MEGALODON Episode - Week 12 Matchups, Starts, Turkey Day Awards & More! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 11/24

But Jonathan Taylor has now finally passed them both in reality and in the rushing totals. All right. Let's talk about these Thanksgiving matchups. Let's start here with the Bears. The Bears and the Lions on Thanksgiving Day. Three wins between them. All of them, the Bears. One tie. The thing, the Draft King Sportsbook line here, Bears minus three. The over under is 41.5. Oh, you've got to love that morsel.

on Thanksgiving Day of points. Both offenses, bottom five in yards per play, both in bottom five points per play. Detroit's hit the over once. The Chicago Bears have hit the over three times. Matt Nagy versus Dan Campbell. And have we even reported that Matt, we haven't. I was saving it for this. Matt Nagy, it's been reported. We'll coach his last game. Allegedly.

Yeah, allegedly. He was asked the question. Point blank, congratulations to the reporters having the stones. The stones to be like, hey, so how do you feel about the report that you're about to be fired? He said, he has not been told that. He's had great communication. So maybe this was leaked. In 101 years, the ownership group of the Chicago Bears have never fired a coach midseason.

They need to change that. I'm guessing the discussions they had might have included the words, don't tell Matt. Yeah. So, you know, kind of a lame duck game for Matt Nagy potentially. Andy Dalton will start this one. Detroit's not an intimidating matchup for Andy Dalton. They have weapons, Darnell Mooney, David Montgomery. There are reasons to be kind of optimistic here. They're favored in the game. 22 points has to go somewhere.

I think Montgomery and Mooney are pretty locked in this matchup. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, I would play them both. And I think in a pinch, you could play Cole Comet, who again, the behind the scenes numbers, snap counts, routes run. He's out there a lot on the Detroit Lions side of the ball. I mean, we talked about earlier. DeAndre Swift is auto locked in. And Hawkinson is probably locked in because of his position. And then you move on and you just apologize to your family.

that this is one of the national games on Thanksgiving. Okay. I think that's a fair summation. The Raiders at 5 and 5 play the Cowboys on Thanksgiving. Cowboys are 7 and 3. Huge bounceback week for them, and then they went into Kansas City and looked a little shaky on offense with no weapons. Drafking Sportsbook line at home, the Cowboys minus 7.5. The over under is 51 points. Gives the Cowboys just under 30. The Raiders at 21.8.

The point scored since what, the bye week, 14, 16, and 13 for the Raiders. I know that there has been, you know, you tied it into Henry Ruggs leaving, which, you know, we helped the offense. But I don't think it's all of that. I think it's the head coach transition. I think it's a lot going on with the Raiders. And the question here is, is Dallas's defense going to be?

Able to stop them at home? I think the answer is probably yes, and that puts you in a tough place starting Raiders. Dallas's defense has been awesome. I know that Dallas had a very disappointing outing against the Kansas City Chiefs, but it was all offensively. They held the Kansas City Chiefs to 19 points. And outside of that one crazy game against, you know, Denver where no Cowboys showed up, the Cowboys defense has been good. So the fact that they've been good and the Raiders have been struggling, I'm...

not inclined to play just about any Raiders. I mean, it's similar to the Lions. Darren Waller is obviously locked in. He's a tight in, and he gets a ton of targets, so he's in. And then Josh Jacobs is someone that he gets enough volume where you know he's getting targets. Yeah, he's fantasy relevant. Outside of that, I mean, I guess you can go Renfro. I don't want to play with Brian Edwards or. I would, look, Brian Edwards, I believe had zero targets last year. He had zero and.

I would play him this week, but the Diggs coverage. I was just a little concerned about that, that Brian Edwards won't break through that. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. I think he's being sarcastic. I think he's, I'm just saying at the end of this game, when Edwards has zero receptions, it's not because of Edwards. Which is totally against the Giants. It was also not because of Edwards. No, they schemed them out. They took out the number one option. Also the 0.9 against the Chargers, another schematic unlocking of Brian Edwards. Yeah.

Good, good. I'm glad you were being sarcastic. On the other side, we did get some updated news on C.D. Lamb. Mike McCarthy said he has not missed a step. If he keeps progressing, we see him being available for Thursday against the Raiders. That's wild. That is good news for DAC Prescott managers. That's good news for the whole offense. That's great news for Zeke.

It is. And Zeke's going to play. He says he's a tough guy. He's going to play through it. Did he say I'm a tough guy? He says I'm tough. I will play through it. Wow. The most important thing to me is Tyron Smith, whether or not he's active. There is optimism that he will play on Thursday. That will help. Zeke over the last two years, and there's a big sample size for him being in the game and out of the game, over 20 yards more rushing in games that Tyron Smith plays.

Dack is much better. So if he's, it looks right now that he's going to start, I really like the Cowboys offense. One area of vulnerability. Vulnerability. Vulnerability. Well, I was doing the half speed. For the Raiders is the tight end position. They're actually 31st in the league against tight ends. They give up 15 points a game. The doctor. Dr. Schultz looks all right. I can't you said that out. Yeah, and it felt good, did it?

I look, I'm willing to be persuaded by the listenership who decided that that was okay. All right. But I think Dalton Schultz is solid this week. He's probably jelling. Oh, no. Oh, yes. Oh, no. It's just so, I don't know how to feel about it. I guess I have to lean in. Yeah. Zeke, C.D. Lamb, Michael Gallup, Dalton Schultz. What about Tony Pollard? Are you willing to take a shot on him this week? Raiders are not a good.

running defense. A little banged up. I mean, he, Pollard has been. Ramandre or Pollard? Oh, that's, that is a good question. Tony Pollard has been in the top 24, uh, each of the past two weeks. That was after a really rough stretch. Uh, so I lean, I think Ramondre is more guaranteed of the workload. I agree with that, but the matchup and.

Man, that is a really good comp. The Zeke limitations. Amari Cooper being out, possibility for an extra target or two. I slightly lean Pollard here. Okay. The Buffalo Bills at six and four take on the New Orleans Saints who are five and five. The drafting sportsbook line bills on the road. Six and a half point favorites in New Orleans. It's not been pretty for New Orleans. Yeah. The overrunners, 45 points. This is one of those matchups that is really.

I just don't see it going a different way, even though the bills have been struggling. That being said, Sean Payton's a great coach, but schematically can you do enough? You know, you saw the bills, Jonathan Taylor, an elite talent, you know, a quarterback in Carson Winston that can have a nice game and Frank Reich scheming against the Buffalo defense. I don't know if you can do enough with Trevor Simeon and some amount of Tayson Hill.

in this game to overcome what Josh Allen and company can do. Jason and I were just looking before the game. I'm having a hard Dynasty League abundance of wealth dilemma here with Josh Allen against, like my instincts when I say at New Orleans are, oh no, maybe a void, maybe pivot. I could play Tom Brady against Colts. That's nice. Which is nice. But you know what? The Saints are the best.

They're the best matchup for quarterbacks over the last four weeks. They have given up the most points to fantasy quarterbacks in that span. In fact, on the year, they're 25th, and in the last six weeks, they're the worst. It's just crazy. So they have been, it doesn't matter. Like, they have found a way, and you have enough weapons beyond Stefan Diggs with Beasley and Sanders and Dawson Knox. You know, he was eight for 60 last week. That was a nice bounceback game where I think I'm going to go Allen. I think I'm going to take the stallion.

I hope he's excellent for you. I have concerns here. The matchup, I get it's there, but. Top eight fantasy points to quarterbacks for four straight weeks. Like the Buffalo Bills, it seems like, I mean, they smashed the jets a couple weeks ago. I totally get that. But I don't know if they have completely found their way out of the scenario where defenses have figured out how to stop.

Or not stop, but slow down Josh Allen. Now he's an elite talent at the quarterback position. So he's definitely not someone I'm trying to pivot away from. I'm just thinking through your scenario where you have Tom Brady. Brady's playing the Colts. And it's such a good match. In Indianapolis. And the Colts are a good matchup as well. It's just they've been a little better of late. So I'm leaning the Allen side. But who knows, I might pivot back.

Yeah, on the New Orleans Saints side, I was just looking this up because I don't understand they had such a good defense to start the year. Right. And maybe there are several injuries I am unaware of with the Saints secondary or something. The first six games of the season, they average 16 points given up. They were shutting people down. And now for the last month,

They are giving up on average 29.25 points, not fantasy points, real. Like, they're having. And this is to like Tennessee. You didn't have weapons. Yeah, teams are all over them. Atlanta. And I just don't get it. It's, it is one of those things where the trends on paper say that the saints are ready to crumble. That their defense has stopped being good. Their offense, they've got no weapons left. Everything is going wrong. They've lost three games in a row.

But when I see a team that's lost three games in a row with a really good coach like Sean Payton and a storied franchise that doesn't just quit and give up and roll over, I also think they're, you know, that's when the team gets it together. You know, you see teams respond off of losses and things like that. This is their like make or break moment and this is against the bills. I'm just really confused by the Saints. I certainly wouldn't. I mean, if Camara's active, I'd be playing him.

in this game. You saw what Jonathan Taylor did last week, but even the week before, the Bill's defense gave up 26.8 fantasy points to the running back position of the Jets. And so I think you can chase that a little bit and be more optimistic than you would have been early in the year with Alvin Camara if he's in this game. There's probably volume play. Obviously, if Ingram is there and Cameras out, you're playing him. And if both guys are out, like Mike said, you could take a shot on Tony Jones. But it's going to be a scary one. I wouldn't watch the game.

But outside of them, if you have to start a wide receiver for the Saints, his name is. Craig Juan Smith. I agree. You take the snaps. And then Joanne Johnson. Is there a sneaky play here for him with Troutman being out? Joanne Johnson caught two last week. One was called back. Not this week. Okay. I mean, Joanne, in your dynasty league out there. You and I are starting him this week. Oh, that's fantastic. In our dynasty league.

Like, Joan Johnson is, he'll be an interesting streaming candidate if the matchup arises. All right. And a reminder, a big one. Three Thursday games, make sure you take those players out of your flex position. Put them, even if they're your flex player, put them in a positional spot, move those stalwarts to your flex. So that way you have flexibility if something happens at practice. Yeah, that's, this is, there's never a more important week to take that advice. Also, there's a special edition.

of the fantasy footballer's DFS pod just for the Thanksgiving Day slate. So if you want to have fun with some DFS, listen to the fantasy footballers DFS pod. And before we get into the rest of the matchups, we are actually going to jump into our starts of the week. Starts of the week. All right. I'll kick it off at quarterback with the same player I threw out as my stream of the week just yesterday.

Jimmy Garoppel. I'm going to take him against Minnesota, handsome Jimmy himself, and he's the quarterback three over the last month. I mean, that's the truth. And his weapons are ready to roll this week against Minnesota. Minnesota's allowed the second most fancy points to quarterbacks over the last month. It's crazy, but I'm going to go with Jimmy G. in this Minnesota matchup. I don't like, I don't like when you say that he's been the quarterback three over the last month. You know, I said it, and I was 100% sure I was lying to you. It's a couple burst games.

That is the kind of game I would like. I really don't. I really don't like that. I'm going to go with Matthew Stafford. He's had a couple of bad back-to-back games. There were quotes coming out about O'Dowell Beckham. They're still working him into the package. It's one of those things where I think there's a lot of fear to play him, and that's understandable. But I am still confident in McVeigh, in Stafford, in Cooper Cup. And if you look at the Packers defense.