Fantasy Football 2017 - Week 17 Fears, Pump the Brakes, Key Questions

Like, listen to the show. We're going to have a blast that things get a little bit more loose. Why don't we outline our schedule? We haven't done that. Yeah, that's true. That is absolutely true. Andy, Dad, take it away. While starting in January, we move to two shows a week. We'll have a show releasing on Tuesday morning and Thursday morning. We still have our...

Footcast. Yes. If you want an extra episode, you can go to join the foot.com. Three a week. And you'll get three a week that way. And we'll carry that two a week through June. And then in July, we moved to three a week. And then in August, we go back to five a week from August through December. Yeah. So that is our fantasy footballer schedule. And you definitely need to keep listening to pay attention because there might be other opportunities, other shows coming this offseason that will be telling you about.

while we record. So make sure you keep listening this offseason. All right. This question comes in from Ryan and Columbia, South Carolina. I have played fantasy football four years and have made the championship game every year, but lost every time. Oh, Buffalo style. I am in the championship this year for the fourth time in a row, and I would really like some motivation heading into Week 17 down by 17. Oh, no. He wants us to please pray to the fantasy gods and push his team to a championship.

You know, you are the captain of your shit, my friend. He's in a PPR league. He's down by 17. So he's in a league where they do a two-week championship. So you play Week 16 and Week 17. Really quick. I think that's the ESPN default, too, when you start a new league. Week 17 is part of it. I've heard that. What? Don't quote me, but yeah, that's a problem. Don't have me, sis. Well, last year, ESPN managed to fix the issue where a defense.

was hurt by the opposing defense scoring. So maybe this year they can take care of that if that's an issue. Well, Ryan and Columbia, good luck. Yeah, good luck with Malcolm Brown and Brandon Oliver. Coffee down there. Also, bonjour. Oh, yes. Wait, South Carolina? Oh, I thought you said Columbia. Yes.

That's the city name in South Carolina. Well, bonjour from Columbia. I'll bet they have good coffee there as well. Is that why you said? That sounds so confused by the coffee line. Yeah. Oh. Maybe, I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's not South Carolina. Is it, is it Saskatchewan? Yeah. Columbia, Saskatchewan. I mean, you just put SC. I am a geography major. Let's find out. This is very, very important. No, it's South Carolina. Oh, bonjour. I was done.

Stop. Stop it. All right. James Shoemaker says, do I finally sell Julio Jones in my dynasty leagues? Ooh, that's an excellent question. That is a good question. He is, the age is, he's still fine with quite a few years left of, of high production. He'll be 29 for next season. But he's a year younger than Antonio Brown. Right. Or they're about the same age.

Yeah, but Julio Jones is banged up every single year. Meanwhile, Antonio Brown, generally speaking, has been an Ironman. Yes. If you can... One of those two guys is injured right now. That's why I said generally speak. Probably two of two of them are injured right now. It's always about the hall. What can you get? Yes. For Julio Jones, because he will still be in my top five going into next year. But that's the thing about...

selling high and buying low, it's difficult to stomach that you're like, the selling high, why would I sell high? He's going to be great. But if you can get multiple long-term great assets, I would listen to offers. It's a very interesting, it makes me excited already to talk about dynasty leagues and keeper leagues in off-season strategy. Like I'm just pumped for that. You need to be careful with those dynasty moves because you can move too early.

on players. I mean, I just won a championship, 14 and one season with DeMarco Murray on my team, Marshawn Lynch for the majority of the season, some elder statesman, you would say. Adrian Peterson. Piergarsson and Adrian Peterson. And Mike Clay from ESPN, he posted a poll this past weekend about, you know, Michael Clark who played for the Packers this past weekend.

And he asked, he's a wide receiver, they got some reps, 6-6 on the Packers, just a few reps. He posted a poll and said, who do you want in Dynasty, Michael Clark or Jordan Nelson? And Michael Clark, I think, won the poll. No. And so this is why I, and I'll bring it up because it's worth consideration there where you're always in that, it's almost like a stock. Oh, it's the penny stocks. It's just like a stock where you're saying.

When do I buy? When do I sell? When do I let this go? And you can make a mistake. Sometimes you just got to hold that player. And Jordy Nelson, look, it could be over for Jordy. But it probably isn't. You're probably going to get one more year out of Jordy Nelson with Aaron Rogers. And you're probably going to sell him for too low if you sell them at the price he is right now. Yeah, I mean, I would be trying to.

buy a jorty on the extreme cheap if i can sell a bench asset michael clarke from the waiver wire yes well and i i also saw people pay big prices for aaron jones earlier in the year in a dynasty league because everybody wants that dynasty potential you know multi-year superstars so julio look if you can go get a hall that you're you're proud of that's dynasty you just trade just trade and have fun and enjoy it

But if you're going to trade them for pennies on the dollar, I don't think now is the time to do it. Fair? Agreed. All right. Charles Kaiser says, I'd love to hear you guys talk about why kickers are stupid. Mostly just so I can send the clip to my league and help convince them of the truth. I thought he was a sympathizer there for a second, but he wants to know why kickers are stupid. I'm much more middle of the road with kickers. So I'm going to get out of the way. But I just want to say, I think that having kickers is fine. I think you just don't want to have a variance or an overemphasize.

emphasis on their points where they amount for too much of a percentage of your week-to-week performance. Yeah, I would say this. I'm actually more a fan of nerfing kickers than getting rid of kickers. But if people aren't willing to nerve kickers and make them much less important, then you'll kick them. Then get rid of them. I like, I'd rather have a flex. Here's my argument for it. Now, you can go down the argument of they're hard to predict or, you know, whatever, but that's not actually...

why I hate kickers. The reason I hate kickers is because in the draft season, you do all this prep, you talk with your buddies, you listen to podcasts, you grab the magazine or the ultimate draft kit, you have so much fun preparing and planning and thinking about all these players, and you never once think about kickers, talk about kickers, care about kickers. It's a fair point.

And then all of a sudden, they're scoring as much as tight ends. They're impacting your league. And it's like, wait, this isn't where the fun is. This isn't where we're strategizing on targets of volume and all this stuff. They're just this ancillary throw-in piece that now is affecting your wins and losses and you don't care about them. That is a very concise and well-made argument. I did it. By week 17, you did it.

That's a great argument. And on the basis of that, you could put another flex position in your league if you want to do. Right. I mean, that's where an extra flex where you're going deeper, those are great. If you want to flex a kicker in there, yes, fine. That's a great idea. Eligible flex? Yes. I love it. Oh, my God. Then you'd have to really think about kickers.

Yes, that would be fun. That'd be crazy. The one of Keel and Cole or Gus Kowski. Now, Juan, the mailman Beltran in Del Rio, Texas has a question for you, Jason. Okay, just for me. Yeah, he says, why does Jason always hate the quarterbacks that run? Why does he hate that they get the most points? This is great. Hold on. Hold on. He wants to explain. He says,

Why do you hate that quarterbacks that run get the most points? Throwing takes skill, I agree, but running risks potential injury. So shouldn't the risks offset the award? Brady rarely gets hurt because he stands in the pocket, but Tyrod and Mariotta have missed games due to injury. Reward the risk takers, and that's the bottom line because Stone Cold said so. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Love the show. What do you think? A stone cold said so reference? I couldn't resist.

Every single player on every single snap on both sides of the ball is putting themselves at risk every play. Tell Aaron Rogers that, you know, he's not putting himself at risk dropping back in the pocket. Carson Palmer. Yeah. I mean, I told Deshaun Watson not to practice. Right. Here's the trouble, though. Let me put it this way because I want to know what your solution would be because I don't see it as a problem at all. It's a massive problem. I know you both do.

And that's why I'm going to be the counterbalance here. But let's put a player like Cam Newton in a position where he's going to run a read option play. You're wanting me to, if he hands the ball to John and Stewart, Stewart gets a point for 10 yards. If he decides to pull it in and run, you want him to get what, a point per 25 as a quarterback? Yes. I think that's ridiculous to change. I think that is a more ridiculous argument to say.

because he's a quarterback that pulls the ball in and takes it around the edge, he's going to get less points than if he handed it to Jonathan Stewart, and Jonathan Stewart ran it up the middle. The vast majority of leagues nerve quarterbacks, and the reason why is because quarterbacks have far more opportunities. But they nerve passing touchdowns. Yeah, exactly. They nerf passing touchdowns. And they don't necessarily nerve them. They just score them as four points. My point. There's four instead of six. Right.

If you're into that argument, then all touchdowns should be equal. Well, yeah, I mean, you can make that argument. But at least that's, okay, go ahead. The rationale here for why you nerve quarterbacks is because of opportunity. They get the ball every single play. They get to decide what happens every single play. That's why passing yards aren't.

a point per 10 yards. They're, you know, they're racking them up. My issue is the quarterback position, sure, should be nerfed. I think that if a, you know, if a Julio Jones throws a touchdown, for instance, if you're in a four point per passing league, it should really be more about the position, the quarterback, then Julio doesn't get the opportunity to throw a touchdown that often. That should be six points. Oh, come on. When you run for 20 yards.

And, you know, it's for a quarterback, that's the same as throwing a 50-yard pass. It makes no sense. They're doing the exact same thing. I mean, I'll- The problem with the logic that you're bringing up, Mike, about, you know, you should be wanting quarterbacks to have six-point passing touchdowns under that logic is you affect different.

quarterbacks with a rule change there. You don't give any priority to a running quarterback, and that's what his argument is, is that if a quarterback has a dual skill set and has the ability to run, therefore they should be valued in a different way in fantasy than a quarterback that stands in the pocket, if you change and nerf their running ability as a quarterback, you are not necessarily nerpping quarterbacks. You are nerpping specific quarterbacks, and you're trying to put a running quarterback

on the same threshold as a passing quarterback. That's your objective. Make all quarterbacks the same. Because they play... Although, whether you're running quarterback or a passing quarterback, you play the same position. You do play the same position, but if you are a running quarterback, then, you know, you're not in a position where you're running as often as a running back is. And maybe you don't throw them... I mean, Tyrod Taylor's a really good example, right? Tyrod Taylor does not throw for more than 200 yards most weeks. Right. And so...

If you nerve his running ability, he's an irrelevant quarterback. So do you want to make Tyraud Taylor an irrelevant quarterback? Because he's not an irrelevant quarterback in the NFL. His running ability changes him to be start worthy. If he just had 200 yards passing a game, and that's all that GMs looked at for Tyrod Taylor, he wouldn't be started in any team in the NFL. But he started because he runs the ball. Tyrod Taylor is usually when he plays in fantasy. And, you know, he is a top 10.

type of option. So if you're telling me that Tyrod Taylor in the NFL is a top 10 real-life quarterback, I would call shenanigans on that. This year, it's a little different because he's been pulled a couple times, been injured a couple times, so he's not in the top 10, but usually Tyrod is there. And that's my argument. You're kind of making it for me is he's nowhere near as good in real life. No one, if you were to redraft.