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

Weeks 10 through 17, quarterback 4. Quarterback 4. Kurt Cousins gets plenty of credit for last year carrying people to a title, which Cousins and Reed were great. Stafford was right there if you happened to be, you picked him up right when he caught fire. Remember that Thanksgiving? I was going to say right around the Thanksgiving game, which I know that was a big Calvin game. But for me, the numbers of him not bombing it out.

I think that helps him. If he's relying on the deep ball with Calvin Johnson and you feel like that talent is not there to carry that anymore, then I think that him with the short passes speaks that Stafford can continue the dominance that he had with Golden Tate, the Yakmaster, Marvin Jones as a red zone weapon.

I think that it could be there for Stafford. All right, number 15, Derek Carr from the Oakland Raiders. Send in the car. Really didn't like how he ended the season. Send in the car. I don't have that drop right here. I've got to get that hooked up for the season. He just was not good to end the year. I think you're going to run into consistency problems with Carr. I don't have how he breaks down. I want to pull up our rankings and how he's breaking down amongst the three of us. He's 15 on our consensus ranking.

Let me see here. We have Derek Carr 13, 18, and 16. Right. So has the weapons, has an offensive line that can protect him, I think. Yeah. Oh, he does. He absolutely does. But last year, he was unstartable against good defenses. Yeah. So he's a matchup play. When you look at his splits, they were significantly.

worse for fantasy when you're talking average. He's averaging, you know, three to four points, fantasy points worse a game against a bad defense. But against a, I'm sorry, against a good defense. But against bad defenses, he was very strong. And we do remember at the end of the season, Amari Cooper was on a bum wheel. So that certainly played in effect, I'm sure, into Derek Carr's kind of late season collapse. Derek Carr is a guy that,

I think you can get him late. And like I said, in the right matchup will be a startable piece. He's a guy that if you pick him up, I'm probably going to pair him as well.

He's at least, I think like James, he's a jump candidate where if things came together, if the rapport with Cooper was there, you could see the numbers ascend this year. Because I really like the talent. He just needs to be consistent week-to-week, and he needs to step up in the big games. He's in a tough division with Kansas City and Denver's defense. I don't think they're going to be unrelenting this year, and that makes it a challenge. And Crabtree. I just want to just point out Michael Crabtree. You always want to point out Michael Crabtree. Michael Crabtree is there, and he was very solid. He was very, he finished better than Amari Cooper.

I just want to bring him up because it's always Amari Cooper, Cooper. Crabtree was there and he was great. Yeah, you're right. But nobody wants to say that. Everyone wants to talk about Amari Cooper. You know when Crabtree was bad? When he was recovering from a ruptured Achilles.

It's true. All right, it's sleeper quarterback time. We're going to welcome in Chris Harris from Harris Football. He's going to come on. We're going to talk about three more quarterbacks, maybe some more. We'll see. And see where he thinks these guys belong, whether they have upside. So let's go ahead and jump in. You talking to me? All right, the fantasy footballers are excited to welcome in a friend of the show. Chris Harris, once again from Harris Football. Chris, how you doing? I'm doing...

Well, I guess I'm doing all right. I would be lying if I said I was doing great. We had a little conversation before we started. I think it should remain off the record, although I believe you were recording it. You can drop some of what I said. Please don't. This is an interesting time of year. It really is because we're so excited about football coming, but yet I think over here we're feeling almost the grind of so much work to be done, yet no payoff of getting to watch actual games.

Yeah, that's part of it. I did that almanac thing and that murdered me for like six weeks. And I, yeah, like it's a lot of prep. And then, of course, everything just explodes in week one and it's all wrong. I know. You can talk as much about Eric Ebron as you want to and then just one day in practice. He could ruin everything. But then he does an Instagram and he's fine. I know. See, that's helpful. As long as you got Instagrams of smiles, you can count on.

people to be okay so hey we're uh we got done with our quarterbacks uh top 10 consensus episode yesterday today we're talking about uh some of the later guys i wanted to get your opinion on on three names really that uh these are guys going right now on fantasy football calculators adp they're going 14 15th and 18th off the board at the quarterback position and so let's start here um i'm going

A lot of people, they have different opinions about Cousins. He obviously ended the year in incredible fashion. Where do you stand on Kurt Cousins? Where do you see that offense this year? I think the offense will be fine, and I think Kurt Cousins will be bad. I just, you know, I'm going based on what I saw from last year, and the numbers were great. I mean, I guess 29 and 11 for the whole year. And like, what, from...

I don't even know, from week whatever on it was like 24 and 7. I don't even know what it was. But I just thought he should have thrown a whole bunch of interceptions that he didn't throw. I think it's the Nick Folles Award for 2016. Yeah, that's what it sounded like when you said he should have, but didn't.

that's how that's how i felt i mean you know he was he was one play away from being benched week seven against tampa it's right before half time they're down 24 seven they're driving he throws a ridiculous bad throw chris conti who can't catch happens to be the defender in the neighborhood it hits him in the something the nipple or something and

and drops it, he throws a touchdown on the next play, and then they launch the comeback that launches them into the playoffs. You know, I think Jay Gruden's fired after that game if they lose that game. That's the you like that game. That's the crazy you like that game. Like, okay, you can't, it's a revisionist history to say that he didn't then subsequently play pretty well in some games, but in other games he didn't. And I hear you, anybody who wants to say good weapons, I agree, pretty good weapons. They're probably building the team right.

I think they're building the team right in that they didn't commit to that jackhole. Like, you know, they're not tying themselves to that guy because I don't think he's a star and I feel a quarterback. Now, another franchise that is maybe trying not to tie themselves to a guy again is Tyrod Taylor situation in Buffalo. There's talk of long-term deal now, but I don't know what's going to happen. He's the guy that's 15. He's coming off one after Kurt Cousins. Where do you sit with Tyrod and maybe compare him a little bit with?

where you sit with Cousins. Right now, Cousins, I think you finished last year as the eighth best fantasy quarterback. Tyrod was at 16, but he had a very strong end of the year as well. Yeah, I don't like either one. I have Cousins 20 and Taylor 23, so obviously I'm in the minority, but, you know, listen, Tyrod Taylor can be good in any given week because of the running, right? I mean, 500 and whatever yards running last year. Actually, for as many rushing yards he had, he probably was a little low on...

rushing touchdowns. But as a thrower, he's just, he's not, he's no good. You know, he's a bad decision maker. He's a fine game manager when they don't need him to do anything when they're ahead in the scoreboard. The moment they're behind and he has to do something, it becomes throw it straight up in the air and triple coverage into Sammy Watkins. And Watkins bailed him out occasionally, but, uh, nope, uh, they would love for him to dink and dunk if they can and then make some hay with running, but he's also not the long term answer. I'm, I'm,

I'm curious about what you guys think, though. Tell me where you guys are in Cousins and Taylor. Are you loving either one? Well, Cousins is actually at 20 for us as well. Okay, good. So he's our consensus number 20. We have Tyrod a little higher. Right now, he's our consensus number 16 as of recording this today. Tyrod's very interesting. Yeah, I actually kind of, I like Tyrod. I mean, from what I've seen, I can agree with you that I don't think he's by any means an elite.

player but for fantasy purposes because he can because he can run that really changes the situation i mean he had per on a per game basis he had the most rushing yards for a quarterback even more than cam and even though that maybe his go-to when he gets freaked out is to bomb it out to sammy walkins i mean it could be a lot could be a lot worse yeah so the problem is you just worry that six interceptions doesn't seem likely again sure

You know, his reaction when he gets pressure is he's actually pretty good about not taking off like the second he gets pressure, but he ducks his head. And that's the first thing they tell you. The first thing you tell you is you got to stay, you got to stay upright. You got to stay tall in the pocket when you start getting pressure. And his head drops immediately and he's looking to.

Not necessarily scramble for positive yard, but escape in some way. And I feel like that is like I can draw a direct line to that from that to interceptions. Sure. So going back to Cousins, did you, when you were breaking down everything, did you see anything different for him for those last three games? I mean, 11 total touchdowns in that time. And it was three touchdowns against the Cowboys in the final game in, I think a half.

playing the playing till half time. I mean, he looked like such a different guy after, pretty much after the, you like that game. I felt like, uh, Cousins had, he had to take a knee after that. He did, he didn't take a knee when he should have spiked the ball, but that's beside the point. Uh, he just, like, I, I feel like Kurt Cousins. I personally, I think he can be a good quarterback, but he is, uh, a, I think his, his mental toughness is probably not what you want.

out of a franchise quarterback because when it goes wrong, he just continues to dig through the hole. But when it's right, I think that he can be, he just catches fire. So did you see anything in the final three games that was maybe different? I mean, averaging, in two of those games, he averaged over 11 yards per attempt, which is, that's a huge number. So did you see anything special for those final three games?

I don't think the cowboy game means anything because the cowboys had, you know, they literally had Jerry warming up the RV. Week 15, that's the one where I think it was his best game of the year. It was against the bills, basically flawless. You know.

It wasn't an easy game. And Buffalo was, you know, still playing for something at that point. And Washington, you know, hit him pretty good. And Cousins played great and within himself and didn't make the typical Kirk Cousins ridiculous throw that somehow has like a anti-gravitational field around the ball and the defender can't catch it. So, yeah, I like that game a lot.

You know, I'm thinking of 14, I think, against the Bears. I can't remember which number it is, but that Bears game game game. I encourage people, anybody who has game pass, which everybody should have game pass. Go back and watch that game against the Bears. In Chicago, it's a game Washington should have lost, but they won. And it's just unbelievable. There's one play where he kind of...

across his body throws it straight up in the air to Matt Jones, like ricochets off three defenders and somehow isn't caught. And it just felt like, oh, I'm watching Nick Foles. I'm watching Nick Foles against the Packers. I remember that game, like it was yesterday in 2013. Was he better? You know, I...

Like, he submitted one game of flawless film as an NFL quarterback. You know what? I can't do that. Right. You know, I could have done the goal line thing, though. I could have taken the knee. That is exactly how my brain would have function in that moment. It's so good. It's so true. Yeah. I, you know, I think you said it great. I think the problem with Kurt Cousins is that he's a frontrunner. You know, if things are going good, awesome.