Week 16 Matchups + Wheel of Shame, Bah Humbug! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/22

On today's show, we break down yesterday's game. Andy has a little bit of Alva Camara tilt, the rest of the matchups, and a fantasy faceoff. Of course, make sure you subscribe to this channel right now. Let's get those titles. Let's get into championship weekend. Enjoy the show. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Bah, humbug. Oh. Well done. Fuckland, before we started recording this episode, our fine host, Andrew Holloway, was grouching his way off the side of the planet. Yeah. Very unhappy wanting to, are we recording it? Are we recording yet? Let's get going. Let's go. And then he opens us with a nice bah humbug. Welcome everybody to the Christmas weekend. I hope it goes well for you because if not, if fantasy goes poorly for you this weekend, oh man.

It's a bad Christmas weekend. Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy holidays. Welcome into the fantasy footballers, Alvin Camara, excluded from the greeting. I have some cliches I've been leaning on. Rome wasn't built in a day. You're playing the long game, a marathon, not a sprint. One step back, two steps forward. Win the war, not the battle. Slow and steady wins the race. That's great. Keep your eyes on the price. That's where I'm going to lean on that. Alvin Camara against Papa Josh didn't go well. It did not. But it is the beginning of the weekend. And he can have Thursday. That's my philosophy. I'll take Sunday. I will say, speaking of the beginning, last week in the league that I faced Adams, where Adams got off to that 20 points in our league, incredible start, I beat that team. Yes. And then in the team that Jason and I had, we had Adams.

We scored 20 points. Eckler sucked. We lost. That's right. The tortoise and the hair, Andy. Go crack that book open. So if you had Camara, take a breath. If you had Cooper Cup, take a breath. If you had Puka, have a party. Well, no, no, don't count your chickens. No, no. Stay focused. That's another cliche I'm looking at. Don't count your chickens before that. I'm not saying you take the victory, but enjoy that. You had a big poop party. Wow, I'm just realizing. In the building, too. I'm just realizing what a terrible, like, don't count your chickens before they're hatch. That means you think you got all these, but someone's going to die. Yeah. That's awful. That's nature, Jason. Well, I know, but it's like, don't count your chickens. I've got 12 eggs. I only had three chickens. You're thinking of. Play off me, I was starving. Oh, no. Friday episode of the show. That's on you then. Well, I.

Look, I needed an omelet. Why didn't they hatch? If you eat them all, you can count them before they hatch. Yeah, well, they are the exact same number. Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, right? I mean, there's so many cliches. Yeah, yeah. Welcome in one and all more matchups today. The fantasy faceoff where I will appropriately be shamed. Papa Josh is in the building hanging out in Deucer's Alley, like the deuce he is. He's just looking like the smuggest. Oh, man. He's just the worst. He's been really intolerable this week. Imagine he wins the title. Part of me, I hope he does if he beats you. I don't know about that. I thought through this process this morning, because I've said, like, whichever one of you wins, you have to win. We can't let the other two guys on the other side get it. We've got to keep this trophy in house. And I thought through the thought process of could you root?

for Josh the evil one. No, I would not. After putting you out. No, I would not. No, because he works here. And that's the other people do not work here. I will not be in their presence. Josh winning just to lose would just be great. But look, he's not going to win. He's not going to win this weekend. There we go. I'm still favored to win. He needed an Alvin Camara fart on Thursday night just to break even on the projections. He got a hot one. Yeah. So I still have the Justin Fields. DJ more collapsed to look forward to. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, they don't have a good matchup or anything. No, Cardinals D's going to step up in week 17. I can't get the Puka Cooper Cup situation straightened out. Every week I think Cooper is going to have a great game. It's Puka and vice versa. Breaking news, Puka did not bust against the number one rated past defense. 9 for 164 and a touchdown. 11 targets should have had more. Kyron Williams, 22 for 104 and 1.

That was an extra knife twist in my side, only because I had to make that Camara-Kyron decision when Kyron was coming off the injury. Kyron's been a machine. It's a tough run defense. I mean, this is the run defense that kept Saquan to like nine carries and no yards last week, and Kyron breaks through because look. Karen's awesome. You can't stop Matthew Stafford and those receivers right now. So the running game's breaking down. the defense and vice versa. Yeah, it's, it's McVeigh. Yes, McVeigh is such a genius. Kyrin is playing fantastic because he is getting everything that McVeigh is laying out for him. But this is like they are, McVeigh is scheming runs. Last year was when Cam Acres finished the season. Right on that hot run. Winning people championships. And we know that Cam Acres.

is not the most talented running back in all of football, and yet, like you said, McVe schemes this up for play. I mean, Kyron was not a high draft capital pick. So, yeah, and this Rams team looks like they could, like, I wouldn't project them to win the Super Bowl, but if I don't want to play them in the playoffs, they look super good. If they played the Cowboys in the first round. Oh, Dallas would be terrified. Dallas should be terrified. Yeah. What do you make of DeMarcus Robinson? Well, he obviously has carved out a role in this offense that seems like it's permanent. It's hard. He obviously played well ahead of 2-2-at-well who did not receive a target. One of the things we have loved all season and for many years about the Rams' offense for fantasy is the consolidation of targets. Matthew Stafford threw it to three wide receivers. That was it. And when you do that and you're not spreading the ball around to 5, 6, 7 guys, Sam Howell.

then you can more reliably bank on these guys. Now, we thought prior to this game that Tutu Atwell, now that he was back, would regain that role. And I don't know if that was because, well, it's first game back from injury, but it was clearly DeMarcus Robinson in that role that has been valuable all year. That third wide receiver has constantly been a fantasy relevant role. And he was great with it. Six for 82 in a touchdown. Sorry, I was just going to say Cooper Cup, 12 targets only six receptions. Questionable, I mean, he kind of dropped two touchdown opportunities. Catches that are not easy, but the ones that Cooper Cup generally makes. So you were disappointed with Cooper Cup's output. Alvin Kamara, 9 for 19 on the ground, 5 for 16 through the air. Alave was 9 for 123. He left some on the table with the drops. And then I did like Rashid Shaheed coming into the week. He had the long touchdown catch. Yep.

And everyone wants to know this, but... Send in the car. Send in the car. Derek Carr outscored Matthew Stafford and fantasy points. That is unfair and disgusting. Derek Carr... And he was impossible to watch. Flat out was terrible for 90% of that game. He had a handful of good throws. Like the throw to AT Perry. It's a good throw. Yeah. Joanne Johnson wheeled out. Great throw. Yeah. But he spent most of the game being... flat out garbage. And I really want to contribute some of the blame to the play calling for this team on a regular basis. I mean, whether it's this lifelong addiction to breaking up the kind of momentum of an offense to have your Taysome Hill snap where your quarterback runs off the field, which they did two times in the first two drives. Wait. And then they're not using Alvin Kamara in the passing game at all throughout the game.

Let the Tasum hate grow. Well, look, it's not Taysom's fault. I know. It's just the fact that you do disrupt your momentum. And the play calling's bad. They need a new head coach. And that's the end of that. So there was the Olave made it through. I mean, had the huge game nine from 123. He didn't get a touchdown. Should have been way bigger. And after the game, I can't remember which beat report was talking about it. But Olave, when speaking said it took everything. in terms of pain tolerance to get on the field and make it through the game. So I know that Alave has a history of some weird drops, but it sounds like he was playing through incredible amounts of pain. So I'm going to cut him some slack on that one particular drop. There was one drop that it was like...

They were two really bad drops. But there was one where... Yeah, he threw the ball too hard. Yeah, he needed to put some more touch on the ball. It felt like the broadcast was like, oh, a lobby dropped it. And then you showed the replay and it's kind of behind him. Completely agree. That's Derek Carr. I mean, that's a wide open throw. There's something to be said about putting touch on the football. I mean, some quarterbacks can do it. Some can't. The old Derek Anderson. Yeah. I have one velocity and that's maximum. Yeah, Cam Newton was like that too. All right. It's Friday. Put Clan Friday.

All right, nice try, deucers. Every Friday, we give away $100 to Fantasychamps.com to a supporter of the show over at Jointhefoot.com. Today's winner, Maximilian Costi Ashkin. Well done. Yeah, yeah. They tried to give me the hardest name in the land, Al. He would never. Next time I see one like this, I better have a pronunciation guide next to it. Al was just rolling through. He's like, I can't read that. I'll see what this sounds like. The winner is Max. Yep. I could have gone with that. All right. Congratulations. Thank you for supporting the show. Join the foot.com. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Real quick, I just saw a news break that Zay Jones doubtful for the week. So unlikely to play.

Also news on Trevor Lawrence, he was going to try to practice today, but has to travel with the team, obviously, in order to play. We'll see. Iffy, but the practice today, it makes it possible. Kenan Allen ruled out. You're not going to have them this week. Kenneth Walker didn't practice again. That's Wednesday and Thursday. I'm still optimistic. He had a big workload in a game. You know, what do you guys think? I think that he'll probably get a limited practice in the day and then he'll play. But this, him popping up on Thursday after the optimism given by beat reporters for the Wednesday rest day. You at least have to have a little bit of nerves. Yeah, a little bit of nerves, especially since it's a different injury. It's not the oblique that he missed with this is listed as a shoulder. So hopefully it is just being, you know, having an abundance of caution.

and not wanting to wear your guys down because you plan on giving him a huge workload and you just did. If Kenneth Walker is active, you are 100% playing him. As of now, I still think he'll be active based on what beat reporters are saying. Gino Smith practicing in full going to play. Brian Robinson hasn't practiced Wednesday or Thursday. We don't expect him back, right? No, no. He's been out too long to show up on a Friday practice and then play an important role. Christian Watson didn't practice. Jaden Reed didn't practice. He's been dealing in playing through toe chest injuries. I think Jaden Reed's going to play this week. I don't think Christian Watson will. He was really, really interesting because he has missed so many practices and played and played well. I wanted to put him in the draft king's lineup. He's a good value, but it's hard when you don't practice to put someone in. So he is someone you got to monitor.

All right, AJ Dillon Limited, Wednesday and Thursday. Early reports on the week was that he would be kind of unlikely to play. What do you guys think there? I think if he plays, he won't play well. So it's not about the playing well or not. It's about taking snaps away. Sure. I mean, obviously if Aaron Jones is by himself, he's, you know, you'd love for him to have more and more work. They said going into last week, they were going to limit Aaron Jones's workload. They did. But I think now that he's got a week and he's healthy, he'll be increased no matter what, even if Dylan is there. Jones is a great play. Dylan is one of those where it's like, I'm sorry that you had to play him. Because there's no one that chooses to play him. You only are like, that's all I got. Jonathan Taylor practiced in full. Zach Moss still didn't practice. That's, that is a tremendous trend if you have Taylor on your team and Michael Pittman returned to a full practice. Yes.

After his incredibly scary hits, appears he will be back. Yeah, I haven't heard that he's cleared protocol, but if he's practicing in full with contact, he'll be active this week. That was today's news and notes, presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Fantasy forecast. Saturday games. We covered Bengals, Steelers, bills, chargers yesterday, Sunday games we covered yesterday, Colts, Falcons, Seahawks, Titans, Lions, Vikings, commanders, Jets, Packers, and the Panthers. We got three Christmas Football.com games this year that we'll cover today as long, along with the rest of the Sunday games. Great website, man. One of my favorites. Yeah. Christmas football.com? Yeah, Christmas Football.com is one of my favorite. Cleveland's 9 and 5, Houston's 8 and 6th. They won with Case Keenum last week. The draft king sports book line, Cleveland minus two and a half. It's a five-point swing with the news of C.J. Stroud missing the game. But it's still a close line. The overrunner is 40 points. Cleveland's the fifth seed in the AFC. They've been doing it with Joe Flacco.

This is so fun to me. The fact that you've got Joe Flacco versus Case Keenum. You have two very, you know, Case Keenum had a successful career. He started and won a lot of games, and then his career was over. And Joe Flacco won a Super Bowl started and had a successful career. And then his career was over. And now it's like, all of a sudden we get a Joe Flacko, Case Keenum important matchup between two. winning playoff-bound teams who are coming off of wins with these quarterbacks. This is a super exciting game to me. I wish Stroud was there, but Case Keenham versus Flacco is the game no one thought that we were interested in. All right. Jerome Ford, he's been limited. He's dealing with the wrist injury. He hasn't been exceptional. This is not the matchup you want to play him. No, they were a shutdown, you know, defensive line last week against.

Henry, Devin Singletary, 31 opportunities last week. You're leaning on opportunities. Cleveland, 17th over the last six weeks against the run, 10th on the year. I really would love to know the confidence level in Singletary versus, you know, the rest of the pack, you know, the Ty Chandler's, the James Conners, some of those players that you're on the cusp with. Maybe even Kenneth Walker, throw him in there. The way that I see Devin Singletary is he is a very, he is a relatively safe play. So he's a player that, I mean, when you get 31 opportunities the previous week, and he has, that's not even as high on the season. Now, I know before it was when Damien Pierce wasn't there, but Damien Pierce was just not used in this game. He barely played. They won the game, and they won the game on the back of Devon Singletary. I can't get myself to see a process that leads me to conclude.

that they're not going to implement that type of a game plan here against a good defense and rely on the veteran Singletary with Case Keenham behind center. So what I view Devin Singletary as is a high floor low-end RB2. And that is, to me, pretty important and valuable in fantasy. I would have him in a lot of my lineups. I have the floor a bit lower than you do of... Yeah, last week was incredible. But the week before that against the Jets, it was 16 opportunities where Damien, I mean, Damien Pierce was. I always his last chance, though. That was Pierce's, oh, 100%. Okay. So you feel like a Pierce was so bad in that game that they, they gave him an opportunity. And I've listened to interviews from like people around the team. They gave Pierce the opportunity to earn some of the backfield back after his injury.

and he wasn't able to deliver in those two games. And so they made a shift. You know, this is the game where I said, I would not be surprised if it hit the over and was a little bit more of a shootout than people expect. 36 past attempts last week for Keenham. They weren't afraid to let him throw the football a little bit. Cleveland's a tough defense, but they're on the road here. And that's been more of a struggle for them as well. The 36 past attempts is to give you any hope for Nico if he returns, Noah Brown. Noah Brown was banged up too. Can I get a...

An injury report on him? He's been limited, I believe, the past two days. They're limited on Thursday with the knee. So he's trending to play. Nico is, that's scary, scary business, man, coming back from that injury with the possibility of re-aggravation and the matchup and the backup quarterback. So, like, would you play Nico fresh, assuming he plays, or would you play? Let's go Deante Johnson against the Bengals. Deontay Johnson. Okay. Nico or let's say. That's Deante with Rudolph as well. Right. Is that confirmed? Yeah. Yeah. Kenny Pickin was out. Would you play Nico or JSN against Tennessee? Oh, I know I put them second in the order this week. I like JSA quite a lot this week. So that's an easy JSA for me. Okay. Dalton Schultz.

He is back. He is a lower tier tight-end option. On the other side, you're excited about David Najoku, Amari Cooper, both were starts of the week on yesterday's show. But I think, you know, and then the story is Flacco, right? Flacco is in a situation where they're putting it on his shoulders. The running game is not the former Nick Chubb running game. And so Flacco is a streaming option. Yeah, he really is. There's a lot of players. There's a lot of fancy managers that are starting them. I am currently going Flacco over golf. All right. Jacksonville's 8 and 6, Tampa Bay 7 and 7. The drafting sportsbook line, Tampa Bay minus 3. The overrunners 40 and a half. And this has swung quite a bit too. Jacksonville was favored when they thought Lawrence would play. Now it's Tampa minus 3. And, you know, I find myself with a ton of question marks.

on the Tampa side because, or I'm sorry, on the Jacksonville side dealing with the offensive weapons. You know, ETN is a fixture in your lineup and you're not going to sit them down, but the matchup's bad. Well, I mean, on the course of the season, adjusted for schedule, this is not bad. This is worst. This is the number one defense shutting down the running back. They average giving up 14.8 fantasy points per game to the entire running back core on the other side. So thankfully, ETN is usually. 80% of their core. And so that's why you're going to have him in your lineup. But it is, it's going to be tough sledding for him. You really hope he has a touchdown. And if Trevor Lawrence isn't the quarterback, you have to imagine touchdown opportunities will be even fewer for him. And what do you do with Calvin Ridley? Because the matchup, while the bucks are in fact the worst matchup for running backs on the season, they are the best matchup. If I had Lawrence in there, I was thinking about Ridley as the start of the week.

Right. Because you don't have Zay Jones. You don't have Christian Kirk. Expecting no Trevor Lawrence and that it's C.J. Bethard are you, where are you with Calvin? Because I'm in agreement. If Lawrence is in, that's not a question. Ridley should be a great play. He's Calvin Ridley so he has magic tricks and can get a bunch of targets and do nothing. But let's say C.J. Bethard is. I think I'm going to play Calvin Ridley. Okay. CJ Beatherd is not who you want to play quarterback. You want it to be Trevor Lawrence, but we have seen C.J. Bethard go out and ball out before. It's not impossible. And look at all the star wide receivers right now with backups that we're willing to throw out there like Jefferson. Exactly. So I think this is a situation where I'm going to trust the matchup and the opportunity of basically being the last dude left in the deeper receiving game. If they have to throw the ball.

This is a really important game for these two teams. They're headed in opposite directions, but for playoff implications, the way that the rest of the schedule goes with your opponent's strength of schedule, your wins, your division, and this is like exceptionally important for both these teams' playoff implications. Parker, Washington. He's a possibility for DFS because of Zay Jones and Christian Kirk. Honestly, I just think it means more ammo for the Evan Ingram start of the week from Jason. I love Ingram this week. Huge opportunity. Great matchup. Baker, Mike, you made him your start of the week against the secondary defense for the Jacksonville Jaguars has been bad in the last six weeks. And then Rashad White is an auto start. He's been great. Mike Evans as well.

But what about Godwin after last week's performance? Where are you? You know, there's a breakout, you know, perfect pasturating for Baker. It is 12 targets, 10 receptions, 155 yards. It's the first time in a half-point scoring format that Chris Godwin has been over, let's see, 8 points since week 8. There have been... And the matchup is great. Do you possibly chase? There have been a handful of great matchups. Week 9, Houston, great matchup for wide receivers. Week 10, Tennessee, great matchup for wide receivers. Week 12, Indianapolis, decent matchup for wide receivers. All three of those games, he stunked up. I mean, I think Chris Godwin is not someone that you just have to blindly...

bench, but I wouldn't blindly go, well, his name is good, and he had a good week, so I must start him. To me, he is, you got to look at who else you have, so let's take a look at some names. If you had Chris Godwin, or you had Jordan Addison against Detroit coming off of his great game, which one would you lean there? I know where I am. Oh, my gosh. So just everything, that's just on the player. He got so seemingly lucky last week. I guess I would chase Jordan Addison. I would as well. I think at this point in their careers, Addison's the more talented wide receiver who can do things. Hopkins or Godwin? That's a really good one as well. I'll go Hopkins. What about the previously mentioned C.J. Bethard, Calvin Ridley.

I would go Ridley for sure. That's an easy Ridley for me. Is it? Yeah. Do you realize how bad he has been the last three weeks? Yeah. Okay. Well, Ridley has been bad most of the year. But his big games are great, and this will be his first game where no Christian Kirk, Jose Jones, perfect matchup. Okay. All right, let's take a break and come back with the ever-important Cardinals Bears matchup. You need to sit this one out, Andy? I don't like that. We can handle it. I don't like that Jason's start of the week is next to Justin Fields' name. My apologies. The Arizona Cardinals at 3 and 11. Chicago Bears at 5 and 9. Drafking Sportsbook line, Chicago minus 4 at home. The overrunner is 43. I can't even, I can't find a case for why Fields and Moore will struggle in this game. I mean, the only hope you have is injury if you're facing him.

His turnovers. Actually, there's two. There's two hopes. Number one, Justin Fields commits turnovers because he loves it. He is kind of into that. Number two, their defense scores points. I mean, Chicago's defense has shut down opposing quarterbacks all year long, including the last six weeks. They have made plays last week. It was the Joe Flacco. They scored a touchdown. Somehow, some way, just taking opportunities for Fields. away from them. But otherwise, I mean, Fields is lined up. Arizona can't pressure the quarterback. Even teams that can struggle to sack Justin Fields at times. His go-to guy is DJ Moore. We talked yesterday about the running game for Chicago where we all had different opinions for me as Roshan Johnson. I think he is the best option. And I still lean foreman. Sure. That's the way out for teams against

Fields or DJ Moore this week is one of one running game one of the three running backs gets hot which that's not a that's not a stretch against what Arizona has done I mean you're hoping for like Deont de Forman has three games here with 20 plus opportunities two of them include a 20 plus rushing attempt game now those were not fields games so the offense was looked completely different but it a situation where Foreman or Roshan take over this game is not out of line. Now, that's the rosy case for if you're playing against it. But if I have, if I have Fields, DJ Moore, Cole Comet. What if there's like a sale on some Christmas items that he's been looking for that goes live midgame? Is there any chance of Justin Fields would? Oh, and he has to like bail on the game? Because if he leaves. It's got to be a real good sale, man. If he leaves, then DJ Moore will be bad.