Early 2018 Breakouts, Top Handcuffs, Juliaaaaan!!!

We'll say jackpot. Jackpot. There you go. Yes, the judge comes through. I knew it was wrong, but I was trying to figure out what I thought I'd find my way through. They are really good, really talented writers that are working for us. Totally sober. They're putting in great, great work, great articles last year. If you read, you know, some of the content there, you got a leg up. Yep. All right. We also have something exciting to let you know about. We are doing this. A brand new.

Ballers Live giveaway. Here's what we're giving away. It's unbelievable. This is really cool because we have the live shows in Minneapolis. Well, you got to set it up. This is, this works hand in hand with the Fantasy for the People Tour. Brought to you by draft. We're hitting the road. We are going to be in Minneapolis very soon. If you don't have those tickets, they're going quick and quick. But Minneapolis, Dallas, Philadelphia, New York City, and Phoenix. Now Andy. We're giving away two tickets.

Each of the shows. We're giving away a signed helmet courtesy of pristine auction for each of the shows. And then you get your chance to have your question asked live at the show and be part of those episodes. That's what we're given away. The signed helmets? That's the prize package. Jason, let them know what helmets are given away. They're unbelievable. They're live show. They're crim del crem. You can either get an Adam Thielen and. Oh, they're both there. They're both signatures on that one. Or Dak Prescott for Dallas. Carson Wince.

Ever heard of them in Philadelphia? You can get an Odell Beckham signed helmet or Kurt Warner. Basically, you win the tickets, you come to the show, you get your helmet at the show, autographed by that player, and then you get your question on the show. And winners are going to be chosen at random and notified no later than two weeks before that show. With the exception of the show that is not two weeks away. Yeah, Minneapolis show. That's a week from Thursday. So you have to be present to claim the prize, but you can go to Foot Clan.

giveaway.com and get your chance to win those helmets. And those helmets are courtesy of our friends at pristine auction. Which I, yes, I mentioned that. Did you? I did. Double shout-up. Double shout-out. All right, let's get into the news. News and notes from around the league. I also want to mention that whoever was writing in our show doc.

spelled the word helmet with a U. That's the judge. That's Helmut. That was, that was, it's a Helmut frantically trying to remind us to say. Put your helmet on. Put your helmet on, Brooks. Patriots, wide receiver, Julian Edelman. Four game suspension for violating the performance enhancing substance policy. I've always said, which is what our writers are on. That's the crackpot staff. I have always said.

That Julian Edelman's beard is just too, it's too good. It's way too good for anyone to have. Apparently. Yeah, he's got BGH. He's taking the beard growth hormones. I can neither confirm nor than I would love some of that. I'd love to have it nice and thick. Here's a reality for Julian Edelman missing time. He's going to drop. He needs to drop extraordinarily far to be a value to me. He's a guy that.

you're going to have to take a roster spot up for four weeks. I hate doing that. I hate going into week one, week two, when there's replaceable guys I can get that are going to be playing those weeks and then I can drop a player that's not producing for me and pick up great waivers. It helps Chris Hogan. Definitely Jordan Matthews is a guy to keep your eyes on right now. He has at least now an opportunity to come in and make Andy very sad.

Sure. Yeah. Jordan Matthews doing anything else with his career would make me very sad. That is absolutely true. Just certain players. Yes, I know. Go ask a Buffalo fan whether they like Jordan Matthews. Go ask a Philadelphia fan whether they like Jordan Matthews. I bet the Phillie fans would like that. Oh, in the honeymoon phase before they knew what they had. So for Julian Edelman, I'm on a different side than Jason that I am interested.

in him. If you look at fantasy football calculator, he has plummeted in PPR leagues right around that 501. He's already at the 608. If Julian Edelman hits that 8 to 9 range, he'll be 10th. If he's in the 10th, and this is, that's easy for me. I would take you hold that spot for four weeks. Because you're talking about a team that should have a top three offense. He is the primary wide receiver, not necessarily pass catcher because that's gronk.

But I believe that Julian Edelman will go right back into being the primary slot guy for Tom Brady. And in the 10th round, I know that you've got to wait four weeks to get him. But I would rather do that and sit on him. And that's not a funny. Just sit on him. Just sit on him. See, it would be ideal if leagues had a disappointed dad spot on the roster. Because that, that's how I feel about the Julian Edelman situation. We haven't seen you for a year.

I mean, is it worth it for players to get back and get healthy and just take four games? I'm asking that question legitimately. Like Edelman, he's older, right? Yes. And we've seen this happen with players as they're getting older. And he chooses, you know, whatever. They all say they didn't do it. And they had a bunch of doctors that said, you know, he's not aware of it. But, you know, they know what's going on. Is it worth it for these players to come back and take four games if it means that they can prolong their career and make more money?

Yeah, but the problem is if you get caught... It is, right? Look, you... There's been too many instances of guys... That doesn't cast a shadow on his career at all in my opinion. I don't think it does. Making money and then getting caught... I already got your money. But the thing is... John Merriman. He is now off, right? He's been caught. So now the stuff that he felt maybe, allegedly...

stuff that he might have felt he needed to get back, beard growth hormone, is not able to be continued. And he is 32 years old coming off an injury and we'll start the season with the Patriots figuring out how to try to replace him. For those reasons, I don't think we know for sure what Julian Edelman we're going to get.

in week five. That sounded like a Shark Tank, for those reasons. Yes, I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. That's exactly what it was. It makes me perk up about Chris Hogan, who was the wide receiver seven from weeks one through eight last year. It makes me a little bit more interested in the early season impact of Sony Michelle, first round draft pick, running back with Julian Edelman off the field. And obviously, Grunkowski gets the stamp of approval. So, I mean, where do you draft Hogan now? He's...

I'll take Hogan similar to where he was already going. For those asking about Malcolm Mitchell, hasn't been practicing. Missed all of 2017 with knee issues. He hasn't been practicing due to knee issues. Which is why you still have Philip Dorset there. You still have Kenny Britt there. They brought in Jordan Matthews. You wondered, why did they keep holding on to all these wide receivers and then bring Jordan Matthews in? You kind of get an insight into why now. Look, that's normally reserved for King Goughrey, but...

The Duke. Oh, I get it. The Duke has received a three-year $15.6 million extension. I felt like a royal horn there might be worth it. Duke Johnson extended through 2021. His pouting, his social media pouting has produced $15.6 million. Yeah. This makes a difference. I mean, it's funny. You can move. RB 11 in PPR leagues last year. You can move a player up or down in your rankings based on a beat reporter saying something that he kind of sees in his opinion. But.

But you can ignore things like this, which is this is the team saying with their money, their most important asset. You're ignoring this? No, I'm saying you shouldn't. I'm saying this is actually news where you're saying the team thinks that he's important to what they want to do. And prior to this, I kind of had been leaving Duke Johnson left for dead. And I think I'm going to take a look again at Duke Johnson at that passing game and see what the money is saying.

about what team they want to be. Well, a report came out this past weekend after the signing about Carlos Hyde having a pretty big lead on Nick Chubb for the starting role. Duke Johnson is a past catching third down wizard that they've now reinvested in. You have Injoku, Landry, Gordon, and currently a quarterback that throws for under 3,000 yards. It's a strange situation in Cleveland all the way around. There wasn't it just this past week?

Yeah, so Brown's Zone reporter had said Duke Johnson's will be reduced to a degree this season. That was right before the extension happened. Yeah. So what are you doing, Cleveland? Are you going to pull back on his workload after giving him this much money? That would be a very strange thing to do. All right. We'll take, before we jump into the breakouts, our early breakouts, let's take a minute for the hype train.

We had a ton of Rob Gronkowski trade rumors over the week. Watch out for that trade! Twitter went insane. Yeah, you had rumors that, you know, Belichick wanted to trade Gronk. Offers were on the table to the Titans and the 49ers. And then there was another closed door meeting in New England, which those doors, they're always closed. And, you know, then Tom Brady maybe threatened to retire if they traded him. And the statement, official statement from the Pat's PR head.

is that none of it is true and that there is probably an imminent extension for Gronkowski that should go through soon. And do you buy any of it? Do you care about any of it or do you just move on as a fantasy owner? I just very much enjoy that New England is this beacon of craziness. I don't remember if I. Over this off season. If I said it on the show or not, but we had a question of the inside out horse.

A couple weeks back, the bright duck. More horses on this show than you could ever believe. And I originally had New England. You don't find that anywhere else. I originally had New England in there because at some point they're going to collapse and I feel like it's coming left, right and center. The only place it's not coming from is they're division mates. And that's why I still think they'll be all right. But it's bad vibes. I want a hard knock style reality show where it's all these main players with a like a family counselor.

in a room and they all air their grievances and talk through it. I think they just made that on HBO called Succession or something like that. Oh, that's the show. That is the succession. Succession. But with Jimmy Garoppelow hiding in the corner. Right. I am ignoring. No, completely worth, I mean, nothing to see there with the gronk news. ESPN's Rob Demovsky writes, Time Montgomery appears set for a significant role in the off season. Do you buy the offense? In the off season. Okay. No, in the offense. Do you buy the hype?

It's interesting because if you read McCarthy's real quote, he essentially fully says it's a running back by committee. No one has been able to go the distance for us. And that's why we are this. We are in our BBC. And then he just praised Montgomery's versatility. Yeah, I buy the hype not in that Montgomery is now going to be their clear cut starter, but that Montgomery has just been forgotten about for no reason. He is on the dark course show. Jason brought him up.

I've had him staten as the highest fantasy point score in that backfield, despite the fact that I have him as the least amount of carries. He's more versatile, more trusted by Aaron Rogers, more talented in certain ways than those other two guys, especially than Jamal Williams, in my opinion. So, yeah, I support Jason's...

Thoughts on Time Montgomery. Ken Wisenhunt suggested that Melvin Gordon could be a bigger part of the passing game in 2018. Makes sense. He's a player that I have at five right now. And that means he's ahead of Ezekiel Elliott in my rankings. What? He is. Yeah. You didn't know that? You didn't understand the inference of him being at five that other players had to be behind him? Well, I just, no, I did not have my. You would think that I did not have a flame retardant suit on. I was not ready. That's fair.

No, I... Yeah, that's exactly. Apparently, Jason didn't realize that either. No, I knew you had... Gurley, Belk, Camara, Johnson, Gordon, Elliott. Again, that's half-point PPR scoring. And when you look at those names, Gurley, Bell, Camara Johnson, Gordon, the five ahead of Ezekieliot are all bona fide, proven, past catchers, has nothing to do with the talent of Ezekiel. It has to do with the utilization. And now you have another report coming out, basically just saying,

You know, a little pat on the butt of Melvin Gordon's passing game utilization. If this report came out and said, boy, Zeke Ely is going to be used a ton of the passing game this year. It's not going to be Tavon Austin and all these other weapons. Then I'd go, boy, maybe Zeke deserves to be in that spot, but I want the pass catcher. I don't blame you there. I actually like Melvin Gordon a lot. You know, I blame you a little bit on the Zeke side, but sometimes it's not a negative on a player.

It's a positive on other players. And I think that's what this is here. Miami Herald has reported the second round tied in. Mike. Gassicki. Gassiki looked lost at times during OTAs, which coming out of Miami, I would have expected that report to say, look like the new Rob Grankowski. If they are saying he looks lost, he must be running down the tunnel at snap and be like, whoa, the field's over here. Running down the tunnel during the snap.