Week 14 Studs & Stinkers + Soul-Crushing Tilt - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/14

You're sponsoring the segment today? I am helping. I mean, odor users are awesome. I'm awesome. I'm going to help sponsor this segment because I want to celebrate the awful. That's what I'm here to do today. On a scale of like this moment compared to the P. River moment from last year, which was last year, remember you were the, you were destroyed? Oh, yeah. We just watched a great replay of that on Wednesday.

Um, which one's worse? Yeah, like comparatively speaking. Like if you were to write a book, which chapter is like kind of the climax of pain? Well, it is, is different because this one was on me. Last year was on Phillip River. So my, my, I, I limit how much I'm willing to hate myself.

You know, but I had no limit for Rivers. So, you know, I was allowed to really fire hose my disdain towards Phillip Rivers. And on myself, I've got to, you know, I've got to show some grace. You've got to draw a line in the sand. Yeah. Matt Ryan. I mean, this, we said it. Rulio 11. No Julio, no Matt Ryan. He was bad. 224 and one, three picks. Ew. Ew. Which it.

Makes no logical sense because Calvin Ridley is awesome. And had a great game. And had a great game. Calvin Ridley is an excellent wide receiver. I mean, Calvin Ridley is jumping into the elite tier for wide receivers and for fantasy players. And Matt Ryan just can't get done. It is like a car engine, right? You think that.

You have most of the parts there, and one part's missing, and you'll be fine, and that's not how it works with a car, and it doesn't work that way with Matt Ryan. It's like third down conversions, moving the ball down the field. Something is missing from the process. Having the ball not be intercepted, he needs Julio Jones. Yeah, you can't get by targeting Powell and gauge and, yeah. Cam Newton, we talked about it, the Thursday night game. He has a stat line that looks like it's from, like, a couple possessions in the first quarter.

Stalin from like the 1920s football. Right. Exactly. Where to throw it. They would like two hand push. Yeah. Yeah. The ice bowl. He threw for 119 yards career record. Seven rushing into him 16 yards. Daniel Fumble Jones was on full display. Came back. Shouldn't have? Apparently. This was as bad as it gets against an Arizona defense that was.

Not good. Daniel Jones' best attribute, not just for fantasy, certainly for fantasy, but his best attribute in real life is his athleticism, his ability to scramble, get outside the pocket, run. You know, you look on the course of the season and six carries, nine carries, six carries, just tons of yards. He had zero carries for zero yards because the hamstring issue is an issue. And he's like, oh, I could just stand in the pocket and throw it. No, you can't. No, you cannot.

Running back stinkers. Now, this is not a complete stinker, but he's a name worth talking about because of what happened. Aaron Jones was 15 for 69. No touchdowns. Three targets, two catches, six yards. Now, there were huge expectations against this Detroit rushing defense. He had 43 fantasy points against them in week two. So last year, five games with less than seven points, but five 20 plus point games for Aaron Jones. Boom, buff. Finished what?

Running back two or three last year. Three, I believe. This year, zero games less than seven points, but only two 20 plus point games. So touchdown regression was a theme for Aaron Jones coming into the season. We know the talent is there, but you've known, I mean, Aaron Rogers is leading the league in touchdown passes. So Aaron Jones did not give you a week-winning week this week. Yeah, but he was, he's a piece where he was on your roster.

You still easily could have won with him. He was a top 24 running back so far, barring tonight's game. It was disappointing, certainly. But hopefully you got into the next round and you just keep playing him so that you can get those big multi-touchdown games that he does from time to time. All right. Talk to me about James Connor. No. Is that a fault? I'm out. Mike, talk to him. What has happened to the Pittsburgh running game?

There is none. I don't know. It's gone. Yeah. It's gone and let's just use our eyeballs. It's gone. Right. It's not just choice. It is choice because they, Mike Tomlin watches James Connor and then goes, like he has no burst to start the run. Yeah. This is not a situation where you pick up speed, right? Like there are certain running backs where it's like, okay, get him ahead of speed and then they do something. He just seems kind of the same speed. It's just wild. I mean, you look at.

The way that the season started for James Connor, where through week six, in his first five games, he had over 100 rushing yards three times. Yeah, he's, I feel like he's been good on the season. Obviously, we, you know, we don't know the specifics of how everybody comes back from COVID, and this is the first time we saw him back. He didn't look how he looked pre going on the COVID-I-R. So, you know, there could be some of that. But in addition to Conner's

lackadaisical display is the offensive line woes as well. This offensive line who doesn't let Big Ben get sacked has nothing to do with them. That has to do with Big Ben grabbing the ball throwing it. Grabbing the ball. And you just can't sack someone doing that. But it seems like defenses have now keyed in on the Pittsburgh Steelers knowing, okay, he's going to get rid of the ball immediately. So we're going to play a different style of defense. And you just can't run the...

They've been under 20 points for three straight weeks and then three of the last four Connor games. Nine for 22, 13 for 36, 10 for 18. Oh. And he had a fumble in this game. And it's what you're saying, like Big Ben has a lot of freedom at the line of scrimmage. And it's a super quick trigger right now to abandon the run entirely for the game. Yeah. Let me ask you this, Chase. Assuming that people won.

with James Connor. Now, I'm not talking to you. Obviously. Hard to assume, but yeah. Next week is the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals are not as bad a rush defense as you think when you think about the dumpster fire of the Bengals season and losing all their key pieces. I think you probably try to look for a pivot because if this is the floor, then the floor is not having a player in your lineup. This is the float.

Yeah, that was bad, bad, bad. That whole game. Problems. Josh Jacobs, 13 for 49 on the ground, five targets, three for 25 through the air. He's too busy trying to come up with comedy bits. Dude, he- Hilarious. He deserves. You're not happy with him? No, he deserves a label, like a scarlet letter. Not a my guy label? For doing that to, I mean, if you're unaware,

in those all-important, you know, hour and a half, two hours leading up to your kickoff, to your Sunday morning, to setting your lineups, you're looking at all the news coming out. And all of a sudden, he tweets out or Instagrams that he's not going to play with three laugh emojis and he's like, you know, I'm not playing today. And Adam Schefter's retweeting it. I mean, it goes fire. And it's one of those things where it's like,

Oh, no, you know, it's a Clyde Edwards-Alair situation where he's active but not going to play. He was trolling people with that message. Or was he? Or what? Because did he actually play? Yes, he played. What? I mean, it's just an opportunity. I'm just going to call it how it is. That's a jerk move. I just think it's a jerk move. I don't like them. Can I play devil's advocate? Yes. Try to convince me to like Josh Jacobs now.

I think that players, and this is something we've spoken out against for the last five years. Players get DMs, players get messages, players get talked to, I'm sure all week long, Josh Jacobs was told, are you playing? Are you playing? Yeah. My fantasy team. Are you playing? Are you playing? Are you playing? Are you playing? And he's in a position where he doesn't care about your fantasy team. Nor should. He should not. And he comes out and he decides to.

take a shot across the bell with some, you know, smiley faces and some jokes and some trolling. And it's not nice, but I get it from the player perspective if that's what he receives. I also understand. And which, a reminder, never tag a player. Don't tag. Never tag a player. Take a player. Be like, dude, great game. Like, but never tag a player or something negative for your fantasy football team because they, they do not care and they should not care. But what was wild about Sunday.

is Josh Jacobs didn't care about your fantasy team, and he didn't care about the Las Vegas Raiders either. That was another shot at Josh Jacobs. Well, 13 for 49. They fired their defensive coordinator today. Okay. Makes sense. Maybe they should have spent some of the Marcus Marietta money on some defensive players. What do you think about that? All right, Todd Gurley, six for 19, two for 12 through the air. I mean, if you play Todd Gurley this week,

You were desperate. We said cut him on the WaverWire show. You should have. Yeah. It would have made the decision easier. Landmine. Oh, hey, this segment has one thing, like a bunch of players have one thing in common in this whole segment. Were they all started over Mike Davis? For your team. For my team? Rahim Moster, 14 carries. Okay. And four targets. Yeah. That's nice. That's, okay.

Sorry, Jason. It's really not that bad of a game. It really wasn't that bad of a game. Compared to Mike Davis, it was trash. I just needed six more points. I just needed. How much were you rooting? So last night. If James Connor scores like seven points, I win. No, no, no. We know the math. But he just had better at the mic. Listen, how much of last night were you rooting to win and how much were you rooting it for you to lose by more than the gap between Moster and Davis?

There is absolutely no recollection of last night. I was turned off. So there was no rooting in anything. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Danger. Yeah. Wayne Galman, 12 for 57, the magic, Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne. And then Latavius Murray was irrelevant, five touches. Yep.

Everything ties back to Jason right now because he's got it in the dynasty playoffs. He just had player after player after player go down. Found out Fournette was inactive, which shouldn't really matter to most teams. But it did matter to Jason because of injuries. David Johnson had been put on the COVID list and he ends up having to start Latavius Marie and Boston Scott in the league. I didn't win. No. That was the Champ champ champ champ league. Congratulations. Champ champ is over. Champ champ, champ cannot happen.

All right. And then let me ask, let me ask another person that didn't win in all their leagues. Brooks. Yeah. You had a very promising start to the Dynasty League as well. How are you feeling today? I'm all right. You're all right? Just all right. Yeah. Look, when you're, when people call you Sir Drips a lot because you're just swimming in, in high-priced art all the time and jewelry, you can bounce back. He's into art, too?

Oh, yeah, anything that's of value. He collects. Does he have a bunch of those, like, the glass sculptures that sit down on the pedestals? You know, are they super expensive? Yeah, they're super expensive. Then yes, he has them. Like Fabergeet eggs. I've never seen so many Faberge eggs in my life. Brooks pays a lot for private school for his kids and he doesn't even have any kids. That's right. He just wants to support. He wants to support certain schools he believes in because education and the children are in the future. He is a philanthropist. Yeah, that's nice. Makes me feel good.

Yeah, that level of Scrooge McDuck. What's crazy is that he keeps all the Faberge eggs in a Faberge egg room. You walk into the egg. It's a really impressive. It's an egg-shaped room. It's an egg-shaped room. That's right. Wow. See, we were confused when you and your fiancé got that place. You had a couple extra bedrooms. But now the Fabergeet eggs makes sense. Yes. So you're doing okay, though, because of all of your wealth? Exactly. Congratulations. Congratulations.

Good lesson here. A good lesson for life. Money. For Glenn, if you're sad, just get a bunch of money. Oh, my gosh. Oh, thank you for that hot tip there, Judge Giiamatti. Mo money, no problems. That's the famous thing. I remember that one.

All right, wide receivers that were disappointing. I think the big one, Thielen and Jefferson against a Tampa Bay secondary that had been bleeding points combined for seven catches. They both had 39 yards, no touchdowns. I mean... There was someone on the Sunday Live who was trying to ask which one of those two players to start. My advice was make sure you get both of them in your lineup. Oh, no. And...