Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 5 Mailbag Questions, Trade Questions, Starts and Sits

I don't care. I'll eat that cake right off the dirt. That's more accurate. Yeah, because you're getting a little bit of dirt on that cake in the dirt. Yeah, you've got to eat your Jeremy Maclin cake off the dirt. Can we make some bet with McLean again this week? I want to make one every week. Here's one of the other things about this trade is that both.

Jay Stu and Lamar Miller are on buy weeks. And I've seen a lot of trades. People don't know what to do. Do I trade a bi-week guy? Do I trade for a bi-week guy? Here's one thing that you have to keep in mind. When you're doing a trade, if it's not a clear-cut win, if it's like, I think I like this guy better than that guy. But all of a sudden, you're making this week a risky proposition for getting a win because you're taking a guy like Jeremy Macklin out of your roster and putting nobody back in. It's no longer a win.

If you are going to end up taking a loss for a marginal trade, don't do it. Yeah, I wouldn't do it. I agree with that. And just speaking to Jason's point, if you want to trade for a guy this week, if you believe in him, and I'd love to hear you guys' opinion, but I would consider trading for Dionne Lewis because he's coming off of his buy week, so he doesn't have a buy the rest of the way. So if you can swap a similar guy, this is a hot tip, okay? Hot fantasy tip for the pro player.

If you can swap a similar guy that you see in your eyes that that guy still has a buy week coming up and your guy's buys in the past, I love it. Yeah, you're gaining an injury-free week. Exactly. And all the wins, week five wins count. Week six wins count towards the end of the season. You don't just need to win then. You need to win now too. So that's something I'd look into. But let me ask you about Dionne Lewis then. Rest of season, what are your thoughts on him? I mean, you've had, what, three weeks?

Yeah. Three weeks of looking good. And he's getting the snaps, which it's so hard because of the abuse that we have taken as fantasy players from Belichick's running back situation, it's still very difficult in my heart and in my soul to really buy into Lewis, but I am. What did you see on tape, Jason? When me and you were debating a trait, and you can kind of answer this one, Mike, too. He's trying to get Alston Jeffrey from me.

And he's offering me packages with Dionne Lewis, different packages. And I'm sitting there, I'm looking at the tape on Dio Lewis. I'm watching the coaches film on Dian Lewis. He's watching tape on Dianne Lewis. You know, but then you have game flow. You've got Lageret's still had three touchdowns in a game that Lewis was good.

That was just game flow. Yeah. So what did you see, Jason? Well, the main thing I saw from that was game flow. Dionne Lewis was the guy they started off using. They got him involved. His snap count was great. And in the passing game, and this year it looks like they are a passing game passing team, passing every down type of. Passing. Yeah, yes. They are passing.

uh in new england and dion lewis is that back so he's going to be used and and what happened in in the last game was just a a game flow situation that allowed le garret blunt to get those three touchdowns and so he he came in later in the game le garret blunt did and and more had garbage time it seems like right now lewis is is varene plus yes he's getting early down he's got some goal line that's that's enticing he's also very shifting

Because I'd still consider something. Okay. So I'll Sean Jeffrey for Dionne Lewis. No, no, not straight out. He has shown a propensity to fumble and he's gone back in. Somehow. But. But that gets scary. Yeah, you, so, and what, three games? Two fumbles and three games? Am I correct? You are correct. If he fumbles again? I know. Yeah, that's scary. Part of the reason I'm trying to give it. All right. Let's switch gears here. Christian in Newport Beach, California.

He has Chris Ivory. He wants to know if he should trade him for Antonio Brown. Ooh. Yeah. You say yeah very quickly. Now, I want to talk about Ivory because if you take out his gooser, which is I think you should take his gooser out if you want to know how good of a player he is because he didn't play, right? Like if he had played and got zero. If you take that out.

He is the number three running back in fantasy football right now. Do you mean giving him his average? Yeah, if you just average the three games he's actually played in, he's number three in terms of points per game.

That's just context. I'm not saying I wouldn't do the trade for Antonio Brown. Brown's got the Big Ben thing week seven maybe. I get all that. One thing that makes my consideration very easy is the fact that he's on by this week. We just kind of talked about that. So if you need a player, you're trading a guy who's not playing for one of the best wide receivers. Brown will go on by though. Sure, but you can prepare for that. I mean, this week. We didn't even talk. Did we talk about Big Ben? Sorry, I was looking at a hilarious text message.

Did we mention that Big Ben is there's talk of him being back week seven? I mentioned it just now while you were on the text message. Sorry. Well, someone had offered my friend Mike Wallace for Todd Gurley. Oh, oh, what a steal. Wow. So I had to send him a ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah. Sorry.

All right. So you would do the deal because you like Antonio Brown more, or is it the buy thing? No, it's definitely because I like Antonio Brown more. The buy factors in minutely, but I like Antonio Brown more for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is because Chris Ivory is my favorite, like, preseason pick. I loved him coming in, but the knock on him has always been health. We've already seen him sit out of a game, and so...

This is what I tell people. If Chris Ivory's playing, he's an RB1. But I have to say that every time I talk about Chris Ivory. I don't feel like I have to say that with Antonio Brown. I just say, you play Antonio Brown. It's not if he's playing. And so that's kind of one of those other considerations is the history going, you know, projecting forward. I would take Antonio Brown, too. Yeah. Here's what you need to look at. Week one.

If someone had offered, if you're the ivory owner and someone had said, I'll give you Antonio Brown for Chris Ivory, what would you have said? Well, you would have said, yeah. Immediately. Week two, what would you have said? Basically, every week before Big Ben got hurt. Right. This trade is impossible. So I would make this. Things change. Things change, but Big Ben will be back. Yep. According to reports. Okay, let's just pretending. Ivory's the number three guy rest of season.

Do you still do the deal? No, I would rather have the number three running back versus, let's say, Antonio Brown finishes the number three wide receiver. I would rather have the number three running back than I would the number three wide receiver. It's just fun to talk about because this happens every year. We draft all these running backs in the beginning of the first round, and half of them end up there and half of them don't. And Ivory's the kind of guy that can jump into that spot. There are other guys. Dionne Lewis right now is in that spot. So Dave in Florida wants to know who would you start this?

week between Alex Smith and Jay Cutler. Jay Cutler. Wow.

Kind of just talked about this on yesterday's show. Yeah, but more than just that, I was really going back and forth between these exact two guys who are in a matchup against each other as my start of the week. I was telling these two guys beforehand, man, I'm going back and forth, Alex Smith or Jay Cutler. Who do I take? And here was the tiebreaker for me, is that the Chicago Bears, as bad as they've been as far as giving up points.

They have barely given up yards. They've held three of their four opponents under 200 yards. And so I think Alex Smith is going to, I mean, he's not a huge yardage guy. So you're not going to get a ton of yards from. So I went with J. Cutler. This is just kind of off cuff. I want to test your Jeremy McClough. Uh-oh. Just a question. Hypothetical question. Let's say you have an injured Alshon Jeffrey on your bench.

Someone offers you Macklin for Jeffrey, straight up. Would you take that? No. Okay. I just wonder to see how far the rabbit hole went. No. If Jeffrey keeps missing games, I'm going to wish I had, that's for sure. But no, not right now. That's a good question. All right, Danielle in San Francisco has a question about T.J. Yeldin. So I want to talk about T.J. Yeldin today as well. She's been offered Brandon Cooks or Vincent Jackson for him straight up.

Which I think we all say no. I would say I would consider Vincent Jackson depending on team makeup, but generally in a vacuum, no. Now, Yeldon had his first 100-yard game of his career. He hasn't scored this season. What are your guys' thoughts on the Jaguar, T.J. Yeldon, the workload monster. I think he's third in the league and carries right now. That's the problem is that it's the team. That's a problem? No, no, no. The Jaguar problem. The

scoring potential, his offensive output. And so he reminds me a lot of Melvin Gordon in the sense that he's getting the work and he looks all right, but the touchdowns just don't seem to be there. So for me, that's how I feel about Yeldin. That being said, in a vacuum, I would rather have the running back who's getting work and slightly underperforming your hopes than the wide receivers who are doing the exact same thing. And those, I would say both Vincent Jackson and

Cooks kind of fall into that category. David Johnson is currently, at least in R-League scoring format, which is slightly different. Half-point PPR. David Johnson is where? He's still very high. Where do you, as I'm asking. He's a top 20 running back, I was thinking. He's 14. Yeah. He's ahead of. Here's who David Johnson is currently ahead of. Dionne Lewis? I'm not going to say 11. Not on average. Huh? Dionne Lewis had a Bible. Oh, you're right. No, I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry. Jeremy Hill, though. Doug Martin, Frank Gore.

Justin Forset, Eddie Lacey, T.J. Yeldin, all guys that played. Just kind of incredible to me. He's one of those David Johnson's like Geo, you know, or even less than, where you hate, I personally, I hate starting running backs that are in those miscellaneous random timeshares where you don't know what they're going to get. But I'm just noting it because it's crazy to me. You have to have touchdowns for David Johnson's value to be there. The cool thing is he's been scored touchdowns. What song did you sing when he fumbled opening kickoff?

David. I went with, Hello, darkness, my old friend. Chris in San Francisco, my forte for his Antonio Brown? That's interesting. That's, uh, that's testing the water here because, you know, I see Chris Ivory. I was just going to say, who do you want, ivory or Matt Forte? I would rather have Matt Forte than Chris Ivory. I think I'd rather have ivory. I'd rather have Forte. I'd rather have Forte. Yeah.

Because Matt Forte doesn't come off the field for Blalpal on third down. Yeah, Matt Forte is the guy would rather have. I would still rather have Antonio Brown, but this is completely team dependent. Because if you need a running back, which I would say more teams need a running back than they need a wide receiver, then yeah, Forte. All right. Bobby in Utah has a question about four set. He says,

Should he trade him straight up for Julian Edelman? And so I bring this question up because I want you to speak to that trade. And I want to talk about Julian Edelman. This is kind of a, I mean, we're a quarter of the way through the NFL season. I'm bringing up guys that I believe need to be discussed again from draft time. We didn't talk enough about Edelman. Edelman has been dominant. You said four set? For a straight up trade for Edelman. If this is a, if it's a PPR league, I would do it. It is a standard league. Then I would not, I would keep four set.

I would probably still go Edelman. Obviously, whenever you're talking running back wide receiver, it's team needs. But Edelman is so incredibly involved. Check this out. What rank do you think Edelman is in targets? In the league, the NFL? Not on average, on total targets, having played only three games because they were on by. I would say he's in the top five.

We're counting. He's 10th. He's the 10th best, despite missing a game. If you give him that fourth game on the same average, he's the clear-cut number one guy. So, I mean, that's just... I thought he was tied with Julio, and then Julio had more than him on week three. Oh, he might be behind... Well, and also DeAndre Hopkins had 22 targets last week. Oh, my goodness. That kind of helps skew... Hey, I didn't reap him. He was my number one.