Week 16 Studs & Duds + Stages of Grief, One More Week - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/26

Yeah. Do in a game where, you know, you benched all receivers outside of that single play. I mean, it really was just a running game because the weather was frightful. What a week. James Cook, 11 for 99 and a touchdown. So it wasn't just single Terry. They both ran for basically 100 yards. They both scored a touchdown. They both had some targets, not a lot, but just was a good situation for them. They bring a little something different to the offense, each of them. I think that's why you've seen so little Naim Hines is you're getting the compliment between the two of them. And then Derek Henry, of course, I mean, this is almost disappointing for the way that... Honestly, with the huge touchdown at the very beginning of the game, 40-something, 46, I don't recall. But it was right at the beginning. And then to end with 23 for 1, 26 and 1, it feels a little bit disappointed, but still great game. Yeah, he didn't have 200. He didn't have two, and this was the Houston Texans. They didn't win. They lost. Houston's third straight game of like...

Going out there and competing. Seriously. Brandon Cook's with the big game. Quick break and then we'll get into it. Houston ruined the palindrome. I know. They need to tie this week. Redeem themselves. Wait, how would a tie help? Well, because they would be two. Whatever the number is. Whatever the losses is and then a tie. Two ties. Pretty much makes sense. All right, let's talk about the good at the wide receiver position. Gardner Minchu couldn't slow him down. Devante Smith, 12 targets, 8 for 1, 13, and 2. Big games for Agent Brown and Devonte Smith, despite the loss of Jalen Hertz. Well, you know, the nice thing for the wide receivers, if it is Gardner Minchu, is obviously Gardner Minchew is not.

running for 100 yards on the ground. Those yards, if they need to come, if they can't come through the offense, are going to go to the wide receivers. And Devon Smith's been on fire. He's averaging over 100 yards in a touchdown a game over this last month. And it's currently the wide receiver 10. Phenomenal season. And he was, I mean, he was the guy that looked like Gardner favored. Which, you see this when there's a change of quarterback. Sometimes they just have a certain connection with the way that a certain player plays. And it was Devante Smith this week. 20 targets between AJ Brown and Devante Smith, Smith with 12 of them. CD Lamb and Justin Jefferson, they were studs that delivered in week 16. Justin Jefferson, new record, broke Randy Moss's franchise record for receiving yardage. He is unstoppable. I don't know if you saw his comments before the game.

I did not. Compared himself to basically like Michael Jordan going up against the pistons when the pistons were so physical with him and how he expects it and he expects teams to be physical and it doesn't matter because he's Justin Jefferson. Okay. I love it. He needs 209 more yards to break Calvin Johnson's record. He has two weeks to do it. I expect that will get done. A little cheap. A little cheap for sure because he's got the extra game. Yeah. But yeah. That's just not fair. It is not fair, but it will happen. He will have the record. So, Justin, if you're listening, take the cheapness away. 209 this week. Get it done. Then the haters can't hate. You, you're the record. You're so concerned about the record. This has nothing to do with your beautiful body on my fantasy football team. C.D. Lamb, the wide receiver six on the year. He's delivered in a big way, juicy matchup coming up against Tennessee.

Jalen Waddle, two straight weeks, two big plays in a row, wide receiver seven on the year. He went for 143 and 1, an 80-something yard touchdown, 84-yard touchdown in this one. And he's always one big play away. Say all the while, his quarterback just fully melted down in the second half. I mean, and Tyreek, a big game too. Well, yeah, I mean, because these wide receivers are awesome, that's, that's the justification for Tua is. Any play can be an 80-yard touchdown. And they happen. But when you throw, what do you have, three? Three, three interceptions. That's, that's crazy. Yeah, they, they blew it. They had a big, big lead, right? Yes. Was it 20 to six at one point? I can't recall. But it was, it was a big lead and it was just, I mean, an awful, awful second half. As expected, DJ Moore, nice game. Hey, there he is. Sam Darnold.

was all right. Like he was the stream of the week. It was the disgusting. Don't look at it stream of the week, but he had what two touchdown passes? And I think he had at least two. I don't have him pulled up. Oh, he had a rushing touchdown. That's what it is. And I believe that if the Panthers win out, they will be hosting a playoff game. Look, I hope it happens. Probably the Dallas Cowboys. I genuinely think they're a better football team. than the Buccaneers. Yes. They don't have the better quarterback. But I think they're the better football team. And if you want proof, this is not the first time that we've seen them impose their will in the running game against the defense that's pretty good. Like they did this to Seattle, and Seattle's not as good of a defense as they faced against the run as the lions are. But it was about like, you remember the Seattle game where they just ran it and then they ran it and then they ran it and nobody could stop them and then they'd run it some more.

It's actually to the point of impressive to me where their offensive line is moving people wherever they want to move them and saying, yeah, we're going to win the game. It's a very high tea game. They're playing, hey, we're going to run the ball. That's our play call. You try to stop us. It's just so funny that they got rid of their running back to do it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's so much better without Christian McCaffrey. And I only mean that in wins and losses, which is crazy, it might also have something to do with getting rid of Matt Ja Rule. Yeah. Steve Welch is a good coach. He got a Roddy on Arizona. Now, this next week is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are hosting the Carolina Panthers. So that will be a really interesting, big, important game.

Let me tell you how it's going to happen. I'm going to tell you the game right now. Okay, let's hear it. The game is going to go like this. It's going to be two bad offenses, two good defenses, low scoring. The Carolina Panthers are going to be the better team. They will be the team that is about to win the game until the very, very end when some lucky turnover gets the ball in Tom Brady's hands. With only 20 yards on the drive. Exactly. He comes back. He wins the game. Tampa Bay is hosting a playoff game that they will be exiting from quickly. It's wild. It's wild. T. Higgins, big game, eight for one, 28 and one. Of course. And then, look, we, we talked about it. He was in my draft king's lineup. Jehan Dodson, nine target, six for 76 and one. Superior talent wins out. He is good. And he's a real, and he had a couple of plays he left on the field. And he was, he's still had a big game.

Yeah, he's a really, really solid wide receiver. If people aren't paying attention at the end of the year and you're in Dynasty or Keeper League's Dotson is, he's got a very bright future ahead of him. Also, if they have a quarterback, that'd be good. Yeah, I mean, they don't have a quarterback now and he's getting it done. So, you know, hopefully Arrow can only go up. But we've said that forever with DJ Moore. And if franchises have shown us something, it's not easy to get a quarterback, no matter how many you bring in. Also, you skipped Jacobi Myers, had a great game. Great game six for 83 and one. If you played Jacobi Myers, oh, brother, did you get bailed out? Yeah. I mean, he got a bomb touchdown that basically is this entire stat line, except it wasn't him. It wasn't thrown to him. No, it was not thrown to him.

bounced up in the air and then he came down with the touchdown. It was just like who got the, oh, Traylon Berks's touchdown after the Derek Henry run. It was not his play, but he certainly got all of the stats for it. T.J. Hawkinson, George Kittal. Hawkinson was 16 targets, 13 for 10, or sorry, 13 for 109 and 2. He was this week's KJ. Osborne, which is why we said don't buy the KJ. Osborne. hype but hawkinson monster performance george kittle as well two touchdowns kiddle looks vintage right now soaking up the like he looks like kelsey in the middle of the field right yeah it's really funny that there's no problem with george kittle there's there's been none he hasn't lost anything he didn't when he was sucking it was just a matter of we don't need him

That's all, this offense. Which is so weird. Well, but they didn't. I mean, they were still winning games. Debo Samuel was getting it done. Brandon Iuke was getting it done. That's one of the, one of the issues with this offense is just. You have an elite, you have an elite tight end who can do these things. There's very few tight ends in the league that can put up that stat line on eight targets. One of them is Tyler Higby. Sure, fair enough. But like, I get, oh, we don't need it. It's, it's so bizarre to have. Your game plan not feature George Kittle. So strange. Yeah, Higby, nobody played him. Well. Except for that one guy. That one guy. I mean, this was just not a predictable week of any kind. Playing Tyler Higby with Baker-Mayfield against Denver was not a thing logic said to do. Tyler Higby exists only to hurt our listeners. Our listeners would never have played Tyler Higby.

and would only have accidentally gone up against Tyler Higbee. And so I apologize to our audience for what Higby did to you. I saw a listener. And this just gives you just incredible credit for just going with your gut. I don't know how you did it. I don't know what book you read that gave you the courage. But I saw somebody that bench Ramandre Stevenson. Okay. To play Deonté Foreman. Wow. And. Stevenson, you had Damien Harris ruled out against Stevenson coming off career high in rushing yardage. Deont deformed coming off a one point game going against the number one rushing defense and football. And that's an incredible call. And I wish you would have texted me why you did it beforehand. But this is, you know, we're trying to give you information and you got to go with what you think your team needs. Tyler Higbee had eight receptions in the previous four weeks combined. He's averaging.

Two catches a game goes up against Denver. Well, this was the, what they lost, Ben Skronick. They had already lost Alan Robinson. They'd already lost Cooper Cup. We're finally out of options enough to get Higby the ball. I guess. Evan Ingram, of course. Yeah, baby. On Thursday night, Travis Kelsey, another boring 113. Another super disappointing Travis Kelsey game. We've got them in the Dino Jr. league. And it's just like six for one 13. Come on, Kelsey. Where's your touchdowns? And part of my defeat came at the hands of Taseom Hill, nine for 56 and one on the ground. Oh, yeah. I mean, starting tight end. Zero targets. I was, uh,

My opponent had Taysam Hill, took him out of his lineup. I was thrilled. I did not want to face Taysam Hill. I just thought this was inevitable. This game had, it was running, running, running, and I ended up facing three players from a running game. It was too much to overcome. Dawson Knox got back in the end zone and Pat Fryer Mew, 7 for 66, got it done enough in PPR to make you happy. Well, I mean, he was dealing with a foot issue. And, you know, we saw this. He was limited in practice two weeks ago. This last week brought it up on the show. Full participant all week in practice. Yeah. Wasn't listed with the foot issue at all on the injury report. So it was nice to see him back up. And his buddy Kenny Pickett was back. Yeah. Yeah. That was incredibly the studs of the week. Presented by Madewell. Don't wait to upgrade your denim game. Go to madewell.com today and get $20 out for your next pair of jeans. Use the code.

Footballers 20. Let me use some of that Christmas money. Yeah, go have some dental. I had a question for you guys. Yeah. Just real quick. T.J. Hawkinson, since he has been traded to the Minnesota Vikings, he is averaging nine targets a game. Now, I mean, there's some, there's, of course, a couple duds in there, but where, like, in your, just in your head, you know, trying to think towards next year, because we're always looking at next year, is Hawkinson? feeling like the like the tight in three probably the tight in four but maybe would you put it he's not the four for me either well i think he maybe i don't know how he would fall below that but i mean you got who are you talking you've got that's probably fair you've got kelsey and you've got andrews i know andrews has obviously had a bad time but lamar's been gone he's been banged up so those two will be one and two then you've got george kittle if he continues this this hot streak that

could be there. Goddard, Goddard would be in strong contention over Hawkinson. Okay. Waller will be talked about again. Oh, I would not do that. Oh, I can't wait to hear Kyle Pitts and the reasons he's going to be, he should be the tight end three. But the reality is, those will be there if they end up drafting a top tier quarterback or something, trading up and getting one. The, uh, you know, but Adam Thielen is on his way out. Bringing T. J. Hawkinson into this offense, he'll, I think four is fair. Five's fair. Three is fair. So somewhere in that range. Three, four, five, I think is his range. Okay. Shall we move on? Yes. Poopped in his big boy pants. I feel like we've spent enough time talking about the negative performances. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to blitz these at each position. You guys just pull out a couple names that you think are significant to talk about heading into championship week.

Let's not focus on the past. Let's focus on the future. You did have bad games from Justin Fields. Aaron Rogers, same old Aaron Rogers right now. One touchdown. Gino Smith didn't have enough weapons. Tom Brady is, and then Russ, Derek Carr, Tua. Tua was 310 and 1, but three picks. Yeah, two is the one that I think is probably the most important because he's. Got the weapons. He's a good starter. He was on fire for a part of this year. And I think you've got to stay with this trend and not look his way. He's playing against New England in New England. And, you know, we've got five games in a row of mediocrity. Yeah, since the by week, he is averaging 14.2 fantasy points a game. By the way, New England. No top 12 finishes. It's worth saying New England is super cursed right now. Like super cursed.

Like these games are wild. Like Romandre is responsible in part for two defeats, but they missed two field goals or sorry, two extra points in this game. They're down four going at the five yard line. If they make one of those, if they make two of those, they're just playing for a field goal. They're losing the game at the end of every week. They're just cursed. Yeah, I mean, I think the list of the dud quarterbacks this week, is a list of quarterbacks that you cannot start next week. Tua, Rogers, Gino against the Jets. Brady sucks. Russell Wilson, don't do it. I don't care of the Kansas City matchup. The only quarterback that you want to play next week is Justin Fields. We've got to make sure he's not too banged up. I know he got a few injuries in that game, but going to the controlled environment in Detroit, where Detroit's offense is going to play great. Just Fields will be awesome.

The injuries do need to be monitored for Justin Fields. He was talking like he could barely put weight on a foot and things. Like he's really banged up. The fact you said a list of injuries. Yeah. And that's happening every week. Running backs, there were some huge letdowns. Ramondre Stevenson, 13 for 30, two catches for three yards and a fumble. Gone are the days where Stevenson was hyper-targeted in the passing game for some reason. What happened there? And Brooks, I mean, what happened to your guy, Josh Jacobs? 15 for 44. Yeah, Brooks, your guy. Letting everybody down. Come on, Josh. All I know is I hope it happens one more week. Well, San Francisco is going to make it easier for that to happen. Aaron Jones banged up. Six for 25. Terrible game. DeAndre Swift. What are they doing? Four for 12 on the ground. One for 13 through the air. Putrid. Getting those snaps, though.

Putrid bust. Literally, he gives me, I don't know, anything else and I'm doing fine in DFS. Let's see. I'm looking through the stat sheet here. I think, yeah, it looks like his highest snapshot since week one. This past week? Yeah. Yeah, well, Jamal Williams is hurt. So him against Chicago next week is going to be a topic of conversation heading into the weekend. So I can tell you exactly what I'm going to do. You're going to play him. I'm 100% going to play him. Yeah. He's going to have a good fantasy game. Yeah. If you got there with Swift, which he probably didn't. He will not. He will not. Did Mike just say he will not? Miles Sanders, 21 for 65, but, you know, didn't score. Didn't catch any passes. That's a bad week. Had the game, just game losing fumble.

J.K. Dobbins, 12 for 59, no end zone, no targets. Disappointing. They went essentially 50-50 with Dobbins because I think Gus Edwards was like 11 for 100 or something. This was crazy disappointing that he didn't get in the end zone, that Gus was doubling essentially his yards per carry. Just really, really upsetting in that matchup. Cordero Patterson, 8 for 17, did nothing. Yeah, but it's like, Because on the other side, you know, he wasn't in the studs list at all. But, dude, Tyler Algier has been playing very, I'm trying to pull up his numbers really quick. I was good with them this week. I was good playing him against Baltimore. Yeah, I felt like they're just so committed to the run and he's playing so well. He had the ball on his hands all game long. Yeah, I mean, he is on the season. He's at 4.9. They're very, very Carolina-esque where they're willing to.

these middling running backs look great in these offense, in the office, 18 for 74. Just saying like on the, like it's, I feel like that the Atlanta Falcons team is kind of overshadowing what Algeria is doing here at the end of the season. Yeah, you talk about some scary potential starts for week 17. I don't know how you do it, but Zonovan Knight, six for negative two. And then Rahim Mostert, Mostert had the first three carries of the game, went for 33 yards, ended the game. 8 for 45 had a fumble. The goal line carry went to Jeff Wilson in this game. More work went to Jeff Wilson. We were back to this. And he's going to be almost a non-start in New England. Like just a terrifying, you need basically a monster run from Rahim Moster. It's a lot like old school C.J. Spiller where if you don't get the one run, you don't get any fun.

It's a disaster. It reminds me so much of, and it's so ironic, the San Francisco 49ers with these running backs. Like last year, when they had McDaniel and Rahim Moster and Jeff Wilson, there is, there's gold in them hills in the running game. But as a fantasy manager, trying to figure out which guy it's going to be and why and who gets the work, it's so frustrating where if you draft, you know, team rushing attack. If that's how your league works, great. The dolphins are great. They're going to score a lot of points on the ground, but you just can't really predict how it's going to, you know, what method, what running back is going to get the opportunities. Latavius Murray is going to be a nervous start next week too. If you take a chance on him against Kansas City, the floor fell out. Wide receiver, Duds, Devante Adams, two for 15. Stefan Diggs, two for 26. DeAndre Hopkins, one for 40. Those are three of the most.

Sorry, what did I say? One for 40. I wish. Yeah, if you got one for 40, you'd be pretty happy. I mean, and you're talking about nine targets for Adams and 10 for Hopkins. Three bona fide locks at the position that you start no matter what that disintegrated your week. Yeah, I mean, at least with Diggs, there was some excuse. Obviously, Hopkins has a quarterback excuse. The weather excuse. We knew that it's going to be very difficult to have any kind of deep passing. um and you know they they ran the ball so much in buffalo devante adams is the one that man to to have nine targets and not have the weather be such that it should have affected it's cold but i mean friarmouth got it done picket got it done you know these guys uh hide your photographers right yeah he's going to be very very uh displeased not like we have to i mean he's got like a uh mount rushmore

engraving in this section this year. But Mike Evans 3 for 29, I mean, multiple interceptions thrown to Mike Evans, like by the same cornerback. They are going to have to cut these pants off. There's no way that he can take them off at this point in this season. The jaws of life will be necessary to get these pants are so full of poop. I got you. I was trying to figure out whether these were. The big boy pants or what? No, there's just so full the pressure and the band at the top, you can't get it off. You can't stretch it because it's too stretched. You don't think that thing could explode against Carolina for a big game? No, I mean. All over Carolina? No.

All I know is you, you hit that thing with like a needle. You just do a little pinprick on those pants. You better be wearing a, like a hazmat suit. Well, we had the Juju Smith Schuster game. Three for 27. Oh, hum. No performances as disappointing as the weather game. Kirk Jones, Wilson, Davis more on Thursday night. Trailerberg's just two targets. Wow. Don't mean, don't do it. Yep. Malik Willis don't play his. Pass catchers. And DeAndi Johnson is accomplishing something that I am very impressed with, which is... Extremely. Which is to be out there every single week, no matter what. Get five, six, seven targets and always be around five for 60 with no touchdown. Five, six, seven targets, you say. He is averaging eight point seven targets a game. This dude is getting elite target numbers. He's already at 130 targets on the season. You wouldn't know it at all.

Yeah, because DeAndre Hopkins wrote a book and it's called Not All Targets Are the Same and it was co-authored by Trace McSorley and it sold no copies. I mean, he's still catching passes too. He's got 82 receptions. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But he's doing the Pittman. Yeah, he doesn't have no touchdowns on the season. Who's got the lowest yard, lower yards per catch Pittman or Deontay Johnson? It's got to be Pittman. I bet it's close. But Deontes at 9.9. But check this out. Oh, okay. Never mind. It's Pittman. Oh, yeah. I would think a lot. But the, his catch percentage is identical to last year. So, like, he's catching targets. I feel like he's, same clip. Yeah. But you're not, no sustained drives, no touchdowns, no wins. No Big Ben. He misses him. And then, hey, guys.

I've got to stop starting Baltimore tight-ins of my DFS because I have lost two DFS showdowns on drop touchdowns. Isaiah likely dropped a touchdown in this one would have helped. And then Mark Andrews, three for 45. He's ending his season. in a very, very painful way for fantasy managers. I mean, this is 2.7 fantasy points, irrelevant. 4.6 fantasy points, six fantasy points, complete irrelevance. If you don't have Lamar Jackson, it's, I mean, it's so bad. Amazingly, still tight in four on the season. And that is with an eight game stretch with, he would be on pace for 50 for 600 and zero. Not good. Feels bad.

No Lamar, no Mark? I mean, is that, what are we prescribing for weeks out? You, Lamar Jackson could be back this week. What if he's not? Is Mark Andrews, are you looking for a better option? Are you just going to ride this right into the sun? Like, it's hard because there aren't, I mean, the reality is there aren't better tight ends on the waiver wire. Right. You know, look at it. I think in Joku would be an example of one that you could, you could look at with. Last week was weather. Do you disagree? No, I mean, you can absolutely look that direction, but I mean, Deshaun Watson's not inspiring me either. As absurd and disgusting as it is, you know, Tyler Higby. Say it. Say it. Tyler Higby, as you just said, now with Baker, with no Ben Scronic, he's like the last man up. You know he's going to have.

Or you think based on what we saw this last week. He gets to play the Chargers and the other receiving options that there aren't any. He's probably going to have five receptions. I'd consider it. Oh, gross. I don't know if I could do it. Yeah, but Gross is winning right now. Yeah. Well, this week. Yeah. But I mean, that's the name of the game. I mean, I was pretty darn close to Isaiah Hodgins over here most at this week in Dynasty. And had I had the courage. to make the gross play of a name that's not familiar in out there who had a big week. I mean, Isaiah Hodgins, he didn't show up in the studs, he should have. I mean, Isaiah Hodgins is progressively being more and more involved, had the touchdown, more targets than Slayton, more involvement than Slayton, safer targets than Slayton, right? The ones that Hodgins is catching are ones that are, you know, higher probability catches. Like, Slayton can pop off for a couple big touchdowns, but if he does not do that,