Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - AFC West Breakdown, News, Mailbag

I don't know if they completely made up for it. They drafted Max Garcia's center in the fourth round, which was good news to me as they were currently lined up for Gino Gradkowski to start, and that would not go well for the Broncos if that's who their starting center would be. So hopefully Garcia can show that he's ready to play. And I actually did a little more digging on Peyton Manning.

And this is what I wanted to say about Manning, that the myth that is Peyton Manning has kind of blown out of control since the 2013, the fantasy Peyton Manning, since the 2013 season happened, because in 2013, he put up 450 for about 55, 55 yards and 55 touchdowns. The three years before that, he averaged...

414 completions, 4,600 yards, and 34 touchdowns. That's what he averaged through those three years. Good numbers, but not top of the... Right. But that one year happens, and all of a sudden you think, well, he's clearly the greatest fantasy quarterback of all time. We get this recency bias. And don't take anything I'm saying is I'm not crapping on Peyton Manning at all. He's one of the best quarterbacks of all time. But I just think people need to kind of...

recalibrate. Prior to that year, Peyton Manning was thought of as like the best quarterback in football, but not your best fantasy football option. You know, you'd rather have normally like four or five guys over him. Peyton didn't go two even or three a lot of those years. And then he blows up and you're exactly right. We just assume that's going to be repeating and it hasn't, really. However, I did a, I did a pace check.

with Manning last year because the injury, we're not exactly sure how much that affected his play. And that really creeped in in week 12, and that's where the team kind of shifted into the C.J. Anderson run mode. But through 11 games, he was on pace for over 5,000 yards and 49 touchdowns. Pretty good. Well, and I think, too, when he had his year off, and then he comes into Denver and starts to make that offense move and has...

humongous weapons and turns guys like Julius Thomas into superstars. And I just think that the career separation between Indianapolis and Denver and what he did in Denver and breaking records in Denver, last year freak people out. The end of the year freak people out. So I guess the question one, since we're talking about Peyton, is what is he right now to you? I mean, Mike, I can look your rankings up. I believe I have him as a top five quarterback. You do. You have him at number five right now.

Russell Wilson, I know, is going to come down in my ranking, so Manning would de facto up to four. And just the, I don't know, just as I did this divisional breakdown today where I was really diving into some guys, I think I'm fading Manning too much as well as thinking that the team is going to completely shift to run. I know the Coobes likes to run, but I just.

It's Peyton Manning. Yeah, it's still Peyton Manning, and I think I'm going to pump my brakes a little bit on C.J. Anderson. So I've got Peyton Manning at number seven.

which was one of my big surprises when I did it. I was really surprised to see him that low on mine. And I do think there's going to be a shift to running. And I've heard, you know, some people say there's not that big a disparity between, you know, Kubiak and Baltimore last year and the Broncos. And that's true. That is true. But that is taking into account.

the end of the year of the Broncos where they ran the ball all the time because Peyton wasn't throwing that much. And how were Peyton's stats during that time, they weren't that good. So when you look, you can't do the pace, right? You can't do the pace of the first 11 games and say he was on pace for this great offensive production, but then look at the total.

of their running versus passing and compare that to Baltimore. So my point is I think where he finished last year is a little bit closer to what I expect rather than taking into account that injury and I expect a slight regression. So that's where I got him. Here's the thing about him is I think you're either going to win or you're going to lose with him. Right. Because either you believe that the injury caused a problem and the second half of the year was...

anomalous or you believe that the second half of the year was the new trajectory for Peyton Manning and so and he might surprise the other direction and where you're drafting him is exactly what causes you to win or lose you're there getting an incredible value because of where he's going if he returns for him or that's way too high to grab a middling quarterback so let me ask one important question to you both

Julius Thomas was a red zone monster for that team, and Peyton Manning has a history of using tight ends very efficiently from Dallas, Clark, all the way through to Julius Thomas. So Owen Daniels, Virgil Green, which guy would you rather have on your roster? And that is not asking you which would you draft first. Which would you rather have on your fantasy roster? Right now it's Owen Daniels, because Owen Daniels has been lifelong mates with the coobs.

He follows him everywhere. They ride or die. That's team number three for him. And Owen Daniels, under that time, he's averaged 109 targets a year. So Manning is going to be the best quarterback that he's ever played with. I see Owen Daniels where I'm not taking him here, but he has 70 plus catch potential in that offense. And clearly the Coobes doesn't mind drawing things up for Owen Daniels. Yeah.

What do you think, Jay? Are you on the Owen side? 100%. In fact, he's one of my guys on the tight end list that I would have no problem waiting until my last positional pick and drafting Owen Daniels with it. It's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I actually lean on the Virgil Green side because I just see Owen Daniels is being capped by his athleticism and his age. I think Virgil Green is too good a run blocker to be used there. He's so good at run blocking that that's where they're going to have him in the Coob system.

Yeah, he was, however, seven for seven last year. His catch percentage was 100%. Pretty good. They like him. They like them both. I'm just curious what Owen has left in the tank. I suppose if he has enough left, he'll be efficient there. Any other thoughts on Denver before we move on? They still have Demarius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders. Cody Latimer is coming into his second year with a lot more experience, and so he could make a mark. Somebody you want to keep your eyes on because you never know, especially with an injury.

Peyton Manning's number two target wouldn't be too bad if one of those other guys went down. I think the number two is Emmanuel Sanders. It's still going to be Sanders. I know the people are... Oh, I agree with you. People are still... They're freaking a little bit because Sanders had come out and said, oh, we're going to run, and he's hoping to get, maybe he'll get to 1,000 yards. And I think Sanders is still a very, very, very strong wide receiver, too, with that one upside.

throughout the weeks. And the last thing that I wanted to touch on, because we had mentioned this of the Monte Ball numbers. In the last show, the mailbag show? Yes. And Monte Ball was, he was running 4.7 yards of carry. And so these are the numbers he put up. 120 carries, 559 yards, four touchdowns. And that's playing 26% of the snaps.

I mean, those are good numbers to play 20 to one quarter of the season. And they've been splitting reps, splitting first team reps in camp. So that to me was like the, that was like my, you know, gut drop. And I was like, no, don't split first team reps. That's so, that just sucks so much. I'm definitely cooling there. But real quick, back to Emmanuel Sanders because I think he is. You don't want to let me glow at all about season. I heard the hammer come down. No, no, no. I saw the glowing.

If only someone could have seen the future. Yeah. So, well, you know, the future is still in the future. And we don't know. I know. But I'm right. So Emmanuel Sanders is a guy that I think right now is...

one of the best values that I can see really clearly to me. Because he came out and said that, because of the fears of regression and all of that, because of Cody Latimer, there's a lot of reasons that people are dropping him and not respecting what he did last year, what he's capable of. And so where you're getting him, you can grab him, you know, sometimes in late. You can get him in the fourth round, you know, and you've got a wide receiver one upside there. You know, you don't have to grab him in the first to get.

a possible wide receiver one. I just love that value. And I'm, I am big on the draft. Emmanuel Sanders, if his ADP stays where it's at and continues to drop because I think he'll beat that. I'm not saying he'll finish as a top absolute wide receiver, but I am saying he will beat his ADP for sure. Do you think Sanders plays fantasy football? Is he tanking his value? Ooh. So he can draft himself? Slow play. Yeah. I like it. Good job, Emmanuel. I don't know.

I'm still fading on him. When you put up all career highs, it's hard to do this. Well, yeah. Well, I don't think he's going to duplicate what he did. However, I think... But that's why you put him in the two category. Yes. With value potential, like Jason said. All right, let's move on to the Kansas City Chiefs. The home of... That's good, but who the chefs? The home of Jeremy Macklin, everybody's favorite wide receiver. I don't know if I gave the numbers for Denver's...

offense, but it was number two in scoring and number four in passing. Kansas City was in the lower half in terms of offense, the 25th ranked offense in terms of yards, 29th in passing offense. We all know about, well, presumably we all know that they didn't have a wide receiver score. A touchdown during the entire calendar year. Yeah. The Andy Reed, Doug Peterson offense.

was right in the middle of the pack in terms of scoring. Top 10 rushing. Very efficient. One of the guys I was surprised in my rankings that I actually have higher than I would have thought is Alex Smith. He's still a, he's like 20 for me, I believe, in a standard league. But Smith is very efficient, but he doesn't take a lot of chances. He didn't throw downfield a lot. There's plenty of arguments for why that is. Did he not have weapons? Does...

That's just not who he is. It's a little of both. But big losses. Dwayne Bo is no longer a Kansas City chief. Anthony Fasano is gone, which is more addition by subtraction with Travis Kelsey, probably. Zeus. Jeremy Macklin has joined the team, and Paul Fanica comes over at Guard. And so let's talk a little bit about, I think the passing game is what people want to hear about beyond, you know, we can talk to Mark Charles and Travis Kelsey, but does it?

Jeremy Macklin have a shot here. I have a very fun fact. Oh, great. This is more Dwayne Bo related, but this is fun facts with Dwayne Bo. From 2010 to 2012, Dwayne Boe averaged 130 targets, 71 catches, 1,041 yards, 7 touchdowns. Now the touchdowns are a little skewed because he had that 15 touchdown year. He had three different old coordinators during that time. So he had to learn a new system every single time.

So 71 over 1,000. In comes Captain Checkdown, Alex Smith. In the two years that Alex Smith has been there, he's averaged 100 targets, 65 catches, so a couple less, but 723 yards. A 300-yard difference on six catches. No comment. Yeah. You know, even all that considered.

The guy that I'm, you know, is not for all leagues, but Captain Checkdown, as you call him, Alex Smith, I am...

really liking him in two quarterback leagues because you can draft him anywhere. You can get him at the very, very, very, even in two quarterback leagues, you can get him very late. He's going to blow that away because Travis Kelsey is going to take some Anthony Fisano catches and, you know, say what you will. I think Dwayne Bo still has some in the tank. That was my point. But he is no Jeremy Macklin by comparison. You would always take Jeremy Macklin on the NFL.