Week 16 Studs & Duds + Championship Prep - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/23

He's three years younger than Adam Thielen. That's not possible. It's not possible. Is that real? His locker is a casket. He's 31 and a half years old. Jameson Crowder cannot be that young. That man is. Who was the guy that lied on his birth certificate? Oh, the running back. Cameron Artis Payne. Jameson Crowder is 600 years old if he's a day. Amazing. Debo Samuel. Thanks, man. Oh, yeah. Really appreciate it. There it is. Yeah, no one played you. Terry McLaurin got it done. Five for 60 and a touchdown. You know, Sunday live, we kind of just said, like, you know,

can you live with yourself putting that dude on your bench? Yeah. So, I'm so thankful he continued to do what he's done this year in such a difficult matchup because people had to play him, and he came through. It was good to see. Jay is in. Now the wide receiver, seven. Keeps getting it done. scored again. They use him in every way, and I love that. There's no part of the field like he gets deep shots, but he gets screens behind the line of scrimmage and jet sweeps and middle of the, you know, they're just getting the ball to him

wherever they can. If you spent the rookie 101 on Marvin Harrison Jr., JSN is, you just hold on to that hope because JSN's rookie season was a disaster, and the beginning of this year was not much better. So, it, have some hope. It's like, look at this. Look at the career path of that wide receiver who was, like, it was, the regrets of people who took JSN over Jameer Gibbs had to be just an uncountable number. Yeah. But we're back, and he's elite now. Tight ends on the week. Number one, 15.4 points, Brock Bowers. No surprise. He had Aiden O'Connell there, and he is the best.

Yeah, 13 targets, 11 for 99. Just always, always open. And then... Number two. Let's... Yes! Let's go. Oh, Kongo. This is so important. Dude. It became a thing that I didn't even really want it to be that prolific. What a call. Number two on the week, Chig Okonkwo. Tied with George Kittle for number two on the week. Nine for 81, 11 targets, a two-point conversion, and I think... You had two leagues. Where you got to the championship. Yes. And in both of those leagues, you put Chig in, right? Yes. And in both of those leagues, if you had not moved to him...

I would have been knocked out. The one championship I'm in, Chig was in the lineup. Thank you. I had Strange in. Made the pivot. You know what? That's awesome that you made the swap. Who is your other options? Britton Strange. Yeah. A Kongo, and you know what? The thing here is, I think we get another week of it. I agree. I think against Jacksonville next week, who... Guess who? Brock Bowers just played and had 11 for 99, and the flats are open all day long. I think Chig gets one more week of this. 100%. I mean, the pecking order of targets, he was very, very involved.

He had four catches early on, and it never stopped. 11 targets this week, 10 the week before. And this is the... Loving it. But why... What are you... Why now, Tennessee? Like, we were banging the drum for this guy last year. I... Like, this is a player who should be a featured part of your offense. He's got the skills, the ability for a tight end in the NFL, especially for fantasy football. Athleticism is, like... It's super overrated for almost every other position. But the tight end position, it matters so, so much. And this guy's been on the team all year.

Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit like what happened with Najoku at times, where he would disappear. Let me tell you something. Every game that Mason Rudolph has started, he's had 20-plus completions. Do you know the last time that Will Levis had 20-plus completions? It was week three. You know how many times he did it all year? One time. He hasn't done... He hasn't done it. He's under 20 every game. He completes eight passes. How can Chig do anything with that? Will Levis is a... A buh-bye. Oh, he sucks. Oh, yeah. Buh-bye. I mean, he's the one quarterback... Buh-bye, banana-rama.

Buh-bye. He's the only guy I would prefer Kyler to. Sorry, that's not true. But, yes, Okonkwo, I think he goes on for another week, but not if Rudolph isn't the starter, which we expect... He will be the way Rudolph will start. I would expect him to be. It's Jacksonville. So, let's go. Sam Laporta got it done. Got the touchdown. That's what the bet would be. Hunter Henry scored. Mark Andrews scored. Isaiah likely scored. David Njoku was good. Yeah. Heavily targeted. DTR does that. Miami next week. Njoku will be okay. Yeah, it was good to see he was a real question mark.

And the only other stud who leads us into the duds perfectly would just be the Raiders for winning out of the number one pick. Good job, guys. Just like we called on the show. We're like, who's the worst coach? That's who's going to win the game. He might be the worst owner. Because did you see the news report about Mark Davis was celebrating with the team like crazy in the locker room? Yep. The big win. Congrats. It's such an impossible situation. No, it is probably great, though. How much? How much you lose, though? If history is, you know, if recent history is good, you want that number two pick.

You want that Jaden Daniels, that CJ Stroud. All right. We'll talk duds in a second. Take a quick break. I got to ask Al Borland real quick, you know, after that performance, how afraid of Chigakonko are you now? I mean, they took a deep, they were going to take a deep shot to him. I don't know if you saw this in the game. Rudolph's arm got hit. I mean, it was probably going to be like a 200-yard touchdown. I'll trade you Trey McBride for him. Okay. All right. That works. All right. We'll get to talk about Trey McBride. Oh, yeah.

Let me hit this button. Hooped in his big boy pants. You know what? No, that's not fair to him. We're not there yet. No, no, no. We are. We'll start with tight ends. Trey McBride, three for 20 in a game against Carolina where the Cardinals needed to win to stay in the playoffs. Why use this guy, guys? All he did was run wide open all game long. I mean, Mike and I, he is basically the reason that we lost in the Champ, Champ, Champ League. And we're watching the entire game. He is in front of Kyler's face, wide open. And Kyler launches it to some uncatchable area to someone else all game long.

The overtime, it was so infuriating. He walked off, looks at the camera, says some expletives. He was very unhappy. Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah. Yeah, I would be mad if I was used for 20 yards in a must-win game with overtime. He got five quarters. TJ Hawkinson, two for 27. Kelsey, five for 30. Yeah, I guess we made the wrong decision to start McBride over Kelsey. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, they both were awful. And I think a lot of people felt backed into them. Shout out to Kyle Pitts. Who had the best play, the most awesome Kyle Pitts play.

Kyle, are you on the line? You a big Kyle Pitts fan right now? You're saying you'd rather have like Jamar Chase, who was drafted right after him? But if you didn't see the play, Michael Penix coming in, first game, looked pretty darn good, I thought. He's driving down, gets in the red zone, gives a nice pass to Kyle Pitts, hits Kyle Pitts right in the hands around the, I don't know, three, four-yard line, something like that. Kyle Pitts turns and throws the ball to the opponents. It was so silly looking. And it was an interception. Yeah. Yeah, it was bad.

If you look back now at the quarterback disappointments, we already talked about them. Jalen Hurts, the injury, Josh Allen, the disappointing game. They still, you know, they still pulled it out. Tua Tunga-Vailoa. Wait, does that mean, sorry, going back to the Jamar Chase being drafted, does that mean Panay Sewell was also drafted after Kyle Pitts? Uh-huh. Yeah. Because that was the decision the Bengals were making. No, but they went with Pitts. Oh, me on. Matthew Stavartua, disappointing games. Joe Mixon, the Thursday game, 14 for 57. We knew that was going to be tough. It was okay. I mean, it really wasn't that.

It was as much as you'd expect against Kansas City on the road on a Thursday after an injury. Yeah. And he didn't destroy you the way that some guys can just, you know, make it to where you have to overcome them. You didn't. I don't think you felt like you had to overcome Joe Mixon. You were just disappointed. Yeah. Isaiah Pacheco, it has not been a special return. No. 14.7 per touch. You wonder if he came back too soon. Well, and also you got Hunt, who is very involved. Kareem Hunt. It looked like. 16 fantasy points. It looked like the, you know, the first game, it was like Hunt was still getting more of the

work. But then Pacheco, the second game, Pacheco took over the lead role. And then you thought it would even escalate from there. And instead it went the other way. I mean, you're talking about 13 carries and 11 carries the last two weeks for Kareem Hunt. So, you know, part of the reason I love Pacheco coming into the year was he was the only guy. He was going to be a workhorse back. That's not. I don't even think through the playoffs. Like they're going to use Kareem Hunt and Pacheco together. Not good for fantasy. All right. Tony Pollard, eight for 35 on the ground.

Pollard was playing hurt. Yeah. The injury was. I don't know why they keep trying to make him play. Brian Robinson, two fumbles, 10 for 24, a disaster. Absolute disaster. He is the guy that I think people, you had to overcome. Yeah. Because I've seen a lot of teams. Hopefully you didn't play him. I have my, you know, in the expert league where I was the number one seed. I had Brian Robinson who I had to play because I lost Kamara and could not overcome him. You didn't like the, having the 72nd ranked running back on the week. No, I did not.

No, that, that matchup already sucked. And then he's like, here's minus four on these fumbles. And then basically got benched rightly so for a long time and got very few opportunities. Dowdo was 13 for 23 on the ground. He couldn't get it going. Philly's a brutal matchup. Philly is the team that just played Brian Robinson, where he was 10 for 24. So, Dowdo is not, Dowdo has been very good in his opportunities, but the matchups. He's not, we talked about at the top, he's not a must start. He's going to be a very difficult. I mean, his three big games in a row were Giants, Bengals, Panthers.

Three of the worst defenses in football. So, Philly's going to be, try to find somebody else in my opinion. DeAndre Swift was bad. Etienne, this is a lost season for Travis Etienne. Maybe the biggest bust in fantasy football. Yeah. A season where you're going to finish, maybe, maybe if you're lucky in the top 36. Probably not. For a guy that was drafted so high. How many top 20 finishes, guys? On the year? I don't know. How many? Zero. Oof. Wow. Zero. On the year. And these are the players, when you say big bust, to me, well, sometimes you say other

things. But it's players that you would lock into your lineup for a while waiting for it to finally happen and it never happens. And then he got hurt. This was a huge bust. Najee. Patrick Taylor. Patrick Taylor did nothing. Yeah. Patrick Taylor did absolutely nothing. Process was right. He was the, like, only running back utilized. He got five targets and he was just not, he's just not a good enough running back. When you are that low on the depth chart, there's a reason. You're just not good enough to actually have that role. Debo was really the running back you wanted in this game.

But I don't think you can use Patrick Taylor going forward. And I don't know if the Niners will try to get, you know, do they, do they look towards Keyshawn Vaughn or do they look towards Izzy after seeing that Patrick Taylor just kind of didn't have the, the stuff. I don't know. What was Grendo's status? We'll see if he's back. Yeah. So I'll, I'll be curious if the, if this continues for Cooper cup, three catches for 24 yards a week after zero catches. And I was not worried at all about Cooper cup. One bad game is like, so what? Who cares?

If this continues, the off season narrative around cup is going to be insane. Yes. Thankfully, Arizona Cardinals this week. Now that's not really a great matchup for wide receivers, but they do suck. And that's really the headline of today. Khalil Shakir, just two catches. Mari Cooper, invisible. Just Keon Coleman. Nothing. Judy. Oh man. It didn't work with DTR. You got humped. I mean, you, you got, he's out of your lineup. You guys like that one? No. Wasn't expecting it. Unexpected is really the. That's because you guys didn't, you didn't play him. He was also in that lineup with Brian Robinson.

He has to be. So you didn't win. No. Like. It's so strange. Cause I get it. That, that Jameis Winston is. That's a first. Like Jameis. Yeah. He's throwing these. Brack. Back breaking interceptions. I get it. But you can actually win. Right. You can win. DTR put up six points. Yeah. But look, Cleveland's at the fifth pick right now. Yeah. I mean, yes. They don't want to win. If that's the, if that is the goal. But I'm saying like, if you're Jerry Judy, you've been waiting your entire career for this. And you has, it happened. It's happening. For what? You've been waiting for what?

Six for one 42 and a touchdown or six for 85, nine for two 35 and a touchdown, five for 64 and a touchdown, 11 for 108. Like, or were you waiting for two for 20? Like this is. I mean, if I'm. This is, this is the Jameis experiment. I mean, this is the NFL. They've never seen somebody like Jameis before. Well, I'm saying. Jameis is so good for fantasy and so bad as a quarterback. You're Jerry Judy in that locker room. Knowing that the coaching staff is like taking this opportunity away from you and they're giving you. Maybe DTR at some point in his career can turn into a starting caliber quarterback.

He's, he's nowhere close to that right now. And if you're Jerry Judy, that's got to be just an absolute kick in the pants. Well, Winston wasn't even active. Was it a, was it an actual injury for, for, for no, no. Sore shoulder. Yeah. I mean, they, they'll, they might write something. Sore from throwing picks. Uh, Harrison. Do you want this one sucked? Yeah. I feel like, you know, this is two weeks in a row. I mean, this is, this is one of the biggest playoff fantasy end of season busts. Uh, without question. I mean, for the last five games has been a bust and you know, no secret sauce anymore.

This was a game where Brock Purdy could have turned to him more, just four for 51 Detroit next week. I mean, I, I think recommending him is going to be hard now. It's going to be hard. The, the, the difficult thing is how good the matchup is against Detroit with the banged up, uh, secondary. And what, like, what is your, what's your faith in, in the 49ers who have scored 17.6 points, 38, 10, 10, 17. Like this very little without a running game. The office is broken. And they're, they're eliminated. Their priorities now are different. They, they cannot make the playoffs.

This is where I, at least on Wednesday this week, I really want to focus on some, you know, overt motivation issues for teams. It's not, not every team in the entire league, but like the three or four most impacted teams by playoff scenarios. That's, that's actually really cool. Mike, what are you doing on Christmas? Okay. He's going to be doing, he's going to be, uh, going through motivations. I'm open gifts. Yeah. Maybe Wednesday's the wrong day for that. You do you, man. Why don't, cause tomorrow's going to be an abridged waiver wire. Um, it's not going to be this big, extensive waiver wire.

Most of the, you know, the big names, a few of them. We should talk about that tomorrow. Yeah. We'll be through the week. The Monday night game will be over. Let's abridged waiver wire. Plus big time team motivation, decision-making stuff so that you can start thinking about that while you open your gifts, Jason. And we got to preview the Wednesday games because there's games. That's crazy. Yeah. Waivers will be waivers will be quick. We'll get you some big names. Uh, Quentin Johnson, Corlin Sutton on Thursday. They didn't get it done. And that'll be it. Like I said, tomorrow we'll talk, uh, a few waiver names.

We'll talk about Christmas football games. Two of them. And we'll set the stage for fantasy championship week. Do you want to say thank you to everybody supporting the podcast at join the foot.com? All of you out there who clicked that follow button, who subscribe over on YouTube, who have been with us throughout the year. As Mike said, the year round show, this is our 10th season. We started this thing as the first year round fantasy football podcast. Cause we knew that we're, there were other thirsty people who wanted more fantasy football talk throughout the off season. So, um, you know, we will, we'll get into it all tomorrow, set the stage for some fun

championship, uh, weeks. And, you know, I'm sure that we'll remind you that the Cardinals suck tomorrow as well. So that is it. I, you know what? I forgot one thing as the show concludes. I just wanted to say congratulations. Congrats. Oh, he beat you to it. Oh, goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the fantasy footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join the foot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers. you Thank you.