Pump the Brakes, Lev Bell News + TNF Preview

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Visit snhu.edu slash footballers. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Every football fan is different. Some won't wash their lucky mustard-stained jersey until the season's over. Some insist they can't sit down on third downs and some pick their favorite team because, I don't know, just like football fandom, nobody's life is exactly the same. And that's why State Farm

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Major metropolitan area up and running will have the Sonos expert deliver and set up your system absolutely free. Just order from sonos.com and select up and running at checkout if you qualify. Hi, this is Eric Dickinson, NFL Hall of Famer, and you listen to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Coming to you from Draft.com Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Let's go. How are you feeling, boys? Feeling great. Feeling swell. It's going to be a good one. Welcome in. All you football fans, all you fantasy football fiends. It is Wednesday, September 5th, 2018. This is the Fantasy Footballers podcast show 600. 600 shows.

That's about 590 more than I thought we'd do. Not true. Not true. I knew we had something. I knew we had something when I met you to. Fine gentlemen. Now, show 600, this is, am I correct, the first official in-season podcast for 2018. We are, this is like, we're talking about.

A week one matchup today? Yes, we are. A real one. We are. Fantastic. We have the return of Pump the Brakes on today's show. We've got some mailbag. We have the Thursday night preview, the Eagles, the Falcons. And a reminder, like Jason said, we're kicking it off. The NFL season is here. This show's all about getting you a title. Winning your league. Having fun while you do it. We try to be entertaining. We try to be.

accurate. We try to bring you insight that you'll get nowhere else. And I'm excited for another season tomorrow. On the Thursday show, we'll have the fantasy forecast, the first half of the games. We'll have starts of the week. We'll have Jason's boom, boom, kicker back again. So much research involved. You in the lab? Oh, I'm in the lab. I'm literally doing those science experiments where I'm kicking the ball.

And I'm trying over here from the left, from the right. Sports science stuff. Sports science stuff. That's right. And then I bring in Justin Tucker. And I'm like, all right, you try. Yeah. Well, look, you don't make a boom, boom picker with that. You're a boom boom, boom picker. Mm-hmm. Friday. We'll have Foot Clan Friday, in or out. We'll talk through the injuries. We'll preview the rest of the games. We'll have daily dose. It's going to be jam-packed. It's going to be fun. And you're going to win this week. I can feel it. And I'm talking to myself.

because I'm playing Jason in our League of Record. I feel a little bit of some Stuart Smalley action happening over there. I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. Yeah, that's right. My team is good, dang it. Jason's team is outstanding in that league. It's unbelievable. In 25 minutes, our waivers will process for that league and something will happen that will affect who I play against Jason. And so if you remember later in the show, ask me about it.

I sure will. I'm pretty confident I know what it is. Okay. Why don't you write it down, Mike write it down and then later when it happens, I'll check the tape. We'll see what happens. It's written down. All right. Follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. About to get in to pump the brakes. You can visit us on the website, the fantasy footballers.com. There is an exciting new tool available on the website this year. Very, very cool. It is a start-sit tool. So we've got our rankings for week one up there. We'll continue to tweak them.

Moment by moment. Made some changes this morning. We're going to talk about Lev Bell again, but it was based on Lev Bell, James Connor, some of those changes. But you can use the Start Sit Tool now. And you can compare players cross-positionally, click a button, see where we rank them. It's as simple as that. People have been loving it. You can go for the Foot Clan out there up to four different players. Cross-positionally. It is a very helpful, awesome tool. Feedback has been great. Hope you love it. Most popular searches.

Right now, Marshawn Lynch or Rex Burkhead for week one. Dionne Lewis or Rex Burkhead for week one. Rex Burkhead dominating the popular searches. People don't know what to do. It makes sense. He's about to dominate this next segment. Let's get back into it. Oh, oh, oh, O'Reilly. O'Reilly. Auto old parts. Oh! Oh, it's back. Let's pump them breaks, y'all.

It is this week's edition of... Did you hit him with a y'all? I sure did. What is your? All right. Pump the brakes is back. What is Pump the brakes, Mike? Pump the brakes is where we take a look at a player who you are considering starting.

in your fantasy lineups this particular weekend. It could be anything from a superstar to a hot waiver wire pickup. And we will talk about are we full on benching this player? Maybe we're just adjusting our expectations for this player. So I'll kick it off because I alluded to it. A lot of people wanting to know whether they can confidently start Rex Burkhead. Those three players mentioned March on Lynch, Dionne Lewis, Jamal Williams. I would start them all over Rex.

Burkhead. I did move Rex Burkhead down earlier today, and here's why. He's my Pump the Brakes for Week 1, and I know that there's a lot of excitement and hype around Rex Burkett. I look at Pump the Breaks, I look at who I want to start, and I look at risk, and I see some things jumping out at me about Rex Burkhead in week 1. I don't think that there is a road to a very strong week 1 performance for Rex Burkhead. He...

dealt last year with a couple of major injuries, the rib contusion and a knee strain. They kept him out for, he missed six games last season. Yes. Already in the preseason, he's dealing with a knee sprain. One of the concerns, one of the risk factors that I have about Rex Burkhead is the same one I would give to anybody with a lower body injury in camp. You run the risk of not necessarily re-injuring that specific thing, but any sort of injury. We saw...

Now, the extreme is Derek McKinnon, right? You had the calf strain. You come out your body. It's just natural. You compensate for that injury. You put more pressure on other parts to your body, and he has not held up in the past. I don't think the Patriots are going to push him too hard in week one when they're going to want to rely on him during the year. If you listen to their running backs coach, as of yesterday, it's I hope he plays on Sunday. I hope so. Now, I expect him to be active on Sunday. I do.

The release of Brandon Bolden tells me that they're confident enough in Jeremy Hill to fill a role there. We all believe, yesterday we talked about it, James White is going to fill a role there. There are a lot of options in that backfield, and Sony Michelle could still be active on game day as well. Take that and you mix it with the fact they're facing a Texan defense that they did not run well against last year. They were very bad against them, and the Texans were in the middle of the road, 13th in the league. So upper half against the run.

Pats didn't run on them well last year. And they get back merciless and what? And they're going to be fiery for week one. So it's a matter of, pumping the brakes does not mean you hate a guy. Pumping the brakes means you're choosing other guys over him. I would choose Derek Kenry, Jamal Williams, Alex Collins, Lamar Miller over Rex Burkett. I think he's going to be valuable this year.

but not in week one. Yeah, I'm glad that you pointed out that it doesn't mean that you hate a guy. It's just, you know, sometimes managing expectations because Mike has picked a terrible pump the brakes, but I'm going to, I won't even let you go second because it's so bad. I'm going with a pump the brakes. You know, this is, this is a handsome pump. Okay, this is a very handsome pump the brakes on. I do not like where this is going, Jason. Jimmy Garapolo. Jimmy Garoppolo.

Oh, mercy. Jimmy Garoppolo, look, he's the 10th drafted quarterback off the board. He was someone that, if you've listened to us this off season. I'm actually surprised to hear you say that because, like, I should know that. But because of where I've placed Jimmy Garapolo in my own rankings for the entire offseason and thought of him and where I wanted him.

I didn't realize he was that high. Oh, yes. People are very excited for the hands. Well, it's the, it's the breakout. It's the next Tom Brady trained behind Tom Brady, but we've got a very small sample size. This is why this offseason. You need to pump the break. We have, this is why we've been down on him a little bit is because that, look, he's not just given the reins to succeed, but now take that out and say, okay, well, I like Jimmy G. I drafted Jimmy G. He's on my roster. I did grab him as the 10th quarterback off the board.

Dude, you're going on the road to Minnesota for their home opener. Yeah. And that's not a good matchup. That's not going to be easy sledding. And there are so many guys on the waivers right now that I would pick up, drop fodder if you can't get rid of Jimmy G. He's just too handsome. And you've got some wide receivers sitting there on your, you know, you have Philip Dorset on the roster. Drop them and pick up.

someone else. Here's a list of guys that I would start this week over Jimmy Garoppel. In order. Andy Dalton, Tyrod Taylor, Marcus Marriota, Sam Bradford, Dak Prescott, Alex Smith, and Blake Bortles. I promise one of those are available in your league. I would personally start every single one of those guys over Jimmy G on the road in Minnesota to start the season off. Can I have a follow up there for both of you guys? All right.

It's hard to let a guy like Jimmy Garoppolo go week one, though. All right. No, no, he's not saying to drop Jimmy Garoppolo. I missed that part. I would personally, if this was my team, I would have no problem dropping Jimmy Garoppel because I... Would you just re-sign him? Yeah, maybe I'd resign him. And if someone else signs him, I'd sign a different quarterback. I would not worry about Patrick Mahomes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I would not worry about I've got to have Jimmy G. But I'm saying if you...

out there listening are like, no, I really believe in him. Then, yeah, drop some other fodder wide receiver from your roster. Mike, who's your week one? Pump the break. All right. So I'm trying to lower the expectations for this fella because we love him on this show. I think he's going to be great for fantasy football. But Jordan Howard.

draws a really tough week one matchup. I've talked about the Packers defense. They're passing my eye test. They are decent against the run. And I believe that they've improved against the pass. It's in Lambo. You are opening up against Mr. Millionaire up there, Aaron Rogers. And the Packers are heavy, heavy favorites. I know we're all very excited for Jordan Howard to show us his stuff on third down.

catching what 300 passes off the jugs after every single practice. But the game script is not going to be in the favor of Jordan Howard being able to hit that 20 carry mark in this particular matchup. So I am simply adjusting my expectations. And I'm pumping the brakes. It's unlikely, given that we're just out of the draft, that you have the depth that you have two better options to play over Jordan Howard. So I would still play, but similar to like LaShawn McCoy.