Bruce Ariens not really giving rookies the reps that they need in camp.

It's a very unfortunate situation for the third round running back. I would go get him in Dynasty, though, because Lashamacoy and Leonard Forenett are probably both gone after this year. And who knows if Ronald Jones is around beyond this season. So Kishamon could just be the starter instantaneously if he shows out in some of his kick return work or something of that nature. News and notes from around the league. All right, looking at the news today.