Fantasy Football 2018 - More Free Agent Madness, Key Questions for 2018

for A.J. McCarron, who thought he was going to go get Mike Gladden money, go be a starter, and he's already signed a backup deal. Would not be surprised if the bills make a trade move up, grab a quarterback. They're trying. Tyler Eifer, re-signed by the Bengals. The market must have been soft. One year, $5.5 million prove a deal. Still just 27 years old. Still super talented. Still a great weapon in the seam for Andy Dalton. So if he is healthy and on the field and obviously incentivized by staying healthy and getting another deal next year,

He could be a surprise, high-risk play for fantasy owners next year. Yeah, no, I like it. The fact that he doesn't have to learn a new system, doesn't have to get some kind of new rapport with the quarterback for the tight-in position that usually takes a little while to click, this is great. I mean, obviously it kills Tyler Croft, but I think that Tyler, I for, I mean, if he stays healthy this year, if he stays healthy.

He's definitely a top 10 tight end. Yes. I would assume so because he'll have more than six touchdowns. Yeah. Austin. He'll make some top 10. Sanfarian Jenkins. ASJ signs with the Jags. Two-year $10 million deal. The Jaguars pick up another pass-catching option. They have a very broad group of players. Dante Moncrief.

His deal fully guaranteed makes you say, well, you know, follow the money. Is he going to be the starter there? Probably. Yes. It's going to be Moncrief across from, you know, for Marquis Lee with D.D. Manning the slot. And then you've got, you know, ASJ now, a pass-catching weapon, somebody that they'll use in the red zone, somebody that they, I think they want to give Blake Bortle's high percentage opportunities when he throws inside the red zone. It's not going to be just...

Leonard Fernett, but you're going to have, look, Moncrief is a big boy. And then you give him Moncrief in ASJ. I think it only helps Bortles with higher percentage passes. And then Ed Dixon signs with the Seahawks three-year $14 million deal. That's pretty good money for Ed Dixon. Yeah, and Ed Dixon is a tremendous blocking tied in. I, in my opinion, this locks Nick Vanette. Maybe you don't know that name, but.

Nick Vinette was a third round pick by the Seahawks of just a couple years back. It locks him in as the pass catching tied in. Will that role be utilized with all the players that they've brought in? I guess Geron Brown and their trail prior was alleged to be visiting. Fake dues, but yes, he was visiting. The visiting is true. Some people got duped on a signing. They got Uncle Chapsed. But.

If Nick, if someone has to take over the Jimmy Graham role and they continue to work like that as an offense, it's going to be Nick Van Net. All right. What do we have here? Just some odds and ends. Tavon Austin is. He's a ram again. He's going to be back with the Rams. He's going to compete. Got a one-year adjustment to his deal. $5 million with $3 million extra available in incentives. Traveris Cadet coming back to the bills. So he'll be Shady's handcuffed for the year. Yep.

Big news. And the Giants signed Cody Latimer formerly of the Broncos. Right now, that should probably guarantee that Brandon Marshall will be cut. Latimer's a big guy. And Brandon Marshall can be cut for $1 million dead cap. He was not in sync with the offense. It looked poor. It looked like it was done, then was hurt. So I would expect the Giants to move on. Yeah. And Latimer, in case you're wondering for fantasy,

He still slots in as the wide receiver three, but probably the fifth pass-catching option behind Evan Ingram, maybe the fourth, you know, behind Ingram. So not expecting a lot. Although last year they lost all the wide receivers and then suddenly people climbed up the depth chart so you should know what's going on. Big trade. The Jets got the number three in the 2018 draft from the Colts who swapped their six, or I'm sorry, swapped their three for the Jets six pick.

And then they also get the 37 and 49 and a second rounder in 2019. Nice work, Indianapolis. Yeah, Indianapolis got a great haul for a 36 swap. And now the Jets, most assuredly, are going to grab a quarterback there at the number three pick. This does make you wonder, at least for me, when you talk about Sequin Barclay and Dynasty rookie drafts, where he's going to end up, I don't think he's going number one anymore. No.

No, after the... The Browns have been forced to take a quarterback at one. I would say no. They signed Carlos Hyde. They're talking about Duke Johnson extension, and they have come out and said that Tyrod Taylor's their starter. I don't think he's going one. I don't think he's going to go two to the Giants. I think they're going to draft a quarterback because I don't know how many opportunities they're going to have to be a number two. Or they might trade it down to someone coming to get a quarterback like the bills. And then at three, I think the drafts are taking a quarterback. Oh, well, then you're looking at...

I will say there's already whispers in the bushes. Rumors, rumors abound that if somehow Barkley was still available, I'm just reporting. I'm reporting what the whispers are. At the 103, if Barkley was there, the Jets would still have him in play. And it would be, it would be the absolute funniest thing of 2018 if the Jets gave up all of those picks to move. I mean, this, that would be full.

draft day, Kevin Costner. Yes, it would. Gives everything up to take a player that they should not have taken at that spot. So like I said, it's just, it's just rumors right now. Just outside of the Sequin. So I think, do it. So I don't think the Jets are taking them. Then you get to Cleveland at four. Cleveland at four, I expect my, my thoughts here is that I think that they're going to move back. I think the pressure at four. They should.

Their second pick, I think there's going to be an opportunity for somebody to come up like Buffalo and take a quarterback. So then you're looking, I'm just throwing it out there. I'm looking theoretically at five and six, which is Denver is five, which they could take Sequin. I don't see it. And then you're looking right back at six. So the Colts might have gotten a 37, number 37, 49 in a second round pick next year to draft the same player that they wanted.

They could draft Sequin Barclay at six potentially. And if he doesn't go there, he's probably gone to Tampa at seven. So interesting to see how these things go. I'm excited for the draft. Obviously, everybody's excited to see what landscape will be there for Sequin and what team he'll end up on. If he does go to Tampa, which I think is getting more and more likely than he could start talking about that. It's also worth noting they signed a huge contract for a starting center. That was a...

That was a big problem for Tampa last year. And we've seen the difference that a quality center can make for a run game. So you improve the offensive line at the center position and then you draft Saquan. I don't know how much higher his stock could go other than him going to Tampa. I agree. And then you still have DeMarco Murray, Frank Goran signed. You still have Darren Sproles looking for a job. And Jordan Matthews.

Jordan Matthew is still out there. Not surprised. Mike Wallace. I wanted to, we have, I wanted to share a story here because, so we do fantasy football for a living. This is our, this is our career. This is our occupation. So sometimes when we go to talk trades with other people in our league, it can be a little bit difficult. Yes. Jason earlier this week, or I should say last week, made a trade. He made a tight end trade in the Dynasty League. Oh, yeah. And this trade was he took.

the aging Greg Olson, and he traded him for Kyle Rudolph. Get the youth of Rudolph. Jason believes in him. I believe it has six years difference in age. With Kirk Cousins coming into town. This trade happens. The, well, part of the reason I made the trade was because Eric Ebron was my backup and he got cut. Right. Still looking for work. Still looking for work. So this trade happens. And we're talking half a day later. All the sudden, all the reports were Greg Olson is interviewing with.

with, who was it, ESPN or Fox? ESPN. ESPN to be an analyst and might retire. And it was like, immediately, I wake up and I get a text from the guy I trade. He goes, did you know about this? I'm like, no, I did. I would never do that. But it was unbelievable. And then the report was. I disagree, Jason would do that. And then the report right with that was that Eric Ebron was going to visit Carolina. And I'm like, did I, if Eric Ebron signed there and I have the starting.

Tight in for Carolina. And Greg Olson is gone as I ship him off for Kyle Rudolph. I would have been very happy. For those of you that heard the rumors about Greg Olson, he did say that he is committed to play for Carolina in 2018 and beyond. This was about life after football. That's coming in off of Twitter. So he is, you know, the alarm bells. You can calm them down. But, yeah, it was community. It's so hard. It's so hard the longer we've had this show, too, because you make a tradeoff with somebody in your league.

and they auto assume you know better. Well, because crap like this is happening for Jason. He would have lost a trade partner forever. Here's the way that you need to be trading, right? Like, as far as I'm concerned, someone sends me a trade offer. I almost always try to make a trade work for me, right? I don't just say no, I don't want to do it. Generally, I'm like, okay, you send me a couple players. Do you want this player? I'm going, wow, all right, let me see if I can get a bunch of stuff for that player you want.

But that doesn't happen for me anymore. Nobody does that back to me. They just cancel the deal. They just say no because they think I know something about the player that's going to make them great. And you usually do. Hey, I'm going to need that breaking news button, Andy. Oh, oh. Breaking news. All right. Just talked about how important a good center can be for the run game. Ian Rappaport reporting that Mike Pouncey.

is expected to sign with the Chargers. Oh, wow. Get your Melvin Gordon. Mike Pouncey. I already got my Melvin Gordon. Mike Pouncey has not been very good for a while. He's been injured. He has been injured. Okay. He was very good. And then he got injured. That was a few years ago. I think it's a, I think it's a good addition to that offensive line. And it will. Three-time pro baller. It will help. Should say, get your, get your Austin Echler ready. You would say that.

All right, mailbag time. Mailbag. Mailbag. Whickler. All right. Brooks, did you filter out all other questions and just left me with Pat Mahomes-related stuff? Oh, no. All right. I love Pat Mahomes, by the way. I just want to. Yes, you do. We're very aware. You guys are aware, but I don't think the people are aware that I am a big Pat Mahomes fan.

There are times that you do a trade and then you try to find a way to like the player. I like the player and I went out and made a trade in our dynasty league because I want to acquire him now. I want to get Patma home now. All right. Just letting you know. It'll be okay. Yeah. All right. If you have a question for the podcast, you can send it to us on the website. The fantasy footballers.com, click the submit a question button. Or you can dial our voicemail hotline 302-464 TFFB.

We are going to kick off today's mailbag segment with a voicemail question. Oh. Hi, Ballers. I have a quick question. Guaranteed money. In the fantasy frenzy episode, you mentioned that you got excited when you mentioned that Rex Goathead got a lot of guaranteed money, and I was wondering why you would be excited about that. Because my thinking was that they guaranteed a lot of money to him, they would not want him to get injured, and thus they would use him sparingly. So just clarifying how...

Guaranteed Money translates into fantasy production. Thank you. Good question. No, this is guaranteed money as in they really wanted him back on the team. And this is an investment level. Exactly. This is what football players want. This is all they can get because unlike every other sport, like MLB, NBA, their contracts when they sign them are not just fully guaranteed.

So when you're looking at a contract situation, you'll see players sometimes will get a contract. You'll, holy crap, that guy signed for $70 million. Then you go, oh, you look at the actual guarantee is only in the 20s or something. A good example would have been this Ryan Grant deal. The Ryan Grant deal happened the same time that John Brown signed with Baltimore. Baltimore gave Ryan Grant, presumably. It was going to be $14.5 million guaranteed in a $29 million deal.

John Brown got a one-year $5 million deal. That's what we say to follow the money because we're saying, well, you've got big plans for Ryan Grant because you just invested $14.5 million. You're interested in using that investment on the field. It's a guarantee that they are involved. Teams are never going to play a player less because of fear that they will have to pay them guaranteed money when they're injured. I mean, they pay up. The highest guaranteed money goes to.

The players that play the most, I mean, it always does. This is really just a matter of what they are valuing a player at because Rex Burk had, you know, maybe he goes somewhere else, sign somewhere else. But they said, hey, we want you so bad that we're going to guarantee you this money. That says they're going to use him, not use it. For example, I just looked at up. The Jeremy Hill contract, he got a $150,000 signing bonus. They can get out of this contract for that signing bonus, and that would be it.