Pump the Brakes, Championship Week Q’s + Great Eyebrows

What? Jay, calm down. Don't do it. I want to play him so bad, especially because if you've been listening to this podcast, there was a week where I was like, C.J. Anderson was a few weeks. Is a must grab handcuff. A must. And I'm so firmly believed it that he was, he was a championship winner should Christian McCaffrey get injured. And then it was like two weeks after that.

You were wrong. You were right and you were wrong because he could win championships as a handcuff. Oh, goodness. Who will not be winning championships? Aaron Jones running back for the Packers. He has been placed on the IR. All of further IR news, Marcus Murphy for the Buffalo Bills has been placed on the IR. Carry on Johnson. We'll have to carry on next year. And he will. He'll be awesome next year. He's on the IR.

and the Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn has conceded Devonta Freeman will not return this week. That's the bad news. Let's get it. Well, the great news. Jeremy Langford was going to say the bad news continues. Jeremy Langford has been added off the practice squad for the Atlanta Falcons. Irrelevant. It might not even be. Kevin Coleman is going to touch the ball a lot this weekend. Will it matter? I mean, he was good last week, but he's stunk the whole year. You'll have to stay tuned for the matchup show. Do you think that?

Yeah, we'll talk about it more. But do you think that maybe like Derek Henry and Tavin Coleman were doing a little rope-a-dope the whole season? They're like, oh, we're not good. We don't know how to run. They're just saving up their legs. And then all of a sudden at the end of the year, when, you know, Coleman would not surprise because he's playing for money. Derek Henry is, I don't know, maybe trying to get a feature role for the playoffs. But to the good news, Melvin Gordon.

practiced in full on Tuesday. If you made it to the championship week with Melvin Gordon on your bench, congratulations. You're about to win the championship because if you made it to the championship without him and now you get to add him? Yeah, that's big time. Congrats. I guess there's a tiny little bit of bad news for the Chargers. Of course, Anthony Lynn said that Keenan Allen could be a game time decision. This is, at least it's Saturday. This is great news to me for Keenan Allen.

Like, I thought Keenan Allen was a foregone conclusion that there's no chance he was playing this week. It's a very important game for the Chargers in order to, you know, secure their position in the division. And, yeah, I mean, I, I mean, the fact that he's a game time decision surprises me. I figured he would be ruled out early. The whispers from the bushes are positive on Keenan Allen. Yes. And like you said, it's a Saturday game, which is good and bad, bad for his.

playing one fewer day of rest. Right. But good for fantasy. If you, you're going to know before you have to put in a replacement. And there's no Thursday games this week, no game to preview for tomorrow. So that means this will be, you know, the first day of football this week. Absolutely. Before we move into the mailbag, your mailbag, want to thank today's sponsor. Got a new sponsor. Check them out. Hopsy. It's like the Nespresso or Curig.

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or the link will be in the show notes, so you can check that out. Terms and conditions apply. Yeah, I do know Andy got it. He was liking that. And hey, Foot Clan, it's that time of year to go to these games to root your teams on. The playoffs are coming. Big games. Get your tickets through Seat Geek. If you're trying to get them online from some other place, it's too complicated. It's too confusing. They're not always fully guaranteed, but on Seat Geek, it's easy.

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The pressure is on, Jason. The pressure is nothing. Oh. For this guy. Let's do it. You got, like, a space suit on. Yeah. No. Impervious. Deep diving. I can go 1,000 meters underwater. I like to imagine you, though, with like the old school diving suit. Oh, for sure.

Looking like you're in Bioshock. I've got a, I've got the tube that is connected. There's no, there's no scuba tank. No scuba tank. The tube is very long and it's going to the surface. Did you know that scuba is an acronym? I did not know that. Brooks, did you know that? No. I believe it's self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. That is not a joke. You just made that up. You liar. The more you know.

I mean, you didn't give the knowledge. I was supposed to be the one giving the more you know there. But you didn't know. That's true. Now you know. Now the more knows. All right. So we're in the mailbag. We're going to start it off with a Facebook question from Chris. He made it to the ship. Uh-oh. My opponent wants to split the pot. This is the first question that is. We surprised. There is like a few of these. So it had to be addressed.

We're right into it. All right. My opponent wants to split the pot. What should I do? I'm projected to win by 20 points. So I made this joke to Brooks yesterday. We're in the studio. We're facing off mono and mono. Now there's no money in our dynasty league. This is this is we take it as if it was, you know, pride only thousand dollars on the line. But, you know, it's pride only. And so I made the joke to him. I'm like, hey, let's let's.

Let's split the pot, Brooks. Let's bench our rosters. Both be champs. They can't take it away. Guarantee it. And that was a joke because I would never do that. That's ridiculous. You play to win. It's not like, so when you're playing poker, okay, and you're playing and you get to the final table, you're playing to win money. Like, that's the reason you're sitting down to play poker is to win money. You can guarantee yourself the money. That's not why I play fantasy football. That's a benefit.

That's an awesome thing. I want it. I want to win that money. But I'm playing to be the champ. I'm playing to be better than you. All of you. Everyone in this league, I'm going to go to fancychamps.com and get a ring. I'm going to put it in their face. I'm going to say, kiss it. Kiss the ring. Kiss the ring. Oh, get out of here. Now kiss the ring. That's what I would say. So no, I'm not splitting a pot.

But you just, you just conflicted yourself because you're saying that the championship is everything. The money is secondary. So why not just split the money? You're still playing for the championship. You're not conceding number one or number two. You're just splitting the money. Okay. So now we're this is, this is your guaranteeing yourself money. Are you taking the cowards way out? Look, and making sure you get 200 bucks or whatever. He says he's projected to win by 20.

So no. I mean, come on. You only agree to split the pot if you're the odds on to lose. But no, I'm still. Yeah, that's a smart move by your opponent. A nice hedge. I'm still going. I'm going for it all. All right. We're going to get into a voicemail question. Hey, ballers. Second season listening to your show. Second clan title game. Yes. Swimming in Phillips Rivers all season long.

But don't know if I should take a deck dive in the deep end after Stash and Prescott a couple weeks ago. Bring it the heat. Let me what you think. First of all, well done. I mean, I just had a thought. Okay. If you're in a two-quarterback league and you have Philip Rivers and Russell Wilson and your team name is not Wilson Phillips, then you have failed me. You have made a terrible, terrible mistake because you brought shame to your family. You could have lost a lot of weight.

You could have broke the chains. Yeah. Oh, man. Wilson Phillips. That is great. I'm entering a two-quarterback league. Just second pick. First pick in the draft, Russell Wilson. Second round. Philip Rivers. Break free from the chains. All right. Let's answer the question. My sister was a big fan. So Philip Rivers or Dak Prescott. Look, I'll give an example from the future champion, clearly the projected to win.

dominating team of Brooks. Brooks has been swimming in the Rivers as well with Philip. He knows he's got a bad matchup, but he has, he's not pivoting away. He's sticking with Philip Rivers. That's his play. Has Rivers put up anything close to a bad game? I mean, it really depends on what you're saying is bad. Like a terrible game, like what we've seen recently from Drew Brees or Jared Garf, no.

Against Cincinnati is disappointing. Cincinnati was a disappointing game. In our league format, he scored a little over 17 points, 220 and one touchdown. His only single touchdown game of the entire season. And my point being, Philip Rivers isn't giving you Patrick Mahomes level of, holy crap, I just won the week because Philip Rivers was my quarterback. Right. But even that down game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

He has never ruined over 200, no interceptions. He has never ruined your week. Dak has. Unlike Dak Prescott, who has ruined many weeks. Yeah, Dak has the matchup this week, though. No, I mean, I'm going Phillip Rivers here. There's, it's more than just rankings as well. It's, it's exactly what you're saying. Your team is made up of, look, you just got to the championship on the back of the consistency of Philip Rivers.

He's going to do enough for your roster to take over and win the same way you got to the championship. Yeah, I'm sticking with Philip Rivers. Man, that's so tough. The Ravens, the past six weeks are fifth against the quarterback. Meanwhile, the Buccaneers are, oh, wow. Are the sheet accurate? Do I need some spectacles over here? The past six weeks, the Bucks are ninth against fantasy quarterbacks? Because they're giving it all up to the running back.

That's very interesting. Very interesting indeed. Next question off of Instagram from Brad. Start the New England defense versus Buffalo or Denver against Oakland. The future home of sensational quarterback Nathan Peterman. If anything of the rumor mill is to be believed, John Gruden. John Gruden, I can't love that man any more than I do.

Here's what's crazy about John Gruden. He's so bad. Here's what's crazy. We rag on him as a coach. I actually legitimately really like John Gruden. Yes, me too. I would love to hang out with John Gruden. I loved him as a commentator, how everybody's the greatest player you've ever seen. Monday Night Football Watchers also love John Gruden and are so sad that he's gone. Yes. If you didn't like Gruden when he was a Monday Night Football analyst,

You are saying, please come back. You're the reason we got blade hands up there. Yeah. No, so the question is Denver's defense. Now, Denver's on the road, Oakland is terrible. Buffalo's offense, I would say is near as bad as Oakland's offense. Oakland has actually put up some points lately. I'm usually going to side with the home team. And the fact that this is a divisional game.

must win from New England, coming off for the first time in a long time, back-to-back losses. I'm rolling with the Patriots defense. I'm trusting Bill Belichick. Patriots for me. Josh Allen will do his thing. He's going to be a fine fantasy play this weekend, but he's going to turn the ball over. That's going to happen. He loves doing that. That's his favorite. Off of Twitter from Rachel, can you trust Sony this week? Oh, man. So.