Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Regress or Impress? CBS Sports Jamey Eisenberg, News

tight-ins that make no impact in the beginning of the season. It's just, go anywhere. This is not cross. Oh, even in the second year. Titans, tight-ins take a couple of years to really come on. I'm just saying I would be so hard-pressed to... Look, who... Zach Sudfeld, okay? Zach Sudfeld had an opportunity in a super offense, and he came out and he just laid an egg in the beginning of the season. I wouldn't even be thinking about Tyler. Look, look, look. Okay. Tyler Eifert, gone. Tyler Croft, nobody.

But the Tyler Triangle continues. And we have Tyler Boyd, who I would say is like mashed potatoes. They're the best side dish. It's so delicious. It's a side dish who's going to be really... You can put mashed potatoes in the slot.

Yeah, exactly. You can put match tables in the slot. In your mouth slot. They're very malleable. It is good for him to have the opportunity in the red zone. You know, he's a good sized player who now, with Tyler Eifford possibly missing those first few games, you've got more reps in the OTAs, more reps in training camp, more reps in preseason. And there could be a value there to Tyler Boyd. I worry with this that he's going to now.

jump up too high because of how people are overvaluing rookie wide receivers in general. I almost got the wookie out there. You know, so this might be bad for my love of Tyler Boyd because it might push him out of where I would draft him, but I do think that's the guy to consider in Cincinnati. We have a lot of news to cover, but I'm not going to leave this because I think we got distracted with Tyler.

with Tyler Croft. The question here is, what do you do as a Tyler Ivert owner? What do you do when you draft Tyler Iver? What is his value? Does it now drop to a place that you want him? If he misses two games, let's sort out there. Okay. He's going to miss two games.

I feel like Tyler Eiffert was pretty much a lock to miss two games anyway. Oh. No, I'm not saying that is a bad thing. I'm saying 14 games. Now, granted, by that same logic, you'd say, well, he might not play all 14. But if I knew for sure Tyler Eifert was going to play 14 out of 16 games, I'm fine with that. I don't really worry about that too much. The problem that I have is I don't like rostering at the draft. Later on in the season, for various reasons, my strategy changes. But at the draft, I don't like having two tight ends.

And so if you draft Tyler Eifert, you have to draft another tight end. And I don't want to give up that spot. So for me, he's almost a value that is not going, like. Where is it, though? Let somebody else do it. Where's the over under for you? For me? For me, it's like round nine. Okay, I was going to say eight for me. For me, it's like 12 because I already know that I have to take two picks if I'm taking Tyler. None of us are going to get Tyler Eifford. No. With those draft rounds, even round eight. He'll go in the sixth.

Yeah, that seems... He'll go on the six. Or higher. Dionne Lewis to be ready for week one. I don't remember how much we talked about this on the show. Well, I've said it before. I'll say it again. He is like butter. Oh, great. I'm just going to keep the food thing going here. We'll let you go to lunch. Dionne Lewis, to be back for week one, we know that they didn't address the running back position in the draft. They have Ligarrett Blunt. They have Dionne Lewis. This is encouraging news. They're going to be conservative with him, but he'll be back for week one. He's a value to me.

No Sean Moreno says he plans to continue playing in 2016. No Sean Moreno is an interesting guy because there are teams that might be looking for a complimentary running back. He's been known to take over a starting job due to sheer hard work and effort. And he, you know, you're talking about Oakland might need a back, Washington might need a back. Baltimore needs a 15th back. No, not really. Miami. Miami. So No Sean Reno is 28 years old. He had played.

Well, he went to Miami. He started well. He tore his ACL and he hasn't been seen since. So I just wanted it on the radar because people aren't aware of that. Yeah, I think it's worth keeping on your radar because he's a talented player. And we've also seen other players when they have some time off away at the running back position. They can come back and produce. You saw that with Ricky Williams. You saw that last year with Tim Hightower. So just because now he's been gone for a while, sometimes we think, oh, well, then that means he's done.

Not necessarily. At 28, when the talented guy, if he comes back, he could produce fantasy value. And Miami could be a destination, like you said. Speaking of Miami, they're also monitoring Arian Foster. There is an interview with Arian Foster where he basically said, you know, he has to wait a month to because that's what they want him to wait before he can kind of get through the physical stuff. But there are teams that are already interested. Man, he's going to mess things up. For some, yes, Aryan Foster is going to mess something up for somebody.

Yeah, which is only if you draft early, right? If you draft late, which we recommend here, you know, at least after the third preseason game, if you're in a redraft league, hopefully maybe even after the fourth preseason game. Oh, you're talking fantasy owners. I was talking about messing with an actual team. He's going to mess with. Oh, really? You think, whoa. What do you mean? You think he will be bad for a team?

No, no, no. I'm saying he's going to ruin a backfield for fantasy owners. He's going to go into Oakland and make Latavius Murray less valuable. He's going to go into Miami and make Jayahe less valuable. And so you said it's only a problem if you draft late. Well, it still thins out the value at the running back position if he joins a backfield and is that type of a guy. Got you. Matt Jones in Washington, whatever it might be. All right. I want to talk about this one.

Eddie Lacey's still in the 240s, Mike. Speaking of food. Still in the 240s. Oh, that's perfectly fine. That's pretty. He's 231 at the Combine. And McCarthy says, I believe he will hit the target we're all looking for when the lights come on, which means he has not hit that target yet. He is in the 240s. And the rumors in the bushes, he was playing in the 260s. So, I mean, he has already done some serious work. That's the argument where it's like, I'm going on a diet. I'm no longer eating eight pizzas. I'm going to eat two. No, no, no, no.

He looks great. He looks great. And on top of that, even if he's in the 240s, what do you think he played at his sophomore year? It was definitely not 231. Well, here's what I, yeah, right. In his sophomore year, he was great. The worry with Eddie Lacey, the only worry, because I'm excited about this new workout regimen, the new eating, I think any time that a player is healthier and more athletic, it's going to be a good thing, right? The only worry was he played as a big back.

Like, he was always a big back. So I was happy to see that he's still up at 240. I mean, that's really big for a normal running back. And so he's got the athleticism mixed with the size that he needs to be the player he has always been. You heard it here first. No matter what the Eddie Lacey news is, Mike and Jason will like it. That is what that means. Because if he loses weight, that's great. If he still has...

Quite a bit of that weight to him. That's how he plays. Well, because it's both of those things, which is great. I would be far more enticed by the simple fact that he didn't add more running backs to that backfield. If he was 220, I would be scared off of Eddie Lacey. All right. Well, I agree with that. That's my point. And he's made up some ground, but this was not necessarily written as a positive thing. He still has a goal to hit is what McCarthy said, and he's yet to hit it. Good. Keep working. The league has awarded the 2019 through 2021 Super Bowls to Atlanta, Miami, and...

Los Angeles. Congratulations. The L.A. Stadium, I assume, will be open by then. Yeah, I would go. They're going to do it in the streets this year. Well, no, I mean, as opposed to playing in the Rose Bowl. Correct. Yeah, it'll be open. All right. Well, we are going to get to our amazing, amazing segment of who.

of those players who are going to regress or impress. But before we do, let me tell you something that has impressed me. It is our sponsor of today's show, Blue Apron. You heard me talk about it last week. I've seen a lot of our users tweeting out their meals that they have got for free with Blue Apron. Look, not all ingredients are made the same. They're not all created equal. Blue Apron sends the highest quality meals with prepared recipes, proportioned ingredients. You don't waste anything.

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So impressed. These seared pork chops. Oh, just incredible. The steamed bun tacos. Oh, yeah. Those ginger steam bun taco. We called cloud buns. Oh, they were. Get your cloud buns here. All right. Let's talk about, we're going to talk about a few guys ourselves that we maybe haven't talked about enough on the show. And then we're going to bring in Jamie Eisenberg from CBS Sports and the CBS Sports Today podcast, Fancy Sports Today. And he's going to share his opinion on four or five guys that we.

have on our minds that a lot of players want to know. And you want to know now. You want to know right now, are they going to step it up, impress you, or are they going to regress and make you regret the pick? Will they regress or will they impress? We're talking about football. I didn't have a drop, so I had to do one. You didn't make us a drop. That's cool. Where's the guitar, though? I could have given you my guitar. You would have had to do an acoustic, an acoustic rock version. All right. So who do you guys want to start with?

I want to kick this off with Travis Benjamin signed to the San Diego Chargers. And I will admit, at the beginning of the signing, I kind of dismissed it. I wasn't getting too excited. But I'm actually growing. My excitement is growing for Travis Benjamin. I think that he is a talented player. I think there is a role for him there. Am I calling him a wide receiver one or even a two? No.

But he's a guy that I think I want on my fantasy teams because he will have boom games. We're talking about, we just talked about the value of Deshawn Jackson, who I think is a great flex play because you don't have to count on him week to week to sustain your team. Well, Travis Benjamin is very similar, and he's going to an offense that's going to have to throw the ball a ton. Last year, Travis Benjamin.

Almost had 1,000 yards for the Cleveland Browns. And I wanted to look back at Malcolm Floyd, the secondary receiver. Two years ago, Malcolm Floyd, 52 catches, 850 yards and six touchdowns. For a guy that you can get extremely late, I just think he interests me because I think he can surpass what Floyd did. He is the easy response for Benjamin is to dislike.

the situation. You know, he got signed, he goes to a team with Keenan Allen, Antonio Gates, other weapons. He was alone and only had 68 receptions in Cleveland. So that's the easy answer. So I like the devil's advocate perspective. Jason, do you have any positive thoughts on Benjamin? I have thoughts on Benjamin, but I don't know that they're positive. I expect a clear regression for him. He's a guy that I would love to have if I'm playing a best ball league or an MFL 10 where I can get those boom bust games without having to worry about

win? Because what we saw with Malcolm Floyd over his career was he had huge fantasy games. Most of his production came, you know, from half of his games, but...

predicting when that came, it wasn't, you couldn't say, oh, this team gives up long plays, or this team has a good defense, or this team has a bad defense, and those are what Malcolm Floyd took advantage of. And I see him going into that role. Malcolm Floyd had a long and decent career and never had 900 yards for the Chargers. So do you have Benjamin over under that Malcolm Floyd line from 2014, 52, 8, 56, and 6? I probably have him a smidge over that line, but I don't like the way it's going to come, because on my team, I'm never going to start him.

Unless there's other injuries or things, which I think I can get Travis Benjamin off the waivers in the middle of the season. So final word, impress or regress? I'm going. Are we going off of their previous stat line? Correct. That would be the only way to say impress or regret. To me, it was over the Malcolm Floyd. And none of this like positive regression things that Jason, the up is down and down is up. That's a teaser for the draft kit.