Fantasy Football Today - 08/24: Emergency Podcast: Andrew Luck retirement and Lamar Miller injury (Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 25, 2019

Dave Richard and Heath Cummings react to the stunning news that Andrew Luck is retiring from the NFL, breaking down what it means for the Colts offense heading into 2019. Is T.Y. Hilton still an early-round pick? What about Marlon Mack? Plus, they break down what Lamar Miller's season-endig knee injury means for the Texans and for Fantasy drafts.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, week three of the preseason is usually known for players breaking out, players looking good, a couple of injuries. We will forever remember week three of the preseason as the time when Andrew Luck decided to retire from the game of football. Andrew Luck, no longer the starting quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. It's going to be Jacoby Brissett. And we're going to react to it on this emergency podcast edition of Fantasy Football Today. It's Dave. It's Heath. Two of us. We just got done doing

two hours of radio. What did we talk about for most of the two hours? Andrew Luck and the Colts. We also talked about Lamar Miller. We'll get to him in just a few moments. First, initial thoughts, reactions to Andrew Luck stepping away from the game well i i'm i hope it's um everything he wants it to be and it's bad for fantasy football

it's bad for the indianapolis colts but that's what andrew luck wants to do then it's good for him so if you drafted andrew luck already you'll find another quarterback you gotta that's really the long and the short of it right um who's available on waivers that you might be able to pick up and start as a streaming option to begin the season if you look for guys that are owned in less than 50 of leagues the number one option and it's surprising with all the hype he got is still kyler murray um i do think that like murray has a lot of upside and so he's below 50%. I like him a lot.

If you're actually thinking, okay, this Andrew Luck thing just screwed me up. I'm just going to stream this year. There's one guy who has a phenomenal matchup, and he actually looked a little bit better again today after a rough week two. It's Jimmy G. Jimmy G is owning like 35% of leagues. He gets the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Their defense is terrible.

Matthew Stafford gets the Arizona Cardinals. Their defense might be as bad as Tampa Bay's the first six weeks of the season. I'd like to add Dak Prescott to the list, too. Is he owning less than 50% of the leagues? He probably is not, but if he was drafted, it probably was to be a number two quarterback, and trading for him probably won't cost you that much. His season starts with the Giants, then at Washington, and then versus Miami.

And if there's no Ezekiel Elliott, I like the idea of Dak Prescott having some really nice numbers to begin the year. Phillip Rivers is, again, probably somebody that was drafted as a starter, but if he's a backup, shouldn't cost you much in trade. Sam Darnold's a name that we've talked about a lot on the podcast. He opens the season against Buffalo and then Cleveland, back-to-back games at home. He's got an early season bye.

I don't know if I'd be quite as excited about having him as a streaming option. And I learned today on FFT, on the radio show, Heath, you've got Mitchell Trubisky ranked as the top 12 quarterback. Yeah. So he's probably not drafted to be somebody's starter. And if he's not, that's another guy you could trade for on the cheap. Yeah, you probably could. I would probably just go pick up Kyler or Jimmy Garoppolo as opposed to trading.

Your team's already been hampered by losing one of your first eight or nine picks in the draft. I don't know that I want to trade more away to go get a quarterback, but this is so much bigger than Andrew Luck. Yeah. Because the impact it has on the value of Moreland Mack, T.Y. Hilton, Eric Ebron. We were talking on the show about T.Y. Hilton in 2017 when he played with Jacoby Brissett. Ten of the 16 games he played that season, he was wide receiver 45 or worse. He didn't finish the year as a top 30 wide receiver, but it's because he played 16 games. The person he was ranked just above, just to kind of give

you an idea, was Jermaine Kearse. So it was a weird year that year for wide receivers, but I'm a little bit scared like i have projected hilton to have a better year than he did in 2017 when he only caught 57 passes for 950 yards and four touchdowns i've projected him for 66 991 and five touchdowns five still seems low but he's i don't know if he's ever caught more than six i think this offense is going to morph into a more conservative unit. I don't think they're going to take a lot of downfield shots. They're going to try and stay on schedule and keep things easy for Jacoby Brissett. And I think defenses are going to have, obviously, a much easier time defending the longer throw.

I think it's going to be hard sledding for this defense. T.Y. Hilton is not among my top 24 receivers. Is he among yours? I've got him at 34. I'm lower than you are. Yeah, so I'm okay with him in like round six as a number three receiver. And if you've already drafted him as a number two receiver or a number one, for crying out loud, with a round three or a round four choice,

it's kind of gross. And someone brought this up on the radio show tonight, Heath. What if the person who drafted T.Y. Hilton is just freaking out and doesn't want him on his team anymore? Is now the time to go and dangle something in front of him to try and get T.Y. Hilton to be a third receiver for your squad? Well, Jamie's not here, so we can say the name that we came up with on the radio show was Curtis Samuel.

And I actually did a Twitter poll, 2,300 votes now, 51% for T.Y. Hilton, 49% for Curtis Samuel. So I think there's a chance that T.Y. Hilton owner is distraught. And you could go get him for someone like Samuel, maybe Mike Williams, maybe Will Fuller, a young guy that's got some excitement and hype around him. I still think Hilton will be better than those guys. Yep. More of a number three than a two.

I just want to say this. Third week of the preseason, the Colts rested all their starters. Jacoby Brissett didn't play. Against Cleveland, he played. He looked good. He really did. He looked like he knew what he was doing, had a command of the offense. Only one of his throws was bad, and it was a long throw.

But a lot of interesting plays were made inside of 20 yards. My favorite one of all, the Browns' defense has him dead to rights in the pocket. He somehow slips out a split second before he's going to the ground, throws it toward Eric Ebron. It's a hint low, but Ebron still comes up with the catch, moves the chains, and eventually Ebron catches a 12-yard touchdown from Jacoby Brissett. I don't know if that's enough evidence to prove that Jacoby Brissett is going to be a fine quarterback and help T.Y. Hilton out

and help Eric Ebron out, but I think it does show that he's probably in a better position to be successful this year than he was in 2017. So that's part of the reason why I'm still okay with T.Y. Hilton as a top 30 receiver, and I still have T.Y. – Ebron, rather. I still have him as a top 12 fantasy tight end. I just view him as much more of a streaming tight end now, not somebody that I want to start – I don't want to commit to him

for the first six or eight weeks of the season. I'll take Eric Ebron in round 11. Yeah, I'm not drafting Eric Ebron. He's 18 for me in PPR. Do you worry about the target target share with it with jack doyle there you worry about the offense i mean his the one thing he does is score touchdowns and how many touchdowns are the colts going to score now not as many as they were going to score the other guy who gets affected and he doesn't catch very many passes so you might not think quarterback would affect him too much but it does marlon mack oh i think that same thing yeah um i've dropped him to my number 27 running back in ppr uh right

at the turn the five six turn i feel like this is really bad news for for adam azar i feel like you drafted a lot of all of these guys yeah well the colts were one of those teams that you want to draft a lot of pieces of and i'm with you you on Mack. I think he's a round six pick. I think I'm going to take him ahead of Melvin Gordon still, though, just because we don't know Melvin Gordon. Melvin Gordon comes back. Of course you're going to take Melvin ahead of him. But for now, I think I'd rather have what could be a decent starting running back in Marlon Mack. But, again, outside of my top 24, I'm taking James White ahead of him in PPR

Philip Lindsay I'm taking ahead of him Derek Henry I'm taking ahead of him and I've got him in PPR I've got him ahead of Miles Sanders Latavius Murray Tariq Cohen I've got Sanders ahead of him in non-PPR though so I'm willing to draft Sanders wait on him and have him break out versus Marlon Mack who might be able to get you Lamar Miller-type numbers most weeks. Now, speaking of Lamar Miller, he tore his ACL against the Dallas Cowboys. At least that's the report. It was early on in the game. He had a carry, got hit hard, didn't look good, writhed in pain on the ground.

He's gone. Duke Johnson seems to be the best fit at running back for Houston. I don't know if he's going to be the only running back for Houston. No, I would assume there is someone, a running back to be named later, that will be cut by someone else that will be on the Texans' roster in the coming weeks. They don't have the horses right now, and I don't think you, like Duke's not going to be a 300 touchback. I tried to just project what like

what it might look like for him without knowing who else is going to be on the team i gave him 165 carries which would be a career high i gave him 52 catches not a career high no um that like that probably gets him over a thousand total yards and he scores six or seven touchdowns really that 200 touches is going to put him over 1,000 total yards, and he scores six or seven touchdowns. Really? 200 touches is going to put him over 1,000 total yards, you think? Because such a high percentage of those touches are catches, and he has averaged eight or nine yards per catch over his career. He's going to average eight or nine yards per carry, obviously.

I've got him at 4.2 yards per carry, nine yards per reception. That's 1,000, almost 1,100 yards. If you told me today the Texans are not signing anyone else that's any good, like they don't acquire another decent running back, I'd get Carlos Hyde to slug it into the line every once in a while. I'd take Duke Johnson and PPR over Marlon Mack. Wow. I actually haven't re-ranked duke johnson yet so i'm not sure how to react to it so you're in ppr you'll go as high as round six on duke johnson yes right now yes but once something happens and another running back enters

the fray depends on who it is is it gonna is it gonna be more like round eight or would you still be okay in round seven i don't i don't know i don't think they it going to be more like round eight, or would you still be okay in round seven? I don't know. I don't think they're going to go and get Melvin Gordon. No, I don't either. I don't think they're going to make another splashy trade, unless it involves Jadeveon Clowney. The thing is, Duke Johnson's really good. He could possibly, like, not 250 touches, I don't think,

but if he gets 200 touches, I think he's easily worth, in PPR, a six-round pick. I'm ready to take him over the Bucs running backs right now. I'm ready to take him over Daryl Henderson right now. But you get to those running backs that we don't know what Justin Jackson and Tony Pollard's value will be. But as long as those guys are holding out, I don't think I'd rather have Duke than either of them. Oh, I definitely would. You'll take Duke Johnson.

In PPR, maybe that's the case. I'm not quite sure if that's where I come out on it. But in non-PPR, I know how relatively unexciting he's been. I don't think he's going to end up being given a big workload, certainly not a Lamar Miller-type workload in Houston. So I'm not ready to roll with him quite that high yet. I'm going to summon my high-pitched Adam Azar voice. He was a number one running back in PPR just a year and a half, two years ago.

Sure, sure, sure. It's an easier argument to make in PPR than non-PPR. Here's another idea that's in my head from this, and this is why I made a change in my quarterback rankings. If the Texans don't have a reliable running back, they're probably not going to be able to just run the ball much at all. And it should mean a career high in pass attempts and maybe even rush attempts for Deshaun Watson.

And I love the idea of Deshaun Watson being my fantasy quarterback now. And you've been on top of him all along. And this development, I think it puts more on his shoulders. I think the extension of the run game is pretty clear there. Duke can catch the ball out of the backfield. Kiki QT is their slot guy. Will Fuller can work on screens. They can work around the mess that they'll have on first and second downs

when they want to run it by just simple short passes. And I think that those will add up for Deshaun Watson. And I don't think the offensive line is as bad as it was last year. I know that both the rookies, they were drafted as tackles. They're starting as guards. So they're basically going with four tackles in a center and i think it's better than what they had last year and i i kind of like the idea of deshaun watson now as a uh as a major league winner round five yeah would you go around four i have but i'd prefer not to

i i would obviously prefer but now i think it's a no-brainer to go with him over Aaron Rodgers. Is there anything else that we need to talk about for this emergency podcast? Or did we cover all the comings and goings in the AFC South? I think we did it. All right. I think we did it as well. Of course, we're going to have a lot more on this next week. You know we're going five days a week on the FFT podcast.

For Heath Cummings, I'm Dave Richard. Thanks for coming out.