Starts of the Week + Week 7 Breakdown, Heating Up! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/19

But more than the other garbage options out there. The real question is Zach Moss. Can you start someone who is getting less than 50% and could be significantly less? It could be 30%. I think it'll probably get about 40% of the work this week. But it's 40% of the work for a backup quarterback against a Great Brown's defense. It's so ruthless. with Zach Moss because he's been a top 10 guy four out of five weeks and he's been a top 21 guy every week. And he's, I've never wanted to start it. Yeah. I've never wanted to. I traded him away last week and the person started him and they got 15 fantasy points. They got the touchdown and a bunch of receptions. That's what it comes down to is Gardner likely going to throw the ball a lot. They're not going to have a ton of success on the ground. Jonathan Taylor has not had success on the ground thus far. But.

Six targets this past week. I'm playing Taylor this week. And if I can get out of it, I'm trying not to play Moss. But, like, would you play Zach Moss against the Browns or would you go Gus Edwards against the Detroit Lions? Both are bad matchups. Right. I would stick with the hotness. You stick with Moss? Yeah. I think I'd go Gus on that one. But just highlighting the point of another guy getting work in a bad matchup. Man, I think that the switch is happening this week. And you would have where Moss, Moss had a touchdown. I'm trying to remember how it happened. It felt. The problem is that they like him and he's performing well on a regular basis. And it was seven carries. Seven, seven, seven. He had more targets than Taylor.

I'm playing Taylor and I'm trying not to play mom. You laid it out well. Buffalo's, oh, Josh Downs. Any interest this week? Yeah. I mean, it's a tough. They're throwing the ball a ton. The matchup stinks, but the targets are actually funneling to the slot wide receivers against the Cleveland Browns. So in a PPR, I'm not looking at the Cleveland Browns and Josh Downs are going, I got to get out of this. Buffalo is four and two. They take on the one in five New England Patriots in New England. Buffalo is nine point road favorites over the Patriots. It gives the Patriots 16 implied points. Yeah. So let's start there. How gross is this going to be for the offense of New England? It's not going to go great, but to be fair, it hasn't gone great all season.

Ramandre Stevenson, I still think you can start him. He had his bounce back last week, as we had hoped. The matchup, remember the plan was wait until those three terrible matchups were over when he had the Jets, the Cowboys, and the Saints in a row. Trade for him, play him. So far so good. Last week against the Raiders, he put up. 15 and a half fantasy points. He got the targets going again. So Ramandre, I'm fine starting again. Buffalo is not, I mean, they're a good team. They're a good defense, but they aren't a brutal matchup for running backs. They're middle of the pack. They've given up the 23rd most points to fantasy running backs. I'm not scared of this matchup for Ramandre. Anybody else on the Patriots? No. Goodness. Hopefully not. Josh Allen?

Been a couple of rough weeks is he returned to stallion form this week. What do you think? Yeah, I think so. Like a baby star? You think so? The Patriots have been shutting down quarterbacks seventh if you adjust for schedule, only 12.4 points to the position. I mean, even two weeks ago against Jacksonville when their offense really struggled, that a hard time scoring, the whole first half, Josh Allen did nothing. He was still the quarterback, too. He put up 27 fantasy points in four point scoring. The last five times he's played New England, three touchdowns, two, three, one, four. Yeah, I mean, no matter what, you're not benching Alan. James Cook, I tweeted this morning. James Cook is averaging more yards from scrimmage per touch than Bijon Robinson. He's number four in the NFL. Bejohn's at five. And yet last week, 49% of snaps and zero targets. And an entire half of nothingness.

One touchdown on the season. Latavius Murray is the pass blocking preference. And so when the pass rush is kind of causing problems for Josh Allen, I believe Murray is getting rotated in to protect him. I don't know what that pass rush is going to look like from New England this week. Divisional matchup. You know, I've had thoughts of, you know, teams that have Cook and Murray just playing both because, you know, the game script could end up being out of hand. And Damien Harris is not a factor this week. Is that a potential play and just, that way you're not mad when you look at the screen? You ever think about that? I got that guy. I also have that guy. I just, I got all the bills running back. I think I would be mad if all I got was the running game from the bills. The bills, I mean, if you look at the Patriots right now, they've been giving up schedule adjusted about 15 fantasy points a game.

you know, two running backs. So it's only, it was only 11 fantasy points last week if you combine them. Right. So that's not good. I don't think you're happy to play both. I'm going to, I'm going to certainly stick with Cook who has been excellent. The opportunity hasn't been great the last two weeks, but his talent has. Throw him the ball. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. That's why you have him here. That's his skill set. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, the thing is is if you don't like the pass rush. There is the drop it down to your running back strategy as opposed to just blocking with Latavus Murray. Stefan Diggs, of course, Gabe Davis, he finally gave Davis last week, but he had been on a role. It's not a great match yet. It's a dart throw this week, just like, I mean, Josh Palmer, Gabe Davis. That is an interesting question. I would probably go Josh Palmer. Dalton Kincage should be back.

which kind of makes both tight ends unplayable. Cortland Sutton or Gabe Davis. Oh, man. Gabe Davis. Really? Probably. If it were me, I would do that because I would want to not have Russ throwing my guy the ball. You're not going to want to hear it starts as a week. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. All right. Well, we'll get into that more. Washington's 3 and 3. The Giants are 1 and 5. Washington travels to New York, the draft king's sportsbook line, Washington minus 2.5, over under is 39. Immediate thoughts in this matchup. That Sam Howell is still in play as a streaming quarterback. We don't know if it's going to be Daniel Jones yet. He was limited in practice on Wednesday. Taylor, Taylor did okay in a much more.

a much more difficult matchup the past week for Tyrod Taylor, if he is going to go. Washington's defense is on the season hasn't been what they had hoped. We're looking at schedule adjust at 25th against quarterback's 31st against wide receivers. So I think that there is, there's some action in here, even though I think on the surface when I see Manders versus Giants, I'm not overly excited about it, especially with the over under. But I think that there are. There's players here who I think can have be amongst the top of the fantasy scores this week. Yeah, I think you're right. Brian Robinson projects to be a good play. Sam Howell projects to be a good play. Obviously, you've got Sequin who is always going to be started. And a guy I know you like Mike Wondale Robinson. The matchup for wide receivers here is perfect for the Giants. And I'm not too worried about whether it is Daniel Jones.

or not for a guy like Wondale whose targets are, you know, close to the line of scrimmage. He's a really solid play this week. All right. Do you see that? You see John Dotson holding the football. Yeah, what was that? He's taking reps as a holder. What are we? And you probably are going, what's a holder? Because we don't talk about holders a lot. You know the guy who receives the snap on the kick? And then he holds the ball. It's just above water boy. It is right above water boy. Yeah. So what is happening is, uh, is not good. I mean, who, who does that at practice? Maybe he came up and was like, how do you do that? What if he walked? Because I could see myself being curious. There has to be an explanation. What's the, what's the strategy there? Yeah, you don't take your first round wide receiver and be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, at practice today? I want you to go over with those guys and, uh,

Catch that snap and hold that ball. No, no. So, you know, what else from this matchup is interesting to you? Wondale. Yeah, well, I think Wondale, if you want to get just absolutely as nasty as possible, again, the transition of the Giants wide receivers, Wondale is the slot wide receiver. Paris Campbell has been relegated to the bench. Slayton had. two huge catches this past week, and they were very nice with Tyrod Taylor's. He always looks great on the plays he's involved. He always has. Yeah. He really, I don't know why he isn't more involved, but this, again, the matchup is really nice. I think that on a crazy by-week injury-riddled situation, I've been looking at waivers where I'm like, man, I've got a really bad double flex. Is there someone on waivers?

that I could start. And Darius Slighton is someone where he's playing 80 plus percent of snaps in a game where you could easily see him with 80 plus yards and five receptions. Having a fine fantasy day, he's sitting out there on 100 percent of waivers. So if you're in an emergency situation, you can look his direction. Washington 31st against opposing fantasy-wide receivers. So. And Logan, I think you can go back to Logan Thomas. I know it was a disaster this past week, but I still believe he will be involved. Yeah, I'm still playing him in a couple of leagues over other options. I think if you don't ride the bumps with some of the lower tier tight ends, you get none of the good games. Right. So we'll see if he fits into that category or not. Atlanta is 3 and 3. Tampa Bay is 3 and 2. The Draft King Sportsbook line is Tampa Bay minus 2 and a half, the overrunners.

There it is. 37. There it is. Okay. It was a really disappointing offensive performance for Tampa Bay last week. It was a tough matchup. Detroit's defense is exceptional. And Baker just didn't get it going. 51% of passes completed. Some bat downs at the line of scrimmage, some interceptions off of those. So on the Tampa side, let's talk about it. Baker trying to get the ball to Evans and Godwin. Godwin, for what it's worth, has just been a falcon killer in his career, averaging six receptions, 93 yards against Atlanta since 2018. He also hunts falcons. Wow. To eat them. Yeah. He doesn't waste any of it. He uses the feathers, everything. Well, I mean, it's got to be environmental. Is that a hat? You make a hat out of those? That's the most you can make, right? I mean, if you get enough of them. You probably need enough of a pillow? A pillow? A pillow?

A falcon feather pillow? Yeah. I mean, you put, you're telling me you can't go to go to like a farmer's market and you're selling, I'm selling a falcon. It is unlawful for any person to trap, take, transport, or possess. Yeah, look, we don't support it. Raptors for falconry purposes. I do not condone. We don't support it. This behavior. We're just saying Chris God. It's from the falconry guide and permits. Would you be surprised to know that nobody in the entire NFL is catching a higher percentage of their targets than Rashad White at the running back position? He is the number one in the NFL. Saw that this morning. Is that? And it is a... Stats that don't matter. It's a fairly large amount of targets. I mean, he, we knew he was capable of catching the ball. It's not turning into yards. Yeah, what he does with his receptions is impressively bad. 16 of 17, 98 total yards on those. So yards...

Per catch of 5, 6, 8, 7, 4, that's 6 on the season. Shod White is, what is he for fantasy? He is a bust. He is a startable fringe running back to. He has been red light green light the entire season. If you want to buy into those trends, it is a green light week. I have, you know, when I was looking at the work that Kisham Vang got last week, I wanted to like. talk about him on waivers, and then I saw, I saw he averaged one and a half a carrier. Yeah, he's, no, no, he's just, he is. What happened to Sean Tucker, Mike? They, uh, he probably was on a hunt with Chris Godwin, and he took the fall. So the team is mad at him. Mike Evans, you play him, Godwin, you play him. And there you go. Desmond, Ritter on the other side, Bijon, Algier, Drake Glenn, and Kyle Pitts. Um, Johnny Smith, got to say the name now. You do have to say the name. I mean, it is.

Feels like a coin flip when you throw those both out there, which guy's going to end up at the top? But hey, let's give him credit while we can. Kyle Pitts the number nine and number three tight end over the last two weeks, back into the end zone. Is that heating up? Yeah, that's heating up. For him? Oh, yeah, no, 93. That, I mean, he was, yes, he is heating up. Rules are rules, Andy. It is double. Digit fantasy points at the tight end position. It's a technicality. He had 43 yards. And a touchdown. Yeah. Yeah. Don't leave that part out. All right. He is, he is technically heating up. I don't really want to play him in this matchup, but you could certainly do worse. Would you play Logan Thomas over Pitts and Johnny? No. Yeah, I'm not sure about that either. No, I think I'd go with Pitts. And, you know, Johnny Smith, third most routes run on the Falcons this year. Drake London?

Mike, he's your hungry for more. He has been very good in terms of targets. He is a go-to receiver. Yeah, he is a go-to receiver. And they are not favored. The matchup, the bucks shut everything down except for fantasy-wide receivers. So he is the one I have the most confidence in of the Falcons. Bejan Robinson's fantasy finishes this year. Give me a lay of the land. 8-8, 25, 10, 21, and 20 the last two weeks. Opportunities per game. Been pretty good. Yeah. 18 and a half. They need to go north. They really need to go north. I mean, this team needs to keep Bijon on the field far more. Tyler Algier has not looked good. I mean, he is getting a lot of work and doing very little with it. And it just seems like when I'm watching the Falcons play, if I was a Falcons fan and nothing to do with fantasy football, nothing to do with, I want more points for Bijon Robinson.

I would just be frustrated every time it feels like you're having success and moving the ball with Bijan and then it's like, well, you want to be second and long? Let's put Algerian and give him the first down carry and just like wipe a drive away. It really is frustrating. And hearing Arthur Smith talk about saving Bijan and taking the long-term approach and making sure that he's good for the whole season, it's like, You're going to lose your season if you don't put your players out there to win games. Like, so what if he's there, you know, in week 17 when you're playing for nothing? It's just frustrating to me when you see a talent gap so clear, so evident, where one thing is helping your team, one thing is hurting your team. And it's not like Bijon is too tired in that moment. It's just, I'm sure he wants to play. Yeah, for sure.

Just do what's better for your team. You want the Saquan treatment? Yes, I want the Christian McCaffrey treatment. All the running backs that are as good as Bijon, where the gap for your actual team is like, you're hurting your ability to win when you take them off the field. Stop taking them off the field, man. Touchdowns are what it's destroying Bijon. He has. Am I looking at this zero rushing touchdowns on the year? He has that little behind the back shuffle pass. He has two receiving touchdowns on the year. He has one carry back from week two, one carry inside the five. And last year, Algeria or last week, Algeria had one. Yeah, that's not.

Algier's not dominating that. He had one last week, but hadn't seen one since week one. That goes to the bigger problem. They're not getting inside the five and running the ball, apparently. That's it. They're not getting inside the five or the 10 or the 20. You want to know why? Because they keep handing the ball to Tyler Algerian killing drives. Stop it. All right. A couple of... 17 carries two weeks ago. 13 carries this last week. Stop doing that. And I told you. Yards from Scrimmish per touch is at number five in the league. Deshawn Watson will practice on Thursday. First full practice potential since the 22nd of September. I'm dropping Tyler Alger. He's out of a spite. I'm going to offer him. I'm getting him off my roster. You think someone's trading for Tyler Alger? Wait, is this just like a handoff trade? Yeah. I'm just anyone want him? I mean, if you're just handing him off, sure. Yeah, I might. I'm very mad at Algier. I didn't realize that until this game breakdown. Like I'm, you're,

You're mad at Arthur Smith. No, no, no, no, no. Well, okay, yeah, both, both. If Tyler, you don't want Alger to be great. If Alger were on a different team, no. We would like Tyler out. I, it's frustrating me to watch him kill drives. You also have a turd on your roster for weeks. Yeah. And I've got to, I've got to end to that. Is this like a Zach Moss situation? Yeah, maybe I'll trade him for Moss? Yeah, yeah, I'll trade him for Moss. Yeah, I'll trade him for Moss. Yeah. I don't have them anymore. All right. Trevor Lawrence, improvement with the knee sprain expected to start tonight. Jason. Okay. All right. Well, that's good. All right. Let's do it. Welcome to starts of the week. Presented by Purina Pro Plan. All right. Let's kick it off. I'm going to be honest. I genuinely, honestly, don't like any quarterback starts of the week that aren't obvious this week. Right. We have our, we had our streamers. I mean, like Brock Purdy.

was my streamer and he is fine for this category. But I, you know, we try not, we're not going to give you layups. It's not going to be Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson for our starts of the week. So trying to find another name with a matchup, with an opportunity, I reluctantly selected Jordan Love. Jordan Love is the start of the week this week because, you know, he's been a top 12 quarterback in three of five weeks. He plays Denver. He has averaged, you know, the eighth most fantasy points among quarterbacks per game, just barely behind Lamar Jackson. He gets back a true first down, move the sticks, passing game weapon in Aaron Jones, and we know how bad the Broncos defense has been. So when I look at those kind of peripheral options, Jordan Love stuck out to me as one that you could get into your lineup this week. If you have a bye week,

If you need to turn back to somebody that has produced, that's my guy. I'm going to go with my stream of the week, Gino Smith. If you picked him up, I think he's a capable starter. He's got more than a touchdown favorite line at home. Third highest team applied total. The Cardinals rank 31st and scheduled adjusted fantasy points given up to quarterbacks. Might be 32nd if people weren't dropping touchdowns against them last week. So, you know, if you've got Gino Smith and you've got bye weeks, he projects to be a good start this week. Underpants. Here we go, baby. Russell Wilson against the Green Bay Packers. Steel underpants. It sounds nasty. Russell Wilson is a top 12 quarterback on the season right now. The Broncos are one in five. It is not all Russ's fault. The matchup is one that we can attack against the Green Bay Packers. It is one of three games.

currently with a total of 45 or above, and then diving deeper into the metrics. This one, shout out to Kyle. Russ ranks number one among all quarterbacks in fantasy points per dropback against zone coverage. The Packers run zone, at least they have, 80% of the time. This is a matchup that I think that Russ finishes the week as a top 10 quarterback, and if you have the intestinal fortitude, And the underpants. And the underpants to protect yourself, it makes sense. Well, I'm going to double down real quick here with the Packers and that Denver matchup, which is all we've talked about so far on the majority of the starts of the week. But I think people need to hear it. Errant Jones is going to be back. And he needs to be in your lineup. I truly believe that. I think, you know, it has not been a fun ride dealing with the hamstring, the reaggravation, the lack of.

opportunity and this is a terrible, terrible Bronco defense that has been especially bad to running backs. I think we have all watched the Green Bay Packers and said to ourselves every play, oh my gosh, they need Aaron Jones so bad. Yeah. And he's going to be back out there. He is ready to contribute. They give up 172 yards a game to running backs. And I think you have to, you have to jam him back into your lineup this week. For me, my running back start of the week is Jerome Ford. Ford Tough. For Bill Ford. Jerome Ford has been pretty good. Like, you know, he's been a top 24 running back three of his five weeks. Obviously, the first week didn't even really count with Nick Chubb there. And he's averaging 14 and a half fantasy points per game. The Colts.

They're 23rd and schedule adjusted fantasy points allowed to running backs. This is the type of player that I think is just a really solid play. He's going to get enough carries to have opportunity you can rely on. They're favored. They should score a rushing touchdown. And you've got the current thigh injury to Kareem Hunt. So Jerome Ford, he's wheels up for me. Isaiah Pacheco, back-to-back weeks for me. But he's taken on the Chargers. He's been top 15, four straight weeks, averaging 20 opportunities per game. That's wild. That's the thing is Pacheco has gone from a, gone from a guy of like, yeah, he's on a great offense. He's there starting running back. And he gets me points sometimes to he is being featured in this offense. And the bonus over the past three years, the Chiefs Chargers games have averaged 54 points. So I don't know that they're going to make it there this week, but.

They've been giving us greatness over the past three years. All right. Well, less hesitancy here. This is my favorite start of the week. My wide receiver, who would have been Jason's had I not hustled and grabbed him sooner? It's Hollywood Brown. It makes sense. 11 delicious targets last week. But you didn't get the outcome that you wanted, making him a buy now candidate. I mean, you can buy him on the cheap. You're going to get Kyler back soon. But I like him this week against Seattle. player that's in the top 10 in the NFL in total targets. Last week and Kyle, you're going to have to look that number up for me, but it was like 135 air yards last week. And he only ended up with like 42 total yards. The ratio was not where we wanted. And if you remember the game, I mean, he had a couple of bomb touchdowns where it was like the fingertips of a St. Louis Ram defender prevented it from happening. He's been targeted on 26% of his routes. That's slightly behind Keenan.

and Seattle is giving up, oh my gosh, it was 190 air yards. 190 and he ended up with 34 actual yards. Play him this week against Seattle. I really like them in this match. They're going to have to throw the football, and Seattle stinks against wide receivers. My wide receiver start of the week is Puka Nakua. You cannot be afraid of what happened last week. You say, oh, no, Cooper Cup is back and he's the main guy. You should not. I can't. I'm a little afraid. I know that there are people afraid. There's people like me. Yeah. But here's the thing. Last week, you didn't have to throw a ton to destroy the Cardinals. In the second half, they just ran it down their throat, even still.

Puka had 33% of the targets. It just weren't a ton of targets. He also was one of the aforementioned dropped touchdown passes. If he catches that touchdown pass, he has a fine game and no one is afraid at all. The metrics of him being out on the field, of running routes, of getting targets, they're all still just as good. Not every wide receiver scores a bunch every single week. It's the combination of the fact that Cup is back and he had a down game, Wild Cup had a good game. that has everybody afraid. Do not be afraid. This is a very, very good matchup. The Steelers rank dead last in schedule adjusted fantasy points allowed two wide receivers. He's on the field. He's getting targets. He's a great play. Don't be afraid of it. Puka's going to dominate this week. I'm going with Wondale Robinson of the New York Giants taking on the Washington Manders since returning from injury.

Five targets, six, six, and then eight this past week with Tyrod Taylor. Been targeted on nearly 26% of his routes this season. That is a top 12 number at the wide receiver position. He is their guy. Paris Campbell started as the guy, as the slot player for the Giants. Zero routes this past week, plus the matchup. Commanders have allowed the fourth most passing yards, and they are 31st in schedule adjusted points. I think that Wondale, no matter if it's Daniel Jones or... Taylor as the quarterback. I think that he's in play this week. All right. I'm going to go with Dallas Goddard in the Miami game that I'm actually super excited about. 52 and a half points. Goddard, you know, this is a player that slow start is going to be important for the Eagles the rest of the way. And that week one impact, Mike talked about it yesterday. He goosed. He made you think that you had wasted everything. I don't think so. Miami's a pretty bad defense against opposing tight ends. We talked about the Devante Smith injury.