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

your opponent reaches out to everybody to do this. That is that, and if they comply, they are colluding. That's what we're talking about right now, though. If they comply, they are colluding with your opponent. That is the definition of collusion. If there are multiple people colluding together to one objective, that's collusion. So yes, that would be wrong. I think it is collusion.

And it is wrong. So you're changing it to it is collusion. It is actually collusion. I mean, that's the definition. You are colluding with someone else for your gain in the league, other franchises against one team. The suckiest part about this, the absolute worst part about this is if that opponent did not do this Bush League black hat thing, other people could have still picked them up. Yes. You could have been fine. But now the other players, if they pick them up, it seems like they're...

They're placating the owner that was, you know, the squeaky wheel. I don't like it. Yeah. And, I mean, there are probably some less overt collusion ways to get this done. I mean, we've seen things. Andy's the master of this. We've seen this in our leagues or some, you know, Jason does it to me. He posts some picture of somebody on the, and mocks and trolls me. Here's what Andy would have done to handle this situation. Tell me. He would not have said, hey, guys, make sure you pick up the quarterbacks.

to block the Wentz owner from getting a replacement. You would have put up a picture of Carson Wentz and said, I'm sorry for your loss. Good luck grabbing a quarterback this week. Yeah, something like that. That would have been the line. That would have been as far as I go. The wink, wink, the nudging of the other players to. But you want to win your league on the up and up. Look, they've already lost wins. The pain, the damage has been done. All right. Just go beat the guy. Yeah, just go beat him.

Go beat him and Deschon Kaiser, whoever he has. If you can get a quarterback. If you can get a quarterback. Right. Well, there's plenty. I mean, this is a good week. I looked at, you know, who I was going to pick up to block the Carson Wins owner I was playing against this week. And I was like, there's like six guys out there that I, so I didn't even play the game. The best is when you do that and you force them into playing the better player. Oh, because that happens. It happens all the time. All the time. Oh, ha. I'm going to make you.

Play Kaiser, and then Kaiser goes off for 40. Is there any other sport like this where you're in week 15 and you're still not sure whether certain teams are good or not? I mean, no. Look what just happened with Miami in New England, right? And look at our last six week defensive stats versus the on the year numbers. Is Baltimore a really good team? Is Carolina a good defense? Is San Francisco a bad defense? Yes.

Yeah. Who's the favorite? Who's the favorite in the NFC right now? Is it New Orleans? Because Philly went out? Okay, you got Minnesota? I mean, I... Green Bay? No. Case Keenham? All right. Dominique in Indianapolis said, what do you think about the idea of a weekly payout league for the top score each week to keep people from quitting midseason or during the playoffs? Love it. This is how my money league runs. Honestly, that's great motivation. There is a... It's obviously not...

high, but every single week, the weekly points leader gets a small reward. And it's fantastic. I'm out in that league. I'm out of the playoffs. I'm still setting my lineup. I'm still picking up waivers to play. To go get that money. Every single player I've ever heard that plays in one of those leagues, they speak very highly of it and they all love it. I think it's a great, a great method for money leagues. Yeah. Just distribute the money a little bit differently than winner take all. Yep.

And you've got more motivation to stay involved. All right. Mitch Le Hay from Facebook, is there a correlation between the amount of beard you have equaling your luck in fantasy football playoffs? Mike? You have the most beard you need. I don't win every single league, so I'll say no. But it definitely ups your handsome quote. What a quota quotient? I'll leave you there. Here's what I would say, just based on history.

I think the more beard you have, the more luck you have in off-season dynasty signings. Because last year, I feel like you picked up a few guys, Rex Burkhead and Mike Gillisley before they were anything. And then all of your players. To be fair, it's, uh, it really balanced out because Gillisley is completely useless. And I gave away Kenyon Drake for free. Well, that was just your, your fault not trading him high. Chris Singleton. Chris Singleton has a handle on tour that's at.

pancakes. Wait. Oh, there's a four. Yeah. I was going to be very impressed if you had just at pancakes. I'm still impressed. Since I'm out of the playoffs should I purposely lose my last two matchups to get a better draft spot next year. Draft orders reverse of standings from the previous year. Perfect question is a follow up to that last one. That is a rough, rough situation that. Just think about your fans. Think about your ticket sales. How are you going to be able to support this team? You need to tow the line.

And yes, you should. So here's what I mean. You need to start a roster. And you need to start a roster that makes sense. You cannot possibly, you know, be playing a guy who is a third stringer just to have someone in there. But what if you're, what if you have Julio and you're, you would then be benching Julio? No, that's what I'm saying. You can't do things like that. That's outright wrong. But if you're going to make those tiebreakers like you make every week, maybe take the tiebreaker you think.

I think he probably has a worst game. I'm fine with that. Now, that being said, it's weird that's a human nature argument. That your reverse order of standings, even factors in the playoffs. Usually most leagues like that, the teams that don't make the playoffs, their standings are finished. You don't add to your record in those playoff weeks. Yeah, through week 13 is where you should make the cutoff. All right, Evan S wants to know, do you play cousins who's playing for a contract?

Or Bortles, who's trending up? Who do you play this week? I lean, I lean Kirk Cousins. He's at home. Arizona, they give up points. They give up fantasy points. Bortals, I think, is a fine pivot play here. But I'm still going to go with Cousins. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. Let's go Christopher in Ohio. My 10-team home league does a two-week.

two-game playoff. He says he hates it at costing the championship last year. Anyway, I am losing by 20. I've got to score big. Would you start Jordy Nelson with Aaron Rogers back or Devin S. Scrumptious? What would you do? I'm going to talk to the Jordy enthusiast in the middle of the room here. This one's for you, Jason. This one's for me. So it's Jordy or Devin S. Funches? Yes. I'm playing Funches. I am.

playing funchus as well here it's great matchup they're both sides of the ball here in the same game is a very good matchup there are still questions uh you know there are questions with rogers and jordy i am 100% fine starting jordy but there's no reason to bench devon funchis uh because you have such a good option

On your team, you do get to hopefully wait one week and play Jordy next week if you had made a mistake. But I don't think Funches is going to cost you anything because Green Bay, they have been horrendous against wide receivers. Green Bay is on the road. Devin Sunches has, Devinus scrumptious. There you go. He's been great. He's been great. No reason to stop. A little bit of a follow-up, Seth. Tupper from Twitter.

In a redraft league, how do you punish collusion if someone is caught to have colluded? Is it a fine? Is it a loss of a draft pick? Do you boot them out? Here's the toughest thing about collusion is having actual proof that it's happened. Right. I mean, if you have actual proof that it's happened, I would boot him out the league. Yeah, if you know for sure that teams were actually conspiring with one another. These are not guys you want to.

Or gals, these are not people you want to play fantasy football with. I agree, but you can't do that on alleged or on, this looks like, this smells like collusion because then. I think you have a little bit of your punishment in proportion to their attitude about being caught in that too. If, you know, if it's something where they're very apologetic and they're never going to do it again, blah, blah, blah. I mean, maybe you, maybe you change that reaction. And maybe.

the size of the uh the offense you know if it was like for instance you you said andy that this was collusion the first question here of you know if if a guy's telling people to pick up quarterbacks you know okay you could say that's collusion but whatever i i wouldn't even punish that other than just saying you're a you're a dumb stupid jerk man uh yeah and you can't unring a bell sometimes you know if if somebody makes that post and saying go pick up the

quarterback and you go, ah, that's collusion. You're fine. Five dollars. Everybody's read the post, you know, it's just like, and then it's, do you penalize people for signing them that, you know, it's a slippery slope. Play with good people. I think Mike's right. All right. This question is, who would be some good stashes right now for next year in keeper leagues that might be on the waiver wire? It's funny. I kind of had just mentioned this, but I was speaking more to dynasty terms.

But it's really the same answer for a redraft is you need to be looking at players who have expiring contracts or their teammates have expiring contracts and they look like they have a chance. Do you have any of those names? I mean, Peyton Barber could still be out there. Yeah, I would grab Peyton Barber. Do you grab a guy like Lagert Blunt? No. Who may not come back to Philadelphia next year? No, but Corey Clement?

Absolutely pick him up. It could be just JHA and Corey Clement as the main people next year. So it goes both directions, people that are leaving a franchise and people that are sitting on that roster like Corey Clement that need depth chart changes ahead of them to be relevant, but it could just happen. Yeah, like in James Connor, he could be owned as the Levy on Bell handcuff. But reminder, Levy on Bell is playing on a franchise contract. I think that the odds are Lev Bell is back in Pittsburgh.

But there's a world where he's not. Right. And then you would have the starting running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Marlon Mack? Oh, Marlon Mack would be a great pickup, but I assume he's very owned. Keep an eye on rookies that struggled this year or irrelevant. Maybe he had hype around them. You're thinking about John Ross? John Ross and Cincinnati. Corey Davis, Josh Reynolds. There are a bunch of players that are probably on the waiver wire that...

that debt chart thing could happen to them. And if a team's invested a high draft capital on a player, they're going to give them every shot to prove it. Now, they might end up like Prasad Perryman, but at least you've taken that shot. They might end up like Kenyon Drake right now. This guy we loved coming out of college last year didn't get the opportunity. So it looked like he was done. And now, oh, maybe he's the starter next year. Yep. And the thing is, in the offseason, guys, you can.

You can trade promise and hype. You don't have to trade production. Right. Brashad Perryman's been traded in many of leagues, especially in Dynasty League this last offseason. It wasn't based on production. It was based on the hope of it. So if one of those rookies, oh, he's going to be starting this year, bam, you got a trade asset. I'll jump in. If it's a smaller keeper league where you don't have a bunch of keepers, look for all the studs that got injured early in the years. Oh, great. Great call. Yeah. No doubt about it.

Alan Robinson. Julian. Yeah. Edelman is a long list. Maybe Edelman. Yeah. All right. John and Port. Oh, first of all, we got a tweet, or actually this was on Facebook. Mario August, Altimer. He just sent a picture of the real goat and it's Oreos milk chocolate covered. Hmm. Hmm. What do you think, Mike? Mm. You're not cool with that either. That makes sense. White chocolate, milk chocolate. Send me that dark chocolate and I'm all about that life. Okay. Or just a, you know, a good old-fashioned double stuff Oreo.

Yeah, that's the true. What a vanilla answer, Mike? What a vanilla answer? You're more of a briefs guy going just OG Oreo. Did I say OG Oreo? Jason, let's check the tape. Double stuff is now. Double stuff is the OG. That's pretty much, but that's in the archives. I don't, I don't see that as, I don't see that as completely briefsy. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, let's be honest here. I'm the boxer brief guy. Andy's the brief guy. You are.

the Speedo guy. You're the European of the book. In 1975, Nabisco released their double stuff Oreo. Oh, that's. So your briefs are on, Mike. I disagree. I disagree. Your briefs are on. When was the original Oreo created? 1913. Okay. Okay. A 60 year gap between the double stuff? That's, you're almost at the 60 year gap or 40 year gap now. No. It's, I stand, I stand by it.

Whatever, you will. You always go down in the flames. All right, Chris. This is my style. Chris in Austin, Texas. Should I bench Brandon Cooks? Tom Brady stinks. No. During the fantasy playoffs. No. Mike, what were you looking up yesterday? It was a tweet from Andy Barron's of Yahoo. And he called it like the dark secrets or whatever of Tom Brady. And it's just this list of Tom Brady's performances in the fantasy playoff time period.