Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - The Overreaction Episode w/Special Guest Chris Harris

level wide receiver option. Like, let's say, uh, not that he's elite, but a guy like Marvin Jones, a guy who can, a burner, who can actually catch the ball unlike, uh, Brandon Trashcan Lofel. So you've got Jones, Grunk, Lewis, Edelman. I, I,

Third round is still going to be too high. See, that's the problem is the third round. I'm not going to do that. I believe Brady does almost what he did last year. But I don't believe that I would draft him in the third round because that is moving his quarterback draft position to the point where it's just not viable for my roster. It will not return value compared to the guys that you can get later. So the last guy I'm going to bring up, it saddens my heart.

But Larry Fitzgerald. So there's an overreaction with Larry Fitzgerald. Larry Fitzgerald right now is going in the fifth round because he was the Renaissance man last year. But he was really, he did his damage in the first half of the year. We've talked several times about this of the Michael Floyd hand injury that put him out for a long time of his recovery of him to get back in the flow of the game seemed to take about half of the season. The first half of the year, Larry...

went just buck nasty. He was scoring touchdowns at a tremendous pace. His yardage was nearly 90 yards a game for the first half of the season. Second half, the targets all stayed the same. Touchdowns really dropped off, yard is dropped off because he moved into more of that possession receiver. And the emergence was Michael Floyd. I also pulled John Brown's numbers.

Because people might think, well, John Brown, did he take the Larry production? No, actually, when Michael Floyd came back, John Brown's production went down. Michael Floyd was the benefactor. He will be my target from the Arizona Cardinals. And not that I think Larry will be.

bad at all. I think he will be a solid, you know, lower wide receiver too for your fantasy team, but that's not the wide receiver you want to target in the fifth round at the top of the fifth round. Look, I hate to use the comparison that's been used, but it's fair. Heinz Ward and Larry Fitzgerald, their career ending arc should be similar. I mean, Larry's in that, you know, motion inside receiver, good hands, make a big play, good blocker. So,

That's just too high. He will give you games, absolutely. But for a fifth round guy that you're, you feel like you're taking a weekly plug and play guy in the fifth round, I just don't think it'll be Larry. So before we get to Chris Harris and his three names, because we promised you three more names, I'm going to close out our group with great irony.

In a way. Although, just because I said I like Nelson Aguilar to be an NFL player does not mean that I think Jordan Matthews stinks, but I did spend a lot of time last year disparaging where he was drafted, which to your credit. You could argue is very fair, right? Yes. However, Jordan Matthews is the guy that is just plain being overreacted to because much like Eddie Lacey, very much like it. Look, he was the number 11. Wide receiver off the board.

You're drafting him to be a stud. I'm sure as heck was not. Well, the people that got him. Yeah, you were. And so he stung you and he stung you in the worst way, which was the first seven weeks of the season when you had all these great expectations for the Chip Kelly offense. And look, he came out and he stunk. Guess how many games he had two? I just said it. I'm going to go with.

Two. Two out of seven. Yeah, that was really well played. Two out of seven games to start this season, he had double digits. And I believe they were the first two weeks. Yeah. So, I mean, he just, you threw him out there and he threw up for you. And he was much more efficient in the second half of the season. Right now he's going in the wide receiver three range in the seventh round. Okay? You just said Larry's going in the fifth. Jordan Matthews going in the seventh.

Round. After the buy, six and nine games with double digits. Seven of his eight touchdowns after the buy. He's got four-four speed. He's got a chance to play on the outside under Doug Peterson. And in two years, despite all the problems, the drops, there's this video that popped up on Twitter of him catching tennis balls at a million miles an hour and all these different positions with one hand over an eye, trying to improve the drops as this article comes out of this tweet. Look.

18169 yards and 16 touchdowns in his first two years in the NFL. This might be my favorite guy on our list because there is no way barring injury that he doesn't return on a seventh round draft pick value. He's good. I mean, he would have to. That's a silly. He won't go there. That's just such a silly place. But if he went in the fifth. Maybe. Yeah, even in the fifth, he should be a value there. Yeah. He just, like you said, he had the shine and he's.

He made people upset and people get vengeful in fantasy football. And you lose Chip Kelly and people are going to think, oh, the game's going to slow down. The definition of an overreaction is a guy who finished top 20, okay, after underperforming and is drafted at the 35th position at wide receiver now, that is an overreact. That's an emotional reaction to a player. That is not a statistical reaction to a player. And I love that Andy is now on board. I guess I am. I guess I am. Yes.

All right, without further ado, let's go ahead and bring in a friend of the show. You talking to me? All right, the fantasy footballers are excited to bring in a good friend of the show. Christopher Harris of the Harris Football podcast. Welcome back, my friend. Hey, guys, what's going on? Well, we are in the midst of talking about players that we think people are going to overreact to either really good seasons.

Bad seasons. You know, every year we see this pendulum swinging one direction or the other. And so we're trying to break through that a little bit for the listeners. And we promise them three more names from Christopher Harris himself. So hopefully you've got some good names for us. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, man. He's got 20 names for us. 20 names. So why don't you give us one of them and we'll see if we agree.

Okay, it's Devante Freeman. I think maybe it's the most obvious one, and you guys were nice enough to let me pick first. So I bet you that he would, am I right, that he would have wound up on at least one other person's list? Yeah, he probably would have. Yeah, I bet, I bet maybe you're more than one. But.

I think it's awesome when I was emailing with Andy. I was, like, sort of in a frazzle, and I did the 40-m slip of calling Devante Freeman Jaquiz Rogers. It was awesome. I started searching for Jaquiz Rogers news that I had no idea about. Is he still on the Bears? Yeah, well, I don't think he will be, but yeah. He's a free agent, yeah. But, but, you know, that's completely unfair comparison, because obviously, Freeman had way more success in one year than Rogers ever had. But they're similarly sized.

And honestly, they test out similar players. I mean, Freeman's a better player, but I'm not going to, like, totally back away from that comparison, which is stupid. Honestly, the comparison I want to make is Justin Forset. Okay. Because coming out of 2014, what did we hear? Justin Forset, you know, we're stupid for not having Justin Forset as a borderline first round pick. Why shouldn't he be in the first tier of running backs? You know, why isn't he going to recapture the 2014?

magic. And just to review what Fawcett did last year, even before, I mean, yes, okay, so I was against Fawcett because I worry about Baxter's size, and my anti-Fremant argument is mostly going to be about size and sort of lack of diversity in the way you can use the player. And yes, I will grant you that Fawcett's arm breaking like that, that's probably not because he's little, right? Most people's arms. Right. I know my arm. If Airdonald.

Uh, jumped on me. I wouldn't be surprised if my entire body just exploded in about 50 pieces. Right. You suddenly become the drummer from spinal tap. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Spontaneous combustion. Uh, but like, listen, you know, even before Forset got hurt, what was his year like, right? It was week 11 that he got hurt. And on tape, Forset still looked pretty good. He still looked like Justin Forset, you know, quick, really quick, tough for a little guy.

like some pretty decent speed, but surprise, the results weren't there. You know, when I think you're just saying, like, the results don't always track exactly with what a player is. And a player like Fawcett isn't probably a lead dog to be a fantasy star in the NFL because of his eyes. And I don't think Freeman is either. The Falcons are going to try Tevin Coleman again because Coleman did have some high moments, right, in his rookie year. Of course, he would fumble.

The moment after he had such a nice moment. I also won't be shocked if the falcons sign a bigger back like Alfred Morris, who's worked with Kyle Shanahan again. I don't want to play the game that goes like all of Freeman's production came in three games or whatever, because that's going to be true for most running backs. That was the Doug Martin criticism from his rookie year. That's, I think, more just sort of numbers mumbo-jumbo and stats lie.

I think it's also unfair to say that Freeman didn't have a good season because he was really, really good. But the power running game, they just can't use the power running game when Devante Freeman is in there. You're not going to get a lot of horizontal stuff. You're not even really getting a lot of traditional zone blocking stuff that Shannee Jr. wants to go. Freeman's a really good pass catcher. I think most offenses...

need to be physical at some point, and I don't think Freeman's your guy. I think they're going to add someone else. So let me ask you on Freeman. Do you think that, how low would you go? Would you say, you know, you'd rather have a Jeremy Langford type of guy, or because of the success that he had in the passing game, you'd still rather have Freeman, but you're worried? Like, where would you draft Freeman where you're like, I can't pass him up? Right. So I don't.

I don't usually do specific positional ranks before the draft just because, you know, they're not worth the paper that we write them on in toilet paper, right? But, you know, I don't, knowing what I know right now, I'm not taking Freeman earlier in the third round, which is obviously I'm not getting Devante Freeman. Right. He is very useful in the passing game. He's very useful in space, but I want to, you know, like.

most NFL offense at some point, okay, the Patriots don't have to be physical. They've proven they can be ultra successful and make it to AFC championship games without any semblance of a physical football team. But most teams at some point do need to run a little bit, or at least run the power running game. And I think if the Falcons are going to be a good offense, they're going to have to be able to do that. And I think that's inevitably going to lead to some disappointment with Freeman. Yeah, very fair. Your second guy.

is one that just jumped off the page to me and would have been on my list for sure. So tell us, Melvin Gordon, you have him being somebody who we agree with, is going to be undervalued. So talk about Melvin Gordon. Yeah, I mean, please, nobody on this show is going to do it. But like, if you're listening to people and they go, oh, Melvin Gordon averaged under three and a half yards of carry or whatever, please. Like, here's a legitimate example of why I hate that number. That number is, you know,

Except for at the very extremes, fairly useless. You know, if you're going to talk yards per carry, let's please mention that every other charge of running back also didn't get to four yards per carry because it was the worst offensive line in the league. I thought Gordon was pretty good on film a lot of the time. The stuff about how the system wasn't right for him, stop, crutch argument. It's nonsense. I think it's almost always nonsense. I think running backs of adequate size and adequate speed.

can play in any system. I think the whole DeMarco Murray couldn't play in Chip Kelly's system. Remember when you had LaShawn McCoy the year before and you complained he was two side to side and then you signed DeMarco Murray and now he's still looking for the right fit. Yeah, it's just it's that's a bunch of nonsense. But I thought Gordon made something out of nothing maybe you know as much if not more than any running back I saw on tape last year. It was frustrating he never reached the end zone.

It was way more frustrating to see him fumble. And if there's one legit criticism that says his NFL career could absolutely be derailed, it's ball security. I tend to think that gets better. But if you were going to tell me, if someone was going to tell me, listen, I'm not spending a third, fourth, fifth round pick on a running back, I think is going to fumble six times and get benched. That's the criticism I could deal with. But I think every other criticism that Danny Woodhead criticism, I just...