Fantasy Football 2018 - 10 Things to Remember from 2017

Guns Mahoney. I love Michael Coney. Guns Mahoney as well as, now Eagles fans, they may be bummed out because Frank Reich is now being interviewed as well. So we'll see who ends up as the head coach of the Colts. It's not going to be Josh McDaniels. That's the gist. Anything else here? Curtis Samuel, second year wide receiver going into 2018, needed surgery to repair broken bone.

and ligament damage following that week 12 injury, or week 10 injury, he's going to be in recovery, but should be ready for training camp. That's all that matters is will he be back for camp? Because Curtis Samuel, as we talked about in the rookie show, he's very interesting going into next year with the Panthers. Yeah, I think the injury does worry me a little bit. The only other piece of news that I know of sticking with the coaching theme.

A little bit of bad news coming out of the Detroit area. Oh, terrible news. We were just made aware that Gimley, also known as Matt Patricia. And my axe. Well, I don't know if you could say that anymore. He took an axe to his beard. What? Yes. And while it's, he still has a beard, it's a baby beard. Wait, did he listen to this podcast and didn't like the association? He looks like an accountant. Oh, come on. And my calculator. My apologies. There you go.

So we'll have to wait and see if we can continue calling him Gimley. That is absolutely devastating news. Do you realize this? Yes, because Twitter was on fire with the Gimley tweets. If you ace the interview with that beard, with that hair. That's what you're selling. Yeah. They hired someone and now they're getting this other guy. We got a Samson situation going on here. He's going to lose his powers. Oh, goodness.

That is devastating. All right. Sorry to break the news to you. Wow. I'm in absolute shock. I've been working on that voice for months. Great. It's your only. Luckily, I have a good fallback accountant voice I can go to. All right, let's move on. Don't forget to remember these things. Said as only Jason would say it. Do not forget to remember these things. Ten things to remember from the past season. And we have all brought something to the table.

uh in this segment so i'm a half rack of abs a half full full i apologize you brought the half rack jason brought the full rack yeah so i get a rack and a half yes digressing to the list all right here's here's what i've got for you the first thing that i want you to remember are are we are we counting these down doesn't matter no there's no order okay the first thing i want people to remember is this

And especially, I'm speaking to dynasty owners, I'm speaking to redraft owners, it doesn't matter. Look, rookie running backs have been really good. Really, really good. And in contrast, rookie wide receivers, including the aforementioned Curtis Samuel, very high draft pick, haven't been as good over the last three years. Now, you go all the way back to 2014, you had that amazing, amazing rookie class of wide receivers. But in 2015,

First three running backs off the board. Todd Gurley, Melvin Gordon, then T.J. Eldon. Well, the wide outs were Amari Cooper, Kevin White, Devante Parker, Nelson Aguilar. Some of those guys coming around, but it hasn't been a big dynasty win for wide receivers from that class. You go to 2016. You got Ezekia Elliott. The next off the board was Derek Henry. Kenyon Drake. You had Corey Coleman. Will Fuller.

Josh Doxon, Treadwell. Oh, you haven't gotten anything out of that in Dynasty formats. And if you look at those four names, you still. Well, Fuller. No, I mean, there's no way that you're happy. No, just saying it's not been a total disaster. Will Fuller showed up for a couple games. As has, you know, Josh Doxon, Corey Coleman, a couple games. I think the point that you're speaking to is it takes a little bit more time for wide receivers than running backs. Next year, when you're only talking about rookies.

Well, and my point is in part that. But also, look, guys like Kevin White might not have a future at all. This past year, I haven't even gotten to 2017. Fournette, McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mix and Camara, Hunt. That's nice. Or Corey Davis, Mike Williams, John Ross. Not good, Curtis Samuel. So what I'm saying is, look, let's not be blind to a three-year run.

Because it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that the wide receivers aren't going to pan out for you in Dynasty necessarily. What it does mean is we may be seeing NFL teams become more and more and more comfortable putting rookie running backs into a bell cow roll out the gate. I mean, look, you would be happy with Fournette and McCaffrey. You'd been happy with Cook, even though he was injured. And what you saw out of him, Mixon is going to have a full-time role this next year. Hunt, Camara.

I'm just saying, look, let's remember how good rookie running backs have been as we evaluate dynasty and redraft leagues. I think the thing to also remember is just the fear of drafting a completely unknown player in redraft. I remember when Zeke was taken, I mean, you also have to take into account draft stock, did the team trade up for this player? You have to follow those things as well, but Zeke drafted 104.

And yet there were fantasy players hesitant to spend a back of the first round pick on Ezekiel Elliott. And we have three straight years of tremendous evidence that rookie running backs, when put into the right situation, you shouldn't be afraid to draft them with an early pick because they're going to get opportunity. I remember when we were looking at rookies last year, I had done a study in the previous 10 years at that point. On average, there were two.

rookie running backs that finished as an RB1 on average per year. That's great. It does not happen the same with wide receivers. Speaking of wide receivers, my number two. Number two. The thing I want to remember from this last year is it actually came out of our consistency episodes we did a couple weeks back.

With wide receivers, you know, looking every single wide receiver, it doesn't matter who you are, you're going to have a couple bad games or more than a couple bad games, and it just gets worse and worse. But when I looked at the whole list and the data that I collected, what was really evident to me was that there are only a handful of wide receivers who can put up the monster games. There's only a few, and they all go early. So if I am spending a...

an early round draft pick on a wide receiver, that round one, round two pick. In those rounds, I am going to focus on the guys who can have monster games that win me weeks because I can get consistency. I can get a Jarvis Landry or, you know, someone that's a volume play later. What I found out is you can't. You cannot get late in the draft.

guys that can have those 20 plus point weeks at any kind of consistency. There were only six guys this year, six wide receivers, that scored more than 20 fantasy points at 20% or more of their games. There are only six. Because that's the 2020 rule. There you go, the 2020 rule. And this being a hindsight show. Oh, my goodness. We did. With Barbara Walters. Baba Wawa. And so the thing is, is.

I'll give you two examples here. What I'm looking at and remembering, this is why next year I will draft AJ Green over Michael Thomas. I'll draft Tyreek Hill over Brandon Cooks. I want the guys who can have those monstrous games at a large clip because, yes, AJ Green might disappear more, but he can do something that the others in those first few rounds can't and nowhere else in the draft game. I love it.

I'm going to jump in here with number three, and that's the annual. Looking back, love this. How did the bus report go? And here's the deal, guys, and gals, of course. Only, only two running backs drafted in the top 12 busted, and one of those was David Johnson. So he was hurt. Besides that, Jay Ajai.

is the only running back taken in the top 12 that actually busted. Yes. And his is a unique situation because he was actually traded. We didn't get to see what Belkow in Miami would have been all year. And I am designating a bust as you weren't even a running back too. So DeMarco Murray, while he was disappointing for a lot of the year, he still finished at running back 23. And you look over in the top 15 finishers, nine of those. Nine of those were drafted as top 12 running backs. And you only found three.

Top 15 finishers after the fifth round. And those numbers, the nine of the top 15, draft in the top 12, trying to make it as concise as possible with all these numbers. That's actually a pretty high number. Generally speaking, it's about six. The wide receivers, though, you move over there. We had three busts. Odell Beckham, Jr., not really his fault. Injury.

He's David Johnson. Not his fault at all when I say not really. But he was dominating and then he went down. But Jordy and Amari Cooper, the only other two guys that busted who were top 12 wide receivers. So my point in saying this is it feels like running back was dominant. And it was just an absolute guarantee. But wide receivers shouldn't be slept on because it wasn't as bad as it feels.

coming out of the season. People feel like, well, running back was everything. The early drafted wide receivers still came through for your team. Okay. That's the gist. Yes. Because when these things happen, go two years ago. When the running backs had, we had six players in the top 12 bust. Everything was zero RB. Everything out there, which, again, I'm not crapping the strategy, just the general public, when they shouldn't be going zero RB, they didn't care.

Because it was running backs are volatile. They're going to get hurt. They can't help my team. Wide receivers are safe. It feels like, well, running backs are the safe play now because wide receivers don't help. Yes. Okay. Before I jump into the fourth thing to remember that you shouldn't forget, but you should remember. Before I do that, I want to thank today's sponsor, Pristine Auction. Unbelievable deals on pristineauction.com every single day. We need to have an applause track.

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