Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - PPR Mock Draft, Fantasy News & Notes

So Duke Johnson, Eddie Lacey, here we are at the fifth pick of the third round, and we have a number of decisions to make. There have been no quarterbacks off the board, which is, I don't know, I find it surprising sometimes in these type of leagues to not see any of them go off early. I would never take one. Jordan Reed is sitting there now. Fifth pick of the third round, do you start thinking about Jordan Reed? I would consider it. There are three players who are at the top of my list. It would be LaShawn McCoy.

Brandon Cooks and Jordan Reed, all, I think, are high-volume reception guys. Now, Brandon Cooks is on the board, but so is Julian Edelman. Why do you side with Cooks over Edelman? Because I lean the Edelman side for sure. Yeah, I understand that the Tom Brady looming four-game suspension. I know we have a differing opinion. You believe the suspension will be lifted. So that is impacting your thought process. Correct. I believe it will stick. Now, of course, Edelman, I think, will have...

He'll be okay with Garoppolo as the quarterback, but you have to take into account. Four games might not sound like a lot. You're talking almost 30% of the regular fantasy season without your third round pick delivering at a high level. And we're splitting hairs here a little bit because you have cooks at 13 and Edelman at 14.

Jason, you have cooks at 14 and Edelman at 17. I don't believe I've altered Edelman yet with the Brady suspects. Yeah, I have Edelman 13 and 20. Yeah, I love cooks here. And the three players I'm looking at are the same three that Mike likes. The difference to me... So Jordan Reed? What are you thinking about him right here? For me, I feel like if we don't get Jordan Reed...

You were just fine. No big deal. Greg Olson, Delaney Walker, Travis Kelsey. If we don't get Lashon McCoy, we take a big step down. If we don't take Cooks or Edelman, we take a little step down. So you go, well, which one is it? And in this, I think that's where you have to look at the format of the league. We have to start three wide receivers. Have to. It's not a flex. It's not a two-two flex. It's a two- and three-wide receiver in the format we're drafting.

If I've got to start three, I'm going to use that tiebreaker, and I'm going to vote for Brandon Cooks. I'm going to throw this wildcard out here because I don't think he will make it back. A guy with 110 receptions last year, Jarvis Landry, 165 targets. I would say I would much rather have Cooks, who I know is going to be the one on that team next year versus Adam Gay's coming in who likes the outside wide receiver. I think Jarvis Landry is going to be fine next year, but I would rather avoid the question marks at this point in draft.

I feel like there's question marks with cooks. You do? Yeah, I do, because he started so slow. He had a good end of the season, but it was his first really fully productive year and healthy. I feel like there's plenty of question marks with cooks. That's why Edelman seems so much safer to me. I really honestly, I think this is one where we're going to have to hand the selection off to somebody. You take it, Andy. Oh, you want me to take it? Yeah. You can take it. Yeah, we want the more important ones later. Look, I'm going to take LaShawn McCoy.

Oh, I'm going to let you see how the draft turns out when you go a couple running backs earlier, even though it's a three wide receiver league. I love that pig, and that's the point of doing mock drafts is to see what if we do this? Do we get screwed? Because if we don't, I mean, I made the argument that LaShawn McCoy was kind of the more valuable, if not for the format. So I like the pick, and we'll see what happens. All the arguments made sense about the positions, but to me, when I look at those wide receivers, I can honestly tell you, I don't know whether Cooks, Landry,

or Edelman are going to have a better season than one another. I do feel like McCoy was the best wide receiver running back on the board by far. So I went with McCoy. So our roster is Ingram and McCoy with O'Dowell Beckham Jr. who practically counts as two wide receivers. Beckham? Sure. So after we selected McCoy, obviously a lot of names off the board, third round, Dionne Lewis, Brandon Cooks, Matt Forte, Aaron Rogers, finally the first quarterback off the board, ninth pick of the third round. Would you do that? Aaron Rogers in the back of the third round.

I'm looking for Rogers in the fourth because I've seen him dropping there. Newton went three picks later. But in the third, I still like the other players on the board in the third. Yeah. So much that I, it's kind of like Jordan Reed. I like Jordan Reed a lot, a lot, a lot. But if I don't get Jordan Reed, I'm fine. You know, there's other, and the same thing with Aaron Rogers. So Rogers, Edelman, Cobb, and Newton. And then in the fourth round, we have Ty Hilton, Jordan Reed went. C.J. Anderson, Jarvis Landry, Greg Olson.

So two tight-ins off the board in between our picks, Kelvin Benjamin and DeMarco Murray. We're sitting on the board now, and I have to say, I'm pretty happy that I took a running back based on the name that I see at the top of this list, which is Jeremy Macklin still available, the number one, big season last year. A lot of value there to me. That jumps off the page, but Thomas Rawls is still on the board. Obviously, I think we're done with running back right now. Yeah, I would say that we're done for now. Jeremy Macklin would be at the top.

of my board right here. Other names available, a Golden Tate, and Eric Decker, a Larry Fitzgerald. And, of course, for tight end, you're talking, Eifert is still on the board. But for me, in the three wide here, Jeremy Macklin, a surprise to me last year, the way that he was fully utilized in the system. I believe it will continue.

and Alex Smith has found a new solid wide receiver one. So I like Jeremy Macklin here. See, to me, and in our, you know, I'm on our ultimate draft kit here, the consensus point total in a PPR, we actually have Golden Tate higher. Now, I don't know if that's entirely because of me. I know that, so I apologize if it is.

Golden Tate is a guy that's going to really change this next year for me. I find that I value him a lot more than other people. So you have Golden Tate on a bunch of your teams. I will. And it's funny because I share some of those rosters and everyone's like, Golden Tate there, what? But I just, I see him as a hundred catch guy this year. And if I'm right in that, then in a PPR setting to have 100 receptions.

You know, that's just, that's monstrous to get in the fourth round, fifth round, where you see Tate going. I'm fine going with Jeremy Macklin over Golden Tate, but I wanted to voice that because honestly, I want... Well, McClid had 87 receptions, too. And he missed... And he missed... Like, half a game. ...in the sense that, like, am I crazy on Golden Tate here? I don't think you're crazy at all when considering what we saw this tiny, tiny sample of it. So it's there. It exists.

But I'm not sure that over the course of this whole year, without the threat of Calvin Johnson at all, it's... It's definitely riskier than Matt. Let me throw this out there. I said I was happy that I took McCoy, but I lied. Because when I look at this board... Mistakes were made. All right, so let me... We'd much rather have... Thomas Rawls. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. You could end up with before, let's say we took Edelman and then now you could take Rawls or...

Latavius Murray, Carlos Hyde, or you could be in our situation with McCoy and Matt. Yeah, I'm happy. I'm happy. Yeah, I would say it's near a wash. I think Macklin should be the pick. It sounds like our majority says Macklin, but... I'm fine with that. I just wanted to voice the team. Yeah, no, I think it's fair. I think on this board, you saw them back to back on some of the composite ranking, and I think they belong pretty close to them. I remember when I was doing my stats, I just said...

to myself, there's no way he doesn't catch a hundred. But ever since I've done that, I don't believe it, but I remember looking deep into the stats and being so confident. So I need to go and look again. I'll tweet out whether I really believe that. Just a personal preference for me of how I would have liked to have seen that gone. I don't remember who was the wide receiver we were looking at. Cooks, Edelman, Landry. So I would have, I would rather have had a Brandon Cooks and then grabbed Carlos Hyde in that fourth round.

In a PPR league? In a PPR league. But I see Hyde being a monster workhorse. I thought you were going to say you saw the skepticism on Jason in my face. Oh, no, I completely, I am on the Carlos Hyde train. You two are not. I'm just saying for me, if this was my team. You're telling me you would take Hyde then over Rawls. That's what you just said. In a PPR format? Yeah. I don't think either of them are past catching, you know, predominant options for their team. Clearly the choice there is Duke Johnson.

According to this track. It's too late. Yeah. So our team is Ingram, McCoy, Beckham, and Macklin. After Macklin went luck, Tate, Rawls, Hyde, Russell Wilson started the fifth round. Eric Decker, Matt Jones in the middle of the fifth, as we've been talking about, good value there, even though, I'd say in a PPR, Matt Jones might have more value in PPRs than we believe he would. Possibly. Because he certainly caught the ball last year. So when the difference for me is even if he's not the predominant third down back, let's say that's Thompson. It doesn't matter because on.

First and second down, when he takes the play action, he is available and able to catch the ball. He had some big-time receptions last year that went a long ways when he got ahead of steam. So I just think he's going to have a good quantity of catches. You know, we saw that with Marchion Lynch eventually, where he got more than we expected. Yeah, just being on the field for all that time. You're going to get him. And then John Brown. So now we are on the board here. We are in the middle of the fifth round.

And what are you guys thinking? What's the thought process for middle of the fifth here? Two running backs, two wide receivers. I'm still probably... No flex in this league. I'm still probably looking at running backs or wide receivers. Here's the quarterbacks that are on the board right now. Ben Rothlessberger, Drew Brees, uh...

Carson Palmer. Carson Palmer, Tom Brady, Blake Bortles, Eli Manning. There's still a lot there. Now, Drew Breeze is probably one of my biggest targets this year. I feel like if I can get him, you know, in the sixth round or so in some of our drafts quarterbacks go later, then I'd be happy to pull the trigger there. That's one of the tough things is because we talk about Rogers and the Third is a temptation, or Breeze in the Fifth, but when push comes to shove and you see the draft board.

I have no temptation to take Drew Brees here. No, me either, because of all the other names that we just shared. Emmanuel Sanders, Jordan Matthews, Larry Fitzgerald. We're in the fifth? We are in the fifth round. There's a lot of value still sitting on the board at both positions. Here's the question for you, Mike. We have two running backs. It's a three-wide receiver league. We say don't always draft to fill your roster. True. However, there isn't a flex option in this league format. So you have less actual flexibility with if you took

Let's say Latavius Murray, who's sitting here in the fifth, which is crazy. John Stewart, you still got, those are the two big names that jump off the board to me and maybe Langford. I'd say, are you going to put Langford in there? Langford and Ajahe. You know, do you take a chance, is this a place where you take a chance on an Ajai or a Langford for tremendous upside? I think, because you already have two running backs. My thought process, what I want to do here is take a wide receiver.

like a Fitzgerald who is still a PPR guy. Jordan Matthews. Jordan Matthews. He has question marks, I think, compared to some of these other guys that we're looking at. Andy's guy, Michael Floyd is still out there. My guy, Doug Baldwin is still there. And my hopes would be that we're coming up on the Danny Woodhead spot.

that if Woodhead was to, if Woodhead made it back to us in the next round, I would be. You'd snag him. I'd snag him. I'd be ecstatic that I passed on running back here. Or Ryan Matthews. Or, yeah, or Ryan Matthews. So there's a couple options of guys I want in the next round. So I would definitely go with a wide receiver here. So here's one of the things. According to my board, it's Floyd. Well, right. You're super high of Floyd. What I would do at this point is I take a look at the wide receivers we have. And it happens, it gets a little easier later in the draft when you've got three or four or five guys.

But right now, who do we have? We're getting a burger. We've got Odell Beckham. And who's our second wide receiver? Jeremy Macklin. And Jeremy Macklin. So you've got kind of really consistent. I was going to say, I feel like Macklin and Fitzgerald, I wouldn't need to be redundant on.

kind of the volume guarantee. Like I could take more of a chance here with my third wide receiver. Yeah, you want high upside. Upside? Devonte Parker. Michael Floyd to me. Michael Floyd, to me, is a very high upside potential guy. But it is a PPR. And that's not my ranking for him in a PPR. So it's tough. It's a tough decision here. I think we got to go wide receiver, though. I think we have to go wide receiver. Why don't you make the pick on this one, Jay?

If I'm going to make the pick based on what our team looks like right now, I'm going to go with Michael Floyd. I do think that he has the opportunity to be an absolute wide receiver 2, could climb into the wide receiver 1 rankings. It's not out of the realm of possibility. So I'd rather have the upside of that than a... Well, we'll get to that.