Fantasy Football 2017 - Starts of the Week, Week 8 Matchups, Andy’s Happy/Sad Game

kind of disappointed. He's still threw 250 yards and two touchdowns, no interceptions. That's a great game you're going to start with one touchdown. All right. Yes, that's true. Pick your favorite running back from the Patriots. Dionne Lewis. Deon Lewis. Stick it with James White? I'll stick with James White. You're starting Brandon Cooks. You're starting Chris Hogan. You're starting Grankowski. Look, the decisions aren't difficult on the New England side. I'm going to bring up a stat. You guys, I don't know if you've ever looked at this or considered it much in fantasy football.

Philip Rivers, right? We look at him and we've been saying the opportunity for him to kind of be that, you know, high passing volume, relevant fantasy quarterback. And this week he should be good, right? New England's not been good against the past. Have you ever looked at time of possession year over year on these teams? You know, you just talked about Andy Dalton in this game last week. They only had 20, they had the ball for 24 minutes. It was really, really low, specifically last week against Pittsburgh where, like, Carolina leads the league this year.

33 minutes a game. They have the ball. That's opportunity, right? We talk about snaps. Look, if you've got the ball more often, you've got more opportunity. It's interesting that this year, the charges are the fourth lowest in the league in terms of time of possession. You're talking at 27-minute average. So while Rivers has been very good while he's on the field, you actually have a gap of almost six minutes there compared to Carolina or the bigger teams in the league where they just aren't.

giving him an opportunity. You literally have six minutes less than another team has to put up production. I wonder if that's part of the factor why you see Rivers the player doing okay and Rivers the fantasy player being a little bit inconsistent. It's all those Melvin Gordon causing three notes. Oh, yeah. Melvin Gordon's going to go off this week. Melvin Gordon is a great fantasy player. He probably will.

You know what? Or four and outs. Give him credit for his goal line for an hour. Oh, man. That was amazing. That was so terrible. Look, they haven't had the ball a lot. I'm pretty sure you give me four tries. I'm getting that in. You are just saying. Pretty sure you're not. You're correct. Well, as long as I don't pass away on the first carry. Yeah. But Phil Rivers isn't been getting it done.

with the low time of possession. And I don't expect that that time of possession being, you know, the fourth lowest in the league is going to continue because they are a team coached by a running back coach that wants to run the ball if they have the opportunity to do so. Except they're throwing the highest percentage in the league. I know. That's what I'm saying that.

That's not what they want to be doing. It's what they've been forced into doing in several of the matchups. You think, you know, week one against Denver where you talk about time of possession, Denver was just dominant controlling every aspect of that game. And it was at the very end of the game where they just had to throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw. And Philip Rivers got all of his value there. You saw that, you know, Kansas City. That's mostly because they couldn't run the ball. Philadelphia.

But can they run the ball against the New England Patriots whose run defense has been horrid? And then their best and maybe only run stopper now is out for the season. I think Melvin Gordon is going to have a fine game. And Philip Rivers should have a fine game. In this matchup, I'm fine starting. I love Keenan Allen. I love Philip Rivers. I love Melvin Gordon. Let's play an Andy's Happy Sad Game mini game.

Mike, I want to know your thoughts on Keenan Ellum this year. Ooh, happy set. I think you're mostly happy. You're cracking a smile. Yeah, you're not grinning from ear to ear. It has certainly been rough the past couple weeks considering, you know, 41, 45, 67 receiving yards. But those, aside from Oakland, you know, the Giants in Denver, it's a little bit tougher.

on the passing game. But, I mean, you're mostly happy. Okay. With the draft position, you had to give up for Keenan Allen. Yeah, when you watch the games, he's the clear number one target. He's the go-to guy. No one expected a good game last week against Denver, and you got what you expected, which was a bad game. All right, let's talk Bears Saints. The Saints are nine-point favorites at home. The Bears, a surprisingly good team this year. I think, you know,

the defense has performed. They're in the top 15 against the, they're in the top 12 against the run and the pass. The Saints have managed to shore up a defense that looked atrocious to start the year. What are the headlines for you guys this week when it comes to this matchup in New Orleans? My number one headline here is you have to check out Jay Gris on Twitter at Jay Gris FFL and his throwback Thursday picture because it's incredible.

For the Bears? No, it's Jay Gris as a baby. Wow. It's his throwback. I don't know how he got the photos. But my highlights are Jordan Reed is. You just retweeted it. You're darn right. I did it. Jordan Howard is, are you playing anyone from the Bears except for Jordan Howard with any kind of confidence? No. Jason? No. And that includes Zach Miller, not interested, not really touching any of those guys. They won a game last week with four completed passes.

That's impossible. That's absolutely impossible. An opportunistic defense with the Saints. I'd play the Saints D in this game. Mitch Trubisky can make mistakes. And unlike last week when they did not have to throw the ball, two defensive touchdowns for Chicago, it is a near guarantee they're going to have to throw the ball in this game. I mean, you have, I'm excited to see if Dantra Leman works into the rotation. I'm excited to see what Trubisky can do.

You know, maybe you have a flyer on- Maybe five completed passes. Maybe you have a flyer on Tariq Cohen because they're going to be probably down in this game trying to come back. But, yeah, I mean, it's not exciting. You know, the same way that you feel right now about Tom Brady is how I feel about Drew Breeze in this game. You're starting Drew Breeze. He's at home. It's okay. But I think the expectation, you look at, oh, it's Drew Breeze at home against the Bears who are, you know.

a lousy team. The Bears defense has been really, really lock, solid good this year. And I did not say they're a lousy team, by the way. No, no, no. I'm saying the perception is in the world right now is that they're still a poor team. But their defense has been really good. If Michael Thomas is dealing with injury, Willie Sneed is dealing with injury right now, you know, are you going to be able to, basically what I'm saying is my saints at home.

excitement that I usually have isn't quite as high because I think this matchup, the Bears are going to try to run Jordan Howard 40 times in this game if they can. The only way they're not going to be able to do that is if the Saints get out to a big lead and Drew Breeze is able to get a two or three possession lead by the half. Otherwise, Jordan Howard's going to keep the clock running, keep the score lower.

And so my expectation for almost all the Saints is a little less than the usual fire him up. So 47.5.5. Over under. I would take the under in this game. All right. One more matchup before we get. And just we didn't say their names, but Mark Ingram and Alva Camarra, they're both most place. Yeah, you have to play them every week regardless of matchup. One more matchup. Then we're going to get into our starts of the week. So stay tuned for that. The Atlanta Falcons travel to New York to take on the Jets. The Jets just.

blew that game against Miami last week, but it was a competitive matchup. 46 point over under. The Jets are four and a half point underdogs at home in this game. The Falcons, their offenses struggled. We saw this on national TV last week. We kind of saw. It was really hard to see. It's true. Oh, with the fog. The fog match. Yes. It's funny that we got that Madden view for the majority of that game because the sideline view. It was so great. I enjoyed that. You liked it? I loved it.

I loved seeing a little bit more what the quarterback sees. And I wish that they would rotate that camera into the regular. More often. Yes, more often. Yeah, I think a lot of the feedback that people had was in that direction. They said, hey, you're looking at the future of watching NFL games. I'm so used to the product because I'm got the Werther's originals in. I like the old school. But it's unique.

It's definitely, it gave you the ability to actually see the game. I mean, imagine they don't have that camera. All of a sudden, your broadcast is a white fog, which maybe is better than the Atlanta offense right now. All right. You're starting them all up, though. The Jets, they can't play defense, right? Yes, correct. That's correct. Freeman, Coleman. I'm still going to play them both. Kevin Coleman, limited in Wednesday's practice, had 19 snaps last week. Could see a little bit more action for Devante Freeman this week.

We better? Come on. I think that's the disappointment with Freeman. I was talking about earlier. There's been games where his workload's been low. He's been hyper-efficient, which has saved him. Like if you looked at players that have been the most efficient versus least efficient before last week, Freeman was the most efficient on touches to touchdowns, where McCoy had been like the least efficient on touches to touchdowns. So Freeman this week, you got to start him up. You got to love that 28th ranked Jets D when you talk about a big game from Devon to Freeman.

Yeah, I look at this game and I kind of have the opposite feel of the previous game we were talking about where I expect the under. Here I expect the over. I think you're going to have two defenses, especially with the New York Jets being at home and McCown looking sharper and more in control of that offense as all these new pieces kind of gel together. I think you're going to get some points thrown up. There's not a Falcon, you know, as far as I'm obviously starting Julio.

You're starting Matt Ryan. You're starting Devon to Freeman. I would also start Kevin Coleman. And I would also start Mohamed Sanu. He was so involved this past week that I think against the New York Jets, you're able to start him. So I'm basically firing everyone up. I don't love Taylor Gabriel. And Austin Hooper, I mentioned this on the last show, but Austin Hooper is a guy that when Muhammad Sunu has been in the game.

He has not been involved as a pass catcher. I know he had those, you know, that crazy long touchdown in week one. I would not touch Austin. No, I wouldn't either. That's what I'm saying. Now that Sunu is back, Hooper has not been used as a pass catcher. For the Jets, you got Forte. Maybe McCown. I'm for sure playing Forte. Okay, McCown. Yeah, McCown is a great streamer. I mean, ASJ. You're starting in for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And we looked at Jermaine Kirste yesterday. I mean, he's having a better year than a guy like Richard Matthews. He's been involved, four more receptions, I think, each of the last three weeks. If I had to pick one, he'd be the guy to pick from that wide receiver core. You'd go curse over Robbie Anderson? Yeah, and Robbie Anderson had been limited this week. You're looking for a big play with Robbie Anderson. Curse, you're looking at a safer floor. It's fair. Yeah, I think I would avoid either one of those guys, if possible, and it probably is possible. So Jeremy Curley for Jason.

Negative. Starts of the week. All right, it's time for our week eight starts of the week. Well, I'm taking Matt Ryan. I'm taking Matt Ryan against the Jets. I think they'll get it figured out against that past defense. This is 24th in the league. This is the past defense that just gave up 326 and four touchdowns against Miami's half Cutler, half more quarterback situation. Maybe that's the answer for the Dolphins.

Go 50-50? Yeah. Jay Cutler starts the first half and Matt Moore. No, you got to mix it up. You don't know who's starting which half. What if you put them both in at the same time? Incredible. Sorry, Andy. Revolutionary. Thanks for that, guys. Matt Ryan, I'm going to take him as a start of the week. Basically, this is me saying have some confidence in Matt Ryan after the disappointment of last week. The Jets, I think the Jets will be able to score on Atlanta. I think this game.

I think this game will turn into a pretty good one for fantasy players. So I don't think I read the over under earlier, but it's 46 points. So I'm going to fire up Matt Ryan. I'm going with the chocolate grasshopper. Oh, my goodness. Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals, he takes on the Colts. So much terrible about that nickname. I like it. I like it. But he's taking on the Colts. The Colts defense in recent games, they gave up 330 passing yards to Blake Bortles.

They give up over 300 to a completely immobile Marcus Mariotta who got shut down by the Cleveland Browns. By the way, the next week. They also gave up over 300 yards to the now benched Brian Hoyer. You get a 300 and you get a 300. I feel pretty confidence that the jockey grasshopper is going to sustain nutritional value. Okay. To your fantasy teams.

I am going to Andy Dalton. Andy Dalton, quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals. I'm taking Phillip Rivers of the Los Angeles Chargers. I was looking up data and I just couldn't find the data I was looking for over and over and over because I couldn't find SD. Because you were looking at San Diego. I was looking for SD. Oh my goodness. No, they are the Los Angeles Chargers. You wouldn't know that by going to Los Angeles and sitting at their stadium. But.