Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Frequently Asked Fantasy Questions, Part 2

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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 and to the show. Do you guys know Game of Thrones is actually a documentary? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. That's a true story. I just learned that. Yeah. Well.

Gonna need me some dragon glass immediately. And that's why that was the real John Snow that was promoting our ultimate draft kit. Well, thank you, John. Because it's based on a real person. Little known fact. Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast, Andy Holloway. Mike, the fantasy hitman right. Bonjourno. That sounds.

Somehow delicious. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. And Jason Moore is here with a brand new Arizona Cardinals Polo. Are you on the coaching staff? I have been currently hired by the Arizona Cardinals. Currently. As nothing. As nothing. Okay. Well, it looks, it's nice. Yeah, it makes me look official. It's very, yeah. You love polos. I do love polos. You like them way more than anybody should like something. Fair enough.

Welcome in. We have a great show today. We have the frequently asked fantasy questions part two episode that we've been promising for a while, but then all these pesky NFL players keep getting signed. We have a little bit of that on today's show, too. We'll have some Vikings chat because we have a couple of different signings for that roster, and we'll talk through the rest of the news, and we'll get into the frequently asked questions, and that will be invaluable to you because we're going to be talking strategy.

Things like position scarcity, drafting strategies, how you feel about players being on certain teams and how you favor teams and offenses and trades and waivers. I think you'll really enjoy the show. So I'm very excited to get into it. How are you guys doing? I'm doing excellent, my friend. Excellent. I appreciate you asking. Yeah.

You got your Rule 86 shirt on today? The Rule 86 shirt on. My body still feels like a car wreck after Tuesday night's flag football game. Now, is it right that we apparently, now we've been playing flagged football for quite some time? Quite some time, yes. Poorly, I might add. Is it right that T.J. Hernandez going to play with us on next Tuesday? There's rumors in the bushes that T.J. Hernandez may be joining us.

To play some flag football on Tuesday night. We'll see. Worlds collide. I like it. All right. Today's quick question is this, guys. A little bit of news. Vikings have paid. They've paid up for Adam Thielen. Three-year, $17 million contract, $11 million guaranteed. So the quick question is, where do you project? Stefan Diggs and Adam Thielen for the upcoming season. Adam Thielen is 27 years old.

Stefan Diggs is 23. I am a very, very big Adam Thielen fan. There are times in which, look, we try to give you the best fantasy football information available. And we believe that is a combination of a lot of things. That is statistics. That is film. It's not one or the other, right? You can look amazing on film and destroy your fantasy team, and it does you no good to look amazing on film. You can also look bad on film, and because of volume...

You can end up the 17th running back like Todd Gurley. Opportunity is king. So to me, Adam Thielen has stood out. He did last year as a film passing the eye test guy to me. That did not always equate to fantasy value. There is a sea lion. Planet Earth 2 is here. What was your thought? That he didn't equate to fantasy value? Yeah. Well, I said always. I did say did not always. So what do you have to say about?

Um, yes. I'm hooked on a Thiele. Wow, I should have left. We needed the company behind you. Yes, we certainly need to update that to be. All right. I'll extend it out. So here's a deal. Um, you know, there were, you, you wonder, okay, was Adam Thielen only valuable when Stefan Diggs was out? Maybe that's what happened last year because there was a period of time where you were.

pretty safe to start Adam Thielen. And so I went back and looked because I am I am really truly hooked on a Thielen. I love Adam Thielen. I love the signing. I like his rapport with Sam Bradford. Keep in mind, Sam Bradford got there like, okay, NFL games are tomorrow. Right. Why don't you go out there and throw passes? So it takes a while to build rapport. So I don't blame anyone, anyone, even Laquan Treadwell for not having great.

fantasy production over the first few weeks of the season. But if you take the second half of the season, which in this case, sometimes it's just stupid to be like, well, the second half he's great or weeks one through four, he's great. But in this case, I think it's legit to say the first half of the year, they were just trying to work things out. They had no rapport. He didn't know who his number one target was. I believe his number one target has shifted over to Adam Thielen. Number one? From weeks 10?

through 17, basically the second half of the year, where do you think Adam Thielen ranked as a wide receiver in fantasy football? And I'm talking standard. Well, okay, you can give your answer because I know it's going to be very impressive. However, when you mix in.

The 40. When you mix in one of the best games in fantasy football history, that's going to bump up your overall rank. 12 for 202 and 2 or something like that. Yeah, it was an unbelievable game. And you're absolutely right. And I'm glad you point that out because we don't want to overstate things. I contend with your argument that he was safe to start because if you don't know somebody's safe to start, he's not safe to start. And we were learning that last year.

I remember several times last season recommending to start him. So that's where I think a guy's safe. A guy that you might not have known coming into the season was going to have a good year. But when we say, hey, let's start Adam Thiel. And anyways, from those weeks, including that big, monstrous game, he was the wide receiver 12th.

as in a wide receiver 1. So, yes, that big game had a really big impact, but in our half-point scoring format from Weeks 10 on, he had 10 points, 15, 9, 10, 12, and then 40 points two weeks later. So you're in a... I believe Adam Thielen is a wide receiver 2 this coming season. Hypothetical situation you're choosing between Diggs and Thielen.

Are you taking value out of this question? Out of the question. Yeah, let's just pretend you have a keeper selection and you have to trade a fifth round pick for one of these two guys. And you have to just choose. And it's a half-point league. That's a great question. I think I'm sticking with Dix. Because without Diggs's injury, Diggs was a double-digit machine. He was a high-volume player. I don't think I'm going to, I don't think I'm going to bow out on him. I like Dillon. I am certainly not bowing out on Diggs. I like Diggs, but I would choose Thielen because what we saw was,

You know, if you look earlier in the season, Seth and Diggs had some really good, monstrous games. And I know he got injured earlier, but, I mean, you look at that same stretch where Adam Thielen was really getting the targets, getting the receptions later in the year when I think it's a little bit more indicative of how their offense was running. Thelan seemed to me to take over. But it's a legit question. I don't blame anyone going. Dynasty, I take Diggs as well. 23 years old.

Yeah, Dillon is 25. 27. He's 27. Really? He is. He's an older gentleman. But he's good. He's very good. And the value is better for Thielen. I will say that. In your fantasy drafts, the value is better for Thielen. Follow the show on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Follow me at Andy Holloway. Follow Jason at Jason FFL. Follow Mike at FF. Hitman. That is his actual handle. Yes, it's me. It's me, America. The website is The Fantasy Footballers.com. We have a...

bunch of great articles going up all of the time, including a very popular 2017 early fantasy football sleepers article by Eric Ludwig. We have reception coming out twice a week by Matt Harmon. And our first episode of the frequently asked fantasy questions has been converted into article form by Travis Strickland. And you can view that right now on the website, the fantasy footballers.com. Or you can, of course, you can take that in. Some people like to read. Yeah. But the past episode is still available.

All episodes are available. I'm just saying it's still there if you want to go back a couple weeks ago. That's the beauty of the preseason, as we'll call it. You can go listen to all these episodes, and they have a lot longer shelf life. This isn't Week 7 pickups. This is, you know, the frequently asked questions apply all offseason long. So if you're on YouTube, we encourage you to subscribe to the show. You can get there at YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers.

You can also turn on your notifications, find out when our new episodes release. We're here all year long. And join our community over at jointhefoot.com. Let's get into the news. News and notes from around the league. All right. It broke, I believe, early this morning. Oh, late last night. Oh, okay. All right. That explains how Mike put it into our Slack channel.

before me because i thought you somehow did it this morning before me and you're not an early riser no no i'm certainly not but there's also a time stamp that you could have seen that was well yeah yeah now you're explaining that to me latavius murray three-year deal with the minnesota vikings i loved latadius murray past tense 15 million dollar deal um

I don't know if you saw the story he came in and said, hey, I have too much respect for AP because he wears 28 as well, the same number. So he's not going to wear 28 in Minnesota. Nice. Jerich McKinnon. Did he go, I'm wearing 29? Jerich McKinn had his O'Shucks moment once again in the corner of the locker room. And look, Latavius Murray goes from one of the best offensive lines in the National Football League to one of the worst.

The fourth best, according to pro football focus, Oakland was the fourth best on the whole of the year in 2016. And the Minnesota Vikings were 29th. The Vikings running backs for the Minnesota Vikings averaged less than a yard before contact, which puts them third worst. We have, look, we just talked about it. It was opportunity in Oakland, behind that offensive line, and it was touchdowns that made Latavius Murray valuable last year. It was not.