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

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to the fantasy footballers podcast coming to you from the fantasy jocks.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast. I am Andy Holloway. I'm joined by Mike, the fantasy hitman, Jason Moore. Hello.

And soon, David Johnson. I said hello for you because you didn't give me a gap to say hello for myself. Well, all right. Hello for me and Jason. Welcome into the pod. Great show today. Great quick question. I'm going to be talking about backfields that we may want to avoid in 2017. I'll tell you one of those backfields we don't want to avoid. It's the Arizona Cardinals backfield. Am I right? Yeah, who's on the show today? David Johnson. David Johnson.

superstar running back for the Arizona Cardinals. Joining us for a few minutes on today's show to talk fantasy football, to talk injury recovery. We'll ask him about Chad Williams. We'll ask him about John Brown. And very excited to share that interview with you, the listener today. If you want to find us on Twitter, check out at the FF Ballers. That's our Twitter feed.

That's where you find out all the latest news about this show, special episodes, ways that you can get involved in our fantasy football community and enjoy playing fantasy football even more in 2017 because that is what we're all about. Isn't that right, Jason? Oh, yeah. You've got to have fun and most of the time you have fun winning. Yeah, so you got to win. You got to win, and winning is fun. And so we will help you accomplish both of those goals. All right, guys, as I said, quick question of the day. Are there any team backfields that you want to avoid?

that you personally are completely avoiding in 2017. Ooh, I'll jump in here, and I just want to share the quick reminder that we have some travel this week. So we are recording this early in case any news has broken that we're not currently talking about. Correct. The backfield I'm avoiding more than likely would be the Seattle Seahawks. And it's a...

It's crowded with Eddie Lacey, Thomas Rawls, C.J. Procise. And granted, this makes me sad because I love C.J. Procise. I love Eddie Lacey. But that offensive line still terrifies me. How effective is Eddie Lacey going to be coming off of his injury with his conditioning problems? Will C.J. Procise be more than just a third down back and occasional third down back?

How much is Thomas Rawls going to be a factor, if at all? There's just, there are so many questions here and so many moving parts that I'm not sure I want to be in on this backfield given the ADP and the overall upside of taking any of those guys. So oftentimes avoiding a backfield doesn't mean you don't believe someone will emerge. It means that you don't have a good read on who that's going to be and how long it's going to take. So for me,

I'm going to go with the Detroit Lions. With a caveat, I am not avoiding them in PPR formats, but in a standard league I am going to fully avoid the Detroit Lion backfield. They are in the bottom 10 in terms of percentage of run versus pass, which is a concern. And you have Amir Abdullah, you have Theoretic.

And Zach Zinner. Yeah, Zach Zinner. Whomever else emerges for a carry here and there, it concerns me in a standard format to draft anybody from the Detroit backfield, even though I believe somebody may emerge as a fantasy weapon. His name rhymes with Shamir. Shmir.

Shamir Shmabdula will emerge. He's been smeared all over the injury report. Oh, he's going to emerge. I actually love this pick in the Detroit Lions. I really do. I love to hate them. Is that what you're saying? I think it's good advice to avoid a team that is not a...

good running team that's crowded and I completely agree with that that changes in PPR because they are a passing pass first team. Theoretic and PPR is a is an RB2 that you can get super late. I took a look at a lot of the teams this morning in preparation saying who do I want to avoid? I kind of.

personally want to avoid the Green Bay Packers situation because I'm not quite as much a believer in Time Montgomery as I know you are Mike and some others in the industry. I believe they ran the ball the least of any team last year. Yeah, that's part. That's part of the problem. They go out and they, you know, they clearly showed what the truth was according to their team and who they drafted. They picked up two running backs in the draft.

It's just murky to me. It's not that I don't think Ty Montgomery can do it. It's that I don't want to invest the pick to see if he will. But the team that I think when I go through the entire league where I go, I'm confident I'm not drafting someone from that team. It's actually a team with two good running backs, and that's the New York Jets. I love Blah, pow. But his ADP, his average draft position is way too high. He's on that train. He's a.

You know, he's the second in a timeshare. I think the New York Jets are going to be a horrific team, which usually benefits the pass catching guy, which in this case would be Blal Powell, but his average draft is too high. Whereas Matt Forte, he's going to be a steal late in draft for a couple weeks, but I don't believe he can continue at the current age. We saw this last year. We saw him start to drop off already.

Not only in staying healthy, but also when he came back, he didn't look the same. His efficiency was gross last year. Do you feel like either of those players factor into the future for New York? Not really. Blountow's older than most people think. Let's see. 27? 26. You got to guess, Andy? I'm going to guess he's 28 years old. 28 would be the correct age.

Wow, he's 28. Yeah, I don't think either of those guys factor into their long-term plans at the running back position. Now, they didn't draft somebody that would take over this year. This year, yeah. But it does cause you to pause a little bit. If either of those guys did great this year, I wouldn't be shocked. I'm just not willing to take the gamble on either of them based on either where they are in their career in Forte's case or where they are in a draft in Blow Powell's case. Makes a lot of sense. All right.

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David Johnson, just before Father's Day, we're going to share that conversation with you right now. Hope you enjoy it. You talking to me. All right, the fantasy footballers are excited to once again bring in, great friend of the show, David Johnson. How are you doing, David? Awesome. We appreciate you coming on with us again, Father's Day, just around the corner, and we know you are a new dad. How is that life treating you?

It's definitely a life changer, but I'm loving it. I'm loving it for sure. DJ, our son, he's a tremendous baby. He's always laughing, always smiling. And right now he's starting to have a huge personality, so we're loving it. Yeah, that's awesome, and I'm sure you're excited as he grows to get into football as well. One of my sons is just starting to get into sports, and it is super exciting. Oh, yeah, for sure. I have footballs around them.

We have tools, and, you know, we have a funny little knick-knacks, like a dumbbell rattle. Super strong. Getting used to lifting weights. Yeah, well, you're starting very early. I appreciate that. I'm sure fantasy owners appreciate it, too. Hey, I... For sure. I wanted to bring this up. Last year, obviously, hugely successful season for you personally. I'm sure with as big as fantasy football is, you had...

fans everywhere, much like us, praising you for what you did for their fantasy teams. But you had a tougher season as the Cardinals struggled and didn't make the playoffs. So my question for you is, you know, how do you appreciate that personal success when the team struggled? You know, it's good to have personal success, but it really doesn't mean too much, especially when the team is struggling. And I feel like a lot of it was,

that I didn't do as much as I should have. The things that people don't know, like those fans, they don't know, like, those mental areas I've had in those games that, you know, cost us. So just for one game, in instance, it is the Rams game at home. It was a blitz coming last-minute drive, and I didn't pick up the right guy. He ended up rushing through to throw the ball, and, you know, we didn't get that chance for him to have a good, clean pocket to throw it. So that's...

It's obviously good to have the personal, but it really does not mean too much when the team is not doing the well. I think that's really an interesting answer, too, because we live in a stat-driven society where you just see the rushing yards and the touchdowns and the receptions. Some of those things, you know, we're not tracking blitz pickups in fantasy football, but I think it's great that you are focused on improving those things. You know, as a fan of you,

And what you do on the field, that's great that you are acutely aware of how to get better even when it doesn't equate to, you know, the next rushing yard. That's for sure. That's definitely true because the things, like you said, the blitz pickup, that's what keeps me on the field. And ultimately that helps out those fantasy owners. But really it does help out the team. And that's one of the things I really am trying to work on this year. Going to this next season is blitz protection and knowing blitz front.

blitz that are coming, defensive fronts, and knowing my assignment or which guy I'm supposed to pick up. And really, the biggest thing for blitz protection is technique. So, you know, 70% of it is closing the gas and making sure I have the right leverage or advantage over who's blitz. I mean, knowing which guy is coming, if it's a linebacker, knowing his techniques or if it's a DB, knowing what kind of move they do. So that's...

The really thing I'm really trying to focus on going on in this next season. All right, let's talk about the injury you suffered at the end of the year. You were sitting there primed to break that record for the most consecutive games with 100 plus yards from scrimmage. And then you go down. So what was going through your head? I think we're curious. Everybody watching was freaking out a little bit. What was going through your head? Did you know it wasn't a serious injury? How concerned were you?

Right at the impact, I was super nervous, super extremely frustrated and wanting to know if it was as bad as it fell at first, you know, with the initial hit, with my knee. But, you know, once I started calming down, the trainers came on the field and started doing a field examination, and they figured out that the ligament was still intact and that my knee.