Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Fantasy News & Updates, NFC East Breakdown

Summary

Fantasy Footballers Podcast Summary Episode: Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Fantasy News & Updates, NFC East Breakdown
Release Date: August 1, 2016
Hosts: Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, Mike "The Fantasy Hitman" Wright

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Introduction and Season Preparation

Mike Wright kicks off the episode at [00:00] emphasizing the importance of preparation for the upcoming fantasy football season. He promotes their ultimate draft kit available at ultimatedraftkit.com, highlighting resources such as tiers, video profiles, breakouts, busts, and value rankings essential for a successful draft.

Jason Moore welcomes listeners from the fantasyjocks.com studios, introducing himself alongside hosts Andy Holloway and Mike Wright at [00:38].

Andy Holloway and Mike Wright engage in light-hearted banter about the excitement of August signaling the official start of football preparations, setting an engaging and humorous tone for the episode ([00:54]-[01:58]).

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Draft Strategies and Player Steals

The hosts delve into draft strategies with a focus on identifying late-round steals and gold-type players.

Jason Moore distinguishes between "steals" and "late-round gold," using [04:04] to explain that steals like DeAndre Washington can be drafted late but produced significantly if circumstances (like teammates' injuries) align. He also recommends LeGarrett Blount as a valuable 10th-round pick due to his touchdown potential ([04:37]-[05:17]).

Andy Holloway adds Sterling Shepard as another late-round value, emphasizing his role in the Giants' offense and potential target volume despite some competition from Victor Cruz ([05:29]-[07:05]).

Mike Wright suggests Sammy Coates as a late-round wide receiver steal for the Pittsburgh Steelers, highlighting his conditioning and potential to fill Martyavis Bryant's suspended role ([07:25]-[08:46]).

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News and Injury Updates

The hosts provide key injury updates impacting fantasy football decisions.

Jason Moore reports that Stevie Johnson of the Chargers tore his meniscus on a non-contact play, making his season outlook bleak ([09:42]-[10:24]). They also discuss Eddie Royal being carted off, though without detailed information ([10:07]-[10:22]).

Andy Holloway mentions Arian Foster of the Dolphins showing signs of recovery from an Achilles injury but cautions about his injury history ([11:04]-[15:09]). Jason Moore advises starting Foster for about 10 weeks, anticipating his fantasy value before potential injuries ([13:05]-[15:09]).

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NFC East Breakdown

The episode focuses on an in-depth analysis of the NFC East, covering each team’s strengths, weaknesses, and fantasy implications.

New York Giants

Andy Holloway praises the Giants' offense, highlighting Sterling Shepard and the return of Victor Cruz. They debate tight end options, with Will Tyler favored over Antonio Gates ([19:47]-[25:47]).

Jason Moore emphasizes Shepard’s route-running skills and his role alongside Cruz, while Mike Wright supports the choice of Tyler over Gates based on performance and availability ([22:40]-[25:47]).

Dallas Cowboys

The discussion shifts to the Cowboys, where the return of Tony Romo sparks conversations about his conditioning and fantasy viability. Mike Wright defends Romo against negative social media comments, stressing his good shape despite unflattering photos ([27:49]-[35:31]).

They also explore the tight end situation, mentioning Jason Whitten as a dependable option and debating between Rashad Jennings and Danny Woodhead for running back roles ([30:14]-[34:09]).

Washington Redskins

Andy Holloway and Jason Moore analyze Washington’s quarterback situation, focusing on Kirk Cousins's potential and DeSean Jackson's explosive capabilities. They debate the value of Jordan Reed compared to other tight ends like Rob Gronkowski ([40:24]-[48:46]).

Mike Wright identifies Cousins as a perfect late-round quarterback due to his high completion percentage and offensive weapons ([40:44]-[42:26]).

Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles' offensive lineup is scrutinized, particularly the quarterback starter and running backs Ryan Matthews and Darren Sprols. Andy Holloway expresses skepticism about Matthews' consistency, while Jason Moore and Mike Wright discuss his rank and potential compared to Jonathan Stewart ([48:34]-[56:10]).

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Fantasy Advice and Recommendations

The hosts offer actionable fantasy football advice based on their analysis.

• Late-Round Picks: Emphasize drafting Sterling Shepard, Sammy Coates, and DeSean Jackson as boom-bust options that can significantly impact weekly matchups ([05:29]-[38:45]).

• Quarterback Strategy: Advocate for selecting Kirk Cousins as a reliable late-round quarterback with high completion rates and offensive support ([40:44]-[42:26]).

• Tight End Selection: Recommend Jason Whitten as a solid PPR tight end option, providing consistent targets ([23:56]-[25:47]).

• Running Backs: Suggest targeting Ryan Matthews for his proven fantasy output, while considering alternatives like Chris Thompson for depth ([42:26]-[54:36]).

Notable Quotes:

• Jason Moore at [04:04]: "Feel like those are different questions in a way..."
• Andy Holloway at [05:29]: "A lot of double digit performances..."
• Mike Wright at [07:25]: "Sammy Coates is a tremendous athlete..."

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Community Engagement and Resources

Andy Holloway encourages listeners to join their fantasy football community at jointhefoot.com, promoting additional resources, giveaways, and their official listener leagues ([08:46]-[57:56]).

Mike Wright and Jason Moore reiterate the availability of their ultimate draft kit, live draft boards, and other tools to enhance listeners' fantasy football experience ([55:49]-[58:20]).

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Conclusion

The Fantasy Footballers wrap up the episode by reaffirming their commitment to providing daily insights and fostering a vibrant fantasy football community. They invite listeners to subscribe, engage on Twitter @the_ffballers, and explore their website for comprehensive resources and league participation ([56:01]-[58:20]).

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This episode provides a thorough analysis of the NFC East, valuable draft strategies, injury updates, and actionable fantasy football advice, making it an essential listen for both seasoned and novice fantasy football enthusiasts.

Transcript

[Mike Wright]

Hey, Foot Clan. Fantasy football season is upon us. Training camps have opened. We are all getting ready for our fantasy drafts. This is what you need to do, Foot Clan. You head over to ultimatedraftkit.com that's where you can find the official Fantasy Footballers ultimate draft kit where we are breaking down everything. We have our tiers, we have video profiles, we have breakouts, busts, values. We have everything that you could possibly need to be prepared for your draft. Head over to ultimate draftkit.com.

[Jason Moore]

Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast coming to you from the fantasyjocks.com studios with your hosts, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright.

[Andy Holloway]

It's August. It's August.

[Mike Wright]

Prepare. Prepare your bodies.

[Andy Holloway]

As you would say, it is officially August.

[Jason Moore]

Yes, I like that.

[Andy Holloway]

I like the bee nanas and the officially. We like to enunciate.

[Mike Wright]

I put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

[Andy Holloway]

Syllable. Welcome back, Mike.

[Mike Wright]

It's good to be back, America.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, I, I'll tell you, it's good to be back. If you heard the, the primal screams coming out of this studio over the.

[Mike Wright]

Week, you know that I did.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, man. Shout out to Brooks. You see Brooks put on our Twitter that like the triple, the triple primal scream where he cut all three of ours together.

[Mike Wright]

What we have to do next is.

[Andy Holloway]

Erase from our memory. No, no, no Men in Black thing.

[Mike Wright]

We need, we need a three man harmony rolling on the primal screen.

[Andy Holloway]

We do need to do that.

[Mike Wright]

We need to improve yours. Jason's was, was pretty solid. I think he can hold down the root.

[Andy Holloway]

I think I could burp into the mic and it would be an improvement over, over what mine was.

[Jason Moore]

At least we'd hear it.

[Andy Holloway]

Welcome to five Days a Week everybody. This is the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. We know we have a lot of new listeners joining us for the very first time with the football season upon us. So welcome in everybody. If you're a brand new listener, we especially welcome you into the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Andy, Mike and Jason here. You can find us on twitter @the ffballers. We are here 5 days a week from now through December. Mike shaking his head. I was driving anticipation.

[Mike Wright]

I'm driving into the studio and it just, it doesn't even feel real. Like you know, you have this such anticipation where we've been here all year long.

[Andy Holloway]

Yep.

[Mike Wright]

And you know that football is so close, but I just, it was a very, very surreal, surreal feeling.

[Jason Moore]

August is football. I mean, I mean we have, we have the hall of Fame game.

[Andy Holloway]

You know, it's football when players start to get carted off the field. That's the first sign and it's sad, but it's true. I mean, you know that they're out there doing something most likely to be the reason why they were carted off. So we're going to break down all the fantasy football news and information you need to know today. We're going to break down the NFC east division. Got another divisional breakdown for you. This is going to be a jam packed week. We're going to talk sleepers and busts and breakouts and different things. We're going to talk, well, your questions, you're going to send them in on the fantasy footballers.com click the submit a Question button. We answer some of those. Maybe on today's show we'll also have a mailbag show this week. It's going to be a really, really exciting time. I've got a lot of players that I want to talk about. I haven't got the opportunity to gloat to Mike about Ryan Fitzpatrick yet. So that's going to be a high priority event on today's show.

[Mike Wright]

Very excited.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, very, very excited. I just tweeted a picture of Brandon Marshall's adp. It you know, it looks like Nintendo stock price when Pokemon Go came out. That's what it looks like. So. All right, we've got a quick question of the day. This one comes in off of Twitter at H. Gerald Martin, who in your opinion could be the steal of the draft this year, AKA late round gold. Late round gold.

[Jason Moore]

Feel like those are different questions in a way and let me explain because I think that the steal of the draft is going to be some guy like a DeAndre Washington who gets drafted late. Latavius Murray goes down ahead and he wins you the season. He was the late round steal of the draft. But when I'm looking for gold and thinking like okay, who is going really, really, really late? That's just way out. Like you shouldn't be able to get this person so late. That's kind of what I take as gold. So that's the question I'm going to answer.

[Andy Holloway]

Sure, ignore his question because he meant them as the same thing.

[Mike Wright]

But okay, well then I'll give you two.

[Jason Moore]

DeAndre Washington is a great late round gold type of guy in case someone in front of him goes down. But without someone in front of him going down, I'm going to stick with the running back position because people are going so wide receiver heavy early. So I think late in the draft they need to find that running back. I've said it recently, I've tweeted it recently, but I, I really do think LeGarrett Blunt is a great value right now. I mean, he's going in the 10th round and he is the starting running back, goal line, third down type of running back who was really successful last year in the games that he actually played. We forget that.

[Andy Holloway]

A lot of double digit performances. Jason, you convinced me this. You brought me to the books, you showed me the stats, you got rid of the bad taste in my mouth for Blunt. It's not somebody I want to lean on. But you don't have to lean on him in the 10th round.

[Jason Moore]

That's the point. That's the exact point is that in the 10th round you can get a guy who's probably going to score eight, nine touchdowns.

[Andy Holloway]

We just added him to the ultimate draft kit, did we not?

[Jason Moore]

We sure did.

[Andy Holloway]

As a sleeper.

[Jason Moore]

Yep.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. I'm going to bring up a name that I have not brought up as a kind of a late round steal or value that I think I'm going to start talking more about and it's Sterling Shepherd. Sterling shepherd is a guy who, I think he's in the eighth round. I think he's got a little bit of that bump up because of that rookie hype. I mean bump up, I mean eighth round. Right. And I think this guy might legitimately be a wide receiver, 2, 3 bubble guy all year long. I think that he's going to be integral to that offense. That offense passes the ball so much. Short passing game. Not every ball is going to Odell Beckham Jr. And so I really like the upside of Shepard. I don't think Cruz's impact is going to be much. If anything, you know, he's at at a point where I see him contributing the way Roddy White contributed last year.

[Jason Moore]

Some teams.

[Andy Holloway]

Sterling Shepherd's a guy I'm going to, I'm going to look to acquire some.

[Jason Moore]

Teams and some coaching staffs. Make a big difference when it comes to allowing a rookie to be involved. Right. I mean, the reason I like Tyler Boyd. Right. But we, we know Marvin Lewis does not really let his rookies off that leash. But we, we saw a couple years ago with Odell Beckham and part of that was Odell Beckham. But we know the Giants are not afraid to say, hey, you're the starter. You're going to get 100 targets year one. And I actually, I'm shocked to hear you name that name because this weekend I moved him up my board quite a bit.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, the thing is, is it's not even. I mean the coaching staff has turned over since the Odell Beckham Jr. Breakout, but Eli hasn't. And Eli is the one who had the confidence in Odell Beckham Jr. And I think he'll have confidence in Sterling Shepard. Based on all the reports I'm seeing about him. I think he will have an impact in half point and full point per reception leagues. Who's your guy, Mike?

[Mike Wright]

I've been looking through. I want to grab a guy who's going very late that I don't think needs an injury in front of him. And I'm going to go with the guy who's going at the back of the 13th round. That is Sammy Coates, wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I know we've talked about him a lot, but just the and we are in the realm of coach speak, which we will get to. But the news out of Sammy Coates in camp has been great. He's in amazing shape. He talked about he's been putting in an off days, three workouts a day. So the man is putting himself in a position to succeed as far as his physical conditioning. And then you have Marcus Wheaton, who is considered he's the most likely guy to be the number two. But even like the last quote from Wheaton is I don't really know what my role in the offense is going to be and maybe he's just, you know, humble being humble guy, whatever. But to me, Sammy Coates is a tremendous athlete. He still kind of raw as a wide receiver, but with the Martavis Bryant situation of him being suspended all year long, you have Coats who is a very comparable athlete who could fill that role possibly for Bryant. So that's where I'm going to go extremely late, could outplay Wheaton this preseason and take over that number two job.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, we're going to jump into the news and notes. Before we do that, I want to remind everybody about jointhefoot.com or fantasy football community where you can get an extra episode. Like if five is not enough for you and you want six, never enough. Never enough. You want to overload your fantasy football brain, you can get an extra episode every week. [e-mail] we also have a giveaway that's taking place in like, I don't know, three days where we're giving away an autograph Demarius Thomas jersey from pristine auction.com we're giving away a bunch of gear from fantasyjocks.com we're giving away a listener league spot in our official listener league.

[Jason Moore]

You just throw that in like it's one in a list.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, it was one in a list is the reason why.

[Jason Moore]

Fair enough. But it's a big one.

[Andy Holloway]

It is a big one. And some other things too. A bunch of photos, stickers. It's gonna be exciting. It's gonna be fun. It's always fun to do those at the beginning of every single month we do this. So let's jump into the news.

[Jason Moore]

News and notes from around the league.

[Andy Holloway]

Well you want to watch your step when you jump into the news because you might end up carted off the field. We have a couple of bad injury notes here. Not going to go into depth without the reports but Stevie Johnson was carted off on Sunday. Chargers wide receiver Eddie Royal got news this morning that he was carted off and that's literally all the news I have that Eddie Royal was carted off.

[Jason Moore]

There's a little bit more news on Stevie Johnson specifically. It's official that he tore his meniscus and it was on a non contact.

[Mike Wright]

So is he out now?

[Jason Moore]

It is not clear whether that's out for the season but it's clearly very bad.

[Andy Holloway]

Not a good so Don.

[Jason Moore]

Yes.

[Mike Wright]

Come on down.

[Jason Moore]

Well it so the question is. Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

Does it make you feel any different about Travis Benjamin if you just have like.

[Mike Wright]

No.

[Andy Holloway]

That that wide receiver three that Stevie Johnson was out of the picture.

[Mike Wright]

No it to me it maybe it is a gate. It's a slight. Yeah gates could get the increase. I think Benjamin is his role is his role. It I'm not going to change my ranking of Philip Rivers. It does stink for him in that offense. Stevie Johnson has still been a very capable especially if he's in the three role and you don't have disappointing to.

[Andy Holloway]

Start their offseason the same way last season went for San Diego. I think you know Stevie Johnson might be might be towards the very end of his career. DeAndre Hopkins ended his what one day holdout. This was a message sent and he.

[Mike Wright]

Did you read his statement?

[Andy Holloway]

No, I did not. Of just disappointment.

[Mike Wright]

He is letting the Texas he's putting the Texans on blast saying you better fix this.

[Andy Holloway]

Well they said they would negotiate with.

[Jason Moore]

You know why he came back because there was there was that situation where.

[Andy Holloway]

If he wasn't there 40,000 a day.

[Jason Moore]

Reporting he lost his roster bonus of like $490,000 which was like a third of all the money owed to him. So I was like yeah, I'm gonna come back but I'm not happy.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah well just keep catching passes for fantasy Owners. All right, Dolphins news. Somebody that we are going to update in our ultimate draft kit probably do a video on him. Arian Foster, quote, annihilated his conditioning test. Arian Foster is not on the pup. He was activated from the pup, cleared to practice, took snaps and Jaya Jai. He has a bone bruise and is now missing practice.

[Mike Wright]

I will say this just real quick. I know what is inferred when they say he annihilated his conditioning test. I feel like if I took a conditioning test, I would also annihilate it. It would be a negative annihilation.

[Andy Holloway]

We're gonna see that on the 9th, Mike.

[Mike Wright]

I'm just saying that the word annihilated could go either way.

[Andy Holloway]

Strong word. Yeah. I prefer them to just tell, you know, non hyperbole. He murdered his conditioning test. But the news here is that Arian Foster has recovered from an Achilles injury. What is happening, and I know there's debate here in the studio, we should not overlook injury history ever, much less a guy coming off an Achilles that has a huge injury history. That being said, Lamar Miller with low volume was very effective in that offense in fantasy football. Top 10 guy, two straight years. I am fully in the camp that Aaron Foster will be the starter and I'm going to adjust my rankings accordingly.

[Mike Wright]

Thoughts?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I think he will be the starter. He's the best back there if he is healthy and he's recovered. One of the things that we've known from, from Arian Foster's career is while, yes, he is very injury prone, he is great at coming back from injury. Right. Like every time he gets back, he goes right into it and he goes right into the next injury. No, but he hits the field. He's productive whenever he plays. But he will have another injury. I mean, I could not in good conscience stat him out as a 16 week starter. I just couldn't do it.

[Andy Holloway]

How many weeks would you do?

[Jason Moore]

10. 10 is where I'm going to probably stat him out for. So he, you know, I think he'll end up rising like right now if you're drafting today. Arian Foster is a great value because his stock hasn't risen to where it's going to rise over these next few weeks when he is getting first team reps and he is clearly the guy and he is clearly healthy. Then all of a sudden he's going to start sneaking up way too high.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, you might be right. I think Aaron's going to end up as one of those guys that he seems to be now, which is he might Win you a bunch of weeks. He's not going to be like the foundation of your team. But if you have him and you get him at a good value, I think he can give you some RB1 numbers. I mean, he should be able to as long as he's semi healthy. He's just a pass catching, effective back.

[Jason Moore]

So grab Levy on Bell and then handcuff him with Arian Foster. You'll get the first few weeks.

[Andy Holloway]

First four weeks.

[Mike Wright]

Foster's ADP is on the rise. He's already in the back of the sixth. He is going around Frank Gore, Gio Bernard, Duke Johnson. So you're going to have to make a pretty strong.

[Jason Moore]

He's going to rise over. He's going to rise over those.

[Andy Holloway]

Mike brought up exactly what you have to do. There's no. There's no way you can talk about Foster and where you draft him and go, I wonder if he'll get hurt. I wonder if he won't. You have to make a decision. Look, you're staring down Frank Gore, Arian Foster. If you believe Foster will give you enough, be healthy enough, you've got to take. You know, that's the decision you're making.

[Jason Moore]

So real quick right now, drafts today, are you taking Arian Foster or Frank Gore? If those are the only two guys left in the draft.

[Andy Holloway]

Arian.

[Jason Moore]

All right, you heard it here. The Reaper has taken Arian down. Aryan is about to be catastrophically injured.

[Andy Holloway]

We're not water betting that. See, I'm. That's what I was going for.

[Mike Wright]

There we go. There we go.

[Andy Holloway]

I don't know that those are. Those guys are close. I felt like there was a groundswell to choose Arian right there. I'm not 100% sure about that. I'm trying not to choose him at all. That's rough.

[Mike Wright]

I would go Gore in that situation, but you're not going to have to make that decision because eventually you're going to have to make the decision of Arian Foster or Matt Jones or Jeremy Langford. He's going to be up there.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, I want to get into our divisional breakdown. Before we do that, there's one more bit of news I want to discuss. Chip Kelly says Gabbert and Kaepernick will split reps in camp. I want to share my thoughts on this, but you guys tell me what you think about this quarterback situation or do you want me to just go? Okay. I've decided yesterday that I'm going to stack Kaepernick as a starter. That's what I Decided I think Kaepernick is going to win the job. He is so far and away the better actual athlete. And I know that Chip Kelly has basically had pocket passers for the entirety of his NFL career thus far. You know, he worked with Bradford and Sanchez and Foles. And I just think Kaepernick's going to win the job because Kaepernick can throw the ball farther and run faster and do those things. I could be wrong, but as of today, I think I'm going to stack Cap as a starter.

[Mike Wright]

Sure. I'm going to stick with Blaine Gabbard. That the. The last year when Gabbard came in, everybody thought, oh, here we go again. You know, you got a defensive question, who's playing Gabbard? Because that's who I'm gonna stream. And Gabbert made you pay. Pay the price. That was the best stretch by far of his entire career. Maybe things are turning around. Gabbert was an extremely early draft pick, high first round guy or higher. And I think he can fit into what ship gaily wants to do. So for me, it's still Gabbard at this point.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I'm going to keep my eyes open. I'm clearly drafting nobody until it has been made official and even once.

[Andy Holloway]

But if you're in an ML10, you.

[Jason Moore]

Have to pick one, then I'm going to avoid both. I really am, I think, in MFL10s even.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, that's fine. But who would you pick if you had to pick one?

[Jason Moore]

If I had to pick one, I would probably pick Kaepernick. When. If we go back in time where, you know, the question was, is Kaepernick going to go to the Broncos? And I was making my Ryan Fitzpatrick esque guarantee that he was, you know, not going to go because Chip Kelly came for Cap. That was like my original thought. So if Cap's healthy and they're splitting reps, I think Cap wins the job. I would like to see Gabbert there for some of like the Bruce Ellington types. But Kaepernick will be interesting, fantasy football wise, if he is healthy and the star of the Kelly for sure. All right, well, before we get to the fun NFC east division today, hey, if you want to go to the games, you need to get SeatGeek to go. That is the tool, the app, the website that we use for every single ticket event that we have gone to in recent memory. SeatGeek has helped us go to Cardinals games, go to movie shows or, you know, concerts and live events, theater in New York. Yep. Theater events in New York, they are not like the old school ticketing nonsense that's confusing and hard to go through. They made it really, really easy. You could download an app, they take the prices from every other ticketing site and they put them all in one place so that you know you're getting the best deal right off the bat. They color coordinate the little dots on their map. They make it really, really, really easy. And plus, for our listeners, you can get 20 bucks back in your pocket if you make a purchase with SeatGeek. So if you're going to show, here's what you need to do to get your NFL tickets this year. Download the SeatGeek app, go to the Settings tab and click the Add promo code, Enter promo code footballers and then SeatGeek will send you $20 after you've made your first ticket purchase. So download the SeatGeek app and enter promo code Footballers today, let's get divisional. Let me hear you about Attack.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, it's good to have you back. Glad I didn't have to do that. Yeah. We pushed the NFC east divisional overview back a couple of days thanks to all of the news that had been breaking last week. So we're getting into the NFC East. We're going to talk Giants right out of the gate. This is an exciting offense to me. We just talked about Sterling Shepard. Is Odell Beckham Jr. Firmly your number one dynasty draft pick?

[Mike Wright]

Yes. Yeah. For me, if you're talking Dynasty, he's my 101. In a startup. Absolutely he is. He has proven himself to me to be a dominant force for a wide receiver. And he's younger than Brown and Julio, so he de facto is up to 101. But for this season, Odo Beckham is my number three. And the, the reason of, of why he is behind Brown and Julio for this year for me is simply a matter of targets. I don't see a situation where Odell Beckham becomes targeted like Antonio or Julio, where he's, he's just, he is.

[Jason Moore]

I mean, he was, he was basically.

[Mike Wright]

The entire offense, but he doesn't get the same amount of target volume. But somehow he manages to get the, the touchdowns and he's making a face at me.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, I was curious, what was the target number for Julio last year? Do you remember?

[Mike Wright]

I can pull that up.

[Jason Moore]

It was 1782. I could be off, give or take.

[Mike Wright]

Julio had 204, Antonio Brown had 195. And all the way back.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay, so you're talking about 40 difference. Yeah, yeah, that's a. That's pretty big gap. I see what you say, and I.

[Mike Wright]

Know Beckham missed a game, but. So if you give him, you know, the targets from that game, but he's. He would still be, you know, 30 or so behind, which just lowers him just, just enough to be my number three. I don't have any. If people will say, hey, well, should I take Beckham with my first pick? That's fine with me. I don't have a problem with that. Or I think that's just a ludicrous situation. Just for me, he's my number three.

[Andy Holloway]

Do you guys agree on the Shepard take or do you have thoughts on Cruz that you'd like to share? I mean, I think having Shepard and Cruz back only adds to your argument that maybe, you know, he's not going to hit 200 targets. Oda Beckham isn't. What do you think about the other wide receiver? I mean, you got Dwayne Harris there as well, but what do you think about the other.

[Mike Wright]

I like. I like the shepherd take. The Giants clearly loved him. And our good friend of the show, Matt Harmon, charts out these guys. How well do they run a route? And that was the difference maker when he, when we were looking at Odell Beckham is he runs just professional routes. He is extremely precise. That's the deal with Sterling Shepherd. Jason has been talking all offseason, just gushing, gushing like a schoolboy professing his love for Sterling Shepherd. And I think the big reason is because he runs great routes, which. That's how you, you want to transition from college to professional sports immediately. Run great routes.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, Sterling shepherd was. Before the draft, I had said it on the show many times, he was my number one wide receiver ahead of Laquan Treadwell, ahead of everyone else, regardless of where they went. And I don't think there could have been a better spot for him to land for his type. The problem with shepherd from a fantasy perspective is he's really kind of more of a slot receiver type player, a Julian Edelman type player. And so he needed to go to a team that can utilize that in their offensive pattern. I think the Giants can very much. The fact that Victor Cruz is back, he's healthy, and he's running behind. Sterling Shepard also says something. Sterling Shepard is the number two going into this year on an offense that I think is going to put up a lot of points, a lot of passing.

[Andy Holloway]

McAdoo Cruz was trying to run ahead of him, but he was too slow. Probably he could not catch. All right. Reports out of Giants camp have Will Ty and Larry Danelle splitting reps as that top tight end. I'm of the Will Ty camp. I think I've seen Donnell bobble too many passes over the years and be kind of like an athlete that doesn't know how to turn left and right without a turn signal. So to me, I like Will Ty. What do you guys think about the tight end situation?

[Mike Wright]

For me, it's going to be Will Ty. When it comes down to it, he is. He was spectacular when he came in. Once he finally got the starting position, you know, about halfway through he would. He became a low end tight end one and you're talking about a situation for fantasy football. I'm going to look him up real quick.

[Andy Holloway]

Does this end up as a mess though? Could they both?

[Mike Wright]

I don't think so. I don't think it ends up as a mess. I think that will tie passes him. I think that Eli Manning has shown just a strong history of using the tight end in his offense. And I'm looking here on fantasy football Calculator searching for Tyler. I can't find him. That's how free Will Ty is.

[Andy Holloway]

He's so free he cannot be found.

[Mike Wright]

And so it's just a like. I think will tie is great. If you watched him play last year, you could see that he made an immediate impact on the game. I'm trying to pull up his numbers.

[Jason Moore]

There's not many rookies at the tight end position that can come in and make an impact. I mean, we've said that before. It just doesn't happen very much as an undrafted free agent and he wouldn't.

[Andy Holloway]

Have without an injury.

[Jason Moore]

Right, right. He got the opportunity and he showed that he was good. I believe that in this offense, if there is a starting tight end where he's. He's the guy playing 90% of the snaps, tight ends usually are on the field, you know, when they play, they play a very high number. If those guys end up splitting and end up, you know, going 50, 50, then there's not going to be fantasy output that you can rely on. But if, if one of them takes the role, which I think will tie would be the guy. If one of them takes it, then he's.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm really excited about the tight end in this offense. Like you said, if that's the situation. Randall's not there anymore. You've got Shepard, but I mean, who are you targeting in the red zone?

[Jason Moore]

The big guy.

[Mike Wright]

The big guy will tie from week 10 through the end of the season. Was the number nine tight end for fantasy.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. You have him 11 right now. I'm 15. Jason has him 20. Probably reserving opinion for the camp battle. All right. This was an offense that was very good at protecting Eli last year. So. And I think this was a big surprise.

[Mike Wright]

If you remember coming into the season. They had some injuries on the offensive line and it was. Panic was in the air, but they came together and I think that that really showed for my man. I still believe in you, Rashad Jennings.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes, you do.

[Mike Wright]

Who was the number four overall running back for the last quarter of the season? Because they took a look and they said, are we getting it done when we just keep giving a carry to this guy then a carry to this guy? They had a four man rotation there.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm up at one point. I want to put you on the clock, Mike. Rashad Jennings or TJ Yelden?

[Mike Wright]

Jennings.

[Andy Holloway]

Rashad Jennings or Danny Woodhead?

[Mike Wright]

Ooh, it's still. Is that ppr?

[Andy Holloway]

Let's call it half.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Wright]

I'll still go with Jennings. I'll go with Jennings.

[Andy Holloway]

Last one here. Rashad Jennings or Justin for set.

[Jason Moore]

That's tough.

[Andy Holloway]

What's your take on these days?

[Mike Wright]

Tough one.

[Jason Moore]

I got me some Justin for set there.

[Mike Wright]

All right, that's a tough one. But look, I think that Rashad Jennings is the guy. I know that, that Paul Perkins has been drafted and the dynasty community, they love his. They love the stock of Paul Perkins going up. But I just, I think the team saw success when they finally committed to a guy. Will Rashad Jennings make it through the entire season? I can't. I cannot comment on that because he probably won't. But when, when he plays like we were talking about with Aaron Foster, these guys, they will give you tremendous value and they are. Jennings is going right now in the eighth round. So if I can get a starting running back in the eighth round, who I think is going to give me eight to 10 games of great production, that's fantastic.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, we need to move on to the Cowboys. But Jason, I want to put you on. I want to ask you this question. Rank these three guys. Carson Palmer, Blake Bortles, Eli Manning.

[Jason Moore]

Carson Palmer, Blake Bortles and Eli Manning. I would rank them as Blake Bortles, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning. I do expect some touchdown regression for Blake Bortles and Carson Palmer is just as high. I will have Carson Palmer on my team before I'll have Blake Bortles just because of where they're being drafted. Eli Manning is a guy that's Just a real boom bust type of player. I don't usually like to draft, draft those guys, but I'm going to stream Eli Manning for sure many weeks this year because he'll be the type of guy that has dropped to waivers after a guy starts him two weeks in a row. When they're bad weeks and he picks them up, you find the right matchup and he explodes.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. For those that want confidence in Eli Manning, I went and looked at Jason's rankings as I asked him that. That's the exact order he had them in and it was 6, 7 and 8. So that makes him all very viable starters for your fantasy league. I like Eli. He will give you the occasional dud that just makes you roll your eyes, but he will win you a week as well.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

Let's talk Dallas. Let's talk the Cowboys. Tony Romo returns. One of the teams that I think has the chance of just making the biggest win, loss, reversal. San Diego was one of the teams I said could do that as well. But we'll see if they can stay healthy.

[Mike Wright]

Well, did you see the scandal on Twitter, the photographic scandal of Tony Romo?

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, yeah, he's not dating Jessica Simpson again.

[Jason Moore]

I don't think he. I don't think Jessica Simpson would allow herself to date him.

[Mike Wright]

Now, Tony, the Twitter world was ablaze that said Tony Romo is a fat guy.

[Jason Moore]

There's a picture that he is. He's looking a little plump.

[Mike Wright]

But then there was. And just to speak to that point, it was clarified. The photographer who took the shot, agree, said this. It was just one of those really unflattering angles. And all the beat reporters from Dallas are saying that it's ridiculous. Tony Rumble is in great shape.

[Andy Holloway]

I am looking at the picture.

[Jason Moore]

It's a pretty funny picture. I agree he had a little bad.

[Andy Holloway]

Luck here with the way the jersey was bouncing on his shirt.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

So just to get it out of the way, I still like him.

[Andy Holloway]

And again, all those Eddie Lacy pictures were true. So you never know.

[Jason Moore]

Well, that's the thing. You show me 10 more pictures of Romo that looking fat, that's one thing. Because you could get Eddie Lacy from any angle last year, like in any shot, you could be taking pictures of other people away and then Eddie's still in the frame.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. Yeah. All pictures from packers camp involved. Eddie Lacy was in all of them somewhere.

[Mike Wright]

All right.

[Andy Holloway]

Des Bryant, Terrence Williams. If I had to choose a late round guy that wasn't Sterling Shepherd, Terrence Williams might have been in the mix. Performed really, really well with Tony Romo. Changes the whole offense, obviously, having DEZ Bryant there. Terrence Williams is a two. Okay. He's not made to be the backbone of an offense on the outside, but Williams is capable and he takes advantage of the double coverage and the different coverages that rotate DEZ Bryant's way.

[Jason Moore]

You know, interesting stat on Terrence Williams. Over the last two years, he's played 16 games with Tony Romo and he's averaged double digit fantasy points with Tony Romo. So for a guy going super late in the draft, pretty much free in.

[Andy Holloway]

Half of the drafts, which is crazy to me.

[Jason Moore]

But, yeah, he's a guy that could plug in as a flex, as a legit starter.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, let's spend our time now talking about. Well, did you want to talk about Des?

[Mike Wright]

No. We can get back to Des. The guy that I actually want to talk about, the old man on the team. I want to talk about Jason Whitten, the tight end, the old reliable Ironman tight end. And that is because I think he's still a possible late round option. Last year, Jason Whitten had 77 targets. You know who else had 77 targets? Greg Olson. Greg Olson. Now, I know there was a huge discrepancy as far as yardage, but here's. There was. There was garbage quarterback product play. Last year for Dallas, Jason Wynton averaged 9.3 yards a catch. He's an 11 yard average on his career. So we're talking of difference of 2 yards per catch. I think that the targets will still be there for Jason Whitten. I think he is an absolute.

[Andy Holloway]

He won't be hurt.

[Mike Wright]

No, he will not be. And even if he's hurt, it doesn't matter.

[Andy Holloway]

You know, he won't miss games.

[Mike Wright]

You think the lacerated kidney problems of, of Andrew Luck and Keenan Allen would keep Jason Whitten out? He would just. He'd rip it out.

[Andy Holloway]

He'd pop it, pop in a new one.

[Mike Wright]

Jason Whitten is on the sideline. He'd pull it out and he'd say, I don't. I don't need this.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, I hurt my spine. Let me get rid of that. Still coming out here?

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, I think he's a PPR option.

[Andy Holloway]

I've moved. Last week when you were gone, I moved Antonio Gates up significantly. You had him very high already, which I saw. Jason Whitten is somebody that you can, if you want to punt, tight end and grab Jason Whitten, you're going to.

[Jason Moore]

Be fine in a PPR especially. And Those numbers Mike was talking about, they weren't targets, but they were receptions. It is a good point that both him and Greg Olson got 77 receptions. I expect Jason Whitten to have more receptions this year, not less.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. You know, it's impossible to go back and look at Dallas's offensive numbers last year and let them give you any indication of what you're expecting this year because Tony Romo was out, you had a lot of different situations and now you've got Ezekiel Elliott coming into the fold, who I think will be a very, very high volume back. I think there's no. Honestly, as silly as it is, I think he's very safe.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I have been, I think, one of the guys that have issued the most warning statements on Ezekiel Elliott. Just in the fact that, look, we don't know how that split carry is going to go. We're assuming, you know, the 2014 DeMarco Murray, which I think is hard to do. It's hard to just say, yeah, they're going to do that because they did it once. All of that being said, I am rising on Ezekiel Elliott more and more ever since the Levy on Bell injury where I feel like my tier one of running backs disappeared because it was him. I'm looking at who's left and who I want to get and I feel like he's just as good a value as any other top running back. You can make an argument for him over David Johnson. You could make an argument for him being the number one guy.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah. Look at Darren McFadden last year. Started pretty much 11 games. Fourth most yards on the ground in the for running back.

[Andy Holloway]

That's Darren McFadden.

[Mike Wright]

Darren McFadden, who was an absolute abomination of a running back.

[Jason Moore]

Years walk DMC.

[Mike Wright]

Almost 1100 yards and he was eighth in attempts.

[Jason Moore]

They're.

[Mike Wright]

They're going to run Elliott. The question is, will they? I don't think they're going to give him that 300 carries, though. I just, I don't see them saying, okay, the number four overall in the draft. We're just going to run you into the ground immediately.

[Andy Holloway]

You ever met Jerry Jones?

[Mike Wright]

I've never personally.

[Andy Holloway]

Never had the chance.

[Mike Wright]

No, I have not.

[Andy Holloway]

He's a different, different.

[Mike Wright]

You met Jerry, a different cat. Good friend of the show.

[Andy Holloway]

Good friend of the show. I met his type and his type plays Ezekiel Elliott about 350 times.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

But I think Elliot will still be tremendous. I don't know if you can expect the 300 plus carries, but you know what? It Absolutely could happen. And that's what you want. You want upside from your running back position.

[Andy Holloway]

They have a small window here, too. I mean, Tony. Tony is there, and their defense is better than, you know, than people expected last year. They can protect Tony, hopefully this season, and I expect big things from them. So let's head to the nation's capital. Let's talk about Washington. We've got just real quick.

[Mike Wright]

DEZ Bryant's very good.

[Jason Moore]

He is very good.

[Andy Holloway]

No, that's all the commentary we really need on.

[Jason Moore]

He's very healthy. I just throw that in there. He looks great.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, There you go. All right, let's talk about the Washington Redskins. Kirk Cousins leading the way. Jordan Reed burst on the scene. Rule 86. You can see the. We haven't switched that jersey out yet.

[Mike Wright]

Not yet.

[Andy Holloway]

Speaking of which, Antonio Brown has won the jersey competition. Have you heard of him?

[Mike Wright]

A shock to us all, Antonio Brown. He beat down the rising star, Amir Abdullah.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. Yeah. The numbers were 38% to Antonio Brown, 31% to Odell Beckham, 17% to A.J. green, who I was personally rooting for in this battle.

[Mike Wright]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

And 14% for Amir Abdullah, who snuck in with a bribe.

[Jason Moore]

My vote went to Antonio Brown because I just like to win.

[Mike Wright]

I voted for Abdullah.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, there you go. A guy that I think I put on our value list for the ultimate draft kit. And we'll start talking about him right here. Desean Jackson.

[Mike Wright]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

Desean Jackson, when he plays, is very good. He's a very good player.

[Mike Wright]

That's good analysis.

[Andy Holloway]

But look, there are certain players that when you say when he plays, you mean a little bit more than an injury. When DeSean Jackson is invested mentally and not injured physically, sure, he's still dominant. If you talk to DBs in the NFL and they ask you who the fastest player is, they'll still bring up desean Jackson. It's not like he's lost a step. He is somebody that also in a fantasy league, standard league, he can change your entire week with one play. He's the guy that demoralizes your opponent when he's had like two catches for the first three quarters and then catches two bombs in the fourth quarter. But DeSean Jackson has been, I think, surprisingly effective. And I would pencil him in that 18 to 24 range this season.

[Mike Wright]

It's all just a quick game for the listeners out there. 30 receptions. That's what Djax had last year because he was 30. He had 30 receptions last year in 10. He was in 10 games played technically, but he didn't actually play 10. But he had only 30 receptions. How many yards would you think that Sean Jackson could accumulate in 30 receptions? Because the answer was 528 with four touchdowns. The guy is an absolute monster.

[Andy Holloway]

Wait, how many. What's his yardage?

[Mike Wright]

528.

[Andy Holloway]

30 for 528.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah. That's over 17 and a half a catch. I mean, those are staggering numbers. And that's. And you know what? For 17 and a half last year, I was kind of the. I was throwing caution on desean Jackson simply because I thought he was going, he was going too early in drafts. People saw the numbers of almost 21 yards a catch. That was the outlier. That's an outlier for his career. But 17, that's his average. 17 and a half is his average.

[Andy Holloway]

And to be ridiculous, because it's fun to do that. If you extrapolate that out to the catch total of Julio Jones, that puts the. Sean. That puts DeSean Jackson at 2,400 yards receiving. Just.

[Jason Moore]

He's done it. He's broken the 2,000. Here's the truth about DeSean Jackson. He is undervalued. 2013, he was the 10th best wide receiver in fantasy. In 2014, he was the 16th best. He is a top total on the year producing guy. The problem is he's a boom bust guy.

[Andy Holloway]

So you want to pair with an injury risk.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, you want to pair desean Jackson with, you know, your, your Julian Edelman types, your Eric Decker types, I think, where if you've got consistency up front and you, you want to put that strong bat, you know, behind them, that can just hit a grand slam anytime. This is baseball.

[Andy Holloway]

This is a baseball podcast. Nobody knows baseball better than Jason Moore.

[Jason Moore]

That's my forte. Goldie plays for the Diamondbacks.

[Andy Holloway]

There you go.

[Jason Moore]

I'm an analysis.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm an analysis. Yeah, you lose all the forms of the English language when you talk baseball.

[Jason Moore]

I know nothing about baseball.

[Andy Holloway]

Olin Rya.

[Jason Moore]

I was a coach for my son's baseball team, which is ridiculous.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, yeah, I witnessed it. You were a great first base coach.

[Jason Moore]

Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Mike Wright]

So there's.

[Andy Holloway]

But what I was saying, well, desean Jackson, right now, he doesn't have to be paired with anybody. He can be sliding down the bottom of the bench. I mean, where he's getting drafted right now, you get the luxury of seeing what you have. And here's what I like about. Let me turn this to strategy. Not just talking about desean Jackson. You know who just. Desean Jackson is the best Player to put up two huge games on your bench and trade. He puts up monster games. And if he starts the year with a couple monster games, send him out at a wide receiver 2 value and get something else back. Or, or trade him out with another. You know, combine him with your Julian Edelman plus desean Jackson after two good weeks and go try to get an AJ Green. That's what I do. I mean, he puts up numbers that make you that are gaudy and then you go trade him.

[Mike Wright]

And so the next guy I want to talk about. Do you guys remember who led the league in completion percentage for quarterbacks? Was it that Drew Brees, Bernie Koso? Is it Drew Brees, Russell Wilson? They're pretty accurate. No, it was Kirk freaking Cousins because he's a good quarterback. That's his middle and Washington.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, it's a weird Kirk freaking cousin.

[Mike Wright]

Looking at his license.

[Andy Holloway]

You like that? That's what he said when he came out of the womb.

[Mike Wright]

But look, and it wasn't for low attempts. He was seventh. He had seventh incompletions and he was number one for completion percentage. He was a very good quarterback last year. It took. It took some time. The first half of the year was a little bit shaky, where you think, oh, he's very interception prone. And that was true for the first half. The. You like that game. There was a huge change in confidence for Kirk Cousins and he became a beast. He became a beast for fantasy purposes. And teams, including his own teams, they're still not buying in to what Cousins can do for you. And Kirk Cousins right now is going in the 10th round, which is. He's, to me, he's a perfect late round quarterback. You want to keep passing on quarterback like we talk about. Kirk Cousins is a guy that I'm fine going into the year with because I think that he's got the weapons around him. Desean Jackson, Jordan Reed, who is the, I think the consensus number two tight end, he's just an absolute dominant weapon. So for me, Kirk Cousins, he's on the rise and I think he can be even better this season.

[Andy Holloway]

Kirk cousins in the 10th, Eli Manning in the 8th.

[Mike Wright]

Give me cousins.

[Andy Holloway]

He's in a division where he can take advantage. Absolutely. Some defenses that aren't necessarily all weak, but they're not elite either. And so you have some matchups that you like, talked about. Desean Jackson, you still got Pierre Garcon. Josh Dockson is getting back from a minor tweak to the Achilles, but reports are good on his recovery. Jason, talk to me about the running back situation, we all know Matt Jones is there. He's going to be given a workload. But talk about Chris Thompson.

[Jason Moore]

No. Okay. Chris Thompson.

[Andy Holloway]

I don't know what that was about, Chris.

[Jason Moore]

I just wanted to.

[Andy Holloway]

Bad attitude?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I just want to have a bad attitude. Chris Thompson's a guy that I'm targeting late in drafts because you've got a lot of. If you're a 0rb type of guy where you're looking for the pass catching back. There's the reason that you love Matt Jones is because there's just not a lot of running back depth in Washington. We're still expecting them to go out and sign some old veteran like a Pierre Thomas or you're an old veteran or something. Hey, I'm available as well, Washington, if you want to reach out. But Chris Thompson is a guy who last year really showed some great chops in the passing game. He was, you know, the two down or the two minute drill type of running back. He had some injuries, but he is back, he is healthy right now and he's in a good position to surprise. And if you're in a PPR setting, I mean, you talk about how high these guys, like, you know, your Charles Sims or Danny Woodheads, how high they always surprise where they perform at the end of the year. And Chris Thompson is free and, you know, he's one injury away from being forced into a workload that while I don't, I wouldn't love for him to have to do that for 16 weeks. He represents, and this is kind of the strategy of the 0 RB. He represents a guy that mid year can take a huge jump in value because running backs, late round running backs usually are the guys that see their value rise over the season as opposed to fall. The early round running backs are the guys that usually have their value fall as they get injured, you know, so Chris Thompson's a name to watch that doesn't get talked about a lot. And also Keith Marshall is there at the running back position and apparently he's healthy right now, which is rare.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, I can ask you, would you take the flyer on Marshall or would you rather just have.

[Jason Moore]

I would rather have Thompson because he's already in that role. You know, I look for him late in deep drafts. Usually he's going to go undrafted. I think there's guys that I, that I do like a little bit better. And so if it's a normal redraft, you know, five bench, six bench, I'm not going to be drafting Chris Thompson. But you have to pay attention to him if he comes out of the gate strong because he could surprise us here.

[Andy Holloway]

You don't get to talk about any Redskins, Mike.

[Mike Wright]

I already did.

[Jason Moore]

You don't want him to talk about Jordan Reed?

[Mike Wright]

I talked about Kirk Cousins, but I'm going to shift the conversation over to Jordan Reed more. Just. Where are you comfortable taking Jordan Reed in a draft?

[Andy Holloway]

Third round.

[Mike Wright]

We know that he can be dominant. Okay. That's the third round.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, you're kind of opening that up to more of a. Like, we're not deciding right now. I thought you were. See, I'm not used to being on the other side of the question, so I thought you answered it. What was I supposed to do?

[Jason Moore]

Mike is ticking.

[Andy Holloway]

Hold on. Try it again. Try it again.

[Mike Wright]

I was just. I was trying to.

[Andy Holloway]

No, no, no. Ask the question.

[Mike Wright]

Where would you be comfortable taking Jordan Reed in fantasy drafts? I didn't need you to him and ha. I was just. I was going to, you know, like, elevate. Don't know. I'm lob. Starting to lob the pitch so that it's just easier to knock down. But, I mean, you just chopped it.

[Jason Moore]

There's a lot of people out there that don't feel comfortable with Jordan Reed right now. He's going in the four next. Yeah. But here's a couple stats that are interesting. Jordan Reed. And we've got an article coming out soon on the site to kind of compare him and Gronk. I will just say this. Jordan Reed played one less game than Gronk last year. And Gronk is a consensus first round now. He's kind of with the Tom Brady News falling to the second round in one less game. He had 15 more receptions and the same number of touchdowns as Gronk in one less game.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, yeah, okay. Sure. That's great. It's a great stat.

[Jason Moore]

Thank you.

[Andy Holloway]

I will say this. You asked where he would go. I would be fine taking Jordan Reed in the third. I'd be much happier taking Travis Kelsey later. Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Moore]

I've been passing on Reed.

[Andy Holloway]

I think Kelsey has a 50.50shot to beat out Reed on numbers this year. That's why he's 50. Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, I would say maybe 20%.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, yeah, I mean, that's. That's.

[Mike Wright]

But so, Jason, where are you going to take. You said you've been passing on Reed. Where are you comfortable taking?

[Jason Moore]

I think he's a value in the fourth round and that's where he should go. But most of the mocks that I've been doing and most of the live drafts I've been doing, I'm kind of with Andy in the sense that there are late guys that I don't have to. You know, I like the guys that are in the third and fourth round when it comes to running backs and wide receivers. I can get a guy who could be a stud for the year and then pair him with a guy, you know, I think Kobe Fleener could be right there with Jordan Reed. I think Greg Olson is as safe and sure a bet that I can get a little bit later. I think Eric Ebron could end up blowing up and being a top five guy. And he is so late. I always think that the ADP is broken with him. So that's why I pass on Jordan Reed. It's not because he's not going to produce for being in the fourth round, but I think I compare another late tight end better with a high third or fourth round running back or wide receiver and end up with a better team.

[Andy Holloway]

Yep.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah. The difficult thing for me when I'm looking at the Jordan Reed decision is I'm with you. I like there's. There's late round tight ends that I like that I think are capable. But of anyone at the tight end position right now who you think even has a glimmer of hope of being the number one guy that's not named Rob Gronkowski, it's Jordan Reed, which is why you have to pay such a premium for him.

[Andy Holloway]

Fair. Fair enough. Yeah. I don't think Travis Kelsey's outperforming Gronkowski.

[Mike Wright]

Right.

[Andy Holloway]

And if you're right, if those numbers that you put out there, if he could replicate them, it's really hard, which I think is really hard to do, even. Even without. Hell, I just think those numbers are just very hard to replicate the way the season ended. But he. At least he showed he could do it, you know, at least he showed he could do it. All right, let's talk Philadelphia. Let's go to the Eagles. Do we have a 16 game quarterback starter on this roster?

[Jason Moore]

No.

[Mike Wright]

No.

[Andy Holloway]

I know I knew the answer to the question.

[Mike Wright]

No.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, there you go. Now you're supposed to say, I'm going to.

[Mike Wright]

I'm answering everything Andy Holloway asks style from now on.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, yeah. Answer this one that way. How much do you like Ruben Randall? None.

[Mike Wright]

No Ruben Randall. Look, the Ruben Randall. Kind of that sleeper buzz about Reuben Randall was building. Apparently he's running with the twos again. Ruben Randall given yet another opportunity and squandering.

[Jason Moore]

But you know, you know what, that, that excites Andy for his man. Oh, Nelson Aguilar coming into it, that is. Please go to Twitter share with Andy about how great a player Nelson Aguilar is, how much he loves them. I think one of the biggest questions when it comes to the Eagles as a whole is whether or not they are a good team. Because you have. I mean that in a sense of like, is this a team right now? Vegas has their win total at. So let me ask you guys, do you expect over or under on the seven?

[Andy Holloway]

I cannot believe they have it at seven and a half.

[Jason Moore]

So you're very.

[Andy Holloway]

I would take the under. I would bet my house if you told me it was six and a half, I would have been a little more trepidatious. I mean, you can get yourself six wins, but man, seven and a half. I'll take the under.

[Jason Moore]

Well, it's an easy division. One could argue. We don't know who is going to be the really good there. Sure.

[Andy Holloway]

I just don't.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, but the reason I bring that up is because I think you're going to see a tale of two different fantasy outputs from the Eagles. If they get off to a bad start and they're not a good team, you're going to see Sam Bradford pulled earlier, you're going to see the rookie come in, you're going to see more growing pains and rebuilding process. No, you're right in a low fantasy output. Whereas if they get off to a good start and they're leading the division, which could happen, you know, Vegas certainly says it could, then you've got a high fantasy producing team and you look at a guy that Mike and I are high on and Ryan Matthews, and that makes a huge difference to me is are they a good team winning games where their running game is. It matters for winning. You know, at the end of a.

[Andy Holloway]

Game you make the most compelling and important point about Philadelphia you could make. There's a difference between a fantasy team that is going to have a consistency at the quarterback position or one that has the potential to transfer to have that change in the middle of the season. We need to talk about Ryan Matthews. I know you guys are high on Ryan Matthews.

[Mike Wright]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

Darren Sprols was just signed for a good chunk of change.

[Jason Moore]

Four and a half million.

[Andy Holloway]

Four and a half million dollars for a year. You mix the variable that Jason just brought up, which has always been factoring into my Ryan Matthews evaluation, with a rising Darren Sprouls in the rankings. He belonged. I mean he's going to be Used now there's not. You don't pay a guy four and a half million dollars and not let him walk if he's not going to be your foundational third down back. Sure. And I think going to get some carries because Ryan Matthews is. Ryan Matthews. Hasn't he already been banged up at camp?

[Jason Moore]

He is currently injured.

[Andy Holloway]

It was, yeah, he's currently injured, but.

[Jason Moore]

It was a small, I believe, ankle injury. He's expected to be back this week.

[Andy Holloway]

You're going to, you're going to need to change your Ryan Matthews rankings to be more in line with mine, Mike.

[Mike Wright]

I certainly am not.

[Jason Moore]

Well, we're not that far apart here in our rankings and you do have him the lowest. You've got him ranked 19th. So you've got him firmly in the middle of that RB2. He's making a note lower. Ryan Matthews, I'm a grumpy old man. And then Mike, you've got him highest at 13, which is still an RB2. And then I'm right in the middle, probably accurate, which is at running back 15. And I think 15 is a good spot. You know, you've got a talented runner here. You've got a guy who's proven in many years of fantasy football he can be an RB one and he's got an opportunity to match his talent. So I do think, you know who.

[Andy Holloway]

Else is super talented? Jonathan Stewart. And he just, he hasn't turned out that many powerful fantasy years. I look at, I look at Ryan Matthews in the same thing. Everything needed to go right for Jonathan Stewart to have a blow up year. Last year they had to have a really good team that was able to kill the ball at the end of the game. Are you telling me if the Eagles are a mediocre team and they're losing in, you know, 60% of their games, I just feel like it's going to be Sprawls out there.

[Mike Wright]

It could be. There was the report and you're gonna.

[Andy Holloway]

Be like, dang it. Because Ryan Matthews is really good. Why don't you put him out there? And then that happened last year and we were like, dang it, why isn't Ryan Matthews out there?

[Jason Moore]

Sprols is a guy I almost answered as the quick question, oh, I love it. Darren Sprols right now is the 54th running back taken off the board right now. He has several years as well of being an actual quality fantasy producer in PPR leagues. And if he is firmly in that number two role, see last year you had Ryan Matthews and DeMarco Murray and then Darren Sprouls was behind. Both of them firmly had a much lower volume of usage than the previous years. But that, like, ruins our mind and we forget that Darren Sprouls was a fantasy producer. When he gets the rock, he actually produces a lot. So I think Darren Sprouls is a guy that I would probably rather have, you know, even over Legara Blunt, who I. Who I use as my answer.

[Andy Holloway]

That's pretty bold. That's pretty bold. I. The best part of this conversation is I automatically win the argument when I don't let Mike talk. I mean, it just makes sense.

[Mike Wright]

That is your go to move.

[Andy Holloway]

Super easy. Super easy.

[Mike Wright]

So for a guy who. Where did you have him ranked? What was it? Jason? What did Andy have him at?

[Jason Moore]

19Th. Okay.

[Mike Wright]

It's 19. He's currently the 23rd running back off.

[Jason Moore]

The board, which means he's value.

[Mike Wright]

You're getting value.

[Andy Holloway]

That's fine. Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

It's value to. He's now in my 32nd.

[Andy Holloway]

No, no, no. This is. That's a ridiculous thing to say because the problem here isn't that Ryan Matthews is going to be a fantasy contributor. The problem is just the difference in hype between myself and mostly you and a little bit of Jason on how good you think Ryan Matthews can be. Because he's great. Oh.

[Mike Wright]

Because he's a great running back.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, we're done. We're done here. Zach Ertz. I really like Zach Ertz. I think he. He's going to suffer from the inconsistency of the offense in the quarterback position in the early part of the off season when things looked a little bit cleaner for that offense. I, you know, I like the rapport between Bradford and Ertz, but I don't even know if it's going to be Bradford.

[Mike Wright]

So just real quick. So they're their offensive ranks. They were 14th in the league in rushing yards per game and 12th in passing yards per game, which might surprise some people because the. I think the overall feeling was that the offense stunk last year and they were actually top half.

[Andy Holloway]

Eh. What I just say Ant, Because I mean, they were down there a lot of garbage time rushing. Kelly offense.

[Mike Wright]

Okay, well, garbage time, fine. They were 12th. And passing. They were 14th in rushing. How can you be. If you're all garbage, how can you be 14th in rushing?

[Andy Holloway]

That's just middle of the road, though.

[Mike Wright]

That's actually. That's upper half.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, come on.

[Mike Wright]

I'm not sure.

[Jason Moore]

Upper half by upper half by one.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Is one.

[Andy Holloway]

How is that how you described your grades? To your mother when you were in grade school. Hey, mom, got a 54 on this test. Upper half. Upper half grades, Mom.

[Jason Moore]

I got more right than I missed. Super smart.

[Andy Holloway]

But I do like you holding firmly to the 14th. That's upper half, though, because it is.

[Mike Wright]

Mathematically my question was more perfect.

[Andy Holloway]

Symbol of the Ryan Matthews argument.

[Mike Wright]

What? Where do you see the Eagles offense this year? Do you think they could. They're lower. They're much lower than that.

[Andy Holloway]

I would put them at like 23rd in the league. That'd be my guess.

[Jason Moore]

I think that's a fair. Random, arbitrary.

[Andy Holloway]

Totally.

[Jason Moore]

So.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, we're done talking NFC east right now. We'll be back. Guess what? We'll be back tomorrow. So hit that subscribe button. Do not miss out. We're here for your commute every single day. We're here for around the house on the computer. If your kids are loud, crank us up louder. We'll be around. We'll be around. So if you want to send in a question to the show for our mailbag episode coming up this week, you can go to the website thefantasyfootballers.com youm can find a ton of great free resources on the site. All of our rankings. You can find the articles, all the articles on the website. There's a really good article if you want to go find it on the site about breaking into an auction draft. If you're a first time auction player and you want to kind of get some knowledge and some strategies, there's a really good article for that. There's also some articles that go through in detail what's in our ultimate draft kit. If you want some resources there lots of good things coming to the website. It's a lot of fun if you need to, if you need a league and you want to be in an actual competitive fun league with good people, we are facilitating that with our JoinTheFoot.com Foot Clan Leagues. And so you can learn about that on the website. Because the people you play with are just as important as the players you pick, to be honest with you, because you're not going to enjoy yourself if you're playing with like it's way more important.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I would rather not win the championship in an awesome league than win the championship in a league with people that pretty much weren't involved and didn't care and whatever.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. And you're, you're, you're running around in that.

[Jason Moore]

Who can I blow?

[Andy Holloway]

You're showing your trophy off and they're like, I got to get back to work instead of being mad at you. And that's not fun.

[Jason Moore]

Exactly.

[Andy Holloway]

So. And follow us on Twitter at the Ffballers. We've got good shows this week. Be sure to check out Fantasy Jocks. Be sure to check out fantasyjocks.com for trophies. Draft Draft boards. Live draft boards.

[Mike Wright]

Promo code ballers.

[Andy Holloway]

Promo code ballers. Also show after the show is on, immediately after this on YouTube. And we're going to talk about Mike's trip to the country.

[Jason Moore]

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com and follow us on Twitter the Ffballers.