Fantasy Football 2018 - Free Agency Winners & Losers, Commish Tips

because he had almost a thousand yards last year. And you say, okay, he's going to go and he's going to platoon. And then he signs with San Francisco and Mike Shanahan. Kyle. Kyle Shanahan, four years $30 million. Starter money. I think about 12 of that is guaranteed in year one. Shanahan has coached a top 15 fantasy back five of his last six seasons. He is now rich in money, talking about McKinnon, rich in opportunity.

to play potentially all three downs in San Francisco. And last year, I think we saw that he's fairly rich in talent. So he has the ability. Now, he's smaller. Mike, you and I talked a lot about this when we're talking about the draft and the combine. He's 5-9-205. Like, Jared McKinnon is not big. So that's going to be the question mark for people. But Kyle Shanahan talked about that. And he said, look, guys that are...

2.30, they're not running, they're not three downbacks either. And they've looked, he said this. Here's an exact quote. We looked in all the running backs in free agency. We thought he was the top guy. That's who we targeted. We're happy to get him. He talked about how he could visualize using him in all the different ways that McKinnon is valuable. And then the most important quote for fantasy owners. He said, people talk about him being a third down back, which he is, a very good one. And we plan on using him that way. But I think he's a good first and second down back too.

So when you talk about talent, opportunity, the money, following the money, right now it looks like Jerop McKinnon gets to step into the Devante Freeman role, something I didn't think was going to be handed to him, something that didn't exist in very many places. I mean, can you think of another team or situation where you'd be more excited? For a guy to weigh 205, running back to weigh 205, it's an outlier for you to be one of the top performers. But.

We saw what Kyle Shanahan did with Devon to Freeman. And we saw there are running backs to do it. I mean, Jamal Charles, 511, 199. It's not impossible, but you are the outlier. Yes, you are the outlier, no doubt about it. Yeah, I'm not confident he can hold up, but it is a great situation. I would have picked Derek McKinnon. The funny thing is, you not already stolen him in our dock. All right, well, go on.

Yeah, so I'm going with another running back, somewhat similar to Mitch Trubisky in the sense that he's staying exactly where he was, but everything around him was perfect. And that is Rex Goathead as Mike would say. Oh, thank you. What was the other name that you said, though? That was much better. What, Sexy Rexy? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's one. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. No, look, I don't like Rex Goathead. It's a stupid name. But the people have, the people have spoken, and they want it, and they love it. It's great. Rex Burkhead.

re-signs with the New England Patriots. And the issue with the New England Patriots running game is you don't know who it's going to be. For years, you want to avoid the New England Patriots running back position because is it going to be this guy or that guy? However, there has still been a ton of fantasy value. Dionne Lewis won a lot of people, a lot of stuff last year. Garrett Blunt, the year prior, was super valuable. Dionne Lewis is gone.

Dionne Lewis left in free agency, goes to the Titans. They re-sign Rex Burkhead to a three-year contract, which is great. Then they go, and the only other signing, so you know it wasn't just going to be, you know, Gilly, who they didn't use last year and Rex Burkhead. They're going to bring another back in. Are they going to spend finally, you know, some high capital running back in the draft? Probably not. That's not their way. Are they going to go sign?

You know, Isaiah Crowell was the name that I was thinking because they always poached the Browns. No, they went and got Jeremy Hill. Old busted or Young busted, maybe. They signed him to, yeah, they signed him to a super cheap contract. So now it's basically a pass. They'll approve it deal. Not even just a cheap contract. No, he might not even make the team. This says to me that they are.

confident in Rex Burkhead. He's one of their only two pass-catching running back options at all, and he could run well through the lanes. I look back at last year and check this out. So I think Rex Burkhead will average over 10 touches this next year a game. Total touches between ground and air. Is that a fair number? That's more than fair. 10 is a kind of low number. Last year, he got injured in the very beginning of the year.

Took a while to come back. When he came back until he got injured again. Yeah. That's a different problem. When he was in, he had a stretch of five of six games in a row where he averaged, or where he had more than 10 touchdowns, five games, more than 10 touches. Goodness, gracious. But in those games, if he had 10 touches or more, he averaged 17.18 fantasy points a game and half point PPR.

That's enormous. That is just ahead of the average of Alvin Camara at 17.1 and a half point PPR leagues. He's really valuable to this offense. And if he does get the touches next year, I think he's going to be a steal in drafts. I can't argue. That is he, whenever you have a running back that can do multiple things in that system, you increase your odds of Belichick not screwing it up. So I have some other free agent winners, guys. And I want to see, I'm going to give you a name.

Tell me whether you agree that they're a winner in free agency. Kurt Cousins. Oh, huge winner. Sure. Yeah. Tons of weapons. Larry Fitzgerald. I don't think so. Oh, see, I put Larry Fitzgerald as a winner simply because I was surprised to see that there, Mike. But here's the deal. What if the Arizona Cardinals done? I'm talking fantasy football. Sure. What if the Cardinals done at the wide receiver position? Nothing. Exactly.

And they got an accurate quarterback. Sure. Sam Bradford's health, to be determined, probably won't play all 16 games. But they don't have talent at the wide receiver position. Larry Fitzgerald is going to get so many targets. That's fair. It's the health. The health is the issue, right? For San Bradford. For Sam Bradford. If they went out and got Kirk Cousins, if they went out and got, you know, Case Keenum even, I would say, yeah, this is good for Larry.

See, I think it's... I think Bradford will be great for Larry. Even if Glennon was starting and Larry's the number one on the debt chart, he'd be all right. Yep. He was okay with Stanton. Alan Hurts, winner. Chance at a bigger role. Absolutely. Danny Amadola? If, well, we don't know what's going to happen. Every down roll in Miami? If he takes over Jarvis Landry's slot duties for Ryan Tannahill. Albert Wilson is going to get in the way. This was a potential. I wrote him down as a potentially a huge winner.

Randall Cobb? Yeah, I mean, with Jordy leaving, Randall Cobb becomes a de facto wide receiver two. He's had great years before. He's a huge winner. All right. At the running back position winner, Peyton Barber? As of now, yes, to say so. Yes. He was called, the quote from Dirk Cutter, head coach of the Buccaneers was very funny because he's our starting running back right now. That could change. Probably will. But it may be. We would expect that. It would.

But they didn't address it in free agency. Are they really going to draft a running back high? Look, Peyton Barber might be on the list of the losers when it comes to, okay, winners and losers after the draft. But in free agency, he is a clear winner. They've upgraded their offensive line and done nothing to put a running back ahead of him. Is Todd Gurley a winner of this offseason thanks to the improvements on the St. Louis or Los Angeles defense? He is to me. The Los Angeles Rams defense is ridiculous.

up front and their secondary is absolutely outrageous the moves that they have been able to pull off. Will they be losing a game? Like when will they be trailing? Very, very infrequently. There's a difference between the on paper and on the field. Sure. That's fine. Are they going to gel like Denver did? Or are they going to end up like the Philly defense did a few years ago with the big free agents? Yeah.

But they have incredible talent. I believe in Sean McVeigh. I believe in Wade Phillips. Yeah, I was going to say, son of bum. It's about son of bum. When you give him weapons, he uses them the right way. Right. So, yeah, sure. What about Kristen Michael? You got it. Oh, Mike, you put it in here just so I could play the draw. Oh, and he's a winner. He's not a winner. Yes, he is. He's back. He's got another paycheck. Tyler Eifert? Yeah. I think that's a winner. He stays where he's comfortable. I actually moved him. Wait.

Spoiler alert. Next week, early ranking episodes. Oh, yes. Can't stop them. And we have put together our rankings. And you'll get our consensus ranks. You'll hear where we have guys. And I moved Eifford up significantly. I don't disagree. Got to stay healthy. If he stays healthy, though, Tyler Eifford's been an absolute monster. And then you wanted to bring up Nick Venet and Luke Wilson. You might want to tell people who they are and what team they play for. And what position they play. So Pat Thorntman, I've talked about Nick Vanette on this show.

Also the sport. But Pat Thorman from Pro Football Focus, he was tweeting out things about teams who have had targets vacated by certain positions. The Seahawks have 112 targets to the tight end position that are unaccounted for. Because Jimmy Graham has left. And so has Luke Wilson. Right. And Nick Bennett. I believe you mean Luke Wilson. Thank you. Nick Minet is there. And right now he's the pass catching tied end. I'm not saying he's going to get 112 targets.

He's on your dynasty. He goes from someone that you've never heard of to someone involved in the passing game. And then the aforementioned Luke Wilson, he went to Detroit, who has 104 tight-in targets that are unaccounted for with Eric Ebron and Darren Feld's gone. They just signed Toy Lolo, who's a blocking tight end. Luke Wilson's going to be the pass-catching tight end in this offense. That'd be interesting. He could have a Jack Doyle of a year. And he's more athletic than...

than Jack Doyle. If you recall a couple of years back when before Jimmy Graham was in Seattle, Luke Wilson had had some monster plays with Russell. Yeah, no, I like it. And if he has a great year, then we get to keep saying Luke Wilson. So I'll be thrilled. All right. Let's talk about the free agent losers. Who were the biggest losers? We called the Brian Ketron Award. Yeah, I almost said the free agent Ketrans, but no one would know what we're talking about.

Brian Catcher is the individual who lost in the listener league to Jason. He's been upgraded to the segment titles. The main podcast getting on blast instead of just the footcast. Yes. Nobody lost more of this offseason than Brian Catcher. Followed by Carlos Hyde. So the running back that Kyle Shanhan has now disposed of has let go to free agency who is frequently heard. He's missed 14 games in his career so far.

He heads to Cleveland, and it's Dr. Jackson and Mr. Hyde in Cleveland. Hugh Jackson is talking him up, but he enters these disgusting shadows of Isaiah Crowell. Look, on this show, one year ago, I named Isaiah Crowell one of the biggest offseason winners because they had established this incredible offensive line in Cleveland. Well, much to my chagrin,

If you're never winning a game and you never hand the ball to your running back, they cannot score points. And it was not a good year for Isaiah Crowell relative to what we expected and hoped. Duke Johnson is still involved. So Carlos Hyde enters that backfield with Duke Johnson. He's not going to catch passes. And they're going to draft somebody. They have so many, what, 18, 17 draft picks. There's going to be another running back competing in that backfield. Maybe it's late, if you're lucky. And Carlos Hyde can give you some sort.

of value. But last year, listen to this. 12 rushing touchdowns, I'm sorry, 11 rushing touchdowns by the team. Five were Deschon Kaiser. So then you had six rushing touchdowns to split between Duke Johnson and Isaiah Corral last year, and you're probably going to have three guys in that backfield in some capacity to split, what, 10, 8? It's just not, it's not inspiring, is my point. It's more troublesome than inspiring.

If you want to say Derek McKinnon went to the best possible place, you could argue that Carlos Hyde went to the worst possible situation. He went to... At least he's still the lead back. Yes. He didn't go to a situation where he's second on the death chart. Now, that could change if Sequin Barclay shows up, which they say is still an option in Cleveland. I don't think that'll happen. Or Chubb or Penny or any of these other guys that are going to be more...

durable. Carlos Hyde caught 59 passes last year. That's the real problem. Especially great at, but it really helped him for fantasy. And now he goes to a team that has Duke Johnson and Jarvis Landry. Carlos Hyde is not going to be a pass in the past catching role. So while I'm actually warming up to him in this spot a little bit because I don't believe they'll draft Sequin, his upside is absolutely capped. It's not a good situation in general. He's running back to, uh, he is a,

As the Carlos Hyde Truther on this show, I guess exposing myself as the truther here, but he is a much better running back than Isaiah Crowell. True. Much, much better. And Kaiser's gone. Kaiser won't be stealing rushing touchdowns for the Cleveland Browns. I really wish that Carlos Hyde had to gone somewhere else, but here he is. He's still going to end up as a running back too, though. Okay. But I'm with you. Things could have been Tampa.