Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 6 Review, Studs and Duds, MNF Preview, Fantasy News

The ball? I like it. I like it when the best option in the middle of a catch, a receiver decides to pin it to his helmet. Like, this is what I need to do right now. Pretty incredible catch. All right. Let me give you some other guys that really stepped up. Let me start with Alshan Jeffrey. Alshan Jeffrey, we've been waiting and waiting and waiting, and I waited so long that I traded him to Jason. Waiting so long. And then he had eight for 147 and one. Jason's extremely excited. He won in our League of Record this week with Alshan Jeffrey.

He beat Mike. The fantasy hit man, right. And so he had a huge game. Obviously, barring setbacks with the hamstring in practice. He is locked in as a one. Absolutely. So if you waited on him, congrats. If you bought him cheap, congrats. It was, now, are they on buy? Yes. Okay. So not a wide receiver one this week. Yeah. So Martavis Bryant, six for 137 and two.

What are you? Oh, I was thinking you could, uh... What? Hit the Martavis Bryant saying hi. No. Letting them know. No. That doesn't make any sense. That's an intro. Fair enough. All right. Calvin Johnson, six for 166 and one. You're glossing over, Brian. No, I'm not, I'm pointing out some of the stats and you guys kind of talk about these guys. Well, let's stay with those two for now. So Calvin, big bounce back. Overtime helped. Caught a big bomb in overtime. He also caught a touchdown that we thought was going to win the game at the end of the game that didn't.

Calvin, is he, I mean, is this what you wanted to see in terms of like, okay, now he's going to be a one the rest of the season? It's possible. What was severely missing was those shots of Stafford just saying, whatever, I don't care, it's a 40-yard in the air. I'm just going to wing it up to Calvin Johnson, and he did it multiple times in that game when we had not seen it basically the entire season. Yeah, I agree. I wish there were more shots just normal. I wish he had more targets than he had.

But he still had a fine game. And it was a little frustrating. He had, I think, three catches early. And then there was a period of time where he just...

wasn't targeted and wasn't used and it was like, oh, no, are they going to do this? But he did bounce back, and I expect him to keep up a really solid pace from here. If they can figure any type of running game out, then you can play action pass, and then you can take those deep shots. I think you're not going to see them consistently without that. Martavis Bryant had a humongous game. Both of his touchdowns came from Landry Jones, including the second one, which was basically a 10-yard pass that he took.

You know, but that's what he does. He's got top speed that is almost unmatchable in football. So Martavis, humongous game, Big Ben coming back. What is it going to be? Because I still wonder if you're going to see the hit and miss games due to the fact that there are other weapons there. I think he's going to be a locked and loaded wide receiver two where...

His bad games are going to be all right because Big Ben will be back soon and he's going to take over all of the role that Darius Haywood Bay has been doing all right with. So I think that he's going to have a baseline that is good enough to not be scared about Duds. And when he breaks him off, man, I mean, he is a better athlete than these amazing athletes.

There's one other guy I really want to talk about at the wide receiver position. And I am so disappointed because at 9.05 in the morning, I went on my phone, and I went to add Stefan Diggs to my roster, and waivers had gone through at 9 o'clock. And I was confused because I thought I was before that deadline. So I went, I put the waiver claim in, and then it said, oh, he's locked. And I said, oh, no. We watched him last week, the week before this week. Were we up?

I think it was two weeks ago. Oh, yeah. Because they had to buy. And it was just amazing because there were play after play, and we kept looking up going, who is, who is Diggs? Remind me because wow, was he impressive. And now you see it. Seven for 129 this week. He's a rookie, was given the starting job on Sunday morning and went out and performed to this level. So I think he's going to be at the top of my waiver, priority list in terms of the wide receivers. Over, you don't want Lance Moore? I think Lance Moore, no, I don't want Lance Moore. Lance Moore had a good game, but I mean,

You know, he always does this. He has like one or two good games for whatever team he's on. Marvin Jones? Yeah, Marvin Jones is... Would you take him over? Over him. Stephen Diggs? Yeah. Yep. Yeah, Marvin Jones had a monster game. Nine for 95 in a touchdown. He probably won't be on our waiver show because I think he's owned in over half of leagues. But if he's in one... If you're in a league where he's not owned, Marvin Jones needs to be a guy that you own for sure. All right, let's go talk about some running backs.

These first two guys, are they the number one and number two running back in fantasy? Devante Freeman, Chris Ivory. Statistically, yes. You were talking about weekly or a season? I'm talking about rest of season. Freeman, yes, ivory, no. Okay, so why not Ivory? He's had two straight games of 140 plus yards and touchdowns. He was already number three in points per game. Just number two? Why wouldn't he keep it up? I'm just asking for fantasy owners. I like him as a one.

I might even say as a top five option moving forward, but I just, to me, Levi-on-Bel is still the number two. Okay, so who would you take over Ivory? Levi-on-Bel. I know that. Who else would you take over Ivory? I think I would still take Peterson over him. Okay. There's not many guys. Foster, I'd probably still take Foster over him. There's just a couple guys. I love ivory. And I think he's... What about Forte? That's where I see the...

Forte or Ivory. Ivory had three catches in this game, too. For 50 yards. Now, part of that had to do with Bilal Powell, not being in on third down. My issue with Ivory, I said this before, Ivory, if he's playing, he is a must start, he is matchup proof, and I think he is fantastic. The whole worry with him before the season is just he's got an injury-prone label, and he missed a game during the year already. So you do worry a little bit about him getting banged up the way they're just...

running him into the ground. Like Lamar Miller, I don't know if he's on. Oh, he is on this list. He had his back. He still couldn't get 20 carries despite being on a great pace. But that's because they pulled him when the game was completely out of reach after 19 carries for 113 yards and a touchdown. But that's something you're not seeing the Jets do, which is great for fantasy. They're going to let Chris Iver, even if they're up by 50 points. They're just going to keep giving him the rock. Well, that game got closer too.

Yeah, it did. There was a special team's touchdown for Washington. 7.3 a carry against Washington's defensive front. 5.7 a carry last time he played in Miami. He had the biweek. Seems healthy. Really looks the part on the field. And so that's why I brought him up as a, you know, he's still a guy. These are the type of players that if you think they're a top five running back.

You can go buy them at a less than top five price. Absolutely. Because of their performance. You know, somebody, the turnover on top running backs happens every single year. A different guy ends up at the top of this list a lot of the times. You know, you have a few of the same characters and some that aren't. And so if Ivory is going to be one of those guys, I want our listeners to know to go buy him on the cheap. The only concern for me with Ivory, and this is, I cautiously say this. I'm not saying sell ivory or anything like that. You hold on to ivory.

Ryan Fitzpatrick has been solid, has been very solid, and that helps the offense completely where a team can't just key in on the running game. Now he has Brandon Marshall, so that helps. But Ryan Fitzpatrick is notorious for as soon as the winter hits, his play goes south. And he's up, like, he did that time after time in Buffalo where it gets very cold. He's in New York. It gets very cold. So that's my, that would be a...

a caution flag for me on ivory. You want to know who they play next week? Who's that? In Foxborough. Ooh. The Jets and the Patriots and what I think will be an outstanding game. It would be very interesting to see what happens. Revis, you know, gets the face off against the Patriots. The Jets said they were licking their chops for that matchup. They're looking forward to it, and that's going to be a great game. What was my upset pick of the week? Do you guys remember?

I'm trying to remember. Oh, it was Carolina. Oh, was it? Yeah. That's right. Boom! Oh, as Cardinal fans, that was delightful. And for all you Seahawks fans that keep mocking us on Twitter. Sorry, not sorry. Sorry, not sorry. Yeah, that's exactly right. So, all right. James Starks obviously had a big game, 10 for 1, 12, and 1. So what do you do? James Starks or Ryan Matthews, rest of season. James Starks or Ryan Matthews? That's a great question.

Can I watch the game tonight first? Yeah, sure. But you have to answer now. It's probably still Ryan Matthews, but I mean, I was messaging you guys because I have James, I've been hoarding James Starks. Yep. And I'm like, apparently I have the Green Bay running back. Apparently. I don't know. It's, if, if that, if that situation works into a timeshare at all for James Starks with Eddie Lacey.

Then Starks is a fantastic option. Fantastic flex option. Jonathan Stewart was 20 for 78 and 2. He got a touchdown. Not just one. What? Not just one. I had heard before the game he was the third longest streak of carries without a touchdown in the league. He had 125 carries without a touchdown. Took care of that. Took care of that against Seattle. We said on the show he might do well because.

Wagner was not in the game, and Stewart definitely played well. Oh, my goodness, I heard some Cam Newton MVP discussion this morning. It's a worthy talk. I mean, Carolina, they're led by their defense. I just have to look at Mike when I say stuff like that because of all the Cam Newton doubt that floated through his bloodstream all offseason.

Yeah, I mean, he is clearly, if they had a different quarterback in there, if they had a pocket passing decent quarterback, they would not be able to hang with these teams. But the way that they match his running style and make the offense a running team to match their defense, it just works for a really difficult team to get out really ahead of, and their defense keeps him in game.

All right, tight-ins. Greg Olson had another big week, seven for 131 and one against, you know, this is second straight tight-in that torched.

The Seattle Seahawks. Yeah, I talked about this. I said Seattle is a sneaky, tight end play against them. Yeah, you did. And, you know, it was Eifford last week, is Olson this week. Ben Watson on Thursday night had the big 10 for 1, 27 and 1. I actually think he should be signed in leagues. We'll talk about this on the waiver show because I think there is a building rapport between them. It doesn't mean he's going to do this every week for goodness sakes. But when you do that. Come on, that's what people want. You know, he's pretty reliable. Made some tough catches. Gary Barnage! Maximum!

We need to name Barnage. You know, nothing I've seen is jumping out is what I want to do. I mean, people want to go with the Barnage Carnage combo, but I just, I'm not, it's not there yet. It's not, I don't know what to call him yet. See, in my head, I like Maximum Barnage, just, but that's the best thing I've heard. Because I'm a Spider-Man dork, and Maximum Carnage was one of my favorite video games when I was growing up. I, yeah.

Maximum Barnage took place on Sunday. Two more touchdowns. That was more like minimum barnage. Hey, you know, but that's the tight-in position. He's not a yardage guy. He's got to score, and he scored two more. So speaking of yardage, Jimmy Graham, eight for 140. Yeah. He's back for this week. He's had an okay season, guys. Yeah, I told you.

He has had... Yeah, he's going to have an okay season. I said he'd be all right because of his amount of routes run. That's not changing in Seattle. They obviously went to him more, but these were downfield throws. If you watch the highlights of every catch you made, three or four of them were downfield seam, outside, broken play. He's starting to look at him a little bit more. This was the first week that he had received a pass of over 20 yards in the air, and that's what he needs, is he needs those...

distance passes, not just trying to, you know, get it to him early. And then he's a great route runner, and he can run that nine or, you know, a great post. Julius Thomas and Delaney Walker, Julius Thomas is 7 for 78 and a touchdown. Delany Walker is 8 for 97. Are these guys both start-worthy tight-ins? They are, to me. Okay. Let's go ahead and talk about some of the guys that didn't perform so well. Poopped in his big boy pants. How long do we muse on Peyton Manning? I don't know, Jason.