Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Rookie Rundown QB & WR, News, Mailbag

As of right now, he might end up on some of my teams because I think you can get him later. None of my pitching of Mario's stats convinced either of you that you'd rather have him over Winston next year? I need a... Because you said you'd take Winston. Jason, you seem to be on the Winston side. I would take Winston over Marriota because I think Winston, the offense is going to be based around. I mean, they took Dirk Cutter and made him the head coach because of what he was able to do with Winston. That was a big reason for it.

So I would take Winston over Marriota. Now, let's say you might think it's a bunch of malarkey, though. If Tennessee... They get a good coach. If Tennessee goes out there and they foolishly spend high draft capital on a dominant wide receiver... Please spend it on your offensive line. Please. I'll just say that if they do something like that, if they go Detroit Lions and just keep drafting high wide receivers, then that could sway me over to Marriota.

Walker and Green Beckham have somebody else. Because Kendall Wright has... I love Kendall Wright. I just can't stay healthy. Yeah, and his health is just overall has been disappointing. But between the two, I would lean to Winston. See, you lean Winston. Where do you lean? I'm right on the fence there. I guess I'm with you. I would need to be further convinced about Tennessee's offense. And I mean it at the offensive line position. He was beat up this year. They give up...

a ton of sacks. So I'll go to the Winston side for the fact that, you know, I don't think Dirk Cutter, he used to be an Arizona State coach. I don't think he's the best coach in the world. I think he's a pretty good offensive coordinator. I think his offense has scored a lot of points. So I'll lean Winston as well. I'll make it unanimous. Yeah. All right, you guys want to talk about some rookie wide receivers? Yes, I do. How many are we going to go through today? That's good. We're going to talk about 10 of them?

Sure. Oh, 10? We could do it. We'll see. We could do it. All right. So let's do this. Is this sorted by draft order? Is this what I have in front of me? That is exactly how this list we're giving you today is how they were drafted in the NFL. All right. It's time for Omari Cooper. Yes, really. So Amari Cooper had 72 for over a thousand yards, 1070, and six touchdowns. So...

What do we think about Amari Cooper, better or worse, moving forward? We talked about him a little bit on a couple shows ago. What are the things we like about a situation and the player? What are things that we don't like if they exist? There are so few things I don't like about Amari Cooper. And I'm finding myself, so I was in love with Latavius Murray for next year. Yeah, you marry on. You married. I'm married. I'm married. Murray. And I'm also in love with Amari Cooper. So I think I might be becoming an Oakland Raiders fan here. Isn't tomorrow Groundhog's Day?

Is that true? It's just the Murray thing reminded me of it. Oh, I got you. So with Amari Cooper, you have a guy. Today is. If we're talking, if we are talking about better or worse next year, there's about a dozen reasons why he should be better. One, he's not going to be a rookie, right? So he's going to be more in the system, all of that.

You look at how his numbers came about and how he was hobbled at the end of the year. He wore it down. They shouldn't have even had him on the field. I remember watching him not be able to run a route. Yeah, your exact comment was something like he's not even out there. Yeah. Something to that extent. And it was just gross watching him try to play through that. But his numbers were affected by that. And I hope, I hope next draft season that his value isn't as high as it should be because of his total numbers. Probably won't be. People will catch up. To...

To jump in with what you were saying, in the second half of the season, you can pick out four games, four complete games where he had 34 total yards in those four games. Wait, exactly 34? Yeah, a game of 20, a game of 10, a game of zero.

At a game of four. Yeah, he's saying combined. Oh, okay. You mean in those four games, he's hit 34 yards? Yeah. Wow, I thought you meant like he hit 34 in each one or something or something. Oh, no, no. I mean, he had 30. He's consistently terrible. Like you add up the total of four games. He had 34 yards. Well, you remember Austin Svarian Jenkins came out and he had three for 31. Three for 31 games? I thought we had something going on. So to me. I need one more yard. You give Amari Cooper just his average production in those four games.

And he's just, he's a monster. Well, and here's what I love about Amari Cooper and a big reason why he was drafted first. His yards after contact were humongous. He led the entire league as far as rookies in yards after contact. And to give you an idea of where he finished, he finished as kind of that wide receiver two best, the 25th ranked yards after contact tied exactly with Brandon Marshall, who's very, very good at yards after contact.

So as a rookie to do that, I really like his ability to make his own game flow. It doesn't matter whether he's getting a screen or a deep pass. He can bust something off. Well, and let me do this for you guys. We like Derek Carr. We like the trajectory of Oakland, right? This is where they finished last year. What do you think they finished in points per game? Probably like 20th? 17th. 17th in the league. Pass yard 16th. Okay? This was overall yards per game? 24th.

The whole team, not just Amari Cooper, really fell apart in the second after season. Room to improve. But that's what we like to see. Some margin rookie ascendant. I think we all really like Amari Cooper. I know I do. So we say better for Amari Cooper. Do you want to throw a comparison out there? Is there a wide receiver from this past year? You think that he'll be in that department?

Because I see somebody like, even though they're not, by any means, I'm not comparing the players themselves, but the stat line of a guy like Brandon Cook seems well within the realm of possibility for me. Yeah, I think he can easily be. Somebody with, you know, nine touchdowns, 1,100 yards. That sounds right about where he should finish, which would put him as like a low-end wide receiver 1. And I think you're going to be able to draft him.

Better than that. Probably outside of the one range. Okay, so good point. This year, Crabtree was better fantasy-wise. Right. On the year. So you expect that to change, right? Absolutely. Amari Cooper will be the number one fantasy option. Because it was marginal, yeah. Yep. Now, the next guy who was drafted by the NFL, I'm going to declare he will do better. He will absolutely do better next year than he did this year.

And that is Kevin White. That's a hot take. Hot take. Kevin White. Between him and Perryman, we get two brand new rookies. Yeah. To that degree. So Kevin White, what do we expect? I expect him to. Other than suiting up, tying his shoes, putting on the helmet. Man, there is so little to be able to bank on. You've got to wonder.

You know, with a coach like John Fox specifically in White's case, he seemed so frustrated and, like, angry that he wasn't out there. You know, he's an old school. You play through injuries. You do these things. And he, you know, I expect Alshon Jeffrey to come back and re-sign. That was the question I was going to ask you, because people are going to throw his name out there in the Calvin Johnson retirement discussions as well. Because he's bona fide. When you bring somebody in, like, to me, Marvin Jones is Golden Tate.

Right. I mean, from when I watch them on the field, they catch the same routes. They make plays after the catch. Which is why if he comes into that Golden Tate role, is that number two, it might be good. Golden Tate can. Well, okay, but they might, well, all I'm saying is Detroit might look outwardly to get a prototypical. Neither of those guys is a jump ball receiver for what Calvin's done in the end zone, is my point. Not that Jeffrey's going to leave. So you think Jeffrey's staying. I think Jeffrey's staying. So you're going to have Kevin White come in, have a decent fake rookie year.

And I expect him, you know, if you want to talk about who's he going to be like, I think that what you're going to have is you're going to have him come in and be at best kind of like a Tyler Lockett. Tyler Lockett didn't have a bad season. Production-wise you're talking about. He didn't have a bad season. He had a really good rookie season for a wide receiver. But it wasn't like low yards or low yards high touchdowns or you're just saying?

I mean about where Tyler Lockett finished. Tyler Lockett had about 50 catches. In my head, I was hearing Tyler Eifford. I apologize. I have my projections for White well above Tyler Lockett. Tyler Lockett is a, was 42nd in the league this year. I do not think that that is. I think Kevin White, if he plays, where he was drafted and his abilities are going to be much higher than that to me. I would put him in the, I'd put him about what Cooper did this past year.

That's about where I'd put him at, which is right outside the top 24, right in that range, a good season up and down. That's where I'm looking. I'm looking at like the Ruben Randall range. Ruben Randall was 29. He had just under 800 yards and eight touchdowns. That's incredible, by the way. Just hearing you say Ruben. For Ruben. Yeah, because Ruben Randall was irrelevant. Roob's.

He was not. But he was. He was really irrelevant. But it's so weird. It's so weird because we can make these like conclusions that aren't conclusions in fantasy where you talked up Ruben Randall all preseason. He stunk. For so long. And he wasn't. Well, the giants were very good. He was not. He wasn't. I mean, Ruben Randall, listen to this. Okay, perfect example. Tangent time. Ruben Randall, Travis Benjamin, back to back in fantasy.

Randall beat Benjamin. Benjamin, he got all the headlines this year, right? Because he was super sexy right off the top. But, I mean, because he broke out. To become Ruman Randall. The beginning of the year, those guys who do well, those guys who do well out of the gate end up with much better. It's funny. It's like the opposite of recency bias. It's currency. They get early currency that carries on to next year. Chris Ivory is going to have a much better currency because of how strong he came out.

You know, and... Here's guys that finish behind Randall. Benjamin Aiken, Michael Floyd, Bryant. All those guys are going ahead of Ruben Randall next year. I can promise you that. Yeah. And that's why I will draft Ruben Randall. Oh, my gosh. I can't quit you, Ruben Randall. All right. So we're going a little out of order here, but we should probably talk about Bashad Perriman since he's the other rookie who didn't play. To me, I see a lot more opportunity.

for Perriman than White. Now, White's the more talented guy, the more skilled. But, you know, Kamar Aiken is no Alshan Jeffrey. And they need, no. They desperately need a wide receiver. I am of the mindset. I do not believe that Steve Smith can come back and be anything relevant this next year. Maybe he works hard and proves me wrong. But for me, I don't see him as like in the equation. So that to me says Breshah Perriman will have the opportunity.

which is even more important than talent so long as you're both talented. Yeah, and we broke down the numbers with the Ravens this year compared to seasons past where they've been a team that can be at the forefront of the league offensively. And they weren't this past year. So there's a precedent there for Flacco being able to find a new weapon like Perryman. The opportunity, like you said, is there. I don't know about the skill set. We'll see that on the field, but he was drafted high enough to where he should contribute in a real way.

Aiken is very much a complimentary guy. We all know that. We've watched him play football. I like the potential opportunity that Perryman has going into next year. Now, we've got to monitor the recovery of Joe Flacco. I mean, he tore his ACL. That's a good point. And it was a little bit later in the season. I would expect he'll be ready to go at the beginning of the season. But that's something we've got to keep in mind. But for Paramond, I'm not expecting.

huge things, but he is a guy that I will be gladly taking in the 8-9 round area where you're like, it's just the upside. If he hits, I think he's a 65 and 800 type of guy with like five touchdowns. Yeah. And because of the way that offense goes, he's going to be one of those up and down guys, the Deshaun Jackson, Tori Smith, have a big blowup game. And then, and then.

And it's unfortunate for both of these guys. They both wanted to come in and have a contribution. I think Perryman probably was more of a disappointment because it always seemed like he was going to be back until he just, he never was. As opposed to White, who we all knew was Alba. John Fox was just playing. I just talked to John Fox. Is he still playing this year? He's still probable. All right. So let's talk about Devante Parker. You know, it'd be easy to say he didn't play part of the year because he really didn't.

He didn't contribute in a meaningful way, which is the same thing with Nelson Aguilar, our next guy on the list. I mean, they both played and didn't play in a way. Right. So, Devante Parker, however, impresses me personally if someone will use him. So what do you think about him?