Fantasy Football 2017 - Confusing Players, Andy’s Apology, Pre. Week 3

You had two very different-looking teams in this game. I'm telling you, the Chargers looked. Are you talking about the Rams this week as compared to last week? Yeah, as opposed to the week one. So, I mean, what are you going to get in the Los Angeles Rams? If we want to start there, week one preseason, they just looked out of sync. They looked putrid. They looked as bad as, you know, I've been.

talking about them for a while. And then week two, all of a sudden it was like, hey, there's some offensive line movement. There's Todd Gurley. The offense is looking okay. Jared Goff had a good game. And so I was excited to watch this game, see what Jared Goff, and especially now with Sammy Watkins, and is this offense going to turn around and be potent? Now, I think a big part might have been the fact that Todd Gurley was sat. Todd Gurley didn't play in the game.

But that offense was putrid. And Jared Goff was worse than bad. I think that at the very beginning of the game, it was like I was, you know, starting to stream notes and thinking like, okay, Jared Goff's looking all right, his first pass. Okay, that one wasn't really his fault. And then the wheels fell off. Come on. Come on, Jared. I mean, he was really bad. He was five of eight.

for something like 58 yards and a pick. And, you know, when I, so Sammy Watkins is someone I really wanted to watch. I wanted to say, how's Sammy look? And I, you don't know, because he, I don't even know if he was targeted. Now, when I say I don't know if he was targeted, that was because one of those passes might have been to Sammy Watkins, but it was so far away from him that.

I don't, I genuinely was like, I wasn't sure because there was another wide receiver somewhat close by. It's your call, user's choice. But the offense looked bad. The offensive line looked bad. So hopefully it was because Gurley was missing. And maybe he makes that offense run. I will say this, there was this hysterical part after the pick where they came out and they ran the ball eight times in a row. Chargers did? The Rams did.

That might sound like nothing. Like, oh, they just ran it a lot in a row. You have not seen recently a game where they run the ball eight times in a row. It's comical. It's like, whoa, they are saying, Jared Goff, you don't get to throw the ball anymore. They hand it off, hand it off, and they kept picking up first down. I like that eight in a row. Give me that girly. Yeah, it was a good sign for Gurley. Other side of the ball, it's really, really simple. The offense looked great.

Their defense looked great as well for the charges. I think they were 21-0. The most of the Ingram combo is going to be incredible. And the two players that stood out other than Philip Rivers, who was something like eight of eight for 85 and a touchdown. Six for six. There you go. Something like. No, but the two players that stood out, Melvin Gordon looked great. I mean, he looked fast. He looked like his vision was good. I mean, I was really getting excited for him. That's what I need from Melvin Gordon. Honestly, it's the vision. Yes.

His vision has never looked good. And that was the first time I was like, oh, maybe he's getting used to the system and the scheme. So he's, uh, he's a good one to target. And Keenan Allen. Yeah, baby. Like Keenan Allen. Let's go. I mean, his hands are great. His routes are great. If he could just stay on the field, you're not going to be disappointed. Everybody wants Keenan Allen to be Keenan Allen. Yes. Yes, we do. That's true. Those are all my takeaway. All right. Let's talk about the Panthers in Jacksonville. Um, uh,

This is another one. I think we saw quite a few snaps of it was an interesting game because I was watching this running back rotation, the expectations that we have for McCaffrey and Jonathan Stewart. And if you watched how they utilized these guys, it was a pure rotation. It was two snaps. Jonathan Stewart got the first two. McCaffrey got the next two. Stewart got the next two. McCaffrey got the next two. And on that drive, I mean, it was Cam Newton didn't really.

test the shoulder very much. There were two passes on the opening drive. Now, they scored. He had a dump off to McCaffrey and the touchdown pass to Kelvin Benjamin, who looks like he's going to be a key cog in that pouncing offense. But it was the rotation that I was looking at. And when we did the live show in Toronto, one of my, look, the value to me was Jonathan Stewart. Because this is a guy going in the ninth or tenth round of your draft, forgotten about not sexy, not fun to draft, not fun to start.

But this is a player with nine touchdowns last year. This is a player who, without question, will be part of this rotation. There was no doubt in my mind. Production-wise, Stewart was great in this game. He broke off a couple of huge runs. He did. McCaffrey really didn't have a big play, but he was used frequently. So I think it's going to be one of those situations that...

it's better for Carolina to rotate those two players, and it's not better for fantasy owners and making those decisions, but I'll take the better value in Jonathan Stewart late in the same vein that I want a Terrence West or a Robert Kelly. Cam, nice to see him on the field. Nice to see him complete both of his passes, but you can't draw a lot of conclusions from that, and then he was out of the game. 100%. I'll jump in here with the Jets and the Giants. How about I talk about Jacksonville, though? Oh, I apologize, yeah. That's all right. You can jump in right.

after this. But Jacksonville, the storyline here was whether Blake Bortles is deserving of that starting role. He got in with the second team. He looked better than Hennie did. And you guys have both said that you weren't really that put off by Bortles this preseason. I think the important thing for fantasy owners to recognize here is simply the fact that look, after all the tumult, after all the fear, there's going to be a player in Blake Bortles that as long as he's starting, he needs to be considered for streaming options. And two,

What Doug Marone did with Bortles and Alan Robinson at the end of the year should not be ignored. Therefore, the precipitous fall of Allen Robinson is something to watch in fantasy football because if Bortles is there, he keys in on Robinson, and no, Bortles is not that great. But it doesn't really matter. If you're the number one passing option in an offense, we have a ton of these options.

situations around the NFL. So I think Alan Robinson's drop fantasy-wise. It's gone way, way too far for a player that was basically a first-round pick last year. Now he's a fifth-round pick. That's just crazy to me. See, that's what should have happened to DeAndre Hopkins, and then I'd be willing to draft him, but he hasn't fallen. I think you bring up a great point. Alan Robinson and the fifth, that's worth taking a... Don't forget about Alan Robinson. Yes, the production was awful, but the targets were identical. He had...

the ball coming his way. Now that the targets weren't nearly as good, but I'm just saying that Bordals, it's not like he went away. Exactly. The offense did not go away from throwing the ball to Alan Robinson. And we're not going back to a time in place where it was the Alan Robinson, Alan Hurns show. For whatever reason, Alan Hurms has really fallen out of favor in Jacksonville. He's barely played this preseason. He played some in this game, but they like D.D. Westbrook. They like some of the other options they have, Marquise Lee. And so just pay attention to Alan Robinson in the fifth round because I think I...

I think I'd rather draft Alan Robinson than I would, Devante Adams. And I think that surprises people, but give me the number one target in that offense versus the number two, three, four rotational target in Green Bay. It's a week-to-week thing, but just something to pay attention to. So, Mike, you can go ahead and jump in with the, what is it? So the Jets and the Giants, and this first name I'm going to list is similar to Jonathan Stewart. You don't want to draft him. His counterpart is the new hotness.

Matt Forte started the game. Matt Forte is going to get used. It's going to be gross. It's not going to be high level production, but he's going to get the ball. And I would still much rather have Bilal Powell on my fantasy team if all things are equal. But Matt Forte is free in draft. Bilal Powell is not. And I know if you want to look at the stat lines and say, well, Bilal Powell had this huge touchdown, which he did. And it was fantastic because he outran everybody. That was second half.

That was against the second team or third team defense. That was not what Matt Forte was going up against the beginning. Matt Forte is basically free. And if you think about that, that's a player that if he was out there on the waiver wire during week five of the NFL season, everybody's dying to pick up a player who is either the starter or a rotational, you know, high use back on any team in football because running backs are so scarce and he's being ignored right now. And he's, Matt Forte is still an excellent pass catcher. I know.

Again, we all want Powell on our team, but Forte has a similar skill set, albeit slightly deteriorated with age and use, but don't forget about Forte. Smash Jackson, bro. Come on, man. I mean, that's the official analysis. We're back, we are fully back to Paul. For those that are new, as you say, that's Paul Perkins we're talking about. We tried to rebrand him to get people excited about.

Smash Jackson, Paul Perkins. Was he smushed? He and Wikipedia rejected the rebrand. He gets what's blocked. And if the offensive line gives him a hole, he will get through it. And he has enough wiggle to make moves after he's going. But he's not a guy that if there's penetration, it's done.

Yeah, I mean, you say he picks up what's blocked and the holes that open up. If he's got good holes, he's a pretty darn good running back. That's not an offensive line that opens up big holes. So put those two things together. And then on top of that, Darkwa got the goal line carry. I mean, this is the draft value of Paul Perkins has gotten out of control where he's going to be on likely zero of my teams. And then the other guy just wanted to highlight besides Christian Hakenberg being a very bad quarterback.

Very back over. Evan Ingram is, I don't know how much work he's going to get, but one, he can't block. I don't know why the Giants are still trying to make this a thing of let's make Evan Ingram block. What he can do is run nasty routes. I mean, his opening catch, I said, Jay, you have to see this. I mean, Evan Ingram from in line goes double move.

And the linebacker is just his jockstrap is on the ground, along with all of his clothing. And Evan Ingram is wide open. So he's just straight cartoon. So he just, I'm not drafting Evan Ingram and redraft, but he's a name to monitor. That was something talent-wise that just jumped off for you. And Ingram got to fade into the end zone. They will use him. Now granted, I mean, the big time wide receivers were not playing.

Right. For the Giants, but just something to pay attention to. All right. Well, we can talk Colts Steelers, the Indianapolis Colts against the steel. Yeah. Well, you know what? Shout out to Scott Tolzee. You want to know what you look like? A competent backup quarterback. And that's really impressive because you've never looked like that before. The offense move. You know, Frank Gore actually looked pretty good. I mean, you know, I have continually like.

everyone in the world just kept shifting him down and down in my rankings and getting less and less excited about Frank Gore and you know Andrew luck might miss some time what's Frank Gore going to be like then and he just gets lower lost their center what about the two that you just said Paul Perkins or Frank Gore who'd you rather have because they're like back to back in drafts I would much rather have Frank I'll take Gore

Okay. So Frank Gore, he looked spry. He actually had some really good runs. You mean like the history of his entire career? Yeah, exactly. Like his entire career, he had a really nice one-yard touchdown. Poor Frank Gore where he's talked about is he actually had some good runs. He's like, bro. Bro, I have not ever stopped having good runs. Yeah. I can't remember a player who the fantasy community has tried to bury for six years. This is the first year where I've been anti-gore.

and it feels weird for me. And now I'm like, wait, I think I might be wrong. The Red Witch keeps bringing him back. He just keeps coming back. Dante Moncrief looked really good. He caught a nice slant across the middle, took it for 51 yards, looks big, looks strong, looks healthy, most importantly. On the other side of the ball, I talked about Jesse James missing a block, running a bad route, dropping a ball, having another tight-in traded for. He's just being an outlaw, man. The two guys that stood out to me first would be Nile Davis.

Nile Davis had the first five plays, six if you include actually returning the kickoff. They ran them, they passed to him, they lined them out wide. They basically said, you're playing the Leveon Bell role. Now, why do I say all this? No, Toussaint, no Bell, though, in this game, right? No, Toussaint came in later. I mean, he was running ahead of Tucson. What this says to me is don't draft any backup running back for Levy on Bell because you're going to get it wrong. You're going to get it wrong. Is it Tucson? Is it Connor? Is it Connor?

Is it Nile Davis? I don't know. But when, or I shouldn't say win, if Lev Bell goes down, there's going to be a waiver wire, you know, frenzy, and you're not even going to know who it is. To get it right, I'm just saying, hold off there. Last note there. Eli Rogers, I've been a big fan of him as far as I just think he's a talented slot receiver. He was the one man in the slot, the whole first team offense. They went to him often, and he could be a sneaky play.