Ballers Mock Draft + Forgiving Fantasy Failures

I would guess it's around 200. Yeah, I haven't met like 220. But here's the thing. If he's getting 220 carries, he's really not getting receptions, and he's losing out on goal line work. Then what are you really getting? You do have to project. Now, we like Clement as a sleeper because you have those abandoned carries by Ligarra Blunt, the timeshare of Doug Peterson. But it has to be better for Ajai this season than last season.

Certainly. I would say that... So he's not the 40th best running back. He's somebody that I think you need to look at as what? What's his upside? That's the problem. His variance. I see his ceiling being pretty strong, you know, a mid-level running back too, but I also see his downside. Do you know what he averaged per carry last year? Without looking? No.

He came in and he had some monster runs to start his Philadelphia career. I remember that. Well, he had 70 carries with the Eagles last year. 5.8 per carry with the Eagles last year. Sure. So I don't think all goal line work goes Corey Clement's way, and I think we're underestimating the value. And that's why I think I don't want to say any of this. Let's be clear. I want to throw him away. But I can't. I have to forgive him.

Because I see too many opportunities for a team that I think could be a top five team in this league next year, if not the best. They're the team that I actually think is the best team in football next year. Really? They are my return to the Super Bowl with Carson wins, best team in football next season. Yeah, and he is the clear starting running back, even if it's a heavy timeshare, he is there.

primary, you know, first guy up, running back, which is great. I just worry about how quickly he's aging. Literally, literally aging. All right. He's just turned 28. We have a 10-team half point perception mock draft on today's show. Stay tuned for that momentarily. It's going to be great. It gives you insight on how to draft, how to think during the different rounds. Today we're going to be drafting as one group.

Mike calls it a three-headed team. Yes. So we are going to give that a shot today. Like I said, 10-team half-point. But a couple of reminders. Again, that live stream, the Minneapolis show is tonight. At 8 p.m. Central. And it's going to be great. Do your own time. Central? We're getting out Central Times now? Because we are in Central Time, Jason. The rest of the country can figure out their own time zone issues. They must be smarter than I am.

It's 9 p.m. Eastern, I can give you that. Thank you. You don't even need to know the time if you've gone to YouTube and subscribed and clicked the bell. Well, you don't want to be in the middle of a movie. You stop what you're doing no matter what you're doing. Right, you leave that movie. If you're in the middle of a hamstring surgery, yeah, you get up. And so that's tonight. And I also want to congratulate our giveaway winners. We've been talking about the signed Alvin Camara football and the signed levy on Belle Jersey.

Thank you to everybody who entered that contest. We do these all the time. Jeremy and Frederick have won those. Congratulations. Those beautiful pieces of memorabilia. So congratulations to them. Is there anything I'm forgetting? If you want to go to a live show, by the way, we are giving away tickets to the remaining four shows at footclan giveaway.com, Dallas, Philadelphia, New York, Phoenix.

And along with those come autograph memorabilia, if you win those contests. If you win the tickets, like let's say you want to go to the Dallas show and you win the tickets, you're getting a Dak Prescott signed helmet. And if you win the Dallas show tickets, you get tickets to the National Fantasy Football Convention as well. Oh, yes. You get NFFC tickets. We're going to be kicking off the NFFC. It's going to be great. If you're planning on going, see us there. Is there anything else that we want to? Just wanted to once again thank draft for presenting the fantasy for the people tour. Because without them.

We may not have been able to do it. Yeah, absolutely. So enjoy the show tonight. Enjoy the show right now. Enjoy the show all the time. So much enjoyment. So much. Jay, I just turned 30. He just. Oh, man. That's the age where I start to get a little worried, you know. How old will he be by the time the season starts? How old are his knees now? Those must be like 40. 74. All right. You guys ready to mock draft? Yep. The Fantasy Footballers Mock Draft.

All right. Let's do it. We're going to draft from the three spot today. And I'm excited. Last time we drafted, we went head to head. I obviously won that going away. And I want to do one together so that we can all feel confident about this franchise. Thank you. So you're too kind. I also believe we're going to do a mock draft episode in the coming months where we each draft via a different strategy, right? There are different thought processes.

And we want to give you the outcome of those, like an example of a zero-rb draft strategy, an example of a late round versus an early quarterback, what the team looks like. Yeah.

I think those will be very helpful. A lot of times Mike's going to go all tight ends. That's a new strategy he just invented. A lot of times people want to try those strategies out and they don't hear enough about, you know, where we go tier based and try to be, you know, loading up on wide receivers running backs, later quarterbacks, usually later tight ends. And so, yeah, I think getting other perspectives. There's many ways.

that you can win at fantasy football. And that's something you should be aware of and not think that, you know, oh, if you, if you zig when everyone's zagging, you're an idiot. Not always. No. Unless you draft the quarterback early.

Before, because we're just about to hit into the mock draft, am I correct? Yeah, I was just about to tell you who went off the board number one. Before we do that, I want to thank today's sponsor Fantasy Champs. This is the place you need to go for all of your fantasy football memorabilia. Their rings are dynamic. Oh my goodness goodness. Goodness gracious. Fantasychamps.com. You got to go check it out.

And, of course, my personal favorite, the customized personal fantasy football jersey, rep your team in a style that has never been before seen. Whatever. You got there. You got there. In your draft, you will be the tag of the room. You will shame them. You will shine. With your team pride. You can save 10% off anything you buy there.

including their bundles with what's our code. The code is ballers. That's pretty easy to remember. So check out Fantasychamps.com. All right. Todd Gurley, off the board number one, David Johnson, number two. Oh, we're on the clock. Well, that makes it easy. Yep. This is a no-brainer for us. I believe we all want to go Levi-on Bell here. That is correct. 100%. He's my running back one. I thought we were going to have the David Johnson, Ezekiel Elliott debate.

Yeah, I thought we would too, but look, not today. Not today. David Johnson coming back off the injury was the number one running back in fantasy football the year prior to his injury. So I think you will see this in some leagues, especially with the Leveon Bell waiting until camp, some thought processes like that going through owner's heads. Certainly. I mean, I've talked to, you know, friends that are, they play.

fantasy football, they're casual. And, you know, when they get around me, they're wanting to talk fantasy football. And, you know, when they're, so who's the number one running back? And I'm always like, oh, Leveon Bell, to me is clear cut. And they're always just shocked. They're like, what? He's going to miss games. He's going to miss camp. And I don't care. Yeah, well, we took him. So Levy on Bell is the number one draft pick for our.

for our team. Zeke went four, Barkley went five. Do you believe we're going to see a lot of that? Yes. I do too. And we talked about on last week's footcast, the pendulum swinging in the favor of the running backs. And while I'm fine with these top five picks, I think these are really great foundational running backs.

Don't be afraid of wide receivers because scoring as a whole for wide receivers and quarterbacks was down this past year, which is having everyone scramble. Okay, I want all running backs in those first early rounds. Just think back to a couple years ago when this exact same thing happened. And the wide receivers disappointed. Everyone went running back and then we had some running back disappointment. So just be careful.

All right, Seaconne went five. Antonio Brown, first wide receiver off the board at six. The first round ends with Alvin Camara, Kareem Hunt, DeAndre Hopkins, and Leonard Four Nett. Again, a half point per reception league. Snake draft. So coming back around, Gordon, Beckham, Cook, Dalvin Cook, going ahead of some of the other running backs that I think I expected to go there. Julio Jones? I think it's a bigger...

Him going in front of Julio Jones is more interesting to me. Julio went at 204, Devont to Freeman at 205, Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. And then LaShawn McCoy. Oh, yes. Oh, babe. What a great pick right before us. Well, we don't have to debate LaShawn McQuain. If listened to our bust episode, Jason boldly put on the hate blockers and declared LaShawn McCoy's demise.

I think what? You threw off all since. I just laid the amount of flags. No, you had a lot of people that agreed with you on Twitter on YouTube. The amount of hurdles that are in front of him to succeed. I just was putting it. I was showing him to you. Clearly, you've not seen him jump. That's great. So we don't have to worry about it. Now, we're sitting here at 208. We have a quick turn because we're going to only wait four picks until our next draft pick.

Does that change the way you're thinking about this pick? And, you know, some of the big names on the board, Keenan Allen, Devante Adams. And then running backs McCaffrey, Howard, McKinnon, mixing. The proximity to the turn here is something I really love when I'm a couple picks from the turn so that I can take a look between this pick and my next pick and get a gauge for what they're taking. But this early in the draft, the two teams that are before us, they have one running back. They could go any direction. So I'm not.

I'm taking the best running back or wide receiver available to me. I feel like there is a tier break after Keenan Allen. Keenan Allen at wide receiver, I see him as a potential to be a top three wide receiver again this year. Then you drop to DeBonte Adams, AJ Green, Mike Evans, good options. I'm surprised that you're not, are you not willing to put AJ Green in that tier? No, I don't think I am. I mean, I'm close.

I'm close, but I'm not down on AJ Green from last year. But I don't think he is going to rebound to, you know, what he was three, four, five years ago where he was just one of those dominant fantasy players. Keenan Allen, I think, is a strong pick here. I think Alan will be gone if we let him go here. And Keenan Allen, as opposed to Devante Adams, who, by the way, Devante Adams is great.

still hasn't had a thousand yard season, still hasn't had a season with more than 75 receptions. Also has the most touchdowns in the past two years. Don't, you don't even. Thank you, Mike. You don't even get to speak like that because of the way you used to disparage Melvin Gordon for his non-thousand-yard season, despite the fact that he was a fan. I said, did I not start this sentence with, he's great, but he's not had a thousand yards, he's not had more than 75 receptions. Whenever I said that, it was ingest. Has Keenan Allen had more than 75 receptions?

Or more than 1,000 yards? Yes, sir. Okay. So you take a look here. He's a different talent to me. How many running backs are left that I would be happy with? Between Christian McCaffrey, Jordan Howard, Jerich McKinnon, Joe Mixon, those four guys. I'm not going to be like, oh, man, I really wanted just one of those, but not the other three. And since we're four picks away from our next pick, I feel like I would rather go Keenan Allen and take the last running back available there.

All right. Are you comfortable with that, Mike? Yes. Keenan Allen, off the board, our second pick. Christian McCaffrey goes next, AJ Green with the final pick of the second round. So Alan and Green, I think you're going to see this all offseason, into draft season. I think Alan and Green are going to go around each other. Jordan Howard starts off the third round. Then Mike Evans. I think Mike Evans is sitting there at 302 and looking back at last year, longingly, remembering where he used to go.