Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - The TRUTH About Fantasy TE's in 2015, News, Review-a-Saurus

All right. The AFC, I'm going to take the Broncos over the Steelers. There's just trouble for the Steelers, and they don't have a defense that can cover up. In Denver. Yeah, and so I'm going with the Broncos. And I'm going to take the chefs. Are you? I'm taking the chefs, the chiefs, over the Patriots. It happened. They are as hot as you can possibly get as a team. Their defense is great.

I'm not overlooking into what they did or looking too much into what they did against the Texans because there was some bad spots of that game despite the blowout of the final score. They caught a couple breaks and their offense isn't great. But there's concerns about the Patriots where we haven't heard much about it because it's been a couple weeks, but how is Tom Brady's ankle?

How effective can he be? Edelman coming back. Edelman hasn't played in months. Grunk is missing practices right now. I just think that the Chiefs, if anyone can get it done. 11 straight wins. Up in Foxborough, I think the Chiefs can do it. I got Denver and I got New England. I'm going to just take New England. This is their pathway to the Super Bowl generally as they get that by week. They come in ready in the second round. We'll see what happens. Let's go ahead and get into the tight-ins.

Oh, the truth. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. You can't handle it, Mike. There's some interesting things here in the tight-in numbers when we look back at the season. There are a couple of guys that jump off the page to me in terms of headline type of news for 2016. So we're going to get into that. Let me start with this. Mike, when you're a fantasy owner,

as a fantasy owner, tell me what you want in a tight end. And your answer cannot be Rob Grunkowski. Tell me what you're really looking for. What do we want as fantasy owners from a tight-in position week to week? From the tight-end position, I want a guy who's going to get me about 60 yards with a chance to score every single week. That's the basics of what I want. And, I mean, you want, clearly you want targets.

But there's not a lot of tight ends who get a high volume of targets. So you generally have a lower bar for that position. So if a guy can get me 60 yards and I know that he does score touchdowns, that's perfect for me. Once we get through the top three guys, I'm going to have a question for you. So remind me because I'm very curious about it. But let's start with number one. You know him. His name is Rob Grankowski.

Gronk was back this year. He had the scary injury, but he came back. His line on the year was 72 catches, almost 1,200 yards, 11 touchdowns, 120 targets. And we brought this up on the show on Tuesday. We went through the top quarterbacks, and we discussed our perspective on them. We gave you some of the numbers behind the numbers. Yeah, that's right. There's numbers behind numbers.

But one of the things we did is we talked about consistency level from a player. How many times did they finish in the top 10 this past year? How many times are they finished in the top two? How many times do they finish outside the top 20? You know, a dud game, a terrible game. Gronks, the number one. Okay, he had 11 games in the top 10. He had six games. Six games as a top two performer at the position. It doesn't really get any better than that. He only had one.

what we qualify as a dud game outside the top 20 at the position. There's not much we need to say in terms of, you know, building up Rob Gankowski. I don't think anybody doubts he's the number one quarter, or run. Number one quarterback, running back, and tied in. We will get there. Yeah, we're going to get to running back here. The only question about Rob Gronkowski for next year is, would you spend a first round pick on him? And my answer is yes, a late round.

Later. So second half, you would go first round? Yeah. Yeah, I probably would. Yeah, I probably would. Because he represents everything that you could possibly want at the highest level of guarantee. You know, we've seen Grankowski do it time after time. The injury stuff is still a concern. It's the same thing we're going to discuss about with Jordan Reed and some of these other guys. But Grancowski just represents a positional advantage. He can win you weeks. Look, six weeks is the top two in the position.

That means you're beating your opponent at that position every single week, pretty much. And so that's, you know, he can take you a long way. Yeah. But the question is, is for fantasy owners, is, are there other guys able to bridge the gap between, you know, Grankowski and the rest? Because if there are, they're probably a better draft value. Because you can't, Gronk's not a draft value. Gronks just grown. You know, he's going to be, he's, you know, you say, would you take him in the end of the first? I say yes.

I also say that's also probably too high, but I would do it. You know what I mean? Like you're paying the premium for a guy. And so let's go ahead and look at how he did against defenses. Was there any disparity between how he played against top and bottom defenses? So like we did with the quarterbacks, the top 16, bottom 16, it was a six-game, nine-game split. And it's...

No difference. There's a difference of a point. Gronk is locked and loaded. Every single week, you put him out there. All right. Let's move on then, because you already know about Gronk. So, Gary Barnage was the number two tied in in standard leagues. This is shocking. Now, Gronk had 120 targets on the year. Guess how many targets Gary Barnage had?

Well, I'm looking at it, so I can't guess. Guess perfectly by reading it. 125. 125 targets. That's a lot of targets. More receptions than Grancowski. 79. 1,043 yards. 9 touchdowns. And number two in consistency. Off the waiver wire. Off the waiver wire. That is glorious. You know, he had 10 top 10 performances. He had two performances in the top two at the position. He did dud on you three times. But it doesn't really get any better than that.

And the truth is, is he played better defenses than Gronkowski did. You know when two of those duds were, though? Weeks one and two when you weren't even playing Gary Barnage. I think when, yeah, when Cleveland didn't even know what they had in Gary Barnich. And so that's a good point. You can throw those out pretty much. So from a consistency standpoint, he was as consistent as Rob Gronkowski. He didn't give you as many of those prolific performances, but he was rock solid. Yeah, he was super solid. And his splits.

against top and bottom pass defenses are nearly identical as well. There wasn't a weakness, so to speak. He was, there was not a, all this is a tough pass defense. It was because he was getting pepper with targets. 125, 125 targets is ridiculous. Now, Gary Barnage is going to be very polarizing next week, next year. Like, will we respect what he did?

Will the turnover and the change of Cleveland be too much for people to buy in to Gary Barnage? I think... Well, Josh Gordon coming back, impact perspective on his target numbers because they didn't have anybody to throw to it at the wide receiver position. Well, they had Dwayne Boe. They just didn't use it. It was really weird. They still owe him money. Yeah, Dwayne Boe made cash for nothing this year. I need an agent.

I need Dwayne Bo's agent. That's who I need. You could have done what Bo did this year without question. I firmly believe I could have done that. Yeah. I think he had like 30 yards. I bet you'd take even half that money. Well, okay, fine. I'll take half that money. But so Gary Barnage, I mean, he's going to be later round as far as, where do you think he goes? I'll give you an over under. Eighth round. Oh, he'll be before that. Really? I think so. I think so.

That being said, let's project him in the sixth. Would you rather have Gronk in the first or Gary Barnage in the sixth? Not in the sixth. You're saying neither, though, in that situation. But if you had to choose one of those two, would you rather have Gronk? If you're giving up a spot. If I had to give up, if I had to pick one of those, I'd go with Barnage. Okay. I'm just, I don't have a problem at all with people taking Gronk in the first round. It's just not for me. That's not my strategy.

But for Barnage, I mean, who's the quarterback? You know, Johnny Football is going to be out. There's no way he's on the team. So the variables are through the roof with Barnage. But haven't done it over multiple years. So he doesn't have the track record. The quarterback changes. Head coaching changes. Yeah, it's the coach. Yeah, you're right. And it's probably McCown. I imagine the Browns will take a quarterback very early or they're going to be in on a Robert Griffin sweepstakes or they're like one of those type of guys.

But I imagine it'll be McCown, at least for the first couple weeks. And McCown was fantasy beast, man. So if you tell me it's McCown, then I'm perfectly fine taking Barnage. They have a rapport. You saw how McCown performed with Barnage. So number three was Rule 86. Yes. Jordan Reed. Look, more receptions than both of those guys. 87 for 952, 11 touchdowns, 114 targets. And really...

You have stability with Jordan Reed from an organizational standpoint. You have a head coach that's coming back. You've got a quarterback that's almost assuredly coming back on a big contract or a franchise tag. And you have a rapport with him that's, I mean, we talked about this last week. Jordan Reed is the first and second read on a lot of these plays. Yeah. But, um... We already did that joke, so I was crossing over it. But look, from a consistency standpoint, he was number four.

He had four prolific performances, including some playoff winning performances. He had nine games in the top ten. He had two kind of dud games. But he played. All right? He played football. And that's the key. Rule 86 is what? If Jordan Reed is healthy, you play. That's right. He, you know, he's a guy who's been on the injury report 20 times in his career. He's a guy who's missed.

13 or 14 games in his career with various injuries. You had concussion problems, hamstrings, quadriceps, different injuries for Reed that gave you hesitation. But these aren't things that are really absent from Rob Gunkowski's resume. We just write it off because Gronk's numbers are, you know, he gets a pass because his numbers are so astronomical. So Reed kind of has a justification now. If his numbers are up there in the stratosphere, you can kind of deal with that stuff because when he plays, he's great.

He wins you weeks. And it's recent he buys is all it is. I mean, you have the, you have Rob Gruncowski coming off of the knee explosion year. Comes back, he has a monster year, plays every game. Rob Grancousy's not injury prone anymore because he played a full season. That's how we do it in fantasy football. And it's true. And you kind of have to because at some point in time, you know, these careers aren't necessarily.

incredibly long. Matt Forte used to get labeled that way, you know. But you're right. You're right. It's a recency bias. And now Jordan Reed, I think he's got more momentum than anybody heading into the draft next year. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And if you have half point or full point PBR, Jordan Reed is a beast. I mean, because he gets 114 targets. He did miss two games. But, I mean, he's putting up nine catch performances. He had a week seven against Tampa Bay 11 catches.

There's just not tight ends out there that are doing that. They don't get those targets. No, and if you watch him, one of the things that impresses me most about Reed is his route running. He is really a dynamic route runner, and he gets separation. Now, this is the question I was going to have for you, and you kind of answered it, but these three guys, Barnage, Reed, Grunkowski next year, based on where you think they'll end up in the draft, who's going to be the best value to you?

I see Jordan Reed as a fourth, fifth round type of a guy. And fourth round might be pushing it depending on who's on the board. Kelsey was in that range this year. Yeah. And so Reed, I don't mind it in the fifth. I mean, you'll hear us talk plenty about how we draft tight ends. No more shows from now until the first week of the season. So this is it. But we generally there's that crop of.

two to three tied ends every year that you can take early and earlier in the draft. And besides that, if you don't get one, then you just wait. You wait a very long time. But Jordan Reed, I think, will be worth the fifth. Maybe even worth the fourth. I mean, if he can be healthy, that's what it is. It's the health. If you know you're getting 16 games of Reed in the fourth round, that's a draft steal. So...

When it comes to the comparison between him and the Kelsey hype before the season, though, isn't there something to be said? You said you can wait on guys, but you were a tweener with Kelsey, right? Like you rolled the dice with Kelsey, and I say you as in, you know, a person who drafted him, not you specifically. Oh, I did. I know. I guess you did. I had them everywhere. Because you were hoping you would get a read-like year from Kelsey, right? Talent-wise, it's there, but he was an example, in my opinion of you don't have the track record behind the guy, you're projecting him for it,