Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Top 20 Players & Best Ball Bonanza

Gotta love him right now. Yeah, I think there's multiple reasons to be worried. You know, while he has, you know, the sophomore slump word attributed to him, there's a big difference between the offense of the Saints and the offense of the Bears. That's one worry. But usually when a running back has the type of season Jordan Howard had, which was incredible. I mean, if Zeke didn't have 1,600 rushing yards, you'd be going, whoa, who's this Jordan Howard rookie that, you know, had?

what, 1,300 rushing. Second in the league. And didn't play the first three games. I mean, it wasn't the starter. You know, he was the starter starting in week three. From that point on, he was the running back in fantasy football. So the nice thing is he didn't do it on the back of touchdowns. Because if he had 10 touchdowns. They might have won more. Well, sure. But if he had 10 touchdowns, I'd be saying the bears are not producing a 10 touchdown running back. But he did it without that. So I can tell you a fantasy mistake I made last year. Oh, let me hear it.

Oh, I know it. I remember. So they played Green Bay and Green Bay's poorest run defense. And, well, he stunk. And this was about week seven. And I may have traded him after that in one of our leagues. The next two weeks, the next week he had to play against one of the best rush defenses of the year in Minnesota. How do he do against Minnesota? Yeah, he was the number one running back that week. And so I saw the Minnesota game in the buy and I unloaded him and I regretted it the rest of the year.

Jordan Howard, number 15. Jason, number 14 is Rob Grancowski. What can you say about this gigantic tight end? I can say that Rob Grancowski is similar to a little bit of what I was saying to Jordan Reed. I don't usually draft tight ends, but he is undervalued this year. You know, the two previous years, he's basically costing you a first rounder. He was either last year, he was like the 1201. So that's at the turn. That's where.

Whether you pick him at the last pick of the first round or the first pick of the second round, it's the same pick. And then the previous year, he was a first rounder in 2015. The reason why is clear. If he plays, I mean, more than eight games, he's a top tight in. I mean, he was eight. He was the eighth best tight end in his rookie season. We just had an argument with a judge last episode about rookie tight ends. And he was, he finishes the tight end eight. Since then.

If he's played more than eight games, you're talking about he's had three first place finishes and his lowly fourth place tight-in finish. He's incredible. But I'm never willing to give up those first round running backs and wide receivers. I'm rarely willing to give up a second round running back and wide receiver. But with his average draft position, I've been in plenty of drafts where Gronk is falling into the third round. And at that point, you're getting a guy who can. Difference maker. Yeah, I mean.

When you finish first and have the ability to finish first, it's a flat guarantee that you had a positional advantage over everybody else, especially at a position that only plays one. All right, number 13 on our top 20 rankings is Mike Evans. Mike Evans, a dominant season a year ago. He's had three seasons in the fantasy football universe, and he finished 12, 24th, and last year number two, just 23 years old. Or number one, depending on scoring. Yeah, he was number one on. Jordy was.

Yeah, George and him go back and forth. So Mike Evans, I think we all agree the physical freak aspect is there. He dominated last year. He was a target monster last year. Now you had Deshaun Jackson, OJ. Howard to the offense. Cameron Brate is back. And what do we make of Mike Evans year number four? Yeah, so Mike Evans scared me for a while because whenever you finish at number one or number two, you're usually overdrafted.

You know, you come the next year and you're drafted as if you're going to repeat that. And unless you're, you know, Antonio Brown or Aaron Rogers, you usually don't repeat that. Then they add Deshaun Jackson. And you go, okay, well, he was the only show in town last year. Now he's not. Now he's got someone else that, you know, look, if Deshaun Jackson takes a 70-yard touchdown from the 30, that's one scoring opportunity away from Mike Evans, and then it goes to the running game. So I had Mike Evans a little bit lower, closer to wide receiver 10.

The last, this last week, I actually watched some film on Mike Evans to kind of test my own thoughts on him. And boy, he's really good. He's really good at catching that football. And I, at the catching of the ball. I mean, I was just like, yeah, he's got good routes. His contested catches is very good. I,

I mean, I have a note to look at my rankings on him because I might need to move him up. It's not just all opportunity. It's opportunity and talent. Of course. The opportunity might go down, but the talent is just, it's freakish. No, I'm not overreacting to that. He's one of the safest players, I feel like, in fantasy football from a floor perspective. I think Mike Evans is very, very safe. You're paying a high price from him. I don't draft him ahead of AJ Green. I don't like the recency bias that we have against AJ Green.

I'm not taking him over AJ Green or Jordan Nelson, guys that are going right now behind him. Yeah, and so I'm looking for best value out of that upper echelon. But Mike Evans, you have to love what you have there. I think a lot of people might be surprised. He's at 13. His normal position is about 9 right now in mock draft. So we have him at 13. Number 12 is A.J. Green, whom we just mentioned. A.J. Green missed the last seven weeks of the season last year, which means it was the first time he didn't have a thousand-yard year, right?

Yeah, because he missed seven games and really eight because he had two snaps total in the game that he got injured in. Look, AJ Green, we had a question today on a Facebook live stream. If you're not following us over on Facebook, we pop on live now from time of time, be sure to do that. But the question was, does AJ Green belong in conversations with the top three wide receivers?

And I would say absolutely certainly he does because not only has he done it his whole career, he's had two, you know, top four finishes, a top seven finish. But last year, before his injury through the first eight weeks of the season, he was your number one wide receiver. What more do you want to be in the conversation with the top than, and it wasn't like he trailed off. He got injured. I think he would have finished in the top three at least had he played a full 16.

I really like AJ Green. Number 11, Melvin Gordon, and you look at this consistency chart for Melvin Gordon, and it's impervious. He had no weeks outside the top 24 until he was hurt. Yeah. So the entirety of the year, he missed the last three games, was hurt in the fourth to last game against Carolina. Otherwise, he's a top 24 every week. He was the RB3 above DeMarco, above Shady, above Freeman.

through those 13 games. I think that there's a world that doubts him because some of the metrics didn't match, you know, the impressive numbers of LaShaul McCoyard-Brickery or David Johnson or left bell. But he was just great. I mean, right? He's just great. No, Melvin Gordon was one of the untouchables last year when you were looking at trading.

You couldn't get Melvin Gordon from anyone because week after week after week he was dominating. He never let off the gas. It was what he was supposed to do out of college. I think the reason some people are down on him, like you said, the metric side, it really says that he should not have had as many fantasy points for the quality of his running because he got bailed out with a lot of touchdowns on certain runs.

He got stuffed. He got stuffed. He didn't do much. And then he got a touchdown. And it's like, oh, great. Fantasy was good. But they drafted him to be a workhorse back. They don't have anyone on the roster that scares me for carries, even for targets. I know he'll probably lose some receptions this year on a per game basis. I believe he's a really good running back.

And he's on an offense and a team overall that I think is on the rise. No, I think the offensive line improved as well. And so I like Melvin Gordon. He's right there with J. Ajai is one of those players I have ranked higher than the consensus. So I'm a big fan. You ready for the top 10, Jason? Woo! Yeah, I am. Number 10. DeMarco Murray comes in at number 10. Average draft position right now of 202. So the, you know, unbelievable season for DeMarco Murray.

didn't have a week outside the top 24 until the last two weeks of the season almost all of those weeks were inside the top 10 to start the year obviously started on fire very heavily involved in the passing game do we expect a repeat performance from demarko murray finished sixth second and then the year in philly he was still the 17th best running back and number five again last year he's been one of the best in the league

DeMarco Murray for 2017. What I expect from DeMarco Murray is to have an extremely solid fantasy season. The best predictor of fantasy success in the future is success in the past. And three of the last four years, he's been a top six back, and that's been on two different teams. His only down year was when he went to Philly for the Chip Kelly system, and it didn't work for him.

I do have concerns with him losing goal line touches and goal line carries to Derek Henry. We saw that towards the end of the year. There's, you know, the arguments of, well, was it because of his injury that they started giving him more rest, or was it because they wanted to move towards Derek Henry? The truth is, DeMarco Murray is going to be the...

the primary ball carrier there, even with Henry on the roster, even with everybody calling for Derek Henry to get the ball and be in a 50-50. It's not going to happen. Marco Murray will get the ball until he's injured, and I think the offense is. It's going to be real good. Yeah, the offense is going to probably need to score as well. Number nine. Jordy Nelson, number nine on our rankings. Jason, you wrote an interesting stat in here. Do you want to tell the listeners what you found?

Yeah, so Jordy was your wide receiver number one last year depending on scoring formats or possibly your number two if it was Mike Evans. He got off to a slow start though last year. He did. In the beginning of the year. 32 and week, he was a 32nd wide receiver in week run. Week one had a 25, 62 and a 96 in the first half of the year. So you go, well, how did he finish as, you know, the wide receiver won if he got off to a slow start? Well, here's the thing. From week eight on,

He was straight liquid magma. He wasn't just the number one wide receiver in fantasy. He was in a tier by himself. Geologists out there, is there solid magma? Or is it all liquid? That's a great. I think solid magma. Is it redundant what you said? Probably. Usually. Geologists, a symbol. Wouldn't that just be lava rock if it's not?

Yeah, I wouldn't call it magma probably. This is important to figure out. I guess the point is that he was either magma or he was liquid magma. One of the two, but he was great. Second and third place, right? The number two and number three wide receiver second half of the year. No surprise. Odo Beckham Jr. and Antonio Brown guys that you would expect to be there. They had 140.2 points and 139.2 points respectively. So basically they scored 140 points over that stretch.

Jordy had over 173. That's almost 25% on top of what the second and third place guys did. I mean, you know, and the thing is, is he's done this before. He's got multiple years of double-digit touchdowns. Since 2011, he's second in the league in total receiving touchdowns, and he missed a year. Is Jordy Nelson the Marshaun Lynch of the wide receiver position?

Sure. Yeah. He's, I mean, I'll be honest. I say all of that great stuff. I see a lot of risk with Jordy. Hmm. Just for regression. We saw him have 15 touchdowns in a season before the following season. He had seven. When you have to draft him like that, it's, you know, if he comes out and has seven touchdowns next year, you'll be disappointed. You'll be very disappointed. All right. Let's move on.

Number eight. Devonta Freeman comes in at number eight right now. He's the first round draft pick. Not that I'm surprised. Dominant season once again for Devonta Freeman. Last two years he was the first and the sixth best running back. Last year, a lot of concern about Kevin Coleman before the season. And not so much anymore. Kevin Coleman produced. He was great. Yeah, but it didn't affect Devonta Freeman.

In fact, not only did it not affect him, but in the games that Tevin Coleman played, DeVanta Freeman was better. He produced more fantasy points with Coleman than without. And that's something that should, you know, calm the fears of people that are like, well, Tevin Coleman's going to be more involved. Let him, you know, stop downing Devont Freeman. Yeah, touchdown score involved in the passing game, offers you everything you want, and the team loves him, trust him.