Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - NFL Draft Review Pt 1: AFC Winners & Losers

I'm not excited for guys that have made mistakes multiple times. It's fair. I tried to buy into Josh Gordon on this. If you see what's going, I mean, there have been reports that have already come out saying Martavis Bryant is no guarantee to make this roster. And if I wanted some ammo to believe those reports, it would be a second round wide receiver draft pick. Yeah. Because there are... Followed by a dumb tweet. Followed by a dumb tweet. I'm not saying he's not going to make the team, but these...

these high aspirations. I don't know if it was on this show or our footcast. I mean, I think you said that he's locked in high end too, and I about lost my mind. And of course, what I'm saying that he's, that's assuming he's the, he's playing for 16 games. You can't assume it. No, no, that was. But I think that was the question that was posed. It was like, if he plays 16, what is he? I mean, he's, the talent is off the charts, but the guy needs to get it together. You know, one of the, one of the picks that was,

The most fascinating to me in the entire draft was James Connor coming in at running back. This is a guy who got injured, missed some time. Prior to that injury as a running back in college, he was thought of as an extremely high talent, you know, first, second round type of grade. And when you've got Levi-on Bell. Oh, yes. And the role that says when Lev Bell goes down.

The backup comes in and is also excellent, just is given, you know, complete keys to the kingdom. You saw that with DeAngelo Williams for years. DeAngelo Williams has gone in. So to me, James Connor immediately steps into fantasy relevance as a handcuff. Yeah, I completely agree. Do you put any, if you're Leveon Bell owner in Dynasty, do you put a premium on making sure you get him? I absolutely do. Second year of being franchised too, right?

No, there's only Levs first. Oh, okay. So it's, but it's saying he is, I can't imagine that Connor will be anything higher than a third round pick, but are you going to, are you going to, are you making sure you're going to get him? I would happily take him in the second round if I was the love bell. Wow. Second. In a rookie draft, I mean, when you look at rookie draft picks and you go, okay, in the second round, what's their bust rate potential of just getting it wrong? Give me the backup.

Well, let's say you're sitting in that situation and you're picking between James Connor and Juju Smith-Schuster. Oh, Juju's not falling in at the second. Late in the second. No, no way. Yeah, I'm going to protect my love bell in a Dynasty League with that. So even if you're facing those two, you're choosing James Conner is what do you just say? That's why I brought the question. That's Benance. And to say Juju's not going to fall to the second round. That's, I mean, low second round. Okay. Well, he said second round for them. So I was just saying like,

You're staring them both down. That's very possible in the second round. I would probably still go ju-ju, but if, you know, depending on my team needs, if I was loaded at wide receiver and my running backs after Bell were worrisome, then I would allow that to make me swing the pick towards Connor. AFC South, the Indianapolis Colts. This is our last division, right? Yep. All right, the Colts drafted running back in the fourth round. They did not spend a high draft pick on one. And so Frank Gore?

He's a winner? Yeah, he's Robert Turbin. He's a winner? Maybe not so much Robert Turban. They took Marlon Mack. I like the pick. I like it a lot. I think Marlon Mack's stock rose in rookie draft significantly. The dude's a beast. He can catch the ball. And we have seen, I mean, we were prognosticating.

What if Christian McCaffrey goes to the Colts because of his past catching ability? And what Andrew Luck has shown he can do with Ahmed Bradshaw up near the goal line. You don't have to worry about or just focus on him running it in. He can get reception touchdowns as a running back. I love this Marlon Mack pick. He moves up to, I haven't done my official rankings, but just off the top of my head, he becomes an early second round pick for me.

in dynasty. In rookie picks. Yeah, all right. Jacksonville. Let's talk about the Jacksonville Four Nets. You know, this is one that the mock drafters, ourselves included, got right. He went number four, Leonard Fournett, to the Jacksonville Jaguars. And then you have D.D. Westbrook drafted in the fourth round, very questionable pick, taking a chance on a guy there with some issues, to say the least. Wait.

Yeah, it's one of those issues. One of the issues. You also have kind of, I mean, an established wide receiver court ahead of him there. I wouldn't expect early impact of D.D. Westbrook, but losers, I guess you'd call Chris Ivory and T.J. Yeldon a loser. Actually, I'm not going to call T.J. Yelden a loser. I'm going to call Chris Ivory full on deceased. It's over. He's done. Fourth pick in the draft. He's done in Jacksonville. But T. J. Eldon has shown pass catching chops.

And maybe London Fernette, maybe he can grow in that area of football. But Yeldin's that guy to me for now. And I know on paper the Jaguars look great. Their defense looks spectacular. It looked great on paper last year too. Now they've made some office and regime things. So things can certainly turn around for the Jaguars. But for Leonard Fernette, he right now could just be a two-down guy, which means.

possibly a lot of play for T.J. Yeldin unless there's a significant turnaround for the Jaguars. Yeah, I think that's possible. But you're going to see them trying to emulate what Dallas did last year in the sense that... Good luck. Fournett is a volume back. He needs to get 20 plus carries. He'll be on the field a lot the same way... He's a winner. He's a winner. Oh, yeah. Yes, Fournette is absolutely a winner. Fournette is a winner. And I thought, you know, the Jacksonville Jaguars as a whole...

were a winner. They had one of the better drafts. The fact that, you know, I think Cam Robinson is one of the best tackles in the draft. I know this wasn't a strong tackle class, but they got a great value on him dropping to the second round to help that offensive line. I also think Blake Bortles gets helped out by the offensive line and four net. I don't know that he takes a step forward in fantasy necessarily because of it, but just real life Jacksonville Jaguars, who I think the odds came out at.

They're over under on wins at five and a half. It's already been tweaked, but yes. Yeah, I would take the over on that. Yeah, so Bortles is a winner. You know, you have an offensive tackle there in Cam Robinson. You have the Brandon Albert situation. And they did not take a quarterback. This Cam Robinson pick really helps them not have, it helps them be able to strong arm Brandon Albert into playing. They're not going to pay him. So, all right, let's talk about the Houston Texans. Jason, close to your heart is Mr. Lamar Miller.

Also close to my heart is Mr. Deonti Foreman. Yeah, Deonti Foreman, third round pick. Great pickup for Houston. I know. BFS forever. So now what's the fantasy implication there? Is Lamar Miller a loser? I think so. I think Lamar Miller takes a bump down here in the sense that he was the only show in town. You saw him get the usage last year that should have come with more fantasy production. Now, Lamar Miller's always been a lower volume.

high efficiency guy. When he got all the volume, he wasn't quite as efficient. So maybe Deontiform. He went full teeter totter. Yeah. He was the only show in town, but the banners were ripped up and falling off at the end of the show. I mean, he needed some help. Yeah. This might not hurt him. Brock should have replaced us. It could hurt him, but it might not because he needs a few breaths. Yeah. And if by midseason.

Watson can take over at the quarterback position. I think that's going to help him as well because defenses are going to have to watch for, you know, the running quarterback. And, you know, there's, there's nowhere to go up mid-season, but up from Tom Savage. Watson's, I think Watson starts week one. No, he, I mean, maybe, maybe not. I don't care either way. Bill O'Brien, I do not care what he is saying. I think Sean Watson will start week one.

I think that'll happen in the preseason. I don't think we'll see it until about week three. If it did, I would not be shocked. I guess the only thing is I just think from a guy who never went under huddle ever. So running no huddle offense. Problems solved. Bill O'Brien has one of the more complex offenses in the NFL. DeAndre Hopkins, Will Fuller could end up winners, you know, with Deshaun Watson in there. Look, anything not named Barack Osweiler is a bump up.

Yeah. Consistency-wise. That's fair. So the Titans, the last team we're going to talk about today. Remember them. The Titans. Corey Davis at number five, pick five. Corey Davis. We thought maybe I had picked Corey Davis, I think going at 14 to Baltimore. Yeah, I had the Cardinals of 13. And I had Mike Williams later being drafted by the Titans. I thought they'd use that second pick, not starter wide receiver run, but.

whatever it happened now corey davis is a titan biggest winner here to me is absolutely cori davis because cori davis was mocked out of the first round over and over and over leading up to this and that was a lot of a lot of that was due to health concerns that we don't know all the you know when when i say we the fantasy community doesn't know the the medical reports whereas the teams do if you're going to go and take the

fifth pick and say we believe in this guy because the film agreed. I mean, most people in the fantasy community had him as the number one wide receiver. All of those things come together to get a young, long-term quarterback in Marcus Marietta paired up. I think that overall, he's my 101 in rookie picks for sure, Cory Davis is. So I think he's a huge winner to me. And then they spent a third round pick on Taiwan Taylor. Another good wide receiver. Straight it up for him.

Yeah, and when you talk about who is the loser, I think it's Tajay Sharp. I think that Richard Matthews is versatile. He retains his role, and Sharp is unfortunately the guy who gets pushed the side here by Corey Davis. And, I mean, they talked about, for Taylor, I've already heard them talking about, oh, we're going to, he'll go into the slot, we're going to run three wide more.

Which, I mean, that's great news for Marcus Mariotta. Let's get three wide receivers on the field. Let's throw a little bit more. The only way that I will buy that framework of Richard Matthews value is if the passing volume in this offense increases to the point where it can sustain this. Because there's no way I can't look at Richard Matthews as an incidental loser. That's fair. Because of Delaney Walker, Corey Davis, and the addition of Taylor and DeMarco Maria out of the backfield and the run heavy offense. Now, I don't know if that transition is ready to happen or not.

I don't know if we're a year away from that, from a volume perspective. And so for me, it's really hard for me to buy into Richard Matthews. Now the draft cost is going to be free. So take a shot if you want. Yeah, I will agree with that last part, that the draft capital is going to cost you nothing. Might as well take a shot. But you have a low volume passing offense. You have a wide receiver who was unsustainably high in touchdown rates.

Per reception. I mean, he was built on the touchdown, and then the team comes, and with the fifth pick in the draft goes wide receiver, I don't know how you can not see Richard Matthews. Richard Matthews is a big loser to me in this draft. Yeah, he was only a 65 catch guy last year when he was alone and dancing by himself. Sure. He, to me, was a guy who, like, I'm looking at it right now. He had.

five of his touchdowns were four yards or less, or seven yards or less, most of them four, four, three, two. He's a guy who has, he has proven he can get open in the end zone when you're close up. Maybe Corey, I don't know how you can wrinkle your nose. There's proof. What's the proof that he did it for one year when they didn't have any other wide receivers? Because he didn't do it in Miami. The proof to me is that he got a lot of, one year? A lot of targets inside the 10.

And that's good. And he was efficient with him. Just saying that Corey Davis, for how great we think he is, he hasn't proven that in the NFL yet. I think we agree. Didn't we agree the other day we thought 804 might be a realistic season for Richard Matthews? A lucky season maybe? I think he's closer. I think he's around six or more personally. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, you love him. We've always loved Richard Matthews. You can wear his jersey.

I won't be wearing it. I got to get out of the ship on this one. Mike just can't say goodbye to Kristen Michaels and Jeremy Hill and Richard Matthew. This is great news. You realize now we are on official C. Mike watch. That's true. Let's see what team he can sign with now. That way once he does. Arizona needs a backup running back. Oh, they do. They do. They do need a backup running back. Is that what he is? Is he a backup running back? He's a backup running back who is awesome.

He's like one of those. He's like one of those MLB relievers that ends up playing on half the teams. They just, I mean, he's, he's as close to a reliever as it gets. Yeah. In the NFL. Look, he's, he's on a C America tour. He's just, he's checking all the sites out. I want to see this practice squad. I want to see that. I hope he goes to Buffalo just to have them paired with Mike's. I hope him and Blunt Landon Buffalo. Let's get them all there.