Fantasy Football 2017 - Hype Train + NFC South Breakdown

Just sometimes the other team catches it. He's just a little more erratic with his decision making. But he's still, you know, Deshaun Jackson. I expect him to be right around that thousand yards. But will he, will it be four touchdowns or will it be seven? I mean, that's going to be the difference for Deshaun Jackson. Yeah. Okay. And so what about the Jquiz Rogers, Doug Martin's situation? Martin keeps climbing up draft boards making him. Did his suspension go away? Not a value right now.

No, no, he's still missing the first three games. Okay. We assume it's going to be Jequiz Rogers in that role for those first three weeks, which goes Miami, Chicago, Minnesota. So it's kind of, it's all right. Yeah, it's all right. You don't want that Minnesota game. You know, Doug Martin at that point should take over, become that.

lead back. I think that Jaquiz is a great value late. He's like an opposite handcuff. He is the reverse handcuff is what Jaquiz is the handshake. Because when you draft a handcuff, you've got to take up, you know, bench space, that capital of your roster with somebody that's not doing anything. And then three weeks in, you cut him having received nothing out of him because you need a roster spot. Jaquiz at least is going to give you value. And then you cut them in week four.

And you had some. With the potential that on a team where you run the ball 25 times a game and he's not worried about the workload because he knows it'll be shared later, he may get a lot of work those first few weeks. Once Doug Martin does come back, though, the schedule is after like two weeks. The rest of the season's pretty nice for him. All right. Let's talk about the Norland Saints. But are you drafting him? Nope. Okay. One of the most prolific offenses in the league will always be with Drew Brees. Let's talk about the Saints.

Tim Hightower isn't there anymore. They drafted Alvin Kamara. They brought in Adrian Peterson, and they brought in Ted Ginn and lost Brandon Cooks. That's kind of the lay of the land on the offensive side of the ball for the Norland Saints. I want to talk about the running backs to start this thing out. There are no questions about Drew Brees. If you have a question, just go to the ultimate draft kit, click on consistency charts, and then look at all the green for 10 straight years. And more than that.

But Mark Ingram, Adrian Peterson, Alvin Kamar, Travarez Cadet. Last year, the Saints targeted the running back more than anybody in football almost nine times a game that was number one. The receiving touchdowns from the running back position was number one in the league last year. Travars Cadet had 40 of those receptions. Tim Hightower had 22. That's 62 receptions.

How do those break down in the past game? Are those all Mark Ingrams? Adrian Peterson has been talking all about it. In fact, he's going to set a career high in receiving yards and all of that. How do we see this breaking down? What is the biggest risk that a fantasy owner can take with this backfield? What is the biggest reward? Man. So, Andy, I know it believes in Adrian Peterson. I don't.

And you want to hype train the reports at New Orleans. Oh, he looks like Adrian Peterson. And last year, very, very, very small sample size. I get it. But it was 37 carries for 72 yards. That's 1.95 yards per carry. I mean, it was a disaster before he got hurt. And people are buying in because, and I get it. When Adrian Peterson plays a full season.

He's a running back one. That's historically what has happened. But he's right. He's on the wrong side of the age gap. I'm very concerned about him. He's not a good pass catcher. So I'm going to take Mark Ingram, who continues to plummet in drafts. And I'm expecting a timeshare. Maybe Mark Ingram eventually usurps Adrian Peterson the way I'm projecting it that Peterson is done. So it's...

Ingrams of value in Peterson is a wasted pick. I mean, Peterson is a super high upside, super high risk pick is how I see him. Now, if I had to, you know. That's up there. Take. I'm going to remember that one with the Devons of Freeman. He stinks. Yeah. So here's the deal with Adrian Peterson.

High power offense. If he gets, you know, if he becomes a touchdown machine, he will pay off in that fifth round. But he is going two rounds ahead of Mark Ingraham. And if you look at the saints. He's in the fifth now? Yeah. Okay. If you look at the Saints over the last few years, you've pretty much got like this systematic. So they've got Alvin Kamar, he comes in. He's replacing Travars Cadet. Like that's the role he's coming into. Adrian Peterson's coming in and he's replacing.

You know, Tim Hightower and Kyrie Robinson, who, you know, had 133 carries this last year, the year before, those two, when Kyrie was there, combined for 152 carries. And Mark Ingram is going to replace the Mark Ingram role. And I think that that Mark Ingram role over the last few years has been very valuable. But because AP, because Kamar come in, his draft, I mean, you had to take, Mark Ingram was a first round draft pick last year.

I just think he's in the 6-11. Yeah, and I'm not going to debate the value difference between Peterson and Ingram. Ingram should be drafted. He could have a very good season. I will argue a little bit about the kind of systematic plug-and-play mindset here that's being brought forward. I don't think Alvin Kamara walks in and he just automatically gets 40 receptions like Travarez Cadet did. You know, Travars Cadet was there two years ago and that didn't happen. And maybe people envisioned for him at that point. I think...

You have to look at, look, a rookie coming in, you know, third down backs have to pass block. That might be Mark Ingram's role. Maybe Mark Ingram doesn't get the first and second down. Maybe that's AP a little bit. He's talking about being used in the passing game. I just would caution the plug-in play, okay, players leave, players come in. I don't think that these roles are always so predefined.

Well, I mean, if you go back far enough, you do have examples of, you know, other mixes. You had a year where you had three different running backs get 100 carries back with, it was Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush, and someone else, I forget. So, I mean, you're right. We don't know the future. We're not smart enough. We're not smart enough. I don't think it was, but maybe. So, you know, we're not smart enough to know. I just, I see Ingram.

he's been efficient with what he's had in this offense that he knows. Like you said, you don't just come in and replace someone. You have to learn the system. You have to prove you can do it. We know what Mark Ingram can do in this system and it's been good. That's my point. The last point is basically just that Adrian Peterson being a little older, being liked by Andy. Andy being the Fantasy Reaper, you do the math. Hey, your point, there is a lot of science that just happened. There's only one man that's been in that system out of that group. And you're right. It's Mark Ingram.

And for some reason, the head coach doesn't like him. He hates him. Let me make this. We haven't factored in. Peyton's just disdain for Mark Ingram. Willie Sneed is one of our favorite values. If you look at the ultimate draft kit, Willie Sneed's names plastered in there. We love Willie Sneed this year. Michael Thomas. Brandon Cooks has gone. Wide receivers in New Orleans, 222 yards a game, best in the league. I made the argument on Twitter. I believe Michael Thomas is bus proof.

I don't think there's any possible way that Michael Thomas can bust this year. Some people see that. They want to tell me, oh, well, he was a rookie, and, you know, now he's got no wrong coverage. Okay, who's catching 222 yards of game? Where's that breaking down in the wide receiver core? It's not all going to Ted Ginn. It's not all going to Willie Sneed. Call me. Willie Sneed, I think, has, you know, he's got 80 yards of game written all over. Michael Thomas is bus proof to me. Yeah, I love hearing you say this. Is he the best in the league? Maybe not.

But he's bus proof. The thing about him is you're drafting him, you know, towards his ceiling. But I agree that even if he doesn't hit his ceiling, I don't think that he's going to harm your team. He's not going to crap your team. And the argument I've, the really only logical argument I've heard against Michael Thomas is Drew Breeze doesn't over target someone. He always spreads it around. But 2015, Brandon Cook's, his top target, had a...

129 targets and he was the wide receiver 14 in 2014 Jimmy Graham had 125 targets and Jimmy Graham would have been the wide receiver 16 and 2013 Jimmy Graham had 1442 targets would have been the wide receiver 4 so while wide receiver 1416 doesn't sound great that's he didn't kill you Michael Thomas isn't the Brandon Cook's boom bust I completely vanish from football games type of player so

That's why Andy's saying like the bus. That's why he's, and I'm just, I'm trying to pile on Andy's argument, strengthen it. I like it. I have been cooling a little bit on Willie Sneed solely from the standpoint of touchdowns. I just worry because now, you know, it doesn't look like he's going to move back to the outside like it was two years ago where I thought he had a chance to improve. Looks like he's going to stay in the role he had last year. I just worry if he ends up with, you know, a great year, 1,100 yards, but four touchdowns.

I'm going to just be disappointed. I really like Ted Ginn late too. Yes, I really agree. All right, we got to move on. Carolina Panthers. Let's talk about the Panthers, close out the NFC South. Look, the question to me about this entire team is, is there a philosophical change in place? They brought in Christian McCaffrey. It appears so. They brought in Curtis Samuel. They brought in Russell Shepard. They brought in Charles Johnson. And those two names don't get enough talk because neither of them are probably going to be fantasy relevant in and of themselves.

But both of those players could make Cam Newton more fantasy relevant because I think they're quality wide receivers to add to a wide receiver core that now includes Curtis Samuel that has Kelvin Benjamin, that has Greg Olson, and now has Christian McCaffrey coming out of the backfield. The story for this team, we've said it before, dead last in the league when it comes to running backs receiving the ball. 3.4 targets a game, 2.1 receptions, only 18 yards a game receiving from the running back position on average. Now you bring in Christian McCaffrey.

His game. His game is to catch the ball out of the backfield. So is there a philosophical change in play. Don't pigeonhole McCaffrey. I think he's more than that. That's part of his game. He's more than that, but he's so good as a pass catcher. And you would think that with Cam Newton being as bad as he was, 18 completions a game, the worst completion percentage in all of football, one of the worst pass the ratings in all football, you would think that high percentage passes might want to be worked into his repertoire. You remember when Eli Manning was struggling?

with New York, and they renovated that offense, and there was some growing pains, which maybe you see that with Cam this year. But in the end, it helped his completion percentage. It helped him get into a rhythm, confidence, all of those things. Is Cam Newton sitting back there as a value? Because he came out last year, number 10 quarterback in week one, number one quarterback in week two, and then the wheels fell off. We know what he can do. But what are the odds that he does it with this new offensive philosophy?

Not high. Not good. And the thing for Cam Newton, who, if you look at him on fantasy football calculator, he's ADP's actually been coming down, which, like, are we going to get to the point where Cam Newton actually becomes a value that I want to target in drafts? That is also unlikely. But I just wanted to bring up for Cam Newton. His running is everything.

And along with that scheme changed, what has been talked about out of Carolina is we want Cam to run less. And they know that. I mean, he got, he took way too many really violent hits last year for your franchise quarterback. If you go back and look at the prolific running backs, this is right about the time of their career where that stopped and they became more pocket passers or focused on that. But Cam Newton has not had great success.

as a high-level passer. He's 4,000 yards his rookie year, but he's never touched 4,000 yards ever since then. And what you're talking for fantasy, his rushing has been everything. If you give him last year's rushing, if it's actually going to come down, let's say they give him last year's rushing for just his career average in passing. He's, you know, running back or quarterback 13, 12. And that...

that leads to people overdrafting him because they're expecting huge things. But his ADP is going down, so maybe the drafters are catching on. And I'll toss it to you, Jay, but the thing about Cam Newton that is attractive to fantasy owners is when he goes big, he goes real big. Yes. Yeah, big time. I mean, he's a guy. But then he goes home on the other weeks. Right. Well, last year it was the case. The year before, we kept waiting for the shooter drop. You remember that. And it didn't.

Yeah, total boom bust type of potential with Cam Newton, certainly, you know, with the weapons that they've added in the, you know, with running back, running backs who can receive the ball, if he can get it to him, his, his, you know, you look at the guys who are high yardage guys, right? You're.