Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Pat Mayo from the FNTSY Sports Network, News, Mailbag

Avine trole-o-li-o-le-o. Oh, come on. Toyololo. But I just feel like if I'm going to go a quarterback, I want some upside. So, like, I like Cutler better because I know that team's going to be playing from behind, and, you know, he doesn't care. He's just going to bomb it out. He might throw picks, but he's going to get touchdowns and yardage. And with the new coaching staff coming over to Atlanta, they're going to try.

It may not work, but they're going to attempt to be a more run-heavy team. I just don't think that Matt Ryan this season sees the amount of dropbacks as he has in previous season. He's always been in the top.

five in the league in dropbacks. If he falls down to like number nine through 11, then the fantasy points are not going to follow. That's going to be a decrease. So, well, he might have some very efficient games. It's going to be a lot like Tony Romo last year, where if the team starts leaning on the run a little bit more, that you're not going to get these gaudy stats. And that's what I want from my quarterback. I just don't think that he has the same upside to really break through into the top five. I mean, at the end of the year, he probably finishes the number nine guy. It's like Rothesberger.

But Rothesberger is a bit of a different case because he has giant games and crappy games. If you want consistency, Matt Ryan's probably a guy for you. I have no interest of where he's going in drafts. And then to finish, we're going to hit just a couple tight ends. You are very high still on Martellus Bennett. We know Mark Trussman is gone. And the average of targets for tight ends from Jay Cutler teams and John Fox teams is actually very low before Mark Trussman was there.

Talk a little bit why you still like Bennett. I like him just because there's not a lot of good tight ends, to be perfectly honest with you. At least he's ingrained and has a rapport with Jay Cutler. And you're still dealing with Markees Wilson and Eddie Royal and Kevin White, guys that are coming in having to learn the offense or their second year players. Like, it's Alshan Jeffrey. And then after that, I would still expect Martellus Bennett to be second on that team in targets. I don't think he's going to be asked to block a lot because...

Frankly, he's not a very good blocker. But after the first four guys, like, just take whoever goes late. Like, I'm not spending a high pick on Martella Spennett. I think in that tier, I have them at five, but I think that tier goes basically all the way down to Delaney Walker number 14. Like, these guys are...

fairly interchangeable. I think that baseline-wise that Bennett probably has the best, the safest stats of the bunch, but he probably has a very capped upside. So he's not a player I'm going to end up with a lot of, maybe in like a deeper league, a 16-team league, because I know he's going to be on the field, I know he's going to get his targets. And he is a big body. He can be a red zone presence as long as they don't throw to Elshon Jeffrey every single time. But I feel fairly confident in him, just with the rapport that he has with Jay Cutler. And in the camp of Owen Daniels Virgil Green, which is kind of a fantasy

battle that's going back and forth on the Twitter sphere. Is this a real battle? We've gotten quite a bit of heat for not backing Virgil Green, which I still don't feel great about backing him. But you like Owen Daniels a lot, you have him at six.

Yeah, like the biggest strength that Virgil Green has is he is probably the best blocking tight end in the league. And when you have Peyton Manning and maybe, you know, some injuries on the offensive line, he might be asked to stay back there and protect Peyton Manning, not go out and run routes. Owen Daniels can't do that. Plus the connection that obviously Kubiak has with Owen Daniels in running routes and in the red zone. I mean, you don't follow a guy to three different teams if you don't like him and don't want to use them. And I think that Peyton Manning just knows how to use his tight ends well. Owen Daniels is a terrific way.

receiver. He is not the guy he was five years ago or before the knee injury. But I think that in this offense, those Julius target red zone targets have to go somewhere. And I fully expect them to go to Owen Daniels, not Virgil Green. So we want to thank Pat very, very much for joining us. He's a very busy man with his fantasy golf and fantasy bachelor, which I'm a proud member of fantasy bachelor. How are you doing anyway?

I am doing terrible. I am barely above you. I got at a last. That's all I care about. Oh, dude. I kind of gave up on the rankings, because I still have one guy. I can't remember anyone's name because this season hasn't been that interesting to me. But I have tomato face, whatever his name is. After I watched the first two episodes and draft my team, I don't watch The Bachelor anymore. All right, well, so tell everybody where they can find you, Pat.

You can find me at a bunch of places, but you can contact me directly on Twitter at the PME. I'm fairly responsive on that. But other than that, FancySportsnetwork.com, Rotoexperts.com, daily roto.com for all my DFS stuff. Plus, sportsgrid.com is where probably most people actually know me from, shockingly enough. All right, thanks, Pat. Thank you. Another thanks to Pat Mayo for joining us on this show today. Appreciate all the insight he dropped. Let's go ahead and answer some listener questions.

Mailbag. Mayo bag. Oh, yes, it is our one of the favorite times of the show when we answer listener questions. All of the off-season inquiries that you have, we're here to help. There's a lot of them. We're just here to help you. It doesn't... Help me. Help you. Yeah, I was giving you the pause, letting you go with it. 302-464 TFFB is the phone number if you want to leave us a voicemail.

question. We play those on the show. You can also go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com, click the submit a question button. Today's first question comes in from James Kay from Winnipeg. He says, yeah, north of the border. Hey. Hey, guys. With Pat. I know. And keeping in the things cohesive. That's right. We only answer, oh, no, he's the only Canadian question for the day. Hey, guys, I love the show. Quick question. Do I keep Brandon Marshall or Keenan?

Allen. Our league does not put a draft round penalty on keepers. They do get double points on TDs of 50 or more yards. I'm not sure if that matters or not. What do you think? How do we help James out with this one? Do you keep Brandon Marshall or Keenan Allen? I know my answer. I want to hear from you guys. Did he say whether it was PPR or not? He did not. I would lean towards Brandon Marshall. I think he's still got some time left. I think he's going to be very good.

And Keenan Allen, although I think he bounces back, I don't think he is what he was his rookie year. His rookie year was just sensational. And he'll still get the targets, he'll get volume, but I don't think he can score like he did that year. So I would go with Brandon Marshall, unless you're hoping this is a long-term thing, then Keenan Allen's the youth. I would go...

I think both guys are very near the same value. In a keeper league, I would prefer to go with the younger guy. I think with the suspension to Antonio Gates as well, there's just going to be opportunity to start the year well. So I would actually go Keenan out. But I do actually like Brandon Marshall this year. I like both those guys. Yeah, I was sure. This is a very tough question. It's a really, really tight pick here.

I think I'm going to lean the key in Allen direction. But after looking up his numbers last year, he's catching in the 70s numbers. I think Brandon Marshall's going to be up above that, probably in the 80s and 90s on that offense. I'll probably catch touchdowns. So final answer, Brandon Marshall. Yeah. Alan's year was so interesting where he got a huge amount of targets but just did not produce like he did his rookie year. Didn't he? I don't know it says he had a down year, but didn't he actually grow in yards?

He only had 700-something yards last year. Oh, really? Yeah. He was like 71 for like 700. I'm working enough. Seventy-seven, somewhere around there last year. Yeah. Maybe it was reception. Something grew last year, and I was. It was probably targets. I think, yeah, you're right about one of those. I've heard that. You're thinking of targets because his receptions were almost identical, but he dropped almost 300 yards. His average catch dropped over four. So this next question comes in from Joel, from Tampa, Florida.

Hashtag at the bottom of this question, by the way, to preview it for you is putting ice in the shade. All right, ready for this? He says my question is about Matt Ryan and why you have him so high. I understand he is a solid quarterback, but I don't think he can jump from being the seventh best quarterback last year. His team averaged the third most pass attempts last year, and he still only finished the seventh best fantasy quarterback. If we look at volume alone, how is that number likely to increase? I see an improvement.

An improvement in the offensive line and the running game, which doesn't help pass attempts. He likes him, but he doesn't think he's worth the hype that we push him on the show. And then he says, thanks, keep up the good work. Oh, that's fair. Yeah, we always here appreciate some, you know, some resistance in what we have. Here's the reason why Matt Ryan is higher. One, it does not matter. Total points finished at the end of the year for...

for a quarterback, right? We've talked about this before. Andy Dalton, I think year before last, finishes the number three quarterback. But he led nobody to a championship because he's going to win you some games and completely lose you some games. Matt Ryan is a very consistent quarterback, a guy worth, if you're going to be taking one of those middle round picks, he's going to be doing what you actually want those guys to be doing. So that's one thing. Another thing is the fact that a lot of that volume that he got was when they were down and they were in a place

where you know they're passing, and so it's garbage time, you know, there's garbage time players and there's players who aren't garbage. He's not one. Right. Think about Tony Romo. Tony Romo's past attempts last year dropped like crazy, and yet his efficiency rose because they were in winning positions. They had opportunities for touchdown. So I think the team being better, the offense being better, I don't expect his attempts to go up, but I expect his fantasy numbers to go up as he gets more touchdowns. I'm going to disagree with you. Not at all.

All right. You are like the reviewer. Everything I was going to say, you said. The only thing I'll add is I think the offensive line helps Matt Ryan. If you watched any Falcons game after week one, and week one, I think he was the number one quarterback off the top of my head. And he could, because he was great. And then.

Every single member of his offensive line died. I think it's just offensive efficiency, like you said. I saw him go out in garbage time, and he threw interceptions. Yeah, it's a lot of attempts, but he couldn't go down the field because he couldn't get protection in the backfield. He still was one of the more accurate quarterbacks in football last year. I mean, you're talking about what's the jump? Seventh last year, and we're saying some of us have him at four? I've got him three. I haven't three. Because last year, that's very possible. And he only threw 28 touchdowns last year. He only has to throw four or five more.

to make a big leap, which a better offense will do. And I think Kyle Shanahan will do that. We talked about him leading Matt Schaub to the year of his dreams. Exactly. Yeah. So that would be our take on it, but I appreciate you throwing some shade on the ice. You got to do that sometimes. Manila ice. Yeah, that's right. El Capitan from Hawaii has a question for us. Bonjour. It is related to basically running backs and drafting them late. So he's been mock drafting, and he knows if he takes running backs later after round five, he ends up with great.

wide receivers and tight ends and a quarterback. Well, that's got to happen, right, if you're not drafted running backs. He says it's a gamble at running back doing this. Here's some backs he usually goes for. Frank Gore, Latavius Murray, Melvin Gordon, Gio Bernard, Joseph Randall, Tevin Coleman, Amir Abdullah.

So basically, most of his bench ends up consumed in running backs. Is this a good move? If he could get the guys from this list, is that a good move? Now, he plays in a standard 18 league, so I think that's why these guys are on the board for him. Yeah, that explains a lot. And so he's doing just a modified version of 0RB drafting. And so for the listeners who aren't familiar, 0RB is you're going to go through six or eight picks without taking a running back. Now, contrary to what...

the name says of zero RB, after that, you absolutely load up on every single possibility of guys who are one injury away from being great, guys who you think can evolve throughout the season. So you're actually stockpiling a giant amount of running backs. And for this to work, you really only need one to two guys to hit. So it can work. It's just the gamble of...

That's not how I prefer to play. I like the way I read the statistics of first-run running backs with a 50% failure, but you also have a 50% chance at a high-level running back one in that round alone, where that percentage extremely rapidly decreases throughout the draft. Yeah, look at the teams that are in your playoffs last year and see how many of them didn't have a stud-R-B.