Fantasy Football 2018 - The TRUTH About Fantasy WRs in 2017, Part 1

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Use our code Ballers to save 10%. The Fantasy Footballers podcast. Coming to you from the Playdraft Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, that's the way to open up a show. Slippery. Real slippery like. Slythering all over the ground. Welcome. It is January 9th.

We are the fantasy footballers. Andy Mike and Jason back once again. It's 2018. It is Tuesday. And we are fresh off a wild card weekend. And wild it was in some ways. Boring in others. Oh, slightly. I mean, you had three incredibly exciting games. Yes. I could not agree more. Incredible games. But when Andy says boring in some ways, it's...

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That's correct, because that Jacksonville Buffalo game is not worth a playoffs game. You can't focus on that when 75% of the games were amazing. They weren't just good. They were amazing. The Chiefs, they finished how they played this year. They were what they were. They started quick and they ended sour. Yeah, to be fair for the chiefs. And they lost Travis Kelsey. Lost Kelsey. Lost Chris Jones. I mean, it's, you.

It's like the Patriots in the middle of a game. If Gronk were to go down, that's the first thing people would talk about. Oh, well, Gronk went down. Cravis Kelsey is that important to the chiefs. Although you should probably give. Winners find a way, Mike. Yeah, you should give the league's leading rusher more than 11 carries. That's just my two cents. How could they give them carries, Mike? They were up big at the half.

You got to go to the passing game. Today is the truth episode for the wide receiver position. On this episode today, we will be going through a number of the top finishers at the wide receiver position in fantasy football. We'll be breaking down their consistency numbers, whether they actually felt like the number two or the number four or the number eight or the number 10 fantasy wide receiver. How did they actually help your team? How do they perform?

based on home road splits against top defenses and against bottom defenses. We're going to give you the truth. That's what this episode is all about. We want you to be equipped going into 2018 fantasy drafts with the kind of information you need to win. So you can make an informed decision and build a roster that isn't just comprised of players based on how they finish, but also based on what they do for you. And Jason, Mike, myself, we spend a lot of time looking at these numbers.

seeing how often players finished as top performers, what we call great performers versus good versus busts, what players never let you down, that type of stuff. So I'm excited.

Yeah, I mean, we've heard for the last several years how important these episodes are for future championships. I know we've heard, you know, people go, you know, I started listening during your truth series on a position, and it changed how I drafted. It changed how I thought about these players because you can't just go by end of year rankings. If you go by end of your rankings and you go, okay, AJ Green, he finished as a wide receiver one. He was great. He hurt a lot of players this year.

by the amount of bust games he had. So, you know, we'll get into the specifics on a lot of wide receivers, but I think it's extremely important. And you have another thing that happens at the end of the season, those last three, four weeks, including week 17.

You're in your fantasy playoffs. You're paying attention to only specific players. And maybe a player has a very strong finish. So they move up to the top 10, the top 12. A couple years ago, I remember Jason Witten lit it up in the last couple weeks of the season. Ended up a top, you know, 12 guy. But he didn't really play that way for you during the season. And so we'll try to illuminate some of those situations as well. We're going to talk a little bit about the playoffs. And if we have time, we'll get in the mailbag.

We'll have a couple of truth episodes at the wide receiver position. Yes. And then we'll get into the tight ends, the quarterbacks as well. And look, I'm excited. Even running backs. We'll also do the running backs. Good point. Excellent point. Pretty important position. They're going to add those in to most leagues next year. The Titans beat the Chiefs. We just talked about that game. Well, it was a stoner, though. 2221. Hope you didn't turn it off at halftime. Yeah.

They were getting absolutely smoked. Broke my bracket right there. Broke's bracket right there. In fairness, it broke everyone's bracket outside of Tennessee. I didn't even know Tennessee was in the playoffs until the third quarter. I didn't even realize they had made it. It was unbelievable what happens when you have a running back, not named Jamarca Murray playing for that team, which I don't know if you guys saw the reports. The Titans are likely to stick.

with Derek Henry, even if DeMarco Henry is healthy this upcoming week. What? I mean, that's genius. Henry was great. The team rode on his back. Mariotta played well enough. We didn't even bring up the fantasy unicorn. Oh, my goodness. The self-pass reception. Play of the year. It happened. Marcus Marietta threw a touchdown to himself. What's the big deal? Oh.

Double points. That one play, depending on your scoring, but in PPR, that's about a 14 point play. It would just be so incredible if they happen during the year. And, you know, you get in those situations where, you can, the maximum amount of points from a, you know, from a possession, if you only have Mariotta, it seems like it's X amount of points of the goal line. And then you double that with that whole shenanigans. That was incredible. You won't see that very often.

Uh, no, it's twice, actually. Is that ever? Wait, that's happened before? Yeah, Brad Johnson. Oh, I don't know how I forgot. Yeah, well. The Falcons defeated the Rams pretty handily, I would say. I mean, they were in control of the game. It got close there for a little bit. I mean, you got to, honestly, my heart breaks for fair. Yeah, I was going to. That's what I was going to bring up. Farah Cooper. You know, you could say playoff experience, but.

I thought the Rams played just fine, but Farrow Cooper did not. The first half, the Rams didn't get to play offense because every time that they were going to receive the ball, Pharaoh Cooper said, yeah, why don't you guys have it? I believe he's an all pro. He was. He had a great season. Not good in the playoffs so far. Yeah, turnovers, they're going to cost you the Rams. No longer part of the playoff picture. Nope. The Jags, 10 to 3 over the bills.

And immediately Buffalo has turned once again on Tyrod Taylor. He will not be there next year. Yeah. Well, and Nathan Peterman is not the answer either. He ain't even the question. Oh, I was rooting for him. I mean, that kid was putting an awful situation. And he produced.

Awful results. He heard it was terribly. And in the most exciting game, you got to at least mention Blake the snake portals. The best part of this game, ladies and gentlemen was just tweeting out snake gifts to troll the entire Twitter community because everyone else is just, oh, Blake is so bad. And I'm like, just wait. Just wait. It's going to happen. And then he has more rushing yards than passing yards. Somehow wins a playoff game. He won that game with his legs. More rushing yards than Leonard Fournette.

Yeah. I mean, that's, he was, that was a gritty performance. Oh, my goodness. You couldn't finish. Shame on you, Mike. The Saints knock off the Panthers. Oh, what a game. Very close game. You know, Sean Peyton went for it on fourth down there at the end. Didn't want to pin Cam Newton back. I thought that was crazy. Oh, that was. I kept wondering to myself whether or not I was all for it. You can call two timeouts in a row, which I know you can't do.

But I still thought he might try after he ran out there for the fourth down. The play call, I mean, I get it. It ended up being really just a punt because unfortunately Mike Adams was just playing. Well, he's playing instinctively. When the ball comes to you, you try and catch the ball. I mean, it would have been really tough. Happens all the time. But, and I'm, I'm for the call for Sean Payton. It's fourth and one. You have one of the best offenses in the entire league.

Maybe the play call wasn't my favorite, but you get the first down, the game is done. And you don't have to worry about Cam Newton who played sensational. There is no question that if Cam Newton and the Panthers had won that game, that call would be their whole offseason discussion. All right, let's go ahead and let's get into some more news. Weekly rewind. All right, the Chiefs, let's talk about some fantasy implications from them now leaving the playoffs, the rumors that are starting.

Chiefs are open to trading Alex Smith. They just lost offensive coordinator Matt Nagy to the Bears. Their new head coach, congratulations to them. I think it's a good hire, but some change. Yeah, certainly. Their assistant coach, Brad Childress, looks like he's going to retire, has not been made official yet, but that's going to happen. And I think that it is a done deal that Alex Smith will be traded.

This was his best season ever. So you're never going to be able to trade him for more than you can right now. And if you look at their cap situation, I think that was part of why they went after Mahomes and paid so much for this rookie quarterback was because they are not going to be able to afford to build the team the way they want with the current money invested. So you're going to clear a lot of money by trading Alex Smith.

free your team up to move towards the future. And you might get, in addition to just clearing that up, allowing you to move to Mahomes, what are you going to get a second? Can you get maybe a first or a second plus? I think it's going to be a second. Is Arizona, Cleveland, New York, Buffalo? Buffalo. Where's the best fantasy destination for dynasty owners of Alex Smith? Like myself. Fantasy place for Alex Smith. Oh, man. New York.

Yeah, maybe New York. I don't, it's, I know it sounds crazy every time you mentioned anything positive about the Cleveland Browns right now, but Alex Smith going to that team, Duke Johnson, uh, that wide receiver core. Yeah, you got Cory Coleman and Josh Gordon and Richard Higgins is, is a fine wide receiver three. It, it could turn around pretty quickly if Alex Smith was, was over there being a game manager. I mean,

Think about how things went for the Browns with Kaiser's turnovers just absolutely destroying that team. You get Alex Smith in there, a guy who doesn't turn the ball over. That's a much different season. They say Kaiser was the Farrow Cooper of the quarterback. Oh, sorry. All right. So Matt Nagy's the new head coach in Chicago. This can't be worse than what we had with John Fox. No. You bring Nagy in. You let him tutor.

Mitchell Tribesky and company, and you try to turn this thing around in Chicago as fast as possible. Yeah, I'm with Jason. I actually think the hire is good. I like bringing in, get somebody who's not just a complete retread of a coach. You've already seen them fail miserably. Matt Nagy, the Chief's offense was very successful. He's one of maybe the only coach, if I'm recalling correctly, that Andy Reed has actually given play calling.