Fantasy Football look at Offseason Coaching Changes, Fantasy Risers, and Draft Tools

like the real stats of a player. And their overall wide receiver ratings of every guy is just not stats, but just how they performed. He was number seven on the year. The seventh best rated wide receiver. A compilation of things like catch percentage and some of those metrics of making the most of the time that you've got out there. Yeah, I like it. Jordan Matthews is a great pick. And we are seeing a lot more. It used to be that third year, wide receiver thing. We're seeing a lot more guys to jump up in second year.

Unfortunately, I'm counting on a guy that I need to jump up in his fourth year, and that's Michael Floyd. Yes, Michael Floyd, Carson Palmer's favorite target that pretty much he regressed. He regressed last year due to the historically terrible quarterback play, and that's not an understatement of the Arizona Cardinals offense. He went from a year in which he had 112 targets over 1,000 yards.

65 receptions two years ago to a regression of only 47 catches last year, 840 yards. He did have six touchdowns. So I look at Floyd to ascend with good quarterback play this year. Again, it's a target issue for him. It's a total catch issue for him. But I think we all saw in the beginning of the year when Carson Palmer is there, the combination of Palmer and Ariens equals deep threat.

I like John Brown, but I don't think he's, he's not starting on the outside. Michael Floyd will be on the other side. Yeah, we'll get there. But yeah, he was only, Michael Floyd was 34th last year. That was well below expectations for fantasy and standard leagues. And way higher than I thought. So I think, oh, higher than you. Well, just looking backwards, yeah. It was hard to watch that offense and obviously the way it ended. But I think Floyd, you're talking about getting him back into the wide.

Wide Receiver 2, very middle-range wide receiver 2 conversation. What I really like about Floyd, because I'm all about that value, people will be terrified of Michael Floyd after what happened where he was coming in with, where it was the Fitzgerald or Floyd conversation last year, and I think the needle really swung. Yeah, where's Fitzgerald's gone? That only means good things for Floyd. Does it?

Yeah, I don't know. I think draft position, it's going to mean good things to less smart drafters. And so they're going to, I think his stock will rise too much if Larry goes. I think if Larry's back. Well, that's another issue, though. Stock versus performance. I think performance is helped by, you take away a guy's, I would say that Fitzgerald is a safety net for a lot of these. So you have to start to transition Floyd or a tight end, possibly, into that role in Arizona. I agree there.

Speaking of tight ends, let's move on to the last section here in our upcoming. And this will probably be the last segment of the show today. We're going to talk about tight ends we think can make the jump. And this is one of the hardest areas because every single year, tight ins make a jump. But they're not necessarily who you expect. And it's a limited position. And it's a position that is...

being drafted to be in these wide receiver type spread offenses, two tight-in sets. Who are these guys that you think next year could possibly... They're not Jimmy Graham. They're not Rob Grankowski. Who are they? Well, coming... So we wrote these picks up a couple weeks ago, and I was feeling really, really good about my pick. I took... Are you backing off right now? No, no, no. I'm not... Do you need a pause for the next show? I just... To be continued.

But I went with Luke Wilson from Seattle. Reach. Then the Super Bowl happened, and I suddenly wasn't feeling so strong about that pick. But I'm going to stick with it. That's just one game. But Luke Wilson is a guy who is, he has the talent, he has the skills. He's had a bit of the injury problem as well. So if you're not on the field, you can't produce. But he has shown.

In at least several spots that if Wilson trusts him to get the ball, he's going to get it. He's going to bring it down. He's got the speed to hit a home run. He runs solid routes. He's got pretty good hands. For him, it's more just a question of what is the identity of Seattle next year. And that's what comes down to it for me. I mean, I've liked what I've seen in the limited production, but I don't expect it to change from being limited production.

I think that the Super Bowl showed you that they can pass the ball seven times and a half. I just don't want that from an upside tight end personally. Yeah. Jason? Yeah, if you want an upside tight end, let me tell you who it's going to be. It's going to be Travis Kelsey. I like both of your picks here. Travis Kelsey is, oh, my backup pick. Jordan Reed was my backup pick. Only because in the preseason we assume health.

That makes it really easy. Yeah, yeah. But Travis Kelsey is a physical freak. And last year was really his rookie year because he was injured his entire rookie year. So it was the first time you got to see him. And when I watched the beginning of the year, I was really, because I was a Jamal Charles owner in my leagues. And so I watched the Chief Games. Travis Kelsey is not only utilized well, but he...

breaks tackles. He makes, he looks like one of those top tight ends that are a game changer that separate your fantasy roster from other people's fantasy rosters. And the second half of this last year, nobody in the entire league played a worst schedule for tight ends. He played every single great tight end defense. And we see, especially for those of us that stream tight ends, tight end defenses matter. Like for instance, if you are playing against Arizona.

play that tight end because they don't know how to guard the position. But he played nonstop teams that guard tight ends. And I think this, I see him as my fourth highest tight end. That's what I was going to ask you, because he finished eighth last year, despite ups and downs and maybe the Fasano problem. If Julius Thomas goes elsewhere, he's my third. And he's the end of a tier for me. I see him as top tier. So you have Grunkowski, you've got Graham, and you have Bennett?

Ahead of him? No. No. He's ahead of everybody. It goes... Oh, okay. And he said Thomas would be third. Yeah. Thomas would be third if he's with... So ahead of Olson, head of Gates. Yeah, ahead of everybody. Okay. That's a good... That answers my question. Where are you drafting him? Let's say you're in a redraft and everything is going smoothly for your team.

Where are you taking them? This is the sad thing about how I draft tight ends. I probably won't be able to draft him because I do see a significant drop off between Gronk and Graham and then the rest of the field. I would take a top pick on Gronk and Graham, and then if I don't get one of those two guys, then I'm probably going to be drafting my tight end. I'll look at who's serviceable, and I will be grabbing him super late. But, you know, if the average draft position of...

of Kelsey is low. I expect by the time the year rolls around, he's going to be up in the higher rounds. But if he's available, you know, in the sixth round, which I don't think he will be, I'll definitely take him. What about fifth round? Fifth round's the question mark round. I guess it would depend on my roster. That's the over under is the five. Yeah. Five is the over under. Charles Kelsey's a great pick.

My pick, I'm going with Zach Ertz, which is jumping on the offensive bandwagon in Philadelphia. Earth is a supremely talented pass catcher. He accounted for about 71% of the fantasy tight-in points last year for Philadelphia, and I think they're just going to lean on him more. He had some injury problems last year. He had some drop problems last year, and he had kind of an up-and-down season. But again, when you come into the tight-in position,

He finished 14th last year. That's a non-starting tight-in in any league that starts just one tight-in. So I think you're talking about bringing him up above the Jason Wittins, above the Heath Millers, the Delaney Walker's, Kobe Fleaners, probably in the Martellis Bennett category is what I'm talking about here. So top four, five, six, tight-in. Yeah, he had the fourth best catch rate of all tight-ins. Yeah, and he's, again, we don't know a little bit about that tight-in situation.

But he's a move tight end, and that's a move offense. Yeah, I agree it's a move offense. They do, however, really like to lean on the blocking of CELIC. Yep. And as long as Cellic is there, the upside, you see the upside. Yeah. I think one of the reasons they had to lean on that so much, though, was because their offensive line got decimated, and they had to work that end to help Lashon McCoy. I think that if their offensive line is healthy, which.

Clearly, by this point, we know we assume help. That maybe they can actually utilize Earth's better. All right. Well, that is our... Before we finish up, just a baffling thing that I'm looking at here, because we're talking about tight ends. Dwayne Allen, who I think we all like him. It's all right? Like him a lot better if Cope Fleener was going. Yeah, yeah. And I know he got hurt, but how many yards do you think Dwayne Allen had?

I just looked it up and that's... Without looking, I'd say, 600. 395. I thought... Wow. Wow. But he had eight touchdowns. That's why he was so fantasy. He never had a single game with more than four catches. Yuck. That is crazy. Yeah. So, and I think the Fleener thing is troubles them there. I mean, I could count on two hands how many receiver options they have right now. And then you signed John Carter. You...

probably get a running back in there that's a past catcher that's, or at least viable if Bradshaw's back for some reason. It's tough to spread that around. I didn't mention the Colts are one of my Adrian Peterson landing places. Oh my gosh. That'd be dandy for them. Just saying, there's a lot of, there's quite a handful of teams that are ready to win who would love Adrian Peterson like I do. Yes, yes. It will be a fun year. It's amazing. We were just looking this up. The scouting combine is in February.

This is 17th to the 23rd. That's this month. We will be talking about rookies and we'll probably be having some shows looking at possible landing spots for rookies, possible upside of when these guys land someplace, what can they do? We've seen guys come in, Chris Johnson comes to mind. I watched in the Combine and watched his college tape and said, okay, wherever this guy lands, he's going to make an impact.

It's hard to predict those things. Obviously, we're going to come up to the draft. We'll be talking through some more predictions for next year. Next week, I think we're going to be dealing with some of the possible free agents where they're going to go is so nice to get a heads up idea of before they land. Think about what would be good for a guy, what would be bad for a guy, because then we're not being so reactionary as to where they actually land. As the shoes begin to drop, too, you're going to see fantasy impact across those teams. So it should be a good...

Barely off season. There's no off season. Again, if you want to follow us, we ask you check us out on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast. When you do that, our beautiful podcast gets magically delivered to your pocket, to your computer. Yeah, delicious, right? They may have noticed something even more delicious about our podcast with our new logo. That's right. We are new studio, new logo, new equipment.

New analyst, Jason Moore, joining us. He looks as good in person as he does on the radio. Made for radio. And we are going to be back here next week. So check us out on the website. You can also visit our main website, the fantasy footballers.com, which will be updating very frequently in the coming year. You can check out anything from The Hitman.

The fantasy hitman, Mike Wright, writes for Fantasypros.com. He's one of their lead... Correspondent writers. He handles news updates as well as a bunch of upcoming articles, articles analyzing players. So you definitely want to read his stuff. He has a big beard, so he knows what he's talking about. All right, that's it for us. Have a good week, everyone. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another edition.

of the fantasy footballers podcast. Football is officially going down under. Division rivals, Rams, and 49ers will be facing off in Melbourne for the NFL's first ever regular season game in Australia. And it's all happening live on Netflix. Netflix is expanding its NFL coverage in 2026.

from week one to the first ever Thanksgiving Eve matchup and two Christmas Day games. Watch week one of the NFL on Netflix, the Los Angeles Rams versus the San Francisco 49ers, live on Netflix, Thursday, September 10th at 835 p.m. Eastern, 535 p.m. Pacific.