Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Sleepers, Breakouts, News, Mailbag

Other leagues. That's what I liked about the book. It's a great read. And you know what? Audibledeal.com. Go get it for free. And it helps us out. There you go. So let's go ahead and let's get into our sleepers and breakouts. These guys are going to be values. Values in your draft. We got five sleepers and five breakouts we're going to go through today. And see if we can, you know, it's early. It's early. And some of these might change.

Well, yeah, because the value, I think what's going to happen is this, if I can just make a bold prediction, we are going to drum up value on these guys because it's...

Awesome and clearly right. And then everyone else is going to catch up. And then the ADP is going to rise and we'll have to do different values later. But for now, these are great values. And this is where you win leagues, right? I mean, you win leagues by getting sleepers and breakouts. You don't win leagues by just, you know. I thought you meant when you listened to us. But I guess that's true as well. I mean, one equals.

the same number. So somebody define a sleeper for me. If you're new to fantasy football, you kind of wonder what we're considering a sleeper to be. Go ahead and define that real quick. A sleeper to me is someone taken ninth, maybe eighth, but ninth round and later who has potential to be a high-end fantasy player. It doesn't mean they're going to because it's a sleeper for a reason. However, they have the opportunity, possible opportunity, and...

the talent to be high-end. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got a couple of wide receivers, a couple running backs, and a quarterback to mention. First guy on our list is a guy I like a lot. He's one of my sleepers this year, and it's Devante Adams. Devante Adams bursts onto the scene a little bit last year for Green Bay. But generally my philosophy with guys like this and with sleepers in general is if you have an immense amount of talent and a good situation,

That makes for a great sleeper to me. And that's what Devante Adams is. He actually had some games that were pretty significant in the playoffs last year. He went seven for, I believe, 1111 and a touchdown, or seven for 1117 in a touchdown on 11 targets. He has the best quarterback in the league. And he's a guy that you can draft, might get value out of them right away.

Kind of like Randall Cobb coming into his second year, where you still had, I think, James Jones in the mix, and you still had Jordy Nelson, but Cobb offered value there. Devante Adams has a ton of skill. They like him in Green Bay. He had big games, and then guess what? Yeah, I know. If one guy goes down, he becomes a elite top-tier wide receiver. And so, Devante Adams...

It has everything I like in it. He's going to go late in the draft, if at all. He's being drafted right now. He'll be drafted. Yeah, he's being drafted with the last pick in the eighth round from ADP numbers. So he's basically late eight, early ninth round pick. Barring injury, that's where he's going to go to. He's not going to be climbing the board a lot, in my opinion. He's six foot one. Go go and Google. Go Google his slam dunk. He does a...

360 put the ball under the leg dunk better than Isaiah Ryder did it. I mean, honestly, it's like a slam dunk championship winning dunk, and he's a 6'1 football player. He is a freak athlete on the best offense. I love it. I agree with everything said. The last note I'll give is Ted Thompson is just he has a historic record of getting wide receiver. So I believe in Thompson when he takes a wide receiver.

And, and, if you want another video to watch, goodness gracious, go look at that touchdown that he scored on Dallas in the playoffs. He grabs the ball on a little, you know, like a little slant, and he juke's the guy. It's like he was in one spot, and then immediately he was about five yards to the right on a little hop step.

just blows down through. It was one of those plays, like it was not a touchdown pass. It was just a short little pass, but it became a 40-yard touchdown pass. And that's because of talent on that offense. Yeah, so Devante Adams is a guy I really like as a sleeper. And if you're in that 9-10, 8-9-10 round where you're dropping these guys anyway, it might as well take a flyer on him. He's my guy. So let's talk about Theoretic. He's a guy who's climbed into your sleeper list, Mike, recently. Is that opportunity? What is that?

And Theoretics are kind of the scatback for the Detroit Lions. It's, yeah, it's opportunity. It's, I mean, he's the main guy now that Reggie Bush has gone. Main backup for Joyc Bell, now that Reggie Bush is gone. I went and was looking through his numbers. There was essentially five games where he was not used. And in the other 11, he averaged four and a half targets a game. So I'm not talking.

elite level running back, but you're talking about a guy who is very serviceable and can fill in. He had nine yards of reception, and the sample size, although a little bit small, he had the fourth highest passing rating of a running back from pro football focus just behind Levion, Lacey, and Pierre Thomas. So that's high praise for a guy. And as you saw, when Reggie Bush was out, they fed Riddick the ball. I mean, he'd double-digit targets a few times. Even when he was back.

I had Reggie Bush. When I watched the games, even when he was back, Riddick was coming in on third downs. He was being targeted in the end zone. Last offseason, before coming into this year, in the off season...

All of the Detroit Lions staff was high on him. They loved him, and then it was so weird that the season rolls around, and he doesn't get any touches or anything. But now, I mean, you see that support from the staff, and then you see him do what they said he could do. And actually, Mike, I think there's three more games in your 11 that he really was not involved in the game at all. So it's really eight games. If you take those eight games, he was on pace for 66 receptions, and his utilization.

utilization, his involvement in the offense, having that offseason is only going to grow. I mean, if you get a guy with 70 receptions, that's just, I mean, for where you're drafting him here in the 10th round, you're not getting anything near that from rounds far higher. So I like this sleeper. And we did an interview with Pyromaniac last week, Pyromaniac Mo. And we know he's really high on Riddick as well. So he's a great sleeper candidate in an offense that, you know, Mike, I know you're a little bit sour on Joyick Bell. I don't know how I feel about that.

There's, you know, Joyke Bell's not going to be in that pass-catching role, and they will have a role for him. So I like that. All that being said, know your league. If it's a standard scoring and not a PPR, don't draft him. He's not going to, I don't think he's going to get very many carries. He's really a pass-catching back. I mean, that's his absolute special team. Yeah. So. So this next guy I want to talk about, he's a quarterback out of our home state here, but he's climbed into our sleeper.

list. Yes. So talk to me about Carson Palmer, because he's coming off in ACL. Yep, I'm not worried about it. But give us, give us the rundown on Carson Palmer. Is he really this, you know, proponent of a, you know, for streaming quarterbacks? Is he a guy that is a candidate for you? For not only stream, but guys who I'm targeting in my draft, I don't just stream a quarterback. I wait.

as late as I think I can and still get a guy who has the potential to be in every week. I mean, clearly, I'd rather have an every week guy. I don't want to do the work. I'm lazy. So we're talking like an Eli Manning or Carson Palmer. Palmer last year. So I'm going to throw out the ACL game, which he still had a very high yard as he just didn't have touchdowns. But in his five complete games, averaged 277 yards and two touchdowns.

Those are fantastic numbers. And when you're talking an entire year, that puts them at 4,300 yards, 30 touchdowns. This is a quarterback who you're going to be able to draft the 12th round? No, you'll be able to draft Carson Palmer the day after your draft. That's what I'm talking about. A guy you can get so late, those are quarterback won numbers. I believe that would have put him at number seven last year. Now, that's not, oh, he's not Aaron Rogers, but it's getting the seventh quarterback.

when no one else has any idea about it. John Brown, Michael Floyd, Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Ellington, a lot of weapons in the passing game for Arizona and a coach that loves to throw the ball. Yeah, a coach who was going to take shots down the field every single game. And for a system where the quarterback is slinging it, in all six games he had, he had three interceptions. He had learned the system, he was managing the game, and he was slinging it around.

Yeah, this is the perfect definition of a sleeper versus, say, a breakout, someone that we know is going to do it. There's certainly some red flags on Carson Palmer. When he came back from his last knee injury, he didn't play very well that following year. He's a little older now, and so there's definitely reason why he's not being drafted. But you can get him so late. You can literally take him with the last pick in your draft.

in almost all leagues, I believe, unless it's two-quarterback system or something. And he does have potential, like we just said, to be a top, you know, wide receiver one, or wide receiver one. At 35, he's transitioning to the slot. If you could end up with Eli Manning and Carson Palmer and stream those two in matchups, and your risk is low. Yeah, you're good to go. Not bad. I'm all over Palmer this year.

ACL surgery is different. I mean, I would say it's more advanced now than it was back when he was. It was also a clean tear this time. He had a bunch of stuff done last time. Yeah. His knee was just wrecked. And this time it's just little pop. Just a little ACL tear. Yeah. Just a little, you don't have an ACL. Hey, now. He doesn't need it. He stands in that pocket. He ain't moving around. All right, Carson Palmer.

So let's go ahead and here's a guy I haven't even heard you talk about, but he's on your list, Mike. Danny Woodhead. Yeah. Because he had a major injury last year as well. He did. So people might have forgotten about him. He's also a miniature. Not only did they... He's like the micro machine. That's what they should call him. So not only did they forget about him for now this year. They forgot about him when drafting last year. A guy had a monster.

2013 season. He finished as the 19th running back in Standard and 12th in PPR. He was a running back one. And you know where he got drafted? Five rounds after Geo Bernard and Zach Stacey. Wow. How does that happen when a guy puts up those numbers and there's no reason to believe that he can't put up at least something close to that and people are just, oh, I'm going to draft Zach Stacey. We know that Philip Rivers.

He loves Sproles when he was in that role. Yes. And he had production value. They like Woodhead the guy. They like Woodhead the player. So maybe people are sleeping on Danny Woodhead. They are. So he's elusive. He had 17. And these are 2013 numbers clearly. But he had 17 broken slash avoided tackles, which put him sixth. He had the third most targets on the team with 88 targets. And that's on a team when, that's when Antonio Gates and...

And Allen was breaking out. When Keenan Allen was breaking out with his massive rookie year, he was still getting huge targets. He doesn't get a ton of carries, but when you get his carries and his touches in the passing game, it adds up to great numbers. And like Andy had said, Philip Rivers loves to dump the Danny Woodhead because he's sure-handed, and he's just so small that he gets these cheap-free touchdowns. There's a lot of similarities between...

how Brady's offense has changed and how River's offense has changed over the years as well, where both have lost a little bit of their downfield driving strength, but they're great efficient quarterbacks because they make the short throws. So I think that's a great name to bring up. Keep your eye on it. Obviously, if something happens in that backfield in the draft. And Ryan Matthews is gone, by the way. Yeah, he is. Right now it's what the Donald Brown, Brandon Oliver, Danny Woodhead show. Yeah. So I think I trust Woodhead from a...

game-to-game standpoint more than any of those guys. It's worth noting that they gave Donald Brown a good amount of money. And before the Danny Woodhead injury, he wasn't getting any touches. So they gave him money, but they were still, it was still Woodhead getting all those touches. So Jason, let's turn to you. Let's talk about one of your guys that you have here. He's a guy we've mentioned on the show before when Andrew Goldwasser of NFL SpinZone came on, talked to us as a sleeper. Perfect definition of a sleeper right here. Josh Huff.