Fantasy Football 2017 - Week 1 Studs & Duds, Rising Stars, Injury Tears

Well, I think the stat was they didn't have a first down in the first quarter. I mean, it was just, it was horrendous. The Steelers looked really, really bad. Are you surprised about Democco Murray against Oakland not being able to get more going on the ground? Yes, I was pretty surprised at that. And this wasn't Derek Henry. Only 18 carries. Only 18 carries from that office. They really put it on Mario. Yeah. Well, they lined up with three wide receivers a whole lot more than they did last year. So you're seeing a changing of the guard.

for shifting towards passing. Let's talk about some of these platoons in the backfield. Forte and Powell both stunk, and Matt Forte out-snap Powell, which makes it 10 of the last 13 games that Matt Forte has out-snap Powell. So you might like Bilal Powell, but if he doesn't get to play, he will not perform for you. That's a good point, Andy. Thanks. Good point. Hot take. I mean, are you targeting Powell after this pathetic situation? Oakland, Miami, Jacksonville coming up.

Do you target him as a possible fill in if you're facing, you know, you're the Danny Woodhead owner, you're the David Johnson owner, you're facing maybe some tumult in your backfield. You had Lacey and you thought you had something and you don't. Man, I don't think I do. Okay. Not at this point. What about Mixing and Hill in that backfield in Cincinnati? I hate Marvin Lewis. That's my takeaway. He is who he is. Yeah, I know it. I know it. And we knew it beforehand. We have said.

all off season to worry about Joe Mixon because of Marvin Lewis and his history. But I just wanted to believe so bad that he would give it to the more talented back rewatching that game this morning. One thing was clear. Joe Mixon is their best back. When they had him in on that second drive, he single-handedly got them a first down. I mean, he was an outlet. Geo looked great, though. Geo did look very good.

Joe Mixson will not so much Joe Mixson be fine I'm not worried about Joe Mixx but it's just like give him the whole workload they will not happen it will not happen win yeah win never never okay injury is what's going to happen so if if if geo or I think there are a lot of people who draft the Joe Mixing right now that are freaking out that you're saying that though

I drafted Joe Mixon. I'm freaking out that Marvin Lewis looked like a guy. Here's my only hope. This thing went terrible for Cincinnati. Everything went wrong. And so obviously they didn't have sustained offensive drives, which clearly would have helped Joe Mixon quite a bit. Do you want to trade him? No, because we're a keeper league, and I do think talent will win out in the long run. But it might be, you know, half the season that I've got to kind of withstand victories, if you will.

The thing is, is first drive was all Hill, second drive was all mixing, third drive was all geo. It looked like this scripted situation where they wanted to see who had the hot hand, and it was just a dumb Marvin Lewis thing. I don't know that it's going to change. So I'm just worried about Marvin Lewis. Amir Abdullah. Yep. Not good. 15 for 30. That's bad. That's bad, bad. It was really bad. But, I mean, it's just like I thought was going to happen. The passing offense for Detroit was going to crush.

Arizona's secondary. This is sarcasm? Yes, very much. I mean, the exact opposite that should have happened given Arizona's defensive strengths. The exact opposite happened. I never purchased the ticket to your Abdulob's Express. I know, Andy, you hitched on, but I'm saying, I've said this for a while. It's the exact same situation as the New York Giants to me. This is a team that doesn't run the ball with an offensive line that is not set to run the ball. And if you want the opportunity.

of a talented back in that situation. Go ahead and take Abdullah, take Paul Perkins. I'm not. I like the workload. Yeah, I mean, there was no efficiency. And it was a problem. And if your strategy as Detroit is to be in a horrible deficit into the fourth quarter of every game, that doesn't lend itself to run in the ball. Yeah, I mean, he still touched the ball 18 times. The upcoming schedule is not the best. Well, he has to go.

take on the Giants. I'm going to withhold judgment. In a game against Minnesota. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not bailing on the Express just yet, but it could be rough here to start. Robert Kelly, 10 for 30. Somagia P. Ryan did not play an offensive snap in this game. Is now the time to target somebody like Pryne because if they're in a guy who didn't play a snap? Yes, absolutely. A high draft investment pick and Robert Kelly was terrible. That's the time to target somebody. Is it not? Maybe. Are they?

Tell me this. Isn't P. Ryan going to have another week of no offensive snaps next week? Probably not. I'd say that's almost a 0% change. Probably not, but it wouldn't shock me. Yeah. Because in this, because this is the coach is who he is. He wants a reliable running back who won't lose yards and who won't fumble the ball. But last year he did not get efficiency from Matt Jones and you had the fumbles and he quickly made a change to Robert Kelly and unheard name.

Yeah, it was because of the fumbles. Yeah. And efficiency. No, Matt Jones was just fumbles. Yeah, it was just fun. Matt Jones was, was wracking up yards. Paul Perkins was terrible. Yeah. Eddie Lacey looked like. Eddie Calbert. You can cut Lacey. Yeah. You can cut him. I have drafted him in a few spots, just holding out hope. You can cut him. It's gross, but it's in Seattle. It's Thomas Rawls or bust. Either Thomas Rawls comes in and he's good.

You don't think Chris Carson has a shot to take over? I don't think he has a shot to take over, no. It's a platoon or it's Thomas Rawls, in my opinion. All right, I want to know real quick, any of these four poopers are you buying this week? Duke Johnson, Frank Gore, Tevin Coleman, Isaiah Crowell. I like the commitment to the run in Cleveland. Maybe Crowell. Okay. Maybe. All right, we need to move to the wide receivers. There were a number of wide receivers that really disappointed you.

Des Bryant, Jameson Crowder, Brandon Marshall, Jason tweeted, if you're looking for Brandon Marshall, you can find him in 2015. That was a great tweet. Helvin Benjamin, Dante Moncrief, Devante Adams, Martavis Bryant, Eric Decker and Alshon Jeffrey. I think some of the concern there, obviously Hilton and Moncrief, if you're going to be stuck with Tolzine or Brissette over the next four weeks, there's some concern there long term.

Jacoby percent is 10 times better than Scott Tolzein, though. At least he'll take a shot down the field. He can use his legs to buy a little bit more time since the offensive line isn't that great. I mean, you saw Dante Moncrief. I mean, he had a target that was only catchable by the defender with Scott Tolzine. And then Jacoby Brissette comes in and throws a 50-yard bomb to him. So it's good news. To me, T. Y. Hilton and Dante Moncrief.

They're going to be hard to trust, but at least it's a little, just a little bit better. What's Jacoby percent there? What did you think of the, you know, three total catches between Calvin Benjamin and Greg Olson? Cam looked bad. His fantasy day was okay because he threw two touchdowns. Technically, you know, the screen passed to Jonathan Stewart that he. That was a great play call. That was an amazing call. And Jonathan Stewart looked great, but I'm just saying that.

You know, that wasn't anything to do with Cam Newton. Only 171 yards passing. He looked bad, man. He was missing guys. Six rushing attempts for three total yards. He got a goal line play call bootleg, you know, where he rolls out to score the touchdown. And he always hits that. And Dixon, and he was not even close to it. And he was wide open in the end zone. And he overthrew him. Now it's interesting. McCaffrey out snap Stewart. Stewart out touched.

McCaffrey. And so at least he's on McCaffrey's on the field. Now, what's your, I just wanted like, what's your temperature gauge here on McCaffrey? Were you pleased? I was very, very pleased. And, and when you talk about how Stewart outtouched McCaffrey, that's a little bit nonsense because through the first three quarters when it mattered.

I mean, it wasn't close. McCaffrey was outtouching Stewart by a wide margin. It was only once it was like 20 to nothing and they're trying to run out the clock that of course Stewart would take over. He's getting all the touches at that point. But when the game was going and was competitive and, you know, when you're looking at future games that aren't just starting 20 to nothing in favor of the Panthers, I think you actually saw that McCaffrey is the more utilized. He will get more touches than Jonathan Stewart. And they showed the commitment to.

changing the script. I mean, the draft Twitter, right? I mean, we all lost it. Like, Panthers, it's not a fit because they don't throw the running back. Well, they were checking down to McCaffrey. Yeah, my only concern is, is how does that affect the default throw for Cam Newton? Does Greg Olson lose targets because McCaffrey is underneath and available? I have some concern about that.

Greg Olson is obviously good, and this was not a really efficient passing game in general for Cam Newton, although he salvaged the Fantasy Day. And which want to throw out there, I mean, despite me always piling onto Cam Newton throwing ability, he's still recovering from the shoulder, and you could tell. Because, I mean, this was missing Ed Dixon in the end zone. That's an unforgivable throw, but I blame that on him still recovering.

and getting back. Are you sounding the alarm on any of these three players that you're fans of, Mike? Eric Decker, Martavis, Bryant, and Devante Adams. No, actually, I'm not. None of them? No. Eric Decker was getting the target. He had an end zone fade that the defender managed to get a hand on barely. Adams, I think this was just a product of the matchup. And Martavis is the weird one because the Steelers were just so bad. And it was, I...

I felt like Martavis Bryant and Levi-on-Bel coming back can help the Steelers be a better offensive team on the road. But I think that Levy on Bell was just so bad in this game that it blew everything up. If you need to take a breath, and we talked about this before the season began, if you go and pull up Antonio Brown or Julio Jones or O'Dell Beckham Jr., and you look at last year's game logs, you're going to see games that look like a lot of these poop in their big boy pants.

players. But when it happens week one, the temptation is to overreact. It's to slap the Xanax out of your doctor's hands and just freak out. A lot of Xanax talk today. Well, I, I, this episode is brought to you by. No, I'm just staying with the metaphor here of look, take a breath, take a chill pill. Yeah, there you go. And don't read too far into some of these situations. There are, there are some concerning ones.

But again, we'll talk more at length tomorrow in the waiver section. Not a great game from obviously Russell Wilson or Doug Baldwin. As Wilson goes, so does Baldwin. And then you have all the big time tight ends. Let me just ask this question before we close the show out. Are there any of those top six tight ends I mentioned, Gronk, Eifford, Reed, Kelsey Olson that you are a Graham that you're actually worried about that you don't want to buy into? Yeah, for me it would be Jordan Reed.

It's because of the toe, not because of what happened on the field. I have said for the last month or so, he was pretty much taken off my board. I just don't believe that he's going to be healthy enough to be the great Jordan Reed that we've seen. And I mean, the offense, Terrell Pryor was the target leader. I mean, it felt like the offense was running through prior because they actually have a big athletic target. And so maybe that changes things up for Jordan Reed. All right.

Like I said, we're here five days a week. We're going to get into waivers tomorrow. We're going to answer your questions. We're going to get you ready for week two. We're going to bring some sanity to the world. We'll talk about the two Monday night games that are taking place. We'll reflect on what happened there. The Saints are taking on Minnesota. And the Los Angeles Chargers are taking on the Denver Broncos tonight in the double header. Son of bum. Son of bum. Oh, my gosh. You'd be surprised.

How many Bum Phillips books exist in the world? I looked. You would. That's true. You know, the other day I was just in the office, right? And we're in, we're back there. We're doing research. We're working on our rankings for week one. And I glance over at Jason's computer. And he's just, he's just fiddling through Wade Phillips' Twitter account. Of course he is. Just in the middle of the day. Well, you know, when in Rome? What on earth are you saying?

All right, look, hey, before we close it, I want to thank NFL Game Pass for sponsoring the show today. As I said, look, whatever your favorite game is, NFL Game Pass has got it. If you are worried about one of your players, you want to flip on NFL Game Pass and check it out. You get the condensed games. You get the all 22 coaches. That's what I used to rewatch the Bengals game this morning. Absolutely. And yeah, you see the tip passes. You see whether you can freak out or not. Look, if it's on the NFL and it happened.

NFL GamePass has it. Sign up right now at NFL.com slash fantasy footballers. That's NFL.com slash fantasy footballers. Mike, any parting words as we head into the Monday night games? I have a message for Michael Thomas. Okay. You have to outscore Melvin Gordon by eight.