Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Rookie Steals, Keeper Quandaries, and Bears. Oh my!

The Saints are going to be in in a couple of years. That's why Michael Thomas, while I love him, I'd love him a lot more if he had Andrew Luck as his quarterback. Yeah, that's very fair. How much of it is Michael Thomas and how much is Drew Brees. Yeah, and how hard, and we know how hard it is to replace those guys. Not everybody ends up with a Dak Prescott or Russell Wilson in the fourth round. Man, I would take, I would take Odell Buckham Jr. It's still Beckham for me. But I understand. I would not get mad at someone if they were.

if they wanted to argue that Evan should be the 101. I just, I firmly believe it would be, it's Beckham. If you had made that same argument last year with Blake Bortles and Alan Robinson, you would have been really sad. You didn't take out of Buckham Jr. Dynasty question from Dave. Now here's the irony. He's in Mount Rushmore. So we just talked about the Mount Rushmore. And now he's in Mount Rushmore. Like in the nose? Did Brooks? Did you set this up, Brooks? Are you trying to take, is this a Kevin Bacon thing where you're connecting every question to each other? I did not.

Been listening for just over a year, never missed a podcast, every trade question. Dynasty, standard scoring, two-eyed receiver two running back in a flex. All right, here's the trade. Carlos Hyde and Stefan Diggs for Todd Gurley and Amir Abdullah. That's a no-brainer for me. That is no-brainer. I would do that. I'd rather have Gurley and Amir Abdullah. Yeah, I believe that I, yeah, I'm going to make this trade just in hope.

Todd Gurley is still a great dynasty asset as of today at the running back position. Yes, as of today he is. And the argument then is you're holding on tightly to Stefan Diggs because you can't see, do you see Carlos Hyde as a long-term dynasty play? I think that Carlos Hyde still has long-term value as in, I mean, his, I think his days are likely numbered in San Francisco, but that doesn't mean the end of Carlos Hyde. I think he's a very good player.

One, granted, he falls in that list of guys I like who can't stay on the field. But you could say the same thing for Diggs and Amir Abdullah. No one can stay healthy. And if I made this trade for Gurley and Abdullah, I would try to flip Gurley pretty quickly afterwards. You're going to regret that, Mike. Do you know where you have Gurley so far this year?

Yes, I think that he still ended up currently as like my 13. Oh, I'll take that from you, from a hater. Yeah, and I mean, I've got him at nine. I've got him at the nineer spot. I don't like him there. I got him pushing and pulling with Marshall and Lynch this year in redraft. All right, this one comes in from Shockey in Higgins. Where do you think Higgins is? I have no clue where Higgins is. Dang it. Something is standing on my head as a Higgins.

Standing on your head? No, standing out. There's a reference in here somewhere. He did say standing on his head. Did I? You did? I don't know where Higgins is. If I click Google Maps, Higgins is... Right, so I'm moving on. Yes, Texas. Higgins, Texas. My name is Shockey, after the beauty, Jeremy Shockey. Question is now that draft us has settled. Who do I keep? 14-team, team, four-player, keeper, half-point PPR. Beckham, Hilton, Howard are locks. All right, so we're just picking one.

decide between Johnny Stewart, Richard, Richard Matthews, Willie Sneed, and C.J. Pro Seis. And he also, he traded away some things, so he needs to get this right. So Stewart, Richard, Snide, or Procyce. Halfpoint PPR, who you got? 14 teamer. And his locks are Howard Hilton and OBJ. Is that Jordan Howard then? Yes. Man. I...

God, it's really hard. I guess Willie Sneed. Yeah, the guy I want... I think Willie Sneed's the pick. The one I want is Willie Sneed, but you also are running into a... It's not Pro Seiser Matthews for me, so between... I was going to say, in a half point, you do need to consider the position scarcity. You're in a 14-team four-keeper. If you're only keeping the one running back, and you go with Hilton, Beckham, and Sneed.

You're okay. I just, I don't know. So go Jonathan Stewart then. Because if he has OBJ and Hilton, he's already got two wide outs. You said the depth, the position scarcity. I mean, Jonathan Stewart, take the touchdowns. I don't love. I don't know if the touchdowns are going to be there for Jonathan Stewart this year. I know they were there last year, but go two years ago they weren't there. No, I know. It's not, I don't like any of the picks. Like none of them jump off. Yeah, so I'm just, I don't love anybody either. So, or.

The one I like the most is Sneed, so I'm just going to take the guy. I think he's the highest upside of the four. So David in Geithersburg, Maryland, keep two as round one and two picks. Keeper one, David Johnson. Well, yeah, that's done. Keeper two, C.J. Anderson, Adrian Peterson, Matt Ryan, Thomas Rawls, or Eddie Lacey. Do you keep any of those for second round value? I guess you have to pick one. The answer is no, but if I have to pick one.

I'm going to take Adrian Peterson on that Saints offense over C.J. Anderson. And with those rumors abounding about Mark Ingram. That would change things drastically for me. It's a PPR, though. Oh, man. It's absolutely between Anderson and Adrian Peterson for me. I'm very concerned that Peterson is done. And...

Well, then what side? Which one are you taking? Eileen Anderson. Do you want to split the difference for us, Brooks, Peterson or C.J. Anderson this year? I go C.J. All right. Here's a question from David in Wisconsin. In grading players, how would you weigh a player's past results in eight talents, like a 40-yard dash, broad jump, et cetera, and projected future? Sure. So basically just how do we...

rank our players. How do we stat out guys? And I will tell you, I can't give you an exact numeric value of how much those things weighed, but everything is factored into when you're looking at a player. Their past production, coaching changes, offensive player changes on the team. What are their actual? What's their ceiling athletically? Age, trends, how the season to seasons are going. Watching them on tape because there are things that

that show up on tape, that don't show up in the actual athletic measurables. I mean, there are so many things to factor when you're ranking a guy. I'll give an example, because we've been doing obviously all of our detailed statistical projections for every player at every position, because that's part of the UDK. You get access on the website to the free rankings right now and our consensus rankings, but that doesn't include the in-depth stat numbers behind each player.

When I was projecting a guy, like, so Devante Parker came across my statistical to-do list today, right? I'm looking at Devante Parker, and I'm saying we don't have a long track record with Devante Parker, right? Like, you don't have a long period of trends. You have some film, you have two different offensive coordinators, two different head coaches for Devante Parker over the last two years. So I started to look at another piece of that whole puzzle for me was a comp for Devante Parker.

What's his role in the offense going to be? And what player historically do I compare that to him? For me, with Devante Parker specifically, I was looking back to some of the early Vincent Jackson years in San Diego as another piece of the puzzle for statting him out. A low reception type of high impact, larger yards per catch type of guy. And so that was one of the things I used to try to stat that player. But all of those things that Mike just talked about, they factor in. And at some point, there's the intangible things too.

you know, how you think this player, like Mark Ingram, relates to the coaching staff. What's the risk this player can fall out of favor with the team? What's the risk that, I mean, you just brought up the situation with Ben Jarvis Green Ellis from a few years ago. Yes. Yeah. Tell everybody about what you were talking about. So we were talking about, well, where do you have Joe Mixon? And, I mean, if you want to go follow draft Twitter and all of us, we want Joe Mixen to be the three-down guy immediately. You think, well, Jeremy Hill.

has been trending down since his rookie year. Gio Bernard's coming off in ACL. But go back to Gio Bernard's rookie season. He was a second round pick. The exact same draft capital was spent on him. The team had Ben Jarvis Green Ellis in front of Gio Bernard, and he was awful. Not good. Just awful. But Marvin Lewis continued to play him.

continued to give him more touches than Giovanni Bernard. Now, Gio still managed to be effective and was a solid fantasy play, his rookie year. But Marvin Lewis doesn't like rookies. He's proven this year in and year out. You look at Tyler or Boyd. Yeah. Last year. People wanted it. The draft capital on Boyd said, okay, they're going to play him right away. Nope. What's the first thing out of the mouth of Marvin Lewis about Joe Mixing this off season?

I don't know. What is it? Not in shape. Oh, oh, yes. Yeah, we already have that. Not in shape. So while I want to love mixing, this is what we're talking about. When you're ranking a guy, how does a coach use his rookies? That factors in heavily. Right. All right. What's the next question we have here? We're in the one-man keeper. Tyler Cheek. All right, go ahead. You read it. Love the show, guys. I did not bring home the hashtag footland title last year.

But does not stop me from listening. Well, thank you. Thank you, Tyra. Thank you for persevering. I'm in a one-man keeper. I have Melvin Gordon and Devante Freeman. Who do I keep? Both are amazing value. This is a standard scoring league. One keeper, Melvin Gordon. Melvin Gordier. Melvin's Gordier. Melvin Gordon or Devante Freeman. Wow. Standard league, right? I'm taking Freeman. I'm taking Freeman.

Great. I'm taking Melvin Gordon. I just have him rain tire. Sorry, Tyler. Standard League, I'm going to take Melvin Gordon. They've done nothing to make me think that his workload is changing this year. Is Jason got a tiebreaker for us? I was going to say, I believe that Jason, wait. No, no, no, no, he just growls. Today he's just been growling. Look, he's got Freeman ranked higher. There's two ways to look at it. You can freak out about making the right decision. Or you can realize you have.

Two great situations here. I love both guys. They're both in my top ten. Brooks, who do you have? Freeman. All right. All right. All right. Need one or two of three potential keepers here. That's what we're on, right? Charlie. Charlie. Charlie. In New Jersey. Must keep one can keep a second. Shady for a second round pick. Dak for a tenth, Tevin for an 11. Ooh. Give me Tevin and Shady. Absolutely. No doubt about it.

For a late quarterback, you know, 10th round, that's good. But it's also, it's a 10-team keeper. So you devalue quarterback even more. And unless for some reason, Charlie, this was a two-quarterback league and you did not tell us about it. If that's the case, then DAC would be one of the keepers. But Shady and Coleman, that's great value. June in Chicago says two-keeper league. Full PPR. Who do you keep? Gurley Rawls, Henry, Riddick, A-Rub.

Fitts, T.Y or Tate. Wow. Full PPR. Welcome to the party. It's not Rawls. It's not Henry. Hilton is in. I want to say this for the first time in 2017. Breaking news. Not the last time, the first time. Really like Golden Tate this year. I don't blame you. Really like Golden Tate. I do not blame you. Really wish I hadn't said that for the sake of like.

one of our leagues that I'm in. Oh, do you have an offer out? I'm going to go poking for him. No, not yet. I was craft. You got to make the offer before you talk about the show. It's all about the people here. Mike, it's not about my team. But in case you only listen to this one part, I hate Golden Tate. I love Golden Tate. I mean, he's guaranteed barring a problem with his health. 90 plus reception. It's just locked and loaded. Which is PPR that is tremendous. But that being said, who do you take? I don't know if it's Golden Tate.

I mean, I'd love to have Riddick in a full point PPR. I mean, that's a huge uptick for running back, although what's the workload actually going to be if Abdullah can play 16 games, which that's also a question in itself. You have to keep Hilton, even though he's not a prototypical PPR guy. He was still up over 80 catches last year. But he's great. I wish he would just score a little bit more touchdowns, a couple more, but he's still in. And between Tate,

And I will consider Fitz as well. Well, you've got to be considering Alan Robinson, too. I mean, he still is up over 80 receptions as well. Yeah. What if Fitz led the league last year, right? 109. 109 for Larry Fitzgerald. Man, I'm going to go. Oh. I'm going to take Gurley and I'm going to take Hilt. Gross. Why are you going to jump in here with that girly? 43 receptions last year for Todd Gurley. Position scarcity is still an issue in the PPR league. Lance Dunbar. All right. That's what I'll say. All right. Lance.

Dunbar, a coach who likes to use a two running back. You might as well just say, if you say Lance Dunbar's name, you might as well say stress fracture. No, he's back. Oh, he's back. He's back. He's been back multiple times. He's back, baby. You just, you cannot not project an injured guy for a great year. When am I going to hear you actually say like, oh man, this guy, this guy can't stay healthy. Don't draft him. Is that ever going to happen? No. Oh, my goodness. Never.