Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Preseason Fantasy Recap, Rising Stars, News

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Don't make me start the lame. Hey, look, Jason, it's news for you. Adam Schefter reporting the Rams are expected to extend Jeff Fisher and GM less need. Look, when I tweeted out after Hard Knocks, what I tweeted out was... You got a lot of grief on your show after the show, by the way. I also got a lot of love. Most people... Well, most people thought you were very, very harsh. Well, I was very, very harsh, so I think that that's fair that people thought that. What I tweeted out after I watched Hard Knocks was that I thought previously that Jeff Fisher was a bad head coach.

And now I realize he's a terrible head coach for a bad franchise. And so this makes sense. Man, man, the Los Angeles fans do not like you right now. No, I love the Los Angeles fans. I wish them the best. I hope that you guys enjoy your football. I'm sad. Look, I can relate. I was a Cardinals fan forever when we had the wrong bidwell running the show and making bad decisions and hiring bad coaches and doing things like that. I get it. We still love the Cardinals. Jared Goff's going to get first team reps, by the way, this week. He'll get an opportunity to...

start most likely the next preseason game and get some work in with the ones. All right, let's move on here. Ladarius Green, you heard us talk about this last week. There was a lot of panic in the air. Headaches. Oh, no. Did he disclose them? Is he going to get cut? Is he going to retire? Look, as of right now, Mike Tomlin says that, and he said this after the preseason opener, that Ladarius Green is on the active PUP list, only due to the ankle surgery. So you've got Tomlin's word, and then you've got a lot of other reports about this. So stay tuned.

Avoid Laderius Green. Fantasy news there is... You guys don't disagree with me, do you? Not right now, no. Until he's on the field, you have to avoid him. All right, let's talk about the situation at the quarterback position in San Francisco. I'm getting a lot of tweets about this. Entering the preseason opener, Bay Area news is Cam Inman believes the 49ers competition was already over. There's a lot of people saying that it's basically Blaine Gabbard's job.

Cam, not Cam Newton, Colin Kaepernick sat out due to his shoulder injury. Thoughts, guys. Coming into this game, I was right, because I was still on the Kaepernick. I still thought Kaepernick had the highest chance to win that job coming in. And what I, I was willing to change because you got Gabber going out there, Kaepernick injured. And if everybody's saying that, look.

It's it's Gabbert's team. I was willing to say, all right, I need to change my rankings, make sure I put it as Gabbert. And he was, in my opinion, pretty darn bad. He found Vance McDonald on a very nice strike late. But I mean, he was missing running backs on, you know, little tiny screens by a mile over and over and over. And the other thing that I saw was they were running the read option a ton.

And look, Gabbard can run the read option better than anybody that Chip Kelly's had in the NFL, but he cannot run it as good as Colin Kaepernick. Yeah, people ask, am I changing my rankings? I'm still waiting. Yeah. I'm still waiting because I... The search continues. Look, you get to game, if you got to game three of the preseason, Kaepernick hasn't seen the field. It's my rankings are changing. It's done deal. As of today, holding on, holding off. All right, Mike McCarthy. Speaking of holding on.

Jeff Janice won't practice this week. They said he broke at least one bone in his hand. Yeah. The dissent continues for Jeff Janice. Aberdeers. Yeah. Look, it's, I can't hold on to the, I love Jeff Janice. I think there's a tremendous upside. But if he can't practice, he certainly will not be involved early on. Does Devante Adams surprise because the pressure's off now? Yeah, he could. He absolutely could. Maybe. Not only the pressure of.

the fans and the coaches, but also the pressure of the defense, right? I mean, if Jordy's on the field, he's not going to be, he's going to be facing the third best defender. Josh Gordon returned to practice. They also said he has lost some of that weight that was reported to have been gained in his, what, five year, 10 year break from football? These football guys, and they're like, they're 20 pounds overweight, two days goes by, they're at the right weight. I need to get on that system.

That lose 20 pounds in about 48 hours. Have you seen that old S&L bet from John Belushi with the... Oh, I thought you were going Jim Carrey ride the stick. No, no, no, no. The John Belushi Olympics skit, they played it the other day. Oh, the all steroid Olympics? No, no, no. Oh, come on. Any more guesses? This is the little chocolate donut bit. It's really funny because they show him competing in all these Olympic events, and then he's just like...

I get all of my energy from little chocolate donuts. And it's just like a promotional ad for it. It's very funny. They posted it the other day. Ron Rivera, last bit of news here, said that Calvin Benjamin has struggled with conditioning during camp. Also saw a report from somebody out there in Carolina saying they believed Evan Funches would outperform Kelvin Benjamin this year. What? That's what I read. What?

I believe Devon Funches is a very good receiver. His routes have gotten better. His hands are pretty strong. He's tall. His hands are strong. They're just, I don't know if they're strong at catching a football. I think they are. But Kelvin, Kelvin should still be the one. I don't, I mean, nobody, nobody in here is going to be ranking Devin Funchis ahead of Kevin, Kelvin Benjamin.

Certainly not. No, I kind of look at that offense, though, and I see like 1A and 1B and 1C and 1 D and 1 E. Tedkin Jr. is the guy running, you know, as the wide receiver 2. And Greg Olson and Devin Funches and, I mean. Well, at least they threw the ball close to last as far as attempts in the league last year. So if they're going to be spreading it around.

They've got... Are you talking about Buffalo and Tyra Taylor and your love for Sammy Watkins? No, but I mean, Carolina was low on the total attempts last year, which was crazy. Were they that low? Not less, but they were definitely bottom half in attempts. They were a running, running, running team who Cam's efficiency was off the... Yes, his efficiency I know was tremendous. I look that up for you. Yeah, vet it for me.

All right, we're going to get into a brand new segment and the weekly rewind of the preseason games. We're going to go through the guys we think are moving up and down and should be moving up and down in your rankings. So let's do that right now. Raising Cains, Rising Stars of the Week. All right. Delicious new segment. We've got each of us have selected one Raising Cains Rising Star of the Week. I don't know who wants to kick this off. There were several people that I'm pretty much going to cheat.

And give you two names. I've got two names as well. But we'll let Mike start this one off. And I want to say this real quick. Before we get into all of the recaps, the rising stars, we say this all offseason. Don't overreact. And that's our goal here. So don't take, if we like a guy and we give you some upside, it doesn't mean he's jumping from 57 in the rankings to number one. It means that, look, this is somebody that you should pay attention to.

and we'll tell you how we're adjusting them and how we're not trying to be hyperbolic about how they performed. But you need, this is how you read the preseason and adjust. So Mike, you can start. Well, my love has been reignited. And I was watching this game with eyes wide open. I'm talking about Seattle running back Christian Michael. He was 7 for 44. And we talk about the final stats are kind of whatever. But just watching him,

looked great. I mean, he was crushed, not just getting sweeping it to the outside. I mean, he was pounding it up the middle. He's breaking tackles. And we, with how great Rawls was, we are kind of, I think a lot of people are overlooking. Kristen Michael was very good to end the year. And the, the problem with Michael, I don't think has ever, ever been his natural ability to be a running back. They've just considered him a bit of a head case.

I think he got taught a major lesson. He got traded for nothing. He got cut by Dallas. He got cut by Washington's practice team. And there was, the coaching staff said, Michael has really had an awakening. So if he's really getting his head back in the game, I think that Michael will be involved far more than first anticipated of. We're thinking, well, Rawls will be back. It'll be his job, and he's just going to dominate.

Michael could be involved. It is far more than we think. It is a little silly that Kristen Michael, who is, you know, if the season had to start today, he would be the starter. He's the starter. You know, right now, we're assuming it will be Thomas Rawls, but he's completely undrafted. No, I mean, Kristen Michael, in deep drafts, is going mostly undrafted. So it's a name worth watching for sure. Over my, over Alex Collins. Yeah, yes, by far. Um, pro se is just,

just now coming back from his injury. It's just, just pay attention. Pay attention. Yeah, he always had potential and he didn't have it upstairs. So if he's put it together, if he's committed, they seem to want to use him. And I kind of trust Pete Carroll. You know, Pete Carroll puts... You almost threw up when you said that? Yeah, I actually did. I got a little peach cobbler in my throat.

No, I mean, I trust him to put the right guys out there. I mean, they've made a lot of personnel decisions that have proved correct, and especially with people with their head on straight. And look, they have, they drafted Alex Collins. They have CJ ProCise. If they wanted to cut Kristen Michael, it would be no big deal. Right. So they haven't. So I had a hard time deciding who my Rising Star was going to be because, again, you know, these guys get very limited reps. I'm actually going to choose Melvin Gordon. I'm going to go with Melvin Gordon. The drought is over.

He got into the end zone. Well, hey, it's over. It's over. We're cutting it in the preseason. It doesn't go on his record. 44-yard touchdown reception. The thing I liked about Gordon is that he looked big. He looked strong. He, I think, will be a central cog in that offense. I've been high on him all offseason. I know Danny Woodhead is there, but their future is Melvin Gordon. It's not Danny Woodhead. And if Gordon can give them.

What we saw briefly in the preseason game, what I loved about Gordon last year when he was active and on the field, is that they were not afraid to use him just like Danny Woodhead in the passing game. That's how he scored in the preseason game one was a 44-yard reception. Get him downhill, big strong guy. He pushed his way through to the end zone. Melvin Gordon didn't show me anything that made me step back from my liking of him. We all like that offense. We like Philip Rivers.

And I think one thing that's super important from what he did is we can't forget he was coming off of a micro fracture knee surgery. He didn't look hesitant. He didn't look like, you know, oh, I'm afraid to cut. You know, there were those early camp videos that were like, oh, he's he's afraid to cut. And he clearly is not. He's healthy and he's back. And that was great to see. And I was, go ahead. What I'll say is I didn't last year.

I did not like Melvin Gordon's draft value. I thought that he was, it was that thing of the shiny rookie. He got moved up. I was very paused to take him. He's in the sixth round according to fantasy football calculator. I love him. I'm okay. I'm okay jumping in there on the six. I need to see more of Gordon. I'm okay with it. That is some huge.