Fantasy Football 2017 - Big Trades, Rising Stars, Rookie Recap + Pre. Wk 1

Yeah, they basically picked up an extra two and a three in these transactions to kind of take what I would view as instant downgrades at the positions, right? You downgrade from Watkins to Matthews, and we'll talk more about Matthews because he had an injury this weekend. And then you downgrade it at corner, picking up the corner from the Rams. It shows that the bills are not saying that they are in a mode right now to compete. I mean, these are moves that just say where they're GM. They're seeing what the Jets are doing. It's a good luck move for Tyrod Taylor.

It's good luck this year. Let's talk about the fantasy implications here. Sammy Watkins in a contract year traded to probably the worst destination you could have imagined. I don't know if I could pick another place for him to go where you would be less excited to see Sammy Watkins talent. At least you knew with Taylor when Watkins was on the field, they had a rapport. It was built in. Taylor could throw the deep ball.

Great at the scrambling. I mean, a lot of those, a lot of those plays came while Tyrod would scramble around, find Sammy open down the field. It'd be great. You're not going to be seeing that same, you know, type of playing from Jared Goff. Now, Jared Goff. He gets an upgrade. Yes, absolutely he does. From 31 to 28. That's what I moved him up. From 31 to 28. That sounds appropriate. I mean, he's going from having to.

try to fake like Tavon Austin can be a number one wide receiver to having a true legitimate I mean last episode we talked all about Sammy Watkins I was super high on Sammy I've moved Sammy down considerably he's in my he went from being basically a the wide the wide receiver 12 all the way down into my 20s yep

He went from 16 to 26 or something for me. He dropped for me as well. His talent is still capable of, you know, the upside I don't think is completely removed, but there are so many more variables now while you're drafting. He's going to a brand new team. He has to learn an offense. He has no rapport with the quarterback.

As of today, maybe not three years from now, but today, Jared Goff is a worst quarterback than Tyrod Taylor. This is a quarterback downgrade for him, and he is no longer in a position where he's pretty much alone. I mean, I know you've got, you know, the aging, ageless.

Anquan Bolden along with a rookie Zay Jones in Buffalo, but it was the Sammy Watkins show. Now he comes over where you've still got a new, you know, slot rookie in Cooper Cup. You have Tavon Austin, although he's not healthy right now. He's still involved. They signed Robert Woods. It's so funny that Robert Woods and Sammy Woods is cursing the name of Sammy Watkins. I wanted to be the one Sammy. It's a downgrade for me because.

What Sammy does best, or what he has shown, he did best in Buffalo was the deep pass. And Jared Goff would have to improve tremendously in the Rams offense. And now, granted, Kenny Britt was able to be a thousand-yard receiver. So it's not. Britt, just for the record.

68, 1,000, 5, that was good enough for 30th. Right. With off. Just for the way, that's 30th and wide receivers. It's not an RAP sentence for Sammy Watkins' fantasy value, but he gets a downgrade for sure. Could be great. It's just basically makes the risk and the unknown so high that you've got to factor that in while you draft. His ADP will be very interesting. It'll plummet. If you have, Robert Woods' ADP is gone. I mean, like if he was being drafted in the end, I liked him in the end, it's over. Because, I mean, Cooper Cup looks good.

Robert Woods will be a bit part player there, and I can officially take him out of my maybe he'll be something range. It helps golf. It probably helps the running game in the sense that, look, having more outside threats, having a number one receiver. It can't hurt that situation, although they didn't look like they could run the ball this weekend. Let's talk about the other side of this train. Buffalo goes, they pick up Jordan Matthews. Now, Jordan Matthews.

suffered a chip fracture in his first practice 15 minutes in with the Buffalo Bills is considered week to week. I think this means that Sammy Watkins should be healthy. Apparently it was the role in Buffalo is the number one wide receiver that causes injuries. So Tyrod Taylor, let's talk about if you had high hopes for Tyrod Taylor, where are they now? They're in the exact same spot.

for me. If you look at what he has done for fantasy purposes, yes, his passing production goes down. I mean, shocker, it goes down when Sammy Watkins is not there. However, that's when he activates his ultimate fantasy cheats, and he runs the ball more. So his actual fantasy output stays relatively the same. I was very excited for Jordan Matthews. The team...

gave up a lot, in my opinion, with Darby and the third round pick to get Matthews. And Matthews would have projected as the number one wide receiver in the offense. But now he'll be out what, you know, it's a bone chip. So you're talking four to six weeks for it to heal up, pain tolerance. Does he wear a flack jacket when he's out there? And now he doesn't get to practice and learn the system. The season will be going by the time he is fully healthy. So it's Zay Jones.

becomes moderately interesting in a PPR situation. And I think this is Anquam Bolden once again is going to catch like seven touchdowns just de facto. What about Charles Clay? If his knees can hold up. I mean, if you look at Taylor, Taylor has no consistency at the wide receiver position anymore. Robert Woodman. Goodwin's gone, Woods gone, Watkins gone. Rookie and Jones.

brand new free agent pickup in Bolden. Charles Clay is the only piece of that offense has been there for a long time, along with LaShawn McCoy. And some have talked about LaShawn McCoy being the receiving leader on this team. Yeah, Shady is going to be just absolutely dominant for fantasy purposes. He'll be getting pretend hurt eight times a game. I will say this. You know, there's, uh, there are a lot of fantasy players, um, who believe in, you know,

How do the vibes of a team feel, you know, the good vibes, bad vibes? Right now in Buffalo, I don't think things are going well. I'm just saying like the trend for the team. Were you speaking as?

like representative of the last decade? Was that, were you speaking as the last 10 years? Coming into this season, I mean, I feel like three months ago there was hope for a healthy Sammy and things started looking good. But the fact that they've traded away some of their better defensive players to take a downgrade, Jonathan Williams got hurt, Sammy Watkins was gone. Now Jordan Matthews is hurt. It just feels like an offense right now where, of course, I want.

I want shady. I think Jordan Matthews could be a good late round guy now who might miss week one. That may make him a value now. Right. It's just one of those situations where things aren't looking rosy. And if you want to avoid those situations, that might be a team that you look, you know, elsewhere at the wide receiver position at least. I think that offense would be in a ton of trouble if McCoy gets hurt. I don't know how they move the ball at all.

Well, Jonathan Williams luckily looked good in his limited time. But you are right. If Shady goes down, that offense is going to be in trouble. All right. Let's talk about the suspension a little bit further. Ezekiel Elliott. Let's give the lay of the land. What is the situation right now for Zeke? Reports this weekend. Talked about appeal. What are you expecting, Mike? Yeah, so what we know right now is a six-game suspension.

Ezekiel Elliott has said that he will appeal. It's about to get nasty if he moves forward with the appeal. It then was also reported the NFL. Still, they are looking into other incidents and that we're not talking about the bar brawl because the NFL has said they were closing that, but there are still other incidents that Ezekiel Elliott could face punishment for, I don't know that I expect.

More games to be tacked on, but I don't expect a situation where Elliott appeals and then you get like a Big Ben Rothless Burger. Well, okay, we'll take a couple games off of it. I think it's going to be a hard cap at six games. And on top of that, Zeke has been warned that if he violates the player policy again in a way that the NFL deems is egregious, Elliot could just be full on banned.

from the NFL. So Zeke has been put on notice that playing in the NFL is a, it's not a right, but a privilege. Yeah, you, you know, we talked about the hypothetical suspension levels that he would receive. And you've seen a pattern of behavior in Zeke. And I'm not going to take, you know, I'm not going to get on a high horse for everything here. We've talked about all the challenges that a rookie that a young man faces when he's handed millions of dollars.

You got to be better. But look, you cannot do what you've done. And in my opinion, it is a very bad sign that he wasn't willing to take it on the chin and move on. That's the hope I had. I had the hope that maybe he'd get a four game. He'd take it on the chin. He'd learn from it. Jason Witton's come out and said that already. You know, you don't put your hand on a woman. You don't do this. Whatever the case may be, it seems like he's at least being.

surrounded by some people that are enabling an entitlement attitude here. Jerry Jones. Yeah, and maybe it's Jerry Jones, but maybe it's other players too. Someone needs to come along, as a person, I want to see someone come alongside him and turn this around because, look, fantasy-wise, you lose a player like that in fantasy, it sucks. But this is a person here, and the stuff that's gone on.

where there's smoke, there's fire. I'm not going to make conclusions about every little detail. But I was hoping he would be willing to accept that and show the NFL, show his fans. As far as I'm concerned, he's hurting the brand as well because he's saying to himself, you know, he's putting himself out there to be exposed on TMZ or exposed for this and that. Like I said, it can get nasty. Fighting and fighting and fighting instead of saying, you know what? Done nothing wrong. How about I'm sorry? How about, look, I've made mistakes.

I'm going to take it on the chin. I'm going to turn my life around, and I'm going to be out on that field for the next 10 years. Because he could do that. Right. Or you can go the other way. Moving to fantasy football. Yeah. It's all part of the game. In fact, actually, it was funny is I went on a podcast last week, and they asked me that question. They said, do you ever just not draft players on moral grounds? I mean, they weren't making a judgment. They weren't just saying like,

You know, I wouldn't or I would. And I said, you know, it's hard. We distance ourselves from the player a lot of the time. Sometimes we get heat because we're joking about a player being hurt. Just because we see stat lines and we see the name on the baseball card, so to speak. And we don't see between the lines. But, hey, if you don't want to do that, that's your prerogative in your league. All right. Injury updates. Jay Jai. Yet to receive medical clearance, Mike. What's a story with Jhajai? Well, he was, it was, it came out that.

Perhaps he is out of the concussion protocol. People were, I think, reading into what Adam Gase had said. But it is now come out that he is still yet to receive medical clearance for the concussion. And he could be joined now by Kenyon Drake, who left today's practice with a possible head injury. Oh, man. So prepare for Damien Williams. Let me tell you what my notes say on Damien Williams from this preseason because I had plenty of notes on Damien Williams. It was.

He is so involved and will clearly be the guy and he should not be. They love him apparently. So bad. He's not good. And if he gets, you know, we always say like, you know, Opportunity is King. If he gets 20 carries, you, you can probably start him, but you are going to be unhappy the entire time. He's going to Kenneth Farrow you. Yeah. But you want to know what you will be happy with before we continue on to more sad news of.

like DeVant Freeman, but the draft day app, the draft day app, we've had a lot of people saying this is what they've been waiting for forever. They've already got the ultimate draft kit. They've been doing their research. They just wish there was a way that they could track, you know, who's been drafted? You know, check guys off a list, maybe resort our rankings. Well, draft day app has taken our rankings.