Starts of the Week + Week 11 Breakdown, Heartfelt Apologies

games that I think could go bananas. And this is a game. Vegas has it at 49 points. I think it hits the over because these two quarterbacks are just too good. Yeah, and 49 point over under, Ravens 4.5 point home favorites. If you're a GM right now, which quarterback do you, would you rather have for your franchise? Watson. Watson. Watson's a better passer than...

than Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson is maybe a better weapon than Deshaun Watson. But I think going forward, longevity, long-term quality of the quarterback play, you know, will people be able to figure out over time? You know, Lamar Jackson is still, this is really his first year. Now, the answer for me is no. They won't be able to figure it out. They didn't figure Vic out ever.

I mean, you can't figure out extreme athleticism. Right. I lean Lamar, but both are incredible. Do you have any concerns next year if Greg Roman leaves? Greg Roman, the offensive coordinator. He has to be up at the top of head coach and candidates. He will be offered jobs. I don't think so. Okay. I don't think I'm concerned about that. I think they've.

You know, he's got a second year of establishing what he does, and he's going to improve and continue to. Like the narrative of, we like Lamar because Greg Roman's coming in, because you saw what he did with Tyrod, Tyrod got worse when Greg Roman left. The nice thing is, had his best years with Greg Roman. No doubt. It's easy to trust good franchises. And coaches. Exactly. Harbaugh and that organization, they brought Greg Roman in.

Because they knew what they were doing. And so I have trust in the organization. All right, Mike. Duke Johnson or Carlos Hyde, who would you rather flex in this game? Half points. It's going to be Carlos Hyde. If it's full PPR, I might give the edge to Duke Johnson, who has had five targets three weeks in a row. Marquise Brown. We'll talk about him soon. Jason's the highest at wide receiver 19 right now. I think there's a lot of upside to him. Yes. 22% target share seems healthy. Hopkins, he's in.

Will Fuller should return, maybe in a limited capacity. I'm personally hands off of Fuller and Stills. I agree. Darren Fells, Mark Andrews, Andrews is an auto start. Fells is the, he's in that category of... He's an auto stream. Is he? He is for me. He's an auto stream. So basically, every week you can think about it. Yes. Yeah, and, you know, going back to my belief of this game, being able to be one where a ton of points are scored, if you got to, if you get into the...

game script where it's back and forth, that's a game where Darren Fels falls over for a touchdown. All right, Jets at 2 and 7, take on the Redskins at 1 and 8. Redskins are one-point favorites. Makes my comment earlier in the week that Washington was going to win the game seem a little less hot takey. Dwain Haskins will get the start against Sam Darnold. I believe that this is going to be a low-scoring game.

There's going to be Vegas has it at 38.5. I'm not really excited. Pace of play-wise, the Redskins are going to slow the game down as much as possible. I heard a stat from JJ, Zacharisen that basically highlighted like pass attempts of quarterbacks facing the Redskins. It's like 22. That's what they average on the year. So you don't, you look at the Redskins as juicy matchup, but they don't, they slow the game down. And all of a sudden you look up as, you know, two minutes left in the third quarter. Like, where am I passing?

points and leaning on Sam Darnold to break out on the road on 22 pass attempts and be efficient. Yeah, this is a game that could end up finishing quickly because there's more running involved in a lower scoring game. I mean, you have two pretty bad defenses here, but when you look at fantasy points given up, they're just middle of the pack and you go, why aren't they a great play? And the reason is what you just said, Andy, is the game.

doesn't turn into any barn burner, and there's no need. That's why, like, you look at the Redskins defense, the one place that they are really susceptible to in fantasy is running backs because the other team is up, and they just keep running the ball. Yeah, the running back situation in Washington is a bit of an enigma. Right now you have Adrian Peterson, who was dealing with an ankle, was limited with a toe. Darius Geis returns. Bill Callahan came out and said, we've got a pretty good rotational system.

for Darius Geis and Adrian Peterson. He says we feel pretty confident, Geis will see quite a bit of action this weekend. And then Peterson isn't worried about his workload. He said Coach Gruden was here. He's no longer here. So kind of different scenario. Wow. And Chris Thompson is still out. Peterson. So where are you at with this situation? Bill Callahan is happy to hand over the...

as often as possible protect his rookie quarterback. Yeah, they're going to try to have, you know, between these two backs, they're going to try to have 35 carries. I don't know that they'll be able to do that, but then what we've seen so far is game script doesn't matter. They're going to keep running the ball even when they're down. So the issue is just the split between AP and Geis. If I had to start one, it would clearly be AP. I don't really love either option because,

with it being a low scoring game and a split, it's kind of like taking a wide receiver two for Lamar Jackson. It's like, okay, Lamar's great, but there's such low passing volume. When you split up the stats between multiple players, you look at target share and market share and all that, you go, I need all of it in order to have a good game. So I'm kind of out on both running backs here. I feel like Bill Callahan has been put in a tough position this week because the Jets defense is,

giving it up to the wide receiver position. The last three weeks, if you look at our streamfinder tool, holy guacamole, the Jets are just giving up so many points to wide out. So you look at Terry McLaurin and you say, can he be opportunistic here, the Jets' defense allowing the seventh most passing yards in the NFL? So what does Dwayne Haskins look like in a plus matchup for throwing the football, but with a coach that likes to run? I have no interest in playing Dwayne Haskins, but.

Yeah, I'm back in on Terry McLaurin this week. It's been a rough stretch, including the Slop Fest and McLoren, or I'm sorry, Haskins having to come in and looking like a deer in headlights, but he's had plenty of time now to prepare to be the starter. And maybe it's not a high volume for Terry McLaurin, the volume we would like, but I think he will be efficient enough that you're going to be happy.

So in this game, head-to-head, Jameson Crowder, who's been pretty good. Oh, revenge! 80 yards in a touchdown in each of his last two games. Jameson Crowder or Terry McLaurin in this one, Washington at home. Who do you prefer? Terry. That's tough because I think Jameson is the safer play, as in his opportunity to bust is lower, but I would prefer to have Terry. And then Robbie Anderson, Demarius, Thomas. Are you staying away, if possible?

Demarius Thomas is, he is a strange case because he's getting so many of the targets, a 20% target share. Nine this past week, three, but then five for 63. I mean, he's been okay as a desperation play. All right, the Falcons, the two and seven take on the Panthers in Carolina. Panthers five and a half point favorites. It's a 49.5 point over under. The aforementioned Kyle Allen, the new quarterback.

for the Carolina Panthers. Atlanta's given up six quarterback one performances this year. So a lot of fantasy owners wanting to know. Alaner Rivers, Alaner Brady, Alan or Kyler this week. Also, Alaner Rivers. That's another question. People are asking. Also, Rivers versus Allen. When waivers were running, I decided it wasn't worth going and getting Kyle Allen, spinning fab, dropping.

someone. And as we've gotten closer, looking at the matchup, I go, you thought you would have to spend Fab to get Kyle Allen? Yeah, I mean, he was picked up. He was? Yeah, I think so. So I probably have to do that. But I look at this matchup and I just think, Kyle Allen's probably going to have a pretty good game. Last week was a strange one. And so I look at Vegas and I say, well, what does Vegas think about the Atlanta resurgence on defense? And they.

Don't think it's legit. When you have an implied point total, 27 and a half for Carolina, they're at home, they're favored, the high over under. So very impressive for Atlanta, doing what they did against New Orleans, still optimistic for Kyle Allen. Allen or Matt Ryan. I mean, Matt Ryan on the road here. Traditionally, you know, a 300 plus yard passer every single game. Having lost Sunu, having lost Hooper. Yeah, but he still has Julio Joe. And he's still Matt. He also lost Devont of Freeman.

I lean the Matt Ryan side. Or gain Brian Hill, depending on your perspective. You lean the Matt Ryan side. I think he's a safer play for sure. Kyle Allen has a wider range of outcomes. Brian Hill, love it. Yeah. Last week, tons of work in a game where I think Devante Freeman still had over 30% of the snaps before he got hurt. Christian McCaffrey, let's not. Let's talk about him only to say, you're great, you're great Christian. Keep it up, partner. Go get him. Go get him. DJ Moore.

Love him this week. We're going to talk about him shortly. He has been just a target monster of late. Yeah, over his last four games, he's got a 16-game pace of 160 targets. I like it. And so the real equation here for Kyle Allen and this Carolina offense is that Atlanta does enough on the road that, you know, Matt Ryan can do enough with Russell Gage, Brian Hill, Julio Jones, Calvin Ridley. Calvin Ridley's been getting the snaps. He has not been producing for your team.

And so are you kind of, are you trying to find another option this week? Have you just been locking Calvin Ridley in for two weeks? I am not trying to find a different option. I mean, I'd rather play Calvin Ridley over a waiver guy. Like the Demeris Thomas, who's interesting as a desperation play, I would still play Calvin over him. Calvin or Crowder? Crowder. Calvin or Terry? Terry. I guess you were Terry over Crowder.

All right. And then Russell Gage brought him up as an interesting stash. He plays Tampa next week. So he's one of those guys that if you put him at the bottom of your bench, even if you don't play him. And he has a big week. He's got a nice matchup coming up. Well, he's got a pretty solid matchup right now. I agree. But if you want to wait and see, Mike. Not all of us want to just throw him in. All right. Some of us might have to. But it won't surprise me if Russell Gage has a better game than Calvin Ridley. Let me put it that way.

Sure. I mean, you don't know where the targets are going to go. Obviously, I don't think that Carolina Panthers are focusing in on Russell Gage as the guy to stop. Curtis Samuel this week, also a solid play. Everybody against Atlanta has been, for the most part, outside of last week. Although last week you still had nice games for Michael Thomas, Jared Cook. Greg Olson, big game last week, eight for 98 on 10 targets. He's definitely someone that you can.

you should be starting at tight end. He's almost to the point where you go, okay, he's a must start. I don't think you have to start him. There's other guys that I might pivot to, but when you get 10 targets last week and you start to see him getting more involved with Kyle Allen, it gives you hope that he can be consistent. Unfortunately, one of the things that happens once you get up there in age, and I think Greg Olson's at the 34, 35 range, is we have lost some of that.

You know, the guaranteed connection that we had with him. And, you know, he had the nice game this past week, but it had been bad for a pretty big run. You wonder what the ceiling is, but you like the 100% of snaps. Yeah. On the other side, do you hold Austin Hooper? If he's out four weeks, we're in week 11, 11, 12, 13, 14, you're just saying I'm holding him for the championship and the semifinals. Yeah, I hold him.

Really? 100%. You hold the number one tight in. You hold them through. Would you hold Travis Kelsey? Fair. That's fair. I mean, yeah, you would. And you've got to view Hooper in that lens. Unfortunately, and I'm sorry to tell you this, fantasy owners, your odds are that you're probably playing, I don't know, I know a fan this week, and then like a Jono next week. No, you're playing Abercrombie next week. Oh, Hollister? Yeah.

So you're probably rotating with frustration for four weeks. You will be so happy to have Austin Hooper coming back off of an MCL tweak. He will be coming back. If he misses four weeks, he will be coming back against San Francisco on the road. So that's your semi-final, and you probably want to... And then you get Jacksonville in the championship. Wait and see, and then... Oh, man. It would be really hard for me to bench Austin Hooper in week 15 to play Dernfield. Right. If you're...

Yes, you're not going to be able to pivot to Hunter Henry right now. So, yeah, you probably are going to play him against San Francisco. It's really just unfortunate. He's had a career year, obviously, leading the position in receptions. It's unfortunately he doesn't get to kind of finish that stat line out. But I guess that means if you're one of those teams that has a, you've got Hunter Henry and someone drops Austin Hooper.