The Fantasy MVP Show + Team DEF Strategy

my fantasy MVP. All right. But because JJ came in with the fire, I wanted to let him stand alone on that, you know, just have his moment in the sun because JJ doesn't never get to do that, of course. But I love Rex Burkett so much. I'm targeting him everywhere that I possibly can. JJ laid out the argument for him, but just when he was, when he was on his run last season, that's what Dionne Lewis.

taking a bunch of carries away. Rex Burkhead was a top 10 running back during his stretch. He is a great player. He's probably the most versatile running back on that New England Patriots roster. He can profile as a goal line back, as JJ pointed out, how many goal line carries he's actually getting. I just think he's a fabulous running back pick in the middle rounds. Any concern about the variance of production with the different backs involved and the way that game plans change with Bill Belichick?

It is what it is. You've got to take some of those. It's built into it. Last season, with all the variants, with all that issue, with all the injuries. So you're talking about basically the worst case of having variable issues come in. People still got a lot of fantasy wins out of Rex Burkhead. They started him when it mattered, and he produced. All right, Rex Burkhead was the pick by JJ. Let's move on.

Hey, everybody, Adam Rank here. My fantasy MVP for the coming season is Jordan Freaking Howard. Yeah. Go ahead and slander him for his lack of hands. Those same hands that helped him become a fantasy stalwart in John Fox's offense. Look, what Jordan was able to do under Fox's offense, which was the NFL equivalent of the fax machine, was nothing short of miraculous. Like a Michael Phelps was out there winning gold medals with a sandbag strapped around his neck. You put this absolute stud in Matt Nagy's offense.

and it will be like upgrading from an 8-bit Nintendo to a PS4. So hear me now, draft him later. Jordan Howard is your fantasy MVP. A very emboldened Jordan Howard take from NFL.com's Adam Rank. Jason's a little bit sweaty. I see the perspiration on the forehead. He's one of my three my guys. I believe in him. And I love the analogy because the 8-bit Nintendo gaming system.

It was fantastic. Yeah, hey. It was great. And Jordan Howard's been great. But now you're going to upgrade it to the new hotter model. And I think that's going to happen. Yeah, the interesting thing about the Nintendo is it's never as good when you go back. And hopefully Howard doesn't have to go back at any point in his career. Yeah, I love the pick as well. Jordan Howard was the running back I ended up with at the 12 pick.

in yesterday's listener league draft a 14 team league you got them with your second pick i did i'm sorry yes i got him with the second pick so early second round um had odell beckham in the first came back with jordan howard i'm content with that he's got his roll carved out his production is proven when you talk about risk grading with a player

On a terrible team that ran very few offensive plays last year, he was still a productive touchdown scorer. We know the case for Jordan Howard and not buy into it. And they have, in Chicago, Tariq Cohen and Jordan Howard have essentially split third down work. This isn't, it becomes third down and they take Jordan Howard off the field forever. He's getting, he's going to get a lot more third down work than people want to think about. Do you think that's deep?

You think that's because if you have, I mean, this would be my opinion of that situation, but if you're just putting Tariqon out there and you don't believe in his between the tackles ability, you take some, you take some of the.

different play calls that you can make off the field. 100%. If you can't draw a play to Jordan Howard, let him pick up the yards that way. I've always hated. Like a smart coach. Yes, I've always hated when you have just because the personnel is out here, you know what play we're going to run. That's part of the problem with, you know, Adrian Peterson going to the Redskins. It's like when he's out there, they're.

They're going to run the ball. We saw that last year when he was with Arizona. We did. We did. But one thing I want to point out here, because we've gone back to back from, you know, the Matt LaFloor change to the Matt Nagy change. For fantasy players, we focus so often on the player that we're drafting. We get so micro. And it's good to know for future years, like one of the biggest ways to draft quality.

players who outperform their average draft position is to base it on year over year team data. And that's what you see a lot of these analysts doing with those two teams. You recognize how under the average both of those teams were, the Bears and the Titans last season. You are always going to end up with a draft price based on what have you done for me, which is going to be a little lower than what they now can do.

Yeah, no, you're right. And we've got another macro pick here, Ross Tucker, contributing his fantasy MVP. Hey, it's former NFL offensive lineman Ross Tucker of the Fantasy Feast Eaton podcast. And my MVP is, you guessed it, the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line. They were already the best in the NFL a year ago. And now they get my former teammate, Future Hall of Famer Jason Peters.

back at left tackle. So what does that mean? It means there are still value picks for the Philadelphia Eagles. Number one, especially in PPR leagues, I like Nelson Aguilar.

I don't know that Alshan Jeffrey is going to be the same guy coming off of the injury as well as getting the new contract. Nelson Aguilar is the one that's hungry. Nelson Aguilar is the one that's looked great in training camp and wants to increase his numbers to the next level so that he can get his own big contract. And believe it or not,

I also like Darren Sproles as a value pick. This is his last season. He had to watch the Super Bowl. He wants to go out in a major way. So again, in a PPR league, I think Sproles will surprise all of us. He usually does. Well, a lot to cover there. I cannot draft the Eagles offensive line. I've tried to click that button.

It won't let me put five players on my team at the same time. Mike did a good job drafting the Eagles offensive line. I certainly did. Last night's listener league. So the listener league, as Andy had said, it's a 14 teamer. So this is a, with deeper benches. This is a deep league. You need to make sure your running backs are good to go. And in the third round, I was able to grab J.J.E. I went RBRB or B.

To start this. And then we do talk about on this show, we are not proponents of drafting your perceived handcuff in a regular league in a 10 team and a 12 team because there's just so many variables of, you don't even know if an injury happens to the start. Will the backup be the guy? In Philadelphia, we're very confident that if something were to happen to J. H.I., Corey Clement would be the man. It would be Corey Clement and Darren Sproles.

handling the bulk of the work. On top of that, Corey Clement has standalone value. So in that draft, I took Ajai, and then around the eighth or ninth round, I grabbed Corey Clement, and I was incredibly happy to have two guys who have value, and I'm locking up, like Ross talked about. I've locked up the Philadelphia offensive line. What about the Darren Sproul's discussion, though, because he's undrafted entirely. There are players that are handcuffs like Austin Eccler or...

Doug Martin that are being drafted, but Darren Sproles is not being talked about. He's not being touched. Because of what you just said, if Ajai goes down, it's Clement, and then Sproles has value. That's the perception that there isn't standalone value to Sproles yet, and we haven't talked about it. Yeah, no, I'm glad you bring that up. There is, I mean, it's Ross Tucker said it perfectly when he ended. He usually does surprise. Yeah, he does. You know.

Darren Sproles has never been overdrafted, right? Like nobody's like, you know, expecting huge things for Darren Sproles, and then he's, he's always underdrafted unless he's been injured. And when he made the decision to come back, part of that, and if you read, he wrote this really honest piece about his decision to come back, some of the records that he's chasing and whether or not coming off of injury at his age, he could actually perform. And reading that article and seeing how,

transparent and honest he was about the goods and the bads. I believe that he is ready to go for this season. And Clement, Clement is seen as this pass catching back because of what happened in the Super Bowl and his past catching work. But the truth is he is not the receiving back there. That is Darren Sprouls. So if you're in a full PPR league, Darren Sprouls is, I mean, even in a deep league, he's usually undrafted and you will be able to flex him in. Eight targets.

Week one last year, four targets, week two. So he will have some of his own standalone value, but it's got to be a deeper PPR league for me. All right, let's move on. Hey, it's Liz Loz of Yahoo Sports, and I'm here with the best bounceback candidate of 2018. Listen, if Brad Evans won't quit Terrell Pryor and Matt Harmon refuses to give up on Tyler Lockett, then I will remain forever true to Jameson Crowder. Yes, he drove the struggle bus last year, but that's not because he's not talented.

It's because he was hurt. He played through a hip injury that he suffered in the preseason. That lingered and then turned into a hamstring injury, which didn't really clear up until the back half of the season.

In fact, over the final six weeks of 2017, Crowder turned four end zone looks into three scores. That's a pretty solid conversion rate. And it's also worth mentioning that his first score the season came in week 12 when Chris Thompson, you know where I'm going with this. The team's other short yardage weapon was out. Not for nothing. Thompson still isn't 100% heading into this season, so that should benefit Crowder's opportunity share.

Plus, any report coming out of D.C. that isn't about Washington's backfield is about the budding bromance between Crowder and his new quarterback Alex Smith. Given the overlap in their skill sets, that feels like a happily arranged fantasy marriage. Mark my words, Crowder is going to rebound, and not just for a couple of games like fellow Duke product Kyrie Irving. I'm fearlessly forecasting 71 catches 877 yards and six touchdowns for Crowder.

I'm surprised you didn't know it's pronounced crowd air. Proud air. Well, not everyone knows that. No, but Jason, you ever ridden the struggle bus before? I have. Usually it's when I'm speaking. Has you written it? I'm driving the ship over here. I struggle to get the words out in the right order. You know, I stared down a decision in the draft yesterday.

14 team, the listener league one. And it was deciding between going with crowd a order Rule 86, Jordan Reed. Who did I actually want to invest that kind of go-to short-yardage option? And I went with the one that I thought had better red zone ability in Jordan Reed in that draft. However, I completely buy in to almost everything that Liz said there because.

Crowder had a great second half of the season. And he was so...

hyped in the off season that he burned people with the bad start. So I think we forget about him and that's evident in his average draft position. Right now being drafted as the wide receiver 35 in the back of the seventh round. Over the last six games that she talked about, he was the wide receiver 13 and half point scoring. In fact, over the last eight games, he was still the wide receiver 17. He really got it going the second half of the season. But it is worth mentioning what you talked about in your draft last night that Jordan Reed.