Starts of the Week + Week 15 Breakdown, Notoriety of Toughness

That's not what you want. You don't want 55? Tom Brady. The plant man. Is leading the league in past attempts. Oh, are we going to get a plant man? Yeah. Needs some more chloroform. It's been a while since we've called him the plant man. But, yeah, I mean. Did you say he needs some more chlorophyll to perform? Yes. Is he low? More like for. Now, on paper, the Bengals defense. I think I actually said chloroform, which would not help him perform.

Why don't, yeah, chloroform would be bad. That would be the opposite. That would be real bad. Whoops. Go to sleep. Yeah. But he is our quarterback 13 on the fringe of start worthy consideration against the Bengals defense that's 24th against quarterback over the year. I'm moving him down right now. Yeah? He will not be 13 anymore.

It is a plus matchup, but he doesn't have a lot of weapons right now. I mean, that's kind of a give and take. It is a plus matchup. The last three weeks, the Bengals have been great against quarterbacks, but it's been Baker, Darnold, and I don't remember which quarterback was playing in Pittsburgh that week. I think it was Duck, but it might have been. So then those completion percentages that Andy just rattled off that gives you great confidence in the quarterback play of Tom Brady right now?

No, he has not looked good. And keep in mind, he's dealing with an elbow injury that there were rumors he might have missed a game a couple games ago. And it's showing on the field. I was just speaking of the matchup from the Bengals. I don't think you play Tom Brady. I'm not. I agree. All right. Move on. Joe Mixing. He's been great. I will play him. Talked about him on Bicel. Put him in your lineup. Sonny Michelle. No. No. Swinging a miss. James White? Sure.

You can play James White because your upside was two weeks ago when he was the number one overall running back. Tyler Boy, yeah. No. No, no. I'm not playing Tyler Boyd. I'm not playing Andy Dalton's number one against the Patriots defense. No. All right. Edelman's in there. Are you taking a shot with any other wide receivers for this team? Nope. This was an easy matchup. This is so easy. Let's move on. Starts of the week.

All right, so excited. Semi-final week for the majority of your leagues, you know, is you playing week 17, in which case it's like your first week of the playoffs. I took a poll, by the way. There's 6% of you out there. I was worried because, like, we really do build this show 100% around week 16 championship games, and I just wanted to make sure. Half of you aren't playing week 17? Yeah, it's not some higher percentage, and it came up.

20,000 votes and like 6% of you in on week 17, which means that like probably 3% of you are doing it on purpose and the other 3% are stuck in leagues that are just stuck on week 17. We will be here. We'll be here week 17, but we shouldn't. But it's more like, but we should be. But we're here for the people. Yeah, yeah. We'll go through the motions. Yep. All right. Very excited though for the starts of the week this week. Very big week for your team.

I'm going to kick it off at the quarterback position. Oh, my goodness. I know. And I'm so excited about this. Oh, my. My start of the week is Matt Ryan against San Francisco. Yes, Matt Ryan. San Francisco has been incredibly bad against fantasy quarterbacks. Do you want to know how bad? Funny enough, I had just pointed it out to Jason.

The house of cards in San Francisco in terms of what they've done against fantasy quarterbacks. It came down in full. Last week, you saw Drew Brees, the number one overall quarterback against them. They are the worst. Not kind of in the bottom quarter. They're the dead last worst team. I'm going to emphasize that awkwardly. In the NFL, over the last six weeks. Nailed it. In terms of fantasy points given up to the quarterback position. Not two weeks? That seems impossible.

They did give up like two and a half great performances in one to Drew Brees. Okay, but then the week before, the number 12, 12, 6 performances against them. 14, 7. They have five defensive starters that mispractice this week. Sherman out. D. Ford, gone. Sherman being out is a big deal. That's monstrous. I'm so mad at you right now. Because you believe me?

Because he has to decide between Matt Ryan and Carson Wentz and Matt Ryan. Carson Wentz in a great matchup. You know it was selfish. Carson Woods at a great matchup with no weapons whatsoever. Matt Ryan is my start of the weekend. I would, I think I'd go. Would you play Matt Ryan over Carson Wentz? I think I would. My. Spicy. I don't like you. I wish I had this guy.

Here's my stream of the week. He's the start of the week. It's Ryan Tanna Hill. He's a great start against Houston. He's completing 73% of his passes, a second highest in the NFL. He's first in yards per completion at 13.4. Thank you, A.J. Brown. He's the quarterback three since taking over for Marcus Mariotta. I mean, there's not much more you need other than he's been great.

you know, on a regular basis. And now look at the matchup against Houston, who just gave up 309 and 3 to Drew Locke, gave up 326 and 3 to the plant man Tom Brady, who were saying is not playing well. And then four touchdowns to Lamar Jackson, but everybody gives up four touchdowns to Lamar Jackson. So, yeah, Ryan Tan Hill against Houston. You picked them up to play him, put them in. And mine's, I think, similar to Matt Ryan, where it seems like,

I don't know, but my start of the week at the quarterback position is Jared Goff because the Dallas Cowboys, shockingly, the Dallas Cowboys have given up the third most points to quarterbacks over the last five weeks. Like San Francisco, they're just, they're being exposed. People are figuring out how to beat them. On top of that, you have Jared Goff heating up. The L.A. Rams offense in general is heating up since the Baltimore implosion a few weeks ago.

In the last couple weeks, Jared Goff has averaged 350 passing yards and two touchdowns per game. I looked his way when I was looking at starts of the week before I saw that you had them locked in because of what Dallas has been doing. And when you look at those two teams, it's completely subjective, anecdotal, observational, whatever. The momentum is very different between those two teams. And I've not seen an offense more dependent on rhythm than...

the Rams and Jared Goff and the weapons there, I believe what you're saying. By the way, I am apparently on a big island with Matt Ryan based on where like the industry has them ranked. Yeah. I mean, because I think they have met like 21 on the week. Everybody still believes and it's difficult not to that the San Francisco 49ers defense is. I just bumped Ryan up. Great. Yeah, he's definitely not the quarterback 21. No.

He's higher than that. But, you know, if he's start of the week, that's going to be a guy that, you know, we're hoping his top 12. Yeah, exactly. All right. Running backs, we good? Yep. Let's do it. Chris Carson is getting my top five guarantee this week. My guy's going to show up for the playoffs. Carolina is a big piece of this. I don't understand how Carson doesn't end up in the top five. Ultimately, these things come down to, you know,

is that a play-action pass from the one-yard line that goes to Jacob Hollister instead of gets handed off to Chris Carson. But Carolina's last five weeks, the opposing running backs have finished fourth, 16th, and then seventh, first, seventh. Chris Carson, there's no Rashad Penny anymore. He's at home. This is just a great opportunity for Chris Carson. He's number nine right now since week four in fantasy points per game at the running back position. But...

He's only had one top five finish the entire year. He hasn't given you the week-winning week. I think it comes right now when you need it most in the fantasy playoffs. My start of the week is going to be Rahim Mostered. You know, we were talking about him a little while. You've really risen on him over the course of the week because I feel like in the very beginning you were hesitant. I was. In fact, on yesterday's footcast, I had Mike's.

start of the week in as mine, and then while we were footcasting and talking about Rahim Moster, looking deeper into it, Kyle Shanahan is saying, look, I'm trying to balance the run game, but Rahim is making it difficult on me. He's just been too good with what he's been doing, continues to do. I have to get him the ball more. Great, because he's been, he's been fantastic. The head coach is saying,

He just can't stop giving the ball to him, and he's got to get him the ball more. You saw it, right? Kevin Coleman isn't a starter anymore. If he is, he's the honorary starter. He's the slap of C on the chest and C on the bench because Rahim Moster is getting the ball, and he's been great over the last three weeks when he's been given the opportunity. He's the running back three with finishes of the running back 12, the running back four, and the running back four. He has a...

Bit of an Echler feel to him right now. For sure. An Echler is also my start of the week. I mean, look, when you've got guys that are just getting it done and they're fantastic every week, just stay in those flames. He's on fire. This is NBA Jam rule. We have to face most in our league one league. I'm not excited about that. I hate that we didn't pick up. Mike, running back. My running back start of the week, it's the Raiders running back. Whoever that is, if it's Josh Jacobs, I'm telling you.

I will have the confidence to plug him in. If it's DeAndre Washington, I have the confidence to plug him in. Jacksonville in the last four games, they're giving up over 38 fantasy points to the running back position. Over 38 points a game to the running back position. That's preposterous. In that time span, second, Houston, three fewer points a game, and that's a huge margin. Three points fewer, Jacksonville is absolutely terrible.

against running backs and the Raiders are at home. I love this matchup. All right. My wide receiver start of the week has finished 121st, 43rd, 45th, 16th, and 28th in the last five weeks. And his name is Cooper Cup. I love this start of the week. Cooper Cup. Really? Against Dallas. Mike's illustrated through his discussion on Jared Goff. Dallas has allowed top 12 weeks to wide receiving cores from Detroit.

Buffalo, Chicago in recent weeks. They've given up the eighth most fantasy points to wide receiver over the last five games. It's part of being exposed, like Mike said. The reason he likes Jared Gough, you know, frankly Cooper Cup is due for one of those big games. He's been consistently targeted. He's still averaging 8.8 a game over the course of the year. He scored last week, and he's a critical part of this game alongside Robert Woods right now. Cooks is not involved. It's been Higby. It's been Woods.

And then Cups had some targets that have gone awry, and he ended up in the end zone last week. The Rams, they're finding their groove on offense. I can't see Cooper Cup being held down. And I know our listeners need a pat on the butt with Cooper Cup right now. Yeah, Dallas has been giving up a lot of fantasy points to the slot receiver. Now, the question is, who's going to be, because they play a cover three where they give up passes a lot to the short stuff. They do that on purpose by design. Now,

A lot of that's Robert Woods, but then the slot guy's been Cooper Cup. So this is going to be interesting to see which one of these guys is going to have a great game, and I think both could have a good game. Well, and I think Robert Woods, everybody is just excited about and playing him with no...

qualms or concerns, but Cooper Cup, this is a week for me. And another, another insight to our league one, we have Robert Woods and we are facing Cooper Cup. So, Andy, I hope your start of the week is stupid. So wait, we both have, we've both picked our opponents start of the week. Because we are so unbiased and objective, just incredible men. My start of the week here, I realize it's going to be tough sledding for, oh, so smooth.

So smooth. Kenny G. Kenny G. Kenny G. Even though you've got David Blow throwing the ball to you, even though you've got... So Blow. Eight to 12 defenders all around you at all times. I'm still going to... Eight to 12, yeah. I mean, illegal. He won't get the yards, but it's...

Well, the ref. The ref counts. It's going to feel like that because, you know, I brought it up earlier. The depth chart for the lions at wide receiver is Kenny Galladay, Danny Amandola, and some guy named, I believe it was Chris Lacey. That's it. Yeah, he's too big, too fast, too strong. Yeah, and so, and he's been very good. He had one bad game with Blow. I just think this is, and Tampa Bay is not the matchup.