Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Top 20 Tight Ends, Preseason Review, News, Mailbag

Like some of his plays he held on and moved around in a pocket, and they had it. But RG3 was like blasted. Does the offensive line hate RG3? He is, it is a self-perpetuating problem with RG3 where he's been hit so many times. He's skittish in the pocket. He doesn't know how to move within the pocket, and he's not an NFL quarterback. I'm saying it right now. Breaking news. Not only did Cole McCoy do better. He posted a perfect passer rating. So you can't blame the all line.

Not completely. Not completely. But if you watch when RG3 was in there, you have to blame the O line for getting beat man on man every single play. I mean, there is a lot of blame to go around. Well, you know, D. Jax wasn't out there and different people. So he is supposed to play. He got a concussion, but he might play next week. That's the report right now. So my name was Matt Jones. I'm not really lowering Alfred Morris because of Matt Jones. I just liked what I saw from Matt Jones. Right.

Yeah. It lets you know he could take the load maybe. Another guy that I, I mean, I loved. I tweeted about him last night. And Mike and I, you and I, we loved him pre-draft. I think it was before the NFL draft. We were talking to him up. Christian Michael? Yes. And then he didn't get drafted. And we were sad. And so we lamented.

But that's Zach Zinner. Zach Zinner is a really good running back. Detroit Lions. Yeah, Detroit Lions. He went undrafted because he wasn't from, you know, a Tier 1 school. And so he comes out and, I mean, he is really good. Last night, he had a 39-yard run called back. He, I think, ran for like a... He ran the ball four times for 22 yards and it had five catches for 59 yards and a touchdown. Yeah. And he just looked exactly like he looked on his college tape where his feet just...

go and go and go. I was talking about that with you yesterday. Now, here's the truth. When Joyke comes back. No fantasy relevance at all. Yeah. When Joyke comes back, then it's his job. And he, and Zach Zinner won't even see the field. Abdullah and Redick. You're exactly right. He won't be there. However, what it showed me was proof that against even ones in the NFL, Zach Zinner is what we thought he was. And should he get that opportunity? Should Joyc come back and get injured?

Zach Zinner will be the guy who is going to share that workload with Amir Abdullah. They're not going to just put Theoretic out there. So keep Zach Zinner on your radar. And if Joick keeps having problems or for some reason comes back and gets injured, grab him. He will be good. This is the first time in the history of this show that we've agreed about the Detroit Lions backfield. That's because my question for Andy was going to be, would you agree if Joyc goes down, that Zner is going to get some early down work? Yeah, I do. I do agree with that.

So we want to remind the Foot Clan, the listeners right now, of FantasyDraftWizard.com. You've got to get those mock drafts in, people. You've got to be ready for different situations. Fantasy Draft Wizard allows you to do a complete mock draft in just minutes because you're going up against expert ranking, consensus, ADP rankings, whatever you want to do from drafting from any position, any size league, however you want to do it. But just get ready for these situations of your draft, how you're going to react. Fantasydraftwizard.com.

Yep, completely free, so hop on there. All right, let's talk tight ends. Tight ends. This is an important position that a lot of people don't want to deal with. Our general philosophy on tight ends, we'll go through that a little bit today.

There are 20 in this list, but the way we break down where and how you draft these guys is what matters. So we probably, my goal is to not linger on the top names that you already know a lot about, and so we'll go through them fairly quickly. Number one is Rob Grankowski, not a surprise. Shock the world. Number two is Jimmy Graham. These are consensus rankings for the three of us. So one is Grancowski, two is Graham. If you might give us 10 seconds on Jimmy Graham in Seattle.

All right, so here's why I have concern of Jimmy Graham. Russell Wilson's never had a pass catcher over 900 yards, more than seven touchdowns, or more than 66 receptions. Jimmy Graham is a volume guy. He's averaged 89, 1,100 yards, and 11 touchdowns in his career. So I just don't see Seattle moving their passing up enough to sustain those kinds of Graham numbers where you're going to have to take him. And at the same time, he's number two on our list.

Well, he's number two because we think he can finish good. But for where he's being drafted, I can guarantee, I can flat guarantee, and I put my house on it, that there's no, there's no league. The loan sharks are coming. There is no league that Jimmy Graham.

would be on any one of our teams. It would be impossible for us to draft Jimmy Graham. Am I wrong? If he doesn't catch 10 touchdowns, you're going to be very disappointed. All right. And number three is Travis Kelsey, a guy we've talked a lot about, and four is Greg Olson. And Greg Olson has to be in that same group now. He moved from me. It was the three with including Kelsey and then kind of the field.

And now Greg Olson, because of the Kelvin Benjamin injury, has moved back up. Because what Greg Olson did last year was awesome. He caught a thousand yards. And I was expecting people to think he was going to do that again this year. And then I didn't expect him to. But with Kelvin Benjamin being gone and basically having a rewind of last year where there's a rookie coming in as your number one wide receiver, you have to have that safety valve. And it's going to be Olson all day. So I think he does get a thousand yards again this year.

If you're drafting right now, he will be of value. And for me, he's my number two in PPR because of the volume of catches and the dependency that Cam Newton is going to have on Olson. You know, the reports, oh, Funchus is ready to step into the number one role. Well, you've never done it. I mean, last year we kind of saw maybe the peak of a rookie coming into that exact same situation when Kelvin Bidggeman came into a completely devoid wide receiver, you know.

depth chart. And Kelvin Benjamin was a better college wide receiver, right, than Devin Funches. Right. Don't tell Devin Funches that. Hey, hey, Bunches of Funches. He's going to get bunches of touchdowns? Yes, probably. But that's a discussion for another day. I haven't bumped Greg Olson as much as you guys. I still like Olson. I'm just not sure that team's philosophy can get it through their head that...

If you run the offense through Greg Olson, you're going to be successful. For some reason, even last year when they would have success, they would go away from him. But 80-plus catches again. It should happen. Yeah, very within reason, yes. All right, and he has four for me and standard and four on our consensus rankings. I can't say that word very good. So then that's kind of our tier, am I right? After Greg Olson is kind of a drop-off to the next field. Would we say we're in a consensus on the tier there?

I think this is the point where we're starting to say just get value at tight end and get it late and kind of put guys in an order of who you want to draft late as opposed to, you know, I mean, do you agree? Yeah, draft. Draft-wise, I'm hoping desperately, and I don't expect this for either. But if either Travis Kelsey or Greg Olson could ever drop to the sixth.

I'll grab him up, and I will love it. At the very, very, very back end of the fifth, I might grab a Greg Olson. I'm getting a little bit more leery of grabbing Kelsey early in the fifth, just because of, not because I don't think he's necessarily a value there, but you're still giving up a good wide receiver running back pick in the fifth round. And so I haven't liked my rosters as well. In the sixth, if I can get either one of those guys, I love it. If not, I am really waiting. The one thing when we were making these rankings that showed to me was like,

There are 20 tight ends that I am fine rolling out there week one. And, I mean, how many get drafted? And that's why we like playing Jason. I got a question for you guys. Kelsey has been going before Olson. Do you think Olson gets enough of a bump now to surpass Kelsey in ADP? I think it happens in a lot of leagues. Yes. And it probably should. Because from the perspective, depending on your risk kind of tolerance on a team.

You might want Olson more than Kelsey. All the potential in the world looks great on paper, and Kelsey looks great, but you don't know for sure, and you know what Olson is going to give you. So depending on your team's makeup, maybe that's what decides between those guys. Yeah, I would agree that Olson may be safer, but Kelsey's ceiling is much higher to me, especially in touchdowns. I agree. So at 5 and 6, we have the tried and true Jason Witten. Iron Man, Wittles. And then we have Martellus Bennett.

A lot of people like Bennett, and when I get asked about Bennett, I kind of point back to before last year, where he had an average of about 60 catches. Last year, you had Tressman running the show. So which season do we need to rely on for Bennett? Is it the 90 reception year? I mean, Kevin White's out. There's no Brandon Marshall. That's the argument for Bennett. I have split the difference a little bit.

I go back to where he was because it's going to be a much more conservative offense. It's not going to be a trustment offense. But because Marshall's left, I give him a bump from where he used to be pretestment. So it kind of splits the difference. Like I think I've got him about 70 or 75 catches. So this is what I've broken down. John Fox teams without Peyton Manning. Because clearly Peyton Manning has a little bit more say and he runs the show and he likes his tight end. John Fox teams without Peyton Manning. Average 47 targets.

And that's including a year with Jeff King who got 80 targets. And then you look at teams where Jay Cutler did not have Mark Tresman, average 64 targets. That includes over 100 targets to Olson in 2009. So the history would show that these two teams, or a Jay Cutler run team and a John Fox run team, does not heavily target the tight end. I will say Martellus Bennett's probably...

up there in talent far more than what they're used to having, but I have great concern for Bennett, especially where it's being drafted. All right, let's move on to three guys that are kind of in the, ooh, maybe, category. Yes. Jordan Cameron, Tyler Eifert, and Zach Ertz come in at 7-8-9. Ooh, maybe. Yes, very much. Yeah. They're very much on, sorry, very much on Jordan Cameron for me. Jordan Cameron has slowly creep back up my rankings. I have him.

Number five in both. And the reason is touchdowns. Ryan Tannenhill likes to use his... What? Yes, he does. Look at the years with Charles Clay. He likes to use his tied end. And the red zone presence, Mike Wallace caught a whole bunch of red zone touchdowns. Those are gone. And I wouldn't be shocked to see some other receivers get in there. But I think the biggest beneficiary of that absence is Jordan Cameron.

And this is why these guys are all ooh-maybys, because you can kind of make a case for them. You can make a strong case for each of them that they're going to have a breakout year. Cameron's going to a new offense. I think he's a lot different than Charles Clay at the tight-in position. I think he's more talented. He might be more talented, but they're going to use him differently, too. But, yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. There's a lot of Red Zone targets available. Eifert, healthy, no Gresham.

There's your argument. Zach Ertz, all the potential in the world. If he could just block and stay healthy, if he could block and stay healthy, he was as high as number five in my rankings earlier this offseason before injury and blocking. So this is why we say draft them later. I'm fine waiting for two-thirds of these guys to be gone and taking one in the 10th round. Yeah, well, you've got Zach Ertz right now who's being drafted in the 10th round. You've got Tyler Eifert who's being drafted in the 11th round. Oh, love it.

So, I mean, and Jordan Cameron in the eighth, we like these guys, and the thing is, is there's a lot of guys who names who we didn't just mention, like Julius Thomas, who are going way above these guys that, why spend a draft pick that's going to be, you know, a sixth or seventh rounder on a guy like Julius Thomas when there are guys way later who have every opportunity to surpass the guys earlier? It just makes, it's clear logic. Agree, and you're passing a really good depth.

for your bench in the wide receiver or running back position. If you go early on tight end, you are not going to be happy with the results of your tight end. Unless you get the one guy right there. Can we agree that they're probably in that area. There'll be one guy who explodes and that person is extremely happy. But everyone else is going to be very upset as they go through the waiver wire trying to get a matchup dependent tight end.

I think these next three guys fit more into the Ho-hum, tight-in category, where you have 10 Julius Thomas, 11 Larry Dinell, and 12 Heath Miller. They're probably going to all get it done. One way or another, yeah. One way or another. You know, Heath Miller is perennially underrated because he's not flashy. He's not Gronkowski. He's just kind of...