Fantasy Football 2017 - Fantasy Court + Key Questions for 2017

Trevor Simeon comes down, and Demarius Thomas in that first year with a seventh round quarterback finishes as the wide receiver 16.

Okay, so this is his floor. Now he's got a second year with Trevor Simeon, who's been named the starter. And over the course of the year, I mean, they've got a better offensive line, you know, a year with the same system. I believe Demarius Thomas is one of the safer players. He doesn't provide injury risk. He doesn't have team risk. He doesn't have suspension risk. He is pretty safe. And he does have the upside to get it done. So that is my case for Demarius Thomas, one of the safer.

wide receivers in fantasy football. If I wanted safety, I'd strap on a flotation device and I would lock myself in a room and I would hide and I would cower in a dark closet like the plaintiff, Jason Moore, who wraps himself in his blankie at night and says, oh, I'm so safe. It's a soft blankie. I'm so safe. I, in fact, may have to counter sue.

at the end of this for living in the past, living in those. I like how we, it's like, well, we can't use the Peyton Manning evidence, but I'm going to throw it in there anyways. Ha-ha! You didn't object. Absolutely ridiculous. Good Peyton Manning is not coming back. We have evidence that Demeris Thomas, and really all wide receivers, they need.

a top-level quarterback. Trevor Simeon is a seventh round pick. He's not moving up from 18 passing touchdowns to the mid-20s to the low 30s. It's just not in the realm of outcomes for Trevor Simeon. He's fine. He's fine. But that's not going to get you. Wide receiver won numbers last year, or 2015, sorry, bad Peyton Manning, bad Brock Oswald of the year.

The reason why Thomas was able to finish, at least respectively, was because of the 105 receptions. He dropped back down to 90 last year, and that's, and Demeris Thomas, he's fine, but he's a 90 reception type of guy, and he's not going to be anywhere near double-digit touchdowns, which is what you need to be a wide receiver one. There are very few wide receivers who can live as a one with just five or six touchdowns. You're talking Julio Jones.

And Demarius Thomas is not in a Julio Jones situation. What do you say, Judge? The court rules in favor of the defendant. Yes. Malarkey. Yes. All right. We got one more. Absolutely ridiculous. Plaintiff Andy Holloway is charging defendant Jason Moore with conspiracy to create a wide receiver three out of a wide receiver two. Oh, your honor. Your honor. Look.

This argument is simple. Mike's already talked extensively about his love for Martavis Bryant. It's time that I took the stand and pronounced the truth. And the truth is this. The time for fear and trepidation, Your Honor. It's over. The time for hesitation and caution, Your Honor. It is done. Your Honor, I am charging the defendant with a conspiracy to call Martavis Bryant what he just plain isn't. Here's...

the way that you approach ranking Martavis Bryant. You either take him off the board because you're scared or you place them where he belongs inside the top 20. A neutral and offensive rank of 32 is an affront to all that is good in the world and all that is good for a fantasy football roster. Martavis combined size, skill, speed, and dare I say sauciness?

You dare. I dare say that. And if he's healthy and reinstated, if he's healthy and reinstated, we need to pull our heads from the sand and accept the bounty of fantasy points coming our way. And I don't think the defendant's doing that. So don't try to make him what he isn't. Either take him off your board or give him what he deserves. Your Honor, I rest my case. Well, I can see some of that point. If he's healthy and reinstated, that's great. Oh, wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Breaking news, he is currently not actually reinstated yet for regular season football. But who cares? So what? I believe, Judge, that in order to get fantasy points, you have to play in the games. And yes, when he plays, oh, ceiling is there for sure. But he must play to produce value. His numbers are good except the one that says that he's only played in 24 of the last.

54 games, 23 due to suspension and seven due to injury, whether it was his AC joint or the knee sprain. I object. Because I don't like those stats. There is risk with. There is risk with Martavis Bryant that says we need to lower him. Now, my inflammatory prosecutor here would say that you should take him off your board if there's risk. I would say.

That's bad fantasy football advice. Good fantasy football advice is to realize risk and move him to a place in the draft where you think the risk is worth the reward. So let's talk the reward. What is the upside here with Martavis Bryant? My colleagues would have you say it's a wide receiver one. Because have you seen how he can jump down the field in like three strides and he's 60 yards down the field and catch a touchdown with his butt? Because I've seen him before and it makes you see.

It makes you think this guy is a wide receiver one, except the reality is Big Ben has only in his long storied career ever supported two wide receiver twos. I'm talking top 24 wide receivers once in his career. That was in 2009, and it's not like he hasn't had the opportunity to do it with Emmanuel Sanders and Mike Wallace and Antonio Brown. If you look at 2015 when he played three of his six touchdowns,

were brought on by Landry Jones. The 16-game pace with Ben Rothlisberger would have been a grand total of five touchdowns. Now, we've seen more than that. The year before, he got more than that from Big Ben. I am not saying that that is, you know, what the expectation is for Martavis Bryant. But what I am saying is altogether...

Altogether, you have a lot of risk, and he is not worth saying you should draft him as the 20th wide receiver out the board, which is his ADP. You have injury risk, you have suspension risk, you have too many mouths to feed risk, and you have Big Ben injury risk, although I will grant you this. Maybe that is good for Martavis Bryant because in the splits in 2015 between Big Ben and Landry Jones, it was a 10.

point difference in favor of when Big Ben wasn't playing. So, Your Honor, I say the risk says he is a good draft pick when he's about the 30th wide receiver out the board. I rest my case. I hope the court respects my brevity. Your Honor, what say you in this case? The court rules in favor of the defendant. All right. It's good to be the defendant. That is my first defeat.

In the history of fantasy court, and I don't like it, and I guess I needed to just reiterate my points five times in one argument. Yeah, it works a lot. Hey, listen, before we continue into answering some of these key questions for 2017, look, I want to thank pristine auction. Now, in our fantasy drafts, I love getting shady.

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Always. It's a trick. Trick question. Mailbag. Extra loud version. You're welcome. I was already ready for the voicemail questions in the mail bag section. I see. Hey, look, this show, we exist to help you win your league. And so if you have a question, you want to send them into the show, go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com.

Click the submit a question button in the menu and send them on in. And we try to answer them in our mailbag section of the show. You can also dial our voicemail hotline 302-464 TFFB. We're going to kick off today's mailbag with a voicemail question. So guys, let's get into it. Maybe. Hey, this is Tony from Maryland. A quick question for you. So which player that had the best preseason?

Are you not too sold on which player do you think that he will not perform as well in the regular season that he did? I appreciate it. All right, thanks, guys. That's a really good question. Yeah. Is there somebody that stands out for you? We talk up the players that do well as in, you know, keep an eye out on him, but which ones maybe are going to be overhyped? Chris Carson would be the guy for me. The reason why is not because I think he can't get it done or a lack of talent. It's because of the two guys in front of him. So you've got, you know, DeAngelo Henderson.

who I think showed flashes of brilliance and the guys in front of him are injury riddled risk havens but with Eddie a risk haven a risk that's that's awesome but with Eddie Lacey and Thomas Rawls both having looked really good in preseason I think Chris Carson is just a nice preseason story and I doubt

that he gets any run in the regular season. That's a good one, and ProSice is still there and involved. So I'll go with another Chris, and this one's Chris Hogan. I think Chris Hogan is the one that you don't want to buy into the hype. I think Chris Hogan is a balloon that you fill up, and then as the season starts, you let it go, and it just slowly runs out of air. I just don't see those numbers replicating themselves on a consistent basis. I think he's going to make big plays, but there are a lot of wide receivers that will make big plays in that.

New England offense. So I would say Hogan is my guy for that question. Sure. The guy I just would, I'm like Jason. Must answer with a Chris. It has to be a Chris. Oh, it has to be a Chris. What if it starts with a C? That's good enough. All right. I can give you two. Cameron Artis Payne and Corey Grant. I mean, these guys are just backups, but they're putting up gaudy fantasy type numbers that you're like, oh, maybe, but they're buried on a depth chart.