NFC West Breakdown, Jerick McKinnon, Annoying Situations

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To get you ready for the 2018 season, let me tell you. Not only does it have the things you come to expect from a tool like this, a printable cheat sheet and sortable rankings, all the different scoring systems. But what makes it different is it's filled with tools that you can't get anywhere else. 100 plus video profiles. Consistency charts. Back for 2018. So you can look at which players delivered week in and week out versus those that were up and down. Risk ratings. A top 200 list.

All of our blurbs for every single player. Dynasty rankings are here for 2018. Not to mention Yahoo's Matt Harmon delivers his reception, perception content, sleepers breakouts, bus. The list goes on. This is our pride and joy. You've got to check it out at ultimate draft kit.com. To the fantasy footballers podcast. Coming to you from draft.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Ah, welcome in. Excited to be here, Andy Mike and Jason, the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Back once more. Oh, can you smell that? August is almost here. I smell training camp. Oh. Smells like sweat. Smells like sweat and grass. Does not smell good. This is bad news. No, it doesn't. We will, well, we've got a jam-packed show today, breaking down the NFC West. Got Jerich McKinnon joining the program as well.

And we'll talk about the Josh Gordon news that broke this morning. May or may not be news. We will. Nobody wants any sentence to start with. We'll talk about the Josh Gordon news. No. If there was no Josh Gordon news ever again. No. It would be too soon. I feel like, you know, some of the division rivals might want to hear that sentence. Fair point. Yeah, from the Owen 16 Brown.

A lot of concern there. A lot of. There's a big threat. Big threat going on. The Steelers are worried. Well, I believe. I believe in Hugh. Mm-hmm. NFC West on the show, like I said. A reminder, check out Ultimate DraftKit.com. By the way, we'll be in Philadelphia and New York for two live shows this week. Back to back, the 26 and the 27th. We are, look.

Those shows are going to be awesome. We are discussing the 2018 biggest fantasy storylines of the year in Philly. And then in New York, we are going to be talking about our fire and ice players. So you're not going to want to miss those shows. Even if you can't make it to New York, those are coming up on the podcast. If you can make it to Philly or New York, you can see it live. Perhaps a song of fire. Ice and fire. Don't get yourself. A ballad.

of ice and fire. Ballerslive.com for tickets. We'll also be in Phoenix, August 24th. That'll be our final live show of this off season, so you can join us out there. I believe we'll be talking about some bold predictions in that show, most likely. I boldly predict that's what we will be talking about. And one last point I wanted to bring up before we get into the quick question, I just want to remind people that if you want to practice drafting,

And get a grade from any of us. You can go to draft.com. There is a draft simulator. You can draft simulator. You can draft. You can get a grade. You can share it with us on Twitter. We can talk. It'll be fun. People have been really loving those. I mean, the amount of Twitter posts of just like. I've been told I'm the Simon Cowell of the group. The hardest, please. Apparently. I just tell people the draft better. What, Mike? What's the low grade? I said draft better. Yeah. So everything that we update with our rankings. Blame yourself.

is how you get a grade. So our rankings are updated every day, and then you get a grade based off our current rankings. So quick question of the day, name a player or situation that you'll be annoyed to talk about throughout the 2018 season. Guys, we're going to five days a week here in August. That's a lot of shows. What's going to annoy you about this season? What is your prediction there? Yeah, for me, it's going to be John Gruden.

All season long, we're going to be talking about, like the overreaction will be there from everyone every week. He's either going to be the worst or the best. There's no like, he's just a coach doing, you know, a job and sometimes it gets things right and sometimes it gets things wrong. It's either going to be, you know, look, you want to talk about fire and ice. That's going to be John Gruden's tale this year, is he's the worst or the best. And I'm going to, I think it's going to annoy me because already those narratives are just like,

Let's just watch the Raiders and see what we have. He's a big personality. Yeah, I mean, the worst. There's going to be a lot of attention on him. I'm on, man. I've changed my tune. I'm just so I'm so ready for this ride with John Gruden. I think it's going to be. This is what you're wanting the most. Yeah, look, Oakland fans, I'm sorry what you're about to go through, but me personally, I think it's going to be a mess.

See? This is what I'm talking about. I actually don't. You only know why I don't is because we... Because you love old people. Well, sure. That doesn't hurt. You love old players. I love... I think he's smart. I think he's a smart guy and I think he gets it right more often than not. I think he is smart. I think he has a motor that you need as a head coach in terms of getting... Motor mouth. Motor mouth as well. Got that. Micromachine man got his job taken. I think he has a foundational quarterback.

That is good enough to win with. And I think that all those pieces put together mean that we'll see. I would agree with everything said about John Gruden there. But the worst part about John Gruden and the thing that's going to get in his way is Greg Olson. If he had hired a legitimate Greg Olson, I don't want him confused with the great Hall of Fame level tight end. You know who he's hired. Scapegoat.

Greg's skateboard. You got to line up a couple. No wonder Schottenheimer. Oh, look at Pete Carroll. He's setting it up. Of course. You want to talk about smart. Pete Carroll is setting it up. He's currently, he's loading his lifeboat right now. All the food and supplies from the ship are on the lifeboat. Here's what I'm going to be annoyed to talk about. I'm going to be annoyed trying to figure out what players I can stream in Dallas.

It's going to change every week this season. It's going to be Hearns or Terrence Williams or Michael Gallup or Cole Beasley or Blake Jarwin or Tavon Austin. I don't want to figure that out every week because it's going to be it's Zieg's show plus one player is probably going to give you a startable fantasy week. And I don't think even if you like Hearns, Jason. I do. And I'm speaking only to you.

Yeah. According to average draft position, you are correct. Even if you like him, I don't think you're going to get it from him every week. So reliability of Dallas past catching options is something that I'm not looking forward to dealing with because I think we're going to be rolling the dice more often than not. I think you can say the same thing about Jacksonville. Hopefully someone from both of those situations, at least for fantasy players, is able to step up. I think in Jacksonville at least you have unknown.

To a degree. I mean, I guess Gallup is unknown, so never mind. The thing I want to bring up is the, it's very specific, but it's the overreaction to the stud players who tank the first week and possibly the second. Because my timeline will be just absolutely full of people saying, I drafted him in the first round, and he's giving me two bad games. I'm trading. I'm selling. I'm out.

There was two, either last year or the year before, we were very opposed to Matt Forte in the beginning or in the off season. And he came out and had two incredible games that start the season. That didn't look good. And it did not feel good. And it changed. It changed over the course of the season. But my point is simply, when it's your stud and you drafted him in the first of the second.

even you might have gotten it we not you but all of us we could have gotten that player wrong but you got to give them more than two weeks you can't just you can't spend that draft equity and then sell them for 50 cents on the dollar yeah that's not everybody so amped and they're just ready people were selling left bell after week one last year yeah that's yes we did we got a lot of a lot of i can trade cream hunt right now for levy on bell

And we said, do it. After week one. Yeah. Oh, yes. You had to. It's hard to do, though. Yeah, it is. When you have fired. News and notes from around the league. Sorry, Mike. Apparently we're done talking about that. I took your pause as a period on the end of the sentence. No, that's just how I speak. Sorry. Sorry. Very choppy. Let's talk about some news. David Johnson did not hold out of training camp reported to training camp. Excellent. Currently suspended GM.

Steve Kime has said that he is looking forward to rewarding David Johnson. So maybe a sign of good faith by David Johnson. Maybe they've made some progress on an extension. Either way, it's good news for David Johnson owners. There was the rumors because he had his no show or whatever it was for some OTAs or something. He didn't show up to OTS. And people started to get a little concerned. Is he going to show up for training camp?

We're good. We're good. David Johnson's here. He's ready to play. If you look at the contract situation, there was no chance he's missing training camp because he is not a filthy rich man coming in from his contract. He's still on the rookie contract. He wasn't a first round top half guy. And he's going to miss a lot of money if he misses training camp. So that's why he missed the OTAs. It was like, oh, okay, I can miss this one and I'll be there for training camp. I'm sure it hurt him to miss that. Oh, yeah.

Knowing him and his personality, that was like the... He's good people's. He needed the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down from his agent who said, look, you have to do this to send a message. He probably wanted to be there. Let's talk about Andrew Luck. A report came out that he will not be limited in training camp. GM, well... He won't be limited. No limitations. But we're not going to have him throw every day. I feel like that is a limitation.

Right? Is that not limiting him? Technically, you're probably correct. But Chris Ballard has said Andrew Luck will be good to go for the start of training camp. We're talking about real footballs, NFL size footballs. Hopefully. Hopefully. But this is fantastic because last year it was they said all of this and then all of a sudden he's not ready.

for training camp, and then he's not ready to start the year. Which one of you two gentlemen has him ranked more in line with that you were going to adjust it later on with his health? That would be me. Have you done that? I have not adjusted it yet. I've said from the get-go that I will not adjust him based on news, based on good news, based on anything other than watching him. Watching him play. So I've been, you know, previously my line in the sand was preseason.

I want to watch him in a preseason game and playing. But if he is a full active participant in training camp and, you know, full scrimmages, then I'll probably start to adjust him. But I am waiting for preseason. If they hold him out of preseason, I'm still scared. All right. The big news this morning, well, I had a dentist appointment very early in the morning. And I'm not sure what was more painful, having my tooth drilled.