Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 4 Review, Studs and Duds, MNF Preview, Fantasy News

this is terrible because they scored a million points. And so both of the guys didn't even play in the second half. I mean, it was like every time I looked on my phone, it was the Falcons with the ball and a guy named Ward keeps running the ball. And you knew there was going to be no Aryan Foster. They're going to save him for Thursday night. And they don't need to throw the ball to Julio Jones because this game was over before it started. So 4 and 0 Falcons, but I got no points out of those guys. I started Mike Evans. For those that are, you know, we just talked about Vincent Jackson. Do I believe, who do I think is?

Better rest of the year, Mike Evans by far. Not even close. He had a billion targets, but he went up against Norman. Yeah, I was going to see, he got the Josh Norman effect. That dude is a bad man. He is. And that team is a great team because of him. So let me ask you guys this, because I have a little bit of a hard time right now trusting a start in either Mike Evans or Vincent Jackson. Because I don't think the Tampa Bay offense with Winston is going to put up enough points through the air for both to have a good week. So I feel like you're just rolling the dice.

Either one of these guys can win you a week, but they could also be guys in your roster that lose you a week. And so I'm not, I mean, Mike Evans, I agree, is the guy to have there going forward of the two, but I'm not thrilled about having him on my team where I've got to choose to start him and go, is this going to be the week that he gets in the end zone? Because if he doesn't, I mean, it can't go to both guys enough in that offense. I don't agree.

We'll just disagree on that one. I think Mike Evans has more than a sustainable amount of target numbers coming his way for the remainder of the season. He had 17 targets last week. He didn't score last week. He still put up 15 fantasy points. He faced Norman this week. He still had eight targets this week. He's just too big, and they're going to be down by too many points. I mean, we saw this last year. They were eight terrible.

team last year. So are you saying you are comfortable starting Mike Evans? Let's say you don't have Mike Evans and you've got Vincent Jackson. Are you comfortable starting Vincent Jackson? I'm comfortable flexing Vincent Jackson. Okay. So you think both are worthy. I'm a two on Evans. I'm a two on Evans. I'm a flex on Jackson. I mean, it doesn't mean I disagree that they're not that good. It doesn't mean that I disagree that one guy's going to be hired than the other. But that's kind of par for the court. I mean, even Julio can have a day where he's

Sure. Julio and Brown, Antonio Brown. I thought I was in the gold here where Mike started Antonio Brown and he got five points or whatever. And I'm like, oh, Julio should triple that. Nope, got less. Just happens sometimes. But the target numbers are what I look for. And I like the target numbers there. And they're going to be losing a lot of games. So Mike Wallace did score a touchdown. I thought about making him my start of the week last week because of the fact that Charles Johnson wasn't playing. They're facing Denver.

You know, he had a good game. That would have been bold. Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't, I almost started, I almost benched Foster right before the game. I know. And put Eddie Royal in because Cutler was going to play. And I'm like, well, if Royals, the lead dog with. And then he immediately gets a touchdown, right? Yep. Yep. Right afterwards. That was great. All right. Running backs, Devanta Freeman. All right. Mr. Freeman, uh, some things might have been said over. I'd like you to quote them.

Over the off season, uh, I believe the words, he stinks were, uh, were said by some panelists in this. Some panelists, uh, mostly myself. Uh, and you have, uh, you've proven me very wrong right now. So, Mr. Freeman, this is a heartfelt apology. You are playing fantastic. And, yeah, that's what I have to say about that. I've been wrong.

He's three more touchdowns. That's just every week. He puts up three now. And he just... Five for 81 through the air, 14 for 68 and 3, and played half a game. And he just... When he's on these scoring plays, it's just him rocketing. He looks... He looks like eyeball test. All of a sudden, he looks like Barry Sanders. I mean, he's just like going nuts on the field. He looks so fast.

And he did not look fast. I have a very funny comparison for him. Okay. Because I think it might reflect his skills because I don't think his skills are through the roof, okay? He kind of reminds me of No Sean Moreno. In the fact that he runs so darn hard and once, you know, Moreno ran wanting the next yard and that made the difference. It's like Freeman gets some confidence behind him and he's once the next yard. I don't think his skills are top...

20 in the NFL. I just think he just, the offensive lines playing very good in Atlanta. I mean, do you just, so the question for fantasy owners, which we need to be bending these things towards, obviously, is do you just keep rolling Freeman out? Yeah, you have to. Or do you sell him?

because you anticipate Coleman coming back in a couple weeks and splitting the low. I'm fine selling him if you can get great value. Like RB1 value. Exactly. If you can get RB1 value, I'm fine selling him because I don't expect him to keep up. I mean, obviously he's not going to keep up this pace, but I don't necessarily expect him to be a top 12 running back from week five to the end of the season. I think he has the potential to do that. So I'm fine selling him. However,

If you have him, you have to start him. There's no reason to think that the four and O Falcons who are working with this formula are going to have to have him come back and go, well, sorry, sorry, Freeman. Get to the back of the line. Not going to happen. Clearly the team thought Coleman was the guy. If you look at the snap counts and the touches in the first couple weeks, it was Coleman. That's who the team was grooming. But Freeman has emerged and you can't ignore what he's done. Devonta Freeman or C.J. Anderson. Devontha Freeman.

The rest of season too, I assume. Yep. Yep. So, yeah, I think you can probably get RB1 value for him in most leagues based on a repeat three touchdown performance for a lot of owners. So pay attention to that. If you can get, you know, if you can swap Devante Freeman and another guy and get back in Adrian Peterson. Ooh, yeah. Or Lev Bell. Right. Because people are buying into the huge weeks. You cannot trade too much for Levill. No, we've said that too. It's impossible. All right, Jeremy Hill. He had nine carries for 40 yards.

Trace, three touchdowns. Yeah. The market corrected itself with all those passing touchdowns that they were getting. I agree. And I wasn't happy about it because I played against Jeremy Hill, but I was happy because there were three guys we thought would bounce back this week on the show. And it was Justin Forsett, it was Jeremy Hill, and it was C.J. Anderson.

And two-thirds of the best. Two out of three ain't bad. Yeah, not bad. So Chris Ivory had a monster game. What were your impressions of Chris Ivory and Mike? Good. That was a pleasant surprise to wake up to. Ivory just looked. That's the ivory we remember. Looking just absolutely ferocious. His line is helping him out, getting him gaps to run through. It looks like he runs on a field that's...

That's pointing down? That's pointed down. So when he hits a guy, gravity pulls him in this direction. You never see him not pick up the extra yard or two lean. Nobody ever pushes him, and he doesn't fall backwards ever to, like, lose that yard. And the truth is, they arrested him last week because of his worries. They arrested him? Yes, they've been arrested? They arrested him. By the jets. Last week for his hamstring troubles. Quad, quad, yeah. And...

Clearly, they feel like he was over that because I kept waiting for them when they were ahead to stop giving him the ball, but they're going, no, he's over the injury. They've got a buy week coming up this week. Yeah, that made a big difference. So you saw the reason in the preseason. Is he a top 12 back the rest of the year? Absolutely. 100%. And he's a guy that on a buy week I would try to trade for because sometimes people go, you know, if they need a player, if they- 29 for 166. Yeah, it's pretty good. One touchdown and Stacey's mom took one touchdown.

from him, which was so disappointing. That was. It was not fair. Doug Martin had a big game. Oh, the garbage land, man. What? Actually, that's not really true. He scored his touchdown early. Yeah. But he got 20 for 106 in a touchdown. Five for 37th through the air, which certainly helps. Duke Johnson, we talked about him, and we had the debut of The Gurley Show. And man, did it look good? Well, for three quarters, it looked horrific. Not three quarters, no.

I mean, the first half, it looked terrific. The second half, he was... He had over 100 yards in the fourth quarter. Yeah, but... Okay, so you're saying he picked up most of it. Yeah, which... And that's not a knock on Todd Gerely. That's actually... That's a positive thing. They knew they were running the whole fourth quarter and the Cardinals couldn't stop him. That's why it's positive for me, because a running back is not... You want him to get like three yards, five yards. You can't get these one-yard, one-yard, but...

When a running back gets better as the game goes along, I mean, that's Adrian Peterson style. If you've ever actually watched Peterson, which most people have, but I'm saying Peterson doesn't just come out of the gate all the time and run...

Six yards here, and he wears the defense down. Just like this last game. And he's just so strong that by the end of the game, they can't tackle him anymore. And that's what Todd Gurley did. And this was in Arizona against a super tough run defense with the crowd behind him, watching him be able to pull away from...

speedy guys. He looks deceptively fast, and, you know, I had told some people wait to try to buy Todd Gurley after this week because he was going to Arizona against that run, D. Yeah, good luck. Yeah, good luck buying him. But if you can, I would love to have him based on what I saw and what I didn't see, which was no Trey Mason. Oh, no, he was there. I know he was there, but my point is just he was not the, he was.

It was the girly show. And that's what it's going to be. That's what I've been saying. I expected him to be fantasy relevant this week, guaranteed next week, and that you don't spend a pick on him. A talent like that, you just leave him on the field. 19 for 146. He could have scored probably coming around the edge at the end of the game. 100% could have scored. But played the smart play and went down. Tight end wise. Martellis Bennett, 11 for 83 and a touchdown.

And he was at start of the week. Charles Clay was his start of the week, nine for one, 11, and had a touchdown taken away from him. But he still had a monster game. Kobe Fleener was nine for 82 in a touchdown. We saw Dwayne Allen inactive before the game. And then we talked about Gary Barnage, six for 75 in a touchdown. Moving forward, do you start Clay and Bennett? Obviously, you probably do. Yes.

Yes. What about Fleener in the future if Alan's out? If Alan's out, you can play him. How much of this was because of Matt Hasselbeck? I don't think it was too much because of Hasselbeck. I think luck would have used him too. I think it was more because Alan was out. And then Gary Barnage, do we just... You got to play him. Okay. You got to play him. All right, let's talk about the guys who didn't do so well. Pooped in his big boy pants.

I actually think this segment is one of the more important ones that we're going to do all week because we're going to talk about guys that didn't perform. And this is trade season. This is sell season. This is do I stick with these guys and keep rolling them out or not? So at the quarterback position, we have Peyton Manning. Peyton had a very lackluster day. A couple picks, one touchdown, 213 yards through the air. Is this kind of what we're going to see? Is this a defensive lead Broncos team where Manning's going to have his games?

Is he a start every week? No, he starts streaming him. He's definitely not a start every week. He's a stream type of guy. But the thing that's interesting about two of the guys on this list, Peyton Manning and Matt Ryan, is their names say you drafted them to start him every week. And how do you start someone else over him? And Matt Ryan had...

Didn't have a bad game, but he was the 20th quarterback. Well, Matt Ryan is a complete, yeah. Matt Ryan, I don't worry about him at all here. You start him going forward. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My point, though, is it's another thing where we look at names and don't realize game flow matters, matchups matter, and streaming, you can get better value from certain big names like Peyton Manning. But it's a defensive lead Broncos. They're not going to be in a lot of giant shootouts because their defense keeps the game score low.

I'm a little worried about Peyton if he was my guy. I would definitely be playing matchups at least. If there's a really good matchup and Peyton, you know, I would play him over Peyton. I had Peyton this week, for instance, ranked, I think 18th or 19th on my quarterback. All right, running backs. Carlos Hyde had another bad game, eight for 20. Mike and I were talking before the show. I think you need to start looking at Carlos Hyde the way you would look at a...