Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - AFC & NFC West Previews, Fantasy News

absurdly good at the wide receiver position. But I think I realize that we are, as the Cardinals, going to do whatever is best for that game script and whoever's across from us. So is it going to be Larry? Is it going to be John Brown? From them. Yes. Is it going to be Michael Floyd? The answer is...

Yes, in different games. And it's not going to be one of those guys emerging and taking over and being that reliable every single week guy. So to me, it kind of backed me off of taking specific guys, if not maybe a little bit up on Larry because he presents the best draft value going latest. But it really rose Carson Palmer to me. Carson Palmer is going to be fine. With those weapons adding in David Johnson out of the backfield, J.J. Nelson, Duran Brown, you've got plenty of options here.

And so I like Carson Palmer. Every single Cardinals receiver is fantastic and we'll have great fantasy games. But I think it's going to be hard for any one of them to be a consistent, you know, 13 out of 16 week performer. So what do you guys think of it? What I've gathered from your saying is when you're in the draft, you won't be reaching for any of the Cardinals wide receivers. You're going to let the draft fall.

until they kind of present a value. And you'll just take the last one? You nailed it. All right. Let's talk about the St. Louis Rams. Jeff Fisher said, hey, Alex Smith, I'll see your 200 yards a game, and I'll raise you negative 25 yards a game. They averaged 175 passing yards per game last season. Despite being an offensive line that could both run the ball and protect the quarterback, giving him the ability to make...

a throw. You know, they were first in the league, in the least amount of sacks given up. Todd Gurley was obviously a, I think just almost a miracle of sorts coming out of that offense and the struggles that they had at the quarterback position and still putting up an elite fantasy season at the running back position. I think we all believe he is, from a talent perspective, one of the special ones. It's just a matter of will the opportunities, will the goal line opportunities, that's one of the reasons I think Mike

prefers David Johnson. It's just because, look, you're talking about the literal polar opposite in terms of passing yardage between the Rams and the Cardinals. Difficult division, the Cardinals' defense, the Seahawks defense, the 49ers defense. Where is the fantasy upside of this team? And is there anybody that you can pull out? I mean, I have Tavon Austin as one of my undervalued guys from a volume perspective. He gets the ball handed to him a lot. I can't pick another guy out.

Yeah, it's really difficult when you're looking through the list of wide receivers, you know, the Brian Quick, Kenny Britt. Kenny Britt had a, I did, I was watching the Red Zone replays, and they had the, it was the Rams versus the Seahawks Week 16, and there was that Case Keenham pass where Kenny Britt torched Richard Sherman that I had forgotten about. It was a pretty amazing thing, especially for Kenny Britt at this time in his career.

But, you know, Mike Thomas, Farrell Cooper, I don't know. I just, if maybe Jared Goff comes in and he takes the job and he finds a connection with one of these guys and he starts peppering them with targets in the limited amount of attempts that Jeff Fisher will give him, then possibly. But doesn't that stand? I just don't, I don't see it, man. If Goff comes in and he'll be, I think, semi-efficient in the offense. You know, I think he's the best.

Quarterback there, obviously. Well, if he gets more than the 30-second passing yards per game, then he is an improvement. Right. And the thing is, I would expect the upside of a receiver to be not in the Kenny Britt vein, but to be in the underneath vein, the Tavon-Austin vein, because you don't necessarily, I mean, you have a running game.

with Todd Gurley that you can lean on. Why put Goff in the position to struggle with downfield throws at the early part of his career? To me, it's the reliance on some of the gadget plays, the Tavon Austin, Todd Gurley, Todd Gurley out of the backfield. I think Todd Gurley's receptions increase in year number two. And so not a lot to smile about from a, you know, I'm not drafting Rams on purpose unless their name is Todd Gurley. Todd Gurley. But I will take Tavon Austin. I think Tavon Austin is worth

A late round pick. Let me ask you, Andy, because you already said what Mike would say, you've only got one pick left in the draft, and it's your first pick as well. And Todd Gurley and David Johnson. It's your only pick. Todd Gurley and David Johnson. Who are you taking? What's the format? Half point. I'm taking Todd Gurley. I am as well.

And I'm sticking with time. And I know I had previously told David Johnson that I, that he was correct when he said. And you lied to his face. I did. Well, I didn't lie because you lied to his face. Yes, I said it was better to take him. No, I didn't tell him I was going to take him. I said I would. But I would. David, if you want to call him out, it's at Jason FFL on Twitter. Look, I love David Johnson. Look, I'm taking him. So don't even worry about it, David. Yeah. But Todd Gurley is an otherworldly, an otherworldly talent. There's a reason he was taken. They're both.

he was in the NFL draft. And because of the head coach, they're going to run the ball nonstop. That's all they're going to do. And I just think for that first round, he's less risky because of volume. And here's the deal. Look, I think that both David Johnson, to talk earlier, are going to get heavy, heavy workloads. Arizona last year scored 489 points. The Rams last year scored 280 points. Over 200 points. More 200 points.

for the Cardinal offense. That's why I'm over there. And that makes a lot of sense. So we can't keep talking about it, though. We've got to move on to San Francisco. Do we? And that completes our show. Hey, no way. They came out with these power rankings on ESPN today, three-year power rankings, you know, teams, how they look going into the future. The 49ers were...

We're second to last. Dead last was the Browns. It's bleak. It's bleak right now in San Francisco. I feel it. You know, gone are the days of these perennial championship games where Colin Kaepernick was showing his shoe collection off on Twitter, and it looked like the future was now. It looked like the Crabtree Kaepernick Express had arrived, but the wheels have fallen off. Now you have Chip Kelly there, and he's met with a lot of skepticism after his failures in Philadelphia.

I personally don't think that Chip Kelly's made to be an NFL coach. I think, I understand that the numbers say he's had some successful seasons in the NFL, but not last year's numbers. And I think that the way he's got, I mean, look, the trajectory is up or down, Mike. Sure, but two out of three years. Okay, two out of three years, what? He made the playoffs. So they kept him? No, clearly there's an attitude. Clearly you've missed something.

There's an attitude problem. There's an attitude problem. Absolutely. I'm not denying that. But to deny that the guy came in and made the playoffs 66% of the time, that's called success in the NFL. Ask Jeff Fisher how many times he's been in the playoffs recently. Well, Fisher doesn't even know there are playoffs. Nobody's told him that. There's a goal? I thought we were just having fun. Look.

You can say whatever you want about Chip Kelly. He's starting on a new team this year, a team that was really, really bad last year. We don't know how the quarterback situation is going. It looks like it's going to be Gabbard. Gabbard is okay. Tori Smith is okay. Carlos Hyde is a question mark to me because I don't know if he's going to get the workload that you...

Believe he will. Yeah, and that's what it is for Carlos He could be a two-down Isaiah Crowell back to me. He could, but I think that Carlos Heid is an extremely talented guy, one of the most elusive running backs in the league last year, despite playing with a busted foot and a really bad offensive line. And look, they didn't do a whole lot of retooling with the offensive line. They added Zane Beatles, the guard.

But I think the big difference is just the Chip Kelly system. He doesn't run the same old school smash melt Jim Tom Sula. He comes in with a new fresh approach, with new schemes. Can the offensive line kind of catch on to it? Can they have the conditioning for it? That remains to be seen. But I really like Carlos Hyde this year. But my love affair...

It has been well documented. I love Tori Smith this year as a late-round guy. I think he's extremely talented. I've already been over the numbers, but talking about with Anquam Bolden gone, Vernon Davis gone, and then you factor in the target disparity from the 49ers to a Chip Kelly offense, and there was over 200 more targets that could be dispersed through the offense in Tori Smith, I believe, right around 70. So he has nowhere to go but up.

for target and opportunity. Combine that with his actual athletic ability, and I think that he's a good receiver. So I think that Tori Smith should be on your late round radar. If there's a wide receiver in San Francisco that outperforms Tori Smith, what's his name? Bruce Sellington. If there's a third down running back. Sean Drone. That's what I was going to bring up. It's the big salad. The big salad to me is if I'm in a deep league, he had a good rapport with Gabbard. Yeah, he's probably the guy on this team that I would actually look to draft the most.

Because I just don't want to pay the draft capital it costs to get Carlos Hyde in the fourth round. I don't want a first and second down running back on a bad team for a fourth round pick. I think he'll be okay and he'll have some good games. But there's other guys there that I would rather draft. Sorry, you want a first and down, first and second down guy on a bad team in the first round. Who you talk early? Oh, give me a break. Let me just say this. One, I think that he'll catch more passes than he did last year.

Two, he is a guy. Carliside, yes, yeah, he will. Two, he was a guy that, you know, you talked about, oh, there's 200 points less, right? But you've got Larry Fitzgerald and, you know, Michael Floyd and John Brown and everybody else scoring touchdowns. Who's scoring touchdowns other than Todd Gurley? Look, we've got to get to the point here, and the point is that Mike thinks Carliside is better than Todd Gurley. All right, we're done.

We're done with the AFC and the NFC West. We'll be back with some more divisional breakdowns. We'll have a mailbag show. We'll be back on Saturday as well. Let's make sure we chat on Twitter. Let's see. I'll give all of our handles today. At the FFBallers. That is the show handle. You can follow me at Andy Holloway. Follow Jason at Jason FFL. Follow Mike at FF. Hitman. Mm-hmm.

If you want to. Head over to the website, the fantasy footballers.com. We are upgrading that website with more free resources every day. We've got articles dropping on there. You can get the ultimate draft kit, the ever-updating off-season draft kit to get you ready for your fantasy football draft. Get you that Foot Clan title for 2016. And don't forget, head over to fantasy jocks.com. Yeah. Use promo code ballers. Get yourself a live draft board. Championship belt, maybe a trophy.

Maybe one of those sweet burgundy jackets? I don't know. Get crazy. That's true. That's true. That'll be fun. All right. See you on Thursday, everybody. Goodbye. For listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast, join our fantasy football community on join the foot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Tomorrow morning, when you wake up and wonder, what's for breakfast? The answer is clear and delicious.

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