Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Rotoworld's Evan Silva, Fantasy News, Mailbag

tight ends that can block help you running to the outside. And that is really the type of runners we have in Arizona. So I think it's a, I mean, as a personal Arizona Cardinal fan, I love the signing. As a fantasy guy. I could not believe he's 27. Me either. Doesn't he feel about 34? In the off season, I gave him a lot of love because he's a talented player. And I completely agree with Jason. I think it improves the team, the Arizona team.

with not just the run game. And their offense is already improved in the running game. Yeah, but also protecting Carson Palmer where if you look at tight ends in an Aryan system, that's usually not a thriving fantasy position, which is a little bit baffling to me that Gresham chose to sign in Arizona when there was rumors of maybe the Packers were looking at him, the Saints were looking at him. Yeah, one-year deal.

And how was Arizona the best choice? But where it's... Super Bowl. That's how. Yeah, maybe. But Arizona, the way Ariens looks at tight ends, just look at Troy Nicholas, where we spent a second round pick on a tight end who blocks. Yeah. So, Ariens clearly has an affinity for a blocking tight end. All right, I want to get to this last piece of news because I just want to talk about them in general. I've had some people ask me questions.

There have been some reports that some teams have seriously considered signing Free Agent Ray Rice earlier in this offseason. And so I've had a lot of people ask me, oh, is Chris Johnson, is Ray Rice? Are they worthy late round flyers? Now, Ray Rice is 28 years old, but he's got 1,400 carries on that body of his, and he averaged 3.1 to carry last time he played in the NFL. So if Ray Rice plays, I will absolutely pick him up. I will never.

In any league draft Ray Rice. Because I don't think he's going to find a team. But if he finds a team, this news shows it clearly will not come preseason when media and all that's going. It would only be able to come through an injury in the year when it's a desperation move. But if he has picked up, I would pick him up off the waivers, but don't draft him because I don't think he's ever going to play another snap in the NFL. Ray Rice, you know that there's the movie, the money pit. Ray Rice will be the money pit for Fab.

this year because he'll sign with somebody after an injury. It will happen from an injury and they will come in and people will blow a gigantic portion of their fab for a guy who was completely... Define FAB for people who don't know what you're talking about. So FAB is free agent acquisition budget and that's it's instead of waivers players or leagues can choose to have a weekly bidding for free agents instead of just this waiver order. It's spectacular if you're not using it.

We really suggest you try it out, and it'll win you over. And so back to your point, people are going to blow their money on Ray Rice. He's going to sign with some team that loses their starter. And he's going to stink. Yeah, you're probably right. The thing about Ray Rice is even if he's not good between the tackles, he has been a 50-plus catch back out of the backfield. That's fair. And the last year that you were referring to when he was awful. I mean, coming in the following year, the year that he didn't do so good in the media.

He was primed. I mean, you know, Andy. I was talking about him that year because he had lagging injuries the year before. His offensive line was terrible. You were talking about... I was talking mostly about how bad the offensive line for the Ravens were that last year when he had regressing numbers and how good they were going to be the following year. Yeah, but that's not proof that Ray Rice is any good. No, no, no. But I'm saying if you want to talk about Ray Rice being bad his last year, I don't think it was him. He was terrible.

I know, and I don't think it was him. And that might be the case. That's the unknown. I mean, the thing that we're talking about is Ahmad Bradshaw. I mean, how much did he have left? He went into Indianapolis in that situation. Well, I would, too. My point is if he walks into a situation like that, like Bradshaw walked into, maybe he produces. Maybe. But I'm not drafted. I'm not taking a flyer. No, never. All right, let's get to the main event. We're going to talk to Evan Silva from Roder World, the senior editor over there, and see what he has to say about some DFS and some.

Big news in Fantasy World. You talking to me? The fantasy footballers are now joined by the master of the matchup, Evan Silva from Road to World. He also just started a brand new podcast, Roder World Fan Dual NFL Pod, where they focus on DFS and specifically Fan Duel, as you can tell because it's right in there in the name. I want you to say hello to everyone, Evan. Hey, what's up, guys? Thanks for having me on.

Well, thank you for joining us. And what we wanted to talk through with Evan was some high ADP guys who are kind of polarizing. They are splitting the fantasy community where you really love these guys or you completely hate them because they're going way too high. Or you just don't know what to do with them. Yeah, that's also too. So we're going to start with the big guy. He's back. He was gone all last year. But Adrian Peterson is...

From Fantasy Football Calculator right now is going 102, so basically the first overall pick. You're talking a guy who has had one season below 1,250 yards. He's had double-digit touchdowns every year. He was gone last year, but there's still a lot of smart people who are saying he's not even a top five running back. So what is your take on Peterson?

I definitely lean in the positive direction on Adrian Peterson. There are also a lot of smart people who believe he should go number at 1.01. Mike Clay is one of those guys, as is our Adam Levitton. Look, he's playing in the best offense he's played in since Brett Favre was around. I mean, I tend to believe that he's got a lot of juice left at age 30. The last time we saw him play, he looked really good.

He, you know, I like how the offense is coming together. North Turner has a history of getting RBs heavily involved in the passing game. And that's.

you know, an area where Adrian Peterson, I mean, he's never been a great pass catcher, but he always could have been used a little bit more because that's a means of getting Adrian Peterson into space. And, you know, when Adrian Peterson gets into space. Yeah, not a bad thing. People get afraid. Destruction on the football field. So if you had, if you had to think, why are these other people down on him? What could you, besides, is it just age or that he was gone last year?

Yeah, it's age and it's the fact that Adrian Peterson only played in one game last year. And those are the negative factors. To me, the positive outweigh the negatives by a good margin on Adrian Peterson. And he's a guy that I want to bet on. I'm willing to draft him in the top five. I don't think he's the 1.01. I got Levion and Jamal Charles and Eddie Lacey all in the mix as well. But I think he's definitely a top five fantasy pick.

And that's kind of our position, too. I think he's in that top five guaranteed for us. We don't see a reason to run away from him. I want to talk a little bit about a guy who also was heavily involved in the passing game years ago, and that's Frank Gore. From 06 to 2010, he averaged 51 receptions a year, kind of pre-harbaw era. Moving teams, he's with the Colts now. I mean, what do you see with him? Because right now he's a third round pick. I have him as an RB1.

Yeah, this is definitely another guy who I lean positive on. We have a lot of factors to consider with these players. And I don't want to get caught hanging my hat on one of those particular factors when there are a lot of other factors to consider. Frank Gore is going from a team that ranked toward the bottom of the NFL in running back targets last year, over the past four years under Greg Roman actually, to a team that last year ranked.

11th in the NFL in passing game targets to running backs. His receiving usage is going to spike. And he's also going from an offense that last year was one of the worst in the NFL to a Colts offense that is one of the best in the NFL, which should definitely spike his scoring chances. If you look at the efficiency of running backs not named Trent Richardson over the past two years in Indianapolis,

You know, Donald Brown, who is terrible, averaged over five yards of carry. Ahmad Bradshaw was at like 4.6 or 4.7 last year. Dan Harron, who's a six-round guy, you know, probably should be bouncing around the NFL, which actually he did before he landed in Indy. He averaged four and a half yards of carry. So there are a lot more positive indicators than negative to me with Frank Gore. Last year, his yards per carry average.

was his second best in the last five years. I mean, I think he's got plenty of juice in the tank to produce in, you know, maybe the NFL's best offense. Yeah, and I think for fantasy owners, too, he's just a stalwart when it comes to health. And that's one of the things that, you know, he just hasn't missed a game in so long. So moving to a wide receiver who, he, this guy is especially, I think.

drawing a line in the community. That's Martavis Bryant, who had a very low snap count last year. He wasn't even played the first six games. And we affectionately call him here because we are huge Back to the Future fans. So we call him Marty McBride. Feel free to drop that one if you want. All right. Yeah, no, you guys can keep that one. Yeah, yeah. But what we keep pushing of why we like him

is the biggest game of the year, the playoffs, his snaps shot up to 83%. In the big game, you want your big players. That's just how anything other than that is a ridiculous thought. So where do you stand on Bryant in the Steelers' offense? Yeah, that was going to be a piece of my take on him as well. He was a 43% player when he started playing from week seven to week 17.

Then, you know, in the crucial game where they didn't have Levion, which they won't have him for the first few games of 2015, Martavis Bryant became a starter over Marcus Wheaton, and he played 82% of the Steelers offensive snaps, and he saw nine targets, which was a season high. I think he had like six for 60 and a TD or something like that, or maybe five for 56. Yeah, five for 61. Yeah, so.

You know, you got to love his makeup physically. You got to love the offense that he plays in. Yeah, the thing is, I don't know, he reminds me a lot of the former Bengals wide receiver, Chris Henry. And he never became, and maybe it was because he was playing with Chad and Hoosh, but he was never a high volume receiver. You know, Malcolm Floyd was never a high volume receiver. And it's possible that Martavis, you know,

kind of ends up in that range. It's also possible that he could end up in the AJ Green range, because that's another guy who he's built very much like, actually has better speed than AJ Green. I don't know. For me, the range of outcomes on him is pretty wide. I'm definitely taking him in drafts when I think he's a value, which starts to be the late fifth, early six round.

Um, he's a guy who I'm definitely going to be firing up in DFS against New England in that first game, you know, New England lost all their cornerbacks. Um, and Lavian will be out. So Martavis, Brian's snap percentage and target should, should really see a spike there with Laveon out. And then it'll be, you know, I think that how the, the, the Steelers use him when Laveon comes back might hinge a little bit on how he performs in those first three games. Um,

You know, so I still think he's dicey, but, man, I'm very, very intrigued by him. Yeah, that's a good word for it. He's super interesting just because of the small sample size, but high potential and that offense itself. And another guy that we've debated a lot on the show, we've made several bets about, and I'm rolling around too. But Justin Fawcett doesn't get a lot of love because he's bounced around. He's been that career backup. Obviously, he had a great year last year. He's sneaking into the second round now.

in standard leagues. But do you have some general thoughts on Fawcett? I mean, do you think anybody behind him, I guess, has the potential to steal some workload, or do you just see Tressman and that offense in another good year for him? He's not the easiest guy. I mean, I wouldn't say that he's the safest guy because they do have Buck Allen there and they do have Talia Farrow and Justin Fawcett, you know, leading up to last year, he was nothing more than a change of pace third downback, you know, and...

you know, he's old and there, there are a number of, you know, factors there that scare people off a little bit. Yeah, yes, yeah, scare people off a little bit. And really, it's still hard, even though he kind of did it last year, it's still hard to envision him as a guy who's going to carry the ball 270 times, you know, he probably isn't going to be that guy. He might get 220 carries and they mix in the other two RBs.