Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - David Johnson Talks Fantasy + Backfields to Avoid

We here knew Calvin Benjamin was like set for regression. What you saw. And then he didn't catch a single pass his sophomore. What's up with that? We nailed it with that injury. But before the injury, we thought he's going to regress. He didn't look the same on film. He wasn't like the other guys. The touchdown volume was a little bit higher than it was very garbagey. But the other two guys who when you looked at film, you go, these guys are special. There's a reason they came out and we're so good. They are still.

Among the best. Odell Beckham and Mike Evans are two of the top five drafted wide receivers right now. Michael Thomas is that. And then you compare, you add in Drew Brees. I realize that there's going to be changed. He's got a little bit more risk because, you know, Brandon Cooks out. How will he fare against these coverages? But according to perception, he should be just finding those coverages. I love Michael Thomas. I think he's the real deal. And when I watch film, the guy is great.

Yeah, I think it's a fair assessment. I think he is great. He's a competitor. He works to get better. To me, though, I worry a little bit about, you know, you talk about, you bring up Mike Evans. Right. Monster rookie year touchdown-wise, you did see regression in that department, even though every projection and every thought had him going up. I moved Des Bryant ahead of Michael Thomas. Okay. I do have Michael Thomas at 11.

So Evans, I wanted to look real quick at Mike Evans. Yeah, he was 12th as a rookie year, then 24th, and then second last year. So I just thought that there was a little bit, no shade. It's not really shade. It's just reasonable expectation. If Michael Thomas finishes the year as a wide receiver 2, you know, and if he's the wide receiver 15, that's not, that wouldn't shock me. I'm not saying he can't have a, but that would be a bad season. That would make fantasy owners disappointed. Yes, correct. All right, let's get into a voicemail question here and move on.

10-team PPR league as well as point per completion league, which means the quarterback gets a point for every completion. I know it's weird, but I actually kind of love it. It opens up the quarterback pool. I'm looking for some late round value in a quarterback, traditionally, that I could steal maybe late based on my current system. Thanks, and I'll be listening for the answer. Appreciate you guys.

It's a great question. We get this one from time to time in leagues that are form rented that way, and obviously it redistributes some of the value of these quarterbacks. One of the names that comes to mind outside of the top tier, I believe Ryan Tannahill finished very high in total completions. And for me, it's Andy Dalton. He's going to be the guy that the late round QB that I will likely be pushing all offseason.

The fall of his touchdown percentage last year is astronomical. He went from, he's a career in the fives guy. He went down to 3.2% of his passes for touchdowns. He fell dramatically. And that was a just, the cause of that was the weapons. You know, everybody got hurt on the Bengals. And I think Andy Dalton is a prime positive regression candidate. And if he had simply thrown his,

his regular touchdowns last year, he would have easily been a quarterback one. I think it is worthwhile to point out how things change. You know, Drew Brees is kind of the well-known completion talent at the top of those lists. Philip Rivers, I think, is somebody you'd want to look at as well. Certainly. But if you look last year, 471 completions for Drew Brees, Russell Wilson had 353. So that's a big point per completion difference between players like that.

Joe Flacco out a ton last year, too. The guy that I would target, because he said it was a 10-team league. So, you know, we don't need to go too deep. We just need someone you can get a little bit later, and I've kind of talked them up recently. But Matthew Stafford is a guy who's always near the top five in completions. So not only is he already, without the completion aspect, he's my number eight quarterback this year. You can get him pretty late.

But then you add in that he's one of the separators near the top of the pack in total completions because of all the dump-offs to the Theo Riddix, just like Drew Brees has with his past catching running backs. That's the guy I think I would target. But I love Dalton. It's totally comfortable if you waited. If Dalton, River Stafford, you just waited for two thirds of those to be gone and then draft your quarterback. I'd love that. I just want to throw out for you. Don't let this change of quarterback scoring change how you view the position, though. If it's just one quarterback,

I still don't care. I'm not going to freak out because of this. Well, I got to get Rogers. I got to get Brady. Oh, just you can stay the course and still wait. Build up your running backs. Build up your wider. It's ironic because Rogers is not usually near the top in attempts and completions because he's just so efficient. Yeah. All right. Jake and Rochester, Michigan. In a full PPR Dynasty League, would you rather have Christian McCaffrey and Devante Parker? Or Joe Mixing.

Michael Crabtree and Theo Riddick. Oh, this one's not even close. Not even close for me. It's Joe Mixon, Crabtree, and Theoretic. That is my answer as well. I mean that way as well. I love the idea of having McCaffrey, but you still have the rookie young talent on the other side that a lot of us like even more in Joe Mixon. Yep, I have him higher than so then you're looking at, okay, do you believe Devante Parker is going to break out to excess of Crabtree Riddick over the next few years? I probably take the mix inside.

But if I'm in full rebuild, I do think about the McCaffrey Parker side. Right, solely because Parker's 24, Crabtree's 29. If you're in full rebuild, I would consider that. Otherwise, I'm going to go, when in the reality is you're not in full rebuild here. I mean, Joe Mixing Michael Crabtree and Theoretic. That's just a good, like you're not in rebuild with those as pieces on your team. In a full PPR, you don't think about McCaffrey ever mixing?

No, Joe Mixon is a pass-catching machine, and I believe that perhaps it's not this year, but by next year, Joe Mixon is a three-down running back for that team. And in McCaffrey, yeah, he's going to catch a lot of passes, but he has to share a backfield this year with Jay Stu. You see that Joe Mixing News coming out lately? Oh, yeah. He looks like a... He's blowing out. Looks like a beast. Yeah, because he is a beast. He's a great player. All right.

Here we go. Another voicemail question from the listener. I need your help. Two years ago, I joined the 12 teams. My friends when I was just starting out of football and the keepers are not according to values. They're simply in the draft. How would you suggest changing some to something that balances out the league a little bit? Thanks for the insight. Love the show. Looking forward to hearing from Jay Gris. Well, Jay Gris has strong opinions. Oh, that's a good point, Jay. It's a very good point, Jay Gris. When he started that voicemail and said,

Guys, I need your help, and it sounded the way it sounded like he might have been trapped in a basement. I was ready to, like, run out of here and save this guy. I was ready to do nothing. Well, that fits your personality there. What have you been saying? Jason shakes his head negatively like he was about to get up. Yeah, I was definitely going to go with Andy and help this young man in Boston. Well, let's help him in this regard. I don't think there's a problem with your league at all. No, I don't either. I mean, I can't fathom.

How are you perpetually perfect? I mean, is there no trading in this league? Well, and it's only a two-keeper. Tell me who. So let's say you've got Antonio Brown, right? That's one of the best over the last few years. But the other, like, best would have been Levion Bell or shady. But, like, because he hasn't been great the last two years, you know, together because of injury or suspension. He's still been great. What are you talking about? No, I'm just saying, like, what combination?

is an auto win an auto win for any team and then that could really only be one team i i think yeah you're not our league we're in we're a three keeper and they're your first three yeah for 10 plus years and and um two players a team does not make i will say this one of the things that i think is somewhat valuable is you know

You could institute a rule where you can't have two of the same position. Or two keepers for more than three years or something. Yeah. Maybe someone has, you know, the two best running backs in the league. And that ends up, you know, year after year, setting them up for success. Say, what if you had a, you have Zeke and DJ? Right. Very possible could have happened. Yeah. So that would avoid that situation. Can I ask you guys a question? No. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Do you, your three keeper league, do you have to keep three players? Yes. Okay. And, but we cannot.

We can't keep multiples of the same position, basically. Basically. All right. Here's a question from John and Utah. What are y'all's opinions? Johnny Utah. On the Broncos receivers, D.T. is usually considered the wide receiver one on the team, but Sanders seems to put up more consistent numbers. Which one has the higher ceiling and why? I don't agree with you.

that Emmanuel Sanders puts up more consistent numbers than Demarius Thomas. Demarius Thomas is like at this point in his career with the quarterback situation. I look at him like Jarvis Landry on steroids because he has the potential to score double digit touchdowns like he has in the past, but the last few years he hasn't. But he's good for 90 plus receptions. And he's a center.

He's a centerpiece of the offense. So there's no way I'm drafting Emmanuel Sanders over to Marius. Thomas for upside. And I can tell you, we have, we put out this really sweet update for the ultimate draft kit where we tracked last year's consistency on a week-by-week basis, seeing how a player finished, were they a wide receiver one, wide receiver two. And it's great, just at a quick glance. And I can tell you there is a, there is far more red happening in Emmanuel Sanders chart.

than Demarius Thomas. Sanders, I'm seeing four green weeks, which puts them at a wide receiver one four times. And then Demarius Thomas has seven. Yeah, he was at least a wide receiver two or wide receiver one, seven times. And if you look at their careers, Thomas is not only a year younger, but Thomas finished fifth, first, second, 11th, and 16th over the last five years. Where Sanders finished fifth.

20th and 21st. The one thing I would say in defense of Sanders is that he's probably got the better average draft position. You know, usually Demarius Thomas is going a full round ahead, at least of Emmanuel Sanders. And so maybe Sanders is the better value, the better guy to have because the gap isn't that large between them. But if you're just picking one guy at the same spot, I agree with Andy, it would be DT.

All right, Josh and San Antonio, if Gronkowski were a wide receiver, where would he rank? Ooh, that's a good question. If Gronkowski were a wide receiver, where would you rank him? And I'm looking at my wide receivers thinking to myself, would I take him above? Ooh, I'm going to pull up my actual point projections. Well, yeah, the nice thing about that is you can just slide him right into, you know, we've got the specific point projections. We can say, okay, we've got.

I mean, we can do this for ourselves right now. It looks like to me, I have Gronk in a half point setting, scoring 207.5 fantasy points. 207.5 fantasy points would make him my wide receiver 8. Yeah, he would be, he was my 8. He'd be my 9. He'd be my wide receiver 9. In a PPR format? That was half point for me. Yeah, I did half point.

In mine, he would be about eight. Yeah, right around there. I mean, he's tremendous, but once again. But his risk grading would be much higher. Yeah. All right. Let's go ahead and let's go to this question from David in Fort Myers, Florida, starting a new dynasty auction league. Okay. And for drafting, we're going to go old school email draft. Any tips recommendations on how to approach this draft? For an auction? An auction? Man, that would be. I'll see you in six years.

I've never done. A dynasty auction via email seems like it would actually take month. That is not an exaggeration. The inaugural season will be 2018. Here's my tip or recommendation for approaching that draft. Back away slowly. So there will be three, if it's a 12 team and everyone has a 25 man roster, that's 300 players will be drafted.

And each one needs to be bid on by everyone in the league. And what's the timer? I think here's a tip. If you're doing, if you're doing this, it's got to be blind bidding. That's a great idea. If you're doing, if you're doing this, make every player that, you know, comes up, it's a blind bid. And so there's no going back and forth and haggling because over email on a slow format, that just seems impossible. But if everybody goes, okay, the next player up is Michael Thomas and you.

you know, send your email to someplace. I don't know exactly how to, you know, do an email blind bid where you, I guess it needs to go to the commish who's not, I don't know, figure that. That part's on you. That part is on you to figure out how to do email someone else to verify that his bid. But have you ever heard of that would speed. Google Hangouts? That's, it's just a long, there's not an easy way to facilitate what you're talking about. That seems like one of the more difficult long,