Fantasy Football 2017 - Preseason Week 3 Findings + Compliment Sandwiches

He was not actually good. There were a couple of plays where, you know, a nice hole opened up and he ran for a good chunk of yards. But most of the time when he needed to outrun someone, when he needed to run through someone to pick up an extra yard, he didn't look to me to be very capable. Also in the first quarter, he fumbled the ball two times, two times. So what it said to me was a little bit of worry of like, man, if David Johnson...

you know, isn't here. He is super important of this offense. You know, when he was out, there were some struggles there. I know a lot's been made about John Brown. He had two receptions for two touchdowns and a good chunk of yards. You got to keep in mind, there were only two targets. He was not really involved that much. He just happened to score a touchdown on both of those. And one of those was actually from Drew Stanton once the, you know, the game was in a different sphere.

in a different uh different uh different sphere a different uh the game transported yes to a different round ball um you know so from the cardinal side that's what i would say chris johnson he had some good stuff mostly bad the defense looked really good let's talk fantasy implications for the john brown performance i mean you have to be happy not only is he on the field running routes the the play in the the left corner of the end zone was absolutely incredible ball uh body control so

We've moved him way down at a fear. Where does he belong? What's the upside? I mean, people have asked, what's the real ceiling for a guy like him? Well, the real ceiling is genuinely, you know, a low-end wide receiver 1. If we're talking, what is his cap? Because we've seen this before. We've already seen him as a wide receiver 2, and he can dominate. He has the talent, the skills. So when you're talking about a 10th round pick right now. You want him in the 10th? Do you want him in the 8th?

I think I'm fine waiting until the 10th and grabbing him there. There's still guys that I am very confident in their production in the 8th, in the 7th, in the 9th. Those areas usually have guys that I am, you know, taking Emmanuel Sanders type. If he drops there, like I'm confident. Sanders is the 8th? Yeah.

Oh, he's his average draft positions in the 7th. He's 7.08 right now. He's just right around the 8th round. Oh, my. But that's my point is, like, I would much rather go with a guy I'm confident is going to help my fantasy team. But when you're in those late rounds and you're doing the dart throws, John Brown is the type of huge upside you can go with. But he just wasn't the first read while Carson was on the field and it was the first team offense. He didn't look like the first read the way he had in years past.

To me, he was the second or third read. All right, Atlanta, they struggled. Their offense struggled. We talked about the defense for Arizona. Their own three this preseason, do you read much into these offensive struggles so far? You don't have Kyle Shanahan, who, by the way, lit it up with San Francisco. We're going to talk about that game in a minute. But what are your conclusions, ranking implications, fantasy implications, from what you saw from the starting offense of the Atlanta Falcons in this matcha?

It looked like what I had expected in the sense that I've been calling for a lot of regression from the Falcons and for Matt Ryan specifically. I think you bring up a good point with the offensive coordinator changes. They want to stay aggressive. We've heard this all the time. They're not going to back off with the offensive coordinator change. It looked like they were forcing aggression. They'd throw the ball deep a lot, and Matt Ryan was off. Some of this was good defense. I just said the Arizona Cardle's defense looked good. But there were just some...

bad throws. I mean, some really, really bad throws. Matt Ryan was four for 11 with an interception. So, you know, I'm not going to move him down in my rankings, but I'm already the lowest of the three of us. I think he's my sixth or seventh quarterback right now. I don't expect huge things for this offense, but it did seem like they missed Devon Freeman, who was not there. Tavin Coleman, he looked.

He looked good. I mean, Tevin Coleman's a good running back. So I didn't take away much from the Falcons. I'm not moving Julio down. I'm not moving. I'm really not moving anyone down. Okay. All right. Hey, I'll jump in here with the San Francisco, Minnesota game. Mike, I'll let you close us out with the Buffalo Baltimore game. Okay. But I want to, on the heels of Kyle Shanhan. I want to talk about what we saw in this game. And look, we've been big Brian Hoyer supporters in the past. Last year, he was great.

Yes, sensational. Great for fantasy and a very good quarterback, competent quarterback for that offense. Was it three straight, 300-yard games? Absolutely, yeah. And in this game, you saw a lot of what I think you're going to see for the regular season. Now, on the San Francisco side of the ball, let's get this out of the way. Carlos Hyde is 100% cemented as the featureback in this offense. Matt Bereda. Matt Bereda ran as the number two in this game. It wasn't special.

Joe Williams is out of the picture right now on that depth chart. Carlos Hyde had some impressive past catches in this game, too. So I was impressed on that side. Now, Pierre Garsohn, he's a player that I think I moved up a little bit in this game. Might as well call him the Slant Man. I mean, he was just targeted early and often. I mean, I was so impressed with Garcin's involvement and the utilization. We know what Kyle Shanahan does with that wide receiver one spot. And then he was willing to take deep shots on a guy that can fly. I mean, Markey's Goodwin.

He's going to be the Taylor Gabriel of the NFC West. It's a player that is going to be going deep, often. Play action fake with Carlos Hyde and a deep ball touchdown, perfect throw by Hoyer. He was carving up this defense, and this is not a pathetic defense. This is the third preseason game, and you've got Minnesota's defense, and they were getting carved up. So from a fantasy perspective, we know that San Francisco, we don't expect them to be a dominant force or a competing force.

Brian Hoyer has always been fantasy relevant, and I think you're going to see that again this year. So teams that are talking about, look, if you're in a deeper league, if you're in a league with Andrew Luck and you might not have a starter, you just need to realize Brian Hoyer can be part of your streaming rotation this season. I loved what I saw out of that offense. On the other side of the ball, I got one thing to say and one thing only. Wow, you didn't not go. I was expecting, I'm not the singer. You guys have to jump in there. Look.

Sorry, I bailed on you, Jason. Mike, you and I were talking about this. Now, I've already been very pronounced with my disagreement with you on Stefan Diggs. Yes. I am further along those lines. Look, Adam Thielen's utilization in this game was what stood out to me. Adam Thielen was in the slot frequently. Adam Thielen was used on ender rounds. Adam Eelan was found when plays broke down. He was somebody that Sam Bradford looked too early.

often and late in the play. I think Thielen in the 10th, 11th round is a better pick than Stefan Diggs in the sixth round. I know the value that you think is there for Stefan Diggs. Look, I'm not reading into what Diggs did in this game because he was awful. I mean, he dropped two wide open passes. He had a Tyree kill type of game. That doesn't matter. Diggs is a great player. Absolutely great. But I'm making a decision in this passing offense from a fantasy perspective to take the best value in the passing game. And to me, it was Adam Thielen. They paid him.

They used him. He looked good. The only other takeaway from this game. Go ahead. No, jump in. It's shocking to me what they have done. I mean, they've essentially turned Thielen into the slot receiver. I mean, that was Stefan Diggs home. He was breaking out as a slot-wide receiver. So it's interesting that Minnesota is taking this approach that they say, okay, Diggs, you're going to play on the outside. So it's...

Well, and Thiel was on the outside, too. When they had one wide receiver set, it was stealing as the lone outside guy. Right. So, I mean, it's, it makes me a little worried. A little pause. A little pause about Stefan Diggs, because this is a new role. Now, having said that as the outside receiver, the chances for big plays is there. I mean, that's, there's a, he took a shot down the field. Exactly. So I'm not bailing at all in Stefan Diggs, but it's certainly, uh, I was not expecting.

Minnesota to say, okay, we're going to see what Thielen can do in the slot. Yeah, he's the biggest move up for me. And then I know people want to know what Latavius Murray looked like on the field because you had Murray's first snap came essentially two minutes into the second quarter. So Dalvin Cook was cemented and in place for the entirety of the first team offenses drives. First whole quarter, I think that's what you can expect. I think Dalvin Cook is going to be a pretty heavy workload type of player.

Murray was involved more in the passing game than the running game, and he looked fine. He absolutely looked fine. But to me, I think I was a little bit more confident in Dalvin Cook leaving this game despite the fact that Murray is now healthy in on the field. And McKinnon was just a every once in a while rotational kick return type of player. So you guys have any thoughts or questions from that game players that you were interested in that you wanted thoughts on?

Yeah, I've been a little disappointed in seeing the utilization of Kyle Rudolph through the preseason because he's a guy that I still think is a great value for where he's going in the draft. He was nowhere. But yeah, he was not really used at all. Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things where I think they have. Look, you didn't have to help and cook. And you had to hurt Stefan Diggs. I think there's going to be a lower quantity of need, not capability. Kyle Rudolph is capable. I just worry about the need there. It just, it's a, it's a.

split decision thing for me. Like when I'm facing down Kyle Rudolph or some of these other players like a Zach Ertz, my hesitation on the quantity of work that Rudolph will get if this offense is healthy and doing what they want to do is the reason. It's one of those really tough things because you now have a lot of capable weapons in this offense. A lot of guys who I want to see break out. And I don't know that Sam Bradford, you know, can do enough offensively to warrant.

that many successful fantasy players. There won't be enough touchdowns to go around to make Thielen and Diggs and Rudolph and Cook. And Lequant Trudewell was, all relevant. Lequant Trudeville had the first pass catch of the game. I remember him. He had a couple in the middle of the field. You're going to see him used. That's another player that basically is operating out of thin air for this offense that wasn't involved last year. So it was Treadwell, not Floyd? Yeah, it was Treadwell. And Trubwell looked good.

I was impressed. He was a first round pick. He's going to play a role in this offense. And that's why when I have to stare down all of these wide receiving choices, I'm taking the best combination of talent, value, involvement in Thielen. Mike, let's talk Buffalo and Baltimore. What could you learn from this game with Tyrod Taylor now in the concussion protocol? How much did he play? And then with Baltimore, not having flacco on the field, but reports have been practicing. So it was just a few snaps, really, for Taylor, and it looked bad.

But then he was, he took a sack, he hit his head on the field. So this wasn't a helmet to helmet. This was helmet to the turf type of concussion. And Peterman came in and he actually, he looked competent. So I wasn't, you know, panicking. Let's say Peterman is now the starter for the Buffalo Bills. I'm not freaking out about him. The biggest takeaway from this game was, oh, man, Charles Clay, he's getting some love. You know, he's getting some targets.

I had to add an exclamation point to that. Because they're like, well, wow. I had to add another exclamation point to that. I was like, holy crap, this offense is running through Charles Clay right now. And he looks, he looks sensational. I mean, they're, they're moving him all over the field. They're, they're trying to hit him up the middle. Charles Clay is, he's, he has moved up. He is now, he is very necessary. He is now a low end tied in one.

in my rankings. From what I've seen, he's going to be targeted. Look, the Ferraris, they need him. The Ferraris have been pulled off the lot. Charles Clay is not a Ferrari, but he might be the best vehicle you can climb into there in Buffalo because Sammy Watkins is out the door. Zay Jones is a rookie. Now, they're saying they're hopeful that Jordan Matthews plays week one. So this offense, take that with a grain of salt, that Jordan Matthews, who should be the number one receiver on this team, did not play.

but I still think that Charles Clay is going to be a heavily utilized guy. Shady McCoy, everything at the running back position is the Sean McCoy. So if you're worried about usage for Shady, don't be. He's on the field 100,000% of the time. But really, the biggest takeaway that I had for this, my overall summary, here's your cliff notes.

Both offenses sucked. It sucked. They were really bad. Terrence West did get the start. It's hard to draw much out of Baltimore when you don't get a C. You have no idea. But it's Terrence West got the start at running back. Buck Allen was worked in here and there. So it's, we don't know what Buck Allen's role will be once we actually finally see Danny Woodhead getting out there. But it's.

Both offenses sucked, and Charles Clay needs to move up your draft board. Yeah, I did like seeing Zay Jones on the outside being utilized as, you know, more of an ex-receiver. And man alive, Jeremy Macklin, will you please do something in the regular season? Because I'm still drafted you in a lot of play drafts. I just, come on, Joe. Joe Flacco, get back. I've tried to tell you. I've tried to tell you. But this is still without Joe Flacco. You just can't know. I'm not taking anything for preseason other than worry.