Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Free Agency, LeSean McCoy, Frank Gore, Mailbag

I mean, how do you not love the number one running back in that situation? Now, it's not a done deal yet. So if we come on the show and say it's 100% done, and then, you know, an hour after the recording, he's not signing that. Well, we'll look kind of foolish. But that's what we do. We've got great news here today to break on the fantasy footballers because last week it was so annoying leaving our session and then breaking news and we had to wait forever. Well, there's no longer a need to wait in the off season. We are bringing two shows a week.

Are we, we're fully committed to two? We're doing it Thursday for sure. Yeah, we'll be on Thursday. So much news to cover. There is. There is a lot to cover and we'll be coming up on draft season. So we just keep getting emails. We are doing, we are doing two shows a week all year long when the draft season comes around probably by July. You guys keep asking for two? We're going to give you two. That's true. That's true. All right, let's move on. Let's talk about a couple of,

Less exciting, but depending on if you have them as a keeper. Randolph Cobbs are turning to Green Bay, which I do. I think this is a surprise to some people who thought he might run off the Jacksonville to Oakland to maybe get the money. He got a $40 million deal for four years. I think he made a brilliant decision. I think we all, we talked about that last show, you know, you cement yourself.

with Aaron Rogers for the next four years. Your next contract's bigger. At age 29 when he's still in the ring is bigger. I mean, they should have been in the Super Bowl last year. Great signing by Green Bay keeping him there. Good value. Good value on him. Yeah, I agree. So he's going to average 10 a year. The rumor was the Raiders were offering in between 11 and 12. So let's say over four years, you're giving up $8 million, right?

But then your next contract is nothing because you're not going to have the inflated numbers of Aaron Rogers. So you're giving up eight, four to eight right now for another big payday. He'll get another $50 million contract because inflation and by the time that rolls around contracts are going to be bigger. And so that's going to be huge money in his pocket. Yeah, and he's also young enough that he's...

He's going to get another contract. So let's talk to fantasy relevance because last year he put up career highs in receptions, in yards, in touchdowns. It's scary to go and take a guy based on those numbers saying, well, he put up his best year ever. But his age says, you know, some people put up their best year after year after year until they peak. So which is he? Did he peak? Close. The touchdowns are the hard thing because he had a ton last year. Twelve touchdowns.

I think 10 is reasonable in that offense. So I don't, I don't think, I think 90 receptions, 1,200 yards, 10 touchdowns is where I have him, which isn't too different from last year. But, you know, he's a gamer and he's young. It was, I saw an interesting stat from, I believe Mike Clay put it up, referencing Cobb's first half of he was getting.

much lower targets, maybe like six or seven targets a game. And that's where the bulk of his touchdowns came. Second half, his targets went way up and his touchdowns went down. So he was quite an anomaly of less targets, but more touchdowns. Historically, his touchdowns haven't been that high. Obviously, he's an ascending player, but it's hard because he's more of a, you know, he's not your prototypical goal line receiver. And so those are a little more enigmatic.

Any other thoughts on Randall Cobb? We also had Ingram re-signed with the Saints, so you didn't see a change of venue for him, but you saw a commitment by the Saints to make him... Releasing Pierre Thomas just to sign him? Yeah, they did release Pierre Thomas. They had to... Their cat problem is...

Humongous. I didn't think they were going to be able to sign him. There's no place that Mark Ingram could have gone that I would have liked his, almost even Dallas just because I was so worried about his contract year. But the fact that he stayed around in the offense he's there with and that they gave him a commitment, I'm actually really liking Mark Ingram for this coming year. Yeah, he looked like a completely different player. He looked finally like the first round pick that he was last year. But it...

It's up to the Saints. Are they going to give him the carries? He... Doesn't it seem like the commitment financially would mean they will? You would think so, but you would also think somebody trading up into the first round means they're going to give a guy carries, which for years they did not. I lost my train of thought. Oh, but it's up to the Saints of Will they give him the carries. Kyrie Robinson's still there. You don't have to worry about Pierre Thomas, but Cadet is the new Thomas, I would assume.

And when they gave him the carries, he produced outstanding fantasy numbers and real-life numbers. But he did. It looked like he was wearing down. I don't know if he can handle it. I don't know if he's ready. He still didn't run for a thousand yards. He didn't run for double-digit touchdowns. He's not a running back one to me. Because he wasn't getting the carries at the beginning of the year. He also missed a couple games. You have to.

When we're talking about the workload, you have to extrapolate out when he was actually getting carries. Yeah, and he only had 226 carries last year. And he's only 25 years old. And that often seems to be trying to take some of the burden off of Drew Brees, which they should. Which they need to do because he's getting up there. But to me, he's probably in the 15 range as a running back. Could you rather have Joyck Bell or him? Ingram. That's not even a question for me. I think Joyc Bell. I think Joyke Bell.

Although that's a little dependent on what Detroit does this off-season. Yeah, that's a good question. Any other thoughts on Ingram and The Saints? No. Okay. Let's roll back around. I just want to see what you guys think about Andre Johnson and his production value in Indianapolis if he signs with the Colts. Because I see this as circa three years ago, Reggie Wayne, when he came out and had a humongous...

PPR type year for Andrew Luck. I see the same, I see him having a resurgence there in terms of more of a PPR receiver. Hilton's obviously the guy, but I don't see any reason why he can't come into that Wayne roll a few years younger. He's only 34, I believe, and 80 balls, eight, nine touchdowns. That's completely reasonable. I love Andre Johnson there. Dante Moncrief owners.

are crying themselves to sleep if that actually happens. They still have Knicks, too, right? No, he's a free agent. Okay, okay. But they do have... But yeah, I agree. I like Andre Johnson there. They throw, or if they continue the trend, Andrew Luck's going to throw the ball about 850 times. And Andre Johnson is... He's still talented. I mean, he's still had a...

a good season. It was strange what Houston did of telling your star, who still was productive, of saying, well, if you stay with us next year, you're going to catch probably 40 balls. Yeah, and now he gets to play Houston twice a year. Those will be some exciting games. He's going to drop the hammer. Yeah, it's weird because I look at, if you guys, you know, remember fantasy about three, four years ago, it was Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald.

Those were the ones too. Those are the days. And now you look at this offseason and you saw kind of two different philosophies with those guys, right? They're both similar now because they're not downfield threats as much and their athletic ability is descended. But Arizona re-uped Larry and valued the leadership as much as the possession receiver position. And then Andre Johnson got shown the boot and he's the best Texan that's ever played. It's just interesting to see that kind of transition between those two guys.

But, yeah, I think if he ends up in Indianapolis, there's a lot of relevance there. Do you agree with that, Jay? I do. You seem like you were wavering, maybe. No, I think he's a wide receiver, too. I look down at the wide receivers that are out there. You know, I would like him more than, you know, Keenan Allen or Jeremy Macklin. Jeremy Macklin's a wide receiver dead. Well, he's still going to, you know, I'm not, even though I eulogized Jeremy Macklin. And I.

I still think that Jeremy Macklin will get his catches and, you know, he'll be a fantasy relevant player, depending on where he's drafted. He might not be on any of my teams. But I do. I think that Andre Johnson has value there. You want to be on high power offenses. He left because he wants the ball. Those two things coming together, and he's still super talented. I didn't see much of a, you know.

When they went to him and needed to go to him, he seemed like the same player to me. Let's go ahead and I want to ask you guys this question. We'll talk about some more of these guys on Thursday. We'll probably have some more information about Adrian Peterson. Percy Harvin is going to be released today. What is he? Fantasy-wise, we'll talk about that. We'll also talk a little bit about some of the other signings that take place over the next two days. But I want to ask you guys as general philosophy on guys on new teams.

and how that relates to fantasy because there's this kind of, you know, Jason alluded to it with the LaShawn McCoy situation. There's the extra buzz. There's the unknown. And in fantasy, we love the unknown, but that doesn't always translate to fantasy production. So Mike, what does the fantasy hitman think about these signings? How excited should you be? How should you draft them? It all relates to the team that they're going to. Generally speaking,

It doesn't work out, especially when you get the high-level guys because they're chasing a big contract. The people who can give big contracts are crappy teams with crappy quarterbacks. I guess the Tanna Hill is improving, but you saw that with Mike Wallace. He took the money. He went to Miami. He has not been anything close to what he was in the Steelers' offense. Greg Jennings.

was, I guess you can consider him, he was coming down off of his peak, but he took the money. He went to Minnesota. He thought he could be awesome. Christian Ponder thought otherwise. Yeah, it's interesting because a lot of the worst free agent signings historically have been at the wide receiver position, even going way back to Alvin Harper, signed by Tampa Bay.

or Javon Walker, if you remember him, signed with Oakland. Here's my philosophy on players changing teams. It depends on your position first. If you're running back changing teams, I generally don't like it. I just don't think that there's been as much history of a free agent running back changing teams and being successful. There's exceptions to every rule, but when we looked back and said, okay, what was the last big running back free agent signed to a new team who just really produced?

It's pretty hard. It's pretty hard to think of many. It's hard to think of one. When it comes to any pass catcher, here's my rule. Did their quarterback improve or did their quarterback get worse?

And that's how I value them. If their quarterback improved and say you went and got Peyton Manning because you were Emmanuel Sanders and you switched teams that way, well, then that's great. I'm going to really value you. If you're Julius Thomas and you're leaving Peyton Manning, then I don't like it. So past catchers, I just look at the quarterback situation and going back to Andre Johnson. If he goes to Andrew Luck, it's a huge improvement in quarterback. The balls he's going to be getting are better, easier to catch, and not going to produce more.

Yeah, I think that's a good take. And I think a lot of the times you need to pay attention to, you see the name changing teams, but you don't necessarily, you know, these guys oftentimes come into situations where they're not the bell cow or they're sharing carries, and it's not as obvious in the beginning of that taking place. So you've got to pay attention to that as well. An offensive scheme, which is a thing that the average fantasy player is not going to take a new account. You will, if you listen to our show, because we will talk about it.

But a running back from Team X to Team Y is... Does it suit them? Right. Are they the zone or are they a power team? I mean, we saw Darren McFadden. I mean, the team, he didn't even leave teams, but he was coming off a tremendous year where his health finally kind of held up. And he just was a beast. In the zone blocking. Right. And then things switched and he was garbage.

The runners have a particular set of skills, the way that they've seen the field their entire careers, and it's hard for them to make a change from finding a hole to just following a guy. Yeah, I agree. You might have even seen that a little bit with Shady last year with just what Chip Kelly wanted to do offensively. Yeah, that's a very valid point. Mailbag. It's been a while. Sing it, Hitman.