Starts of the Week + Week 11 Breakdown, Heartfelt Apologies

But you can't just go get Calvin Ridley, whereas Russell Gage, he's out there on your waivers. You can go scoop him up. And he sounds like an action star. Oh, dude, Russell Gage. Invent Diesel in the new Shark Nato. See, I feel like, he's in a revenge movie. In the new movie, mediocre slot receiver. He was a gumshoe detective. Russell Gage. Hot take right here.

I'd rather have Russell Gage on my roster rest of the season than Larry Fitzgerald. I don't think it's that hot. Okay. I thought it was. All right. Matt Barita, like I said, one to two weeks. Tyler Locke is expected to be ready to play week 12 after the bye week. That's good. David Montgomery, limited in practice. Gerald Everett, limited. D.D. Return to practice Wednesday. How do you approach Jacksonville? I am very, I am extremely.

I think they're a trap this week, is my point. I think they're a trap against Washington. You mean the Colts? Yeah, sorry, the Colts. Okay. With Foles coming back. All right. With D.D. coming back. I just want to see it to believe it. Are you all in on Jacksonville? I am very excited for what could happen to Jacksonville, because I do think Nick Foles. The city? Yes, is a better quarterback than Gardner Menshoe.

The team has already been producing some really excellent fantasy options. DJ Chark, Leonard Fournett. I'm excited to see them progress forward, but I'm definitely taking a wait and see approach. It's a hopeful benching of D.D. Westbrook. You know, you'll still start DJ Chark because you probably have to at this point and Fournett. But with, I'm not playing Foles. I'm not playing Didi, but I am hopeful. I'm willing to play Didi. His target share.

and everything it was safe. I get it was Gardner, but everything of Nick Foles that we know about him, I think I relying not just on the preseason, but just the entire body of work of Nick Foles using the week one coming back off the injury, week one of Nick Foles and against a pretty competent Colts defense? The injury is my concern. I've said this this week on the show. I'm taking a stop calling your shot approach. If you're not a star.

Right? Like James Connor is a star fantasy running back. He's coming back off of the, he goes right in my lineup. But D.D. is a guy that he's going to have to prove it to me from here and out. News and notes is always brought to you by the Sleeper app. Tomorrow we'll have in and out on the show. We're going to tweak in and out a little bit. We're going to focus that down to just the really big names that you need predictions on because we've got the game day alerts coming every Sunday morning. A lot changes with Friday practice report. It's Saturday.

And then we've got Sunday live. Mike's live on Sunday morning with last minute injury reports. So we'll get you analysis updates on the biggest names tomorrow that people are doubting their availability. And so you can stay tuned for that. You guys ready for some forecasts? Fantasy forecast. All right. We've got the Broncos, Texans, Jags, Patriots, Eagles, Redskins all coming back off the by. Welcome back to your lineup. Packers, Giants, Seahawks, Titans.

on by this week. And if you're planning ahead, Cardinals, maybe Christian Kirk, Kyla Murray, you got the Chiefs. That's a big one. Big one. No Patrick Mahomes and company. Chargers in Vikings next week. Dalvin Cook. That's a rough one. Yeah, there's a lot of very big fantasy players that'll be missing week 12. And that could be very, very important for your fantasy team in terms of the playoff run. All right, let's get into our first matchup. The Cowboys at 5 and 4 take on the

Detroit Lions, they're three, five and one. Cowboys are three point favorites on the road here. It's a 51 and a half point over under. Yes. That line, that over under certainly implies the return of Matthew Stafford. That has to. I mean, it's crazy. How dare you? Is that Driscoll? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think you have to have Stafford here if you're going to hit that number. But Matt Patricia.

has really created a defense that says, well, maybe not. Maybe you can score all the time. Would that be Patricia or would that be Driscoll willing to give points up? Maybe, you know, if Driscoll throws... It's a team effort. If he throws for a touchdown, it doesn't matter what team he goes. It still goes to the over under. That's true. No matter which team scores on his path. But Detroit's given up the fifth most fantasy points to quarterbacks over the last month. They are, as you said...

completely vulnerable to all positions. One of the worst defenses in terms of fancy points allowed. Dak Press cut, Ezekiel Elliott, Omari Cooper. Those are your locked and loaded starts. When you look at question marks on the Dallas side, it's do I play Michael Gallup again? Do I take a shot on Randall Cobb in deep leagues? And am I willing to start the pedestrian man, Jason Witten? The pedestrian? Yes, the pedestrian.

because he is four more targets every game. They're not sexy and they're not special, but Jason Witten's out there. And, you know, he's out there. Don't run. Walk. That's right. The pedestrian. The pedestrian in theaters this Friday. Starring former Monday Night Football analyst. Does he leave that off his resume? I don't, I put that on. I don't care how bad. You know Bougar's going to have it on. Bougar's not there forever.

There's no way boogger's hanging around. I wish there was a button on my remote for just Booger Mute. I hear everything else, but when Booger Talks, sorry. Michael Gallup. Is he a smash play this week against the Lions? He should be. Yeah, I mean, I don't think you could say he's a smash play. He's certainly a guy that can get it done. He had a touchdown last week, the last two weeks he's had a touchdown.

And he's a talented receiver in a plus matchup. I like that. But it's, it's one of those situations where he hasn't been great. He's really disappointed. After those first three weeks where he was, the first three games, I should say, he missed a couple weeks in there. He had everybody salivating at the potential of this one-two punch from Cooper and Gallup. That's from the salt lick. And, and, uh, I don't get that.

It's a horse joke. It's a horse joke. I did take me a couple seconds. Oh, because Gallup. Yeah. Okay. I'm there. I don't, I'm not super familiar with the salt wake. I think, I think we've seen some interesting things from Gallup. He's actually in the category of receiver that has a very high yards from scrimmage per touch. He's in the Evans, Metcalf, Diggs, Mike Williams category where I think we thought if Cooper went out, Gallup would become this PPR guy.

Well, he's more of a big play guy, touchdown guy. Good game last week. But I think you can start him in this match. I think you can as well. And Cooper helps him is kind of the point of that story. Yeah, he's more of a Robin at this point in his career. What's a little bit concerning is if you just look back at the recent games, I mean, you're doing some box score surfing here. But when he's having, he had the great game against Minnesota, because game script dictated that.

The Cowboys needed to throw. You go back a couple weeks against the Giants. It was a blowout. It was barely used. Yeah, you had the touchdown. Of against Philadelphia, a blowout was barely used. So that's the concern with Gallup. His ceiling is incredible. Four for 76 with a touchdown last week. But I think his floor is very low. He's volatile and should not be played as a safe wide receiver too. Would you feel more confidence if?

Stafford is indeed playing on the other side. Yes. Someone that can run up the score. Yes. Yes, definitely. Stafford being in this game makes a huge difference because I don't think Driscoll is going to get it done enough against what is I think an above average Dallas defense. So, yeah, if Stafford is here, I like Gallup a lot more. All right. On the other side of the ball, Ghaladay and Jones, are they both being started for you at home regardless of the quarterback situation?

Yeah. Wait, no, no, not regard. I take it back. Not regardless. I'll still play Kenny Gawaday. I mean, you, even if it's Jeff Driscoll, but Marvin Jones, I mean, he's, he's pretty similar to, to, uh, the way I feel about Michael Gallup, where you can play him as a two, but he's just, he's not safe. He's not safe at all. And, and the thing is, is Dallas's defense against wide receivers has, has been great.

I mean, they really have not given up. They've given up one big week on the season. One big score. Shockingly, that was to Sam Darnold, very unexpected. Outside of that, there's not been a lot of feasting here, you know, by wide receivers against Dallas on the season. I wish we didn't have, I wish we were able to stay in the fire in flames that Matthew Stafford had been putting up because that was a wonderful three-game stretch.

And, you know, it's just better for everybody. It's better for Hawkinson hopes. It's better for Marvin. Any interest in the running back situation at all in Detroit? And Detroit, J.D. McKissick. You know, if Ty Johnson's out, we talked about maybe a flex dart throw. Yeah, it's certainly possible. He had 10 carries and 7 targets this past week. I would expect those targets to continue at least be in the 4 to 5 range.

But that was also a product of necessity where the game plan was to use Ty Johnson and McKissick. Now if they're planning to move forward that Johnson is not going to be there, what does that split actually look like? Will McKissick get double-digit carries? I doubt it. So he's still an okay dart thrown PPR leagues. All right. We've got the Jags Colts matchup coming up next. Before that, I want to thank.

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Terms and exclusions apply. Capital One and A. All right. Jacksonville, going to Indianapolis. The Jags are four and five. They get Nick Foles back. The Colts are five and four. They get Jacoby Brissette back. Ooh. Games only got a 43.5 point over under. The Colts are two and a half point favorites. I lean the under. And I actually look at this matchup and not finding a lot of smash plays for me.

Yeah, it's hard to disagree. I'll just start with the Jacksonville side. Like DJ Chark, I don't know how you possibly bench Chark at this point. I don't think you can bench Chark at all. I think you have to. But man, risky. Yeah, and just not a top 15 guy this week. Sure. Yeah, it does seem like the ceiling is cap. The Colts are strong against fantasy wide receivers. They are 10th allowing just over 25 points a game to the position.

But, like, back to Diti. Like, I mean, you saw it once again. It was the preseason game, but Nick Foles went almost exclusively to him. Nine target. He was injured. So let me ask, let me frame it this way. If D.D. Westbrook were not coming off the injury. I would still wait a week. You would still be waiting? I would. Because we didn't, we didn't see it manifest in the regular season yet with Foles. Foles was coming off the injury. Solid defense on the road.

I would play Russell Gage over Diti. I would play a lot of those type of guys over Diti because he has not done anything to prove anything to me. I think the argument. Six for 103? Yes. He had a game, but he hasn't had a game with Foles yet. And you're saying you'd play Chark over Westbrook, right? Yes. So then you're looking at a secondary option on a run first team on the road with a low over under. It's not a situation that I personally, look, I have nothing against Diti.

but I like opportunities for, you know, other players a lot more than I do this week. Yeah, coming into the season, you know, we hadn't seen anything between D.D. and Nick Foles, and we were willing to play him week one for a really good option. But things have changed. I mean, D.J. Chark was not anything special coming into week one to the fantasy community. We didn't see that breakout necessarily coming. And now I do worry that D.D. is going to be the two.