RB Rankings Part 2 + Preseason Takeaways & BIG NEWS

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no matter the shift. Call 1-800 Granger. Click Granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. All right, a bunch of preseason week one games in the books. We're going to talk about them on today's show. Before we do that, I want to remind you about the ultimate draft kit. Now is the time. You've got to get into the ultimate draft kit. You've got to follow along as the trends in what's going on in fantasy take place. Players moving up, down, injuries.

We've got it all in the Ultimate Draft Kit, including projected stats for each and every player for the entire 2019 season profiles on everybody, sleepers, breakouts, bus values, and a whole lot more, including a mobile app. Check it all out at Ultimate DraftKit.com. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Coming to you from pristineauction.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Welcome in. Oh, we're back. You know what's back. Is it football? Mike, say football. Does football? Say football. Football. It's football. It's football. Oh, baby. I was watching so much preseason football yesterday. And I'm in the office alone. Just talking to myself saying, man, I love football. I'm so excited. It's back.

We have a jam-packed show today. I know this one's going to run long. So all of you with an extra long commute, just be extra thankful. Hey, man, it's Friday. Yeah. If you got to take a little bit in on Saturday morning. Yeah, when you're fine. They might be a little busy Saturday morning. We'll see. Yeah, we do have a big announcement. We'll bring you in the news section today. We'll comment on all the preseason games. Saturday afternoon. Twitter is a dangerous wild place in the middle of preseason games as well.

No, it's the best place to be. Live tweeting during preseason football is possibly one of the greatest things of the entire year. Live tweeting? Yes. Live reading? Probably not going to help your fantasy team. Just chill out. You'll get many status updates about my pants. Hmm.

Yeah. Important. They may have incinerated. And the status of your pants. Kyler, Kyler may be last night. Obviously, we're from Arizona, so we're excited to see him out there. My goodness, he could hand the ball off. He could run around. With the best of them. No, we'll talk about our biggest takeaways from the players that played last night. Handful of injuries, things like that, and the big announcement in the news. Follow us on Twitter.

Everything that's going on, you want to be on there at the FF ballers. We're on YouTube, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. And we appreciate each and every one of you supporting the show by subscribing. This is the time to get connected. Stay connected. Preseason kicked off last night. There are five week one games remaining. But let's look at the slate from last night. Let's start with some high-level advice for fantasy players on what you look for in preseason games. I was asked.

this on a radio show a couple days ago. What do you look for? I was excited about looking at, you know, the rookies. They're getting out there. Maybe some of these tight ends that you're excited about since we've seen them break out in preseason. But what I'm not looking for, for me, is the stat line. I'm not looking for total stat line numbers and how, you know, these games do not matter. First and second team, third team, offenses, defenses flowing in and out.

I don't care about the stat line at the end of the day. I care about what my eyes see from certain players on the field, and are they proving some of the narratives true about their talent? Yeah. Some of the things that I look for is basically the order of players who's getting in first, who's touching the ball first, who's the first man up. And sometimes that is completely irrelevant. It's important to say that because, look, I mean, you know, Marlon Mack, Carriano Johnson, they didn't play.

for a reason. You know, Aaron Rogers. That's also something to look for is certain players who don't play. Right. Who's being protected? Who is the coach saying, look, I'm not even taking a chance. But it will change through the preseason. And that's important to know. Like preseason week one is so much fun and is mostly meaningless because the thing that is important to these teams is who are they cutting down to 53?

far more than how does my starting lineup do. So many starters don't play. And the first quarter, you know, like you said, Andy, you're not looking at stat lines because when did it happen? Did it happen against the twos against the threes? Well, and the offenses are vanilla. I mean, nobody's showing their best offensive formations or plans. Same with the defense. Yeah, and same with the defense. Look, the most impressive play from Kyla Murray last night was not the sixth completions. To me, the most impressive play was him escaping the pocket like Sonic the Hedgehog.

Yes. That was some, oh, oh, oh, he's going to do, he's going to do some of that running in the NFL. That's the thing that I'm paying attention to. But at the same time, a lot of fun stuff on the field last night. Yes, absolutely. I think you should start at the, where I want to start, Los Angeles, the Chargers, because there is a running back situation with Melvin Gordon holding out. We have to move on.

like Melvin Gordon is going to hold out. That's the way I'm looking at it because that's what he's saying is happening and the chargers are dug in. The charges are very dug in to the point where the announcers, the local announcers were talking about that Melvin Gordon's pictures nowhere. The programs, the lists, the depth charts, Melvin Gordon, you don't, he may not even exist or ever have existed according to those guys. Mike and I came up with the solution on the footcast yesterday that you should just, Detroit.

Detroit just trade carry on for Melvin Gordon. It works for all parties. Get your Marshawn Lynch, Daryl Bevel, and let carry on go to a good team. I don't think you actually want that. Because Austin Echler is very good. He's a very good player. And Justin Jackson's not far behind, but you did see Echler got the first team work. Yeah, Echler is going to be the starter. But the question is,

The ADP gap that is likely to arise. Echler is going to skyrocket. Justin Jackson certainly will move up. But how are you guys feeling? Like, there's people drafting right now. Are you taking Austin Echler? Are you taking that shot in the sixth round? E7.05 from where I, in half point league. But you say you're going to have to spin the six round pick. Well, let's look at the names around it. Do you want Echler and Gordon Stead or do you want Kenyon Drake who played last night?

you know, along with Belich. Do you want Tevin Coleman? I think I want Coleman more than I want Echler. I would take both of those guys over Echler. I don't. So the answer is no. I think based on the guys around, I'm not personally taking Echler in the sixth round. Especially when you can get Jackson late in the draft, even as the weeks go on, you're still going to get him very late. Mike, what about you? What are you doing with those guys? You're looking at Jackson late? We talked about maybe. Right. It's not going to be late for him either.

But it will still be later than Echler. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That would be fantastic. I think Echler, I've talked about it all offseason. And during our mock drafts, I'm always trying to get us to draft him. And that's when we thought Melvin Gordon was playing. I think he is a very skilled player. And he will be involved in the passing game. You already saw that yesterday. So I think he could be worth that six-round pick, even though you may only get four starting games from him.

But built into Echler is standalone value should Gordon come back where that's tougher for Justin Jackson. We are going to talk about Gordon today. This is the running backs ranking show part two. So Gordon lands in the second set because we're trying to mitigate the risk of Melvin Gordon right now. Echler did fumble. Yes, but that's on the goal line. Yeah. And then Justin Jackson did run into touchdown. Yes, he did. After that. All right. I think this is one of the top storylines.

David Ma Opportunity himself. Oh, he seized his opportunity. He was opportunistic. How many more can we get in here? Probably a lot. Look, David Montgomery looked like the real deal last night. Yeah, he did. Shifty, breaking tackles, you know.

I'm pretty sure he went up against the second team defense. He did. That's the one thing that was interesting to me. While he, like you can't take anything. That's what you should do against the second team defense. That's the thing. Like there's a couple of guys, Belage and Montgomery had great games, both of which had the entirety of their great performance against the second team. They weren't the first guy up, but you can't knock them for being great against the second team. But you do need to realize like, so it was really weird. Mike Davis.

Mike Davis was out there getting the run with the ones at the beginning of the game, which was really surprising. So it's week one preseason. It's not that surprising to me. I'm not freaking out or even thinking anything about it. Let's see what happens in week three. And again, that comes back to what did the talent show you on the field? Montgomery didn't do anything to assuage or, I mean, stop us from believing in his talent. That's probably the old veteran tip of the cap. I think it is. To Mike Davis. Marcus Mariotta.

We don't have to talk about it much. Didn't look good. Only completed four passes, but all four passes were completed to Adam Humphreys. And every incomplete was also targeted to Adam Humphreys. It was like he had one wide receiver. It was absurd. So the only takeaway there is Ryan Tanahill looked great. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that they make a shift to quarterback if Mariotta struggles this year. Well, the problem is Mario has struggled for his entire career.

Most of it. Most of it. He's shown flashes, but he certainly did not look great. You remember when he had that start of the season before the injury, where he was no interceptions in the red zone, hyper-efficient, running the football. You had a window into the potential of that team. Yeah, Pepperidge Farms remembers. But Humphreys, are you looking at Humphreys in PPR formats as somebody more interesting than you were before the game? Yes, I'm interested.

I'm paying attention. I'm not interested yet because, again, you didn't have Corey Davis out there. You didn't have AJ Brown. So, you know. All right. The hype train. It's out in force for a couple of undrafted free agent wide receivers, specifically Jacoby Myers, wide receiver for the New England Patriots. It looked great on the field last night, six catches. And then Preston Williams, wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins. The reason that those names get brought up at all is because both players,

It's not just one game in a stat line and the performance on the field. It's also all of the pre-season hype around camp. Bill Belichick came out. Jacoby Myers talked him up in camp. Same with Preston Williams in Miami. Both players made, I think, pretty impressive NFL-style catches. All this to say...

Dynasty awareness? Is this the time we're looking at Jacobi Myers and Preston Williams? I'm more interested in Preston Williams. I think that there is a path and the way that the players have been talking about him. He is interesting to me as a deeper dynasty player. Jacobi Myers, I mean, it was a little bit later in the game that he was really doing his damage. Maurice Harris came was, he's the one that I'm paying attention to for redraft. I don't.

It's a long climb for Jacoby Myers to get into the actual, anywhere of relevance for fantasy to me. You're probably right, and people should know, that Mike's probably right all the time on underactive free agents. There's only one or two Victor Cruises for all the other guys that flash in the preseason. Yeah, if you bet against all of them, you're going to win more often than not. That being said, the pathway to relevance in New England and the wide receiver corps, right now it doesn't go beyond.

Philip Dorset and Edelman. Well, Edelman, sure. But on the outside, looking at player, there is a, there's a way to work your way into that situation. Not that I believe Myers will, but I would pick him up in Dynasty League. I would look at him because of the praise of Belichette. Do you agree with that, Jay? What was your takeaway from those two guys? Yeah, I agree with you, Andy. Myers is interesting to me when you get the drum beat. You're on a great team and then you back it up. But.