Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - News and Notes, Sleepers for 2015, Special Guest, Mailbag

It's only slightly behind last year's as far as the wide receiver depth, so maybe they think they can upgrade the player. But I'm concerned for a fantasy value of Drew Brees of who, we got Brandon Cooks there. That's the only guy that we know for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's confusing. You know that he, when Jimmy was traded, Breeze came out and said, he didn't even know. I mean, he had no idea what was going on. And you have to wonder where his...

Head is out. I mean, I've wondered if he would get moved in the right deal, which I know would be a pretty extreme move by the Saints, but he can't be happy losing his weapons. No. He should be happy gaining Max Unger to not get put on his butt and being able to ride his running game a little bit more, but he, that will be an interesting thing to watch a quarterback who's used to.

They're throwing for 5,000 yards. That's kind of the norm for Drew Brees. And now if they're going to try and turn into a running team because they're trying to copy the saints in the sea. They're trying to copy the Seahawks. They're trying to copy themselves. But copy the Seahawks, this mold of trying to shift a little bit back to the run.

Let's talk about the guy we mentioned briefly. He was a former saint. Reggie Bush gets signed by the 49ers. A couple questions here. Is this all an anti-Carlos Hyde situation for fantasy owners? Or does he have some chance to get some more between the tackle carries in San Francisco than we would believe? I think this is good for Carlos Hyde. It reminds me of one of those moves where the team is saying Carlos Hyde is our guy. Because...

This isn't as splashy as the name insinuates. You know, Reggie Bush might.

seem great, but he's older, he's past his prime, he's predominantly a pass catching back, which isn't how they want to use Carlos Hyde. So they're bringing in an old veteran who is going to be fine taking that number two role. It says to me they're probably not going to draft a running back, but of course, we'll wait and see what happens there. I'm not worried about Reggie Bush at all, especially considering, you know, he misses half the year. So I like Carlos Hyde here from this, and I don't even think...

Personally, I don't see myself even drafting Reggie Bush. I'd rather take some higher upside guys with late picks. With the chance at a bigger workload on teams. The only thing I'll say about this, and Mike will let you jump in here, but if San Francisco does seem, they seem to be losing pieces, obviously the coaching change, if they're a team that cannot stop a team on defense anymore to the degree that they have,

what opportunities are there going to be for Reggie Bush to be on the field more and more often because of a need to pass the ball? I mean, Carlos is not going to be their pass catching back if Reggie Bush is healthy. So that would be the one thing I kind of see from a long-range perspective that could impact Bush's performance there. I actually somewhat like I think Bush will be a higher-end handcuff. I still believe this.

But I agree. I agree they're saying Carlos Hyde is going to be the guy. We're going to go with him. But if San Francisco truly goes to this more back to a run-option system because they don't think Kaepernick sounds like they don't believe Kaepernick can be that pocket guy, and you're not completely utilizing his skill set if you do that anyways. We've seen run-option running backs.

are very successful. If you look at Alfred Morris when RG3 is playing, as opposed to any of the other quarterbacks in Washington, there's a big dip when RG3 is out for Alfred Morris's numbers because you have, if you run the read option correctly, I mean, you have one defender and the quarterback chooses. So here's the five free yards. So I would...

If you're getting Carlos Hyde, and we'll talk about handcuffs, I'm sure plenty moving on, talking about strategy. But I think Reggie Bush will be a higher-end handcuff. And this is one of those situations, too. I think you've got to watch the preseason, and you've got to see how they're utilizing these guys. You've got to see how confident they are in Hyde and how he's picking up the system and what they want him to do. Because when these young guys come in, and if they're not performing the way they want,

I don't think they're going to have a problem giving the ball to Reggie Bush as a veteran. Let me go through a few other little bits of news, and you guys let me know if you have anything you want to add to it. Cecil Shorts, signed by the Texans. He'll be stepping into that offense. He should be a starter. Yeah, as you say, it'll be headlined by DeAndre Hopkins, but shorts will be in there and if he's healthy, which is a big F. I think it's a.

Very good signing by the Texans that if you have Hopkins who can stretch the field more of that, more downfield, and you have shorts who excels in making a play after the catch, assuming health, then he could be a really sneaky.

leading runoff fantasy guy yeah they they i do like hopkins stretching the field i think what's important for cecil's value they need to bring in somebody who can stretch uh cecil shorts legs before the game i think that's most important uh any are any words uh worth saying about dwayne beau talking to the cleveland browns he was released

He was released by the Kansas City Chiefs. He's had some prolific fantasy years in the past involving those touchdown things. He's a guy who's got motivation issues, it seems at times. I'm not excited about Cleveland, but he might headline that receiving core. What are your thoughts about Dwayne Boe, or do we move on? Dwayne Boe makes me sad because he has so much potential, and he has just disappeared for the last couple years.

uh back to back but i mean i feel like that was a while ago was that 2010 and 11 yeah and i mean if when you look at when you look at dwayne bow's numbers just just purely statistically if he has another three to five great years he's going to have over 10,000 yards here correct me if i'm wrong here because this is just my memory this is how i see the NFL

Correct me if I'm wrong in this statement, but historically, when players lose it in the NFL, they lose it. I don't remember, I can't even remember any cases, but certainly not many, of guys that have kind of lost it for a couple years. I'm not talking about, you know, getting injured and coming back, but just they've kind of fallen off and then they come back and they resurge. I just, has that ever happened? I don't know about a wide receiver at the top of my head, but there was a quarterback whose name was Kurt Warner.

who completely fell off the map and then resurfaced as a, and turned himself into a Hall of Fame quarterback. So it's possible. I think the scheme, the, in Kansas City, just all of a sudden, once Haley left, it completely turned away from what Dwayne Bo does well. So seeing the Brown's name brought up doesn't excite you very much.

It's not like he's going to a scheme that's really going to... Well, and he hasn't been... Like Mike said, he hasn't been fantasy relevant, really, since 2010 when he had a 15 touchdown season. Well, I believe his 11-year was still... He still had over 1,000 yards. Yeah, he had over a thousand yards. He still was targeted a lot of the targets last year in Kansas City. And he saw what he did with it with no touchdowns. If he goes somewhere, I think, with a...

with a strong offensive scheme and an above average quarterback, then I might be back in on Dwayne Bo. So not Cleveland. Sneaky little signing here. Josh McCallum, man. Brandon Gibson coming to New England. I was telling you I wanted our hometown Cardinals to sign him on the cheap just because he's a pretty productive player. I don't think the fantasy relevance is very high. Amandola just got signed to an extension. Did he? Yeah. Wow, I missed that. Yeah.

What? What's the... What's the numbers look like? I'm saying what's the offset for broken bones and injuries. I was surprised. He obviously had a little bit of a role in the Super Bowl and towards the end of the year, kind of the role that they wanted for him. Yeah, he restructured his deal. Is the essential thing. Brandon Gibson to me... Probably so he's not cut. He is... Yeah. Because he signed a huge deal on him. That's right. Yeah, he did. Brandon Gibson...

is that classic Patriots backup to the backup to the backup plan, where if Edelman fails and Amadola fails, then you have a guy who can just plug right into that role. Absolutely. Breaking news this morning was that... You've got to hit the button, man. Oh, our new breaking news cut? Yeah. Breaking news. Stevie Johnson. Yeah.

It's a shame to use this first. It's funny because we thought Stevie Johnson might get signed by the Patriots. He did not. I almost tweeted this morning. It just seemed like a blasé signing to me. But the San Diego Chargers signed Stevie Johnson. Steined Stevie? Did I say Stein? You did. Sign. Like R. L. Stein. Stevie Johnson. Author of goosebumps. Great novels. Great novels. Yeah. Adult reading, though. Don't let your children.

Eddie Royals gone. Stevie Johnson has been signed and does anybody care? I do. Okay. I do. Does he have something left? I think he does. That was a strange turn of events for the bills. I mean, the... The bills? Going from the bills when he had the two or three just spectacular years, the 49ers trade for him and then don't use him at all,

was a little strange that you're going to trade for a guy who at least has the perception that he's a highly talented wide out. And Stevie Johnson is interesting because everything you read about him is that he is an unorthodox route runner. This is just a weird tidbit that I've heard from DBs when I talk about covering Stevie Johnson. It's kind of like trying to hit a knuckleball.

where you just, he doesn't do things that you expect. Yeah. So that's why he becomes so hard to cover. Put him in that Chargers offense. If he's out wide with Keenan Allen, I like it. It should be interesting. Obviously, Royal had some big games last year. And Rivers spreads the ball around. He throws it to whoever's open.

Maybe he can hit a knuckleball. Watching Royal last year, you look at his numbers and you think, wow, he was really good. He was serviceable and he played well. But watching him, he didn't play that good. He could have done so much more than he did. He dropped passes.

Even though he had a good catch rate, there were just some that was like, what in the world? Wide open, easy. You know, I could make the catch and just drops it. So I like Stevie better than Eddie Royal. If I just had to draft one for my own franchise in the NFL, I would take Johnson over Royal. Yeah, it should be interesting to see. We talked about it earlier. The Philadelphia Eagles have done a couple things. Center of the universe. DeMarco Murray, if you've heard of him.

He's a pretty good running back. He signed his contract officially with Philadelphia, and last week we pretty much knew that was going to happen. We were guessing as to whether Ryan Matthews would sign his deal, and so we want to get as much insight about the Eagles and the madness that is Chip Kelly as we can. Insider Information.

All right, right now we have the privilege of bringing a friend of the show on. His name is Andrew Goldwasser. He's a staff writer covering the Eagles at NFL SpinZone. He also has a website, Nphilosopher.com that you can check out some of his stuff. But he knows everything there is to know about the Eagles, so we thought we'd bring them on and talk a little bit about this week of madness. How are you doing, Andrew? I am doing well. Thanks for having me on. I am finding the Eagles right in the thick.