Fantasy Football 2017 - Pump the Brakes, Playoff Mailbag, Rodgers Returns!

want to play. And we've seen Alex Smith have a couple of dud games recently. Had a couple of big ones, 51 fancy points two weeks ago. Brooks, are you shaking in your boots at the thought of facing Nick Foles? Not exactly. Yeah, that's too bad. Brooks, you got to lean into it, man. You gotta say, yeah. Oh, don't do it, Andy. He's gonna, he's gonna crush me this week. That's not Brooks way. Jordan Reed, Byron Marshall, both on IR for the Redskins. Kenny Brett.

signed to a two-year contract by the Patriots. This is reminiscent to me of the Michael Floyd deal they made last year, getting some wide receiver depth. They are prone to be injured. I mean, Hogan, Amandola, I'm not sure Kenny Britt will make very much of an impact. We haven't seen Philip Dorset make much of an impact. I think this is a depth move and there's no fantasy relevance. I agree. It's a depth move. The only fantasy relevance to me is...

that if you're in a dynasty league and you're thinking, hey, maybe Malcolm Mitchell, maybe he can jump out of the shadows. You guys remember that? You guys remember Malcolm Mitchell? The emerging rookie, he's been on IR all year. I would assume Kenny Britt coming in puts a kibosh on his possible return. Kevin Coleman's not practicing on Tuesday. He's in the concussion protocol. We're going to have to monitor that, but Devonta Freeman could have that backfield to himself. And then Amir Abdul is practicing in full, but Jim

Tim Caldwell, once again, kind of equivocated when asked about Amir Abdullah's availability this week. They expect him to return. He should be good to go, but he also said, you know, you're going to have to wait and see a little bit. So I wonder if there's still a possibility of them using the not 100% argument to keep him out of the lineup. We'll have to monitor. Right now, would you expect him to be in there? I would expect Amir Abdullah to be active, which does throw a little bit of cold water on Theo.

It'll be the most telling, though. He was healthy enough, I believe, to play last week. And if he's healthy enough to play this week again and they sit him, that'll be a clear indication that the future is not there with Abdullah. All right. Let's preview the Thursday night football matchup between the 4 and 9 Denver Broncos and the 3 and 10 Indianapolis Colts. Awesome. But they'll be wearing very colorful jerseys.

Honestly, the Denver Broncos color rush jersey is hot. Is it orange? All orange. Oh, yes. Yes. I love it. I saw a picture today. I was like, yes. Yeah, I can get on board with that. I hate when the teams that have the, you know, the one cut, like the Falcons, you know, it's like, oh, they're going to be all, and then they come out and they're just white. It's like, you've got a, you've got a dominant color. Yeah. Wear it. No, I'm with you, man. The Seahawks, the Seahawks, color rush jerseys, they're incredible.

This may be the focal point of this matchup. This is where it will be the best thing you see out there is the jerseys. I mean, you've got the Broncos that literally ping ponged between being terrible against Miami and then great last week on defense. I mean, do you start Ty Y Hilton in this matchup? The Broncos defense is not giving it up to the wide receiver. Yeah, when you said, hey, we're going to preview it. It's going to say this is going to be a.

This is a short preview because here's who I'm willing to play. Frank Gore. Yeah, I would start Frank Gore. I'll play for, who is, uh, he monitor his situation because he was missing some practice. But I assume that's because he carried the ball about 50,000 times in the snow. 20.8 carries per game since week 10, the highest in the league. High volume because Chuck Bagano is going to ride Frank Gore into the ground, you even though he's got an electric rookie Marlon Mack just sitting back there waiting to make plays. So I mean, Frank Gore, sure.

Baby Hands Jack Doyle. Yes, because of the matchup. The Denver Broncos are one of those teams that you can exploit the tight end matchup. That's it. Over on the Denver Broncos, ready for my list? Demarius Thomas. End of list. Yeah, it's the same for me. Yeah, it's really tough because you just don't know what they're going to do with their running backs. C.J. Anderson is talented. If he gets the work, he'll have a great game. But you cannot predict his work. As soon as it looks like, okay,

CJ Anderson's, he's done. They're going to give the ball to Devante Booker. All of a sudden, they give it all to C.J. Anderson. There's no rhyme or reason. You cannot trust one of these three running backs. I think one of the three running backs has a decent fantasy game. That's a play in DFS. That's not a play for the fantasy playoffs to put your team. You've been working, you know, 15, 14 weeks to get to this point. And really, you're in the playoffs, so you probably don't have a Broncos running back.

Fair point. CJ Anderson tied for fourth in the league and broken tackles with 17. He's good. Give him the work. I'm kind of just leaning into this at this point because I just want to hear you guys say how talented this guy is for the rest of his life. Because he is. Yeah. He's a good running back. He's a bad fantasy running back. Are you talking about Ryan Matthews? Yeah. Ryan Matthews was great. Yeah, he's out of the league. All right. Okay. Without further ado. So is Jerome Bettis. Yeah.

He's pretty good. So is Jerome. He's not pretty good now. I know. I'm just saying. Last year, you guys were all up in Ryan Matthews. Last year. Yeah. He's retired, bro. Okay. All right. We're going to jump into the mailbag. Before you do that, I want to thank today's sponsor. Friends of the show, Harry's. You know all about Harry's. What do I love most about shaving with Harry's? Maybe it's the closeness of that blade. Maybe it's the comfortable glide.

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We should mention that because the preview, a lot of that wasn't just, but Dante Moncrief is out in case you were hoping to play Dante Moncrief. In which case you were already out. You got to give the people the news. I'll play Keel and Cole over, well, obviously over Moncrief now, but even if Moncrief was active. Keel and Cole or Chester Rogers. Keel and Cole. Absolutely. All right.

All right, we're going to jump into the mailbag. If you have a question for us, go to the website. The Fantasy Footballers.com, click the submit a question button, or you can dial our voicemail hotline, 302464 TFFB. A reminder, rankings. They'll be up on the website later today, so get ready for week 15. Let's start with a voicemail question. Hey, guys, this is Casey from Reno, Nevada, and I have a special team's defense question.

I have three really good defenses, the Eagles, the Ravens, and the Saints. I'm wondering which is the safest this week and which one has the highest upside. I'm the favorite, but projections are live, and I have to beat my husband in the first round of the playoffs. Love the show. Thanks again, guys. Well, that's an important question. Seriously. And I think we all are looking at defensive decisions this week. I have the Eagles. They play the Giants in New York. The Giants are the...

Worst offense in points per game in the entire league. So that is a great matchup, and the Eagles are a great defense. They're going to be ramping up in light of their fallen hero, thus might pump the brakes. I really like the Eagles this week. Yeah, I think they are very safe, and I think they do possess a lot of upside. What about those other two options? Baltimore against Cleveland, though. It's on the road, but it's Baltimore. They will be down Jimmy Smith, and last week was rough, but I don't read into last week.

against Deshaun Kaiser, who is a turnover machine. Great opportunity to have a DST score. Yeah, but then you've got New Orleans at home against Bryce Petty. I mean, you've got three awesome options here. I think that's your actual highest upside. I think your safest is Eagles, and I think your highest upside is Saints D against a – look, you throw any – I know he's not a rookie, but he might as well be. You throw a new quarterback in.

On the road, that's the difference, right? Eagles are going on the road to New York. The Saints are at home. The Saints are coming off of a defeat. And now you have a situation where you're facing Bryce Petty? And Robbie Anderson's banged up. Yeah, no, it's – I would say you need – That's rough. That's a rough decision. I'm going to play the Ravens.

Really? They are by far my third. They're the most dangerous. They're my third place. They just gave up a million points to Big Ben and the Steelers. And now you've got Gordon and Kaiser. Kaiser just three touchdowns last week. They are the most dangerous. Without Jimmy Smith, we have only seen them play one poor game. So I'm just worried. No, I'm not telling people to not play the Ravens. Why would you play them over the safety of the Eagles? No, third ranked defense in the league. Against the giants. Or the saints who have been absolutely great. I'm really curious about that.

It's because Kaiser turns the ball over. I know that he has weapons now, but he is, but Eli, I just don't, I don't see the odds of Eli causing a defensive score happening higher than Deshaun Kaiser. Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna, they can, they can still rush the passer and Deshaun Kaiser. Are they not the riskiest of those three? Uh, they could, they could be definitely the most volatile because.

They just gave up a bunch of points. Recency bias says Baltimore might not be the best play, but I'm going to read into an entire year of dominance. Look, it's a good problem to have Casey. There's no bad option here. I think you're going to be happy with whatever you get, but I personally would rank them Eagles, Saints, Ravens. I'd rank them Saints, Eagles, Ravens. I think you got to put it on. Oh, we got to put this one on there.

Waterbeds. Got a head-to-head-to-head defense of... I think this is our first ever water bet on a... Well, and on the season, the Ravens are the second ranked in fantasy. Eagles are the fourth ranked and the Saints are the seventh rank. So, as Jason said, no bad options. And now we'll see who's going to be right. All right. This question comes in from Justin Ingram. If I'm... Is that Ingram with an I or Ingram with an E? I just want to know who he's related to.

Uh, he would be related to Mark. Oh, okay. All right. Oh, hi, Mark. If the guy I'm playing texted the league chat to pick up three quarterbacks left because I lost wins is this collusion. I'm also clearly the best and everyone wants to see me go down. That is, that is, that is, it's not not technically collusion, but it's wrong. It's wrong. It's, it's, uh, black hat. Yeah. Yeah. It's Bush League. Bad form.

It's bad form. Yeah, it's funny. I'm getting quite a few questions about this. Run home, Jack. Run home. Like someone on Twitter has said, hey, if all the people who are eliminated from the playoffs, they're all, they all have a higher waiver priority and they're going to pick up quarterback so that the person who lost Wentz can't find someone. Is that wrong? No. No? Not at all. Not if it just happens. Not to me. I don't. Everyone can play. Yes. It is colluding if.