AFC South + Gordon Drama, Breaking News

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to the fantasy footballers podcast. Coming to you from pristineauction.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Weekend edition. Oh, footballers. Melvin Gordon knows a lot about the weekend edition right now.

Oh, we got a great show today. We're going to break down the Melvin Gordon situation, take a deep dive, make sure you know exactly what's happening. Because fantasy owners, Mike, Jason, they are... You're freaking out. Oh, it's time. They're freaking out. So we'll break that down here at the top of the show, let you know what's happening. A lot of news. It's exciting. It's fun. Teams are in camp.

The injury part isn't as exciting as the hype part of it. Right. But this is the time of year as a fantasy owner of a team preparing for your draft, Dynasty League, whatever. You have to be willing and able and capable of laying down thy pride and moving your opinion around a little bit. Yep. Because you spend a lot of time, months, preparation.

And there are going to be things that come out, information that comes out that's going to change the narrative that you've practically written in ink upon your brain. You need to get some white out. Cover it up. It might be ugly. It's hard, right? Whiting out your brain hurts. And, yeah, very difficult. But it's, it's really true. I mean, we say all the time stay water because you want to not just be so rigid that I like this guy. I like my take.

that new information doesn't change the equation. We want to help people win in their fantasy football leagues. That's why this time of year, what we're doing here is going through all the news that's coming out of every camp. I mean, this is the time where news ramps up, and some of it really doesn't matter, and some of it really changes the equation. It's a matter of sifting through that. It's exciting times. It is, and drafts are coming. People are getting ready to go, and, you know,

The Melvin Gordon situation will start at the top. And you can follow us at the FF Ballers on Twitter. We'll post breaking news, things that are happening. We'll retweet stories that are relevant to fantasy owners. But I want to start at the top with Melvin Gordon because I'll say a couple things. One, look, I still think that something gets done with Melvin Gordon. I still believe that.

That being said, the news is trending in a negative direction from Melvin Gordon right now. And so as a result of that, the first thing I did when I got into the studio today, had a bunch of players I needed to tweak for my rankings. And one of them was Melvin Gordon. He needed to be adjusted because... Yeah, I moved him down too. Our rankings right now are prescriptive for your draft as if it's happening right now. Even if Gordon...

signs in two weeks. He will be adjusted back up. As of right now, he's somewhere in the lower 17, I don't remember where he landed, 17 to 20 at running back now. Because if I drafted today, I don't have enough confidence in spending a first round pick in him. No, you should not have confidence to spend a first or a second round pick because here is the lay of the land for Melvin Gordon. It is different than Levi-on-Belt. Last year, Levy on Bell was he was supposed to be franchise tagged.

He did not sign that contract, so he technically was never under contract, never facing fines, which Melvin Gordon will now face a $30,000 fine per day. Per day that he skips of training camp, so that's money that will be taken away from him. Levy on Bell could hold out and then become a free agent. His path was clear. There was nothing in the way. Melvin Gordon.

still eventually has to show up because he has played four seasons in the NFL. So he is eligible to be a free agent. However, he is still bound to the confines of the fifth year option. So he is under contract. So if he says, he skips the year, guess what? He's a fifth year option guy. He's under contract next year. So the only way that holding through the season would benefit Melvin Gordon is if he was certain it would force their hand to trade him.

Otherwise, he's in the same situation only without about a million dollars worth of fines that's out of his pocket, plus 5.6 million, which is the 50-year option price for Melvin Gordon. His best bet, logically, the way I understand the contract, is to, if you're going to play this out, if you're going to miss games, you show up halfway through the year, you accrue your season and you move on without being a charger going into the next year.

The general manager has come out. Melvin Gordon has come out. They have both dug in. The opinion out there is that it could lead into the season. The Chargers are not going to be the same team without Melvin Gordon. The Chargers can't afford. I mean, it's just the thing is when you really look at this just from a logic and team building perspective, the Chargers, especially with their current stadium situation, they're not filling a 25,000 seat stadium. They cannot.

afford to pay Melvin Gordon what he wants. So this is going to be an inroads that lasts a little while. And Tom Telesco, their GM, has said, he's a charger. Like we're not looking at trading him. And there's not a lot of teams out there with cap room that would sign him to a big traded deal. The only team that makes sense to me doesn't even have a GM. The Houston Texans would be a great landing spot, but they don't have a GM right now to work a deal. So this is an ugly situation.

It is, and we'll see what happens. You know, the second he agrees to terms shows up at camp. He'll be adjusted. My number five running back. Adjusted right back up. But fantasy owners have questions about planning for a Melvin Gordon situation. You might have Melvin Gordon. They want to know, do I invest in Echler or Justin Jackson? You also might not have Melvin Gordon. And you might remember last year when James Connor was a...

11th to undrafted type of guy, and everybody that did take the shot on him paid off in fantasy victories because Connor was the guy all year long. If I could tell you today, let's just presume Gordon comes back week nine or eight. If you could have a guy for eight weeks and get them out of value, who do you want? Do you want Echler? Do you want Jackson? I want Jackson for sure, because Echler, look, they're both going to get a lot more work. I mean, Echler will get more work without Melvin Gordon, but

The difference for Justin Jackson between him with Melvin Gordon there, which he's going to be barely utilized, and him with Melvin Gordon gone, he's going to be the primary downs back. I think we've seen that. They've talked them up. For Jackson? Yes. Oh, you think it won't be Echler? I do not think it'll be Echler. Echler's got first team reps in training camps. But look at, look at.

the draft price difference. Echler is not only already starting high, but as Melvin Gordon stays out, he's going to continue to be the guy drafted early, whereas Justin Jackson is free in drafts. If you're drafting now, I mean, get him. I would take the counterpoint, though, that if you wanted to take it with a different angle, Austin Eccler should have prolonged value through the duration of the return. So if you're going to reach for a player, like if you wanted to say, hey, I'm going to reach.

a half around or around Frost and Echler. On the chance I get seven games of him being heavily utilized and then he's still relevant. That's kind of the count. I'm not saying I would do that necessarily. But reaching for Echler?

If you're going to be reaching in a couple weeks, that's going to be, yeah, the fourth, the fifth round. You're giving up good options. Reaching for Justin Jackson is like, I'm going to take him in the ninth, the tenth round. That's a big reach. He's in the 13th right now, but of course, ADP is skewed because this is new information. Yeah, that will definitely change. It's a tough situation because much like every one of these holdouts, the Lev Bell situation last year, you're just, there's a level of gamble that's taking place. We're not contract attorneys.

Okay? Right. We explain the situation as best as we know it, but there are complexities, there is leverage to be had. I think it's going to come down to Melvin Gordon laying down his pride a little bit. If he wants to lower that price tag, maybe he just wants to do what David Johnson wanted last year. Get some more guaranteed money. David Johnson was a holdout threat, in quotes, before he came to an agreement last season.

He was in a similar situation as Melvin Gordon. They came to terms. Jason, you certainly don't believe that the charges are going to open their money bags at all. I'm just, I hate dealing with these situations. So let me ask you this, Jason, because I mean, we all have the stance that we aren't drafting Kareem Hunt because we know that he has an eight-game suspension. He won't be back until week 10 because of the buy week. Melvin Gordon takes us the distance. He misses.

Eight games. Do you have the same stance as you are not drafting Melvin Gordon? No, I would still draft Melvin Gordon because the giant difference is when Kareem Hunt comes back is how involved is he? Is he the guy? It's Nick Chubb. You're having a, you know, a guy that's you're going to get in week 10 who might be a backup running back that you held all year. When Melvin Gordon comes back, he is the Melvin Gordon star. And let's be honest, if he misses about four or five games.

Maybe that's good for him because he usually misses about four or five games. So then I'll be like, oh, now we can stay healthy the rest of the way. Do you have a round? Not yet. This is all new information. So do you have a round where you're...

Where in your head you think, yeah, I'll take the risk that I'm going to be stashing a running back for eight weeks. Well, I mean, right now, you have to only go on what information we have now. So if I was drafting today and I don't know that he's missing eight weeks, I don't think he will miss that much, maybe four weeks in, they work something out. I would probably be looking at Melvin Gordon like, man, fourth round, but he'll never get to me right now. Yeah, right now for me, fourth round is I would.

I would just do it because the guys going in the fourth round, assuming that I missed Kerry on Johnson, if we're speaking strictly running backs, they're all shaky as the fourth room running backs always are. So fourth round, I think I would smash. So you're on the drop there. Melvin Gordon, Derek Henry, you're taking Gordon. Yeah, I think I would take Gordon. That's just what I would do right now. I'm the most optimistic, but the news has not been great, posturing on both sides. We'll continue to track it. We're not even into August yet.

And a couple of things to get out there before we get into the rest of the news. Footclan giveaway.com. A couple days left, signed Pat Mahomes, Jersey. We're giving one away from pristineauction.com. That's probably the best giveaway we've ever had. Yeah, for a one-of-one-off. Like that one item thing, signed Pat Mahomes jersey. It's pretty awesome. And I will say, if you have already entered, we did recently add, we updated a way to get a couple points for the raffle.