Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Early Top 10 Tight Ends, Fantasy News

Probably somewhere in between. It's not a good look for your franchise to have two big problems here. Luckily, they solved a problem very quickly. Fitzpatrick will sign with them. And when the Clayty trade happened, I initially thought this was a way for Denver to free up space to get Colin Kaepernick. All the reading I've done since then, however, has said that the deal is not completely dead, but very unlikely to happen and that this has no impact on the financial situation for getting Colin Kaepernick is what I read today. Which they really need to do immediately.

Uh, get Colin Kaepernick? Yes. Only so that you can... Only for our little... Publicly gloat. Yes. I can't wait until Kaepernick stays there. If it's Patrick Signs, and we're all done with this. But, all right, let's move on here. The Broncos are considering trading for Josh McCown in lieu of maybe Colin Kaepernick, which I think is a better win now move. I would...

I would like that for fantasy purposes. I'd rather have McCown throwing the ball to DT and Sanders over Sanchez. I would move DT up right away because Josh McCown in between concussions is a gunslinger. Yep. Right in between there, right when he's coming out of one and getting ready to go into another one, he throws it up, he stays in the pocket.

I love it. And look what he did in Chicago. And the thing that earned him his massive contract was when he had Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffrey together. You go to the Broncos where you've got those two great options in Emmanuel Sanders and Demarius Thomas, and he's a perfect fit for that. Also, if you haven't realized this, all news this week is...

from the Broncos. Everything comes from Denver. Right. They requested that we spend all of our time talking about them. So the next bit of news, the Broncos have exchanged contract proposals with Ronnie Hillman. I only bring this up because I want to know how you view him returning with C.J. Anderson, if that is indeed the case. Does that take the shine off of C.J.'s big contract? Does that change your perspective on Anderson at all? It doesn't change it for me. He...

I feel like Anderson will again be given the opportunity to be the guy where Hillman's still not on the team. They screwed up with Anderson. The Broncos did. They figured that out. They underestimated his value. You had to pay him more than they wanted to. And Hillman is still not on the team as of now. As of right now, Mike has C.J. Anderson at 13. Jason has him at 17 and I have him at 23. Wow. I am shocked that I'm not lowest on C.J. Anderson. I thought that you were. You're welcome.

I thought you were coming around. I feel like I should be more in the 20s because what I was going to say on this news. I think he will come up for me a little bit, but not to Mike's level. This doesn't change anything for me because the shine and the luster is already off for me. I just feel like we've done this before coming in saying, oh, if he gets the opportunity, if these things happen, if they break right, he can be great. I agree with those things. But they should have happened last year. We had plenty of opportunity for that to...

be true and it wasn't and it's not going to be this next year. So I don't believe C.J. Anderson will be elite. Elite. Exactly. He'll be serviceable. You can get by with him. Sure. So tight ends are coming. Tight ends. The fight is coming. And I'm going to make sure I bring the fight. But before we get into the ruckus debate on tight ends, we have got.

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It is amazing. It's really cool. It is awesome. All right. And before we do count down the top ten tight ends, and I defeat Jason repeatedly in rhetoric and battles of wit. Never going to happen. I do want to remind everybody about our sponsor, pristine auction.com, our good friends at pristine auction.

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That is P-R-I-S-T-I-N-E Auction.com, good friends of the show. All right, guys, let's do it. Stretching. I should have worn my ghee. I don't know why. We'll get into this. You just want to fight. No, here's why. And let me explain this to the foot claim. So when we do our rankings, you've listened to the last several weeks. If you haven't go back, we've got our running backs, our wide receivers done.

Normally, our consensus rankings line up really nice. Now, the nice thing about three opinions on this show is we disagree with some guys. You'll hear the pros of guys and the cons of guys from differing opinions. But generally speaking, you look at our consensus rankings and they list outright. This is the first time that I can remember where I feel like, and our consensus rankings are actually really nice because of our disparity, but I feel like each one of us have very different takes on a few guys.

And if you're new to the show, if you're not used to us, we don't try to make hot takes. We try to be accurate. That's our goal here is we want to win championships. Hashtag foot clan titles. That's what we want showing up at the end of the year. Hashtag foot clan titles. But in here, we've got a couple guys, just a handful, that I think we've got a wide opinion. I agree with that. And I think it speaks to the position.

It just speaks to the fact that the tight-in position, look, even last year, it's not like people had Jordan Reed ending the year number two. Because of the fact that guys don't have a consistent track record, some do, a couple do, but a lot of them don't have a track. Even Gary Barnage, you know, those guys, they don't have a track record of five, six years of doing top five performances. And so you're going to have our educated opinions about which guys will be there this year. Where you will not have an issue is with number one.

Right. Our consensus number one across the board in standard leagues is Rob Grankowski. And he should be, right? Absolutely. You have the backwards track record. He is one of the most prolific tight ends that's ever played the game. Comes out in his rookie year with double-digit touchdowns. His sophomore year was 17 touchdowns. Every year, you can pretty much...

say he has double-digit touchdowns, he's the best of the position, gives you a positional advantage. The only worry with Gronk always has been injury risk, which you have with every player, but obviously he has a history of it, but Gronk is there. So the real question with Gronk, because everybody listening knows, yeah, Gronk's number one. Do you spend a first round pick to get Gronk when tight ends are this deep? What say you, gentlemen? I think you can.

And I know that's not like a hard line answer. I think you can do that. I think in smaller leagues, particularly 10-man leagues, 8-man leagues, I think Gronkowski is a worthy late first-round pick from pretty much 7 to 10 in that range. I would say if you want to take that route...

I think we've talked about the merits of taking a top and wide receiver in the first round this year and the fact the consistency level of a Julio Jones or an Antonio Brown, I think that argument applies to Grankowski. And I have no problem if you choose to do that. I probably will not end up in that boat in very many leagues. However, he will be my main keeper in one of our leagues because he offers a positional advantage in consistency. And I think speaking to the fact that we all think he's number one, part of that is because of the way

He is used in the Patriot game plan. He is, it's not incidental when he scores a touchdown. It's intentional. They put him in mismatch situations. He is a red zone threat and he's done it for years. So I think I'm okay with it. That's my answer. And I think that the gap, for me, when I was statting everybody out, the gap has closed a bit between Gronk and for me, my number two is Jordan Reed. So,

The differential of the points is not this gargantuan monolith of a pit that where Gronk stands on his ivory tower and looks down upon all the other tight ends. I, Gronk. There's a gap. I'm not saying there isn't. But I just, it's not as far in a way as it used to be. So for me to spend a first round pick on that guy when I can get a guy who I think is.

who has the chance to be right there with him a couple rounds later in Jordan Reed, I personally wouldn't take Gronk there. And your argument makes a lot of sense to me from the way that you look at drafting as well. You are a little bit more inclined to take the shot on either the value or the risky guy. The riskier guy. And I think, let me ask you this question, and Jason, you can answer it. It's riskier, is it not, to take...

Jordan Reed and rely on him in the way that you would rely upon a Gronkowski? I would say no. It is not riskier. And the reason why is because of where you get him. You already have a first round pick and a second round pick. I presume you're getting Reed in the third round. And so the risk is, I will say this, if you're just saying in a vacuum.

The risk of Gronk versus the risk of Reed. No, for sure, Gronk is less risky. Jordan Reed, we had a rule last year. His nickname on this show was Rule 86, because Rule 86 is that if he's healthy, you play him. We always knew that he was great when he's on the field. The problem with Jordan Reed, he was never on the field. He has a laundry list of injuries. So in that, you're right. But I would rather, and I've said this, I think I said this on our last show, the way that I draft.

is I really kind of avoid risk in those top two picks. I want guys who are elite up at the top that have the fewest risks. And so I would say the third round, you generally just have less risk attached. And speaking for Jordan Reed, it's especially the gap is closer in PPR. Very good point. Situations because gronk, I mean, for as great as he is, gronk is really...

an 80 catch type of guy. Now, he's going to give you the double-digit touchdowns, but I think Jordan Reed has that upside to do that again. Reed had 10 or 11 touchdowns, so he can do it. He's shown he can do it, and that was only in 14 games. But Reed is, at least for the second half of the season, he became the first read of that offense, and Kurt Cousins and him developed a tremendous chemistry.