Fantasy Football 2018 - NFL Coaching Changes + Free Agency Wishing Well

As a fantasy owner, you're looking for the maturity and fantasy value of Derek Carr, whomever is the running back there, which we don't know if it's going to be Marshall and Lynch. We don't know if it's going to be Jalen Richard or a rookie. And then you look at Amari Cooper, Michael Crabtree. Things seem, seem rumor mill, to be bending back towards Michael Crabtree, not leaving. I appreciate that, Gruden. Thank you.

Yeah, your dynasty team appreciates that because Crabtree is better there than anywhere else. So what's your take? Give me the John Gruden take, Mike. Just looking at you. It's like you had a bad piece of meat. It's just difficult when there are, every year, there are new minds entering the football space, people innovating. And the NFL just continues.

to cherish and treasure the days of old when John Gruden won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He finished with a record of 57 and 55. So this is 55. Sorry. But it's he didn't just go out on top with a man who has a career win percentage of 800.

And he won with defense. Right. His offenses in Tampa Bay were bleh. And you had one year where he had the number 10 offense. The other years, other six years averaged out, 21. That's not exciting for fantasy football and the fact that he is brought in Greg Olson. How does Greg Olson keep getting a job? I don't, I genuinely believe that part of this has to be the success of Hall of Fame tight end, Greg Olson.

And people think they're getting someone with great name recognition. Because Greg Olson is. With an O. With an O, Greg Olson on, is bad. He has, he's already been the offensive coordinator for five different NFL teams. 15% of the league have had him as their offensive coordinator. And you want to know where he's been good? Nowhere. He has stunk. Three years ago, guess where he was the office of coordinator? Oakland!

With Derek Carr, granted his rookie year, but he was, we've already seen this. I mean, look at this. What's the Ron Tomato score on this movie? Ron Tomato scores 1%. And I give it 1% because of Hall of Fame tied end Greg Olson. Otherwise, it would be a zero. When he was there three years ago, they finished 32nd, you know, in yards, 31st in points, 32nd in rushing attempts, 32nd in rushing yards, 32nd in rushing touchdowns. At least they were fourth.

in passing attempts, but you would never know that because they were 26th in passing yards. I mean, Greg Olson is not a good offensive coordinator. So I do worry here because we, look, we saw Gruden with Tampa not lead good offices because he had a great defense, but with Rich Gannon and Oakland, he did have great offenses. I don't think they're... You mean back when I graduated high school? I don't think Derek Carr...

Forgive me, Oakland fans. I don't think he's Rich Gannon. I don't think, I think Carr might be more akin to, you know, the red rifle. Send in the car. To an Andy Dalton level guy, despite the fact that he was Pro Bowl this, this past season, which is mind-blowing. Which one? Derek Carr.

This is why I think Kirk Cousins wants to go to the AFC, by the way. Yeah. Because Derek Carr was a pro bowler. My outlook. So you get to compete with like Big Ben and Brady. I hope that the Oakland Raiders are great because I actually like Gruden. I want him to come in after these years off as an innovator. I want to see some cool new designs. He has the mind for it. He has the capabilities for it. I hope that happens. I don't think that's going to happen. Do we have any modern day example of the...

large coaching gap and then the return with success. I don't think so. I mean, Mike Shanahan came back to Washington, and I don't remember his records there. It wasn't great. Success part was missing. It was okay. You have a lot of these cases where a coach was fired previously and came back and then was good, right? But they didn't come back with the lore. Like Bill Belichick, Tony Dungey, Tom Coughlin, Pete Carroll, those were all head coaches that.

We're fired at one point in time and then came back, but they weren't like esteemed, you know, Super Bowl champs that then came back and dominated. Although I'm going to give Tom Coughlin a little credit for what he did in Jacksonville this year. Okay. But not on the sideline. So. Oh, did Jacksonville's offense get better this year? Yeah, it did. It did. You want to know who their offensive coordinator was the year before? Greg Olson. Maybe he signed a contract with the NFL. And they just have to distribute him among teams. I am.

currently researching who his agent is. Yeah. I want him. Because I'm signing on right now. I don't care if it's a 50-50 split. Greg. That guy's going to get me paid. Yeah. Greg Olson was the offensive coordinator in Tampa with Gruden. So there's that connection here. But those are, again, the years where they were defensive-minded, defensive-led. I mean, I brought this stat up to Andy. He wasn't that impressed. I thought it was crazy.

But he brought up a good point. They were a defensive-focused team. But his last seven years with Tampa, Gruden, seven consecutive years, the better part of a decade, not one time did they finish in the top half for points scored in the league. They did win a Super Bowl, though, right? Top half. Yes, they did. Defense. Yeah, sure. It's going to be very interesting. I'm happy he's coaching. I'm happy for the story, the narrative.

the thread through the NFL season getting to watch John Gruden on the sideline, he should put on, whenever he's on Monday night football as the head coach, he should also commentate the game. He should do both from the silent. I still want the quarterback camp, whatever he does. Oh, you want him to do that? Spider-2-Wab banana. I love John Gruden. I mean, I know a lot of people don't like him. This is a foot, what? A football. Good. You're the quarter what? Quarterback.

All right. Mike Vrable is the new head coach of the Tennessee Titans. It's a great follow-up to Oakland because in some ways these are the polar opposite hires. Yeah. And I'm not sure that the best hire isn't somewhere in between or maybe slightly less green than Mike Vrable. But he is the new head coach of the Tennessee Titans. Mike Malarkey, despite the playoff appearance. See you later. Greener pastures with Mike Variable. Mm-hmm.

Was the defensive coordinator for Houston last year? Wasn't real good. Maybe they saw those numbers and said, you know what? You'd be a better head coach. We'll put you responsible for not the defense and the offense. I'm kind of confused by the hire because I think most people are really, really excited. And maybe they're more excited about Matt LaFleur. I am excited for Matt LaFleur. The new offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Heights. The best thing that Vrable has done is brought in Matt.

If you're not aware of who he is, he was the Rams offensive coordinator. So you may think, well, that's kind of strange that he was the Rams OC and he just made a completely lateral move to be the Titans OC. But that's because he was in the shadow of Sean McVeigh. He wasn't calling plays because that's Sean McVe's team in their offense. So it's actually kind of a step up in the career of LaFleur. But coming from the McVe coaching tree, I love it. We've seen.

Sean McVeigh's offense be incredibly successful now in two different spots in Washington with Kirk Cousins and in L.A. with Jared Gough. Matlifle was the quarterback coach in Atlanta from 2015 to 2016. He was under consideration to be the O.C. for Atlanta when Kyle Shanahan left, they went a different direction. So I am very excited to see what Matt LaFleure can do if he brings over Sean McVeigh's system with.

Mario to get Mario out of the goldrums, the garbage of last year. And this is the, I'm not buying into the Matt Nagy Chicago narrative. I'm buying into the Matt LaFleur Titans narrative. All right. Where you have an established quarterback who has played at an elite level on a playoff team with weapons like Corey Davis.

And now you bring in better play calling and somebody that can shape the decision-making process for Marcus Marriota. This is one of the few moves that makes me literally move Mario to up my rankings. Oh, certainly. I mean, that's what you care about here on this show. Yeah, Matt LaFleur, or as I like to call him, Peter LaFleur, from Dodgeball. I think that, you know.

He's been a quarterback's coach. He comes in and, you know, has an opportunity with a lot of tools. The only thing we haven't seen out of him yet is play calling. But I can't imagine it's going to be much worse than it was last year in Tennessee. So this is an arrow pointing up when you're talking fantasy. Weapons in Tennessee, I like them to outperform the 2017 numbers in 2018. It gives you some hope. As a fantasy owner, you want to hope for Corey Davis. You want a hope for Derek Henry.

and whomever else is in that backfield. If you just came back with Malarkey, you would get the same. You would get more of the same. LaFleur and DeFilippo were the two guys that I was really curious where those two guys were going, and they both landed offensive coordinator rules. We'll get to DiFilippo in a little bit. All right, yeah, we're going to jump right into offensive coordinators. Those were the seven head coaches that changed. Like I said, last year, I believe it was six. And this year, we've got some offensive coordinator changes in Buffalo. This one's a...

This one's interesting. Brian DeBole. Who? Rick Denison was fired. And here we have the offensive coordinator for the University of Alabama coming into Buffalo to try to revamp and improve an offense that two years ago was 10th in the league in points under Tyrod Taylor. Last year was struggling. Yeah, as being 10th, a team led to being in top 10 in points is something that Brian DeBall has never done.

He, in fact, his teams are generally in the low 20s when it comes to offensive yardage. The only thing that is somewhat redeeming here for fantasy owners is he does run the ball. He's been in the top six. He's been an OC four years. And he was in the top six for rushing attempts, three of four years. So Shady McCoy will still be fed. Do not have concerns about that. Good. You would hope that they.

get McCoy back into running out of the shotgun after refusing to do it last year. But overall, this is another uninspiring hire. Yeah, I mean, this is a higher again. This isn't for fantasy football. This is for a defensive-minded head coach. Everything's for fantasy football. I know. Who's wanting to run the ball and win with defense. So, yeah, I mean, this is an arrow pointing down situation where.

I don't look at the Buffalo weapons and think, hey, maybe Kelvin Benjamin will be a great value. We don't even know the quarterback. Exactly. So right now, yeah, this is uninspiring for fantasy purposes. Maybe he's exactly what Buffalo needs to win games with the players they have. What do we make of Norv Turner anymore, guys? Carolina, the new offensive coordinator is Norv Turner. Mike Shula fired. He had last quit the Vikings' offensive coordinator job in 2016.

I remember all the preseason, you know, Norve Turner, Hype Train. Every tight indie has is going to be the next Antonio Gates from the great San Diego days. Are you excited about this? No. Are you shrugging this one off? I mean, what are you really hoping for here? I think it's a good move for Carolina. You know,

We just talked about Mike Shula a little bit ago, the former offensive coordinator. I think he struggled with having to call plays. Norv Turner is a good...

offensive coordinator that can call the plays, design the plays, do the whole thing. Do I think he's the guy that's going to come in here and turn Carolina around and be a top five offense? No. But I do think he tailors his offense to his players. He is a very capable offensive coordinator, a very capable play caller. He's a little old school. He's a little old. He is definitely that. He's older than Jeff Fisher, Chuck Pagano, Bruce Ariens, or John Fox. And when you look at his. 65. He's coaching history. 65.

Social Security. Yeah. It's double dipping, man. Arp. Oh, yeah. If you don't know Norv Turner, you don't know ARP. But I think for Carolina, for their team that is, you know, a defensive-minded but has a lot of weapons on offense, he's come out. He said he wants to design runs for Cam Newton and, you know, utilize that, which I think is what you need to do. So I like it. I think, you know, if you have to compare, when I'm just trying to say, do I think.