Fantasy Football 2017 - Starts of the Week, Week 5 Matchups, Bounce Backs

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Coming to you from the Playdraft Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah, we are back again. This is a little musical. Yeah, I am. We are back again. I am just happy to have a voice. Oh, I thought it was going to be highly questionable today. Oh, man, I could have hosted.

I don't... You got your time coming up. I don't allow baseball talk on this podcast because that's nonsense. It's not even a real game. How dare you? But I got to be honest. I mean, as much as I love disparaging baseball... You do love disparaging baseball. It's pretty much a hobby of mine. I watched that whole game last night, that wild car, in a wildcar game. That was awesome. Because playoff baseball is amazing. The problem with baseball is it so...

10,000 games season. Yes, exactly. I won. Who cares? I won a 10 game losing. Who cares? We can come back from a 10 game losing streak. Look, football is a quick flight to Hawaii. Baseball is a slow cross-country drive. You're going to see all the sights. The highs, the lows. Baseball is walking through the Mojave Desert. Where you're like, I'm going to die. I think, oh, that's pretty over there. I like that mountain. Now just nothingness. And I'm going to die again.

And we reached the oasis of the playoffs. Eventually, you get to a theme park. You're like, sweet. I like the analogy. I was at the game with my six-year-old boy and my parents and my sister, and we all lost our minds repeatedly and had a great time. And it was a lot of fun. So as the people in the studio who do not follow baseball say, go baseball. It was a very fun day. This show is not about baseball. This is about football. And we are.

We're jam-packed today. We've got the week five matchups on the show today. Great quick question. Starts of the week. And I'm excited. Let's get right into it. You can follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers, by the way. And get all the latest news and information from the fantasy footballers and the podcast. All right, here we go. This quick question actually came in off at Twitter. He said, who could people be giving up on already that has the best chance to turn things around for a monster second half? And before you guys answer,

I want to give you some examples from 2016, okay? Okay. Last year through four weeks, this is the rank of some players that had a monster second half. Devante Adams was the 72nd ranked wide receiver. He ended up the wide receiver 8. Golden Tate was the 93rd ranked wide receiver, ended up 19. Adam Thielen went 78 to 28. Tyreek Hill went from 73 to 22. Richard Matthews went from 73 to 18. Julian Edelman.

went from 53 to 17. Des Bryant went from 62 to 32 in that time span. And then you had guys like Jordan Howard and Jai who went from 32 and 52 to 10 and 11. And so you had some monster changes that took place. Even Zach Ertz, 44 to 6 by seasons in. So there will be players that fit this category of someone's giving up on them. Maybe you buy them low. Maybe you're buying them off the waiver wire.

But what do you do? Who are your picks for a monster second half? Look, I'm going to go with a guy that has disappointed everybody for, I would say, the last solid year. That's Amari Cooper. Amari Cooper. You're going to say Brooks for a second. What? Why? I'm sorry, Brooks. For no reason. I'm just kidding. Back that bus up and drive on over. Yeah, look, Amari Cooper is an Uber talented wide receiver.

who I believe plays for a high-powered offense. We just haven't seen that offense last few games. Granted the last one, we expected that against Denver. He's going to finish the year in the top 25 wide receivers because he'll have monster big blow-up games. Right now, he's the wide receiver 71. That means his big blow-up games. They're coming the second half. And I don't expect them now. I just traded for Amari Cooper. Are you playing him this week? I bought low. I will say this.

Unfortunately, yes. My advice to be lucky. Reluctantly. Yes, I've got like four buys on my bench right now, so I'm forced to play him. This week, you know, without Derek Carr, I am not, if you can sit Amari Cooper, despite me saying I think he's a second half of the year player, I still would. I'm going to go with an unpopular pick. Yes, you are. I still believe, you know, Isaiah Crowell. I'm going to go with Isaiah Crowell. I think this week specifically.

Yeah, spoiler alert. He's my start of the week this week. It's a great match. And the matchup is great. And it cannot get much worse for Isaiah Crowell. And he is still a starting running back in the NFL, one that I believe in the talent of. And I think that you're going to see improvement in his opportunity. And I'm going to tell you one of the reasons why. I think the defense in Cleveland is going to see some improvement.

And I think that makes the games more competitive. And with the growth of Deshaun Kaiser, I think you're going to have more opportunities for Crowell. And so, look, it's the bottom of the barrel right now. And I want his name out there because you can get him for cheap to free, probably on the waiver wire in some leagues. Because people just, you know, he wasn't as high of draft capital as like a Demarco Murray where people are holding on to him. There's a chance he's dropped in some leagues. So I think Isaiah Crowell actually has potential.

to have a good second half. So I'm going to throw his name out there. I know Mike, you disagree, and that's very reasonable. I'm very concerned about him, especially with the ascension of Duke Johnson, who he was in strong. You mean the Cleveland Brown's number one? The number one ride receiver, yes. Go on. He was in strong contention for my running back start of the week. The guy I'm going to go with is Mike Gillisley, because I know that the roller coaster is in full effect. You had the first two weeks, which were fantastic. And now with two dud games.

People are, they're furious. They're panicking. What do you do with Mike Gillisley? Well, here's some numbers. Mike Gillisley still has 54% of the carries for the New England Patriots. He has six carries inside the five, which four of them have converted into touchdowns. No one else in that range of carries has that conversion. I mean, he's...

He's a touchdown guy. I believe long term in the Patriots that they will get the defense figured out. I don't think this is going to be a take advantage of the Patriot's secondary situation all season long. Tonight, absolutely. I fully believe in it. But moving forward, I think that they will get things turned around. And Mike Gillisley will be the benefactor of it. Whenever they're in the five, Mike.

Not whenever because they've been doing a couple tricks, but the majority of the time inside the five, it's going to Gillisly. And he's converted so much that eventually I believe that Billichick will just say, we just go. Just pound it in. That's what we got to do. All right. I like it. The week three rank, sorry, the week five ranking. It's already week five, Andy. The week five rankings are up. See, Brooks is what I'm talking about.

Wait, he let you down? Did he give you week three? It said week three. He's giving me the look for it. I'm trying to back you up. He changed it, but luckily we have revision history, Brooks. And we'll be part of your review later. Oh, we love you, Brooks. Self-fulfilling insults on this show. All right.

Week 5 rankings are up on the website, the fantasy footballers.com. Make sure you subscribe over on iTunes, wherever you're listening. We appreciate your support. And we're going to get right into the matchups. Fantasy forecast. By the way, I am very excited for tonight's NFL matchup. It's going to be some good football. Barn burner. Don't let us down. I don't think they can't. There's just not enough defensive players out there to let us down here. Thursdays are weird.

Thursdays are weird. We got a great one last Thursday. Between two terrible teams, though. Yeah, fair enough. Although maybe the Rams are looking at. Sorry, that was two Thursdays ago. Yeah, I'm talking about the Rams, 49-year game. All right, Rob Gunkowski questionable, expected to play. So that's good. You know, might be limited a little bit. You still play him. I mean, he's, Gronk limited is better than 90% of the tight ends out there.

Without question. All right, the Bills take on the Bengals. The Bengals are three-point favorites at home. Only a 39-point over-under in this game. I still think that there's a little bit we need to learn about the Buffalo defense that's been so good thus far through the season. You saw some cracks last week, but what do you expect to see? Let's start on the Cincinnati side. I know that Andy Dalton is not a popular stream because of the matchup, but what do the running backs do?

Bernard, do you have any confidence starting any of them even as a flex? As a flex, my confidence would still be in Joe Mixon because I'm following the touches. He hasn't popped yet. He hasn't shown it. I'm not saying he's an automatic must-start guy. But if he's going to continue to get 20 touches, I don't love the matchup, but eventually you're going to break something off. You're going to get an opportunity to score.

Even with the utilization he's had so far this year, you would expect that he would have had a touchdown by now. So I think Mixen is absolutely a flex-worthy, you know, RB3 guy that you can play. So just for context, last week, Buffalo gave up 135 yards on the ground on 27 carries and a touchdown. So they have been beat on the ground thus far this year. Not that I'm expecting Mixen to do more against him than they did against Cleveland. But...

Last couple of weeks giving up a touchdown on the ground to Denver as well. You're starting AJ Green. Are you starting Tyler Croft if Eifford is out? I was going to bring him up and no. Right now, neither am I. The Buffalo Bills are allowing 4.6 fantasy points per game to the tight end. So that's not a stream where I'm looking for. Granted, Tyler Croft is going to be similar to Tyler Eifert when healthy.

It's the touchdowns. So he could get, you know, seven points. But that's factoring. And he has scored a touchdown. So I'm going to pivot away from Croft this weekend. On the other side, Tyrod Taylor, LaShawn McCoy, you're starting either of those options. I mean, McCoy, you are. Yes. But what about Tyrod? Tyrod Taylor is one of those guys where if you're looking for a streaming candidate because he runs so much, I think he's always got a safe baseline to.

to be, I'm always willing to scrape, you know, the bottom of the waiver wire and go, hey, Tyrod's out there. I'll start him if I want something safe. I think his...

Ceiling is a little capped with the matchup. Tyrod Taylor is usually better at home than on the road. He's on the road against a really good defense. So, you know, I expect him to have 16 points because of his baseline rushing. That'll be serviceable, but not one of his big blowup games. Can't start a Bill's wide receiver. The bills throw the wide receiver position the least in the entire NFL. I think it's about five receptions total per game across the entire.