Biggest Fantasy Storylines for 2018 - LIVE in Philly

The best advice we can give Eagles fans, if, like, real advice is probably don't draft Eagles because if you're in a league with people that love Eagles, I mean, you are diehard, you're the most diehard fans there are. They're going to be overvalued. Here's a real question. If you take one, if you take one, take Corey Clement, because he costs you very little. He's actually a good value. I wonder if they would, would you rather win your league without Eagles players or lose it with...

A roster full of Eagles players. Win. I heard win. Okay, good, good. We got the right crowd. They're here to win their league. Is there a danger to over or underestimating Carson and Deshaun Watson? Yeah, the touchdown rate. It's coming down for both of them. So only a danger on overvaluing? Yes. You don't see danger on undervaluing those guys. And just the narrative, right? We just talked about it for 10 minutes, unsustainable numbers. Yeah, it's impossible. Can Carson wins be the number one without those numbers?

No. You don't think so. Sorry. All right, let's move on. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm not the last one. I could be the good or the bad, but I'm not the ugly. All right, backfield battles in 2018. I'll take it. Indianapolis, Green Bay, Houston, Tampa. There are a number of teams where we do not know what is happening in the backfield necessarily. That's a major storyline for the 2018 season because of a fantasy owner wants to win.

They're going to have to navigate those. They can't just avoid them. It can't just be hands off. I don't think about it ever again. So what backfield battle to you is the most important for fantasy football owners? What backfield? For me, it's definitely Green Bay. I think that the Green Bay backfield has for a long time been valuable, but if you only look at the end of season rankings, you can have a false narrative that...

the Green Bay running back doesn't do a great job because there's been a lot of injuries there other than the two seasons with Eddie Lacey where he, you know, was great. But if you look at last season and you see that, so Ty Montgomery starts, he's on fire. He's a top five back. He's great those first three weeks. Later, when he comes back, if you didn't remember, had a top 10 week in those two games that he played. Jamal Williams, he had a stretch where it was like, okay,

Tyo Montgomery got injured, you're up. And then, oh, Aaron Jones had a stretch. But between those three guys, between those three guys, there were eight top 12 running back finishes in Green Bay. That's great. For a frame of reference here, LaShawn McCoy, he had seven. Karim Hunt only had seven. Leonard Fournette only had six top 12 finishes. Green Bay is going to be a super valuable backfield.

It's just... You follow the offense, and I lean Green Bay as well, just because you want the most valuable offense for somebody to emerge out of. Agreed. You're on the Green Bay train? Okay, so... Next question. Which one, which backfield will keep you frustrated all season long? Green Bay. Did you answer Green Bay as well? Both of them? Yeah, because... The most important and the most frustrated. Because the best running back on the team is suspended for two weeks to start the season, Aaron Jones.

That's going to lead to Tyne Montgomery getting an opportunity. But his body just cannot hold up to being a running back. No matter how much they want him to be a running back, or no matter how much he wants to be a running back, he's going to break down. And then they'll probably give Jamal Williams another shot because Aaron Jones screwed up and did stupid stuff off the field. And eventually Aaron Jones will come in and be the best running back on the team.

Yeah, for me, I'm picking the Oakland Raiders. I think it's going to be super frustrating all year because I follow bad coaches. Like when I look at, when I look at the pass and I say, I'm so confused. So here. Yeah, me too. When I look at frustrating backfields that aren't because of injury. Why do you follow them? For this question, I'm saying when you want to look at who's going to be a frustrating guy to own, it's always because there's the dumb freaking coach that is a.

cramagony old monster and won't look at analytics and won't get the right guy. Tell us what you really think. My goodness. And that's Greg Olson. Oh. And the offensive coordinator for the Raiders. So look, if they give Marciaun Lynch the ball 250 times, they're going to be happy. It's not going to happen. Doug Martin's going to be involved. Jalen Rashard might be involved. I mean, it's just, it's going to be frustrating. Okay. All right. I.

My inference that I got out of that, I didn't know you were going Greg Olson. I thought you were going John Gruden. And while I know the belief amongst all of us isn't there for John Gruden, traditionally thought it was a good coach. John Gruden could absolutely be a great coach. We haven't seen it in a long time, but Greg Olson cannot. Okay. He spells his name to incorrectly. Exactly. Apparently. It's funny, when I thought about what backfield would frustrate me the most, I was surprised at the answer I came up with. And I actually thought it was Carolina. I love it.

Because as a fantasy owner, when you're on the two-yard line and you own Christian McCaffrey, and you know your odds of him getting the ball over C.J. Anderson or Cam Newton, or you're the Cam Newton owner, or you're the C.G. Anderson owner. You just don't know who's going to score week to week. So I think it will be frustrating because this happened with Jonathan Stewart a lot of the time when you owned him in that backfield. It was like, okay, this is a Cam game.

We're just going to give it to Cam on the goal line. You don't know what the reason is. It's just today you don't get fantasy points. It's not just those variables. I mean, it's your playing a full intense game of D&D. You've got to roll those dice. At first, you've got to hit. That Christian McAfry is even going to be on the field when they get to the two. You're like, okay, I got it. I'm safe. Yeah. Twelve. Is he going to get the ball? Snake Eyes, you're out. Because Cam Newton runs it in himself. I mean, there are so many variables.

I know the Christian McCaffrey hype. I still have bad Mike Tolbert dreams. It's real. It is exploding. We're getting even more hype train blowing over. It's rolling through. Oh, is it coming? It's coming. I wonder how loud that is. It's coming down the track for Christian McCaffrey. And C.J. Anderson is going to make a lot of people sad because no one in fantasy wants to believe in Anderson.

And he's coming with dub fingers for all the Christian McCaffrey owners. All right. So which of those backfield battles produces or has the highest chance to give you a top 10 running back? I'll hold my answer because it's gross. You know, I agree. Oh, no, it is gross. It is. I haven't looked at it. Here's the truth. It is gross, but I am changing mine to yours as well. And here's why I can kind of make a little bit of the case, so I'll just lead with the gross.

While Green Bay, I think, is the most powerful, your argument of it could still be messy there. So the highest percentage of getting a top 10 running back has to be from a guy who gets the workload by himself. And if the Antiforman starts on the pup, Lamar Miller, he's going to get the work.

And here's the thing. He was a top 12 running back when Deshawn Watson was playing. You saw it last year. I have some of his highlights. Do you want me to play them? He's only 26 years old. I can actually give you. You want some highlights? Yeah. He's running down the field. Oh, he's running to the offensive line. It's a top 10 quarter running back. You know, the reality is it's annoying to concede Lamar Miller's opportunity. I just don't want to do it. I feel like it's not fair. And I would say Green Bay.

Because I believe Aaron Jones has the ability to be that if he gets enough of the workload. And I don't want my talk here of Green Bay of them, me believing they'll be frustrating. You still have to take the shot. You have to draft one of these guys later on. Get some. If you're making me draft Lamar Miller, I get to draft Green Bay running back. So that's the concession.

You got to get Lamar Miller. And then one of the Green Bay and then you just feel really, really gross about your entire roster. Fantastic. All right. We have the final storyline I want to talk about on today's show, which we'll be right after that, we'll do the mailbag. All right. So be ready. We'll get Brandon up here. We'll answer some questions. Live mailbag. This will be the show that releases on Saturday, by the way. So the Philly Show is the Saturday show. Here's the final point. We'll call it it it's hard to say goodbye. Okay?

Fantasy contributors, their careers are coming to and in. Sunsetting players, players that, you know, it's time to say goodbye. Last year, it happens every year. Eric Decker, farewell. Yeah. Brandon Marshall, au revoir. Jeremy Macklin. What language do you got lined up? That's all I know. So there were several last year. DeMarco Murray. Yeah, goodbye. Anybody draft him? Goodbye.

So who's the guy this year that it's time to say goodbye, Mike? It's time to say farewell. We've got to start with me. Okay. I need a temperature check because the guy who we're saying goodbye to is Lagart Blunt. Do we still like him here? All right. We're good. We're good. I'm safe. Totally indifferent. Legerick Bluntz, Philadelphia, they did it right with Lageret Blunt. He was fantastic for your team.

but you knew that you had to move on. He's going to be turning 32, a running back, turning 32. He's moved over to Detroit, and how did they reward him for his new contract? Yeah, Super Bowl champion. They traded up in the second round for his replacement, whose ADP is about to go up. Carry on. Another two spots. He's now in the third round, Jay. I'm sorry. We've got to stop hitting that drop. But Ligarrett Blunt, we loved you.

But enjoy. It's time to say goodbye. Yeah, you've got a ride off into the sunset. You're a hero. So by extension, you do like Kerryon Johnson. Oh, of course I like Kerry on Johnson. Stop it. I thought about some different players. I would so love to say Lamar Miller in this segment. I wish he didn't have such an opportunity. I'm actually going to say I'm going to pick a player that's going to Baltimore to die. I know you don't like it.

It's Michael Crabtree. We love him. We all love Michael Crabtree. When did that happen? Did you own him last year? Then you should not like him. They love him. He put up zero against him. That's true. He's entering his ninth season. He saw a major decline last year. 44 fewer targets, 31 fewer reception, 400 fewer yards. The only glimmer of hope was his touchdown totals.

And then he shipped out of town for Jordy Nelson, who, by the way, might be mentioned in a second. His catch percentage was down. His yards per reception was down. He was seventh in drops in the NFL. There are enough metrics to make me say, boy, I really hope he goes and pairs up with Joe Flacco. That's going to get his career on track. Worked for Jeremy Macklin. But I thought it was Lamar Jackson playing 16 games. Oh. Eight. Eight games. Eight.

And he's going to run. So I think it's Michael Crabtree. You won't be talking about him as a draftable asset next year. Yeah. Look, one of the reasons that I can get behind that is we've discussed this on the show before. You know, when free agent wide receivers change teams, there's no guarantee they're going to do poor. Alshan Jeffrey was great last year. Yeah, as you say, that's the exception, not the rule. But.

Usually, you know, there's a bump there. There's a hurdle. Terrell Pryor obviously sucked. Pierre Garsohn, I mean, he got injured. Jeremy Macklin. Eric Decker switched teams last year in an older age. Yeah, they're all trying to grab onto another couple paychecks and they don't have it anymore. And so we saw Jordy Nelson last year in his age 32 season lose a Hall of Fame quarterback. And he was worthless. I mean, he didn't even get 10 yards of reception.

He is now 33, changing teams, getting Derek Carr. You know what the truth is? Here's the truth. If Devante Adams wasn't so good during the time that Rogers was out, I don't know if we doubt Jordy Nelson. We just say, oh, man, nobody could throw the football. But Adams sustained production where Jordy disappeared. And Jordy had 88 targets. He didn't do much with those targets. So I think he's lost a step. All right.

It is time for our live mailbag. Warm up them pipes. Warm your pipes up. We're going to invite Brandon Marion Lee back up here. We're going to grab her a mic and a seat. We're going to do a live mailbag. If you were one of the people selected to ask a question, there is a microphone right up here. So if you have the special bracelet come up and get in the line, she will unravel the microphone and come stay with us. And so are you ready to deliver?

Oh, we're standing up. There we go. Well, I told them if they have a question to get up. Oh. But we can all stand up. You guys ready? You have to beat Minneapolis and Dallas. That's a fair point. Dallas brought it. Fair point. Here we go. Mailbag. That's pretty good. Someone spit on me. I got a little bit on the face. I lost a couple beard hairs. New York is on notice. Welcome. Welcome up here, Brandon.