Week 16 Waivers + Jason Hurts, Full Stream Ahead - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/20

Welcome back to the show, everybody. It is Tuesday breaking down a bunch of news, but we know why you are here. The huge Jalen Hertz injury. Poor timing for it, but we break down a lot of options. How are you going to handle that situation? Someone at this table has Jalen Hertz. Talk about how Jason's going to handle this situation. Make sure you subscribe to this channel. Enjoy the video. The Fantasy Footballer Studio is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Visit Samsung.com to learn more. Hey, this is Patrick Mahomes, quarterback to the Kansas City Chiefs, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome, man. The screams sound a little bit more like you were falling than introducing people to the show, so it made me laugh. Ah, which?

Some people are falling. Some people are falling. Tuesday, December 20th, the fantasy footballers welcome in. Yeah, I mean. Infinitely. Jason Moore is infinitely falling. There was, uh, today's the waiver show. Very important. Yeah, time. Look, at least we timed it right. We've got, uh, well, yesterday, I mean, we had the really good news. Jason had a good day in the beginning of the day. Uh, be jean, please remind me. Bejon Robinson. Okay. declared for the NFL draft. A lot of, you know, a lot of folks have traded for Dynasty 101s, and they wanted to see that happen. And you weren't sure. You thought that was happening, but you weren't sure. So that was good news. Happened right here on the show. It was a delight. Oh, the good old days. I'm old enough to remember that. And so things were going pretty good during the course of the day. And, well, then they weren't. And, you know, Jason got some news.

Jalen hurts. We're just leaving him in the blue sad. This is how I feel. This is who I am. Yeah, that makes sense. I am sad and blue because Jalen hurts, my guy, my my guy, the quarterback I have everywhere, the number one quarterback isn't with me any longer. He's gone for the playoffs. Well, probably. And the doom scrolling that took place yesterday when the, the rumors started to happen before the reports. And so it was everything from Jalen Hertz, collarbone is, you know, you saw the odds. I mean, that was the tip for everybody is the, you know, the MVP odds for Jalen Hertz. He was the favorite. He was like minus 150. They started to dip and dip and dip. And then the line for the Dallas Philadelphia game started to change and change and change. So you knew something was up. You know what I know is up?

that all these sports books have inside guys that is pretty like, I mean, it feels like it should be illegal because they knew what was going on before the world knew what was going on. It is devastating. It is sad. There are certain situations that you can't do anything about. You know, like if you had them in the Megalobole and like I decided, well, I'm not going to win the Megalobole if he goes down. I'm not going to have a backup quarterback. I'm not. Those sentences were correct. I mean, they were. But I do think, like, as someone who, you know, has relied on him and is trying to push through, I want to win this championship in spite of losing Jalen Hertz. There is hope, I think, for Jalen Hertz managers. I was listening to Dr. David Chow talk about the injury. And he said, you know, if they, if they needed to.

play he could absolutely play this week he could take a shot and he'd be fine this isn't this is not a super serious injury now i don't think there's any chance he plays this week against dallas he could tough it out go after that MVP uh trophy it's a divisional matchup so um you know don't don't be uh moving on from him that being said if you could stream this week The matchups without Jalen Hertz, it's possible that they lose to the Cowboys. That's a tough matchup anyways. Cowboys are favored. And if the Minnesota Vikings win their matchup that they are favored for, that could put pressure on Jalen Hertz to come back for the championship week in week 17. That is my current prayer. And I'm hoping that is what happens if I can make it to week 17. Yeah, just to lay it. And just to lay that out, Eagles fans, Jason Moore, praying.

for your team to lose. At Jason FFL. Just for a week. Well, you're fine. You're going to get the number one scene. Let me have this. This is the tough part. I mean, yesterday on the show, we talked about worries about playoff positioning affecting usage, right? And I unfortunately may have uttered the words, well, McCaffrey's who I'm worried about, Jalen Hertz, will be fine. You did this. But here we are. And so Gardner Minshue is the most likely starter for the Dallas game. And frankly, you know, I saw a lot of people and we're going to talk about it on the, you know, we got streaming quarterbacks today. And we will take more time with that to lay out some options. Which did we, Jalen Hertz has a sprained shoulder. I don't know if we ever actually. Right. It's probably important to break the news. If we said what happened. It is his throwing shoulder. So that makes it a little bit more complicated.

But yes, sprained shoulder. So Gardner Minshu, if I had to, you know, he's a very capable backup. Not ideal to be in Dallas for your, you know, opportunity. So I know some people will have to pivot directly into Gardner Minshu, but it's not my favorite pick. His last start was the last game of last year against Dallas. where he was the quarterback 17, 14 fantasy points in a game script where they lost, had to throw a lot, did throw for two touchdowns, one pick, didn't run much. Sounds about exactly what your peak is. It does. I feel like overall Philadelphia is just, they're a better team. And Dallas Goddard was activated. So all signs points that he will be playing this weekend. And it's like the Brock Purdy situation of,

Yes, it's not the quarterback you want, but at least the foundation around him is excellent. Like Gardner Minchu last year did not have A.J. Brown. And now the team has A.J. Brown, a second year, Devante Smith, a breaking out Dallas Goddard. So the situation is at least optimal for a backup quarterback to come into. Other than the matchup. Yes. And being on the road against Dallas is not exciting. Yeah. Dallas, I mean, where are you guys with their? Their defense, like the last couple weeks, they've, they've not like, that game against the Houston Texans, that carried over. And Trevor Lawrence was sensational against them. Like Trevor Lawrence, we were, you could have been concerned to play him. Should, you didn't have to be. He was great. I'm not saying that Gardner Minshew is as good as Trevor Lawrence is right now, but they're, you know, things are changing for the Cowboys, it feels like. Well, they've definitely had some injuries on offense. They, they lost a couple.

players this last game. So maybe it's a little bit more winnable a matchup, but it's obviously a very important game for Dallas. So they'll be up for that game as well. Any consideration? I mean, this is, let's just start with the man who's most affected by it. Jason, you have Jalen Hertz. He's been, you know, a big piece of your run towards a title. Are you glancing at Gardner's direction at all? I mean, that's a pretty easy question. I am glancing Gardner's direction, not just for myself, but also for keepaway. It just so happens that the team I am playing is a team that lost Kyler Murray, that we have both made it to this round of the playoffs. And so I am going to probably put in a bit on him. I previously picked up Gino Smith, who is a player that I would look for on waivers. He had a terrible matchup this last week, very...

possible that he was just dropped while people need players. And he's going to Kansas City, but he loses Tyler Locker, so that's going to be something I toil with all week. Well, let's press pause on the quarterback discussions. We'll get into it at the end of the waivers and talk through a number of different interesting matchups. We had the football game last night, Packers 24, Rams 12. Didn't go the way some people hoped it went for... a few of these options, but nice games from Aaron Jones, AJ Dylan, two touchdowns. Oh, man. Also 35 receiving yards. Thanks for showing up now. He morphed. I like the sentiment on Twitter was he was back to good old AJ villain of just taking the, taking the touchdowns away from, from Aaron Jones there at the beginning of the game. Jones was.

questionable. It was his ankle. I don't remember what his injury was coming into the weekend. So it wasn't that it wasn't super surprising that Dylan was getting a healthy amount of work at the beginning of the game. But then Aaron Jones came through. So everything was okay for the running backs. Not so much the pass catchers. Or the quarterbacks. Aaron Rogers, one touchdown, one interception. If his name wasn't Aaron Rogers, he wouldn't be part of the conversation for next week. Cam Acres, 12 for 65, three for 35 through the air. Not great. Romeo Dobbs. Somehow led the team. What, like, what? And then you had Christian Watson, four for 46. This was the- Super disappointing. The devastating.

story of the night, right? And Jason, I know you have Christian Watson. I can see it in your eyes. Yeah, I was, I was fine with Christian Watson. This was a, I mean, obviously disappointing fantasy finish. If you had him, hope you didn't need him. Right. But as far as utilization, usage, what I saw from this game, I was not displeased for the future. You had two. plays that should have been touchdowns. One where they designed him right near the five-yard line on a, you know, he crosses right in front of Aaron Rogers and just barely doesn't break the tackle to get in. And then the other one, Aaron Rogers calls a hot read to him and he just doesn't turn around. So there was a miscommunication there. But they were trying to get him a touchdown near the goal line. And the rest of the game script, look, they were in complete control of this game. And the Rams were having a hard time stopping the run in this cold weather environment.

I, you know, I wasn't expecting that the Packers were going to have to throw a lot on this version of the Los Angeles Rams. So I'm not too disappointed going forward, very disappointed in the total output of, what, 46 yards? A.J. Dillon was the concussion confirmed? Because he left to be evaluated. Never came back, so I would assume he's in protocol. Yeah, well, that's, I mean, so that will be something to watch. Not that people are counting on A.J. Dylan, but if he enters the protocol. If we get that news, I mean, Aaron Jones will be a very strong. Oh, yeah, you're matched up. Yeah. Oh, I know. Aaron Jones will be a much stronger play. How are you doing, Jason? I'm doing great. I hope I'm doing as well as AJ Dillon's doing. I hope you're just feeling great today. I don't know if he's doing well. Yeah. He's so good. He's so healthy. He's just based on how you're doing. He's his, his, ask him a math question right now. He'll nail it. Okay.

All right. Stay with us, Foot Clan, for this whole week, Jason, going into a semi-final matchup in our very important League of Record. I would say, before we jump into the news, just a couple bits of house cleaning here. Number one, footclanvote.com, if you haven't headed there, and we're up for a couple Signal Awards. It's a voting process. It will take you, you know, Two minutes at the most would be very appreciated. We are up for best video podcast, best commute podcasts. So thank you so much for the support so far. Let's take this thing home. And then number two, due to the holiday, like football is all over the place this weekend. But it is Christmas Eve. It is Christmas on Sunday. There will be no live stream. But I believe in the foot, Glenn. I believe you can.

You can handle this one particular weekend as we spend it with our families. So when the tweets inevitably come in and say, where's the live? I told you. I told you. Mike is opening presents with his kids, right when that is happening. By that, I mean all the presents that my children have brought into me. We do reverse, reverse Christmas. The kids have to figure out, you give them a budget and then. Teach them a lesson. You stay up till three in the morning on Christmas Eve. Little monsters. Still got quite a bit of rapping to do. Oh, man, I'm sitting at a cool 0.0% of the wrapping? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's something we could, we could improve, like in society. Like the process of having to wrap, like I don't, I don't know. Is that a thing where like some people know how and some people don't and there's nothing you could do to learn? That's exactly right. It's like a genetic thing. Like you could look up your 23 and me and see that I don't have the wrapping gene because I don't. I can wrap it. I make some ugly looking.

stuff, which in my head, I think doesn't matter, right? You just got to, oh, you're trying to get to the gift. Oh, it's not going, ooh. I subscribe to good enough. I can wrap a mean present and it'll look nice. That's one day, one day per present. One full day. As you say, you are particular. It takes me forever to wrap. I'm so slow. And Amazon, Bezos, if you're listening, let's solve this. Let me just order it wrapped. I think they do. No, no, no, no, no. I mean. good. I mean like I'm like ready for the tree. Exactly. I want to be able to take this, put it right to the tree. What would you pay? What premium would you pay for that? I would pay a good premium. It needs to be labeled. I need to know what's in there and have a two and from thing. I want a bow on this sucker. And then yeah, I'll pay a premium. You know how when you're driving around and you'll see all the signs and say Christmas lights and you want it. We'll come put them up.

Has anyone ever done rapping? Oh, man, they should. Like, I will. That's pretty smart. I will come to your house. I will come to your house. I will come to your house and I will wrap all your presents for you. I don't want them in my house. I don't want them in your house. A personal rapper. They can't wrap all the kids. This is like nighttime. I'm saying, yeah, just set up like those stands like the Fourth of July. What, on the corners? Yeah. You're taking them down to the corner? Absolutely, drop them down, pick them up an hour or two later. That's not bad either. I mean, there's a solution here. There's a business opportunity. Come on, America. We have like two days. Let's build these businesses up. You should just put all the Christmas gifts because we all buy them on Amazon anyway. They should just hold them all, wrap them all, and mail them in like a Santa sack. Ooh, maybe Christmas Eve.

Yeah. Come into your house? Well, yeah, now we're back in the house. Okay. Moving on. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. We got Papa Josh in the slack saying he's great at rapping. Are we buying this? I will have him wrap all my guess. You think Papa Josh can wrap? You're telling me that in one of the many lives that Papa Josh and the jobs that he's done, he wasn't up north as an elf? I guess that's probable. See, I put that at 75%. I guess at his age, he probably worked at the prime of like Sears and stuff like that when they did the ramping. I guess that makes sense. Also, Sears existed. It's exposing your age. He lived in the- Is Sears around anymore? I think there's a handful of them. I think they still do like automotive care or something. I don't know. I think Sears might actually be around. Okay, good for you. Yeah.

But it was in its heyday when Josh was. So they don't have their tower. They lost the naming rights of that thing years ago. Yeah. All right, news. We talked about the Jalen Hertz injury. He could miss the next two weeks. Like Jason said, I mean, basically the situation is if the Vikings lose a game or the Eagles win a game, it's locked because they have the tiebreaker and it's a two game gap with three games to go. So if either those things happen. Philadelphia is locked into the bye week, and that could determine whether Hertz plays next week. Dallas Goddard is back in week 16. Jonathan Taylor, injured reserve. Goodbye. He's gone. Yeah. And today's the waiver show, so we'll talk about backup options. Cole McCoy, concussion, day-to-day. Ryan Tannahill, uphill battle to be ready for week 16 against the Texans.

Malik Willis started against Houston earlier this year. Here's your grunt. Jason was that. Myself. That you thought that maybe Derek Henry would be bad. But earlier this year, 32 carries, 21 yards. Did you hear that 32 carries? And that is the hope for Derek Henry managers is that he's going to be the entirety of the offense. I still would rather have. Tana Hill there to make sure if things go wrong. The Houston Texas has been surprising people lately, but obviously this will run through Derek Henry, and he usually, I mean, he has the Texans number. If you get Malik Willis, you're going to delete. Yeah. Chig, a Zigbo and, uh, a con quo. Oh, wow. You went divine a Zigbo. Um, Chig Aconquo and even if Trailerbanks was back, you just delete them. The past attempts won't be there. Yeah, totally agree.

Khalil Herbert expected to return to practice this week. Welcome back. I saw a big game from Montgomery last week. And he said I can do that. Jeff Wilson was close to playing in week 15. So we might get Jeff Wilson back. Tough start, sit decisions with Rahim Mostert. Cortland Sutton is, quote, potentially available to play football in week 16. Okay. That's not the kind of, you know, he's taking on the Rams. But Jerry Judy is back. I'd play Judy well ahead of Sutton. When Sutton is on the field right now, he's potentially available to catch passes too. That's about it. Yeah, I would probably try to find a better option that's turning the right direction. Can you imagine this is a Christmas day game? The schedule makers, they said, oh man, the Broncos with Russell Wilson against the Super Bowl champion Rams. This is going to be just a Christmas miracle game.

This might be the worst game of the season. This version of the Rams versus this version of the Broncos is something that I don't want to watch. Zach Wilson will start for the Jets. Mike White is not cleared for contact. So there you go. The bills ruined everything. This is Thursday night football, right? So we have the Jets and Zach Wilson in prime time. Prepare your memes. What? Let the world see you, Zach. I mean, he has an opportunity, right? Go have a great game. Sure. Yes, the opportunity is there. What's that matchup? Remind me? Jacksonville. Oh, gosh. He has an opportunity. He does. I hope we get a game. I mean, if you want to repeat what you got from Trevor Lawrence and company, you need the Jets to keep up. Or it's not going to happen. And then Matthew Stafford confirmed he is not.

retiring. Yep. I thought he would retire for sure. But he confirmed this good source, his wife's podcast. Yes. Even better source. Him on it. It was from his mouth saying like, you're going to retire, right? No, she was saying that she's been saying it, but people won't believe her because she knew the answer. Oh, that he wasn't. Yeah. So it's like, will you just let people know? He's like, yeah, I'm not retiring. Also, one other piece of news. That's good for Cooper Cup managers. Absolutely. Yeah, it's huge. One other small piece of news for next year, but it was reported that there was some meniscus issues. It was a clean ACL quote for Kyler Murray, but there was also meniscus tear. So that just makes the recovery timeline for next year. Something to remember in draft season, a little bit dice here for that week one.

Okay. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Quick break and back with the waivers. It's been a busy week, man. There's a lot going on. It's Tuesday. And let me ask you this before we jump into the waivers real quick. Where are you with lineup decisions, first instincts versus the late week? tweaks and how do you psychologically look at that decision-making process? Because I know we've all been down the road of, you know, you feel confident, you make your, your lineup and you just move forward or you sit there and you've done the Sunday morning back and forth, back and forth before kickoff. Do you think that there's a better way to do it? No, I mean, I just going back, this is obviously anecdotal, but I feel like usually your.

Your first decision is the better one when I think of, and it's probably because we just remember our losses, but when I make the last second changes, it's usually a negative with the exception of actual changing news. You know, we talk about how. Yeah, you want to react to actual news, but the more so the ones where you are locked in, but then you're going. Yeah, your second guessing yourself. You know, so like for instance, my, I picked up Gino Smith. for this last week. That's who I presume I'm playing. I'm going to question him versus Gardner Minchu all week. And so I guess right now I'm saying stick with it. Stick with Gino. Don't be a, don't be a fool. But I will, I will. No lock it. Yeah, I know. I mean, it's, it's going to be tough. It's going to be a very difficult thing to not second guess. And, you know, you'd hate to.

be in a position where, you know, I know someone last night, Tutu Atwell versus Romeo Dobbs. Romeo Dobbs had a quote, came out, limited snaps. And he did play limited snaps. Yeah, and then, but he was the better play. But apparently he's, the other player was Tutu Atwell. Well, man, there was a. It was a bad drop that might have scored. Yeah. But also, I mean, Romeo Dobbs just target monster. Who knew? All right. Well, into the waivers we go. Welcome to the Fold, presented by Samsung Galaxy. All right, it is time to dive into what wide receivers we're going to welcome into the fold for the all-important week 16. You've got some interesting names. Let's start with your favorite. You know, Traylon Burks was entering my favorite category, and it is now somebody that I am not going to. I'm not going to sign him because I can't play him. Like I just don't have any confidence off the injury with the Tannehill injury.

And next week would be Dallas for Burke. So, yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, I think we've got to take him off the list. And the truth is, is if Tannell, even if he suits up, he may not finish. And that puts a tremendous amount of risk on a player that, I mean, do you agree with this, Jason? Because Traylon Burks, it's not like he's been a staple of consistency. There's no way you could play him with Malik Willis. I, you know, Malik Willis had 10 pass attempts last time that, you know, he played as a starter against the same. Houston Texans team. So no, I do think, obviously, if Ryan Tannenhole is out there, if you're in a pinch, I'd be willing to look his way. But at this point in the week, when you've got to make your claims, you know, Trailingberg's maybe is a $0 last of my order waiver wire pickups. There are other guys that you would prefer.

ahead of him. Is Elijah Moore one of the names that you prefer ahead of Traillenberg? I would certainly prefer Elijah Moore ahead. As of right now, we're not entirely sure whether or not Corey Davis will be there. Limited participant in practice yesterday. And Denzel Mims got knocked out with a concussion too. Right. And they have the short week. So I would expect Elijah Moore is another good play against Jacksonville. The matchup doesn't scare me. Obviously, the quarterback play does. was Zach Wilson, but last week he was serviceable. So Elijah Moore is certainly in contention. Near the top of the list for me is Jehan Dodson, rookie wide receiver for the Washington commanders. I agree. Because if I'm going to put somebody out there, you're kind of making a couple different decisions. You're going for, I guess you would say, like kind of floor, PPR type of plays, or you're going for an athlete in that, you know, you think of the Jahan Dotson, the potential of George Pickens, those type of players.

Dotson has scored in five games this year. He scored in two consecutive games, a top 20 wide receiver in both of them. And Jason, you've said it a million times on the show. You know, the rookie wide receivers, the ascension that we see at the end of the year, looked back to Amman Ross St. Touchdown at the end of last year, winning people championships. He was on the waiver wire. You know, as early as last week. So it wasn't like this obvious thing that everybody says, well, it's definitely going to happen. No, nobody had him. Yeah. And that's kind of what I see Dodson as is somebody that, you know, is building a rapport with He's obviously getting better and getting into the end zone. Yeah, he's a first round wide receiver draft pick of the NFL for a reason. He comes out his rookie season and was a top 24 wide receiver three of his first four weeks. Granted those were.

touchdown base, but I mean, that means he can, he can score. He's a touchdown guy, I mean. Absolutely. In the last two weeks, he's been a top 20. He would probably be my number one wide receiver pickup. It's risky. It's against the San Francisco 49ers who, uh, they are obviously a very good defense are going to have a great pass rush, but they shut down the run more than the pass. So I'm okay with Johan Dotson because the ceiling, I think, is there for, you know, how many of these guys? Honestly, Chris Moore is still a pickup to me. He is for me too. But what is his ceiling? Chris Moore's ceiling versus Jahan Dotson, who has the chance to score two touchdowns? Like, not Chris Moore. Probably not, but I think more we saw it two weeks ago what he can do in Tennessee as the past funnel defense. So Chris Moore's number two on my list behind John Dotson because the targets, like I know he's getting eight to ten targets.