Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Top 10 TE + Sleepers, Fantasy Game, News

All right, before we get into the tight ends, the last bit of news, third-year wide receiver Jared Aberderas, also known as Jason's, one of Jason's sleeper favorites at the wide receiver position. Some reports out of Packers, I guess the beat writers talking about him being a breakout player this year. Aberdeers, Aberdeers or Eli Rogers. That's tough. I'll take downtown Abby. Yeah, I will as well.

Downtown Abbey. That just happened America. Oh my goodness. Now he's got a breakout just for the nickname. Downton Abbey. Downtown? Downtown? Is he downtown Abby? What's the... It's Downton. Is it down? Okay, then he's Downton Abbey. I never watched the show. I thought you were doing a play on like he goes deep for the ball or something. Yeah, I was. But I thought the show was downtown Abby because I've never watched it. Downton Abbey. Now it's very crucial that he has a good season so that name can come up again.

All right, before we get into the top 10 tight ends, which I'm very excited to talk about these guys. I do want to thank today's sponsor 5-4 Club. Long before they sponsored this show, you heard us talk about them last week. I've been a member of the 5-4 Club for quite a while because I hate shopping and I don't know how to shop or look good on my own. It's true. And see, there you go. My wife agrees. The shirt I'm wearing now, I don't know where it came from, but it was in my closet. So I put it on and it looks good.

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Uh, yes, Cardinals. Yes. Patriots week one. I hope so. I'm still trying to figure it out if I have the time. All right. We're going to get into our top ten tight ends right now. We've been meaning to get to this episode for a while. There's just so much to talk about. You realize that we not only have all of our sleepers, breakouts, bust, and value episodes coming up. We also have our bold predictions episode coming up. And our my guys. Our my guys episode. That was beautiful. Talking about my guys. Wow.

Oh, it's still going. Sorry. No, that's the appropriate response. Sorry. Apologies. Now, that's pretty good, actually. You're really trying to be Mike. There's only one, Mike. Everyone wants to be Mike. All right. Number one, Rob Grankowski. The aforementioned. Look, what's great about Rob Grancowski is he's a big play guy, too. You know, he gets targeted frequently. He can make huge...

plays that change your fantasy week. What is there to say about Rob Grumkowski? Stay healthy, my friend. 100 plus yards and five games scored in nine games. He's the number one for a reason. It's just paying that cost. If you're late in the second, you know, let's say seventh, eighth, ninth pick in the second round, Andy, do you take Rob Grankowski there? I would strongly consider that, yeah. Yeah, if I'm late in the second, that's about where I think the cost is.

is at the value point. I think what Gronkowski also offers you, and we don't talk about, you never draft to trade necessarily. You know, we say that. But having Gronkowski is a really, really strong trade piece in a lot of leagues. So if you take Gronkowski there and you use your last round, I know that's a little strange, but some of these flyer guys that we really like, maybe you grab Vance McDonald, you think you can get by with him and you can move Gronkowski in a couple weeks. I think it's something you can think about doing because,

you're already kind of taking a lottery ticket at the back of your draft. And I think we said yesterday there's about 20 tight-ins we like. So somebody in your league pays a high price for Rob Grankev. That just is the way it works. Yeah, I agree with that. I can't get myself to pull the trigger in the second round on a tight-in and lose a running back or a wide receiver there. I think everything you're saying is fair, is valid. The value is there. It's just so tough to lose depth.

at your running back in wide well he's going in the first for most people well since the since the brady ban has been really official i've seen him normally in the beginning of i heard you say the brady man no the brady ban the the the the four game old brady man um but i i've normally seen him going at the top of the second since that news okay so late second i'm cool you're not cool that's fine moving i respect both perspectives there i mean i just traded grunk so that's

If I'm late in the second and there's like still four quality wide receivers I really like left, and I know I'm pretty sure I can get one of those in the third, then I would do it. First round you end up with, let's say, Des Bryant. Okay, you take Des Bryant in the first. Second round. Well, that means I'm... You're staring down. Doug Martin or Rob Grankowski. I think I'd rather have Gronk than Doug Martin. But when you're talking about in that...

You know, you're still saying in the top 15, 16, 17 players. And in there, I think Doug Martin's probably in my 20s. There's probably a wide receiver that I still love there. So you would take another wide receiver? Yeah, a Keenan Allen or... You would take Keenan Allen as your second wide receiver? Mike Evans. Mike Evans is a perfect example. What about Keenan Allen, though? Would you take him as your second wide receiver with Des Bryant over Rob Gronkowski? In a full PPR, yeah.

All right, Jordan Reed is number two on our tight end list, 114 targets last year, just under 1,000 yards. The story of Jordan Reed was that second half where he just exploded. You know, there are different ways that you can interpret the end of a season. You can crown Doug Baldwin, the greatest wide receiver that's ever played the game. You could crown Jordan Reed as the heir apparent to Rob Grant Casey. I don't know if we're going to get there. He certainly needs to stay healthy. That's the story with Jordan Reed.

Well, I mean, it's laughable, but there are certain players that are very prone to injury, and his injury report historically is very long. Yeah, and look, Jordan Reed averaged over 11 points per game. On a per game basis, there was only three tight ends that did that this year. Gronk, Reed, and Tyler Eifert. The thing that's interesting for me in Jordan Reed is the cost is less than Gronk, and look at your scoring format.

Like we said, okay, 114 targets, 87 catches. Or Grunk, 120 targets, only 72 catches. That's a big difference. Jordan Reed is a PPR guy. So that's, I think, where in PPR formats, I think he can come close to Gronk. The gap is going to be further away in a standard format. But when you're talking about paying a first round or a late fourth, maybe a fifth round pick for Jordan Reed.

If I'm going in early on tight end, that's the way I'm going to go. Yeah, I'll take the risk on himself. I can see that. He's missed 13 games since 2013. He's been on the injury report 21 times in that span. He was pretty clean last year. Washington believes in him. They paid him. So they believe that he can be a great asset to their team. He's also one of the few. When it comes to the injury, he's one of the very few tight ends, maybe two that you.

might actually be able to handcuff. Because we've seen in the past when Reid goes out, Niles Paul produces high-level fantasy. That's my belief. And obviously, we've had times when Niles Paul's been out as well. So we haven't always been able to see that. But I'm going to look up the split on that because I do think Niles Paul will perform. I mean, when Captain Kirk is the quarterback, he is looking for that tight-in. That's just his kind of go-to.

roll his go-to position. All right. Greg Olson number three on our consensus top 10. Again, this is consensus. So if you want to see our individual rankings of the tight-end position, you can go to the fancy footballers.com, click the rankings button and take a look at how we each break these guys down. But our consensus number three, appropriately, a guy who is the epitome of consistency. It's Greg Olson. The epitome of ascension. I mean, the guy, since joining the Panthers, he's gotten a little bit better every single year.

for fantasy purposes. It's crazy. Last year 77 for 1104 and 7 touchdowns. Best year of his career, as Mike just said, he's a guy. I don't project more ascension from him this year. Right. Yeah, I wouldn't either. I think that that ascension has probably capped out. He, if you want to think about, okay, the Kelvin Benjamin factor, Greg Olson performed very strongly.

two years ago when Kelvin was the number one wide receiver for the team. So I'm not concerned about that at all. Greg Olson is just, he's so blat. Really? Yeah, to me. He feels blat for a guy that I'm taking in the fifth round. Even though I know the production is super steady, he only had six games under seven fantasy points. So I know that he's reliable.

But he just, that's the way he feels to me, picking a guy like him in the fifth of the six round. Does he feel that way? Because I know what you're saying when there's guys are just not excited to grab. Does he feel that way to you, Andy? No. He doesn't feel that way at all to me. Maybe that's because he was on the roster, you know, that helped me win the championship last year. He was on my roster to help me win two years ago. And I still kind of feel that way. He's so consistent. And the value is there to me. Like if I'm grabbing him in the fifth round.

I'm plugging in, you know, my, the fifth guy, I've already got four guys on my team that give me depth, and now I can lock my tight-in position, lock it down with consistency. Like you said, two years ago, he had 123 targets versus 124 last year. So you've got that consistency. He plays 16 games every single year.

I'm not worried about, you know, I know that there was a report that he was having some back pain. Never missed the game. He is an Iron Man. Never missed the game. Much like Jason Witten in his prime. Right. And I mean, production wise, he's just consistent week to week. I'll just throw out real quick. I'm on fantasy football calculator. Here's why I think it's maybe the guys around him that makes me feel kind of black about Greg Olson. So just behind him, Doug Baldwin, Michael Floyd, Dante Moncrief. Guys that.

that have huge breakout potential to me from the wide receiver position. Yeah, but those are also guys that I feel you're going to be able to replace in the next round. The next round you're going to get guys that are in the same tier as Michael Floyd. But you're not going to get a same tier as Greg Olson later. All right. One of the my guy candidates for me this year is number four, Travis Kelsey. I have him at number three on my board. Really, really like Travis Kelsey this year.

He is somebody who I see as the ball bounces the right way this season. I don't think he under, I don't think he underperformed from a team perspective last year. I think from a fantasy perspective, some people, you know, Mike included, projected such humongous things from him, but he only had five touchdowns. Still put up 875 yards. You look at those numbers, 72 for 875. You know, he's right at the point where he caught the same amount of balls as Grankowski did. He caught six less touchdowns.