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

I love, love, love Travis Kelsey. And 300 less yards on the same amount of catches. Yes. Just saying. Yep. No, no doubt about it because he's got, you know. He's got Alex Smith. He's not Rob Gankowski. The weird thing about Travis Kelsey was he went up 13 targets. He went up five catches. He only went up seven yards and zero touchdowns compared to two years ago. So maybe you look at that and think, okay, well, we had an outlier low performance because his.

With the targets and the catch is going up, you would think naturally that maybe you get another touchdown or two, and the yardage should go up. Look, I love Travis Kelsey, the player. I think he is. What's his current ADP? I just saw him in the sixth round. He is 605 in standard. I'm going to be targeting him. Look, I don't blame people at all for targeting him. I just, it was.

Maybe, and we talk about the fantasy emotional wounds, the burns that players give you, and Travis Kelsey gave me some deep wounds last year. I just, I'm not sure in that offense, even as the number two guy, that he can elevate drastically from the, from the numbers he put up last year. I agree with Andy. I think that Kelsey is one of the best values. If you're not waiting late.

Normally for me, I'm bypassing Kelsey because I'm just taking someone very, very late in the draft. But if that's not your style, if you want to plug in a tight end, of those guys in the middle, Kelsey is one of the only guys that has the potential to say, oh, he's going to be the second best tight end this year. I mean, if he gets in the end zone a little bit more, he has the talent. He's also, we have to remember, this is his fourth season, but really his third season.

Because he missed his first season. He's been in the league three years. He was very limited in his second season. What I'm saying is they brought him along slowly. He still played all 16 games, though. Yeah, he had 87 targets in his second season. So his second season was, you know, like a rookie season. Last year was his sophomore. And for tight ends, it takes several years for them to come in. I was doing this research earlier this morning for Eric Ebron purposes. But there are so many great.

tight ends that you look back at their first few years in the league and they didn't break out yet. Kelsey is a freak. I don't love the offense he's in, but if you're taking a middle tier guy and you want upside, Kelsey represents that. All right. Gary Barnage is number five on our consensus top 10 tight end list. Obviously burst onto the scene last year, one of those guys with over 1,000 yards. And I think the question in everybody's mind is, does he have the same rapport with Robert Griffin, the third, as he did with the quarterback in place last year?

Or if, you know, we said, oh, maybe if McCown comes in, it's a better situation for Barnage. How are we feeling about Gary in terms of a draft a value? I still feel Gary Barnage is a guy that I like. I'm pulling in the eighth right now. So the eighth round, and that's fine. That's actually, I would rather jump in on Gary in the eighth than Kelsey in the sixth round. He, I'm trying to, I lost my number. Sorry. So 44 career receptions before 2015.

So you talk about a guy who took a while to break out. Multiple years of only 44 total catches then exploded last year. It's from week three to 17. Because if you remember, look back on his box score, he really wasn't involved until week three, the offense shifted. From weeks three to 17, though, average more fantasy points per game than grunk. I'm not predicting that Gary Barn is the number one guy. I'm just saying that he consistently got it done week after week. And I...

Robert Griffin, I've seen the connection of Robert Griffin with Jordan Reed before. I know that he throws to his tight end. So I think that the targets continue. I think that Barnage can have a very good year.

What I've liked from this preseason, even on, if you go back to preseason game one, where Robert Griffin only threw 50%, a lot of those targets were too Barnage. And it seemed like they were out of sync a little bit, to be honest. It seemed like they just kind of had a little bit of a miscue. But you go to week two, and it was the same number of targets going Barnage's way. He is where he's looking. Obviously, in that game, he got the targets to him.

caught that great long ball. Oh, that was a great touchdown. So I've actually bumped him up slightly, really back to where I had him earlier in the offseason, because I wasn't sure with Griffin that Barnage was going to be able to be, you know, high on the target list. But it seems like he's going to have his share. If you have a league that rewards leg catches, Barnage is one of the best.

players you can grab bonus points for butt catches butt catches that's what it is yes Kobe Fleener number six on our consensus top 10 an early offseason favorite of the show especially the two guys sitting across from me yes any changes thoughts opinions on Kobe Fleener than then you've had in the off season are you are you still on the exact same ship roller coaster whatever you call it for with Kobe Fleener my only different thought

is because I do believe at the end of this year, Kobe Fleener is going to have 125 targets. And if he gets 125 targets this year, he's going to be a top five tight in. So I think you can draft him and have that. But I am a little concerned with how long it's going to take for that report to just be built right in the right way. We've seen some of that already in camp in the early on. We've seen reports from Sean Peyton that he's got to.

get a little bit better at that. And if you look back last year, it took Ben Watson a few weeks to kind of get into it too. And that's a supreme vet. I still like Kobe Fleener on the year. My only worry is that he might get off to a slower start, but then he becomes a great target in trades or, you know, if he really stinks. It's amazing. We always forget because of draft capital, how people are. But you fast forward to week three, and there's going to be so many guys on the waiver wire that were drafted high.

And you go, oh, they'd never be on the waiver. If they put up two bad weeks in a row, people drop people. All right. I'm excited to talk about this next guy because I feel like he deserves more of our time. And that's Delaney Walker at number seven. I'm of the firm conviction at this point that Delaney Walker will lead the team in receptions of all past catchers. Walker last year had a very huge season in terms of total receptions, 94 for 1088 and 6.

I think his previous career high was like 65 receptions. Well, he was... The previous three here went 60 catches, 63, 94! But that, to me, you know, that's fine. That's the new... He moved up. That's the way I'm gonna look at... Like Cam Newton, right? Like, you can go...

recite Cam Newton's years. I think Cam Newton moved up. Right. He leveled up. And I think Delaney Walker leveled up. I'd expect 80 catches from it. So did Barnage. And I have no problem jumping in with Barnage. For Walker, my hesitancy was, Will, what is the team this year as far as the wide receivers? And I think that they have improved the wide receivers with Richard Matthews and it's probably going to be Tajay Sharp to start.

But I'm with Andy. I think that Walker will lead the team in targets and receptions. I'm not expecting another 94,000 plus yard season because that was a perfect storm for Delaney Walker. It's like 94,000 yards. You're not expecting 94,000? A little bit under. All right. So let me. Let me argue. But if he's in the 80,000 yard range, he'll be a worth of value. I'm taking him if he's in that range. Yeah. I'm going to argue against Delaney Walker here just for a second.

For the listeners. Wait, is he here? Yeah. Come on in, Delaney. Hey, Dee, sit down. Yeah, that's what I call it. So listen to him. Because I'm not friends. Here's my problem with Delaney Walker is he's going around ahead of Gary Barnage, who I think is going to have a better season. He's going to several rounds ahead of Antonio Gates. And guys that I think are going to have better seasons than Walker. Walker last year had just this.

perfect storm of every wide receiver being injured or stinking. And now, like Mike said, they bring in Rashad Matthews. They draft Sharp. They have, I mean, I would say Kindle Wright healthy, but he'll probably miss half the season still. I will give you that one. But the targets... He's not healthy right now. And now they are... Well, they expect him to be there for week one. So that's my point. Okay. And I just said he's going to miss half the season. So I think I'm fair on Kindle Wright.

But I don't think that it's going to be the perfect storm this year, and they want to run the ball. So is he going to lead them in targets?

and receptions, I'll bet he does. But like we've said with Tajay Sharp, I don't know how much that's going to matter. I think he's going to be consistent. You know, he's not going to be the guy that's going to put up the goose egg. And so there is relevance there to have that tight end. But I just think there are better tight ends being drafted behind him. And he's being drafted because of what he did last year. And he's not going to replicate what he did last year. He's going to take a small step down, I think, because there's rationality to the regression as opposed to Cam, right?

You look at Cam and you go, okay, what's the rationality for him regressing? And the reason is just, oh, he did better than he's ever done. Yep. Which can also be a point in his favor. No, absolutely, absolutely. But there's not, I can't say he lost the target. And the reason we haven't talked about Delaney Walker is simply because of the draft value. That's the only reason we haven't brought him up and praised him more is because we know he will be on zero of our teams ever. And George Clooney and Markie will not be in Tennessee.

Perfect storm. Come on, guys. Oh. Got it. Well, dude. I wonder if anyone got that first. He made the perfect storm comment like three minutes ago. He was holding on to that one. That's when you throw Marky, Mark, and George Clooney in there. I was trying to jump in, but it's timing. It's timing. No, but he said it like five times, so it had to come out. All right.

We'll see if that one was grabbed on to or crickets. Now, Mike has a few loyalists, and they come to his defense. There's like four of them. There's four guys with beards that really like Mike. Zach Ertz is number eight. He was a fantasy darling for me in terms of kind of the best value. I think I had him as high as number three in the very, very early off season. I don't think that's unreasonable.

If I knew anything about the consistency of that quarterback position, that being said, I don't. So he's number eight on a consensus list. Ertz has more talent and ability than just about any tight end out there. He's also heavily targeted. I think this offense is going to focus on Zach Ertz. The problem is that the quarterback position. He's going to shuffle around. I think Ertz is actually a guy, if I had to predict his season, I think he's going to be a guy that comes out of the gate very strongly. And I think you're going to see total numbers at the end of the year that feel better.

than how he feels to own. Because I think... The Frank Gore of last year? Sure. Yeah, I think at the end of the year, we're going to come into next season. We're going to go, boy, Ertz, he really, you know, wow, a thousand-yard season from Ertz, I think is a possibility. Last year was 85 yards. He just didn't score touchdowns. So you're talking about total yardage. He put it up there. He caught more passes than Grankowski. 75 catches. But it didn't feel good. No. And you're going to have problems because if they shuffle in the quarterback situation around, if this team is not competitive like they hope to be,

It's just going to plain old, his touchdown numbers aren't going to be there. He's never been a guy that can get in the end zone consistently yet. I don't think that jump happens. He's number eight. My, like him in PPR League. My defense of Zach Hertz is just what are they going to do in Philadelphia? There's reports coming out, hey, we're going to get Darren Sprouls really involved in the passing game. Yeah, you probably should because the wide receivers there are not very good. And your best receiver, Jordan Matthews, might play week one.

So if that's, that is my rationale of if Zach Hertz is the best patch catcher on the team over Aguilar, DHB. I think the look on Jason's face is why Zachert should be highly valued. No, no, actually. Because you're saying their wide receivers are not good targets. Right. I, I wasn't sure exactly what you had said. My, my confusion was.

I thought you were speaking against Zachert's. Your problem with Zachert. No, I'm speaking for him. Okay, that makes sense because I completely agree. Their wide receivers are in shambles. Nobody's getting the job done. I thought you were speaking against him, too. That's how it came across. Oh, well, sorry, but that's just my face, fellas. Resting angry face, that's Mike. Yeah, no, I agree. They're wide receivers. They're not getting the job done. That's why they brought in Doriel Green Beckham, Ruben Randall's. I believe he started the sentence with the problem I have was Zach Ertz.