Bold Predictions & Player Analogies - LIVE in Phoenix

of some kind and lots of vegetables. Okay. All right. But that, yeah, the keto diet. Maybe that was, something's going to help him. But if he, but here's the real deal about San Bradford that I honestly do believe. I don't have him projected for 16 games. But if he does play 16 games, he is a top 12 quarterback in the NFL. That's the hot take. I think that's fair. All right. I'll bring.

Mine to the table. Thank you. Now, in fantasy football, we are a forgetful bunch. Sometimes at the beginning of a season, players let us down, and we don't forget that. No. Hold the grunt. If they do well at the end of the season, we remember that for the next year, but we forget seasons past. And I want to remind everybody of a very important instruction for my first bold prediction. Send in the car. No. Send in the car.

It's time to send in the car once again. Derek Carr will be back for 2018 to the tune of a quarterback one season. We have forgotten what happened. You don't like it? No, sir. I feel like that was like two-week expired mill. No, come up. He's 27 years old. And you got to remember at the two years ago.

This was a sure-fire MVP candidate with eight quarterback one weeks, four of them in the top five. Do you remember, Mike? I do. Can you remember back? I sent in the car many times. Sure-fire MVP candidate. Now he comes back this year, and listen, I know you'll read into this a lot. You love their head coach. John Gruden, the most talented quarterback he has ever coached. That's what he said. To be fair, it might just be.

Here's the thing. The schedule for Oakland is very, very nice. You've mentioned this before on the show. They face three teams this entire season that had a winning record from 2017. What? Three. And Derek Carr has Amari Cooper, who you both believe is a breakout candidate. Say what you will about Jordy Nelson. He's got the job lockdown. Martavis Bryant brings some explosiveness to the offense. Your argument is he? Yes, he has the job. The argument is that he has the job.

And that Michael Crabtree was real bad last year. So it's possible he can meet or exceed that. Don't forget about my Jared Cook. And Jared Cook is there. He's competent. That's what the C stands for. That's the most honest thing you can say about. 30 yards a game. They still have the set. Remember the offensive line that everyone wants to talk about? They're still the seventh highest ranked offensive line according to pro football focus. This is a year in which you can believe in and buy.

Derek Carr later. Send in the car. Send him in, Mike. Send him in. I don't want to. You got to. We'll see. That's the great thing. We get to find out if these... You need a really big garage. Ever come true or not. The last two years that we have been doing this show... This is so hot and spicy, Jason. You shouldn't say it out loud. I warned everyone at the top of the show that you need a modium.

or depends, or some kind of defense. I wasn't joking. Here it comes. Let me give the backstory here. Not yet. There's not necessary, but the shades will come. Don't you worry. There will be enough hate to block. Two years ago, the Carolina Panthers were scorching the earth on offense. Everybody knew how great they were going to be. Cam was the hotness. Everyone was a top draft pick, and I came on our show, and I said,

In my bold prediction, and it was crazy then that Carolina is going to revert to their 2014 form. They're going to disappoint. Lo and behold, that happened. Last season, everybody, oh, I'm toot-tooting the heck out of this because I've got to lay that groundwork with how crazy this prediction is going to be. Last year, everyone wanted the Redskins. Everyone wanted Terrell P.Reyer and Jordan Reed and Somaget P. Rine. He scored tonight. He scored tonight.

and Jameson Crowder and all of these pieces, and I said they're all going to disappoint. Well, this year. Hold, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a moment to pause. You're going to, okay. I'm allowing this, you can out right now. Right now, Jason, and no one will ever know. We can delete this, we can throw these computers in the garbage. It's a podcast. We can edit. I believe that this year in 2018 is the beginning of the end.

for the New England Patriots. They want you, they want you to be right so bad. And, you know, the truth is, I get that, right? The Patriots have been so good for so long. They are a dominant team, and that's why in fantasy we always want these assets. We talk up Rex Burkhead. We talk up Julian Edelman after he gets back. We talk up Sony Michelle. We talk up, Gronk is not included. Gronk's going to be just fine.

But let's talk about Brady. Brady is the horse that makes the whole thing go. If Brady goes down. Plant power. If Brady goes down, there is no Jimmy Garapolo anymore. There is not a backup to come and make it okay with Bill Belichick. This is a team. Like you said, there is no backup that will make it okay with. In, you know, a couple of years ago. Just yelling his name does not make him good.

A couple years ago when the Broncos were lighting the world on fire and Peyton Manning was setting records, nobody would have believed that that next year, out of nowhere, he'd deal with a little injury, he'd suck so much, and the offense would be in shambles. And look, Tom Brady is 41 years old. I don't care that he has a plant-based diet and he's great. He is the goat. He's the greatest of all time. I don't even know how you can argue against it.

But the vibes in New England are horrific. Remember the Bleacher Report argument about how there's inner turmoil. Gronk wasn't in camp. Brady wasn't in camp early on and in the OTAs. I mean, this is a different year than any year we can remember. With a 41-year-old guy and now you've got injuries, you've got suspensions, you've got a lot of things going wrong. Someday it's going to end.

And I worry about drafting the Patriots based on so much past and not based on where they're at right now. Now, I will give you this. Does it worry you knowing that they're going to be in the Super Bowl again? They'll be in the playoffs. They'll be in the playoffs for sure, for sure, because of their division. I think they could get in the playoffs at 8 and 8 because, I mean, look. No. Yeah, well, yes, who's going to win the division? Is it going to be the bills or the jets or the dolphins? Yes. It will be the Patriots.

They can go 8 and 8 and make the playoffs and be booted in the first round, but I am just worried about the Patriots. Do you think Bill Belichick would actually just turn it down? If he went 8 and 8, they're like, you're the division. Nah. We don't deserve it. No, he's going to go out there and keep trying to win. So that's my bold take. Watch out for the Patriots demise, calling it early. Wow. We'll play this one back at the end of the year. One way or the other. Yeah.

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of NFL game pass. Sign up now at NFL.com slash fantasy footballers. That's NFL.com slash fantasy footballers game on. Mike, you got your second bowl. All right. I've got my second bold take. And these are four players coming into the draft season that they were getting us, frankly, hot and bothered. Okay. They were getting you hot and bothered? No.

Everybody. Everybody. Everybody was in. Everybody who's anybody was on these four players. And since that time, these four players have seen their stock plummet. And they have dropped. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully there's some history majors. Probably not. All right. I'm going to throw out some names. Conquist. War. Famine. Death. Are those names?

Does anyone, that is the four horsemen of the apocalypse. My four horsemen of the apocalypse for the fantasy season are all rookie running backs that nobody wants anything to do with right now, and they're going to ride in and destroy fantasy seasons for all that oppose them. No, everybody, everybody loves Carry on Johnson.

But I'm going to throw out some rookie running back names that are dropping. Rashad Penny, a first round running back. Sonny Michelle, a first round running back. Nick Chubb, a second round running back. And yes, Ronald Jones, a second round running back. He doesn't deserve that? Oh, yes, he does. He caught a pass tonight. Here's the deal. He did. Nick Chubb.

As much as I love Carlos Hyde before last year, his first three years in the league, he averaged 11.3 games a season. That's an opening window for an extremely talented SEC second round running bag. That's the metric for an Eifford is 11.3 games. That's one. That's also 11 touchdowns per season. Sony Michelle. We all remember Dan Lewis because we loved him, but here's the deal. Weeks 1 through 8.

Dion Lewis was getting seven attempts a game. Nine through 16, that bumped up to 15. And as much as I love Rex Burkett, there's plenty to go around for the Patriots who are still going to crush people. Unlike what my colleague, the smoky is blowing. Chris Carson, about the, what, fifth to last pick in his draft class, had one good game, and we're all so excited.

for Chris Carson to start in Seattle, a team that I still believe. This team knows what they're doing. And they drafted a first round running back when they needed players at every single position on their team. And they said, no, we're going to take a running back in the first round. And Ronald Jones, like I talked about Sam Bradford, there's not many arguments I can give for him.

No, there is. Look, I can make the argument. He went to college. He was great in college. The bucks are expected to be bad. And so even if Peyton Barber has that job the first half, the second half of the year, you've got to look towards the future. I can make the argument. I just don't agree with it. But that's my point. So these four running backs are not necessarily players that I am interested in the draft season. I'm not even interested in them in the first four weeks.

But we talk about fantasy football. It's a game you have to look at week by week, quarter by quarter, half by half. You can't look and say, on the season, I'm ready, I'm ready. So when do they assemble the horsemen? What week? Second half. Week eight. Everyone pull out your eye, cow, right now. Technically, that's still first half. Week nine. Week nine.

Put a calendar reminder and say, I need to figure out how to get Penny, Michelle, Chubb, or Ronald Jones on my roster. Because when I look up that article, that super fancy article that says this player is on the majority of fantasy championship teams, these four guys are going to be highly owned.