New Year's Eve MEGAshow + Week 17 Matchups, Motivation Levels - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/31

uh keenan allen won't play lev bell didn't practice it actually makes you wonder if some of the usage last week had to do with this but he's got an injury and this is why i think darwin thompson's actually a smash play yeah i would i would agree if we knew for sure it would him it would be him i think darrell would play dallas goddard did not practice oh zach hurts remember him

Fresh from the laundry. You were talking about making him, you're taking it to 100 because of the situation, but then I believe your words were, but he sucks. Yeah, yeah. And that, and therefore you. That's mean. Well, right. All right, DJ Chark did not practice on Wednesday. I wanted to make him taking it to 100, but he may not be out there. And he hasn't really been out there for your fantasy team, although last week he.

I mean, he's a good player. That's the thing we can't forget heading into next year with Trevor Lawrence. DJ Chark has had flashes this year of the same level of play as last year, but dealt with injuries and Mike Glennon, and that is enough to disintegrate your body. Yeah, I mean, you watch his touchdown catch last week, and you're like, oh, man, I forgot how talented he is, a fast, tall body control, but not in 2020. Evan Ingram limited in practice with a calf injury. They need him.

Yes, they do. To try to win. They don't. Every time Daniel Jones targets Evan Ingram, it's a, the conglomeration of total targets to Evan Ingram, I have to imagine. Can you please not call him that? He is pro-bowler Evan Ingram. Yeah. It is not Evan Ingram. It is pro-bowler. Please refer to him by his official name. Wash your mouth. Can someone like vet, what is the quarterback rating when Daniel Jones targets Evan Ingram? Because it's a net negative. Yeah, but that's got to be on the sliding scale of Daniel Jones targets.

Sure. Compare them to everyone else. It's not a good idea. Anyways, I'm done with my anti-evon, my anti-pro Bowl. Thank you. Thank you. Antonio Gibson, Alex Smith, Terry McLaurin, they didn't practice. If I had to give you a bet here, I would say Gibson is certain to play. Alex Smith, I would say is probable. And Terry McLaren, I would say unlikely. I would agree with that, yeah. Alex Smith's calf injury has been.

reported as functional issues, not just soreness or things of that nature. Like it's an actual issue. So we'll see. It would be Taylor Hineke if. And I have that number, Jason. It looks like it is 63.2, the passer rating. Sounds about exactly what I was saying. That's what I'm saying. It has to be relative to Daniel Jones throwing the football in general. So 63.2. All right. Let me go find that while you.

Say the rest of the news. All right. Okay. The rest of the news is that Matthew Stafford didn't practice, but is 50-50 to play, according to Ian Rapp. I would say one other piece of news in the must-win to get in game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Los Angeles Rams. Yesterday at a press conference, liar, liar, Sean McVeigh, why say that because this is him talking. And also his pants are on fire. Right, his pants are usually on fire. But he said he would not bet against Cam Acres as far as not playing. He, he.

was basically saying he thinks Cam Acres has a good shot to play. I was told Todd Gurley's knee was okay. Wink. Yeah. But the passer rating here for Daniel Jones, according to PFF, is 78.9 versus 63.2 targeting pro bowler Evan Ingraham. Yeah, there you go. And I will say this. We didn't report it. We should have. Cooper Cup was verified as positive. We'll miss the game.

So yesterday there was some thought that maybe we didn't know if he was positive. We just knew he's on the COVID list. Otherwise, you will have John Wolford at quarterback in that game against Arizona. That'll be fun. He can run a little bit. Oh, like the wolf. Hungry like the wolf? Yeah. Okay, nice December 31st entry into the wolf. What, Duran Duran. They're not hip anymore? For our show, they are. And the wolf, I'm down.

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footballers. And we are about to get into the fantasy forecast for week 17. I don't have an ad read for you. I have a message for you. And the message is that if you're in a fantasy league, you probably have a fantasy champion. And if you have a fantasy champion, they probably need a trophy. And if you want to get them a trophy, you can get them at fantasychamps.com. And you can get a completely free championship ring right now, a special promo. So if you buy a trophy, you get a free ring. Which is a $60.

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That's fantasychamps.com. Now, I'm putting in the order in for all of our conglomerate of leagues today. And my plan is to kind of do some misspelling issues on all of Mike's gear. So that way when he gets it. Yeah, I apologize for all the typing you had to do for all the winning I did. Mike Wright, R-I-G-H-T. All right. Honestly, every time I try to insults him, he always can come back with I won the championship. And that is annoying. It's a strong position. It's a strong position to be it. All right, into the forecast we go.

Fantasy Forecast. I guess before I get the order in, Al, Judge, do you guys need anything? Oh, get bodied. Oh, I pre-lapped at that joke. That thing was solid. All right, I'm sorry. Please keep recording and editing and putting the show up. Otherwise, that joke won't make the air. And the people need to know your losses. We love you. We do.

Week 17, it's all about motivation. And we're going to go through every single matchup here and tell you on a sliding scale, one to five, what is a team's motivation for playing football this week? Really, that is what makes the difference. I mean, you've gotten to week 17 with certain players. You need to know whether you can play your studs or not. I mean, that's the truth. So we do have a wonderful five levels of motivation. This is the team's motivation to play. Level one is the Jay Cutler.

level of motivation. That's full degaff. Mm-hmm. They're going to be smoking on the sideline. Don't care. Smoking in the huddle. Right. Yeah, that is the lowest level of motivation you can achieve as a person. The level two level is, of course. Number two. It is the Adam Gay's level, and that is the about to be flushed level. So that is very low motivation, not quite J. Cutler, DGaf, but pretty much. Level three is the Mike Glennon level.

That is just happy to be here. I mean, that's a perfect, that's a perfect representation of, man, it's nice that I get to play football. If you want to call it to Chase Daniel level, that's fine too. But the level three, that's the medium motivation. Level four is the Tony Robbins experience. That is the motivated to achieve. So you might not be at the level of playing for a playoff berth, but you're at the level of reaching some goals of some sort. Maybe it's seating.

Maybe it's records. Maybe it's pride, divisional matchup. Could be any of those reasons. And then the level five. Full blown. Full blown. Full on, Matt, fully getting a championship down by the river. That is the, according to our editor-in-chief, the about to have a hemorrhoid from zeal to win. That is the maximum motivation level. That's a lot of zeal.

Did you achieve level five motivation in your fantasy championship match, Mike? How many hemorrhoids you got right now? Four. Four. Oh, that's painful. You're sitting on one of those. I'm on multiple donuts right now. Week 17 megalodons are the most fun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So let's dig in. We only have a few hundred matchups to go through here. All right, the Miami Dolphins at 10 and 5 are taking on the 12 and 3 Buffalo Bills.

We've got the dolphins rated at a motivation level of five. They are fighting for a playoff spot and they need to win. That is good for predictability. It's great. I mean, you know they're going to go all out. The weird thing is in a game that they must win. We still expect Tua to be the starter. It's just dumbed. You're just throwing that out there. I'm just throwing that out there. Tua is going to start. He may not finish. That's the truth. That's the situation at quarterback now. In the last game, that is 100% correct.

Yep. Yep. All right. Motivation level for the Bills is two. Level two, that's the Adam Gaze level. They have playoff seating on the line. Yeah, they technically have seating on the line. If the Steelers win the game, then the bills need to win their game to retain the higher seed. So that does matter a little bit to them. However, the Steelers are benching Big Ben. And so I do.

Like, I'm not playing, there's no chance I'm playing Josh Allen. Zero. The fact that last year, Week 17, they gave him the start, and then he was out of the game. He didn't play at all, you know, 10% of the snaps on the game. I expect that to be what happens this week. And without Allen, you have huge question marks around receiving core, Stefan Diggs and company. So bear that in mind when you make your decision with Buffalo this week. If I'm benching Josh Allen as a head coach, I'm benching Stefan Diggs too.

Josh Allen's not going to be your head coach this week? He's saying if he were the head coach. I was the head coach and I'm choosing to bench Josh Allen. I heard both. I heard what I've got weak level 17 of comprehension. I apologize, Mr. Moore. Miles Gaskin is a smash play this week. Yes. And there you go. Mike Gisicki, you could put him in the lineup as well. Agreed. Let's move on. Baltimore Ravens. Well, from this game, it's just those two.

Just Gaskin and Gisicki. Those are the only two players you can play. Carol Baskin and Mike Gisciki. All right. The Ravens at 10 and 5 are taking on the 410 and 1 Cincinnati Bengals. Motivation level for the Ravens is a level 5. They need to win the game to get in. That is spectacular for Lamar Jackson, J.K. Dobbins, even Hollywood Brown, I think, in this must-win matchup. And it's a great matchup for Mark Andrews. Obviously, anybody out there with Mark Andrews is going to be playing him.

you know, look, people got to the championship with Travis Kelsey and you don't get to. This is just congratulatory. And Gus Edwards is in play as a low level RB2 for me. And the level of motivation for the Bengals is a three, which I agree with. This is a divisional game. You could disrupt Baltimore. And the way that they played against Pittsburgh and the way that they played last week shows me that this team is taking some steps and they want to keep that momentum.

Yeah, 100%. This is no different than the Bengals have been the last several weeks. Everything you've seen from them, they're trying to get better as a team. They're not trying to get a better draft pick. They're already in the rebuild. They've already got their quarterback of the future. So this is really, you know, they don't have the same level of motivation, but they are fully going to be in this game. I don't expect any benching. Brandon Allen should be the quarterback. So even though the Baltimore Ravens defense is good, you know, T. Higgins is a type of player. Oh, yeah.

I would like, I, I would really like T. Higgins if for some reason Tyler Boyd does not make it through the concussion protocol. He was limited Wednesday, so pay attention to that. If he does start, then I think Boyd and Higgins are both okay plays. Sure. Giovanni Bernard or Simage AP Ryan. I'll go the PPR dump off, Gio Bernard. He seemed to be so involved.

I would agree. And it's not a great matchup for either. What we've seen from Geo is success in really easy matchups and putridness in difficult ones. Ravens 21st against running backs last six weeks. That's not, I mean, that's an above average matchup. Yeah, I believe Callais Campbell will be active. And obviously, you're going to get the best version of the Ravens this week.