Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Wk 5 Studs, Duds, Rising Stars, Injuries

So we'll continue to monitor that. Speaking of questionable, Carson Palmer is still in the concussion protocol as of Monday. So follow his reports. It would appear that he's going to be ready to play. But of course, with concussions, you're never quite sure. And in Rappaport is reporting that Trevor Simeon is expected to play on Thursday night against the Chargers. He got a little bit of nice job security there as Paxton Lynch did not have a strong game against a very beatable Atlanta secondary. You know,

Or at least all other teams are easily beating them. Right. You know, Paxton Lynch, you know what he reminded me of? The Tampa Bay Buccaneer mascot? Yes, he really, I was, I mean, he needed to be drafted by Tampa Bay. But as far as his play, he reminded me of what rookie quarterbacks are supposed to look like when thrust into action. We've gotten spoiled here by Dak Prescott and Carson Wins.

Good job, Lynch, being a rookie. All right, let's move into some fantasy stud muffins. This week's fantasy stud muffins. Well, we got to start at the very top, the tippy, tippy top, the Mount Everest. Everyone saw this coming. Oh, yeah, everybody ranked them high. Actually, this is how far you didn't see it coming, right?

I come into the studio today. We're looking. We're preparing for all of this. You know, we watch basically every minute of every game. We try to catch as much as we can. So we know what's going on. But I look at the top list here of quarterbacks. Highest scoring player of the week. Highest, yeah, of everybody. The highest scoring player of the week. I watched this week. I'm a fantasy football. I knew what happened. And if you gave me 15 guesses, I probably would not have got it because I would have forgot.

because I don't care. It's Marcus Mariota. Marcus Mario da who threw for 163 total yards was the number one fantasy football player this week. And let me just go on a little tangent here of what a look, if this week was hard on you, it was hard on plenty of people. Because guys like Marcus Marioita and listen to some of the wide receivers that, you know, you had Adam Thielen and Cameron Meredith, shout out to Andy for calling.

That one. And Jeremy Curley and so many guys. Waverwire was a strong play this week. Yeah. If you played guys that are not rostered, you did well. Matt Harmon had tweeted out a very funny line graph of Marcus Marriota's points and weekly finish of QB 15, 18, 30, 30. Quarterback one. Well, there you have. Come on.

All right. Number two, the return that everyone was hoping for and expecting. Thomas Brady touchdown Tommy was 28 for 40 with 40. 406 yards, three touchdowns. He's back. Yeah, he's, he's pretty good. Going forward now, they're not always going to play the Browns. That was a great welcome back game, but he clearly does not have rust. So anybody that questioned that, your questions were.

most certainly answered. Going forward, where do you see him, Mike, for, I mean, is he the number one quarterback to have? I'll still have him as top three. I mean, he would be, if you're saying the top quarterback to have yes, because Brady, I feel, is a very consistent force where you can count on him weekly for around 302, which is a fantastic baseline to have. And you know that he can't explode at any moment. As far as finishing.

I would say, I would just refer to him as a top three quarterback for now. But, I mean, that's still a guy you want to have on your team. Big Ben continues to scorch at home for 34 completions, 380 yards and four touchdowns. So we talked about this. If Big Ben is at home, you play him with full confidence. If he's on the road, depends on the matchup. You have to at least consider having a different option. As crazy as that sounds for a guy who has...

What, nine touchdowns of the last two weeks? Right. Yeah, well, nine touchdowns in the last two weeks. At home, he has thrown for a minimum of three touchdowns. He's thrown three, four, and five touchdowns per game at home. This week he goes to Miami. That's beatable, though. Yeah, I feel like you still, you still, you stay in the flames on the road with Ben Rothlisberger there. Philip Rivers had a big game, four touchdowns.

Brian Hoyer continues his dominance, continues his search to be the Chicago Bears starting quarterback through for almost 400 yards and two touchdowns. He did, uh, he did fail pretty epically there in the, the comeback attempts where he, he tried to force feed it to Meredith. Al Sean Jeffrey was building a house. Uh, he went, he grabbed a Sunday paper. He grabbed a, uh, McGrittle. He, so it was still open after that. Fourth and eight.

Last play of the game. Obviously, you've got to pick it up. And really, the game script here is you had like a minute to mark down the whole field. You were on like the Colts 28 or something like that. And Alshan Jeffrey is alone one-on-one coverage on the left side of the field. And he pretty much runs like a nine route. And he blows past his guy and is wide open with a picnic in the, you know, just he threw out the blanket in the end zone. And Meredith.

is over near the center of the field where also all of the defenders were. And Hoyer misses him. What's important to know is that the last three weeks when Brian Hoyer has been playing in a part of that team, Alshan Jeffrey has finished at best, at best as the third in targets on the Bears. What? Yes, he is.

This week he was the free Alshan. Come on. This week he was the fourth highest targeted person. The last two weeks prior to this week, he was the third highest targeted player for the Bears. That is not acceptable. And what's crazy. That's what Kevin White is out. And what's crazy is that he still actually produced relevant numbers with those few of targets, you know, because his average depth of target. But the point is Hoyer is not an errant out down the field guy.

He's looking to be a little bit safer. Even though he's putting up a lot of yards, he's doing it in smaller chunk plays. So Alshan owners must be worried or must be wanting Jay Cutler back. Sure. Derek Carr in the Phillip Rivers game. He also had a very solid outing. It looked like he should have had at least six touchdowns, but things just kept getting called back. Amari Cooper. For one way or the other, yeah. I mean, Amari Cooper still, he's in the stud muffins as well.

Amari Cooper should have had four touchdowns. Yes. In that game. He dropped some. He went out of bounds and came back in on some. He was a toe out for two catches. Then you had that weird sequence of event of the pass interference. He didn't reestablish himself back. So the touchdown didn't count. But he was still a great play. Had an awesome game. Andy Dalton snuck in. I did not move the garbage man drop over onto the soundboard. Otherwise I would play it right now because Andy Dalton.

was not good. That was the quintessential garbage. That was the most meaningless anything could be. You could have pulled Andy Dalton at that point and put in a backup. So shout out to Andy Dalton and my man, Brandon LaFelle, who was the recipient of all that worthless garbage. Well, if it's garbage time, you got to go to the garbage can. There you go. So Brandon LaFelle had a big game. Andrew Luck and Matt Stafford also had huge games. Let's move over to the wide receivers.

I hope you were on the Sunday morning Periscope. Sorry to get a little too-tooty, but. Oh, you need to here. He's the number one. I was, I pushed Sammy Coates very hard, especially on the periscope. He comes through with a 75-yard touchdown immediately in the game. And he continued. Yeah, he continued. Ends up with a stat line of six for 139 and 2, 11 targets. And unfortunately, you have three to five drops depending on who.

was ranking the drops, but including one just horrifying touchdown drop, but it was still a monster game for Sammy Coates. Yeah, Sammy Coates was great. The guy that I want to talk about as a stud muffin, look, we're going to talk about our Raising Cain's Rising Stars. The guy's really coming up, he was in consideration here. The problem that I felt like he couldn't be my rising stars, he was already so high for me, but he backed it up, and that's T.Y. Hilton. Sure. T. Y. Hilton, to me, is a top five,

you know, seven type of wide receiver rest of season. I think he has really taken advantage of Dante Moncrief being out. When Dante Moncrief comes back, I don't think that's going to hurt what we've seen from T.Y. Hilton. I think it's only going to help the offense. Andrew Luck will have another place to go immediately before he gets hit. He loves getting sacked. Did you see the story? I don't remember the source, unfortunately, but they were talking about...

The reason the defense is so bad is because they had to give Andrew Luck that big contract. So once again, it sounds like management is hiding. We had to pay Andrew Luck so much money so we couldn't assemble a good team. That's ridiculous. People are doing, people are sending, assembling good defenses with high paid quarterbacks. It's possible. Look at, get a, get a general manager. Look at the Ravens. Joe Flacco, monster contract. Their defense is pretty good.

So, I mean, this ridiculous stories just keep coming out of Indianapolis. Amari Cooper, the aforementioned 6 for 138 with a touchdown should have had probably four. Larry Fitzgerald. Pro Bowl Larry gets it done. Six for 81 with two touchdowns. Drew Stanton is horrifying. Drew Stanton is. I will say this. If Drew Stanton is not back for the Monday night game, I'm still, I know that every target.

If Palmer's not back. Yes, I'm sorry. If Palmer's not back for the Monday night game and Stanton is the quarterback, I realized Stanton targeted Larry pretty much exclusively. It was 99.9%. Right. But I'm still afraid to play Larry Fitzgerald with Drew Stanton. Drew Stanton was.

horrifically bad in that game against a pretty easy Niners defense. So you really are rooting for Carson Palmer to get back, which I expect he will be on the, he's got extra time going to Monday night. I will say for me, the last time I was afraid of playing Larry Fitzgerald last year and I benched him was in that Seattle game where they went up to Seattle.

And then Larry Fitzgerald had a monster game. Yeah, I think the advice is you start him, but you are afraid. Yeah. Like you just know you lower expectations. If you're scared, you go to church and you still start Larry Fitzgerald. And you still start Larry Fitzgerald. Brandon LaFelle, the garbage can comes through with a big game. Let's move over to the surprises. Adam Thielen and Cameron Meredith and Jeremy Curley. All in the stud muffin section this week.

All going over a hondo with at least one and having a touchdown. Okay, so who can repeat this? Sure. I don't think, well, I want to hear what you say because I have some thoughts on those three guys. Of these three guys, if anyone can repeat, it would be Jeremy Curley for me because he's the number one target for San Francisco. There's the rumblings in the bushes that they're going to make a quarterback switch. So that could throw everything out the door. I assume, though, even if it's Colin Kaepernick or Christian Ponder.

who apparently the team is clamoring for, they want Christian Ponder to start. I don't know if they've watched game tape of Christian Ponder, the team. I think the team really does not like Colin Kaepernick. At least some of them. I mean, I'm sure some are great friends. They've been calling for Kaepernick as well. They're saying the team does not like Blaine Gabbard. Yeah, there will be a quarterback switch.

Likely. I would say it's likely. It's not a guarantee, but I expect that there will be one. For that reason, I don't believe in Jeremy Curley going forward. If Colin Kaepernick was the quarterback, you know, that upgrades more of a Torrey Smith than downgrades a curly to me. It could. Well, the thing about Kaepernick is he's a one-read guy. So if his first read every single time is Jeremy Curley, it's going to be throw the ball to Curley or run. So Curly could still be great. Adam Thielen to me was someone I liked.

Going into this week, I think what we saw. No Stefan Diggs. But he requires Stefan Diggs being out. And, you know, Andy really liked Cameron Meredith, said he's a spot start if you need somebody with the injuries there. And that was pretty good. And that was even with, we were on Cameron Meredith watch because Eddie Royal should have been out. We got John Foxed again where Eddie Royal just did not practice the entire week was considered. I think he was even doubtful. He might have, he might have still been questionable.

But then he was a surprise active, was out there the whole time. But Cameron Merritt is still at a big game. Antonio Brown and Tyro Williams was the San Diego Roulette, wide receiver roulette winner this week as he had the big game. Moving over to Ronnie Backs, David Johnson, Ezekiel Elliott. They're both unstoppable. I want to move over to Tevin Coleman. Only 6 for 31 in the ground, but another big receiving game for Coleman, 4 for 132 and a hush down.