AFC West Breakdown, Melvin Gordon, and a Pink Moose

On Pristine Knoxwood. Little upset I couldn't find any John Gruden gear. I mean, I get it. Yeah. Selling out. But hopefully soon I can get myself some John Gruden gear. Man, man, John Gruden, an autograph to 8 by 10? Maybe a little 5 by 7 for your mirror in the morning. So you can look at them and get inspired. Yeah, it belongs right next to your. Yeah, right next to, is that Hugh Jackson over there? Yeah. The thing about the John Gruden.

picture is they actually they have to use a dot matrix printer to get that thing out it's so crazy because when he took over as a head coach the whole thing was he's a young gun a fresh mind i you know are we to the age now i guess we are where it's like the young guns are now like the old cremudgeons yes he's we are he's do you consider j gruden a young gun uh yeah younger he's three years younger than john gruden yeah

In 54 years old. In human years. In football years. Yeah. John has aged. It's like Bill Cower, if he got hired now. Bill Cower went past the point of where you still wanted him. Or Herm Edwards, right? Look, I'm an Arizona State University fan. I'm not excited about what's going on. Herm Edwards has found his way back into not good. All right, let's jump into.

Well, let's just run into the Raiders. The Raiders. The Gruden. Disappointing year. Yes. Six and ten after a breakthrough campaign. Derek Carr had ended the previous season with an injury, came back last season, did not have the offensive line that he had the year before. Not that it was bad, but it wasn't the same, right? Like he had gone the entire season, really without being touched with plenty of time in the pocket to...

you know, to find Michael Crabtree and Amari Cooper and his weapons. And last year he didn't have as much time. And the offense struggled. It was a bad offense. There's no other way to put it. 25th and yards per game on the ground. 16 through the air. Just playing from behind all last season. When you have an injured wide receiver one-ish in Amari Cooper and an injured quarterback in.

Derek Carr, who's talking about how he had broken bones in his back and played through a lot of injury last year, you know, and a bad offensive line. That's a recipe for disaster. Jay Gruden's coming in, hoping to change it all. John. John Gruden's coming in, hoping to change it all. But some of the offseason moves that have been made are head scratches at least. And he described his moves. He's gotten rid of some of the people that.

have been here a long time, right? Michael Crabtree, and he wants hardworking new fresh. New fresh might not be the, like maybe mine. New fresh to the franchise. Yes. Because he's gone out and got. Doug Martin. Doug Martin, old busted. He's gone out and gotten Jordy. Maybe done, but he's, you know, 33. So it's been surprising. I mean, would you rather?

If you were the owner of the Raiders, would you rather have Michael Crabtree this year on your roster or Jordy Nelson? Because they cost about the same. Fantasy is different than reality. And I believe in the fact that you have to construct a locker room that supports the rest of your team if you're going to win. And if his diagnosis of the locker room is that you needed to bring in a leader, which I think Jordy Nelson has established himself as a locker room guy in the NFL. And if it's negligible on the field,

and you believe you improve the locker room. I get it. Like I understand why you make that decision. The trade from Martavis Bryant, I get that too. That was interesting. And I think Martavis is interesting overall. There are clouds surrounding a potential, you know, this revelation. Clouds indeed. Yeah. There have been clouds around Martavis in one way or another for years.

Nothing has come to fruition as of now, and he's a favorite best ball pick for me. I pick him late in bestball drafts all the time because Martavis, if he plays, he will have monster games. He did it in Pittsburgh, and they traded for him because they wanted him where Pittsburgh no longer wanted him. So it's interesting. Jason, one of the guys you talk about a lot as we go through the starting lineup and the fantasy options in Oakland, Jared Cook, you know, a kind of, well, Crabtree and all those targets, they're gone.

Right? You don't really have a premier pass catching back out of the backfield. You have Amari Cooper who has been inconsistent and therefore you have, you look at Jared Cook and go, wow, that's one of the guys that has rapport with Derek Carr already. You know. Jared Cook is just great between the 20s. I mean, he's a first down guy. If you're in any kind of tight end premium league, either you start two tight ends or you get a bonus for, you know, like the Scott Fish Bowl. We drafted him because you get a bonus.

for every first down and every reception over the other positions. That's where you want to take Jared Cook. The problem with Cook is he's never been a red zone guy. I think he averages three touchdowns per season, which for tight end is not going to get it done. So he's kind of this higher floor guy that has no ceiling. There's just he's, there's no walls, but he's on a plateau. He's just, he lives up on that plateau. It's,

It's a nice plateau. He's built no house on it. Simba. He was tied for the ninth most targets at the position. Yeah. Quietly. Yeah. Yeah. He's just there. When you're Jared Cook, you're Jared Cook. That's true. That's the way it goes. Let's talk about... Send in the car. Send in the car. Are you sending in the car? Last year he was a regression candidate. We all set it. The yardage didn't back up the fancy production and the touchdowns.

But I think it went further than we thought it would go with Derek Carr last year. It did not look like the same player. Is he a bounce-back candidate? What would you put the odds of him being a fantasy start-worthy revelation this season? Revelation, I would put the odds very low. He's going to be a fine streaming type of candidate, but he fits right in as he's going late, but...

I'm, uh, he's not the type of late round target I want. He's going in the same round as Marcus Mario, he's going in the same round as, as Alex Smith. He's going before Dak Prescott. These are guys I would rather take my late round shot of sticking in my, in my, in my, uh, quarterback slot every single week over Derek Carr. And it's as much, I was thinking about this as, as much as I'm kind of, you know, poking at the Raiders.

I love two players on this team. Marshawn Lynch and Amari Cooper. Yes, I love them. I have already locked in as a wide receiver one. I feel like I've been a griefer of Amari Cooper over his career of just giving you a couple huge games, still finishing very high, but not being a player you wanted on your fantasy team. That's because when you take the Polaroid of the top 12 wide receivers before the season. John Groon can.

He slays it with a Polaroid camera. Yeah, he is. He's good at that. You take the Polaroid of your top 12 every year back to the future style. And then when you shake it and you wait until later in the season, Amari's picture always fades out. That's the problem. Yeah. He's always fading out of that because every year we say the same things. I went back and looked at some of the articles last year. I had my 32 bold prediction article, right? One of the predictions, Amari will arrive.

Oh, he arrived in one game, Kansas City. It was impressive. He showed top speed. Which, if you recall, we had to record early. We had to record our show early the day before that game. And I went Nostradomps. Yes, you did. On Amari Cooper having a big game, just tongue and cheek. I was throwing it out there. But wide receiver ones for John Gruden, they put up 1,000 yards. I love Amari Cooper. He's not overpriced.

in this year's fantasy draft. And Marshawn Lynch, my goodness, I don't know what I am seeing in Marshaun Lynch that other people are not, where he's going seventh, eighth round and give you running back to. I think it's the wrong birth certificate. I think you've pulled the wrong one out and that's what you're seeing differently. No, look, he was, he was, he was, he was fine. He was fine this past year. He was very good. His efficiency was, was, he was four point three of carry. He was still beast mode. There was,

He got the Cream Hunt treatment very frequently where that might be how you get 5.3 or 4.3 from Marchand. No, 207 carries. Yes. I'm saying the way you get that from this age of Marcheon might be 200 carries. But what I mean by the Cream Hunt treatment is it's just a random spattering of games where they just weren't giving him the ball. And I don't, off the top of my head, I don't know if it was game script. They were trailing. So they had to go past heavy. He was the 20th ranked.

Fantasy running back last year. Right. And he's going way later than that. In the first half of last year, he was basically, I feel like he was so underutilized. It was criminal. The second half of last year got much better. But the issue is... So Greg Olson gets you going there. Greg Olson, the offensive coordinator just gets you... Greg Olson. Greg Olson is my number one issue with the Raiders. I just don't think he is a good offensive coordinator. And...

The issue. Brian Schottenheimer or Greg Olson. Oh, man. Jimmy Schottenheimer. Oh. Seriously. I think I don't know who I did. I mean, I, yeah. Other. Yeah. Just in Marshall Lynch was a running back one or two, 60% of the time. Yeah, he's good. In the Clinton Portis vein. The issue in the 10 points. Is will Doug. Look, I believe Doug Martin is busted. I think he is not good. But.

They just paid to have him come in. I think they're going to give him work. I think he's going to carry the ball 10 times a game. And if he does, if he does get 10 carries a game, then Marshawn Lynch can't do enough. I mean, maybe if you're getting him in the eighth round, he's going to return value there. 97 yards per game on the season last year. They'll have to improve that for Marshaun to be in that upper echelon. Last question for the Raiders. I'm going to pose it to both of you.

I want to know the fantasy ceiling and floor of wide receiver Jordy Nelson. Oh, the floor is wide receiver 80. Yeah, the floor is a sinister villain pulled the lever. Yeah. And it opens up and Jordy Nelson falls into a pit of sharks. That's the floor. Right. The ceiling. Or lack of a floor. Yeah, exactly. The ceiling, and I had just mentioned this to Jason, well, okay, there's a world where Jordan Nelson is, in fact, washed.

But Derek Carr leaned so heavily on Michael Crabtree in the red zone. And that's where Jordy is good. Does Jordy Nelson somehow end up with 500 yards but eight touchdowns? Yes, it's possible. It is absolutely possible. I think he could end up being a wide receiver too is his, you know, upper ceiling. Ceiling is the word I was looking for. The upper floor. One thing that's important to know is the old upper floor. He was, that Jordy was still above average in his game speed.

So that's an argument in his favor that he hasn't slowed down above his own average or above the NFL average. Whereas we're about to talk about a different team with an older fella who has really dropping in his game speed. Ooh, I'm excited to talk about it. So let's talk about it. Broncos. Oh, the Broncos. Five and 11 last year. And yet a team that is not far removed from, I think, competing in a big way.

It's the quarterback position. That was the problem last season. They were 20th in the league in passing yards per game, just 208 passing yards per game. Still one of the best defenses in football. Fourth against the past, fifth against the rushing yards given up. This was a team that struggled on offense. In Case Keenum, to some people, he's the right medicine. To other people, the bottle's empty. And they don't believe. They're going to need more than a single spoonful of sugar.

To bring that medicine. Yeah, look, there are a lot of interesting fantasy dilemmas on the Denver Broncos, starting with Case Keenham and his impact on not only Demarius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders, but rookies Cortland Sutton, who we did have the opportunity to speak with at NFFC, and Deshawn Hamilton, a player that Mike loves, a player that is very talented and has shown well in OTA so far. You also have Devante Booker, Royce Freeman, and company in the backfield, which...

You know, their head coach has come out and said, well, it's going to be two to three main guys. I love it. The two to, who's that third guy? Who's the third? One A1B1C, Mike. They're all ranked number one. Uh-huh. They're all ranked number one. So what stands out to you is kind of your main focus on this roster. Is it case, Keenum?

Or is it, Jason, what were you talking about with the wide receiver? My main focus is Demarius Thomas. Demarius Thomas is a guy that I have, I've really loved over the last few years because he has.