Fantasy Football 2017 - Ballers LIVE! - Bold Predictions + Fantasy Stories

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Not all shows are made equal. We got a special one today. Jason almost wins shirtless. Wait, that night is young. You look like you took your top off. That was scary. We are a Disney show. You don't do that here. Welcome in to the podcast. Ballers live from the Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix. We have a great show. We have a great audience. A great audience. This is insane.

insane what is happening right now we have said forever and we really have meant it that we have the best not not just the biggest but the best listeners in the entire industry and and and meeting some people today and just seeing the kind awesome

great people that you are, it has been scientifically confirmed. Yes, yes. We have the best listeners. We do. Thank you. We learned that in Toronto, too. People came to Toronto to listen to the show. I just wasn't sure if that was like, oh, all Canadians are nice, and so they're... That's part of it. But these are Americans being nice. Yeah, that's... So it's extra special. It's a crazy world. That's different. All right, hey, quick question of the day. I thought this was perfect for the episode today. What is your favorite?

Fantasy football story. Memories. So many memories. There are a lot of them. I'll jump in here. Because fantasy is special. Fantasy does something to people. There's a warning that this story contains a heart murmur. It has a happy ending. It's happy for some. You just want people to not jump down your throat on this one. But my second year in our league of record, I was facing off mono-e-mono.

against my nemesis, my soon-to-be nemesis. We met three times in a row in the championship game. This was the first time, and I was up against a strong team. Arian Foster, yeah, my baby. He felt a little weak in the chest. My lover. He had to take some time off, so he missed the entire game, which... Yeah, you're celebrating his heart murmur right now. I'm celebrating his life that he was fine afterwards.

And he just, he did the right thing. He looked, he looked inside his soul and said, this is not worth it. Andy's fantasy team is not worth me risking my heart. You know how we get emails every once in a while from people who don't think we take people's actual problems seriously? Aaron Foster's okay. Yeah. So that's your favorite fantasy story. It's a heart murmur. I won a championship. Because you won. Okay.

That's a good one. All right. So my story that comes to mind actually had an effect on last night. Okay, so we had our League of Record draft last night. And what we do in our League of Record for whoever gets last place is every other owner gets to wheel of water them.

And they have to draft soaking wet. It's great. Oh, it was great. Last night. I mean, not for them, but it's great for us. The last place owner and his co-owner both had to get watered so many times, and the finale was horrific for them. Just the slow pour of ice water on their head that lasted 20 to 50 minutes. Minimum. Minimum. But it all came down to last season watching Matt Forte.

Okay, this is at the end of the year. Regular season is about to be done. And Matt Forte needs a pretty decent game. And this is against the Colts. It's Monday night football. Everyone in our league is watching just to see if Matt Forte... No one else in the NFL is watching, though. Right. Because it's a trash game that no one cares about. This is fantasy football. Yeah, nobody in the real world cared about this game. And we're watching. And Matt Forte, he...

exploded. He had this 40-yard reception, had this great first half, but they're getting blown out. And in the second half, all Matt Forte needed was like, I don't know, to touch the ball once or twice. In the whole half. And he disappears from the game, and the owners are freaking out. Like, where's Matt Forte? And then he comes back in, in the third quarter, and gets the ball pass to him incomplete.

and disappears again for the rest of the quarter. But lo and behold, fourth quarter comes around, and he gets another carry for like seven yards that brings him to where all he needs is like one more yard, never happened. And so they lost, they got last place, and they got super wet last night. Yeah, it was wonderful. My story, look, Jason and I go back a long ways. And I personally love...

seeing your demise i mean this is we take pleasure in defeating one another and my my story goes back to yeah this is this is uh this goes back if you know that's that's what the story is about uh jason held on to joick bell this was 2013 this was the big paid manning year the 55 touchdown i had him you know and um so what so what who cares um so jason and i jason has joick bell

I was in need of a bit of a running back upgrade heading into the playoffs. And basically, Jason, look, roster moves. I held onto him all year because of his playoff schedule. I knew he was going to be great in the playoffs. Yeah, you were right. And so I picked him up. I had to drop him. You dropped him. I picked him up. And then it just so happened that our families were going to Disneyland. And right when the playoffs were going on. And so we're in downtown Disney. And Jason and I, the kindness of our wives, they let us run off to watch our –

playoff fantasy football game. And we go to the ESPN zone, and we're sitting there, and right before his very eyes, Joick Bell. Crushes my dreams. One slow, methodical step at a time, something like 23 carries a touchdown, another six receptions, and you go down in flames, and then Joick wins the championship for me. Yeah, it sucks. How long did that take to get over? I have not yet got over, so we're going on about three years right now. All right, so, hey, today's show.

Those are our stories. There'll be more, I'm sure. Today's show, we've got bold predictions for the 2017 season. It's going to get hot. It's going to get hot. I think I've looked at maybe one of your six that you're going to break out. So these will be a surprise to me, especially whatever secret one you've got stored, Jason. One bit of news. I had to say this. The Hurricane Irma thing going on in Florida might move the Dolphins game to Thursday or Friday. Is that what you're hearing?

That is what I am hearing. It's up in the air still. Nothing's decided yet. So pay attention for roster moves and things like that. All right, without further ado, let's get bold. Ridiculously bold predictions for 2017. It sounds so good, man. Right here. Right here. It sounds so good. When it hits your ears, it just sounds so good. I notice we picked the longest drops for the live shows. That's smart. So, yeah, Mike does them all. Mike does all the drums. Strategie.

I'm disappointed that you don't have your axe on stage right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, next time, peer pressure. All right, let's get into these bold predictions. I'm going to kick it off. I'm not going to pander to the home audience. I'm just going to tell the truth about something. And I'm going to tell it about, you know who it's about. David Johnson. There it is. Is there anyone from Arizona who's in this building right now? Are we giving it another go? Yeah, you want to hear everybody? Yeah, ready.

One, two, three. David Johnson. That was beautiful. So what do you think about David Johnson? Bold prediction for David Johnson. Maybe not so bold. Yeah, he does. He does. He does. 400 total touches, and he goes 1,000 to 1,000. A thousand rushing, 1,000 receiving. Last year he had 373 touches. I think he gets to 400 this year. I heard some whistles out there. People are thinking that's a little hot. It is hot. It is hot. But look.

There's only been two before. Marshall Falk. Roger Craig. They got the 11th best rushing schedule. He's the whole offense. And you can go back. You look at this story back in college. At the end of last year, how many people were freaking out when they saw David Johnson go down? I mean, that was scary, right? You think, I mean, you asked. That's no heart murmur. That's no heart murmur. Which are apparently very benign, according to you. He's okay now. Relax. Relax.

But he goes down and look, everybody just gas. I mean, you asked Steve Kine, the GM of the Cardinals. And he says, is that the career? You don't know what happens on the field. And he's fine. He recovers. He's fine. You go back and you ask his collegiate teammates. One quote from one of his nose tackle in college. David Johnson is a mutant. That's the quote. He's a mutant. He recovered. Look, you see this with Adrian Peterson. There are people. Genetics play a part in this equation, and he recovered, and he's back, and he's the entire offense.

And I think he becomes a third player ever. So that is my bold take. Do you guys have anything to say about that? Yeah, I think... He's also on my team. I think we can bring... That is factually accurate. I don't know. Mike, can you bring a little bit more heat to the table? All right. Some fire? All right. There's a guy who's kind of the new hotness right now, so I'm just going to grab the bellows. I'm going to stoke the flames just a little bit further. Kareem Hunt's. See, that's what I'm going to talk with.

He's the guy right now, but... You know who drafted him now? Not only... Not only is Cream Hunt the best rookie running back in the year. He's a top five running back this season. I want to throw out some names to you because I hear some haters out. They're like, it's a third round pick. Is that a third round pick? That's a hater. Yeah. Yeah. Who cares? Yeah. Deuce Staley. Brian Westbrook. Jamal Charles.

Those are all third round picks who have played for Andy Reed and who have dominated. I didn't even throw out Lashon McCoy. He was a second round pick. Decent. He has dominated. Kareem Hunt. Here's what happened. Right when the Spencerware injury happened. And Andy Reid didn't know how bad it was. He said he'll be, he's the next man up. The other two backs, they may get some work.

because Kareem Hunt is the full workhorse. He's going to see probably 50 to 60 receptions. We know that Spencer Ware, his touchdown rate last year, it made no sense when you're talking just statistically. How good the offense was versus how often they were in the red zone? Exactly. And Kareem Hunt has the ability, the talent to get it in there. He will be the full-time guy. He will be a three-down running back in a good...

offense and Andy Reid has just time and time and time again giving us just delightful delightful delicious fantasy running backs and Kareem Hunt you're all in he's the new Kareem I was going to call him Kareem the dream but we have one of those already have that that's not bad Kareem the ice cream dream dream dream yeah just go a dreamsicle we'll get it I'm working on it all be winners all right