Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Playoff Primer, Pump the Brakes, News

One of my potential pump the brakes was Willie Sneed because he put in the two touchdowns this week, but I still, all my money's on Thomas for those two Tampa matchups. And to be honest with you, I think Thomas, you know, Patrick Peterson is going to be on Brandon Cook. Yeah. In fact, today, news just broke that Patrick Peterson will be shadowing the entire game, Stefan Diggs, this week. That was what my expectation was already. And so if he's shadowing cooks, I think Thomas, for Tampa, Arizona, Tampa,

It doesn't get a lot better than that. And Sneed, Sneed, too, could have some good games right there. So let's flip it over to the worst schedules. Maybe we'll call this the final nail in the Hopkins coffin here. Okay, Houston has the second worst, maybe the worst schedule in the playoffs for fantasy-wide receivers. Vante Davis and Indianapolis, Hopkins has to go match up there. He has to match up with Ramsey and Jacksonville, and then he has to go to Cincinnati.

or play Cincinnati. Those are three of the teams that give up the least of fantasy wide receivers. You know. So DeAndre Hopkins, what do you, can you, can you release him? No. Can you release DeAndre Hopkins? No. No. What if your trade deadline's over? If your trade deadline is over, I am not releasing DeAndre Hopkins because his talent is extraordinarily elite. How many points is that talent worth lately? Or all year, I mean. Look, if you are in a league that has zero bench spots, then I agree.

You can go ahead and cut him. But if I have to have people filling up bench spots, I am happy to have that be the Andre Hopkins. Don't you want your opponent to take him and play him against you? Sure, but my point is playing a bench roll. What do you want more than if they can figure it out? What do you mean a bench roll? You don't get.

No, but playing a bench roll doesn't even make any sense. No, what, yes, it does. Playing a bench roll? Yes, here's what I mean by playing a bench roll from a fantasy football perspective. What, somebody you can emergency throw in and not feel bad about? No, someone who can emerge as a legitimate, important fantasy option while he's on my bench. You know, I grabbed the Alfred Morris and he's playing a role for me as a potential, you know.

blow-up guy. DeAndre Hopkins, if he gets his groove together with Brock Oswald or they just say, hey, stop being stupid. Just constantly throw to Hopkins. Hopkins is too talented. I understand that. And I'm mostly just, I'm mostly just arguing with you for fun. But at some point, right, this is not Alan Robinson who's perked up. This is the 35th ranked wide receiver right now. I,

This is a guy who's had, despite the catches, he scored three touchdowns on the year. He's been single digits in five weeks, and his last three weeks have been bad. I completely agree. He would have been, in fact, we talked before the show. He would have been my pump the brakes. I would not drop him. He would have been my pump the brakes if he had any speed to him at all. But he doesn't. Everyone's breaks were already pumped on him. I will say this, though. He's got three red matchups in Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and Cincinnati. But those three teams specifically.

Do not strike me as like they haven't given up fantasy points to wide receivers much this year. But I don't see anything in their defenses or in their or in their offenses from a from a game flow standpoint that say at the end of the season, those three will will definitely stick as, you know, red matchups. Well, that makes sense that you would say that because you are saying that Hopkins is not going to stick as a horrible fantasy player like he's been. So you believe in.

The hope. You're a hopeful man today. I'm a hopeful man. I think Hopkins could get people to the playoffs with Oakland, San Diego, Green Bay. Okay. I'm not sure he's going to. Let me argue this. What if Brock Osweiler blows his knee out this week? Sure. Honestly, I think Hopkins then becomes a great fantasy option. Didn't I just say you were a man of hope? I don't want to hope for that. How in the world are you going to hang that wallpaper?

If his knee goes out. How do you do that? He's got to have a healthy knee brace. All right. You heard me pump the brakes on Jordy Nelson. I kind of regret it earlier in the year, but I still stand by the fact this playoff schedule is brutal. It's Seattle and Minnesota with Chicago in the middle, which I love, but it's in Chicago. But, I mean, week 14 against Seattle, there is a 100% cap on wide receivers against that Seattle offense. Yeah. And it's probably going to, the cap is going to be brought down the hardest on Jordy.

Very bad week 14. So that first playoff week, Hilton has a tough matchup, Houston. We know how they've been against fantasy wide receivers. You have Alan Robinson with Minnesota in Houston those first two weeks. We already said stay away from Bortles. I'm not really worried about Stefan Diggs despite the matchup looking bad. So I'm not going to put him on full alert here just because, man, the target numbers. What do we say? He broke his own target record three consecutive weeks. Can he make it a fourth?

What other head, is there anybody else who want to talk about on the bad side of things? I mean, I think the two teams that stick out to me as guys I want to avoid would be Indianapolis and Jacksonville, the Hilton, the Moncrief, the Alan Robinson, and probably no one else there, because both of them play Houston and Minnesota, just in opposite orders. And those, I don't, I don't see a huge upside for.

any player in all four of those games. So we're going to move to tight ends. One of the interesting things about tight ends is that I find these trends to be some of the most consistent trends to take place. You know, you had a couple years ago, Arizona was the worst against fantasy tight ends. Everybody that came in put up numbers. If you want to know the disparity, okay, the fantasy points per game average given up to tight ends.

Arizona and Baltimore, two and three points is what they average giving up. You go to the other end of the spectrum, Cleveland and Detroit are giving up almost 12 points a game to the tight-in position. So there's a very wide gap there. Obviously, it matters a little bit about what tight-ins you're playing. But we're trying, you know, the barfey tight-ins, as we call them, you're making a decision maybe more than any other position than quarterback on.

matchup and which guy you can stream this week. And so this is, I think, tight-ins, maybe they get pushed aside a little bit. This might be the most important thing we talk about today because if you can out-score your opponents tied-in by a significant margin, you can make up for a lot of problems elsewhere. The best tied-in schedules week 14 to 16. Jason, what's the headliner for you? The headliner for me...

would probably be Cameron Brate. He has the second best matchup, but he is all alone. The best matchup right now belongs unsurprisingly, not surprisingly, to Antonio Gates and Hunter Henry. But because they're sharing, you know, you don't always know who's going to get it. Cameron Brate, to me, he's got the double New Orleans matchup, but Dallas in the middle is actually, Dallas has struggled against the tight-in this year as well.

So I think Cameron Bray, his playoff matchup looks as good as anyone's. His talent on the field has impressed me. And, I mean, right now he's on a streak of three games in a row with a touchdown. He's available still in the majority of leagues. He's a guy that I would hold on to. The one I like a lot is Zach Miller.

With Alshan Jeffrey leaving for four games, Zach Miller gets to walk into the playoffs against Detroit and Green Bay. Detroit is the worst in the league against fantasy tight-ins. You mix that with what I think will be a higher target total for Zach Miller. I love him in week 14, and then he gets to come back against Green Bay, who have been very bad, almost 10 points a game given up to tight-ins in week 15. So Zach Miller, Cameron, Brade, I agree those two. The Gates-Henry thing, obviously if you got one of them,

I mean, you're probably playing them. Yeah, I would much prefer to have Gates over Henry. It's so interesting, though. I mean, it's just, I don't know how it's going to evolve. Long term. After the next three weeks. Dynasty, Hunter Henry is going to be a star. Yeah, well, but I don't know. But if you look at the targets over even the last few weeks and the receptions, Hunter Henry. But he was hurt. I mean, I think that's a little bit deceiving. You said that on the show yesterday. And Hunter Henry was hurt.

I mean, and again, his big production came when Gates was hurt. And so I don't think we have enough of a track record to see what he's going to be like. You came back and scored after his injury. Okay. You could say he was hurt. Okay. But in Atlanta. He was hurt in the Denver game. In Atlanta, before the Denver game, he had one reception. Right. But the previous four before that was five, four, three, and six. When you had him alone. Not when Gates was there. And I just don't think it was enough of a track record.

I think when Gates is there. But this is why we like Brayton Miller. It is certainly Gates. Yeah. And that's why I went Bray over these guys. But I do like Antonio Gates quite a bit. Some other guys. I think, oh, I got one. Will Todd's who you're going to say. Will tie. He has Dallas and Detroit in weeks 14 and 15. Great matchups. And he is all alone. He was heavily targeted. He is the tight end right now in New York. Larry Dinell has been pushed.

back to the side as he should have been because will tie is actually pretty darn good they use they haven't too much this year but i mean in the bin macadu system they have used the tight in on the red zone and they've been a very big touchdown threat against dallas against detroit i think will tie is going to be a great do you think if cruise comes back though and it's the shepherd cruise beckham that tie

he's going to be capped out or do you just no because i still think you've got the red zone opportunities i mean capped sure i don't think he's going to go out and put up 20 points but i think he's going to be around that 10 point number that you're kind of hoping for from a tight in Travis Kelsey Kyle Rudolph both have good playoff schedules they're in the top tier let's flip to the other side look at some of the bad tight in schedules now look new england they don't have a good

scheduled against tight it doesn't matter i mean rob grancowski if he's on the field he doesn't qualify as a standard tight end so baltimore denver new york i don't care about gronk at i want to look at gronk's history against baltimore i i'm gonna look that up after the show and and i'll tweet that out the only reason i say that is just because baltimore has been historically good not good they've been the best team

for years now against the tight end. They almost never give it up. So there's enough matchups between Gronk and them. I want to look back and see because that week 14, not like you're going to not play Grong, but it's just interesting. Interesting, yeah. All right. Delaney Walker, though, let's talk about this. He's been so good. He has Denver and Kansas City, two of the best teams against fantasy tight ends. Kansas City's only given up 4.33 fantasy points a game. Denver 4.66 a game. So Delaney Walker, you go into the playoffs.

and you have Denver and Kansas City. I just don't know. You hear those names on paper. I don't think there's going to be a lot of points scored in this game. I don't think you're going to get the Tennessee 47 point performance you got this last week that made Delaney Walker valuable. Right now he's the second rank tied in though. So let's, yeah, let's put this into realistic. And he's got that week 13 by. Context. So you're not even playing in week 13. I think you move him right now. If you can move him, I'd move him.

If you can move him and then pick up a Cameron Brayt off of waivers, if Cameron Brate's out there and you can get something for Delaney Walker, pick up Cameron Brate... Which I think sounds terrifying for fantasy owners. But I agree with you. You're probably going to improve your team by moving him and then maybe improve your team in the playoffs at the position. Because you'll get the play him against Indianapolis this week. So if you're fighting for the playoffs, that's a great matchup. But then you got Chicago and a buy and then the two tough matchups. So...

Delaney Walker to me seems like somebody who you could cash in off of this humongous week he had against Green Bay with the 47 points. 90% reception rate this past week. So that might be one of the biggest titan moves you can make right now. Yeah. And the only other guy of note that I think sticks out a little bit would be Jimmy Graham. Jimmy Graham's got a great week one. And I've said it before. Week one is the most important to me. That's what Delaney Walker just went up against Green Bay.

Yeah, Green Bay is who he plays in week. One of the playoffs, that's great. But the next two weeks against L.A. Rams and the Arizona Cardinals are not that good. L.A. is only averaging 5.2 fantasy points a game giving up to the tight end, and Arizona only two. I still think, I think I'm fine with Jimmy Graham in both of those matches, despite the hard. He's just been so integral to their offense now. But it's good to know. I mean, Arizona just has not given it up.

I think it has a lot to do with just the speed they have in the linebacking core. Let's transition now. Hopefully that helped you get ready. Again, we're setting the table. You pick what you want to eat. We're going to tweet out all of the different top 10 lists for each of these positions in the bottom 10 list. So you have that information. You can find that on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Let's go ahead and preview the Thursday night game before we close out the show. New Orleans is taking on the Panthers.