Starts of the Week + Week 5 Breakdown, Winkies & Twinkies

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To the fantasy footballers podcast. Coming to you from pristineauction.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah, welcome in. It's football time. Hey, hey. You know, Mike, every single... What's that, Jason? Every single episode this year since your first, it's football time.

I've said it's football time in my head, and I know the people listening. Every time that that music plays, they're saying, it's football time. That's the Thursday edition of the intro, right? That's correct. Yeah, that's outstanding. Yet again, we take another stride. We make another stride in the history of podcasting time and time again. It's a real fun thing to do, just when there's music, there's no words over it? Just make up your own words. Yeah. It's real fun. Especially when they're that spectacular.

Welcome into the show. Can't help the greatness, fellas. Thursday, October 3rd, the fantasy footballers back again. You can find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers on YouTube. Wherever you listen to podcasts, we appreciate all the reviews that have come in this year from the Foot Clan supporting the show, subscribing, reviewing, all that stuff helps our independent podcast. And we appreciate it so much that we're giving away a sign Sequin, Barkley, Jersey.

from pristine auction. You can go enter to win a signed superhuman jersey. Apparently. Sequin Barkley. Footclan giveaway.com is the URL. Footclan giveaway.com. He's not been ruled out for this week. It's a four to eight week timeline. Before we get into Barclay, just for the people, if you've already entered the completely free giveaway, we have added.

more options. So if you've already entered, make sure you go back because you can get more points, more raffle points. That's right. To get you the superhuman jersey. Now, back to the superhuman. If you wear the jersey signed by the superhuman. Of course. You become, yes, imbued all the powers. That's right. And if you get a high ankle sprain, you two can run with a high ankle sprain. Because he can for some reason. I imagine if you wear it, it will cut down any prognosis proportional to what it's cut it down for him. A normal four to eight.

He's going to be back maybe in two. So you get the flu. That's what, seven to ten days? You're probably back in two to three. You get a cold like me. It's four to seven years. Right. That'll be cut down to like you might be well in a year. Yeah. I need that. Hold on. Foot Clan giveaway? Not bloody likely. All right. Quick question of the day. We've got matchups on the show, by the way, the fantasy forecast. We've got starts of the week. We've got the boom boom kicker. We've got news. But here's the quick question. Who is the scariest start?

for week five. Confidence is a tricky business in fantasy football. We talked a lot in the office yesterday about players like Adam Thielen and Stefan Diggs and even DeAndre Hopkins. We had our footcast, our exclusive episode of the show, the bonus episode for the Foot Clan yesterday. There must have been 50 questions about trading for or trading away DeAndre Hopkins.

because confidence is at an all-time low after three bad weeks. So who's the scariest player to put into your lineup week five? Look, I'm going to stick with the title of the question. It's scary Terry. He is the scariest not only because of nickname, but the reality is, I mean, I don't think you can start him, even though he's been phenomenal. He's a guy that you have to start when he's out there on the field. That's Terry Bradshaw. That is, that's right. Terry Bradshaw.

Multiple Super Bowl victories, MVP's. Wouldn't play him. Right. Do not play him. No, Terry McLaurin, the F1 himself, wide receiver rookie from the Washington Redskins. If you have him, you've been starting him, he's been amazing. He was out last week. Well, he's practicing. There's a good chance he plays this week. And I do not think you can play him. You're going up against New England with what Jay Gruden says that they don't have a quarterback, which.

He is right. So this is more of a non-start than it is a scary start. You can't even put him in your lineup with trepidation. I think there are situations. Like I'm in one where he might end up in my lineup. And trust me, bro, that's scary. I know you guys are both surprised with my pick. Yes, we are. I am very surprised. We'll talk about it later in the show. Spoiler. It's Melvin Gordon for me, guys. Week 5.

Melvin Gordon makes his debut. Austin Echler has been arguably the most impactful fantasy football running back, and he's been heavily involved in the passing game to the tune of leading the National Football League and yards after the catch. He's been excellent. I just personally don't know what the proportions are going to look like in the effectiveness of Melvin Gordon in week one. I say it's a scary start because, of course, you've got to start Melvin Gordon when he's active.

You guys have way more confidence than I do that. It will be a big week for him. Whereas I think, I don't know what I'm going to get out of him. So it's a little scary for me. Well, and this is why. I mean, I'll just spoil it now. He's going to be my start of the week later. Your fear is why I made him my start of the week. You want to give me confidence. I want to tell you like, look, you should start him. You have to start him. He's a good start. I'll tell you the reasons why later. But as Nick Diaz would say, don't be scared, homie.

Okay. Thank you. Now I feel much more comfortable. Mike? Mine is the player I want to talk about. He's also going to be featured in the news and notes section because what the heck is going on with Stefan Diggs? He has been close to horrific for fantasy football until this past week because, of course, the matchup in Chicago, he goes off for seven for 108.

But his target share has been gone. He is very frustrated with the offense. And possibly MIA? We don't know what's going on with Stefan Diggs. I will say this. And we'll get into the news. But he's been dealing with recurring injury, multiple injury situations. If you watch the game, he was banged up. I tend to think is more tied to that. But we'll find out. Coach Anthony Lynn just now said, Melvin Gordon will definitely be a part of the game plan.

Here's his quote. He will definitely be part of the game plan. He may even start the game. So that's exactly why it's scary for me. I don't think that there's a guarantee here for Melvin Gordon to have 50% of snaps, 30%. I don't know. So I look forward to your narratives later on. Let's go ahead and move on. Let's get into the news. News and notes from around the league presented by Sleeper. So Diggs didn't practice Wednesday.

We saw Jalen Ramsey choose not to practice for injury, missed the game. Well, this was undisclosed. Yes. They're saying it was not an injury reason that he missed the practice. He just wasn't there. We can't talk about it. Yeah, Ian Rappaport tweeted that his frustration with the organization has been palpable. He was not a practice for non-injury reasons. Teammates are left wondering if he even wants to be there. The team has been adamant about the fact he's not available for trade.

things are coming to a head in Minnesota. If this team starts losing, watch out. Now, if they start winning, everything gets better when you win. Well, the good news is they play the Giants this week. So I think they've got a... You're talking about the team that has the exact same record as them, Jason? Yes. Oh, undefeated with their new quarterback. But yes, that is very good news for them. Right, but the Vikings still gets played them. So what is this? When I am in these situations, because I mentioned on the show yesterday,

Emmanuel Sanders, some trade rumors, right? And it makes sense for Denver. Like, Manuel Sanders is one of their older players. Chris Harris is one of the more valuable players. Last year of his contract for Manny Sanders. It makes sense to move these guys if your team is not heading the right direction. Owen Ford, from what I understand, not the right direction. So it makes your brain start moving as a fantasy owner. And I say, well, I, you know, do I still want Sanders? Because if he's traded, what's his value?

Does he get the target share that he's getting right now from Joe Flacco? Also, is Cortland Sutton a buy? Because if Sanders leaves, Sutton is the guy. What happens here with the digs? I mean, do you go after a guy like Adam Thielen right now? You could buy Thielen as low as you could ever buy him. Now, I offered Emmanuel Sanders for Adam Thien yesterday. I was turned down. But do you go after a guy like Thielen on the off chance Diggs is shipped out of town? I would personally go after Thielen. We argued about this Mike and I did on the footcast yesterday. I believe you were not.

in favor of going after Thielen. I am in favor of going after Thielen. I think the squeaky wheel will get the oil. I don't think this team is going to throw. Well, I'm not just talking about this week. I'm talking about rest of the season. I don't think it's possible for them to have the run-pass ratio that they've had so far on the year the rest of the season. That's not to say they're going to turn around and all of a sudden be a team that's throwing the ball a lot, but they are astronomically low on passing the ball. And this is...

This is a player and a quarterback that it's not like it's new, right? Adam Thieland and Kirk Cousins dominated for eight or nine weeks last year. Different OC. But my point is, same human beings throwing and catching the ball to each other. I think much brighter days are. More Cousins to Thielen than feeling to cousins on the throwing and catching the ball. That's true. It's not to each other. I guess that's fair.

But, yeah, I am buying low on Adam Thielen. And if Deggs gets traded, it's great news for both of these guys. Because right now, there's not enough volume to be split between those two guys. And if Diggs goes somewhere, his value has nowhere to go but up. I can't imagine they trade him. They've said he's not being traded. The people say that and then guys get traded. Mike Zimmer has no patience for anything.

If Stefan Diggs misses all his practices and holds out, guess what? He's going to want to jettison him. They just gave him a huge contract. He's one of the best young wide receivers in the league. He can be a franchise wide receiver for this team for years to come. But if you're Stefan Diggs and, yeah, you're happy you got your money, your generational life-changing money, but you also want to be a good football player and you're not going to get that opportunity the way that things are going in Minnesota.

All right, we need to move on because we've got fantasy forecast coming up and a lot of news to get through. Christian Kirk, the ankle injury, unlikely to play in week five against the Bengals. Larry Fitzgerald, obviously, is a good start in this matchup against Cincinnati. You're going to have Trent Sherfield and Kishon Johnson on the outside. They re-signed Farrow Cooper. You're not very excited about what's happening in Arizona in general, but in week five, Christian Kirk is not going to be available.

So you can make your adjustments as you see fit there. I don't know how much you guys downgrade Kyla Murray because of the absence of Kirk. Not really, but the sneaky starts, probably more of like you're looking at a DFS tournament would be Kishon Johnson. Christian Kirk is getting a lot of targets and the Cardinals are not going to slow down. So that volume has to go somewhere. All right. Damien Williams returned to a full practice. The Damien Williams thing is so bizarre where.

You're saying because he hasn't eased himself back in and all of a sudden he's back. That and just, I mean, he went away. You weren't even 100% sure. What is the full injury? What is the extent of it? I didn't even remember who he was. I'm talking to people who believed in Damian Williams. But I mean, he just, he retracted into the shadows and now the sudden he's back and didn't. And he's going to.