RotoBaller writer and lead NFL editor Edward Gorelik (@EdwardGorelik) answers all of your fantasy football questions every Monday night through the NFL preseason, and all through the fantasy football season.
Ed has been studying tape all summer to prepare for the NFL season and help you win your fantasy leagues! Last night he held a live advice session to answer your fantasy football draft prep, sleepers, rankings dynasty, rookie and draft strategy questions. Below is the recap of the Q&A.
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Draft Prep & Advice – August 17th Q&A Transcript
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@Moneyball, Sankey. Goes against all logical thought but hear me on this. Whisenhunt has no history of playing rookies. He's benched everyone from first round picks to last rounders. Michael Floyd sat the bench for half his rookie year, so did Taylor Lewan, Beanie Wells split with Tim hightower. He benches rookies.
Sankey is going to get every opportunity to perform and on top of that Cobb has no value in the passing game, which is bad when you have a rookie QB who needs a blocker and passing option.
@Moneyball, Martin. I've never been a fan of Sims going back to when he was entering the draft. Think his best role is as pass catching change of pace.
@Patricia hard to really say how rookies will adapt to the NFL's speed. If he's quick to get use to it, he'll be getting a lot of work since he's taking on the X role.
@Augustina, Matthews for me. Loss of Foster is only going to make that offense stutter constantly and neither Mallett nor Hoyer are going to be good enought o carry that workload and keep them scoring consistently. Matthews isn't going to face that issue no matter who the QB is.
@Moneyball, Amari Cooper, Nelson Agholor, and Devin Funchess are the only three rookie WRs i really expect significant contribution from at this moment. Cooper's obvious, he's very NFL ready with his route running and is playing with a QB who can take advantage of his timing. Agholor's also obvious, explained a little above, one of the best best offensse in the NFL regardless of QB. Funchess is a different story..
I personally hate Kelvin Benjamin, mention that a lot of times. Funchess is huge, understands how to play the game, and with Benjamin being unrealiable because of his drops and weak route running there's a chance Funchess becomes the option Cam Newton feels more comfortable with.
@kazuko, he's got some sweet running back skills. He's a lot better than just an athlete. He makes smart decisions and seems to understand the value of chain moving small plays, as well as how to work the defensive line to create holes from time to time. With Musgrave's history, he likes to keep 1 back on the field. Doesn't really switch them up often. There's a chance he's a legit low end RB1 but realistically you gotta draft him like he's your high RB2.
@Patricia, yeah, both are really nice options for late round. Not a ton of upside, but startable. I like them more in deeper leagues than regular ones though. Stevie has the chance to surprise though.
@Moneyball, think it's gotta be Chris Johnson running inside now. Johnson has some erratic movements behind the LOS and brings himself down when he makes contact.
@Patricia, RB2 as long as he's starting but the whole issue is whether or not he's starting. The only reason people like him is for his situation, and his situation works for every single player on the cowboys- so it's not like he's the only one benefitting. If someone outplays him, he's gonna sit pretty easily.
@Moneyball, Matt Jones is the first that comes to mind. Morris has gotten worse from year to year and the Redskins look like a team that's going to be behind a lot. They'll need their pass catching back on the field more and more and Jones still has the significant kind of talent to run the ball 18 times a game.
@Jodi, Think for his price he's worth the risk. Marcus Mariota's short accuracy should help Wright as long as he can get use to the NFL speed. Wright was still top 10 in YAC per catch and MTs last year.
@Particia, oh yeah, forsetts ready to have a huge year. Trestman backs catch a miminum of 60 passes. His age shouldn't be an issue considering he's had low mileage but his durability is a bit of a concern. Still for his price and upside, that should be in the back of your mind. I'd be very very surprised if Forsett finished this year with less than 1600 total yards.
@Kazuko, Way off for me. Morris' team is awful looking and will be behind a lot. The Redskins already showed last year they'll take him off the field when they're down.
@Delia, you gotta go with whaever the best players on the board are Delia. Can't look at it as rigidly as RB/RB. Most likely your best choices at 12th are going to be WR/WR but you're probably not comforatble with that decision.
@Irish, I have him ranked at 2.06. No joke. I'm really high on him. Ravens O-line is really, really good and the usage in the passing game is going to be a huge boost.
say i have adrian peterson or jamaal charles and forsett makes it back to me would you go forsett or a randall cobb, alshon jeffrey, a.j. green basically a decent wr1
@Patricia, Eifert. Last year in preseason he was going insane, uncoverable. Open on every play. Only played 9 snaps last year but had 3 receptions for 37 yards. All training camp was Dalton throwing wide open verticals to him. This year was the same thing in training camp. He's going to blow up.
@Kazuko, "Overrated" is hard to say, cause if he's starting he's going to be an RB1. Kubiak doesn't not make RB1s. He only makes RB1s. Whoevers starting there will be an RB1. Right now, it's looking like hes the starter but Kubiak is almost like Shanahan with his potential to change it up all of a sudden. Supposedly he really likes Juwan Thompson.
@Kazuko, ASJ has been having a bad camp. Struggled with drops and stuff. TE's playing with rookie QBs rarely put up TE1 numbers, think there's only been 1 in the last 15 years to be honest, and that was Jermaine Gresham in Daltons rookie year.
@Shari, AP's my #1 in any mode. Norv's going to get him the ball through the air at least 30 times. He's going to get work on those catches, and he's also going to run for 1200/10 (he's never run for less in a full season). Add the extra motivation and he's about to go nuts.
With such a weak OL Do you see less yards for Marshawn Lynch ? I am also not sold on Jimmy Graham as the 2nd best TE in PPR . Is there any truth to this?
@Kazuko, Lynch always runs behind a weak line, hasn't really stopped his production yet. Unger missed half of last year and he was still getting 4.4 ypc. The zone scheme works to cover those kinds of O-line issues.
Regarding Graham, i do. The Seahawks always want to go deep and throw to their TE, but they haven't had the target. Zach Miller wasn't good enough. Luke Willson definitely isn't good enough. Graham's going to become a focal point in an offense that's tried to turn into a more balanced team but hasn't had the players to do it.
@Doretha, i'm scared of Peyton. That's all it is. Whether it shows on the numbers or not, Peyton's arm is starting to go. That has to ask the question of how many times are they planning to throw and how good are those throws going to be. Even last year while healthy Peyton struggled with putting the ball in the right place consistently. I don't want to take the risk.
@Doretha, whoever's starting has a ton of upside just because of Kubiak. Whether that's Anderson, or Ball, or Thompson, that DEN RB position is goingt o be a lot of points.
@Doretha, Rodgers. Luck is getting a lot of his value off of volume. He's still improving, so he can get even better- but it's more possible that as the team improves (like the addition of gore) his volume begins to decrease. Rodgers on the other hand has gotten all his value off of efficiency. It's a lot easier for his volume to grow.
You said earlier that you dont like Handcuffing and Kubiak is going to have an RB1. Is Denver the place to go against your rational of handcuffing and do it?
@Kazuko, yeah. that's the kind of situation where the handcuff starts having value if their cheap. It's why i'll own shares of Juwan Thompson, since he'll be free.
@Doretha, Miller. Even if Miller isn't getting the full load, he's still touching the ball just as much as Morris and on a better offense with a team that'll be a lot more compettiive.
@Kazuko, well handcuffing is strictly a term used when you own the main player- so in that scenario no. There aren't really any teams around where i feel like owning the #1 and #2 option, except maybe GB. I'll own other players handcuffs pretty often though.
Weird comparison here, but if I only have the auction cash for one, do I target Calvin Johnson or Matt Forte. Half point PPR, Demaryius Thomas as WR1, Le'Veon Bell at RB1.
@Cristine, think you'll have to grab Forte because if you're having trouble with cash, youre going to have a harder time paying up for the middling RBs than the middling WRs.
I prefer the Green/Kelce side honestly. Green's had two top 5 performances in the past and had 100 yards/game last year. Kelce had a top 5 TE season playing only 60% of the snaps.
@Vern, gotta take Stewart. I like Cooper but he's not realistically WR1 material. Stewart is RB1 if he's healthy all year. Sometimes you gotta play to win.
@Kazuko, J Stewart over Murray mostly because of how i imagine they'll get used. I know Stewart can be an RB1 with the Panthers, especially since Cam's rookie year where Stewart was healthy gave Stewart like 40-50 receptions
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