Week 15 Studs & Duds + Mid-Show Surprises, Monday Punday - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/19

We had one of the most incredible weekends of sports. The NFL games were outstanding, and we're going to get into all of it today, all the studs, all the duds, and we have a couple real surprising moments on today's episode. Make sure you like, subscribe, and enjoy. The Fantasy Footballer Studio is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Visit Samsung.com to learn more. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway. Jason Moore and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Monday, December 19th, the fantasy footballers podcast. What a weekend. Oh, man. Top to bottom. Saturday football. Jeff Saturday football. Oh, brother. World Cup. Sunday playoff football.

This was one of the greatest weekends of sports that I can ever remember. The amount of, I mean, the six afternoon games yesterday, down to the wire. All of them one-score games late into the fourth quarter. You had the World Cup craziness. Multiple overtime in the morning. The Saturday games, the greatest NFL comeback of all time, 33 to nothing, Saturday collapse. It's just amazing. It was a lot of fun. The, I mean, it was a weekend of great consequence for fantasy players. I know it didn't work out for everybody, unless you had a buy week. And it worked out really well for you. Yeah. Congratulations. If you had a buy week, you avoided such things like Jerich McKinnon against you. Or Jonathan Taylor for you. Or maybe you avoided Zay Jones against you. There was.

I mean, it was just a fun weekend. And I know like some people you went out. And some people went out swinging like Mike did. Sort of. Yeah. Sort of swinging. Sort of swinging. Or sort of just demolished by a bigger, stronger, faster. I ran into a buzzsaw in League of Record. But I'm look, I'm looking at this as just I get to reassess my priorities of my life. Like what's my most important? league actually right i was i like a fog i was trapped last week i thought it was the league of record but i was guys i was so wrong dead wrong yeah just i'm incredibly wrong about the priorities of which league i like the best yeah because you you know you don't have a chance to defend your title this year right in that league but in dino junior totally so i assume based on recent events full house remodel completed this weekend

Top to bottom, every room. The house is gone. Oh, oh no. Yeah. It's just, uh, demo is finished. It's no, it's just a pit. Right. There's a pit with a bottle of Jag Daniels in the middle of it just sitting there empty, of course. Oh, there's some empties. I got the recycling guys coming by later. Oh, yeah. Going to make five cents a bottle. Yeah. Got some cash coming. But now you've got a new most important league, which is all. It seems like Dino Jr. is really existing to be that for you guys each year when you need it. Yeah. I mean, everyone needs a safety net. That is smart. That's smart. Let's react as we always do, get sophisticated with your pun submissions on Twitter. Someone want to, I'll kick it off. Go ahead. How about Jerich McWinnon? Are you talking about Jerich McCaffrey? Yes. Or?

The Myers Remorse. Yes, a lot of unhappy people with Jacoby yesterday. Romandre Stevenson came back from injury. Otto, the Muth hath youth. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Bad friar poop, but I like yours better. Zonovan, night night. Oh, go to sleep, little baby. Oh, Darren, welcome back. That's pretty good. How about Crazy Jones? Or how about Rashad? Why? Oh, Nunathan Taylor. Oh, a classic is back. Rahim must start. And for those of you with Mark Andrews, Tyler Stunkley. Or Greg Dahl Zilch. Or the way we kicked off the weekend. Jeff.

Shatter Day. Well, that worked out. That one was only going to be read by Mike. Feeling good? I'm not saying. I'm just saying. You had a really nice run with that game because you predicted it was my almost to win. It was my almost upset. Yeah, that was your almost upset. And they just came out and dominated 33 nothing. They're up. They're winning in all three phases. But you also think that Mike said that Jeff Saturday is a. sham and should not be head coach and then he manufactured or he just let. Let's say he led because he's the leader of the men there. The greatest collapse in NFL history. And the only way to give up a 33 nothing lead is to hand your playbook and every play call for the remainder of the game to the opposing team. And I feel like that's what happened, right? It was like, it was very impressive. No matter what, like Matt Ryan has a gift. Matt Ryan has a gift. And, um, that's,

Too soon. Yeah, it's a shame because he tries so hard. Yeah. But 33-0. That was one, like my son was watching that game with me. I'm like, you're always going to remember that. Like, if this happens, that was an all-timer. Now, you know the ironic thing of that game is that the greatest comeback of all time. If you remember, Buffalo coming back against the Oilers, Frank Reich was the quarterback. Frank Reich was the QB? Yeah. I did not realize that. He just had his greatest comeback of all time broken by his replacement Jeff Saturday. Oh man. On a Saturday. Oh, baby. To Kirk Cousins. So Frank Reich no longer has a job or a record. Yeah. You want to know how you lose a game you're up 33 nothing in? You give 25 opportunities to Zach Moss. I mean.

Just come on. Every time you handed the ball to him, the dude sucks. Who was the fumble? It was Dion Jackson, right? I think that led to it a little bit. But yeah, it was a- It takes a village. It takes a village to blow a game with that. It was a real team effort, but hey, Colts covered. Well done, Mike. Well, and amazingly, in the lowest yards per catch of, I think, his career in a game, Michael. Pitman. You're done right. Pity City. PPR machine, baby. Ten catches for all of. Where did we go? We built this city. We built this city. We built this city. Brick by brick. Low walls. Low. Just pony walls everywhere. Which unbelievable game. So fun to watch. Lots of big games yesterday. We're going to break down the studs and duds on today's show. After we get into the news.

News and Notes from Around the League, presented by USAA Insurance. Man, you're pumped for this news. I had a good weekend. You had a really big one. I had a big, big weekend. It's been a rough year at times, especially the Monday night situations. But, no, I had a good, good weekend where all the players, it was a dream for our Dynasty League. Everybody scored, some of them multiple times, won the wheel of shame. Yeah, you're the champ this week. And you were upset last week that you didn't get the buy in that dynasty league. And it turns out you did have a buy because your team went nuclear. Yeah, no, I've never had a week where that many players, like I benched Ramandre after my first four players scored 120 points. And I just was like, oh, let's just be safe. Yep. But no, they had a good weekend, won the wheel of shame, which shouldn't be this much of an accomplishment, really.

But no, I'm pumped. This is big time news to talk about, too. You're going to have to make some arrangements if you have Jonathan Taylor, who has been diagnosed with a high ankle sprain and is highly unlikely to return this season. This was brutal. This is as bad as it gets. This was the number two running back on the week by consensus ranking. So everybody thought big opportunity, big game, first week of the playoffs. first touch for him and he looks great, breaks off a nice run down the left, and then reaggravates the same ankle injury. And so you had him in your lineup. He's in 100%. He's 100% started. And he basically goosed everyone outside of that one touch. And man, brutal. Now you've lost him for the rest of the playoffs if you were able to overcome his actual injury or.

Congratulations for those of you that had to play against the scary Jonathan Taylor and did not have any points put up by them. And now you don't have a clear backup situation due to the abundance of Zach Moss carries Dion Jackson. I have a clear path. I'd rather be dead than put Zach Moss on my playoff roster. I think in light of this Jonathan Taylor injury, which is the second of the year for him, I'm going to improv something here. This is unexpected. Yes, you don't know what's coming. Do you know what's going on, Jason? I do not, but I love playing games. I just noticed that this is the time of year where people are reflecting on draft picks a little bit on Twitter. So I am going to, I'm going to read you the top 10 picks. And I want you to reply with it. Top 10 of this year? The top 10 picks of this year. And I want you to reply with a sound of some sort, some sort of reaction to them.

Okay, all right. The number one pick, this is ADP, right, in PPR League. You want half PPR? I guess I should switch to half PPR. Okay. Jonathan Taylor. Ow! Okay, very nice. That's fair. That's fair. Number two, Christian McCaffrey. Yeah, you go with a Kaching on that one. Okay, Kaching. Number three, Austin Echlor. Yeah. Nice. This is what I was hoping for. Number four, Derek Henry. Oh, yeah. Nice. Thank you. Number five, Cooper Cup. Aw. Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's the one. Number six, Justin Jefferson. Yeah, that's fair. Number seven, Dalvin Cook. Okay, all right. Number eight, Najee Harris. Okay. All right, that was the end of season. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Number nine, Jamar Chase.

Hmm. Maybe that. I'm going with that. That's my sound. I wasn't thinking. That was the sound. And then let's, let's round it out with, uh, I saw a lot of tweets about this fella. Number 10, Joe Mix. Hmm. Ugh. Yeah. Ugh. Because you have, that's been the consensus. You've had flashes of dominance, which shows why he was drafted where he was. He really consolidated into that one. Yeah. I say he had one week against me. Yeah, but I mean, he is. For his opportunities, you know, at the beginning of the year, we were talking about how great his opportunities were and that the fantasy production was going to come. And then it did in that game. And then it was kind of back to just ho-hum. And I think he there is, at least for me, it's compounded a bit by when he was out, Somaget P. Rine was freaking awesome. Like, it's, so you can't be saying, well, that the scheme is broken with the offensive, like.

The backup running back was sensational for fantasy purposes. And then Joe Mixing came back and you're like, okay, here we are again. Breaking news. What? Might as well get this right here on the show, Jason. Do not look down. Okay. This news is going to come straight from me to you. Have you already seen it? I have no idea. Yeah, what today is just full of surprises. I know. I know. This is from Matt. Please don't be bad for Matt Miller on. Yeah, at NFL Draft Scout. Texas running back. Oh, no. Bejohn Robinson. Oh, no, no, no, he's declared right. Announced that he will not enter the 2023 NFL draft. Are you serious? He's going back to school? No, I'm just kidding.

Oh my gosh. All right. Oh, my goodness. He declared he's going to go into the draft. Literally. I couldn't help myself. My heart stopped all the beating part. I was about to die. Like, I just was suspended. You could watch Jason here. He was in suspended animation. Oh, my gosh. I really believed you. I know. I couldn't help it. I didn't know what to do. I was just going to break the good news. And then I saw how excited you were. Oh, so he. He has declared that he will enter the 2023 NFL draft. Sanity prevails. For those that are not following along, Bijon Robinson, the number one running back prospect coming out of Texas, an elite prospect. Not sure where he'll go in the draft because you don't generally see these Sequin level. McCaffrey, four net. But he'll be the number one running back off the board. He feels.

special. He feels like a first rounder. By the way, getting back to congratulations. You might as well go for the ride. Oh, I appreciate it. In hindsight, knowing that the conclusion of the ride was fun, I'm happy to have a nice loop-de-loop in there. Al, you thought I read the tweet wrong? Yeah, you sold it well enough that I thought you were misreading the tweet. Yeah. So by the way, getting back to Joe Mixing. This is why, like, some of you, if you got knocked out or you're out of a couple leagues and you're still tuning in, you're going to benefit from staying in tune with the fantasy community and the fantasy world. One of the things we do at the end of the year is we kind of, you know, tell you the truth about certain players. Joe Mixon's end of year.

result is going to feel better than having him on your roster. For sure. He's the number 11 running back right now. And that's number 11 with missing two games, right? So from a points per game standpoint, you're still going to think he's better, but 30% of his fantasy points came in week nine. So the truth about players and what they did to get you to the playoffs or not, we will be highlighting that with all of these names in the heading into the off season. All right. Cardinals lost another quarterback. Yeah. But they now have the number four pick in the draft, gentlemen. Oh, that's, that's great. Also, they don't have a quarterback behind the quarterback that they lost because Tracewick sorely should never have been drafted in the NFL. Was he drafted? I believe he was. Oh, maybe he was an un-

restrict free uh i'm saying i don't remember uh i just remember scouting his weapons and thinking man this is a bad college quarterback and then that guy went to the nflb which was crazy drafted by the baltimore ravens in the sixth round of the 2019 draft and we were micksorily sorry that we put him into the lineup yesterday uh so i was doing some math here while you were talking about joe mixon who's averaging 15 fantasy points a game he if you take that one week out he's down to 11 fantasy points a game like that Right. There you go. It's not been good. And if he was drafted as a running back too, you'd be fine. But he was drafted in the first round. Just real quick. I think running back five off the board. On McSorley, I mean, if you survive this week and you have Cardinals on your team, that's going to be pretty tough. If Cole McCoy doesn't come back. Yeah, it's a concussion for Colt McCoy. So who knows? Because I've had some guys.

We've seen some guys come back the week. We've seen multiple weeks missed, so I have no idea what's going to happen with Colt, but McSorley is not, he's not even a backup. The emotional roller coaster of the weekend was compounded by players that exited and then returned to play after injury. That included Ryan Tannehill, Justin Field, Zonovan Knight, Travis Etyn, Austin Echler, and Justin Jefferson, all of them, leaving the field due to injury at one point and then coming back. out onto the field. Zonovan came back? I don't remember him coming back. He came back at one point. Okay. Came back for nothing? Yeah, and then he did nothing. Yeah. So Monday night football tonight, we've got the Packers and then Baker Mayfield's team. And, you know, I know there are decisions to be made for this evening. We did have one bit of news on Romeo Dobbs, just that he basically said,

You don't expect a full complement of snaps for Romeo Dobbs. So be careful. We haven't even seen him with Christian Watson and with Randall Cobb. Not that he can't make his entire day with one play. But like Mike, would you play two to at will? Nine targets, five catches, or would you play Romeo Dobbs? I would play the player who's trending up, not the player freshly off of injury. All right. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. We're going to take a quick break. Quick break. Quick break and come back with the studs. Not a quick bake. We don't want a quick bake, owl. Going to put together an egg bake for Christmas. Quick bake is more Martavis Bryant territory. All right. Let's move on. Studs of the Week, presented by Madewell. I see Jason's fingers furiously working over there. It's not Bijon Robinson wallpaper for your computer? Oh, yeah, baby.

I'm putting him in high-res photos. Currently photoshopping him into all uniforms so that I'm prepared for wherever he goes. Very smart. You're talented. All right, studs. Joshua, Alan, you beautiful, beautiful, beautiful man. There is nothing better than when the best players just do what you know they should do and can do. You get to the playoffs on Josh Allen. Or Jalen Hurts. Excellent. My homes. Like, great player, you know. Yeah. And then they like, should be great. And then they like use their number one weapon and like bring them along for the ride. There's a Stefan Diggs moment, right? Yeah. Four, what, four passing touchdowns for Josh Allen. You betcha. None of them mattered. Well, he was. If you had Josh Allen, they all matter. He was Knox and out. Yeah. Big week for Dawson Knox. Cool. Josh Allen next week.

Against Chicago, I'm excited. Sure. That should be a fun, fun game. Justin Fields continues to make opposing quarterbacks do stuff. Speaking of which, Jalen Hertz, 22 for 37 for 315, had, oh, three rushing touchdowns. Monster. Didn't throw any. Had two picks to start the game. Looked a little shaky. But at one point I'd turn to Jason. I said, eh, he'll figure it out, won't he? And he said yes. Yeah, there was after those quick two interceptions and he was in your draft king's lineup, you were like, of course, of course it's bad. And we knew he'd get it together. He is currently the quarterback won on the season ahead of Josh Allen, ahead of Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. And rolling back to that Buffalo game, that's true. The weather was something people were following right up to kickoff. At some point during that game, well, the snowballs were ridiculous, first of all. And so people were throwing snowballs.

But when it started to, like the game was pretty clear. Like it was nice. They were able to play this game. But in the fourth, they started, it started snowing. And I couldn't help think to myself like, should all these fans just spend the night? Like, it was like I don't, I didn't want to think about them trying to get home. Oh, yeah, yeah. After that game with that much snow just seemed like a terrifying prospect. I mean, you mush. Yeah, you got a snowmobile. I'm sure that's how they got there. Much, that's the dog sleds. Yeah. Okay. That's not what they're doing? Is that what they do in Buffalo? Everyone has their own, like... Look, my view of anything in the North is everyone has a full fleet of dogs at any moment. A fleet is what they call a group of dogs. Yeah, a group of dogs a fleet. Yeah. And they can get where they need to go. Some people, I'm sure, have wolves. Fewer, but, you know, that's... It's the North. Right, exactly. Or you get your cross-country skis on.

I felt like we might have come to a bit of an agreement on the dome situation, though, on Twitter, Jason. Did we? I thought so. Okay. What was it? Because I've been on, like, you know, Team Snow. Yes. But then you were kind of on, like, Team Dome. Right. Yeah. But then, like, I think I'm on Team Dome for things other than snow. Yeah. Which is where the retractable roof comes into. I'm on Team retractable Dome. I love. Outside games are obviously better. But if there's terrible weather that affects football, and this was not. That. Like this was cold, but it wasn't windy. Right. It wasn't, the weather wasn't actually bad. We were afraid that it was going to be bad. But yes, if it's a hurricane, rainy, sleety. That doesn't add to the atmosphere. Just be able to close it. Yeah, and they can do that now. That's one of the gifts of engineering. Patrick Mahomes. Mike called this one. He said he thought he might have a pretty good game against Houston. How about five incomplete passes on 41 passes?

What I did not project in my game scripts was those rascally Houston Texans. They are. They did it again. Like this was, if you didn't watch it, you'll be like, well, yeah, I assume that the chiefs blew out the Texans. No. It was a very competitive game the entire way through. Didn't they go to overtime? It did. It did. I mean, they took them to overtime. That's crazy. Now, I know a lot of. People, is it the Titans that we've been stashing for next week? That's correct. And I saw a lot of people on Twitter. They're saying, well, do I stop targeting the Houston Texans? I have my thoughts on that, which is they play in Tennessee and then at home again against Jacksonville. I'm not targeting the Jacksonville defense in Houston.

But I am happy to play Tennessee's defense. Yeah, I think I still roll Houston. Are you, do you disagree with that? No, I mean, that's currently where I'm at. I have. Yes, all you do. You have Tennessee's defense. I have got, uh, the Philadelphia Eagles. I've seen that exact question on Twitter. So what are you going to do between those two? I'm, because the Eagles play Dallas. Right. Exactly. And for that reason, specifically I'm going to, I'm going to play Tennessee. Okay. Uh, what else do we got? We got Kirk Cousins, the miracle man himself. Quarterback eight on the year now after this massive comeback. He looked downright disgusting in the first half. I mean, 4164. That was like that's in the second half. Yes. He threw two interceptions in this game. A real ago one in the first half. Well, they were both of them, I don't know if you guys realizes. Both interceptions were to Jalen Rager.

Oh, yeah, both where he stopped. They both, like the reason that Jalen Rager was there for both of those plays was because Justin Jefferson got knocked off the field. I blame coaches for that. Right. Please don't. Like the play that Justin Jefferson goes out, maybe you run it. Right. Run the ball. Over the last two weeks for Kirk Cousins, he is on pace for 7,522 passing yards. So that's pretty good. When's his next prime time game? Uh, Watch out. I mean, well, technically it was a prime time game. So good job. It's an island game. Yeah, yeah, but it was a morning game. Okay. Yeah. You have to be in the... I mean, the whole idiom of like, you know, fading under the lights, you know what I mean? When the bright lights hit you, that's the key. He's got really sensitive vision. So like sunrise is not a bright light. Not in a stadium, no. Okay. No, you can't see the sun right then. Because of the big stadium wall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Learn about science, Mike. Trevor Lawrence, buddy. Buddy, four touchdowns. Amazing victory for Jacksonville. Really the most impressive one on the year. Battled back. They were down big in the third quarter. Zay Jones went crazy. Trevor Lawrence is now the quarterback six on the year. The Jets in New York next week, then Houston, then Tennessee. Man. There's a chance Trevor Lawrence is a key cog in a championship. roster. I know those matchups are not a cakewalk, but there were opportunities for Jared Goff against the Jets down the field. I mean, he missed Jameson Williams on an easy touchdown. He ended up with the long ridiculous touchdown to Mike's brother. Yes. So Trevor Lawrence has been interesting. Trevor Lawrence has been very good. Over the last nine weeks, there's only two games where he hasn't been a quarterback one. He's been playing well.

The spot starts Zay Jones. We'll talk about him in a minute. He's been awesome. He's got weapons to throw the ball to, and the team has been getting it together. Yeah, we talked about this on the footcast. It's about next year? No, this year. Oh, okay, laid out. They control their own destiny. To the playoffs now? To the division title. Because they play Tennessee in week 18. They're one game out. Tennessee's got a banged up quarterback. They haven't figured things out. Tennessee, I think, has lost four games in a row. That is very not Mike Vrable. Yeah. But the, just for the long-term outlook here of Trevor Lawrence, he's been spectacular. The turnaround has been massive. I mean, we all were, when you were watching Trevor Lawrence last year, you were really, really hoping that this was not Lawrence's fault. It was Urban Myers' fault.

I think that you can put a lot of that blame now directly to Urban Meyer and his coaching staff and their decisions. But we were talking with Jay on the footcast of remembering this team traded for Calvin Ridley. If Calvin Ridley has anything left, like I'm not even going to say if he could come back and be a top 12 fantasy wide receivers. If he's just just be a wide receiver three. Be better than Marvin Jones, which shouldn't be hard to do. This team with Kirk Zay Jones and Calvill Ridley and ETN, like they're really, really interested. They didn't even mention Schmevin. Yeah, and yes, Schmevin. We try not to. We keep that on the... Hey, you're going to have to read about him later. Oh, my. He made it in, baby. So just for the record, we looked at this up this morning, Zay Jones is under contract for two more years as well. Yeah, they just picked him up. He was kind of like a three-year deal. He was a cheapie. Trevor Lawrence, big game.