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Speaker 1: What is up? Welcome to another edition of the NFL Fantasy Live Podcast Marcus Grant alongside the Fantasy Hall of Famer Michael Fabiano and our man's Graham Barfield. Happy new or gentlemen, Happy New Year? How are you man? Good? It's good to see we're all back in one spot. We were all kind of scattered. Uh. I know, Graham, you were back home in Georgia. Fabs you went to New York. Who was here darkening the streets of Los Angeles? But they we're all back together again now. The seasons all over. Um, just all for fantasy purposes. At least I think my Cowboys season might be over in a few days. We'll see, we'll see, we'll be going on that negative Nancy than again. Um. What one quick thing before we get to Eddie Murphy on the on the side of the glass. There is a car chase that is happening right now on the streets of Los Angeles and drove right by my house. I believe I actually drove past it on my way in. Yeah, earlier today I was driving up for anybody who cares, the're driving up to Pulverto Boulevard through Culver City, and the car comes by the other way with three three Culver City police cars right on his tail, sirens blaring everything. Now we are sitting here in the studio, we're watching this live on television. He is on the on the four or five freeway, which has no traffic on it, oddly enough, which is rare in Los Angeles. Uh. The police have tried the pit maneuver four different times. And this guy is still and he's driving like a Honda Civic something or other. Bumper the rear bumper has been ripped off of it. The backlift tire is uh sketchy. These are the things that we enjoy doing in Los Angeles. For those of you who don't know, like this is a big deal in l A. When when car chase has happened, especially on TV, pretty much the city comes to halt. The newsroom right now downstairs is not doing any work. They are all watching this. They're screaming and yelling as if there's an actual football game with meaning going on right now. And we watched so many of these we sort of break them down like like we would break down tape of what guys do right and wrong and that sort of thing. Um, well, okay, so on that note on the side of the glass. Who I don't think he's watching this right now, but we can keep him informed. Uh, it is our own senior Edward L. Murphy Esquire Murph, what's up? Yeah, guys, I these TVs are often here, so you know, throughout the podcast if you want to update me on what's going on that great right there's no there's nobody on the four five right note. It is like a dead zone right now, traffic. This never happened and somehow this guy's taking advantage. They happened so frequently here, which is crazy because I couldn't think of a worse place to drive. I just got back from New York. I can tell you New York Is is a close second. Definitely. It's real. So yes, if you hear us interject or you know, grown or what have you over the course of the know that that's that's kind of what's happening in front of us. So we would do our best to kind of keep our mind on fantasy things, but you know what, some of the things may creep in fantasy seasons over It just happened, so up wanted to talk about We will do a little bit about what we learned. We'll talk about some of the coaching openings around the NFL and what this may mean. This will be something I think we update as coaches get hired and as more of these openings kind of you know, take shape over the next few weeks. But you know, interesting things to talk about, and a little bit of playoff challenge, some daily fantasy stuff if you like. They're all sort of intertwines. We'll give you some of our value picks at the end of the show, but first let's do some news. The one that big, maybe important, fantasy relevant news headline comes out of Pittsburgh and centers around Antonio. But it feels like we've been talking about just random things in Pittsburgh all season long. We had Levian Bell earlier in the year. Now we've got Antonio Brown, and it appears that they have reached maybe a breaking point there. It started with reports of a disagreement, fight, argument, whatever you want to call it, at practice between Antonio Brown and Ben Roethlisberger. Now there's stories of a b supposedly maybe not going to get an m R I that he was supposed to and maybe leaving the last week's game at halftime because he wasn't playing. Whatever the situation is, it has come to a head. It seems like between the Steelers and Antonio Brown, now there's talking to you know, I don't know, do they trade him, what happens next? I guess A simple question is fab do we expect Antonio Brown to still be in Pittsburgh this time next year? Well, that's that would be tough. But you also have to consider that the Steelers just basically are letting Levian Bell walk. Right, he didn't play the entire season. There's been some discord there between the two sides, and now you're getting into uh if if Bell is superstar number one well a B a superstar number one A. It'd be hard for me to see a scenario where they don't get together and talk. I mean, this is the best wide receiver in the National Football League arguably at this point, and this guy has been the best wide receiver in the National Football League for the better part of the last five seasons. It would be really hard for me to see the Steelers letting this guy go. There's got to be some sort of communication, some sort of dialogue between the two sides, and I believe at some point things will end up being smoothed over. But this is the NFL. You never know. And if you listen to anybody on Twitter, which typically you shouldn't, Antonio Brown's going to the Jets, He's going here, He's going there. I think we just have to sit back and wait and see the biggest thing that I have not seen enough of, at least on Twitter. I know we should be listening to people on Twitter, right, just just not me? No, seriously, Um, the biggest thing I've not seen is his contract makes him untraitable,
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right, I mean, he has twenty one million dollars in dead money in his contract next year. Essentially the Steelers would have to eat twenty million dollars, which is just over of a cap space next year. He's not going anywhere. Hey, they've got to sit been and a B will sit down, they'll have what do you think been an a B eat? What do you think they snack on? Like do you think they like if they sit down a meeting together? Like? What are they gonna be eating? We'll sit down, they'll have a meeting, They'll they'll figure it out. I don't know. I'm guessing it's not pop tarts. Or anything like that. It's probably something you know, very healthy, maybe apies you Now, Yeah, doesn't Roethlisberger have like twenty Burgers named after him too? Maybe they have sit down they have a Roethlisberger and uh and they hash things out. But I will say this, you know, the Steelers have had some drama over the years, and a lot of it stems from it seems like Roethlisberger. I mean, he's sort of is the common denominator and a lot of these got Todd Haley kicked out last year. Yeah, I mean it is, he's sort of you know, he you know, he had a few things to say offended about left Bell as well. So it's just it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months. Okay, so let's just for the sake of argument, right, let's say that van Antonio Brown leaves, that he goes somewhere, they trade him, what have you. Um, you know, I know that social media sort of start buzzing because he what he followed I think the forty niners on on like Twitter or Instagram or something like that. And then he did that thing with like the he's at a statement. It was on TMZ like with Harrison, James Harrison, and then he was on he was on a show the Masked Singer whatever. I mean, that was tape I think way in advance. I see all kinds of commercials for it, and it's not something else about to watch. But it coming out yesterday was just sort of coincidence. I'm pretty sure they tape that well in advance of all the stuff. But I mean, was that some sort of publicity stunt. I don't know. Fantastic social media work. Crever Rand's is like in this headstorm with the Steelers and media work on you, Fox, good on you. But I mean, is there a place that you could see him going? Either of you could see him going where? Look, I mean, he's going to be one of the top two receivers off the board next year. He's probably going to be a first round pick. I just can't imagine there's anywhere that he goes that somehow boost his value even more than it is better. I feel like, if anything goes down more than it would go up at this where's he gonna go? The word's going to be better in an offense that has has made him their their number one target in the passing game for you know, it seems like the last five six years, where's he gonna go? There's gonna get better? You know, the Rams Okay, No, I don't. I don't know. I mean the Chiefs maybe, okay, maybe, but you got Tyreek kill. I don't know. I mean, Jarvis Landry is here trying to set up three way phone calls apparently on Twitter. I guess, trying to get Levin a B to Cleveland, presumably. I guess that's what that is. Um, I don't know. Wild time, though, North, what a wild freaking time. The Browns are fun. The Steelers failed miserably and collapsed at the end of the year, right number of reasons. The Ravens are good. I don't want to play the raven right now. I don't. And then there's there who just fired Martin Lewis after you might hire Hugh Jack's that dude is? You know, he's got nine lives. I mean, he's never been a great head coach. He's been a pretty decent OC. But imagine if he gets that job. I mean, it's that that would just boggle the mind, would be maybe he would be comedy for me. So uh so, there we go. I'm sure we'll have more about Antonio Brown as this thing goes along. I mean this very well could span through the entire offseason. Who knows, but you know, well, we'll keep you updated on it as we know more. By the way, the four or five still wide open. This guy, I know what is going on. Man, He's not even going that fast. I think he's like fifty early nineties Honda. He's not going anywhere. Was this traffic? And when I took my five trips to Ikea in Carson, California going south towards Well, I mean, do you think the police some of the on ramps cordon off? They must have some some of the there's no way, there's not there's no way, no way there. There's got to be something that is keeping traffic from getting onto the four or five going south supposed to be. That does pretty much everything you need to know. This is our first show of the new year. It is our first show since the Fantasy season officially wrapped up, well since we got past weeks seventeen. So I just want to do a quick thing about what it is that we learned from eighteen and maybe things, uh that we will use to uh, you know, go forward in the next year. So FABS you start us off. What was the thing you learned? Well, I already knew that fantasy football can be widely unpredictable. I also learned that this man here, Graham Barfield, knows his stuff. And I would say the S word because I want to emphasize it even more. But he's damn good, so make sure you follow him. And I loved having him on the on the team this year. I also learned that we as a fantasy community in Marcus, you and I have talked about this, there needs to be some adjustments made in fantasy football because, um number one, the quarterback position has become so just it has very little value anymore. When you're in Week fourteen, fifteen sixteen in your fantasy championship and you're considering benching Aaron Rodgers are sitting Tom Brady. I mean, there's so many good quarterbacks out there now. I can't wait to my first twenty nineteen draft, and it will be a mock at some point in the spring, maybe after the draft, who knows, we'll see what happens. But I can't wait to see when some of these quarterbacks are gonna go because they're not going
like Mahomes is gonna be the only guy who goes probably in the top fifty quarterback. Everyone else is gonna fall in mine after that. But fantasy needs some adjustments in terms of the rules, the scoring system, the settings, how you make the playoffs. Um, my friend Derek Parson is one of the best high stakes players in the world, and we're gonna be sort of trying to come up with something ourselves that is going to be a You can't eliminate luck completely, but you can reward the skilled. And I know, Graham, you also tweeted out about that a few weeks back. I you know, maybe the solution is going to be people are playing in more all play leagues, which is basically you play everyone every single week. That will eliminate some of the luck a little bit. Maybe you base your top four playoff seeds on the highest scoring teams based on points, and the bottom two seeds have the best records of the four teams that aren't uh in the playoffs already. It's it's not something that a lot of the sort of just you know, hey, I just like playing fantasy football is a hobby, and I like the head to head aspect, and I don't mind the luck aspect, and hey, that's fine, but when you're in the business like we are, and I've been doing this for a long time, we've all been doing this for a while, I would like to see people rewarded for being good fantasy players rather than seeing people rewarded for being lucky. And that happens every single season. So I think there's some adjustments that need to be made, and stop for everybody. It's probably for the people like us who are fantasy heads and we live and breathe this stuff, But there are some adjustments I believe that need to be made in scoring, in rules and who makes the playoffs and um heck man, as an industry, we can't get lazy about it because it's been going on too long. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. I totally think we do need some rules adjustments, and that's the thing I do want to tackle this offseason, and we've kind of touched on it here on the pod before. I do think though, that because what we do within the industry and working in this sort of trickles down to the folks, Like I think, I think we need to come up basically with a new standard. We need a new set of standard rules and whatever you want to do in your your specific leagues if you want to tweak that by all means. But I think because the way you know, we sort of look at the game and analyze the game and play the game eventually trickles down to those folks who just play casually, Like we need any new standard that kind of works for everybody that that's still incorporates a little bit of luck so that you can get you know, somebody's parents who's never played before to come and play and still enjoy it, but still at the same time reward the folks who actually put in the work. So I mean, but I do think that that this we we have reached a breaking point now where we gotta figure out how to how to tweak. There's gonna be leagues in Winning nine team
that I play and that are all play and there's just not a lot of products out there that support it. That's the problem. And I would believe me, folks, so maybe get our all of us are screaming to our dead folks who are doing a great job to improve the customization options on NFL dot Com and it will happen at some point in the near future. But that and then you know the I remember you had tweeted out something about how like you know, points matter, so maybe there's leagues out there where the point should matter because at the end of the day, I mean, that's sort of that's sort of what fantasy football focus is is scoring points. I think my biggest thing with with fantasy in the way that I've viewed is I just want to reward those that are actually going in and managing the roster on a weekly basis to make sure that they have an up to date roster. They're scouring the waiver wire, they're not just relying on their draft And really what it comes down to is I just want more flex spots. I mean, if it's no that I like that. If it comes down to you start two quarterbacks, you have a super flex spot. You have instead of a defensive of a DST, you start an extra flex any running back, receiver, tight end um if any. I guess that's the biggest thing is for me is I just want more decisions, and more decisions makes it shows that the sharper managers, that the sharper managers when you when we have to make more decisions as fantasy players, it tends to favor the sharper fantasy enters. Absolutely. And and you know, I'm not coming out here whining about you know there's too much luck involved. It's it's just a fact. I'll give you an example. Um, I'm in a league where I outscored the top three seeds, the top three seeds, and I went four and eight because I had the most points scored against me. So I went in and I put my points scored week after week against those three teams, and if they played my schedule, none of them would have made the playoffs if I played any one of their three schedules on the one or two seed. So I mean, that's all. And you know they get on me because they didn't make the playoffs because of what I do and who I am. So I have to deal with that as well. But I try to remind them that I still had a better team than most of the teams that made the playoffs. It again, all I want is a fair shake. It's not for everybody. The casual fan probably should stick with the head to head because that's what they want to do. They want to have fun, they want to say I beat Graham, I beat Marcus, whatever the case may be. But when you're really deep into it, um, I think you have to reward skill more than it is being rewarded in the leagues that are out and available right now. And part of the changes is in this room and outside in the industry, and people have to start making their products a little bit more versatile, including ours, and hopefully that's going to be what happens very soon. Alright, Graham, your thing you learned in twenty eight You know, this
is always an interesting subject, and it's kind of gone on in the last couple of years, but zero running back is kind of dead, right. I mean, I will be the first to admit that I was zero RP champion four or five years ago. Uh. Passing, I hated it. Its Sean Siegel, right, yeah, yeah, passing, passing I hate. I mean, look, passing has um in terms of pass rate. Pass rate has gone up every single year in the NFL, except for last year. We had kind of a down year randomly um in terms of passing, but a shot back up again this year. We had season highs across the board and pass rate, touchdowns yards, all of that um and still running backs were the champions. I mean, we're gonna We're gonna go into a year this year, in two thousand nineteen where there are likely going to be ten running backs off the board within the first fifteen picks eight out of ten and receiver is going to be insanely deep again. Tight ends going to stink um once again. No one's drafting quarterback. I know, I know Marcus has a point on tight ends here in a moment. Nobody's drafting quarterbacks early except for Mahomes. You still have to have these workhorse running backs. And I know at the end of the year we kind of had some randomness where Todd Gurley and Melvin Gordon both went down with injuries, kind of smaller injuries, and it's still Shoehorns seasons. Um. I know Nick Chubb was a waiver wire darling. I know Philip Lindsay was a waiver wire darling earlier in the year. But still, these guys that are touching the ball five times game, they're just irreplaceable. Dude. Volume is King. I said it about a gazillion times down the stretch on the show, Volume Miss King. And when you have a player and I mean it doesn't even it doesn't even boil down to just these these big name backs. Look at the superstar guys who went down late and the replacements who came in and played well and led people to championships. C. J. Anderson, Damien Williams, Jamal Williams. That there are several Although I think that makes that makes sort of an argument for maybe not zero RB being dead, but that it's tweaked a little bit, because I think there's still something to be said for having that guy you get in the first round, you know, like there's no way you look having having lost Todd Gurley in week sixteen, I can tell you there's not really you know, it's it's hard to find that replacement. But I think there's still something to be said for realizing that you get to the fifth round, some of these guys start to become interchangeable. Absolutely. But if anything, I think the straight up zero RB notion that you go into the first four rounds of your draft with no running back, I don't think that's dead. I don't think. I don't think it's it's possible to build a team like that anymore. You also have to and the thing I had against zero r B. And I mean, Sean is a brilliant guy, um, so to each his own, but I just you know what you have to You have to have some level of luck on the waiver wire too, because a
big part of the zero RB strategy is what you're trying to pick up, right, I mean, so you you have to get at least a little bit lucky, uh, in order to have that have that strategy be successful. And you also have to hope that your wide receivers produce up to par and they don't get hurt. Typically, the wide receivers are going to be a little more durable than the running backs, although that didn't that wasn't the case a few seasons ago. The biggest argument for for zero running back, which is a valid one, is that receivers get injured less often. That's true. Receivers, on on average, their injury rate is like twenty five lower than running backs. But I mean, running backs are the horses fantasy football. Yep. And and think about it too. You mentioned wide receiver being deep, right, I mean, like anybody who got Robert Woods, you know this guy was wasn't coming off the board in the first four or five rounds. I mean he was he was a great value pick. There was several of those wide receivers this season. So it's I have always been a running backs truth or Marcus knew as that he's been working with me for a long time. I've always been a guy who loves the feature back. I mean, I'm going back to the days of you know, Sean Alexander and Marshall Falk, Dani and Thomas and Edrin James, Clinton Portis, back to Emmon Smith, Barry Sanders, Priest Homes. I've just always been a guy who has loved running backs and I've never sort of left that even when the zero RB sort of phenomenon was going on. But I think we're back to it, and it's been sort of like a quiet storm, right because we've had so many good young running backs come into the league at the same time. And I think that and I think that has to do. I think I think that right there is the keep for why it goes away, because there was a couple of years in there where we didn't have this level of running back. Eleven of the top twelve scores in Fantasy Football were receivers. The only one that managed to finish in the top twelve was Davonta Frame. It was just a weird year where everybody got hurt. Jamal Charles Gonna ht, Aaron Foster was still at the Texans that year. He was fantastic. He got hurt. Yeah, I mean, we had so many studs that you're getting hurt early, and that's what kind of pushed the zero RB notion to the forefront even this year. Late in the year, Girly gets hurt, Gordon gets hurt, Connor gets hurt, and I mean it still doesn't matter. Those teams were getting carried into the playoffs, getting carried into whatever league you're playing in. Um, those guys were carrying to you. And you look at the top of the list. I mean, se Kwon rookie, you know, McCaffrey a couple of years in the league. Girly still young, Camaro still young, Zeke Connor, uh Melvin Gordon, Joe Mix and Tari Cohen. I mean, we're not even mentioning Levian Bell, who will believe I believe will be twenty seven or twenty seven when we start the twenty nineteen campaign. A lot of Aaron Jones is an exciting young player. So it's
so it's Lindsay Chris Carson. Although you don't know what's gonna happen in Seattle with the gletter running backs that have there too, but he had a very good season and he's a young guy as well. So there's a lot to like at the running back position right now, guys, a lot to like, no doubt about it. Youth, talent, potential, and then whatever we get coming into the twenty nineteen class just adds to it. Alright. So I will say this, So my thing I learned is it's gonna be worth it next year to reach for a tight end. It really is, you know, And in the past you didn't necessarily have to mean maybe you wanted to reach for a gronk. Other than that you can kind of sit back and wait and get guys. But what we learned this year is that there were, you know, three or four guys that you could count on consistently. You had you know, you had Travis Kelsey, you had George Kittle, you had zach Ertz. Tho of you guys that you knew weekend and week out, we're gonna give you a good number after that. The fall off was ridiculous. I think we only had five tight ends top a hundred points, which was the smallest number since I think going back to twenty I believe it was umen the last time we had just five tight ends reach a hundred Fantasy Fighting market. McDonald was a top ten tight end, right, I mean, but that's what I'm saying, Like you look at the list of guys who were top ten Ti also Cooper, it's you know, guys you couldn't. Kyle Rudolph finishes as a top ten tied in and and he did nothing for most of the season, has one big blow up game kind of near the end, and that's good enough. So I think this is gonna be a year where, I mean, unless you really enjoy the headache of trying to to dive through the waiver wire on a weekly basis and find a streamer, it is going to be worth your while to reach maybe in the third round or something like that and try to find yourself a tight end too, to at least know that you've got that that spot solidified going into the season. I take this, he's you're just still tilted about Ian Thomas. You know, I could know, like I got one week where I figured out Ian Thomas right, and then so like, then I I play him. He does nothing in week seventeen, and I'm like, I don't know, i'd stay away from me. Catches a touchdown. Yeah, I'm all, I'm all sideways about Ian Thomas. But I do think looking back at it, like, I just think you're gonna see, you know, I think you're gonna consistently see Kelsey Urt's Kiddle kind of coming off the board in the third round. I wouldn't be surprised. It's some aggressive of league. Somebody aggressively reaches in the second round for one of these guys just because you know that you will have that position locked up on a week to week basis. I think that's that's the fun argument is like where does where does Kittle, Earth's and Kelsey go? I think Kelsey is. I think you can make an argument that Kelsey's worth second a early second round pick. I think again early, I would listen to that argument. I mean, it's
just consistent every single year. But the big thing with Kelsey is he has such a high his touchdown ceiling is the most interesting of the of the top guys at that position. Next season is going to be where does Eric Ebron get drafted? Because this guy had a boatload of touchdowns and Jack Doyle's coming back, But it's like who, I mean, the question is how much do people really believe in Eric Ebron? And but also how bad is the rest to tight end? I mean, like Ebron, even even if he's stouting with Jack Doyle will still be a top top seven. Ebron and Jared Cook Jared Cook might be the biggest litmus t us next year out of anybody in the time because like no, I mean like it was like everybody grudgingly started Jared Cook because it's like, oh, yeah, he's you know, he's doing better than everybody else, but you know, it was it was a roller coaster with him spending roller coasters. How about carousels? Uh, the coaching carousel is open and spinning. So if you don't know the current openings right now, Cincinnati, Denver, Cleveland, Tampa, Arizona, Miami, the Jets, and the Green Bay Packers all have coaching vacancies right now, interviews are certainly underway in a lot of places, which, by the way, what is this new thing with teams like tweeting out in announcing we have completed the interview process with so and so. It's like who who cares like you're a contract? Right? Is it just like what? So? Yeah, so we're done talking. That's cool. You don't have to tell us. It's fine. Um. Some of the hot names out there, guys who are getting a lot of run right now. Adam Gazes who formerly of the Miami Dolphins, Mike McCarthy formerly of the Packers, Cliff Kingsbury formerly of Texas Tech, and how the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at my alma mater, USC, although I would be shocked if they opened the season with Cliff Kames Rios their offensive coordinator right now, Uh, Cowboys defensive backs coach Chris christ Rochard and Chief's offensive coordinator Eric b Enemy. Now. There are many many more names out there, are many guys who were getting looks and being talked about or talked to. These are some of the names that just keep popping up over and over again. Any one of those guys jump out to you as like perfect fits somewhere that could go somewhere and really, you know, maybe kick a team up a notch offensively and make them super fantasy relevant. I just think, you know, Arians is out there as well, and I just think every everyone's going to be thinking Cleveland, man, like, can we get in Cleveland? Can we get them back to Arizona? Pretty Kitchens apparently is uh? Is he not being allowed to take any offensive coordinator interviews or head coaching interviews or whatever the case may be. I saw something about that earlier today, So I don't know if does that mean that the Brons want to keep him there? Do they keep did they keep Greg Williams as their head coach? And move forward? We'll see. Here's the goal. Bruce Arians comes back, he coaches
Baker with Cleveland, he keeps he keeps Freddie Kitchen his offensive coordinator. Freddy Arians hired Freddy Kitchens and it was on in two thou that's that's the goal. And then what in a couple of years when Arians decides to retire, Kitchens just justle he just moves on up. I think was that McCarthy. You're gonna hear Jets for sure, you know, because he's a big name, big Apple, So I would expect that he's going to be in the mess there in New York. I have a really outside of obviously Green Bay in Cleveland, I kind of think the Jets are the most attractive job here. Well, they have have a heck of a good young quarterback, quarterback, they got a lot of money, so much cap space. I mean, you've got, i mean, seriously, a blank slate. You've got Sam Donald in a blank slate essentially. I mean, you've got Robby. They're going to be on the Bell sweepstakes. Absolutely, I would think. I think that they've got to be the odds on favorite to get Levy on Bell. I mean from a fantasy perspective, I don't know how much I love that, but I mean it's it's very I don't know if it's likely, but it's very possible that he ends up with the men in Green Yeah, I'm so. I'm just looking at this. I mean, Cleveland, obviously, it is very attractive because you've got Baker, You've got Nick Chubb, You've got a good defense there. That's a that's a certainly attractive situation. Uh, you know, I mean Denver has issues Cincinnati. I don't know, I feel like they're just they just sort of are who they are. Denver's skill positions outside of outside of Lindsay really scares me. Well, yeah, I mean you your wide receivers have I mean you're you're either you've got very young or you've got aging. Yeah, Manny, I mean Manny's coming off in Achilles tear Um. Yeah. The Broncos have punted a tight end pretty much since Julia's Thomas had a little a little time and four touchdowns in two years. Yeah, you had this time in the sound man Um. Yeah. I mean the Broncos right now. I mean that the defense is obviously still very very good in Bradley Chubb was what we expected. But I mean the Broncos skill positions are really really scary. How do we feel about how do we feel about Like Tampa, They've got talent. I mean DeShawn is not going to be with that team, so I mean they do have a little bit of talent on that roster. The Jamis you mean, well, no, DeShawn Jackson, Jamis will be back. I mean yeah, I know, he said Jamis will be back. Jason licked said Jamis is going to be back. So, um, I mean you still have Evans there. I mean you've got O. J. Howard's He's he's a good young tight end. Maybe he's a guy that emerges at the position next season. I would actually expect him to do that. So there's some talent there. But their defense is it's their defensive trash. Well, it's because Mike Smith, their former coordinator, basically decided we want to stop the run instead of stopping the pass. Well, how did that? How'd that go for the first two weeks this year. I mean, there's still question marks
about their running game. Is Ronald Jones going to emerge into anything. We'll see what happens with Ronald Joe's I mean, he should be given an opportunity. They could still be looking at at running back. They could look at Leve Bell too. There's a lot of things I could look at. LEVI. Um, do we make too much of head coaches for fantasy purposes? I mean, I know we're sitting here and talk about it. Sometimes we do, But I know that there are situations where these guys head coaches oss make massive fantasy impacts. I mean, like Andy Reid comes right, and you know we can take Mike McCoy. Oh, sure, the Cardinals killed. I mean, I mean the Cardinals were battle here, let's face it. Byron left which was put in terrible position. But I mean that that offense was they certainly make an impact, no doubt about that. Um And and you know, look at look at what Baker became once Kitchens to go. I mean, there's so so many little There's so many and I think to your point that if Arians comes into Cleveland, he's just gonna he's just gonna elevate Baker. Like Baker could be a top ten quarterback next season. He really could be, because you're look at you smiling, because because Brady's Brady's you know, he's starting to go down. You're starting to see some of the older guys. I mean, even Breeze. I know he had a good season overall, but he killed you at the end of the season, and I don't know if you can trust him outdoors on the road. So there, the position is odd, man. You know, there's some weird stuff going on at the back position right now. The superstars are no longer the superstars, and you're seeing some good young players. Lamar Jackson is a guy who people could peg as a top ten guy. Jared Goff is a good young quarterback. Obviously we've seen him put up some numbers Drabinsky showed some flashes of potential as well. It's so deep, it's ridiculous. Yeah, that it's gonna be again. This is the thing we're gonna talk about quite a bit as we get along through the season. All right, before you wrap it up, the you know, the playoffs are starting in the NFL, but we can still play the Playoff Challenge, which I know a lot of folks play some daily fantasy. So in case you're not familiar with the Playoff Challenge, you pick a lineup, uh you obviously you score points based on their performance. You can get multipliers for guys that you have on your roster for multiple weeks. So if you get a guy who you know that you start with a wild card team and they score however many points if they win, you get double points the next week, triple points, quadruple points if they go all the way through the super Bowl. But I'm looking at this as guys who are potentially some some value picks, either in the Playoff Challenge or maybe in daily fantasy. Uh, fab, So you got as a daily pick, I've got Drabinsky because I love the matchup against the Eagles. You know their defense. I haven't been all that good all season long, especially against the passing. When you're talking playoff challenge, like you want to get players who could potentially advance a couple of rounds, right, I mean, typically you're not going to see a wild card team go to the super Bowl. That hasn't happened in a while. Uh. And if you look at the numbers, I actually just wrote a column on NFL dot com. You can go and check that out. I tweeted it out. There's a lot of good information on there. But Robiskie's got that defense behind the man and so like he could advance. Like, I don't think they're gonna have any problems with the Eagles. You're going around two. I think the Bears are a scary team because that defense is just such a game changer, especially in the playoffs. Yeah, grant who you got, I'm gonna go with Lamar Miller. H Deante Foreman didn't play last week. Lamar Miller came back from an ankle injury in Week sixteen, came back and played Week seventeen, actually said a season high and snaps at handled nineteen touches. Unfortunately, it was Lamar Miller fashion he had nineteen fifties, six yards from scrimmage. He did to get the score, but again, like Fabs just said, Marcus alluded to, you have a chance here to get a home favorite running back against the Colts and taking I mean if obviously, if the Texans wind, they'll move forward and you get that extra game. And I kind of think everyone, even though Lamar Miller is not ever sexy, everyone always forgets about him and he's the stack compiler. Yeah, I'm Lamara Miller is kind of like this car chase right now, which, by the way, they still guys still cruising. There are no cops with it in the shot, right I'm gonna know Jordan Howard here, I think one, because you know, they started to use him more down the stretch. They started to getting him more involved, especially near the goal line. He was scoring some touchdowns, which is a big plus, I think, especially if you're talking daily. He's not going to come with the same value level as Saya Tarik Cohen. But you know, like uh, Fabs and Graham mentioned, a chance to win that first game, to keep going with a very good team, especially a very good defense, I can keep them in it, play defense, run the football, that's how some of these coaches want to go. Jordan Howard, who was a disappointment all during the year, could end up maybe surprising down the stretch here. So that's it. This guy is still cruising on the flour oh five, but we're in a cruise out of here. We appreciate your listening, appreciate you downloading it uh, and we will be back again at next week. Remember tell two friends to tell two friends rate review. And remember some people would kill for a Nobel Peace Prize. We'll see you on Monday. Whoa woll woll go