Starts of the Week + Week 15 Breakdown, It’s Playoff Time! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/15

Yeah, he's obviously dealing with a hip issue, which is the downside. The, you know, the upside is he's been great for the majority of years, or for the majority of the year. He's been awesome at home. And last week he was on the field for 86% of snaps. So you know he's out there. I'm going to start Amari Cooper. You know, I would start him over Pittman pretty easily. Nick Chubb is the RB5 on the year, but he's only been top 24 once in the last month. Donovan People's Jones, double-digit fantasy points in four of six games. He's looked good. He seems to have some sort of rapport with Mr. Watson. But, you know, I like David and Joku better, you know, as a difference maker this week than I think, you know, People's Jones or even maybe Cooper. Yeah, David and Joku's been very involved. He's back completely from his injury. Running a lot of routes had targets and a great matchup.

last week and the Ravens, you know, they're pretty good against the run. I think you're going to need to throw the ball. And David and Injoku's going to be a good option. It was, it was Najoku's highest snapshot of the season off of the injury. Nine targets, seven for 59. He's just, he's just different, you know, physically, athletically. Yes, he is. Even his touchdown, the way he stretched the ball out. I mean. On the other side, the real question is, is can you trust Mark Andrews? Because right now, it's been really bad. I mean, he's going to be on the road in this game. He hasn't hit double-digit fantasy points since week six of the season. You have somebody in David and Joku, Jason, who you love this week. Would you have the stones?

To play David and Joku. I mean, let's take a look. Like versus Mark Andrews. I would love to know the points per game difference between those two on the year. First off, you have to say Tyler Huntley. Right. That's where I was upgraded to full practice on Wednesday. He left Sunday's matchup with a concussion. Full practice on Wednesday. Means he's probably going to play. So at least you have that. If Huntley is out there, it's not a decision to be made. I couldn't put Mark Andrews on the bench. I realize he has not been great. Last week was a complete dud, but obviously ended up with the majority of the game with the third string quarterback. If that same third string quarterback is out there, you might have to take a look at what your options are. But it looks like as of this recording that Huntley is going to be in line to play, we'll know beforehand. And then I would.

Be still confident Mark Andrews. Yeah, they're not too far apart in points per game on the year, David, Injoku and Mark Andrews. And I believe Injoku got knocked out of one game, right? Believe so. So 10.7, 9.2. Last year you saw Huntley with the rapport with Andrews. You hope he can get that back on the road here. The Browns defense 13th against tight ends. Everyone wants to know what you do with J.K. Dobbins this week. The Cleveland defense. 29th against the run over the last six weeks, 31st on the year. This has been one of the best matchups for running backs you can find. I mean, are we all in the J.K. Dobbins camp this week? Yeah, we talked about it last night that the Browns while on the course of the season and even, you know, the last six numbers has been good. The last three weeks, they've been.

shutting down the run a little bit more. J.K. Dobbins is certainly someone that you can start, but I see him as a running back three option solely because he doesn't really catch passes. Because he has a giant rock in his shoe while he's running. Right. His gas tank is still very small. He blamed that for the reason why that run did not house it. Yeah, the best way to kind of conserve cardiovascular health is limping. Yeah, that was, so weird. So I see him as a running back three option that you can start. Zonovan Knight. Oh, it goes Zonovan. Oh, man. Rahim Moster. The weather's going to be bad against Buffalo playing good, but he should be the guy. Eileen Mostert. Naji Harris. Naji. Naji.

Okay, you're living up to your RB3 category here for JK Dobbins. I think it could be a little bit brighter for Mr. Dobbins. I do too. This is the fourth highest run percentage team in football with finally some talent there at the running back position. I think he's an RB2. How about that? Mike? I'd put him at a low end. I think the Zonovan Knight one is very difficult with the matchup against the Lions who have kind of turned it around against the run. And we're not glancing at wide receivers in Baltimore, are we this week? No. No, no, no, no, no. No, not doing it. Let's talk about the weather game here. Miami 8 and 5 taking on the Buffalo Bills who are sitting at 10 and 3. Drafkeen Sportsbook Line Buffalo minus 7 at home. The overrunners 43 and a half. Miami beat the bills in week 3, 2119, where Josh Allen threw the ball 63 times.

But Miami is sitting here. You know, they are on a bit of a funky ride. It's not been good. They've looked pretty ugly on the offensive side of the ball. In fact, a player like Jalen Waddle, who's been pretty quiet lately, is a question mark in terms of the kind of production you're going to get. I think it's been four weeks of struggles for Mr. Waddle. So are we expecting Miami to make the adjustments necessary to give you some excitement in this game? I am pessimistic. Someone like Tyree Kill, who scheme doesn't matter, defense doesn't matter when you have that kind of speed. And Waddle has that, but Waddle has been waddling. It does not seem at full strength right now. So I'm a little bit pessimistic, especially when you consider that, you know, we've talked about the weather a little bit. I'm looking at the weather. I'm not seeing bad weather.

Did it vanish? I'm seeing precipitation chances at 9% now. Okay. So the drop from 90? No, here's what's funny is I was going to bring this up. The source that I usually use that is pretty accurate. I have never seen this number, but it is saying 100% chance of precipitation. So they're not even given a 1% chance that it doesn't. Yeah, that's, man. So pay attention. I mean, whether, weather be weathering. But I think, I mean, it's been projected for rain most of the week. Yeah, so TBD, we'll get an update on that tomorrow. Significant lake affects snow over the weekend with nine inches or more of snow in the most persistent lake snow areas. Heavy snow and wind. Yeah. We'll see.

Yeah, the source I looked up must be inaccurate compared to this. Cameron Wolfe tweeting that out. So it's fair to say there's heavy weather risk in this game. Yes. And the passing game that has been had been flowing for the dolphins, there are more question marks surrounding it when you play a Bill's defense that is the last six weeks, they've started to show some signs of improvement, especially against the quarterback position. And you have the Dolphins going from a West Coast game. You know, they just, or, you know, they, I guess they were, they were in L.A., right? I'm pretty sure the Dolphins played the Chargers in L.A. Correct. And then they played at San Francisco the week before. Yeah. So now they're going to Buffalo. This is just a lot of traveling. There was a good defensive scheme by the Chargers that was implemented. And now you're playing a good defensive team. I'm.

I'm a little bit pessimistic on the dolphins outside of Terry Kill right now. So, Tua, is he entering a category where you're willing to play somebody you have more confidence in that's in the streaming category? Because Tua has been a lock for most teams this year. Yeah, he's right now my quarterback 10. So I have him behind Trevor Lawrence, Dak Prescott, Kirk Cousins. He's right next to Mike White, and that one's always going to be the big question this week is how much do you believe in Mike White? Brooks, what's the question that you had for this game? Oh, about Waddle? You guys are talking about Waddle. I just wondered, like, are there any circumstances you would actually bench him with the worry you guys are. Not for me because, you know, last week was a Tua problem.

It wasn't a Waddle injury problem. He was out there, I think, second highest snap count of the year. And I think the only way for this game to go, you know, the way anybody wants it to go is for these two teams to battle it out and to put some points on the board, divisional matchup. The weather is a worry. That's no doubt about that. I think a scenario that is plausible is what if you had DeAndre Hopkins? against Denver with Kirk Cousins. So on the road against Denver, or you're picking between him or Jalen Waddle. Did you just say with Kirk Cousins? Oh, I'm sorry, with Colt McCoy? Colt McCoy. Yeah, that's his name. You see them the same or? No, just, you know, but Jalen Waddle or DeAndre Hopkins. I'll play Hopkins. Yeah, Cole McCoy is a.

pretty good of getting the ball to DeAndre Hopkins. Yeah, and I had one other name I wanted to bring up with regards to whether you would actually bench Waddle because this one is legitimate. It could be someone you picked up a couple weeks ago off of the waivers. Christian Watson, who's been on fire off the by. Wow. Would you play? If it came down to like you've got really good wide receivers. Yeah. Would you stay in the flames of Watson or the talent? If you're in that boat, I would play Christian Watson, but you're talking about Watson's had like a five or six week run now.

This isn't a one week boom. So hopefully you can play them both. Yeah. Tyree Kill, he's in. Jeff Wilson didn't practice on a Wednesday. Rahim Mustard could get 15 or more touches in this game. Yeah, it should be like the process. It should be a ton of Mostert. Can he come through? That's the TBD part. Will it be the Mostert you've seen or? Boston. That's what you went with? I didn't get crickets or anything. Oh, there it is. Appropriate. Devin Singletary, James Cook, or no one? I don't like this question. I mean, if you have to pick between them, I still lean the explosive speed of Cook right now, but I would go no one as my answer. You know, the running backs we were looking at earlier, Dobbins, all the guys you named earlier, I would play ahead of Singletarian Cook. We're getting a big game out of Josh Allen this week.

Probably, because I think he's going to run. He's going to have to run a lot. All right, the Sunday games. Let's jump in. Philadelphia, 12 and 1, Chicago's 3 at 10. The Drafking Sportsbook line here, Philadelphia minus 9. The overrunners 48 and a half. And the world wants a very, very healthy Justin Fields for this game. Well, he is not. Yeah, right now he didn't practice due to illness, but again. I, you know, send him the, with the emergency. Yes. Send him whatever you need to get him on this field because his availability says a lot to me about the ceiling of this game. This Eagles offense is rolling. Yeah, their number one in points score, the third and total yards, the number one in fourth down conversions. They have been dominating. Jalen Hertz. It's not like you're benching him. No. But if you are in the playoffs, you'd love 37 to 40 points, not 25 to 29.

Yeah, you'd love to see him score in the second half. And he might not need to if Justin Fields isn't out there. And Fields in his own right is a phenomenal start. I realize that the Eagles are a great defense, but it doesn't really matter when you have the running capabilities and the now permission and game plan to run and utilize those. Fields is in. I mean, obviously he's got an illness right now. I would assume by Saturday or Sunday for his game. that he'll be good to go. And if he is, I would play him over, you know, all those guys we just mentioned, that's not even a question, right? Yeah, I'd go Fields. Yeah. David Montgomery's been fairly steady of late, getting a lot of the work out of the backfield since the Herbert injury. You can definitely play David Montgomery. You just want touches. And again, I'd feel better about David Montgomery with Justin Fields in the lineup because I want them, I want him to have a chance to score and get inside the 20. But he'll have enough work.

Chase Claypool. Don't think about that. Colquette. It's hard to remember how good he was playing. Simply because of their by week. But, you know, before the by week, seven targets, six targets, then a four, then a seven, then a six. Most of his games, he's been very involved. We like the actual talent. And, you know, this is the position where you can play mediocrity. Yeah, I think Cole commets back into top 12. Upside. Okay. All right. What about the other side of the ball? Miles Sanders. Seems like a smash play this week. Yep. I'm not overthinking this one. What are you doing with Dallas Goddard, who is still questionable to return? If he's active in this game, are you willing to go right back to Dallas Goddard as a foundational piece? If he is, oh man. Context, of course. But more than likely if he's active, I'm going to put him out there. But we do have the latest quote from yesterday. Goddard.

himself saying it's still up in the air, things are trending in the right direction, but got to get out there in practice and see what happens. Yeah, I mean, you can really put it to the test here with Colcomat. Like if Goddard was active and you've got those two guys who were starting, I would start Dallas Goddard. I agree. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. People are excited to get him back for the fantasy playoffs. AJ Brown and Devante Smith have been great. You've got to get them out there. And again, I hope this is a competitive game. It's a great over under.

And I think that's indicative of what Justin Fields can do even against the good defense. So the recipe for the Bears lately have been stay competitive, make some flashy plays, and then lose. Yeah. So it's kind of wild because the season record-wise is exactly as you prescribed for the Bears. And the performance by Justin Fields has been the surprise and the delight. Like I had a friend of mine who's a Bears fan. just visceral anger at my three-win prediction for the Bears. He tells me now he is hoping they only win three games at this point. They're three and ten, and he wants that high draft pick. If you're a Bears fan, you got, I would be very. It's the best three-win season you've had. I would be very, very pleased. You were able to get some draft capital to try and improve the team. Justin Fields, I think, answers some questions. So you don't have to go into the draft with that really high pick going, ah.

Do we take a quarterback? Do we not? No, it's now take best player available or even trade down. Yeah. I think you're in a very good spot. They have got the resources to build the right way in a division that's going to have opportunities, right? Like this Minnesota team, 9 and 0 in 1 score games, that's something that you see pivot real quickly. I'm old enough to remember when the Cardinals were 7 and 0 last year. And it just feels like the, you know, you look at the Eagles and the Vikings that have just been. great this season. They don't seem the same great. One of them seems actually great. One of them seems like a little house of cards. We get like a lion's bears battle at the top here for a few years. That'd be fun. Atlanta. I don't think Al would like that. But you've had the division for like 100 years. Yeah. Atlanta's five and eight. The Norland Saints are four and nine.

Less exciting to talk about this one. The drafting sports book line. You have a massive playoff implications here. New Orleans minus four over under is 43 and a half. This is essentially a playoff elimination game for these teams, which they should be very much eliminated already, but they're not. So you have Desmond Ritter making his first NFL start, Marcus Marriota, if you hadn't seen on IR, knee surgery, third round pick, Desmond Ritter. If I had to. If I had to kind of carve out what I want to do with my first start in the NFL, I don't think going to New Orleans would be on the top of my list. But I think this coaching staff in Atlanta will do everything they can to prevent catastrophe for Desmond Ritter, which, you know, Mike, you talked about it. I think I'll Spotify live or in the show yesterday morning. We don't expect a lot of past attempts from Desmond Ritter. This is a team that will hand the ball ruthlessly to...

Tyler Algier and Cordell Patterson and Huntley and and Desmond Ritter will run the football like over under genuinely over under of 12 completions in this game for Desmond. I think that's a pretty good line. I lean I lean the over but it's a that's a very tough call. Yeah, I figure about 20 past attempts and so rookie throw on the ball to not great options. Yeah, what a good line you have set there. But it does also insinuate that the running backs will be very involved. Cordero Patterson has, I believe, three games in a row where you're both disappointed, but he's gotten double-digit opportunities. And this is a game where I think you're going to see him more involved and is an okay play. It's not a perfect matchup. But if they're going to score, and you assume, look, even with Ritter, they're going to be, they're an NFL team. They're going to go out there and they're going to score.

and if I had to put money on who gets a touchdown in this game, it would be Cordero Patterson. Just for some context of what to expect, not that I've seen a lot of hype about Desmond Ritter being some sort of playoff winner at the running or the quarterback position, not the collegiate runner that many of these other guys were. I mean, he played 14 games in his senior season, ran for 300 yards. He will be mobile. Yeah, he's, but he's not, he's not Justin Fields or Jalen Hertz out there. Cordero Patterson, I don't know what in the world to do with him. I really don't. Like there's a situation where players have like Romandre out this week. And maybe you have the option of pivoting to a Cordero Patterson. And he's in the kind of scary category. Like we've never seen him with Ritter on the field. We've seen this team stay committed to Tyler Alger at times. Like what do you do with Cordero? Because how low is the floor? Yeah. Since returning from the injury, Cordero is averaging 42% of the running back attempts and 53% of the running back.

targets. So he is, he's not a, it's not a workhorse situation. He is very much a part-time player on a bad offense with a rookie quarterback. So I'm, I'm pretty scared to play Cordero Patterson. Desperate times certainly call for, for certain things. Looking at the matchup over the past six weeks, the Saints are 19th against running back. So, so, you know, right in the middle of the pack there. I don't know if you play any Falcons. He's basically like a Latavius Murray type of player. I'm starting to really. Without Latavius volume though. Right. I'm starting to put it to like to the test where it's like, okay, I think there's an avenue for him to have a very relevant game here. But in reality, I'm going to start almost every option over Cordero. Like when I put the names to the test, it's just like I, there's better paths for most other players.

Kyle, you are the resident Atlanta Falcons expert. Thoughts on starting Falcons this week? Don't do it. You don't have to do it. Just don't do it. Don't do it. You don't have to do it. Got it. What about the Saints, though? The Saints offense, I wouldn't call it dynamic with Andy Dalton at the helm. Chris Olivae is talent-wise outstanding. What do you make of the Falcons over the past six weeks, first against wide receivers in adjusting for schedule? Yeah, I don't know what to make of that. The teams have been able to run on them. You know, that's a piece of the puzzle. Alave is in your lineup. You just need to trust the fact that he is, he's going to be the highest volume receiver they have. Alvin Camara, an opportunity out of the buy to be healthy. No Mark Ingram.

and get the job done. Yep, I'm for it. He's somebody that could win you a week. This is, you know, you might have traded for him or you might have held on through a bad stretch knowing that he had tough matchups. It was for this run of the playoffs. He is absolutely in your lineup. And I believe has a really good game. The Falcons over the last six weeks, you know, you're talking about, oh, maybe they've gotten better against wide receivers. Maybe that's a sham. Regardless, they're not really bottling up the run. Tassum Hill. Is he on your bench? He's in my megalobole lineup. I'm shooting for the moon. Chig, a conco, or Taysam Hill? A conco. I feel like a concoo has a higher baseline with the expectation that Treylon Berks is out. But, man, he doesn't have the same ceiling that Taysam has. Just like what? Darren Waller, if he's activated or Tassam Hill. Darren Waller. I think I'd go Darren Waller.

Yeah, I mean, it's... And chig. But I'm scared. Yeah, I did forget Hugh Taysam ended up as the number one tight end the last time we saw him. Oh, boy. I forgot. Yeah. It was, that was a particularly bad week for the tight end. Big touchdown catch, right? Yeah, but it was with 12.3 points in a half boy scoring format. That's not great. He's not even a good number one. He's going to be out there. He's going to be involved. I'm switching to Tassum. Okay. The Detroit Football Lions, who I am rooting for, six and seven, taking on the New York football Jets, who are seven and six. The Drafking Sportsbook line here, the Jets minus one. I mean, this game is, it's up in the air. The overrunners, 44 and a half. Both teams had six and a half win preseason win totals. Dan Campbell, Robert Saleh.

Both lovable coaches you can root for. Both teams have been the underdog for many, many years, the bottom of the league, really. And so you have this kind of contrast in successful styles on these teams. Detroit defense is a sieve, whereas the Jets defense is their backbone. You've seen the Mike White experience, which has been good, right? The offense has been really good with Mike White. They're one and two with Mike White. So it's been very interesting to watch. You've had the emergence of Zonovan Knight over the last three weeks with 17 or more opportunities in all three of those weeks. You've had Garrett Wilson absolutely becoming a must start option. And then you had 10 targets for Elijah Moore last week. And we don't know. And we don't really expect Corey Davis to be back. Yeah. I think that Elijah Moore is in play. He's probably got picked up this week off of the waiver wire.

We've looked up, you know, how are the Lions doing against slot-wide receivers? And they give up points. You know, you had the big Wondale Robinson game, but that was forever ago. I remember when Wondale had his breakout game? That was against the Lions. Isaiah McKenzie, it's been just really bad over the course of the season, yet good against the Lions. Christian Kirk, KJ. Osborne, these guys had very solid weeks against this Lions team that gives me even more confidence. to play Elijah Moore. And Garrett Wilson, of course, he's in. But going to Zonovan night, I can't remember which running back we were saying, do you want to start him? Because he's been just a breath of fresh air, an excellent running back, getting a lot of opportunities. But that was against Chicago, Minnesota, Buffalo, who you can run on these days. Detroit, not giving up points to the running back position.

first and scheduled adjusted on the season. Second. That's on the whole season. Yeah. The past six weeks, which it could just be a Houston Texans funnel thing where you can throw so easily on this team that you don't really run the ball. That doesn't really matter. The point is running backs are not putting up points on the lines. And it's, it is. Good running backs. You know, we saw Dalvin Cook last week. Sure. We've seen Travis E.TN. We've seen Sequan Barkley. We saw Miami when they were rolling with their running games. If you look backwards, you know. Too big of a sample to just chalk it up to. Yeah, it's not luck at this point. 10 points, 12 points, 5 points, 7 points, 8 points, 10 points. Those numbers? No, no, no. That's.

the number of points below the average expectation of that team coming in. They are really shut. And like you said, it might be half shutting down the run and half opening up the airwaves. But this is why we like Mike. Delvin Cook ran it 15 times. You only gained 23 total yards. Yeah. I mean, you're going to throw the ball. And this is against a team who leads the NFL in yards allowed per game, over 400. This is why we like Mike White. This is why. You know, you feel like you need the passing options. This is why Elijah Moore looks like he's a good pickup and play this week because you're going to throw the ball and find success against the Lions. And they're at home. So you're going to have an opportunity to put that offense on display. The game is a toss-up, basically. I'm excited about it. The question marks are really on the offensive side of the Lions because can you trust this offense has been so dynamic who