Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Early Sleepers & Values, Maclin Talk

For the Atlanta Falcons, he didn't even start the year on Atlanta. He came in week two, was getting worked into the offense, and then we know what the Atlanta offense did last year. They were the highest scoring offense in the league by 70 points. They had 70 more points than second place, New Orleans Saints. Taylor Gabriel, weeks 8 through 15.

was a wide receiver 2 or better in six of those seven games. He was a wide receiver won twice in that time period. During that time period, he was the overall wide receiver 4 in points per game. Is that, were there some missed games by Julio in that stretch? No, I don't believe so. I was just curious. But he's highly volatile during that time. He was only in on 52% of snaps. He was under 40% of snaps twice.

He's the wide receiver three for an extremely high-powered offense. Well, I am okay calling for the Atlanta Falcons to have a regression from last year because last year was absolutely outrageous. I still think that they are one of the more potent offenses in the league and to get an absolutely free asset from that passing game with Taylor Gabriel, who can make huge things happen. I mean, people are falling all over themselves to get Tyreek Hill.

on their team because he's a freak. He has big plays here and there, but he's not on a passing offense. Taylor Gabriel is, and he's absolutely free in the back of drafts. Let me ask the question to Jason here. I think you see polar opposites between the Robert Wood situation and the Taylor Gabriel situation, because Woods maybe high volume, bad, bad offense. It's absolutely roster. Taylor Gabriel is this lightning rod almost reminds me. The only worry I have with him is it reminds me of.

You know, Tedgin two years ago with that Super Carolina offense, 10 touchdowns burst onto the scene, but then is the volume good enough in year two? Jason, if you were on the clock, is it roster construction that makes you choose between Woods and Gabriel? No, it's not. I would go Woods 100% of the time, unless I was playing best ball, where I know that you're going to have a few big weeks from Gabriel. I just don't know that I will ever.

be able to have the confidence to start him. Whereas Robert Woods, I can start. I'm sure I won't get the same ceiling. And usually for sleepers, you know, we try to swing for the fences. So I get that pick. But I like Robert Woods a lot. They paid him a ton of money to come in. How much? A turn of money. I mean, it's a lot. There's a Los Angeles Rams tax. Yeah, that's true. And so. They're getting that Kyle. You check money. I've always enjoyed watching Robert Woods.

thought he's better than his quarterback play, and he sadly probably still will be. 25 years old. Yeah. I'm just going to keep saying that. I'm going to go with. Don't make us start going Kenny Stills is 24. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. Kenny Stills is 24. Jason's changing his sleeper. My sleeper's getting stills. No, you guys both went wide receivers. So I wanted to go elsewhere. And there's so many sleepers, you know, that are, that are worthy about talking about that. Oh, you went Jay Gris.

I did, but, you know, look, I love Eric Ebron, probably not a sleeper anymore. I still, I'm going to throw this out there. Kobe Fleener I still love. You can at me on Twitter if you really need to from last year. But I want to talk about a guy that we haven't really discussed much as like, hey, I think he's worth drafting. And he's virtually free, he's back in those double-digit rounds. And that's Jaquiz Rogers. Jequiz Rogers is the current...

you know, de facto starter for the first three weeks of the season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And what we saw last year was when he was given that opportunity, when Doug Martin went out and he was given the opportunity to be the starter, he was great with it. I mean, he was essentially, he put up 18.4 points, 19.4, and 16.3 points. I'll take those weeks every single week from a running back. If you look at the top.

four weeks last year of all Tampa Bay starters for running backs. Three of them were to Quiz Rogers. Oh, that's so weird. Right? I know. But don't worry. Doug Martin did get one of those. I believe that he is an asset. I'm going to talk about something that's a little weird to think about, but it's really true. I'm scared. It's really true that when you start your fantasy football league out on top, you...

tend to make better transactions. You're not playing on tilt. When you start one and four, all of a sudden you feel like... You're trading your best player away. You've got to do something to mix it up and you make mistakes. I think Quiz is a guy that can come in a very late addition to your roster who you should be starting in those first few weeks. He proved himself valuable. And then...

At that point, when Doug Martin comes back, yes, he'll go to the back of the line. We assume he did that last year. When Doug Martin came back, he was gone. It was, Jacques Quiz was not really involved much at that point. And then, of course, when Martin went down again in week 16. Benched and then suspended. Sure. Yes. When he went away again, then.

What did he do? He came right back and had another, you know, RB2 performance. So look, he's, he is behind a guy who has had production problems, health problems, and now suspension problems. He's been productive. You know you're going to get some value at him for those three weeks. Holy trinity of danger for running backs right there. It's not the prettiest picture. And maybe you use them for three weeks and cut him. But.

How's that very different from a Taylor Gabriel or a Robert Woods or these other guys are going to be drafted late where you're hoping for something? You get nothing and cut them. Give me three weeks of quality and then maybe he sticks around, maybe not, and then I cut him. So I just wanted to bring up quiz as a guy that, you know, he's going to help people in the beginning of the season. All right. Let's talk values. Values.

I like that's a sneaky one. That's good. I know better than to talk over the end. I know that. Yeah, you've learned your lesson. Professional. All right, let's let Jason kick this one off here. We're in the values. Back to back, Jason. By the way, I'm going to go backwards for a second. We're talking about sleepers and values, and I think it's one of the more difficult things, and maybe this is a fool's errand to even do this.

But it's one of the more difficult things to perfectly define a sleeper because it means different things to different people. The way that I treat a sleeper is somebody that is not expected to do well that you think might do well. Sure. It's a pretty simple way to say it. And then a value is a guy who you expect to do well, but it's just going late in drafts for some reason. Yeah, going too far, too late in drafts where all of a sudden you're looking at him and you're saying, wow.

He's going to outperform. It seems simple. But I will also say that, you know, I very often see sleepers as just people with a super late ADP. You know, Eric Ebron, for instance, could be a sleeper to me because you can grab them in certain leagues, you know, the 12th round. But he's not really a sleeper because he's been productive before. People know who he is. So I see the argument. It's like Jason on the show. Most people, they're not expecting a lot. Or a value is probably both. Right. More of a sleeper.

I get very sleepy after lunch. Yeah, we know that from today. You guys get, oh, my goodness. I'm surprised I'm here with us on this show after that lunch. I'm surprised I'm here with us. I'm not even sure. Sounds about right. Sure what that means exactly. It shows you that lunch was delicious. All right. It was pretty good. Saracha burger. My value, despite the fact that he just lost a few weeks of his.

left tackle is Matthew Stafford. I think overall their offensive line is still...

I love Matthew Stafford. You love Matthew Stafford. Good. You know, overall their offensive line, I think, is improved. I agree it's a loss to, you know, to have your starting left tackle go down. But he should be back this season. Maybe you, you know, have a few weeks before it gets completely in order. But Matthew Stafford is a guy that when you're talking values is being undervalued. He's going in the double-digit rounds. And currently he's the 15th.

quarterback off the board on average. He's the 15th guy taken. He's my quarterback eight coming into this year. That's Alex Smith's dream spot. Yes. The 15. And if you look at the previous few years, I mean, since 2011, the lowest that Stafford has ever finished in that time is the quarterback 15.

So if you're grabbing him at 15 and he has the worst season he's had since 2011, he'll probably return value. Otherwise, aside from that season, he finished 7th, 9th, 7th, 11th, and 5th. So he's a guy that can get it done. The first six weeks of last year when he had, you know, a healthy team around him and hadn't dislocated his finger yet. He was in the MVP talk, if you remember, as he was leading the lions like crazy. He was the number two.

quarterback in fantasy football. He was on fire. Then he started losing pieces. That's when Eric Ebron went down for a couple weeks. Theo Riddick went down for the first time. Obviously, he had already lost Amir Abdullah. Marvin Jones forgot how to play football around that time. He didn't. He lost Marvin Jones.

Yeah, he was there, but he was completely lost Marvin Jones. The way that I look at it coming into this current season is, you know, the offensive line has been improved elsewhere. You've got a healthy Abdullah, in theory, a healthy, Abdullah, healthy, Riddick, healthy Ebron. You know, Marvin Jones in his second year, you add Kenny Galladay, a rookie that a lot of people like. I think he has the tools, the weapons, the history of proven performance. You know, who's getting hype, too. Who's that? Your boy.

Aberderous, Aberdeeris. He's getting some lions buzz. I love Aberderas. Him's good. Oh, Haberduris. My point is he should not be the 15th quarterback off the board. When you go with the late round quarterback model and you are realizing you're going to stream, you're still hoping when you take that quarterback, you're wanting a guy that you might not have to stream because he just comes on gangbusters and goes Matt Ryan last year. To me, Matthew Stafford's a guy that could do that.

This is a team that could do that. They have the weapons to do that. I love them as a good value late in drafts. I'm going to give you my value now. Thanks. Wow. Great. You seem upset about it. And I've had a dentist inject my mouth with Novakane so I don't have to feel the words coming out of my mouth. I'm worried. I'm going to say Ted Gin Jr. is a value. You should be very happy about this.

If you think I enjoy making Ted Ginn, Jr. my value, you would be wrong. But he is my value. Yes, Ted Ginn, Jr. never a season above 56 receptions, never been consistent. But to me, it's talent and opportunity. And Drew Brees provides a whole lot of opportunity. And talent. And talent. And Ted Ginn has talent to run. He can run fast and it hasn't stopped. He's always been able to do that. And the last two years, he's pushed 100 targets.

Now, that is only equated to 40-something and 50-something receptions. Cam Newton. But, yeah, no, you're right. One of the most accurate, Drew Brees, one of the most inaccurate, Cam Newton. Now, the world is anointing Willie Sneed and Michael Thomas. But those are really, really... You call me the world, sir. Yeah, I understand it. I do. I love both of those players for similar reasons. They play with Drew Brees. But they're both very young. They're both very, very young.

And I don't know exactly what the entirety of this offense will look like, but Ginn is a veteran. They already talked about him around camp. They had missed the presence of Marcus Colston. They had missed the presence of Robert Meacham. Both of those guys were veteran presences. Meacham is more similar to Ginn to me from an offensive perspective. But I don't know what Sneed can be in this role. I don't know what Thomas will do against number one DBs for the entirety of this year. Things have changed with Brandon Cooks out the door.

To me, at 65 catches is 800 yards, and it's 5 plus touchdown upside. If he scored 10 touchdowns with Cam Newton, five is reasonable, and 65 for 805 in a standard league format, is a value to me in the 14th round, basically an undrafted. And so I'm looking deeper leagues, a possible steal with Ted Ginn. And everything that I've heard around camp and what he's doing has been positive. I'm not buying into hype. I'm just buying into look, opportunity and talent.