Fantasy Football 2017 - Starts of the Week, Week 1 Matchups, News

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One of the leading daily fantasy lineup optimizers trusted by 50,000 DFS players. SquadQL recommends the best starting lineup for each week based on your starters, bench, players, and free agent pool. Head to squadql.com to download SquadQL for free today. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Coming to you from the Playdraft Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the season. Welcome one and all. Football today. Did you do a dance? I am so genuinely excited to just sit and watch real football where the stats matter, where players are on the line, where I destroy you two in our leagues. We actually need you to spend some time in the office during the game working on the ultimate drive kit for next year. Wait, what? Yeah.

You got to get that going. Sorry, bro. Oh, man. Yeah, you're the draft guy. All right. But, uh, yeah, we'll watch. We'll let you know what happens. Thank you. I would have very much appreciate that. Uh, Andy, Mike and Jason back again, the fantasy footballers podcast. Thanks for joining us on today's episode. It is, look, this is a regular season episode. We've got the fantasy forecast for previewing some matchups. We got our starts of the week. We've got the return of Jason's epic kicker pick, of course, and some news.

We got Super Bowl predictions on the show today. This is a great one. I'm excited. Football's happening tonight. All of our week one rankings are up and on the website. The Fantasy Footballers.com. The DFS passes up. Those of you that bought the ultimate DFS pass that is available on the website. Guys, I mean, it's we made it. We made it. It's happening. I feel like that gift right now. It's happening. Blazers and crazy backgrounds. We're here.

It's exciting. All right. Let's kick it off with the Super Bowl predictions, guys. We each, you know, this is just fun to do. The season's about to start. I want to know who you have going to the Super Bowl, and I want to know who you think wins the Super Bowl. All right. And I'm going to, I'm going first because I can't go second or third. I have the New Orleans Saints coming out of the NFC. I think the defense has improved.

Drew Breeze always gets it done. Sean Payton, he has depth at the running back position, and I think they do enough. They certainly can win that division. I think that division is going to be competitive. But I know it's a little strange, but I'm going to take the Saints versus the Patriots. I'm going to take the Saints to win it all. Wow. Yeah, look, I like the not chalk pick, but I don't like the pick being the Saints. I can't.

I have a hard time right now seeing them make the playoffs, but I know I stand alone here. Mine is going to be rather chalk. Of course it is. Well, because you like to win. Yes, I'm trying to, trying to predict what's going to happen. I think it's going to be the Patriots narrowly over the Steelers. And I think that they will run up against the Seattle Seahawks. And the Seahawks will do.

what they could not do last time. I think the Seattle Seahawks will be the Super Bowl champions this year as much as it pains me to believe that. Interesting. And I'm with Andy. I have the Saints. Which is crazy in the Super Bowl. That is insane. You guys picked this separately. And you did not know mine. And we both somehow chose the Saints out of the NFC. I have the Saints. Not the Seahawks, not the Cowboys, not the Packers. Nope. I'm taking the Saints.

I'm taking the Steelers. You could say not the Falcons in the same division. I'm taking the Saints versus the Steelers. Steelers win another Super Bowl. Big Ben rides off into the Sun and he's done and he's retiring with another Super Bowl. Wow. Yeah. You know, I had a real hard time going Patriots over the Steelers. I think the Steelers could absolutely get there. But.

I don't see anybody stopping this Seahawks team right now. All right. Follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers. If you want to follow each of our individual accounts, Jason is at Jason FFL. Mike is at FFHittman. Mine is at Andy Holloway. And the community is join the foot.com. Tons of you are joining up, joining the foot clan, supporting the podcast, getting access to the community, getting access to tons of unique.

features like flex projections and premium projections and access to an extra show every single week. So you can check that out at Jointhefoot.com. Guys, we need to talk some news. News and notes from around the league. That's the first time you almost cut yourself off with a sound drop. You know, he's ready. He thinks if we get the show done quicker that football will just be here sooner. One of my.

potential starts of the week was going to be Eddie Lacey going up against the Packers defense with Thomas Rawls and news of a high ankle sprain, his availability in question. However, Thomas Rawls is now practicing in full for week one. So while Pete Carroll did say that Eddie Lacey is ready for a full load, it doesn't look like that's what's going to be required. And so I'm not willing to go start Eddie Lacey against his former club in week one as a must-start candidate. I'm not starting anyone.

in that backfield this week. I'm going to let it shake it. Yeah. It's interesting, though, because, well, we'll talk about it later, but your start of the week is in a similar type of situation, high scoring offense, unknown backfield situation. You're talking to Jason. Yeah, mine is. And I, wait, you're the one you start? Yeah, that's my start of the week, bro. And we'll talk about it later, but I think there's a big difference here in the situation. One is on the road, one is at home.

And statistically speaking. We'll get there. All right. O'Dowell Beckham Jr. did some light running on Wednesdays at Wednesday's practice. What do you think about O'Dell Beckham's availability for week one? I think he's going to play. But this is really unfortunate. He is Sunday night football. Yes. You better have a backup plan. Yeah. That's a really good point to bring up. He's Sunday night.

So you can't wait until game time and then think about, oh, shoot, I don't have anybody left to play. Make sure you've got someone in the Monday night game or someone else in the Sunday night game. And I would take...

O'Dell Beckham and put him in your flex right now. And any player that's like that that's, you know, possibly injured and you're going to have to wait to find out if they're playing, put them in your flex spot because it just gives you more options to, you know, okay, if I need to switch to a running back or something like that. And also, since we're talking about this, pro tip, if you have a player playing tonight, Tyree Kill or Kareem Hunt, anybody in tonight's game.

make sure they are not in your flex spot, even if they're like, they're not your RB1 or they're, you know, they're not your main guy. The points are still the same. The points are still the same. Get them in your running back spot or your wide receiver spot so that you have more flexibility later on in the week should things happen. Yeah, you never know what kind of practice injuries or things might happen to your other position players. You don't want to be stuck in a situation where, oh, great, I'm out of wide receivers because I played Tyree Kill in the flex and now I've got to go sign somebody.

Okay, other news worth mentioning, I think it's interesting. Nick Boyle's listed ahead of Benjamin Watson in Baltimore. Watson may still be the past catching tight end with Boyle blocking a lot more. We don't know how that will play out, but you are coming into a situation where, look, the leading tight end receiver last year in total catches was Dennis Pitta in this offense. And all they did was basically lose Steve Smith and Dennis Pitta. So there is a role.

For the tight end pass catcher in Baltimore, we just don't have certainty on who that will be and how often they'll be in that position to, you know, is it going to be Ben Watson and Boyle catching passes? Is it going to be somebody else? Max Williams could even sneak in and be surprisingly effective. So that is a situation worth monitoring. Yeah, if this game happens and all of a sudden one of these tight ends has five or more targets, I'm.

And you're that tight-end streamer, you might as well scoop them up off the waiver wire. Yeah, I guess it's worth saying that even though Dennis Pitt had had, what, 86 receptions, he wasn't a fantasy force because he didn't score very often. In PPR, he was relatively safe, though. All right, let's talk about Leonard Fornett, not listed on the injury report for week one against the Texans. That's still a really difficult matchup in week one as a rookie.

But he has not listed on the injury report. So that's good news for owners. I think that's all that's worth talking about. We do a full injury run through on tomorrow's show as well, kind of an in or out. Do we think if somebody's going to play or not, we'll weigh in on O'Dell Beckham Jr. a little bit more tomorrow with more news. Is there anything else you guys want to bring up? I don't get to these games. Let's do it. Fantasy forecast. It's good to be back.

If you missed the preview of the Thursday night game, it was on yesterday's episode. So you can go back and listen to that. We talked about the Patriots and we talked about the Chiefs. Is there anything that has changed in that matchup that's worth mentioning in your minds? I'll say this. Since after that show, the most popular question that I get on Twitter right now is whether or not you start Kareem Hunt against Patriots' defense, I think absolutely you start them. Andy brings this up.

every year, but it's worth noting that there is an advantage to having a player play on Thursday, not just that you get to watch them on opening day football. That in and of itself is a huge advantage for life. But the fact that you get to know, like if Kareem Hunt has a great game, maybe you play someone safer, or if Kareem Hunt doesn't have a good game, now when you're making that decision on your roster later, you go, oh, I'm going to play the high upside guy because he didn't play well. You get, you know.

You get a little bit more information before the main event. I mean, that's the only way you don't play Kareem Hunt is if you drafted earlier, you drafted before the wear injury. So Hunt is a depth piece on your bench. Otherwise, if you drafted after the injury, I mean, you took him to be a starting running back. You're going to play him. All right. A little bit of an update on Odell Beckham. He's not practicing today either.

So he's not practicing Thursday. Similar routine as Wednesday, where he warmed up with the team but did not practice. Let's start with the Jets and the Bills. There was news this morning. LaShawn McCoy sitting out practice today, Thursday. Illness. With an illness. Let's talk about this game, but let's try to talk very little about this game, just as a service to our listeners.

The Jets and Bills, probably, though, this has got to be the lowest over under the week, right? 40 points? Yeah, probably. I mean, probably down there with the Texans game. I think the Texans is slightly worse. It actually looks the same, 40 points. Jets, Bills, Bill's 9.5 point favorites. This may be the only time you see that this year. Tyrod, Taylor, Josh McCown, the quarterbacks, Taylor, likely to start. Yes. Should start. But a concussion makes him very risky, you know, coming off at the concussion.