Tony: in 2015, the NFC East was the worst division in the NFL. However, with the emergence of Kirk Cousins in Washington, preseason hero Dak Prescott in Dallas, the Giants spending big in free agency and the Eagles firing Chip Kelly and trying to undo his damage, we can expect 2016 to be…probably still the worst division in the NFL. Seriously, the only thing that any of these teams really have going for them is the fact that none of the other teams in the division seem to be that interested in pulling away.
Possibly the most confusing team in the division is the New York Giants, who are presumably trying for one last shot at glory for Eli Manning, and on paper made some enticing moves, signing Janoris Jenkins and Oliver Vernon. It’s when you look at the dollars that it starts to get confusing—a record setting deal for Vernon, who is on the small side as a DE, and has 29 sacks in 4 seasons, with a career high of 11.5 set three seasons ago—not exactly All-Pro numbers, unless you’re Pro Football Focus. Add in $62.5 million for Jenkins—a deal that even Pro Football Focus graded as a ‘D’—and you’ve got almost $150 million tied up over four years in two guys that are not proven superstars. Not the kind of moves that would seem to put you over the top for winning the division, much less a Super Bowl.
Andy: Yeah, there’s no Super Bowl team coming from this division. If there were any justice in the world, there probably wouldn’t even be a playoff team coming from this division. Historically, most of these teams are among the league’s proudest and most competitive. Right now it’s a cesspool of garbage football.
Washington, now fully committed to Cousins, seemed closest to being on the right track last season. But Matt Jones seems to like to dance and fumble and the backup plan at running back is … Chris Thompson? Keith Marshall? Mack Brown? Robert Kelley? So that means Cousin is likely going to have to fling the pig a lot, again, and I’m not sure he can A) Match his 29-11 TD-INT ratio from last season or B) not get killed in doing so. Add in the injury and inconsistency histories of guys like stud TE Jordan Reed and WR DeSean Jackson and, I don’t know, this feels like a team that could either improve on 9-7 and repeat as NFC East champion or revert back to about 6-10.
The encouraging thing for Washington, though, has to be that with the Eagles in a rebuild, the Giants in … whatever they are in, and the Cowboys desperately hoping to hold Tony Romo together with duct tape and super glue, 6-10 might be enough to win the NFC East this year.
Tony: I sincerely hope that 6-10 isn’t really good enough to win a division—it’s bad enough when people whine about letting the six best records in when a 7-9 team gets in and a 10-6 team misses the cut—the Bernie Sanders argument for the NFL playoffs. I realize it sucks that a team with a sub-500 record gets in, but the answer isn’t eliminating division winners getting playoff spots (which would kill rivalries), nor is it letting in a 7th team (welcome to the NBA, folks). It happens like once every 15 years—the answer is to suck it up, shut up, and deal with it.
Off the top of my head, the Cowboys seem like the biggest threat to Washington’s division title defense, with still one of the best offensive lines in the league, and a really solid running back situation that includes both a rookie that has already been anointed by many (especially in the fantasy ranks) as a top-3 running back, and a solid Alfred Morris who was somewhat inexplicably jettisoned from Washington after one down year. But as Andy mentioned, health is a big concern—they’ve already lost Tony Romo for the first half of the season since they only put a plate on his clavicle, not his spinal column, and with Ezekiel Elliott already missing some time with a hamstring issue, Cowboy fans may already be sweating more than your average Packer fan does while walking to the mailbox. And that doesn’t even bring up their defensive questions, which include a suspect secondary, injury prone linebackers, and a defensive line that has a tendency to get themselves suspended, to the point that I am half expecting a call from Jerry Jones to see if I would be interested in coming out of retirement to play defensive end…and I haven’t played since high school. And I never played defensive end.
Andy: Ouch. So you’re not in favor of my suggestion from awhile back to require eight wins to be a playoff team? If it were up to me, the sub-.500 teams would be replaced by the team with the best record that didn’t otherwise qualify (link if we can find it).
Anyway, I think Washington is the best team in the division, but we also know that you rarely, if ever, see all the same teams make the playoffs in back-to-back years. And this is the worst division, so I am going to go with a new team here. I will say the Giants will pull it together. Jason-Pierre Paul will figure out how to play semi-dominant defense with what’s left of his right hand. That will help improve a defense that added a couple bodies in the secondary.
And the offense, which has been competitive throughout the team’s suckitude, adds Sterling Sheperd to a receiving corps that also improved by getting rid of Reuben Randle. Eli Manning seems to have achieved comfort in the XX offense. So even if the defense isn’t exactly good, New York should be able to put enough points on the board to approach .500 or slightly better.
Tony’s addressed Dallas’ issues with Romo. Dak Prescott has looked good and I think he’ll be better than anything the Cowboys tried passing off as NFL-caliber QB play last year, but he hasn’t faced anything yet that resembles a regular season defense. And the team’s defense is mostly suspended right now. So … Dallas will struggle again.
Let’s see, oh yeah, Philadelphia is still in this division too. Doug Pederson should be an improvement as coach, but … There’s a lot of digging out to be done. (And, as an aside, Sam Bradford sucks and has not done nearly enough to warrant holding out for parts of the summer because of hurt feelings over the team drafting a QB in round one. He can suck it.) If I were the Eagles I’d think of selling off as many parts as possible for draft picks and looking forward to 2017, when the Carson Wentz era likely begins.
Tony: Yes, the NFC East will at least be interesting to watch, if not entertaining—so long as you’re ok watching bad football.
Sorry folks, I got to this as soon as I could! I’ve had four drafts, a preseason event and a podcast since Monday, this on top of my full-time gig, some animal dying in my garage (still haven’t had time to look for it) and my lawn turning into a jungle. I intend to rectify the last two things in the coming days. Anyhow, our fifth and final preseason mock draft featured a trio of former Fanballers in addition to the FF Party crew, and Bent Brewstillery proved to be an amazing host. Thanks again to Bartley, Lacey and the rest of the crew there. Enjoy all of my money as I enjoy all of your delicious beer and booze.
Mock draft, right. Stay on task, Maggio. Rudy walked into the draft right as his pick came up, and got busy owning it from there. Love the squad he put together, with the exceptions of Rishard Matthews (former Dolphin) and Snowflake (actual fake Dolphin from a movie). He didn’t really need Philip Rivers either, but the Henry and Booker picks are exactly what you do with your bench in a 10-teamer. Aim for the big upside.
Andy S had a similar go of things, as in a 10-team league it’s far more defensible to pay up for nice things—Cam Newton and Jordan Reed, in this case. Everyone will have good talent, so going elite at those positions and then shooting for the moon with a Kevin White type gets the job done.
Along those lines, Harley went Gronk early to mix things up and ultimately drafted well to use DeAngelo as a flex until Josh Gordon returns (with a one-week gap there) and Sterling Shepherd as an upside guy late. Still worry about Jeremy Langford, though, and Kamar Aiken I think lacks the upside to draft in a 10-teamer with Breshad Perriman starting to make some noise.
Jason properly paired Ajayi with Arian Foster, but the Foster/Bell RB combo comes with a lot of risk. Throw in Julian Edelman and Tyler Lockett and I’m a little nervous here. He got great value on Carson Palmer as well, though didn’t really need him in a 10-team with Rodgers already there. I think he was trying to thin the herd a little for Tuvey, though, who had yet to draft a QB at that time.
John “The Commissioner” Habermaier was pretty steady up until taking Stephen Gostkowski with Drew Brees still on the board and no QB on his roster yet. That said, Michael Thomas and Christine Michael are again the type of players you want on your bench in a 10-team league. Lots of potential upside.
Zoneblitz’s own Andy Tellijohn got solid value with Demaryius Thomas and Copy Fleener. I don’t love his bench much, and his squad is pretty NY Giants heavy. But otherwise no complaints here.
Aaron grabbed three players I’ve largely avoided in Rawls, Hyde and Hurns, but did get a good price on Gio Bernard, Dez Bryant and Alshon Jeffery. Just too much injury risk and offense questions overall with this squad for my liking in a 10-team league. I also don’t love pairing K and DEF from the same team—makes bye week a little rough.
Tuvey’s squad is solid per usual, though I don’t like Devonta Freeman as a third-rounder in a 10-team standard league. I anticipate a much smaller workload this season in a more even split with Tevin Coleman. I like the value he got out of his bench guys, though only Michael Floyd has the true big ceiling potential.
Michael Rand, meanwhile assembled a very nice team while going RB heavy, with my only complaint here relying on two guys coming off of season-ending knee injuries last year as starting receivers. Getting good value on John Brown could be the solution there, as could a breakout from Eli Rogers. Throw in McKinnon as the handcuff with benefits to Peterson and an undervalued Justin Forsett and you’d hardly know he was doing the ultimate multitasking—mock drafting at a brewstillery while also keeping his 2-year-old entertained. Bravo for BOTH Rands.
Chris Long also went running backs early and wound up with a solid squad. He sniped Brees from Tuvey, who thought he could wait with Long already having Tom Brady on his roster. Having both Jeremy Maclin and Travis Kelce might be a bit of a heavy investment in the Chiefs passing game, but besides that I’ve got little to quibble with here. Nicely done.
I’d like to thank EVERYONE who participating in our five preseason mock events, especially Harley Schultz, who made it out to four of the five to help us out. Big thanks as well to Urban Growler, Eastlake, Tin Whiskers, Northgate and Bent for working with us and hosting events for us preseason.
And thank YOU for reading and following along, and good luck this season!
Bo, Tuvey and Magsh talk about everything they’ve learned this preseason, go over more guys they love, more guys they hate (or at least mildly dislike), review all the injuries you need to know, and get you up to speed on all the position battles worth watching in today’s episode. And they speak in shorter sentences than the previous one.
In our fourth and penultimate mock draft event, I failed to insert draft round into the fields when entering players—realizing only in the 7th or 8th round and at that point figuring it wasn’t much use changing course. So, this will be a shorter review than usual since I can’t really analyze round value. I think you’ll live.
Overall I really liked the team that Andy put together—solid in all areas, balanced, and if I remember correctly he didn’t really reach for anyone. John Brown came at a value thanks to his lingering concussion symptoms, which have me scared enough to drop him a half dozen spots or so in my rankings.
Brandon’s team is probably my second favorite. The more mock/actual drafts I’m in, the more I like how things play out from the No. 1 spot. Letting value fall and getting to take advantage with back-to-back picks works out nicely if you know what you’re doing, and seems to be more beneficial on this specific turn than at the end of the snake based on what I’ve seen in my travels. I think there are better flyers than Cameron Artis-Payne at running back, but overall this team was well constructed.
Logan did a nice job of balancing risk with reward on his squad in the WR, QB and TE departments, though taking on three guys who won’t play the first month of the season (Brady, Eifert, Gordon) could come back to bite him—especially since he eschewed RB depth to make up for it. Devonta Freeman has a timeshare in his future, Thomas Rawls might as well and has injury concerns to boot, and DeAngelo Williams is old and only guaranteed a productive role for three weeks. I know its tempting to grab those injured/suspended guys (included Le’Veon Bell) when you see their value as they fall in drafts, but you can only really take one, maybe two, without incredibly deep benches. Remember, all these guys have bye weeks to consider, too.
Brian lacked conviction with many of his picks, but ultimately put together a decent starting lineup. WR could be a bit thin, but otherwise really no complaints here.
I like Lalyn’s WR and TE position quite a bit, and I won’t really knock any QB considering in a 10-teamer you can comfortably stream the position, but he took a couple of guys at RB that I worry about in Langford and Hyde. In both cases it’s more about the team circumstance than the player, though I don’t think either player is particularly special. Langford is especially ordinary, if that’s a thing. Bilal Powell could be a late-round steal, and Justin Forsett is shaping up that way too with Kenneth Dixon’s injury, so he’s got some outs here.
Harley did a nice job getting value on Aaron Rodgers in the 6th-ish round, but will need to work on his RBs most likely. Counting on Arian Foster for anything more than Le’Veon Bell coverage is playing with fire, and Charles Sims isn’t the greatest asset in standard leagues.
Phil Jennings tried to get a QB run started with a 3rd-round pick of Cam Newton, but it failed to take so ultimately may have been a bit of a reach. The Landry/Benjamin/Matthews WR trio in a standard league isn’t dynamite, but DeSean Jackson as a late pick was helpful there. Same goes for the late Matt Forte/TJ Yeldon picks. Ultimately this is a team Phil can sneak up on anyone with using various lineup formations to disguise his otherwise singular intentions of overthrowing his opponent from within.
Sorry, I blacked out there. What happened?
As for Bo, Tuvey and I, overall I don’t have any complaints except for my continued concern with drafting Allen Hurns and Tyler Lockett at their current ADPs. Lockett wasn’t a huge issue for Bo, though, considering he’s a WR4. But Hurns is a WR3 for Tuvey. I see a future of coin-flipping between Hurns and Snead on a weekly basis. My squad would look much better in a PPR format. Maybe I shouldn’t have used my ½ PPR cheat sheet. Alas, I still think it’s a strong top-to-bottom lineup with both upside and depth to sustain injuries and be a contender.
We’ve got one more mock draft left! Join us at Bent Brewstillery in Roseville Wednesday night if you’d like to play!
Fantasy football draft season is in full swing, so Mitchell, Tuvey and Magsh get you prepared to dominate your fantasy football draft and auction with news, position battle updates, auction strategy, sleepers, busts plus a whole lot more!
Another awesome mock draft event in the books! Thanks so much to Tin Whiskers and to all our participants for coming out to support the show. We had mock drafters AND folks there just to hang out and watch, ask questions, and enjoy the fabulous Tin Whiskers brews. Now, to the mock review…
This was a two-horse race for my favorite team, one of them being mine, and the other being Bobby’s. I’m supposed to be OK at this so I’ll simply note the values I got at QB and TE (seriously, wait on those positions on draft day) and move on. Bobby got great value all over the place as well. This is a standard league draft, but David Johnson dropping that far is surprising. There’s some risk here that Chris Johnson and Andre Ellington sap some of David Johnson’s volume, but that offense is explosive enough—as is David Johnson—that it shouldn’t matter much. Following up with Brandon Marshall and CJ Anderson was wonderful too. And that Tom Brady pick followed by Eli for the first four weeks, bravo!
Dave LaVaque went against the grain with Aaron Rodgers second overall, though being a 10-team league his team didn’t wind up suffering much from it as a result. Not handcuffing Christine Michael to Thomas Rawls is a mistake, and there are other sleeper TEs I prefer to Kyle Rudolph, but all-in-all not bad for a guy who admittedly hasn’t played fantasy football in six years.
Mike D did well to snag Gronk at the turn after going Antonio Brown #1 overall, and I also like Brees in the sixth round. I’m just not feeling Carlos Hyde this year, but that pick is fixable with LeGarrette Blount and Ryan Mathews backing them up. Also a lot of risk here with three rookie wideouts, which historically don’t produce well enough for Mike’s team to be a championship contender. But with Brown/Brees/Gronk, he’s got as much week-to-week upside as anybody.
Jake picked a great team (of players others had already selected in previous rounds). He was understandably distracted having just come from a full-day fantasy football draft event, but still did well for himself with Cam/Gurley/Evans/Watkins as a formidable top four. I also like the Fitzy pick in the seventh round, but Bortles in the 8th after already snagging Cam was ill advised.
Adrian Peterson continues to fall to mid-first round in these, which I think is a mistake—one that Doogie capitalized on. AJ Green also inexplicably fell, giving Doogs arguably the best 1-2 punch in this league. From there I didn’t love the combined risk of Jordy (injury), Demaryius (quarterback) and Langford (injury, average talent), but a return to form from Andrew Luck and two of those three question marks turning out and Doogs has a squad that week-to-week would be among the toughest to face.
Rob went four straight wide receivers—all four can start—which I commend for the ballsiness but overall I feel like is unnecessary. There’s enough RB value out there to go three straight WRs if you want, but in a standard league I wouldn’t go four even though you can start all four of them. As John Tuvey noted at our draft, Matt Forte has never finished outside of the top 12 at his position. And Frank Gore should be a workhorse in a great offense. But both guys are long in the tooth. Danny Woodhead should help some and Bilal Powell provides at least Forte insurance—if not just being the better fantasy player at some point this season. But in non-PPR, those two don’t offer as much value. I probably would’ve passed on taking two more bench receivers after starting the draft with four straight just to give me a couple more bites at the apple to make sure the RB position works out.
Mitchell (not Bo—he went straight MC on us for the event) would dominate in a Raiders-only league. He’s obviously bought into the retooled offensive line there and is expecting the Silver and Black to rise again. Overall I wouldn’t recommend that many pieces of any offense, regardless of how good it is. It simply limits your upside too much. A big Latavius game means the Carr/Cooper combo is less likely to go boom. Same for the inverse. I liked that he locked up Tennessee’s backfield and handcuffed in Atlanta (a situation I think warrants it in all formats), but overall I think the Raiders-heavy approach dooms this squad to nothing more than a .500 finish.
Tuvey, meanwhile, went RB early—which is an approach I love near the first turn in both 10- and 12-team leagues. It used to be RBs would fly off the board and this is where you’d zig towards WRs. Now the opposite is true. And Tuvey, in a standard league, landed two of the probably six or seven guys in the running for RB1 overall this season. I loved the TY Hilton follow-up too, and don’t mind Baldwin. I’m not in love with Hurns, though, an area where Tuvey and I are gonna agree to disagree. I just see too much regression coming from that passing game, and think it’s going to ultimately ding Hurns the most, after Bortles.
Thanks again to everyone who showed up to Tin Whiskers. Our next event is this Sunday, August 28th, at Northgate Brewing. We’ve still got mock draft spots available! Just reach out on twitter or email FFparty@zoneblitz.com if you want in. And special for this one event: If you bring your league draft to Northgate, we’ll add a $50 Zubaz gift card to the pot for the league champ. Just let us know you’re coming and bring along at least 8 league members and the gift card will be entrusted to your commissioner.
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Guys I think we got our first clue this is going to be a small class I looked at the…
I like all the Senior Nominees but if I were to guess I'd say Sharpe,Holmgren Tyrer.
as per Tanier, he' active on social media with Hall stuff, especially with Talk of Fame and his own website…
Where you at, Robert The Greatest?
Paul: thank you for mentioning Mike Tanier. Didn’t know about his work previously. Good access and insight.