Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Sleepers, Fantasy News, Mailbag

It's like, why are Mike? Well, and my point about the quarterback was just that if they improve at all on the offensive side of the ball and are down in the red zone a little bit more, those opportunities are going to be there. Outside of Gurley getting the ball, Austin's the next best weapon on that team. So I just like him from a value perspective. He's a little uncomfortable to start on your team because you don't, you like that cozy feeling, right?

The Julian Edelman cozy. But Austin has upside. There's something much more comfortable about starting a player in a powerful offense. Right. Because you don't worry that the team's only going to put up, you know, nine points and not have a lot of production. Whereas Tavon, Austin, you do. But that's why he presents a value here. You're getting a guy who finishes a wide receiver two last year in the 11th round. I just don't think we've seen the best of him either.

No, he's a young guy. He's a young guy. All I could think about was a Julian Edelman-shaped drink, coozy. Yeah. Just keeping my drink safe and cold. I would love a Julian Edelman, Coosy. If you have one, send this one. He's got great hands. He's got great hands. All right, so I'm going to go back to the quarterback position with a guy. Ryan Tannenhill, while he gave me about 50 lashes.

Matt Ryan, he did this to me as well. He was a guy who I was very, very high on going into the season with the K-Shai, that Kyle Shanahan offense, which has produced some very strong quarterback play. We saw the benefits for Julio Jones as he went. His yardage was just out of control. But here's the deal for Matt Ryan where people are very down on him. Oh, he had a bad year. Did he? Did he really have a bad year? Because this is what he did. Fifth in attempts.

Third in completions. Seventh in completion percentage. Fifth in yards. Those are absolutely astounding quarterback numbers. Here was the problem. Nineteenth in touchdowns. That is an epic failure right there. What I propose to you, Foot Clan, is I think that Matt Ryan, the second year in the system, can improve that. There's already talk of...

of the falcons saying, we kind of messed up. We need to take more deep shots with Julio Jones. And I think Julio Jones owners would strongly agree with that statement. Let him go, make a play, let him score some touchdowns. So I just think that Matt Ryan can really improve. And you know what is, I think is funny about Matt Ryan, and you have Blake Bortles, who has become this fantasy hero. Matt Ryan was better than Blake Bortles in every possible passing category except for touchdowns. Now, we expect...

some regression from Blake Bortles in the touchdown department, and I expect an improvement for Matt Ryan. Last year, 21 touchdowns. The previous five years, he had averaged 28.6. Yeah. So you just give him around his average, and Matt Ryan all of a sudden is a tremendous value. He's a low-end quarterback one, which I think he can do. So I just, it's don't jump off of Matt Ryan just yet. I think the most impressive thing of that argument is the...

the discussion about the Bortle's numbers compared to Ryan. Here's the only thing I will say that I want to see happen in Atlanta is that when Ryan was more efficient in the red zone, it was like, it was Tony Gonzalez, and it was Roddy White and Julio Jones. It was, I want to see who that number two weapon is going to be in the red zone. I know you've got Devonta Freeman.

It's probably free money now. Muhammad Sunu is a big bodied guy that I think in the red zone helps. That's the thing. You have to have somebody else that's going to give him that target because Jones is going to be double and triple covered in the red zone and probably still get his. But last year there were games, I mean, multiple games in a row where Julio didn't score, and Matt Ryan felt the impact of that. And so for me, all those things for a bounce back in the touchdown areas are there. I think they will go up.

It's going to be that second and third weapon that make them go up even further to me. Yeah, I like Matt Ryan more than Ryan Tannahill as a sleeper. You know, 21 touchdowns for Matt Ryan is the outlier. He has a lot of years of 27, 26, 38. So we like the Ryan's this year. There's a Ryan Tanahill, Matt Ryan, Ryan Matthews. All right. Well, here is my next sleeper. It is Marvin Ryan Jones. Oh.

Marvin Ryan Jones. I've heard of him. I have a water bet with a listener between Marvin Jones and Golden Tate. I took Golden Tate because I'm very high on him. I think he's going to get near 100 receptions and be better than Marvin Jones. Who's going to throw him the ball? Matthew Stafford. There's no time for your Matt Stafford. All right now. All right. Sorry. I was just curious who the quarterback was for these awesome seasons.

Marvin Jones is a great sleeper candidate.

Because while you have to pay up for Golden Tate... I can't believe he's a sleeper. That's what's amazing. Well, the sleeper, we said sleeper is, you know, ninth and later. And I think Marvin Jones isn't really flying under the radar the way that you normally think of as a sleeper. Maybe you call that about it. But he kind of is. That's what amazes me. Yeah, he's going in the ninth round. And we just heard, you know, from the Lions camp about how they're redoing the offense, right? Jim Bob Cooter came in. He took over and he kept things similar, but simplified it last year in the second half of the season.

Now he's coming in, there's whole new play calls, whole new play schemes, everything is different. We've heard that from the Lions camp that nothing is the same. And so that gives an advantage to Marvin Jones over Golden Tate as far as, it doesn't necessarily mean he's the better option, but it takes away the advantage that Golden Tate had in knowing the system. Now, he's still got the rapport with Matthew Stafford built, but Matthew Stafford today.

today came out and said that without Calvin, the ball's going to get spread around more. He's not going to necessarily lock in on one guy. Golden Tate might not be that guy. So there is a world here where Marvin Jones finishes as their number one. I think it's more of a 1A, 1B, still like Golden Tate better. But if you're telling me I have to pick one of those two guys, and it's going to cost either a fourth rounder or a ninth rounder, I'm going to go with Marvin Jones because he doesn't cost me much, and he has nearly the same upside. And don't forget.

So in 2013, Marvin Jones had a 10 touchdown season in the NFL. He, no, I'm just saying like, this is a player who can get it done. Ain't no Pop Warner. Well, I'm not, I'm not talking college here. This is, and then he was injured in 2014. Not talking practice. Missed 2014. Missed 2014. How did he do an arena? Oh, where his arena stands. He killed 26 touchdowns. I believe that. For the Arizona Rattlers. In one game. Yes.

You know, and then he was injured for all of 2014. Came back, had a good year last year. So he is capable. He has value. He's got the role and the opportunity. When those things all line up, you know, I don't see much better values than him for where he's being drafted. I'm surprised he hasn't risen more. As long as he's there, he's definitely a value. We got time for one more sleeper before we get into the mailbag. That's good news because I have one more guy that I want to talk about. Fortunate. And that is, we brought up Ryan Tanahill. I want to bring up a guy.

who earned a contract catching balls from Ryan Tannenhill. And that is Richard Matthews. Richard Matthews was, I'd say for the fantasy purposes, was a bit of an unknown. We didn't want to trust him. No, we didn't want to. Through the first nine games, he was pretty solid. 57 targets in the first nine games. That's just over six targets a game. In that time, he had four touchdowns. Tennessee.

gave him not a out of control, big contract, but they paid him. They paid him to come in and be a starting wide receiver for that team. And this is similar to the Tavon-Austin talk of getting a pass catcher from a non-prolific passing offense. I would put it to you. I think Richard Matthews is the best wide receiver on that team right now. I mean, the people love the...

The intrigue and the possibilities that Doriel Green Beckham presents. He was drafted in the second round. He's got the physical makeup of Calvin Johnson. Well, look, there's reports coming out that they have Targey Sharp passing him on the depth chart because they want to get something out of Green Beckham. A player in the NFL...

who needs to be passed by a rookie on the depth chart to motivate him is a gigantic red flag. Now, Green Beckham didn't get to play a ton last year, and I don't know if that's because he simply didn't work his way on the field, or if that was Ken Wisenhunt, who doesn't really like playing rookies.

Either way, there's just, like I said, there's red flags all over the place for Green Beckham, who's getting drafted way higher. Richard Matthews is essentially free. Yeah, he's 15th, almost 15th round. He's free in drafts right now. I don't expect him to set the world on fire at all, but for him to give you consistent, you know, wide receiver 3, maybe dip into low-end wide receiver 2 numbers on any given week. I think Richard Matthews is the guy for Tennessee. I will say this.

And this is probably contrarian to everybody's DGB love. But I think Rashad Matthews is their best wide receiver. But I don't really love him as a sleeper. The shade you threw on DGB can also be thrown a bit on Rashad Matthews in the sense that the reason. What is being the best in Tennessee means? You've got. You've got Rashad Matthews. You've got Kendall Wright. You've got DGB. You've got Delaney Walker. And you don't have, I don't expect.

to be one of the top 10 passing volume teams. You know, I expect them to be if they're probably not top 20. Right. And so, you know, if they're a bottom 10 passing team splitting targets four ways, it's going to take some injuries or something to happen to have one of those guys really pop off. But he is free. He is talented. Maybe he develops a rapport. But I, I, I'm.

lukewarm on them. All right, all right. We have several more sleepers on the Ultimate Draft Kit. You can check that out on Ultimate DraftKit.com, and we'll be talking more about sleepers all off season as well. Let's go ahead and we like to answer listener questions. That's, you know, why we do this show is you bring your questions from your team, your league, your format. You bring them to us and we give you our thoughts and hopefully help you win those titles. Mailbag. Mailbag. You know, when Matt Harmon was in here,

The biggest shock to his system, because we had him in studio. Was my insight? Was the fact that, nope, not your insight. Not at all. That's a shock to us each and every time that occurs. It's the fact that you live sing the mailbag drop. People think this is recorded apparently. I would never do it any other way. Of course I think it's recorded. It sounds identical every time. It is really impressive. Yes, it is. That's my wheelhouse, baby. Yeah.

So there you go. If you have a question, you can go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com. You can also send us voicemail questions 302-464 TFFB. And in fact, we have a live stream coming up here in a week on Jointhefoot.com as well where we answer a lot of questions. So if you want to get involved, head over to join the foot.com. Check that out. First question comes in from Alec and this is essentially an explain yourself question. What are you doing here, Alec? Because he's calling us out.

Well, I think we got an answer. All right. Hey, guys, I was just looking through your standard-wide receiver rankings on the website, and I almost choked on my drink, which is hard to do, when I saw the elite stud. Who is it? New Hopkins? I just want to know who elite studs are. So it's new. Oh, yeah, DeAndre Hopkins, who went very high on some of the expert drafts we saw at FSTA, we have them ranked behind, quote,

Clowns. This is not our verbiage. This is Alec in Delaware. Yeah, ranked behind clowns like Evans and Jeffrey. Dee Hop is a consistent elite and always healthy performer entering the prime, his prime, and that has consistently performed with dumpster fire quarterback play. How is he ranked ninth in your consensus wide receiver rankings? Please explain. Love your show. Oh, now he's nice. Makes the work.

commute more enjoyable. I love D-Hop music. Yeah, I would love to take this one on. Look, to have a guy ninth is not to be throwing some serious shade on him. We think he's a wide receiver one. It is bold to have Evans ahead of him. Okay, so I will concede that. Jeffrey not, I don't think, I think you can make a strong argument there. I think the average expert has Evans.