The Overreaction Episode! + April Fools’ Hate, Love Hurts - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/1

Seahawks are giving Tyler Lockett a four-year $69 million extension. Ooh. Nice. 37 million guaranteed. That's a lot of money. We're talking Nelson Ag, lower levels of Kish this offseason. It's a lot more than Nelson. Yes, it is. But, you know, the free agent market, there wasn't really one. And so this actually does make some sense, you know, when you extend a guy now.

while the market is a little repressed, you can give him big money in this market, and it will actually turn out to be good for your team as the salary cap goes up. That's actually, yeah, it's super smart of them because he's still foundational to their inconsistent passing game. That is well said. Yeah, last year finishes the number nine overall fantasy wide receiver. A reminder, 44th inconsistency.

So never been a top 20 consistency player, always been an elite receiver in actuality and so valuable for Russell Wilson in the team. His absence would go a long way towards damaging fantasy value for Russell Wilson. And now he's locked up. And a phenomenal best ball asset as well. Because he's been a top 15 wide receiver the last three seasons. You're going to get all of his big games. And he won't be in your starting lineup for his duds in a best ball format.

All right, one more piece of news. I'm going to call it Bicel with Bruce. All right. It's a new segment. I just started it. Can't wait. Bruce Arryn says a lot of things. By the way, he also got himself tattooed. He finally came through. Got the Tampa Bay tattoo. No, with one of the things that he said. Oh, okay. Yeah, there you go. Here's three comments from him. O.J. Howard should be ready to participate in the offseason program, the Achilles injury for Howard. Do you buy that? Yes. Okay.

Yes-ish. All right. He doesn't know who will be his 2021 starting running back. Do you buy that? Oh, yeah. Oh, I buy that 1,000%. He doesn't know who his starting running back is going to be every single week of the year. Week to week. All right. So in that case, his last comment, buy sell with Bruce. He expects Kishon Vaughn to have a breakout year in 2021. Do you buy that? My heart chooses to believe this. But my brain.

says, my heart wants to believe it, Jason. No, I do not believe that at all. I think that is his obligatory fluff piece, trying to build the player up. But in the end, I don't think he's going to be that. Well, you know, David Johnson, year two with Bruce Ariens. Yeah, but David Johnson, year one with Bruce Ariens was awesome. But I bet Kishenvon wanted to be awesome. That is true. And that's, that's the problem is that.

I thought Kishon Vaughan would be a solid player. So did the damn bay Buccaneers. They drafted him in the third round and then he could not get on the field. However, to try and spin something for Vaughn, he was on the COVID list, right? If I'm remembering that correctly, during the training camp, whatever it was, period. He was on the actual COVID list. So he had some things against him for.

his first year. It's not impossible for him to contribute to the team, but a resigning fornet wasn't necessarily a good sign for him. Sure. Dept chart clogger that Fournette is. I mean, but at the same time, you put your Super Bowl band back together and they did not pay Leonard Fornett much money at all. I think if I were the Buccaneers, that's an easy move to make. Just to bring him back? Yeah.

Even if he doesn't play, and Vaughn takes his spot, and it's Ronald Jones and Kishon Vaughn paying Four Nett to be the third string running back when you know he can jump in and contribute to the team. I think that was the wise move. All right, Jason, I know you can't hold on any longer, so we'll get to the segment you're most excited about. I'm going to do what you all think I'm going to do, which is just flip out. All right, I'm going to kick us off here. Oh, my goodness.

People are overreacting to Ezekiel Elliott's down year. And I totally understand we see these top flight running backs, take a step down, and then poof, they're done. Todd Gurley was just on top of the world. He was great. He takes a step down and then poof. It's over. He's D.U.N. People are starting to act like this mentally with.

Ezekiel Elliott. I was on the pod appearance, the wizarding world of fantasy football. We did a four-round mock draft. Ezekiel Elliott almost hit the second round of that mock draft. And I've seen him going behind Chub, behind Echler, behind JTT. He's usually right now about the running back eight.

I think it is a mistake to overreact from what happened last year, to think that Ezekiel Elliott is done, that he's washed. Look, while Dak was there last year, he had five games with Dak. Ezekiel Elliott was the running back three.

He was phenomenal the first five weeks of the season. The offense was good. He had two top three weekly finishes in that stretch. And he's not an old elder statesman. I know it feels like it because he came into the league very, very young. But he's younger than Aaron Jones.

That's crazy. Right? Doesn't that feel weird? He's the exact same age as Dalvin Cook and Alvin Camara and Cream Hunt. They're all within like a month or two of each other. I think Alvin Camara and Azica Elliott are three days apart. So they are they're the same age. This is not an old man. Here's what happened. Dak Prescott, your great quarterback.

went down to injury. Your offensive line dealt with injuries and your offense struggled. Even your backup quarterback, Andy Dalton, missed a couple of games. It got rough. Then Zeke missed a game for the first time ever and it just felt like, well, this is the beginning of the end. And in that game, Tony Pollard had a breakout performance. Yeah. And that's why you think, okay, well, Pollard's going to get more involved. Zeke is older. There's a lot of wear on the tires.

I don't believe it. I think that overreacting to what happened in a bad year for the Cowboys is a mistake. I believe that Ezekiel Elliott is firmly a top five back. He will be great for fantasy. He will play this whole season. He is their guy. So I believe Zeke is still a phenomenal running back. And if you're in a dynasty league, I think you can make a move to get Zeke for a lot less. Are you letting him go, Brooksie?

Don't you have Zeke? I do. But you're a Dallas fan. That doesn't wait too heavily here. So what's interesting about the overreaction episode is that we get to, other than the ones we have crafted, we get to react to your thoughts. And I tried to go in as blind as I could with your guys's, you know, points here. And the initial reaction to Zeke is kind of fatigue.

There's a level of fatigue that happens, even though he's great. It always happens. And part of it is last year. Part of it is, I guess, knowing what the ceiling probably is, which is a good ceiling, but it's just knowing what the ceiling is. What is that ceiling to you? That ceiling is a very consistent player, no breakaway plays. Hopefully you get in the red zone a lot. He's a double-digit touchdown guy. But he's a volume play. End of the season. Do you feel like top three has?

That ceiling has vanished for him? I think it would be tough for Zique. Yeah, I think top three I probably am out on, but top five I'm not out on. So it's right there. And all your points are very well received. I think it's, it makes a lot of sense. And he's built like the kind of running back that has a long sustained career. He has not C.J. Spiller, who loses the wheels someday. He's a player that is going to get you chunks, not big time.

you know, breakaway runs, but just give him the ball. He gets better as the game goes on and his head gets bigger and bigger or whatever happens. He just beats up the defense. And that those kind of players, that's the Emmett Smith, you know, that just continues to give you season after season of productivity. And when these players just poof at the running back position, there's usually a sign and a, like Todd Gurley.

We knew about the knee issue. We knew that he was being sat and rested and that he had this degenerative knee that was not. We knew coming into his career that he was going to have a knee problem. Right. With Eddie Lacey when he poofed, it was like he poofed up. And then all of a sudden it's like you can see it. There was nothing to me on film that said Zeke is not a good back anymore. Yeah. And the team is, you know, it's a winnable division for them. I think they're going to be in the.

thick of it. And, you know, nine and a half, I think was the wind total coming out of Vegas for Dallas. And they've got a lot of upside to that. So it makes sense. You mind if I go next, Mike? Is that going to bother you at all? Well, I mean, it's going to turn into a Dallas Cowboys show if I go next. We don't want that. No, we'll stay in division, though. I'm going to talk to you about, I'm going to do the dirty work, the dirty job on this show. I believe that.

You should not overreact to the four games of Jalen Hertz that you saw last year. And I want to warn the world about what can happen to Jalen Hertz and what I think will happen. My kids collect Pokemon cards. And they catch them all. They love them, right? And when you buy a pack of Pokemon cards.

there is infinite potential within that pack. You do not know what's in it. You may pull the shiniest hollow whatever words they're telling me are the best cards you can get. That pack has infinite potential in his fantasy players. Our pack always has the insert card. Our pack almost always has that elusive, I'm the luckiest man alive situation inside of it. And I am very, very concerned that Jalen Hertz.

When you open the package and you see what's inside is going to disappoint fantasy players. Now, every one of these upside quarterbacks comes down to the dilemma of price, right? What are you going to end up paying? Right now, he's going as the QB9 around a six-round pick. Wow, you're out on QB9. If he's sitting there, then the risk is not high. It's not extremely high.

Because maybe that reward is there as the Russian quarterback that Jason wants him to be and the potential for Jalen Hertz. However, we have an NFL draft coming up. And if you add a piece to the offense that an unopened pack can wrap its mind around, Jalen Hertz hype can get out of control. And I feel like one of my gifts and curses on this show is smashing the hopes.

of people who want to hype up quarterbacks on this show. Last offseason, it was Big Ben and Gardner Minshu. And specifically with Minshu, I have some of the same concerns that I have with Jalen Hertz. The team was not, they were committed enough to move down from 6th. They were committed enough to trade their franchise quarterback. Is that what you're calling Carson once? That's what he was. I don't think you've called him that on the show in a long, long time. No, no, no. That's who he was to them. Not to me.

But to them, like... They were ready to move on from Carson Wins. That does not mean they're ready to move forward with Jalen Hertz forever. True. The financial commitment to Jalen Hertz is not the kind, much like Gardner-Menschu, that would mean that you cannot move forward if something goes south. You have had off-season hype around players with running game potential.

in the past. Daniel Jones got a lot of hype. He runs the ball a lot. He shows you that you can run the ball a lot and not be a great fantasy quarterback. Cam Newton 12 times into the end zone last season. Good running quarterback, finished at 16 at the position. Marcus Mariotta, I remember the hype coming into the year, the amount of rushing efficiency that he had and the touchdowns. There is a negative outcome here for Hertz. That's point one, that there is a possible negative outcome. Okay. If you look at what he did last year, you had...

Welcome to the NFL, 18 rushing attempts set the world on fire. His rushing attempts went down every single game. You got game film on Jalen Hertz. You also had completion percentages that declined, 56%, then 55, then 54, then 35% in the final game. He is not a player that I trust the passing prowess of. And one of the best points I think I have against Jalen Hertz is how...