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

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Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Happy Pro Bowl, everybody. Who watched it? Were you team Irvin or were you team Rice? Who won? Because that's the team on. I don't remember. Because I didn't watch much of that game. I didn't watch it. What?

You didn't spend hard analysis time watching the Pro Bowl. I was going for Team Edward. Or was it Team Jacob? Is that Twilight? Oh, wait a second. Yeah, I don't know. The Pro Bowl is the Pro Bowl. It is what it is. And we're not talking about it anymore. There you go. Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers podcast. We've got a great show for you today. We've got our rookie...

I don't even know if that is a good title for it because we're going to look at the rookies at the quarterbacks and the wide receiver positions today. And we're going to break down their numbers. We're going to project them forward. We're going to drop you some pretty interesting stats about those guys. And we're going to tell you whether we think they'll be better or worse next year and where they should fall in your kind of your fantasy, your draft preparation. We're also going to talk a little bit.

briefly at the beginning of the show about some troubling performances for players last year. If you want to get a hold of the show, it's very easy. A bunch of different places, you can check us out. On Twitter at the FFBallers, you can do it on the website, The Fantasy Footballers.com. We've also got our fantasy community at Jointhefoot.com, and you can check us out on YouTube as well. So, yes, no Pro Bowl-related questions to start the show, but our quick question is this, what...

Players' performance troubled you the very most last season, I'm going first. You take it. And I'm going first with Andrew Luck. First, the worst is what I've heard. And this is not me saying Andrew Luck can't bounce back. But I'm also not a fan of blaming every single thing that I see on the field for the course of half a season on injuries. And I feel like that's what's taking place with Andrew Luck.

is we say, okay, he was hurt or banged up. And so when he played in seven games and he threw 12 interceptions and he had a completion percentage that dropped six and a half percent to 55 percent, I should be a little concerned. I should be a little troubled about the fact he did not come out and justify by any possible way his 20 overall position, which is what he was last year in ADP. Oh, number 20.

He was 20 overall last year because everybody said he's this guarantee at the quarterback position. We didn't. Don't get me wrong. I'm just saying this is where he was drafted. That wasn't a 2-2. We like Andrew Locke. We all like him in the whole framework of where we would drop the quarterback. I saw him save a puppy once. Yeah. He's a nice guy. He's got a nice neck beard. But listen, he had two games without an interception. That's it. He had a very, he had his lowest.

quarterback rating at his lowest QBR, and it wasn't. I actually have a stat for you on Andrew Luck that blew me away. When I was looking this up, my guy whose performance was very disappointing was Ryan Tannahill. We had hoped that his progression would go. And one of the things that I really wanted to see with Tannahill was how bad was his yards per attempt?

Because that's one of the most telling, you know, statistics on a quarterback. We've always kind of complained about Alex Smith and the fact that he doesn't throw the ball down field. Alex Smith, for example, was the number 14th worst or 14th best. Right in the middle. Right in the middle at 7. Thank you, Jeremy Macklin. 42 yards of carry. Right. Yeah, Jeremy Macklin made that a lot better. Ryan Tannahill was 21st. 21st, only through for 7.1 yards.

per attempt, which... I thought you had a stat for Andrew Luck. I do. Okay. Andrew Luck is way down below Ryan Tanahill. His yards per attempt? His yards per attempt beat. He was better than... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Tell me that he was better than Teddy Bridgewater. Nope. He was better than only one person. This is going to be bad. Only one. And that person was Nick Fools. At six...

Andrew Lux's yards per attempt were 6.42. Does that mean I should take back everything I said and really believe it's an injury? Because that's just not justifiable. How do you throw that many interceptions with that yards per two? You have to remember, before he lacerated his kidney like a beast, he sucked. Yeah, he did. He was not good. He was not playing good. And playing well, thank you. Oh, thank you.

The grammar police are here. So for me, my guy was Ryan Tannahill, but he does not hold much compared to. So, Mike, who's your non-quarterback? I said, you know, it's funny is that was actually the highest yards per attempt of Tannhill's career. So he did improve of that statistic, even though he was a very disappointing player. My disappointment, I went with Matt Ryan.

Oh, this is, yeah, most troubling performance. Our most troubling. That's a great one. Matt Ryan is... What's funny about Matt Ryan, he threw for about almost 4,600 yards, 21 touchdowns, but he just regressed so much from what we had, we were hoping for for Matt Ryan. Now, I don't, I don't, I've never proclaimed Matt Ryan to be an elite level quarterback, but I've always thought he was a good starting quarterback. He was getting a great new,

offensive scheme with Kyle Shanahan, who's been terrific for fantasy. He's got Julio Jones, and it just, it didn't show up on a consistent basis. Matt Ryan had a good game here and there, but for the most part, he was just very disappointing. He was consistently disappointing. Yes. And that's why I would be trouble with that, too, because as opposed to Locke, who was injured halfway, you got to see consistent disappointment the whole year. I...

I am going to hope that Matt Ryan simply was having an issue with the playbook, just never felt comfortable because at least the last... You take the Carson Palmer effect when he came to Arizona the first year under Ariens and didn't feel comfortable? Because the last two games, he posted a pass a rating of 119 and 103.

And that was against, one of those games was against Carolina when we saw them take down the undefeated Panthers at the time. So perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel for Matt Ryan, but he is going to tumble way, way down draft boards where he could become a late round value. He was somebody who so often failed in the red zone. It was so hard to watch. It just never took the, they didn't take the deep shots with Julio. No.

You got to do that at least, at least twice a game. Just say, Julio, go. I'm going to throw you the ball. We saw them just, he just chucked it up to him in the Carolina game. Yes. And look what happens. Everybody's happy. It's so weird. You're happy. I'm happy. Freak athlete does freak things. So, okay, so we got three quarterbacks on the list. There are plenty of other guys that we'll talk about a lot this offseason. But those are the guys that stuck out to us. You know, troubling. Yeah.

Some troubling issues going on with those. Ryan Tannehill is somebody who I don't know what to expect from next year. I don't either. I really don't. So maybe that's the biggest takeaway here is you don't know what to expect from any of these guys. You certainly, where's Andrew Luck going to go? Andrew Luck's going to go 20 overall. But he's still going to go too high. I believe that he, where do you think as far as forget what number he's drafted overall? Where is he within quarterbacks?

He's in the top three. He'll be, I was going to say top five. Top three, probably. Who would you take over him? I think the average people will take Tom Brady very high. Cam Newton. Cam Newton will be the, for sure. The recency bias of quarterback states if you finish last.

And then Rogers and then Rock will be in the discussion. So you're probably right top five. All right. Before we get into the weekly rewind, we'll drop some fantasy news, some NFL news on you, and then we'll get into our quarterbacks and wide receiver and the guys, the rookies, the rookies at the quarterback and wide receiver position. We do want to take a minute and read a review from the listeners on iTunes. We really appreciate your reviews. We've got a lot of really good feedback from the Foot Clan.

over at jointhefoot.com on the show. We always like to be asking for feedback. This is a, um, this show is active and changing every, every year. And so we want to know what it's alive. The show is a living being. Yep. Yeah, it has to be fed regularly. You can mail that food to, uh, no, but we, we want to be receptive to feedback and we really appreciate your feedback. And so we want to read a review from the listeners today.

Review Osaurus Rex. This one comes in from Kid Beyond. Kid Beyond says, I started listening to Mike, Andy, and Jason just before the season started, thanks to the fantasy footballers and their mighty foot clan. I finished first place in one league and third in my second league. Beyond that, in the past few years of playing fantasy football, I've always been left hanging.

and unsatisfied at the end of the season. I crave some kind of analysis and wrap-up of the season past. How strong are my drafting skills? Did I make the right trades? How effective was I on the waiver wire? Well, the fantasy footballers completely satisfy my craving with their in-depth postseason analysis. This is a solid podcast, and I can't wait to see what the fantasy footballers bring to the table for the remainder of the off-season. Well, kid, we will go beyond.

Your expectations. You see what I did there? His name was Kid Beyond, and then I was like, I worked it in. Yeah, that was really impressive. See what I liked about that review was the shoutout to the Foot Clan itself, because this show is made up of listeners who have lots of good ideas and thoughts about their teams and the players involved and decisions to be made. And so I like to shout out to the Foot Clan as well. News and notes from around the league. Oh, my goodness.

Is it true? Could it be true? Are we going to be seeing the end? Oh, you got to play the sad music. Yeah, I was waiting for the sad music. No, I know. I'm picking something special out. This is, I think it's deserved. Calvin Theodore Johnson. Megatron. All right, that's not his middle name, but it sounded more dramatic. Calvin Johnson could be retiring.

He put notice into the team. He said, it's official. I am retiring now. He has an entire off season to think about that. How much money is he owed next year? Like 18? He's making a lot of cash. I think it's 16. A lot of cash. So next year he could come back and play football and make $16 million. Now, money is not everything. Calvin Johnson certainly has.