Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Pump the Brakes, TNF Preview, Mailbag

You have to win to keep going in the playoffs. Do what you need to do to win. If you can hold on to AJ Green and win, do that. If you need to make a move because you don't have a good player and there's one available on waivers and it takes dropping them. The question that I actually would have, and this is, this is, so let this one comes in from Jason M. from Phoenix, Arizona. Who would you rather drop AJ Green or Alshon Jeffrey?

And let me present it. Is this redraft or keeper? This is just redraft. This is just straight. I'm not dropping either. This season. This season, you have Alshon Jeffrey, we know, is coming back in week 15. We know that. So you've got a guarantee he comes back. But when he comes back, you've got Matt Barkley, who looked all right. However, probably isn't going to target that number one wide receiver because usually the third string doesn't. He may, though. I would rather have Alshund.

I'd rather have Alshund than A.J. Green, because I know that he's going to be back. And A.J. Green is playing for money. A.J. Green. I'm sorry, Alshan Jeffrey is playing for money. He's on a franchise contract. He's going to be in that locker room. I'm writing a narrative right now. That's probably why he's suspended anyway. So he popped those PEDs to... So he can stay healthy? Yeah. Well, just regardless. I'd rather have Al Sean. I know he's going to be back. So our... Oh, Travis in California. This is a Kaepernet question.

We're going to see how much you love Colin Kaepernick moving forward. Can I drop Cam Newton and trust in Colin Kaepernick to get me through the championship? Also has Derek Carr. No one else to drop. All right. So here's the reality. Since week six, when Colin Kaepernick became the starter over that period of time, on an average per game, not on a total.

Colin Kaepernick is the seventh best quarterback. We talked about that a couple days ago. In that same time span, Cam Newton is the 12th best quarterback. That's not terrible. It's not terrible, but obviously it gives legitimacy to the question of should I drop camp for Colin Kaepernick? And I would say no. And here's why. While Colin Kaepernick has an okay playoff schedule, Cam Newton has a fantastic playoff schedule. His playoff schedule now if your playoffs are in week 13,

And not so much because, you know, this week he's playing Seattle. But week 14, 15, 16, those are the usual suspects for your playoff weeks. You're talking about San Diego, Washington, Atlanta. Cam Newton in those games with teams that can score with suspect defenses, I like Cam Newton for the playoffs. Yeah. That's a, Cam Newton is definitely.

falling into that category of name for me. Yeah. It's Cam Newton. See, I feel like I took the name out early this season for me because I expected regression for Carolina. And I haven't been super high on Cam this year, but I do like his playoff schedule. The playoff schedule for Colin Kaepernick is, you know, it's pretty darn good too. Chicago, the New York Jets and Atlanta. All right. Or I'm sorry, New York Jets, Atlanta.

L.A. Rams. I was like, wait, they can't both play Atlanta in Week 16. Everybody's playing Atlanta. It's a two-on-one. I take the two. I think I'd rather have the one. Well, you got to split up the fantasy points. Yeah, that's true. All right, Mike in Chicago, this is a two-quarterback league. Drop Joey Flacco for Barclay or Gough in a two-quarterback league. Wow. I.

Don't have a problem with it. Here's my concern. Here's my concern. Matt Barkley was one week. You have John Fox steering the ship. So we don't know yet on Jay Cutler. We don't know if Jay Cutter is done. He is likely done. I'm saying it's high 90% probability. You'll never see Jay Cutler in a Chicago uniform. That's how I have it. I have Jay Cutler done for the year. I'm not listening to John Fox.

I don't think they need him. I don't think they like him. But if Joe Flacco was dropped in a two-quarterback league, someone will pick him up. So it's not a, oh, I can do a takesie-backseat and say. Look, I would drop, I would drop Flacco probably for either of these guys. Probably for either. I would drop him for Matt Barkley or for Jared Goff. Both have really good playoff schedules. Goff, you know, golf got Seattle.

in week 15, which is not good, but it's sandwich with, again, Atlanta and San Francisco. Mike, I don't know how to say. Taglier. Taglier is that how you say his name? I was just going to shout out. Friend of the show, Mike. Yeah, he had this great tweet the other day. He said a lot of people are discounting Jared Goff's three touchdown performance saying that, oh, it was against New Orleans. Anybody can do that. Anyone can do that against. He said, yeah, except no one has this year.

This year, no one has thrown for three touchdowns against New Orleans except Jared Gough. So, Jared Gough is more assured as the starter, but I'm not, you know, I think the Rams have a legitimate good defense. And they're not always going to play Drew Brees. I don't think it was the New Orleans defense that was the issue. I think it was New Orleans offense. They scored 49 points, and Jared Gough had to air it out. And granted, those came early, but so did New Orleans, New Orleans points came.

the whole game. And so I think Jared Goff is not going to be in a situation where he's airing it out. Matt, Barclay will be. I'm taking Barclay here, drop Flacco for Barclay. Final offer. Final offer. That's how I see it. Final answer. There you're sure. No, I'm going on. I'm sticking with offer. That's my final offer. Because you don't have to take it. You can keep Flacco. I'm just my final offer. You're making an offer to the waiver wire. Yes. I'm making an offer to. Would you like Joe Flacco?

Mr. WaverWire? Yes, there you go. All right. Andrew in Warsaw. Someone offered me James Winston for Colin Kaepernick. Do I do it? You would get James. I would do it. I would rather have James. I would, I think I'd rather, I'd rather have James too. I mean, which is funny that I even hesitate on this because, oh, well, waivers probably just ran through in our league, but.

I could have picked up Kaepernick. No, no, Andy hasn't. Yes. Okay, so I didn't even have that option. But if Kaepernick was available, I wouldn't drop Winston to get him. So I think that makes it an easy answer for me that I'd rather have James. Yeah. You agree? A lot of, yes, I completely agree. Look, all of these calling Kaepernick questions are legitimate. They are all legitimate. He should be rostered.

He is worthy of being in that discussion rest of season as James, as Cam, as all of these guys. It's just we have, I think, a bigger body of work and more reasons to believe in the Cam and the James overcap. But if at the end of the year we look back and Cap was the guy that got it done and he finished the second half better than those two guys, you won't find any surprise out of either of us. Joshua in Conway.

Says, hey, guys, I'm in a full PPR league. Who is the preferred handcuff for Doug Martin? Jockwiz Rogers or Charles Sims. Charles Sims is going to be your handcuffed because unless Doug Martin gets injured this week in practice, he's going to get injured in the game more than likely. I mean, if an injury comes, I'm not wishing that or hoping that. I'm just saying if one comes and the handcuff matters. You've got to go through the logic. Then the next week is the game that you're going to use them.

And that is when he is... Week 14 is when Sims is eligible to return. We'll say we aren't 100% that he's going to be back, but I imagine if there's a scenario. Yeah, he's been back at practice for two weeks. When those happen and when a guy is eligible to come back and comes back to practice right away. We've seen it several times this year. We saw it with Dionne Lewis. Then they activate him exactly when he's eligible to come. That's my expectation with Charles Sims, and I think he's available week 14.

That's the soon as you'll probably need the handcuff. So I'm going, Charles Sims. All right. This one's final offer. All right. We'll do a quickie right here. Sean Anderson, San Diego. I have David Johnson. Should I get his handcuff? And if so, who is it? Yeah, I guess so. I would. Yeah. It's Andre Ellington for sure. But this is just, you're not going to get David Johnson. If Andre Ellington becomes a starter, this is not a, oh, holy crap.

A good backup now is elevated and is going to get a ton of work. This is, if David Johnson goes down, you have a running back who you know is going to guarantee get touches and get you some points to help possibly keep you above the water. Yeah, and it's worth noting on this question with these new IR rules. Tyvon Branch is set to return for the Cardinals from IR. And that precludes. They chose him to come back. That means Chris Johnson.

cannot come back off of the IR this season. So it is certainly Andre Ellington. All right. This one's from Amanda in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. Oh, bonjour. It's a place with many names, many names. And her question is basically, it's an AJ Green related question. And she wants to free up bench spots for defenses, looking for someone to play in place of the Vikings this week.

She would have to drop AJ Green. It's hard to drop AJ Green for defense. This is how I feel. If you need to win to get in, you know, this is probably the last week of your playoffs, almost certainly very rare for playoffs not to start until week 15. So if this is the last week and you need to win, you do what you got to do. And I would happily drop AJ Green to make sure I get in because you can't win that hashtag Foot Clan title.

The tub. Wait, can't make the club if you're in the tub. And you can't win the title if you're in Idol. There you go. I'll give you a solid D plus. Plus, D plus. I would say for rhyming a word like title as I was speaking it. All right, C minus. You won over. Hey, they're both passing. Okay, you pass. But you got to, you got to.

Not be on idle so you can win the title. I think it's good. All right. I'm sticking with it. You're giving yourself an A plus. Well, I'm a harsh grader, so I'll give myself a regular A. Strong A. Super hard. All right. Last question. Oh, who gets it? Max in Madison. More Kaepernet questions. Wow. So maybe we'll do one more since. Oh, man. You are a generous fellow today. Capper Brady this week. Winning in.

Cap or Brady this week. Well, Colin Kaepernick is going to be playing the hapless Chicago Bears in a game that Vegas has only 43 and a half points for the over under, which is relatively low, so they don't see this being high scoring game. And then you have the New England Patriots favored by 13 and a half points against the Los Angeles Rams. Total over under at 44.5, but obviously they see more points going to the Patriots.

Did you hear, we talked about this stat on the live stream. And I don't have it in front of me, so I can't quote it verbatim. But in the last two matchups of Jeff Fisher versus Billy B, Billy Belichick, Bill Belichick has outscored Jeff Fisher, believe it was 107 to 6. That's, that, well, you've got the best coach against the worst coach.

I mean, you're in the history of the Rams basically, or the Jeff Fisher team's basically averaged three points a game, 250. Wow. That is delightful. So with that knowledge, does that make you go? Either way, either way with or without that piece of knowledge, I would still go Tom Brady. You've got a safe floor and you've always got a higher ceiling. Nobody has a higher ceiling than Brady. If he goes out and throws six touchdowns in a game.

You want that. And I do agree the matchup is much nicer for, you know, I'd rather play a guy against the Bears. But I'm not going to choose to play Colin Kaepernick over Brady. You just saw what Drew Brees did against that Rams defense, right? Right. All right. And because we can't end on just Kaepernick, I'll do one more here. Chris in Nashville, Tennessee, what order would you rank the following tight ends this week and rest of season?

Well, that's a lot, Chris. But we'll see what we can do. Eric Ebron, Kobe Fleener, Antonio Gates, and Cameron Brate. All right. This week we got Cameron Brade against Kansas City. It's not too good. You got Eric Ebron coming off as Gooser, which public service announcement. I'm not worried about it. I am not worried about Ebon. I'm glad we agree. All. I've seen a lot of questions like, what do I do? Do I trust this? Someone was saying, you know, I lost to my wife.

because Eric Ebron Goost, and now I need to win this week. Can I trust him? Yes. You shake your fist and you say, well, I ought to keep starting you because you're a really good tight end for fantasy. And you're playing against New Orleans to boot. Who else did he have? Fleener and Gates. Well, you were pumping the brakes on Fleener. I am to go with you on that. And then Gates, let's see. I believe Gates also had the gooser.