Championship Week Worries + Underdog Tips, TNF Preview - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/28

On today's episode, we have Ride or Die. We break down the news and the notes. And of course, the biggest discussion of the week. Derek Henry, what do we do? Is he going to play? What happens if he doesn't play? Do you go with a backup? All those things and more. Make sure you subscribe to this channel. Leave us some comments and enjoy. The Fantasy Footballer Studio is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Visit Samsung.com to learn more. to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. December 28th, the fantasy footballers podcast, Andy Mike and Jason. Judge Diamati is here, Al Borland, the Borgogan Inducers Alley. We're getting you ready for championship week, which begins tomorrow. We'll preview the...

Dare I say depressing Thursday night football matchup. Oh, you dare. It could be. We could be missing some superstars here. Yeah. And it's unfortunate because 96% of you have made the wise decision to move your championship week to week 17, not week 18. Week 18 is just a time for chaos. Week 17 is supposed to be a time in which your best players. They're on display. They win you that title. And yet won't be the case for some guys. And we do see every year that there are heroes that, look, they probably make more of a mark on fantasy football than they genuinely ever will for their NFL teams because players like Jared Patterson were a blip on the NFL timeline and yet will be heralded as heroes in fantasy football because of the,

as you call them nasty boys that make their mark in week 17. I was going to say week 16 is also a week when your superstars are supposed to show up. Okay. But was not the case for a lot of them. That is the difficulty of one week. You know, you got one week to make it happen. I mean, we have a league where the three of us were the one, two, and three seeds. We're all out. None of us into the title game. Yeah, my superstars did not show up. Yeah, that's the case for many, but also many of you in the title game this week. Ride or Die on the show today, NFL news to talk about the Thursday night preview mailbag. Our final party is this afternoon. Spotify Live. We've been with them all year long doing a live show every single Wednesday, 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 p.m. Eastern, our final one today. Come hanging out with us. Ask your last minute questions. Tilt with us.

We'll bring people up on stage. They share their emotions. And then, you know, laugh together, cry together, all that stuff. And I think this will be the first ever live audio stream, fantasy football show, dance party. This is going to be a dance party. Oh, yeah. At least 30 minutes, we're just going to throw on some classic. You know, maybe a little la da da da da. We're going to get all the 90s dance. We go around the world. Okay. What if I don't feel like dancing, Mike? No one will know. You just say, look at my dance moves. Yeah, that no one has really done that on the audio format. And I'll be like, whoa, killer robot, bro. That is a whole new genre. You just invented a new. Whoa, Jason's pop locking. Podcast dance party. Listen to me, twerk. Listen to me twerk. Well, I mean, look, come and join us Spotify Live today.

A couple of things at the top before we get into ride or die. Fantasychamps.com go there right now. This is your title time. So you need, if you need a trophy, a ring, a championship belt, these guys do it better than everybody else. And we have a special promotion just for us, just for this podcast. The code is free ring. And if you purchase a trophy, a championship trophy for your league or a belt. You get a free $59 championship ring as well. Just put both items in your cart, enter the code free ring, and then you will receive a free ring. Yeah, free ring and bling. So fantasychamps.com, check that out as we push towards those titles. You got to show off. I mean, you've got to, Jason's in a League of Record title game. I have no doubt that Jason will be blinged out and obnoxious for.

A long period of time if he wins this thing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I will have plenty of free ring in my cart. Champ got a champ. And then you can follow the show on Twitter at the FF Ballers. If you're new to the show this year, we do not go away. Sorry. But we're around in the off season, two shows a week after week 18. Despite the poll yesterday, we will be here all five days of week 18 next week. Lots of dance parties. Yeah. Right here. I mean, the award the. The footies are coming up, everybody. Very excited for that. Yeah, our year-end awards will reflect on the truth of a lot of these player performances. And, you know, we'll decipher the Joe Mixins out there who had the big week but didn't really help you as much throughout the year. And we'll help get you ready for 2023. Let's do some ride or die. Ride or Die presented by Chevrolet. Well, we won't talk about Week 16's Ride or Die.

Because it was a lot of dye. Things didn't work out. Two of the fellas in last weeks were in the extreme weather. Somehow, I barely remember this. Somehow, Omari Cooper managed to accomplish. I rode with him. I thought foolishly. Yes. Jerich McKinnon finished at RB21. We were looking at the ride or die line of top 15. Jason was right on that one. Still a nice week from McKinnon. Zay Jones? We all believed that he could get. The line was set at seven targets. That was, this was a, that was a couple days before the, or whatever, the day before we really knew how bad that weather was going to be. He got four targets. So luckily we sat him. He caught one of them. Week 17 right or died, Brooks. What do you got for us? All right, guys, David Montgomery playing the Lions this week. Will he be top 20 running back? Sure. Nope.

Neither of those are acceptable answers, fellas. No, I realized that. Not for this game. I think he's just too fundamental to this Chicago offense. The Detroit defense showed last week that they are, you know, they struggled against Carolina's running game. David Montgomery should catch the ball. I, you know, he had 20 opportunities last week. Khalil Herbert coming back had 10. I certainly think Jason could be right here, but I'm going to ride with him. Yeah, I see him as a. low-end RB2, someone that, you know, can absolutely be started. But I don't see a monstrous game with Khalil Herbert being back. And even though Detroit was gashed in very cold weather last week, I'm going to stick with the kind of last two-month stretch where they've really shut down the running back position. They're at home in a controlled weather environment. So I will choose die. Yeah, it's very tough because it's a good line. The line is, is difficult to project.

David Montgomery is still somebody that I am playing as a top 24 option. But I'm going to say die. The Khalil Herbert coming back from his injury, he missed four games, you know, five weeks with the by week. But right back into 41% of the snaps was, that was actually surprising to me as the Khalil Herbert truther. So I think that if that, if it sustains there or goes up even a little bit, it's going to be real difficult for Montgomery to get top 20. All right, another running back, Brooks. Who do you have? All right, guys, Miles Sanders. What happened there? What happened, Brooksie? Hands and it was on the keyboard and I had to switch the camera and the microphone to my brain. This is your segment. I mean, we set this up for you. Brain short circuit. Are you or are you not a deucer? I switched the camera set of the microphone. Wrong order completely. Anyway. Miles Sanders versus Saints. Can you get back to 11 fantasy points? He's been disappointed in the last two weeks. I mean.

I can't ride with Miles Sanders on this line. He's been awful. So no. I can ride with Miles Sanders on this line. Andy and I take an opposite approaches for these first two guys. He had 21 carries last week. He had a fumble and it was against a very difficult defense. Also, I think there's a, I mean, I am playing the Eagles quarterback this week. Whether it's Jalen Hertz or whether it's Gardner-Menschu, that's in my championship. So I'm sure Miles Sanders has like three rushing touchdowns. Right. And sucks my soul out of a straw. Oh, my gosh. Never want your soul in a straw. No. So at least I will maybe get a green checkmark on writing with Miles Sanders. Oh, that'll be just the salons. It'll totally take care of it.

Emotional edge. By the way, Miles Sanders has hit this mark seven times, hasn't hit it eight times. So it's a 50-50 shot pretty much. Mike, he doesn't care about our fantasy football. He has made that very appearance. Little too apparent. With the statement of the draft season, when he said, don't draft me. Then was great. And then when they won against Chicago and Miles Sanders was not involved, he made sure that everybody knew. that he doesn't care about fantasy football. Well, I want him to know that I don't care that you fumbled the game away when you could have clinched the number one seed. Nice. So what is that right or die, Mike? Die. Get out of my face, Miles Sanders. All right, Cam Acres. One more running back. Brooks set the line here. Also, if you want to come on the show. Wait, let me throw to Brooks and see what happens. Is this where I'm supposed to talk now? Yeah. Oh, okay. Cam Acres against Chargers, will he score a touchdown? You betcha.

I'm riding with Cam Acres. In fact, there'll be a bonus question at the end of this ride or die. I want these three running backs in order for you guys. Ooh, I like that. That's fun. I guess I'm going to stick with the theme here. Since Andy Road, I will die. This was actually really tough. The theme is that he does the opposite as me. Yeah. It's a good theme. Well, the first two were natural. This one I was unsure of because there is, there's a, there's. You know, if they get down in the red zone, in the 10 zone and the five zone, like I think Cam Acres will get a touchdown. The Chargers don't have an awesome run. But I also feel like betting against the Rams offense for just scoring a lot of touchdowns is probably pretty smart. But then on the other side, it's like, well, are the Chargers even playing for much? That's a good question. So I kept going back and forth. I'm going to let the tiebreaker be just do what I did. And either Andy or I will have a really good week.

Or a really bad week, like one of us. So there you go. Lock it in. The, the, the, sorry, the Cam Acres resurgence here over the last month with six touchdowns in the past four games. It's been ridiculous. It's great to see him kind of get going. I will also say die, though. I will bet against the touchdown. If you put these three in order for this upcoming week, Cam Acres is at the top of my list. Wow. You'd start them over Montgomery. So. Yeah, yeah, I would go Acres and then I would probably, I'd have a hard time between Sanders and Montgomery. I think I'd lean Montgomery and then I'd go Sanders. The lows have been low for Miles Sanders. That's the thing that scares me in the championship week is that somehow, some way he just isn't a part of it sometimes. And, you know, I don't think Montgomery has any chance of being that low. So I think Acres is a lock to just be.

A fundamental part of the offense? There's always the chance. Like the way that the Rams played last week, which by the way, I think Baker Mayfield, I thought I saw a stat that he had the highest pass rating in a single game of Rams history. Really? Above Stafford, above Warner. Let me go look at that stat line. Remember, let's see. So he was 24 of 28. Yeah. So an 86% completion. That's pretty good. Percentage. 8.2 yards per attempt, two passing touchdowns. I mean, he did have a fumble, but that's not against his passing stats. No, I think I saw a stat this morning that he had the highest pass rating in any single game. I could be wrong, but there was something to that. The quarterback rating was 124.7. I don't know what his QBR was. What's weird about this team as they finish out the season is that you have Cam Acres and Baker Mayfield who are entirely motivated.

Both of those players have their futures on the line, right? Cam Acre's entire future is being defined by the way he plays to finish this season. Baker, you know, Matthew Stafford said he's not retiring. Baker's going somewhere else, most likely. He could come back as a backup for this team if he wants to. But it's just interesting to see them put up 51 points, play very well on offense. Seems like Sean McVeigh is still motivated to finish the year strong. So I like Cam Acres this week. I'm changing. I'm changing. Wait, are you riding with it? Yeah, I'm riding. Oh, wow. You won me over. Those doors are locked, brother. Oh, no, no. We have not done the closing line. I am riding here. Look, Kaymakers has been over five yards to carry the last two weeks, and we see it every single season. There are running backs at the end of the year.

who just catch fire. And when they do, you want to stay in those flames? So I will. I think that would be foolish to look away from Cam Acres. I will, as far as the order. Confirm, by the way. Baker Mayfield highest passerating in Rams history with a minimum of 50 attempts, 98.9. And Matthew Stafford was 97.7. Kurt Warner's highest was 97. What was that minimum? 50 attempts. How many times did Kurt Warner even throw 50 times? No, no, no. I think it's, it must be passer rating as a quarterback. Minimum 50 attempts on the Rams. So that just means he's had a good run. He's had a nice. He threw it 28 times. He had a nice three-game run where he's been 58 for 84, 571, and 4. So there you go. So Jason moved to ride? I moved to ride. Okay. That was right. I presented by Chevy Silverado. Learn more about Chevy Silverado at Chevy.com. Now it's locked in.

That's the moment. Once you finish it. Gotcha. All right. Into the news we go. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Snip, snap, snip, snip, snip, snip. Carson Wentz will start against the Browns. I think I've decided there's nothing more pathetic feeling than the quarterback roulette situation. Because these head coaches, like we saw it with Matt Rule last year. When you are just... You start. Now you start. Oh, you come in halfway through the game. That is just, you're grasping at straws. Like your season's falling apart and it's ending before your very eyes. And now Carson Wins will take over from Heineke. And we got all the platitudes about Heineke in the press conferences and suddenly he's not good enough to play anymore. And Carson Wins is time to play. Well, we haven't seen Carson Wince make his usual mistakes in quite a while. So have we forgotten? He forgot about him? Yeah, because he hasn't played in quite a while. Well, he's going to start against the Browns.

We've seen Jehan Dodson emerge lately. The McLaurin situation gets a little more nerve-wracking. Much love McLaurin. It was a good run. I mean, it feels just like the Jets too, where it's like Garrett Wilson. He's like, yeah, man, I got Mike White. And then, no, I got the, you know, it's tough on these receivers. They don't know what to expect. Jeff Saturday. Oh, boy. I didn't see this until just now. Whoa, baby. Told reporters that they're sticking with Nick Foles as their starting quarterback. And he really, either he really liked what he saw last week on the seven sacks and three interceptions and three total points against the Chargers. Or now Jeff Saturday has been backed into a corner of he really must do what is correct for the Colts and their franchise, which the correct thing for the franchise, not for the coaches, not for the players, but the correct thing for Jim Irseye is the Colts lose out. They are.

We were taking a look at where the draft order stands right now. And with the Houston Texans winning this past week, dumb, dumps. The window has opened up for another team to sneak in. I don't know if the Colts face the Texans. Yeah, in the final week of the season. That's another game you can give them. It's, oh, like we were looking specifically for the Cardinals. Can they sneak up and they actually can? Like Houston is sitting at 2.12 and 1, right behind them is Chicago at 3 and 12. Then the Denver slash Seattle pick at 4 and 11, Arizona's 4 and 11. The Colts are 4 in 10. So, I mean, should the Colts lose out and Houston somehow win out, their records will be tied out. And I assume the tiebreaker then goes to the Colts because they will have lost to Houston. I'm not exactly sure how the draft works. But the pick is wide open. And playing Nick Foles is a way to lose.

that you're locked into a really high pick. What actually hurts the most is what Jason brought up, I think, yesterday about the Giants matchup, which is, I think we were talking about Isaiah Hodgins on the waiver show. If the Colts play, Nick Foles, it's going to be bad. And you're going to need to do less. I mean, we didn't need a lot from the chargers on the offense. They didn't have to, they could run the ball with Josh Kelly too much and get away with, what, 20 to 3 wins. So it is a concern for teams playing the Colts. You know, we get this question about Dynasty leagues. Let's just have that discussion for a moment. Houston plays Indianapolis the last game of the year. It's in the best interest of both of those teams who need a quarterback to lose that ball game. Yes. Very rarely do we say, you know, most often we're like, put the best line up out there, win the game in Dynasty. But when you get to the last game of the season, and it's a definitive marked effect on the pick you, you know, I told Mike yesterday.

Think about this. If that game was the difference between Peyton Manning on your team for the next 15 years or not. Or like Trevor Lawrence versus Zach Wilson, which just happened. With Adam Gays winning his last two. The Jets won some games that we didn't think they would win that for the franchise they should not have won. And now they're already looking to dump their franchise quarterback. Swap those two quarterbacks. Put Trevor Lawrence on the Jets with this defense right now. And how are they not in the playoffs? How are they not even contending? And instead, they're floundering because they decided to win the last game in dummy dumb fashion. It's so brutal that this is the system of your team needs to lose for that jersey. But all of those men and ladies who are working for that team, they want to win, but it's so bad for them in the long run.

It's such a strange place to be in. There's a level of intellectual dishonesty that takes place when you say, well, you just have to do your job, Houston, and be a competitive opponent for the integrity of the league. When the integrity of the league is set up so that you need to do what, what are you supposed to do? You have an argument to your fan base to say, I want to give you the best team for 15 years. And we just saw the NFL, you know, bring the hammer down or, you know, investigate all the Miami Dolphin situation of, did they possibly tank? You know, and they said, no, no, no, no. They didn't. But, you know, those are serious, serious allegations to the NFL. There's betting markets and all of that. So these owners are going to these head coaches and saying, hey, you should win.

Well, and then how dishonest is that? Because the head coach, their record is permanent. Yes. You know, you're a head coach, and you have that on your record forever, right? Lovie Smith doesn't want to be 2.14 and 1. He'd rather be 4, 12, and 1. So it's a difficult situation, and it's difficult in Dynasty leagues when you are positioning for Bijan Robinson or Smith and Jigba and you want a better pick and your league wants you to play hard. I mean, you should. It's just a hard thing to be dogmatic about. Let me put it that way because I'd love to be the moral superiority like, well, just you owe it to the league. You owe it to the game. The league benefits and you don't. Right. No, you should absolutely be going out there and losing. You should be trying to lose that game. Go play some people lightheartedly. That being said,

play wink martindale's defense i think that's the big takeaway here from the starting you know obviously uh sayquan this could be better news for um you know if they're in a positive game script and just running the clock out sure but the giant's defense should be picked up and started this week Kyle Shanahan said debo samuel may return to practice later this week uh you did you did miss the bit of Ron Rivera said Antonio Gibson has a sprain so uh Antonio Gibson, they're going to monitor it this week. If you noticed last week at the end of the game, I believe it was Jonathan Williams was getting carries. It was like, what in the heck is going on here? Where's Gibson? That's what happened again. Yep. And it's been a wild ride for Antonio Gibson. Yeah. Will Disley on IR, knee injury. Oh, man. I know. What? Yeah. He has.

like a yearly obligation for a devastating injury. I mean, he'll be back. Oh, for sure. There's nothing that can keep him down. Big Montana. Yeah, oh, Big Montana can lose a leg. He's out there hopping on one. Let's go. Big Montana. He gets it done. Every year we have to hit that drop and say goodbye to it for a while. That's the problem. But it will be back. The great part is, oh, no, there was a bad injury. We'll probably never see him again. But we get to play it again. He doesn't even have to be good. Just has to be back.

And we'll talk through for those waiting for Derek Henry related news, Tony Pollard News. We're going to hold that until the matchup preview on today's show so we can discuss it at length. Anything new, Brooksie? No, sir. Okay. All right. I got to make sure he's on that microphone if I need him. What's going on? You're playing some mind sweeper? Oh, yeah. I just hope next time, like if you're watching on YouTube, I hope when I go, hey, Brooks, how's it going? You see the cameras just start flying around. Just solo cameras. Oh, no, wrong. Then you know he was trying to hit his button, but instead he hit the camera. May have hit the wrong camera at time or two. Did you? Okay. Well, we'll go back. Not today, but. Okay. In the past? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's happened. Oh, that was today's news and notes brought to you by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Quick break, and then we'll get into the Cowboys Titans matchup.

All right, Foot Clan, there's a lot writing on week 17, and we get to start it early on Thursday night. Let's break it down. Thursday night breakdown. You know, this is one of those weeks where the word breakdown may carry a few different meanings. Well, for me, it's emotional and it's my own. That's the type of breakdown I plan on having. Oh, I'm always interested in the theater, in the drama that we can bring to. the vast listenership. And so there is, there is entertainment to be had in watching you strategically respond to adversity, which is what you're doing 24 hours a day, seven days a week right now. Trying. For those of you following at home, Jason has Derek Henry. Many of you have Derek Henry. He would have been a player that helped you get through last week, a big week against Houston.

Mike and I in Dino Jr. are also in the championship and a team we co-manage also have Derek Henry. So two of my championship teams have Derek Henry. And those are the two most important to me. So that stinks. And another way to put it might be two of your championship teams don't have Derek Henry. That is the way I'm thinking about it. And the reason I'm thinking about it that way is because that is the fact. So Dallas is 11 and 4. They take on the 7 and 8 Tennessee Titans. The game is. in Tennessee and the Draft King Sportsbook line already somewhat reflecting the expected absences in my opinion is Dallas minus 10 on the road the overrunner is just 39.5 that gives Dallas a bunch of points Tennessee not a not a lot and here's what we know right we're recording this Wednesday morning Arizona time and we're not expecting

Did I get a laugh back there? You said Wednesday morning Arizona time, like Wednesday morning is exclusive to Arizona. Well, I mean, it could be not the morning for someone else, somewhere else. All right. It wasn't the most perfect turn of phrase. I agree. Here's the point. We don't expect, I would say I'm putting my odds at about. 2% now that Derek Henry plays Jason I've got a 1% glimmer of hope and I'm not even sure that that's a real glimmer of hope because if he plays and they get down you know two two scores which they will against the Dallas Cowboys with Malik Willis then just rest him up and yeah the reason we believe that is because this game is meaningless next week's game against Jacksonville

Whoever wins that, no matter what happens this week, whoever wins that game is in the playoffs. So for the Titans, this doesn't matter. And they already have a history. This isn't the first time. This situation has happened, not just in theory or to another franchise. It has happened to this team with this head coach and this running back. And they sat him. Now it's a short week where Derek Henry is older and more banged up than ever. I cannot fathom them being like, well, you know what, guys? I want to change the way we did it back in the back the last time and run Derek Henry into the ground. It's just not going to happen. No, it doesn't make any sense. And if you watch Derek Henry's interview, it was very, you know, he's given the right answers. I'll do whatever the coach needs me to do. It doesn't seem like Derek Henry's going to be a part of this offense. They already don't have Ryan Tannahill. If Derek Henry and Malik Will, or sorry, if Derek Henry's out and Malik Willis is the starter, you've got Hassan Haskins.