Starts of the Week + Wk 11 Matchups, Pounce Back Candidate

Calvin Ridley. Are you chalking last week? I mean, the matchup was delicious for Calvin Ridley, and he showed up without an appetite. He did not eat, as they would say. No, no, no, keep talking about food. Keep going. You got anything else? I like burritos. I'm not talking it up to anything. I mean, he... This was the most snaps of his career. He actually, he surpassed the 70% threshold for the first time, but...

He hasn't been what you thought you were going to get there after the first three or four weeks. Well, fantasy owners, if you overreacted to the three touchdown, two touchdown game, then yeah, you're disappointed. But if you've been paying attention for the last five weeks, it's been, you know, four for 38, three for 47, five for 43, six for 71, three for 37, one touchdown in that entire span. So he is a very boom, bust.

lower tier option on that roster. Julio is the man over 100 yards in six of nine games, touchdowns, and two straight. This is simply expectation control. So I guess the question I'd ask you, Jason, is Amari Cooper or Calvin Ridley. I think we'd all go Cooper, right? I would definitely go Cooper. So Dallas's defense against wide receivers has been fantastic. Hey, frog man, what is happening over there? My goodness.

Zeke, 187 total yards, two touchdowns against the Eagles, stout run D last week. Atlanta's just plain bad against running back. Zeke is an auto start. So, Kevin Coleman, bounceback week for him? He's hard to predict right now. Bouncy-ish. Bounce, there's a little bit of, a little rubber in there, maybe? So I'm not expecting it.

Compared to last week, I am. The Falcons office just as a whole fell completely flat. So I'm expecting much bigger things from all the pieces. Okay. I've got Coleman at 12 right as the fringe RB won this week. The Bengals, take on the four and five Ravens. Bengals are five and four. Big game again, big divisional matchup. AJ Green, this was the news yesterday. Marvin Lewis says he hopes to have AJ Green ready for Sunday's game.

Take that for what you will. I think it's, you know, an optimistic report about AJ Green is a surprise because a lot of reports had him not playing until December. And then John Ross is dealing with a groin injury. So if AJ's back, it's better news for Mixon, it's better news for Boyd, it's better news for Dalton. All the players I pumped the brakes on, all of a sudden we get news late afternoon. I said, look, you can't expect a lot from the Bengals. If AJ's out,

But maybe AJ's back and this is a very important game for them. If AJ is back, I feel like there's going to be a lot of trap here because AJ is going to be back a little bit hurt. And if AJ was here from the get-go and AJ never got injured, you can't forget that this is a really bad matchup. I mean, the Ravens, even though the last game or two, they haven't looked great, they're still, what, the sixth best?

against wide receivers on the season, the eighth best against quarterbacks. Pull up your last six weeks for the Ravens. So the last six weeks, they have not been good against tight end or quarterback. But to be fair, the quarterback, you have on the season, they're eighth against quarterback, and that's allowing about 17 points a game.

but they dropped to 20th in the past six weeks at 19 points. So there's the margin there is so small. What I would focus more on is they're still shutting down running backs. They're still shutting down wide receivers. The tight ends, though, that's been kind of the one exploitable part. Which does say I know CJ Uzama has been.

just terrible. It's been terrible. But in a week with a bunch of buys, he's a guy that I still think you should look at. He is still running routes. He's still on the field. His opportunity is there. This matchup kind of says if you're going to pass on us, it's going to be at the tight end position. They need him to step up. So I think you could do worse. Yuzama or, I mean, if you're playing Yuzama, you're streaming the position. Right. But Yuzama or.

The recently sort of surging, Jonu Smith for Tennessee. I'll take Uzama. I would as well. Okay. Yeah. I'm not excited about Usama, though. He's my pint-in-17 this week. So he just does not seem to have some it factor with Andy Dalton that you had with Eifford or even Croft around the goal line.

There's a lot of start-sit decisions to be made in this game, though, overall. We don't know who the quarterback in Baltimore is going to be. It could be Joe Flacco, could be Lamar Jackson. The only one I'm playing if he's active as the starter is Lamar Jackson. We've talked about that. Really? You wouldn't stream Flacco? No. Just because of Joe Flacco, because of the injury. Both of those. You put those together, the fact that it is Joe Flacco, and then it's a hurt, hip-injured Joe Flacco version.

So Flacco against the absolute worst fantasy defense against quarterbacks the past six weeks. No, I get it, but it's a divisional game. And you can throw some of those statistics out the door. I mean, you're going to get, if I had to bet on the over under this game, which is we don't even have one right now because of the quarterback situation. But I think it's going to be a lower scoring game. I do believe that Alex Collins is a great start. And we'll talk about him a little bit later. So our.

How do you feel about Boyd if AJ Green is out? I think Boyd is a... He's a wide receiver two in probably both cases. I feel like he's a wide receiver three, but with maybe wide receiver two upside. I'm not excited, but he's got enough volume coming his way where... To me, he's like a Sterling Shepherd this week. I actually like Sterling Shepherd, but you're limited. I just don't think the offense is something where you go.

Man, he's a must start. John Brown, Michael Crabtree, both been very disappointing recently. Michael Crabtree has six catches for 63 yards total in the last two games. And then John Brown, after the hot start, despite the 17-yard averaged up the target, he said four out of five weeks where you were not happy you played him. And you're waiting for the big play with him. He's our consensus wide receiver 19 this week because the matchup is great.

You're at home. You're against the Bengals. But not knowing the quarterback situation, I think you need to have a different plan in mind. Yeah, he could obviously boom for a great game. But if you can pivot away, I would. Yeah, I think he's, his variance, like as in the safety of John Brown is very in flux. But I still have him ranked pretty high this week. I think he has bounces back this weekend. All right. Cool.

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Footballers. Like to thank Seat Geek for sponsoring today's show. Getting tickets online can be far too complicated. That's why seat wheat. Wow. That's why Seat Geek is the way to go. Not seat wheat. I would not recommend.

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It could cause warmth and moisture. Oh, really? I mean, think about it, man. If my seat were made out of wheat. Really think about it. What is that old breakfast that, like, you guys probably would expect me to. Crape nuts? Cream of wheat. Oh, yes. So good. Wait, is that really so good, Jason? No. Oh, that's a very old man. Now, hold on. That's as old as it gets. Malto meal is better than cream of wheat. What do you put in your cream of wheat? Oh, it's covered in butter, sugar.

Brown sugar. So it's delicious. Okay. So those three things are delicious and you just, cream of wheat happens to be the device that carries those things in your mouth. Exactly. If it's toast and I'm putting butter and sugar and brown sugar. Then toast is delicious. I mean, whatever. It's a mechanism for sugar. I do want to just highlight because I'm often called the old man. The tagline for cream of wheat is since 1893. When you're doing it right. It's been around the block. Yeah.

That's true. Old man. Well, maltomeil is greater sign cream of wheat. What is the difference? Yeah, I have no idea. Malta meal has like built in brown sugar in with the brown sugar. Malta meal has built in brown sugar? Yeah, basically. No, they're both, they're both hot. Yeah, they're both just hot wheat cereal. It's delicious. Hot wheat. It's the best. Six and three Panthers against the three and six lions.

The Lions are at home and just a four-point favorite, or I'm sorry, a four-point underdog, 51 point over under. Panthers coming off that dud of a game where you said, huh? What kind of team is this? Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, some teams bounce back really great from a shalacking. I expect.

the Carolina Panthers to be one of those teams. They've always been well-coached. As you say, it's a well-coached equation. Yeah, and, you know... It's also playing the Lions. That makes it easy. That makes it easy. It's in a dome, so you don't have to worry about, you know, weather conditions or anything else. This is just a team that is really good in the Panthers, needing to have some self-respect after that drubbing they got last week, and the Lions are going to be the punching dummy.

Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, the lion's offense struggled immensely without Golden Tate last week. Marvin Jones is banged up. They don't have a lot of cohesion on offense or defense right now, and their seasons falling apart. Matthew Stafford looked bad. They were to pump the brakes team last week. The one player that has emerged and continues to emerge, despite the kind of troubles surrounding the team is a man who, you know, you're familiar with him. Oh, yes.