Fantasy Football - Week 17 Championship Matchups + Wheel of Shame! - Podcast for 12/26

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Friday, December 26th, 2025. It's the one day that, the one day of five that we don't have football consecutively. But we're here with you. It is championship week. We did not want to miss the opportunity to get you prepped up. you know with amazing advice like Chris Rodriguez start of the week that kind of well to be fair rod to be fair uh his it was great advice again it was great advice again because the matchup was perfect and you called that and bill bill went crazy I mean this is this is the second time in the season in which on the start of the week episode Chris Rodriguez is totally fine in playing and then this time this was bad news I mean I had I was I was

when the news broke that he was out with an illness i mean i posted that immediately and i have not not a couple i have like tens and tens of people that just didn't get to make the change because of christmas morning they were opening presents they were with the family this is why christmas morning should not be playing football and and so people didn't even get to pivot and this was not like oh you've been limited in practice this was um he woke up with the sniffles yeah you got sick and you're out also I almost made this joke like a week ago. I feel like no one ever misses a game due to illness. It's like illness. Oh, they woke up. And then they always just, they hydrate up, they get an IV and they go out there and they play. And oftentimes they play just fine. And then it's like when I saw that this was an illness as his like, oh, he didn't participate. He's, you know, he's got an illness. I'm like, whatever. He'll be fine. He'll be fine. And then it's like, oh, no.

Okay, you tell me hers. Sorry. Well, look, for a guy, for a guy so upset about never getting any opportunities, he sure does miss a lot of games he's going to be the starter for. That was super upsetting. And both times that he's missed, J.C.M had big weeks and 105 yards, two touchdowns on only 11 carries. Yeah, one was 72 yards away, which was pretty awesome. So here we are. We've got 10 games to cover. We've got Monday night football, the Thursday games, or really the Thursday, Saturday games we covered on the last show. The Christmas games were very odd for fantasy football. And I think overall, pretty devastating. Yeah. Like George and C.D. Lamb. Nothing special. 78 yards for George, 46 for Ced lamb. Dack. Dack was good. Dack. Three hundred and a day. Dack ended up good, but Dack also missed C. LAM two.

Walk-in touchdowns. He just missed. Yeah, 19 for 37. He missed some guys. And then Giovante would have had 10 million points. It starts off just so hot. Gets knocked out. Jeremy, the matchup for Dynasty, if you want to know that it's Mike's year, which we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks, whatever voodoo black magic he's using. You go into this. Blood sacrifice, but go on. Yeah. Oh, that's right. So you're out of children now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Dude. No personal problems. I saved so much money yesterday. Um, he opened their presence in the, in the battle between owl and Mike in the main dynasty league. Mike is going in with C.D. Lamb and George Pickens. He's got the Cowboys receiver stack. And on the other side, total anti-correlation, Jeremy has Giovante Williams.

So it's like, oh my gosh. Then early in the game, Javante touchdown. Terrible for you. You don't want the Cowboys to get up. Then like the next drive that the Cowboys have the ball. Yep. Is a whatever it was like 90 yard touchdown. Turpin, 86 yard touchdown. So it takes away a drive from your two wide receivers. It puts them up in the driver's seat to just run the ball. It is perfection. And then Mike goes, uh-huh. Well, come here, my last child. And then next thing you know, Giovante Williams does not come back in the game. He never came back in after the touchdown. He was 13 for 54. And after he left, Malik Davis went 20 for 103, who is a worst player. Give that. I mean, this should have been 30 for 150 and probably two for Javante, but Mike has no more children.

Yes. So I also didn't get very many points. Pickens and Lamb were fine. Terran 5 for 63. We already talked about the JCM situation. Then in the Lions game, I mean, Jamir Gibbs. Let's not call it that. That's not in the Vikings game. Thank you. Brosmer. Domination. Nine for 16 for 51 yards, took 48 yards in sacks. And he won the game. A net three yards for Max Brosmer, which was an embarrassment. Jefferson, awful. They kept showing this man's family. Yeah. And it was like, he had as many sacks as family members there. You're like, stop stop. Stop. They won. I know, I know they're proud. You, you leave. You, yes. Bro's, you leave. You leave. You leave and when, I mean,

Like how do you even talk to your kid after that? How do you say you won? Brozmer won the game. By two scores. Yeah. And, you know, Amon Ra was fine but not great. Jameson Williams. And left at the end with a knee injury, like a couple of plays left in the game. So we'll have to get news on that. The Jemir Gibbs story is one of destroying your season. The last two weeks. If he didn't knock you out last week, he knocked you out this week. Yeah. So. Really, everyone in that, because there's no way you were playing Jordan Addison. I mean, maybe super deep leagues. And then you got that one 65 yard carry for a touchdown. Aaron Jones, I guess, was okay. But everybody else, I mean, just Jameson Williams, two for 37, Jefferson, four for 30. Hey, now, Jefferson had 58% of the team's receiving yards. That's a great number. In the Broncos Chiefs game, Broncos.

as they always do, barely win against teams with bad quarterbacks. Who had 66 yards passing. So you had you had quarterbacks with 51 and 66 yards passing. And honestly, Bo Nick's terrible. 26 for 38 for 182. There was a point in this game where he had 23 completions for. I mean, the yards per completion was terrible. Sutton dropped two touchdowns. RJ Harvey. He saved you with the late touchdown. Yeah, Harvey was the only good play. But that's it. I mean, that was the only good play for both teams in that game. So maybe when Jason tweeted he hates Christmas football, I had a little bit to do with also the games being awful. Yeah. I want Christmas back. But it's okay. It's not going to happen and we move on. Yeah, I wish that we talked about this right before the show. I'm fine with football Christmas or Christmas football. But I would.

Love it if it was just a game. You know what I mean? Christmas night. Big game. I assume Christmas is Friday next year. It is. There will be a game. Yeah, there will be. And it'll probably just be the one. Wasn't it one last year? I don't remember things beyond two weeks ago. Because last year was the first Netflix football. And I thought maybe there was two. I would just say maybe this will be the new Maddenkurs. Look at the game scheduled by Netflix. And those are the, you'll avoid those players in your draft. That's it. That's it. It's our final Friday. Put Clan Friday. I like this name.

yeah i was shaking i was shaking my head because i feel like they pick out names just to mess with me wow weasel 100 gift card to fantasychamps.com goes to wah weasels if you are not wow weasels remember fantasychamps.com when you get your championships this week what uh what code what code do i need you can use the code ballers to save some money i'm going to need it you oh okay this is a personal request i'm going to need it Oh, man. It's so true. It sucks. Is this show over? A real champ doesn't use a coupon. Right. Right, Andy. That's right. He pays double. You want that trophy to be worse something. There needs to be a like super champ coupon that doubles the price. Okay. Yeah, Al is. How much inventory? I was putting his trophy up there because he wants us to remember that he's giving it away. I'm just keeping it warm for Mike over here. Thank you. Yeah. It's all polished up. Me and Jeremy are in a.

Pretty much a head-to-head heads up for the dynasty league. Yeah, I'm coming for that one. Yeah, you're going to win by a lot, Mike. Yeah, that's true too. Oh, man. How much? How much inventory does fantasy champs have? Oh, my gosh. The problem in your matchup with Al that I can't overcome is the unconscionable disparity at quarterback. Because you get Joe Burrow against the Cardinals, and he has to. He has backed into with the injuries. He has to play. Justin Herbert. Oh, yes. Against Houston. Yeah. Like barring. Is their defense good? Yeah, they're real good. They're real, real good. Yeah. And then it's just not if you ask Ashton Genty. I was thinking about your way to win. Your way to win is Javonte to have a big game against his Cowboys receivers. What I was thinking too is that like my team, this is the rebuilding year for me in Dynasty. I thought I'd never do it, right? The credit card bills were piling up.

I don't know how long we've been doing that league, but I've never had a rebuilding team. I've always been in. And I was thinking, like, I won titles with Christian McCaffrey. Like he is still here winning titles for people. The giving up on McCaffrey, moving him for somebody else, it's still him. He's still winning him. He's good. He's really good. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by progressive insurance. If I had kept him, I'd be in the playoffs. That's how good he is. Yeah, probably. I mean, that would have happened. All right. We do have a few injury updates for the Saturday games. Kamani Vidal is questionable. Lamar Jackson. Doubtful. Lamar doubtful. Yeah, there's other stuff saying he's just not expected to play. Jordan Love questionable has been limited all week. I did see he had projections in prize picks. So I thought that was interesting. This is why I think the Ravens announced it earlier. Like, hey, hey, Lamar's not going to play guys. So Jordan, you just.

Take a break, ski. Man, there probably would be, that would be strategically smart. Like if you knew your guy. And they're like, Sike! If you. We said doubtful. You idiots. He's in one of the giant winter coats, the whole one that just rips it off. They're starting to talk about trade rumors with him. What? Oh, man. Cardinals are interested. The Lamar Jackson, like they're talking about Harbaugh's tired of him. Can we interest you in Kyler Murray? Like he's 29, which is when Cam Newton's like he fell off a cliff with the athleticism. Obviously, I think Lamar's, I mean, a great quarterback. It's just, you know, it would be smart. If you were going to miss him anyways, announce it as soon as possible. Maybe they'll be tempted to give love some time for the playoffs. Josh Jacobs off the injury report and we'll start.

They are still playing despite, you know, the jokes about maybe having an easier path to resting Jordan Love, the Packers do have, you know, home field to play for. And Christian Watson, who was practicing. He's sick. But now, he's got an illness. Did he run into Crodd? All I know is. I just hear Crawd when you say that. The illness is going around this week. They are very serious. Maybe. Maybe. Trayvon Henderson listed as a limited participant practice on Wednesday in a non-contact jersey. A.J. Brown, this was shut. Come on, Handel, you're okay. A.J. Brown didn't practice Wednesday or Thursday because he got his wisdom teeth out in the middle of the- You know, you can schedule these for whenever you want, like the off season. Did he, were they infected? I don't know, man, but that's just, it was crazy to be like out of the blue. It had to them. I mean, but even when you have like impacting wisdom teeth, it's like,

You can't wait a month? I don't know. Maybe you can't. Anglon Bolden played football with a broken jaw. Just, just saying. Well, I mean, if AJ Brown plays football, I had my wisdom teeth out. And I could tell you one week after they were out, I was still struggling pretty hard. AJ Brown, I'm sure. How many did you have? Four. Oh, you got a full. I had the full clip. I had the full four. And I got the full four dry sockets. Oh, did you really? Oh yeah. Guys. Did you guys both get your... It sucks. Your wisdom teeth out. Yeah. How many did you have? Four pack? I think so. I was really young. Oh, only two for Josh. Half is wise. That math checks out. I showed up and... I only had one. Legit. I saw... I was like, man, I am... I must be the world's biggest baby. Oh, because of how much it hurt? Because everyone says, you know, it's not a big problem. Like, no, dude, this...

This hurt days of just like, I can't do anything. My mouth hurts so bad. And then I, and you found out. And then once you go back in for the like, oh, you should have came in for the things. Oh, well, at least I'm not a big baby. All right. George Kittle, non-participant. We don't think we're going to see him. Ricky Pearslaw limited on Wednesday and Thursday. He's always been limited. It sucks. I do. Unfortunately, I now think of that with with Ricky Pearson. I never. I never expect anything. Right. And it's so lame because it's like he's getting illegally tackled and hurt every time it happens. And shot. It's like not there too. Yeah. Yeah. That one. Come on Ricky. You talk about not calling a hip drop. Yeah. They throw a flag on the gunshot wound. Yeah. That was news and notes sponsored by progressive insurance quote today at progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company affiliate third party insurers. Not available in all states of situations.

Coverage subjects, policy terms, limits, and conditions. We're into the matchups. Fantasy Forecast, presented by prize picks. We have a couple Saturday games coming up. Texans, Chargers, Ravens, Packers. Both of those were covered on the most recent episode of the show. But why talk about them again when we could talk about the Cardinals at 3 and 12, taking on the Cincinnati Bengals, who are 5 and 10, Vegas line Cincinnati minus 7 and a half. The over under is 53 and a half. The Cardinals are probably going to be without all their players. Buda Baker as well in the concussion protocol, their only good player left. Walter Nolan, I mean, last week. Garrett Williams, on IR. They lost their best player on both sides of the field in Buda Baker, their best pass rusher, and their current healthy best cornerback, which was not their original. They have no defense left. I don't.

really understand how Cincinnati doesn't score 6,000 points in this game. It is the NFL. I thought Denver would score 6,000 points. I thought that Detroit would care about scoring in this game. I did wonder, I mean, when it's actually Christmas and you're at home and you've got fans and kids who, this is their Christmas Day, like those defenses that are good defenses, like there's something special to play for. We talk about like the Chiefs, do they have anything left to play for? No. For the first time ever, no. But you have that to play for. Like, it's a home game. The offensive players don't have kids in presence to play for? Well, I'm saying that the offensive players for this week, this year's Christmas games had backup quarterbacks. They all, all of the home. Was that, no, that game was just saying home game? Yeah, I'm saying the home crowd on Christmas. A new narrative. All of the quarterbacks. Home Christmas present narrative. Yeah. Home Christmas present narrative for the defense. By Jason Moore. Yeah. The Cardinals.

They've lost every game Jacoby Resett has started. Good work, Jacoby. The Bengals got the offense back on track, 309 and 4 last week. The question to me isn't will Cincinnati scored their 30.5 implied point total, which is ridiculous. It's just how? Will it be Chase Brown three times again? Will it be Jamar Chase back into the end zone because somehow he hasn't scored since week seven? Will it be? He's saving them up. for Mike he's saving him up guys Mike has been saying we're getting the easiest championship of all we're getting three each March chase touchdowns oh man you we all know it's coming yeah yeah I don't know I don't know what this is repayment for in your life Mike what you've got through the the the person problems he removed but yeah Mike set up Joe Burrow Chase yes Higgins yes Brown yes if you wanted to mess around with Gisicki I wouldn't even be mad at you because you might get lucky

You might get one. Arizona, pretty trashed. Gassicki's getting three, four, five targets a week. You play Trey McBride. What do you do with the wide receivers for Arizona? I'm definitely still starting Michael Wilson. I know the Bengals have been better against wide receivers recently. Michael Wilson, he's been too good to continue benching or to bench. I mean, even this last week, he got the touchdown, which kind of saved his fantasy day. It wasn't great, but... You know, he's a wide receiver 22. There's been one bad game in the last six weeks. And this matchup is high implied team total. I think the question is, how confident are you in starting Marvin Harrison? Ah, man. He was very limited last week, 51% of the snaps. He's still being limited in practice because of the heel. I think he's an okay-ish play, but this isn't like. Devante Smith or Marvin Harrison? Smith. Juan Dale or Marvin Harrison?

Wondale takes on the Raiders. Zay Flowers with no... That one's interesting. With no Lamar, Marvin Harrison. Flowers... Flowers is still safe. Like, flowers will be... He'll have like probably eight points. Yeah, Snoop is not going to Brosmer and finish the game with 50 yards. Michael Carter or Michael Wilson is a top 10 question. Really? Yeah, Michael Cardner, starter for the... Or Michael Wilson? Yes. Oh, that's an easy Michael Wilson. I say you give me Carter or Marv. I can see that, but not Michael Wilson. Yep. It's the top question right now on the flex rankings. So we're all on the Michael Wilson side of that one? Yes, I am. Okay. And Michael Carter is fine. 18, 13 opportunities over the past two weeks. He appears to be their guy and, I mean, 53.5 point over under. All right. This game should be crazy. If you are playing against Burrow and Chase, I'm sorry.

You should hope that the Cardinals offense throws like five pick sixes and ruins the office. Right. But what about Jacoby Brissette? I mean, I am. Yeah, he's a very good play. All right. Pittsburgh, Cleveland. Pittsburgh 9 and 6, Cleveland, 3 and 12. The Vegas line here, Pittsburgh minus three. The overrunners, 34.5. Lowest of the year, gross. And the lowest since Cleveland, Miami in Week 17 last year. Gross. That is. All five lowest overrunners of this entire season have involved the Browns. It makes sense. Inept offense, great defense. So we also know the Ravens game on Saturday night might impact the Steelers and who they play and how they play them and how much they play them. Because if Baltimore loses that game, which... They probably will. Which I think now without Lamar in Green Bay, which tells you like, man, Lamar must not have been able to play.

This is a back bruise. No, if you, if you watched him after the game, uh, in the locker room, it was like this guy was hurting. I felt like he could barely stand up and he, he said he got what was the shot they get? Torto. Yeah, he got the total shot still couldn't play through it. Turtle shot. Turtle. It turns into a turtle. Throw some light of cane on it too. Just give me everything you got. So Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh only three point favorites on the road. Maybe some of that. expectation is baked in already. Yeah. I like I really love Kenneth Gainwell here with D.K. Metcalfe gone. The matchup against the Browns. The running game has been working against the Browns and passing the ball to Kenneth Gainwell, your current leading receiver. He's running back, but he's got the most receptions on the team. It's perfect, but you have to monitor what happens with that Ravens game because I could see them, I mean.

This could be a game where you... Oh, Caleb Johnson could get three carries? Maybe five, Andy. I don't think that's happened. I have Jalen Warren in two championship lineups as of right now. Thinking about a pivot? Well, I'm at least preparing just in case. So I'm sure that'll come up on Sunday live. Maybe they play a lot of Warren because Gainwell's their dude and they need to keep him fresh. That has crossed my mind. Yeah, I mean... There aren't a lot of fantasy relevant players in this game. You're not starting pass catchers for Pittsburgh. And on the other side, Dylan Samson, limited, limited might be back. But he'll share time, no question. Dylan Samson is not a prototypical three down back. He is a pass catcher. You'll see Raheem Sanders. You'll probably see Trayvon Williams and Dylan Samson all mixed together. On the course of the season, the Steelers are number one against running backs. You're not playing. Nope. Either of them. And then there's really, there's only Harold Fanon. Yeah. Yeah. And move on. Yep.

And that's what we're going to do. We're going to go into the break, come back with the Saints Titans. The New Orleans Shucks. Going to get a shock tonight. Five and ten taken on the three and twelve Titans. New Orleans minus two and a half on the road over under 39 and a half. What a great opportunity for the Shuck momentum to continue, right? Like you look at what matters for the Saints right now and it's confidence in a quarterback for the future. You know, I think he's four and three as a starter, and the record of other starting rookies this year is abysmal. They currently have the eighth spot in the draft. Titans are sitting at five. Tyler Suck has been the quarterback eight in fantasy over the last month. I believe he has started against you this week, Jason. He sure is. He sure is. It is irrelevant, but. It's amazing thinking back two months ago.

to the idea of starting Tyler Shuck in fantasy, much less caring about Tyler Shuck at all. And in the championship game, which it is a pretty good matchup. I mean, Tennessee gives up points to the quarterback position. Tyler Shuck has been playing well. And, you know, this is a team. You remember when they started the year, this team had a very high pass rate over expectation, very fast pace of play. It was great for fantasy football. This is what we wanted to see. It was like we weren't getting ceiling, though. We were getting a real nice floor from the Killamore offense. Yeah. And so, but then they were like trying to, I don't know, be like, okay, we've got Spencer Radler. How are we going to? Maybe we should slow this down. Then it was a new rookie Tyler Shuck. And now I think they're opening it up. And it looks great. Told you guys, I thought Pollard would get it done last week. He's been.

A man on a mission. He's on pay. His last three games, he'd be on pace for 2,000 yards and 17 touchdown. He is like, oh, I'm almost to contract stocks. Let's go. He's 151 yards away from $250,000 bonus. He's at over 100 yards in three straight games. Tony Pollard is fine this week. You talk about the letdowns you had from Gibbs and Monty and these other running backs. Pollard just out of nowhere, hyper-relevant. I mean, he was the most invisible, but a name that you knew, you're like, should I play Pollard? But he was doing nothing. With plenty of work. Yes, it was madness. And now it's gone up even more. I mean, up over 20 opportunities twice in the last three weeks. It's not a great matchup, but it's at home. And I think you just stay in the flames. This is pure NBA jam rules here. Yeah, and not that we're playing.

Cam Ward, but we talked about how Tyler Shuck, Cam Ward is playing much, much better. There is, we were halfway through the year with the Titans and it was, oh my gosh, if we end up with the number one pick again, do we just take another quarterback? But since the coaching change, you know, Weeks 11 through 16, he's completing 64% of his passes. He's running a little bit. Like they, you can see the path now for Cam Ward. Yeah, I agree. Which is very exciting. A lot of people have questions around Taysam Hill and whether he's a viable play this week. They, you know, the Titans have been great against the run, but Taysom Hill does more than just run. He should be the guy that gets a goal line opportunities with basically no running backs left. I mean, out of guesstimate, we thought maybe would have an opportunity last week. He had a total of five attempts on the ground. He's not been good on the ground at all. Somehow he's catching two or three.

really bad passes a week. It seems like Tastom Hill is your break glass play this week, tied in. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because I don't think this situation's ever happened before the two tight ends that I would look for on waivers are on the same team. It's like Juan Johnson, I think is great. You had nine targets last week, eight catches. He's the clear number two target in this offense. Yes, 67 yards away from a quarter million dollars. So you know. He's going after that. Tyler Shucks going to give him that money. Taysam Hill, though. I mean, 12 rushing attempts and four receptions, opportunities around the goal line. Like, I'm not sure which one I would want to start more, but I want to start both. I would pick Joanne Johnson. Because Tasem Hill. So would Jason. It's just to start of the week. Yes. Well, between Juan and Tassum is tough of like.

I think there's a chance that TASem does nothing. I think that that is a possibility. But then there's also the possibility that last week was, this is how we're going to use him now for the remainder of the season with our injuries. He just, I don't know for sure what he's going to do. I can't imagine he doesn't have 10 opportunities on the ground, genuinely. Okay, so you're on the side of. Yeah. I just don't, I saw zero from estimate or hold that makes me think they would pivot from what they did last week. I'm curious who has like higher odds for a touchdown. I feel like Tayson Hill has more paths, whether passing one in, being the goal line back, even catching one. I know Juan Johnson's my start start of the week, but I think I would actually start Tayson Hill over him. Wow. Chris Olavé. Yeah. Has been amazing. He's the wide receiver six. Keep playing him, especially in this matchup. And I think that covers it. I mean.