Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Final Thoughts on Preseason Week 3, News, Mailbag

Wait, I just want to go back and point out one thing. It's too late. Oh, all right. Never mind. Let's go on. No, the one thing I want to point out because we've, as a group, been down on him. But Matt Forte looked like he was running just fine. He looked spry and healthy. And so I'm just throwing that out there from a standpoint of don't be too scared off from what we've said about the potential to fall off because he looked. Well, what we've said is he's a low end RB1. Yeah. We don't think he's a top five pick. Yeah, I think that's fair.

I think that's fair. And what I saw of him, I completely have not changed my opinion. Yeah, I agree with you. And the two previous preseason games add to that. I would just say you've got to take it as a whole. I mean, he might have looked good that game, but he still stays, I mean, he's still a top 12 guy for all of us. Yeah. It's just a matter of the offense isn't going to dump him the ball as much, I don't think. Correct. But, but to Jason's point,

If Jeffrey's out and time is missed, he'll be somebody who catches the ball more. So let's talk about Minnesota Dallas a little bit more. Steady Teddy, throwing the ball, threw a great deep ball down the sideline to Mike Wallace, who was very involved. Man, that throw was right on the money. There was no margin for error on the sideline throw. It was fantastic. Yeah, he was.

So Teddy Bridgewater, you drafted him on Sunday as your quarterback. I took him as my quarterback. One, we... Give me touchdown numbers for Teddy Bridgewater, because that's the concern for me is that I just don't know how high they can get. I think he can get in the high 20s. Okay. And possibly low 30s. I think the offense is going to really take off. He didn't even, he didn't play full year. He's my number one quarterback that wears gloves. Yes. Because Kurt Warner doesn't play anymore.

But the offense, you could see it ascending last year. Tost in a Hall of Fame running back. It just gets even better. It should be very, very good. And their head coach is known to bring the best out of the defensive unit. And so this is a team that I really think if you were in Vegas and you, I'd take the over on their win total. Because I think it's at seven and a half right now. Yeah, I think I'd buy any of that. Let's talk about.

Cleveland and Tampa. Did you see Josh... Just for a minute. Did you see McCown get blown up? I didn't see that play. Oh, my goodness. So Josh... Jason's back. Oh, he got... I mean, it just shows you there's cement in his head already because there's no way you like survive. He got blown up. He pulled the, he had booted out of the pocket and he's playing the game, the chicken game with the linebacker of, am I going to run it or am I going to throw it?

The linebacker put everything on run and blew him up nasty. You know what it reminded me of? I started playing Madden. When you... The hit stick. When you're looking downfield and you don't even see that there's a pass. I'm telling you, he had no idea that guy was there. His eyes, credit to him, were downfield, but no peripheral vision. He got smashed straight on. So back to fantasy. McCowan, 17 of 23, two touchdowns. Yep.

McCown is an okay quarterback. He's not great. He's not what he was at the Chicago Bears where he was just every pass he threw was a touchdown. But I think that he's an okay guy. The weapons there aren't going to lead to a high-powered offense, but this is why I like Dwayne Bo as a later round flyer guy. And I would take heartline in a second over Dwayne Bo. Do you want to have the grossest

unsexiest waterbed of all time. So is it just Heartline Bow? Heartline versus Bo. All right, let's do it. Waterbed. That's a... That's a vomit bet. That's my... I would get on Andy's side, but I'm just too grossed out by participation. That's my favorite bet. Because I hope I win with like 18, you know, 18 catches for 384 yards. That would be really good yards per catch. Bo still has to get the chemistry going with McCown, but...

Yeah. There's some value there is, right? Right? That's my favorite bet. I hope that one you don't get watered. You get like sludged or something. Like they just, you throw something nasty on yourself. All right. So let's talk about Tampa for a second before we move on. Not as smooth of a game for Winston. It's pretty much the preseason is what you're going to see all year. The news down all around. The news was that he's playing on a sprained ankle.

Well, great. You know what? If you're out on the field, I'm just saying. That's saying. So why is he playing on a sprained ankle in Precious? Yeah, because he needs reps. And he's James Winston and he's a stunt. Yeah, I don't know how to handle these rookie quarterbacks. I appreciate the help. You're welcome. Is it so Evans, Vincent Jackson, Doug Martin. Doug Martin's looked fine. He's looked really good. He had kind of a hot and cold game where he was getting stuffed at the line and then he broke off some big runs. Is he in the second round yet?

Of ADP. I hope not. Gross. He, you know, he lasted a very, very long time in our draft. He should. He's still at value. So they will speak to the Doug Martin Enigma again. People, maybe he's back, but there's, we have three preseason games of him looking okay, and we have two years of him looking bad. So do not reach on Doug Martin in the fourth round. I don't think you're going to be happy with your return. If he's in the fifth round,

Okay, maybe I'll start thinking about it. Oh, go ahead. His ceiling is not what we hoped it was after his rookie campaign, because their offensive line is really bad. And you spoke to it already. He was hot and cold that game, right? I was writing down notes about how Martin didn't look good all game. And then he busted off that 19-yard touchdown run, and it was like, oh, you know, his yards per carry went up. But the rest of the game, every time they snap the ball.

The offensive line was a real problem there. And so what's the ceiling? Let me ask you this. This is an important question, okay? Because a lot of people are going to go wide receiver, wide receiver to start a draft. And they're going to be staring down running backs to fill out that starting running back core in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth round. If you are one of those teams and you, let's say you went first two rounds, you got wide receivers, would you rather have Doug Martin or Amir Abdullah? Abdullah. Even with the unknowns as to workload.

Because you know Martin will have a workload. That's the question. That's why I'm throwing it out there is you have to have a RB1 or an RB2. You're still rolling out Abdullah over Doug Martin. Sealing. Sealing to me. Upside of Abdullah. You can't only pay attention to upside, right? No, but when you're, when you've punted a bit on your running backs, you want upside. See, that's a, I think that's a competing philosophy because I, I might.

If I've punted on running backs, I want a guy I know is going to get the rock versus taking a David Johnson or somebody like that who I don't know their performance. Like I'd rather roll ivory and Martin out there every week with my top tier wide receivers than I would, Abdullah and Woodhead. When you're punting on running back, you're taking these backup type guys who you're anticipating the opportunity will come for one of them to turn into a lead back.

That's kind of what the overall strategy is. Up in Detroit, that's not a bad bet to take. With Joyc Bell just coming off a pub, he has to get back in game shape in a week. Don't worry about it. His chance for re-injuring while he's training is completely existent. It could happen, and that's more likely to happen than for Doug Martin to return to running back one form. The guy that came to mind while you were saying this was Chris Ivory.

just because he's going behind both of those guys. That's crazy. He's got an offensive line that is good. And so I think his... And a team that will run. Yeah. And so I see what you're saying, Andy. And I think that you do need, if you don't have any running backs yet, you have to get a guy that you know is playing and starting. I think really what we got out of that. And I'm glad we discussed it because people face that all the time. And we get all these draft reports where I can see people face it all the time. They stared that decision down and they're running out Doug Martin or they're running out...

an upside guy, and I think it's kind of about what kind of owner you are. Are you risk averse? Do you want solid production? I mean, it's standard PBR matters to me, too, in those situations. Yeah, I agree. Right now, I just looked this up, and Doug Martin is going ahead of Amir Abdullah, Arian Foster, Jonathan Stewart, and Chris Ivory. And personally, I would take all of those guys over there. Did you say he's going ahead of Jonathan Stewart? Yes. Yeah, we talked about... That's a talk show host, though, not the running back. That would be silly. Yeah, because we talked about this last week.

I know. And it's crazy. Sometimes when crazy things happen, you think they're dreams and you don't remember that you actually discuss them in real life. So since we've already tangited, let me go back to, because I had looked up the splits up. Oh, did you look the splits up? Yes, the splits up on Alfred Morris. Can you do the splits? Alfred Morris is super flexible. You haven't seen him? It's like Van Dam on the semis. Mm-hmm. Oh, that was nice.

So he's had 37 games with RG3 and 11 without. So good enough sample size, I think, to look. And so he's dropped over two fantasy points per game without RG3. And the thing is, is how that breaks down, same amount of carries.

but he gets 20 less yards per game in 11 contests. So I do think that... You're saying with Cousins. Yeah, without RG3. Without RG3. Because you don't have the same type of read option that kind of freezes that defense. I'm glad you brought us back to it because it's important for people to know, you know, every time these changes happen, Tyrod Taylor and Buffalo, Fred Jackson moving to Seattle, all these little changes impact players. And so for cousins coming in, people want to know, is it good or bad?

For Morris. Yeah. It's bad. And at least historically it's been bad. He's still going to be a starting running back and good and have value. We're not saying don't steer clear. Jonathan Stewart, Alfred, Alfred. Or I mean, Alfred Morris or Doug Martin? Alfred Morris. Okay. That's what I assume. But just making sure.

All right, let's go ahead and talk about one last game here before we answer a couple of mailbag questions. Atlanta, Miami, anything stand out to you from that game? Jarvis Landry. My goodness. Dude, I mean, he's just the guy. We've been talking about him all offseason. Tanahill looks great. Oh, Jarvis Landry is going to get, man, like he might be. 115 catches. Well, I'm saying he might have to be like the Target Monster Part B.

He's going to get more catches than Alan Robinson. I bet you that 5,000 times. It's very possible. I'm not going to deny that. You know who stuck out to me was Lamar Miller? I mean, his usage, he was on the field every play. They threw him the ball a ton. They ran it to him. They trusted him. And they're going to use him. And so I was already trying to trade for Lamar Miller. Oh. Just so you're aware, this is very important. Kevin Coleman looked terrible.

The old line looked atrocious. I know. I'm just pointing out Coleman because I'm a Devante Freeman guy. How did Freeman look? Well, he was resting up for week one like those starting running backs too. Yeah, like Joik. Joik. Adrian. Adrian. Adrian. Or Adrian Peters. Aaron Foster. Yeah. Eric Foster is resting up. Joyke Bell. All right. And Devonter Freeman. All right. We don't got a lot of time, but let's get into the mailbag a little bit. Mailbag. Mail bag. Oh, I was hoping for a joy bell. No.

All right, if you have a question, you go to the website, click the submit a question button. We try to answer a few on every show. You can also leave us a voicemail question 302-464-T-F-F-B. So we're going to start today's mailbag. We just got a little dip. Just a little dip into the mail bag. This is a mail-boo. A mail-baugh. Mail-satchel. All right, let's go ahead and listen to this one here.

Hey, this is actually in Des Moines. I just wanted to thank you guys for exposing Fred Jackson because now he's going to go to Seattle and injure Marshawn Lynch. So thanks for ruining my fantasy season, guys. But anyways, I was wondering, when is it too early to drive receiver and a three-road receiver in the Flex League? It's also PPR, so thanks, guys. We haven't even mentioned the dangerous situation that Marshaun Lynch is in.

No, I sent an email out to his people, just to say, watch out. The Fantasy Reaper knows. If anybody's immune from the Depth Chart Assassin, it's Marshawn Lynch. He's just got, he's too good. Too beastly. But to answer your question, it's never too early to draft a wide receiver in a league that has three wide receivers and a flex. It changes the position scarcity argument that we make for running backs instantly when you have doubled the amount or at least an additional wide receiver to start.

Wasn't Beast Mode injured when he was in Buffalo with Fred Jackson? Yes. Incredible. Because Fred Jackson poisons people. No, we got to stop. I love Fred Jackson. No, this is just, what if it's less intentional and it's more accidental? What if he's the guy who, you know, he has his meal and he accidentally leaves the knife out at the end of the table? It's just incidental, accidental stuff. Fred Jackson's a happy man. If Fred Jackson offers you some supplements. Do not or tea. You don't take them.