ESPN is coming off it’s 24 hours of fantasy football coverage. It’s something they do every year now and there are a few things you can learn from it, but you have to be very, very careful.
I was listening to one of their experts and he said that he won’t be picking a quarterback until the 10th round. Now what this expert forgot to tell you was how many teams where in the league he was talking about. Now me personally I’m in a 20 team league and there’s no way that 180 players will go before a quarterback will be taken. When they give out advice they really need to talk about what size league they’re talking about.
It seems that most of the advice they give out is for 10 or 12 team leagues, but they never specify that’s what they’re talking about. They did do a live on air draft with some of their personalities and it was just a 10 team draft.
If you watched any of the coverage maybe they gave you some advice that will help you this season, but they where no help at all to me and anyone in a bigger league.
The quarterback conversation came up because fantasy owners have to figure out where they’re going to be comfortable taking Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs.
I that ESPN draft that I saw yesterday he was the first player selected, but in the multiple mock drafts I’ve done he wasn’t the first player off the board; it’s been a running back.
Mahomes is rated #1 by Yahoo Sports this year; so he’ll be an early pick in all of their fantasy drafts, but depending o how your league is set up quarterback might not be the way to go in the 1st round.
Besides Mahomes Yahoo Sports has four other quarterbacks ranked in the Top 10. Andrew Luck is at #5, Ben Rothlisberger is at #6, Matt Ryan is at #7 and Drew Brees comes in at #10. So if you’re in a Yahoo fantasy draft it looks like the quarterbacks will be coming off the board very early.
Luckily there aren’t to many quarterback battles; so you’ll know who the starters are heading into your draft. I think the only teams who have to decide on a starter are the Washington Redskins and the Miami Dolphins.
I’m not sure when I’ll end up drafting a quarterback. I just try to play the draft board and if I think that a quarterback is a good value where I’m picking I’ll take him. I’ll let you know who I ended up with after our draft in a few weeks.
Antonio Brown had his hearing with the NFL over his helmet grievance and he ended up losing. Now if you remember Brown threatened to retire if he wasn’t allowed to wear his old helmet. Well to the surprise of no one Brown is schedule to be at Oakland Raiders practice today and won’t be retiring. Did anyone actual think Brown was going to retire over this?
Now we can get to the more serious issues with Brown. Like how are his frost bitten feet? and will they affect him?
You have to wonder how this marriage of Brown and the Raiders are going to work out. How is Brown going to react the first time Derek Carr overthrows him or looks off him and throws the football to another receiver. Brown was spoiled with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The team had a winning record while he was with them, but the Raiders aren’t quite yet in a position to win. How is Brown going to handle losing more game than winning. He’s never handled team adversity well; which isn’t a good sign for the Raiders who many be a few years away from winning. As we know Brown is quite volatile and you just never know what will set him off. Are Jon Gruden and the Raiders coaching staff going to have to manage Brown differently than the other 52 players on their roster?
How bad of a spot are the Dallas Cowboys in? Ezekiel Elliott is in the second week of his holdout. They team made a good contract offer to Dak Prescott, but he turned it down and asked for quite a bit more money than offered. Don’t forget that Amari Cooper is also in the last year of his contract.
Tony Rome came out yesterday and said that he believes the Cowboys will sign all three of their players, but I’m not sure how that’s going to be possible.
Prescott was offered $30 million dollars a season by the Cowboys that he turned down and there where some reports that there was a $40 million dollar a year offer that he turned down. Is difficult to imagine Prescott getting anywhere close to the kind of money they’re talking about. I think the only reason the money has gone so high on him is because he’s with the Cowboys.
Where do you rank Prescott among NFL starting quarterbacks?
Cooper seemed to be a better fit with the Cowboys than he was with the Raiders, but I’m not sure he’s shown he’s a #1 wide receiver. Cooper has reached 1000 receiving yards in three of his first four season, but he’s never had a 100 reception season or scored more than 7 touchdowns in a season.
The issue the Cowboys will have in signing him is he’s looked at as a #1 receiver. Can Cooper show he’s a true #1 receiver this season as he plays for a new contract?
We’ve covered Elliott and his numbers here before. So the questions with him really are, how long will he hold out? And will he get that new contract? Do you see Elliott’s hold out going into the regular season? Do you think it’s possible he’ll hold out the entire season?
How do you think this works out for the Cowboys? Will they be able to sign all three of these players like Tony Rome thinks they will. Or will one of them have to be allowed to leave and if so which one do you see leaving?
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