Starts of the Week + Week 10 Breakdown, Never Not Working - Fantasy Football Podcast for 11/11

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Oh, welcome in. It's football time. Workout version for one team. Oh, welcome in. Thursday, November 11th, 2021. It is Veterans Day. Shout out to all the veterans who have served our country. Thank you. Yes, thank you. And, you know, we were in the studio yesterday, and we were discussing.

The date, right? November 11th. Yes, yes. And we said, you know, like my kids are off today on a Thursday and they're back tomorrow. And we wondered like, you know, some holidays are like the, you know, always the third Tuesday of the month. Mm-hmm.

The reason. Do you know the reason why it's November 11? I do not. See, I said I... That's interesting. This is great. Eleven is my favorite number. I assumed it was because it was everybody's favorite number. 1111 is the best day. Celebrate veterans. That's wrong. That's not correct. They don't just celebrate things on your favorite number. Okay. Well, let's find out why. But when World War I ended, which was the Treaty of Versailles, but fighting stopped earlier when there was an armistice on the 11th.

day of the 11th month at 11 a.m. And that is why Veterans Day. And we can't just like mix it up because Canada, Great Britain and Australia celebrated as well. Wow. That is incredible. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe that is why 11 is my favorite number. And I learned all of that. Maybe. From one of my kids school teachers. So. Those darn kids. Yeah. Learning. I thought it was pretty interesting. That's pretty good. Yeah.

We've got a lot on today's episode. We have some news to talk about the return of a long-loss drop on the show today. We have the Fantasy Forecast Part 1 getting into the week 10 matchups. We have starts of the week, the boom-boom kicker. We've got Never Not Working, which is that it's becoming a fan favorite segment of the show. So as you enjoy that segment, the pressure builds to keep delivering the goods. Never. I never feel pressure.

Oh, you were crying. I'm a valve. You were crying yesterday. I'm a open valve. Just the steam's going out. No pressure ever building. Sure, sure. You can find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Invite you to check out our community. Jointhefoot.com for an extra show. A bunch of premium tools and resources to help you win each week. And let's get right into it. Never not working.

Presented by Head and Shoulders, Scamp Shield Technology, available at Walmart. All right, I'm jumping in today. I will be handling. They never not working in this. You always do the never working. Yeah, around here. It's the best. You should try it out. You get nothing done. It's great. But we want to talk about second half league winners. And because that's what everyone's looking for.

It's the second half. Who's about to take off and who's going to take me to the championship? And so we just wanted to look at, you know, not necessarily just who could do it. But what are the signs? What do we need to be looking for, those variables that could flip into the right direction? You know, how often does it happen? And this week we're taking a look at the quarterback position and the running back position. And, you know, we looked over the last.

three seasons, you know, how many players are actually making that tier jump? And what's happening? So in 2018, we, of course, had the Josh Allen rushing explosion, if you remember, where he was putting up like a hondo and a rushing touchdown every single week. And Lamar Jackson also turned into a starter and ended up as a fine fantasy player. 2019 was incredibly fun because you had Ryan Tannehill go from

escaping Adam Gays, a new team. He ends up taking over for the Titans and then works his way into fantasy glory and a big bag of money on top of that. And we also had Ryan Fitzpatrick. If you guys remember second half Ryan Fitzpatrick of 2019, it was freaking awesome. And then last year, Cousins and Derek Carr. So what we're looking for here is,

Room for positive touchdown regression. They're underperforming there, which for things like the league average, you know, we talk about this number on the show. It's about four and a half percent or so. It fluctuates from year to year, but four and a half percent of your attempts turn into touchdowns. They have an untapped rushing upside like Josh Allen, and of course, rookies get a bump because they get experienced and they just play better over the second half of the year.

And after running all of those variables, and here's the thing about second half, guys, like in 20, let's just go to the last year. In 2020, if you had said, guys, Kirk Cousins, who is the quarterback 23 over the first half, he's about to get in a rocket ship and go to just fantasy glory and finish as the quarterback three over the second half, you go, you sound stupid. Yeah, you sound like. So that's the goal here. How dare you.

infer that Kurt Cousins is going to be dominant over the second half. But that's what you've got to look for. So Daniel Jones has the fourth easiest. You sound stupid. Exactly. He's got the fourth easiest quarterback strength of schedule. He is surrounded by weapons. And we have not seen a fully healthy arsenal of New York Giants wide receivers from Shepard, Gulladay, Tony, and Slayton. And Barclay. And Saquan Barkley.

It's crazy how much talent Daniel Jones is surrounded by, and yet... And never has. He still has never fully been surrounded by that. He has the positive regression that could happen for his touchdown rate, and he runs. We know that these things are true for Daniel Jones. So he's an interesting guy to watch. He had the same touchdown rate last year, though. I know. I know. But that's why we're giving these names. They sound stupid until they're not. And of course, Trevor Lawrence, his schedule is

It does open up pretty wide aside from his championship week against the Patriots on the road. Got to get to the championship. But his schedule is easy and he fits into the mold that we were talking about. So he might be interesting a player to watch. What's his touchdown rate so far this year? I haven't 2.7. Yeah. And that's well under the league average. So that like he doesn't need to be Herculean.

He just needs to be average in the touchdown department. And all this in Trevor Lawrence is far more interesting. At the running back position, these are the variables we're looking for. Young players, the majority of the second half breakout candidates, their first or second year players. Every once in a while, you get an old guy like Colonel Mustard or the Yeti, but those are like...

Last year. Those are fringe cases. Jonathan Taylor, David Montgomery, J.K. Dobbins, J.D. McKissick. Huge leaps in the second half for those players. Yeah. J.D. McKissick was the one older veteran who came through. But, you know, Alex Smith took care of that. But you want to look for it. So a young player, nice schedule. Like Monty had such a nice schedule last year. And Jonathan Taylor. Yep. Where the opportunity was there and they took advantage.

We need room again for positive touchdown regression. And will the backfield, can it clear up? And we've been talking about it for a while, but you've got to mention again because Giovante Williams, it could just stay status quo. Melvin Gordon can be in this category too. Like if Giovante Williams misses time, the schedule for the Denver Broncos running backs is so ridiculously juicy. They have literally one bottom half matchup from now.

through championship week, and that's week 13 against the Kansas City Chiefs. So both of those guys have a huge opportunity here to turn into a, to give you that second half league winning performance. And guess who's back? Oh, baby. I'm back again. I've been waiting. David Montgomery, he's the third easiest strike to schedule for the way that we gauge these things, where he has a tough matchup in week 13 against Arizona. Green Bay is...

Middle of the pack. But everything else is just green lights for David Montgomery, who returned right to the workload. But other players, you know, Elijah Mitchell and Michael Carter, they are the, they fit young player, positive touchdown regression could come, and the backfield could clear up. So those are names that we want to keep in mind for second half breakouts here for the running back position. It's,

delightful when you find one of these guys. You never ever forget when you hit on one of these players. They go into your Hall of Fame. They can do, like for me, you hung a, you hung a poster up once. Yes. One of your heroes. I don't know if you guys have names that immediately come to mind, but for me, Robert Griffin was, he was pretty good all year, but I mean, he helped carry me. And Jeremy Hill, well, if you've listened, if you've listened to this show since the beginning.

Jeremy Hill was someone that I was just so convicted in the draft process. I drafted him everywhere. I sat on him for nine weeks of nothingness. And then he just, he fit the bill, Giovanni Bernard. Was that the year he eliminated me from the playoffs? Yes. He eliminated everybody from the playoffs because he went just full hamburger over the second half.

Tim Hightower was my guy. Oh, yeah. For the Saints year? The Saints year when he was that waiver wire pickup that went ham at the end, got me a championship. You never forget those guys. So yeah, David Montgomery, Giovante Williams, Elijah Missile. Go trade for them. All right. Get up to 100% standard of protection that's never not working, just like this segment with head and shoulder, scalp shield technology available at walmart.com. News and notes from Around the League, presented by Sleeper.