Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 12 Thanksgiving Episode Part 2, Matchups, Mailbag

We talked about it a little bit, I believe, earlier in the week, that if you could beat the Cardinals, it's passing to the running back. And Blaine Gabbardt has found himself a favorite target. Eight catches last game. And that's Sean Drone. We, Mike and I have him as a RB2, Jason, just barely outside the RB2. That's where he should be in the RB2 flex range. He gives you a baseline. If you're trying to throw somebody out there to win you the week, I'm not throwing Shandrona. No, but he's a guy.

Everyone's been crushed by these injuries. And I would wager that Sean Drone is likely still on your waiver wire if you hadn't listened to the show where we told you to pick him up. And he actually just got dropped in our league. Really? Today. Somebody signed Bilal Pal and dropped Sean Drone. Wow. And paid $14 to do so. I can understand that. If you're in a half point or... I'd rather have drone personally. Half point or full point PPR that gives drone...

a boost up. He's, all three of us are into RB2. It was your opponent that did it too. Oh, fantastic. Also, I signed Spencer Ware for free in that league. I'm just kind of surprised. Maybe that was a dumb decision. I would have, but my bench is so tight, I can't make any moves because they're so great. So, um, whatever, whatever. The steel, oh, by the way, update for that league, because we might as well sidebar because this is the eternal episode. I am now seven and four.

I'm not sure how many people are still listening. You started one and four. I was one and four. I'm seven and four. I've got two games left to secure a playoff spot. I'm not sure about it. I got two top matchups, but I got Thomas Rawls now. I just signed Stevie Johnson today for a buck. You are literally the team I want to play the least in.

our league on the March two champions. Oh, you don't say. Well, with Thomas Rawls, I said yesterday we were talking about this, and I said if the news comes out about Lynch that he's going to get surgery, you're the team. I don't want to play the team. You know what I'm really curious about is what Thomas Rawls does these next two weeks because he has two brutal matches. I mean, on paper, Pittsburgh at Minnesota. And last time Rawls had a tough matchup, he was just okay. And if you can get it, well, that's kind of true. I mean, his tough matchup against Cincinnati ended up being a great game.

So that was his last start. He had 29 points. Okay, I mean, Tocco, I'm going to look up. But his playoff schedule is great. It's Baltimore and Cleveland in the weeks 14 and 15. Yeah, Baltimore is, there's still a tougher run, but the Cleveland matchup is just, is just the best. Juice. Detroit, I think Detroit is the one game I'm thinking of. He was 17 for 48, but you're right. The very next week, he murdered Cincinnati. All right.

We've got three games left. We can do it. We can do it. All right. Steelers at the Seahawks. We've talked about a few of the pieces of this game. Big Ben, the start of the week for Jason. Russell Wilson, the sit of the week for Mike. Thomas Rawls, my start of the week. What are we going to see from DeAngelo Williams going against the Seattle defense that ranks 10th against the run? I still like DeAngelo Williams. I just made a move for him.

in one of my leagues, and I know that his, on paper, when you're looking at his matchups, they look bad. However, I see DeAngelo Williams as that Levi-on-Bell light. Clearly, he's not Levi-on-Bell, but because the Steelers' offense is so high-powered, and the running back is a vital part of the engine that moves the offense, he's just going to be too involved. I don't...

I don't really care about matchups for DeAngelo Williams. It's just how low of a running back one does he become because of the matchup. But he stays a one regardless for me. Yeah. You really hope for early points in this game because this is going to be one of those. You have two good defenses. As weird as that is to say, the Steelers have been really good on defense after that first week. And so you've got two good defenses. It could be a low-scoring game. I expect them to beat.

the line on Vegas and at the end of this game kind of come back, be putting up more points that tends to be the stealer way. So I like most of the options in this game. I kind of want a piece of this game, but it does scare me a little bit in the sense that if it happens to be a defensive matchup. Do you have any kind of feel on the Seattle roulette wide receiver? Never. Never. I will never have a feel.

I mean that genuinely, between Curse, Lockett, Baldwin, and Graham, I will never have a confidence to start any one of them, and one of them will have a great fantasy week every week. Breaking news. Jordan Reed is practicing. Yes! Rule 86. He is practicing today, so you might be able to stick with them as your start of the week. Other guys in this game, is there anybody, you know, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, Jason. Yo.

Would you start or sit Antonio Brown? The matchup's rough. Yeah. I'm sure he's your way. He's about your 30, 31? Yeah, he's probably very low. I want to see where he actually is. Antonio Brown for me is number four. I actually am lower. I'm at six. There you go. You want to throw some shame on me? Yep. All right. So.

The Seahawks, like we said, they averaged the most rushing yards per game. So that's a good thing for Mr. Thomas Rawls. They're also fighting for a playoff spot. So this should be a battle, like you said. Shouldn't see any weather issues. Patriots, Broncos, Sunday night football. Oof. Brock Osweiler, Tom Brady, the new... The new look Patriots. The new look Broncos, too. Yeah, this is a very interesting game. I'm...

I'm still glad that it's Sunday. I don't think Danny Amandola plays in this game. Yeah. Well, he might. Just to bear repeating of the Amandola news was the sprained knee, they don't think he will miss an extended period of time. He could miss this week. And to me, this week, if Danny Amandola does not play, you really have to think about moving Tom Brady down. Yeah, and it's depressing.

Do you guys agree with me? I feel like I'm here on an island of silence. I know. Here's the truth. The Broncos are already a great past recess, number one. I'm going to be honest and say the absolute truth. The truth is we agree with you wholeheartedly, and neither one of us want to say bench Tom Brady because we don't want to go on record. We don't want to admit the truth that we don't. You can't handle the truth. Well, this is a Tom Brady who scored, you know, 37 fantasy points against the, you know, the Jets D when it was high flying. Exactly. They can do a different.

type of offense. And so I don't know. I don't know what to expect. This is my DeAndre Hopkins this week. I have him ranked as the 13th quarterback. And that is too far down the list. Right. It probably is. And I'd happily make you a top 10 bet. A top 10, not 12. There is no way I am going to make a water bet against Tom Brady. Zero chance. Oh! Waterbet.

I love that. It's a pretty good bet for you, Mike, because he's had three rough weeks, so we'll see. Well, Tom Brady is Mike's number nine quarterback this week. But I haven't taken a bet yet, and I don't have another chance. There you go. Put it in the dock. Put it in the dock. Love it. Okay, so otherwise, LaGarrett Blunt did what LeGarrett does, which is to disappoint you frequently. Yep. Got the workload. Out there for snaps. Brandon Bolden took someone when Blunt wasn't productive. You see this. If Blunt has like three or four carries in a row,

They go nowhere. Bolden comes in or somebody comes in. James White. I want to know what you think about James White this week. Did you know that Legeret Blunt ran more passing routes than James White? Weird. I did not know that. I don't think I've wanted to know that. Feels a little dirty. As far as what we think about James White, if Danny Amandola is out, I expect him to have a slightly higher...

floor, which is not that high. I don't see his upside being, I mean, any Patriot, you can roll them out and think, hey, they might get a touchdown. But this week against the Broncos, I expect a low-scoring affair. So I don't like, I wouldn't start James White this week. Even without Amandola, I would not like to start him. Even in a flex. And another notes of, I don't think we talked about this, Brandon LaFell, a guy who we've all been pretty high on since he came back,

And this might be just a Bill Belichick game flow situation. At the beginning of last week's game, he was playing behind Dobson and Harper. He was not getting the snaps until Dobson went down. Then he was in on basically every single snap. Like I said, I don't know if that was a game flow thing. Maybe that's irrelevant because Aaron Dobson is expected to miss. But it was a...

An interesting thing that I saw that are they losing trust in Brandon Lafell? No. Was just that one game? Yeah, that's a snap game flow thing. I don't think they're losing trust in Lafell. Lafell had big catches in this game. After the injury, because he was forced into action. He had a catch before that. He was being targeted a little bit. I don't have any problem with Lafell. I like him a lot. He was in consideration for, you know, the start of the week. You have him ranked 26th.

Yeah. Okay. Are you saying that's bad? Yeah. For a start of the week. Wide receiver, too? Yeah. To say, hey. I don't think that's bad. All right. But, yeah, I mean, for a guy that hasn't started much all year for people. Grancowski, you're starting. What do you think of Vernon Davis? Would you rather play Vernon Davis than, let me see here. Vernon Davis? Vernon Davis or Owen Daniels. Vernon. Okay. Vernon Davis or Richard Rogers. Davis or Heath Miller. Ooh.

Davis. Miller. Heath Miller's got a good matchup. Vernon Davis or Benjamin Watson. Benjamin Watson. All right, guys, we've reached the final game. You can now see why we cut these into two shows. The Ravens take on the Browns. And we're done with that one. All right. So the mailback, no. The Ravens Browns Monday Night Football. We talked about it. Shob. Shob McCown. Javoreas. I'm going to make a prediction right now. I'm going to move Javorese Allen down. Ooh. I'm going to move him down.

my rankings today. I'm going to make a note right now, move down. Off of what? Off of the fact that they're not going to give him the workload you expect. And why would you, why is that changed? Because, uh, because Justin Forset has been injured. And so he's not just coming in in relief of Forset and they're going to involve, uh, another running back whose name is difficult to pronounce, but I think it's like Moss, Mossford, Rahim.

Rahim. Mostert? I'm guessing on the... He had a very good preseason. He was a very good player in preseason, and it's just a matter of you have to have rotational players. And that team has done rotations in the running back position all year long, and then they just keep getting hurt. So they've done rotations. I don't see... I don't see Buck Allen getting less than 15 carries, and that's a good amount of workload against the Cleveland Browns. Don't disagree with you. Okay. But I'm moving them down from the expectations of being a top...

five guy this week like you have them okay well that's that's that's fine in fact i will say i will move him out of the top ten would you like to bet on top ten buck allen top ten buck allen i absolutely do water bet i just got i just got a feeling about him all right your your feeling is based off a guy who did not make the final 53 that's fine you're correct uh duke johnson

I'm okay starting Duke Johnson. I'd flex him out. I'm doing so in several leagues. I think he's better with McCown. I think we've seen that. I think Duke Johnson is one of the few weapons that they have. Now, Benjamin was the start of the week this week. Yeah, I like Travis Benjamin. And Gary Barnage is, if you're a barnage owner, you're happy about McCown being back. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Barnage, it might have seemed too silly. Whoa, what Jason is throwing his headphones off.

What is going on? This has to be something to do with our league. What happened? What did you do wrong? Let me see. I'm going to take a look. You know exactly what I did wrong. Oh, my gosh. No, no, I don't because I'm not looking at our league. I'm so upset. He didn't do anything. The people need to know. The people need to know. Wait a minute. Am I in a different league? Tell me I'm, I'm, so here's, I had this terrible decision that you didn't do anything. I racked you guys. I racked you guys with yesterday. I ended up doing nothing.

I had to essentially drop two players off of my team to pick up Ahmad Bradshaw as a handcuff for Frank Gore. I looked and looked and looked for news about Frank Gore. Well, news just came out now. The Frank Gore wasn't practicing today on Wednesday. So I really need to have Ahmad Bradshaw on my team. I chose not to do it. And then I just looked and saw that he was on a roster, not still in the free agent pool, which was what I was banking on. That was a different league. But it was a different league. Oh. So I wouldn't read too much into the not practicing today at all.

I'm not reading too much into it. What I'm reading into it is that his injury is at least worthy of having the handcuff who is valuable should Frank Gore miss. That's it. No, but did you expect Gore to practice today? I did. Oh, okay. I would not have expected that. I expect him at least to be a limited participant in practice. I got it. So back to the attention that Travis Benjamin deserves. Sorry.