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

Over under six touchdowns for Ibron. Under. Yeah, I would. Under. I'll take the push. I can't take the over. We need to talk about the Vikings now, guys. Let's talk about Minnesota. For some reason, I feel like this is going to be an area that Mike loves to talk about because he gets to talk about Sam Bradford, Sammy Biscuits himself. He loves talking about Sammy Biscuits. If you want to talk about the opposite impact of wide receivers in the, you know, in the end zone of Green Bay, it's Minnesota.

The Vikings wide receivers, they caught a touchdown every 22 passes where Green Bay receivers caught one every seven, essentially. So even if you like guys like Adam Thielen, Stefan Diggs, Lequan Treadwell, what in the world can you expect from the passing? From the passing offense. Have some dignity. In this situation. I know Bradford set a record for efficiency, but it was 10.9 yards per touch for the wide receivers.

So he was keeping the ball short. Not a lot of big play opportunities. I know Thielen broke out at the end of the year. And with that came good performances from Bradford. But what is this passing game going to be? And who would you draft? Well, there's a split. You can see what happens for those if you don't recall what happened. North Turner started the year as the offensive coordinator. The team was actually five and two. And North Turner resigned. Pat Schumer took over. And you can see Bradford's yardage.

does go up. Now, his touchdowns kind of stay in the same realm and same pace that they were early on with Norv. But the yardage goes up, and I think Stefan Diggs is such a sensational player. You look at his reception, and, I mean, he is fantastic. He's above average on every single route except for two.

I mean, he's just, he's a great player where the reception is, is the perfect tool. And in case that we have new listeners, you don't know what reception perception is. We've teamed up with Matt Harmon from NFL.com. And he watches, how does it, how good of a route does a player run? And when players run good routes, eventually the targets do go to them. And I think that's what's going to happen for Stefan Diggs. And I do want to remind people, Sam Bradford.

Three of the final four weeks of the season was a top six quarterback. So it's not, he's not an impossibility that they can have an actual higher flying passing attack than they had last year. Yeah, you talk about the change at offensive coordinator. We saw that, you know, in 2015, what it did for Matthew Stafford. All of his stats went up with Jim Bob Cooter. Oh, with JBC. With JBC? Yeah, you know me. But with San Bradford.

From week 9 on, so the entire second half of the season, do you guys know where he would have finished over that stretch? Would have? Or did? You mean just projecting the second half? No, no, no. I'm just saying from weeks 9 through 17 of all quarterbacks, week 9 through 17, he was the quarterback 12. Okay. I would have guessed like 14. So that's impressive. On some big games. Big games for good. I like big games. Bradford is a decent quarterback. If you're in a two quarterback league, I love him late. It's really weird.

his he just doesn't throw touchdowns he's got an accurate ball short he's got an accurate ball long on his passes over 20 yards he was the most accurate over 20 yards although he threw pretty much the least but what's crazy is he doesn't throw touchdowns and i don't get why and this is this is not like this is a big difference between the rest of the NFL the only quarterback that has like a career and isn't just like oh he started a few games who has a worse

you know, attempts per touchdown is Joe Flacco. Joe Flacco has like a little bit worse and he's had a career of not throwing a lot of touchdowns per attempt. The, you know, the NFL average over the last five years, 22 attempts. And, you know, Sam Bradford's living up at the 28 range. Do you remember those, the old baseball or football cars that you would get and they had the hologram on them and you just like kind of. Oh, yeah, the top of the upper deck? Yeah, you turn them in the light and you get like.

You can see the image moving and things like that. I can still see my Kirby Puckett. Yeah. Well, when I look at my card of Bradford and it gets the glisten of the light, like a picture of Alex Smith starts to come into form. And I go back and forth. And I think that's the problem is you kind of, you see him through the lens of like, am I really going to bank on a short yardage specialist that doesn't throw a lot of touchdowns to give me a consistent year? And I guess you don't have to with Bradford. Bradford is a great streamer. He's a good streamer and he's a good.

I think he's a decent QB2 in a two quarterback league, somebody you can get late. But, you know, unless Adam Thielen is going to have a bigger feature downfield role this year than he had, you know, something towards the end of last year. Let's sort out the running backs, guys. Is Derek McKinnon done? I want to ask that question because Derek McKinnon was an RB2 from week seven on last year by necessity, by volume, by whatever you want to say, but he was an RB2. Is he done?

Are you expecting Dalvin Cook to take the reins or is this going to be more of a Big Back Littleback split with Latavius Murray and Dalvin Cook. Talk about Dalvin Cook returning kicks. This would be a song. Big bag little bag. I like it. Yeah, we wrote it. We wrote the whole song. The more. Available on iTunes. Two seconds. The more that I look at the Vikings, what they've done this off season, what their clear intention is is to fix the running game. They're a defense.

first team. And in order to succeed that way, you have to be able to run the ball. They couldn't run the ball at all. They were pretty much the worst running team last year in the league. The number one way to fix your running backs, get rid of Adrian Peterson. Well, yeah, I completely agree at this stage in his career by, you know, comparison to what he was able to do last year, as he will get injured again this year. But the point is they went out and they signed Latavius Murray. Now, that's not saying that he is. Oh. Oh.

That's just a teaser. Oh, okay. We'll have one on AP. I was going to say they sent away Adrian Peterson because he was hurt. And they brought in Latavius Murray, who is hurt. But my point is not Latavius Murray is the answer. My point is that Minnesota said, we've got to fix our running game. Let's go spin on a running back. Then they traded up for Dalvin Cook at the running back position. And their offensive line, which was horrendous last year, we cannot.

keep thinking that they have a bad offensive line. They don't. They made improvements to the offensive line, a lot of which were in health. I mean, they had health problems last year on the offensive line. I see them as a middle of the pack offensive line that wants to run the ball. They got Riley Reef. They stole him from Detroit. Yep. It's funny. The NFC North has like this, the offensive line, they all just kind of traded for each other. Yeah, T.J. Lang went from, you know.

The Packers, the Lions. It's funny, though, because they all shifted teams, and yet we're like, all right, the Packers couldn't run the ball, and the Lions couldn't run the ball, and the Vikings couldn't run the ball. I believe that Minnesota will run the ball significantly better this year than they did last year. And as I was preparing for this show and looking at all the offensive linemen and everything, I made a note to myself to move Dalvin Cook up and to check on the health of Latavis Murray. Mike.

Sorry, sorry. I think there is opportunity here, especially where these guys are being drafted. Dalvin Cook in the fifth, Latavis Murray and the eighth. Who do you take? Cook. I've completely switched over to Cook's camp. Murray's hurt. He's getting nothing. Dalvin Cook is getting all the time to impress the coaches. And if he's showing anything like he did in his college game tape, then he should take the job.

All right, fantasy owners. Let's shift to a team that averaged 10.5 points per game last year. There's an analyst on our team that this is his, this is his friends. Oh, that's true. This is his favorite team. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jay Greas, huh? Come on, man. I was slow on the uptake. I was busy staring at 10.5 points per game, 29th in the league. New quarterbacks in town for the Chicago Bears, Mike Glennon, Mitchell Trubisky.

Look, the story of last year for the Bears was Jordan Howard, Jordan Howard, Jordan Howard. Rookie running back sensation. Put up an absolutely monster year without even having full-time work for the entirety of it. I love Jordan Howard. I think Jordan Howard is everything you want. Talent, opportunity. The only thing he's missing is an offense that's going to score the ball, and that's going to be a problem for him. I think projecting Jordan Howard for too many touchdowns would be a mistake, but projecting him for...

25 touches a game is very possible. This is a situation that mirrors to me what's going on in Arizona, where the team is going to run through David Johnson. It literally, figuratively, it's going through David Johnson. He's going to go through Jordan Howard in Chicago. It takes pressure off of Mike Lennon. It'll eventually take pressure off of Trubisky. And the wide receiver course, a bunch of never bins or has beens. I mean, Marcus Wheaton, Kennell Wright, Kevin White.

Yeah, and like I said, I do like Cameron Meredith, but I don't want to leave Jordan Howard just yet. The guy wasn't even the starter until week three. He was second in rushing yards. He was an absolute monster. Pro football focus has their offensive line at 5th. This is not a Todd Gurley situation to me. I know that some of the pieces are mirroring Gurley because you have poor team, low scoring team.

Are they going to be able to do it? But the guy was over 100 yards, I think, eight times. And he just, it wasn't chunk plays for Jordan Howard. It was, it was gash the defense. I mean, he's an absolute monster of a player. I have faith in Jordan Howard that last year was not a fluke. We're not going to see an absolute monster bust. I'm not calling for second in the league in rushing.

again, but I think that he is an excellent player, and he's worth that price that you're going to have to pay either a late first or a high second round pick. Yeah, I have a hard time right now paying the price. I agree with everything you said on principle. I don't think he's going to bus. He's not going to just go away and vanish. He's too good of a running back, and they've got a good enough offensive line. It's like the only thing the Bears have is Jordan Howard in an offensive line. The worry that I have is obviously with...

with touchdowns and scoring, it's just back into the first round. What's the upside? You know, can he really do enough to be a top five guy in that offense? And then he's not good at catching the ball. We've joked about it. We've watched the film. He's not. He's, you know, he's not going to. But they keep throwing it to him. Yeah, they're not going to because, look, they went out. And I mean, they, who did they get? They went out and got Benny Cunningham. And they drafted Tariq Cohen, just a few picks after the, you know, Somage P. Rine.

And what are those two guys? They're past catching backs. So my worry is if he loses a little bit of that volume and it's a low-scoring team, I like him. I think he's locked and loaded RB2. He's not going to be lower than an RB2 for sure, which there's a place for that. But that place, to me, is not the first round. He's at 203 right now. Okay. Maybe getting a little more comfortable. But I'm going to put you on the spot with that because you're going to have to take him over Marshall and Lynch, Todd Gurley, Leonard Furnett, Lamar Miller, and Isaiah Crowell.

Yeah, I mean, do you take them over all five of those players? Do I take, wait, are you? Jordan Howard over Marshaun Lynch, Todd Gurley, Leonard Fournette, Lamar Miller, Isaiah Crowell. No, I don't take, I think Lamar Miller to me. You would take them over Jordan Howard. Lamar Miller and Jordan Howard and Todd Gurley and Marshaun Lynch, all of those guys are in the exact same tier to me. So you'd maybe take the lowest.

Of that tip, depending on whoever's dropping. The reality is it completely depends on what your draft pick is. When you're in the first two rounds, it's really kind of out of your hands. You don't get to wait for value. I'd take Howard over all of those other guys because I have him in my personal tears.

Yeah, I would too. Above those others. I would too. I wanted to ask Jason for sure, though, with Lamar Miller and the possible upside there. Last question on the Bears, if there's a fantasy player that's going to surprise you from this roster out of nowhere, it's going to be. Dion Sims. Good call. Dion Sims, tight in. Zach Miller could not make the team. I feel very strongly about Dion Sims. You do. And I'm not even argued with you because of how I can tell. I mean, you have conviction with this. He's a great player, athletic monster. We saw.

kind of a mini breakout for him at the end of the season last year with the Dolphins. Now, they let him go, but the Bears scooped him up because Zach Miller is their lead guy. The injury history of Zach Miller is well documented. Now the rumors are he may not even make the team. It could be a cap casualty situation for Zach Miller. And that makes Dion Sims the starting quarterback or starting tight end for.

a quarterback who throws to the tight end in Mike Glennon. Adam Shaheen is a rookie. I think Adam Shaheen has a bright future in the NFL, but he's a rookie tight end. I'm not worried about him in the least. This is Sims job. He's not being drafted, and he's a guy who I've started to look at the very back of my basketball drafts if I'm not liking what's going on. We've talked about Safarian Jenkins as a last round tight end pick. If someone grabs Jenkins, I've grabbed Sims.