Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - 15 Gems for the 2015 Fantasy Season, News & Notes, Mailbag

I was waiting for the two. Oh, yeah, do it for me. Oh, I, pooh, thank you. I have been very cautious of girly. It's less girly, though. It's more like you've been pro-Mason because of since the beginning. Yeah, but that's just a combination of the two where I thought Mason was decent last year, and you're talking about a top 10 running back who's coming off of ACL surgery. They're not going to just throw him out there. He's a featureback for the future.

In some other news out of the Bay Area, there's been some reports that the 49ers are expected to replace Gore with more than one in person, which, you know, we've said that all offseason. I'm a big Reggie Bush guy. He's, I don't know how my rankings right in front of me, which is silly right now, but he's like in my top, he's an RB2 for me in PPR leagues. Really? Reggie Bush is. So this only goes to show that I think Kendall Hunter is going to be involved way, way, way more than people think.

Yeah, right now, people think it's zero. Yeah, they think Hyde, Bush, and it's not. Kendall Hunter will be back. Don't forget that of all the Hunter hype of taking Gore's spot, I mean, that was a few years ago. Oh, right. Yeah, people were all drafting him very early because they thought Gore was done and Kendall Hunter was going to take the job. Yeah, I have Bush at 17 right now. My goodness. In PPR? In PPR. I have him. Yeah, you had him really low, Mike. I have him at 39 right now.

That is what we call a gap. There are a number of players starting in the active and active pup list. Notables include Jermaine Gresham, who we talked about last week. Joyke Bell. Devante Parker. Oh, that's ringing the bell. Yep. So Devonte Parker's on the active pup. We talked about him last week as well. I want to take a last second here and give some props a slow clap.

Yes, very much so. To Eric Barry. Yeah. Amazing news. Coming back from Hodgkin's lymphoma, he has been cleared to practice with the Chiefs. He is a stand-up guy, a multi-year pro bowler, and honestly, it brings back memories of, I don't know if either of you guys even remember him, but Mario Lemieux. Lemieux.

He played for the Pittsburgh Penguins. I thought you were going to ask if I remember. He was one of my favorite players growing up, and he missed 94-95 season with Hodgkin's lymphoma. And when he came back, he won a heart trophy. He was great. And I mean, just an amazing thing to overcome and a really good guy. Very cool. I thought you were going to ask if I remember Mario Lopez. You kind of looked like him in the Hawaii picture. Yeah. Do you know how hard it is to cut that much muscle and weight in like three days?

To shrink back to regular body size. Yeah, that's pretty tough. A reminder to everybody out there to check out fantasy draftwizard.com for all your mock draft draft. We're going to be doing several more mock draft episodes during the month of August getting you primed for your fantasy football draft. So check out fantasy draft wizard.com. It's free. You go on there. You plug in your league settings. You choose PPR. Choose standard. Draft against the experts. It's easy.

You guys want to get to the main event? Let's do it. All right, we're going to do this right now. Dig deeper, y'all. Let's go! I love it. I love it.

All right. That's somewhat impersonating Shanty. So we're going to go through here. We're going to take turns. We're going to be dropping 15 fantasy gyms for 2015. These are, how would you define them? They are... Stats that we've dug deep for. We've done a lot of research in. And things that we think make a difference and are very interesting and need to be known. That's exactly right. I think these all kind of congeal into a very good mental mix to have into your brain when you go into the draft. So...

Jason, you get to kick us off at number 15. Yeah, well, this is such a great kickoff because we're just talking about Buck Allen. And all for listeners who might not know Buck Allen and you're searching for him in a draft, he is also Javorious Allen. I don't know what I'm saying that. That's a good point. But he probably won't show up as Buck. That's his nickname. But anyways, the first tip is Tressman running backs. Is it real or not?

Because you hear about Mark Trespin, who is now the offensive coordinator there in Baltimore, and you hear about, well, he's really good at getting the ball to the running backs. And is that real or not? Because we hear a lot of things from a lot of people that when you actually look it up, you go, well, that's not really true. Someone said that. And then it just kept snowballing. So I went back and I looked. Mark Tresman has been a head coach or offensive coordinator.

10 different years in the NFL. That is a wonderful sample size to work with. And I went back and looked at every single, every single season, added up every single pass to the running back position, and he's been on multiple teams. He was on the Niners, the Cardinals, I think Oakland, obviously last year, the Bears. So we're talking about tons of different wide receiver running backs, tons of different systems, head coach offensive corner. Here's what I found. Ready? Over the last 10 seasons?

over 1,050 receptions to the running back position in 10 years. That means every single year he's averaging over 100 receptions to running backs. That's ludicrous. I mean, last year, Matt Forte got 102. And so when I went back and looked, I mean, you have...

star, star years, 102, 72, 75, 91. And that's just for one player. The year when he got, I mean, it's just, it was nuts writing these numbers out and seeing how many passes go to the running back. So I think this speaks huge for Justin Fawcett. Justin Fawcett is a wonderful pass catching back. Is the perfect.

prototypical player for Tressman's system. The only thing you worry about is injury. That's why handcuff him with Givorius Buck Allen, and I think he's going to be gold. He is actually on my rankings, and I believe yours, Andy, as well, in PPR, numero four. He is four on both of our PPR lists, and it's a great point for those afraid of four set losing touchdowns. He might, but this is touchdown insurance. When you have high volume pass catching, just go ask.

Matt Forte. Yeah, he's going to get 70. Mark Forte didn't put up good yards per carry. He didn't score a lot of touchdowns, but what he did was he caught 100 passes. Yeah, if you say he's going to catch 70 balls, which is conservative and very realistic. That's huge. All right, let me bring you to number 14. This one's mine, and it is watch out for Carson Palmer. Are you sure this is not mine? Well, you know what? We are on the same show.

Carson Palmer's passer rating in his five healthy games last season was 108, 93, 103, 904. His touchdowns in each of those games were 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, and 3, and he completed over 63% of his passes last year. Yeah, his numbers were good enough to be a top 5 quarterback in fantasy during those games.

And here's what he's got coming into the season. He's got John Brown a year older, an up-and-coming wide receiver. He's got Ellington back and Healthy. Fitzgerald has re-signed, and he is back. David Johnson was drafted. The offensive line was improved, and Jermaine Gresham has been brought in. Sounds pretty good. They have solidified that offense and Bruce Ariens is still running it, and I love Carson Palmer this year because he's being drafted outside the top 15 at the quarterback position. Mike, what do you think about that? I have been...

Singing the praises of Carson Palmer all this entire offseason. If you go back and you look since the bye week of Carson Palmer's first year in Arizona, he has been a beast, a beast of a quarterback. There are so many people who ride us and say, if I wait on a quarterback, who do I stream? Carson Palmer's in every list. Ryan Tannehill, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning as later targets for that position. So watch out for Carson Palmer.

Yeah, I agree. I love Carson. My first little gem here. Number 13. Number 13. Got to count it down, Mike. This is a countdown. I apologize. Number 13, I can't take him off the field. Is that a question? Yeah. I'm Ron Burgundy. And so this is just a quick little stat for Buffalo because we've heard.

Non-stop news about Shady McCoy. He will be on the field 105% of the time. He's going to take every snap. He's going to catch every ball. Sometimes he'll play two positions. That's how much he's going to be on the field. He'll be everywhere. Last year, Fred Jackson, the best hands of a running back for catching passes, of 68 catchable passes, he only dropped two. LaShawn McCoy last year of 32 catchable passes dropped three. Now, I'm not saying three is an extreme number.

But three of 32 is not anywhere close to as good as two drops for 68. What's kind of funny about that to me and having watched Fred Jackson over the past few years is they can't take him off the field has generally applied to Fred Jackson. Exactly. Because he has been so solid as a third down running back. I'm just, it'd be amazing if for like a third straight year he's underdrafted.

by that much. We had a show a while back where we were talking about specific players who year after year after year were underdrafted despite being underdrafted the year before and crushed their ADP and Fred Jackson's done it pretty much every year. He was also just cut. They just cut. I'm just kidding. And what I'm saying with this is not I think Fred Jackson is a running back too. I'm just saying I don't think Lashon McCoy's volume will be as high and I think Fred Jackson will be involved.

Very interesting. It's hard to take them off the field. Well, at number 12 comes a royal relationship. And that is a relationship of best friends. A relationship of friends between Eddie Royal and Jay Cutler. Best of Bud's best of friends.

Sorry, Matt Stafford under the bleachers with Jay Cutler. It is now... Eddie Royal? Yeah, it is now Eddie Royal. So here's the deal with Eddie Royal. Eddie Royal's not a sexy name. He's going really, really late in drafts. Especially when you spell it EDDY like you did. It's radio or YouTube. You can't see my spelling. It's not very sexy spelled that way. No, no, it's not. So anyways, his rookie year, Eddie Royal comes into the league with the Broncos, and as a rookie,

catches 91 receptions from Jay Cutler. And if Jay Cutler is known for anything, it is for locking on to his guy and going to him over and over. And keep in mind, when he caught the 91 receptions as a rookie, he was behind a number one. He was a perfect number two target. He's behind who? Brandon Marshall, who he's replacing. Did you know that Jay Cutler is the one who got Eddie Royal to come to the Bears?

He went and solicited Eddie Royal to come and play with him. He wants to lock on to Eddie Royal. Kevin White, great player. It's foolish. It's foolishness not to have him be the number two there. But John Fox does not put rookie wide receivers on the field. I just, I don't think it's going to happen. So I think Eddie Royal. Yeah, that's true. Active. So I think he's been a pretty good wide receiver. He's got 15 touchdowns the last two years. So that's.

Pretty darn good. So I think Eddie Royal is a value there because of the relationship between Cumber and Royal. That is a sleeper alert for those listening out there. Eddie Royal. E. D-D-D-I-E, Jason. E-D-D-I-E. All right. Hey, number 11, I'm super excited about this. Mr. Smith goes too late. He goes too late. Despite, listen to this. This is a little Alex Smith, Jeremy Maclin, action for you. Despite a massive.

140 targets in 2014, no one had a higher catch percentage in football than Jeremy Maclin. He registered one drop on 86 catchable passes. Pretty good. However, Nick Foles and Sanchez, the guy's throwing him in the ball, combined to finish 30th in the NFL in total accuracy percentage at the position. Now he heads to Kansas City where, amazingly, Alex Smith ranked number two in the league in accuracy percentage, according to Pro Football Focus last year. Smith's receivers had the third highest drop percentage in all of football last year.

And now he picks up Macklin, who doesn't drop passes? And so for me, this speaks more.