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

I'm going Thai just because I'm more confident in his volume. Me too, which means nobody's going gallman in the sense that Ty Johnson's out there. He's available to be picked up right now. Daniel Jones is the DFS dart throw of the week. And those have been going really well from... It makes sense. Even though he was so dumb to put this as a motivation of a four, he's been great for the DFS advice.

this year. And the DFS pass and the DFS pod, if you're listening to that, they go on through the playoffs up until the Super Bowl. Yep. So. All right. And the Sterling Shepherd I brought up as my taking it to 100. I think I'll have an opportunity in this game against the poorest Dallas defense. Like I said, I think it's going to be a high-scoring game. So looking forward to that one, actually. I'm just going to forget the records. Something's on the line. So all right, let's get into the starts, and then we'll get back to the matchups. Starts of the week.

All right, my start of the week and week 17 at the quarterback position is Kirk Cousins against that Detroit Lions. I'm going to put it in quotes, defense. No Dalvin Cook in this game. It's going to be the Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, Irv Smith Show, and Dallas has given up. Jason brought it up earlier in the week. They've given up two number one overall performances and two number three overall performances to opposing quarterbacks in the last five weeks. It's unbelievable.

So, and that was Brady Rogers Watson and Tannahill. So Kirk Cousins is set up to be leaned on a little bit more by the team this week. And I talked about the records. Thielen's three away from a touchdown record for Minnesota and then Justin Jefferson, 46 away from that record. And Big Irv has been reliable. So I like Kirk Couss. Yeah, I mean, I went to put Kirk Cousins in.

three seconds after you. It was like a race to see who could get Kirk Cousins as your start of the week. But I also love Ryan Tanna Hill this week at Houston. They're playing for the four seed against, you know, a juicy defense. Houston's not been that good. And the whole, well, Houston's terrible against the run D. And Derek Henry is going to have all the work and really take it away.

There's only been two times this season where Derek Henry's had a top 10 running back performance where Tanna Hill was bad. Most of Henry's big weeks are Tanna Hill's good weeks as well. Against Detroit, both of these guys were top five, weeks 11 and 12. Tanny was top 10 both weeks. Those were weeks where Derek Henry was a top three running back. So I think Tanna Hill has a good week against Houston. And I also want to echo that Kirk Cousins is the stream of the week. I love Kirk. I love Philip Rivers.

But it's week 17, and I wanted to give some depth to my comeback player of the year. He should easily sweep the comeback player of the year. But Alex Smith, this is a risky call for a start of the week. That's why I'm highlighting the other players. But I want to say it, man. Alex Smith, if he plays on Sunday night football against the Philadelphia Eagles, I think he's going to have a good game. If he plays...

I'm going to call that Washington will win the game and make it into the playoffs. The past five games, the Eagles are the second best matchup for fantasy quarterbacks. You have Antonio Gibson back, and I like Alex Smith, so I just want to highlight his return to football. I would love to have had, I thought about taking a Washington wide receiver as my taking it from 200. The problem was I, with any hope for Alex Smith, as I just didn't know, I'm like, am I going to take Cam Sims? You know what I mean? Is it going to be a JD McKissick week?

It's going to be a fun game. I hope they make it in. I mean, it'd be neat for Revereign Smith and that opportunity there. I do think Cam Sims is someone that, you know, if you're needing a player and you can pick him up and start him, he's not the worst. No, he's not. He's had some big plays. All right. Melvin Gordon is my running back start of the week against the Las Vegas Raiders. Yes, please. He disappointed last week with the opportunity that he had, but he has had.

a number of monster games in recent weeks. The Raiders have been the fourth best matchup for fantasy running backs over the last five weeks, and were just annihilated by Miles Gaskin. So I think Melvin Gordon will get it done this week against the Rams. Yeah, I'm going with a surprise here, D'Andre Swift. I pivoted from David Johnson, my original start of the week because I wanted to highlight Swift prior to having the worst quarterback in the NFL this last week. On both sides of his – NFL history, sorry. Right. On both sides of his concussion missed games, DeAndre Swift –

had been dominating. We're talking, you know, one of the top running backs out there. Last week shouldn't scare us away. He had 15 opportunities, including five targets, which, as Mike pointed out, he gets exactly no more, no less. Yep. It's contractually obligated to get five targets a week, but that was against one of the best rush defenses in the league against...

Tampa Bay. This week, they're playing one of the weakest run defenses in the league. Over the last five weeks, only Houston is allowing more fantasy points above opponent's average, as Minnesota is giving up 7.9 more points per game to the running back position than what that average running back score is. Their bottom six on the season as well. So opportunity talent and the matchups say, even with a bad quarterback, I'm playing D'Andre Swift. I'm going with Malcolm Brown.

Rams running back versus the Arizona Cardinals. I get it. Cam Acres could be back. But Cam Acres has an ankle sprain. They will have to use Malcolm Brown. And to me that Malcolm Brown will be the goal line running back. Backup quarterbacks against Arizona? That's been fine lately. Their defense is still giving up points. And Arizona has a crazy divisional split when I went and I looked into this. Every divisional game.

This year, Arizona has given up top 10 production to the running back position. And I don't see any reason why it stops here with a backup quarterback. Malcolm Brown is in play. If Cam Acres is active. I'm still playing Malcolm Brown as a flex. All right. My turn? Yep. A.J. Brown against Houston. Yep. I think a redemption week from last week is in store. No Blizzard.

Just Houston, a blizzard of kindness from their secondary. And we just saw T. Higgins go off against Houston secondary. Brown actually had eight targets in the Blizzard game. Just, you know, it didn't go his way. Are you talking about World Warcraft? No, no, no. Oh, Hartstone. Yeah. Brown currently sits as the wide receiver 14 on the year after a wide receiver finished last year. He missed a couple games this year. So, A.J. Brown, we'll get it done.

And I'm going Jarvis Landry. Love the player. He's just a talented wide receiver. Just got activated just now. Boom. In a must win game for them. The Steelers are a tough matchup, so you might go, oh, I don't know, but they're sitting Big Ben. And, you know, I'm sure if they have any nicks and bruises on the defensive side of the ball, they'll do the same there to protect their playoff team. He was top 24 wide receiver three of the last four games, and he's off the COVID close contact list.

And I'm going to go with Mike Williams from the Los Angeles Chargers. There will be no Keenan Allen. He saw 10 targets last week at Kansas City. They've already declared they're going to be resting players. I imagine they will be resting players on defense as well. Mike Williams is a strong play. And if you want that narrative motivational streets to stroll down, right now Justin Herbert has the rookie record. And he's sitting at 28 touchdowns.

He would be the first rookie to ever throw for 30 touchdowns in his debut. I'll probably get it done in this one. I love the Mike Williams pick. I keep waiting for it, though. I keep waiting for the Mike Williams' like explosion without Ken and Allen. So hopefully this week, I like it. All right. I am going to go with Irv Smith, Big Irv as my tight-in start of the week.

No Davin Cook, as I said. The Lions are the fifth best tight-in matchup over the last five weeks. And like I said, he's had two top three finishes in the last three weeks. He just skipped the week where Mike played him. And he had nine targets last week. So I like Big Irv a lot this week. And with last week's performance, Big Irv is finally above the law.

Oh, yes, Mike. Nice reference. I am going... And he squints his eyes. He has no idea what we're talking about. No, but it's great. Oh, that was maybe my favorite reference in a long time. I'm going to Noah Fant. Noah Fantastic is what we have seen in the last couple of weeks. I think we're going to see it again after we said no. Fant, he said yes. Yes to me.

The targets are finally there. He had nine targets and 11 targets in the last two weeks, respectively. The health is finally there. That's a big problem. He was playing through, you know, a wrapped up angle for the majority of the season. He had the highest snap percentage of the season since that week five injury. And the Raiders matchup is fine. So I think, no offense, someone you can throw out there in week 17. And I'm with Andy's pick a bigger, but I just want to highlight Dalton Schultz taking on the Giants. They can be beat at the tight end position.

The Giants have six games where they have given up top 12 production. This is a touchdown or bust type of a play, but Dallas has to win, and Dalton Schultz is on the field, you know, 90 plus percent of the snaps. So you have a shot here. Jason Moore's, ironclad, locked and loaded, 100% guaranteed boom, boom kicker of the week. Oh, get your lips ready for a championship with a really nice

Bucker, because we're going with the best, the Ravens Justin Tucker. Get your lips ready. Just give me a cast. All right, well, let's, uh, thank you, thank you. Uh, impressive. Justin Tucker, good pick for this week's boom boom kicker. Let's jump back into the fantasy forecast. Fantasy forecast.

All right, the 4 and 11 Atlanta Falcons take on the 10 and 5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Buccaneers are 6.5 point favorites. It's a 50 point over under. And, well, Tampa Bay, they've already clinched the playoff berth. They can lock in the five seed with a win. We've got them listed as a motivation level of four. How confident are you starting Tampa Bay offensive pieces? I'm fairly confident. I was listening to Bruce Ariens talk yesterday about.

how much he wants to be 11 and 5. That's, you know, a record teams don't usually get to, and the motivation is there for them. The matchup against Atlanta, they've certainly been much better the second half of the year post the firing of Dan Quinn than they were. They're not the beat-up, easy target matchup that they were to start the season, but they're also not a world-class defense that you're afraid to play again.

All the Tampa Bay players are in play. Brady, the three wide receivers, gronk. I think they really want to win this game. Yeah. I would be willing to upgrade them to a five on motivation. And here's why. If they win, they lock in the five. If they lock in the five, they go on the road against the NFC East winner. So that is motivation to me. I want to play the winner of the NFC East. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so they. Yeah, because five would play four. And they would technically the four seed.

It would be... No, they would play the NFC East. Whoever wins the NFC East is the... Is the fourth seed, yes. Because they're the... They get the fourth seed. Yeah. Because they're the worst of the divisions. Four or five? Oh, man. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, you got to win. It feels like winning two games almost, potentially. Atlanta's motivation is probably reserved for being a division rival that could disrupt something that Tampa wants to do.

It's no different. It's very similar to the Cincinnati Bengals. They're not trying to tank for a pick. They're trying to win their games. They looked good last week. Should have won the game against the Kansas City Chiefs. So I think you're going to see the, you know, similar team, similar output. Yeah. And Ricky Morris is coaching for a job. Yep. So they're going to play. So Matt Ryan is in play in the matchup. The running back situation is gross.

In Atlanta, if I was picking one based on what I watched in the field last week, I'd actually still pick Todd Gurley. He was getting all the third downwork and came out. And even though Ido Smith had 10, 11 carries, Gurley had the more valuable touches to me. Well, and it's irrelevant. I mean, you saw 15 touches for DeAndre Swift last week. Tampa Bay against running backs, they lock it down. So Edo Smith, Todd Gurley, Brian Hill, they are not in play at all against this Tampa Bay defense.

You want to know who is? Calvin Ridley. Calvin Ridley. I'll go ahead and keep him in the lineup that got you to the championship. Yeah, yeah. No Julio Jones to finish the year. No Kenny Gallaudet to finish the year. These are players that did not provide for fantasy managers this year. Mike Evans is 40 yards away from 1,000 receiving yards wise to keep his streak alive. I imagine he'll accomplish that goal in this game. Godwin, Brown.