Fantasy Football 2017 - Starts of the Week, Week 17 Matchups, Overvalued in 2018

is fair. Yes, it's very fair. There could be change at the offensive coordinator position for next year. There could be. But Zeke? Yeah, I mean, it's unclear what I was reading this morning, Cowboys obviously eliminated. It's unclear how many snaps the starters are actually going to get in this game. I did not read the same kind of assurances about Zeke that you might have read yesterday. I'm just talking about Zeke's personal comments. And which were what? Or I haven't played for...

I've missed six weeks of the season. I'm ready to play. I'm playing. He'd say, well, we have nothing to play for. He said, well, I'm playing for myself. Yeah, but if the coach pulls you out, the coach pulls, yeah. I agree. I'm not arguing that. I have a hard time seeing if Dak and Des, Witten, they're off the field, that Zeke's just going to be out there grinding it away, risking injury for nothing. It's very possible. Yeah, do you start it? Yeah, I would still start Zeke because a half of Zeke.

against, you know, what could be backup defenders could be better than a full game from, you know, Malcolm Brown. I agree. Any other comments from that game? No, just that Tyrant Smith left tackle is not expected to play. So I am not playing Dak. Yeah, this is, I think if you look at the last six or seven minutes of the show, that's a really good encapsulation of why you should not play in week 17. These games are garbage.

You have no idea what coaches are going to do. You get awful jokes from me. Yeah, so maybe that's why we should play. Analysis. All right. Speaking of awful, the Browns at 015, take on the 12 and 3 Steelers. This is it, Cleveland. The Steelers are 11-point favorites. There is a 39 point under in this game. And look, they're trying to avoid being only the second team in NFL history.

to not finish or to finish 0 and 16. The Lions obviously were the first in 2008. And the situation for the Steelers is interesting because you have the chance that they could have a first round or have home field throughout the playoffs. But the Patriots would have to lose. Steelers would have to win.

And both games kick off at the same time. So you wonder if there's going to be some scoreboard watching. You wonder if you get Big Ben and company for part of the first half. Look, they beat the Browns with a backup last year. I'm just kind of curious to see what exactly happens, whether Landry Jones is out there, whether you see more of Eli Rogers and Martavis Bryant than you do, you know, Juju and Lev Bell. And Mike Tomlin has come out and said he's weighing the pros and cons of resting the starters in this game, or at least for part of the game.

What is your expectation for fantasy owners? Man, Tomlin has rested guys in the past. I think the smart move as a coach is to rest your players if you can. And Tomlin's a very good coach. You know, earlier, so Juju is my start of the week because everything lines up.

Home field, home bin, perfect matchup, no Antonio Brown. But it's very, very scary. And I might need to tweet out a change because the reality is if they need the Patriots to lose, I mean, the Patriots are at home favored by 15 and a half points against the Jets. It's probably not going to happen. And if they go into the half of the lead, you could just see all the Pittsburgh Steelers benched.

They just don't. We're calling the game. All the starters. Hey, you win. White towel. Congrats. Browns. You got one. I seem to remember a game, a meaningless game for the Steelers in week 16 against the Colts that were terrible a few years ago where the Colts came away with a win just because it was, you know, backups on the field for Pittsburgh. It could be the way Cleveland avoids, you know, infamy, so to speak. Could be.

Any other comments on this game? The brown side of the ball, I mean, they're going to be playing everybody. They're going to be trying to avoid a loss. However, from my understanding, they've been trying to avoid a loss for 15 games. So I'm not sure that that motivation matters. I'll still play Josh Gordon, despite last week's poor performance as the Steelers the past six weeks, 22nd against fantasy wide receivers. And Duke Johnson, that's a shame.

Blame myself. Duke Johnson has not gotten enough talk on this year podcast. Did you say he's a Duke? No. Oh. Ah. I'm just trying to give him a little credit. Yeah. If we've got King Goffrey, maybe the Duke of Johnson? Just Sir Duke. Sir Duke. Thanks, Brooks. Who saved us from ourselves. For running backs, he's fourth than receiving arts. I mean, he has more receiving arts than Christian McCaffrey than Chris Thompson, who is.

missed most of the season now, but more than Kareem Hunt, more than Melvin Gordon. He's been a very reliable running back, especially in PPR formats. Yeah, I'm ashamed to say I forgot about Chris Thompson, the kind of run he was on this year. That's what I'm talking about. Chris Thompson, still fifth, or I apologize, sixth. Unbelievable. In running back receiving yards. All right, let's get into our starts. Starts of the week. Just a reminder if you are saying to yourself, well, they didn't talk about that other game.

That's because there's a Friday to this week, and we talk about the rest of the matchups tomorrow, and by we, I mean, you two and Jay Gris. Oh, yeah. My family is in the midst of a New Year's move, so I'm taking the day, and these guys are going to hold down the fort. Brod's going to keep them in order. Yeah, it'll be crazy, crazy. We'll duct tape it down. Okay. The fort. Yeah, you got it. Hold down, keep it. There will be no hammer and nails when we're running the show. There will not be any good jokes either.

All right. Agre to disagree. Great jokes. Captain Kirk against the worst past defense in football without a safety. Love it. He's my start of the week. Needs little explanation. You know, I'm just going to jump in here with a combo because I'm rolling. You're going to mess us up again. Nope. Nope. You can do whatever you guys want, but I'm going to go, I'm double stuffing with the Colts here. I love Jacoby Brissette against Houston. And I talked about T. Y. Hilton as a Texan slayer.

I love both of these guys. Jacoby is a fantastic streaming option if that's what you have to do. And Hilton, dust him off, blow it off. If he's still on your bench, if you've held on to him, this is the week you can finally confidently start T.Y. Hilton. I don't know if you're right. I think you are right. I actually like it. My start of the week at quarterback is Matthew Stafford. As I said, he's playing for his coach's job. He's in a.

a matchup against Green Bay where, you know, against the quarterback, they're giving up plenty of points. I really like the weather in a dome. And, you know, when you look at the lay of the land, when you look at the lay of the land, I think Stafford's going to be one of the safest quarterbacks this week that actually has a really high ceiling. So he's my start. Why don't you go with your wide receiver so we can? Yeah. So my wide receiver.

I'm going to blow your guys' minds right now. I'm changing. It's not juju. I think juju is excellent and could, I mean, in a half, he could end up. But still risky business. But risky business. No, I'm going with a guy in the same game who's going to ball out. Josh Gordon. Oh, no. I'm Mr. I know. I'm Mr. poor little cold water. I'm Mr. poor little cold water on Josh Gordon. And I.

I will continue to when the time is right. Cold rider on Josh Gordon just makes his abs. Icey abs. It's just icy abs. The reality is the Pittsburgh. It's a thing. You know, icy abs. The Pittsburgh Steelers give up big plays. And that is Josh Gordon's specialty. If they are resting people in the second half, if they're up, I mean, I think this is a perfect match. Would you say that like a star is born with Josh Gordon? Reborn. Never. A star is reborn. That's juju.

All right. I'm going to go with Robbie Anderson against New England eight targets last week. He's 61 yards from 1,000. The first time in his career, he'd hit 1,000 yards. At this point, why not get these guys some of these milestones that have been a great player for your team all year? Robbie Anderson still has the talent. Bryce Petty still has the arm. And look, I think that there's a chance that you have half a game here.

where they're playing comeback and garbage time. So I think Robbie Anderson is a solid start. And I'll bring in my tight-in start now. We'll finish up with running back. So tight-in start of the week. Jack Doyle in that matchup. You know what I like it. Facing Houston, currently the eighth tight end of the year, and I'll go with baby hands. I'm going to go with another game for Charles Clay.

at tight end. He was a little bit disappointing last week, but again, Tyrod Taylor, I had pumped the brakes going to New England. They have really shut him down. No touchdowns for Tyrod last week. But this is a revenge game for Charles play going back to Miami. The weather should be good. They're playing for something. Yeah, they're playing for something. Miami is really bad against tight end. This is the playoff week. We.

want and need from Mr. Necessary Charles Clay. We've talked about we love the pieces from the Green Bay Detroit game. So I'm staying in the flames with Eric Ebron, who has received 26 targets over the last three weeks. He's finally showing up to play. So if you've got him, I'm, I'm confidently playing him again. All right. My running back start of the week is Kenyon Drake. Kenyon Drake is facing the worst rush defense in football on this season in terms of fantasy points given up.

That would be Buffalo. And they just gave up 45 plus fantasy points to the running backs in New England, including, you know, Dionne Lewis and company. So I think Kenyon Drake gets the workload to justify a start of the week this week. So I'm going to go forward with him. He had a disappointing seven points last week. I think he's in the probably 15 to 20 point range this week. No, I really like that call. I said it earlier. My running back start of the week is Jamal Williams. I...

I absolutely think he will be involved in the passing him. I realize he wasn't last week, but that was also in like five-degree weather against Minnesota. This is the dome game. They'll be down. It's against Detroit. They give up passing yards to the running back. So I'm, you know, guns ablazing full steam ahead with Jamal Williams this week. I'm going with C.J. Anderson.

Up against the Chiefs. He is very close to a thousand yards season. He's also been balling out. He's really close. You're going to laugh, but he's really close to a top 12 finish. Yeah, because he's great. He's very good. But he don't feel like it. No, certainly does not. He been started. Because a stupid freaking Broncos stop giving him the ball. I'll make your arguments for you. Double digits. Please do. In five of the last six games.

Absolutely. He has been tearing it up, including last week, with nine targets against Washington. Yeah, that was an outlier, seven for 45. Yeah, I'm not expecting nine targets again, but he can catch the ball. He is a three down back, a true three down back. And like I said, close to 1,000 yards. I think they will get him.

over that threshold, also playing the Chiefs. You know what it is? Chiefs could be resting some defensive starters. I like Anderson this week. One of his favorite things from my understanding is off-season hype, and he realized that if he didn't get it together at the end of this year, he might not have you on board for next off-season. That's impossible. All right, so those are our starts of the week. Without further ado, our final, our final boom boom of the week.

Jason Moores, ironclad, locked and loaded, 100% guaranteed boom, boom kicker of the week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your commissioner set up a week 17 championship like a traitor. And there's no need to worry. Just use the Lions Matt Prater. Man, I almost, I almost wept. Yeah.

I know. That is that's not. You can weep for different reasons. That's not fantasy football advice, my friends. That is art. Thank you. That's right. His album is coming out soon. All right. That is it for today's episode of the podcast. Thanks once more for tuning in. Check out draft.com slash ballers to play some DFS with us now and through the playoffs. The DFS podcast is going all the way through the NFL playoffs. Is that right? That is correct. Goodbye. Goodbye.

you for listening to another episode of the fantasy footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join the foot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers. Your favorite fall flavors are back at Starbucks. The one and only pumpkin spice latte and the deliciously smooth iced pecan crunch latte have arrived and are ready to sip all season long.