Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Fred Jackson Joins the Footballers + Week 6 Mailbag Questions

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Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. It's Wednesday. It's right in the middle of the week. Did you get your guys? Did you get your waiver claims? Yes. Maybe. I don't know. We're busy recording a show. I haven't checked on my teams yet. I don't even know the results. This is an early show. I've checked none of them, actually. So we'll see.

But we've got a good show for you today. It's Wednesday. It is October 14th. This is the fantasy footballers podcast. And we are bringing it. We have a mailbag show today, but not just any mailbag show. No, no, no, no. Because you're not just any group of listeners. You're the Foot Clan. And you have great questions this week. You have your start-s-sit, trade questions. Conundrums.

conundrums that can either lead to fantasy championships or lead to fantasy disaster. And we're here to help you win a title. So we're going to answer a ton of questions on the show today. But not just that. We have Seattle Seahawks running back. Extraordinaire. Fred Jackson. Fred Jackson's on the show today. We're asking him all about...

His role in Seattle, Marchion Lynch, Thomas Rawls, and a number of other fantasy questions, that offensive line there. So don't miss this interview. This is a great interview today with Fred Jackson. So how are you guys doing? I am doing. Are you glowing? Spectacular. Yeah. You've got your baseball tea on. You are a baseball tea type of guy? Absolutely, man. It's like right in the middle. Do I want a full sleeve?

Do I want a regular short sleeve? Nope. You want the three-quarter? Three-quarter. Three-quarter. All right. Well, you know, if you want to follow us, we are on Instagram, so maybe we'll post a picture of the three-quarter bearded mic. I'll do that right now. We'll see. All right, there you go. We are on Twitter at the F.F. Ballers. And if you have a question of your own and you want it answered on the show or you want it answered quickly because you've got a decision to make.

You can go to the fantasy footballers.com, click the submit-a-question button, and send us your question. We will answer it. Mike is now selfieing, which honestly, this is probably exact, it's a perfect microcosm of how you play fantasy football. It's just all about you. That's not how you play? Yeah, it is. But not with the same, you know, like... Bravado. Yeah, bravado. Well, that's because I bring it. Yeah. I bring the junk talk.

I bring the smack talk. I bring the crack talk. I bring it all. Wait. What is a crack? What is the crack talk? The cracks's like, there's cracks in your team. Oh, sure. I was thinking you were like hopped up on something. Right in the snake. I wish they had that drop on here. Oh, I was like, who hit the button. Yeah. But thank you, Jason. Hold on. All right. If you're still with us, let's go to the quick question of the day. You know, Mike's getting a selfie going. Look at this. Smolder.

Is that what that is? That's not blue steel? It's all the same. All right. Rest of season question. All right. I have two rest of season questions. So two questions. First of all, who would you select right now? Put them on your team. Start him the rest of the way. Todd Gurley, Eddie Lacey.

Go. Eddie Lacey. And the reason why is because although I love Gurley and love what I'm seeing, it's just offensive touchdown opportunities. I think the Green Bay Packers are going to score a lot more touchdowns than the St. Louis Rams. So for me, I go Eddie Lacey. Oh, it's very, very tough for me. I think Curly is the truth. And Lacey's workload is...

has been concerning to this point. Don't you get concerned that Gurley gets 30 carries and Lacey gets like 13 or something? That's the problem. Do you want volume or a better offense? That's rough. So I'm going to stick with Lacey because he was right around this, almost identical yardage between this year and last year, and then we know that he exploded. It's completely there for the taking for Lacey. I'm going to split the difference sort of. Hmm?

Yeah, because I'm going to cheat, and I'm going to say if I had Eddie Lacey, I would try to trade him for Gurley and get a little extra on the side. Ah, okay, so it's Gurley plus equals Lacey. Because I guess to answer the question legitimately then is, I believe Gurley has the ability to put up the same numbers the rest of the way. And I don't disagree with that at all. As far as ability, the opportunity and chances there. It's scarier to rely on him. I will admit that. It would be hard to make Gurley your number one. Just go after two weeks.

I think his baseline is higher than Eddie Lacey's baseline. You know, because of that workload, if he's getting 30 totes a game, then, you know, if he doesn't get in, if he doesn't have a great game, he's probably going to put up more points than when Eddie Lacey has a week like last week. It was interesting for me watching the Monday night game with Charters of Melvin Gordon, who was, Melvin Gordon was taking, what, three or five spots after Gurley? And you're just watching. And it's a very small sample size, but you're like,

Wow. Todd Gurley is very, very good compared to Melvin Gordon right now. Yeah, Gordon is interesting because I think Gordon is going to be very good. And I think Gordon is adjusting to the NFL game because there were five or six plays because he caught a lot of passes yesterday. There are five or six plays where he was a step too slow on his cut because I feel like he thought there were college players coming to tackle him. Like you saw this, Reggie Bush came into the league, other guys coming to the league. It's just kind of like, not there yet.

So I'm excited about the talent. I'm excited about how physical he is and I can catch the passes out of the backfield. So not a lot of negative to say, but you're right. Right out of the gate, girly looks like. I mean, they know they're running.

Everybody knows St. Louis is running, and he's still putting up big numbers. Stack the box, and it won't matter. Did you have something to add on Gordon, Jason? Well, I saw what you saw, a lot of rookie mistakes. And he doesn't, with the rookie mistakes, he's not doing the dance thing. You know, he's not dancing around too much. He's just not yet fully adjusted. And he was on the field a lot. A lot. He was on the field in two-minute drill type.

situations for the first time that I've seen this year. I think he caught seven passes or something like that. Clearly the offensive line in San Diego was in shambles from injuries, but the Rams line is, I think, is pretty close to equally bad right now. So that's why it's, when you're seeing how well Todd Gurley's performing, it's impressive. Yes. And, you know, they obviously have committed to him right away.

which I think we suspected, but it's good to see. So before we get into the mailbag and answer a bunch of listener questions, let's jump into it. Let's talk to Fred Jackson of the Seahawks. You talking to me? The fantasy footballers are thrilled to welcome in a favorite of our show, Fred Jackson of the Seattle Seahawks, to talk some fantasy insight and some smack-talking emojis. Good morning, Mr. Jackson. How are you doing? Not too bad. How are you guys doing?

Pretty good, pretty good. Are you used to hearing your name announced from the Seattle Seahawks yet? Is that comfortable? Yeah, it's getting there. It's definitely a little different, but it's something that I'm being used to now. Yeah, yeah, same for us on this side. So being new to Seattle, can you tell us some of the differences in culture between what you've seen on Seattle with the Seahawks and from Buffalo? Well, I mean...

You know, Buffalo is just a smaller community, so it's more small market. And, you know, you see your fans, same fans day in and day out that you see coming to support you all the time because they show so more support. You know, in Seattle is just a bigger market and, you know, more fans. So the fans are more all over the place, and you don't get that more intimate, you know, a relationship that you have with the small fans in Buffalo. Yeah, yeah. Are they on the FJax train, the fans there? Are you getting love there?

I am getting some love here. You know, it's something that I got to come out and, you know, make some more plays and I'll get a little bit more, you know, fan support from the fans. For sure, for sure. We've...

you're really one of our favorite players here have been for years. One of the things we love about you is that you always defy the expectations and overperform whatever the naysayers are saying. You're actually one of the only players, I don't know if you know this, from a fantasy football perspective, that has outperformed your fantasy value three consecutive years. What do you attribute to your ability to outperform what people's wrong expectations of you are?

I think more than anything is just believing in itself and flying under the radar. You know, if you don't do much or you're not a projected starter, you know, people don't really see much value in you. So what you have to do is when you get out there, you know, you know that you're going to have an opportunity to make some plays is go out and make those plays. You know, not only, you know, running the ball, you have to be able to catch the ball as a running back and things like that. And I think when you do that...

that's when you get your value up and that's what I try and do and what I try to accomplish when I'm out on the field. Yeah, is that how Seattle's wanting to use you is in that past catching role specifically more than, you know, just behind the line? What are you thinking? I think so. You know, I think one of the things that they really try to establish me in is that third down back and catching balls out of the backfield and things like that.

I mean, when you have a guy like Marchand, you know, he's going to be fed the ball as much as he is. And then you've got a guy like Thomas who's playing out of his mind right now. So for me, you know, it's just about taking advantage of those opportunities when I am on the field on third down and catching balls out of the back field. Yeah. And how is your ankle feeling right now?

The ankle is good. You know, I definitely got rolled up, and it was a little sore, but, you know, it's not something that I think is going to keep me off still, and I just got to go out there and show me the coaches that I can still compete at a high level. We're a little sore ankle. Yeah, we were, I think a lot of people were surprised to see you active this last week. Yet again, just overcoming the naysayers. Don't ever count Fred Jackson out. That's just it. So you, as a veteran running back, you've seen a ton of running backs, good, bad average.

Give us some insight. Tell us what we really should expect from Thomas Rawls going forward this year and into the future. You know, one week wonder, or has he got what it takes? You know, one of the things I like about Thomas is, you know, his low center gravity. And, you know, he's a guy that's hard to tackle. You know, and anytime you get a guy that's his size and has the strength that he has and has a low center gravity like that, he's going to break a lot of tackles for you. So he's a lot of fun to watch.