Week 15 Waivers & League Winners, Playoff Prep - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/13

I'm sure some of it was a product of the Jameson Williams talent and speed, but it was also just a very broken defensive coverage. No one within, I don't know, 15 yards of him. All right, let's take a quick break and then welcome some running backs into the fold. All right, let's dive in. Let's welcome some running backs into the fold. We've got some heavily rostered players, but they need to be mentioned at the top just in case. Check your league. I know. A lot of you are in competitive leagues, and sometimes you scoff that we mention these names. Relax. We'll get to some deeper names. We're a show for everyone. And we pay attention to the roster percentage. So, you know, Derek McKinnon, Zonovan Knight, those two players are over 50% rostered. But, you know, Zonovan showed something last week, 17 for 71 and a rushing touchdown. It wasn't the week that some people hoped for from Michael Carter.

and Zonovan Knight's been involved. And then Jerich McKinnon, nine targets, seven for one, 12, and two touchdowns. You know, impressive week for McKinnon through the air. Yeah, he's, it would be Zonovan Knight for me, but Jerich McKinnon is a, like, he's a high, high variance player because he could end up, you know, just with three fantasy points. But comparative to the rest of these guys we're going to talk about, like, if he hits. I mean, he hits for nine targets and sever for 112. Yeah, it's funny because he's more valuable in the receiving game, I'm less excited about McKinnon, especially against the Houston Texans where, you know, this whole season, you just haven't had to throw on him much. You know, this projects to me to be more of an Isaiah Pacheco game. And McKinnon kind of cycles in and like the, well, who are you taking? Are you going Jujer? Are you going to MvS? You're going to. McKinnon's kind of in that conversation where.

Yeah, you can have a great game. You got Patrick Mahomes throwing you the ball. But also you could just be left out because you got, you know, eight different guys you can go to. Chuba Hubbard last week, 14 for 74 and 1. If you watch the game, he looked pretty good. 39% rostered has Pittsburgh this week than Detroit. Chuba Hubbard is in that category of maybe Diamond in the Rough, in my opinion. This new Carolina offense is doing one thing and one thing only. They are running the ball. It will be established. They have imposed their will against Seattle. It was a sight to behold. Like sometimes we mock the establish the run. But when you execute drives where the defense knows you're running and then you pick up six yards a run or something, it's impressive to watch because the offensive linemen are pushing people around. Tuba Hubbard was getting involved in a big way.

He's just one of those guys that sticks out to me as a sneaky, smart addition to your roster. Maybe my number one pickup in light of roster percentages. Yes, Chuba is my number one pickup at running back for those that are available in the majority of leagues. What I really like is he has the matchup against Pittsburgh, and for a team that wants to establish it, you've got to make sure that you can keep it close. And Pittsburgh is not... a scary offense that Pittsburgh could have Mitchell Trubisky as their quarterback yet again this week. So he is very interesting for some cheap volume off the waiver wire. Another player that would be an instant league winning type of addition if something happened. Jordan Mason running back for the San Francisco 49ers. Yeah, I agree. Did nothing but.

establish himself further as the next man up, in my opinion, in this matchup against Tampa when 11 for 56 had some chunk plays. We know the knee for, you know, like McCaffrey will show up as questionable this week. Atlas can only hold that globe for so long. And so while Christian McCaffrey has the world on his shoulders, should that prove too heavy Jordan Mason will be awesome. Don't know. Atlas had severe tendinitis in both knees. Right. And that's a big problem. Yeah. For holding up the world. You try and hold a planet. I'm telling you, it's reasonable, but he'll break down. What are you doing with the Marlon Mack hype? Two for 62 in the passing game had the touchdown. Not doing anything. I am not very high on Marlon Mack. I see him as, you know, he had one big play. Outside of that play, he's not.

really that involved. You still have... Mike Boone is done. Yeah, Mike Boone's out. Well, sure, but you still have Latavius Murray. I mean, Latavis Murray is the guy there. Am I missing? So he's not injured, right? No, I know, he's still there, but his snaps while they were, you know, trending up the last two weeks they have trended down. He down to 53%. I like Marlon Mack, I'm not hot and bothered by it, but I... Do think that he is in contention if you have to break the glass. Oh, man. I don't think. I will say this. The matchup is okay for them against Arizona, but you probably don't have Russell Wilson. So now you're on a backup quarterback with a backup running back. Griffin. Who, you know, Marlon McGo only played 32% of snaps. So, like, I'm not, there are guys, put it this way. I'm not starting him.

under any circumstance. So if I'm picking up an insurance back, I mean, that would be Jordan Mason, that would be Alexander Madison, these guys where if the starter goes down, they are absolute league winners. If, if Latavis Murray goes down to an injury, you can consider starting Marlon Mack. Which New England running back are you picking up? Pierre Strong was the one that received the two targets. I mean, when I look at that offense, I'm like, I want the closest thing to Romandre, but. more snaps for Kevin Harris. He was the one who kind of started the action and then Strong got going. I would pick up Pierre Strong ahead of Kevin Harris. The question is what you believe about Damien Harris. Yeah. Damien Harris might be the correct pickup. He was doubtful all week, not ruled out until basically a game time decision. That leads me to believe that it's possible he is back from the hamstring issue.

This coming week. It's actually a thigh. That's what I meant. The hamstring would have been week six. Yes, thank you. And then the illness was week nine. And then the thigh is week 13 and 14. So it's a really good time for Damien Harris and staying healthy. But we do know, I mean, I mean, you know, we're talking about. Not the free agency year you want it, Damien. But we're talking about guys who could win your league who are on waivers. And I think it could be one of these two players, Pierre Strong or Damien Harris. But if Damien Harris is healthy, he's the dude. Like, there's not a question. If Harris is active, then it's Damien Harris over Pierre Strong. And maybe this week he's not active. But then the next week, if Ramandre Stevenson is out, eventually Damien Harris will come back, will be the starter, if Ramondre ends up missing.

three or four weeks with a high ankle sprain, which is a normal timeline. And so to me, I'm picking up Damien Harris. If he's available on waivers, which at this point, he might be, he would be the guy. You're that concerned about remandry? Yeah, I mean, a high ankle sprain. Where did you get the high ankle sprain? I guess that's just what it's kind of been. Like the fact that he came in and couldn't finish the game, that is very troubling to me. Yeah, we don't know for sure yet what it is. I saw more troubling than if he was just out to begin with the whole game. Remandre? Yeah, wouldn't it be better that he came back into the game than he was just ruled out immediately for the long term? Because the staff took him back there and they said, hey, you can't play. Wouldn't that have been worse? It's about the same to me. Because I'm saying I'm comparing it to guys who tweak their ankle.

go off, miss a quarter or two, get taped up and they come back and they're able to finish. And then they still miss a week. Yeah, and then their ankle swells up and it becomes a problem. His was so bad that he couldn't finish the game. That's a red flag to me. I just didn't know if you had heard something when he said three to four weeks. But he's just, if it's a high ankle, that's three to four weeks. Yeah, that's all it was is I saw some people speculating that they believe it was a high ankle sprain based on the play. And if that's the case, that's more of the normal timeline.

Ramandre's comment leaving the locker room says when asked whether he'll play next week, he said, I hope, which, of course. Oh, man. So really, really helpful. You drop in Gus Edwards. No, I'm not. Why not? Just in the insurance policy realm? Insurance, I mean, he got a lot of work. Are you dropping him for Chuba? I don't know. Like, Gus Edwards. If he were out there on the waiver, I'd be picking him up. It was him and J.K. Dobbins. Yeah. Like Gus Edwards got a bunch of work. And they're down to a third string quarterback probably. Have we heard anything on J.K. Dobbins that he just flat wasn't injured? I mean. He had a great game. And he looked like he was limping or it looked like he had a brace that was on backwards. And then he just came in and got the touchdown and was fine. He would like Gus Edwards. I'm.

Maybe he's got a new run. Maybe that's why he's out. Maybe he's a little pitter, patter. Trying on a new run. Picked up that, uh, the Adrian Peterson where it's like one step and then throw your body forward. The hitch, the little hitch. Yeah, but last week, he was. Looked more like dragging his leg, but whatever. Again, not fantasy. You didn't get a huge output, but 13 carries 66 yards. I mean, that's, if you're going to end up with that from Chuba, that wouldn't be surprising at all. So I'm not dropping Gus. James Cook. Last week, neither running back did anything for the bills. I don't think I want to. Michael Carter, are you moving on? Yes. Kareem Hunt. Kareem Hunt is in the same realm of insurance. Jordan Mason or Kareem Hunt? Oh, that's a really good. I'm going to go Jordan Mason. I like that you were having some internal dialogue where you're reacting to yourself, whereas, ooh.

Because first, my initial reaction was, well, if they are propelled to the starter, who has more value? But then it became, no, I think the question is, who's more likely that the player in front of them is going to miss time? And unfortunately, unfortunately, Christian McCaffrey, who's on my team, he would be the more likely between him and Nick Chubb to just be overworked and have to miss some time. And we didn't mention him much, but I'm looking, I'm trying to find more information on that, that J.K. Dubbins run. And I'm seeing a quote from him where he said, why didn't he score? He says he was upset that he couldn't beat the Pittsburgh defenders to the end zone.

because he basically ran out of gas. He said, quote, I'm still not in the shape I need to be in because I would have never gotten caught, Dobbins said. Totally agree. That's why we all thought he was hurt. It makes more sense as to why he came in for the very next play. Like he literally was just back out there. He said he's not all the way back, but he's going to continue to get better. And hopefully these 100-yard games will start turning into 200-yard games. That's his quote. So, J.K. Dobbins is someone that we should be picking up off of waivers. I was worried he was injured. Off of waivers?

Yeah, I mean, I think J.K. Dobbins is, let me go look at this. Dobbins, sleeper, 74% roster. If he's out there, if you don't have an IR league, I mean, you would have had to have had him for a long time when he wasn't playing. So I'm just saying there might be a league out there that you should, you should poke. Let's dive into what tight ends are welcoming into the fold. Greg Dulcich, eight targets three for 42 last week, takes on Arizona. So. That's delicious. It is. Again, it'll probably be Brett Rippin for the Denver Broncos, which sucks because the matchup is so good, man. Hunter Henry, 70 yards. It just happens every single week. It doesn't bother me one bit that Russell's not out there, not even the smallest amount.

Russell's awful. Russ played well for a tiny stretch of last game when he started running the ball in a good matchup, and it was great to see. I saw Dulcich get targets from Rippin. But as bad as Russell has been all year, I'm not looking at a change to Rippin as a reason to not go after Greg Dulcich. The matchup against Arizona, I think you can pick him up and play him. Chig Akonkwo. Yeah. 23% roster plays Jacksonville. Five targets in three straight weeks, has the athleticism you want to see. It was a really good play this last week. It's not quite as good of a matchup, but still not a bad one. Is that the right matchup? They play them back to back? Wait, what do we have them as? No. No, they play the Chargers. Okay. That makes more sense. That sounds more likely. I was going to say they just played Jacksonville. This isn't the NBA. With the back-to-back. Chargers are 19th against tight-in and schedule adjusted.

So right middle of the pack. You know, heavily rostered, David and Joku, 80% rostered. Yeah, he's not out there. He's the numeral uno. And then Evan Ingram, 60% rostered. You know, these guys are on. It tells you how the tight-in situation is because Dulcich and Joku and Ingram are probably picked up. So Chig and Hunter Henry would be the actual potential pivots. Ah, man. Do you have the underpants for Henry? Sure. Against the Raiders? Yeah, I got the underpants for Henry. Okay. I mean, the underpants, you need them for all tight ends. So, I mean, putting Hunter Henry in there doesn't feel any different than, you know, anybody. I mean, people were playing Foster Morrow for the last few weeks. You got to feel fine playing Hunter Henry if that was your options. And, you know, Chig is in the same boat. Chig has the chance to be a league winner at the position.

You know, emerging as a design target. What I like about the offense is they run chig plays. I mean, they just call plays for him. They need him to, he needs more snaps to get into that contention. But he's definitely on the radar every week right now. I mean, the nice thing is, I mean, he almost got in twice last week for two touchdowns. And he's a good player. Yeah. Any other tight ends that you want to mention? What about Trey McBride last night? Oh, what a catch. Yeah. I'm surprised you didn't bring that up, Mike. I mean, that was one of the best catches I've seen that tied in in terms of holding on to it. I was 100% sure that that ball was somewhere in the stands. And when they showed the replay, like I watched it, I was like, oh, gosh, he's concussed and that was not a catch. Then I watched the replay and he's like, he held on to it through one of the most brutal hits. Yeah, he went flying a good five yards. I mean, it was a big boy. No penalty, right? I mean, that was just a clean hit.

That was awesome. Yeah, but ending three for 28. I don't know. I haven't seen enough for Tray McBride. And then the matchup with Denver, I don't love it. Yeah. The last thing I will call out because it was brought to my attention from some other industry friends. This is platform specific. But fellas, did you know that Driscoll? of the Houston Texans has tight end eligibility over on Yahoo. What? Yeah. Again, he doesn't unsleeper, which is where we play. So this is not for everybody. I don't know what ESPN's doing with him. Driscoll rules. But it was a full platoon at the quarterback position last week. They'll do it again.

If it continues and you can actually play a 50% snap quarterback in your tight end position. Yeah. I would do that. I would do that over Hunter Henry. Yeah. It's worth a look. And he's actually throwing the ball. A little bit. He ran it more. Yes. But yeah. So it's like. It's a taste some situation. Yeah. For sure. Okay. Wild. Yes. Uh, that seems weird to me because Driscoll's never been a tight end to my knowledge. Yeah, I don't, I don't know what happened. In the preseason, he switched for a second. I remember hearing that. Okay. So I was like, because for years he's been a quarterback and now he's playing quarterback, but I, okay, great. By hook or by crook in Houston. He's got a plan. Yeah. To play tight end. Oh, Driscoll. All right. Let's dive into what team defenses were welcoming to the fold. Super important for this week. Um, Kansas City's probably roster, but they play Houston.

So you better look. They probably got signed last week with the Denver game. Take a glance. There are a number of interesting ones, though, this week. I mean, I've queued up defenses in a number of leagues already. You know, you have in particular the Steelers facing Carolina and Carolina facing the Steelers. Both directions of that matchup are attractive to me. The Green Bay Packers face the Los Angeles Rams. The Packers are lingering. with a small amount of potential to still make the playoffs. They're at home. No more Baker Magic? Probably not. They're at home against the Rams. So that one's interesting. And then I love, love, love, love, love, love the Saints. Yeah, okay. The Saints are my favorite defense this week. Is that because they're playing against Desmond Ritter in his first start? That would be why, Mike, yes. You look.

It usually works out. At home to boot. So the Saints are delicious Cardinals defense, which has been very good for fantasy all year long. Take on Denver and Brett Rippin. That's a great defense. Like there are options. Like to me, this is saying you and your opponent are probably both going to have a pretty good defense. But if you have the chance to play some defense defense, right? Sure. Guard, you know, force them to play a slightly worse option. That'd be nice too. Yep. If you're on your bye week, I would probably pick up Tennessee Titans because they play the Houston Texans. And that's been the matchup. You didn't get put off by the- No, by the Cowboys, by the one, I'm not going to let the one game. I don't think they transformed in Houston. Maybe they come out and it's a very surprising, like, oh, Houston kind of figured something out this week.

I don't think they did. Houston's best offensive player still last week was Damian Pierce. Right, and he will be out. And he's gone. It's an upgrade. It's an upgrade for what? Just look at what happened with Cooks and Nico Cohen. Addition by subtraction? Take away their strengths and their weaknesses become strengths. I see. I don't know. And because they had so many weaknesses, now they have so many strengths. I get it. We didn't mention it at the top. And by the way, week 16, the Browns take on New Orleans, Titans Houston. Bengals, New England, 49ers, Washington. Then week 17, the Giants face the Colts offense. Ravens take on the Pittsburgh offense. That's a good one. Jacksonville takes on Houston. Didn't mention it at the top. We didn't have to mention it, but man, so sad to hear the news about Mike Leach. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What an incredible coach and even better personality.

in the football universe. I saw the quote from Cliff Kingsbury, and I know we don't give him a lot of credit for stuff. But Mike Leach was obviously a huge influence on him. He's part of that coaching tree. But he made the comment that like football is much worse without Mike Leach and then also much less interesting. And it's like, man, I also saw a quote, a really good one this morning. He said, in a world of Urban Myers be a Mike Leach. And talk about two different dynamics of coaches. So that was really sad news to hear. If you want to have a good time, you can go on pretty much an infinite

YouTube. Yes. Uh, dive on just Mike Leach press conferences, interviews. The dude is sharp and funny and fun. Must have been a wonderful time being a player for his team. What was the pine cone? What was like if you're in a, in a pine cone war? Yeah, there's like no time to get out of it. You just got to get in or I don't remember what it was. Jason is correct. Go look up Mike Leach. Quotes, oh, if a pine cone war breaks out, you don't have any choice but to engage in it. There's no neutral countries in pine cone wars. It's like, there's a Yogi Berra-S type of man. Yes, it ranks all the Halloween candy, but like with full sincerity. And that's what makes all of these quotes so great. Him talking about coffee.

Oh, yeah. You shared that one this morning. It's just, it's bad. It's terrible. You don't try a mask it. You just drink it down one sip at a time. Oh, yeah, that's great. I saw him give the marriage advice to a sideline reporter. Oh, that was so awesome. Just told her, go a lope. He goes, well, you want to keep it on the download, but you've done a really bad job of that right now. So. All right. Well, uh, rest of peace, Mike Leach. That was welcome to the fold presented by our friends at Samsung Galaxy. You can unfold the edge to edge screen of the galaxy. It's huge. Uh, Z Fold 4 to maximize your game viewing experience wherever you are. Visit Samsung.com to learn more. Full stream ahead. Well, this, this one's big.

Because you have... Yeah, just don't mess it up, guys. It's a hard... It's genuinely, it's a hard week. Some weeks are easy to stream a quarterback. I think it's easy as in... Black and white, more so. Yeah, I think that there's one clear option at the top, but people will be competing like no Lamar, no Kyler. I mean, there's people who have to make some moves here. Yeah, and you have... No Wolford. I mean, goodness. Well, and some of the guys that you have been in the streaming category, Jared Goff has been... On fire, there's no way I'm starting to drag off personally on the road against the number one schedule adjusted fantasy team against quarterbacks. But I am starting their quarterback is Mike White against Detroit. Detroit, their dead last and schedule adjusted fantasy points allowed to the quarterback position. You know, in six Mike White starts over the last two years, the Jets have averaged 74 offensive plays.

per game. That's number one in the NFL. You're getting a lot of plays. Detroit has been really bottling up the run. They are a pass funnel defense. You could throw it on them and you can't run it on them. So I think Mike White's going to have to do work. And there are, you know, there's some worry about his current health. But if he is active, I think he's the number one, the number one streaming candidate, even if he is banged up because of the matchup. I feel like that is something that. You should dig into a little bit more with the fact that you would play Mike White over Jared Gough. Like Gough obviously had a monster week. I know the Jets are an intimidating matchup, but I feel like that's still a spicy, scary, nerve-wracking type of thing to do. You know, golf's been a top five quarterback two straight weeks. Has he been at home both of those games? Yes. He has, but he also didn't have DJ Chark or Jameson Williams earlier in the year when we were dealing with or DeAndre Swift. So if you take those players away. He still doesn't have Swift.

Um, it's, it's a fair point. I mean, it's a fair point. One week does not make the whole season of, uh, yeah, before it a five. Swift is killing me. But if it's, like, it's a fair point to say he didn't have the, the full arsenal of wide receivers earlier in the season. But it's, it's very difficult to not take into account how bad he has been on the road. comparatively to what he's been at home. Yeah, I mean, he's a tough bench. He's not on the road this year, 227 and 0.4 touchdowns per game. That's his average. So I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying that that will, it sounded like an obvious thing, but I think for other people, that's going to be a really difficult thing. Sauce Gardner, the pass rush, the, the defense that the jets are rolling out there has been troubled for plenty of other great teams.

You know, like I said, they're number one in schedule adjusted against quarterbacks. They're number one in schedule adjusted against wide receivers. Over the last six weeks, they're in the number one matchup or most difficult matchup for wide receivers. They just have a really tough time. And this is in New York. So by extension then, are you, and I know we'll talk about the matchup, but are you like the chark Amman Ra? Amman Ra is in, but that's why I was where initially we like. I think I'm even to have Chark at the top of my waivers currently, but I'm going to adjust that because I would prefer those other players. Like I would pick up Elijah Moore to play over DJ Chark this week. And that's like part of the excitement for Mike White. It is a bummer because Corey Davis is actually, he's good. He kind of has moved himself into this category because he was such an early first-run pick. Feels like he was an absolute bust of a draft pick. We were excited for fantasy.