Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - AFC North Breakdown, News, Mailbag

Wheaton will be on the field in the slot, taking over some of those other roles. So I'm curious where the distribution will be, but being on the field is not going to hurt Wheaton. And I think right now where he's going, he's a huge value in the draft. Wheaton or Bryant? Wheaton. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Bryant. Yeah, yeah. Bryant. Wheaton is, he's had his time on the outside and now he's coming inside. I don't see a lot of fantasy value with him. But Bryant for sure. And Bryant, the first three games, if the Lev Bell suspension holds up,

Brian could be an absolute monster the first three weeks, because they're not going to give DeAngelo Williams the workload that Levy on Bell. There was a reporter, Jeremy Fowler, is ESPN Steelers reporter. He's anticipating 10 to 12 carries a game for DeAngelo Williams for those first three games. That's what I've been telling everybody who tweets me about.

Oh, where do you draft DeWo? How do you draft? You know, they have Josh Harris. They have other options there. And DeAndre Williams is not going to come in and produce like him. I always am curious, though, about that situation. Let me ask you that. Because you said, okay, Bryant might be big. I tend to go the other direction when a major player's out of the offense. Okay. If the cowboys are missing DeMarco Murray last year, does that mean that Des Bryant is going to be more productive? Because sometimes it means the offense isn't moving how it used to be.

moving. Bryant is a red zone guy who scores touchdowns. If they're not in the red zone, I just am curious how that... Well, the process is in your mind. The entire field is the red zone for Martavis Bryant. It doesn't matter if he's on the one-yard line. I mean, 99 yards, that's fine. He can score from there. When I say he could be bigger, I just mean that the target...

The workload will be there. The opportunities are going to be higher because they're going to throw. I would not be surprised if Big Ben is throwing 50 times a game through the first three weeks. Let's move on to the Baltimore Ravens. For me, there are few teams in all of fantasy football that I have more questions about than Baltimore's offense. We've debated Justin Fawcett over a large amount of this offseason because we differ on kind of how we see him. Obviously,

Lots of changes to the offense. They lost Tori Smith. They don't have Jacoby Jones. They don't have Owen Daniels. They lose their offensive coordinator. And now you come into a situation where Mark Tressman's coming in. You pick up Rashad Perryman in the first round. You sign or you draft Max Williams at the tight-in position. And you bring in a basically, what, three of their first four picks were offensive picks. And so this offense, I don't know what it's going to look like with this many changes.

Is Tresman able to whisper his way into a top 10 offense? Because they were about 12 last year under Kubiak. But they ran the ball well. So, Jason, what are your thoughts on Baltimore? Is there anybody that you want to pick out or what are your thoughts in general? Yeah, I love Mark Trussman. I love what he does for fantasy. I love what he's going to do for Justin Fawcett. I've talked about that. But looking at the roster, even with the entire offensive line coming back intact, I don't see how they're better this year.

than they were last year. There are, there's a lot of talent at the wide receiver position. There is like in real life, but they're all going to be vying for a few number of targets. And so when it comes to fantasy, I don't see a lot of real fantasy relevance. I think with Tressman, the two guys that I like the most, I'm kind of backing off on Perriman a little bit. You know, you've still got Marlon Brown and Aiken there.

So I'm a little bit backing off of him, but the two guys that excite me, obviously Justin Fawcett, I think he's going to get 75 catches, which will be huge for him, and he's still going to be, you know, running over five yards of carry. But I'm going to throw this out there and say, Signor. Signor. Senior Smith.

I think is actually perfect for a Tressman fast pass system. And he's getting no love because he's 72 years old. But that guy keeps on a kicking. And where you can get him late, I mean, if I, if I'm plugging him in as a wide receiver three, which you can grab easy, I feel like he's going to be putting up, at least for the first half of the season, wide receiver two numbers. I think it's going to mirror what happened last season. He's a...

super talented, you know, Hall of Fame worthy type of wide receiver, but he's very old. And so he's going to come on hot and strong in the new system, and I would trade him. I actually think there'll be more opportunity for the wide receivers where the Bears last year were seventh in attempts and the Ravens were 17th. So the passing volume, I think, is going to increase.

So more targets, more opportunity. But I am with Jason, where last year, if you listen to the show at all, I was a Steve Smith hater and I constantly dogged on him. But I think that there's going to be a giant burden on Steve Smith's shoulders this year where if he has a rookie, where Perman's going to have some Ronis to work out in the NFL level.

where Steve Smith is going to have to carry that team along with Justin Forsett. But you're talking about Steve Smith had 133 targets last year. He was incredible. It reminds me of. 133 targets? Pretty sure that's about the exact same number that Anquam Bolden had with San Francisco. And that's what we like to tell.

Do not forget the vets. We all like the new toy. We all like the exciting rookie who we, what could they possibly be? There's veterans who have shown us exactly what they will be for years. And that is a consistent fantasy player who you can set as your wide receiver too and be completely happy with it. Rashad Perryman or Steve Smith. Where I'm going to draft him. I'm going to draft Paramount ahead.

Who's going to be the better fantasy player? That's the question. Oh, okay. That's the question. Who's going to be the better fantasy player? Who's the better fantasy player this year? Because for me, I think it's Steve Smith. Me too. Which is crazy because I was going to say I would draft Perriman higher. I mean, Paramond's upside is clearly higher. If he comes in and takes the league by storm, I don't see...

Steve Smith being capable of just keeping a super high pace for 16 games. So he's kind of camped out to me. But at the end of the year, I do think Steve Smith has the better year. And he's going obviously later. I don't know where, but I, you mentioned some of the names. He's going in the eighth round of PPR drafts. You mentioned some of the names that Perryman's going to have to compete with for those early targets. Aiken, Marlon Brown, Houston Fawcett. Buck Allen is a natural pass catcher as well. And so, yeah, and Max Williams.

And so Perryman, I do not think, I think we are appropriately starting to back off of the hype based on what we've seen in camp from him. He has had struggles with drops. And it is a limited passing offense from the evidence of last year. If Tressman changes it, maybe everything changes. Maybe he finds a way to make Perryman a wide receiver two and finish above Smith. But let's move on now to the Cincinnati Bengals, the perennial...

seemingly playoff bound. One and done? Yeah, it's tough, man. It's tough in Cincinnati. It is. They were the middle of the pack offense last year. They finished 15th in the league. They took a step back. They're the 21st passing offense and the sixth best rushing offense. That's weird. It's weird? That's weird that they're so good at rushing because there's not really anybody good on that team.

Yeah, I agree. I think he's leading into some sort of like ripping his shirt off and Jeremy Hill screamathon. But I want to talk about Tyler Eifford first. Oh, come on. Yep, yep. I'm going to put the pause button on Jeremy Hill. We've talked about Jeremy Hill and we'll talk about him right now. But Tyler Eifert is stepping into a role.

As the full-time tight-in, Jermaine Gresham is gone. And camp reports is that Eifert is catching everything thrown his way. People have forgot. Maybe they've slept on him. But he's the type of tight-in sleeper that I like because he's going to have more volume and more snaps than some of these other guys. We can talk about Josh Hill, right? Maybe he's great. But the evidence, the role for him as an every down tight-in isn't there. It is with Eiff. Basically, if...

If Benjamin Watson left, and you knew that Josh Hill was going to be on the field every play, oh, I would be all about Josh Hill. Yeah, you'd be really excited about it. And Jermaine Gresham left, and that was Benjamin Watson. And so. Well, when Eifert's had potential, too, he was highly touted. He was drafted in like the 20, 21, 22, something like that. It's crazy. So they also added, their wide receivers right now are A.J. Green. Well, I didn't even get a chance to talk about Eifert. Oh, okay. Go for it. I'm sorry. I love Eifert this year.

I think I have him at seventh right now in my rankings. Gresham and Eifert in 2013, because Eifford missed the entire year last year with his gruesome elbow injury, which you can check out on Vine if you've got an ironclad stomach. Ew. But Gresham and Eifert, 120 targets. Now, I know the offense is different, but Andy Dalton doesn't mind throwing to his tight end because Andy Dalton has some limitations and a big body tight end is perfect for him.

Eiffert that year had a 70% catch rate. He is an excellent pass catcher. He's going to be the move tight end. They drafted a tight end to block so Eifer can do his thing. I think it's his third year, not full third year playing, but third year being in the NFL, learning, studying. Maybe he got a really good chance to hit the film and hit the books last year. I got a question for you. Two guys that came out, came into the league together.

Tyler Eifert or Zach Ertz? Who do you like more? Zach Ertz? 100,000%. He is my... Oertz upside. How can it be much higher than seven? You just put Eifert at seven, where do you have Earth? His upside. You think it's higher? Zach Ertz? Yes. Because Zach Ertz could be the best receiver. Because of the offense? Yeah, I'm going to let Jason go. Yeah, well, just speaking on Zach Ertz, I...

I've got Zach Ertz as my number one target in tight-in right now. That's who I'm targeting in fantasy because you can get him very, very late. And I think he's got the potential to come up to like that number four position. I think he could overtake just about everybody. If he's on the field, you know, we talked, you know, a while back about the reason he wasn't on the field was his pass blocking in that offense. And in that offense, you know, you don't have the breaks where you bring in the guys to take out the get. They just keep rolling. And you need to be on the field for that.

But the rapport has been there with Macklin leaving. I think that he's somebody that actually steps in. We talk about there's got to be a number one guy there. I think he's going to put up huge numbers. And he has been there and been on the field and in training camp and playing. Whereas Eiffert, you know, he might, you know, be the same age or the same amount of years, but he hasn't been there practicing because he's been injured. I think that's a big difference. Let's rotate. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, let's talk Eifert. Well,

Oh, sorry, just real quick on Ertz. My last comparison. Ertz is very similar to Kelsey, where he had massive production in playing only about half the snaps. Where Kelsey is different is because he's going to be on the field because he's great at everything else, and we know he's going to be there. The question for Ertz is, can he do it? Fair enough. A.J. Green, still there, still in Cincinnati, still in number one wide receiver. Yeah, don't forget about A.J. Green. I'm actually impressed with the...

The more that I looked at the entire wide receiver clan there. Of the Bengals? Yeah, the Bengals, including Eifford as kind of a pass catcher. Marvin Jones, Muhammad Sanoo, A.J. Green. Very few teams I would rather have the core of. Well, they spent, you know, this 21st passing offense last year. AJ Green was hurt for a lot of it. And even when he was, I mean, when he was playing, he was hurt.

Muhammad Sunu had to lead that offense. Marvin Jones was out for the year. Marvin Jones was out. Tyler Eiffurt was out. AJ Green was hurt. So, I mean, by necessity and by preference, too, they had to turn the ball over to Jeremy Hill and Gio Bernard. Obviously, we're very high on Jeremy Hill, but in a PPR league, is his role secure enough in the total carry amount that you're not worried about him? Would you draft him in the same spot, or do you bump him back quite a bit?

I bump him back maybe two slots. I think the playing time will completely be there. People think, oh, Jeremy Hill's two down back. The guy can actually catch. He had 27 catches for 215 yards last year, and he grades out as an excellent pass blocker. So he can play that position where, yeah, we think Gio Bernard is going to take that, be the gadget, third down guy.