Hungry For More + Start/Sit Decisions, TNF Preview - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/4

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is brought to you by Amazon Prime. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome into the podcast. It's the fantasy footballers podcast. If you're nasty. Oh, we nasty. But this is the time for nasty, Mike. Oh, yeah, it is. This is the time where you got to get. Got to get down that mucky muck. Tis the season of nasty. Make them playoffs. Back your way in. Grab those foul rebound players no one wants. Oh, yeah. Beat the Goliath ahead of you. Win the championship. That's the way I like to do it. As the underdog. Yeah. Is that because you are the underdog right now? This year, that's the way I like to do it. This year is.

Next year, though, it could be different. I would much rather be the favorite. Welcome into the podcast, everybody. I'm your host. I'm your captain today, Mike, the Fantasy Hitman, right. My best friend, Jason Moore. What up? All right. And a bear. Oh, yeah, Jay Gris, aka J. Riz, the Cardboard Bear Extraordinary. He's in the house. Andy is off today. But that's all right, because we got hunger for more. We got news. We got the Thursday night preview. Maybe some mailbag. Who knows? I don't know what I'm going to do. I didn't know I was hosting today. I just sat down and they're like, hey, you're hosting today. So you're up. So we are up. The fantasy footballers.com. That is our hub for everything. Articles, rankings. Make sure you go check that out a bunch of really cool free stuff, as well as some premium perks if you support us at join thefoot.com, including the ultimate dashboard and an extra podcast every single week.

Is there anything to muse on Jason or we move into the show? Let's go to the show. Welcome to Hungry for More, presented by Uber Eads. It's Hungry for More time where we talk about some players where maybe we've got a little bit of a little nibble. Maybe we've got a bite. Maybe we're actually just, we overloaded with them. And we're still hungry for more because this is America. And that happens from time to time. Jason, who are you? Hungry for more of. I am hungry for more of an entire passing attack. I mean, really, I'm hungry for more. You're starving. It's James Winston. I'm hungry for more insane James Winston play because I'm hungry for this Brown's passing attack that has gone from virtual irrelevance. I mean, you weren't playing anyone with Deshaun Watson. Jerry Judy was not a startable player. I mean, Nichoku, okay, because he's a tight end. Sure.

you could get away with it. But even Najoku before and after has been so much better. If you look at the splits here, we're pretty much at the halfway point. You had seven weeks with Watson. It's been six weeks since then. Five games started with James Winston. I mean, across the board. Across the board, you look at... targets to every player. Jerry Judy went from 5.9 to 9.8. Cedric Tillman was irrelevant. 2.4 in the games he's played. His career was irrelevant. He's at 8. Najoku, who was already at 7.3 targets a game with Watson. He's up at 9.6 for Elijah Moore. Like everyone gets a car. You know what I mean? You get a car. You get a car. And we were talking about this a couple weeks ago because James was doing this right off the bat.

Last year we saw this, you know, with Joe Flacco, it's just insane that it's the same team. It's not like, you know, usually you go. We're all trying to figure out what happened. We're all trying to find the guy that did this. What is the problem? There's, I mean, there's so many variables. At the beginning of last year and the beginning of this year for Cleveland, it just something felt different. Offense wasn't working. There's a change that happens at some point. Maybe we can figure out what the problem is. But. A couple weeks ago, we were looking at the upcoming schedule for James Winston, and it's rough. It is as bad as it gets. It was literally 32nd of 32 teams. When you look at the passing game for quarterbacks for wide receivers, you had a gauntlet coming up of Denver, Pittsburgh, Kansas City. I mean, that is awful, awful, awful. Last week was the first one of those. That was Denver. Right. He was the quarterback won. I mean, it's just like he don't care. And he threw two pick sixes.

And those things are usually very helpful for fantasy football. So this week goes to Pittsburgh, plays in a tough environment, a divisional matchup against the Steelers. I'm just hungry for it to keep going. You know, it's going to take fortitude if you actually wanted to start him. Yeah. Because two weeks ago, he put up 13 fantasy points. You know, and the week prior to that, it was 26. It was great the week prior to that, 10. I mean, James is literally a stick of dynamite. You don't know what you're going to have. But in certain situations, like if you're the underdog backing your way into the playoffs, you can do worse than taking a shot on this Cleveland Browns passing attack, hoping that Jerry Judy, Elijah Moore, Tillman, Djokuu, and James can be those nasty, mucky muck players that towards the playoffs end up winning people championships. Yeah, when you're...

choosing a streaming type of a quarterback. I mean, a guy who could be the number one quarterback in a bad matchup, it seems like that's an okay decision to make. Like the risk is worth the reward. I just, the fans of Cleveland, like if you're Cleveland Brown's supporter, and this is now multiple years in a row. And we've said, James is not necessarily the solution or the answer for a franchise. It's just you now have back-to-back years of an offense being impossible to watch on television because it makes you violently ill. A new quarterback comes in, and all of the sudden, it's a dominant offense. You cannot convince me that if James was the start at week one, that this Brown's team is not 500 at worst right now. No, no, James, James eats Ws. He's hungry for more Ws, if you remember,

They would certainly have won more games. This, yeah, James isn't the answer, but we know what the problem was. We know what the issues. And the crazy thing is it's not going away. It has to. I don't know that it's possible. I think the only way it's possible for it to go away, financially speaking, is if a team that would be willing to take on, they would have to take on to Sean Watson's contract. with like, you know, let's say the Browns get, you know, the number six pick in the draft, would a team be willing to take on that contract to get that number six pick outright? And would the Cleveland Browns be willing to light a top 10 pick on fire just to get rid of Voldemort? I'm saying if, like, even the scenario where he's still on the team. Like, if I'm the Cleveland Browns, my team doctor is like,

I'm sorry, man, I can't clear you. I cannot clear you to come back to NFL duties. You're just, this thing, it's, it's irreparable. Yeah, but then it's, it's still the money. That's the issue. But that is, that you, you made your deal with the devil. You live with that now, but how can you go two years in a row of seeing what your team could have been with any type of competent quarterback play? Like Deshaun Watson, through six full games this year. did not surpass 200 passing yards. Then they trade Amari Cooper. James comes in essentially right after Amari Cooper is traded. Your number one, play with the backups. Wide receivers. And James is crushing, like, at least production-wise, keeping their offense on the field. It's, I don't know how you find a way. You have to find a way to get him off the field. It's not fair. It's not fair to every single other person in that building.

every other coach, every fan who pays their hard-earned money to come see this team, support this team, you can't do it. You only have two choices. You either find someone to pay the contract or you have to pay the contract. And if you have to pay the contract, then you have to have the gonads to just say, you're our backup. No, you're the emergency third stringer. You're not even the backup. 100%. You're not active. That is a good call because then there's going to be all the issues when a starter struggles of You've got this expensive quarterback behind him. Yes, you need to make him your third strength. Go get Justin Fields in the offseason and have him be the starter for you next year. And like often, you know, you have players. Like when Daniel Jones being benched, you had several players of the Giants come out upset. Because for his strengths and weaknesses, Daniel Jones is the best quarterback on that team. But.

They had to make a financial decision and all the players are mad. I think if you pitched to Sean Watson, I don't think the players are going to be mad. You know, it's funny. I think they will rejoice. I've always thought about, like, being a teammate of Voldemort. And I know, you know, like when, when, uh, Baltimore got injured, uh, due to too much, uh, black magic, um, you had James come out and, and really defend him and speak up for him. So I know, like, teammates, these guys are, are. brothers in arms, you know, they're warriors together. But you know there's got to be some teammates. They want to win. Well, they want to win, but there's also teammates that like don't want, you know, it's, I think the pass rush against Deshaun Watson gets a little extra excited. That's all I'm saying, because I know, you know, like pin your ears back. So the player I want to mention, it's one of my biggest whiffs of the year, but I'm hungry for more. It's Jalen Waddle.

Because, again, this season has been wasted, awful, awful pick. However, two of the past three games have been, or two of his three best games, I should say, took place in the past two weeks. And it's, have we figured something out here for the Miami Dolphins, weeks one through six? Again, six of those weeks were without two of, but no yards after catch, averaging an 8.9 average depth of target. Like, those are not that. Those are tight end type numbers. And then in the past two weeks, 11. That's his average depth of target, 15.2 yards per target. That's behind only Jerry Judy the past two weeks. A lot of it's being lifted up by one humongous game. But the past week was also, like I said, one of his top three games of the season, the upcoming schedule.

The Jets, which the Jets numbers are... They're not good anymore. Yeah, exactly. Like, their numbers on paper still average out to be... They're like, oh, should I be worried about that matchup? I don't think so. Their defense seems to have packed it in. Then you get Houston, and then San Francisco, that one's... We'll see on that one. And then Cleveland in Championship Week, I don't know. I think that there is a chance that we can turn it around that Jalen Waddle is at least a flex consideration who has weekly upside. We... We got to get this thing going here, Miami, but 15.2 yards for Target. It's encouraging for the past couple of weeks. And, oh gosh, I really hope that Waddle can turn it around. But that was hungry for more. Presented by Uber Eats, where you can get the best deals on game day food all season long. Uber Eats, the official on-demand delivery partner of the NFL order now. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Ian Rappaport is reporting.

The Chargers wide receiver at Ladd-McConkey, aka Ladidi McConkey. His status is up in the air for week 14. It's an AC joint injury and a knee injury. Yeah, a little bitty baby boy is banged up. However, this is such an important matchup. I mean, you're talking about playoff seating. You're talking about division seating. Yeah, playing the chiefs on Sunday night football. This is Sunday night football, primetime football. with a Chargers team that is in the hunt. You know, they want to believe that they're a Super Bowl contender. And, you know, if you want to prove that, beat the Chiefs. Beat the one lost divisional opponent back-to-back Super Bowl champions. You know, obviously being a divisional opponent means it's, every game is important. But this one clearly, being primetime, being the Chiefs, being in division is a very important game. So I think if Lididi is...

not broken he will he will play are you willing to wait on lad mcconkey because it's sunday night so you would have to prepare yourself like put him in the flex have pick up you know uh the dizzler will disley or pick up Josh Palm. Is he? He has been that good where I, and honestly, the Dizzler is, can we, can we make that happen? Well, it's Big Montana. I know, I mean, he's got so many names. He deserves so many names. But I do think if Ladd McConkey can't play in Sunday night football, if I've got Ladd in my flex spot, if I knew Ladd was out, Will Disley is a, is a absolute flex option.

streamable outside of tight-end option. He'll have seven receptions in that game because Kansas City gives it up to the tight end and they will need him. You can also look at Brandon Cooks, who's on Monday. I mentioned him on the waivers. Should C.D. Lamb not be able to go on Monday night? Brandon Cooks is at least interesting. Yeah, I mean, even if Lamb can go, I think Brandon Cooks is not like a must start, but in the case of a... of an injury pivot. I think it's worth it because what you've seen from McConkey lately, and we know that usually rookie wide receivers, the second half of the year is even better. But you look at his fantasy finishes. I mean, he's been a top 36 wide receiver in basically every single week since week eight, including being the wide receiver 2, the wide receiver 12, the wide receiver 23, and the wide receiver 10. So he is someone that needs to be started. I was talking with Andy during the games on Sunday.

I am of just watching everything and, you know, just trying to project, of course. I don't think Lad is a top. He's not like a Jamar Chase CD lamp, but I think Ladd is going to be a superstar. Yeah, I mean, this was. Like it's like a top 12 type of wide receiver. I think it's going to happen. He's my, you know, one of my biggest regrets because. You know, on the my guys episode, we, we shared with our third my guy who, like, our close calls were. Lad was going to be a Mike guy except I'm a bad. He ended up getting injured right before the season and I worried about that injury. Because if I could have deleted Tank Dell and had Ladd, I feel a lot better. But saying, like, I am, I have shifted to, not that I was on the opposite side, but like, I'm on your side. If I see the path where Lad is just. Well, look at Keenan hour.

Like Keenan Allen, I like that he is bigger and able to take the hits that I worry Lad cannot keep up with. But we saw Keenan be top 10 fantasy wide receiver over and over and over and over with Justin Herbert because if you've got a timing thrower with an exceptional route runner who's going to be in the right place at the right time with great hands. And be wide open. I mean, it's just like what else do you want from any wide receiver? Is he open and will he catch it when I throw him the ball? Because those are both important things, as seen by his teammate Quentin Johnston, who can get open. Just can't catch that ball. Uh-oh. We're getting reports that Packers running back Josh Jacobs is dealing with a, quote, nagging calf injury. He is expected to play. We're going to go over to League of Record contender. Producer Al Boylan, how does that make you feel? He's going to be fine.

Oh, yes. That's how confident I am. Oh, my gosh, you can't script that. I mean, that was, that was literally voice cracking fear of God. Wow. Josh Jacobs, please be okay. I mean, the last time we saw a nagging calf injury that was, you know. Stop it. Don't say it. Oh, that's right. That was Christian McCaffery. Yeah, it just moved down and it turned into what? Tendonitis. Yeah, whatever. I will say this. The nagging. part of this report was said in a good way, not a bad way. It was shared as in this, well, it was shared as in this is not a, he did not just get injured. The calf injury is not like, oh, he did something in this game where, where, um, you know, he tore, he pulled something in his calf and now they're worried about it and that's why he's missing practice. It was, this has been a nagging injury for the last several months. So it was shared in a way that's like, he's been playing through this.

He's expected to play through this. Saying that that very much is funny. He's like, oh, don't worry. He's been hurt for a real one time. No, I get it. I get it. It's stupid. But I will say, I am hopeful that Jacobs is, you know, full go right now unless he misses today's practice, which yesterday's practice would have been essentially the Wednesday practice because they're playing on Thursday night football. They're the early game that we're going to preview here in a minute. The. vaunted incredibly tough to run on Detroit Lions defense. I don't know if that's true for the next couple weeks with the injuries they have on their defensive line. You might actually have, like you might have been looking at this Josh Jacobs matchup and going, I don't, I'm not excited about him in this game. You know, I got to prepare for him to have a down game. I think he'll have an awesome game if he's fully healthy. It may move Emmanuel Wilson up.

the list of backups. Like if you're if you're stashing someone else's insurance running back and you're like, I can't sort through him, but brailing, all these guys, the fact that the starter is currently dealing with an injury, maybe Wilson moves up. And Kyle, I know that I feel even dumb bringing this name up because we've talked about him several times this year and it's always been irrelevant. But Kyle, will you look up the Marshaun Lloyd situation? Because I think he went on, he wasn't. I don't think it was the IR. It was like the NFI list because it was appendicitis. But I don't know if it has the same rules where he can't come back for four games. So yeah, Kyle can look that up because Marshawn Lloyd was healthy from his injury. Coming back was supposedly a big part of the game plan when he woke up and had appendicitis and had to have emergency appendectomy. So if he comes back and Josh Jacobs gets hurt, that might be another backup to look at.

along with Wilson. Also that Chris Brooks fell has been getting opportunities. No. No. Dude sucks. Commanders running back Austin Eccler on Tuesday said he's still dealing with concussion symptoms. He still has three games left on the IR. But this man, it's such a big bummer. It's its second one. I've looked at him talking about it. For justifiable reasons, I think he is concerned about it. Which sucks because this team can make a run, and Echler would be a part of it, and I would love to see Echler get do a playoff run. It would be fun. For sure. That would be awesome. He should be able to get back by the NFL playoffs, but for fantasy football purposes, you don't need to roster him. If you haven't done the math, they're on by this week, then he has to miss three more games. That's the championship. That's week 17. He's out week 17 guaranteed. So if he comes back, which right now.

symptoms being there is not a good sign of him coming back immediately. If he does, the earliest he can come back is when fantasy football is over. So drop him, move on, and hopefully he is good for the NFL playoffs because we love that dude and want him to have a fun time. Let's see, Breece Hall won't practice. Shut up. Dude. Don't worry about it, man. Don't worry about it. I already know. Can I tell you the Breeze Hall rest of season's story? Sure. I'd love to hear it. Yeah. So my, our, our main two leagues, our main dynasty league and our, in our league of record. Both of those seasons have been inextricably tied to Brees Hall. Like I, a centerpiece of both franchises, which is why now I am in one, technically in the playoffs and the other, just outside of the playoffs, trying to get into both. Brees Hall will be the reason I do not make the playoffs, but.

After that, oh baby, he's going to go nuclear. So why don't you just play a different guy? I don't have other people to play, Mike. Oh, how easy. Let me just throw Josh Jacobs in there. No, I don't have them. I wasn't sure how convicted you are in this main character syndrome. Yeah, no, I'm very convicted, but the issue is, I mean, my other guy would be. I'm hopeful Alexander Madison's back or Kareem Hunt. I mean, look, it's tough in the streets. Nice. Former Jets running back, who was recently cut. Izzy Abanacanda was claimed by the 49ers. They had to bring somebody else in, but Jason. Oh. Amacanda, don't. None. Unless you got buns, son. Yeah. It's a fun, interesting pickup. If you've listened for.

The last year, two years, Izzy was never like a super highly touted prospect that we were banging the drum for, but he did have certain traits that are great's 216 runs of 4-4-1, I think. So he's a fast, big bodied back, which is great. And honestly, fits the system for the 49ers really, really well. This is, I think, a great pickup. The fact that right now he's number two on the depth chart. I do expect. So for now, Isaac Garando is the starter. Izzy is the backup on the- Someone has him in our Dino League? Oh, yeah. I think he'll be rostered in most Dynasty Leagues because he looked like the backup for Bruce Hall. But he was the backup to the backup. He became the backup to the backup, but a lot of times those guys just aren't released in season in Dynasty Leagues. You should go out and look and see if Izzy's there. At this point, he should be rostered now he's the backup. You have Patrick Taylor.

who is on the practice squad, as well, the 49ers signed one-time hopeful good player, Kishon Vaughn. Yeah, they're bringing in all the hits. I mean, they're doing what we have to do in fantasy football at this time of year, which is playing in the nasty boys. But yeah, Izzy hopefully gets some run, and he would be, I think, the guy, the next man up, who would succeed should an injury happen to Isaac Garindo. I think Patrick Taylor's more of like the special teams type of guy. He's on the practice squad right now. I expect him to be elevated. But TBD. Right now it's, I mean, Isaac Garindo's got the work to himself. It appears. Yeah, you should check a DM. I just sent to you, Jason. While I read this, that was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at usAA.com slash insurance. I'm going to take a quick break. And we'll be back with the Thursday night preview. I like what you DM'd me.

And that is all we will say. That's the message just for me and you and everyone to wish they knew what it was. You guys want to know? I'll bet you'd do. Never going to happen. I think Kyle figured it out. Well, maybe, maybe not. We'll see. Well, you'll never know. It's our secret. All right. Let's get into it. Thursday night breakdown. Update. Kyle definitely figured it out. Now, yeah, we'll tell the people, our Dino Jr. league he is available so all right hopefully kyle has the fab to get it done green bay nine and three taking on the detroit lines who are 11 and 1 this is a game drafting sportsbook line is Detroit minus 3 the over under is a delicious 51 and a half point highest of the week Thursday night what could go wrong

We aren't in Dome. We're at Detroit. So at least we have that going for us. Oh, no. I don't know if you know this. Uh, 27 degrees and snow. Terrible weather. Oh. Oh, wait. They're in a dome. Yeah. So we should have awesome football. Yeah. Like I realize something about America. As I was watching the snow game from Sunday night. Because look, team big dome over here. It doesn't mean I. I don't enjoy watching a snowball because it's fun. Snow games are awesome. I totally get it. But I look at it objectively, not from the fan who's like, oh man, this once, you know, we get these so little here. It's enjoyable. It's different. It's unique. We're willing to just throw everything away for that one special little snow game. Like, players don't like it.

Okay, but number one, the players do not like it. James liked it. But I'm saying overall, the, when you get reports from players like playing at Lambo, once they're gone, they're like, oh, that was the worst. Yeah, that sucks. It's so cold. It sucks. It also hurts their contracts because they play for incentives. Yes. This is what I'm saying. I'm like, you work so hard and you have all these other games where the variables are put into control because you're. You're indoors. There's nothing else that can affect it. And then you're like, yeah, but what about this one game? Why is that? That should count like half a game. My actual point in bringing up the fact that there was snow there is actually to point out to all the snow people, all the bad weather people, that when you have this incredible Thursday night football game, you need to be disappointed in it. You need to be unhappy. If you're going to stay, you know, intellectually honest and, you know,

just ethically true to yourself, then make sure if this hits that over of 51 and a half that you are like, man, we could have had a snow bowl here, but they had a roof on it. You could have had 11 completions for 94 yards from Brock Purdy. You could have had that, but you might end up with some awesome football. And I just want you to know that there's snow outside that perfectly controlled environment that you are being robbed of. They played in week nine talking about the Packers in Detroit. Detroit won 24 to 14. That was the outdoor game. Detroit is a home machine, 35 points per game at home, number one in the NFL, 27 and a half red zone per plays. That's number one. So what are we expecting here? Jordan Love has a 6.5% touchdown rate, which, I mean, that's still outrageous. But I get the feeling, or I can agree with the feeling of Jordan Love,