Week 7 Matchups + Wheel of Shame, Target Fire - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/18

Wide receiver get 95% of snaps and no opportunities. And Trey Tucker last week, you have Jacoby Myers about to miss again. I mean, I'm sorry, Brock Bowers. I didn't mean to leave Brock Bowers out of there. Brock Bowers and Madison are some opportunity plays. Bowers is an every week play, but Madison against this defense seems fine. Kyron, Cooper Cup, what do you do beyond that? Is there any other options? Are you... Was Whittington just a product of missing cup and we're moving on? A little bit, but I do think that Whittington is still deeper format, more desperate. I think that he's an okay type of a play. Again, it's a young guy, it's a rookie who in two weeks, eight targets, 10 targets. Yeah, the big boys are not there. I get that. But he will still have, like his role will not be affected as much, I think, by Cooper Cup.

Pooka coming back, that's a bigger question. Yeah, Jordan Whittington has kind of played the Puka role. So I do expect it to be Cooper Cup to Marcus Robinson and Jordan Whittington if you're going to play one of them, Whittington. But when 2-2 Atwell comes in, which he comes in a lot, those are designed plays for him oftentimes. They get him in motion, get him open, and they throw the ball to him. And to Marcus Robinson can easily be the wide receiver to any one of these games. So for me, I'm just out on all three of them. I don't want to play the game of maybe my guy ends up with six targets this game. I'll play Cooper Cup. Obviously, I'm going to play Kyron Williams and check out on the Rams. Kyron's rushing lines at 89 and a half. It's ridiculous. He's unstoppable. We did get Blake Corum to. What is his touchdown? I assume it's like minus 1,000 because he always gets a touchdown. I guess the Raiders. He probably is. I mean, I did want to mention Blake Corum got two tens on.

attempts in one red one additional red zone attempt last week. I don't think it really matters. I do wonder if the Rams fell out of contention at some point, whether you'd see a little bit more of those running backs. I'm always trying to think of like midseason trades right now. What is the viability of these guys during fantasy playoff weeks? I think Kyron's still upper echelon, but that would be just one of the things to add to the notebook is, you know, maybe Blake Corum gets more work because. You know, Kyron's been worn down, lots of carries, and you give another guy an opportunity if that season's over. I wonder how often, Kyle, maybe you can find this, but I wonder how often a one and four team is favored by a full touchdown, because that's what's happening here, which is kind of indicative of, you know, what the sports books are thinking of the Raiders. They're on the way to collapse. Yeah, yeah. Carolina's one in five.

They take on the Washington commanders who are four and two. And guess what, Jason? Carolina not favored by seven. The drafting sportsbook line, Washington minus eight. The old runners 51 and a half. That gives Washington nearly 30 points. Yeah, baby. That is the highest implied team total for the Washington football team over the last 36 years. Wow. You found yourself a quarterback. Yeah, they have. And so, and they play fast, and they give you lots of fantasy goodness right now. You know, the lock, Jane Daniels, you put him in there. It's Carolina. Carolina's atrocious. Terry McLaren, the wide receiver 12 on the year. You keep playing him. You know, Brian Robinson and Austin Echler, both in play. Yes, I agree. I think Echler is a great start this week. Even if Brian Robinson is active for the game.

I'm throwing Austin Echler into the lineup. I would rather play him and utilize the running game of this team that is favored by so much. And you don't know how the touchdowns are going to come early. You hope it's Terry McLaren. You hope it's not like a Luke McCaffrey or Noah Brown touchdown. But you assume that they're going to run a lot and get a couple rushing touchdowns. I mean, that might be Jane Daniels, not the running backs. But that leads me to Zach Ertz. You look at this matchup, but you go, oh, this is great against Carolina. His DK's receiving line is only 30 and a half yards. I think that's a pretty well-placed line. I could see him not being super involved in this game, at least second half, if they don't need him. So he is one of those very often. Like I think Zachertz is in almost 100% of leagues. He's rostered with two tight ends, and every week someone's deciding, do I go Zachertz or my other guy? And I think I would probably lean towards the other guy in this match.

My deep cut for this one, you mentioned it, is Noah Brown. Like, I don't know that I'm starting him in redraft, but this is keep an eye on him. Washington is trying to find their second wide receiver. That's been kind of a story of their offseason. Part of it of like, no, it's not Dotson. We're going to trade him away. They bring Noah Brown in, and it's been, you know, slowly ramping up where week four he did, he got 67% of the snaps. then missed a game with the groin injury back into the mid-60s the following week with eight targets in that game as well. I think that he's someone who should be on your radar. If you have an empty spot and you want to stash a wide receiver, I think Noah Brown is high on that list. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, Diami Brown was down to 32% of snaps this last week. Yeah, he had the touchdown the week before that. Deonti Johnson, you can play him. Chuba Hubbard, you keep playing him.

and what about what about Xavier legett in a in a matchup I mean the commander's office has been great but their defense is bad Andy Dalton can get it done um he had a touchdown last week 77% of the snaps are you willing I feel like I'd start Xavier leget over you know a handful of of startable he's just he's just risky and I went down the road with him a couple weeks ago and got burned so he's an option Jalen Koker rookie has been taking over as the third wide receiver for the past two weeks. And so he's a deep, deep desperation, maybe more dynasty. A dynasty pickup option because he's out there now 65% of the time. Somebody you can look at. There you go. I mean, it's nice when you have a team that's playing so well on offense, but also so bad on defense. Oh, it's in Washington. You kind of have two of those here in the same game because.

Carolina can't stop anybody. And Dalton hasn't, you know, this isn't a great offense, but Dalton and Chuba and Deontay, they can put up enough points. He's not Spencer Rattler. Right. The Kansas City Chiefs are 5-0. They go to San Francisco. San Francisco is three and three. They're favored by one and a half. The D.K. Sportsbook over under here is 47. Okay. So right now these are the, these are also the top two teams by Super Bowl odds right now. Interesting. Baltimore is tied with San Francisco. The chiefs are number one and plus 500. I was just reminded of the great coin flip. Who gets the ball first situation from the Super Bowl? I had kind of. I forgot it. You blotted that out of my mind last year. You just reminded me and I still don't remember. So remind me. That was when the 49th took the football. They took the football. And the chiefs were going to defer if they had won. Yes. Because even if you score a touchdown.

in the playoffs, the other team gets to possess the football. But yeah, that feels like forever ago. Patrick Mahomes, we've talked about it enough. I've started to see him on waiver wires at this point. 11% of the time he's giving you a okay game, basically. And this is not one of them. This is not one where I'm excited about it, especially with the fact that you are so thin at wide receiver, Xavier Worthy is extremely limited in what he brings to the offense right now. You could always get a big play, the only way you're happy. Juju with the hamstring injury popping up. He's your possession guy with the trust of the quarterback. And then Travis Kelsey, his target shares have gone up. Yeah. But that hasn't led to good things from a home. So you're kind of stuck in this place where, you know, Kelsey's in. But then how do you make those other decisions with this matchup? I mean, you're on the road. You haven't been great on offense. You've been great on defense. I mean, I think.

We need the injury status for today, obviously, but Juju is probably in for a lot of 12 teams. I think Juju is a wide receiver 3-ish. Eight targets right before the bi-week. The actual bi-week to say, okay, let's rally the troops, figure out what is this offense moving forward? And I think it has to be Juju. And what do you do here with Kareem Hunt? His DK rushing lines, 49 and a half. You play him. Yeah, he's in there. Yeah, confidently for me. Yeah, I mean, the first week he had 17 opportunities and was like, oh my gosh. Okay, he just came off the street and he's the guy. The following week, he was the running back two in fantasy with 27 carries for over 100 yards. He's looked good. This is not as easy a matchup, but the San Francisco 49ers.

They do give up receptions to the running back. And even though we haven't really seen Kareem Hunt used in that way yet this season in any kind of major ways for fantasy, I expect a handful of receptions in this game. So I'm totally fine starting Kreme. Kareem or James Connor against the Chargers? Oh man. James Connor's been, I know he had a really bad week this last week, but he's been too good for too many years to bench him. Okay. Jordan Mason's status is up in the end of this week. Could be Garindo, Patrick Taylor combination, or even worse, Mason kind of limited and those other two guys worked in. How do you approach that? Because it just feels like a really difficult situation. It is. If Mason plays, though, I'm going to play. Yeah, I agree. This is one of those where you hope. And I know in the leagues where I have Jordan Mason, I made it a priority to go get Garindo.

And so hopefully if you're out there, you've got those two guys. You know, you've got Jordan Mason and Grendo and you just start whoever is the primary back active. Mason, if he's active and if Mason's gone, start Grendo. It's not a great matchup, though. Ayuk has been really bad. He had one great week. His receiving line on DK is 62 and a half. Where are you with Iyuk right now? I saw him traded in our league of record. Just absolutely baffled because watching him play, he seems like he's. Still a really good player. Like it's not a, the skill has not evaporated or anything like that. He's still getting separation. You know, his metrics on that, like according to fantasy points, it's still strong. But the connection is just, it hasn't been there. But for this game, Joan Jennings hasn't practiced on Wednesday or Thursday. Debo has been in a non-contact jersey. So.

It might be forced into George Kittle is my answer for this particular match. So is that your way of saying you would avoid IUC? I would not have, no, I would not avoid him, but I'm not expecting a huge game. I'm, I'm happy to play I you. I really am. I want to make the case for him. And it's not just based on the injuries to others. Well, don't look at the box scores then. Right. That's, that's my point. I think that's what everybody's looking at is the box scores and saying, oh man, you can't play him. This is a player who obviously missed all of camp, came back a little bit slow. Two weeks ago, all of a sudden is awesome. He looks great, right? Arizona. Eight for 147 still. I mean, he's fine. This past week, you go, okay, Ayyuk is back. He's into football shape. It wasn't like Ayukes. He had a bad end of game for fantasy.

But if you watch the game, like, you know, you had Debo with a breakaway touchdown drives over. You had Kittle with a breakaway 58-yard, you know, two touchdowns drives over. Like it just wasn't his weak, but he is not bad. This is a player who's been a top 15 wide receiver back-to-back years, got the bag. I'm happy to still continue starting Ayyuk because he's a good player on a good offense. If you want the opposite case, it's something we talked about in the offseason. Ayuk was hyper. overly efficient last season. He was 17.9 a catch. He had seven touchdowns. He has no touchdowns through the year through six games. He has been outside the top 45 of six weeks and he's at 15.3 a catch. So those numbers are like he had a perfect season last year to get to where he was, but it's hard to bench him in this game even with the tough matchup. Sunday night football, the Jets and Devante Adams take on Russell Wilson.

and the four and two Pittsburgh Steelers, the DK Sportsbook Line, New York, minus one and a half, the overrunners 39. Jason, you are the single biggest Mike Tomlin believer, lover, best friend I've ever met. Do you agree with his... Guilty is, Judge. Do you agree with his decision to change quarterbacks? You know, I do, and I do, as I kind of outlayed earlier, I think this is a team that although you're four and two, you're not out there destroying teams. You're not looking like a Super Bowl contender. And you have two quality quarterbacks that you've got to figure out before the playoffs. Who gives you the best chance to win? Even Fields came out. What an awesome dude. He just came out and said straight up. He's like, I know we're four and two, but I haven't played that great. I know it. If I had played the way I should be playing, there wouldn't be a question here. So he sees, you know, the reality clearly. And the teammates love him. I don't know if you saw Najee talking about Justin Fields.

I don't blame him for making this decision, even if it proves to be the wrong decision. It's the process that gets you to the right conclusion. And so I think the decision is good. Like I said, I don't think Wilson's going to be better than Fields. I really don't. I hope for George Pickens and Pat Friarmouth and maybe someday Roman Wilson, I really, really hope that Russell Wilson is better than Fields. and could get this offense moving. But with the offensive line struggles and with what we've seen Russell Wilson look like the last couple years, I'm highly skeptical that the offense turns around. Is there any chance, Jason, that this is the ultimate really big brain Mike Tomlin move here of saying, I'm going to put Russ out against the Jets. Yeah. And because I know that Justin Fields against this Jets team, he will struggle. Right. Because anybody will struggle against this New York Jets defense. I'll put Russ out there.

And then we get to move on completely. It's certainly a test for Russell Wilson. And this is not going to be graded on a curve. This is go out there and prove that you are a Hall of Fame quarterback, worthy of leading the, you know, blue collar Steelers or prove that you are the backup. I don't know if you knew this, but Hawkinson actually already passed that test as well. Oh, dude. He is such a good test taker, man. He really is. Naji Harris back at practice, his line is 54.5 on D.K. I mean, if you play him, you are grinding out a 10-point game. That's what it feels like. Or you get a touchdown and he runs for 30 yards. Those outcomes seem the most likely the Jets. Add Devante Adams. If I had him, I'd be playing him. I'd be playing him too. And Garrett Wilson, I'd be playing as well. Garrett Wilson will be, he will be fine. Yes. Everybody wants to break down every piece of analysis is a binary black and white.

Wilson, good, Wilson, bad. That is not at all the nuance of this situation. It's Wilson not top five. Wilson's still top 24. Wilson's still opportunities to succeed. Nuance is important in life. And I just, I want to tell people like, when you hear things in life, they can just mean a little bit. You know, this is worse for Garrett Wilson. It is. But that doesn't mean he's bad and that he shouldn't start him. It is worse for, like, just, take things with a grain of salt. But if he scores, if he scores, you'll get tweets. Whatever happens. There's no reality where, you know, we're going to have like, he's going to go out there and have six for 65 and we're going to get both of them. I told you he's fine. Oh, he's ruined. Yeah, they invented the internet, but they didn't add any nuance to the internet. Speaking of nuance, what do you do with George Pickens?

This week. Quarterback change. Sauce Gardner. Pickens is a risky play every week right now. He's one of the most brutal fantasy decisions every week because you didn't draft George Pickens extremely high, which means you have multiple kind of parallel. Like if you were IUC or Pickens, I would probably play IUC this week. Pickens is the only show in town there. The 49ers have shown that even without CMC, they can delete IUC from an offense five times. So it's like it's close. You're going to need a big play from Pickens. One big play. Iyuk can piece it together without a touchdown. We saw that two weeks ago. So I lean that direction. It's just he's brutal. Pickens is always like you want to play him because you don't want to miss the big game. Yeah, I've got Pickens as my wide receiver 33. So he's like a barely start. I would prefer, you know, if I had JSN or Jordan Addison.

Even Ladd McConkey. I would play players like that over George Pickens. Against Sauce Gardner, I think you're going to need one big play, which can happen. But I can't, I would be shocked if he's got a volume day. If he's got, you know, seven receptions and 88 yards, which would be great. I don't see that happening in this match. It'll be a fun game to watch. It really will. And Aaron Rogers could enter the fantasy conversation after this week. He could. If we get signs that this offense is getting fixed under Todd Downing, that's his name, right, Todd Downing? Jeff Downing? I don't recall. Correct, Todd. Todd. Okay. Jeff's his brother. Breece Hall, get him in your lineup, and we will move on. We're going to take a quick break and come back with Mike's favorite thing to Monday Night Football. Yay! Naturally, Kyle is chasing down the entire family tree of the Downing family to see if there is a Jeff that is a part of it.

Monday night football, we get the double header. Oh, baby outback's going to be popping. One good game, one bad game. No, two good games. I'm excited about both of these games. Well, that's because you're a Cardinals fan. Yes, exactly. Okay, but for everyone who's not. I mean, you still have tons of fantasy relevant players in that game. That's what makes it interesting. Last night's game, not interesting because nobody you played except for maybe Giovante when you were backed into it. You're lucky son of a gun. Jolucky. I like that. Jokk. Dobbins. Oh, yeah, Dobbins and McBride. You're happy. Marvin Harrison, if he's active. Are we talking about that game first? Yeah, sure. Let's do it. Chargers Cardinals is the second game. Chargers are two-point road favorites. The overrunners 44 on the D.K. Sportsbook. And Kyler's passing line set at 2.13. He's only had two top 12 finishes. I really, really think he has to have Marvin for you to be happy.

with this game. I just don't think he can do enough. Now, he can run the football. But Jason, you pointed this out, like the Chargers, the name of their game is to suck you dry. That is exactly my point with this game. Like I see a 44 point line, which is like an average game. And I think, yeah, right, good try. Harbaugh wants to high tee this into the ground. He's going to try to time of possession this thing. Because you can, if you want, if your strategy was, hey, hey, hey, listen to this. Every time you run the ball, you can get three or four yards and lay down. Like, don't break anything away. Just go out there and get a salt. Let's just get four every time. Go get four yards every time. Right. And I feel like you could do that against the Cardinals and just have 15 play drives where it's four yard run, four yard run, four yard run, four yard run until touchdown. I mean, this is hyperbolic, but this is kind of...

That's the fear of how I see a game plan that could collapse the fantasy value of that game. That's why I'm... And the Chargers are a great defense against the run. James Connor is going to be up against it. Trey McBride, you're going to play him. And you can spot start Michael Wilson if Harrison misses. We don't have more news. No, not yet. Unfortunately, I was in a very unfortunate situation where I wanted to play Michael Wilson, but only if Harrison missed. And my only other option was Bob Means, and I got stuck with Bob Means. The one thing... I'll just add because I agree that's probably that's the hardball way but they did open it up against Denver they did like 34 pass attempts against Denver that's by far the season high for for Justin Herbert so I mean I don't know I think there's a chance of of them actually throwing the ball a little bit more like Chargers Dobbins is are you messing around with any other receivers that's where I was going to go of like I

Ladd McConkey. I think it's limited on Thursday with a hip injury. Yeah, so watch that. But I think that he's okay. He's in an okay place right here, especially because the matchup is so brutal. You had Quentin Johnston did not practice on Thursday with the ankle injury. So I think that it is. The glad's in play. That is the go-to wide receiver target-wise. It's not crazy down the field stuff. So without a touchdown, I think you're fine in a PPR league and you're going to be meh and a half PPR. Obviously in a standard league, you're not happy at all. But you're, I'm just saying you're not happy in a standard league that has nothing to do with Latin McCarthy. That's just because standard leagues aren't fun. We need the, we, okay, we need the, his season high is wide receiver 20 and 19 so far. Yeah, we need the.

We need the passing pie to be a little bit bigger because he's sitting at a 27% target share right now. That's like for a rookie, that's a really strong number. For a veteran, that's a great number. If you're up that high, the problem is the pie is so small. They did open it up a lot last week, which to your point, Mike, against Denver is shocking. Because you can run on Denver and you can't throw on Denver easily. I can tell you why they did that. Thank you. Easily. Patrick Sertan went down with a concussion and then they threw the ball like 20 straight times. I don't remember the timing of it, but I know, I feel like my memory is watching the game, even at the beginning they were throwing. It was like, what's happening right now? What are we doing? See, the nice thing about the Cardinals defense is there isn't really someone on defense. Oh, no. If they go down, they're like, we're shifting our game player. He got concussed on the first defensive play. Was it? Okay. Of the entire game.

Baltimore's four and two. Tampa Bay is four and two. The drafting sports book line Baltimore minus three and a half over under is 49 and a half. Go ahead, Jay. Yeah, baby. Laser Mayfield time. I don't like how you say it. It's creepy. Yeah. It's a little bit sultry. Well, it's excited is what it is. That makes me feel worse. Yeah. You didn't help your case. No, I mean, I was agreeing with Andy. This was not. We weren't in disagreement. Play Baker, the DK passing line, 257.5, he'd be in over Kyla, right? For sure. I think so, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Baker Mayfield has been running the ball a lot and in a game against a really, really good defense with an exceptional offense across, you know, the field. You're going to have to put up points and yards to be competitive in this home game. So 29 rushing yards, it's last week, 42 rushing yards the week before, and you've got a north of 250.

DK line for passing yards. It's just a matter of does he throw touchdowns? Right now he's leading the league in touchdowns. Zay Flowers. Because he's Laser Mayfield. All right. I'm done. Zayflowers, my start of the week. I love him in this game. You're playing roulette right now with any tight end in Baltimore. Literally, I do not. We try to answer every question. If you ask me whether Mark Andrews or Isaiah likely, which one is the better play, I literally do not know. I have no idea if you will be, A, unhappy with both, B, happy with one, or C, happy with both. Probably not the last one. So A or B are probably the outcomes. Good luck. Good luck. I wouldn't, I'd be, it's all about the economy and what you've got. Yeah. I would play Najoku over either of those guys in a heartbeat. The, we have small signal. It looks Cincinnati.

Mark Andrews got five targets. He got four the following week. Like, legitimately, if you're saying Mark Andrews is getting five targets a week, that's very playable to me. Just because of the archetype of the player, I would accept five targets a week. Yeah, I want more, but I'm saying like in the line of do I sit or do I start Mark Andrews, this week, again, it's just the two weeks, so we can go NBA jam rules and wait for. the conclusion of this Tampa Bay game. That's not on fire. It's, it's on target fire. Is that what you're looking for? It's the line of will I play Mark Andrews? I will say this to Andy's point. NBA Jam rules when you're on fire. Is that, wait, is that just two may or does it have to be two? Yeah, it's got to be two three pointers. So you, no, you got to. No, you got to. Andrew has one right now. Okay, but is just any shot? You can do a lay. No, yeah. Okay. Well, then target, then targets should count for on fire here.

Those are two pointers. No, because you don't get fantasy points for targets. I'm just talking about playability. It has to go through the hoop. Targets don't go through the hoop. So you've got to go at least receptions. Not fantasy points, but reception. Okay, so that's four and three the last two weeks. We are lowering the bar of fire if we say targets count. All right. That's fair. Like Kate Otten's a better play than both those guys. Probably. Probably. Yeah. I mean, he's, Kate Otten has been a top 24 guy four straight weeks. He's been top 12, two out of Top 24, a wider, tight end is irrelevant. His target, 8, 9, 4, 6. On fire! Does he have 10 points in a week yet this season? Kate Otten? No. Yeah, I'm starting Andrews. Okay. All right. You always will. I will. Rashad White, Bucky, Irving, Sean Tucker, three-headed monster is the words that they used. This is not good. Hot hand approach, which...

I saw a great tweet from you, Andy, when you have six hands is... None of them can be warm. Yes, exactly, right. Yeah, none of them can be hot. I'll tell you whose hands can't be hot. Is that Rashad White? Rashad White. So are you straight benching Rashad White? I mean, they could be hot with receptions. Or Richard White as our doxas? Look, I think Rashad White has played his way into Richard White this year because Rashad White was awesome last year, but Richard's just not getting the job done. Despite being knocked out early, still on pace for 64 targets, 57 receptions. Yeah, the inclusion of Sean Tucker into this, it's really messy. If White was out, would you play either of those guys? Yeah, I play Bucky. Yeah, it's, I mean, we still have to see what actually happens because Sean Tucker was 192 total yards. It was awesome. But for the majority of the game, it was just Bucky Irving. And then they.