Championship Week Prep + Hungry For More, Underdog Tips - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/27

Oh, we've got championship week beginning right now. We've got to get you ready for those title games. Big matchups, a tough Thursday night game to break down and a whole lot more, including your questions on today's show. Make sure you click subscribe and enjoy. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway.

Back with you. Al Borland, Papa Josh, Inducers Alley this morning, Wednesday episode of the show. Happy to have you with us. Championship Week. It's in the air. You can feel it? It's electric. The tension. Yeah. The anticipation. Yeah. The fear. The stress. We have. This is for fun, right? Uh, how much stress do you have right now, Jay? Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty carefree because the two that I'm in, I don't give two farts. You're sleeping like a baby. Yeah, it's, it really, it really does show like, you've had a, you've probably extended your lifespan. Yeah, at least a week. Wow. So we did get news this morning, just breaking news that Tyrod Taylor's going to start for the Giants. Yeah. Just, just seeing that live.

And Jacoby Brissette's going to start for the Manders. Ooh, that's new information for me. It was humorous because yesterday when the news is going, you know, the news feed from various resources, we got one on our site. It's like, it was just a bunch of coaches that didn't know which quarterback they're going to play. Minnesota didn't know. The commanders don't know. We don't know about Stroud. We don't know about Lawrence. We don't know about Tyrod and DeVito. Well, yeah, we know about DeVito. Now we do. That was a great run. Oh, for Tommy D? Yeah. Good work, cutlets. I hope you got your cash anywhere you possibly could. Yeah, I mean. He looked like he was having a good time. And that's what you got to do. Because at any moment, at any particular halftime, it could be gone. It is funny how quickly those things evaporate. I posted a tweet yesterday, a poll over on X. Now, don't go look.

Because I'm a quizzie. I'm going to see what you think the answer was. I missed the poll. I was talking about those of you out there that were on their way to the title game. And what do you think helped you the most along the way? And there are four choices. Oh, picking the right players. Well, one option was having a great draft. Okay. One option was great waiver wire pickups. Okay. One option was great trades. And then one option was great start, start, sit decisions. I know what order it should be in. All right. Let's hear what you believe the order should be. I think it would be draft waivers for sure as the first and second and then start sit third and trades four. Okay. Mike, do you have any theories? I will go waivers at the top because we had.

We had some Puka, Kyran. We have some monsters this year where if you went on, if you went on, if you went on when I got Kyron and you had wanted to draft him, but Kyle wouldn't let you do it. I was like, why would we draft Kyron Williams? I'm like, because man, you don't, is Kamaker's really the guy? I don't know. Hmm. Yeah. You hold that against him even today? Uh, no, no. Okay. No. You've let it go. No, I've not let it go. Oh, okay. All right. So Mike, you think waivers first. Yeah. All right. Well, the answers, as of right now, 13,000 votes, 40% voted having a great draft. Oh, okay. That's good. So the foundation of your team, we talk about it every year. I mean, hopefully some of those 40% picked up the UDK, got them off to the good start. 37%. So very close. Great waiver wire pickups. So that is the majority of the vote. The 14% was great trades.

For me, it was great trades that didn't happen. Oh, my. Great trade. Rejections. Oh, my goodness. I mean, yesterday I spent the day taunting people with trades that I had offered that they rejected. That's a pro move. Which is just a good old time. I'll just, I mean, Mike's been doing that with Pittman. I'll give you one. This was, I mean, it's so crazy. This is perfect example of don't veto trades because you don't know what's going to happen. Andy offered me. And at the moment that this was offered, it wasn't even that close. No. No, you got, it was a quick rejection. But to think back only a few weeks ago and think of how insanely lopsided in my favor, it would have been that you offered me, you were coming after Austin Ackler, who has since that exact moment collapsed. And in return for basically nothing that I gave away.

I would have received Kyron Williams, a second round pick, which is our golden goose in our keeper league, and Amari Cooper, who at that time was a worthless, he hadn't scored five points in like three straight weeks. They had no quarterback. Yeah. I mean, it just seemed, and Kyron was injured and whatever. Had I accepted that, I would be in the championship game right now. You'd be in my boat right now. And you would be, oh my goodness, easy rejection. I also went back and looked at the famous betrayal trade with Papa Josh. He's in studio today and didn't realize in that trade, he would have also received Amari Cooper. But a lot of the trades that, you know, sometimes it's the ones that don't, that's why we say don't veto, because you don't really know what the next few weeks are going to hold. I could see trade. There are leagues that would have had you taken that deal, the Kyron deal with Eckler.

There are leagues that would have vetoed that because they wouldn't have wanted Echler going to a playoff contender or something. Right. And that trade was lopsided in the opposite direction. So please, commissioners out there, it starts with you. Be wise. Do not veto trades for any reason other than collusion. Open collusion, veto and boot those managers. But otherwise, let it fly. We're all grown-ups. And situations change every single week. Yeah. Every week. I mean, it's actually really upsetting how bad our memories are. When you think about like Amari Cooper, I mean, he's just dominated with Joe Flacco. But you almost can't remember how bad it was right before you had Flacco and you had the quarterback roulette of, you know, is it DTR? He was better with Watson, but then the second Watson went out for the year. It was like.

I tried to trade him to everybody. Nobody wanted to touch him. Because the Cleveland Browns, it was either, it was PJ Walker. And then they're like, no, it's not him. And then it was DTR who they said, even when they, they picked up Joe Flacco. And Joe Flacco got in on a game. Like, no, no, DTR is still going to be our starter. So if you teams, teams change, fantasy outputs change. It's, it's a wild world this year. It is. And we've got Hungry for more on today's show. Some news to catch you up on. We'll preview a very, honestly, I find it to be a difficult matchup to break down for Thursday night football in terms of fantasy decisions to be made. Yes. Some mailbag on the show today. And we want to get you ready to rumble. Give yourself the best odds of winning on Sunday, which last I checked, there are 10 games in the early window.

Hmm, that's stupid. So we don't have enough TVs here, Mike. I don't. I. Now you're speaking my language. Because Jason and I have been pushing for TV number 10 for a while. Honestly, I think this is like, what, the second week it would have mattered on the whole year? There's usually one or two weeks per year. But it, why? What are it? The NFL, your entire existence, like all you want is to dominate everything. 10 morning, three afternoon, one evening. You took over Christmas weekend. Yeah. With an insane, insane barrage of games, just nonstop football. Because you, it's all about the NFL. And then you're like, no, we'll do 10 games. We'll just get it over with real quick. What are you doing? 10 and 3, maybe like 8 and 5. Yeah. You can still lopsite it. Just at least four. Yeah. There should always be four afternoon games minimum.

We've got a big Thursday game with players that people have been playing. We have a big Saturday night game with the highest over under the week by a lot. That is the Dallas, Detroit Saturday night matchup. That's going to be great. 53.5 point over under last I had looked. And then we have the Sunday barrage. No Monday night football though. No Monday night football. So your fantasy championship will be over. Monday night football is on Saturday night. Yeah. So New Year's Day. You can bask in it. We don't have a show that day, right? Monday, no. And then Tuesday we'll come in and we'll reflect on how it went. And we'll be, you know, this is a year-round show. So we'll be getting into the 10 things to remember. We'll be breaking down all the lessons from the past year and the NFL playoffs will be upon us. All right, couple reminders here at the top before we get into Hungry for more.

I've got three reminders for the folks out there. The first one, brand new dynasty pod episode this morning. Jason was on that one with Kyle and Matthew Betts and it is a dynasty sink or swim. Yeah, we talk about a lot of those questionable players and are they going to sink or swim? You want to know about Stefan Diggs? Yeah, sorry. I hear that name now and I just trip. Yeah. Footclan giveaway.com. Still going on. A signed Travis E.T.N. Jersey. A bunch of fantasy footballers swag. It was really fun seeing a handful of videos over on X of people that they were celebrating with some footballer's swag on Christmas morning. Some of the significant others out there picking up some. Significant gear. Yeah, thank you. And then Fantasychamps.com right now. It's a good time to mention it.

You know, this is where you go and get your swag. Get your league trophy. They have belts. They have rings. And if you use the code free ring through this show, you get a $59 championship ring for free when you buy a trophy. So in our leagues, the winner, they get a ring for themselves and then they get the trophy, but that gets passed around. Check that out at fantasychamps.com. Code free ring. Put them both in your cart. Use that code and you'll get a free ring. You guys ready to move on? Let's go. Welcome to Hungry for More, presented by Uber Eads. All right. Getting towards the end of the season. These names, I think, you know, you can't bring up a name in Hungry for More right now without having significant championship week implications. So, Mike, how are our picks just us trying to wheel something into existence? Correct.

A little bit. Both of ours have a bit of a mere situation where they're good players. Everything should be fine when you play them. But there's a sandwich. There's a little blip that rightfully should give you a little bit of concern. But I'm hungry for more Zay Flowers. Have loved this guy. I mean, was very, very high on Zay Flowers coming into the NFL season. looked immediately like the number one wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens, which he was. But then it was a pretty bumpy ride with Mark Andrews there. And then Mark Andrews goes out. Zay Flowers is right back to a target hog. You know, last week against San Francisco, tough defense. He saw three targets in the red zone. He scored. He's had 17 or more fantasy points in three of four games. Three of four. Because in the middle of that was an absolute...

One disaster, a one catch just out of nowhere, seemingly out of nowhere in a very easy, on a very easy defense to pass on. And now he gets the Miami Dolphins who the Miami Dolphins are 23rd and scheduled just a points to wide receivers, 47 point over under, Baltimore favored by about three and a half right now. Big game. That's it. And yeah, also you can go the narratives of this is huge for the basically. whoever wins this game is likely to get the buy week. Like if, you know what I mean? So both teams are playing, but there was that blip. Yeah. And Miami has been getting better. Like the Miami defense has been very legit the last couple weeks. So it's, what do you do with Zay Flowers? So I'm, well, I mean, look at like, hunger for more of, let's make sure we actually get those targets and we don't have. How does, how does Zay Flowers have a one catch day?

How is that possible? And it just happened two weeks ago. Baltimore is an incredible NFL team, but they don't win the same way every week. Correct. And Miami with Jalen Ramsey, Xavier and Howard, like I know C.D. Lamb had a good game last week because he had the long touchdown. He went like two quarters or two and a half quarters after that without a target in that game. So. Sometimes Baltimore wins on defense. Sometimes it's Lamar running. Sometimes it's Gus bus. Sometimes it's, you know, Beckham. Like it doesn't repeat. And so there's that fear. But flowers, 17 plus points in three or four games should give you some confidence. Eight targets. Ten targets. Two against the Jacksonville Jaguars. 13 targets. Yeah. So the blip.

sends fear. Oh, yeah. But you're hungry for more of the not blip. Because as long as Zayfirus is going to get targets, like if he gets eight or more targets, he'll be a very solid floor play with upside. You're hungry for more targets. Yeah. And I am as well with my player. I think the targets are the key for a guy who's been on fire. Now hungry for more James Connor. Please. I'm hungry for more James Connor. getting passing work. Yeah. This last week was a tough matchup and we were worried about it. It was the Chicago Bears whose defense has been great. Their run defense has been outstanding. And so they targeted him five times and he had five receptions. I mean, if you get five receptions as a baseline for a player as good as James Connor, the fantasy output's going to be great.

He plays against Philly. Philly is the number two ranked defense on the course of the season of not giving up fantasy points to running backs. So it's like a really scary matchup. But you look at the last two weeks and James Connor, I mean, he played against San Francisco. Scary defense, bad matchup for running backs. Well, he was the running back 11. Last week, scary defense, bad, you know, bad for running backs against Chicago. He was the running back five. So I know I'm hungry for more. I know Andy. is very hungry for more James Connor because, you know, the running back five, the running back 11, the running back five on 27, 17 and 17 opportunities. Keep feeding this man. What's crazy is I mentioned this last week with my somewhat optimism about Saquan Barkley. The Philadelphia Eagles run defense on the year has been dominant, but over the last five weeks, they're the ninth best matchup for running backs. Kenneth Walker torched them. Yep. You saw Dallas go seven.

points above expectation. You saw the Giants last week, three and a half points above expectation with Saquan. So there is a little bit of optimism there for Connor. And look, the matchups have been bad for Connor for a while and he just keeps getting it done. And then the running back I just mentioned is my hungry for more. It's Saquan Barkley. I'm thrilled they just announced Tyrod Taylor as the starter. What you need is some like... I just want like bottom third, not dead last in moving the football. If you move the football down the field at all, Saquan's going to have an opportunity. He went 23 for 80 in a touchdown against that Philly defense. He had six targets in that game. The Rams, it's another tough matchup for Saquan Barkley. And he has been, much like Zay Flowers, he has been the red light green light. He plays great, he has a bad game. Great, bad game. But the fact that Tyra Taylor is coming back. These trends continue.

You just want to see opportunity inside the 20. It will be the Saquan show. 23 rushing opportunities against Philly is awesome. So I am hungry for more Saquan heading into championship week. And that is, that's my name that I wanted to mention. Yep. That was hungry for more presented by Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats in O-Line? No, no. Carton of OJ. Yeah, okay. Delicious. Order now on the app. Product availability may vary by region. See the app for details. All right. Let's do it. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Speaking of OJ real quick. Mm-hmm. You know, I have a 15-year-old son. And when you're young, like things like heartburn. That's not like part of your world.

Right. You just eat like a pig. It's just a trash compactor. Yeah. And it don't matter, right? You don't deal with heartburn. So he gets some heartburn from all the Christmas, you know, vacuuming up of the treats, right? And so, like, he's never had heartburn, really. And so I give him some tums. And he takes the tums and he starts to feel better. And then about 10 minutes later, he goes, I'm still feeling it a little bit. And I go, well, did you drink some water? And he goes, I just had a. tall glass of orange juice. So he didn't know that maybe that would cause a bit of a... Let me douse this fire with some gasoline. It's liquid. I didn't know whether to be mad, disappointed. I didn't, I was just like... That's a tough lesson. I was like, buddy, you drank some acid. You just got to tell them, like, maybe just have some more, you know? Yeah, I'm like, I was like, you got to be kidding me. So, um, wow.

Also going back to where we were beforehand. You were talking about the Rams as a tough defense against Sequin. You're hungry for more Seguan. I just looked it up because I know the Rams have been a tough matchup. Yeah. They are the absolute most difficult matchup for all running backs over the last six weeks. Over the last three weeks, they have. Yeah, they ruined Camara last week. They ruined Camara. We're talking not like three points below expectation. 10 points below expectation. Two weeks ago, 10 points below expectation. Three weeks ago, 12 points below expectation. They are shutting down the running backs. My narrative for why Camara could do well was because they played, you know, Washington without Brian Robinson and the Cardinals without Connor and Cleveland without a running back. And well, it didn't matter. They shut down Camara. The nice thing is, if it counts for anything, giants are at home. That's fair. Most of the three of those five matches were in L.A.

Yeah, it's not great. No. Good luck to you, laddie. All right. CJ Stroud's concussion symptoms. Getting into the news here. I have subsided. He is set to resume activities this week. I had somebody messaged me on Twitter. They said, oh, your rankings, they have C.J. Stroud and Justin Fields really close. I said, look, if it's me, I'm just going to play Justin Fields. I know C.J. Stroud's at home. I know that they have an opportunity against Tennessee, and I don't, you guys might have a completely different opinion. It just makes me fearful, no tank dell, coming back from the concussion, seeing some blips on C.J. Stroud's resume of late. I just play Justin Fields and roll with that, assuming DJ Moore is there. If DJ Moore was out, maybe that changes the equation. Yeah, I mean, if you look at what he did before getting concussed, it really wasn't that great for fantasy purposes. Yes, he had the 41 point monstrous week and week nine.

And he had a 30 point week in week 12. So he's got a ceiling. But he also had a 16 point week, a 15 point week, a 12 point week in that same stretch since the buy week. So he's not like a locked in guaranteed. Oh man, I get CJ Stroud back. So my opponent's got to be super scared. Stroud is a decent play this week at home or I'm sorry against Tennessee. It is at home. Oh yeah. At home against Tennessee. That's a good matchup. I'm fine playing him. Big news for Nico to have him back. I'm more happy for the other pieces. Noah Brown Goose again, so he'd be a dance with the devil on championship week. I would dance. I would dance with Noah Brown. I'll dance with that devil. I'll dance with that devil. Noah Brown should be a good play this week. I'm not afraid. I mean, that, look, you have been the courageous one. You mentioned Noah Brown the one week of the last four that he didn't goose.

Yeah. He's not gooseing this week. Well, Dalton Schultz was back and had a bunch of targets. Six targets for Robert Woods, Nico Collins. I don't think I'm starting him. T.J. Hawkinson out for the season, torn MCL, ACL. The number two tight end is gone and it's late season injury. So you. You just hope he's back and healthy to start the year. He almost certainly won't be. Because of the timeline being this late, both ACL and MCL tears, you're going to wait to have surgery until swelling goes down. So it'll be a couple weeks before he has surgery. I think there's a really solid chance that you don't have him to start the season. The Vikings still haven't decided which of their three quarterbacks to start. Do you have...

Let's say you had Justin Jefferson. Oh, yeah, you know who you want. You want Mullins. Oh, one million percent. Every fantasy football manager out there is praying for Mullins. And right now that's where I lean. I think it will be Mullins. But TBD and, you know, there's there's some coaches that are very. you know, restrictive and, oh, we're not going to tell you what's going on. And there's some coaches that are just really honest and open. Kevin O'Connell is a pretty straight shooter. When he knows, he'll tell you, I really believe that he's still figuring it out. Well, the KJ. Osborne question is the one for me. Like, I'm picking them up in a couple of leagues where I have, like, Josh Downs or Curtis Samuel. Like, I want to play Osborne, but I don't want to play him with Jaron Hall and I don't want to play him with Joshua Dobbs. Right. So I am.

hoping for Mullins myself and that would make that decision for me. Mike Tomlin implied Mason Rudolph will start again in week 17. Okay. How do you feel about that, Mike? How do you feel about Mason Rudolph's performance? I mean, he bawled out. Well, he had some really big place to George Pickens against the Bengals. We'll see. Doug Peterson said Trevor Lawrence right shoulder injuries and AC joint sprain. He's progressing. This would be the third straight week that he's progressing with an injury. That we don't think he'll play. And guess what? I think he'll play. They need him to play. He played after the concussion. He played after the ankle. He's probably going to play after the shoulder. But we'll see. Does it change how you'd start Ridley? Yeah, I mean, well, obviously, if Lawrence isn't there, I would be hesitant to start Ridley. I think there's a decent chance he does not play. So we'll really have to monitor this one. He's been.

He's been beat up. Yeah, and hasn't been performing well. Bethard provided some fantasy value for Ridley last week. And it's Carolina. The last three weeks, he is completing 57% of his passes. Yeah, Carolina is literally screaming in pain after every play. I, yeah. Look, I'm not, I'm not saying I could do any better with those injuries, but took Zay Jones and Kirk away and then just broke. most of his body. Yeah. Carolina is a terrible matchup for wide receivers for quarterback, so I'm not really looking forward to that matchup. ETN, I mean, especially if you've got a banged up Trevor Lawrence. Engram should be the, yeah, Ingram should be okay and ETN should be great. Will Levis will try to practice on Wednesday. Will Levis would give you moderate flex hope for DeAndre Hopkins where there is none in Tana Hill. Jacoby Brissette will start.

Jacobi, where's the beef, Brissette? He's back. It's good. Yes. It's good for McLaurin. It's good for Dotson. I mean, throw last week out. They played the Jets. But, you know, he played a limited amount of time in that game. Went 10 for 13 through, you know, another touchdown. It's good for the, I mean, his passer rating has been great the last two weeks. Yeah, I mean, it's still 140. Still a tough defense. He's playing against San Francisco, but they're at home. It puts Terry McClureen into the startable category. Tyra Taylor, I mentioned that he'll start against the Rams at home. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Quick break. Back with the difficult Thursday night preview. It'll all be fine. It'll all be fine. This will be a super easy breakdown.

Lots of confidence from my friends in this one. Let's do it. Thursday night breakdown. Do you think we're ever going to get to the point where like the, you know, the medical associations, they come out and they say, we do not recommend men over 60 to play fantasy football? Men with high blood pressure. Men with heart conditions. Like, is that going to be, is this the next smoking? I don't think they will do that because they themselves play fantasy football. That's true. You got to exercise. And then when people are like, why, why do you do it? Why are you out there busting your buddy? You're like, because I want to play fantasy football. Oh, that's the reason. Yeah. So you got to get the heart strong. Most of Sunday on my, on my peloton. Is that what you're telling me? No, because if you combine. Oh, not the same time. If you exercise while tilting your face off, you just your, you will spontaneously combust. He died as he lived. Tuesday, Wednesday. Prepare your body on the peloton.