Week 13 Studs & Duds + Turkey Trauma - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/2

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is brought to you by Amazon Prime. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Monday, December 2nd, fa la la la la la. La. La. See, now I'm on board. Now the tree is up.

Hot Coco and... The music. Jingle bells and the music in the car every day and around the house and Home Alone on the television set and we've got candy canes and now we're here. We watched Elf this weekend with my family, which, you know, I've seen dozens of times, I don't know. But I think it had been a couple years since I really sat down and watched, not just like on in the background. Watch that movie. Oh crap. That movie's so good. It is. It is so funny. Every 30 seconds is just a banger. Tis the season. Mike had his, uh, Lonesome Jack and the Thanksgiving. I wasn't very lonesome. I mean, I felt great. Well, Lonesome implies feeling sad and alone. And I, you had your games. Yeah. And Jack, Jack was with you. Yeah.

Uh, we had, uh, apparently Spatchcock got to 10 on the holiday trending terms. No, no, no. We got to nine. Did we? Yeah. We got to number nine. Yeah. Thanks, Jason. Yeah. Appreciate that. How did your, uh, Spatchcocked turkey turn out? It was excellent. Uh, it was fantastic. And then, um, this week, I had two Thanksgivings. And so. For Sunday, I had to spatchcock another one. Why, you double spatchcock? I double spatchcocked. All right. The problem was the bird was not. Were you better the second time? No, I was much worse. What? The bird was not fully thawed. And if you try cutting out a spine and breaking a breastbone of a frozen bird, I was literally on the ground trying to like CPR this thing for leverage. Oh my gosh. It was insane.

Well, the hashtag Spatchcock giveaway winners will be announced on tomorrow's show. Thanks to everybody who participated and who listened to the Megalodon episode, who shared their tweets with us over the weekend. Hopefully it was a great holiday weekend. We had Thursday football. We had Friday football. We had Sunday. And we got a game tonight. We have a lot of reactions to the weekend. We've got... one more week until the fantasy playoffs. And, you know, last year was, last year was an adventure. We had all the drama with Papa Josh and myself going down the stretch. And, you know, that's not there this year because he's not sniffing the playoffs. You know what I mean? Any thoughts there, Papa Josh? I don't remember any drama, man. Yeah. No, the people remember the drama. It was a good time.

What else do we got going on? We've got a reminder here, head to join the foot.com. If you want to get in on the ultimate dashboard, the extra weekly episodes, the premium tools down the stretch, you can do that. And a reminder to download the mobile app on Android or iOS. You can get the free mobile app. And then if you are a member at join the foot.com, you can log in and access all the unique and special tools. We will. You know, Jason was out of town this week, and so we didn't watch the games together. Mike and I were together cheering on Bryce Young. Oh, man. It was so much fun. And, I mean, a disappointing ending for the Panther faithful. I mean, in some ways. Actually, it could actually better, right? It could literally be the best case scenario of this last, I mean, that game. Look at Bryce Young. Look at this dude making real professional quarterback throws.

anticipation throws. And then you still got the loss, which is. Oh, we've been there as Cardinal fans where it's like you're rooting for a real good looking game where we come up with the loss. Just a little short at the end because you don't want to screw up that draft pick. So, no, that was fun. Mike and I were watching all the games. And we have your reactions to the weekend as we always do. I'm sure they're calm and measured. They're the best. Starting with J. Win Daniels. Okay. Rico Wowdle. Yes. Wait a minute. Nico Suave? Hey, Nico got it down. That's Rico's name. Listen, James Spatch Cooked. Oh, yes, he did. This guy went Buck Wild Irving. Yes, yes. Good luck, Mike. Nick Westbrook T.D. Ney.

And Mike Evans. A classic. Brock Powers. Oh, Manthony Richardson. Yes, and Josh Almighty. That's good. Oh, this one. This one, oh my gosh, atheist McCaffrey. That's, oh, that's. Oh, and I'll take a Ken Grown Walker. Oh, you missed Christian McGlassney. Oh, I did. Cooper crap. Or a Pooper Cup. Cooper cup of farts. Why we don't get a Cooper cup so much? Bust Edwards. Yeah. Oh, seedy bland. Oh, no. Lil Montana. And Will Dismal. Oh, Kyle sits. George Little. And Jason, take us home. Breece Small. Breece. He was hurt. Frightening. Frightening. Brise frightening. Man, this dude.

Has hurt me something special. You are burned and then the burns have burns. That's where you're at with Breeshall because you have him where it counts. See, sometimes for Thanksgiving, people want something special and they choose to deep fry a turkey, which I have heard. I've never had a deep fried turkey. I've heard that that is the pinnacle of finished product. And so. Breece Hall this season is the deep fried turkey. You're taking that risk in that shot for the best of the best. But sometimes when people deep fried turkeys, it causes a massive fire and a burned bird. And that's all that my house is up in flames because of Breece Hall. I mean, I have them everywhere. And he has just wrecked, wrecked my teams. And I'm just so hurt by it. I think you brought this upon yourself.

You have spent the last couple weeks besmirching Brees Hall, despite week 11, him giving you over 27 points goes into the biweek. And you're just like, well, Brise Hall's so bad for my team. He said, you want bad? Fine, I'll give it to you. So you think. Yes, I do. So you think it wasn't that I was just correct. It was a personal payback from Brees. Yes, it was a. You should have heard Mike. When he fumbled in the way that he fumbled and the ball went shooting forward, Mike was laughing at a disproportionate level at your expense. Oh, yeah. Well, we were playing each other this week. So my team that looked like, you know, in the morning, I was going to roll to an easy dub. C.D. Lamb went out, Bruce Hall did nothing. And Baker would.

Socton. Everything collapsed. So come on to Joku. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your reactions over on Instagram at Fantasy Footballers over on X at the FF Ballers. Monday, Punday gets posted every Sunday night and you can share your reactions. This weekend it was fairly balanced. Honestly, there was just a ton of the reason there were all the Cooper Cup puns is one, that's a layup. And two, that was one of the bigger reactions with the Cooper Cup. The other one that I don't think we even hit, right? Kenneth Walker's disappearing act was a huge part of the weekend. I tweeted it out. But the Seattle Seahawks, we've all seen bad goal line sequences. But the Seattle Seahawks had ages of chef's masterpiece here of seven plays. No, no, no. Was this? Yes. It might have been more. Seven or eight. Seven or eight plays inside the five. First and goal.

all the way up to third, and then they got the penalty, got closer. Start it over. Reset it. Reset. And then went for it on fourth down, got all the way to fourth down with just terrible, terrible play calls. And then turn the ball over on fourth down. And it was, it was an unbelievable moment. How do you get inside the five get that many attempts and turn the ball over on the dam? No, it was the ground zone. I mean, you were, you were a. upset and then later on's Charbonnet. Yep. Got inside, got carries inside the five. It's not been good for Ken Walker. No. And they can't block for them. And, yeah, just another one of the players that hurt people this week. Let's jump into some Ready to Roll. Welcome to Ready to Roll. Presented by Nissan. Did you guys watch the Snowball? Yeah. I mean, it was one of the coolest plays of all time.

Yeah, the pass to himself. That was outrageous. But, you know, players couldn't get their footing. Everything was like half speed. Yeah, everything was set up for a Christian McCaffrey domination game. Until. Until the final tackler who could have got him for a whatever, that would have been like a 60-yard rushing touchdown. Instead, he got his foot clipped and then hurt his little knee. And then now he's out. Now he's gone. That sounds like a man. Sounds like a man. Sounds like a man who's got him in a couple leagues. Oh my gosh. Yeah. As the weather gets colder, you see that running back dependency increase even more. That's why we have, you know, the Yeti in this time of year. So we wanted to take a look and ready to roll at running backs over the last month and compare their workloads with the previous nine weeks. Which running backs are actually getting.

a much more increased workload down the stretch leading to more fancy points per game, leading to maybe some playoff league winners. And then you've got the opposite, players whose workloads are going down right now. It's, you know, I feel like in some ways Al Borland has kind of manifested this reality. Oh, he really has. But nobody's workload is increased or the production or their fancy points per game more than Bucky Irving, who. was averaging 12 opportunities a game through the first nine weeks. It's up to 20 plus. Absolute beast from the last three weeks. His fancy points per game is sitting at 22.1 over the last three weeks. And I think this conversation is the most important one to have here, which is not just Bucky Irving being a league winner, but what I think I saw in Tampa, which is maybe how Baker Mayfield doesn't win you a title. Because the last two seasons,

Tampa Bay has been dead last inefficiency running the football. It wasn't a choice to throw as much as they threw it. It was a necessity because they couldn't run the ball no matter what they did. Now, suddenly, you have one of the best running backs in football. Every play you watch, Bucky Irving run it, he's breaking tackles. They're now the fifth highest rush rate over the last month. It's not that Baker's playing poorly. He's still getting some volume, too. It's just that they can win a game this way now. And when they need to, Baker got banged up. They don't have Godwin. But like Kate Otten's disappeared for three weeks, right? So they can win a game with Bucky Irving now. And Bucky Irving looks like a superstar. Yeah, I mean, you're talking about 28 opportunities this week, currently sitting as the running back one.

on the week after last week being the running back three. Buck Irving is all reliable. And I mean, 25 of those opportunities were handoffs, were carries. You had Rashad White with only 11. So, I mean, he is their starting running back now. Chase Brown's opportunities in the first nine weeks, 14.6, they jumped. They're at 22.7 over the last three weeks, the heartbreak bangles. who keeps scoring 30 plus points and losing. I feel so bad for Burrow. I believe the stat was if you score 33 plus points, NFL teams are 51 and 1 this year, but the Bengals are 2 and 4 in those games. Amazing. So that's outrageous. I mean, they can't stop anybody.

So those two names, I think, are the most significant ones where Chase Brown's involvement. He looks like a superstar. I would add one other name of the opportunities that are increasing because Chase Brown, you know, that was a little bit easier to see with the Zach Moss injury. But Rico Dowdle. Yeah, baby. He has finally been given the job that he clearly should have had even earlier in the season. He's been doing well with it the last two weeks. Very. fantasy relevant, successful. And I expect that one to stick. I think he will continue as the main running back. What's funny is that for the other running backs, Bucky Irving's fancy points per game jump from 9 to 22. Chase Brown from 11 to 17. You give Rico Dowdell six extra opportunities per game. His fancy points per game have gone down a point from 11 to 10.2. That's the nine weeks. So like Rico's skyrocket has just been the past two weeks.

Well, I'm just saying he averaged 11 a game. Weeks 1 through 9 and then 10.2 over the last three weeks. But yes, his opportunities are going up. Bejones have gone up five a game. Rico's got a good schedule. You know who nobody wants to talk about? I don't know why. I don't know if they're just boring this year. Josh Jacobs. Josh Jacobs has got his opportunities going up, his production. He's gone from 13.4 fantasy points a game the first nine weeks to 23.2. That's higher than Bucky Irving. He is. Touchdowns will do that. Which he was overdue. Yeah, I mean, he was one of those positive regression guys. In the beginning of the season, we were talking about how the opportunities per touchdowns were not indicative of what should be the average for NFL running backs with Josh Jacobs. And you've seen it. Really, the pendulum has swung to the other side now.

opportunities going downward over the last three weeks. Kyron Williams. Kyron Williams has seen his opportunities go down six a game, his fantasy point six a game. And that's since Puka returned in week eight, the Rams ranked top five and pass rate over expectation. So they're throwing the ball more. So his opportunities have gone from, you know, where he was, 21, 15, 16, 16, the last three weeks. That seems like the... more of the new normal. However, he looked great this week, still got in the end zone. He had a massive fantasy day. The thing to watch will be not that Blake Corum got like this outlandish amount of work, but he had a random drive in the middle of the game. He had a drive and he had eight carries, which that ties to season high. It was back in week two, the game against Arizona. Trying to remember, I imagine that was.

That was that because they got blown out. That was the Cardinals blew him out. Yeah. So they finally just like, okay, put Corum in, take the starters out. But this was 32% of the snaps for Corum here. And it was not a blowout. This was a competitive game and they just put Corum in for a drive. So that will be interesting to watch if that plays out here for the final handful of games. DeAndre Swift's opportunities have diminished, although you do have Rocheon Johnson with a concussion on Thanksgiving. You know, you look at what Caleb Williams has done the last two weeks. I know they lose all their games. But in our league format, he's 35 fantasy points the last two weeks. You've seen Keenan Allen's resurgence. DeAndre Swift has not had. He's had one carry inside the five since week seven. So his opportunities are, you know, you have to thread the needle for a big game from DeAndre Swift right now. And then let's talk about this one because I think it is.

I think it's explainable, but it could also be concerning because of the age and because of the, you know, where the Cardinals are headed. But James Connor, his efficiency has gone down. His opportunities per game have gone down from 19 to 16. His fantasy points per game slipped a little bit. And yet Arizona has the easiest running back strength of schedule for the fantasy playoffs. And in fact, from weeks 14 through 17. Yeah, I'm really not worried about. James Conner's workload. If you look at, I mean, just yesterday's game against Minnesota, the Cardinals led most of the game. And he got 17 carries, but that was against a very difficult run defense. He was also involved in the passing game. So it was a little disappointing. But with that schedule coming up, the expectation of, you know, being favored in.

probably most of those games and easy rush defenses, I think you're going to have a lot of success. And he just got the Schmoney. That's right. You got the extension. Congratulations, Mr. Connor. Mike called that one here on the show. Good work, James. Enjoy your money. But I'm with Jason. I think that James Connor is going to be perfectly fine. I mean, he is so close to completing a season. Every week. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I know, no, no. I'm not saying he will. I'm not going to jinx this. I'm just. Point now, he's... I think you already did. He's close. No, I mean, Jason's right. There are only a handful of games left. Hold on. James Connor... Five games left. Out for the season. No, no. You know what's funny is he can do... He can accomplish both here. Just be here for the full fantasy season. You want to take the last week off due to injury. Yeah, that's fine. You can make sure you keep your street going. I like that. All right. That was ready to roll. Thanks again to our sponsor, Nissan Adventure Calls in the first ever Nissan Rogue Rock Creek. Visit Nissan.com.

to learn more. A reminder, intelligent all-wheel drive cannot prevent collisions or provide enhanced traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions. We will take a break and we'll jump into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. All right. We'll start with the turkey trauma. Rocheon Johnson left with a concussion on Thanksgiving Day. He was getting more opportunities. That's unfortunate. C.D. Lamb aggravated his right shoulder injury. Yeah, he did. And we'll see if he's back on the field next week. And goodness gracious. We have not. Oh, yeah, we haven't even talked about it. Yeah, with the Megalodon show, we didn't get to react to the Bears, the end of the game. Matt Eber flusus was fired. We've seen more, in my opinion, in the last like five or six weeks, like block field goals, missed field goals, and botched end of game scenarios.

then I can remember in one stretch. And nothing was more significant than the bears having a timeout, 30 seconds on the clock, and somehow using all 30 seconds to pull off one ugly play and end the game. Snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. What's crazy is the play before, or two plays before. Yeah, before the sack. Two plays before. Yeah, before the sack. They had completed a pass to Keenan Allen, putting them inside the 10-yard line. Now, it was called back due to penalty. But being inside the tin to go outside a field goal range. And then there's a lot of discussion about who's to blame. It is unconscionable that, you know, Caleb Williams would change the play at the line of scrimmage. He forgot how time worked for a little bit. That's insane. I also think he, I know in his post press or whatever he said, I guess we had a time out or whatever, but I think he thought they didn't have a time out.

and was going for it all and changing the play. I don't know what happened, but it was... That doesn't make it better. No, no, no. I'm not saying that makes it better. I'm... I hope he was drunk. So, like, there is a piece of this that is on Iber Fluse, and obviously he got fired, and I think he should have been anyways, regardless of the botched ending. But he was the scapegoat. Not enough credit is being given to Caleb Williams for... fouling the end of that game. I mean, as a quarterback to not know the situation, I mean, they were at the line of scrimmage with 16 seconds left plenty of time. And they shouldn't have taken a timeout. They should not have, they should have continued to let the clock wind and gotten into field goal range. That was the goal of, you know, I was like, when, when you hit that sack, I was like, okay, you just got to let the clock run down, take the field goal, get a couple extra yards, then take your time out, kick the field goal.

Now, once it got down to 10 seconds, 9 seconds, 8 seconds. I think it was 7 when it got snapped. Yeah, I think maybe even 6. At that point, maybe the coach should call timeout and say, you don't know what you're doing. At 10 seconds, the coach has to pull the rip cord and say, you know who did that? At the end of the half, Mike Tomlin. Right. Clock was running out. He came down and he said time out. Yep. It was just ineptitude. Let's take a moment. And that was, oh, man, that was. That was a good time. But to add to the Bears firing Matt Iberfluse news, the rumors of Cliff Kingsbury. Yeah, there's, I mean, Ben Johnson will be the, he'll be the number one. He's the bell of the ball. Yes. For sure. And what I love about him, the offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions, is that he doesn't have a superstar, like, you know, the coordinator for the chiefs.

is always up for, you know, talk of head coaching. But that just always reminds me of Adam Gase, who was like, he was such a good coordinator with Peyton freaking Manning. You know, it's like I want someone who's got Jared Gough playing like an MVP as my coach. You don't think the bears are looking to Matt Nagy? Bring him back. New offensive coordinator of the chief. No, you're right. Yeah, he's done a lot with Jared Gough in that offense and knows how to build a system. And I credit Cliff for managing his universe really well. He went and found the college program to be the offensive coordinator of the number one pick again. He's playing the game very well. Yeah. James Connor, you mentioned the Schmoney, two-year extension worth $19 million for the Cardinals. I don't know if anybody on the planet, when he went to Arizona in 2021, would have imagined four solid seasons in a new contract, but he's done it. And he has the heartbeat of the team inside the locker room and on the field.

Yeah, on the offensive side of the ball, for sure. Him and Buda Baker are the rocks of the franchise. So it made complete sense for the Cardinals to give him a two-year extension. But man, get bodied rookie running backs. This is this has got to be the worst. Chuba got paid. So Jonathan Brooks is behind him. Yep. I mean, this is like the worst overall rookie running back class I can remember since like Bishop Sanky season. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're right. And. Expect Tray McBride to get paid by this team in the offseason two. The Chargers placed J.K. Dobbins on IR. The clock struck midnight for J.K. Dobbins. Austin Echler on IR with his concussion. Yeah. Hollywood Brown. I have not heard that name in a while. Expected to meet with a specialist and could return. Yeah. I saw some videos of him doing some workouts. Interesting. I mean, this is a.

Probably very irrelevant for fantasy football purposes, but relevant for the Chiefs and their Super Bowl aspirations. Well, yeah, it's Christian McCaffrey. Dude. Left Sunday night football, went down after a long run. The next play kind of went down on his own knee injury. The reports right now are that his season is over. Yeah, that's the fear. And if you are, honestly... The 49ers, you just gave Christian McCaffrey more money. You're, you're not toast in the division? Where are they? Oh, they're, they're bottom, but I mean, they're got a game out. They're five and seven. That's the concern, though. The concern is, okay, even if it's, you don't declare season ending right now. But you're like, it's a PCL injury. He's going to miss multiple weeks. And now, like, how are the 49ers going to do? I mean, it's Chicago and the Rams.

and Miami are the next three games. And so it's, you, you need to approach waivers tomorrow like Christian McCaffrey is done for the year. And hopefully you took the advice of, uh, every waiver day, you know, the, the Braylon Allen's of the world, the Jordan Masons of the world, the Jordan Masons of the world, the Jordan Masons of the world. Why are you saying that? Al Borland is, I was rostering my own insurance. Yeah, no, you did the right thing. I just wanted to get you on camera because you and I are reacting together in sadness because I had to drop Jordan Mason and unfortunately one of our opponents who's definitely competing picked him up. He was already the favorite to win the league and he just added Jordan Mason. All right, unfortunate. Also season ending, Tayson Hill. Yeah. We didn't get to see what it was going to turn into in New Orleans, carted off with a knee injury. The fear is a season ending injury. It was bad. It looked bad.

And it's over. And he's 34 years old. I know. I wonder if that's the last down we see from him. I, just because of how much they love him, I'm sure they will allow him to come back and play again. But that's the last relevant down that we'll see because it'll be, I don't know, is he going to be 35, 36 before he'd be able to get back to full strength? Depends on, yeah, what they? He's 34.2. So he was a recent birthday. Sure, but it's a late season. uh injury so he was already the oldest yeah he's already um old so that that's really really sad Trevor Lawrence left early due to a car accident that happened on the field yeah it was it was scary he he says he's doing uh doing well feeling better but it was a concussion it was violent on a slide yeah it was it was one of those things we had a hard time debating like the the