Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Rising Stars, Preseason Takeaways, News, Injuries

I agree. On the Carolina side of the ball, you know, people are, their eyes are paying attention to the target numbers for Devin Funches, which is, I mean, it's not a bad sign that he's getting those targets. It's a good sign. A lot of them came from Derek Anderson. Cam Newton looked a little bit like the 2014 Cam Newton. Air mailing guys, not as accurate. I think this is just a reminder. Maybe that's the biggest takeaway from the Carolina side of the ball. This is a reminder that.

You know, it's not a guaranteed smooth sailing repeat of last year for Cam Nude. Yeah, absolutely. Hyper-efficient last year. Takes a lot to do that. Didn't have a good game this game. Yeah, if he was that efficient this year, as he was last year, he's obviously a first ballot Hall of Famer if he just keeps that up. I don't expect him to. He's going to have his good games as great games.

He's going to have some games like what we saw yesterday, which aren't going to help you that much. Where do you have him as your... He's my number four quarterback. He's my number one still. All right, the Redskins and the Bills. The Deshaun Jackson talk, we already brought it up. He was being targeted a lot, looked really good. You know, this is one of the games that Mike watched. His feedback was that even if Cousins isn't necessarily a starter in your mind as a fantasy owner, he's going to have those good streaming games like he did last year. He's willing to throw the ball around.

You were making the point that a lot of his efficiency happened against the second team in Buffalo, though. Buffalo didn't play their starters, but like a minute. I feel like Buffalo was not. They didn't get the memo that this was the dress rehearsal game. So come on, get with it. Give us some football. That being said, you know, people can see different things. What I saw, and maybe this is because we just did the kind of fantasy face off on or the fandings debate of the week on Kirk Cousins. But to start the game, I don't think he was looking great through.

a couple picks, but then caught fire. And I think to Mike's point, and this is important for fantasy, is you want a quarterback that, one, throws the ball a lot, and two, isn't afraid to take those valuable deep shots. And that's what you have in Cousins. Sometimes it's going to be interceptions. He had one interceptions. Okay, well, he had several. Three touchdowns. Several early, terrible throws, one of which was an interception, and then he caught fire.

I mean, I know the numbers in the box score look great. And the reality is, I think this is, to Mike's point, if he plays great and terrible at the end of that game, what was his stat line, Andy? Three touchdowns and a half. That's great. Yeah. I mean, for fantasy. That's what he did in the year. Yeah, for fantasy, that's going to work at the end of the game. And if he can keep that up, then maybe he can be top 12. All right. My Redskins takeaway is that this is Matt Jones backfield. Not that you didn't already know that. Maybe you questioned it. Rob Kelly seems to have the back up role. Keith Marshall got hurt.

And I expect Jones to start week one and hopefully give you production, stay healthy. Yes, my bill's takeaway is that no one important played. Tyrod Taylor played for about a minute. The secondary didn't look good. The bills looked like they were in a little bit of trouble on defense. They did not have a great defensive game. It was nice to see Sammy Watkins out there again for about a minute. But it was just nice. That's what I wanted. I wanted him to get out there, play, show he's healthy, and then get him out.

All right, the Buccaneers played the Browns. This was a complete opposite performance from the Buccaneers as last week, specifically James Winston, who looked, you know, I hope that that's not a sign of what's to come. You have a game like last week, then a game like this week. That's been my concern with James Winston. Mike has them as a big breakout. I think the potential's there because you see games like this.

But much like Jay Cutler used to put up these prolific games and then struggled, that's my fear. I haven't seen it enough to want to rely on Winston. I understand that Mike wants to. I think you have to question whether or not this. Look, James Winston looked amazing. In this game, he looked great. But it was the Browns. So it's like, is he going to look amazing in the right matchups and, you know, struggle against a really good deed? That's yet to be seen. But if he could play like this, I mean, what I noticed was with Winston, there were several. I mean, so many deep.

middle shots where he's throwing the ball 20, 25 yards in the air. Reminded me of a Carson Palmer type of player where he's looking at those big medium type of shots down the field and he's finding the wide receivers that have separation. We've talked about Vince Jackson looked good. Mike Evans looked great. Humphreys looked good. Doug Martin played just a little bit. Look pretty good. You saw Sims be involved the way Sims is always involved in the passing game.

You know, he's still a value light in the draft. The major takeaway from the Cleveland side, I have, hello Gordon. Yeah, how are you doing? Welcome back. So what do you do with Josh Gordon? Because that's a big question. The question coming in is, will he return to form? And might we remind you, his form was excellent? But you're losing him for four weeks. And then he has to return to form. So the question really is, well, where do I draft him? How much do I, you know, I've got to waste a bench spot for four weeks.

If I'm drafting him in the earlier rounds, I've got to waste a roster spot. Well, the fantasy owners out there are drafting him in the fifth round, and that's too soon for me. But I would take him in the sixth round, and I'd be happy to stash him. And here's what I see from that offense. You have Corey Coleman, you have Pryor, you have some big-bodied guys, you have athletic guys, and you have a coach that has at least thus far, including this game, wanted to put RG3 in a position to take advantage of a slower developing deep ball type of offense.

Now, that cost him in this game. There were six sacks in the first half. Cleveland's numbers looked worse than how I actually thought they looked on film. They had a couple bad drives, but the first drive of the game was very solid. Barnage was still involved. You saw a little bit of Cory Coleman. My takeaway is, hey, Josh Gordon's going to be worth your draft pick. He looked a little big to me. I think he'll be in game shape by the time he comes back around to being activated.

And then my own concerns about Duke Johnson. I just don't know what his involvement is going to be in this offense was RG3. What were your thoughts on the Cleveland side of the ball? I completely agree with the fear that this might be more of a Crowell.

backfield because he fits that that read option type of scheme. And it doesn't seem like RG3 checks down to that running back as often as he does. He's looking for the tight end. I liked Gary Barnage. I like what I saw as far as the targets going his way. I completely agree that they looked better than what the final stats were. And for Josh Gordon, I'm going the eighth round for me. So that begs the question then.

Do you take Josh Gordon, Corey Coleman, or prior? In what order? I'm going to take Josh Gordon. So that's the top. It's the eighth round you're taking Gordon. That's the first. That's the first Cleveland Brown. That's what I was asking for. Yeah. And I'm not doing that if I've got like a, if I'm, if I've only got four bench spots, he's not in consideration. I'm not going to waste a bench spot for that long a time period. If I've got five, that's where you'll draft Emmanuel Sanders over Josh Gordon. Yes. I would draft Emmanuel Sanders over Josh Gordon. Okay.

All right, let's move on to the Steelers in the Saints game. This was a game that really showed, you know, an offense for the Steelers. I struggled to speak there. An offense for the Steelers that look good. You know, Levi-on Bell was in the game. Is this just tantalizing us for when he returns? Yeah, I mean, he was in the game for a long time. I don't know why he was playing so late into the game, but it was great to see him healthy. Big Ben, I mean, we've thrown plenty of shade on Big Ben around here.

He looked hyper efficient, had two touchdowns, got out of the game. And the big takeaway to me from the Pittsburgh side was that Jesse James looked great. I think you said it before the show, Andy. How did you word what Jesse James looked like? Because I thought it was perfect. Oh, I said he looked like Heath Miller with legs. Yes. He was like a young Heath Miller. He was constantly, those short little right.

you know, in the middle of the field passes, and he'd get it. He was looked for on third down. He got the touchdown. Jesse James. So the question. He's a streaming candidate until Adaria's Green Place. That's exactly what Jesse James is. There you go. But if you're going to punt on tight in, or you already did, pay attention to maybe streaming Jesse James if, you know, Green's not out there. Because I think he's a great candidate for that. We've always seen Heath Miller.

in his lack of athleticism, be effective as a tight end. So I think you pay attention to that. And then on the other side of the ball, the Saints, look, C.J. Spellers, they're definitely giving him a shot in the preseason. I don't know what it means yet. He was the first running back on the field for the offense. The first team off. Started the game. He also returned the kick. And he was on the field when Marking Room was still playing, before Marking Room came out of the game.

From just the eyeballs, I wasn't writing down every single snap. But my eyeballs said that he played about 60% of the snaps and Mark Ingram, 40% of the snaps while they were playing. He is going to be involved. I didn't think he looked great personally. I didn't think he did anything to say, wow, I really need to look at drafting C.J. Spiller other than involvement, right? Opportunity. We think opportunity is greater than talent. We know that the saints use.

Whoever is the passing down running back has had a great fantasy production seasons out of New Orleans. And so what it does for me is it gives me a little bit of scare for the Mark Ingram pass catching role. If Mark Ingram loses that, that takes his value from being essentially a locked and loaded RB1 if he's healthy to being in that late RB1, upper RB2 cusp.

Yeah, and Ingram just didn't have a good game in general. I mean, he had like 17 yards on seven carries in this game too. I'm not sure the Saints had a good game, to be honest. They didn't. But, I mean, he dropped his only target from Drew Breeze. And so if you were to say right now whether you thought Ingram was receiving the same amount, more or less of the target number from last year. From last year on a per game basis, I would say that he's going to receive fewer targets. Fewer. Yes. That would be my guess. But not much. I don't think he's going to be cast.

out of the passing game. Two years ago, Mark Ingram basically wasn't involved. He will be involved. But I think he's going to, I mean, Spiller didn't exist last year for the Saints. They barely played him. I would say the other big takeaway, and this is really important. This is the most important thing we're bringing up. For the Saints, it had been reported that Kobe Fleener had.

cut his luscious locks, but they were flowing, and they are there. Kobe Fleeners, his Samps of power exists. And he had a very nice 31-yard reception, called back at no fault of his own. I thought he looked all right to me watching. You look at the box score and you go, uh-oh, Kobe Fleener, not involved. I think he had one catch. It didn't seem that bad to me. All right, the Packers and 49ers.

Look, the Packers, to me, they look like the same type of problems they ran into last year. They're running into again in the preseason. It's early. You know, it's Aaron Rogers. I know we don't have to throw up a big panic alarm. But can Jordy fix everything that was wrong with that offense? It seems like he's going to need to. I mean, the narrative is the Packers' offense wasn't the same without Jordy.

Well, Jordy didn't play in this preseason game, and it was the exact same as last year. You and I both agree on that. They looked like they struggled a little bit at times, and this is not, look, I think maybe the 49ers defense isn't given enough credit, but they're not great. I mean, if I gave them all the credit they deserved, they wouldn't go into the great category. And I think the Packers looked like they struggled a little bit to find. I mean, it just looked exactly like last year. Jared Cook got involved.

Jared Cook is definitely the tight end to have from the Packers. You know, you hope that he can go back to the, who was it, Jamichael Finley days with Aaron Rogers. We actually have fantasy production from that tight end. Yeah, and they need that role, especially if Jordy is going to be out. You know, Eddie Lacey looked fine to me. He was the only bright spot here for the Packers to me. He did. He looked good. We're going to have to get reports of Jordy being.

Very involved. And honestly, I think I might even take, you know, from my projections, I might have to take a touchdown or two away from Rogers. He's right now my far and away quarterback won. But he looked like the weapons around him were having the struggles they had last year. Well, you remember what it looked like last year. He would come back in the pocket. He'd go through his progressions. And no one was open. And no one was open. And you saw him do that a couple times. You know, Devante Adams.

Devante Adams had a great play, bad play, great play, bad play. Yep, a very nice catch and a run for a touchdown that got called back. All right. Other side of the ball? Do we have to talk? That's because Jerome Simpson was cut. Oh, man. Jerome Simpson has been cut. Oh. And Andy has a great day. The day already will go well. He's terrible. Man, you hate Jerome Simpson. I do hate Jerome Simpson. Carlos Hyde has a concussion.