MEGALODON Episode - Week 12 Matchups, Turkey Day Awards & TONS More! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 11/23

Or maybe I need to bail out on this, but then factoring the passing attempts, the power of the office. There's so much to factor into to win a wide receiver is actually good. Yeah, and we do have a targets per route run article every single week by AJ Passman. This week he looked at some rookie wide receivers. You can find sneaky wide receiver plays by looking at targets per route run. Agreed. All right, you can get up to 100% danderth protection that is never not working with head and shoulder scalp shield technology available at walmart.com. Use it every time you shampoo and see the difference. All right, let's take a quick break. No, Jason. Hold that turkey for just a minute. It's so valuable to the show sometimes. What I'm here for. Quick break and then we're back with some awards. You can gobble now.

All right. What was that? That was the end. Oh, I was going to say that might have been the end of the turkey. Let's do it. We went to the extra effort of, was that our voice audio artist recording the? Yes. Yeah, I did do it. Yeah, Jason. All right, we are going to preview the Turkey Day games. But first, as we do every year. We're going to play a little game here with Thanksgiving Day. And I guess, Brooks, who decided the winners of these awards? The Ducers. Okay, the Ducers. Oh, you guys all came together on this one. And so the first award, we have to guess these. Okay, they've determined a winner. We have to try to guess it. The first award goes to what is being titled Tiffany's mashed potatoes. That is Jason's wife. This is a rich, buttery glob of mashed potatoes. It's what everyone needs to add body to their plate. It's as dependable as they get. And we all know.

Butter makes everything better. So we're looking at dependability here. Now, I think I'll be wrong, but I'm going to go with my guess of Derek Henry. I think Derek Henry is dependable. Yeah, that's exactly where, you know, it's funny last year, Cooper Cup won, but I see because this is my wife's match for Taylor. This is the, you know what I mean? Like Stefan Diggs is, uh, Great, but, like, I just don't feel like he's buttery mashed potatoes. You know what I'm saying? Oh. So, like, that was where I went. Derek Henry. Okay, so we both got St. Henry? Yeah. I'm going Travis Kelsey. Oh, that's buttery. I feel like Henry's had some games that weren't Derek Henry. But I could be remembering that. It's been pretty good. The first two weeks were a little down. Okay. Okay. Okay. So what's the answer, Brooksie?

The winner is Nicholas Chubb. Oh. Yeah, that boy thick. I like it. I like it. I like the respect for Nicholas Chubb, it needs to be happening. Uh, hashtag fixgiving. Oh, all right. Look. I mean, let's put it in contention here. It could be. That's, uh, if you want something to trend. Two sees, my friends. We don't know yet. You got to. It could be that. It could be that. How do you spell that, Brooks? I think we know how to spell that. Yeah, it's two C's. Yeah, T-H-I-C-C, giving. I would do. I'd do a quick search of that. Just make sure that's safe for work. That's in contention. All right, the second award, the burned dinner rolls.

Gosh, you put so much time and effort into preparing the meal, but unexpectedly, the rolls got burned. Sometimes you just have to scrape the carbon shavings off or throw it away in sadness. Last year's winner was Alan Robinson. Oh, no. I'm afraid this year's winner, this might be Alan Robinson. Oh, man, he is a really good candidate. What's amazing is I think he's been what you'd say considerably better this year than last year. So on the scale of Alan Robinson, these are maybe edible rolls where last year. They were unedible. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I guess I'm looking at this as someone that's just been a complete, awful throwaway. You got to put them in the garbage. And that to me is Kyle Pitts. Oh. Yeah. I'm tagging in. I'm tagging in with car. All right. What's the answer? What do we got? Oh, God. So obvious. Yeah, we're really failing. Wow.

Russell Wilson is the burned dinner roll. Of course he is. Let's ride. I guess that's fair. Kyle Pitts had like two good weeks. Sure. That's more than Russ. He looks good while he fails. That's just for the record. Sweet potato casserole award. This is the heavy hardy. Russell Wilson. And delicious. for those first few bites. But you can only have so much before it makes you vomit all over the floor and that's completely ruined Thanksgiving and your family calls you a no good has been. Last year's winner was DJ Moore. So you've got a few bites from this player is the point. You've got a few bites and the rest is disaster. Jason. This one's really easy to me because there was a player that started this season and you thought, oh my gosh, he's unbelievable. And then it turns out he's sweet potatoes. That's James Robinson.

You thought you had a star and you had absolute garbage. Oh, well, then I'm going with Clyde Edwards Alleyer. Oh, that's a good one. That's even better. It went from easy to incontention. Yeah, that's, I'm switching. Oh, no, no, you're stuck on James Robinson. Sorry. Okay. Mike, do you have a contender? That's the right. Oh, it's true. But he's getting back. He's getting back. I don't know. I don't know. Brooks, we got three guesses here. Are any of them right? We were choosing between James Robinson and Clyde Edwards O'Air. Okay. All right. And who's your pick? Michael Pittman's so good. Went with James Robinson. Oh, see, yeah. You said I was stuck. I won. The Mike Wright Special Award, which is, of course, Mike's Jack in the Box Thanksgiving Day tradition. Delicious. That is that random dish somebody brought because, well, they're convinced Thanksgiving food is trash and outdated. How dare you call? Curlily's random.

They'd go in random directions, but they're great. Yeah, time to stop with the old way of thinking. Open your eyes. Realize this could be the best thing ever. This was Cordero Patterson last year. It's a great pick. So what's the random dish this year that you put it on the table? And then you realize, you know what? That belongs here. I have a couple names that come to mind here. Let's hear them. Jamal Williams. Oh, yeah. Okay. Jamal Williams. I mean, Christian Kirk wasn't super random because he was somebody that we really liked the opportunity. But I'm going to, but just for where Kirk was drafted to what he has become, I'm going to go to Jamal Williams. Okay, Jason. Do you have a good guess? This one's a tough one. This one is tough. I'm looking at some charts here to help stir my brain up. And the first player that jumps out to me started off bad, but has been a revelation.

Oh, yeah. It's Justin Fields. Okay. I'm for that. And I'll throw out Tony Pollard. This is supposed to be a backup running back who's a top 10 running back. No one brought him to Thanksgiving. They should have, but they didn't. Tony Pollard has his people. All right. Good answers. Good answers. Brooks. Who do we have as the Mike Wright special Jack in the box winner? We went with Justin Fields. Justin Fields. We should. This is the Mike Wright special. I mean, like the. I should have guessed Justin Fields. It's, that's, it's on me. Yeah. It's on, I take full blame and credit for the incredible answer. And then we have the Thanksgiving Day meat. Did this change? Was this the turkey before? It was. This is because you guys have been talking up the ham. Showstopper. Ham does its own talking, my friend. MVP. MVP of Thanksgiving Day last year was Jonathan Taylor. This year we have a two. It's not Jonathan Taylor. We have a two player tie this year. Yeah. Ooh.

Okay. See, I still think. I know one of them. Yeah, one has got to be Travis Kelsey. 100%. It's Kelsey. Is it Kelsey and Echler or is it Kelsey and Henry? I'm going to Echler. I think it could be Kelsey Echler. I'm going to Echler. Yeah. I mean, I have a hard time taking Chubb out because of the ham. I think it might be Jefferson. Yeah. Can you know? Oh, no. Jefferson's had some, some bad. Diggs. I know Echler started bad, but he's been. All right. So what's the answer here, Bruxie? Who won? It is Travis Kelsey and Austin Eckler. Yeah, baby. We're awesome. Your meat is in the mail. Your meat. I did after we had, where did we talk about the HoneyBake Ham? Was that on the Spotify show? I don't know. We try to talk about it every chance we get. But I did, you know, I did some Googling. I looked this thing up, you know, because it's a brand. I went there yesterday. You went there yesterday. That's so weird. He took a break in the middle of the day to go to the HoneyBake Ham store. They have actual stores? Yeah.

Permanent location. Like brick and mortar? It literally is our location was made out of brick. Our location, like you and your family? And it was busy, right? It was very busy. It's almost like it's Thanksgiving coming up soon. Did you say Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving. All right. Well, let's dive into the Thanksgiving Day matchups here at the top of the show. Well, I don't know what part of the show this is. It's the middle of the beginning of the show. Buffalo, seven and three on Thanksgiving, taking on the Detroit Lions who have won three straight games, games at home in Detroit for the Lions. The Drafking Sportsbook line, Buffalo minus 10. The overrunners 54 points. This is a matchup that might actually feature two bad defenses, not just one. We know Detroit's defense has struggled mightily. 30 second in yards per play, 30 second in yards per pass attempt. But Buffalo, since week.

6th, 28th and yards per game allowed, and 30th versus fantasy wide receiver. So sure, the fantasy wide receiver, yeah, you funnel it away, you stop the run. 28th and yards per game allowed is a pretty profound metric. They have had a lot of injuries, especially in their secondary. They still have a great pass rush, but you're coming up against the Detroit Lions team that has a phenomenal offensive line. So if they could slow down the bill's pass rush and take advantage of the... weakened secondary. This could, I mean, there's a reason there's 54 points on the line. This could be a really nice offensive game. Now, there was a tweet from a friend of the show, Scott Barry, DFB yesterday, highlighting the, basically comparing what Zach Wilson's done from week 7 through 11, which was worst pass rating, worst off target throw percentage, and the worst turnover throw percentage. And comparing that with Josh Allen, who in the last four weeks,

Second worst pass a rating. Third worst off target throw percentage. And most people will chalk that up to the elbow, right? I mean, your elbow isn't 100%, but he's playing through it. Will Detroit solve all these problems this week? Are we going to get a vintage stallion performance? Yes, it would be excellent. It would be excellent, yeah. And yeah, the answer is yes. All right, you made that simple. I mean, like, the nice thing for Josh Allen is even when you can look at those particular stats and go, whoa. And we have numbers that can do that from time to time. But what matters for us is QB11, QB3, QB6, and then he did have the Stingfest last week against Cleveland. But in the last month, he's been still in the top 12 for most of those games. All right. So Devon Singletary has been very good, scoring touchdowns, averaging 16.4 touches and 76.4 yards per game over his last five.

What's interesting is, and Jason pointing this out very early in the season, it's one of the reasons I think he traded me, Rashad Bateman for Devin Singletary, is that he was projecting a close game for the bills at that time. And in close games, he plays 77% and blowouts, he plays 57%. And I do think that's going to continue. James Cook had some work last week. Yeah, this is my worry. I have Singletary in our league of record. He's the guy I'm trying to decide between this week. Basically putting that to the test of, do I believe that the bills are going to blow out the lions? They are 10 point favorites. They are a much more talented team. And if they are, you're going to see a fourth quarter of James Cook. You're not going to see 70% of Devon Singletary. So I worry, I think that this is a lower fantasy output game for Singletary.

But that'll be tested this week if they blow them out. Because if they blow them out and he's still out there 70% of the time, then you can have full confidence in Devon Singletary rest of season. I don't have that currently as a matchup proof play. Yeah, and I would rather have 50% snaps in a game where you score 35 points in the first half than 70% of snaps in a game you score, you know, less. But usually this season, when that's happened, when they've got out to those crazy 30-point. you know, first halves. It's because of Diggs and Gabe Davis in the passing game. It hasn't been Devin Singletary really participating in lighting the other team on fire. That would be rude to do. Right. Stefan Diggs, Gabe Davis, super rude. They are criminal. Like you don't. Arsenists. Yeah. Well, I just think Singletary is going to have to be part of the blowout process early in the game for you to get what you want. Diggs, of course, you play him. Gabe Davis, the matchups too juicy. Yep.

Dawson Knox, I think, you know, it was a career high in receptions last week. He had been not healthy for basically from camp heading into the year, maybe starting to come into the fold in Isaiah McKinsey, Khalil Shakir, James and Crowder, all those experiments. The answer to those questions might be Dawson Knox in the intermediate parts of the field and in the red zone. On the other side, what are we doing with the Lions offense? Is there? I think it's pretty easy this week. Jared Goff is, you know, he's always in streaming contention, as in if the matchup is there, you can play him. I know that the bills have been bad the last six weeks, or people are putting up more points, but I'm not putting Jared Goff in here if I can avoid it. DeAndre Swift, the opportunities, the snaps, they are still not there. It was...

He went from 31% of the snaps two weeks ago to matching it at 31% this past week. He went from nine opportunities down to eight. He has kind of, he's given you a touchdown in a few of these games. You know, three of the four, actually, that kind of saved things from being a total disaster. But you're not playing Swift with any level of confidence right now. But Jamal Williams is just the goal line destroyer. right now and he's in. Yeah, Jamal Williams is in as a probably a low end running back to this week and you hope he falls into the end zone again. Is he leading? Yeah, he is leading the NFL in touchdowns. Any dart throws in this game from the Detroit side? No. Khalif Raymond. He would be the dart throw. 85% of snaps, 89% route rate. Route rate. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's right. Route rate. Route rate. That's what I said. Hashtag route rates. Six targets last week.

DJ Chark, I think, is limited in practice so far. The New York Giants seven and three taking on the seven and three Dallas Cowboys. Oh, boy. Dallas nine and a half point home favorites. Oh. The overrunners 45 and a half. That's rude. I will take Dallas to cover. I didn't say it was not the truth. I just said it's rude. They're playing well. And the defense is playing well. And this is not the kind of game that I think the Giants can. Keep up in, right? They, Dallas beat them in week three. Now, was Dak part of that game? No. I didn't think so. And it was 26, or 23 to 16. Yeah, that was during the Cooper Rush era. This is going to be, this might be really bad. Yeah, the problem is with the Cowboys defense and the lack of weapons to throw the ball to for Daniel Jones, if the Cowboys get a lead in this game.

I think it's going to go really poorly for the Giants. The Giants are going to have to throw the ball. They don't have the ability to protect to get these. Without Wondell Robinson, without Cadarius Tony, who they shipped off, they just don't have the tools. If the Giants win this game, it's going to be from an early lead and run the ball and just kind of keep it. Take on half to be everything. Absolutely everything. And I don't expect that to happen on Thanksgiving in Dallas. So I think that, you know, you saw last week, Detroit finally, I'm sorry, the Giants finally got behind big against Detroit, which did force a lot of targets Wondale's way. Darius Slighton had a good game. If that is the back half of this game.

You know, Slayton would be the flex category of a player because he's last man standing. And he's been good for top 24 performances in six weeks. But you don't want to play Daniel Jones. You don't want to mess around with Richie James or backup tight ends. On the other side, DAC is a start. Zika is a start. Pollard is a start. C.D. Lamb is a start. Dalton Schultz is a start. And I would imagine that. Pollard is a start over Ezekiel Elliott. If you have both those players, which plenty of people do because they tried to have insurance on their own roster, then you keep starting Pollard until it looks dumb, which is probably going to be the rest of the season. They are number one in points per game and second in EPA per play over the last month. I think Dallas is a really, really strong Super Bowl contender, which is what at least I thought before the season, but they

They've been through injuries. This defense is made to win playoff games, in my opinion. I think it's San Francisco versus Dallas in the title game. I think the DAC injury was one of the best things that happened for this team. This team had to gain an identity, and that defense just, I'm not saying that they wouldn't have been good if DAC stayed around, but this defense just. stepped up in his absence knowing that we have to win the game, became elite. And now Dak comes back, and it doesn't feel like Dak has to do everything. It doesn't feel like the identity of this offense is to throw the ball, but they've got someone that can. I agree with you, Andy. This team is certainly the best Cowboys team that they've had in a long time. No disrespect to Philly, by the way. They could be in the mix, obviously. They've been great. New England, six and four, taking on the eight and two Minnesota Vikings. This game is in Minnesota.

They're now three-point favorites. I thought I saw the line at two and a half earlier in the week. The overrunners, 42 and a half. That is not a lot of points. Gives the Patriots just under 20 and the Vikings just over 20. It was a tough week for Minnesota's offense. Minnesota. Yeah, I mean, Kirk was flattened last week. That meant bad games from Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen. Even T.J. Hawkinson, it was a disappointing week for everyone. Dalvin Cook averages 95 total yards per game, stifled last week. Dallas, we know the story. You got to throw that one out a little bit, but New England's a good defense. That's the real problem. Mike, you brought up the fact that it was a mid-game, unexpected loss of the left tackle, Christian Derisaw. That was a massive blow to this team. Now, they're prepared to be without him. They ruled them out already because it was a Thanksgiving Day game.

but they still don't have him and they're facing the number one team in pressure rate over the last month. You're going to have, you know, Matthew Judon just in Christian Kirk's face, all, all Kirk Cousins face all game long. Christian Kirk Cousin. So I, you know, I find myself looking at this line and being tempted to take the Patriots. Because I think this could be a really bad day for the Vikings. Well, the one reason I wouldn't take the Patriots in this matchup is because they have shown an inability to move the football as, you know, in recent weeks, including no offensive touchdowns last week against the Jets. Mack Jones is not thrown for multiple touchdowns this year. He has struggled with pressure. And the Vikings on defense, they do some things that, yes, Dallas kind of.

figured a few of them out, Tony Pollard in particular, but their defense does give you some looks that I think might be troublesome for Mac Jones. I just don't, like, where are you with Damian Harris? Is he a flex player? Because I don't want to flex him this week. I think he is a flex player in the right matchup. I don't believe this is the right matchup. The Vikings are okay against the run. They're not world beaters. But I, as Damien Harris is kind of, The clear backup, only 24% of snaps last week. He looked great. He ran very efficiently. Only 10 opportunities. But only 10 opportunities. So I need to start Damien Harris in a matchup where you're going, oh, okay, they're playing the taxes. They're playing someone that's really bad against the run. So you could start both these guys. That's not how I view the Vikings. I think this game is going to be a low scoring game. Right now, it's 42 and a half.

57% of games that have had a line of 42 and a half have hit the under so far this year. So, no, Damien Harris is out. It's pretty much Romandre Stevenson and Jacoby Myers and a full PPR on the Patriots. Yeah, I think Myers could have some success in this game. Remandre saved his week last week with receiving numbers. Yep, which that's why he feels like a safe running back at this point, 5.6 targets per game. Those are fantastic numbers, especially when you're the lead runner and you're the goal line running back. T.J. Hawkinson is in a very good position here where the Patriots over the last six weeks, number five against quarterbacks, first against running backs, first against wide receivers. 23rd against fantasy tight ends. And T.J. Hawkinson, since the trade, I mean, heavy, heavy utilization, 24% of the targets. That's a fan. That's like.

That's an outrageous number for a tight end. Five plus receptions in every Minnesota game. He is blowing away all expectations I think anybody had when the trade was announced. This was what I hoped for preseason in Irv Smith. With Adam Thielen getting older, I saw an avenue for a tight end to come in and be the second in targets on this team. Irv Smith, not good enough. Also, not healthy enough. Right. Hawkinson is definitely good enough. This is a great matchup. And we've been asking ourselves the question for the last couple weeks. Who's the tight-in three? Who is the third best after Kelsey and Andrews? Is it Schultz? Is it Goddard? Who's now on IR? Is it Kiddle? Is it Kiddle? Might be Hawkinson. It might be.

All right. A reminder, we mentioned it earlier. Take those Thanksgiving Day players out of your flex positions. Put them in your main running back wide receiver slots. So you have flexibility later in the week with news. Also, Thanksgiving Day football could be a lot of fun. It could be a lot of fun if you're playing DFS. And there is a special edition of our fantasy footballers DFS show that is just about the Thanksgiving Day slate. So check that out. All right. Before we get into the other 13. matchups, we're going to reveal our starts of the week. Starts of the week. Right now, I'm going with Gino Smith at quarterback. Mention him as the stream yesterday. He's going to, he's going to move into the start of the week as well. I explained yesterday in a long-winded, very clear, meticulous bullet point analysis, the Raiders. He's playing the Raiders. The Raiders are bad. That is so well said, Andy.

Dead last and expected fantasy points per pass attempt. Tyler Lockett, D.K. Metcalfe, off the by. He's already the QB7. Gino Smith is a great play this week. I agree. I'm going with The Goat, Tom Brady, who has been a massive disappointment so far this season, and there's been questions, you know, is Aaron Rogers ever going to get it together? Is Russell Wilson ever going to get it together? There are quarterbacks that fall off, the greatest. quarterback that I've ever enjoyed watching is Peyton Manning. And then you watch his last season. It's like, oh, my word, so bad. But if you look at the stats behind Tom Brady, he's on pace to almost match the most passing attempts of all time. He's on pace for 4,700 yards. I believe his 17-game pace right now would be like fewer than four interceptions. He's not actually playing.

poorly. He's had some injured wide receivers. He's obviously missing Gronk in the red zone. But Chris Godwin, I believe in him rest of season. I think he's healthy. Mike Evans was dealing with that rib issue. He's off the buy. Julio Jones. This by week, I think, is going to be very good for Tom Brady. They're playing against the Browns who are allowing the most points per game, the most expected fantasy points per play. They've particularly been picked on by pure pocket passers. For those that like alliteration. And I do. Joe Flacco, 307 and 4. Peculiar. Bailey Zappi, 309, and 2. Joe Burrow had two touchdowns, 2, 285, and 3. So I believe Tom Brady is a good start this week in Cleveland. And I am going with Lamar Jackson. I think it is finally time for him to round back into shape. He takes on the Jacksonville Jaguars, which over the last five weeks, they've actually been the second best matchup for quarterbacks.

In that span, they've allowed the third most passing yards per game, including top 10 weeks from Matthew Ryan, Daniel Jones, Derek Carr, and Patrick Mahomes. The only QB that wasn't top 10 in that span, Russell Wilson. So nothing new here, just Russell Wilson not being able to take advantage of a matchup. But Lamar Jackson, I believe it's his time. He has only seven total touchdowns since week four. I do believe that interruption is happening this week. I hope so, and I hope Mark Anders is a week healthier towards that end. Sometimes on Thanksgiving, you're walking, you've got your plate, it's pretty full, you see a couple of sides you want, and you just jam them both on your plate. You just stack them on top. Sometimes you've got to put side on top of side. You've got to go double decker. So I'm going double decker here, Jeff Wilson and Rahim Mostert against Houston, the Miami running back tandem.