Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 17 Review, Studs and Duds, Playoff Preview, Mailbag

Probably about the same. Less. 2.22. Yeah. Less. Okay. So he had one less last year, despite the fact he didn't really even get the reins last year until later. We expected that kind of production and usage. Last year, on the same amount of carries. 1124 yards, 794 this year. 5.1 a carry, 3.6 to carry. Last year, nine touchdowns this year, he'd had 11. Yeah. And he even said, and you could see this.

He was trying too hard this year. He would run like, you know, he would just try to do things that instead of taking what was there, try to break out a big play in over and over. You know who did that too? It was Lamar Miller last year. Yeah. In the beginning. Yeah. Where he, or was it last year or two years ago where the Frank Gore hype, oh, he's this, you know, he's this great player. You come out, you try so hard, you lose your game. And maybe he's finding it. Is that what you're saying? You believe Jeremy Hill's finding it? Yeah, I'm not too scared of wrapping, Jeremy.

Post-type? Yeah, post-type sleeper would be Jeremy Hill. That started already. Oh, my goodness. There'll be time for that. All right, we talked enough about Jeremy Hill. Matt Forte, Timmy Hightower, who, by the way, was the number two running back over the last quarter of the season after not taking a carry since 2011. Jonathan Grimes and Duane Harris also had very good weeks this week. Duan Harris did a full-on big salad impersonation of just...

volumin his way to a very productive fantasy day. Forte is a guy, I think, to spend a little time on. I got it. I thought Langford would get the carries. They sent Matt Forte off with the fireworks and the explosion. And Langford didn't get the touches and just wasn't very good. But that's probably the last game that Forte plays in a Chicago uniform. Would you agree? Yep. I agree. So, and if that is...

If that is the last game that he's played in a Chicago uniform, Jeremy Langford, over the second half of the season from week nine on, what running back do you think he was? Over the second half? Second half, the whole half of the year. Ooh. Twelve? He was the number six. Yeah, he was, he had a stretch there. So if Forte is out and gone. I think that, I don't think Langford's an elite level talent, but he's...

I think he's good, and if he's in a situation where he's getting the work, he'll be. You got to remember, they're not going to have the same offensive coordinator next year. True. Adam Gase is going to be somewhere else, and so that's another variable. I don't want to overbank on it, but it's a good situation. I think Jeffrey will be back. We miss that news at the beginning. Beat writers in Chicago think he'll be back. We'll find out. Yeah, they think we don't know that he'll be back. No, I said that's, yeah. And Matt Forte, he's going to Dallas, isn't he? I don't know. I think he's going to Dallas.

It seems whenever some situation seems that good, it doesn't happen. Forte is going to go somewhere where he can play, but he wants to contend. I'm sure he's going to have to search for a ring. So you're going to go for like the team that was 4 and 12? Yeah, the team without their superstar quarterback? A team that's been 500 since the 90s. It reminds me of the spurs when they lost David Robinson and then they got to draft him Duncan with the number one pick. I mean, you put Tony Romo on that team?

You can even take Des out with his injury. You put Tony Romo in that team. They're in the playoffs. For sure. In that division? Yeah, they're in the playoffs. There's no way they are not in the playoffs. Tight ends. Tight ends that were stud muffins this week. Zach Earts, start of the week from Mike. We loved him. Kobe Fleener, Delaney Walker, Will Ty, and Ben Watson. We'll get to the poops because my start of the week is in the, he didn't pan out. So.

Don't think we're just tooting our own horn on Zackertz. I got it wrong with Travis Kelson. Well, Ben Watson was my start of the week. Two of the three of us. That's fine. That's good. That's what I wanted to see. And Kobe Fleener. I mean, we all saw that coming. Oh, man. That was a beautiful pass. Yeah. From, that was Freeman, right? I think that was Freeman. It was Freeman. It was then Lindley came in. Yeah, Lindley came in. And throw a touchdown to Andre Johnson. Yeah. I remember watching the Fleener highlight, though. It was a good throw. Yeah.

They're just ridiculous. Something we can tell the grandkids about, Josh Freeman. One time I threw a really long... You know what? That's the wrong drop. This is not a good day. Welcome to 2016. That was going to be Sits of the Week, which these guys should have been. Yeah. Poopped in his big boy pants. You know that super huge Colts parlay into the playoffs thing? It actually looked...

okay during the first half of the morning games. It looked like there was some semblance of a shot. The 18 steps to the playoffs with Indianapolis? Yeah, it was looking, I mean, it clearly did not pan out, but at least halfway through the morning, you thought, there's a chance. Which situation would you rather be, the Cowboys or the Colts? Cowboys. Yeah, for sure. Easily, Cowboys have a real defense and a real offensive line.

An elite level wide receiver in a great quarterback. Okay. And a easier division? Well, maybe not easier. All right. The Cowboys are going to be good again. We talked about it earlier. Tom Brady lets you down in a big way, 12 for 134. 12 total completions. Wow. If you're going to do that, just put in Garoppolo and say good night. Did they not want to win that game? I don't know, man. There's some conspiracy out there. Right? Because now they can't play the Steelers in those first two rounds.

Who knows? It's possible. Blake Bortle's. Get your tinfoil hats. Blake Bortles is a guy who won so many of our listeners championships. If you properly had that week 16 fantasy championship. And if you were riding on the love and the coattails of that into week 17, he was worse than Tom Brady's 12 for 134. Yeah, he had more yards at 239.

But he also had two interceptions, no touchdowns, and crap out to your team. Blake Bortle's is improving, way better than last year. He's still not ready for top defenses. Maybe by next year. That's been the story with Bortles. He's a candidate for the garbage man of the year because he took advantage to teams that didn't have good defenses. And at least he could do that. And he has weapons with Robinson and Hearns and Julius Thomas and such. All right, Derek Carr.

Not a good game. Aaron Rogers keeps disappointing you. He had the yardage was there, but just, you know, not what you hope from for a guy who was in some leagues. A first round pick. You know what's crazy is he finished. Aaron Rogers had 291 yards, a touchdown and a pick. But that pick that he threw, James Jones was he had so much room to catch a touchdown towards the, you know, the sideline.

And Aaron Rogers threw a terrible ball in, basically to the defender. And it was like, you had him in the NFL wide open, and that should have been a touchdown. You know, that's an eight-point swing for fantasy. He could have had a great game. And Carson Palmer. We don't talk about that. Carson Palmer was bad, and he got benched. Rough, because we came out and we said what Arian said, which is he's going to play his guys. Now, the game got out of hand early.

And he made the right decision. And the Carolina game was already out of hand. And so he said that that factored in it. This is another reason we said coming into week 17 that of all the recent years, this was like kind of a better week because only Washington was really established. But you saw this take effect in multiple games where, you did. Where, you know, later on in the game, we're not going to take the risk. Other game scores have kind of determined things. So.

Let this be a good time to start talking to your league about a week 16 championship. Really? We actually have a question about that coming up in the mailbag. Great. We can talk a little bit about at length. So running backs, DeAngelo Williams got hurt. Yeah.

David Johnson disappointed. Chris Ivory. It was an enigmatic that we'll talk about. And then Latavis Murray and Eddie Lacey. So big names that didn't do it in Week 17. Chris Ivory is the guy I want to talk about. I tweeted right before the game, hey, Bilal Powell's out. I did too. Get Chris Ivory in your lineup. And he looked great. On that carry. Well.

He was six for 81. Actually, every carry, he was pretty good. Right, right, right. I mean, his other five, he was five for 30 something. Clearly, the New York Jets saw something in my favorite sleeper, Stephen Ridley. Ridley carried the ball. Clearly, they saw something that I saw. Ivory didn't leave the bench at all in the first quarter. And in the first quarter...

Stephen Ridley carried the ball six times for 15 yards, and the Jets punted four times. So this was a cold game you need for the playoffs, made for Chris Ivory's running style, that you have to win. And then when he came in in the second quarter, he ripped off a 55-yard run and then got five more total carries. Something had to have been going on, and we have not yet heard about it. Now, Ivory said to, now he had been limited with a knee injury. He said this. He said, I was still a little shaky.

But I'm a strong man. But I'm a strong man. He said, I know how to play with pain. I was in a little pain, but I could have played a lot more. Yeah, and should have. So it's weird because, you know, Paul said, yeah, he said game plan related. Yeah, both said we wanted to give him a long time to rest. And so we're not going to, yeah, we're going to give them in a whole off season. There's a tweets here from a beat writer who covers New York. And he said that ivory.

claims he was healthy and doesn't know why he didn't get the bigger workload and he never asked. Well, yeah, and it's interesting because he basically played third down roll with Bala. That's what Ivory did. He came in and played this third down roll. I don't know why they changed the script there. It was a bad game for the Jets. At least it got 81 yards. Didn't completely kill you. Somebody asked us on the show. Yeah, that's true. Somebody asked us on our Patreon Madbag show.

Who are you kind of, who's your like dark horse, who you're rooting for? A couple of us said the Jets. We were really hoping the Jets could get in there. And it didn't work out. Fitzpatrick, bad game. That's more of an NFL pooped your pants than a fantasy pooped your pants. I mean, it was a little both. We talked about Winter Fitzpatrick all year. When will Winter Fitzpatrick show up? The answer was the worst possible time. I feel, I mean, he hasn't ever been in the playoffs, right? 11 years now.

Not that I can think of. Something like that. All right. Tight-ins, as I alluded to, Kelsey, nothing. One for 10. Greg Olson, nothing. Two for 16. And Julius Thomas, two for 12. Three guys that did not help you in week 17. That being said, moving forward, Mike, I'd love to know your...

kind of perspective on Travis Kelsey's season. He was a big sleeper for you. He didn't have a terrible year by any stretch. He certainly didn't have an upper echelon game-changing tight-in season. So how do you look at him going into 2016? You have to look at Travis Kelsey as a guy with tremendous talent, but a lack of opportunity. If you look at, I don't have the numbers in front of me.

because I was not prepared to riff on Travis Kelsey like this. But Kelsey's Yards After Catch, last year, I believe he led the league for tight ends. This year, if he's not leading the league in yards after catch for a tight end, he's very, very close. He is just, his physical skill set is tremendous. But the offensive play calling just never targeted him. They brought in the dirty cake, Jeremy Macklin, who had a...

Great year. A part of why I liked Travis Kelsey was Macklin. I thought that Macklin could have an effect of get Kelsey more open, more involved in the game plan. It just never came out that way. So as far as next year, Kelsey's not a guy I will avoid. I didn't get burned by him to the point of saying. He's still finished as the number six tight end. You just, you have to adjust. And he was number two.

In terms of yards after the catch, at the tight-in position. Who's number eight overall? Number one was Grankowski. That's what I thought. Okay. Yeah. And so he's going to be a guy that you can, because other people will be a little bit sour on him. So he's a tight end. Maybe you can get in the ninth round or so, which I would be perfectly fine with right now. All right. So the wide receivers who pooped in their big boy pants, Odell Beckham, he definitely.

You know, five for 54 is, you know, it's not a goose egg, but he's O'Dell Beckham and you expect more from him. I think the two that were the worst. One guy, I hope you didn't start. We said to sit him. He did not look good. Was Amari Cooper. He was two for 20. He shouldn't have even been playing. They should have shut him down two or three weeks ago and let him rest up for next year. Great player. But Brandon Cooks. Weird, man. Had been on fire. Weird.