Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - The Fantasy Court + NFC North Breakdown

But I think this is a, it's going to be a long shot for him to play this year. This surgery would be season-ending herniated disc surgery. He's already had an epidural on this injury. He's going to try to. Yeah, he's going to have one more to see if he can get into camp. He's already way behind the likes of Tyrell Williams, Travis Benjamin, Don Trell Newman, Keenan Allen. It's not looking like Mike Williams' odds of participating on this upcoming season Chargers wide receiver court is going to happen.

No, and early season injuries in training camp in the off season, those are always red flags. So just like you said, Andy, if let's say he comes back and he doesn't have to get, you know, put on the IR, I expect very little from Mike Williams this year. I mean, I would move him. If he is back and he's there week one, I'm still moving him way down to me. This speaks well for, I think.

mostly for Tyrell Williams. Kenan Allen has his role. And, you know, you could say, oh, maybe this is better for him. Oh, give me more Keenan. I'm sure Keenan will shoot up the ADP charts. But I don't think his role was going to be affected. He was going to be the one on that team. Tyrell Williams is a guy that he came in last year because of opportunity, and there was a fear that he was going to be pushed aside because of the drafting of Williams. And now if...

If he's not there, the opportunity still exists, and he doesn't have to have the coverage of being the number one wide receiver anymore. Yeah, isn't the phrase opportunity only knocks once? Tyro Williams just got a return visit. He's going to turbocharge up the ADP. And I would say the second beneficiary would be Hunter Henry. I think that they will try and get him a little bit more involved. I'm not saying a huge spike, but I would imagine that his targets should see him.

a slight tick up from what they would have been. Yeah, and I would say this, too, for those that might worry that, you know, it's going to hurt Philip Rivers because maybe you don't think Keenan Allen can stay healthy the whole year or whatever. This is still a very deep receiving core between Henry and Gates at tight end. Benjamin just got re-signed. He's a very capable, I guess you'd call him a three. And Williams and Allen, I mean, they...

It was curious that they drafted Williams. Gates is still there. It made me wonder what they thought of Keenan's health, but it doesn't look like he's going to be around. So in other news, the Packers, they have a suspended wide receiver. Geronimo Allison, is that just one game? Yes. Okay, one game suspension for violating the personal conduct policy. Any other news you want to get into? There was a little bit of maybe some Zeke news.

Yes, the Zeke news came out from a beat reporter. I follow Mike Fisher. And he's saying that the police are shutting down the investigation from the bar room incident or outside of bar. I can't recall. If it was outside, whatever. It was a bar incident. There was a bar in the vicinity. And there was a fight. And it sounds like they're going to shut down the investigation. That does not mean the NFL won't factor that in.

when they're making a decision of if there's a suspension or not. There will be no legal action. Maybe worth a question. As of today, right now, if you had to give me a number of what you're expecting to hit Zique. How many games? I'm going with three. I've moved from one to three. I talked about this on the, I did a periscope, a basketball draft, and I was talking about Zinc. And it's so hard when you're in this position of telling people, you know, this is what I think is going to happen. Because without.

sounding like an alarmist and telling people, oh, well, sell, don't draft him. I think he's going to get more than six games. I think it's going to be a very hefty suspension. But, of course, I don't know exactly what's going to happen. So I've stated my official position is if I'm going to keep her or dynasty, no, I'm not trading him. This is not a situation. This is half of one season. If you're keeping a guy for his career, don't worry about that. But if I'm drafting today, I would take the other big five.

And if I'm drafting in a redraft, this doesn't really affect my dynasty view of Zeke. If I'm in a redraft, I will take the other big five ahead of Zeke. I'll still probably take the chance on him at seven or eight, though. Yeah, I have not adjusted my rankings. Andy, I know you did. I did. I moved them down. I am waiting, and that's what I think most fantasy owners have the ability to do. So don't freak out yet. You know, even if you're in a small keeper league and you're thinking trade them. The tough part is you have drafts.

taking place. If you're drafting now, I agree with what Mike said. You know, I would look at the other big three wide receivers ahead of him just in case a suspension comes out, but I'm not moving them further than that. You have to wonder if the Cowboys, one of the reasons they had kept McFadden and Morris on the roster together was because of the history of things going on with Zeke. Because there was talk of them moving Morris earlier on. And they have it. True. Now, let's say you're in a keeper league.

because I'm sure that this question will pop up. You have, you have Zeke and someone else has a player now that's not Big Three running back quality, but someone like Freeman or Melvin Gordon. Someone in that tier of running back and they say, hey, I'll do a one for one trade right now without knowing the news because, I mean, once the news hits, that could go either way for you, are you going to hedge at all? Would you, Mike?

No, I would not. Even with your fears of six or more games? Yeah, I would. I would not. All right, let's move on. Let's talk into C North. Let's get divisional. All right, we're going to kick it off with the Packers. The King of the North. The King of the North. Aaron Rogers himself. Yeah, he's the king of passing touchdowns, consistency, lack of interceptions. King of many things. You were talking about Aaron Rogers.

I believe yesterday, just about the career highs across the board. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, there should be slight, you know, regression for Aaron Rogers coming this year. But the thing is with that is he can regress off of last year and finish as the number one quarterback. So there's not much to discuss there, but if you're just kind of projecting points, I, last year he had a career high in.

Passing attempts, career high. Yeah, fifth in the league, they threw the ball 58% of the time. Yeah. So they were a throwing team. And I think more surprising is he had a career high in rushing attempts and a career high in rushing yards. And those were well above, you know, his average, which is already, you know, a very good number. So not a lot to discuss with Aaron Rogers in terms of, hey, he's the best quarterback on the board. We all agree he's the number one quarterback. Yeah, the only thing to talk about is I draft late quarterbacks. You guys generally late.

draft late quarterbacks? What round are you willing to go in on Rogers if the rest of your league is also trying to draft? Yeah, I'm a little more eager than you. So if he's sitting there in the fourth round, I've said I'm willing to take him. Yeah, same round for me. And it's five, it's five six for me, of course, depending on who's on the board. Now here's something interesting. Let's talk about the wide receiver core because I think there's a lot to discuss there. There's no doubt about the impact that Jordan Nelson has on this offense. We saw him last year come back, fall right in line.

enable Rogers to have the kind of fantasy season he did. Devante Adams was the big surprise in the sense that, look, he was an in-zone master. I mean, he caught, what, he had 12 touchdowns last year, I believe. You can verify that. I know it was double digits. I don't know why I didn't write that down. That is correct. 12, yeah, okay, there you go. Which is tied for second in the league. Exactly. And this is a team that when you look at the wide receiver core, 34 receptions, touchdown receptions, by the wide receivers themselves.

So you omit running backs, you omit tight ends. That's number one in the league. The wide receivers in Green Bay were the beneficiaries of Aaron Rogers' success, were the ones that were targeted and looked to in the end zone. You do have Martellus Bennett arriving, a much more athletic and capable tight end. Jared Cook was injured for most of the year last year. I also want to bring up one other name and then get your guys' feedback. Randall Cop. I know that his name has been dragged through the mud.

But if you look at Weeks 1 through 7 last year, where do you think Randall Cobb ranked from Reeks 1 through 7 in PPR formats? I know he had a huge game early in the season, so I'm guessing he would be 15. 15 on the dot. 1 through 7, okay. I know that C.J. Anderson was running back 11 during that time. That was a long time ago. Yeah, I agree. Number 15, just outside of the wide receiver 1 consideration.

Went through injuries, second half of the year. And historically, his numbers have been as good if not better when Devante Adams has been on the field. So he hasn't been somebody desperately hurt by Devante Adams. I wonder if there's injury concerning. He is a sleeper in fantasy drafts. I think he's the better value than Devante Adams. You know, everyone always wants to call for a repeat. I'm surprised to hear you say that. A repeat of whatever last year was. And I don't expect, look, Jordy is going to be Jordy.

He's up near the top. He's, you know, a tier one type of wide receiver, constantly finishing in the top five at the position when he plays. And he's the clear number one. Outside of him, there will be plenty of touchdowns to go around. And Devante Adams could haul them all in again next year like he did last year. But it's just as likely to be Randalli Cobb as it is Devante Adams. And you brought up Martellus Bennett. Martellus Bennett is a pretty good option. I've really flipped on how I thought about...

Martellis Bennett, I went back and I looked because there's two ways to think about the tight end with Aaron Rogers. One way, which is absolutely true, is that, you know, in half point PPR, in the nine-year career for Aaron Rogers, he's had two tight-ins finish as a tight-in one, twice, two times. And one of them was Richard Rogers where 50% of his production came on one play. Right. And so you can discount. On that Hail Mary touchdown. Yeah, it was a 200-yard pass. Right. And so you could say, well, he doesn't throw that a tight end.

But he throws to his talent. And many of the years, he hasn't had any talent at the tight-end position. We all remember if we played, you know, back in the day when you had Jermichael Finley. And Jermichael Finley, fast. He was great. In 2011, he was, you know, the number six tight-in. He's got two years where he was the number 37 tight-in. And if you're just looking at yearly totals, that's obviously not good. But Jermichael Finley was an injury risk walking all the time. There's a reason he retired.

forcibly young. On a per game basis, on a per game basis, Jamichael Finley averaged a top 10 tight-in. So that says Martell's Bennett. I moved him up to my tight-in 12, which is another reason to worry about Devante Adams' price. The touchdowns between the other people not named Jordy are going to be spread. So before we jump on to the running backs, which I want to get Mike's take on Time Montgomery.

Talk to me about the ceiling for Martellus Bennett. You haven't ranked at 12. Mike, Jason, where do you see his absolute ceiling? Is he considered a value tight end to you? I mean, I know he's been going higher than I think some of the guys you like, I mean, like Eric Ebron. What's the actual ceiling from Martellus Bennett? Seven. Yeah. Seventh tight in? Right around the tight end seven. Great best ball option? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because that brings up my next point of.

He's going to be so erratic. It's going to be tough. I mean, not that all tied ends aren't gross besides, you know, just a handful of them. But I just, I'm not in on paying up for Martellus Bennett in the draft. With everything I said on Martellus Bennett, I won't own Martell's Bennett in a single draft because where he's being drafted right now and what I get from streaming the position or a guy late, I'm just as happy with. There's no Martell's Bennett ownership for me. All right. Key loss is.

to this roster, Eddie Lacey, Jared Cook has gone, and then Kristen Michael. So at the running back position, we saw the impact that Time Montgomery had last year. You bring in two rookies in the draft, fourth and fifth and John's in the fifth and Jamal Williams in the fourth round. How does this shake out if you had to throw a dart at the wall and pick a non or pick one of the rookies? Who would you pick? How are you looking at the running back position?

If I have to pick a rookie, I'm picking Jamal Williams. I mean, they took him earlier. They spent the draft capital, and he's the more prototype running back. I think Jamal Williams is a good player. But I think that time Montgomery can be excellent. And he is the starting running back for one of the top offenses in the league. I know a complaint for Montgomery's people saying, oh, well, they drafted, you know, two running backs.

They lost two. They had no one behind Time Montgomery. You have to have depth at the position. Montgomery was great last year. Graham Barfield, he has this system called Yards created. He tries to take an approach looking at the running back similar to Matt Harmon does with receivers. And so he did a sample on Ty Montgomery. And in his sample, he forced a mistackle.

on over 50% of his attempts. He's a good football player. And on top of that, he ran 23 routes per game in that sample. And for some context, theoretic PPR machine runs an average, ran an average of 26. I mean, there's huge opportunity here. Tom Montgomery is not going to get 15 plus carries a game. That's not what you're drafting. But he's, like I said, the PPR value. Yes, he'll catch passes. He was a wide receiver.