Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Live Mock Draft, Interview with Brian Tesch

have never produced the actual franchise record for tight-end receiving yards. Learned last night. One, John Carlson with 627, so I guarantee that Jimmy Graham will set the Seahawks tight-end receiving yards record this year. I will guarantee at least that. So, big, big news. But I really, he's kind of in that nebulous two through five tier now, that even if he, the volume's going to be cut. It's not, it's just,

unarguable. There's, there's no way he's going to be posting. He's not going to be the number one tied in fantasy football unless Robert Brankowski gets hurt. Like that's, that's just, it's just a given. But the fact that, I mean, he had 23 red zone targets last year. Seahawk tied ends. I mean, they gave 16 targets to the combination of Luke Wilson, Tony Moriaki, and eight targets to one. Cooper Helfit, who went two for eight in the red zone. He only caught two of his eight red zones targets.

Jermaine Curse had eight red zone targets, only caught one, and Doug Baldwin, all of 5'10, 180 pounds, soaking wet, had 12 red zone targets. The Seahawks noted that, hey, we don't have anybody who can, I mean, they're in the red zone a good bit that I don't think Jimmy Graham is going to, is going to dip a ton because I think his touchdowns are going to save him.

that those red zone targets are going to be there for Jimmy. I think he could get anywhere between 8 to 12 TDs still. Okay. Are you buying into Russell Wilson becoming an elite fantasy quarterback? Not this year. No. The thing with Rust last year was he was just a screaming value because he was like quarterback 13 or 14 off the board last year. And you could even get him. I remember I recommended him as a hedge for

Tony Romo and RG3. And across the board, I kind of hedged my bets with those late-round, those later QBs with Russell Wilson. And the thing is that Seattle, the reason he had to scramble so much is because nobody got open. That even if Jimmy Graham is there and you're passing to Jimmy Graham, that's fewer points. You can't count on...

A quarterback getting another seven, being the 25th range running back, if you just would have taken his rushing yards. You can't count on that again. And he didn't fumble. He didn't lose a single fumble last year. There was a lot of fluky stuff that happened with Russ. And I don't like him at all as the third quarterback, fourth quarterback off the board. I think that you can do a lot better. And you're really, you're throwing a lot of, you're taking a lot of risk for minimal reward at that draft position.

Maybe in a couple years, because that's the whole thing is that you, it's the chicken or the egg that they're going to have to pay Russ, and then they won't be able to pay their defense, they won't be able to pay Marshon, and the Seahawks will resemble a more traditional offense of the new age. They'll open up a little bit, and then maybe you could see him. But in dynasty formats, I like him a lot, but in redraft, I'm wholly avoiding him this year. That is very interesting.

I think most of us are pretty high on him. I believe I have him four. I like his running upside. There's no upshot that you're going to get, like he has to absolutely be in like the near 100th percentile of his possible season outcomes to deliver value. The passing attempts aren't really going to be there.

He's not going to run most likely as much, and I mean, that's where the bulk of his value last year came from. I mean, I like him, but I mean, everything in fantasy football is about value, and I just don't see it. I don't see any way that he exceeds. Oh, that's good stuff. The place where he's being drafted. We want to thank Brian Tesh, and we actually liked him so much, and he had so many interesting things to say that his interview was going to be in two parts, and that was...

Clearly, the end of part one. The next part will be focused more on the NFL. And we're hoping to get to that next week, I believe. Yeah, that sounds good. He has a lot of good insight about sleepers in specifics. A lot of, he wrote an article, how many? 100, 100 sleepers. So it was unbelievable. Yeah, that's a lot of work. That's not the kind of work. And I'm not, we didn't get to his Twitter handle because that's at the end of the second part, but you can follow him at the real Tesh.

T-E-S-C-H if you want to check out his stuff. He's really funny, interacts a lot on Twitter. Awesome. Yeah, we're going to move on now to our featured segment here, our live mock draft. Brought to you by FantasyDraftwizard.com. You can go on there and literally in two seconds you can draft completely free, pick any spot you want, standard PPR, set up your league the way you draft and just run through a mock draft. So we're going to do it live on the show today, Fantasydraftwizard.com, and we're going to see what team we end up with.

See if we can agree on anything. You think that's going to happen? Maybe. Once or twice. The fantasy footballers mock draft. Yes. And with the first pick, we take Jeremy Macklin. Yes, good. Okay. Consensus. We're all in. Okay. Round one, we, as I said before, we are drafting out of the sixth spot. So we're going to kick it off right now, and the first five picks are off the board.

I'm going to read them to you real quick. Levion Bell, Jamal Charles. Rob Grancowski goes number three overall. Going to see that happen in leagues for sure. Standard is better than PPR, I guess. You mean for Rob? Yeah, for him to go that high. I'm still not doing it, though. Adrian Peterson goes number four, and Eddie Lacey goes number five. So we're sitting here. Sixth pick on the board. Who is in consideration for you, gentlemen? I'm going running back here. Absolutely. So in consideration for me.

would, Hill is absolutely in consideration, but he usually comes back in the second because of where he is in ADP. But guys who I would want right here, Hill, Murray, Lynch, and Foster, those are the guys who I'm looking at. I think personally, I'm pretty much between Lynch and Foster.

Um, I, you know, I would go with Lynch without batting an eye. I still worry about Max Unger. And I know you're huge on Arian Foster, Andy. So if you are Lynch, I think that that would be our way. I am Lynch. And I think, uh, some of the insights that we got from Brian in that interview as well, uh, shine a light on just the consistency of Lynch. And I, I didn't bail on them last year. I'm not bailing on them this year, regardless of an O line that was dancing around. So are we good on Lars Sean? Yeah, lock it in. All right, let's take him.

All right, so Marshawn Lynch is now a member of our team. He is the first guy off the board for us, and let's go ahead and roll into the second round here. We've got Foster went after Lynch, and then some of the wide receivers going off the board, Brown and Beckham. Any surprises that you guys see here in the end of the first and the early second round?

A lot of wide receivers going, especially for a standard league, I feel like I would expect more running backs going before this next pick, which might drop a very good running back to us. Into our lap. Yeah, so we're sitting here with the overall pick number 19. Calvin Johnson went right before us, and Aaron Rogers right before that. So a couple of early quarterbacks, which is something that we weren't going to do. So let's look here. Jeremy Hill is still on the board.

So what are our best options here? We've got one running back. Yes. So let's take a look at our best couple options for wide receiver and running back and see what we want to do. That's perfect. So at wide receiver, probably the best available here are AJ Green, Jordy Nelson, Alshon Jeffrey. At running back is C.J. Anderson, Jeremy Hill. And that's probably the two big names that are still on the board at that position. We're not considering quarterback here. Mike, you don't want your top quarterback? I thought you were. He's gone.

Aaron Rogers is gone. Yeah, that's true. I know. So I'm leaning... Hill is the bit for me. Yeah. Oh, that's... Look at that. That's consensus. RBRB. Especially in a standard league. Jeremy Hills. Absolutely. So Marshall and Lynch and Jeremy Hill are our first two picks. We're coming around to the third round at the 30th pick of the third round. Some of the guys that went right after us, C.J. Anderson.

which you can expect. Is that about where do you guys think CJ is going to go is in the second round, or do you think he's going to climb up based on camp? It's all about the camp. If the camp news is good, then he's going to go in the first round. What do you think about Randall, Cobb, or Ty Hilton? They went just about back to back here at the turn into the third. Which guy do you guys like better? I prefer Cobb, but Hilton is not at all far behind. Just minuscule.

Yeah, I prefer Cobb. I think it's actually, I mean, at that point, with all those good rider receivers, everybody's a little bit minuscule, but I like Cobb considerably more than T.Y. Hilton, because I don't see as many questions. There's a lot of questions with all the new blood in the Colts with T.Y. Hilton. So who we got now? Now we've got, so our team is made up now of two running backs.

And so we should have said this before, but it is a one quarterback, two running back, two wide receiver, one tight in, one flex league that we are drafting right now. And so we have filled those first two running back spots. Are we thinking wide receiver here? Yes. I would, I would likely go wide receiver. Who are the best available running backs right now? Mark Ingram is still on the board, as is Carlos Hyde. Frank Gore is still on the board. That's my boy. Andre Ellington, Jonathan Stewart.

At the wide receiver position, we are a lot thinner. A lot of wide receivers have already gone. So we've got DeAndrey Hopkins, Calvin Benjamin, Brandon Cooks, Jordan Matthews, and Jimmy Graham and Kelsey are still on the board as well. So here at 30, do you think about Graham? No. Neither of you do. Okay. No. And I will say, so if I'm going to go a wide receiver for ranking-wise, I want Jordan Matthews out of that list. And ADP-wise, I...

don't think I would take him. I might risk it to see if he drops back into the fourth. You're not going to talk me into Jordan Matthews. No, I don't figure I would. Yeah, this is just to see our brains, right? And I think that you're thinking here is right on par because you might have him ranked higher, but there's a chance you could get him and someone else. Exactly. So if I'm going to take a wide receiver here, I'm going to take Hopkins. If I take a running back, because I'm not considering any other position. I think it's gore.

I think that's who I would go with. Let me double check. I actually think I'd like to take Gore here myself. I'd like to fill up that flex position and have depth at the running back position. I know passing on Hopkins, people listening to us right now are probably saying, well, why aren't you filling up your wide receiver with, you know, you've got a top-tier guy. Hopkins, to me, jumps out as probably the far and away better than anybody else on the board. You said Jordan Matthews, but I'm not on board with him as a one. Jordan Matthews, and that's really a...

a gut and speculation call of I think that Matthews is going to fill that role where I believe in Chip Kelly for fantasy he's produced career seasons for Deshawn Jackson and Jeremy Macklin I see no possible way that Jordan Matthews isn't great so so at this point I think what we would need to do right look at how many wide receivers are left that we think could be a wide receiver one that we would be happy with and say if we take Frank Gore here

Would we be okay next round as this is our first wide receiver? You know, maybe Andre Johnson comes back to us. I know Andy, you and I love him. You also got guys in consideration like Deshawn Jackson, Brandon Cooks, Brandon Marshall, Sammy Watkins, Amari Cooper, Vincent Jackson. So there are still names. Martavis Bryant is still on the board. I like all those guys, and I would be disgusted with any one of those as my wide receiver number one. So maybe we go Hopkins?

That's tough. That's tough. Gore will not make it back. No, no way. No way will Gore make it back. So I would say at this point, since we don't have it, let's just each of us say what our pick would be, and we'll go with the majority. I'm going Frank Gore. I'm going to go Hopkins. I go Hopkins. All right, Hopkins is off the board. Gore is now officially my guy. I just stole it. Just so you know, Frank, Frank Gore went four picks later after Ingram Graham Miller.

Lamar Miller, that is. I'd much rather have Frank Gore. And so we're rolling back around to the fourth round. Our team is Marshawn Lynch, Jeremy Hill, and DeAndre Hopkins. So we're sitting here in the fourth round and Peyton Manning's on the board. Peyton Manning and Travis Kelsey, two positional opportunities. What say you guys? I just want to see kind of where your brains are out with that consideration. I guess you just asked me that question. So my brain says I'm probably filling in another wide receiver position myself.

I'm, who are the best available running backs? Right now Jonathan Stewart is available in the fourth round as well as T.J. Yeldon and Latavius Murray. Jonathan Stewart would be my pick. Okay. That was quick. Yeah, you know what? I do like the, I like three or four running backs on the board right now more than I do the wide receiver. So I think we can get value at wide receiver. Bryant is still on the board. Vincent Jackson, Mari Cooper. All those guys I'd be pretty okay with is my two. And so I lean, uh,