Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Questions and Answers, Latest News

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to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Good morning, world of listeners. It is Thursday, February 25th. Welcome to the show. We're a man down today. But it's still going to be a great show. It's still going to be a great show. It's still going to be a great show.

We had planned, I'll just say this off the bat, but don't, you know, turn off the episode or anything, although you already downloaded it, so, you know. What does it really matter? We were planning a really fun game show style episode. We dug up about 20 really incredible stats from last year that are insights into individual players, and we were going to do kind of a quiz show type of thing, Mike versus Jason.

I can't wait to see the questions. I've heard they're excellent. Well, because we hid them from you. Yeah. Myself and our research assistant helped us out with that, Alex. And so we will bring you that on Tuesday next week. So that is a teaser for Tuesday next week. The reason we're not doing it now is because Mike is not here. The fantasy hitman has taken out. He's been assassinated. Well, he's okay.

But I don't know if you saw this. The flu is kind of going around the United States, and Arizona is apparently the biggest flu state, and his wife is down, and he's being a chivalrous father. We are nothing, if not family men. Yes. So we have given him the day to stay home and take care of her, and we wish her well, and we move on here. We've got a great show. I've got...

a good quick question for you jason and then we have some dynasty and keeper questions that we're answering some things that i'm excited to talk about and it'll be a really really good show we got the combine pretty much starting tomorrow we got free agency coming up on the seventh um you know seventh through the ninth areas where that starts and then NFL drafts in april here

And so we are the fantasy footballers, Jason Moore and Andy Holloway here. And you can find us on Twitter at the FFBallers. If you want to follow us individually, I'm at Andy Holloway. Jason's at Jason FFL and Mike is at FFF Hitman. You can find us on the web, the fantasy footballers.com. We are on the Fantasy Sports Network. We're also on YouTube. And you can stay tuned for the show after the show. Oh, we're going to get into it on the show after the show. We'll just tell you right now. We're going to be debating with...

fervor, the merits of an Antonio Brown number one pick, I think. It's going to be part of that show after the show. And if you're listening right now and you're thinking, Antonio Brown number one, that's crazy. Or Antonio Brown number one, yes, either way, you must see the debate. Yes, yes. So quick question for the day is this. I don't know. Did you look at this in the dock? Okay, good. Just pulled it up. Which team has led the league? Which team led the league last year in first downs per game? Do you know that? I do not know that.

Do you have a guest? Do you want to take a shot in the dark? NFC team. I'll give you that. Oh, I was going to Patriots. Well, there you go. So I helped you out. The NFC team. An NFC team led the league in first downs per game. No idea. The Giants? The Saints. All right. So you got it with your second guess. Not bad. So Drew Brees was also second in the league in total completions. The team was first and first downs.

So the question is really about Drew Brees because people fading on him in the fantasy community. And then, you know, part of that is weapons. You got an aging Marcus Colston. You had a Brandon Cooks that kind of, he came on. I mean, Cooks was great. Yep. But you had a Jimmy Graham gone. Sure. Jimmy left. And so people were fearful. Ingram got hurt. Cooks took a while to come around. So.

I guess take the temperature of the Drew Brees fantasy owner right now. Is it, are we looking upwards? Do we think bounce back surprise year? Is he somebody that is a value in the fantasy drafts that will come in August? Well, he is a year older. So that is not going to help his draft stock. Nobody's going to be like, oh, this should be a bounce back year because of the reasons he's just a year older. So I think his draft stock will be lower than it should be.

Right now, we say during this time of year it's a little early to tell, but I actually think this is accurate for Drew Brees. Right now he's going at the back of the sixth round. He's the eighth quarterback taken off the board. Blake Bortles is going ahead of Drew Brees, for instance. Ben Rathlisberger, you know, a lot of guys, obviously seven guys, are going ahead of Drew Brees. I think Drew Brees should have as good if not a slightly better year than he had last year.

Here's the interesting thing about last year, and maybe people aren't aware of this that ignored Drew Brees. He had essentially the same completion percentage, almost the same amount of yards, basically the same amount of touchdowns. This is all compared to 2014. He dropped his interceptions from 17 to 11, and he had a better pass rating. There's nothing that said downfall.

In that stat line. No. It was just all of what you said, the Jimmy Graham, the slower start to the season. The problem last year was that he wasn't as consistent as he usually was. He was a very different home and road quarterback. He had a game where he throws seven touchdowns. So his total touchdowns, they look all right, but they didn't come the way they usually came. The first six games, he had a total of...

Eight touchdowns. Right. In six games. That's terrible. But then beyond that, you know, so you take 32 minus six, and the rest of the season, he accumulated, you know, he started with that seven touchdown game you're talking. Right. So very interesting. Let's go ahead and move on to the news. News and notes from around the league. All right, we got a breaking news bulletin this morning that Trent Richardson. Who? Is expected to sign with the Baltimore Ravens.

I can't talk. I can't talk. Do we assume from this that he is now in stellar shape and is the old Trent Richardson? No. No, we do not. We assume that the Ravens are in a bad spot. I mean, now you got Fawcett, DeVorese Allen, Trent Richardson, you know. I mean, this is the thing. Tally of Pharaoh. You got to wait and see if he's on the roster. I know, I know. It's just funny to.

I don't expect to look at my phone and see that. You don't expect to see Trent Richardson signing anywhere. The fact that he's got a job is, well, good for him. That's what we'll take from this. Good job, Trent. Thank you for getting yourself a paycheck, and hopefully you are not on the roster. I was going to say very long odds to make the roster, but still funny nonetheless. We've talked about Jimmy Graham. We know the injury was brutal. Seahawks' GM, John Schneider, said it's too early to tell when he will return.

This is a duh type of public statement from Seattle, but this should be a be careful. Yeah, if you've been listening to the fantasy footballers the last year at all when we've brought up Jimmy Graham post this injury, it's one where we said next year is not, you are not going to get any semblance of a good tight end. And you might not get a tight end next year. This is a serious.

serious injury he had. We've seen other players. It takes two years at least usually to bounce back to form. They're often not the same even after that. Exactly. So if I was the Seahawks, man, I would...

I would without a shadow of a doubt cut him because he is the second highest paid tight end in the league. And he's going to give you almost nothing this year. And then you don't know how he's going to come back after that. It's almost a save face thing to keep him on the roster. Oh, for sure. Because of the trade with Max Unger. All right. Chris Johnson says he wants to be back with the Cardinals, specifically with the Cardinals. You know, he's had talks with the team. If they bring him back, what's his role? Because we also heard yesterday, Bruce Ariens literally came out and said, David Johnson's not the best yet.

But he has the potential to be the best in history. Yeah, the best of all time. That's what he actually said. Which this truly is the time of year where you don't take coaches seriously. This is calm mind talk. This is, you know, every coach. But not every second year player could handle that type of a compliment, nor would a coach give it to them. Correct. Because rookies or young guys, they need to be brought down, not been told what their potential is. So I think it says a lot to the man of David Johnson, to be honest with you, that he's a mature.

uh type of player i mean that's all the the reports that we hear is he he's a very mature teammate so let me ask you this on the chris johnson news then the cardinals want chris johnson back absolutely they would be happy to have him so long as he comes at good price chris johnson said at this point in his career he's not chasing the money anymore not that he ever was his words which is hilarious which is hilarious um

But he wants to play for a team that's got a shot, and he wants to come back. So it seems like... I think he'll be back. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It seems like he's going to be back. So with Chris Johnson back, who was the starter last year, we would presume David Johnson's the starter next year. He is. Chris Johnson's the backup. Yeah. But how much do you think Chris Johnson will eat into the workload of David Johnson when you saw he was fully capable this year? Not a lot. Not a lot. No? No, I don't think so.

I think it could be one of those things where you could get later in games and you could lose some of your David Johnson reps. And I think it's going to be a series here and there to spell David Johnson. But David Johnson represents so much more in the passing game than Chris Johnson does and so much more explosion. Could be good news for David Johnson to keep him. It honestly could be. It honestly could be. Having to touch the ball 30 times. You don't want him to break down and get hurt. He doesn't do you any good. He could hit the wall. So just interesting news there.

Interesting word from the combine that the Chargers and Falcons may be in the hunt for Travis Benjamin. 15 more days, 14 more days, whatever it is, to sign him before free agency begins. Do you think Travis Benjamin hits the market? I do not. But if he did, you know, are these destinations that you'd be excited about? Yeah, I don't think he should hit the market, but he's on the Browns. So that means he might hit the market.

I would say both of those would be good landing spots for him. I think we are a little bit too hopeful on Travis Benjamin and thinking he is more than he was when he was pretty much the only target in town. I mean, there were no other receivers. He'd be a great Julio Jones compliment.

Yes. I think he would be better. I think he would be better in Atlanta than he would in San Diego because in Atlanta he would be the clear number two receiver. Whereas if you go to San Diego, he would be one of the group of secondary wide receivers behind Keenan Allen. Okay. So interesting news about Levi-on-Bell, who when we did a mock, we each individually did one the other day, and you guys both took Antonio Brown and I took Levion Bell.

as my number one pick, which teaser show up to the show on YouTube. Make sure you listen to that because we're going to debate this. Yeah. And this is why that you took Antonio Brown. They basically, the Steelers GM came out and said they're not going to confirm or commit to the fact that Lev Bell will be back from his MCL PCL for week one. I think we all anticipate he will be. We hope he will be. But this was something that means maybe we're watching this a lot closer.