Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - QB's 11-15, Sleeper QB's, Combine Hype

trading cards. You never know exactly what's going to be in there, but you're going to get something from your favorite team. You're going to get something from that month's theme. Yes. And, you know, the Todd Gurley Bobblehead up here is an exclusive. We got a Peyton Manning bubblehead the other couple months ago, exclusive. Now listen to this. They've got a new product. They've got the football hall junior as well. Let's say you want to get $40 worth of value for $20. Hey. And you want to sign somebody up for that. It's a great gift option. You can also get...

one-time football hall purchases of your favorite team. You can buy a hall of just your favorite team at over 50% off the retail value. You've got to check them out, and you've got to use our coupon code, ballers 5 when you visit football hall.com. That's football h-a-u-l.com. Check them out. Use the promo code, Ballers 5. All right, you ready to get into the quarterbacks? You know it. Quarterbacks. We went through our top 10 quarterbacks yesterday, so now we are jumping. You know, you got to go a little deeper.

Got to dig a little deeper with the quarterbacks. Well, certainly on a show like ours, where we prescribe regularly to drafting quarterbacks later, getting value at the position. Somebody sent me a draft to look at yesterday. And I like their draft, except for the part where they took Ben Rotherzberger in the fifth and Tony Romo in the 10th. And I said, well, if you just didn't have Ben Rothersberger and you had a fifth round pick there.

I'd like that team a whole lot better. So we went through our top 10 guys yesterday. I'll run them back real quick for you. This is our consensus top 10 at the quarterback position. Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, Drew Breeze, Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Blake Bortles, Ben Rothesberger and Philip Rivers. There was a flourish there on Drew Breeze. Yeah. It was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Drew Breeze. Well, look, somebody mentioned the fact that back at the end of the season,

We talked about Drew Breeze, and I said I probably wouldn't have him as my quarterback because of his consistency rating. He was very good at home, very bad on the road. He had games that went up and down. He started the season really bad. And it's a good point, right? You have that opinion. It is fair. And we said we need to remember last season. That was part of the reason we did the truth about these guys. We said we want to remember what took place. I will add to that that it also, we didn't know what the value of Drew Breeze would be in the draft. At the time when we talked about him,

I thought those final season numbers would drive his draft position a little bit higher than it is right now. It doesn't mean he's going to be on all my rosters. But if he's a sixth round pick, seventh round pick, I really like the value for Dubris. Yeah, I completely agree with that. And I mean, he was dealing with the shoulder injury, a bit of a turnover there at the offense. He was a bit inconsistent last year as we had talked about. But man, it...

I feel like I'm just repeating everything you said, but the value was there this year. He didn't find the Ben Watson effect until halfway through the season. Cooks came on in the second half of the season. I think that you look back eight years. Eight years of 4,000 plus yards, 30 plus touchdowns. We talked about comparing that to Ben Rothesberger, and Rothesberger has like one. Yeah. One season, and he's being ranked higher in a lot of...

list, and he just isn't for us. All right, so now we're going to jump in through, I think we're going to go 11 through however far I think we can get. And then we're going to talk about some sleepers with Chris Harris, some of the thoughts he has on some of these later round guys. He watches a lot of film. You know, I think if you told me, what is our strategy for discerning these players? You know, last year,

If you want to know how we did on streaming quarterback recommendations, we took all of our recommendations from the last year. We averaged them out. We averaged the recommendation of the six best quarterback every week. So if you are going to stream a quarterback this year, which means week to week starting a guy based on matchups, picking somebody up off the waiver wire, last year we provided you the six best quarterback. So this is something that we really recommend. And, you know, a guy can look bad on film.

And this is the only thing I have, it's nothing against just a film view. Sure. But I think I like a more balanced approach where a guy can look really good on film and put up bad fantasy numbers and a guy can look bad on film but put up good fantasy numbers a la the new baseball player Tim Tebow. Oh, I heard. Good for him, by the way. I mean, if you like to compete, go compete. If you got the opportunity to at 29, go try to be a baseball player, I guess go do it. You don't get your days back. Should look into competitive dodgeball.

Is he'd be all right? I think you would. Accuracy issues, though? Possible. Yeah, accuracy issue, but Tim Tebow's a large dude, and he would be pretty intimidating on the other side of a dodgeball court. All right, here's a name that I don't think you're expecting to hear. James Winston is our number 11 consensus quarterback. This is Mike's fault, I think. I was just going to say, is that right? Yeah, I believe it's my fault because I'll pull up the rankings. You talk about James Winston. I am extremely.

high on James. I have him is up at number nine. And the, yeah, I just see the breakout coming for James. He was, it started very rocky. His career started very rocky. However, he steadily improved over the course of the season. And that's why I like him in the second half of the year. He went up over 30 yards a game.

His interceptions went down. His completions went up, but he wasn't really passing more. It was just overall efficiency went up. James Winston is the youngest quarterback to ever throw for 3,000 yards. The youngest quarterback to ever throw for 4,000 yards. And on top of that, James Winston is going to give you these rushing touchdowns every once in a while a little sneaky gift.

A little sneaky gift. Every once in a while, you just, hey, here you go. And he runs it in. And that was James last year. I'll tell you why, he's 0.4 rushing touchdowns per game. If you remember yesterday, Cam Newton was about 0.6. Yeah. So it's not a huge gap there. And James, James, was in the gym working on his fitness. Yeah. And, like, if you look at the pictures, he is noticeably, noticeably fitter. Is James Winston one of your guys?

Yes. Would you say so? Because we've got that episode coming here. At this moment in time, I would put James as one of my guys, yes. I'm at 14, which I think is very respected. That's very fair. Which means he's going to be a streamable guy. I don't buy into it every week James Winston consistency standpoint there. I think. Now, we'll say this, where we've talked about the beginning schedule for Doug Martin, the beginning schedule for James Winston, because he's on the same team, is a little bit hairy and frightening.

So if I'm drafting James, which he is a guy that is going extremely late in drafts. He is going in the 12th round. I might be looking to pair him with somebody else just because I know that the opening schedule can be very rough. He's got to get his touchdown totals up. Only 22 last year. But the good news is he has Mike Evan. Say superstar Mike Evan, who I think is a superstar coming up, was not a touchdown machine last year. No.

Was that a point for him? Yeah, well, because, look, Mike Evans was not a touchdown machine. And James was still solid. Oh, okay. My point is that you can't expect Evans to give you only three touchdowns. His numbers are going to go up. Sure, sure. I think a lot of people buy into Mike Evans, including a brand new article from one of our writers on the website. Yes.

Andy Dalton is number 12. You said you're rising on him. Yeah, after I dug back through, look, I remember it was very solid for him. And then you, you know, about the broken thumb and he missed some time. Andy Dalton was on pace for over 4,300 yards and 33 touchdowns. And that's not extrapolating. Oh, he only played seven games. He played essentially 12 games. And you just give him four more.

And that's where he ends up. He threw, you know, 255 completions for 3,200 yards and 25 touchdowns. And he gives you those sneaky little rushing touchdown gifts as well. I just, he had the number two passer rating in the league. 52 of his 382 passes went for 20 yards or more. That puts him at number one in the league. You left a pause for me to react there. That's a, that's a number one good? Oh, yeah.

Okay. Look, because Andy Dalton is a capable quarterback. He's at least done it in fantasy before. He's finished, I think, number three before. Yes. So I like that about if you're going to project a guy to be, and this is the back half of the top 12 here, well, number 12. So where is he going in drafts right now? Andy Dalton is currently going in the middle of the 11th round. Okay. So, yeah. That's behind Tyrod, Cousins.

Romo and Carr. I don't think it's going to be very difficult for him to find the production that Sunu and Marvin Jones offered. You know, LaFelle's not going to do it all. But with Geo Bernard out of the backfield with A.J. Green is one of the best options in football. Somebody that we love this year, the weapons will be there. And look, we know Eifert's hurt right now. Ifer is not going to miss the whole season. He might miss a couple games.

But he will be back. All right. Tony Romo, number 13, all in our list. Just kind of a ho-hum, Tony Romo. Here I am. I get hurt. But when I'm not hurt, I offer you really consistent fantasy production. And I have an elite wide receiver as well. In fact, if you notice these last three guys, it's, okay, Mike Evans, AJ Green, Des Bryant. Kind of helps. Last two.

Years, he played 15 games. Is that right? That is correct. And despite the perception, he still played the majority of games. Yeah. And in those two years, he averaged over 3,700 yards and 33 touchdowns. I want 4,000 yards from my quarterback. But Romo is, I mean, he's been great with the touchdowns throughout his entire career. You know, for all the people out there who want to dismiss Tony Romo.

Please go look at his numbers. Go look at what he has done. Is this a public service announcement? Yeah. I understand that the perception of Tony Romo nationwide is not the best because he has known when you think of Tony Romo, what's the first thing you think of? The first two things you think of. Choking? Yes. And injury. Yes. Yeah. And I feel like that's pretty common where I just, I think he needs some, he just needs some respect.

some fantasy respect. The third thing is Jessica Simpson. See, the top things that people remember about Romo are not strong. And the fourth thing is that you, in fantasy, over years, have leaned on Tony Romo to win you big games. Yeah, I personally have. So maybe I have just an extra emotional attachment to him because he has done very well for me. And you can always get him late. Always. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you make a good point. I just got some.

Well, let's drop this. Ooh. Breaking news. Jim Harbaal just came out and said Rashad Parryman and Steve Smith, Sr. would be active week one. What? Yeah. How do you feel, Kamar Aiken, lover? I still feel okay. Brashad Perryman is essentially a rookie. And Steve Smith is, I'll believe that when I see it. The actual opposite of a rookie. Oh, yeah. That's Steve Smith is the, is the inverse. And I will say if Steve Smith is healthy.

I'm all about that. Like the only reason, or not the only reason, I think that Aiken's actually talented. But the reason why he's propelled up is because there's, there's no one there in a high passing volume offense. Steve Smith, I think, is great. But a, with these guys coming back from rupture to Killies, man. I just, I'm not, not buying it because the other guys. No, you're not, but they're back. Well, they're at the deal with it. They are back playing.

Yeah. But that does not mean you're playing at a high level. All right, let's move on here. Let's get through 14 and 15, and then we'll jump into some of these sleeper picks. Matthew Stafford is at 14. This is your guy. He is my guy. I really like Matthew Stafford. I saw a second half from him that was extremely efficient. I think he had something like three or four interceptions over the second half of the season, which you love to see that kind of a consistency. He picks up Marvin Jones. If Ibrin's healthy, that will really help him around the goal line.

And I just think they're going to have to pass the ball. They couldn't run it last year. I don't think they make giant steps up in the running game. They've already conceded. They probably don't have a thousand-yard rush around the roster. And so it's going to be in the hands of Matthew Stafford. Now he doesn't have Calvin Johnson, but he kind of didn't last year. Right. And so I think Golden Tate is valuable. You looked up a stat that was really interesting.

He only had 41.5% of his yards in the air, which is actually behind Philip Rivers, who we talked about yesterday. Kind of surprising. It's a very strange thing. For a big arm, because Rivers doesn't have a big arm anymore. Right. Stafford has a cannon, and he had Calvin. And you look at the average depth of target for Matt Stafford 6.3. That puts him in a delicious sandwich between Teddy Bridgewater and Alex Smith. Ew. He's not bombing it out. No, no, he hasn't been. It's strange. However.