Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Mid Round Madness, Fantasy News, Mailbag

All right, so we'll see if he's on the field for week one against the Arizona Cardinals or not. A couple different people have said they don't think Lynch, that is Marshawn Lynch himself, the Beast Mode himself. Sherman and Bennett both came out and said they don't think he's retired for good. That's crazy. Does that mean that you should like roster him? No. Okay. No. I don't think there's any chance he comes back. All right. Giants beat reporter Jordan Renan. Renan. I can't.

I think I got that right. He said he considered Will Tie to be the favorite to start at the tight in position in 2016. The Tie fighter. Tie is a guy that Mike and I have rated very highly. I moved him down a little bit with Larry Donnell's health being there. But if he does win the job, and I think he's more talented than Danelle. I've watched Donnell drop way too many passes and be kind of like awkwardly big. I just don't think he's athletically big.

So Will Ty is somebody that you should pay attention to. The Giants, with McAdoo there, they have used the tight end in the red zone. So if he is the starter, whoever is the starter, is definitely a streamable worthy player. And the Giants, I mean, they have, they're like the Ravens where they have just a bazillion tight ends right now. But in my opinion, I think the way that they were talking about Will Ty last year when they were bringing him in, I think he's the guy. And he is, if you punt.

tied in till the very bitter end. Will tie is a great option for that strategy. All right, Jay Ajai fans, you have a good piece of news here. Adam Gase, our head coach for the Miami Dolphins, came out and said that he's essentially, Ajaya is essentially taking control of the starting running back job.

Love this. It's really good news. The way that Gay's talked about him. You know, sometimes coach speak is coach speak, and you can't take anything serious that they say. But it depends on the specifics of what a coach is saying. And what he said is essentially that all the running backs are doing good.

But Jay Ajai has been coming in early, staying late. He's been working the hardest. He has really shown that he is the lead back here. And that's what the head coach was saying. When you say that, you're not saying he's going to get the ball X amount of times, but it is officially verifying what we've kind of assumed, which is Jaya Jai, will be the first and second down back with an option, I guess, to be a three-down back. I'll throw just a little bit of water on there. I was on...

the Dynasty Happy Hour podcast the other day. And Chris Whitman, one of the hosts, he's a huge Dolphins guy. So he dug into this. Kenyon Drake was not a part of these practices. So essentially, Adam Gase has said, J.J.E. is better than Damian Williams and Daniel Thomas. Kenyon Drake's my boy. Tell me something we didn't know already. That's what I'm just saying. Be careful with this one. All right. John Fox.

came out and said, hey, whoever has the hot hand will be the Bears running back. That is not good. I mean, there are doubts about Langford anyways. There are weird affinities for Khadim Carey that John Fox had last year. And here's the thing. John Fox historically has been a committee running back coach. He doesn't care about lining anything up for fantasy owners in any way, shape, or form. He is more concerned with gamesmanship and playing whoever he thinks will make...

the most yards on the next play. It's good that you throw out Kadim Carey's name because right now, because of Jordan Howard, everyone is essentially saying it's a two-man backfield. But the truth is, John Fox hates rookies, so much, hates rookie running backs, just hasn't used them. He petitioned to not have any rookies on the team. Exactly. He tried to get rid of all the draft picks. He just, you know, he wants them to sit for a year. And if he did show that love to Kadim Carrey last year, what's to say now that that's just going to completely go away?

Yeah, that's a good point. So, hey, the Bengals offensive coordinator came out and said that Tyler Boyd, Jason's much-heralded rookie wide receiver for the Bengals, will likely open in the slot this season. I think that Tyler Boyd is so set up for success in year one that it's not even funny. Really? Yeah, I do, because he's competing for snaps with Brandon LaFell. I mean...

I'm not worried about him getting on the field. He's just going to show more. And whether it's in the slot or moving to the outside once Lafelle trash cans a few balls, I mean, I don't know. I just think he has a real opportunity in the offense to see some volume because guys like Sunu have been fantasy relevant with them. You just... I think he can take the starting job from day one. If this happens, and he's still... He'll be the fourth option on just about every play behind Green, Eifford, and Gio Bernard.

So I just, I don't see it happening this year, but I can understand what you're saying. Okay. All right. And then let's get to this last bit of news here. Ryan O'Halloran of the Florida Times Union expects T.J. Yeldon to serve as the primary third down back. And then he went on to say that he believes Ivory and Yelden will essentially share the backfield. Ivory may have more first and second down work than Yeldon. But this is, this is, I guess, a.

a precursor to what we're going to get into a little bit later on our mid-round targets. Because I have my eye on TJ Yelded, and I'll give you the reason why very, very shortly. So let's get into the mid-round madness. Before we do, I want to tell everybody out there something very exciting that's going on. Very cool. Yeah, this is neat. You've heard us talk a lot about pristine auction.com before. We literally cannot go a day without some listener.

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for a chance to win this thing. I'm doing it. Include the hashtag pristineauction.com, head over to social media, post why you deserve the canvas, be creative, and you just might win a very, very, very cool, yeah, a very, very cool autographed P-R-I-S-T-I-N-E auction. Yeah, get the hashtag right, because that's how they'll search for it. All right, let's get into it. It's madness. I love that movie. This is mid-round madness.

That's all right. This is mid-round madness when you can make or break your draft in a lot of ways. If you get some talent in the fourth to the eighth round... It is when you get it done. You are setting yourself up for success, that's for sure. These are guys that, you know, even if you already have some good players at the top into your draft, you've got trade bait, you've got flexibility with who you trade and how you trade.

So we're going to get into it. We each selected three guys going between the fourth and eighth round as of today's average draft position. And that is based on a 12-team standard league is the numbers we're going to give you today. So let's identify some players that are going in that range that we're excited about. I'll just start it off. Yes, please do. I'll do it with T.J. Yeldin because we just ended the news with T.J. Yelden. I am...

I have realized this summer that I, T.J. Yeldin is one of my flag guys. He's my banner guy. He's my, my guy this offseason. The doubt that is coming into fantasy owners' minds because of the Chris Ivory signing in Jacksonville is forcing Yelden down the board to the tune of right now being a seventh round draft pick. Wow. Fifth pick in the seventh round. This is not a guy who struggled as a rookie. Other than, I think he played 12 games because there were some injury.

There was an injury problem, but he averaged 4.1 to carry. He was fantasy relevant over 800 yards, and he caught a lot of balls, 36 receptions last year. Now he's slipping down the board, and I don't understand really why that is, because he didn't have this workload that was some 300 carry workload last year. He only scored, I believe, three total touchdowns on the year last year and was fantasy relevant. For me...

This is just an incredible value. You have guys that we talk about on the show all the time. Mike brings up Danny Woodhead and how powerful Danny Woodhead was as a third down back only with receptions. How amazing Gio Bernard was in essentially the same situation I see Yeldin to be in this year, which is you get all the third downs, you split some of the other carries, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's just more efficient than Ivory. Ivory is so hot and cold as an owner of Ivory last year. He had a great season. I just don't know what will happen when you bring him into Jacksonville.

He'll get opportunities on the goal line, but look, Ivory wasn't even good on the goal line last year. Yeah, he was not a good short yardage back. So why are people off at TJ Yelden? Nor was Chris Ivory. Healthy last year or any year of his career. Yeldon is the future for that team. This is a great solidifying move to sign Ivory for Jacksonville. When-

But Yeldon's my guy. When we had Alan Robinson on the show, one of the guys he brought up kind of unsolicited, was T.J. Yeldon being a big part of that offense. Now, granted, Chris Iver hadn't been in camp yet when he came on, but at the same time,

That's how the team views T.J. Yeldon. They don't view him as someone that's been replaced. No. He's an important part. And in the seventh round, because I wasn't a huge T.J. Yelden fan. Yeah, that's great. But in the seventh round, I mean, you couldn't make me a fan of anybody at a certain round value. And that's just great. So I'll never be a fan of Jerome Simpson. All right. So I'm bringing it back. I'm bringing it back, baby. Oh, no.

Amir Abdullah. I am absolutely bringing this back. I did not know that this was in here. The table is set for the rest of the off season. He's currently going late in the sixth round. And here is the deal. Joyc Bell is gone. What? Yeah, I know. And like you didn't, no. I know. You cried. I went to his funeral. You were in sackpup and ashes. Come on.

And they've added Stephen Ridley to replace that. There's Zack Center is still there. But as of now, Amir Abdullah is the primary running back for that team. And there was some offensive line issues last year. And what have the lines done? Oh, the 16th overall pick, Taylor Decker. Their third round pick. Graham Glasgow, new center. Fifth round pick. Joe Dahl, a new interior guard. I mean, they knew what was wrong.

with the team. We've talked about recently the second half of the year once they made an offensive coordinator switch. Things improved pretty drastically for the Lions. And now something to mention with that, you could say, was it the change in the offense? Was it the schedule? Because they had a pretty easy schedule second half. I'm choosing to believe that the team has made positive strides.

towards the future. And beefing up the offensive line is always a great thing to see for a running back. And so the hype. Breaking news. Oh, oh, you're going to be sad. Brian Hartline's been cut. Oh, Brian Hartline. Yeah, the Browns cut him to save Cavs face. Oh, yeah. Goodbye, Brian. All right, but so back to Abdullah. So I just, I think that the opportunity is great.

for him. Theoretic will still be the passing down's guy, but I think Abdullah will get a little bit more work in that area as well. You're talking a great opportunity, a starting running back in the sixth round. Certainly interesting to me in the sixth round. Very interesting. Yeah, without Joyke Bell there, I mean, put it this way. He's got a better opportunity than he had last year.

at a better draft value. He was going up into the fourth last year, Amir Abdullah, in some draft. So it makes sense that he would present a value here this year. So I will, I'll lead in with another opportunity guy, a guy who honestly did not impress and his rookie running back season either. But Matt Jones is a guy that I think is a great, great target in the fourth round. I'm going wide receiver heavy.