Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Starts of the Week, Week 15 Matchups, Boom-Boom!

So they got to throw the ball to somebody. Well, you have to throw it, yeah, but that doesn't mean he's going to catch it. I like Jordan Matthews. Sure. I like Ertz a lot more than Matthews. Let's put it that way. Yeah, we both like Zach Ertz in this matchup. Jay, do you have anything on the past catchers? I will say this. When I look at the quarterbacks, which obviously affects the past catchers, I have very little faith in Carson Wentz in this matchup. That, look, Carson Wentz last week.

Where did he go time and time and time and time and time again? Tight end. Two of them. Who's the best team against tight ends? Baltimore. Who's at home? Who needs to win? I just don't like Carson Wins here, so I don't really like any of the options. I kind of agree with Andy that I don't love Jordan Matthews, and I kind of agree with, I kind of disagree. I'm not in love with Ertz. Ertz is still a tight-in one. He's just so intracal that I...

I don't think he. I believe he's number one in tight-in targets this week nine. Right. Exactly. I'm not, I'm not killing Ertz. He's just too important to this offense, but it's such a bad matchup for him that, you know, I agree. I think this is the Ravens game. That bodes well for the Kenneth Dixon, Terrence West combo. Sure. And I'd play Dixon over West by a lot. What if I told you that the Baltimore Ravens are tied for giving up the most touchdowns to wide receivers?

I would believe you because you're looking at your laptop screen. Yes. Okay. You can beat them. You can't beat them. Look, at PPR League, I'm okay if you want to start Matthews. All right. I'm okay. Like, where do you have him? You say you want to start him, but you don't have them as a one. Let me, I'll pull him up. I'm guessing you have them as a two in a standard league. That's where I would assume that he has fallen. Jordan Matthews is why my search function is not look. You move on. I'll tell you where I have him.

All right, the other side of the ball, Smith, Sr., Mike Wallace, Prashad Perryman, the wide receiver core in Baltimore. I would play Smith. I feel like Smith has the best baseline. He still has the upside. We didn't see good things from really anybody on that wide receiver core last week, including Dennis Pitt. So is this a bounce back game for Pitt, Jason? You know, it can be all right. I mean, honestly, Philly has a pretty good defense against tight ends as well. I don't hear excitement for either side of the ball in this game.

No, I like Kenneth Dixon. I like Kenneth Dixon. I like Steve Smith, Signore. I worry that because this is a game where the expectation, I should say, is it the Eagles aren't going to be, or I'm sorry, Baltimore is not going to be trailing, then maybe it goes more towards Terrence West to Kenneth Dixon. But I'm still, if I've got to start one of those, Kenneth Dixon took over last week. I am going with that narrative that Kenneth Dixon has kind of.

secured the role because he is better. He's better running. He's better catching. I think basically what we've seen with Baltimore's offense is if you're a wide receiver, Smith, Wallace, Perryman, you need to score to be really fantasy important because Flacco is only averaging 10 yards per completion. And so you have a lot of these stat lines with four or five catches for Smith, but the yardage hasn't been there as a whole. And so that's the concern for me is can they get into the end zone?

But we need to move on. We need to talk about the Browns and the bills. I have them as a lower end too. I saw that. You're right outside of the, right in the two, but low in two, early three range. It's a start. It's a start. Yeah, well, if it's a wide receiver too, he starts. Browns, bills, bills at home. Bills are 10 point favorites. 41 point over under. Do the Browns? No, they don't win a game this year. No, no, they don't. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I guess if you're going to.

Rex will give you a shot, but I don't think it happens here. People are very, very concerned about the weather and Tyrod Taylor in this game. There are a lot of people who have sent me DMs, Twitter messages saying, I'm really worried. Give me somebody that's going to throw the ball. Because they're not going to have to throw it. I mean, I have LaShawn McCoy is my number two running back this week. Yeah. It's going to be the McCoy show. That's the real analysis from this game for me is start LaShawn McCoy.

and, I mean, Sammy Watkins is still a fine play. Oh, I like Watkins too, but I think what is that, I mean, Watkins can have a great game and Taylor can be a syncopatomis. Yes, yeah, that's true. I mean, if, if Watkins ends up with, you know, 75 and a touchdown, it's a good game for a wide receiver, but that's not really helping out the quarterback too much. If the weather starts to turn for me, then Watkins will come down. I think the weather is going to be better than it was last week.

Obviously, Buffalo is used to playing in cold weather. As of right now, it's just said to be partly cloudy. 28 degrees. So it's cold. But as of this second, the expectation is not for snow.

which I think says that the offense will be fine. I'm not super worried. I agree with you, Andy, that LaShawn McCoy is just a great play. I don't know if he's my number two or number three running back this week, but he's high up there. I see great things for him. And Sammy Watkins was almost my start of the week. Tyrod Taylor is my stream of the week. When you're playing against the Browns, you think the Browns are going to be good in cold weather? I mean, listen to this. LaShawn McCoy since 2015, at home, 5.3 yards per carry.

Good grief. Cleveland on the road gives up 5.1 yards per carry, which is dead last in the league. Caching. That's what you call a match made in Buffalo. Shady's the chalk. The Browns, they're not a good football team. Is there any fantasy value on here? Crowell has been.

Decent lately. Prior was having a big year until Robert Griffin took over the job last week. I'm not touching prior. And I told you that on Monday when we talked about the pooped in their pants segment. With RG3 a quarterback, I'm not touching prior. It was the fear when RG3 took the job back. I'm not touching him. I, the only guy I'm thinking about is Crowell. I have them ranked actually number 20 this week. That's a start. You guys have them at 24 and 25. So those are all.

You know, you got to put those in line with, okay, would you rather play Crowell at Buffalo? Would you rather play Todd Gurley at Seattle tonight? Oh, man. I would rather, oh, man, that's tough. I think I don't. I'd play Crow.

I would. And I have crow four spots higher than Gurley. Crow, look, we did talk about last week. When RG3 comes in, it's going to help Crowell with opening up running lanes as defenses have to watch for a mobile running quarterback, have to watch those zone read plays. They don't have to watch for nothing with RG3. Last week, they don't have to watch. They don't even have to open their eyes. Isaiah Crowell, he only got 10 carries last week, but he had 113 yards on the ground. And Buffalo's run defense for fantasy purposes isn't that great. Well, I mean, we saw what happened last week.

Yeah. So I'm just saying I think that Isaiah Crowell is a startable guy. I might move him up a little bit. Here's a question for you. I'm going to throw this out there. Does a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, let me rephrase, does a pass catcher of any variety running back, tight in, or wide receiver catch more than three passes this week? Ooh, over under of three? Sure. Over under of three. I'm taking the under.

I would take the over, but if you wanted to say, does a pass catcher of any variety, does any player on the Browns have more than three receptions? Yeah. So do you want to water bet that? Don't do that. That's easy. I mean, sure. Mike, water bet. We need to write that down because I'd want to come back to it on Monday. Okay, dokey. So write that down and tell Brooks to put that in the Monday show. What was the other bet? I think you just did. What was the other bet that we made yesterday?

You're the better. The Tampa Bay, Dallas, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. We got to get that notated. If I went, Jason, here's an extra bet. All right. If I lose, I get watered. If you lose, you get watered. This should be like a snow bet. But if, if I win both. If either of a sweep. Then we get to choose lunch.

Then we're choosing lunches for one another next week. Yes. Let's do it. All right. Either of us sweep. And I feel like I'm the long odds here. I agree. So what that, all that means, Jay, is I'm getting, you're, is if I win, I'm going to make you eat some real crap. Oh, you're going to be eating out of the dumpster. You're going to be eating three stuffed tomatoes to start the week. And then I'm going to go from there. I'm going to have no guilt because I pick Tampa to upset Dallas. And I pick no more than three receptions for any player on the entire Cleveland roster. Yeah. I love it.

Which I might be eating some crap myself. All right. Packers and Bears. Oh my. The divisional matchup. 40 and a half point over under. Interesting to me. Feels a little low. Bears are six point dogs. They're at home. You know as low is that temperature. Yeah. Yeah. Is that one? Yeah, one. One degree. Do you know the Arizonans do not know what that means? When a temperature is so low.

That you have to drop the plural S off the back. How many degrees? No, no, no, no. How many degree? It's one degree outside. Um, okay. Or do you actually say it's one degrees? I don't think you say it one degree. Yeah. Yeah, okay. It doesn't make sense for English to say one degrees. Did you ever like, like the band 98 degree? Why has 98 degrees gone? They've been brought up twice. Two mentions on this show. All right. Nick Lachey.

Hit me up. Please don't hit me up. Rogers and Barclay. Facing off. Jeffrey returns. Jordy Nelson is my number two. Wide receiver of the week. I don't blame you. Jordy Nelson last week, I don't know if you, did you guys see this play? Second touchdown he had where he is basically getting face guarded, like face defended. And so the guy is not looking at the quarterback. And they're just in the end zone. But they're stopped. And he just points.

to the right. Yeah. Like he's standing still and he points to the right and Rogers throws it before anybody moves and they had that connection and it was a touchdown. I just, you cannot replicate that with, uh, just anybody. So I really love what Nelson can bring in this game. Obviously the Packers are playing for their playoff lives. I don't expect to blowout in Chicago in this weather, but I think Rogers is going to be just fine and do enough. Yeah, Rogers is, the, the Chicago Bears last time they played.

which was week seven. He went, it was a slow start, but he ended up with the 326 and 3. And that was kind of the beginning. So of the resurgence of the Green Bay Packer offense where you had the whole beginning of the season. What is going on? What is wrong? They're up and down. Since that point, Rogers has been just on fire. So I'm perfectly fine with him. I believe he's my number one quarterback on the week. That's pretty high.

It doesn't get any high. One degree for number one. Rogers has been on fire. The guy that I really like that I think is worth talking about is Thai Montgomery. Yep. Because the weather is so low, you usually go with, you know, the running game. What was that? What does low weather look like? It looks, it's like. Down at the bottom? Is that like fog? Very near the ground. Very near the ground. Um.

Yeah, I think Ty Montgomery showed that he was the starting running back for Green Bay. And he should be. I expect him to be this week. And he had a great game last week, got his first rushing touchdown of the year. And he looks great as a runner. He's obviously great catching the ball as well. And if he's involved in the offense...

You've got a good running defense in Chicago and an okay passing defense. I think Ty Montgomery fits the mold of how they can move the ball on Chicago. Is he back to a starting fantasy player for you? Yes. He most definitely is, especially in this weather at the running back position. Jordan Howard. Okay, I would say it was the other side of the ball. Decisions to be made for a lot of fantasy owners.

Jordan Howard falls into that category of a guy that was added off of waivers to a team that has already had some running backs and some decisions to be made like Spencer Ware, Jaya Jaya, LaGarrett Blunt. How confident are you in Jordan Howard in the weather with how amazingly good he has been? Yeah, I'm staying in those flames. You're staying in the Jordan Howard volume flame, right? Isn't that what they are? Yes. They don't even have to be that much volume. I mean, he's getting he's getting a lot.

I mean, this last week, he only had 13 carries. 86 yards. And he's involved in the passing game, added 24 yards through the air last week. The week before, 32 carries. But in cold weather. Oh, sorry. Jordan Howard. I love him. He's a running back one this week. He's the 10th ranked running back on the year. He is rushed for 20 or more yards on a higher percentage of carries than any running back in football this year. He's averaged 5.8 yards per carry in the first half this year.