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

Jason's right, 8, 8, 7. Those were Ingram less weeks, though. It's been since week two that he hasn't had at least seven targets in a game. 7, 10, 7, 7, 8, 8. Evan Ingram is, you don't factor Ingram in at all, Jay? Because he was missing him, he was missing other options. I'm just asking the question. Well, Evan Ingram was back for some of those games. I mean, two weeks ago, when he had eight targets, Evan Ingram was there. Yeah, Ingram's been back for three.

games. Calvin Ridley or Sterling Shepherd? Calvin Ridley. Oh, that's a good one. I'll go Calvin Ridley. Angram is a curious case because he's actually getting a little bit ahead of it, but he's my start of the week at the tight end position because we're trying to find guys who might be off the waiver wire. At least that's what I'm talking about. And he's still good. His yards per reception this season, it's gone way down.

He's only at 9.1 yards per reception. It was a much better situation last year. But it's like Eli Manning completely forgets that Engram is a huge mismatch for the defense all game. And then the final two minutes, he goes, oh, oh, yeah. I remember you. Engram? Here's the ball. He's just pretty dead. It's possum. We're not going to throw to him. We're not going to throw to him. And then when you need it in the last two minutes, you're like, ha ha! You forgot about him. It actually concerns me.

Quite a bit. I mean, baby Josh pointed out his yards per receptions down this year. Because at the end of the game, what is he looking for? You know Eli's end of game strategy is Checkdown City. It's Saquan Barkley Checkdown. If every Ingram represents Checkdown City to him, that's bad for fantasy owners. It makes me wonder about his total health picture. But I do agree. I mean, he's an upside guy because he's super talented. But Eli has to stay upright and Ingram has to run down the field for that to happen.

O.J. Howard, we should bring him up as well in this game. He's fine. He's leading the way in yards per reception at the tight end position, and he is a fine play. I wanted to make him my start of the week, but he was, you know, look, he's an auto start. But if because last week, you only got 15 yards and you're like, oh, that I can't trust him. You can't trust any tight end. Do you? I mean, you really can't. So other than, you know,

Kelsey and Ertz, you can't trust anyone. So go ahead and put in the guy that has the ceiling of an O.J. Howard in this matchup. All right. I feel like we talked about that one quite a bit. Texans, Redskins, 6 and 3, Texans, 6 and 3 Redskins. Two playoff-bound teams right now. And this is a 42.5 point over-under. That's very low. That's a very low over-under. Expecting good defense in this game. Redskins are three-point home favorites.

What did fantasy owners do with Lamar Miller? Last week was a very strange game. You have the Texans performing well, winning games, leading the division. Lamar Miller, two straight 100-yard games, and all of a sudden, Alfred Blue, makes his appearance. Stepping in. It's like the...

With the understudy, right? Like you expect the main actor to come out on stage and they're like, no, we're going to give this performance to Alfred Blue today. And you're not really happy. I mean, it's not impressive on stage. The role of Hamilton today will be Alfred Blue. Oh, no. These are $1,000 tickets.

But how do you reconcile, you know, how do you deal with the uncertainty surrounding Miller? Because the upside's great if they give them the carries. This is a game they need to win against a very good team. Yeah. Matchup is pretty rough for the running backs. I'll play Lamar Miller. I'm going to chalk up the two weeks ago, the game against Denver, the lack of volume. Head coach O'Brien said, we don't want to run him into the ground. Okay.

Fine. You gave him that week off basically. He's had a buy week. Let's see if he's telling the truth. Maybe he just said we don't want to run him. Maybe that's all he meant. On the ground. But even good. We don't want to run him. Here's two straight 100-yard games on the ground before that. Lamar Miller's a guy that you very well might need to start. He is pretty much like the last of all the starting running backs. Like I'll play Lamar Miller ahead of your.

Edos Smiths and Austin Eklers and, you know, the guys that are pretty much the backup for their team that can still pop and get touchdowns because of the volume. But he's the last. He's of all the starting running backs who get volume, I'm the least confident here because it's tough matchup, low over under, not guaranteed volume with Alfred Blue. There's a lot, a lot of ways this could be a terrible game. I'm going to ask you a really gross question, Jason.

Do you eat your toenails? Yes or no? No. They're very crispy. You eat my toenails? Yes, yours in particular. What if I put butter and brown sugar on? Here's the thing. If you put butter and brown sugar, at the very least, they would be upgraded. All right. Lamar Miller or Jordan Howard. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. I would start crying, weeping?

You would start groaning? No. Jordan Howard against Minnesota. I'm going to tweak my rankings to where it's Jordan Howard. Okay. I have Lamar Miller one spot ahead. I do as well. I'm looking at that and thinking, I don't want to answer Lamar Miller here. I would play Miller over Howard. This is not a good matchup for running backs in general. Adrian Peterson, look, he's going to be out there on the field. He'll be playing running back for the Washington Redskins. That much we know.

He also, he dropped a little bit of a Jason Morism today. He said, you know, dealing with the shoulder and ankle injury. He said he is feeling, he is, quote, feeling all the way healthy. All the way healthy. All the way healthy. That's better than moderately healthy. It kind of sounds like he's trying too hard to tell you how he's feeling to me. But at the end of the day, look, Houston's defense is on fire right now. And Washington's offensive line, I mean, they picked up Jonathan Cooper.

who has failed everywhere he's been, been atrocious, wasn't playing football. They picked him up and they started him last week. And I guess I didn't watch him enough because I didn't have the barf bags nearby. But with Jonathan Cooper off the street at guard against this JJ Watt and J. Davian Clowny line. No thank you. No thank you.

Uh, you're starting to Andre Hopkins, obviously. If you want to start a pass catcher in Washington, Maurice Harris has seen 26 and 18% of the target share the last two weeks, and Josh Doxton has scored in the last two weeks. Pick your muddy wide receiver three fringe poison. Harris. Yeah. Yep. And then, uh, Demarius Thomas, Kiki QT, I got some Twitter feedback. They felt like I was being disrespectful to Kiki's talent when I.

marginalized Jason's excitement over Kiki. I think he's very talented. I think when you pick a guy that the team probably perceives as at best a co-wide receiver 2, I think he's just difficult to predict. Maybe I'm wrong. Do you guys think I'm wrong? Do you think Kiki's a seven-catch guy? I think Kiki is a seven-catch guy if he's healthy. How many games?

What do you mean? Like how many games are you combining for those seven total? Oh. Each good game. Three games? No, look, Kiki is a really talented guy. I thought he was a good waiver wire pickup, but I did caution. It depends on his injury. He said he's not going to come back until he's 100%. He's not Adrian Peterson all the way healthy. They're after their buy. And after the buy, he was limited in practice.

So I don't have the confidence of Kiki for this matchup. Certainly not. When he's healthy, I do. He's not healthy. So don't start Kiki yet. Most important question is Kiki sneaky. Kiki sneaky. Kiki is sneaky. Kiki is sneaky. Kiki is sneaky. Kiki is sneaky. He lives in a Tiki. He lives in a Tee. You're going to tweak your lineup? Well, he's going to tweak his hamstring. And so you got this sneaky when Kiki tweaks, he lives in a T. He lives in a Tee. He lives in a Tee. Tee.

Yeah, that's where he lives. Kiki lives in a teepee. He could have gone with like cheeky. He lives in a cheeky? No, but the words that actually rhyme. Well, you can live in someone's cheeks. All right. I mean, you're the songwriter, Mike. You've got to take some liberties with these rhymes. You're not just, you know. Yeah, well, that's exactly why I got to put my foot down and say that that is not a proper rhyme. Let's put this down. Starts of the week. All right. It's like people rhyming door and.

Door, no, I messed it up. Oh, that was a good one. Yeah, you're really on fire between cheeky and rhyming door with, ah! That's a hot one. Can we blow? Can we back him out of these starts of the week? Yeah, I'm not feeling confident in Mike. Let's start here at the running back position. I'm actually making Carry-on Johnson my start of the week. I love 21 touches. I love 14 carries despite the fact that they were getting boat race by Chicago last week. And...

They don't have a lot of healthy options on this team. If Marvin Jones is missing the game, it's Kenny Gulliday, and that's the end of the list. Yep. Outside of Carry-on Johnson, they will have to use him. It's a volume play. But your confidence level on Carry-on might be down. Mine is shaky. I know. I cannot believe you're thinking about starting John Brown over Carry-on Johnson this week. It is a...

It's an assault on my sensibilities, Mike. I mean, John Brown, a single-digit guy for four or five weeks. Carry-on Johnson. On your team, mind you, on your bench, dropped a huge game last week. He'll have 20 total opportunities in this game. John Brown might have three opportunities to make a big play. Sure. I'm going to go to carry-on direction. Jason, who is your running back start of the week? My running back start of the week is Alex.

Collins. I mentioned him from Baltimore. Look, the matchup is great. This week, Cincinnati's defense has been terrible. They're 31st against the run on the season over the last six weeks. They're one spot worse than that, also known as the worst in the league. They are easy to run on. And I think the quarterback situation for Baltimore works in the favor of Alex Collins because...

no matter what happens. If Joe Flack goes there and he's a little hurt, they might want to run the ball more and they'll be able to. So Alex Collins, if it's Lamar Jackson or Robert Griffin, guys that can run and get mobile and teams have to scheme for shadowing that quarterback and looking for the run pass option and who's got the ball, that benefits Alex Collins. So you have the great matchup coming off their by week.

I think Alex Collins is a guy that, you know, if he's on your roster, he should be started. Yeah, I love it. My start of the week at the running back position is Tariq Cohen. Turok. Turok the dinosaur hunter. The matchup is not great.

As in it looks bad on paper. Well, for prototypical running. Yes, the Chicago Bears against the Minnesota Vikings could be tough. That's why I like Tarek. I also like the usage, even in a very, very positive game script for what Jordan Howard can do for this team last week, which is be up big against an inferior opponent and you can run out the clock. Cohen still out snapped Jordan Howard. I think the team is.

seeing the success that they can have with him. And I'm expecting more of the output that Cohen put out in the middle of the season where he was getting the eight targets, the nine targets. It finally went back to seven this past week. That didn't turn into a bunch of success, but I think the opportunities is what I'm after. Okay. Quarterback started the week.

I don't even know exactly where I'm going here. I wanted to bring up two names. Eli Manning against Tampa Bay, one of the worst past defenses in football. It's a great stream. With Odell Beckham Jr. I think he's a top 12 guy this week. Eli Manning can end up in that range. I also want to bring up Jared Goff. Gerard. Jared. Now, nobody, I mean, most of you out there with golf is starting him, but I have Jared Goff as my number one overall quarterback this week.

And so I wanted to give a vote of confidence a little pat on the butt start of the week for golf with Eli Manning. So this says if you've got Jared Garf and Pat Mahomes, are you, you're throwing golf in your starting lineup number one? Over Mr. Mahomes. That's what I mean. Nobody has that. Okay. But what if you do? It's hypothetical. If I do, look, you theoretically could. If I do, I'm playing Pat Mahomes.