Top 10 Countdown + Upside Offenses

He is the ADP number three overall. His 2016 stat line is fun to stare at. 293 carries 1239 yards, 16 touchdowns, and then he was also a wide receiver. 80 receptions for 879 and 4 on 120 targets. Much like that Camara stat, he would have been the wide receiver 30 in PPR leagues just with his receiving totals. So now we look to 2018. Our staff rider,

Dr. Matthew Betts, he says the injury risk is very, very low. And obviously this was not a leg injury. No. So more than nine months removed, he's back. So if he's back, does it matter? Are the Cardinals good enough to make it matter? I think we say yes. Yeah, definitely. I mean, Carlos Hyde last year because of his work in the passing game on a poor team was the running back nine. And so will David Johnson be able to replicate the 2016 season where he had 20 total touchdowns? No.

Say that right now. He's not getting 20 touchdowns. 30. The Cardinals aren't going to score enough to have that happen. But he is still the secondary receiving weapon there. He has said himself this offseason that it is still incredibly important to him on a personal level to have 1,000 yards rushing and 1,000 yards receiving.

That's a goal that the team wants to get him. And I just love when teams actually admit that stuff and the players say that matters because we care about counting stats. That'll be very expensive for the Cardinals. How do you mean? Well, he's going to be, he's up for a contract. Yes. And he's going to get it before the season. Yeah. You know, a thousand and a thousand gets expensive. Well, that's why they're going to try to, you know, lock it up beforehand. He's still holding out.

Yeah, whenever you have, I mean, it's like Alvin Camara, the reason we love him is not because he's just some unfathomable between the tackles rusher. It's because of how efficient he is in the passing game. Not to take anything away from his rushing game, but that's not where he, that's not where his bread of butter is. In fantasy, you need both. You need both to be ranked at the top. To be a stud. And David Johnson is both an elite, an absolute elite wide receiver and.

one of the best goal line between the tackles. Well, and right now you have side runners. Just so people understand, Arizona has, you're going to start the season with Sam Bradford. You've got Larry Fitzgerald in this slide. You're going to have Christian Kirk outside, and then you're going to have some mishmash of Bryce Butler and J.J. Nelson on the other side. David Johnson's arguably the number two pass weapon on this team behind Larry Fitzgerald. So that is something that has a great value, and that's why he's in number three.

Number two. Todd Gurley. Oh, you old friend. You old so-and-so. Wow, what a season for Todd Gurley. We've got him in number two. He only had one more carry in 2017 compared to 2016, but gained over 220 additional rushing yards. And the big one, the one that everyone wants to see from Azuki Eliot, the target count, went from 58 targets to 87 targets last year, made all the difference, made him the number one running back in fantasy football.

It made a huge difference, and it wasn't just because of an injury. You know, a lot of times it's like, oh, this player got involved and was involved in the passing game, and it was due to that. This was because of a coaching change. This was because of a coach coming in and saying, wait, this guy has a skill set that we're not utilizing. You saw it in college. Let's get him the ball in space and watch what he does. The one thing I would say, I believe he had six receiving touchdowns. Little high.

That's not a number that's happening next season. It could, but it's not a number. Yes. I mean, you know, it's similar to David Johnson's 22 years ago. I think that Todd Gurley's touchdowns come down. And I will say this. While he is great in the passing game, I don't expect him to seed a lot of passing work. They did draft.

John Kelly, a running back that I think is very good. He was one of my favorite guys prior to the draft, which now is dead because he's behind Todd Gurley. But he is good in the passing game. So if they did want to utilize him and rest Todd Gurley a little bit more, they now have the opportunity to do that, that they didn't have someone to come in and actually succeed last season. Based on how their season when I wouldn't do that if I were then. I think they want to keep him healthy more than they want to. He was healthy.

It sure was. And they want more of that health. Agreed. I will say this. I was in a fantasy pros expert mock draft a little bit ago. I had the number two draft spot behind Scott Barrett. And I had him queued up, you know, Lev Bell one, Todd Gurley, too. And I thought for sure I'd get Lev Bell because Todd Gurley's been going one everywhere. I was really disappointed. I was very sad. How does that make you feel, Andy? You were sad that you got Love Bell? No, I was sad that I got Todd Gurley. Oh, yeah, that's dumb. Todd Gurley's great.

Okay. I agree that six receiving touchdowns might not replicate. I'm just sour. I'm just sour on Todd Gurley because. No reason. No reason to. He scorched me last year. But I'm not surprised because, I mean, you like, you like John Kelly and I hate John Kelly. Well, that's ridiculous. I think he's terrible. What? Awful. No, you don't. Yes, I do. I don't like him at all. We're going to go watch some films. He's one of my least. Hit the button. Let's wrap this show. We got to go watch film. He's one of my least favorite running backs in the entire rookie class. By far. And there's a reason he went where he went.

Do you admit, look, you want to sing your praises all about Rashad Penny and all I got him up in the first round and what I saw was right. What do you say about John Kelly? I will. 100% admit that. He fell. He fell in the draft much further than. He is Joe somebody. Look, I will say this. My notes on John Kelly. I just happened to have this on the desk. You've got your diary out. I've got my diary. My notes on John Kelly in the beginning.

I have a line that says, read that for me, Andy. Completely unspecial. Completely unspecial. Exactly. And then I kept watching and I changed. I mean, that's the thing. He, he, he, I think he is a very well-rounded player. If you took Marshawn Lynch, and then you took away about, like, like, the skill rating in Madden for Marsha and Lynch, and you took like three points away from every ability, that's John Kelly. You got to take some LBs away as well. Number one.

Lev Bell comes in at number one on our consensus top 20. Ho-hum, Lev Bell, you're great. I just don't see how you don't have him here. He might get off to a slow start because of training camp like he did last year, but no one has done it. Look, Todd Gurley was...

had a down year two years ago. You could argue that maybe it was an outlier this last year for how good he did. David Johnson's been injured. Still have the contract situation. Yeah, but he had the contract situation last season as well. It didn't matter. You have never, ever, ever seen Levion Bell be bad. You've never, ever had him be, you know, a starter for a season and not be...

pretty much the best running back in the league. So, yeah, okay, there's possibility from previous suspensions, the previous injuries or contract. There's risk there, but there's risk with everyone. I want the guy who has always done it and will continue to do it. He runs like nobody else. Only running back with 400 touches. They feed him the ball. Sure. An obscene amount. You know what we should do? We should rank him number one on our top 20 based on that. Yeah, not much to talk about.

Mailbag. Jay Gris. Don't worry, Jason. Don't worry, Jason. Thank you. I was ready. Did you see? I was. I don't want people to hear you do the mailbag that close to a holiday. That's just not safe. It's not right. It's not appropriate. The holiday was yesterday. I know. It's too close. I want them to bring the people back down. They might be taking an extra day off of work and they need to keep their food down that they ate yesterday. So we'll just spare them. If you want to do it, you could do it for the Saturday show. Mike won't be back then.

I might just do that. Prepare yourselves, people, for Saturday. We talked about it at the beginning. If you have a question, go to the fantasy footballers.com, click, submit a question, or dial our voicemail hotline, Jason. That number is 302-6-4-464-464-T-FFB. Nailed it. Oh, mate, I'm not asking that again. All right, let's jump into a voicemail. Hey, ballers, this is Jared from San Diego, R-I-P to my chargers, by the way.

Just quick question for you regarding auction drafts. We have a guy in our league who is really excited about switching to an auction draft. And I just wanted your guys' thoughts on if you like them, some tips and tricks and strategies for an auction draft versus a standard snake draft. Thanks, guys. Love your show. Bye. Do you like auction? Yeah, I love auctions. They are a really cool way that levels the playing field. If you've got...

I think, though, that you need to be in a league where everybody knows how to play. Everybody's a good quality player because while you make the accusation that it levels the playing field, it also means that if you've got an uneven, you know, experience level. Experience level that one guy can take advantage everywhere as opposed to just in the rounds where players drop to him. It's not my favorite. I will say that. I prefer.

you know, redraft. I love the draft. I love the average draft position and all the strategy that we spend months in. It can be fun. We've been in some good ones. Yeah, but I would say this. We have a couple articles on the website, the fantasy footballers, that are outstanding. We've got beginner articles for auctions. We just recently put up an article of early 2018 auction trends. So if you want to see...

How's this looking this year? That would be the best resource. We just don't have time to get into every auction tip. All right. AJ in New Jersey has a question. Me and my league mates were thinking of changing to a fab system. And I was wondering how much money each team should start out with. Also, is your podcast on TV? Thank you. Let me ask you a follow-up question. Do you have AJ? Is YouTube TV?

Yeah, if you have YouTube on your TV, we're on your TV. Then yes. If you have the Fantasy Sports Network, I think we're still on there as well. Yeah, I don't even know. Yeah. But yes, we are, if you want a video product that can be put on your TV, we have it for you. Oh, yeah. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Fab. Yeah, I mean, how much do you need to start out with? It doesn't matter.

It really doesn't matter, but everybody's got the same, but 100 will make it easy to listen to podcasts. 100, yes, exactly. That's the format we talk about. It's easy. If you're listening to someone else that talks on percentage based and they say 25% of your budget, then, you know, it's $25. It's pretty easy. Yeah. Also, PSA, make sure if you are new, turn on $0 bidding. Yeah, absolutely. That way you can keep playing.

Yeah, during the week. Noah in California, who would you take in a full PPR league, Demarius Thomas or Stefan Diggs? I've been seeing them picked up pretty close to each other in mock drafts. I'm hesitant on who I would take. Love your show. I watch it on YouTube. Oh, on YouTube TV? Maybe. I lean the Demarius way. And by lean, I mean I severely go the Demarius way.

I lean the Stefan Diggs way, and by lean, I do mean lean. I think it's a little bit closer, but I have Stefan Diggs ahead in my PPR rankings. I can tell you, Mike leans the Diggs way by a nose as well. Yeah, I will say this. I'm starting to have some worries with Demarius Thomas, and I don't like it. There were some signs that perhaps he's not the same.

explosive player. I mean, it's so masked by the poor quarterback play. Like we were talking about earlier. But it can happen. You can degrade. Degradation? Yeah, I think so. Nailed it. Sounds right. I think that can happen during bad quarterback playing. You don't see it. So I still lean Thomas, though. I think he's going to play 16. That's one of the things that I don't think Diggs is going to do. Fair enough. All right. Jack's Quest. Daniel and San Diego.

How do I get into the listener league? I'm a two-time champ. Love listening to the podcast. Want to take my talents to the FF Ballers League. Well, Daniel, I don't think it's time. Were you checking the date here, Andy? It was 4th of July. I believe this month we'll talk about that. This month we will open up. Brooks, we're working it out, right? The listener league? Oh, yeah. We will open up submissions. Brooks, the producer of the show, we found Brooks, or he found us, whichever way you look at it, because he submitted an unbelievably great.

submission for the listener league. We knew he was a great video editor based on his submission, and we used him to cut up some other things in the future. And then we hired him and moved him here. Yeah. So what you need to do is you will end up coming up with whatever you think we will love seeing. What we don't love. We don't. I mean, congrats on the two titles. Trophy cases do not get you in the listener league.