Championship Studs & Duds + Sack Races, #RightBrooks

seven receptions a game scored twice in those three games. But it's the usage. This reminds me not necessarily the shorter plays, but Alan Robinson's rookie year, it was, we need to pay attention to this guy. The production is not there, but the targets are absolutely there. And he's going to be a featured player on this team next year, along with Cortland Sutton. So the trajectory of Hamilton.

to me is moving, is moving way, way up. And he stayed steady while Tim Patrick kind of fell off a little bit. I feel like you could make a similar rising star argument for Sutton, even though nobody on this show wants to hear it anymore. But Sutton finally looked 100% healthy. He had a big touchdown. They need a quarterback. Yeah, I mean, those two guys are certainly going to be a great...

future tandem at wide receiver. My rising star, of course, is low to the ground. It has to be C.J. Anderson. Low to the ground. Wait, did you mean like low-hanging fruit? No, I meant... You mean he's physically just like a small little tank on the field. That is what I mean. He did look so little. He looked so little. Little.

In height, yes. Yes. But look, I love C.J. Anderson. I was proud of him. And we don't know what's... You were proud of this? Yes, I was. Genuine. Like, I feel connected to this man. Yeah. C.J. Anderson, I don't know if Todd Gurley's going to get another week of rest. I would doubt it. But if he... I think he will. I think he might. If he does, I mean, C.J. Anderson will, I mean, there's no doubt he's going to continue in that role. Other just...

throwing these out there since we didn't have a waiver wire show you know sometimes you're rising not because of what you do but because of what happens around you royce freeman jeff wilson junior those guys are going to be rising starts here in week 17 because the presumptive starters ahead of them are going to miss the week yeah no philip lindsay no matt bretah um we'll see what royce freeman can do with this opportunity yes it'll be very interesting some efficiency out of him or maybe i don't

being a Philip Lindsay dynasty owner. I want to see if he solidifies his backup roll or not. Again, The Rising Star is brought to you by Fantasychamps.com. We're going to, you know, not everybody won this week. Hashtag right, Brooks? Hooped in his big boy pants. Jason's title in our dynasty league was...

Very improbable. I mean, what are you talking about? It was unbelievably dominant. No, no, Mike, you understand this. He was an insufferable man this last few weeks. And it wasn't because he thought, it wasn't the grand confidence he went into the season with that made him insufferable. It was the exact opposite. It was the constant. I'm not going to make the playoffs. It's the constant fear and, you know, doubting. And like he had a hundred, he had like an 80 point lead, but he didn't want us to say that he was the title because it's not a hundred point lead. Like,

That's what made it so difficult, and he barely made the playoffs. The last several weeks, I was very negative about my team. I kept winning, and I won every one of those games, but I would be very negative about it, and I stuck with it. I kept winning, and I stuck with it. You became a very superstitious man. You bought pizza for Brooks, and he ate his way to a defeat. All I know is my team is set up for the future, and I'm going to go back to back.

Oh, so now you're not afraid anymore? No, I've always thought my team was good. I was just worried about my quarterback. But Matt Ryan did enough these last couple weeks. Well, back to back is not so easy. I can tell you from experience. I remember when you were champ. I remember when I thought I was going to be champ again. And, well, it didn't happen anymore. What are you laughing at, Mike?

Just how quickly it turned for you. It did. I had some injuries. Oh, and by the way, I also have Josh Gordon. Yes. All right, Duds, it's time for us to share in your pain. It's time for us to, well, it's time for Brooks to share in your pain, that's for sure. This is great. Listen to your fantasy football, Duds for Week 16, Championship Week. Brooks's dynasty quarterbacks. He has three of them. Philip Rivers, 23 for 37.

No touchdowns, 181 yards, interception on the first play and the last play of the game. Derek Carr, 19 for 26. Matthew Stafford. These are your quarterbacks books? 18 for 32. Yep. Those are his three options. At least you can take solace in knowing. You didn't make him a stay. There was nothing you could have done. No. No. So you could have literally played all of your players twice this week and you would have lost.

Jason, I'd calculate you would have beat me without C.J. Anderson and Antonio Brown. That's how crazy my team puts. It was a whooping. Honestly, my team also was excellent. I mean, you did like Tom Brady this week. Yes, Tom. Well, no, I did. Did I like Tom Brady? Yes, you did. I don't remember that. But I hope you listened to Mike because Mike hated Tom Brady this week. Yeah, it was a hotly debated topic on the show. 13 for 24 for 126 and 1.

I guess I'm going to give you credit. There's a look. There's a look to the Patriots this year. And it's... Looks like the beginning of the end? It looks like there's some problems with the armor. Now, it's the problem with Gronk. Gronk's done. Edelman is old. You're talking about Rob Champs Gouske. Gouskowski. Gordon is gone. Brady's getting older. I mean, there's the offensive line. There'll be an exodus of coaches, too.

I can almost guarantee you that Josh McDaniels will be a head coach for some other team this offseason. Oh, Browns. Do you like Josh McDaniels? I think McDaniels is a good offensive coach, yes. But I think he's a good offensive coordinator. I think he's going to be a terrible head coach wherever he goes. And I think whatever franchise signs him is going to make a mistake. And you should know when you sign, I mean, coming off of what he did in Indianapolis.

You mean when he didn't sign with them? When he said, yeah, I'll be your head coach, and then went, I'm backing out. That probably hurts him. Yeah, I wouldn't. If I'm a franchise, I'm going to go, yeah, there's other fish in the water. He struggled in Denver, obviously. I don't know if I won him at the top of my list, but I think he's gone. I think he's gone from New England, and that he obviously works as an offensive coordinator in a big way. And there are coaches that do that. Ken Wisenhunt.

Yes. He's an offensive coordinator. Gus Bradley is the D coordinator in Los Angeles with the Chargers. Ken Wisenhunts the offensive coordinator. Both of them were bad head coaches. Yeah. And both of them make great offensive coordinators on one of the best. No team in football has a better record than the Los Angeles Chargers since week 11 of last season. They're the best team in football. By a margin. All right. Running backs that laid an egg. Hey, some more are Brooks's guys. Tariq Cohen, six for 12.

Josh Adams, LaShaul McCoy, Kalin Belize, Kenyon Drake. Oh, Mr. Behole, he got us. Behole allows both of them. Behole allows all running backs to struggle. And then Alfred Blue, four for 14. Hopefully he didn't have those guys. LaShawn McCoy have three for ten. That's not good. No, the usage of LaShawn McCoy is baffling, especially with the way they're talking about him, saying that he is part of this team. He's part of their future for next year.

But is he? I mean, you're going to have to pay him a lot of money and you're just not using him. I don't know if this is a kind of like putting him in the bubble wrap situation. It's going to be really hard to decide for Shady for next year. I just pulled up my dynasty team on accident. Literally just clicked my little, my bookmark. And I'm looking at it. And I'm going, if I was playing in a week 16 championship game right now, I've got.

Todd Gurley with an O. Meets 17? Week 17. Todd Gurley, Philip, Lindsay, and Lamar Miller were my three starting running. Oh. Oh, O'O. O'Reilly. Pump the brakes. On Andy's team. Wide receivers. Keenan Allen, look, it was going to be a tough matchup. You were kind of backed into a corner. Yes. I don't blame anybody. Nope. I would have played him. Eight targets, five from 58. Brooks would have as well.

Brooks Briggs would have. He did. Yes, he did. And he might have been his best player on the week. Brandon Cooks, disappointing against Arizona, Josh Reynolds as well. Amari Pooper. This one was shocking to me. Four for 20 at home on five targets. Because his numbers, all of his splits, his production was coming at home. His production was coming in games. They are favored to win. I think he was trying to help. I think help.

Give us good perspective heading into next year's draft to not over-emphasize the... Appreciate that, Amari. Thank you. Gonkowski with the goose on three targets. So he had one good game and then goose you in 15 and 16, basically. This was the... Mike, this is not good. This was the fitting end to my... My Grunk season of Grunk with Mike. Unfortunately, the real truth is you and Gronk were...

You were in the same potato sack. Oh, yeah. We were doing a three-legged race. Yeah, I mean. We did not win. Very different heights. It makes it difficult. I combine the potato sack race with the three-legged race, and I put two people in one potato sack. That is not a race. Oh, I want to see it. I want to see it done. And you with gong inside of a potato sack.

Maybe that's the best actual visualization of the season. We would certainly follow. I would fall over. You would fall quick. And then I would be trampled by Rob Grunkowski, which he did to my team. Well, instead of getting out of the potato sack with him early, you believed. And we believe that he would bounce back to be what he was. And he is another player. We don't know if he'll be back there. If it gronks like a goose. Oh, this is a goose. I think he's, I think it's over.

I mean, you know, reading the reports early in the offseason about how, you know, Bill Belichick, if the investigative journalism is to be believed that Belichick wanted to get rid of Brady and go with Garapolo and trade gronk for value, I mean, are you telling me the Patriots wouldn't have been better off? Yeah, he's a pretty good evaluator of when to get rid of players. Generally. Yeah. Not 100%, but generally.

Well, you could always tolerate injuries when the recuperated gronk was better than everybody in football by a wide margin. It's less exciting now. So we'll see. You got a cooked goose because Jared Cook was two for 20. Not good. I think that covers the poopers pretty well. That about does it. We'll get into so many more. We'll be bending it towards next year, giving the awards away.

We'll do a little mock draft for the first round and see where we have guys slotted in way, way in advance of next season. Some quick notes on the playoff scenarios for this week. If you're in a week 17 games, if you want to know whether teams are motivated to play. Because that's really what matters and who they start, decisions that they're going to make. Look, you have a lot of situations like Dallas where Jerry Jones is coming out and saying, we're going to give it our all. We're going to go all out.

I don't believe you, sir. I do not believe you at all. I do not believe that you're going to play Ezekiel Elliott for four quarters in this game this week because there's nothing on the line for them of significance. So they can say that, but then you read between the lines with the playoff picture. The Chiefs, Patriots, Texans, Ravens, Steelers, Chargers. They all need to win. They all got something to play for. Texans can win the AFC South with a win. The Ravens can clinch with a win. The North.

The Steelers desperately need to win and then hope for some help. And the Chargers need to win the West with a Kansas City loss versus Oakland, not likely. But Oakland has been playing better. We need to give credit to that team. They beat Denver this week pretty easily. And they are playing better in the season. They also beat Pittsburgh two weeks ago. So I... So you're telling me there's a chance. I'm telling you that there's a chance that the Kansas City...

Chiefs are playing in the wild card round, is what I'm saying. Madness. There's also a chance that Pat Mahomes throws eight touchdowns. Yeah, that is very true. It's a good point, Jason. The Colts tightens, they really need wins this week. The Colts saved their season by coming back and beating the Giants last week. A win gets them a playoff spot. Is that true? They can actually win the title. The AFC South title with a Texans loss.

but you miss the playoffs if you lose. Titans, you win, you make the playoffs. So they've got a lot on the line, too, to hand the ball to Derek Henry for six to eight thousand times. In the NFC, the Rams lock up the number two seed with a win against San Francisco. Another team playing pretty well. But you'd imagine the Rams could take care of business. And then the Bears lock up the number two seed with a win as well. And Minnesota's playing for their lives. Yep.