Starts of the Week + Wk 16 Matchups, Josh Stallion

The clan is championship time. Championship weekend heading into week 16. We know you're going to take that hashtag Foot Clan title down. And when you do, you let people know about it. You celebrate in style. You head over to fantasychamps.com the absolute best in all of your fantasy football hardware needs, belts, trophies, rings, you name it, they got it. Go check them out. Fantasychamps.com. Use the promo code ballers to save a little bit of money.

To the fantasy footballers podcast. Coming to you from Draft.com Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome back. Oh, the boys are back in town. Beb-da-bitt-be-boop. Get out of here, Jay. All right. See you later. No, no, no, no, no. Jay Gris. Oh, yeah. Welcome into the fantasy footballers podcast, Andy, Mike, and Jason. We did it.

Back together, Thursday, December 20th. Voltron is assembled. Yes, yes. I'm excited to be back. I'm excited to talk about all these matchups we got for championship week. Not only the matchups, but it's good you're back because the amount of crazy things that are going on right now.

Like literally this morning. Everyone's, everyone woke up on a Thursday thinking they know what's going on. Average normal Thursday. This is just a Thursday. I'm in the championship game. Maybe. Maybe not. Oh, I've got this player to play. Maybe, maybe not. There's so much craziness going on this morning. I have thoroughly enjoyed this morning. Yeah, well, we'll talk about it all. Some of it's more fun to talk about than others, per the usual routine of fantasy football.

But we'll get into it. We've got all the matchups today or, well, half of them. Half of them will be tomorrow. We'll catch you up on injuries. I watched the show yesterday. I believe this is called The News. We'll get into The News. Oh, it's everyone's favorite. Awesome. And let's start off with, oh, I wanted to let people know this. The Official Foot Clan title shirt for 2018 is now available at Shotballers.com. It's hot. If you want a shirt or a hoodie.

or a championship mug, the Foot Clan title shirts, mugs, all that stuff, the swag. And we expect you to walk around with some swag. Do you get your hoodie yet? No, sir. Oh, okay. Have you guys talked about your championship battle on the show? We've talked about it. And then during yesterday's been doing what he normally does, which is kind of be demonstrative. Yeah, but what you have missed. Just been strutting.

What you have missed, Andy, I talked about it on yesterday's podcast, is Jason has gone to out-nice Brooks. That is his troll job of the week. Like just complimentary? Compliments, opening doors, refilling his beverages at lunch. No. Bring a smoothie yesterday. No, you did. Oh, look, you treat someone like, you treat someone like Brooks like the champion that he is because his kindness will not beat my kindness. Wow. That's right.

You are the rude one, Brooks, not me. Yeah, I said this on the footcast, Andy. I'm just being myself, and I'm getting spoiled this week, so cool. You're getting pretty spoiled. Yeah. Wow. Well, so you're kind of a champion regardless of what happens this week is what's, it sounds like you're celebrating. I'm living the champ life, yeah. Oh, you heard of here first. He's already acting like the champion. Oh, my goodness. All right. Hey, listen. Craziness. Craziness happened today. Ezekiel Elliott.

There was a stat correction. We've brought this up before. It generally happens on Thursdays. The NFL will audit what has taken place over the past week. Normally, you'll see some very small changes the day after the games take place if there's something that's very overt and obvious. But then there's an official audit and score corrections. These happen every week. They're released every single week.

During the season, they very rarely affect a fantasy football matchup because a lot of them are defensive-oriented stat corrections. Things like, hey, you know, Nidama Kung Su is credited with half a sack on this play instead of a full sack or something like that. And in week three and week four, here's the response is.

Oh, man, that sucks. Yeah. Well, it's not week three and week four anymore, Jason. No, I know. It's a serious time. The amount of tweets going out there saying, what? This is two days later. And now they're changing. It's like, yes. They need some time. Thursday stack corrections. This is what happens every week. Essentially, Ezekiel L.A. had a fumble lost. It was changed to a turnover on downs. The official play, not a fumble lost anymore.

That's a big one because that's two points. Correct. And so this was a massive stat correction. And then the Colts defense also had a fumble recovery that was overturned. So that's a point in a lot of leagues. And so we're getting tweeted everywhere about this, whether or not some people are thrown out of the championship game because the stat correction hurt them.

in the negative fashion. Some are finding themselves in a championship game this morning because of the stat correction. Or you wake up this morning to people talking about this saying, holy crap, Mike's in the championship. And you go, look, and it's because the actual system is completely broken right now because of stack corrections. Yeah, so that's a different issue on ESPN right now. ESPN has taken away all kicker points last week. Yes. Preparing for the future, I hope.

And it was a stake in my heart. But that one is... To wake up to that. That one's not legit. So if you're in those leagues, that'll be fixed. But for those facing the Ezekiel Elliott situation, there are those out there saying, we already won. You can't take it away from me? You can't. Well, you can't. Well, but I mean, like, you can't call the victory until all the stats are final. The fact of the matter is this is what happened. And therefore, it is...

what is final. So you have to, not embrace, but you have to accept the reality of the stat correction because this is what actually took place. So you can't, for those wanting a direction for moving forward as a commissioner, what do I do? You're already doing it. You're doing it by just being on a platform and having the stat correction take place. And look, it's unfortunate if you got knocked out and it's very fortunate if you moved in, but it is what actually happened and what should have been counted on Sunday. Yeah.

Yeah, it's our thoughts and prayers are with you if you're out. And our shot ballers and fantasy champs are there for you if you're in. So what a world. Yeah, so we'll move on. You can find us on YouTube, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. On Twitter, of course, at theFF ballers. And the website is the fantasy footballers.com. Community is Jointhefoot.com. Let's get into more of the news and some of it breaking. News and notes from around the league.

Well, big news this morning being reported, Josh Gordon is facing another indefinite suspension for violating terms of his reinstatement under the substance abuse policy. He is stepping away. He released a statement this morning. He says he takes his mental health very seriously, and he is going to step away from the game of football.

uh thanked coach bellichick mr craft the patriots organization and so josh gordon is no longer uh an active member of the new england patriots uh we heard the statement first then we saw news of an indefinite suspension coming i'm choosing to i'll just take it all at face value right now not speculate about what is and what isn't clearly josh gordon is is we've been through this we know he faces um the man's got

Plenty of demons that he just cannot shake. Hopefully he's able to get the help that he needs. And if there is, in fact, another suspension coming, I mean, this is the end. Yeah, he probably will never play football again. That would be my guess. Which Martavis just got suspended as well. He may never play football again either. I mean, it is one of those. It's really sad because these are young men whose lives are really derailed by.

by addiction and that's you know that that's that sucks and uh you know we we hope the men uh can get over to that and have good healthy lives the football players are finished probably that's my outlook from a fantasy perspective and i will say this from a fantasy perspective i said this going into last year and i felt like maybe maybe i was you know maybe it was the wrong outlook but i i felt like

The guys that have had multiple strikes for substance abuse, I had been trying to stay completely clear because we had not really had a history of that going right. You know, it's just once you're at like five strikes, it's hard to trust that player. And now, I mean, we saw that with Justin Blackman and now with Josh Gordon, Martavis Bryant, it's one of those things where it's like. Well, you'd like to be positive and believe in the redemption of that player.

and them turning the page. And unfortunately, more of these that happen, you become more cynical about that ability. And, you know, hopefully we can avoid that. And just, like you said, hope for the best for the person. From a fantasy perspective, you know, it makes Chris Hogan very interesting in the offense again. Right. Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski. I mean, Josh Gordon wasn't.

You know, he wasn't carrying the load for that offense by any means. Well, and apparently the Patriots knew about this last week. This was part of it was actually affecting their game. Yeah, cool. Part of why Cordero Patterson was more involved in that as well. Yeah, he's somebody interesting too. So it's, yeah, something I'm sure Mike would have liked to have known about last week. Certainly. We won't get into that.

The fact that if Jason or if Mike had played Mark Ingram instead of Josh Gordon, he'd be in the League of Record title game. I just skipped the first three shows of the week so I didn't have to complain about my loss either. Yeah, but we're battling for third, bro. You realize the other fact, Mike, if I had just not won the one seat, I would have been in the title game. Yes, I know. All right, the Chargers. Keenan Allen, a different Gordon here. Back to good news. Melvin Gordon. He's expected to play.

along with Keenan Allen on Saturday night. Cam Newton will not play in the final two games of the season. They're shutting him down. And so the Panthers have flipped from favorites at home to three and a half point underdogs against Atlanta. And the over under of that game has changed by a touchdown. So you're not going to have Cam Newton. He wasn't the same from the injury. For weeks. Yeah, we were sold to bill of goods on what we were getting from Cam Newton.

for the end of this season, the schedule, all the things we help for, and none of it came to fruition because he is beat up. James Connor, this came out this morning, unlikely to play against the Saints this week. It'll be more Jalen Samuels. Is this a blessing in disguise for those that have James Connor that might have tried to put him out there? If you have only James Connor, then it sucks. But if you have both, it removes that possibility of James Connor re-agravating while playing.

If Connor had started, you have to start Connor because he's going to be the workhorse guy, but now it's back to Jalen Samuels. So congratulations if you held on to both. Brooks. Jalen Samuels looked so good last week. He really did. I think he's hitting his stride. So yeah, congratulations, Brooks, on getting Keenan Allen back and having Jalen Samuels. It's almost like anyone can succeed at the Pittsburgh running back position.

Sean McVeigh said the expectation is that Todd Gurley will play on Sunday. Now, I didn't get to tune in to the shows that I missed, all of them. Did you guys discuss how you feel about the Gurley situation? McVeigh said Gurley's feeling better. But he has also said that they won't risk Todd Gurley for the playoffs if...

he is in fact not ready to play. And Sean McVeigh said C.G. Anderson could play a role as early as this week. Look, I said, early but you're afraid, aren't you? Yes. But I said earlier in the week that Todd Gurley, I'm projecting him to. Actually, fully sit. And I still kind of lean that direction. He didn't practice Wednesday. Let's see if he practices at all today. If you're Sean McVeigh, of course you're putting out in the media that Todd Gurley is going to play.

This is how this is the coach speak. This is how they do it. Gamesmanship. Yeah, it's the gamesmanship that is whatever. You know gamesmanship and lying are very similar? Yes. So, Andy, let me ask you. Let's say Todd Gurley sits. I wouldn't play him at that point. You wouldn't play any backup? That's bold. Yeah, that's the question. You mean any backup? Like John Kelly or C. John Kelly? Justin Davis?