Playoff Push + Ride or Die, TNF Preview - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/7

We have a great show for you today as we gear up for the final week before the playoffs. We're going to look at the Thursday night matchup, get into a bunch of news, and some really, genuinely, excruciatingly hard questions on today's episode. Like, subscribe, and enjoy. The Fantasy Footballer Studio is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Visit Samsung.com to learn more. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host. Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome, man. Wednesday, December 7th, Fantasy Footballers podcast, Mike Andy Jason on the show today. I see what you did. Could be the best open of all time. Could be. Well, I mean, you've got the Christmas gear on today, so I've got to give it to you.

There is a big Christmas activity plan for the rights after this. Yeah, after today's show? After the work day. Okay. There will be much festivities, some ice skating, some eating of the, I don't know, Christmas cookies and the holiday spirits. Good times. We got something planned too, the holloways. Maybe I'll see you there. I was going to say. Did yours cost way too much money? Debatable. We're doing one of those, the drive-through Christmas lock things. Oh, right on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, mine's, I'm hanging out in some. Some expensive Christmas place? Yeah. No, the first day I listened to Christmas music on the way in. What? It's like day 45. You do it every day? I do. I do. I take my kids to school every morning and we listen to Christmas. Do you like the Christmas classics or do you like the popy Christmas? We usually, for the sake of the children, they prefer the pop Christmas. Oh, oof.

Gross. Oh, are you a classic? Oh, I love the classics. I switch from the pop to the classics. Give me old blue eyes. Rocking around the Christmas tree spans both, I feel like. Yeah. That's pop and classic. Yeah, they're in like Run Run Rudolph. Yeah. That one, that's still bangs. Mariah Carey's pretty much generationless here for Christmas music. Totally agree. Her kids, kids, kids, kids will be making royalties off with that stuff. Have you seen her like tweet about the the checks that she gets every? No, I have not, but I believe it. It's an outrageous amount of money. And it will never go. All she wants for Christmas is cash. I mean, that is. That's her song. We don't have any Christmas. We need something that is licensed. You guys want to do an album? Mike could do it. We could do a Christmas album. Like, you see the Eagles? Do they have a Christmas album? You didn't see the Eagles? What? Oh, yeah. It's wonderful. New?

Jason Kelsey with the, what the base? Oh, oh. He's thinking the band. Yeah. I was like, what? How did that happen? Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast. Yes, I did see the people were really excited about some subpar singing. Yeah, well, I mean, when you see the Philadelphia Eagles. Kelsey was fine. Look, he was, he was given it as all. But whoever was on the soprano? Oh, I didn't make it that far. Oh, much better. Okay, I'll tune back in. We will be live on Spotify later this afternoon for the Christmas party room, 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 p.m. Eastern. It's just going to be Christmas music. Oh, yeah. We'll work. We'll get our album going there. We can get it going, yeah. Twitter at the F.F. Ballers, thanks for joining us today. We have right or die on the show. Quite a bit of news to talk about the Thursday Night Preview Mailbag. Get you ready for your fantasy playoffs or your big matchup to make the playoffs this week.

Lots going on. Lots of drama in our league, so I know there is drama in yours. Mm-hmm. And it's going to be a good one. We do have an announcement. I need the horn. Where's the button? Where's the horn? Can someone get me a horn? Thank you. Good work, producers. Oh, that was the... There, so many horns. We wanted to... Win. Invite. We want to win, Foot Clan. Invite the Foot Clan to participate. We were privileged to be nominated for a couple of Signal Awards, which is their first annual, I believe, listener vote podcast awards. It's from the people from the Webbies. Yes. So we were nominated for the best commute podcast and best video podcast. When they say best commute podcast, are they just saying like,

It's real long. Maybe. I think it's more of the daily. I take it as the daily routine. Okay. You're going to listen to this every single day. That's way better than me thinking of it. Well, this is a long podcast. Well, it's called a commuter. Best, yeah, best podcast for heavy traffic. I don't know. Footclanvote.com. It's free to participate. You can vote one time per category. If you want to help us out. For email address. If you want to help us out, footclanvote.com, we'd appreciate it. That would be swell. The foot clan is mighty and strong. Yes. I have no doubt that we will stay undefeated foot clan. Come on them. Footclan vote. Footclan vote.com. All right, quick question of the day. With one week left in the regular season, what is the current lay of the land in your main leagues? This is a question that comes from the foot clan.

Are you fighting for a by week, fighting for a playoffs spot, as much details we want to go into. Obviously, we've got some leagues that are, I've been mentioning like Brooks and I fighting it out in our dynasty league where we have the craziest league right now where one division has four members that are nine and four. Yeah, it's insane. And as of right now, all four from the same division are making the playoffs. In that league, I am. outside the playoffs now. I was the first team out. That's the worst place to be. What do you call that? First loser. Yes. Okay. Yes. But not last place. Although I did get the 101 from the trade and that's great. As you say, that's the worst place because you get the worst pick possible.

but you get none of the playoffs. Yeah, no chance at a championship. To transition into our League of Record, which is what I am primed to receive. I have a slim chance if Mike loses and another team loses to sneak into the playoffs. Mike needs to win and he's probably going to be in. I have the by week pretty much locked up in that league. And then in our League of Shadow's League, we are currently sitting first. second and third place in that league. So good job, fellas. Good work, yes. All right. Any, you know, any headlines there? Also, Brooks, you get in your first title? I sure hope so, but not count on it. The Megalibol, the most important league on planet Earth, other than the league of record. I would say I have the by week, but there is no such thing in the Megalibole.

Playoff bound. Remember last year the League of Record was not the most important league to you? Correct. It just as a matter of what league we can win a championship. So like Mike, you and I won a championship in the Dino Jr. And that was the most important league. Yes. League of Records stays the most important league till the moment you are eliminated from the playoffs. Right. What's your most important league, Mike? Currently League of Record. Mine too. Yeah, yeah. Not by much. Not by much. But good luck to everybody out there. I know you're fighting for playoff spots. And hopefully my Christmas wish this week is that if you go out, you go out swinging. You don't go out due to first quarter injuries. You don't go out due to start sit decisions that you catastrophically made. You go out swinging. If someone beats you, they beat you. I mean, what? Not everybody wins a championship. Just one team. Do not go quietly.

Into the night. Yes, as Bill Pullman would say. Former President Bill Pullman. Very famous president philosopher, Bill Pullman. We do not go quietly into the night. Because he wrote that. Yes. Let's do some ride or die. Ride or die. Presented by Chevrolet. Hopping into ride or die last week, it looks as though I got two or three. Jason got one of three. Mike was not here. That is correct. We basically had the tiebreaker on Alvin Camara over under 10 fantasy points. He most certainly did not get 10 fantasy points. And before I hop into the week 14, right-at-eye predictions that Brooks has prepared for us, instead of producing the show like he should be doing, Al is busy figuring out what our Christmas band will be. Oh. Because Brooks can play guitar.

Oh, we're situating the instruments and stuff. I think it's just going to be a bunch of guitars. I don't. I'm on, I'm on bass and horns. Mike's playing electric. Brooks has to go bass. Andy on acoustic. No, no, Jeremy can play. Oh, you're on base? Yeah. Yeah. And our manager, Damon. I'm on acoustic. Oh, that's true. Okay. What's Jason doing? I got vocals, brother. Let's go. Let's go. I was thinking Kazoo. Oh, sure. Well, it's certainly a harmonica at the very least. You know you. The harmonica has not made its way into Christmas songs very often. You actually have to know how to play a harmonica. Yeah, I do. You wail? Whale so hard. Kyle, do you play anything? I played an iPod really well. Oh, you're a DJ. You never did the band thing in high school? I could backup dance if you guys need that. Not front line dancing, which we do need, but the backup dance. We won't have a front dance. Like the what up with that? We need our Jason Siddakis. Okay.

who we all right this is good and we're leaving josh out uh week 14 ride or die predictions brooks what do you have for us all right guys dj more at seattle he was on by last week but in week 12 versus denver he had 18 fantasy points can you get to 10 fantasy points this week no thanks when given the opportunity to bet on dj more meeting a threshold i will bet against yeah It makes 10 fantasy points of a very low threshold. Don't tell that to Mike Evans. Yeah, or Alvin Camara. Yeah. Or DJ Moore. So I am going to choose die here. Sam Darnold gives you a little bit of hope. He had over 100 yards last time we saw him against the Denver Broncos. And the Seattle matchup is not bad, but I would agree with you, Andy. When you have a chance to bet against DJ Moore, you take it. Mike?

I understand the logic and the brain says bet against DJ Moore, but my heart will always be with DJ Moore. And with, like, Sam Darnold and DJ Moore putting up 18 points against the Denver Broncos, having a buy week to maybe solidify some things. I know that Seattle is, they're good at home and they're a strange team. They can be hot and cold. But I will buy, or a ride, I'm sorry. I will ride with DJ Moore hitting that threshold. I think he gets enough volume to get there. Naji Harris takes on Baltimore at home. Brooks set the line at top 24. Bye. Mike is it. Ride. I forget the game. I'll ride. Yeah, this is a really good line because Baltimore's defense has gotten. There's six teams on by. Much better. But that's the issue, right? Ride. That's 100% it. Made before you.

Um, with six teams on by. Didn't do it last week against Atlanta. Didn't do it the week before against Indianapolis. Just throwing that out there. Well, last week, both of those weeks, 25 and 29. So you take six teams away. He did it. I ride. Yes. What do you do? I think there were six teams on by the week before against Indianapolis. But I will, uh, I have to, uh, ride. We forget our own game. I blame you, Mike. Can we change this to, uh, can we change it to top 20? Sounds good to me. Don't do that. That way I can go ahead and die. Yeah, I'm with. I'm with you, Andy. I have him in my rankings as the running back 20. He's in. He is. He is just holding on to the tailgate there. I'm going to ride. Let's go. Let's go. And then Dak Prescott taking on Houston. Houston just announced they're starting Davis Mills.

Which I saw, we saw coming. Is that better or worse for my Dallas? It's worse. It's worse. It's much worse. But not by like. It's much, much worse. They'll only be the number one defense. Yeah, there'll be the number one by a lesser margin. Two passing touchdowns for Dak against Houston. He has two plus and five straight games. The Texans have allowed two passing touchdowns. Get this. Just three. times this year. Allowed. The verbiage there is so unfair. The other teams have chosen to throw two passing touchdowns only three times. And they've needed to throw two passing touchdowns maybe once based on the record. I'm going to die here. I don't think he gets to two. And he easily could, but you are gambling on what the first two touchdowns come from.

The first two or three, and it's just the defense can score. The running game is going to have its way. I think it is just as likely that Ezekiel Elliott has two rushing touchdowns as it is that DAC throws two touchdowns in the game. So I will die as well. Andy, you and I are sympathetic all across the board this week. And I will make sure that I am not completely shut out compared to you guys, so I will also die. It's been a weird. You're hoping that at the goal line they do of fate. It's been a weird year because.

Like the Texas give up points, and they've had a few big games, like the Raiders put up 38 on and the Chargers put up 34. But then you've had like, you know, Titan score 17. Eagles 29, you would have thought maybe they'd put a few more up. Giants 24. You're going to get one defensive, two offensive at least, right? So what are we doing with Dak? I mean, it's bad. Like, I... Because he's good. He has the weapons. Like Citi Lamb has been truly elite this year. And you're fighting for your playoff spot. Do you really bench a good quarterback for a streaming option who might be in a shootout potential? I don't think you can. But I was in this exact boat two weeks ago with Tootung of Iloa. And he went out and put up 20 points. And it was really disappointing from a fantasy team. So, you know, I think the more difficult decision would be if you have DAC,

or Jared Goff. Goff and Cousins. I'll say both in that game. I'm playing the shootout potential there. So you will bench deck for those two players. And I would say, even if you're, what if you're the heavy favorite? Would you just take your quarterback points? Probably. Let me read to you the quarterback points in four point per passing touchdown scored against the Houston Texans going backwards from this last week. Yeah. 6.3 fantasy points. We won't speak about who that is. 14 fantasy points, seven fantasy points, 18 fantasy points, 20. We got to 20. That was Jalen Hertz. Who put up seven? Who put up seven? That would be the Manders. So Taylor Heineke. 13 fantasy points, 12 fantasy points. 21. I'm all the way back to week four right now. And that was Justin Herbert. I was say that had to been Herbert. 6.9. Nice.

12.1 and 16.3. So two times on the season, a fantasy quarterback has scored 20 points. And they've barely gone over. It's 20 on the dot and 21. So there's no upside here to play a quarterback. I think, Dak, if you're in a situation where you're the dominant favorite, okay, go put Dak out there, get your 18, 19, 20 points. He's going to be fine. But if you are in a, I need to win, I'm going up against a tough matchup. I don't know that you're going to get anything special from deck. And honestly, cousins and Goff feel pretty safe right now. Like, Goff isn't missing weapons anymore, right? We have a healthy Almonrae St. Brown. You have Charc out there. Now Jameson. So potentially another one. Swift. DeAndre Swift is healthy. Like.

Golf is safer than you think at this point, and then Kirk Cousins against Detroit's defense with Justin Jefferson should be safe enough for 20. And he added Hawkinson to the offense, which has helped him tremendously, and Hawkinson gets revenge game against Detroit who can't guard tight ends. I love that matchup. Yeah. So I think you are trying, if you need any sort of upside, you've got to make an effort to move. Like that could throw zero touchdowns in this game. That's so brutal. That's a really tough decision. It is. That was right or I presented by Chevy Silverado. Learn more about Chevy Silverado at Chevy.com. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, we got word this morning that Trevor Lawrence, quarterback of the Jacksonville Jaguars, will not practice on Wednesday. Consider day-to-day and he's unsure to play on Sunday. Which, when this came through, I went, what? And then we didn't mention this during an earlier show. Trevor Lawrence went down.

Season-ending injury. And just like in a heap. Was it right before the half or something? It was a bad. Grabbing at his leg, he had the aesthetics of, oh, no. It looked like the knee was done, or maybe he had a high ankle sprain at best. I mean, honestly, I thought that was the end of his season. And then he ended up coming out in the second half. Paul Pierce did. And starting and now has a foot injury. So this isn't actually out of nowhere. And it. needs to be paid attention to when guys have these, these foot and ankle injuries, often they can power through for the remainder of a game, but then swells up like a balloon and starts to really, really hurt. So if Trevor Lawrence is your guy heading forward, you need to have, you need to prepare just in case Lawrence isn't available. It also impacts your view of Christian Kerr, Zake Jones. Yes, it does. C.J. Bethers, the backup just for the record there.

Not the end of the world, but you don't know who he throw, you know, will they run the ball a ton? Right. Lamar Jackson's knee injury was confirmed as a sprained PCL per Adam Schaefter. Matthew Betts, our injury expert, gave us some notes on this. Multi-week injury, two to four weeks most likely. The mobility rushing upside is going to be negatively affected. We're probably not going to see any sort of vintage Lamar rest of the year, which begs the question that I know Brooks said he saw. Don't ask it. All over social media, do you just drop Lamar Jackson? If it's multi-week, two to four weeks is most likely. Like this was an offense that was being discussed before Lamar was even hurt as a problem for your fantasy team because he doesn't have explosive weapons. Like Deshaun Jackson just got called up from the practice squad permanently. DeMarcus Robinson's being talked about way too much on this show. Like, you know, the offense had been struggling.

If you take away his rushing, you're in deep doo-do. I mean, he's been on like 14 passing touchdown pace for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. Yeah, I mean, since that week three explosion and when he basically lost Bateman, his fantasy finishes 13 points, 14, 16, 10, 21, 17, 15, 23. Like, you're, let's say he's fully healthy, like he was for all of those games. He hasn't been something super special. So if you've got to make a move, I think you can. And just do the, just work out the math. Let's say two weeks is what he misses. Okay, so he misses 14, misses 15, playing him in the semis off of this injury when you don't know that he's going to run. Super duper sketchy. But that matchup is Atlanta in week 16. Oh, gosh. So it's going to be extremely tempting. Home. Oh, my gosh. But probably.

put him on your IR spot, hopefully, just in case. Right, but saying it would take some real stones to put him out there in that first matchup. And then you're... Totally agree. And then it's to the point of, okay, I guess if he comes out there and he's perfectly healthy, looks great, then you can play him in championship week. But that's a... At this point when you are penny pinching on your bench of like, this is the time of year that if I have the spot, I'm looking... Two weeks ahead for my defensive stash. If you don't have a locked and load to start it, you need to be playing your matchups right now and getting ahead of people. So that's, hopefully you got the IR spot, but I think if you have a shallow bench, you may have to drop him. There was only one team that placed a claim on quarterback Baker Mayfield. It was the Los Angeles Rams.

And so we will be previewing the Rams Raiders game today. It's not impossible that Baker is available for that game. So ridiculous. If you've watched what, you know, first Bryce Perkins and then John Wolford did, like Baker is probably fine for that. Final sunset ride of the Rams this year. I saw a tweet that was resurfaced. I can't remember which beat reporter was, but it was back from the draft year of Baker Mayfield. And Sean McVay was extremely high on Baker Mayfield. Oh, I thought he was high on something else. Well, I mean, perhaps we all were when we thought that Baker was going to be something special. But so coaches hold on to those feelings of like, I saw this prospect.

I'm a great coach. I can turn that prospect into the player he should have been. So there are those possibilities that McVeigh actually is interested in Baker. Well, what did you say yesterday? Yeah, I say there is, I think, a very strong likelihood that Stafford will be done. That he will, he has his Super Bowl. He has an incredible career. He has more money than he will ever be able to spend in his lifetime because he was still. He was the number one pick back when the CBAs were still broken. So his first contract, he got crazy money as a rookie for never starting a game. I think that Matt Stafford has a really high likelihood of retiring. And either way. So maybe Baker Mayfields, they're trying to start now to look for the future of the quarterback position or they're playing chess of.

We take on Baker-Mayfield salary right now, should he go and sign somewhere next year with any sort of contractual obligations to that team? Compensatory pick comes back to us, and all we have to do is pay him a million dollars or whatever this year. Baker's not a good enough quarterback to be the future of that team, no matter what something does. Yeah, I tend to agree, but these coaches, they think they can shine a turd very often. Let's take a minute to remember what we were supposed to remember. before the season. These quarterbacks, if you just look real quick, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Baker Mayfield, offseason quarterback splashes, mediocre additions, the veteran changing teams. Russell Wilson. The ability to paint the picture with our rose-colored glasses of what can go right. You know, I remember they.

Baker's much better than Donald and PJ Walker. No, I mean, he's not. He's not. He got benched for PJ Walker. Yeah, right. I mean, Matt Ryan is so much better than Carson Wentz. No, no, he wasn't. He got benched for Sam Ellen Gitchardt. Yeah, Carson Wentz is so much better than Taylor Heineke. No, he got benched for Taylor Heineckee. I mean, that's crazy. So let's remember again that very rarely do teams successfully patch that hole through free agency. especially through somebody else's discarded former quarterback. Like the Falcons moved on, right? The Colts moved on from Carson Wins. The Seahawks moved on from Russell Wilson. That one was a little different. But, you know, you just rarely find the Kurt Warner Diamond in the rough, the Carson Palmer free agent that fixes it and is fantasy relevant. Right. Which will.

If Stafford does retire, the Cooper Cup question over the off season is going to be very difficult. You can say, well, he was great with Jared Goff. Yeah, look at Jared Goff in Detroit. He's still a capable quarterback. He wasn't good enough, at least the Rams believe, to win the Super Bowl, but he's good enough for fantasy. When you talk about a team that has no draft assets like the Rams, and if they lose Donald, if they lose. Aaron Donald and Matthew Stafford. I don't think it's outside their own possibility they move on from Cuba Cup because there's only a few options you have to trade for draft assets. So if you do go into some sort of rebuilding mode in a division that's going to have much better quarterback play than your team, it's not impossible that they, because that was rumored even earlier this year is like, what assets do you have to give away? Like you can't trade Aaron Donald if he retires.

I think McVeigh would throw the deuses up at that point, too. Yeah, I would. Go get that bag from Amazon. Yeah, you're right. And that'll be something to monitor this off season. Enjoy your Super Bowl, Los Angeles. Yeah, and they will. And it's, I mean, I wish I had. I wish I had one. I'll mortgage everything for it. Darren Waller on track to come off injured reserve in week 15 against the Patriots. This is hyper-relevant for fantasy going into the playoffs. The tight-in position was led by Noah Fant and 42 yards. Oh, sorry, Tassum Hill. and then Noah Fant this past week. And he's waited an extremely long amount of time to come back from this. Not a guarantee that he'll be productive, but your options are saying, boy, am I going to roll out like Tyler Conklin this week or try it out with Darren Waller? Like, I'm going to go to Waller. So are you stashing Waller? 100%. If he, like, Waller might be on waiver wires. Leagues that don't have the IR spot. I think you should go have a peek. Yeah, you have to. If I don't have Kelsey, Andrews. Hawkinson.