MEGALODON Episode – Week 12 Matchups, Turkey Day Awards, Starts, & TONS More! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 11/25

Three games with Andy Dalton. Amari Cooper has been viable. Seven for 79 in a touchdown. Seven for 80, six for 81. Yep. You play. And I think you could play C.D. Lamb. We saw the snaps go back up for him. I mean, it was a great matchup against Minnesota. But six targets, seven targets the previous game against Pittsburgh. I think that C.Lame is in play as a, like a wide receiver three.

I thought I would be more enthusiastic about Lamb. I was looking at the prop bet for his yardage totals, and I wasn't confident enough. He's not, he's got to score. I think that's what's got to happen. He has not been putting up big yardage numbers for a little while, but he certainly is a great player. He's probably the best wide receiver. Yeah, I think he is, and he'll take that, you know, roll at some point in the future, but I don't think it will be this week. I have a hard time trusting.

this Dallas offense, the receivers, Washington has just been so good against wide receivers. And if Dalton is getting pressure, if this defensive line is really trashing the Cowboys, I mean, you know, I think this could be one of those games where nobody comes through. That being said, I'm probably still starting Cooper because the...

known volume of targets. And if you're in any kind of PPR league, even if he ends up with 60 yards, he could have a fine game. But I'll probably look elsewhere. Dalton Schultz, Logan Thomas. Does Dalton Schultz in play, Jason? Nope. Dalton Schultz or Logan Thomas, pick one. Nope. Look, Kyle, our editor, has a perfect comment in here. These tight ends are basically the same. They run a ton of routes.

and you're just hoping they catch a touchdown. If I had to say who's going to catch a touchdown, I guess in this game I would pick Dalton Schultz. Yeah, he's in play. I'll give you a dollar if we don't have to talk about this game anymore. I accept that dollar. All right. In the game that we hope happens on Thanksgiving Day, the Baltimore Ravens at 6 and 4 take on the Pittsburgh Steelers sitting at 10 and 0. Steelers are 5 point home favorites. It's a 45 point over under.

Pittsburgh absolutely on fire this year. And look, they're favored. It's a 45 point overrunner that gives Baltimore 20 points. It's been a small pie for Baltimore in this offense. They could be without several players in this game. We know they're going to be without two of the running backs, the one that was best last week, J.K. Dobbins and Mark Ingram will be out of this game. They have a number of other COVID positives. This game could be moved.

But as of right now, it's still Thursday. I just think Baltimore has a lot of challenges in this game to give you fantasy production. That being said, I think Gus Edwards will be the most added player this week in fantasy football on the way of wire. And he's going to have a lot of volume. And Mike, you brought up on the show yesterday, the fact Pittsburgh.

When these two teams played earlier, when Pittsburgh won 28, 24, it was competitive. It was week eight. And there was a lot of rushing yards on the ground. So Gus, you know, he's a player you'd play over McKissick, over Duke, over those guys. Yeah, because the volume will be there. The volume would be there. They can run. I get it. Pittsburgh is a very scary defense. They're a very scary defense against running backs in particular. But goal line work plus volume means Gus Edwards will be running back too.

Yeah, I think that Gus will have a fine game. He's not involved in the passing game. So that gets a little bit scary. None of them are. That's true because Lamar doesn't really throw to the running back. In fact, Lamar doesn't throw to anybody outside of Mark Andrews. And I am benching Lamar Jackson this week. It's the first time, you know, in a year and a half that I've been able to say that.

and mean it where if I had him, I would be picking up a waiver option and playing them over him. I would play several waiver options. I would play Derek Carr. Absolutely. I would play Tayson Hill. I would play a lot of those type of players. Look, last year... You got to stay water. You can't just be living off of last year's laurels. In 2019, Lamar Jackson had four...

quarterback one weeks that's tied for the most ever. This year he only has four and none inside the top three. But if you look even last year, he was bad against Pittsburgh. This year, we've already seen a game. He had multiple interceptions and did not have a good fantasy day against Pittsburgh. There's just better options out there. I think Pittsburgh's going to get home and get to Lamar Jackson, and I don't think it's going to go well.

Yeah, there'll be turnovers. I mean, that's something you have to factor into this stateline. Lamar will probably have two or three turnovers that could negatively impact his fantasy score. I'm with you on that. You might not have a better option, but there's a lot of players that have better matchups this week. Big Ben, though, against Baltimore. Baltimore could be a little depleted. We don't know. 25 implied points. He's been on fire, averaging 45 pass attempts per game over the last three weeks.

Really seen nothing out of James Connor that makes you believe they can lean on him to move the offense. And he's got elite pass catching options in Deontay Johnson, Chase Claypool, Juju, who was limited, but they think he'll be back out there. Eric Ebron running a lot of routes. I think Big Ben is okay. Yeah, I would play Big Ben. But what about these two guys heads up? Yeah. Mike, what about you? I had to make the decision in our league of record. I had Big Ben.

As my backup in Lamar Jackson, I had recently traded for him. I chose to let Big Ben go to the Waver Wire, so I'm playing Lamar over Ben. And how much is your fab claim today for Big Ben? No claim. Okay. No claim, man. Yeah, I think he's fine. James Connor can't move the ball. And really, this is a worrisome week for James Connor because it's a short week. I could see them giving...

more carries to Benny Snell and Anthony McFarland. So I'm a little worried about Connor. Yeah. Yeah, there's been some comments from their offensive coordinator believing Benny Snell deserves more carries. We've seen McFarland show up, like you said. Hollywood, no. No. Other past catching options that aren't named Mark Andrews, no. No. No. Deontay Johnson Chase Claypool, the matchup on paper. I mean, the Ravens are good.

Six against opposing fantasy wide receivers. You're playing both guys. Yeah, absolutely. There's no chance that I'm benching those. Just the right game to just move to a different option from Juju, dealing with the ankle. I would because of the injury. Yeah. And the matchup. Yeah, but I'm saying if if Juju were perfectly healthy, I think you could still play him as a higher end wide receiver three. Hope that he's the one that comes down with the touchdown. But the combination of the things I would be out.

Just to highlight the Lamar decision for fantasy players, 12.2. That is the total amount of fantasy points given up per game by the Pittsburgh Steelers. That is not good. Now I will say this. What do you put the percentage odds now that, you know, I've made the firm declaration that I'm benching Lamar Jackson. What do you put the odds that he scorches the earth and is the quarterback one now? Still very low. Okay. Very low. If you look back at not just the average that Pittsburgh is allowed.

They have given up one performance of top 15 fantasy points to a quarterback. Yeah, and Baltimore can't catch up. I mean, they're averaging, what, 180-something yards per game? They cannot come back in game. So if Pittsburgh gets out to a lead, which is likely in this one at home, it's troubling. I feel like when I'm watching Lamar, he... Which you've been doing a lot of lately. He is not getting it done.

in the rushing game. Like the thing that separates Lamar Jackson, his X factor that unlocks his passing is his ability to run. And he's still trying, but he's getting, you know, these three yards. Maybe he'll break off one decent size run. But he's not, he is not hitting with any regularity of big chunk runs. Like where if you look at the success that Kyler is having multiple times a game.

There will be a chunk play where Kyle will pick it up. I don't know if he's on pace for 920 rushing yards. Last season he had 1,200. That's a big change. Right. I still was a little surprised it was 920 because you would have thought that baseline of games, those fantasy finishes would be higher than all of these middling teen fantasy finishes. One thing you have to keep in mind is how incredibly inefficient he is at passing the football. Yeah, I need to keep that in mind. Also, the 1,200 yards that he had last year was in.

15 games because his actual pace would be almost 1,300 yards. Okay. Pretty big difference per game passing and rushing. Yeah. Okay. We're going to break here because we've got a ton of matchups to get into and those were the Thursday Thanksgiving game. So we're going to give you our starts of the week first. And reminder, it's Thursday.

Take the players out of your flex, put them in your running back, your wide receiver. This one is really important because there are multiple games. So important. And keep it in mind to make pivots to that if that Baltimore and Pittsburgh game gets moved for some reason. Because I've got Deontay Johnson in a couple of places and you need them in a flex so that way if that game gets canceled or something, you've got a little bit more opportunity to put somebody else into that spot. Let's do starts. Starts of the week.

All right, why don't I kick it off today? Why don't you? All right. Well, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it with the quarterback that was mentioned earlier this week. Yes. Derek. Send in the car. Derek Carr is playing some good football. Yes. And I like both quarterbacks in this matchup. Jason is smirking. I'm not exactly sure why. I just love you. You're the one in charge of pushing the button, but it seemed like you cut yourself off with the sound drop.

Oh. It made me giggle. Oh, I like the part where we all write our starts of the week in the dock. And, you know, so we have our notes. We can sound intelligent. And Andy has written down Derek Carr versus Las Vegas. Yeah, yeah, but I wasn't going to say that. That's the difference, Mike. He is playing Atlanta. That is true. And Atlanta, though, is playing who? Las Vegas. Yeah, you're darn right. That's right. That's 100% right. See, oh, I turned that around.

Derek Carr, this game's great. It's got a high over-under. It's 55 and a half points. Atlanta is their dead last against the posing fantasy quarterbacks, which is a great place to be for Derek Carr coming off the close loss. You saw that face he made on the sideline. That face said I'm going to score a lot of fantasy points for Andy as the start of the week. Or pick up my new release for my emo band. That could have been what he said. Why not both? That could be both, yeah.

Derek Carr always looks like he's got the eyeliner, the raccoon eyes. He does. Very interesting. I think he, I mean, he has to put something on. I don't know. Is that natural? Is this another Al Borland Beard situation? Does he die? Do you think it's natural? All right. I'm going to go with my quarterback because it's right across the field. He is playing Las Vegas. It's Matt Ryan who just had a putrid game. Now, we have a rule.

Matt Ryan without Julio. It's a Rulio. It's a Rulio 11. Matt Ryan without Rulio 11. You don't start. Okay, you're going to pivot. But.

The reality is, last week, he finished the game with this hamstring issue. He's had it all year. He's been playing. And I, Julio takes care of his body. He's doing the right things. I think he will be fine. I expect him to play. This is a matchup where you want pieces because you've got two defenses. They're giving up a lot of points and two offenses that when healthy are looking good. Matt Ryan still ranks third in NFL passing yards right now. And Vegas is allowing the fifth most.

passing yards. And I know you're worried because last week, you know, he stunk and he had Julio for a chunk. But keep in mind, that was the Saints. The Saints are playing unbelievable defense right now. You know, they're the team that just destroyed Tom Brady for three interceptions and, you know, nothing. Like he had one fantasy point. And then remember, the week after that, Tom Brady went out and was the quarterback won. So don't be fooled by a bad performance against the Saints. I think Matt Ryan is a is a good play in this game.

All right, my start of the week at the quarterback position is Booty Scoot and Cam Newton, taking on the Arizona Cardinals. Oh, yeah. I wasn't even ready for the button. Thank you, Al. Just because I didn't imagine you'd make them a start of the week. I'm in on Cam Newton this week. It is the seventh best matchups for fantasy quarterbacks, and that is actually very generous. If you pull up our streamfinder tool on the Fantasyfootbars.com, you can see who they've played, what they have allowed.