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

You think you're conceding something, but that is some huge resistance for a sixth round pick. I mean, Melvin Gordon or Frank Gore. Who else is going in the sixth right now, Mike? Probably Frank Gore. Yeah, right behind Melvin Gordon, you have Frank Gore, Duke Johnson, Ivory, and Gio Bernard. Oh, man. Give me Gordon over all of them without a doubt. The problem that I have. The problem that I have is that if he keeps having a good preseason.

His stock will unfortunately rise and he won't be able to be had in the sixth round. I would take him higher anyways. Yeah. Let me throw on my bonus. Oh, all right. My bonus is based on not just what's on the field for the Dolphin Giants game, which I watched. And I mean, there are a lot of guys to be kind of confident win there. Shane Breen looked good to me. Rashad Jennings looked good to me. But Sterling Shepard, you mix his performance, what I've seen in camp mixed with this game.

how he ran routes, how he blocked and did his job as a receiver on the field. And you mix that with Victor Cruz being incapable of recovery. And Shepard is probably going to be the highest rated rookie wide receiver on my board. Yeah, I don't blame you. And he looks completely capable of taking advantage of matchups in the slot with O'Dell Beckham Jr. in the field. I think you're going to have big games from Sterling Shepard. I really do.

All right, my delicious Raising Keynes rising stars of the week. You're a cheater. I am a cheater, but really they are co-stars. I'm happy you're cheating because I thought you only had one name in there and I was going to be mad at you. No, no, I've got two names in here. The main guy that I wanted to talk about for me because he is rising for me is Derek Henry. Now, the reason he's rising for me is because I've completely written him off.

You know, normally those big giant backs when they come into the NFL, they're not really big fantasy producers. You know, Brandon Jacobs, he had a somewhat successful stint for a little while. But most of the time, they just, and when you looked at the college tape of Henry, he was great, but he was great without being touched. And, you know, he didn't look like he was utilizing his assets. But he was a beast.

He was really, really good. And the reason I said stars plural is because DeMarco Murray was great as well. So the Tennessee running game, and granted it was against the Chargers. Sorry, not the best run defense. Going back and watching every single one of those snaps, I will say this, it was very similar to college. And granted, for Henry, he was doing it against the number two's.

Just giant holes, man. I mean, real big holes where he was able to make a nice cut to get to the hole. It wasn't just a wide open lane. It was like, I need to shift over, make a big cut.

get to that lane and then turn on the burners. But he was good. Every single handoff. And so he was a guy who I believe was my 62nd running back, a guy that I hadn't even considered drafting in a single mock and a single anything. And now I think that he is going to succeed in the NFL. The problem is, of course, he's a backup. So the other guy, DeMarco Murray, who just in case you, you know, weren't able to watch the games, DeMarco Murray had a 71-yard.

touchdown jaunt, a nice little scamper. And what I loved about seeing that play was there was worries in me from Philadelphia, DeMarco Murray, that his legs might be tiring, that his legs are getting to the point where he doesn't have the juice. But I don't care. You cannot run away from a whole team for 71 yards if your legs are dead. You're just not doing it. So he was six for 93 in a touchdown, and Derek Henry was 10 for 74 in a touchdown. Both guys.

looked good. I'm not moving DeMarco Murray up because of Derek Henry. To me, I think DeMarco Murray, where I had him is a good spot, but Henry will move up for me. You got to see what the recipe for success in Tennessee is going to be this year, which is play against the Chargers, Russian defense. Which is to play against the Russian defense and to run the ball a ton. Yeah, but the problem is will they be able to run the ball a ton in their game scripts? Sure. But that...

They won't care. They are going to run, run, run, run. I'm telling you, this is why, as much as I loved Marioita about three months ago, I backed off him quick. I backed off him quick because I couldn't project the skill sets there, but I could not project the volume there for him. And it's just not going to. Speaking of volume, I betted the Carolina statistic. They were the 27th.

uh passing volume passing attempt so they were they were up they were up 56 to 4 in the uh in the first two quarters and ran the rest of the game um all right well every week every monday we're going to be going through our rising stars those were the raising canes rising stars of the week remember everybody we know this better than anybody game day tastes better with the raising canes tailgate tailgate's package full of fresh 24 hour marinated hand battered chicken fingers

They are delicious. And fresh-brewed sweet tea. So visit raising canes.com and find your nearest location, which we'll probably do in about an hour. Yes, we will. Actually, I'm not joking whatsoever. Like, that is actually where we're probably going to go eat today because we do that almost every day. All right, let's go ahead and get into the rest of the games. Weekly rewind. All right, let's start with the Miami New York Giant game we alluded to with Sterling Shepherd. Let's do it. I've got one other bit of...

something important to talk about in this game, but let's start with J. Ajai. Well, actually, I pulled up a, like a sound bite. I got a... Of one of the plays? Yeah, just a sound bite of how well he'd played. It's from the coach. I didn't know they had sound bites of that. I didn't know you can see it. Yeah, hit the button. Wow. That was a quote. That was a quote. That was Adam Gase. That was Adam. Well, all right. Very...

Well, well spoken. Very mature of me. I know. Yeah. It was bad. Two for six. Two for six, Bobble to catch. An easy catch that almost got picked off. You still? You ready? You ready to get on? Get on. Get on with me. Yeah, the Aryan Foster train. Hey on. Look, JJ. This was when you, the lights were on for JJ of saying.

Hey, take control of this backfield. You're dealing with some Arian Foster pressure behind you. The pressure did not make a good performance for J. Jai. I was not impressed. What world are we living in? The Aryan Foster is again a cog of Andy in 2016 on a different team. Unbelievable. I'm ready for Damian Williams. All righty. I think that's the biggest endorsement of foster you've ever given. Look, guys, I'm going to say this.

Paul Perkins is one of those people popular sleeper pick behind Rashad Jennings who looked good. Andre Williams, to me, looked much faster on film than he looked last year or the year before. There was a different type of pep to his step. I'm telling you, I am believing that Andre Williams is going to fight his way into that number two role, which I think will severely hinder Paul Perkins upset.

I can agree with that. The reports on Williams have been very positive over the offseason and through training camp, and he did. He looked like a different player, which good for you, Andre Williams, because it was... Because you needed to. Yeah, you certainly did. But it's very important because Rashad Jennings is not the pinnacle of health. Correct. Rashad Jennings, I, now if I'm wrong on this, I apologize because I heard it on...

NFL network this morning, so I didn't even vet it. You can look it up. I'm doing it right now. Rashad Jennings, despite what you might have thought of him last year, that was his career high in rushing yards. That's probably true. In a season. That is factually correct. Which is in the 800s. And so either Rashad Jennings exceeds expectations in his career high, which is very possible. Mike loves him. We love him. Yep. Or he gets hurt again. And then a guy like Andre Williams becomes very relevant on a great offense.

with the goal line capability. That's the one thing they always kept trying to give Andre Williams's goal line. All of a sudden, if he can run between the tackles, you've got him and a rookie. It just needs to be known. I mean, that's a guy that you should pay attention to, especially if that situation comes where Rashad Jennings goes down, which would be unfortunate, but it just seems to happen. So anything else from the Miami New York game? I think we covered the receiver. So what did you guys see out of the Detroit Pittsburgh game?

The thing that stood out to me of things that I'm watching, you know, of the first offense playing like five snaps or whatever, it was simply Zach Zener played in front of Stephen Ridley. I have been a Stephen Ridley truther for since his whole career, really. I had hoped that Ridley could become that big back. But right now it's Zach Zener. This is a competition to definitely keep your eye on. But they've been, the coaches have been talking of Zener.

they backed it up by saying Zenner, you go in before Ridley. And he played, Zach Zner actually played in the second drive. Zach Zinner is one of the best preseason football players. True. I mean, he had a great preseason last year. I don't know what we can make of it, but it was really important to see him ahead of Stephen Ridley. And when Stephen Ridley came out and so now this would have been against probably third string, you know, guys, he stunk.

I mean... Oh, like last year. He didn't look good. He looked like he was still missing some. I think he got five carries for 14 yards. So a nice good 2.8 against the third string defense of the Pittsburgh. I personally... I was out on a limb a little bit picking Zinner above Ridley when, you know, a month ago. I got a little scared of saying that to me, Stephen Ridley might be the Hakeem Nix of the running back position. I just don't think...

despite the age that he has it. I haven't seen it on tape. I want to add this into this game. If Lederie screens out, okay, anywhere from retired to ankle injury to headaches to missing games or staying on the pup, you need to know Jesse James. Oh! Jesse James is the backup tight end. The outlaw. Very capable. You know what Big Ben did with Heath Miller. You need to pay attention to that. Jesse James is not afraid of stepping into that role. I think he's a pretty dynamic tight end. He has his limitations.

But so did Heath Miller. And so I think you just need to know the name of Jesse James. And Sammy Coates, not a good game. Two fumbles for Sammy Coe. That's some fumbles. It does not concern me at all. We decided. Yeah. Jason and I decided this. The fact that you just said that is perfect. So confirms exactly what we know, which is Marcus Wheaton is your Devonta Freeman for this year.

Okay. He's 100%. Because the fact that you would frivolously throw away two preseason fumbles from a guy who's already behind the depth chart of Wheaton, just for your love of Sammy Coat shows me the blindness. No, no. He's not known for fumbling. He is that over his career. He's not known. He is now. Oh, okay. Over his career, what's a career? He played a few snaps last year. I thought we said we don't overreact to preseason. Two fumbles from a guy trying to battle through the depth chart. It's certainly not a good look. I can agree with that. All right. I can agree with that.

We just, Jason and I are very much in the Wheaton camp and the value of Wheaton. Yeah. He might be one of the better values in the game. I like Sammy Coates on the year. I was just, I was really excited. I wanted to see something from him this game. Unfortunately, we did. We did. Yeah, we, we did. But then again, I mean, you're also talking about, you know, what are you really going to see, take away the fumbles? You know, Big Ben didn't even, he didn't play, right? I don't, I don't think he played us. No, it was just landry. All right, Minnesota, Cincinnati.

what did you guys see out of this game you had it's charles johnson charles johnson i mean whatever i watched that play it wasn't i mean charles jansen made a good catch i was much more impressed if you wanted me to take something away from that play it was that teddy bridgerard threw the ball deep for goodness sakes and he did it accurately sure made me happy for one play but i mean there's there's reports that charles johnson was dealing with broken ribs all last uh season and when i say

Charles Johnson, I'm not jumping back on board with him as a fantasy producer. I'm saying he's in front of Treadwell right now. Yeah. And catching a 49-yard bomb doesn't hurt you. Is going to help you stay on the top. If you had to predict the final tally here for the wide receivers in Minnesota, what is the order of at the end of the year? Let's say half point league. By the end of the year, digs would be my top choice in...

I'll probably still say Treadwell just because of the touchdown potential. But watch the rest of the preseason, man. It's going to be very important for Treadwell if he wants to make an early season impact. Because if Johnson wins that job and then plays well, then it's going to be his job, of course. But does Minnesota actually have good wide receivers now? They might. That's crazy. Minnesota is such, they're a very good team. They are. We forget they won the division. Oh, I don't forget.