Starts of the Week + Week 5 Breakdown, BOGO - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/8

That can't be true. Josh Allen has to be in that category. Josh Allen is definitely in that category. Oh, yeah. It was Allen and Murray. Those were the two. And I think Allen's all top six. Well done, sir. Yes. But you're starting Kyler Murray. The most asked about, most debated, most I don't know what to do with. Most I'm disappointed and most I'm confused with. Most what's going to happen next player in all the land. Kenyon Drake. If you can't start Kenyon Drake against the Jets, 25th against the run, you can't start Kenyon Drake ever.

What's the verdict? The verdict is, watch out. Look, there's going to be changes made. Watch out. Hold on. That's a really ambiguous phrase you just use. Watch out for what. This is what I was in the middle of explaining. Oh. So watch out because there's going to be changes that are made to this running game. It's either going to be getting Kenyon Drake the ball more involved in the office, getting the dump-offs, targeting him the way that they haven't done, and finding a way to get him in space.

or you're going to see more Chase Edmonds. And one of those two things will happen this week. I am terrified as someone who has Kenyon Drake and a whole lot of leagues. I am starting him this week because like you said, if you can't start him against the Jets, who can you start him against? I see some questions. Drake or Antonio Gibson, Drake or Joshua Kelly. Oh, and who would you play, Jason? I would start Kenyon Drake. I mean, here's a guy that's touching the ball almost 20 times a game against the Jets defense. I...

I would start King and Drake. But I'm not telling you he's guaranteed to be better than those two players. What would you do there, Mike? I would play Antonio Gibson. Gibson for sure. The Kelly question is a little harder, and I'd probably go Drake there. Yes. So you have a right to be worried. And if after this game, Edmonds is, you know, in a 50-50 time split with King and Drake, then it is, it's bad news for the rest of the season. I saw a...

after the first quarter of the season draft with a lot of great minds, fantasy minds, uh, was one of the writers for our DFS pass was in that draft. And I took a look. Where did Drake go? That's what I, where do you think he went? Third round. I would say he's probably a fourth rounder. In the fifth round. Yeah. He went behind some names that were like.

Miles Gaskin. Do you have a bottle of that wine after you? I was like, oh, no, this is not good. And we did hear local beat reporter Kent Summers, who. Did Camara go number one, by the way? Sorry. Oh, he would have to. I imagine, but I don't remember. All I looked for was Drake. But Ken Summers, beat reporter for the Arizona Cardinals, he did talk about how Chase Edmund's usage is related to the inefficiencies of Kenyon Drake.

So Drake better figure out how to be better at football real quick. All right, DeAndre Hopkins, yep. Yep. Any other option at the wide receiver core for Arizona? It seems really hard to predict right now. Kirk snuck into the end zone last week. Isabella was the week before. Fitz is not an option. I don't start anybody else. I'm not taking the gamble. Okay, I feel better about the fifth round. Can you Drake pick? Alvin Camara went fourth. Oh. Zeke, Kareem Hunt, Clyde Edwards, Aller.

Camara. Oh, someone's trying to be all sneaky with the Kareem Hunt. As a Kareem Hunt fantasy manager, I get it. I'm thrilled with that. I get it. I'm not taking them over Kamara. No, but I'm thrilled with the confidence of the industry. I get it. The Philadelphia Eagles at one two and one take on. Oh, microphone check. I like it. One two, one. Can they add a different classification? I guess in this season you could have a forfeiture, one two one. Oh, man.

Pittsburgh Steelers 3 and O, they get to play football again, and their seven and a half point favorites in this one. I brought up Big Ben as a streaming option at the quarterback position. He is playing well. I would say that I am, I mean, it's better than neutral. It's not on fire Big Ben with Antonio Brown. It's better than bad. It's good. Well, you just didn't know what to expect with Big Ben.

It's true. Averaging 259 yards, 2.3 touchdowns a game and three games. Yeah, that's solid. No top 10 finishes. This is more like Big Ben outside the 5,000 yard Antonio Brown on fire years. My concern for Big Ben here is I like the Pittsburgh Steelers defense a lot in this matchup against the Eagles. Steelers, their defensive line gets pressure. And the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line.

They give up pressure. And that is one of the absolute most important factors of any football game is just right there. How do the lines match up? And this is an overwhelming victory on paper, at least on paper for. In an extra week off for them. Yeah, they should be rested. I have great concerns for Carson Wentz and the Philadelphia Eagles offense. And that translates down to Miles Sanders.

I'm not benching Miles Sanders, but I am absolutely adjusting my expectations, despite him being a three-down running back. The Pittsburgh Steelers are giving up 2.3 yards per carry on the season to running. You don't get room to run, and that's when you have whatever offensive line you have that isn't the Eagles depleted offense. Yeah, that was Sequin in week one getting completely stifled and shut down. When you are in your...

fantasy platform and you click the schedule button and you see your running back is going to play the Pittsburgh Steelers. You grimace and you cry because you know you're not benching Miles Sanders because he's Miles Sanders. He's going to be involved in the passing game. Exactly. And you know what? Melvin Gordon caught a touchdown pass against Pittsburgh and that saved his fantasy output and that's why you play Miles Sanders. But you kind of go, dang it, I'm probably not going to get a top.

10 week out of Miles Sanders. Exactly right. You adjust your expectation, assume you're going to have around 10 points, and then make your flex decisions on your roster based on, okay, I'm going to need more points from my team this week and, you know, adjust accordingly. All right, the Benny Smell bandwagon. Yeah, that's, that's good. The Benny Snow Bandwagon, it's empty. James Connor, couple back-to-back top 10 weeks. He's in. I would, man, do you like James Connor more than Miles this week?

I don't. I think that this is going to be. I do. And I get that. I mean, we expect the Steelers to be up. I have one spot ahead. Running the ball well. And I don't blame you at all. I do think it's going to be an inefficient game for Connor, but he will get a ton of work. You know, this is going to be one of those 23, 24 carry games where he's not doing great inefficiency because if the Steelers are up and they're running the clock out.

The defensive line of the Eagles is their one bright spot. That's where they're still good. They've got great depth there. And they're going to be able to make life hard for James Connor. But I do love the passing game from the Steelers. I'm fine with Rothlessberger, Juju, Deontay. Now we know Deontay Johnson. He missed because of a, or I guess he didn't miss. He was going to miss because of a concussion, cleared the concussion protocol. But he now has, was it a toe? Juju and, uh,

Deontay missed practice yesterday. Yeah, that's very odd. I'm sorry, we're limited. I believe they're limited in practice. Okay. So just pay attention. That's the... Vet that for me. See if they were limited or they missed in full. So where are you at with Deontay versus Juju? Oh, it's definitely Deonti. Okay. And then I was going to ask you some juju questions in general because even though the default answer is to start juju, um, I, it's...

It's questionable compared to Justin Jefferson versus Seattle, Jason, or juju. I would go juju. Oh, that's Justin Jefferson. Water bet me. Water bet me. All right. Water bet. The amount of Justin Jefferson's swag that Andy is rolling with these days is. You haven't heard starts of the week yet. Oh, yeah, there you go. My quarterback.

is in fact Justin Jefferson. He's all four of my starts of the week, suckers. All right. So yesterday, Deontay Johnson, Juju Smith-Schuster, did not participate. Ben Rothlisberger did not participate. If you look at their practice report, they've got about seven guys that were all D&P. They're just, they're just letting them rest. That's just a veteran rest, which felt weird at first because they basically had time off. But when I look at the whole practice report, there's nobody that's limited. This is just.

you guys take the day. Michael Gallup or jujuju, Jason. I guess you'll say juju in that case. Anybody else that you are considering, Mike? I imagine if you have Zacherts you're playing Zacherts, which is you. I mean, like you literally are doing this. Begrudgingly, yes. Okay. And Eric Ebron, he's my take it to 100 player. And he might be somebody else's player too. Greg Ward, a deep shot in this one, nine targets the past two games. Not against this Steelers defense. I don't want any.

receiving option at wide receiver. Give me a running back in Miles Sanders that could catch the ball and Zach Ertz that could get open, but no wide receivers here. Deshaun Jackson could be back. Did you just say Zachers can get open? I think easier than the wide receivers in this match. Okay. The Los Angeles Rams at 3 and 1 take on the Washington football team at 1 and 3. Rams are 7.5 point road favorites. It's a 45 point over under. This is the debut of Kyle Allen in the Washington system.

and we know that he's being backed up by Alex Smith now. And you listen to Ron Rivera come out and talk and say you want somebody that's more experienced. Alan has three years in the system that Rivera wants to run. Mike, you brought up that this could mean some good things for Antonio Gibson because Kyle Allen is more capable of, you know, taking the easy dump off to the running back. He prefers them. Kyle Allen wasn't the full-time starter for Carolina last year. He did miss some games. But Carolina...

Christian McCaffrey, of course, has involved in this, but 25% of their targets went to the running back position, and that would be great things for Antonio Gibson. Yeah, you remember Allen kind of started hot against Arizona last year. It was a rough season after that. Had a couple of burst games, and you can't really do worse than what Haskins was doing. So Gibson, McLaren, end of list for the Washington side? Yep.

A lot of people have to make decisions on Antonio Gibson. It seems like every week that is a frequent debate. You know, last week it was stuff like Antonio Gibson or Joe Mixing, right? Because Mixon hadn't had the breakout game yet. And, you know, Gibson had his first breakout game. It seems like... You have to start Gibson. Yeah, Gibson is now a weekly starter. His opportunity increased again last week. He's getting goal line looks. We got to see what happened when the team decides that they're going to give Peyton Barber.

Another chance is he dives in the air. And I've never seen a man knocked just like his forward momentum just completely halted in the middle of the air. I've never seen a play like that. But last week we saw with Peyton Barber. Jason did say Drake over Gibson though, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm a Drake apologist. So that's not an anti. Todd Gurley against Carolina or Antonio Gibson. Oh, that's man.

That's even tough for me. Yeah, that is tough. I think I would go with Gurley just based on known volume. You also have, I know that Kyle Allen could be better because he targets running backs. That's great. I really hope that happens. You did see more targets for Gibson this last week. But what was weird about that was that he actually ran fewer routes than he had been running. He was less involved in the...

you know, the functional passing and more involved in reality because he got the target. So I'm just curious what happens this week. Whenever there's changeover, it doesn't always work out to the benefit. Todd Gurley is the running back 15 on the year. A lot of touchdowns. Yeah. No big weeks. Jared Goff, we're going to talk about him later. Love this matchup and opportunity for golf. Washington giving up 22 fantasy points per game, which is 25th best, as we sometimes say.

Robert Woods, Cooper Cup, yep, yep. Yes. But what do you do with Malcolm Brown, Daryl Henderson, and maybe Cam Acres back on the field? A Mount Shark Tank, you stay away for sure. Put him on your bench. O-U-T. What about Tyler Higby? He's got fantasy managers wavering on their confidence in putting them in there. Like Dalton Schultz or Tyler Higby this week? Because Schultz is one of the bigger waiver ads. That's an interesting question. We still need to.

get a full update on what's going on with Dalton Schultz and his injury status because he got a little shook this past week. But the matchup is fantastic for Higby to have another one of his five-catch multi-touchdown games against this Washington defense. Yeah, I think I'm starting Higby. I won't be shocked if all of a sudden we leave this game and Everett had the big game, but the matchup is there for the tight-in position. And Higby's already had one dominant game this year, so you can roll with him at this position.

Okay, okay. Let's go Cincinnati, Baltimore. Cincinnati at one, two, and one. Got the first victory last week. Baltimore at three and one. Ooh, their favorite, 13 and a half points, 51 point over under. Mike, we, you know, we were talking in the office. That's a big line. That's a big line. I like them to cover it, though. I do. I like Baltimore to cover it in this one.