Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Explain Yourself! Ranking Debates & Hot Takes

in that IR to return spot. They come back, I believe, week eight. Is that right? Yeah, it's the, after six weeks, they can start to practice. And then two weeks later, they can rejoin the team. And this would have a implication on an early injury to a player, a player coming back from surgery that, you know, you didn't want to leave out for the entire season. The NFL is also going to approve a proposal most likely that will...

changed the overtime from 15 to 10 minutes. This was kind of a player safety issue where they looked at it and said, hey, if one of these games goes really long on Monday night football, this team has to turn around and play Thursday or Sunday morning, it is damaging to the players, potentially. So that's why they're doing that. All right, we're going to get into the meat of the show. Are you guys ready for this? Are you possibly ready? Am I ready? I love this. I love this episode so much. Here we go. I'm quite well. Thank you. No.

Clearly you are not. No rational person would do as you have done. Explain yourself. It's time, Mike. Let's break bad. Just like Gus. Gus was always bad. Gus was always bad. And yet, so good. Such a kind fellow. Look, he was a wonderful employer. That's for sure. Depending on what company you worked for. All right.

We, look, our initial rankings are out. Mike, we looked at the rankings. We saw you had Big Ben up there at number six. Jason and I, Jason and I have Big Ben at number 16. Explain yourself. And I will, I need to start this off by saying, yes, Big Ben is my number six.

Does that mean I am drafting him like my number six? No, not at all. That's how my projections have him landing if he can make it to 16 games. And that's a pretty big if with Big Ben lately. And I actually had Big Ben much closer to the area where you guys had him. And then something happened over this offseason. In a world. And a player was reinstated. An alien of a player.

in Martavis Bryant, and we can do this as a combo package here because I have Martavis Bryant much, much higher than you guys do. So I'm going to give you some numbers here, just for reference, on Big Ben. Big Ben 2014. This is when everything really changed for him, when everyone said, okay, Big Ben is great for fantasy because he played all 16 games, almost 5,000 yards, 32 touchdowns. What also happened?

that year, Martavis Bryant joined the team. You can look back to 2013. He's a 4,200-yard guy. 2015, he only played 12 games, but his pace 5,200 yards and 28 touchdowns. Last year, with no Martavis Bryant in the 14 games, his pace was only 4,300 yards and 33 touchdown. So the touchdowns were still pretty nice for him, but the yards were way down because Martavis Bryant makes that big of an impact for this team.

He is an absolute dominant wide receiver who, in his rookie year, he finished as the wide receiver 55 in only 10 games, and he was a rookie. He was only playing, you know, 40, 50% of snaps. The following year, despite he had his, you know, suspension, the beginning of the year, and then you had the team didn't let him back quite yet. Then, on top of that, his final two games, he essentially did nothing.

He had one total catch or two receptions for six yards. Even including those abominations of games, he was on pace. Let me make sure I got this right. He was on pace for over 1,100 yards and nine touchdowns, a full 16 game pace. Martavis Bryant is a special player. He is an outlier to me of talent in the NFL. And I think that he raises Big Ben's ceiling that much. And Martavis Bryant, if he's playing high risk, high risk.

But if he's playing, like I have said, he's a wide receiver too for me. Yeah, I would say that the majority of people in the world that are listening might think that Andy and I are the ones that need to explain ourselves saying that Big Ben, who might be a Hall of Fame quarterback, who's usually drafted around quarterback six or seven. And he should not be. He's the easiest person for people to go, hey, Big Ben's going to have a great year. And you just kind of, you're not. And you go, oh, yeah, Antonio Brown. Big Ben has played third.

seasons only nine times has uh or i'm sorry nine of those 13 he wasn't even a quarterback one so

That's just not getting it done for me. And then you factor in. And I agree. Maybe he does step it up. Maybe 16 is a little too low if Martavis Bryant is in that starting role and looks good. But I like how you let it off saying you're not necessarily drafting Big Ben that way. Because when you spend high capital on a guy as hot and cold home in a way as Big Ben, I know it's been talked about a lot, but it's so real that you need to understand. You can't start.

Big Ben on the road, even going back to when he had Martavis Bryant. I was going to say, let me piggyback on that because I don't know if you looked that up too. That's the stat that I wanted to see what happened to Big Ben, home road with and without Martavis Bryant. Because there's no question. Mike, you're 100% right. That team is better with Martavis Bryant playing well. There are seven points per game. That team scores seven points more per game when Martavis plays than when he doesn't. Here's the catch on that. When Martavis played, Big Ben stunk on the road. In fact,

without Martavis Bryant on the road. He was actually two points better than with Martavis Bryant on the road. His entire improvement was Martavis Bryant at home. He averaged 29 fantasy points a game compared to 20 points a game at home without Martavis Bryant. So it all came down to that split. I love Big Ben as a streaming quarterback when he's at home. But you mix the risk of Martavis Bryant and that I just cannot project him to get up into number six. Is he capable? Look, Big Ben.

Traditionally, every single year. What do you have? He had two five touchdown games a couple of years ago. He can do it. But I don't know if Martavis Bryant. I mean, you have been the first person to say, now I understand he's older, but you've been the first person to discount Marshall Lynch simply because he missed time on the field. Rhythm, is he the same player? Does he have the same role? Juju Smith's Schuster was drafted. Have other players in that offense. Too scary. I'm too frightened. It's zero concerned.

to me uh this is i mean it's part for the course for martavis brian to uh to miss miss some time and then come in and and dominates i mean his uh i've lost my notes here but his first four games of his of his career he uh dang it i'm sorry i lost it if he had had six touchdowns in his first four career games and that was week seven

I believe. So he didn't start the season as a rookie. He had to earn his way under the field. And he came on in a big way. It's been a while. He is, yes, it has been a while. And he could be suspended again. Really easy. Yes, that's why I'm saying there's absolutely high risk for him. But you don't have concern that if he plays, he'll be the same player. No, I do not. Okay. All right. Let's turn. You got anything else to add on that one, Jason? No, I think we've exhausted it. So, Mike, you have explained yourself obviously very poorly. Christian McCaffrey.

is the next player. We're having Jason explain himself on this one. Mike and I, we've got him at number 14 in half point per reception leagues. I should have let off this whole segment by letting people know, reminding people that these are half point per reception leagues, and we are defending ourselves against the other two. So Jason, you have Christian McCaffrey at 25. We both have them at 14.

I think for us it comes down to, and Mike, you can add to it, comes down to the draft capital invested in the talent and the PPR potential of a guy like Christian McCaffrey. Jason, explain yourself. Yeah, I mean, look, Christian McCaffrey is all the rage right now, especially people listening to... It's the new how the kids are doing it. I mean, if you're listening to Fantasy Football podcasts in the middle of May, then that means you have been plugged into...

rookie Twitter and, you know, the rookie world. The amount of pub that rookies get every offseason is disproportionate to what rookies produce. Now, that's not to say running back specifically. There are.

guys every single year that produce at that position. I mean, we had Jordan Howard last year and Ezekiel Elliott. A lot's been made of, you know, if you take a running back in the top 10 picks, they usually perform. And the reason I've got him at 25, I mean, that's not, you know, killing the guy. That's just saying, I know, I'm lower on him than a lot of people because his skill set is matched with the poorest team. Now,

Let me be real clear. I'm not saying he's matched with, you know, a team that is not the best for a past catching running back. I am saying that he has matched up with a team that is the worst. Not bad, but the worst for a past catching running back. And the stats bear this out. I mean, put it this way. In my stats, I gave Christian McCaffrey 40 receptions next year, which is a pretty...

You know, good number. A lot of people are giving them 60, you know, 65, 70, because, you know, the best past catching running backs, they get that. They get maybe 75, maybe 80. Do you know how many receptions running backs had for Carolina, the team? The entire team last year, they had, I think it was 34 to the running back position. No, I'm sorry, it looks like 32.

You misspoke. Well, it's hard to tell. Sounds like they needed a pass-catching running back to throw the ball to. You mean like Jonathan Stewart, who used to be that when he came in and had 40-plus receptions? He hasn't been for a while. Well, I know, but I'm saying he is capable. Now, I know they're going to change it up, but I just believe that he very well could lose goal line. I don't expect him to get goal line when you've got Jonathan Stewart there. This is the Carolina Panthers that drafted a first-round guy in DeAngelo Williams.

followed that up with a first round guy in Jonathan Stewart, who was, you know, a pick number 13 in the NFL draft, and they split them. Everyone was like, no, let Jonathan Stewart free. No, they split him because they had two good running backs there, and they just paid Jonathan Stewart. See, I buy into that line of thinking a lot more than I do that they won't. They aren't willing to throw the ball to Christian McCaffir that is not suited to do that. Because I don't think you would make the same argument. Look, you draft Leonard Fournette. You're going to run the ball.

You mentioned transitioning to an eye formation to be conducive to Leonard Fournette. A lot of what happens in the NFL, and maybe it's a hard thing to predict in fantasy football, is you can form your roster and your team a lot of the times to the talent that you have. I like the argument that they're not going to waste Jonathan Stewart. I think that's a pretty compelling one. You have him back. You paid him. Why wouldn't you split time with McCaffrey, and therefore McCaffrey is not worthy of that type of a high ranking? Right. I would just say the difference there between, you know, okay, now we want to run the ball more.

because you drafted Leonard Fournette, well, you're calling the plays. You call a running play. Most, you know, pass-catching running backs, when they're up in those 60s, you know, those 60s, 70s, they're not getting 60 screenplays called for them. It's the dump off the, you know, that's kind of the, they read and then they dump it off like a Drew Breeze, but that's just not Cam Newton's game. I could be wrong on this, but I believe that the contract extension was not more so that they're rewarding Jonathan Stewart, but they're

They're positioning to get out from Jonathan Stewart. They were fixing where his money was coming. That's my belief. And like I said, I could be wrong. But Jonathan Stewart is Cam's rookie year. Jay Stu had 47 receptions. So it's not that they can't do it. And maybe it's buying a lot into narrative. But the team has said we have to change how we do things. Their first two draft picks says that they're going to change how they do things. So that's all I...

That's how I'm projecting Christian McCaffrey. And I'm not projecting him with that goal line situation. Just like a 50, I haven't had 50 receptions. And I could see more than that. It's a, I feel like they're seeing what's Levian Bell doing. What's David Johnson doing? And we can have Christian McCaffrey do that. All right. What's next? I don't have the doc in front of me. I explained myself. You know, next up, looks like it's you, Andy. Oh!

Brandon Marshall. We got to talk about this, Brandon Marshall. We know that Andy likes a couple of things. He loves Pazookis. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. He loves lemon. Werther's original. I don't love Wethers original. He loves. I like Milk Duds. I like Milk Duds. A heck of a lot. Confirmed old people candy. We put it to Twitter. No. No.