Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Post Hype Sleepers, AFC North Breakdown

Tons of friends and influences around them, and they're very young. And we know the NFL does. And let's be honest. Think about 22-year-old self. Absolutely. You've now have $2 million. Yep. What are you going to do? You're a celebrity and you get everything you want. It's more about can you get people around them early to let them know the impact. Look, Zeke might have done nothing wrong.

But he still was in a position where he wasn't above her approach as an NFL celebrity role model athlete and puts himself in the spotlight for the third time for a bad reason. Well, the craziest part is just it's while he's under investigation that he would do this. I mean, you're waiting for a possible suspension to come down. Yeah. While you're asking people to trust you. And then you say, well, but I'm not really trustworthy. In my opinion, I think this is something that the NFL will take into consideration.

I didn't think he was going to be suspended. I said that the last show for whatever happened. Now, I would say, you know, there's a better chance that the NFL says, we need to help this 21-year-old and say, you've got to act by the rules or you're going to lose games. Yeah, we need to digress, I guess, into the fantasy implications here of the Zeke and the foreman potential legal issues. You know, Jason, you talked to Elmar Miller.

Obviously, it's not good for Foreman to be in this situation if he was ever going to take over a backup role. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of backups there. You know, Alfred Blue and Hunt, and Foreman, I think, is still probably the favorite for that backup role. The first few weeks of their schedule is a little rough anyway, so if he does miss that, I don't think this really affects anything fantasy football-wise. I wouldn't have expected Foreman to come in the first few weeks and really be any...

any kind of startable fantasy asset at all. The only reason it would change things as if, you know, if Lamar Miller got injured in the first week or something like that. All right. Michael Floyd has been suspended four games for violating the league's substance abuse policy. Mike Zimmer said he'd be released if the team determines he's lying about his kombucha tea defense. The old kombucha tea defense. He probably is. David Gettleman.

This is big news. General manager of the Panthers has been fired despite three or four playoff appearances during his tenure. Reports said that he was not on board with a Greg Olson extension. He's never. He's never. That is not that that chose to let Josh Norman go. And then you had. Steve Smith. Yeah. Steve. Angela Williams. Loyalty is not built into his DNA. DeAngelo Williams. DeAngela Williams tweeted out.

essentially calling him a snake. Yeah, not nice words. He's not a player's GM, but the reality is for fantasy football, for Carolina Panthers fans, you don't have to be a player's GM. In fact, a lot of times when you're not a player's GM, you might be a better GM. I didn't know there were players' GMs. Well, I mean, Steve Kahn. I thought there were owners' GMs. I'm just saying, you know, like a players coach, when you're one of those guys that the players love the GM, they know you got your back.

This has never been one of those guys, but a lot of times, I mean, you look at the Patriots shipping guys out when they're in their prime. We're not resigning guys to long-term deals. It's not necessarily unwise. And he came in to a situation with the Panthers with a very bad cap. You know, a bad cap situation. He fixed it. He drafted well. So long-term, I'm not saying this is bad because we don't know who they're replacing him with yet. But they are letting go a good GM, in my opinion.

All right, the Bears plan to start Mike Glennon for the whole season, last bit of news. That makes me, honestly, sounds strange. Makes me more excited for the receiving options in Chicago. Mike Glennon can be Brian Hoyer. Mike Glennon can throw the ball around the field enough, I think, to, you know, win the wide receivers eventually get sifted out. Yeah, check back with me in like week six. Okay. All right, that's it. Let's get into the divisions.

Let's get divisional. All right, we're going to start in the AFC North. We're going to break down the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last year, 11 and 5. Talk about the players of note in the fantasy football sphere for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Talk about some additions and subtractions to this roster and what we expect from. Mike is pointing at me. We also forgot to throw in. We were in the news, and we didn't mention it. Kurt Cousins, Levium Bell, not extended.

They will play the year on their franchise tag, which means they can only play on that. The team cannot extend them until the end of the year. That's right. We were waiting for that news to break right before the show started and nobody signed. Apparently, Kirk Cousins turned down 53 million guaranteed. He's a better man than I. It's because he cannot sign that deal yet with the San Francisco 49ers where he will end up. Yeah, Washington's rebuttal to Kirk Cousins was they basically came out, showed all their cards and said, this is what.

Kurt Cousins turned down, you know, putting all blame, pointing all fingers at Cousins. Meanwhile, I mean, you had those years before where Kirk Cousins wanted to get something done and the team pretty much devalued him. He does not want to play for Washington. Yeah. I'll bet he'd want to play for the Steelers next year when Big Ben leaves. All right. Let's talk about Big Ben. Let's talk about Lev Bell, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant. In terms of addition subtractions this offseason, you really saw the drafting of Juju Smith-Juster and.

The handcuff, not the handcuff that DeAngelo Williams was, who was now gone as well as Laderius Green. But James Connor, drafted in the third round. Jason, a big fan of James Connor. He's a good player. So let's talk about what we expect to see from this offense and this team this year. One of the more interesting facts that I saw about the Steelers in general, you know, obviously a very, very good offensive line.

The ball is in Lev Bell's hands frequently, but this is a team that also went for two points by far more than anybody else in football. 32% of the time they're going for two. That's good for you. Extra points for Big Ben, Antonio Brown, opportunities for Lev Bell. I think the next closest team was 5% less is Tampa. So interesting aspect to that offense, but what are the headlines here for you, Mike? The headlines, it was...

James Connor was one because that's what reminded me was thinking about Levion Bell and a possible holdout situation. He has not signed his tender, which means he's not under obligation to report to camp. He could show up at the end of August. What that does while he's, you know, trying to play the leverage card on the other side of that is now the team gets a really good look at James Connor and gets to decide.

Well, maybe at the end of the year, we're going to let you go, and you can get your money somewhere else, Levy on Bell, because we like James Connor. How do you feel about, you know, you could argue that Leve Bell's making the right decision not showing up to football activities until late because you're going into a franchise year. You have no guaranteed money beyond that, and you don't want to get yourself hurt. I'm not blaming him at all. Rest your body, Lev Bell. I just, it's the thing of running backs, skipping.

preseason or skipping training camp and they come back and they get hurt because their body has not been reacclimated to getting hit yeah that it's possible i mean obviously we've we've got a history of that with levy on bell already the the story to me from the steelers is the wide receiving core uh okay throw antonio brown out of the conversation we don't need to discuss him he's great he's you know the best wide receiver in the game but from there martavis bryant wasn't there last year

So does he just come in and inherit that role the way that most everyone expects him to do or is calling for the battle between Sammy Coates and Marcus Wheaton was lost by both parties last year?

They both knocked each other out and fell down. They lost the job last year to Martavis, who wasn't even playing. Right. But now Eli Rogers, who looked great for a rookie and Juju Smith Schuster, I'm just curious how outside of Antonio Brown, there are plenty of targets and value to go around here. Do you guys see any value in either Eli or Juju this year?

I've said I think Juju is kind of a deep sleeper candidate to me. I think he's very, very talented. This is a guy that was projected to go at the very top of the NFL draft if he had come out a year earlier. Passing yards per game, like Jason said, fifth in the league, there's a lot of yardage to go around. It's not all going to Antonio Brown. It took me a while to get on the Martavis train because I wanted to see him come into camp or basically OTAs and show that he's ready to play football. All indications are that's the case. So I'm definitely.

looking at Martavis Bryant as a very high upside play for fantasy owners. And like Mike said, you know, DiAngelo Williams last two years, when he's had the opportunity to start, he's been a headline guy. So if that means that James Connor is that guy, how high do you handcuff your love? I don't know if I handcuff him in the draft at all. But if we are getting further and further into August, I mean, we're approaching the beginning of the season and we still haven't even seen.

Levy on Bell. In some drafts, I may hedge that of my feeling that running backs need some form of training camp to get their body ready. And the last thing I'll say about the receiving core is there's been talk about them going four wide. As they should. I mean, that's that passing attack, Brown, and then you have you have freak athletes in Martavis Bryant and Sammy Coates and Juju Smith, who can be the big slot guy that's been reported.

How are you possibly going to stop this? Is Jesse James underrated? Nope. Okay. Not for me. Yeah, you're not a big Jesse James fan. If you're in a PPR league, I think Jesse James could, if they go forward and that becomes like their standard set, then no, because that would come at the expense of Jesse James. But I do think if they keep with the same offense they've had over the last few years, and you could argue why not, Jesse James should be, you know.

there and utilize obviously ladarius green is gone and heath miller always made a a good chunk of fantasy points in that role so he made them just put it cooked him in a stew put a little bit of butter i wondered where you were going to go i just wanted to let it keep coming all right we're going to move on to the ravens before we get to the ravens i want to thank today's sponsor indochino and this is a genuine thank you because i i i've never ever put on a piece of clothing

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Don't embarrass yourself. Invite your friends over to your man cave and have a bunch of pristine auction gear on the wall. Yes. All right. Let's talk about the Ravens. We're going to stay in the North, talking about the Ravens. Oh, the North. The North. All right. I'm very excited to talk about this team. I think that this is one of those, you know, you're going to find a diamond or two in the fantasy world on this roster. They threw the ball 61% of the time last year. That is number one in football. Wow.