Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Fantasy Impact of Coaching Changes, News & Mailbag

because you don't know who he is. He was the assistant. He was basically a protege of Andy Reed for many years, I think since 2009. The last three years, he's been an offensive coordinator, never been a head coach in his career. And keep in mind, because he was with Andy Reed, he wasn't really the full... Primary play caller. Offensive coordinator. He wasn't the primary play caller. He wasn't... I read an article about how this year he's going to be...

more involved with game planning. He's like the offensive coordinator. Like, you know, oh, good. It just surprises me that you take someone who doesn't really have that experience and bring him in. So I'm not looking at this with a rosy outlook for what he's going to be able to do with the Philadelphia Eagles. From a fantasy perspective, it means the West Coast offense is back in Philadelphia. And it means that the running back position, whomever that might be, Mr. Glass or DeMarco Murray,

That should be featured again in Philadelphia. You also have the optimism around the newly re-signed Zach Ertz, right? Is that who you're bending towards optimistically wise? I like the hire, and I like the hire of Doug Peterson. You do. Explain yourself. I like it because Doug Peterson has been with Andy Reid like we talked about since 2009. That's many, many years to learn and to be...

groomed and shone the ropes of everything that Andy Reid knows. Hopefully he didn't teach him how to waste his time management. Don't worry about the time management. Get someone else to do that. But Andy Reid has been a very, very successful head coach. If you look back at his time in Philadelphia, just a string, string of years of double-digit wins in the Kansas City Chiefs.

11 wins, 9 wins, 11 wins. So he's been very successful. Reed is a great coach. So you take him with all those years pouring his knowledge into Doug Peterson, and you give Doug Peterson an offense that I think is very capable with Zach Ertz. I still like Jordan Matthews. The running back position is loaded. So is it going to, if it's Bradford that's back, you know, this is in Kansas City, you had a very...

You could call it conservative, but I'd call it more efficient West Coast offense where they led the league three straight years in the least amount of interceptions. And an interesting thing for Kansas City, they're always in the bottom 20 for yards, but they're always in the top half of the league for scoring. Yeah, points. And we know that the touchdown is the difference maker in fantasy football.

You have Kansas City. So 2013 6th in offensive points. Last year, ninth. Did you know that the Kansas City Chiefs were a top 10 scoring offense? Because that's crazy. That's not how you think about them. So you give him an almost mirror situation to me as far as you're talking about skill players going to Philadelphia compared to Kansas City. You have from Kelsey to Ertz, from Jamal Charles to Murray and Matthews,

And Jeremy Macklin, now you have Jordan Matthews, or as Andy hopes, it's Nelson Aguilar, clearly. That's who Andy's. I like Nelson Aguilar, not more than Jordan Matthews. I just like him to bounce back. I just, I like the higher. I think that it's good things for the Philadelphia Eagles and get some stability in there. Here's a final thought on the Eagles. Sure. And you guys let me know. There's an impossibility from a hype standpoint for Jordan Matthews to be.

higher this year than last year, everything with the Chip Kelly, everything rolled into that. Maybe people are going to be more of Jason's mindset with the higher, and all of that has come down off of this high-powered offense. Is Matthews prime to be a value in this draft? Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And you're targeting him? I will be. I don't know where he's going to end up, but in my...

history and just experience of seeing a guy like that who gets you get the shine and you burn people pretty bad because of where you were drafted you're like I mean Matthews was what a second round third round pick about their last year he was drafted very high and you you move him into this year he's going to be available in the fifth sixth round and that's for his ceiling

That is tremendous. Especially with the opportunity to move him to the outside. Something Chip Kelly was never willing to do. He's got the body for it. So we'll see if he does take that outside move. But that gives a little bit more excitement for, you know, more yards per reception. All right. Now we're going to move on to the Giants coaching situation. Out is Tom Coughlin, the longtime stalwart there. Not retired. One of my favorite coaches was Tom Coughlin.

Ben McAdoo takes over from a fantasy perspective. This is outstanding news because you get a consistency in an offense that was already elite. That's the overarching story. Now, the real question for us is if you have an offense that is first in passing like they were last year, but we didn't see running back production because they used 18 of them.

But when you have that, you know, you have Eli Manning, 4,400 yards, 30 touchdowns, back-to-back seasons under McAdo. But when you have that type of a situation, Ruben Randall, Free Agent, who's going to be, other than Odell Beckham Jr., and Eli Manning, who are both fantasy options, who's going to be that mystery third or fourth guy at the running back, at the wide receiver, at the tight-in position, somebody's going to put up points there. And so it's up to us to figure that out and tell the listeners. So tell me who it is.

You know, I like Rashad Jennings. I like what he did at the end of the season. I think he's a capable running back. And I believe that Ben McAdoo is not going to go with the 17 running back system. It's a good committee. Yeah. They can all take one bus. We'll have to see what they do this off season. That's the running back bus. Hold on. Right. We'll have to see what they do this offseason with their roster moves with running backs. Because you could already kind of see.

that they were going to have a crazy committee before the season last year. And then it was even crazier than we thought. So this year before the season, we're going to see what are they doing with their running back rosters? Who are they resigning? Who are they resigning? You're going to see Andre Williams get cut? Right. Exactly. If you see Andre Williams get cut, I am even more, you know, excited about Rashad Jennings, who, you know, should be, I'm not like, I'm not high. Well, he's not the pinnacle of youth either. Right. That's the problem for me.

In general. But I'm saying as far as to answer your question, what giant can take kind of a step forward this year, I think just by the fact that he's a good running back and might not be just getting 15% of the carries will go a long way. Okay, yeah. He could be a sneaky guy if they don't make a lot of changes, but give him the rock. He'll be 31, by the way, for next season. Shane Marine's still there. And the whole first half of his career, he didn't really have a lot of usage.

But every year in Oakland counts as three. It's like dog ears? A question for me is Victor Cruz. He was already kind of, it looked like he was on descending in his career with the numbers he was putting up before destroying his knee. So can he be back? He's got the entire year off. Can he rehab and be back to a capable wide receiver? Because if you have...

A capable guy in Victor Cruz with Beckham. Beckham doesn't need anybody else, and he'll still find a way to get the ball. That's how much I believe in Odell Beckham. But they're going to be in the hunt. They'll pick up a free agent like we talked about, like Marvin Jones. Maybe they'll go in on Travis Benjamin. I don't know. They would have very little height if they went that route with pairing those wide receivers. But they're going to add somebody. And as long as you have.

A guy, they proved it with Ruben Randall. The overall consensus thought of Ruben Randall is that he's not very good and he still put up numbers. He was still a had a place in that offense. So you get a guy who is at least capable and this offense will still produce at a very high level. Okay. All right. So.

And we don't really believe Randall will be back for those wondering. It just doesn't seem to make sense with the amount of money they'd have to pay him at 24. And I think the people in New York expect him to be gone. So anything else from the New York side? I think this is a great, you know, if Coughlin's out, I love this for just the reliability of Eli Manning.

Eli Manning, you know, two straight seasons with 4,400 yards and over 30 touchdowns. He actually... He's back. I mean, people thought Eli was done. Yeah, he had 35 touchdowns this year, which was, I believe, second in the league passing through the air. So, well, it's passing through the ground? Oh, my goodness. That's like, it's a Super Mario movie. Spike the ball. I thought it was a joke, but it was a real statement. There was a slash passing slash through the air. Just, yeah, you take either.

Either type of. No, we don't. We just call it passing. That's what we do. Check out my groundhog pass. This is con sideways. All right. Mike Patton is out. Hugh Jackson is in. Johnny Mansell will be out. And now we give a coach that is highly respected, a coach that is a kind of very smart offensive mind. A coach that is one of Andy's longtime favorites. It's true. I don't feel like he got a fair shake in Oakland. You're right.

I like Hugh Jackson. I think we saw last year a plethora of fantasy options emerged from an offense run by Hugh Jackson. You had so many guys that contributed, Jeremy Hill, Joe Bernard, Tyler Eiff, Marvin Jones, AJ Green, and Andy Dalton. And now you put him in a position to, I think, lean even more on the run like Hugh Jackson loves to do. You're probably going to have a Jared Goff from California or Paxton Lynch from Memphis State could be their quarterback.

McCown to start the year, but you probably are going to see a situation where you want to see it. I mean, McCown can't stand on the field, first of all. And he's old. And so there's a very high probability to me that they're grooming either on the field from day one or three or four games into the year, their next franchise quarterback. And already, Hugh Jackson's a guy who almost always leads the league in rushing attempts. You've got a guy like Gio Bernard.

in Duke Johnson that can be involved in that offense. I like the hire from a fantasy perspective as much as can be expected from Cleveland's offense. So what is your take, Mike? I'm with you for the running backs. That's the first place I'm going to be looking for the Cleveland Browns. Do they make any changes or do they just stick with Duke and Crowell? Crowell is, there's still something there to Isaiah Crowell, in my opinion. He had a decent year.

He seemed to start kind of slow, but as the team kind of found their footing, there was more there. They got the roll carved out for Duke. You're going to be the pass catching back. But like Andy said, the attempts are just tremendous for a Hugh Jackson-led offense. And he's come out and he said, I'm probably not going to hire an offensive coordinator because I'm going to call the plays myself. And then Doug Peterson said, oh, good, it's my.

But as far as rushing attempts, here's 2010 with Oakland. Fourth, then seventh. Then he got the old coordinator job in Cincinnati. Fifth, seventh. He is a top ten as far as rushing attempts. And those rushing attempts you want. We always talk about you need talent, but you need opportunity for fantasy. And targets for wide receivers, attempts for running backs.

So if they make no changes, then Isaiah Crowell is going to be very interesting. It's interesting, too, to think about, you know, I just gave you all those names for Cincinnati and how he impacted them on the fantasy side. Duke Johnson, Isaiah Crowell, Josh Gordon, Travis Benjamin, Gary Barnage. If they re-signed Benjamin. Okay, correct. And it's leaning that one. And if Gordon's back. But there's a lot of, I mean, I don't think any of us in draft season are going to say,

If they're on the team that Benjamin or Gordon or Barnage or Crowell or Duke Johnson are irrelevant for fantasy, much less McCown if he gets a starting job. So it's one of those situations where the team has been struggling. But maybe we see a lot of fantasy relevant players if he can get that offense moving. Yeah, it is definitely possible. I have a question for you regarding this hiring. This doesn't just affect the Browns, right? This takes Hugh Jackson away from the bangles. That's true.

And so I wonder what it will do. Now, they took their quarterbacks coach, who's been there a long time and promoted him. I like that move to the O.C. for the Bengals because it keeps Andy Dalton's. It keeps Andy Dalton's growth good. But I do wonder from the running game, you know, is that going to, there's consistency for the Bengals. So I don't expect too much change, but does losing Hugh Jackson miss, you know, are they going to miss him?