Fantasy Football 2017 - Commish Tips + NFC West Breakdown

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Hey, this is Martavis Bryant, a.k.a. Morning Midbri. Hey, this is Fred Jackson. This is Hall of Fame of Marshal Fox. Hey, this is Alan Robbins. Hey, this is Willie Snee. Hey, this is David Johnson. Hey, yeah, this is Kristen Michael. Hi, this is Eric Dickinson, NFL Hall of Famer, and you listen to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Coming to you from the Playdraft Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Ah, it's Friday. It's Friday. We have cut the ribbon, the fantasy football, and NFL seasons. It has begun. It has begun. I'll be at the Hall of Fame game. So Hall of Fame. Is it wrong of me to admit that I did not watch that game in its entirety? I did not watch a single snap of it. It's the Hall of Fame game, man.

Yeah, when the coaches are like, I don't want this game, I don't care about this game. It's hard listening to Chris Collinsworth and Al Michaels. Commentate that game. You know, like you're having for them to comment. You're having to make a lot out of, you know, a third string player on the first. I hear there was a lot of excitement for Blaine Gabbard. He did look good. I see, I actually did watch the game. He torched those fifth string.

Defenders. He's got a strong arm and when nobody is playing defense and they're really bad defenders, he's okay. He's pretty good. I mentioned Rico Gathers in the studio a few days ago. He did. He's very large, 6-6-290. A couple great catches, 3 for 59 and a touchdown. Bryce Butler flashed a little bit. We've seen him do that before in the preseason. Those were kind of the headliners for me. I mean, not a lot of work for Chad Williams. Nice to see him on the field.

Lots more to come preseason-wise. I obviously look forward to weeks one, two, and three of the preseason for a chance to kind of pass the eye test. But Mike obviously saw enough from Rico Gathers to throw him onto his dynasty roster this morning. And Jason Witten, he's not going to be here forever despite what he'll tell you. That was exactly my thinking. And it was I had a burner spot. Might as well throw him on. All right. Great quick question of the day coming in off of Twitter. By the way, you can follow us on Twitter.

At the FF Ballers. Follow Mike at FFF Hit Me and follow Jason at Jason FFL. You can follow me at Andy Holloway and the website is the fantasy footballers.com. We welcome you in to another episode. We are five days a week now. So make sure you subscribe. Leave us those iTunes reviews. We're going to do another giveaway that's related to those honest iTunes reviews. So we appreciate them. They help the show. All right, guys. Quick question of the day is Commissioner related. Okay. This one comes in off of...

Twitter from Eric. He says, what are some basic tips for a first time commissioner to have a quality league? So a simple question, what are some tips and tricks we can give to first time commissioners to help them enjoy, you know, make a more enjoyable league, do things the right way, not end up in a bad situation? Don't limit roster transactions. Oh, mercy me. That's my hot tip. That's important. I mean, don't get too cute with things.

You know, especially as a first-time commissioner, if you're wanting to put all these crazy, wacky rules in, don't do that. For me, it's more about the people. I mean, a great fantasy football league is great because you have awesome people there and you're communicating. They're active. Yeah, they're active because they're connected. So make sure you have a good communication channel, whether that's Slack or Facebook or, you know, sleep or bot. Find a channel.

where the people in your league will actually be involved. They'll check. They'll communicate wherever it is. But that's a place to react to trades, to talk about things, to trash talk. I'll add to that. Don't feel the pressure as a first time commissioner to.

Have a 12-team league. Maybe you want a 12-team league. Maybe that's not realistic with the amount of people that you know that want to play. Better to have a solid 8- or 10-team league with good owners than a 12-team league with two or three bad apples that are going to ruin the experience for everybody. And I say bad apple. I don't even mean people that are necessarily in there to destroy your league. I'm talking about, you know, somebody that goes inactive in week three, and then the league is not as engaging for everybody. So I think that's a few.

Solid tips for everybody. And, of course, tell your entire league about this show, right? Because then everybody becomes better and it's just more fun. Of course. That's the narrative. Right? News and notes from around the league. I should have hit the hype train button right there. That was smart. All right, we talked about the Hall of Fame game as much as we're going to talk about it. Let's talk about Ryan Tannehill on the show yesterday. Now, we've got to keep our eyes peeled because the last two shows.

that we've done, we had a Sterling Shepard injury, and then we had a Ryan Tannahill injury. Right now, the dolphins have gone from, you know, optimism to fear that Tannehill's going to need season-ending surgery. The reality for him is because he rehabbed without surgery the first time, and because this seems to be a reaggravation of the ACL-M-CL partial tears, the likely outcome is if that happens to be the case, and he's seeking a second opinion.

he'll go under the knife. They'll take care of this once and for all because he doesn't want to rehab for what I've seen as six to eight weeks to just come back and have the same thing happen again. How can you have faith in your knee? I mean, if you're Ryan Tannenhill, this happened. This is going to be in your head now. And he's generally been a very mobile quarterback. Part of his game is getting outside the pocket, being able to throw on the run. So disappointing. There are a lot of rumors in regards to who they might bring in.

Matt Moore would take over the job out of the gate. Colin Kaepernick been rumored about maybe coming in as a backup for all 32 teams. For all 32 teams. And then there's been discussion. Smoking Jay Cuddy. That's the best one. A source is reported that Jay Cutler whispered into the void. Hey, hey, I may come back. I'd play for Adam Gates again. But it's, to me, it's Matt Moore. He was, he was a competence.

perfectly capable quarterback towards the end of the season last year. And honestly, for me, it's, I don't know, it's pretty much lateral from Tanna Hill to Matt Moore as far as fantasy purposes are concerned. It's kind of like when Josh McCown takes over for somebody. Yeah. You kind of, you still get production. You still get production. He's willing to take shots down the field. I think it caps the upside of the overall offense. I think that's why bringing in a guy like Cutler is potentially attractive to them because he's worked with Adam Gase.

And there's an opportunity. So has Matt Moore. For some outside. Let's talk about Joe Mixon. If you want a microcosm of the entire off season, just look at the Joe Mixon news that has broke over the last 24 hours. You had an initial report from a beat rider. Joe Mixon is going to get 20 plus touches in week one. And 10 minutes later, he had hurt himself. He's off the field. Reports are good, by the way. Foot injury, it sounds like it's a bruised heel.

He could have returned. He's just recovering. So that's a short-term thing. And then this morning, Jeremy Hill, going to be the starter to start the year is the report. So good luck parsing through all of that. This is the reality that fantasy owners face when buying into some of these rookie running backs. It is a challenge. Hype is difficult to track. But the one thing that we need to separate from that and acknowledge is just true is that there are three legitimate NFL starting caliber running backs.

on that team. Two and a half. I'm only giving Jeremy Hill a half. That's crazy coming from you, but I can. New information, man. I could see that, but my point is this. Half a yard per carry. You can get the, you can get the hype on Jeremy Hill. A couple days ago, hype on Gio Bernard, just in the fact that he was able to be there and he's recovered the hype on mixing. You can't let any of those win based on hype. You have to see something on the field because there's too many miles to feed there.

Gio is not hype. Gio is fact. He's healthier than we thought he was. He's not missing the first two games of the year. That does affect, you know, I have a long list of guys I'm messing with the rankings a little bit, moving them around. I'm moving mixing down a little bit. I have him, I think, at 19 right now. He's going to drop a little bit because of Gio's health predominantly, but the report on Jeremy Hill's involvement doesn't help that situation. And all that being said, that does not mean, look at last year, Jordan Howard, right?

He wasn't the full-time starter for a while. And there were other backs there that, you know, they weren't that good. But it took him some time. Well, it took a length for an injury. Yeah. And really what it took. There's no question in my mind that, you know, Fournette Cook, Mixon, maybe P. Ryan, maybe Hunt. Like, there is going to be a monster fantasy impact from one of those guys. And specifically with Mixon, that could be weeks four through 16.

Or it could be weeks 8 through 16. Right. He still might be worth a pretty high draft pick. But if you have the depth and you think that by the end of this year, over the last eight weeks he's a top five guy, you have to buy that. But if you're talking week eight for a third round pick to hold on to him. No, and that's why I think we said, you know, I'm moving him down a little bit. So not a third round pick. But that's where he's going to go in drafts. Let me give you this.

What if I told you, hypothetically, that you have to spend a third round pick for the number one running back over the last eight weeks of the year? So it's hypothetical. I'm not projecting mixing. But what if that was the situation? You've got to spend your third, but you know you got the number one running back in football over the last eight weeks. So basically you're saying like, it's an eight game suspension, basically. Let's say Levy on Bell is suspended for eight games. There you go. Hypothetically. And then would you spend a third round pick on him? I bet. I bet you would. For the last, uh, uh,

I think I would if I have. You of all people, I feel like, would take that shot, Mike. I think I would if I had a deep bench. Yeah. It's a five. Well, you don't know if you have a deep bench until you draft him first. No, I'm saying numerically speaking. Yes, I'm saying, right. Oh, I see. I thought you meant like your own roster. I'm like, how do you know how deep your bench is? I've seen the future. No, I'm saying if I've got, you know, five and under bench spots on my, you know, in that league, then I don't want to take up one fifth of my.

ability to make transactions for eight weeks. You know, I, that's what I would say. Mixing's going to be a very risky pick. Risky but rewarding. Yeah, yeah, very, very high risk. No risk, no biscuit. All right, Dante Moncrief suffered a sprained AC joint in his shoulder on Thursday. He just didn't want to be without luck. He's like, yeah, luck's not, luck's not doing it. I'm not doing it. That doesn't seem to be the case of Moncrief. He's willing to be hurt at any time at any place.

Uh, unfortunate. That's his secret. Yeah. He's always injured. Well, it's, it stinks. Yeah, it sucks. There are a number of players like this. By the way, I don't know if I've seen the sentiment on a player changed the way it has on Carlos Hyde in the last week. Oh! All right. I mean, did you foresee that? I mean, you were down on him. No, you were progressively going down on, on your ranking of Carlos Hyde.

He's always stayed in that mid-two range for me, though. Okay. Well, the sentiment has been very positive. And I've always stayed on he is the best running back on the team. Yeah. Well, you get credit for that then because it's looking really, really good for Carlos Hyde. So we're ready to get into the NFC West. Any other news you guys want to talk about? Only if we get to talk more Carlos Hyde. Oh, dang it, we do. Let's get divisional.