Fantasy Football - Playoff Push! Week 14 Start/Sit + The Ballers Fix Football - Podcast for 12/3

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. It's a wacky Wednesday, everybody. December 3rd, the fantasy footballers podcast. Mike, the fantasy hit man, the fantasy do no wrong man. Jason Moore, the hanging on for dear life. There's been plenty of wrong man. I had to buy my way out of some wrong decisions. Yeah, but you did. And I'm Andy Holloway. Welcome, man. We got all three of the deucers in the house, two of them fighting like cats and dogs. Papa Josh and the Falcon always at each other's throats, just like siblings. They are the weirdest old married couple. I mean, they get along like water and oil.

And they absolutely love each other. Yeah. They love hating each other. Deep down, you love each other. And Al Borland's just, you know, he's just out of that. I'm just babysitting back here. I mean, Papa Josh, if I make a perfect stranger's reference, you would understand that, right? Yeah. Yeah. But the Falcon will not. Yeah. That's a, it's a sitcom from the mid-80s. Yep, yep. My goodness. Welcome in one and all. It is getting ready for week 14 time. Fantasy playoffs right around the corner. We'll see if Mike can really do no wrong. If Isaac Tuslaw on Thursday, if Tuslaw has a two touchdown night on Thursday, Mike, the good news is that Mike can't, at that point, he won't be able to win all the championships in the leagues because he will have ascended into another plane. No, I will. His teams will be unmanned. I call dibs on your team. That's fine. I call dibs on the other one. But the, like, the third dimension, I'll be gone.

Yeah, he will. I will be, can you enter the Tesseract? I don't even know how that works. But we'll find it. We will find out on Thursday should Isaac Tesla have a multi-touchdown game. I mean, everything is just working out well. You've got a bi-week built in for Christian McCaffrey so we can't get hurt before the playoffs. Oh, it's great. For most. I'm sorry if you need McCaffrey this week. No, it's, I mean, you probably don't if you haven't. And that's been the amazing thing. But we've got, what are we got today? We've got some mailbag we're going to dive into. We'll do some backup options. We'll talk about some NFL news. We've got a Thursday night game where Mike will talk about Isaac to Slaw. I'll talk about James and Jason. I'll talk about the playoff implications. It's a massively important game.

Yeah, I just thought maybe you'd be spending most of this show doing advanced math on scenarios of whether you win or lose games and who your opponent will be. I locked up the playoffs last week. Yeah. As we talked about, I will be doing nothing this week. You're just taking it off. I am taking a big breather. Now, we do have a bit of a problem in our leagues. And those listening out there, maybe you do it one way or another way. You were not, I think you were in the middle of doing the Dynasty show yesterday, Jason. And Mike and I were just,

examining a couple of leagues and we realized that in our league of record we reseed the playoffs after round one and so it is as should be done i think it is the right it is the right way to do it that's what sports do yeah what proper tournaments if you're the number one seed and then someone pulls on upset and they're a lower seed you should have to get to face them but our other main league our dynasty league we don't do that we should put that to a vote and it's going to really cost mike this year it's

Because I will vote no. Because we have a division leader that's like six. I will vote yes. Which one is better for me? That's how I'll vote. No matter. So you're in your bracket where you're, our our bracket is three people from our division. Just that's how it's worked out. The three. Well, no, no, I'm sorry, Jeremy. I won't say the three strongest teams. Your team is in there. What? What? What? I didn't want to say the three strongest teams and the Jeremy. Yeah, the tone. Don't worry about it. Yeah. But I play either you or Troy's team. Okay. No matter what. And the division winning. That sucks. And Brooks plays. I just knocked to a tongue of I low a way off the desk. Just so left hand punched him off the desk. The point of that story is, yeah, we should be receding immediately.

Yeah, and I think we did change to that at one point in League of Record. It wasn't that way by default. I don't think they do that by default. Yeah, the Tua statue has a concussion, for sure. But let's get into things. The Megalobole leader right now, Alan the Hips. That's the first time I've heard that name atop the Megalibble. Wow. Megalibole leader, Alan, all caps, the Hips. The Hips. The Hips is a great nickname. The Hips? If you call me the Hips. As in like your body part or like your hip? You don't know. You don't know. I could be hip. Jay could have hips that don't lie. You should run through the Megalibol playoffs for the people at home. Yeah. So if you are in the top six in your Megalibol league, you will make, after this week, you will go into the playoffs. You no longer have a head-to-head matchup on the sleeper platform. Basically, you can look at the standings at megalble.com. And then the way it works is just.

score more than half of people and you're on to the next week. Do it again and you're on to the final week. And then you've got to score the most to be the winner and play with us in the listener league next year. It's going to be fun. We are right there. We have, what else do we have? I guess we should remind people. We mentioned it yesterday. If you do need a trophy, a ring, a belt for your league, fantasychamps.com has the highest quality best products for the champions out there. And you can use the code ballers to save some money on those. So if you need them, every year there's new trophies, new rings, all that stuff. Fantasychamps.com to check that out. Let's go ahead and jump right in. Backup options presented by progressive insurance. Waivers have gone through in your league. We've got some backup options. Some players may be beneath the waiver pickups that might be worth grabbing, stashing.

keeping an eye on just in case they can be those bottom of the barrel league winners that happens every year and i'm throwing ollie gordon's name out there sure for the dolphins they have the second best running back strength of schedule heading into the playoffs if you're smart you're the a chan manager you have ollie gordon on your team but he's i think a good player i think if ollie gordon had more opportunities because he's had fantasy relevant games even with a chan this year Miami's number one in the league in rush rate right now. Yeah, I was going to say Tua is not throwing the ball a ton. I mean, over the last, you had a blip in where they were getting blown out by Baltimore, where he threw the ball 40 times. But the past three games, 23 attempts, 20 and 21. There's a world where, because committee backs get started, right? Chris Rodriguez has kind of been a committee, right? We have Michael Carter's been started in leagues. I think Ollie Gordon is in that conversation because the matchups are that good and they should be.

really competing in these games. The playoffs, it's Pittsburgh and the first one, but then Cincinnati, who gives up nine more points than expectation to running backs, and then Tampa Bay, something to pay attention to a name we've barely mentioned this year. It's a great name to bring up because he is talented. He is good. He's a monster of a man. He's 6-2-25 and only 21 years old. A little Latavius Murray vibes to me. Sure. Yeah, and honestly, two years ago, Ollie Gordon was thought to be like a borderline first round NFL draft pick. He was the hotness, had a disappointing senior year. But he's looked good. So I think that's a great name to bring up because A. Chan is undersized and he's getting worked like crazy. If he goes down, he'll be an important name. The name I'm going to bring up another insurance running back who I can't believe is getting dropped everywhere. I know it's you got to drop who you got to drop.

but I saw Emmanuel Wilson on the most droplets. I would love if Emmanuel Wilson was dropped in our league. I'm the Josh Jacobs manager. Yeah. He's already been dealing with injuries that are kind of lingering. Like Josh Jacobs scares me. He could limp off at any moment. And you already saw Emmanuel Wilson be the guy without Josh Jacobs, have a multi-touchdown game. He was the running back two in fantasy that week. So, yeah, I mean, don't drop Emmanuel Wilson. If he is dropped, pick him up. Scoop him up. Yeah, makes sense. And he's back because he was my backup option last week. I'm going with Andre Yoshivash. Yoshi. Yeah, you messed that up. Yeah, I really did. I apologize, Yoshi. But, and I know that Tinsley was kind of the story of he was getting targeted a ton. He had nine targets. Tinsley could be a super deep backup option as well. I'm bringing them up just because the T. Higgins news isn't good yet for clearing concussion protocol.

Seems like we're trending for another week without him. And with Joe Burrow back, there are fantasy points to go around just to lay it out a little bit more. Yoshi only had the two targets. He came through with the touchdown, so everything was okay if you played him last week. But he was on the field for 94% of the snaps, 88% of the routes while Tinsley was at 60% of the routes. He had the touchdown. The ball just happened to go to Tinsley a lot. It was not effective. Both of these guys, depending on the size of your league, I think are in play this week against Buffalo. If you missed out on the wide receivers you needed from the waiver wire, these guys should be in a higher scoring game. Fifty-two and a half point over or under. Good, it's gracious. If the Bengals go down this year and they don't make the playoffs, they're going down with Joe Burrow. Yeah. And so I like it. That was backup option sponsored by Progressive Insurance Quote today at progressive.com. Let's talk news.

News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance. Maybe we need to get Papa Josh and Falcons some counseling. You know what I mean? No way. To talk through it, to deal with it. No way. The electricity is good for the office. Yeah, you don't want things too chummy around here. Too comfortable. No way. The Buccaneers are expected to open the 21-day window for both Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan and both are expected to practice this week. It is ahead of schedule for Mike Evans with the collarbone expectations. Well, he's a dog. Yeah. This is wild, man. If you, if they really have all the wide receiver weapons for Baker to close out the season, it could be wild. Does that scare you for Abuka? Big time. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The vibes with Abuka are so weird right now because he was so effective with Evans. So there's that part of you that's like, oh, this would be great. You know, you have. But that was Sands Godwin. Yeah, they had no Godwin. But then.

Then you look and say, well, these targets are amazing, 11, 9, 10. And you're like, oh, I want that to continue, but that's turned into low efficiency, 30 plus percent catch rate. And so, yeah, I think ultimately it's what you believe about the talent. Abuka's a great talent. He's a great player. I don't know if he's still in the lead in terms of receiving yards for the wide receiver position as a rookie. It's probably closed with Teteroa at this point. But, you know, I... I guess I'm mostly neutral and a little bit worried in general. Amarian Hampton expected to return this week against the Eagles on Monday. It is a bit of a scary start to me. You go into Monday night. Hampton, Eagles. Kamani Vidal's been good. There's no way you give him a full workload. But we saw this past week. We weren't expecting a full workload for Bucky Irving. And he ends up with a touchdown that got called back. And then another touchdown later in the game. Do it, Bucky looked.

He looked back. It looked like a guy whose body was well a while ago. Yes. Yeah. I think Hampton is going to be a really interesting like start-sit decision. People are going to get him back and they're going to go, I don't know what to do. And I think in most situations, feel like I would rather wait a week. Oh, really? I was going to say, I feel like in a lot of situations I'm just going to play in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is all depending on your options. We also had word that, and you've kind of seen this with the Blake quorum utilization, but Michael Flores said the team wants Kyron Williams fresh for the NFL playoffs. Yeah. You don't want to hear that right before your fantasy playoffs. One of the fun things about the Deucer's constant spats is that they're co-managers of a fantasy team. And so that team has Kyron Williams. So you don't like that news, do you? Papa Josh?

Just shake your head on our audio podcast. I can't handle another injury to our team. And hold on, let me check this. Falcon, do you like that news? No, I hate it. Okay, so now you have common ground. This is why they both hate that that's going to knock you out of the playoffs. The, uh, don't want to miss the news. The Tyrone Tracy injury, he's saying he suffered a hip contusion in a stinger, so he expects to be fine. Is this true that the Steelers signed Adam Thielen? Yes. Oh, you missed that? Yeah. Did you not see, um, Oh my gosh. That is crazy. Well, Aaron Rodgers needed someone to relate to. Nice. What is the, why is the name? Aaron. What podcast did we go on a couple years ago with the linemen that hosts the show? I feel terrible not remembering the name right now. Long? Yes. Yes, yes. What's the name of that show? Oh, now it's now. Now I can't think about it. Is Chris Long's podcast? Is it? Go Long. On the Chris Long podcast, which.

It looks like green light with. Yeah. I knew. See, I said green. I knew it had green. Yeah, yeah. He's a great podcast, great host. They do a lot of amazing work. They just had a podcast a couple days ago where they were joking about Mike Tomlin, where he, where he's like, Mike Tom is the kind of guy that would say, you know, you can't, you need a, you need a spoon. You need a spoon to eat soup, not a fork as in like you need better players to eat the soup. And then would go sign a 2018. Pro bowler and then they joked about it being Adam Thielen because he's a 2018 pro bowler and then they sign Adam Thieling. Yeah, that's funny. You're not, you don't have Big Ben anymore, buddy. At the same time, I feel like there's a good signing for the Steelers. Like they, they need another legitimate wide receiver and Adam Thielen is no pro bowler anymore, but you actually, I mean, I think this matters not. Compared to. Yeah, I would agree with that. It's not pushing Aaron Rogers over the top and it's not.

making Adam Thielan a relevant play, but it is good for the Steelers. I mean, they just, they don't have quality wide receivers there. I'm not sure Adam is that anymore. This is his final season, too. He said that. So that was News & Note sponsored by Progressive Insurance Quote Today at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and Third Party Insurers, not available in all states or situations. Coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. We'll take a break. We'll jump into the Thursday night preview. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. The weather might be changing, but the feeling of being right never gets old. And right now on Prize Picks, you can get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. Prize Picks is the only app that offers stacks, meaning you can pick the same player up to three times in the same lineup. You like Josh Allen this week? How much?

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That's code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play that first $5 lineup. Prize picks, it's good to be right. Is Adam feeling the kind of guy that's going to free D.K. Metcalf up? No. Okay. All right. We do have a pretty fun, pretty exciting. Better not let us down Thursday night game. Thursday night breakdown. Dallas, 6, 5, and 1, Detroit, 7 and 5. That's wild. If Dallas wins the ballgame, they have a better record than Detroit. If Dallas wins the ball game, the Lions have a 12% chance at making the playoffs. What? A 12% chance of making the playoffs if Dallas wins. Is that just based on the record? Because it's like you don't know what's going to happen with the rest of the games. Those are like those projections based on the lines for the rest of the season for every matchup around the league.

That's crazy. Well, it is. So if they win, they have still only a 45% chance of making the play. Like the lions are up against it right now. What's the schedule? It's got to be divisional games too, right, the rest of the schedule? That's wild. They play Dallas, then the Rams, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Chicago. So that's wild because I feel like if Chicago loses this week, they go from the 1C to the 7th scene. And then suddenly Chicago, that game, I mean, that week 18 game could be a playoff spot between Chicago and the line. I'll bet it is. I'll bet it is. And that game is in Chicago. Three of the next five games for the Lions are on the road as well. So this is a crucial must-win game for both. Detroit, three-point favorites at home. Over under is, I'm going to just say it. You round up, 54 and a half. That's insane. It opened at 52.5.

They are expecting big offensive performances. I will say this. The Detroit offensive line is hurting right now. So far, Graham Glasgow limited participant in practice. Their left tackle, Taylor Decker, didn't practice on Tuesday. Penaes Sewell didn't practice. Their left guard went to the IR. And then Frank Ragnow, they brought him back. We retired. retirement with too bad of a hamstring. So yeah, I mean, man. And that's like always been the strength of this version of the Lions is their offensive line. So. Well, if there's a defense that can overcome the other team's offensive line not being good enough and still give up points, it's Dallas. Yeah. They've been a lot better against the run in recent weeks, ninth in the last six weeks against the run, but still 31st against quarterbacks, 32nd against whiteouts.

of which they have maintained that throughout the entire season. That's exciting. And guess what? The lions are the same. They can't play defense against quarterbacks and wide receivers. They give up a ton of fancy points. This is magic. If you need to win this week, you want a player in this game. Yeah. It's a little sad that this game isn't next week for me because the deck. CD stack, it's going to be fired. I would be feeling that way too. I'd be very excited about that. So, Dak, Giovante, lamb and pickens. Yeah, play them all. Jared Goff, basically my favorite, like, start of the week. Gibbs, I mean, Monry. We don't think he'll be out there. Monty is in play. I know that the Cowboys are, you know, not giving up a ton of points to the running back position right now, but.

It's in such a high-scoring game with the amount of touchdowns. It doesn't make you nervous? I mean, I'm not like, yes, I got Montgomery to play compared to the other players in this game. But, I mean, at this point, Montgomery already had a level on your fantasy roster where he's, you know, you look at him. You're like, he's a running back three type of a guy based on the right matchup. I can play him. And this is one of them. The Dan Campbell quote on Amman Ross St. Brown, if he can play, he'll play. Yeah, that's usually how that works. Thanks, Dan. Yeah, his quote himself, he said, I'm not sure right now if I'm being honest. It's a short week. It's still up in the air. This team, the only thing that could talk you into it is the idea of what you just said, the fact if they lose this game at home, their playoff odds become very challenging. Because if this was any other scenario where they felt more comfortable, I'd be like, goodness, give them the 10 days. I don't think he'll be out there. I don't think he can get there.

And I think if they need to close the season four more games the right way, they're going to want them out there for those, for that shot to make it. So if he's not out there, Jameson Williams, I mean, since week six, he's the wide receiver 10 in total fantasy points. That includes two gooses. That's incredible. That is the most Jameson Williams stat of all time. He's had two goosees, but along that stretch, he is the wide receiver 10. I mean, the option to go nuclear is here. He is a must start. There's no league. I mean, I don't think that you could possibly have like three other wide receivers. You could play ahead of them. No, not for this week. And then Isaac Tesla, if Amanra is out, I think to slah, oh gosh, it's like torture. It makes me feel like my hair on my arms is standing up. What did they use to do for people with like mental illness? The shock therapy? That's what that feels like. Yeah. I feel like my brain is being reprogrammed to agree with your takes more.

I look I love the player he's it's so much fun the big plays the targets honestly have they've not been there really ever for for Tesla in his if you go back to college not a big target earner this year even when he's on the field really not getting targets he gives you spectacular catches so the I think we said it right on the waiver show the floor for Tesla is zero the ceiling for him is 80 plus yards and two touchdowns. Like that's not an impossibility. So I like, one of a little Alec Pierce day from him. Right. I'm playing him almost everywhere that I have him. Play him over Jefferson. Oh man. Stop, stop it. No, you wouldn't play him over Jefferson. If he would, yes, he might score more points than Jefferson. I would probably play him over Jefferson. Oh, dude.

Nah. And a 54.5 point over under with no almond raw at home. The floor for Jefferson is below the floor. It's the basement. Here's the floor for Jefferson. 1.4, which he just did. Yeah, well, you just said that the floor for Tesla was zero. Yeah. That's less the point. Okay. Okay. Compare. Sure. Floors. What's the ceiling for Justin Jefferson? Oh, it's still pretty high probably. Yeah. It might be, it might be smartest thing. The Washington matchup is a good get right matchup right now for Justin Jefferson. Okay. Yeah, for him. Not for Jay-J. I'm going to go, JJ. Okay. The Justin Jefferson and the Lamar Jackson questions are impossible. Yeah, I mean. Somewhere, someone out there had both and thought they were going to win. I really, I totally understand the avenue, the game.

this environment, the missing Ammon Ra, Tesla is in play. If I had like Xavier Worthy or Tesla, I'm playing Tesla. Okay. But I don't think I'm going to move him in ahead of, you know, wide receivers with more experience. He's got six catches in his career. I do worry about Monty in this game. I really do. I've been so impressed with the run defense by Dallas in recent weeks. If this is going to be one of those games that it looks like, you know, high scoring affair, you don't have. control the offensive line is beat up i'm just going to throw my two cents out there that i'm you you weren't you didn't get a little bit of hope last week that monte looked okay against green bay there's always hope he's going to score that but but i mean he was still the wide he was still the running back 22 on the week oh yeah so i mean but that's what i mean 32 yards in a touchdown so 32 yards i have hope he'll get 32 yards but if he doesn't score and they they need to lean on gibbs and get him out in space because the defensive line is

is moving this offensive line that's beat up. I just think the floor is really low. That's all. I would agree with that. I also think it's worth throwing the name out there for, you know, if you're in deep leagues, Khalif Raymond is not, you know, if Amin Ra is not there, we're excited about Tesla. He's the exciting, big-bodied rookie who can make highlight catches. But Khalif Raymond will be on the field a lot. We've been playing Parker Washington. He's been rolled out. Yeah, he is likely to miss a week 14. No, he's out. Holy Tesla goes up. Let's redo that. Let's redo that take. I'm just saying there. My point is. Whoever the third wide receiver is going to matter. I don't care who it is. Well, Tisla was out there for every snap last week. Yeah. So who is the third wide receiver? Exactly. Tom Kennedy? Exactly. You don't. I mean, we don't. Tislaw will matter in this game if Amunra is out. He will 100% matter. But it might matter to the tune of two for 45 and no touchdowns. That could be the game. Yes.

And yes, Tom Kennedy, I think, is an actual person. Is he one of the Kennedys? He could be. He has to be. Yeah, there's only one family with that name. Man, would you play Tesla over O'Donze? Yeah. Again, this is all predicated on no Ammon Ra, but of course. Yeah, I think I would. Holy moly. Yes. This is a wide. You have no Leporta. You have no Amin Ra. You have no Cleef Raymond. You have to score 30 points in this game. You have to throw. You have to throw. Wow. I mean, I'm seeing a picture of Tom Kennedy. I don't know if it's real. Jeez, Louise. The American television host from the 50s? Is that who's starting? Isaac Tesla or Michael Pittman. I just want to see how high we can go with Tesla here. Let's not get crazy. I play Pittman. Yeah, let's not get crazy. Alex Pierce? No, I'd play Pierce. Pierce for sure.