Week 17 Matchups + Wheel of Shame, Theme Park Tour - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/30

Well, this is it, baby. This is the championship week, the last and final episode we have before the biggest weekend of fantasy football. And we got your backs. We're going to talk through all the team nasty boys. We're going to talk about the great game last night that was so enjoyable. Thank you to the doctor. And a very, very special wheel of shame today. You don't want to miss it. 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. Oh, welcome in Friday, December 30th. The Fantasy Footballers podcast, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway with you. One last time before Week 17.

championship I mean it kind of started yesterday it did start one one final time this week before the remainder yeah that's much better of week 17 shows about accuracy if nothing else yes we are known for our accurate statements about what we do yes and uh like the date never get that wrong no just a few times you're there pronunciation of player names. Oh, the best. Foot clam Friday today, back into the forecast, the wheel of shame once again making an appearance. Andy's wheel. I mean, most of the time. We did have a nail biter last week. I mean, we went, Jason and Mike's team were nearly identical. And yet somehow during basically the final moments, I had.

My team was in between their scores. We were, if you remember from last week, somehow we just, Jason and I had a ton of overlap. We had only two different players. And yet with those players, our gap was 0.2 points, which Jason defeated me. So it was. Dominated. Yes. You crushed me yet again. And so then it was me versus Andy. Or, yeah, me versus Andy, because no matter what, Jason was safe. And it was Gardner Minshu. versus Jehan Dotson plus some points. It was all over the place. It was the final drive of the game that Gardner. Yes. A really, really wild game. Shame to me. Where you get any of the Eagles drive where I'm messaging the guys. I'm like, okay, here we go. Gardner's at $2.99. I just need that D.K. I need one yard for the D.K. bonus. Miles Sanders fumble. Yeah, I thought I had a shot there. And it was like, is Gardner going to throw the ball again? I don't know. It was.

It was really a nail biter. If you don't make me dress up as Gardner Minshue today, I'll be very disappointed. Prepare for disappointment. Dang it. I will not be disappointed. No, you will not. Nor will you put Glan. We'll get into the breakdown of last night's game. Jason's reaction to it, of course. He was out on Twitter letting people know what to root for. But first. Put Clan Friday. Well. We have a winner. $100 to Fantasychamps.com. Good time a year to win some money to Fantasychamps.com because it's trophy time. And the winner is maybe my favorite name that I've seen on Patreon. It's certainly the winner this year. Grandmaster Flapjacks, the Grandmaster himself. Congratulations. You are a winner of $100 to Fantasychamps.com. Fantasychamps.com right now if you did not win. If you are not the Grandmaster.

Don't worry about it. You can also still have flapjacks. You can have flab jacks and you can enjoy a very special end of season promotion. If you buy a trophy over there, you can put the code free ring in your cart and then add one of their rings and you will get it for free. So you can take your, you know, let's say you win. Let's say you win this weekend. Right. And you get a trophy for your league. That's for you. And then you get a ring and you get to wear it around. So it's like a trophy for your body.

Right? Yeah. No, that's what they call it. This is my body trophy. Yeah. In our studio, we have the display cases for the rings. And we've got all of our, all of our rings set up beautifully, which is running out of room. That's true. We're going to need a bigger office. But congratulations. Thank you for supporting the show over there at Join the Foot.com. The Foot clan title shirts are up on the website. They went up yesterday. So every year we have a new championship shirt. Shopballers.com, if you want to check that out. Getting into the recap, I mean, it was a bumpy ride again for the Cowboys. It was. Not the definitive dominating performance you had hoped to see. Also, really not a lot of production on the ground from Ezekiel Elliott, but he did get into the end zone for, I believe, a ninth straight week. Dak, you know, 282 and 2, but two picks, a fumble.

and they pulled away in the second half, but the Titans put up a fight with Josh Dobbs, who was serviceable. I think where we ended up here was at first we thought, well, maybe Dobbs is getting the start because they want to preserve Malik Willis. Where I ended up and where the broadcast seemed to take us was that this was an opportunity for Dobbs to compete for that job. And he won it. I think so. I definitely think so. He only took like two sacks. He is able to move the ball. And this was against a really good Dallas Cowboys defense. And there were also a handful of very important drops where he made a very good. Yeah, Robert Woods. Good pass. Hit a guy in a hands like on a third and eight and drive is over. Hit digs in the hands.

That's true. He dropped it from the other team. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't perfect by any means, but if you emergency started Hassan Haskins, which we did, nasty. We take what we can get. Two for 13 through the air and 12 for 40 on the ground. Not great. No touchdowns. Not great is the answer to that. Not great, but I will tell you this. And I saw other people sharing the same sentiment who had to start Haskins. I've never been happier with seven and a half fantasy points in my life. Like I look at that seven and a half. I'm like, okay, okay. We didn't get a zero. We didn't get a two. I will take seven and a half from Haskins and try to battle elsewhere in my lineup. It started very poorly. Jason and I in Dino Jr., we were forced to resort to nastiness. And we also had a slight hiccup before the game started.

Because we were able to add Malik Davis, and we had kind of a last second conversation of, do you put Malik Davis in? Over Hassan Haskins. It would have been better for you. Slightly. By like almost nothing. But at the beginning of the game, it was Malik Davis was getting in early. He looked good. He looked all right, at least, you know, especially at the beginning of the game. This is the Cowboys back of running back who played for Tony Pollard, by the way. If you didn't watch the game, but they got immediately in the red zone. And it was like they were just moving and Malik Davis was in and I, because we went with Haskins and I start freaking out. But then someone called the timeout and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We got to get Zeke back on the field to which I celebrated. Isn't Malik Davis interesting? He was a rookie and Tony Pollard's a free agent. That is. And they won't give Zeke all the work. You know what I mean? Especially moving forward. So I think Malik Davis is an interesting name with how.

productive Pollard was. And he's good in the passing game. Go look on legit. Go look on your dino waiver wire because he might be there. And this was a shout out to Brooks of Brooks, of course, with his infinite bench spots, picked him up in our main dynasty league. He already has him? This was just like a couple days ago. This was eight years ago. It was a couple days ago and I went, holy crap. That is such a good pickup right now with the It's a low percentage chance, of course, but you've got to take these low percentage shots of if Tony Pollard moves on and the Cowboys don't add anybody, Malik Davis is the backup. Like, this is crazy that he's on Dynasty wires. The biggest performance of the night went to Dalton Schultz. Oh, the doctor! Yes! The doctor will see you now. Yeah, he got paged a couple times. Seven for 56, two touchdowns on 10 targets.

CD Lamb was 11 for 100 led the way receiving yardage wise, but Dalton with the biggest performance for your fantasy teams and for Jason's soul. He wrote a prescription that is very helpful for this weekend. Has he cured you yet or is this just on the way? He has basically made it to where now are teams, because I'm going up against a very good team and I obviously lost Derek Henry and Jalen Hertz, we think. He made it to where now we can have a fair fight. Let's get in there and throw down. I mean, it's interesting because the doctor's performance may have genuinely affected your blood pressure for the weekend. Yeah. Oh, for sure. So you can thank the doctor for that. And we're going to jump into the news. We do have the judge in the house today on the ones and twos. We got another special deucer in the house. Yeah, if you go over to deucer's alley. My son is here today along with Jay Gritz.

Running an internship. So we're hoping he can achieve some level of contribution in access of a cardboard bear. Actually, I was hoping he can really step it up from Al Borland. Oh, yeah. Which I assume he can. Yeah, it's not that, like, that's a stepover bar. Yeah, I actually. It's not a jump. It's a good question of like, what's higher, Al Borland? Okay. Or the cardboard bear. The bar? Yeah, where, like who's? Oh, I thought you were going with something like, like Caleb is here today. A.k.a. Joshua Dobbs. And then, like, Malik Willis, you know, is Al Borland. That's fair. And maybe we're going to get a replacement? Compare, contrast. Sweet. For the playoffs. What are the child labor laws here in Arizona? Um, yeah. It's okay. We're not paying them. That's what I mean. Can we get away with that? Yes. You can, you can force people to donate their labor as long as you don't pay them. Yeah. That's a really cool policy, Mike. Into the news. Into the news we go.

News and notes from Around the League. Presented by USAA Insurance. James Connor didn't practice on Thursday due to illness. We don't expect it to be consequential, but you got to monitor this now. But yesterday this was, well, this is nothing. And now it's, this is probably nothing. Well, you're right. And if it isn't nothing, Kante Ingram would be the next man up for Arizona if you want to get. Oh, yeah. And you know I do. It's time. Alvin Camara, not at practice on Thursday. This is listed as personal slash quadriceps. Okay. The quadriceps in there now. Well, the quadriceps have been really mean to Cameras. It feels very personal. Oh, it's a personal attack by his own body. Yeah.

The quote from Yes. Losing gains. The quote from yesterday was that it was personal and that it was not expected to affect his availability for this weekend. Now you go another day of him missing practice. And once again, if you won't get David Johnson. I don't know. I feel about this drop out there for all the nasty bull. We'll play it out over this weekend. Yes, we will. Jalen Hertz limited on Thursday. Nick Siriani said he's out there. He did some good things at practice. It's still very much up in the air. He's not eager to announce a starter this week. So we'll find out if he returns. You know, it's tough. I'll say this. If you have Gardner Minchew already. I know where you're going. And you have Jalen Hertz. And that's what I have. If Jalen Hertz is named the starter, you start Jalen Hertz. However, that does not mean the world.

doesn't exist where both players play in the game. Yeah, if Jalen Hertz goes out and plays a really good half and they've got a big lead and they've got a big lead and this game is pretty meaningless for them. If it looks like they're going to win, they'll have another game and a half opportunity to just lock up that one seed. You could see Jalen Hertz for protection and for the situation. Just say, hey, great job, shut it down. So I have that thought of like, is it better? to have Hertz than Minchu. Minchu could end up throwing a pick six and being in a more competitive game where he comes back and ends up having a real full high ceiling game. Whereas Hertz, if he plays outstanding, his method to usual great games, then I don't feel like he plays in the fourth quarter. So I see both sides. In the end, I would prefer the guy that got me there. I would prefer Hertz to be in my lineup.

We'll talk through Austin Eckler, Debo, Samuel, and Stefan Diggs in the matchups today because all three of those matchups were covering on today's podcast. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Fantasy forecast. Yesterday we covered the Cardinals, Falcons, Bears, Lions, Broncos, Chiefs, Dolphins, Patriots, Colts, Giants, Saints, Eagles, Panthers, Buccaneers. Click on yesterday's show if you want to hear those breakdowns today. We've got eight more games to cover starting with the Cleveland Browns, who are six and nine, taking on the Washington Commandor, 7-7-1. The Draft King Sportsbook line here is Washington minus two and a half. The over-under is 40 and a half. Washington needs this game really, really badly. If you believe in Ron Rivera, if you believe in the motivation and the leader of men, Ron Rivera,

then I think he'll have these guys ready to play. Now Carson Wins is going to take over a quarterback. And I don't know if you can motivate Carson Wins. He might be his own thing. I mean, you can motivate him, but he's still just, he's going to do what he does, which is play mediocre football and make a mistake at the worst possible time. Well, in this game, you have two teams that play very slowly. They run the football. Brian Robinson was Mike's start of the week on yesterday's show. And. You know, he's a good start in this game against Cleveland. Their run defense isn't the complete, abysmal, porous destruction from the beginning of the year, but it's still right in the middle. And Nick Chubb, you have not had complete full Nick Chubb. No, he got Voldemorted. He did.

Yeah, the Dark Wizard casting a spell over his touchdowns, really. Yes. The production on the ground has been fine if he was getting into the end zone, but he's been the RB 3229, 3223 over the last four games. Jason, this is a tough Washington defense. Nick Chubb is going to end the week as an RB. I think as a RB2, probably a low-end RB2. So he's someone you're going to start. He's not a smash. play that I think you're terrified to see across your lineup, but he's also not really a question mark. You're not going to decide to throw in a nasty boy over someone like Nick Chubb. Terry McLaren, we'll get to find out if the Carson Wins versus Heineke situation impacts McLaren's target share. It did in the beginning of the year. John Dotson's been coming on in a big way. Say last week of

trying to pull up Carson Wentz passing attempts because one of those targets was Terry. So Carson Wentz came in, played about 26% of the snaps through the ball 16 times. One of those was to Terry. So you already have a little bit of a... And it's a bad matchup. I'm not saying I'm benching Terry McLaurin because the dude is a stud. Let me ask you. Okay. You can try and give me some names. Well, no, I'm going to give you one on the same team because you could... Okay. Oh. I mean, Jehan Dodson is officially in the on-fire range. Yeah, he is. And Terry McLaren, we saw the example last week. We've seen the beginning of the year. Would you play Dodson over McLaren? I would. I don't. Oh, my gosh. Jason, what would you do? Oh, man, I was very thankful that the question was to you. I think it's a legitimate question. I also think it's a legitimate question as to whether or not you could play Curtis Samuel. And because of that, this three-way

split and honestly, Logan Thomas will be involved as well. He will. For better or worse, Carson Wins is better than Taylor Heineke. I know this, don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that Carson Wins is good, but Carson Wins will go through his progressions, go through his reads, spread the ball around a little bit more than Taylor Heineke did. In a bad matchup, in a game where you can beat this team on the ground, I mean, you look at the last month and Cleveland has really shut down quarterbacks. To answer the question, I prefer Dotson to McLaurin in a vacuum. I don't want to start the pass catchers for the Washington Manders right now. Amari Cooper has not finished in the top 30 with Voldemort a quarterback. Is there a world where you'd pivot away from Amari Cooper this week? Certainly. The matchup is bad. Yeah, there are definitely going to be names. Johan Dotson or Amari Cooper.

I would still stick with Amari Cooper. I'd go, oh. So that means your Cooper over Terry McLaurin then. Yeah, I think that, I mean, it's a facto. The algebra checks out. This is a game that the passing side of I'm not excited about, but Amari Cooper last week in the bad weather was the clear number one target, 10 targets, 6 for 72. He is, in my opinion, the most talented. individual wide receiver of all of these wide receivers on both sides of the field. So if I had to start one, I would go that direction. David and Joku is Jason's start of the week, 22% of the target since Deshaunson took over. He's a good play. Jacksonville, 7 and 8. They take on the Houston Texans at 212 and 1. Let's go, Houston. The Draft King Sportsbook line is Jacksonville, minus 4 of the overrunners, 43 and a half. No, Mike is not a loyal Lovey Smith fan. He is loyal to the Cardinals, and he'd like to see Houston win some more games.

Sorry, you are loyal to these accusations. I just want a good competitive football game that ends with the Texans winning. What's incredible is if you are, if you're genuinely asking for a good competitive football game, that is what the Texans have been providing for three consecutive weeks, including matchups against Dallas, Kansas City, winning last week. Jacksonville is in this precarious situation here where on paper you think this is going to be. Your moment, right? Go get the W. But the big game for them is next week against Tennessee. Houston beat them once this year. They are coming to play every week right now, which is a credit to Lovie Smith and Company. I guess I'm just a little bit nervous that we won't see the Jacksonville Jaguars we've seen in these more difficult matchups. I would agree that you have worries here due to motivation. I mean, you see.

Even last night when you've got a great team like the Dallas Cowboys going up against a team that is playing for nothing and has put their backups in, they come out and they don't go. We're human beings, right? Like we know this game doesn't matter as much. You're not up for it as much. And if, you know, when there's 11 people on each side of the ball, if your motivation's a little waning, you can have a disappointment. That being said. This is such a young Jacksonville Jaguars team. I think that Coach Doug Peterson is doing the right thing of saying this game is very important. This is not a playoff tested, proven vet team. They need to, I think the motivation is just continue to play the great ball you've been playing. And because they're so young, my inclination is that the Jacksonville Jaguars come out and have a great game. I think they will.

handle their business by a wide margin. I think Travis E.T.N. in this good matchup, should be great. Should have a phenomenal game. Houston's allowing 169 rushing yards per game. Travis E.T. in the past couple weeks has kind of got the mojo back. There was a little bit of a drop off there. It could have been related to, you know, he missed some time with injury, right? He didn't miss time. He missed practice. Well, no, no, no. There was a game where he was active for it and then early in the game. Yeah, Week 12 versus Baltimore, 8% of the snaps. Exactly. He was taken out, but then came right back the next week. Yeah, so he has, you know, running back 22 against Dallas, 15 against the Jets with 20 plus opportunities in those games. So I think we are, we're back to fully comfortable with Travis E.TN. I mean, I'm playing everybody from Jacksonville, really. Like Christian Kirk, who's still somehow the widest year 14 on the year.

You see Tyreek Hill come out and talk about Christian Kirk? I did not. Tyreek Hill? I'm talking about Kirk. He was asking, I think they were asking him who the top five receivers in the NFL are. Wow. And he said he could get Christian Kirk in there. He believed in him that much. And obviously this free agent class at wide receiver has made a huge mark. Yeah. Not just wide receiver, but Evan Ingram, Kirk, and Zay Jones. Yeah. And I am willing to start all three. which there have been a lot of questions. You go back to Zay Jones this week. So Trevor Lawrence is Jason started the week as well. Been a top 12 quarterback 10 times this year. Quarterback three since week 12. You stay with that even though there have been some tough weeks against the Texans for quarterbacks. I think you kind of go with what you know right now. And Trevor Lawrence has the weapons and the motivation to get in there and do something special. Brandon Cooks.

expected to practice on Friday had a personal day on Thursday. I feel like they're just letting him do whatever he wants to do right now. He was, you know, 76% of snaps, 4 for 34 in a touchdown. He didn't score twice last week. They caught one of them back? Yes. I think he's the only play on the Texan side. Royce Freeman is, yeah, I know. I'm just laying out the information of. That's beyond nasty. What's the tier below nasty? Disgusting? Yeah, that's just disgusting. We don't play disgusting. There's no upside. You don't be like, oh, dude, that's disgusting. He had 17 opportunities against the Tennessee Titans, which is a very tough run defense as Ezekiel Elliott found out. Stop talking about him. Wait, he had 17 opportunities last year. So tell me he had like at least five fantasy points. I cannot do that. Stop talking about him. Please.

I will not. He was 60 for 32 on the ground, and I'm not playing him against the Jaguars. Thank you. All right, quick break back with a very important matchup. All right, the San Francisco 49ers at 11 and 4 take on the Las Vegas Raiders in Stittams. They're sitting at 6 and 9. They're not technically eliminated from the playoffs, but they've eliminated. They. They've chosen elimination. Look, the number one topic to discuss and the most, look, the thing I'm dreading the most on Sunday live this week is answering questions around Devante Adams and Josh Jacobs. Yeah. So I've been trying to do my research, trying to reach out to sources around the Raiders for their expectations. I'm hearing a couple of things. Number one, you know, and Mike mentioned it early in the week. They do want to get young talent opportunities.

So Mike was saying that, you know, it kind of lends itself to Zemir White having opportunities in this game. However, you watch Devante Adams in his press conference. You know, he's disappointed that Derek Carr, his best friend's not playing. But he does seem like a guy that wants to go out there and continue, finish the season strong. And what I'm hearing from Raiders camp is that they're committed to trying to convince Devante Adams and Josh Jacobs to stay. So there is a motivation there from sources within the team to do that. And so you have to kind of take those two pieces of information. The team has obviously made a choice at quarterback to move forward with Jarrett Stidham right now. But those are two players they want to see involved next year. We have said, okay, you're never going to see Josh Jacobs on the Raiders again because his frustration, it was evident.

but we also said money talks. Oh, yeah. And if you're the team that brings the biggest, you know, check and you bring in a quarterback, you know, think about scenarios this off season. Derek Hart's gone. Let's just say he's gone. Okay. Tom Brady, right? Sure. Another, you bring in another quarterback of note that you're. Garoppolo. Sure. And you, you know, there's a narrative that you can start to, a story you can start to write about, look, we're just, we're right there. And. That could convince the Josh Jacobs to come back. So this week right now, I think you're proceeding. I'm proceeding with these guys in my lineup. Okay. And I am willing to make a change. And I'll tell you what I'm doing with them on Sunday morning. If something else comes out, our ears are to the ground just like yours. So that's the information I have. Do you guys have anything else to add to that circumstance? I think you summarized it well. I would be surprised if we actually have.

really solid information in order to make a bench there. All we really have is fear. And the reality is there was fear to be had without, like if Derek Carr was playing, this is the San Francisco 49ers defense. It's been great, especially against the run. They are far and away the most difficult matchup for running backs. They have not given up more than 60 rushing yards to any running back on the season. If you look at. Goodness gracious, you know, since week six, the first month of the season, they were okay. But from that point on, you know, early on in the season, the last 10 games or so, they are light years. They're averaging seven fewer fantasy points to the position than that position's average. So if the team they're playing against usually scores.