Tier Jumps, Tough Questions, Fedora Jason

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for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code footballers to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This is D.D. Westbrook here with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Coming to you from pristineauction.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome, man.

It's going to be a good one. It's going to be a bad one. Fedora Watch is on. Found one. To all our YouTube subscribers out there, I would like to personally issue an apology and know that I hate myself as much as you hate me right now while you're watching. Your glasses are so fog. You look like you're wearing a monocle. Yeah.

With the fedora. Here's a little insight, Fookland. Right before we started this episode, we were laughing pretty hard. We were laughing. We just, we started it like twice and I just, I was laughing too hard. I couldn't stop. It's just one of those days. I think it all started when I looked at the monitors and saw you in a fedora. Yeah, I look.

like the world's most punch what is it with your head and hats why doesn't it work why don't they work together i don't know like it doesn't matter if it's a baseball hat i mean i could ruin a santa cap this fedora looks small to me based on your your proportions i don't know are you calling me fat not not on purpose but probably uh welcome in to the fantasy footballers for tuesday february 19th it's going to be a good one we've got a great quick question

A ton of questions from the listeners from the Foot Clan that we're going to answer on the show today. And it's going to be fun. We're going to have a good time. And Jason, you only have one more contractually obligated day that you have to wear this. Before the burning. You're going to burn it on camera? Oh, sure. Yeah, absolutely. This thing is not standing the test of time. That's such a waste of a great hat. I'll sign it and give it to you, Mike. And you may have this wonderful.

Headpiece. No, we should, you need to sign that and some lucky foot clan member against the when you're for a lucky. You're going to be so thrilled. For whatever reason, it reminds me of like the suit that the guy where, like Jim Carrey wears in the mask. Yeah, no. With the pinstripes? I need a nice pinstripe suit to match this hat. Yeah. That's, that's why it looks bad for Thursday. All right. Here's a quick question of the day. By the way, you can follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers on YouTube. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Check out the.

Fodora. Please stay subscribed after you do that. Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers. You can listen over on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, add free on Stitcher Premium, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We appreciate each and everyone are you hanging out with us through this extended bye week as we had into free agency and the NFL draft and whatever new things Antonio Brown is going to tweet. All of the above. That's why we're here. That guy, man.

All right, last week we answered a quick question about tier drop candidates. So we talked about guys that we thought might drop down a tier based on their performance. So who is a running back that you could see making a tier jump in 2018? And maybe one of you guys can start by just kind of reemphasizing tiers and how that factors in. Sure. Well, that's how we recommend people draft. That's how we.

We break guys down in our rankings in the ultimate draft kit, which, by the way, you can pre-order that right now, get some cool extra stuff if you want to get in early. But the tier is guys that are going to score around the same amount of points, and the top tier running back clearly is more value than any other piece in fantasy football. So we're talking about guys that these specifically, I think, are guys that are right now considered tier two, tier three, tier four.

Yeah. So who's in tier one for you right now? Let's, let's lay that out. That'll help. That's a great question. Todd Gurley. Sequin. Sequine Barkley, Ezekiel Elliott. Yes. Those three for sure, depending on news, I could even see arguing for Christian McCaffrey to be in that tier. He's on the customer. And then depending on what New Orleans does, Alvin Camara would be tier one. All right. So we're talking about a running back, each of us picked a running back that we think could jump from maybe tier three to tier two.

maybe tier two to tier one, something like that. So Jason, why don't you kick it off with a name that we were talking about this morning? Yeah, we've been talking about him because I think he's going to be criminally undervalued. And when I looked up the very early ADP, he's going in the fourth round. So I think he will jump way higher than that tier. It's a guy that in his actual playing as the starter, he's pretty much been running back one.

every single year that he's been the starter, and that is Devonta Freeman, who got injured last year. Everybody who drafted him was disappointed, thought, oh, maybe he's going to come back in 2018. He doesn't. He goes on injured reserve. So there's just a poor taste, you know, in the mouth of just he disappointed you if he drafted him. If you thought you could make a run at him later, he disappointed. He's 27 years old, which is both a big deal two years ago. Yeah, it's both good and bad, right?

Running backs tend to peak around 24 right now, but 30 is the death age. 27 is a fine age for a running back. That's not concerning. It's a good year. Yes, it's a good year. And so I think he comes back, and you saw how desperately Atlanta needed him last year. Tevin Coleman was not able to do it. We don't know where he's going to sign, but I think Freeman is an RB1, and if he's not an RB1 in 2019, he's at least...

you know, a top 15 back in fantasy football. He's being drafted right now well outside of that. So I think he jumps up from where he's being drafted into a higher tier. I'll give you a few names here, Jason, with your fedora. Okay. Leonard, Fornett, or Devonta Freeman? Devonta Freeman. I would, I would say Fornett for myself. Nah, let me grab one more, Dalvin Cook. I would.

I would go Delvin Cook. I'm willing to take the gamble on his enormous upside. Mike? Who you got? So I'm going with my guy. My guy. Make no qualms or disclaimers about who is my guy. This is the stupidest thing. I feel like I'm just being shamed. I must have lost some bad. I'm wearing a fedora and having my guys stolen out from under me. Marlon Mack.

Ack, Ack. Mike's guy. Yeah, my guy. And you know what really for me, it's not, it's not necessarily the running back. I want the situation. I want Andrew Luck as the quarterback and I want an offensive line that is back. They are full of young budding superstars last year.

Pro football focus had them graded out as the third best offensive line. Football outsiders had them graded out as the fourth best rushing offensive line. And that's what I want. I think that his role, Marlon Maxwell is secure enough at the top. He gave you enough big games, gave the Colts, I should say, enough big games that they don't need to be in the levee on Bell hunt. They don't need to throw a huge dumpster full of gold bullion at Lev Bell. They're good.

And the guys behind him, Naheem Hines, Jordan Wilkins, aren't good enough to supplant Marlon Mack. So he is in a great situation coming into next year, and I'm going to be very excited for him. And we're talking way, way too early ADP over on Fantasy Football Calculator. But right now he's in the back of the fourth round, going behind Derek Henry, going behind. Let's see, I'd probably take Freeman ahead of him.

But here's an interesting question for, I'll throw this to Jason because I think we know Andy's answer. Sony Michelle or Marlon Mac. Andy, I'm sure you would take Sony, right? If Marlon Mac is the, if Marlon Mac is, you know, status quo, they don't add or change anything. I think I would go with Marlon Mac here because you'll be able to trust him when he's out there. I don't like.

playing the trust game with Bill Belichick and, you know, the New England backfield. That being said, at the end of the year, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony Michelle outscores around the Mac, but I would rather have had, yeah, because he gets the three touchdown games and has these monster performances. But I think I would rather have the consistency of Mac assuming he could play 16 games. What about Philip Lindsay, who right now on calculator, is an early third round pick?

Andy, would you go with Philip Lindsay or Marlon Mack? Yeah, that's a good question. I think I... And we're not really factoring cost in right now. We're just saying the early ADP is people prefer Philip Lindsay. Yeah, I mean, I put him in the exact same area. I think they're about the same. It's funny you brought up Philip Lindsay because he's going ahead of the guy that I have as my tier jump candidate, at least according to very early average draft position. And that's Joe Mixon. That's crazy. Yeah, I know. Joe Mixon led.

The AFC and rushing yards last year with 1,168 yards. Look, he was second highest breakaway percentage. I looked this up. Sequin was the only other running back with 200 or more carries that had a higher breakaway percentage, a higher proportion of his runs being 15 yards or more. Mixon has fire, and you saw it on a team that struggled that lost a lot last year. Towards the end of games, Mixon was the one guy that was running hard.

Just like he was in the first quarter. Look, he finished the season by rushing for over 100 yards in three of the last four games. And now you bring in Zach Taylor, a new head coach, new offensive system. There's a little bit of news recently. Mark Walton. Yeah. Arrested for battery. Dummy. Not good. And it should be the Joe Mixen show next year. So I think if he's being drafted in the third round in the middle of the third round, this is a tier two.

guy that has tier one potential. I really think he does. And he has what you need to be in a tier one, which is the ability to catch the football. Right. What's interesting as I'm looking through the way to early ADP, it's going to be a narrative that happens this entire offseason. As we are all to do, we overreact to what happened last year. Two years ago, wide receiver scoring was.

awful. It was just, it was a low that we had not seen in a very, very long time, especially considering the way that that scoring was trending. You flipped that and people overdrafted running backs and they bypassed great wide receivers. This past year, wide receiver scoring went way up and so now we are seeing a ton of wide receivers going in the early rounds. You're talking AJ Green.

currently going in the back of the second round, and I'm trying to figure out how many wide receivers are actually going in front of him. Well, you've got five wide receivers in the first round alone. That is 12. 12 wide receiver 12, 18 Green. Yeah. I mean, like that, and that's just speaking to the depth at the position and how I, look, people are going to do this in drafts this year. They're going to see what the wide receivers did. And.