Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Breakouts, Busts, and Debate of the Week

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Hey, this is a man. I'm Dula. Running back from the Detroit Lions. Do you listen to the Fantasy Footballers podcast? To the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Coming to you from the Fantasyjox.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Hi-Haw! You're darn right, you y'all. How's it going?

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast. I'm your host. Oh, my goodness. Mike Wright. Who do you have with you? Jason Moore and Andy Holloway, who's the bad take guy. Oh. Not the host. Out of the gates. Huh. I always introduce you as the fantasy hitman. Because it's accurate. It's accurate. All right. Well, a little wild west going on this morning. Welcome to the podcast. I'm your actual host.

And I'm with a couple of Stranger Things over here. And we've got a great show. We've got breakouts and busts on the show today. That is the headline that you need to hear. And so I'm extremely excited to get into that. We also have a very fun debate we're going to get into here momentarily. And as the intro said, definitely check out the ultimate draft kit if you are drafting this weekend. I know that we...

In our league of record, like the big time 10-year running. Big time. You know, the one that Jason keeps bragging about that Jason broke the trophy for. We're drafting on Labor Day. So that's going to be fun. I can't wait to find out. If Jason thinks there's a world where breaking the trophy when you're the champion doesn't curse and haunt your team, you're in for rude awakening of losing.

I do not believe in such nonsense. I am considering not drafting any players and just going in with my keepers because I don't really need anybody beyond Arian Foster. Oh, well, I'll talk about him on today's breakouts and bus show. We'll see which category I put him in. All right. We're jumping, we're jumping right in because that's what we do. Every Thursday during the entire year, our quick question is going to be something special. So let's do that right now.

It's time for the fandings.com, debate of the week. All right, debate of the week time. Every week, we're going to have a one-on-one debate and the... Mono-imano. The third man, whoever that is, will decide the victor of the debate. Today's fandings.com debate of the week is simple. Is Kirk Cousins a QB1? Is Kirk Cousins a QB1?

In the corner for Mr. Captain Kirk is Mike the Fantasy Hitman Wright. Yes. In the opposite corner is Jason Moore. Did you forget my name? No. No, I was just trying to come up with some sort of ring name for you. Sure. Double Stuff himself is coming out and battling against Kirk Cousins as a QB1. I'm going to give Jason the opportunity to start this debate. And...

Because he only likes to finish things. So we'll see if he can win it with the start. Well, now are we going back and forth or are we? Actually, yes. You guys have a couple minutes discussed. Is Kirk Cousins a QB1? All right. So I do not believe Kirk Cousins is a QB1. I have many different things I can put into evidence here. How about...

the decision making to kneel down the clock on the goal line. That's what you want out of your main quarterback, your leader, your mental leader on the field. I don't think he can get it done. I don't think the Redskins think he can get it done. They didn't pay him a long-term contract. That says something to me. And I remember a couple years ago when Nick Foles threw a very few interceptions the same exact way that Kirk Cousins threw very few interceptions last year.

By sheer luck of defenses. I'm going to start out with pretty much I'll just, I'll say one thing and then I'll kick it over to you, Mike, which is his home in a way last year was very, very different. If you take a look at how he performed at home in those games, he had.

seven more fantasy points per game than when he was on the road. Is Kirk Cousins a very good streaming candidate who can put up a lot of points? Absolutely. Is he going to be a top 12 quarterback at the end of the year? No, sir. The point of a quarterback who's very good at home, not so much on the road, reminds me a lot of a great fantasy quarterback named Drew Brees. But I'm talking about Kirk Cousins right now. The quarterback eight from last year, number one in the league in completion.

completion percentage, you think, oh, well, maybe he didn't throw a lot, except he was 12th in attempts, eighth in average yard per attempt. So he's not just checking it down. He's bombing it out and completing at a high percentage. He had a touchdown in every game. Who else did that last year for the quarterback position? The answer is nobody. Only Kurt Cousins. And he did this. He had Deshaun Jackson, his number one wide receiver, for basically eight.

games. About half of the season last year, he still ended up as the quarterback gate. We have the breakout Jordan Reed superstar at the tight end position. We have Jameson Crowder emerging as an underneath reliable PPR guy. Maybe we have Josh Doxon, a first round draft pick. And then you go to the running game. Can they even get it done? Can Matt Jones get it done on the ground? I'm not so sure if he can. You know who can get it done through the air? Chris Thompson. The final 10 games for Kurt Cousins.

You think, oh, he throws picks all the time. Final 10 games, here's his split. Touchdown interception ratio. 23 to 3. 23 touchdowns and three interceptions in the final 10 games. So I ask you, Jason Moore. You like that? Oh, I do like that. Look, he finished as the number eight quarterback last year, and that is, I mean, how can you say he's not going to be a top 12?

That's what I'm arguing. What's amazing is last year he was only the number eight, despite the fact that he had five rushing touchdowns. He had five touchdowns running the ball, which we know in that scoring where he finished eight, rushing touchdowns are worth a whole lot more. What's crazy is...

I believe he rushed the ball 25 or 26 times. So it's like the highest touchdown ratio of all time. It's also five more touchdowns than his previous career high of zero in a season. So I'm going to go ahead and take, let's say, four of those away. Also, I love that you pointed out, his main two targets.

are Jordan Reed and Deshawn Jackson, two of the most injury-prone guys. And so if you're saying, hey, going forward this season, it's got to be one of those guys, I'm not buying it. And the final thing that I will throw out in my defense, other than the fact that there are so many good quarterbacks that are better, it's just even if he's good, he's not going to be top 12, is the fact. And this one comes from, this one comes from Whiskey Tango Foxtra over at RotoViz. He points out the fact that last year,

The three worst teams for fantasy production through the air were New Orleans Saints, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. He played five games against them, and he averaged over eight fantasy points more in those games. All three of those teams have upgraded their Ds. All right. You get the final word here and then we're wrapping it up. All right, my final word here. I believe two of those three teams will account to four games for Kurt Cousins. I just said they all upgraded their defense. That remains to be seen.

Are we good? Yeah, we're good. Here's my final verdict on this. And I'm obviously going to answer not as a person giving his opinion on Kirk Cousins, but on the debate itself. I'm going to give it to Jason. And I'm going to tell you why. The debate goes to Jason because of this simple fact. It's easier, in my opinion, to pull him down from what you said.

The number eight spot is where he ended last year. There are outlier type of numbers, 23 to 3 with the completion interception, you know, some close calls with that, the rushing touchdowns. Going from 8 to 13, which would put them outside of that top 12, I think is an easier...

argument to make than him being able to sustain that and stay inside that top position. So that's my final verdict. And look, you can debate this question, this exact question, dozens more with other footclan listeners on fandings.com where the best sports fans debate sports. It's simple. The fandings app. So play now. Fanning's.com. And when you sign up, use the promo code footballers. It's free. That just lets them know where you found them.

where you found the app. So fandings.com, use the promo code footballers. And we're going to jump into the news. I want to remind everybody where they can find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. We're going to be doing a lot of periscoping, interaction. You know, we do that all the time, the social media game. You know, Mike is the Adam Schaefter of the group here where he's got his phone out and he's just twittering all day long. So if you've got stuff, you want to give us feedback about, check that out.

Also, we mentioned it, I think, two days ago, the Wheel of Water app, we've got a new version coming out for iOS in the next couple days. We've got the Android version up. That's a free fun way. You can make a bunch of preseason bets and then pay them out and then use the hashtag Wheel of Water when you send those videos out. Weillofwater.com. We know it's kind of hard to find an Android. Oh, yeah. Wheelofwater.com and you'll get it directly. Yeah, thank you, Mike. All right, without further ado, let's get into the news.

News and notes from around the league. All right. Colin Cabernick says he believes he can still win the starting job. Good for you, Colin. I'm with you, buddy. Hey, step one, believe in yourself. I want the news to come out. I want the news to come out and have one of the quarterbacks in his situation go, I don't think I can win the job. I'm a great number two. I'm a great backup.

I can't believe that this is news. It's not news. Mike just threw it in to make me feel some solidarity with the fact that I have like another. I said it's not a foregone conclusion that I think he's going to win it. I just am going to give him one more preseason game before I make the final determination. Teddy Bridgewater is expected to start Sunday's game. He had a shoulder injury. That was weird. Yeah. That was weird. He was a late scratch from week two preseason.