Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Top 20 Players & Best Ball Bonanza

Summary

Fantasy Footballers Podcast Summary Episode: Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Top 20 Players & Best Ball Bonanza
Release Date: July 6, 2017

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Overview

In this engaging episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast, hosts Andy Holloway and Jason Moore delve into two main segments: the Best Ball Bonanza and their highly-anticipated Top 20 Players rankings for the 2017 fantasy football season. The discussion is rich with expert analysis, friendly rivalries, and insightful commentary, making it a must-listen for fantasy football enthusiasts.

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Best Ball Bonanza

Timestamp: 06:36 – 13:52

The episode kicks off with the introduction of a new segment, the Best Ball Bonanza, sponsored by Play Draft. Andy and Jason discuss their experiences participating in a recent best ball draft, sharing playful banter about whose team is superior.

• Jason Moore humorously recounts a mix-up with team screenshots, stating, “[00:09:31] Jason Moore: The loser at the end of the season, based on these rosters here that we're going to tell you will be wearing a men's romper during an entire episode.”

• Andy Holloway adds to the camaraderie, emphasizing the importance of strategy in best ball leagues: “[07:11] Andy Holloway: So, like, should I. Should I add, you know, maybe two running backs and three wide receivers and a tight end, but change every single time.”

Jason provides a valuable tip for best ball drafts: “[07:49] Jason Moore: Every time you come up on the clock, reevaluate.”

Their friendly competition sets the stage for a deeper dive into their top strategies and player rankings.

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Top 20 Players

Timestamp: 13:52 – 54:20

The core of the episode revolves around the hosts' Top 20 Players rankings. Andy, Jason, and a brief mention of Mike Wright (The Fantasy Hitman) collaboratively curate a consensus list, analyzing each player's potential impact for the upcoming season.

Players Ranked 20 to 16

1. 20. Marshawn Lynch

   • Jason Moore expresses surprise at Lynch's ranking, highlighting his potential if healthy: “[14:32] Jason Moore: If he's healthy, if he's not broken down, he's going to be great.”
   • Andy Holloway underscores Lynch’s consistent performance: “[15:39] Andy Holloway: And I think I like him at 20, that's fine.”

2. 19. Ty Hilton

   • Andy Holloway discusses Hilton’s value amidst his average draft position: “[16:27] Jason Moore: Ty Hilton is getting, you know, in theory getting a healthy Dante Moncrief back.”
   • Jason Moore adds, “[16:41] Jason Moore: I don't think that they're. You can never argue that Ty Hilton's value.”

3. 18. Jay Ajayi

   • Andy Holloway advocates for Ajayi's potential despite past inconsistencies: “[18:00] Andy Holloway: So J A Jai, I think the sky is the limit for this player.”
   • Jason Moore supports Ajayi’s reliability: “[18:46] Jason Moore: ... diversify against the offense scene.”

4. 17. Michael Thomas

   • Jason Moore debates Thomas’s floor vs. ceiling: “[22:31] Jason Moore: ... his floor for Michael Thomas, to me is a super, super high end too.”
   • Andy Holloway maintains a cautious stance: “[22:09] Andy Holloway: He always. Yeah, because he's playing.”

5. 16. Dez Bryant

   • Jason Moore emphasizes Bryant’s undervaluation and potential: “[24:03] Jason Moore: ...if he plays 16 games, he's a top five wide receiver. That's a great value to me.”
   • Andy Holloway highlights Bryant's talent despite team dynamics: “[24:47] Andy Holloway: ... he did it without that.”

6. 15. Jordan Howard

   • Andy Holloway praises Howard’s rookie season performance: “[25:23] Jason Moore: ...because he did it in that environment.”

Players Ranked 14 to 11

7. 14. Rob Gronkowski

   • Jason Moore underscores Gronkowski’s value despite typically avoiding tight ends: “[27:48] Jason Moore: ...you draft them at their ceiling.”
   • Andy Holloway echoes the sentiment, noting Gronkowski as a difference-maker: “[29:05] Andy Holloway: He is a difference maker.”

8. 13. Mike Evans

   • Jason Moore discusses Evans’ consistent talent and potential regression: “[31:26] Jason Moore: ...he is a freakish talent.”

9. 12. AJ Green

   • Jason Moore argues for Green’s inclusion among top receivers: “[31:56] Jason Moore: ...he would have finished in the top three at least had he played a full 16.”

10. 11. Melvin Gordon

    • Andy Holloway and Jason Moore both commend Gordon’s consistency and role: “[33:06] Andy Holloway: ...he was still an RB2.”

Players Ranked 10 to 6

11. 10. DeMarco Murray

    • Jason Moore highlights Murray’s sustained performance across teams: “[35:29] Jason Moore: ...even with Henry on the roster.”

12. 9. Jordy Nelson

    • Andy Holloway compares Nelson to Marshawn Lynch in terms of wide receiver impact: “[38:28] Jason Moore: ...regression potential if he has fewer touchdowns.”

13. 8. Devonta Freeman

    • Jason Moore emphasizes Freeman’s role and team commitment: “[39:17] Andy Holloway: ...he's an important part of the community.”

14. 7. Odell Beckham Jr.

    • Jason Moore praises Beckham’s stellar performance and future potential: “[40:38] Andy Holloway: ...number one wide receiver.”

15. 6. LaShawn McCoy

    • Jason Moore discusses McCoy’s versatility and reliability: “[42:06] Jason Moore: ...guaranteed for that spot.”

Players Ranked 5 to 1

16. 5. Julio Jones

    • Andy Holloway and Jason Moore laud Jones’ consistent dominance and red zone potential: “[45:32] Andy Holloway: ...your favorite quarterback to pick this coming year.”

17. 4. Antonio Brown

    • Jason Moore underscores Brown’s elite performance and reliability: “[46:48] Jason Moore: ...top three wide receiver.”

18. 3. Ezekiel Elliott

    • Andy Holloway and Jason Moore discuss Elliott’s consistency and potential despite off-field concerns: “[50:07] Andy Holloway: ...awarding early running back is crucial.”

19. 2. Le'Veon Bell

    • Jason Moore highlights Bell’s superior performance compared to peers: “[49:18] Jason Moore: ...higher receiving yards and efficiency.”

20. 1. David Johnson

    • Andy Holloway confidently ranks Johnson as the top player due to his dual-threat capability: “[50:05] Jason Moore: ...you draft him to be a workhorse back.”

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Notable Quotes

• Jason Moore on Best Ball Strategy
  “[07:49] Jason Moore: Every time you come up on the clock, reevaluate.”

• Andy Holloway on Jordan Howard
  “[25:23] Andy Holloway: Jordan Howard has already done it in that environment.”

• Jason Moore on David Johnson's Dominance
  “[50:07] Andy Holloway: ...you draft him to be a workhorse back because there aren't a lot of them.”

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Conclusion

The episode culminates with a strong emphasis on the importance of securing a reliable running back early in drafts, reflecting the hosts' foundational principles for fantasy football success. Andy and Jason encourage listeners to utilize resources like ultimate draftkit.com and the Play Draft app to enhance their draft strategies.

As always, the Fantasy Footballers deliver expert insights wrapped in entertaining banter, ensuring listeners are well-equipped to dominate their fantasy leagues in style.

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Follow the Fantasy Footballers:

• Website: JoinTheFoot.com
• Twitter: @TheFFBallers

Transcript

[Andy Holloway]

What's going on? Foot Clan? Hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July. We have a great show in store for you. But before we do that, if you are getting back into the swing of things for fantasy football and you need a great league because your old league was not so good.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

Inactive players or commissioners, they don't know what they're doing. Or you need someone and someplace to go where you can find owners that actually want to play, that want to trade, that want to talk about the league.

[Jason Moore]

They know what they're doing and have fun.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes. And we have facilitated this. We started this last year. We've got it going this year. The Foot Clan leagues. You can find local and online leagues. Just head over to jointhefoot.com it's one of the many perks you get for supporting this podcast.

[Jason Moore]

Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast coming to you from the Play Draft Studios with your hosts, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright.

[Andy Holloway]

Welcome in once again. July 5th. It's the day after independence. Actually, I believe it's July 6th, Andy. It's July 6th.

[Jason Moore]

The judge. You have been judged again, Andy.

[Andy Holloway]

The days are all blurring together. We recorded the July 4th show the day early. And then, of course, it is the afternoon of July 5th for us. It is July 6th for you. Hopefully. You had a wonderful holiday. Did you have a wonderful holiday, Mr. Moore?

[Jason Moore]

I did. I had a fantastic holiday. We have young children, and so, you know, the holidays are a special time, and we were able to get rid of them.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh.

[Jason Moore]

So we had a 4th of July without our children.

[Andy Holloway]

So you had a holiday from your children?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

You know, Jay Grizz, how was your. Okay. All right. Sounds like it went okay. Happy 4th for Jay Grizz. No Mike again today. I'm so sorry. The beard himself is still out of town with the family. Saw a picture of them, him and his wife and three kids on the beach. They looked very happy. They looked very content. And he did not look like he was still studying any fantasy football.

[Jason Moore]

No. But he will be back on Tuesday.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes.

[Jason Moore]

Until then, Jay Grizz. Locking it down.

[Andy Holloway]

And from what I understand now, many of you were celebrating when our episode, the Tuesday episode, came out. You're celebrating the holiday. Maybe you listened to it yesterday, maybe you haven't even heard it yet, but you want to listen to the Tuesday episode because, you know, Mike wasn't here. And yet the reviews may be the best episode ever.

[Jason Moore]

That's what a lot of people were saying. Best episode of the season, at least. So do yourself a favor. You Gotta. We have a celebrity judge.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes.

[Jason Moore]

For an incredible segment on that episode.

[Andy Holloway]

That's right.

[Jason Moore]

So you have to go back and check out the 4th of July episode.

[Andy Holloway]

Today's a great show. We have our top 20 players on the show today.

[Jason Moore]

That's always fun to go through.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. Top 20. Not top 15, not top 18. Top 20.

[Jason Moore]

Right. Yeah. Because it's way better that way.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. More the merrier. All right, quick question of the day. This one comes in off of Twitter from Ethan. What is the most surprising player realization that you have had from making the udk? And I have a couple that have come to mind. You want me to chime in?

[Jason Moore]

Plenty of guys. Yeah, you can. You can go first.

[Andy Holloway]

So I would say the. Some. Many. There are definitely many. But the consistency charts, when I look at the season to season consistency of two players, it was just kind of shocking to see it visually. And that would be Drew Brees. First of all. If you pull Drew Brees up in the consistency charts in the UDK, you see a mesmerizing amount of green. He finished fifth, first, second, sixth. Second, first, second, sixth, sixth, third. It's pretty good over the last. What is that, 10 years?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

And then also Antonio Gates, just seeing how consistent he has finished inside the top 12, other than injury, it's been the last 10 years as well. So seeing that is just kind of illuminating.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Our consistency charts don't even do justice to Drew Brees because we only go back 10 years, a decade, which is plenty for most people. But he's like what I was always putting these, you know, top fantasy numbers when you guys were still in diapers.

[Andy Holloway]

Nice start, though, for Russell Wilson. 10, 8, 3, 3, 11. So he has been inside of that top 12 all five years. That's worth noting.

[Jason Moore]

Yes. For me, it was actually. It wasn't just perusing, but while diving deep on all the players and stating them out and projecting is Jordan Reed. For me to just see when he stacks against other players, especially, you know, when you're looking at flex rankings and scoring across positions and within the position scarcity. I don't usually like taking a tight end early at all, but you don't have to take Jordan Reed early. Risky. It's a risky pick because of his health, but when he's out there.

[Andy Holloway]

Rule 86.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. I mean, he is a dominant force and you can get him cheap. So he's certainly one of the guys that come across as very undervalued in drafts right now. And maybe that's because you just don't want the injury risk, but I'm taking, you know, I avoid the risk in those first few rounds, but if I can get a Jordan Reed in the middle rounds, what am I risking?

[Andy Holloway]

Not much. And you could argue that he is by far the safest play on the Washington offense because the hype around Jameson Crowder, Terrell Pryor doesn't really translate to, you know, wide receiver one type of capability. Terrell Pryor is brand new to the system. Josh Dockson was hurt. You've never seen it. But Jordan Reed, you've seen this for multiple years. You just need him healthy on the field.

[Jason Moore]

Right.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. If you want to follow the show, head over to twitter @the ffballers. If you want to leave us an iTunes review, subscribe to the show. We'd love it if you did that. Help support the podcast. Jay Grizz needs those reviews.

[Jason Moore]

He's very Jay Grizz.

[Andy Holloway]

He feeds off of them. Yeah, that and fish. What else do we have going on? Follow Jason at Jason ffl. Mike is at FF Hitman. I'm at Andy Holloway. J. Grizz is at jgrizzffl. And we do not have any news for the podcast today, so we're gonna jump into a brand new segment. Are you ready?

[Jason Moore]

I'm so sorry.

[Andy Holloway]

This drop is hot.

[Jason Moore]

Best Ball Bonanza brought to you by Play Draft.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, yeah, Anything cowboy themed will get me.

[Jason Moore]

So, yeah, I'm not really not a big Cowboy fan. Sorry, Brooks. Oh, but I am a huge best ball fan when it comes to best ball. If you don't know what we're talking about.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, let's start there. Let's start there. So we have a new segment once a week we're doing this, the Best Ball Bonanza segment. Talking a little best ball during the off season.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, during the off season, it'll be all about best ball. Best ball is a league format where you draft a team just like you would on your favorite drafts. You know, your, your league of record, your home league, your work league. You. You love that draft day and you get to draft this team and they're an even deeper team. So you get to go 18, 18 deep, 18 rounds and. But then you don't have to make any of the roster moves. The waiver wire pickups, they're going to take over the course of the season. Your best roster every single week, whatever would have been the max points you get. And they'll put it together and so every week you get points. Everybody else in the league gets points.

[Andy Holloway]

And just for Clarity. Yeah. They take your best roster in terms of let's you only start one quarterback in the league, but if you drafted three, whichever quarterback had the best week, that's the one you get the points for. So they don't add the total of your roster together. They start one quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, a flex position and a tight end. And that is the format for play draft. That's where we do all of our best ball is at the on the play draft app that's played [e-mail] Ballers what we're doing today on this segment is we're going to give you a tip for best ball. And you've heard us kind of yelling at one another, Jason and myself on the show a little bit about a draft that we did. What is it, three weeks ago.

[Jason Moore]

It was a while ago when we were FSTA in New York.

[Andy Holloway]

So we both participated in a draft for the upcoming season. And Jason believes his team is very, very good.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. So.

[Andy Holloway]

And I believe that my team is better.

[Jason Moore]

Well, here's what happened. Andy and Brooks can attest that before the show happened, we were prepping and I was looking over the show notes and I just. My heart just dropped. My heart sank. Is that true, Brooks?

[Andy Holloway]

I heard it. Yeah. We want to know why.

[Jason Moore]

Well, here's why. And I'm being honest. I looked in the app and I see in the doc and I see a screenshot of the app and it says your team with my picture directly above it. And I looked at that team and I went, oh, no, I'm going to lose this bet. But thank goodness the screenshot was from Andy's team. And it just makes me all the more confident that I'm winning this bet.

[Andy Holloway]

I believe so dumb.

[Jason Moore]

The loser at the end of the season, based on these rosters here that we're going to tell you will be wearing a men's romper during an entire episode. Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

Not to mention. Well, I'm sure it's a water bet. It's a food bed. It's everything.

[Jason Moore]

All right.

[Andy Holloway]

So run through your roster.

[Jason Moore]

Sure thing. So at quarterback, I got a trifecta. At quarterback, Russell Wilson, Matthew Stafford and Alex Smith as my three quarterbacks running backs. This is where I will be winning. Le'Veon Bell and Jay Ajayi and DeMarco Murray and Lamar Miller and Paul Perkins. You need to start only two in this format. So I think I will always have two plus a better flex than your best wide receiver.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. And you let into the wide receiver on purpose there. Because if you're looking at this roster, you can see how many do you start. Running backs versus wide receivers.

[Jason Moore]

Two running backs, three wide receivers and a flex.

[Andy Holloway]

So I almost forgot my wide receivers. I'll kick it off there. Odell Beckham Jr. AJ Green does Bryant, Deshaun Jackson, John Brown and Adam Thielen. My quarterback, which I would argue my wife Would you admit that my wide receivers are better than you?

[Jason Moore]

Yes. My wide receivers, since I didn't finish, were Devonte Adams, Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Crabtree, Jameson Crowder, Dante Moncrief, Pierre Garcon, Mike Wallace and Kenny Brett. I went deeper. You have the higher end.

[Andy Holloway]

Fair. Fair. And the reverse is true of our running backs. I have Todd Gurley, Joe Mixon, Adrian Peterson, Tevin Coleman, P. Ryan Hunt and Kamara. So an assortment of rookies. Along with Gurley, Peterson, and Tevin Coleman. I would argue that you have a better running back core. I agree. And then I think I've got a better quarterback situation. And those. Debatable.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

I. Palmer, Tannehill, Wilson, Stafford, Smith. Here's the trick here.

[Jason Moore]

My top two over your time.

[Andy Holloway]

I have Eiford and Ertz. You have Jimmy Graham and Gates. That's very comparable as well. I think it'll be close. I think I'll also crush you. Well, so those are.

[Jason Moore]

That's the great thing about fantasy football. We get to find out. So when you're making these rosters and playing and having games and you can do best ball, there's all sorts of different places you play best ball. We've been enjoying the play draft because in my opinion, their app is. I mean, it's just so sweet and fast and easy. You can also do these fast. You don't have to do them slow. And they get rid of defenses, which I love, because in best ball, I mean, you end up picking a better roster of all these guys you spend the time on. And then you lose because someone had three Ds that just happened to line up, you know, weekly as, you know, crazy fluky touchdown scores. My tip for you though, is if you're doing a slow draft on any format for best ball, when you come on the clock, stop, breathe, don't make your pick, don't look at your. Don't look at your cue, and then just take the guy you think is best, okay? Every time you come up, if it's a slow draft, look at your roster and every time, game plan, what you think you need, you know, composition wise. Because so often you look and you go okay, the next highest player on my rankings is, you know, it's whoever, it's Josh Dachshund. But if you look at your lineup already in tow and you say, okay, I'm really heavy at wide receiver, I've got the top end, great wide receivers, you know, how many tight ends are left. You've got to just take everything into account and look at your team and every time say, what would make my team the best from here on out? So, like, should I. Should I add, you know, maybe two running backs and three wide receivers and a tight end, but change every single time Whenever you come up on the clock, reevaluate.

[Andy Holloway]

I agree. That's a great perspective for best ball leagues. You didn't know this, but while we were debating our teams, I threw it on Twitter. Oh, and so you had an early lead. Right now it's 53, 47. I am in the lead so early.

[Jason Moore]

We'll have to check.

[Andy Holloway]

Ryan Willis says, I wish push was an option here. Sheesh. So. All right. Hey, main event time. You ready to talk top 20 overall players?

[Jason Moore]

I sure am.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, let's explain exactly what you're getting here. This is the consensus top 20 players when you take Jason's rankings, Mike's rankings, and my rankings. So you could call these show rankings, not positional, not broken down by position, the top 20 overall show rankings. So individually, we may disagree with exactly where they line up, but we thought it'd be fun to run through the top 20 players on our rankings. And number 20 back in the league is Marshawn Lynch. Marshawn lynch right now has an average draft position, surprisingly, of 205, shockingly, because.

[Jason Moore]

I'll be honest, when we say that Marshawn lynch has cracked our overall top 20 players, I feel like that's a hot take. I think people are surprised that we're saying, old man lynch, we're willing to put you in our top 20, but it's not. It's not surprising to the average player. You know, the average draft position is even higher than our ranking. And so here's the lay of the land on Marshawn lynch, right? If he's healthy, if he's not broken down, he's going to be great. Latavius Murray put up double digit touchdowns for that team. They've got a great offense, a great offensive line. They are never. I mean, I watched the face of Jack Del Rio and all the coaches when Marshawn lynch came in to sign the contract, and they weren't just apathetic. And they weren't a little bit excited. They thought this was a Super bowl winning move. They are not giving jalen Richard or DeAndre Washington the ball on the goal line. Every carry inside the five is going to belong to Marshawn lynch and he will get his touchdowns. Unless his body's broken down.

[Andy Holloway]

Yep.

[Jason Moore]

If his body's broken down and he's too old, he's not getting it done. He's, you know, then sure, but so the question really becomes, do we try to predict what whether or not Marshawn Lynch's body is done? Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

I think the job that you have as a fantasy owner is to hedge, is to hedge that prediction a little bit. You don't extrapolate his fifth and fourth and fifth and fourth finish from basically what that's not last year, not the year before. So three years ago. You don't just take that and apply it.

[Jason Moore]

No way.

[Andy Holloway]

But you realize the potentials there for a top performance. And I think I like him at 20, that's fine. I'm comfortable there. It's a little bit behind the average draft position where he'd be 17. So I like it. Number 19. Number 19, the guy going right after him in the draft right now, which maybe is crazy. Ty Hilton, mind you, that's a standard draft adp, correct?

[Jason Moore]

Right.

[Andy Holloway]

So Ty Hilton is maybe, you know, he's one of my favorite players but his draft position is very high now and he's certainly a player that can win you a week and lose you a week.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, The Ty Hilton at the end of the year will be a very good, you know, if he's not a wide receiver one, he'll be a high end wide receiver too. You know, when you're the number one wide receiver for Andrew Luck, it bodes well in your favor. When Luck has played, you know, a season of health, he's been a wide receiver one. The question is at his draft position, it's kind of already baked in that he's going to succeed. And that's fine if you're 100% positive a guy's going to succeed. But it's hard to take people at where their ceiling is, you know, basically where you're drafting him. He needs to come with his best. And if he comes with his best, then you'll return value. Happy, you're happy.

[Andy Holloway]

Right. But if there are wide receivers you prefer potential wise to him that are at a better value, I don't think that they're. You can never argue that Ty Hilton's value, we have him at 19 overall in our top in our consensus show rankings, Lynch 20. Hilton number 19. Let's talk about one of my favorite players. Jay ajayi is number 18. I would have him higher if it were up to me, as does the world. The world has him at 11, but we've got him at 18. If you kind of throw out the first four weeks of last year, he didn't play Week 1, which is fair.

[Jason Moore]

He wasn't the starter.

[Andy Holloway]

Exactly. So you throw those first four weeks out. He finished as an RB2 or better in all but four weeks. Three of those four where he did not. He was still inside the top 34. He only had one clunker of a week against the jets. Looks like week six. 15. So J A Jai, I think the sky is the limit for this player. He was a touchdown machine in college. All the health concerns you talk about, Marshawn lynch and ooh, you know, you buy into being healthy. I think it's only health that stops Jay Ajayi from being a monster this year. I think he could be more involved in the passing game than we saw last year due to being just another year in that Adam Gaye's offense. I absolutely love Ajayi. He's one of the players that if you told me, hey, name everybody that you think could finish number one at the running back position.

[Jason Moore]

Sure.

[Andy Holloway]

Could. Not will, but could Ajay. He's in that list.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, he should be in that list. Especially with the reports that maybe they're going to involve him more on passing work. But as we've joked recently, all the reports out of Miami are glowing on every player possible, which one of the reasons I like Ajay, but I have to temper it against what I just said is the fact that the latest reports about the health of Pouncey, their center look good. Sure, it looks like he's going to be there for the majority of the season. If he doesn't make it for week one, he'll be there soon. And you know that makes a huge difference for a running back. A good, a good center makes all the difference in the world. I really like jj. We both, you and I have him inside our top 10 running backs. I think he belongs there.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, and when you talk about hype, I take the nut. I like having numbers behind JJ as opposed to the hype behind Devonte Parker right now or those type of things. At least with Ajayi, we've seen weak winning type of performances from him multiple times last year. Finished second overall three different weeks, sixth one week so very impressive.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Before we get to this next guy who we have a slight disagreement on, definitely want to thank today's sponsor, SeatGeek. SeatGeek is the best and only way to buy your tickets for any event, sporting event or wife and I just.

[Andy Holloway]

Grabbed tickets to Hamilton. Yeah. And the Book of Mormon when we were out in New York.

[Jason Moore]

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[Andy Holloway]

I was freaked out. To pay the money you have to pay for those tickets. But then I knew that it was not going to come back on me.

[Jason Moore]

So, you know, best of all our listeners, if you haven't used them yet, you. $20 off your first SeatGeek purchase. Just download the SeatGeek app, enter the promo code Footballers today. That's promo code footballers for $20 off your first SeatGeek purchase.

[Andy Holloway]

Alright, number 17 on our top 20 list is Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. All right, Michael Thomas. You say slight disagreement and that's because I think you're in love with him. And I'm, I like him a lot.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

When I'm just not willing to give him the ring. Jason.

[Jason Moore]

Sure.

[Andy Holloway]

I can't get on one knee for Michael Thomas.

[Jason Moore]

So let's compare this to the Ty Hilton. Right. Because Michael Thomas costs even more than Ty Hilton.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Jason Moore]

A couple picks ahead and I was worried that Hilton might be being drafted at his ceiling. Well, the reality is whenever you're drafting a guy in the first round, you're drafting them at their ceiling. Right. I mean you're spending capital that says he needs to come in on top. So actually what I look for there is almost a reverse. I look for what's the floor of this guy. And when I look at the floor of Michael Thomas, you can make the argument that because, you know, oh, defenses are going to scheme different this year. You haven't seen, you know, he's. Sophomore slump is a two word phrase that you've heard before. But his volume in a. You just named all the numbers on Drew Brees. Drew. Drew Brees is getting it done. This year because he's playing.

[Andy Holloway]

He always. Yeah, because he's playing.

[Jason Moore]

And so his number one target will be Michael Thomas. You know, I think he'll be in the 90 reception range and he was great near the end zone. So your floor for Michael Thomas, to me is a super, super high end too. I think his floor is wide receiver 15.

[Andy Holloway]

And I think that's a very fair argument. You know, we have him at 17. I'm okay with that. I'd have a Jay ahead of him for sure. You did have weeks last year where he disappeared yet 125th finish, a 45 finish, a 60 finish. I don't think that there is ascension for Michael Thomas. Yeah, personally, I don't think. I think he's in the same boat as, you know, Hilton, where you're kind of saying you hope you get everything you got last year to justify the draft.

[Jason Moore]

You have the opposite situation though there, because Ty Hilton is getting, you know, in theory is getting a healthy Dante Moncrief back, whereas he played without Moncrief a lot last year and we saw he was a beneficiary of that when he was out. Ty Hilton did a lot of his damage. Now this year you've got Michael Thomas having Brandon Cooks leave. And so more target opportunity for Michael Thomas, less target opportunity for ty Hilton.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay, 16 is Dez Bryant. He's going right now around 20.

[Jason Moore]

He's undervalued, you think? I do think he's undervalued.

[Andy Holloway]

This all comes down to, I mean, we made this, kind of had this discussion around Dak Prescott previously. I don't like the cornerbacks that DEZ has to face in that division. I think that there will be games where he is not as involved because the, for one, maybe the running game is dominant and you don't need him. But I certainly believe in the talent and the double digit touchdown potential of Dez Bryant. Right now his ADP is 208.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I mean, he's got a. The last two years he's had injury concerns and so that's why he's dropping. He was always basically a top five wide receiver pick. And the reason was because he finished as the third wide receiver, the seventh, the fourth wide receiver three years in a row before those injuries came upon him. Now last year he was dealing with one of those aforementioned injuries in the beginning of the year, had the week seven bye and then was back healthy. Week eight. If you look at week eight to the end of the season, remember they didn't play in week 17. They rested all their starters, so eight through 16, he was the wide receiver. Four. And that includes, you know, a bad game here or there with, you know, Josh Norman.

[Andy Holloway]

I think that's. That's a strong argument. You know, he had enough games back from week eight on to where you could say he has a rapport with Prescott. His health was back, so maybe that translates to same old Des.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. He's being drafted in the back of the second, and I think if he plays 16 games, he's a top five wide receiver. That's. That's a great value to me.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, number 15. Youngster, but dominant youngster at that. Jordan Howard comes in at 15 on our top 20 rankings. Just an impressive, incredible rookie season for Jordan Howard on a team that wasn't good.

[Jason Moore]

That was. Honestly. That was very kind of you. Yeah. And are you just doing that because Jay Grizz is here and he doesn't want to hear you talk bad about the Bears?

[Andy Holloway]

Yes. So they may be worse this year. I don't even know. But it's nice to know that Jordan Howard has already done it in that environment. He's proven himself. He's established himself and really only had three weeks outside the top RB2 range from what, week three on. And he was fighting for carries in the beginning of last season. So it's just a workload thing for Howard. He wants the workload. He wants to go in and be the guy.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

I mean, I love everything about Jordan Howard, except for the lack of a track record, which is built into these young players, where it's possible they regress or they try to do too much. You saw with Todd Gurley last year. There's no reason that Jordan Howard couldn't have a regression of sorts because the offense can't do it. But gotta love him right now.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, there's. There's. I think there's multiple reasons to be worried. You know, while he has, you know, the sophomore slump word attributed to him, there's a big difference between the offense of the Saints and the offense of the Bears. That's one worry. But usually when a running back has the type of season Jordan Howard had, which was incredible, I mean, if zeke didn't have 1600 rushing yards, you'd be going, whoa, who's this Jordan Howard rookie that, you know, had, what, 1300 rushing.

[Andy Holloway]

Second in the league and didn't play.

[Jason Moore]

The first three games? I mean, it wasn't the starter. You know, he was the starter starting in week three. From that point on, he was the running back seven in fantasy football. So the nice thing is he didn't do it on the back of touchdowns because if he had 10 touchdowns, they.

[Andy Holloway]

Might have won more.

[Jason Moore]

Well, sure, but if he had 10 touchdowns, I'd be saying the Bears are not producing a 10 touchdown running back, but he did it without that.

[Andy Holloway]

So I can tell you a fantasy mistake I made last year.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, let me hear it. Oh, I know it. I remember.

[Andy Holloway]

So they played, they played Green Bay and Green Bay's poorest run defense and well, he stunk. And this was about week seven and I may have traded him after that.

[Jason Moore]

In one of our leagues the next two weeks. The next week he had to play against one of the best rush defenses of the year in Minnesota. How do you do against Minnesota?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, he was the number one running back that week. And so I saw the Minnesota game in the buy and I unloaded him and I regretted it the rest of the year. Jordan Howard, number 15. Jason, number 14 is Rob Gronkowski. What can you, what can you say about this gigantic tight end?

[Jason Moore]

I can say that Rob Gronkowski, similar to a little bit of what I was saying to Jordan Reed. I don't usually draft tight ends, but he is undervalued this year. You know, the two previous years, he's basically costing you a first rounder. He was either last year he was like the 1201. So that's at the turn. That's where whether you pick him at the last pick of the first round or the first pick of the second round, it's the same pick. And then the previous year he was a first rounder in 2015. The reason why is clear. If he plays, I mean more than eight games, he's a top tight end. I mean he was, he was eighth. He was the eighth best tight end in his rookie season. We just had an argument with a judge last episode about rookie tight ends and he was, he finished as the tight end. 8. Since then, if he's played more than eight games, you're talking about, he's had three first place finishes and his lowly fourth place tight end finish. He's incredible. But I'm never willing to give up those first round running backs and wide receivers. I'm rarely willing to give up a second round running back and wide receiver. But with his average draft position, I've been in plenty of drafts where Gronk is falling into the third round. And at that point you're getting a guy who can.

[Andy Holloway]

Difference maker.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. I mean when you finish first and have the ability to finish first, it's a flat guarantee that you had a positional advantage over everybody else, especially at a position that only plays one.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, number 13 on our top 20 rankings is Mike Evans. Mike Evans, a dominant season a year ago. He's had three seasons in the fantasy football universe and he finished 12th, 24th, and last year, number two, just 24 years old, depending on scoring, he was number one on. Jordy was.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, Jordy and him go back and forth.

[Andy Holloway]

So Mike Evans, I think we all agree the physical freak aspect is there. He dominated last year. He was a target monster last year. Now you had Desean Jackson, O.J. howard to the offense. Cameron Brait is back. And what do we make of Mike Evans, year number four?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, so Mike Evans scared me for a while because whenever you finish at number one or number two, you're usually overdrafted. You know, you come the next year and you're drafted as if you're going to repeat that. And unless you're, you know, Antonio Brown or Aaron Rodgers, you usually don't repeat that. Then they add desean Jackson and you go, okay, well, he was the only show in town last year. Now he's not. Now he's got someone else that, you know, if, look, if DeSean Jackson takes a 70 yard touchdown from the 30, that's one scoring opportunity away from Mike Evans. And then it goes to the running game. So I had Mike Evans a little bit lower, closer to wide receiver. 10. The last. This last week, I actually watched some film on Mike Evans to kind of test my own thoughts on him. And boy, he's really good. He's really good at catching that football.

[Andy Holloway]

And I, at the catching of the.

[Jason Moore]

Ball, I was just like, yeah, he's got good routes, his contested catches is very good. I mean, I have a note to look at my rankings on him because I might need to move him up. It's not just all opportunity. It's opportunity and talent. Of course, the opportunity might go down, but the talent is just. It's freakish.

[Andy Holloway]

No, I'm not overreacting to that. He's one of the safest players. I feel like in fantasy football, from a floor perspective, I think Mike Evans is very, very safe. You're paying a high price for him. I don't draft him ahead of AJ Green. I don't like the recency bias that we have against AJ Green.

[Jason Moore]

I'm not taking him over AJ Green or Jordy Nelson, guys that are going right now behind him. Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

And so I'm looking for best value out of that upper echelon. But Mike Evans, you have to love what you have there. I think a lot of people might be surprised. He's at 13. His normal position is about 9 right now in mock drafts. So we have him at 13. Number 12 is AJ Green, whom we just mentioned. AJ Green missed the last seven weeks of the season last year, which means it was the first time he didn't have a thousand yard year, Right?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Because he missed seven games and really eight because he had two snaps total in the game that he got injured in. Look, A.J. green, we had a question today on a Facebook. If you're not following us over on Facebook, we pop on live now from time to time. Be sure to do that. But the question was, does A.J. green belong in conversations with the top three wide receivers? And I would say absolutely. Certainly he does, because not only has he done it his whole career, he's had two, you know, top four finishes, a top seven finish. But last year before his injury, through the first eight weeks of the season, he was your number one wide receiver. What more do you want to be in the conversation with the top than? And it wasn't like he trailed off, he got injured. I think he would have finished in the top three at least had he played a full 16.

[Andy Holloway]

I really like AJ Green, number 11, Melvin Gordon. And you look at this consistency chart from Melvin Gordon and for running, it's impervious. He has. He had no weeks outside the top 24 until he was hurt.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

So the entirety of the year he missed the last three games, was hurt in the fourth to last game against Carolina. Otherwise he's a top 24 every week. He was the RB3, above DeMarco, above Shady, above Freeman through those 13 games. I think that there's a world that doubts him because some of the metrics didn't match, you know, the impressive numbers of LaShawn McCoy yard per carry or David Johnson or Left Bell. But he was just great. I mean, right?

[Jason Moore]

He's just great. No, Melvin Gordon was one of the untouchables. Last year when you were looking at trading, you couldn't get Melvin Gordon from anyone because week after week after week he was dominating. He never let off the gas. It was what he was supposed to do out of college. I think the reason some people are down on him, like you said, the metric side, it really says that he should not have had as many fantasy points for the quality of his running because he got bailed out with a lot of touchdowns on certain, you know, runs that he got Stuffed. He got stuffed. He didn't do much and then he got a touchdown and it's like, oh, great. Fantasy was good, but they drafted him to be a workhorse back. They don't have anyone on the roster that scares me for carries, even for targets. I know he'll probably lose some receptions this year on a per game basis. I believe he's a really good running back and he's on an offense and a team overall that I think is on the rise.

[Andy Holloway]

No, I think the offensive line improved as well. And so I like Melvin Gordon. He's right there. With Jay Ajayi as one of those players I have ranked higher than the consensus, so I'm a big fan. You ready for the top 10, Jason?

[Jason Moore]

Whoo. Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

Number 10, DeMarco Murray comes in at number 10. Average draft position right now of 202. So the, you know, unbelievable season for DeMarco Murray didn't have a week outside the top 24 until the last two weeks of the season. Almost all those weeks were inside the top 10. To start the year obviously started on fire. Very heavily involved in the passing game. Do we expect a Repeat performance from DeMarco Murray finished sixth, second, and then the year in Philly, he was still the 17th best running back and number five again last year. He's been one of the best in the league. DeMarco Murray for 2017.

[Jason Moore]

What I expect from DeMarco Murray is to have an extremely solid fantasy season. The best predictor of fantasy success in the future is success in the past and three of the last four years he's been a top six back and that's been on two different teams. His only down year was when he went to Philly for the Chip Kelly system and it. And it didn't work for him. I do have concerns with him losing goal line touches and goal line carries to Derek Henry. We saw that towards the end of the year. There's, you know, the arguments of, well, was it because of his injury that they started giving him more rest or was it because they wanted to move towards Derek Henry? The truth is DeMarco Murray is going to be the primary ball carrier there. Even with Henry on the roster, even with everybody calling for Derek Henry to get the ball and be in a 50, 50, it's not going to happen. DeMarco Murray will get the ball until he's injured. And I think the offense is.

[Andy Holloway]

It's going to be good.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, the offense is going to probably need to score as well.

[Andy Holloway]

Number nine, Jordy Nelson. Number nine, on our rankings. Jason, you wrote an interesting stat in here. Do you want to tell the listeners what you found?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. So Jordy was your wide receiver number one last year, depending on scoring formats, or possibly your number two if it was Mike Evans. He got off to a slow start though last year and he did in.

[Andy Holloway]

The beginning of the year 32 and week. He was a 32nd wide receiver in week run. Week one. Had a 25, 62 and a 96 in the first half of the year.

[Jason Moore]

So you go, well, how did he finish? As you know, the wide receiver won if he got off to a slow start. Well, here's the thing. From week eight on, he was straight liquid magma. He wasn't just the number one wide receiver in fantasy. He was in a tear by himself.

[Andy Holloway]

Geologists out there, is there, is there solid magma or is it all liquid?

[Jason Moore]

That is a great, I think.

[Andy Holloway]

Are you redundant? Is it redundant what you said?

[Jason Moore]

Probably.

[Andy Holloway]

Usually geologists a symbol.

[Jason Moore]

Wouldn't that just be lava rock? If it's not?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, I wouldn't call it magma, probably. This is important to figure out. I guess the point is that he was the point. He was either magma or he was liquid magma.

[Jason Moore]

One of the two. But he was great. Second and third place. Right. The number two and number three wide receiver second half of the year. No, no surprise. Odell Beckham Jr. And Antonio Brown, guys that you would expect to be there, they had 140.2 points and 139.2 points respectively. So basically they scored 140 points over that stretch. Jordy had over 173. That's almost 25% on top of what the second and third place guys did. I mean he, you know, and the thing is, is he's done this before. He's got multiple years of double digit touchdowns. You Since 2011, he's second in the league in total receiving touchdowns and he missed a year.

[Andy Holloway]

Jordy Nelson, the Marshawn lynch of the wide receiver position.

[Jason Moore]

Sure. Yeah, he's, I mean, I'll be honest, I say all of that great stuff. I see a lot of risk with Jordy just for regression. We saw him have 15 touchdowns in a season before. The following season he had seven. When you have to draft him like that, it's, you know, if he comes out and has seven touchdowns next year, you'll be disappointed. You'll be very disappointed.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, let's move on. Number eight, Devonta Freeman comes in at number eight right now. He's a first round draft pick. Not that I'm Surprised dominant season once again for Devonta Freeman last two years. He was the first and the sixth best running back last year. A lot of concern about Tevin Coleman before the season and not so much anymore.

[Jason Moore]

What Kevin Coleman produced, he was great.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. But it didn't affect Devonta Freeman.

[Jason Moore]

In fact, not only did it not affect him, but in the games that Tevin Coleman played, Devonta Freeman was. He produced more fantasy points with Coleman than without. And that's something that should, you know, calm the fears of people that are like, well, Tevin Coleman's going to be more involved. Let him let you know, stop downing Devonta Freeman.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. Touchdown score, involved in the passing game, offers you everything you want. And the team loves him, trusts him.

[Jason Moore]

And they're about to sign a long term deal. That's the rumors in the bushes is that they're really close to locking him up and that just says he is. From what I understand from the circles in Atlanta, he's an important part of the community. He's a cog, he's not a piece.

[Andy Holloway]

That is a franchise player.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, exactly. And I mean just watch the film because he's so shifty, so hard to take down, so great at catching the pass.

[Andy Holloway]

Catching the pass.

[Jason Moore]

That's what you do, right?

[Andy Holloway]

It is.

[Jason Moore]

All right.

[Andy Holloway]

I mean if there's just one pass. Well, that's true.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

You said there's more than one pass.

[Jason Moore]

I said it my way.

[Andy Holloway]

Number seven, Odell Beckham Jr. Comes in at number seven on our rankings. Jason just talked about it. Finished the year on hot fire. He had a slower start to the season as well. People were concerned a little bit. But after the buy he was just, he might not have been liquid magma, but I mean he was like, oh.

[Jason Moore]

He was the number two, right?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, he was, he was amazing. And the thing is he started his career better than just about any wide receiver in NFL history. Six, five, four is his finishes. So number three this year is.

[Jason Moore]

Number three is, is, is coming. He has.

[Andy Holloway]

You know, I think he's the best. I mean he's the best dynasty pick you can, you can make.

[Jason Moore]

Absolutely. He's almost always the one on one in Dynasty. You know, I just said since 2011 you have Jordy Nelson, unbelievably is at the second most receiving touchdowns despite missing a year. Odell Beckham is the 15th highest in receiving touchdowns. He wasn't drafted until 2014. Since 2014 he's leading the league. He's number one. And it's not going to change because one they target him in the end zone. But two, he breaks those just like Antonio Brown so many times he takes.

[Andy Holloway]

A slant route to the house.

[Jason Moore]

Exactly. And he's actually tied with as far as since he's been in the league. He's tied for receiving touchdowns with Antonio Brown. And both of those guys get so many of their touchdowns on those. Those slants that just. They take it, they make their touchdown. Brandon Marshall can't take that away from him. I think Odell Beckham is safe and awesome and incredible. And when it is possible, we have not seen the peak at all for odell yet. Number six.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, let's talk about Lashawn McCoy coming in at number six. I think some people might be surprised. Shady sliding up ahead of Odell Beckham.

[Jason Moore]

Jr. Well, he is a slippery fish.

[Andy Holloway]

He is a slippery fish and he's.

[Jason Moore]

Keep him away from Jay Griffith. Am I right?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, pretty much. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 weeks as a running back. One of his 16 weeks last year. 10. I mean, that's as good as it gets right there. LaShawn McCoy, if you told me that this is what I'm getting next year, how do you not take him this high?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I mean, if. If you were a shady owner last year, you watch the games and you were so happy with the production you got and yet you were still so upset because Mike Gillislee had 200 touchdowns. That's what it felt like. It was like they just kept giving him the ball.

[Andy Holloway]

And Mike's the worst about this. Mike. Mike can be having a 35 point LaShawn McCoy day and riding him to victory. But if Mike Gilsey takes a touchdown, he pops it. We get a text. It's like, why is this happening? It's so terrible. Well, it wasn't terrible. He was great.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

I mean, and maybe he's even great.

[Jason Moore]

Greater and shady is great. You know, you've seen it for two different teams. You've seen it in different schemes. Now you're on a team with Tyrod Taylor.

[Andy Holloway]

Teams and schemes.

[Jason Moore]

Teams and schemes, my man. You're on a team with Tyrod Taylor, a running quarterback, which always helps the running game. And I mean, look, he's had two seasons, you know, get rid of his rookie season where he didn't really play. He's had two seasons where he played 12 games where he was, you know, he was gone for four of those games. Both of those seasons, despite missing four games, he was still an RB2. But every other season of his pretty lengthy career, he's been an RB one. He's been guaranteed for that spot. You know, he's catching the ball. You know, he's the primary running back for a team.

[Andy Holloway]

You know he'll be on the injury report is probable.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, you'll. If you watch the games, he'll get about three or four times a game. You think he's died on the field.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. Crumpled mess. And then he just gets up and runs for another touchdown.

[Jason Moore]

There you go.

[Andy Holloway]

Number five, Julio Jones, number five, dominant season, 300 yard game last year, week four against Carolina. A key cog in an offense that was just dominant. You know, we've had different conversations on the show, Jason and myself and Mike with what we believe about the Atlanta offense and whether it can repeat what it did last year. But none of that imposes itself upon Julio Jones and his ranking here at number five. Just a dominant force eight, two and six for the last three years in terms of fantasy finishes and belongs happily at the number five spot.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, absolutely. I mean he finished six, but he, he finished six missing two games last year.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, we'll count the 300 yard game as two games.

[Jason Moore]

Sure. There you go. The fantasy players would have. Yeah, I don't worry. I've been the Mr. You know, regression for the totality of the Atlanta Falcons offense. I think they'll come back to what they were the year before. But that, but that doesn't mean I'm worried about Devonta Freeman who was the number one running back or Julio Jones who was the number two wide receiver two years ago. They are absolutely fine. And when you talk about the trifecta of the big three wide receivers, Julio is the only one that's actually big. You know, you got 2, 5, 10, 5, 11 guys and then you've got a freak of nature in Julio that should be able to be the number one wide receiver. You know, if he could play 16, it should be him who wins over Odell Beckham.

[Andy Holloway]

It just comes down to red zone targets. That's been the problem for Julio Jones his entire career. You know, claims now with the new offensive coordinator, we're going to use him in the red zone. Well, genius.

[Jason Moore]

You're a genius.

[Andy Holloway]

You're a genius.

[Jason Moore]

Number four.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. From Julio to the last remaining wide receiver on the list, Antonio Brown at number four. Have to kind of have. I think there's a comparison there to the discussion we had about Mike Evans where desean Jackson comes in as the deep threat. Now you have Antonio Brown with Martavis Bryant back as the deep threat. Should open the Offense up should be a good overall thing. But there will be a drive here or there where Martavis Bryant has a 74 yard touchdown takes that possession away from Antonio Brown. I'm not concerned about Antonio Brown in any way, shape or form. That's why he's number four on this list.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I mean we very similar to the Devonta Freeman, Tevin Coleman. Antonio Brown's numbers were better with Martavis, not worse. So you don't worry there. Big Ben just basically throws one extra touchdown at home when he has Martavis Bryant. Antonio Brown, there's, there's very little to say. He's a locked and loaded top three wide receiver this year. And every year that Big Ben continues.

[Andy Holloway]

To play, that's about all there is to it.

[Jason Moore]

That's really it. Number three.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, the big three running backs. Ezekiel Elliott coming in at number three on our consensus top 20. Ho hum. I'm a rookie and I am going to take the league by storm to the tune of, well every single week he played he was in the top 24. So as consistent as they come in the offense, just 22 years old, the only small corner of your eye speck of sadness that might exist is a little bit of risk on the legal problems that could be coming about based on the NFL's investigation. Remember that the NFL doesn't rely upon the legal charging of a player to impose discipline. If they feel like a violation happened of their personal conduct policy, it's in their right to suspend or punish a player. Probability of that happening to me, it's not high. But when Adam Schefter comes out and says hey, I'm concerned I might not draft him very high in fantasy leagues.

[Jason Moore]

I think he said that the feeling was that a suspension might come down. I mean it sounded to me like a little bit of a scary proposition.

[Andy Holloway]

So you have a probability higher than.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I mean I feel like right now if I'm on the clock drafting the, the 20% chance that he misses, you know, some games due to suspension in my heart would say I'm going to take Antonio Brown over Zeke. That's the downside for Zeke. The upside is also there though. I mean he is a great pass catcher. I mean great. I think he led, you know, last year when it came to receiving yards or yards per reception at running back. I think only Tevin Coleman's ridiculousness was ahead of Ezekiel Elliott. But he wasn't utilized in that fashion as much as he could have been or probably should have been. So there's still room for him to grow. And you have to keep in mind that he didn't play in the last week of the season.

[Andy Holloway]

Are you telling me I need to invest in Darren McFadden? Is that what you're telling me?

[Jason Moore]

I, you know, right now, little best ball investment news comes in my 18th round pick. I might be taking some Darren McFadden.

[Andy Holloway]

Number two, Le'Veon Bell. Number two, Le'Vheon Bell. Absolutely incredible into the season. He missed the first three weeks and was just ridiculous after that. There's no other way to put it. The only thing that you can possibly question about Love Bell would be injury concerns. But at this point, who else would you want? We only have one player ranked higher than Le'Veon Bell. Again, another one of those players is only 25 years old. What else can you say about it?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I mean, you have an injury history that you don't, you know, you don't like to talk about with Le'Veon Bell because he's so good. He is a guy that is on so many championship teams. When he plays the season, he's. When he played last year, his pace would have broke the all time NFL record for yards. He was that good during that time. Better than David Johnson, who had an incredible run. Lev Bell is, I would say Le'Veon Bell is better than David Johnson, is better than Ezekiel Elliot, period. The only question for me is injury history and concern with that volume.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay, let's get to our last remaining player.

[Jason Moore]

Number one.

[Andy Holloway]

David Johnson was last year's number one running back. He is this year's number one running back in our consensus rankings four different weeks. He was the number one back last year. Other than the last game of the season in which he got hurt. He finished inside the top 19 every single week. And he's a volume play and he's a talent play and he's a wide receiver. He had 800 yards receiving last year. Was disappointed we had him on the show. We talked about wanting to get to the 1000, 1000 mark. Feels like that's well within his reach. Bruce Arians has talked about 30 touches a game for David Johnson. And you look at that offense and you look at what worked and, and you look at what the future is. There's no other option for the Cardinals than to put the ball into David Johnson's hands early and often and as much as possible.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, he to me is very safe. He's my number one overall player. I think you're making a mistake in any league if you've got the one on one. And you don't take David Johnson. What he does is the equivalent of two players. He outscored the best wide receivers and the best running backs by a decent margin. You know, new players come in and they look at how many points quarterbacks score because obviously the whole position scores a whole lot more than every other position. So you draft those high. Andy, who's your favorite quarterback to pick this coming year? You said you thought he was going to be on so many of your teams.

[Andy Holloway]

You talking about Andy Dalton?

[Jason Moore]

No, no, no, no. Higher, higher end.

[Andy Holloway]

Andrew Luck.

[Jason Moore]

Andrew Luck, who is great, who was last year's number four quarterback who did not score as many fantasy points as David Johnson. That's ridiculous. I mean, you're outscoring quarterbacks as a running back and that was. That was in standard. That's not even giving him points for reception. You do that and he's just number one. He outscored Aaron Rodgers.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, so David Johnson, number one. Feel very comfortable with that. And like I said earlier, I think a couple episodes ago, it does seem like the community is heading that direction. I saw Lev at the top of more boards a month ago than I have recently. For us, it's just a matter. I mean, you're splitting hairs. If you want Le'Veon Bell, I don't blame you. If you want the additional risk of ezekieliott, but the added couple years of youth in the offensive line, go for it. But for us, it's again, it comes down to the running back position. Go mock draft. Go see what's sitting there in the fifth, sixth round this year. See how comfortable you are with taking wide receivers early when you have an option of taking one of these big three. Maybe you work LaShawn McCoy in that. Maybe it's Ajayi Gordon and Freeman. But getting an early running back, I think is going to be crucial to your success in fantasy this year. It's one of the foundational principles of my teams. Every year I want that workhorse back because there aren't a lot of them. It's a position scarcity issue in the NFL and more and more teams are going to these kind of, you know, multi running back offenses. So these guys are not a dime a dozen. But this year you've got three that you have three to six that you have to feel really confident in. Three for sure.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I agree with that take completely.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, that is it for today's episode. Thanks for tuning in. Check out ultimate draftkit.com if you want to take a peek at those consistency rankings we were referencing a lot on the show today and everything else that's in the Ultimate Draft Kit, including player profile videos for a hundred different players and a ton of new content. If you're used to buying those magazines out there in the store, check out ultimate draft kit.com because this is an ever updating magazine of sorts, a digital product where you know, you know, you don't have to pick up the magazine that's been released in July and see.

[Jason Moore]

Rex Burke as the breakout candidate, wasn't signed yet.

[Andy Holloway]

Absolutely.

[Jason Moore]

So, yeah, I hear you. And if you haven't already, do yourself a favor, go over to playdraft.com or download the Play Draft app on your.

[Andy Holloway]

Mobile device playdraft.comballers oh, all right, do that. Playdraft.comballers we'll catch you on Saturday. See you later.

[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 FF Ballers.