Fabiano’s Fantasy Focus: Pre-Season Week III, Volume I

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Every week during the season NFL Network and NFL.com Senior Fantasy Analyst Michael Fabiano joins Sports360AZ.com’s Brad Cesmat to share his insight on building and developing your fantasy team for success.

Here are some hi-lights from our most recent conversation (August 24th) with the Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association Hall of Famer.

What is the fantasy trickle down in Green Bay after Jordy Nelson’s season-ending injury? “That’s huge. This is a guy who was tied for second among all receivers in fantasy points last year. One of the most talented players not only in the league but in fantasy land at the wide receiver position…now with Nelson out Davante Adams is now a potential number two fantasy wide receiver. Goes from being a late-round flier to being worth as much as maybe a fifth or sixth-round pick. A lot of that is talent. A lot of that is Aaron Rodgers. Now if we move to Rodgers, consider him still one of the two elite quarterbacks in fantasy along with Andrew Luck. But I moved Rodgers down one spot. He was my number one now he’s my number two.”

How about Cam Newton with Kelvin Benjamin now gone for the year? “I really liked Cam Newton as a potential draft bargain because of what he failed to do last year and that was score fantasy points on a consistent basis. He’s healthy this year and now he loses Benjamin so I really think it’s tough to expect Devin Funchess to come in and replace Benjamin and the 1,000+ yards and nine touchdowns he scored last year. So I moved Cam down from number six to number nine. I’m just worried about that passing game. Yes, he has Greg Olsen but behind him you’re looking at Funchess, Corey Brown…Jerricho Cotchery. A lot of guys who aren’t elite talents.”

Thoughts on John Brown out here in Arizona? “Love him! [He] and [Carson] Palmer have something going on. Those two have something going on. Ya know, Palmer back in the day had something going on with Ocho Cinco, T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Maybe he’s developing something here with John Brown. I predicted this in the past on this show. He’ll be the best fantasy wide receiver in Arizona this year. I really like him. He can stretch the defense and Palmer has a lot of confidence in him.”

What do you make of the Eagles’ backfield through the first half of pre-season? “If you watched [their] game this past week you saw that [DeMarco] Murray and [Ryan] Mathews are going to split carries. Not 50/50 but there’s going to be some sort of split in the touches out of that backfield so I’m still pretty hesitant to draft Murray as anything more than an RB2. Mathews could have some stand alone flex starter value. But if you watched in some of those series when they got in the red zone Mathews was getting the first crack.”

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