Starts of the Week + Week 14 Breakdown, It’s Playoff Time!

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All right, the Panthers at 5 and 7 take on the Falcons at 3 and 9 Falcons. Three point home favorites, 47 point over under. Panthers now without Ron Rivera. Playoff hopes in the rearview mirror. Kyle Allen, Christian McCaffrey, DJ Moore and Company, heading to Atlanta. You guys both like some of these pieces on the Atlanta side this week. They are favored. Let's start with the quarterback position.

It's not been good for Matt Ryan. The last four weeks, it's been really ugly, 15, 15, 23, 13, and maybe you say, okay, well, that's not that ugly. Well, yeah, it is for Mount Ryan. It's pretty ugly. You've got matchups that you thought he would exploit against Carolina and Tampa Bay, where he ends up outside the top 15 at the position. If you've watched him, I mean, he just doesn't look good. He reminds me of...

Carson Palmer in the pocket. You know, it's just no ability to do anything outside, no Julio Jones on the field recently. Well, the reason that I give for the struggles of Matt Ryan looking back at these games, obviously the whole season has been a problem with the offensive line. That's an issue that is not fixable right now midseason. But then look at this last month. What have you been missing? Well, Muhammad Sunu is gone. Austin Hooper has been gone.

Julio Jones, I mean, you can't just lose all of your passing options and then still be a great quarterback. Right now, just ask Carson Wins how that worked out. Exactly. Right now it's a little too early, but the expectation, you know, Calvin Ridley, Austin Hooper, Julio Jones all practiced in limited fashion yesterday. So we'll wait, but it looks like he might have his full set of weapons this week.

in a pretty good matchup against Carolina. A divisional game, which is always a little dicey. Yeah, and then we have the extra layer. You have the division dice and then you have the coach change for the Carolina Panthers where it's really hard to know which way that things are going to go for the team. We've seen teams rally once the head coach is gone and they come out and they're able to put up a one week.

performance above all expectations. And then we've also seen teams just come out and collapse like a paper house. And I honestly don't know which way to go with the Carolina Panthers when it comes to looking at what's going on with the coaching. But I'm still going to be playing like Devonta Freeman with complete and full confidence against this Panthers defense. Andy's almost upset of the wig. Interesting.

Yeah, Falcons three-point favorites. I think Carolina comes in and competes with them pretty well this week. We'll see if, you know, Julio is limited, whether Hooper gets out there. You know, at this point, Kyle Allen's coming off of back-to-back QB-8 finishes. The Falcons defense is not very intimidating. I don't think anybody wants to or has thought about playing Kyle Allen. And you probably, you know, if you're here, if you're here at this point, you probably don't need to think about it.

But I won't be surprised if Kyle Allen has a pretty good game against an Atlanta defense that is 30th against fantasy quarterbacks and 25th against fantasy wide receivers. I was going to say, look, you might be here in a two-quarterback league in a situation where you've got three quarterbacks and you're thinking who.

are the options to play. And if you're talking about throwing Ryan Fitzpatrick in there as a streamer, I think Kyle Allen should be in the conversation. It looked like Atlanta had fixed their defense, right? They come out of the buy and against the Saints of that divisional matchup and against Carolina. Remember, Carolina did not fare well last time around with the Falcons. But then just look at the last two weeks. They give up the number one quarterback performance last week, the number four quarterback performance the week before.

So, yeah, I think he is an option in a super flex league. Over the last three games, Ryan Fitzpatrick is the quarterback three. Kyle Allen is the quarterback seven over the last three games. Christian McCaffrey, you play him. Devanta Freeman. I think you play him this week. Yep. Yeah, we're going to talk about him later, too. DJ Moore. DJ Moore is the wide receiver seven on the season. It's fantastic. That's your ranking there.

Maybe he's on the season two. He's the wide receiver nine over the last eight games. There we go. DJ Moore, the breakout of DJ. He's the wide receiver two over the last five games. Do we got another one? I'm just trying to find one where he's number seven. You keep looking. DJ Moore, the breakout for DJ Moore has been so sensational. He's, he's an auto start every week. He is an absolute target hog. He's the guy that Kyle Allen goes to. He's.

He's emerging. He's becoming the wide receiver that he was drafted to be. He was the last year. Was he drafted last year in the first. Yes, last year. He was. He was the first wide receiver taking off the board. And he's paying off for the Panthers right now. And he's paying off for fantasy. He is the wide receiver seven on the season if you just take away three guys ahead of him. Yes. So.

So I think you're right, Andy. You know, I knew it. You don't want to include Goliday and Chark and Edelman above him. No, no. DJ Moore is for all intents of purposes, the Water Series 7. We've said it before. We'll say it again, at least Jason and myself. If Austin Hooper is active, I am playing Austin Hooper. The options that tight end are very limited. And this is the number one tight end on the season coming back if he comes back. What about Curtis Samuel, who if you've been playing him the last?

Two weeks you were suffering. He was destroying your team. And then perhaps if you're like my team, I finally benched him last week. And that's when he comes out four for 65 with a touchdown. The matchup is good. He's the same category of risk as Anthony Miller. Same category of risk is maybe a Gallup or Robbie Anderson. I think Curtis Samuel in this specific matchup has every chance to give you a flex-worthy performance. Do you guys disagree?

No, I do agree. This is one of those games where in division, maybe it's wacky, maybe it's low scoring, but it, you know, it projects to be a pretty healthy game of two decently poor defenses and two offenses that can get the job done. I, if Matt Ryan doesn't have a couple weapons back, I'd be running for the hills. Sure. Carolina's defense is number one in the league in sacks. They put so much pressure on the quarterback, and Matt Ryan is not.

mobile if he has no weapons such difference he has to have at least Julio which I think we all expect Julio to be there I think we do we think we do but if he has Julio plus Austin Hooper then he goes from being a poor option to a very good option this week I didn't mention it at the top Brooks are we getting into the Eagles game today do you know

Oh, one sec. Jordan Howard has not been cleared for contact. I want to make sure that gets mentioned. Oh, that's a Monday. That's tomorrow. Monday night game. Okay, so we'll talk about that one tomorrow, and we'll see how he's doing, but he's not going to play. No. If you're not cleared for contact, you're not practicing yet.

Whatever he's got going on is limiting him. They had to sign a JJ. Most teams flirt with JJ and you never sign a Jay Ajai. You bring Ajai in as a motivation for who's already on your roster. We're trying guys out. I'm stepping up. They signed him. Yeah. Do you think Jordan Howard's back with Philadelphia next year? I do not. I do not. But he should be back somewhere. I mean, this was more like a Miles Sanders projecting him for next year.

Yeah, I don't know what to think about Miles Sanders. I don't know whether the team, I don't think it's been, it's not been gangbusters for him since he's had the role to himself. And we've kind of seen that with multiple rookies this year, like Singletary, Montgomery, and Miles Sanders have all had opportunities, but none of them have really, like Singletary has looked good, but production-wise for fantasy has not been consistent. Montgomery has looked bad and not produced, but here and their hits. And Sanders has had good weeks and bad weeks, so.

All right, this is an exciting game. The 49ers at 10 and 2 take on the Saints at 10 and 2. Saints are two and a half point home favorites. It's a 44.5 point over under. This is really difficult, I think, for fantasy football players in the playoffs with Saints players. Because the 49ers defense is just, it's stout. It's solid.

Very few teams have done anything against them, and very few quarterbacks have done anything against them. Here you are with Drew Breeze. Do you play all these streaming options, the Fitzpatrick-Tanahill-Darnold options over Drew Breeze in playoffs week one? Oh, man. That is really, really tough to do, and I think I would do it. Really? Most of the options out there I would expect to have a better game than Drew Breeze.

you've got the ability here with the Saints. And that's not to say Drew Breeze can't get it done. He certainly, obviously, he's a first ballot Hall of Fame quarterback. And he could get it done just by constantly targeting Michael Thomas over and over and over and over and over. But they can also try to run the ball here and, you know, beat them a number of different ways. We have so many games for Drew Breeze over the last two years, three years, really, where he's not always a great fantasy player.

And so you're caught up with the name of Drew Breeze, but he's not one of those weekend and week out guys that are always good for fantasy. Let me just illustrate that point for you, Jason. Atlanta. He's played Atlanta twice. We just talked about the matchup that Atlanta is for opposing quarterbacks. He's played Atlanta two times in the last four games. He's the fantasy quarterback 21 and the fantasy quarterback 27. That's Drew Breeze's games. So like you said, it's not the guarantee. And at home against the 49ers, I'm trying to move away.

I'm not forcing a move away from Drew Brees at home. I don't think he's a top 15 guy this week. I, so you're willing, you're willing to make that pivot of you're going to stream Sam Darnold, you're going to stream Tannahill and Fitzpatrick over Drew Brees? I think I would do all three. Yeah, I think so. I know that's a bold statement, but I don't, San Francisco coming off a loss, I don't love it.

Yeah, I don't love it either, but I think if I have Drew Breeze, I'm going to stick with him. At home this year, we got a smaller sample size, but historically Drew Breeze is much better at home. That's true. And this year, that weird game against Atlanta, that's his one down game at home. Other than that, he's been averaging about two and a half touchdowns a game. We've talked a lot about Josh Allen in the matchups for Josh Allen, who's been a more consistent fantasy producer. He's at home, too, against Baltimore.

So I think it's just what do you want to go down with? Yeah. The Drew Brees question is a very tough one this week. That being said, Michael Thomas, not a tough question. Never is. No. No. Alvin Camara, not a tough question either. No, it's not fun to play against the 49ers. I believe Camara led the NFL last week in chunk plays. So he can still get it done. He's had at least eight targets in his last five games.

No, he's not, he's been, would you call Alva Camaro a bust? No. He feels like it because he, it's not fair. Between injury and production. Yeah, it's not fair because it was, I think, so much determined because of the injury. But as of now, if you're in the playoffs and you have him, you know, I think he's back to being a great fantasy option. And this is just a poor matchup, but you're still going to play him. Yeah, bust is a strong word.

But if you talk about 13 weeks into the season only getting three top 10 performances from a guy. He is averaging the 10th most points at the running back position on a per game basis. That's basically what happened last year with David Johnson. He drafted him number one and he finished at 10. He finished at 10. I don't know what his actual average was. But he didn't miss games like Cameras missed. His average had to have been worse than that. Yeah, I would think so. Anybody else? You playing Jared Cook, I assume.

Touchdown in four of six games. You probably have to play Jared Cook. That match up stinks for Jared Cook, but yeah, I'm going to play him. All right. Speaking of stinky situations, let's talk the very exciting running back situation in San Francisco. They're on the road against the Saints defense that only gives up just under 16 fantasy points a game to all running backs. That's fourth best in football.