Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Week 13 Matchups, In-or-Out, Playoff Push

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Coming to you from the fantasy jocks.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh my goodness, we are back. Back again. Back again to finish out a very important week. A lot of people need to win and get in or get out for these fantasy playoffs. Week 13, welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast. I am your temporary host, Mike Wright. For the final time,

This is the trifecta of hosting. This is the most consecutive shows that I have run in a row. I was waiting for you to say, yeah, Mike, you've been so amazing. You've been so good. Thank you, Jason. I tell you what, though. I miss Andy. We are a, we're a good three-man team, and we've held it together. I think we've done an okay job. Maybe you should let him out of the trunk. Yeah, I'm going to let him out. I'm going to pop it up.

He will be back on Monday for sure, barring any unforeseen different things. He's almost over his cold. But we, you know, we have his starts the week. He's still around here answering questions online if you are there or over on Patreon at jointhefoot.com. He's still here, still working, just can't talk well. Can't, is that right? All right. Sure.

Sir, today's show. We got some news and notes. We got your fantasy forecast running through the second half of the matches. There will be no Chris Meaney today. However, you can check out. Oh, Ben Cummins. Ben Cummins on the fantasy footballers.com is dropping DFS articles every single week. So we've got you cover there. Fear not. Fear not. Fear not our DFS players. It's just all kinds of articles, always going up on the fantasy footballers.com. You can check us out also on YouTube.

actually see what's going on. You can see this handsome gentleman who is sitting across the desk from me. Oh, man. I don't think you've ever complimented me, Mike. There's a first time for everything, Jason. I like it. I really like it. Check us out on Twitter at the FF Ballers and individually at Andy Holloway at Jason FFL and I am at FF Hitman. If you want to support the show, you want to help keep us running. Look, we go all year long. It's February and you're thinking,

Well, there's no football to talk about. No one. That is, that is baloney. Great aid baloney. Because we are here. We're bringing it all year long. And you can check us out and help support the show at join the foot.com. Jason, it was a spectacular football game last night. It really was. Low scoring, but it was a great game. Yeah, truly a, a fun game to watch. You saw, you know,

You get the cliches that, you know, games are won in the trenches. But I don't remember the last game where I watched the offensive line and the defensive line virtually 90% of the time. Like, that's where my eyeballs were for that game, was just watching those battles of the big men. And you had, I mean, when you've got such elite talent on both sides of the ball, and really I'm speaking about when Dallas had the ball, that Minnesota defensive line.

because I would not like to compliment the Minnesota offensive line very much. They did. They impressed me yesterday from where they've been, but they have been quite poor. How about Sam Bradford at the end of that game with his legs? When he finally started rolling out of the pocket, I'm watching this going, Bradford, you had an entire game to do this. You could have done. Something you could have done yesterday. I think Sam Bradford.

If he had a better O line, I think Sam Bradford could be a good quarterback if he had two things. He needs a better offensive line, and he needs to stop wearing the 1970s linebacker shoulder pads. I don't think he can throw with those things. It's the combination of the shoulder pads and the sleeves. The sleeves hang down so far. He borrowed his father's jersey. Yeah. But that's actually the story of Sam Bradford's career, because I was a Bradford apologist for many years, is always.

Man, Sam Bradford could be so good if he had X and Y. That's, we keep saying that. I do need to apologize. I want to, you know, look, we, we, we do a lot of work here, a lot of research, spend our time watching film and breaking down game splits and all sorts, all sorts of things. And my boom, boom, boom kicker of the week, hey, you got, for those that are new and don't realize that I hate kickers.

And I want the position done away with a fantasy football. And that's really the genesis of my boom, boom kicker of the week because it was mocking, it was basically making me have to work on kickers while I hate them. I apologize because last night, man, Dan Bailey broke the mold of that Thursday night starter. He did not have a good game. He didn't do anything wrong, but the game script didn't work for him. Thanks for all those fumbles, Dallas. But man, it just breaks my heart.

At this time of year when we say, hey, this guy's going to be good and he fails. We've been doing pretty well on the rankings lately, but the last thing I'll say before we move on, I guess a couple of things. Des had the best wide receiver game against Minnesota all year. So congratulations to Des. I mean, this is, this is that scenario of do you start your studs or do you think you're going to outsmart the system?

and grab somebody and because you know that your studs can still come through and even in a tough matchup and did you catch uh the the announcers the pub the uh the national announcers we're talking team collinsworth referred to cole beasley

as Dallas is number one wide receiver during the broadcast. Stop it. Well, he certainly was not last night. It did not happen. And going forward, what we have seen is that Des Bryant has truly reestablished the number one wide receiver role with Dak Prescott. We said that before. We said that in our preview of this game. Des was, Dez was clearly the rapport had been there. And we saw it. He's throwing that jump ball to Des.

Dead should have had two touchdowns. I don't know how he didn't get in when he was wide open. Elliot owners are very happy about that. Oh, certainly. Elliot got a free touchdown there. Elliot played well. I think the Cowboys as a whole did all right. You're probably disappointed with Dak Prescott. He had two fumbles. He did run for 40 yards and got that touchdown. But disappointing for him. And I would say in a PPR format.

Uh, your guy came through over on the other side of the ball. He did. I was, I was biting my nails on Stefan Diggs because Sam Bradford was actually spreading the ball around. Adam Thielen was the best receiver on the, Adam Thielen has looked good for several weeks. And we need to keep him in mind going forward for Minnesota. Yes, for murder by that. Yeah, for, well, for fantasy. Yeah. For fantasy football, Adam Thielen put up a game and, and he would have been a fine start.

I don't know if that was because you still have a little bit of limitation in Stefan Diggs. I would assume so. Going forward. And, you know, who else looked just like the centerpiece of the offense to me, especially early on, was Kyle Rudolph. Considering how bad tight ends have been. And he had the opportunity for a touchdown grab late in that game. It was a difficult catch. He didn't make it. But he had 12 targets. I mean, that's what I.

There's not many, we were talking about this in the office, the tight-in position, now that Gronk is done. Oh, the elites are gone. Greg Olson has fallen off a cliff. Jordan Reed, not expected to play. Who is your elite tight-in? You don't have one. Delaney Walker? Yeah, he's the last man standing, but he was never really, you wouldn't consider him in that elite. Even historically good tight-ins. Jason Witten for the first time.

in a long time. Since 2008. Since 2008 was held catchless. I'm surprised he did not just spontaneously combust. In fairness to him, he did have a very good reception, got some extra yards, and then it was called back on penalty. All right. There's actually very little news. There is one big piece, but it's so big that we have to introduce the segment just for this one piece of news. Let's do it. News and notes from around the league.

Oh, oh. Gronk is, it's done. I imagine that anyone, if you're listening to this podcast, you have heard this news, but we have to talk about it. Rob Grankowski, the back injury was far worse than they had expected. It's going under the knife for his third back surgery of his career. Yeah, that is, uh, that's not, it's not good. I expect that we will see him go on IR today.

That has not been officially announced as of now, but that's the expectation. There's some questions like, well, what if they play to the Super Bowl? Will he be there? I don't think you'll see Grunk even at the Super Bowl. I expect that to be official later this week or today when he goes on IR. So what does this mean for Tom Brady and for Julian Edelman and Malcolm Mitchell? The other piece is Ligarrett Blunt? Who is it that takes a step down and who is it that doesn't and who is it that takes a step forward?

We've seen all three of those things. When Grunk is there and when Grunk is missing, there are certain players that go backwards, certain players that aren't affected, and certain players that go forward. And sadly, I think we have enough data, enough missed games and enough games played where we can be relatively sure what happens for the Patriots. I think the only person who actually really takes a step down is Tom Brady. Tom Brady does not put up.

the type of production when Gronkowski is out. Julian Edelman owners, such as myself, that was a big upgrade. Yeah. We saw that now the Edelman is back involved in the offense, the game against San Francisco, 17 targets, a lot of non-quality targets, but 17 targets nonetheless, Julian Edelman, big upgrade. And it makes me far more excited for Malcolm Mitchell. Malcolm Mitchell, to me, moved from that. Well, we're going to stash him.

on the bench and let's just see, because you had Chris Hogan in his way, I think he moves up. You have, you have targets that have to go over to somebody. Yeah, I certainly agree that with those extra targets, you've got to move him up. I think you have to move Martellus Bennett up a little bit as well. The guy that stays pretty much the same and has seen.

very little difference between when Grong plays and when Grunk doesn't. And that was actually a little surprising to me. I thought he would be better with Grunk in there to help block and to help keep the offense moving. But I guess he could take some of the touchdowns away, too, is Lerick Blunt. He's safe. He is what he was. Yeah, this season so far, we've seen what you're saying with Julian Edelman, a difference of 11 points a game, PPR to 17. That's pretty big. 17 without Grunk. Without Grunk. And on.

If you go longer timeline, it's still he's better without Gronk, but only two or three points fantasy-wise per game. And Tom Brady, Tom Brady takes a, not a drastic step backwards, but certainly does not help. He's still every week, guy. Yeah, there's plenty of weapons there. All right, let's get over some players who are on the injury report. They may have been limited or missed some practice, and we're going to speculate if they're going to play or not. What's it going to be? Are you in?

All right. First on this list, the aforementioned Tom Brady. Tom Brady was back to practice Thursday. He will certainly play. Andrew Luck. Now, Andrew Luck has practiced all week in a limited fashion. He doesn't play until Monday. He has not cleared the concussion protocol, but I feel like the 99% expectation is that he plays. I agree. The question is for fantasy owners to have luck, do you need to...