Starts of the Week + Week 16 Breakdown, Touchdowns or Revolt! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/23

Yeah. A.k.a. 2021. This year. I'm disappointed because the other day I was going to tell Al that I really needed the, I got a snake man drop back on the board because I don't have it. Oh, you don't? It's not there. Wow. And so I was like, oh. That's a lie. But that's fine. Carry on. Would you, where is it? Right at the top of your player drops, the second one in. I got a snake man. Oh, there he is. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. All right. I stand corrected.

One thing owl will never let slide is if he thinks he that he has done it correctly. Yeah. If you need somebody to fall on a sword, I'm not your guy. Yes. Get up to 100% dander of protection. That's never not working with head and shoulder scalp shield technology available at walmart.com. It's time for news. News and notes from around the league presented by sleeper. Do you don't know how many times I've looked for that and not seen it?

Just blind. I mean, it's a pick. That's because you have 20,000 buttons over there. I know, I know. But this one does have a picture of a snake at the top. So it's really on me. I mean, there is a snake on the button. How will I ever recognize it? All right. Thursday night football updates yesterday morning, Elijah missile himself. Not the missile lately. Elijah Mitchell. Well, he's just, it's preparing. Preparing to fire. Not firing this week. He's been ruled out.

So you have a tough decision with Jeff Wilson. A lot of the questions that I've seen, Mike, have been based on players with injury question marks. For example, Austin Echler, added to the reserve COVID list officially, people want to know, do you play Jeff tonight or wait on Echler to be available? And so that to me is based on what other, what third player you have. Sure. To potentially, like somebody had Rashad Penny. And I was like, well,

Look, Echler's the number two running back in football. And if he plays, you know that he can still be great on half the snaps. So if I had Richard Penny, I think I would wait. Do you agree with that? Would you wait, not play Jeff tonight, wait on Echler, and then if Echler's not there, play Penny? I... Or would you just start Jeff? I think in that situation in particular, I would play Jeff Wilson. Hopefully, as soon as you got the sleeper alert for the official...

Austin Echler is on the COVID list. You went right to your waiver wire or maybe and grab Justin Jackson. Maybe the wire hadn't even run because some didn't run until a day later and got Justin Jackson. If I have Jeff Wilson, Echler and Justin Jackson, then I would wait because I believe that if Echler is out, Justin Jackson is equally as good of a play this week as Jeff, if not slightly better because of the matchup.

So with Echler added to the COVID list, I reached out to somebody yesterday and was told that he was vaccinated and that there is a chance he plays. So we're not looking at a limit, you know. Some investigative reporting? A little bit. I really, I, it's important. This is like fantasy playoffs. I agree. I just didn't know we had sources. Yeah. Yeah, we did. Cool. We had some. Cool, man. Anonymous sources. Yeah. Well, no, I'm not going to share any of my sources with you. You can ask me off air. I'll tell you. Okay.

Um, Julio Jones. Is it Philip Rivers? It's not. He's not as connecting it. Believe it or not, they locked the doors after he. Um, full practice for Julio. A.J. Brown, the word this morning is like, the word is no word. The word is he's not in. He's not officially out. He is in a stat. He's in a mist. Pergatory? Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, the, uh, he.

Not at the pearly gates. No. Activation of purgatory. The Titans have until 3 p.m. to activate A.J. Brown. My gut feeling on this is that A.J. Brown will not play this week. That's what I'm feeling, too. But we'll see. They have until 3 p.m. to activate him. Echler, we talked about mixing, full participant at practice. That's good news. Big side of relief. If you got mixing. Lamar didn't practice. Based on what we know today, Thursday, not looking good.

Yeah, that's bad news of taking the whole week off, missing the game, and not even getting a limited on Wednesday. But because of who Lamar Jackson is a franchise quarterback, he could literally not practice at all. The Aaron Rogers, they call that. And they get to game day. And Lamar says, no, I'm good to go. And Lamar Jackson will play. Pete Carroll said that Tyler Lockett is closing in on being activated from the COVID list. Okay. Antonio Gibson did not practice with the toe injury. So.

And it is, it's his big toe again. Your face, your face says, um, Antonio is not. Yeah. I mean, that's been a rough year. That sucks, man. Where we've, it felt like it was finally going. Antonio Gibson was seeing massive volume. He's getting worked into the, the receiving game finally. Right. He's putting up huge fantasy points. He's carrying the Washington football team. And then just a toe, a toe injury derails the whole thing.

It stinks. It's unfortunate. DeAndre Swift returned to a limited practice, Jamal Williams practice in full. So Craig is going to have some friends in the backfield. Darren Waller remained sidelined. I was wondering like, is she just done for the year? Waller? Yeah, if they get eliminated, I don't know. I mean, I would imagine they still have to lose like two games to be mathematically eliminated. But I don't know.

I don't know their situation. They have six wins. That's off the top of my head. I will pull up their standings. Yeah, no, I think they're, well, they just won, right? So they're seven and seven, I'm guessing. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. They were six wins coming into the game against Mollens and the Cleveland Browns. They squeaked that one out. But yeah, they're seven and seven. So they're right in there. They're right in the playoff picture right now. They would need a lot of things to bounce their way, though. The Muth? No.

Pat Friar Mute did not practice. He's recovering from a bad concussion. He's concoothed. Okay. Okay. I was searching for it, and you found it. You found it. Oh, boo. He's concoothed. I don't know. It's not great. Taylor Heineke. No, it's fine. Jay loves it. Heineke's back for Washington. Yeah. Goodness. Miles Sanders, D&P.

I don't think they practice, right? Yeah, this was a estimated. Yeah, if they were to practice, he would have been a did not practice. It's called the break after Tuesday. Yeah, as far as I have seen reports from Philly, as of now, there's no concern Miles missing. When we had that question a while back about playoff heroes, Miles Sanders was one that was brought up. Yeah. There's a chance. Philly's looking good, man. Yeah.

They are. That was today's news and notes brought to you by Sleeper, the Leader, and Breaking News Alerts. Download the Sleeper app, join the Breaking Alerts channel. We're about to jump into the matchups. We've got starts of the week. We've got the boom, boom kicker all coming up. But first, in a world. Now, we want to thank Wealthfront for supporting the show. And our sponsors and the way that our listeners support them goes a long way to, you know, letting us do what we do.

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Visit simplysafe.com slash footballers. Again, that's simplysafe.com slash footballers for 40% off your entire system. Fantasy forecast. I'm forecasting a big Jeff Wilson night over Al Borland's Debo. And is that based off of a statistical argument or just a hope in your heart? That would be, it's the latter. It's the, I want to go on to Christmas with the lead. That's all.

I mean, I'm sure Al does too. I do. Yeah. More important probably for your team that Debo has a big game than for my team that Jeff does? I don't know. Yeah, that's accurate. Just stay competitive, Jeff. You can do it. Cleveland, at 7 and 7, take on the 11 and 3 Green Bay Packers, the Draft King Sportsbook line. Packers minus 7 and a half. They're at home. The over under is 46. But with a line like that that gives the Packers about 27 points, the Brown's under 20.

Packers are on a roll, 36 points per game over the last four weeks. The defense has given up more points in that span than they had previously during the year. But giving up points to Baker Mayfield and the gang, it's tough to, we haven't seen it. Let's put it that way. Like ever since the departure of OBJ, you've had injuries in the backfield. You have a hodgepodge of wide receivers where one week you're looking at Jarvis Landry. The next week it's Donovan People's Jones.

you're rotating through three tight ends. I guess my offensive expectations here are pretty low for the Browns. What about Baker, though? He's back, right? Yeah, very low. I mean, he should be back soon. Yeah, he should be back. Yeah, he said he fails 100%. They were upset, you know, when Mullen's had to play and he was feeling good. But he'll be back. But I don't know if I would trust any pass catchers.

that he's throwing the ball to. To me, this is a simple Nick Chubb and no one else on the Browns. No, you don't want to, you don't want into those Donovan people's Jones targets? It's, I mean, you can give it a go. I guess I'm just going into Lambo field, coming off of, you know, Baker's already beat up, hasn't played, team hasn't done a lot on offense. They are oscillating between wins and losses, so I guess this would be the

The win side of things. Yeah, these trends continue. But I think it's Nick Chubb. Are you playing Donovan People's Jones? I think he's an okay flex. Just with... Armand Ross St. Brown or People's Jones? For a long name battle. Sure. Battle of the hyphenated names. I need more Jared Goff info. If Jared Goff is back from the COVID-I-R, I would play St. Brown. Okay.

On the other side, we've seen efficiency from Aaron Jones. He's been a top 10 running back. He's in your lineup. Aaron Rogers has been on fire. And so the real question to me comes down to A.J. Dylan. And would you play him or would you play somebody like Deontiformin tonight, Jeff Wilson tonight, Jeff Wilson against the Patriots? I would play Dylan over Singletary. But Jeff Wilson or Deonti Foreman tonight, I'd play those guys. And then Alan Lazard?

Right now, MVS is on the COVID list. Yes. The wide receiver, too, has been doing okay here for the Packers. You don't always know who it's going to be on any particular weekend. MVS feels like the one who has stepped up the most. But if he does, in fact, miss this game because he's on the COVID list, it's hard not to see 20% of the targets going to Al-Lazar. It's a tougher matchup. The Brown's defense has been stingy against fantasy wide receivers.

But it's Aaron Rogers. I don't bet against Aaron Rogers, especially in fantasy football. So to me, like, that's a, I think that's an interesting question. Let's say MVS is out. Lazard or Donovan People's Jones going with who could maybe be the one for Baker or the two for Rogers, and I would play Lazard. I would too. I agree with that. By the way, these Christmas lights new today, Brooksie, in the studio? Yes, sir. See, I thought so.