Bounce Back Players + Mahomes Extension, Hang Gliding - Fantasy Football Podcast

Yeah, without question. And so, you know, my logic for the AJ Green bounce back risk. Like, I'm not saying everybody out there has to go and take that chance. He's being drafted in the late sixth round, sometimes in the seventh round. Last time we saw him on a football field through eight games, he was averaging 85 yards a game, which is a 1,300 plus yard pace. He had six touchdowns in eight games. That's the last we've seen him. Now, it's been a long time. And I'm not saying everybody has to take the chance.

You know, not everybody wants to go hang gliding. Is that fair? That's fair. Risky, right? Would you go hang gliding? It's really not risky. It just appears. It appears risky. But you, I looked this up. You got the same odds of dying in a car crash as you do hang gliding. But some people are going to stay away from it because of what it appears. You looked up hang gliding stuff? I really did. I wanted to see. For your argument? It was a curiosity thing, Mike. I love it.

Look, hang gliding deaths prove that AJ Green is a great benchback player. I didn't quite put it like that. But here's what we know going into the air. Like I said, you don't have to go hang gliding. I might go hang gliding. Zach Taylor came out and said, everything's been positive. He's fully healthy. So Zach Taylor's come out and said he's healthy. In my opinion, he could be playing with the best quarterback he's had. I mean, he hasn't had a...

tremendous quarterback. He's had a quarterback in Andy Dalton, but he has 6,000 plus seasons and he's got these double digit touched in. We all know. We've all seen AJ Green at his best. He's being drafted right now, and this is where kind of the crux of the argument is, with a bounce back chance on AJ Green. He's being drafted right next to Tyler Boyd, the 29th wide receiver off the board. Look, there are 32 teams that have a wide receiver won on them. AJ Green is being drafted as the 29th wide receiver off the board.

He's their clear number one wide receiver. So if you want to steer clear, you don't want to go hand gliding, that's cool. But he is a talent that is far greater than the 29th overall wide receiver. And in my opinion, again, it's that risk reward of you could have an every week starter at wide receiver. If your draft goes a certain way, you lean heavy on maybe you take an early tight end, early quarterback, you go RB heavy. I just think a guy like AJ Green who could be a starter from day one if he's healthy, putting up prolific numbers.

Like what's his, what's his stat line if he plays 16, Jason? I can tell you exactly what I said. You projected him for 16 games? I did project him for 16 games. I have him with a hundred and... Someone's going hang gliding. I have him with 112 targets for 66 receptions. Oh, 925 yards and 66 catchdowns. What? That's baloney. 16?

That's hogwash. What are you doing? What I am doing is... You should say you didn't sat him for 16 because there's no way that that's 16. What I am doing is taking the fact that there is a rookie quarterback who historically do not throw a ton of yards. And, you know, I've got Joe Burrow at over 4,000, just barely, over 4,000 yards, which is great. And that puts AJ Green just under 1,000. You know, it's one of those things where...

whether or not this is out with the old and with the new, which it seems that way. You're bringing in obviously the number one overall draft pick. You draft T. Higgins. You're going youth and future. Or whether this is we are trying to be the absolute best team we can be, AJ Green being the veteran is healthy and out here able to dominate.

That's just the tale. One of those two things are going to happen. And if the latter happens, you'll be right here, Andy. I just don't see that as my outlook on the Bengals. Now, are you considering that his rookie year in 15 games with a rookie quarterback who was a second round pick, not the first overall pick, he was 65 for over 1,0007. How old was AJ Green then?

How he was a rookie. Was he 30? Is he currently the age of Julio Jones, whom I believe you have projected in your top five? And was he coming off of a really bad injury where he missed a whole season? Where he's perfectly healthy now? This is a combination thing. Look, I could be wrong on AJ Green. I could. But I, you know, I've said this in the past. And we know this from history. A lot of times when the big body wide receivers, when it falls off, it's done. It's gone. No matter how great they were before. Andre Johnson was.

Which is a perfect way to bring you back to day one, the beginning of this argument, which is I give you credit last year for keeping people away from him. It benefited their team. But what you just said, you cannot prove on the field yet. Because AJ Green on the field is a 1,300 and 12 touchdown pace the last time we saw him. And we didn't get to see it last year. We didn't get to see that part of the argument. Because you said the same thing last year. You said, when it falls off.

It falls off big, and I expected to fall off. But we haven't got to see it. So that's the gamble, right? Sure. The gamble is he the same player. And I would think, like, I never really buy into the rebuild mentality in the NFL because if Zach Taylor tries to rebuild this team with youth, he's just gone. He's just fired. They just get rid of him. So they could have let AJ Green go. They could have traded him last year. They kept them around. I'm taking my shot on him as a bounce back. I agree with your premise in rebuild.

for the majority of the NFL teams, people are always trying to obviously win. But I do think when you have the 101 and you draft a quarterback with first, you know that you're looking towards the future of your organization. And it buys you a little bit more time. And here's the thing about bounce back players, right? We're talking, we each have two bounce back players. All of them disappointed last year. You can't bounce back off of an amazing season. And we could easily have a show that says,

You know, what do I always say? Certain players are D-U-N. They're done. You could easily have a show where we're all taking players that we don't think are going to bounce back and their careers are over. So there are two narratives for all of these players. Yes. I'm going, the two players that I picked both have what I think is the exact same situation. You are asking yourself if they are D-U-N. Because if they're not, I mean, we talk about this. Look at how fantasy football works.

You need a talented player with opportunity, those two things. If you have, I think, opportunity is first, is primary, and then if they're talented, that's where fantasy stardom comes in. That's where the counting stats are flowing and your points are great. Both of these players that I have picked are clearly talented.

players they've succeeded before and obviously have the opportunity in front of them. The question is, do they have it or is it D.U.N. My first player is Adam Thielen. Yeah. Is he done? Is he finished? No, he's finished at all. He's 30 years old. So this isn't, he hasn't reached an age point that's, you know, a breaking point for wide receivers. Usually that happens closer to the 32nd birthday. Like AJ Green's birthday.

Yeah, how old is A.J. Green right now? No, he's 32. Okay. Well, I was making the joke. I was making the, yes. I didn't think you would be adding to my argument. Yes. So Adam Thielen is 30 years old. Obviously, the opportunity is there for him. He is the clear wide receiver one for his team.

And you can have whatever argument you want, whether he needs to be in the slot or whether he's going to be outside or whether Diggs not being there means the coverage is going to be more diff. Yada, yada, yada. It doesn't matter. He is the primary target for this team in the National Football League. Kirk Cousins is going to throw for 4,000 yards or close to it. And he is going to get a huge target market share. Here's the thing about Adam Thielen is.

You think last year we saw so much struggle with injury, right? He injured himself in week seven. And from that point on, if you had Adam Thiel in last year, you remember he would come back a little quicker than they expected. He missed a couple weeks, came back, and you're like, oh man, do I start him right back? Do I not? And a lot of people chose to start him. And then he got injured immediately in that game. And the rest of the time, the rest of that season, until the very end, he was basically injured.

So how was he the first six weeks of the season? Did you, do you remember? I'm staring at it. He's a little up and down. Yeah. Well, up and down, but over the first six weeks, he was the wide receiver nine. He was a top 10 wide receiver through the first six weeks. Sure. He got a lot of touchdowns. I mean, you can say whatever you want about, oh, they want to run the ball more. Well, if you run the ball more, you might be more efficient in the passing game. All I know is this, Adam Thielen, was a top 10 receiver.

three years ago, two years ago, and last year until he got injured, and then he was out. Now he's the clear wide receiver won for his team, so I think he's in prime for a bounceback. I got two questions, because I was going to kind of try to define what bounce back means for Adam Thielen. He's being drafted as the wide receiver 15 right now. So I would tend to think that people, more people agree with you than don't. Good.

because wide receiver 15 is almost crediting him with that bounceback. Yeah, that's exactly the line that I would say is a bounce back. If he's a top 15 wide receiver this year, then he bounced back into supreme relevance. Yeah, and I think that that's probably a fair, like I like that place for him. I have him right now as my wide receiver 11. So I have him finishing as a wide receiver won this season.

And that would be a great bounce back from his injury of the second half of last year. I've really been thinking about Justin Jefferson in that offense too. And whether we, you know, when you're staring down the Jalen Ragers or the Jerry Judy's, whether Jefferson needs to start inching his way into those conversations with that offense. With Stefan Diggs leaving and what Jefferson brings. He has a lot of opportunity. You know, just there have been players who have broken the mold and they've been really valuable for fantasy from the slot.

Adam Thielen has before Julian Edelman. But generally speaking, the better fantasy production comes from the outside. And I don't think that's where Jefferson's going to live. But yeah, he should be in that conversation. All right, Mike. Who's your first bounceback candidate we should discuss? Well, it's very interesting because you're going to feel like, wait, that I just rewind the podcast? Because this sounds just like Jason's argument for a player. Oh, it's going to be a good argument.

So this player, he's running back through week eight before his first injury. He was the RB10 overall, and he was the RB10 in points per game. I'm talking about James Connor running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who 50% of his games, he was a top 24 guy, and 30%.

of his injury marred season. He was still a running back one, and that was on an absolute dumpster fire of an offense. Pittsburgh was so bad last year compared to what we are used to. So the previous five years, Pittsburgh top 10 in yards and points for five years straight, 2014 through 2018. Big Ben is gone.

They dropped to 30th and yards and 27th in points because the quarterback play was so bad. And yet James Connor, before he got his first injury, was still a top 10 running back who was getting it done. You have the fact that just before the draft, Mike Tomlin again reiterated that he is a featured runner coach. He wants a featured runner and he said, quote,

James is a featured guy and proven runner when healthy. We're excited about him getting back to health and playing in 2020. And then so like the people who are, what about Benny Snell? Well, he had a quote about Benny Snell in that exact same conversation. He said, Benny Snell is a guy that is capable of being a featured runner who plays, you know, similar to James. He's capable if James is unavailable. Meaning.

It's still James Connor. They didn't do anything of note in the draft. I like Anthony McFarland. He's a fun player. Anthony McFarland is not someone who is going to replace James Connor as a featured running back. He just does not have the size. He'll be in there for some fun explosive plays. But Connor is the main guy. If the Steelers are jumping back up, which I imagine they're going to be vastly improved with Big Ben as the quarterback, and James Connor is the featured.

running back like he's going as the RB 20 right now in in best ball drafts it's a it's a matter of health i get it his it's it's very hard to buy into james connor being healthy because he was still a bit banged up even a couple years ago when he had the the breakout season when he was a pro bowl player but