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

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We'll get a $75-sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast. That's indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now. Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Hey, FootClam. Before we get started, I want to give you a quick reminder about the Megalodon giveaway. Megalodon.

Head over to Footclan giveaway.com. Get in on some sweet autographed gear. Hey, this is Willie Snee with the New Orleans Saints, and you're listening to The Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Fantasy Footballers Podcast, coming to you from the Fantasyjocks.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome into a verified Wednesday morning.

Full verified 100%. Mike is not here. Jason and Andy are. We are the fantasy footballers, and we're back again. And I'm telling you right now, this might be the most important episode you listen to. Ever. Until the next one. Well, no. For real. This is a very important episode. Look, what we're doing on the show today is we have pulled out the placemats and we're setting the table for the fantasy playoffs.

That's right. People have been asking for this. They've been saying, how do you feel about certain players for the playoffs scheduled, upcoming, you know, who are you really wanting for that playoff stretch? Who are you avoiding? Things like that. And we'll give a nice taste. We'll put the salt and all the seasonings out. Yeah, and you make the decision on what you want to eat. This show is all about giving you information how to play, not just a bunch of rankings, right? We could come on here and say,

keep trade cut today but the reality is is you don't you don't look at fantasy players now and just say what they've done in the past and make an arbitrary decision you have to factor in all of the matchups that are coming up whether you're trying to fight to get into the playoffs or back in the playoff hunt or whether you are now hopefully firmly secure in the playoffs and setting your lineup getting it ready for

uh, weeks 14, 15, and 16. And so we are going to break down position, uh, teams that have great matchups at each position for the playoffs, teams that have bad matchups. We're getting into that today. We have pumped the brakes. Uh, we have a bunch of good articles on the website that you can add, uh, into your brain like our snap count observation article that's out there and some fan dual information on the website as well, which is the fantasy footballers.com. Now, look.

Before we get into Pump the Brakes, it's important that we take a quick look at an important issue going on in this country. Is Mike Verify? You know, sometimes it's hard to check. Right. Sometimes. We don't broadcast live. I have to look it up and I don't know where to find it. But one of our listeners does. Oh, my goodness. Whoever you are out there in the world who has, I mean, the Foot Clan always just, they top themselves.

They're just constantly, they're doing better than the last one. You can now go to ismicverified.com and find out. Brad Coates. Oh, Brad Coates. Brad Coats is the one that put that together. A lot of really good information on the website. If you go to ismicverified.com. Is Mike Verify? Let me look in. Is he? Nope. Don't trust the word he says. Don't trust the word he says. That's at this point. How can you?

I don't even know if it's him. How can you? So, all right, that's good. I'm glad we took care of that. It's Wednesday, which means it's time for, oh, oh, O'Reilly. Auto parts. Ow! We too manned it. We did. I almost forgot. You did. Welcome to Pump the brakes with O'Reilly. We do this every Wednesday. Talk about some players you need to be aware of. Maybe they had a very good week. Maybe you're excited about them. And we're saying, whoa, Nelly. Pump.

Pump those brakes. Pump those brakes. Jason, who's your pump the brakes candidate this week? My candidate this week is a guy who is very hot and cold throughout most seasons, Eli Manning. And if you look at the last two weeks, well, he's been rather hot. Eli Manning is now at the point where people are going to say, I can trust them, I can play him. He's thrown seven touchdowns in two weeks. And I'm saying, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're worried about it. Pump them breaks.

Just pump them breaks. Okay. Because this week, he has what looks like a kind of juicy matchup. He's playing against Chicago. Chicago is a terrible albatross of a team right now, and they just lost Alshan Jeffrey. They're in shambles. So New York, who is favored by seven, according to Vegas, that seems to me to be a recipe for play Eli Manning. Or at least you can make that argument. The reality is this.

The Giants are winning right now because of their defense. Chicago actually has a pretty good defense. It's their offense that is atrocious. This game should be a more low-scoring game, and it's a game that Eli Manning could go.

you know, throw a couple picks here. So I don't expect, you know, him to continue the pace of three and a half touchdowns game over the last two. And if you're saying, hey, I'm going to pick him up and play him, I think you're going to be, you know, think you're going to have the quarterback 15. And that doesn't usually win your week. All right. I'm going to, my pump the brakes is going to be a combination. It's going to be the Baltimore passing game in general, which really for fantasy owners focuses on Steve Smith, Senior and Mike Wallace.

I just, look, it's been an off year for Joe Flacco. Yeah. And the illusion that is playing Cleveland does not write your ship for the entire year. You mix that with what I deem the worst schedule for fantasy wide receivers in the playoffs. Week 14 at New England. Week 15, Philly. Week 16 at Pittsburgh. If you go through 17, it's at Cincinnati. That's three out of four, you know, of the top.

10 defenses against passing. Fantasy points given up to wide receivers. And so to me, as much as I respect Steve Smith and enjoy the 95-yard touchdowns from Mike Wallace, I don't think you can count on it. I think you need to pump the brakes after this Cleveland extravaganza, which everybody has. You don't get to play Cleveland four times. My pump the brakes was almost Ben Rathlisberger.

Because if you think about it, he's going on the road, and he's lost a lot of weapons. Look, Marcus Wheaton, he's got the shoulder injury. No, I thought you said weapons. Not Wheaton. He's gone. Sammy Coates broke an extra finger because he just apparently has brittle hands. So he's gone. Darius Hayward Bay. Okay, now he's.

you know, possibly going to miss. So you've got Big Ben going on the road and you've got missing weapons. I was going to say, hey, look, this is another possible Big Ben trap game. And then I realized like, man. They play Cleveland. They play Cleveland. He's going to be just fine. Eight and a half point favorites in Cleveland. Joe Flacko to add to that. Was terrible last week. And he was like a top five fantasy player.

All right, we're going to get into the news before we do that. You can keep up with everything going on with this show on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Make sure you head over there and follow us. You can follow me at Andy Holloway, follow Jason at Jason FFL, and followed the unverified swine at FF Hitman. Yeah, and so, yeah, that completes the pump the brakes. That's right. That was pump the brakes with O'Reilly Auto Parts. Better parts. Better parts.

Better prices every day. I wanted to just, I wanted to say it with you. Yeah, I appreciate that. All right, we're going to go ahead and break down the news before we get into this important playoff segment. News and notes from around the league. Now, as much as I'd love to pretend, Mike doesn't exist, with the news that broke yesterday. Big news. Kristen Michael was waived. He's gone. It's full circle here.

again for Kristen Michael. Nothing to do with an off-of-field issue is what they claim. What I've heard, well, there's a couple angles here. First of all, we're going to take you live to, we called, let's handle this first, we called Mike. Mike is at Disneyland with his family and the grandparents. But how do you not, after, you know, all of Mike's love for Chris and Michael, how do you not get Mike to weigh in? People wanted to know. Yeah.

Mike's opinion on Chris and Michael getting cut. Because he's loved Chris and Michael. So we called him, we recorded the conversation, and here's what we got. He wasn't happy. No. He was disappointed. Yeah. I'd go so far as upset. You could say he was in a glass case of emotion. So Mike wasn't happy. Here's my take on this. One, first thing it says, pro size and Rawls. They're completely comfortable moving forward with them. Clearly, this is on paper now. Yes. Rawls is.

absolutely healthy and ready to go or you don't cut Chris and Michael. The second thing I've heard about this is that Chris and Michael somehow couldn't pick up or understand or get the offense in the way that they wanted to, be able to run the offense and have confidence in him in that role. To me, now, I've been saying this for weeks. I don't know if you believe me, Jason, but I think Thomas Rawls is going to win people playoff.

Fantasy championships, foot clan titles will be the result of Thomas Rawls. Now, do you, the big question for fantasy owners now with this news is Rawls are precise this week because this is his first week back. Yeah. Mind you, he basically, you know, he came back briefly at the beginning of the year and really, you know, didn't even get into the swing of things before he got hurt again. This?

This week, I would be more competent playing ProCise. I think really it was. I think that's the general thought. I think ProCise was what he showed last week. It has as much to do with them being able to let Chris and Michael go as Rawls's health because they say, well, we don't even need him without Rawls. 17 for 66. Yeah. And they've got Alex Collins behind them. Alex Collins. Is that what you said? Yeah. I thought you said Alex Rolls. No, I said Alex Collins.

You know, the one caveat I will put, especially on today's show, today we're going to be talking about the playoff matchups. The one reason I would hesitate to say that Rawls is going to win you your fantasy playoffs is, you know, he's got the Green Bay rushing defense to L.A. Rams and Arizona. Those are just three matchups I'm not looking forward to from the running back position. Well, and sure, I think that's fair.

For clarity, I did not say he will. I said he's one of those guys that could. Because if you didn't have a fantasy running back, we talk about all these depth plays and guys you can sign the Robert Kellys of the world. We have to remember, Thomas Rawls was the best fantasy running back in football. Number one. Over the last half of the season last year. Yeah. So when you get that back and you weren't expecting to get it back, that's a difference maker. Yep. All right. Tony Romo held an emotional press conference yesterday. He supported Dak Prescott as the starting quarterback. Honestly, I felt terrible for him.

And he read right off of a piece of paper. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I was so impressed, man. I mean, it takes a lot to be a true, legitimate superstar and humble yourself and back up what you've been saying your whole career, which is I need to do what's best for the team, not just what's best for the team and me. And I was impressed by it. I think the young ones out there.