Fantasy Football 2018 - Oh Henry! Bright Ducks + Big Questions

I know there are those of you out there who say, well, it shouldn't even matter. Well, no, it matters when a really, imagine any of the other top five tight-ins go down in this league. Take Travis Kelsey away from Pat Mahomes today, and how do you project Pat Mahomes? Take away Rob Grankowski from Tom Brady. Take away Zach Erds from Carson Wince's return to Philadelphia, and you're not projecting them the same because you need a plurality of weapons in today's NFL to get it done consistently. And so I had already projected rivers really high, and unfortunately,

This takes him down a pick. Yeah, not only do you have the issue of losing Hunter Henry. And maybe Antonio Gates comes back. I know that he's been training. I know a trainer that he's been working with this offseason hoping to come back. It did not appear that the Los Angeles Chargers wanted him back, but now they might be changing their two. But after 15 years with Antonio Gates, Philip Rivers has spent his career throwing the ball to the tight-in position. And now you've lost...

Both. You've lost Gates and Henry as of this moment. You've got Virgil Green left there who I think will see a significant bump up if they don't bring anyone else in. Not enough to, you know, by any means replace Hunter. Virgil Green has always, Virgil Green has always been just a tempterous. Well, he's too good of a blocker. He is an athletic monster who can make things happen. But it's just, it's never happened for Virgil Green at this point. And you have to.

I mean, this would be a Gary Barnage level of surprise if Virgil Green was able to break out. Yeah, if they don't. Green's vanilla. I mean, you have a tight end. That's what you have. Right. And you have, I think Sean McGrath is there who, you know, again, a tight end. Lead singer of Sugar Ray. Right. Yeah.

So as far as how this affects everyone else, I agree completely that Philip Rivers takes a pretty significant hit. He dropped to 17 in my rankings. Wow. Where was he before? I think he was around 14. I didn't look prior to them. You didn't have them. I had him at four. Yeah. Which, I mean, I joked with Mike this morning. Maybe this injury let me off the hook for having him at four. But.

He's at 10 now for me. Right. Because I took a few touchdowns away. I don't think he's going to, whether they run them in and are still as prolific of an offense, you just take a giant red zone weapon away. And even if they add Antonio Gates, which, by the way, I expect him to do. I expect Antonio Gates back on this roster. But he's done. I mean, he's done. He's just, he's a slow hobbled version of. He'll cut a touchdown every four games and he won't do what Hunter Henry can do, which is stretch the field, be hyper athletic.

And come down with a ball. I feel like they might as well just sign Shannon Sharp today. Like that's the same as getting Antonio Gates, except he'll bring in some more publicity. Very nice. I didn't know you watched football back then. But I think it's good news for the wide receivers there. Yeah, for Keenan Allen. Yeah. Keenan Allen. Mike Williams is a name now that I think has targets that can come his way. He is an exceptional blocker for a.

wide receiver. That's part of why I think they drafted him where they did last year because they wanted to run the ball. I think Mike Williams is going to get more snaps, get on the field, more opportunities near the end zone with his big bodied frame. But the real truth is, you know, I had Hunter Henry as my tight in four, which means Jared Cook moved up a spot. Is he the top 10 tight in now? He is now my tight in 10. Deal with it. You kind of, I mean.

Sure, sure. And here's the thing, and we're really pragmatic. We're a fantasy football show. We're giving you all the implications without saying the obvious, which is, this just really stinks for Hunter Henry. I feel bad for him. And he's not, you know, the only thing I do know, and it's no comfort to him, he's not going to be the only one. No. He's not going to be the only one. You're going to see this, unfortunately, all offseason and regular season, because this just plain happens, and it can happen at any moment. The good news.

I will say this. I mean, there's very little here for Hunter Henry. It's all bad news. But when a player gets an ACL torn, when they get it torn in the season matters for their following season. Are they on short recovery or long recovery? Because he is, you know, first day of OTA, come next season, he will absolutely be at 100%. I won't worry about Hunter Henry next year.

coming off of this injury. He's got more than enough time to not only recover from the injury, but then get back in football shape 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So do you want to do this drop again, Mike? You want to let Jason take it? Oh, yes. Yes. Mailbag. I changed it up. I changed it up because I can't do you. So I did me. And it was terrible. I prefer Mike. Yeah. Don't.

Don't beat yourself. Good advice, Mike. Thank you. You are a good friend, a brother. I'm thankful for your counsel, and I will never be myself again. Thank you. Wow. Some strange mood on the show today. All right. If you have a question for the podcast, we love answering questions. That's what the mailbags for. Go to the website. The Fantasy Footballers.com.

Click on the submit a question button, or you can dial our voicemail hotline 302464 TFFB. We're going to kick it off with the voicemail. Hey, ballers. My name is Chris. I'm calling from Baltimore, Maryland. I just want to start off by saying thank you for helping me get my first ever Flip Clan title last season. Really appreciate it. My question is, do you change up strategies at all in a two-quarterback league? I'm in a redraft, half-point PPR 10-team league. And my league makes like to draft their quarterbacks.

really early, and they usually drafted up to three at a time. Last season, I waited until around 8 and 9, but I doubt I'll be able to get wins and golf again that late. Thanks, guys. So, in other words, you waited, and it super benefited you last year, and you won a Foot Clan title. So does a strategy change? And we get this question so often because we emphasize streaming quarterbacks and redraft in regular leagues. Mike, what approach do you take? Because I think yours...

You push the envelope even more than we do. I always say I like to get in a two-quarterback league, I like to get my stalwart at the quarterback position in the first three, four rounds and then wait on my second quarterback. But he waited on both last year. It worked. He won the Foot Clan title. Every year, there will be late-round quarterbacks that hit and stick. You got the two. So it worked out as literally as...

Amazing as it can. I do still wait in this situation, but I'm not looking to stream. I am looking to draft three quarterbacks. At least, I am building up my platoon that I will stream from those three guys, and they are, but they're guys who are maybe devalued in the eyes of fantasy football players. Eli Manning is the guy who's coming to my head immediately, who is your perfect third. Right, because he can be great.

He's got just a ton of offensive weapons at his disposal, but I still choose to wait, and I'm not going to pass on guys like Gurley and David Johnson. Yeah, the benefit of being, so I, you know, strategy does change in a two-quarterback league because, you know, I usually don't like having more than one quarterback on my roster. League size matters when I'm saying this. I'm not talking about you're in a two-quarterback 16-team league.

I don't want to be left holding the bag of guys. I end up with Tyrod Taylor and Sam Bradford as my starters. I'm not even sure they're going to be starting quarterbacks for the entire year. Right. But here's a bunch of quarterbacks that are going outside of the top 10 that I think have phenomenal years this year. They might not be super duper late, but some of them will be. You got Ben Rothlisberger, Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford, Dak Prescott, Mariotta.

Patrick Mahomes, Winston, Alex Smith, Eli Manning, Trubisky. I'm great with all those guys. Get three of those guys late and then take advantage of the fact that the rest of your league is drafting these quarterbacks in the first and second round, allowing really good, talented running backs and wide receivers to drop. Get, you know, Keenan Allen in the super late, second, early third because people are drafting a bunch of quarterbacks. Yeah, speaking of Keenan Allen, I did adjust him.

Did it go up a bit? A smidgey up. I mean, you got to take away a lot of targets. And I'm not giving them all to Virgin Green or Anthony Gates. But you made a good point on Mike Williams earlier as well. To follow up on the quarterbacks, it's because those second and third quarterbacks, you know that they are going to score points, right? They're a quarterback. They touch the ball every single snap. But it's still harder to find those second and third running back. So that's...

It's opportunity cost. So that's what goes into it, why I still choose to go late. Before we move into our next question for the mailbag, I want to thank today's sponsor. Fantasy champs, the only place you need to go for your fantasy football hardware. Their trophies are incredible. Their rings. Ladies and gentlemen, the stainless steel ring on this site.

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The ultimate draft gets jam-packed. We have all of our extended season projections and points. We've got 100-plus player profile videos. Yeah, we've been recording those 100-plus player profile videos. And sometimes I forget everything we're talking about, all these stats and outlooks on these players, I forget that those aren't on the show because we're here. We're talking about these players and digging deep on each individual player. But those are so informative. You're going to want to have your toilet time.

be benefited by the ultimate draft kit. Yeah, there's no restriction on where you can use it. None whatsoever. You get your sleepers breakouts. School, work. Yeah, the toilet of school, the toilet at work. No matter where you're at. Sortable rankings, printable cheat sheets, tier breakdowns. Look, this is, there was a survey sent out to a thousand champions last year done by Fantasy Football Calculator.com to inquire of

Which podcast the most champions listened to? And it was this podcast. And we put a lot of pride and joy in the Ultimate DraftKit. So check it out at Ultimate Draftcom. Like I said, it's out in less than a week so you can get it at the cheapest possible price. All right, back to the mailbag. Mitch in San Francisco is a question. What are your feelings about Jordan Howard this year? I could see him improving with being on a better offense and can also see him not really being a fit for the offense or having a decreased snap count. Appreciate your insight.

He's speaking about a half-point league specifically, but what do you think about Jordan Howard? Because I don't know, Jordan Howard, he seems like a fantasy vegetable, but I think he's much more than that. He is a mighty vegetable. He is the fresh. The superfood? He is the fresh stock of broccoli that I don't have to eat by itself because I got dill dip right in front of me making it extra delicious. I love Jordan Howard.

this season. Jay, do you have ADP up right in front of you? I can. I can't. Pull up where Jordan Howard is because I think that he fits in this offense tremendously because they have the perfect compliment behind him. They have Tareke Cohen. Jordan Howard right now is going in. Cohen cannot withstand a billion carries. That's not made for that. Yeah. Howard is very beginning of the second round 10th running back off the board 203. If you're going to go with a wide receiver.

first at the end of the first round, which you may want to do. Because in your fantasy drafts, this is kind of the first look at how drafts were shaping out. It's very running back heavy because this is what always happens with fantasy football. We swing the pendulum very far away from what happened last year and wide receivers underperformed. Running backs overperforms. So drafters want running backs. And if I'm at the back of the first round,