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

And I won't get them on 0.0% of your teams. 0.0% of my teams because he is one of the guys being overvalued. I'm going to take one of the guys undervalued. There are just so many good tight ends. That's the story with tight end is that Eifford's going to go very high because of his season. And he, you know what he did too? He splashed last year. He won people so many weeks earlier in the season that they didn't expect to win because they had Tyler Eifford and he blew up. He was a darling of our show. He was our main target. We liked the guy.

uh just giving you all the information that's the point of the show give you information you can make those decisions and we won't have them on a lot of teams because he's going to go too high number nine delaney walker mike talked about him 94 catches 1,088 yards and six touchdowns i got him as my number six right now okay you because you're pretty big on the the titans i'm a pretty big on the titans offense making a leap i got mariotta very high in my quarterback rankings in standard uh four point leagues

I don't think he puts up a year like he did last year in total quantity. But this was a big time year from Delaney Walker. And he did most of it under the radars or so it felt in the fantasy community. So a couple brief thoughts before we move on from Delaney Walker. Actually, I want to give the floor to you because you're the Walker guy. And I know one of your kind of your rules that you live by is you don't chase guys who have had a career year.

And Delaney Walker, talking about a career year. You mean 200 yards higher than his second best. Touchdowns was he matched his highest total. And his just receptions went up by over 30. There's no spring chicken. That's, yeah. And Walker is much later in his career. So it's where do you see the value? Like where will Walker be taken in drafts?

Will he be forgotten because he's older? Yeah, I think that Walker from a value perspective, I don't know if you're going to get, I don't think he's going to be under or overdrafted too much. Right now he's in the sixth of standard dress. Sixth round. So, yeah, I probably don't take him there. I have his receptions coming down by, I believe, 15, probably 15 to 20.

He is what I would call, you know, for a young quarterback like Mariotta, and you saw this last year. That was the variable, right? Like, you talk about you don't chase a career year, but you also work in the fact that he was that escape valve go-to receiver on a lot of plays. But Kendall Wright was out. Kendall Wright was out. And that was a big part of it. And, I mean, they just...

They weren't playing Green Beckham. There was a lot of variables that are changing for the types. And I agree. I agree. But you still have the consistency of Mario to be in there and a coach that was there. So I pulled him down on those reception totals. I wouldn't expect anything close to 94 receptions. But I still think he's going to be a reliable week-to-week guy. You know, last year was a huge year in a Jason Witten mold for Delaney Walker. I just think he's pretty consistent.

However, the sixth round value, I don't think I'm taking him there. Okay. So I think that's fair. And he'll probably... Plenty of the guys we talked about already are going past the sixth. And when you talk about career year, which apparently affected his ADP if he's going in the sixth...

It's not something you think is going to happen again with an older guy like Delaney Walker. So Antonio Gates comes into number 10, a little bit of a surprise to me, only because there are some other guys we like with Upside, the Eric Ebrons of the world. Ladarius Green in Pittsburgh is another guy, Will Ty, Austin Saffarian Jenkins, some of the hotter names, hotter athletes. But Antonio Gates slots in at number 10.

And last year banged up, 56 catches, five touchdowns. Mike hasn't been number five. I do. You know, you handed me the floor for Delaney and Ertz. I'm going to hand it back to you for Antonio Gates as we close out our top 10. For me, it's a matter of projecting what I think the charges will be next year. And I don't see the run game improving by a major amount. I think it will take a step forward. With Murray?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, with Gordon. Gordon, oh man, I was so, I thought there was breaking news. I stayed on Delaney Walker for a second. With Ken Wizz and Hunt coming back to be the OC, I think they'll get an improvement in that, but I see it being still more of a pass-happy type of an offense. Antonio Gates in 11 games, 85 targets. And all his counterpart there, like you talked about, Larry's Green is up in Pittsburgh. He accounted for 63 targets and 13 games.

Philip Rivers to Antonio Gates is just a perfect connection that is about as tested as you can get a connection in the NFL. That's a Hall of Fame connection. Is there any draft, like let's say they go and they take a tight end fairly high? Is there any reason that would knock you off the situation? Not at all basically due to a tight ends and their rookie years are. The transition is nearly impossible. Because they've come out and said they're not done at tight end.

Yeah, which makes sense, obviously, with Gates history. You've got to have more pieces of the puzzle. But it is hard to build a rapport with a new guy. Yeah, and they can't, if they wanted to, right now, what's on the free agent market, what's in the rookie draft class, they cannot replace Ladarius Green with someone equal to Lederus Green, let alone better. So it will be a downgrade at the other options there. I think you have them too high.

That's fun. But I do agree Antonio Gates is going to be one of those guys. He'll draft him. He's fine. He will still be, to me, he will still be the number two target in the passing. If you're not counting Woodhead as one of those targets. But he's right now, a guy who's going behind Ladarius Green in the 11th round, a guy who he's just, he's done it so much. I mean, he was coming off of a year where he had 12 touchdowns. Now, that's probably an outlier of way too high.

You know, eight touchdowns is not out of the question. It will be interesting to see how Laderius Green and Gates compete next year in the tight-end rankings. You saw this when Vernon Davis and then Delaney Walker left San Francisco and went and kind of found his own path with Tennessee. So to run back the top 10 real quick, Rob Grancowski, number one, Jordan Reed number two, Kobe Fleener 3, Gary Barnage 4, Travis Kelsey 5, Greg Olson, 6, Ert 7, Eifer 8, Walker 9, Antonio Gates, number 10.

We are almost done here, guys, but a couple things stuck out to me from the rankings that we didn't get to. I want just a couple minutes for them. If you're looking at the rankings on the website right now, you see Austin Safarian Jenkins at number 11 on Jason's rankings. Yes, sir. You also see Andy, Andy. You see myself and Mike. Third person? Yeah, apparently. With Will tie at number 12. Couple quick words on ASJ. Why do you like him at...

and have him so highly ranked as essentially in a 12 team league, you have options of varying Jenkins as a one. Yeah, coming into the NFL draft, he was as highly touted as you can get. He is a physical freak, a great option. You saw games last year where he was a huge breakout type of candidate individual games when he was targeted and he has the capability to do it. 6-6, 258, second round pick.

Exactly. So I think this offense for Tampa Bay is going to take a step forward as their defense takes a step backwards statistically. You've got another year with Winston. And remember last year.

All the jokes we made about him not being able... I had the running gag of breaking news that... Three receptions. No, no, no. The injury. The injury that he was still not practicing for no reason every week. He was banged up last year and still was okay in several big games. I think he has the potential, the capability, and could have the opportunity to just take a giant step forward.

If he finished as a top five guy next year, I wouldn't be blown away. And so I'm fine ranking him at 11 back end. I would rather have him over some of the older guys that don't have that same ceiling when I'm drafting late. I'm going to take a flyer because if I'm drafting late, I'm probably going to stream the position anyways. All right. And then the will tie, I mean, to me, I don't know about you, Mike, and you can speak to it. The reason I have him so high is, for one, I think that they really like him.

in New York. And if you look from like week 10 on, he was on pace for about 75 receptions, 850 yards and seven touchdowns. And so if he's in that role, which it looks like that's his role right now, a pretty good offense, a consistency factor there. I just kind of like him as a sleeper because you're going to, I mean, you can get him as late as you want right now, right? Yeah, he's going to be completely left off of most draft, draft radars.

He had the fourth most targets on the team in only 13 games. So, I mean, you saw Dwayne Harris play almost the entire season at wide receiver, had less targets than Will Ty. Ruben Randall, the second most targeted player on the team, he's gone. Now they're going to have to replace a wide receiver and there's some buzz of like a treadwell going to the Giants, but those will still be a rookie.

where Will Ty is in the system. Ben McAdoo loves to throw the ball. The Titans just a part of that offense. Yeah, we saw Larry Danelle, the guy that they grabbed off of the couch, come in and have some monster games. The Titan is so used in the Red Zone for New York as well. So I just, I think that Will Ty, I'm not predicting.

You know, top five numbers for him, but if you're going to blow off the tight-end position, he's a guy I'm going to target. Yeah, this is the point of what we're trying to say here. It's so deep. Nobody's drafting Will Ty. And if you had Will Ty, I'm drafted. Well, sure, I'm just saying he's going to go undrafted in most leagues. Listen to some of the names we didn't talk about. Eric Ebron. I think could be great. We didn't even talk about Julius Thomas.

Jason Witten, who we started the show with. Ladarius Green going to the high-powered Pittsburgh Steelers. Dwayne Allen, now that Kobe Fleener's gone. Zach Miller, now that Martellus Bennett's gone. I mean, there are so many guys here that we're not even talking about in the top list who have a chance to be a top player. You can stream the position next year. You don't need to spend a super high pick. That's why I probably wouldn't do a first round drunk just because...

Man alive. I'm not going to do here, I'm going to target very few guys. I'm going to target Greg Olson for consistency, Kobe Fleener, if he's in the eighth or somewhere around there. And then pretty much just, I'm going to grab him with my third to last pick. All right. That puts a bow on this episode of the fantasy footballers podcast. We'll be back on Thursday. We'll.

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