Preseason Power-Up + Rankings Reactions, Megalabowl! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/23

I'm drafting Corey Davis with more confidence, especially the hyper-targeting. Yes, sir, young man. Target one wide receiver. Do that for us. All right, before we get to the important Teddy Bridgewater versus Drew Locke conversation, want to thank our sponsors today and Keeps is helping the folkland keeps their hair. Two out of three men will experience some form of hair loss by the time they are 35, more than 50 million men in the U.S.

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dot TV slash Sunday Ready and use the code ballers 2021 to save 15% when you sign up. All right. Broncos quarterback battle continues. Teddy Bridgewater got the opportunity to start this one and was outstanding. Numbers wise. I mean, great passer rating came out, did the job, hit Hamler on a touchdown, converted a fourth down.

hit Jerry Judy in stride across the field where it was like, oh yeah. Jerry was surprised. He's like, wait, what? I can get the ball right where I'm running. That's great. But let's be realistic here because whether it's Teddy or Drew, and we don't know when they'll declare a starter. Maybe they'll take the Sean Payton approach and do it sooner than later. I mean, this was a, Teddy was better in this game. I think Drew Locke was better in the last game. But Teddy so far, four possessions in the preseason, three touchdowns and a field goal.

has weapons. Does this matter to you? Does it matter in a real way in terms of how you're drafting Judy, Sutton, Fant, and company? Because if it doesn't... It does matter to me with Jerry Judy. I don't think that Jerry Judy can't break out with one and will break out with the other.

some astronomically wide gap where someone's on or off my board. But I do think that the style of play that Teddy Bridgewater has matches Jerry Judy fantastically. It's what I just said. It's a hit and stride on these slants across the field. Teddy Bridgewater's accuracy is far better than Drew Lux. Think about Jerry Judy's rookie season. He was always open. Andy, you brought this up many times. He had, I believe, the lowest or the highest amount of. Second.

Behind AJ Green of catchable passes. Yeah, of uncatchable passes. And that was Drew Locke. So that's the difference to me. If Jerry Judy is getting open and not able to catch the ball because it's not put on him, that's not good for fantasy. You want to be able to catch the ball. So he's the one player where if they came out tomorrow and said, Teddy Bridgewater is the starter. Because I have, based on last week, actually finally I held off the whole off season, but last week I changed and made Drew Locke the starter.

So if they were to come out and declare Bridgewater the starter, I would be moving Jerry Judy up. Okay. Let's talk about some running backs. Let's talk about Najee Harris. He had a huge 46-yard rumbling kind of surprise speed on the edge reception where it didn't look like it was going anywhere and then all of a sudden he breaks down the sideline. I love it. I mean, he stiff-armed a guy.

I think broke another tackle, managed to juke the safety who was like 10 yards away from him. It was an outstanding catch and run. I think the headline for me on why. Nashi's an RB1 for me now. He's at 12. And part of that has to do with how fluid the new offense is in Pittsburgh. Big Ben looks great. Yes. The offense looks great. So I think we should talk about it holistically here with Pittsburgh.

But everything looks great in Pittsburgh right now. We know the defense is going to be good. And Najee's going to be the lynch bin in the backfield. So it's just math. I mean, he's a talented first round running back on a team that the offense is looking good and Big Ben looks good. They, you, Mike Tomlin utilizes a three down running back. And it's like on just pure volume alone, Najee Harris should be drafted as a running back one. Then build an upside of.

What if he's actually the player that the Steelers believe he is and drafted him in the first round? Yes, the offensive line stinks. I get it. But the volume is going to be incredible. Big Ben's arm looked lively. Now, that's just one preseason game, but that throw, that 40-year-yard throw to Deonté looked pretty solid. The touchdown passes were very strong to Pat Fryermuth, the new.

New rookie tight end is catching touchdowns. But I've been all in on Najee and this is like this is full confirmation bias to me. I'm drafting Najee with full confidence and I'm drafting him in front of a lot of other running backs. I have him inside of my top 10. Are you taking Najee or your champion? I would take Najee Harris over Antonio. You knew where I was going. Yeah. Yeah. And I can tell you why. If you want me to climb inside the recesses of Mike's enormous head. Yeah.

You won't get lost. It's going to sound echoey, but let's hear it. Mike is more confident in third down snaps for Najee Harris than he is for Antonio Gibson. That is 100% hit. Yeah. J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards. They split time over the first three drives in the Ravens second game. Each had four carries. Gus has been in our sleeper category of the UDK for a while. But Dobbins is a third round pick. Gus is an 11th round pick. Yeah, Dobbins is the better player physically, talent-wise. That's why he was drafted higher. You see it on the field.

He's going to get slightly more work than Gus for sure. He's going to end up with more fantasy points, assuming both of them are healthy. But that gap is wild. I don't think that Dobbins is being overdrafted. I just think Gus is being left for dead in the 10th round where you've got a guy who's going to touch the ball enough to be fantasy relevant a lot of weeks for the Ravens. Mark Ingram is out of the way. He's got the touchdown opportunities too. So I do like Gus Bus as a late round flyer. Gus Bus or?

James Connor. James Connor. He did not look good, by the way. The Arizona Cardinals do not look good. That's fair. Their offense. Three and outs with Kyler? They were missing some offensive line due to COVID protocol as well, which Kyler did not want to. From what I understand, Kyler did not want to play in this game because of the offensive line situation, but basically Cliff forced him to play in this game. He threw all the balls away. And he's like, oh yeah, you're going to make me play?

Watch this. Why did he spike the ball there? No, they didn't look good at all, but Connor limited amounts of opportunity. I mean, Chase has been the starter to get the handoffs in both preseason games. Connor missed one with COVID protocol, though. So still a little too early to declare, you know, some new perspective on the backfield. But, all right, let's talk about. Someone stopped at the station and filled up.

See what you did there. The gas man, Miles Gaskin. We go from the Gus bus to the gas man. Miles Gaskin had himself. I love car jokes. A great. You do. You're a big fan. Miles Gaskin had a big. There was a big reaction to him last week. It was, you know, he was the Malcolm Brown show. And then we talked to, you know, Jason, you've been really down on Miles Gaskin. You brought him up on the bus episode. And then this last week, you know.

there's the possibility you could go the wrong direction, you know, and overreact in a positive way to Miles Gaskin having a couple of touchdowns. And, you know, I love seeing them involved in the passing game again. So I guess I'll toss to you and say, like, where do you find yourself after two weeks of preseason football with Miles? I find myself where I was before preseason. This is a perfect case of not overreacting. Last week I said I'm the one that can victory lap, but I'm not really doing that. I didn't move Gaskin after last week. It was.

The expectation that I had is not that Miles Gaskin is terrible. It's not that he's not the starter. It's that this is going to be a backfield that he's not going to have to himself and get 18 touches a game and yada yada. And I think even though he had the majority of work in this game, you saw it, right? I mean, Ahmed was involved. Malcolm Brown was still involved. Brown got a touchdown as well. So if the Dolphins offense.

really takes that huge leap forward because Tua has definitely looked good. That's the bigger change for the dolphins for me. Gaskin is what I thought he was so far before either of these preseason weeks, which is just the primary guy in a timeshare on a questionable offense. But Tua, Tua has looked pretty good. And so I think if you want Gaskin to take a step forward to be a weekly fantasy, you know, locked in starter.

that's on Tua, and you're hoping that the offense just gets better. It's not going to come the way that it came last year with 18 touches a game. I'm not overreacting to this one. I didn't overreact last week. I think it's a three-headed backfield. I still have him inside my top 24. I didn't move him, but I liked what I saw, and I'm with you. I think the offense is interesting. Yeah, I'm at 27, so right around there. Giovante Williams?

Thoughts on Javante this preseason? I thought Javante has looked the part. There was a very crucial, I can't remember if it was third or fourth down, but monster blitz pickup where Javante tracked it, ran right up the middle, and just stonewall the player. And it turned into a huge play for the team. So he looks the part. Melvin Gordon has been dealing with his own injury, which you can read up. I believe he's on the groin index.

I thought he was a groin. Look, if you're on the groin index, you know it. Yes. Like, you know. 100% of players on the groin index.com have a groin injury so that you can't know for sure that Devante is going to be. I don't think he's going to be the guy. No, on the goal line, he was, he kind of got stuffed, but then one of his offensive linemen ripped the ball.

Oh, that was so cool. So he actually took the ball out of his hands. He ripped it out of his hands and they called the touchdown. I don't know if that was. That's why you guys were reacting that way. I don't know if it was a legal maneuver, but it was definitely big-brained. I think, yeah, I mean, it felt galaxy brain, man. Hold on. Let's think about that. What if you, what if you had like three guys take the hand off? Oh, and just do like a daisy chain. And then you don't know. You make an assembly line? Like three-card Monty?

I mean, like you're in a triad formation. And one of them breaks away with the ball. Come on. It was really cool to watch the play just because he's standing in the end zone. Yeah. And he's like, I see that ball. It's right there. I could just grab it. He does. He grabs it. He's like, I did this. I scored a touchdown. Is the coach.

Happy or upset with that? Because that's a really risky maneuver. Yeah. You're on the goal line and you're ripping the ball away from your own player. I can't imagine you're thrilled, but then he scored the touchdown. It's, that was one of my favorite plays I've seen in a long time. I wish it was regular season. I'm proud of you, but don't ever do that again. You think the Houston Texans will pick them up as a running back? They may you make an acquisition? They need more running backs.

So stay away from the Houston backfield. I watched Mark Ingram look good relative to what I thought he had. And he scored on the goal line. And then there's Philip Lindsay. And then there's third down David Johnson. And then there's quarterback Tyrod Taylor. Yeah. And then there's the non-winning franchise that scores on average probably 14 points a game.