Every summer leading into and throughout the NFL season, Sports Illustrated and SI.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 11th) with the Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association Hall of Famer.
You gave us the scout on Tom Brady in Tampa. How about his old buddy Rob Gronkowski heading south, as well? “Didn’t play last year – comes back to join forces with his buddy there in “Tompa Bay” and he is back on the radar as being a tight end one. I don’t think he’ll be elite by any stretch of the imagination. His final season in New England was not all that great. I think he finished with like three touchdowns and he still has the durability issues, too. We’re not sure if he’s going to be able to come back and play a full 16 games after not playing last year.”
How will Tom Brady impact Mike Evans’ production there in Tampa? “I don’t feel like it’s going to increase or decrease to be quite honest with you because last season Jameis Winston was a QB5 in that offense and threw 30 interceptions. That’s because Jameis threw the ball a ton. Threw for over 5,000 yards and over 30 touchdowns. I don’t know if Evans is going to see a big jump up in terms of his value because…Winston threw the ball, what, 626 times last year? Tom Brady his last three years combined averaged 588 pass attempts. I don’t feel like the Buccaneers are going to have to throw the ball as much because Brady’s not going to throw picks and the Bucs aren’t going to be trying to eliminate deficits. Evans to me is a wide receiver one. Chris Godwin I would rather have ahead of Evans if I had my choice in drafts. He is clesrly a wide receiver one but Tampa Bay’s offense is loaded. They have a lot of mouths to feed there.”
Is Julio Jones still one of the best fantasy receivers? “Julio is what he is. He’s a top five fantasy wide receiver. That’s not going to change. Julio is a top five wide receiver.”
Do you have a better feel for Cam Newton in New England? “There’s the great unknown there with Cam. We haven’t seen him play well in a long time. He’s coming off a surgery. He’s expected to be ready for Week 1. Projected to the the starter there. There’s no way Jarrett Stidham is getting that job from Cam Newton. He was an MVP-caliber player during his time in the National Football League and a fantasy star. We’re still not certain as we’re coming into the season that he’s good to go in terms of his health. We think so but we haven’t had any OTA’s, we don’t have any pre-season so we really don’t know for sure.”
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