Week 14 Studs & Stinkers + Weekly Rewind, Awesome Ekeler!

Skip it. Don't you say it. Oh, we're not skipping this. Don't you say it. It was vintage. Philip Rivers. Oh, it was not. 314 yards and three touchdowns. Oh, the screen pass to Echler. How about the Mike Williams touchdown? That was pretty. That was all Williams. I refused to credit Philip Rivers with any of it. Because you can't get that week back, can you? No, I can't. Stupid Rivers.

I did buy you a Philip Rivers ornament for a Christmas tree here in the office. So you can glance his way, 303. Running back studs, what more can you say about Austin Echler? Mike, one of your bold predictions on our August bold prediction show was that Austin Echler would be a top 10 running back at season's end.

If he didn't play the last two games, I think you're probably still right. Before this week where he was the, I mean, he got the rare double triple. Yes. And the NBA's got the double, the triple, where he's got the double triple. What's the double triple?

Three digits and two categories, 101 rushing yards, 112 receiving yards. Which is freaking ridiculous. Yeah, but before this performance and half point scoring, he was the running back five on the season. And every single week, we field questions, even internally from some of us of do we start Austin Eckler? Yes. Yes, you start. Don't do the math on touches. Never add it up. Never look at it. That's what I was going to bring up. Right?

Because the reason you're asking that question is because Austin Echler had 13 opportunities that entire game. Eight carries and five targets. Sounds like about eight more than he needs to have a good game, Mike. That's pretty much the case. Minnesota, Oakland, the next couple of weeks. Aaron Jones, 16 for 134 and 1. Yeah, he finally came back. By the way, those are the two, those are my.

Eight-year-olds, two running backs in his playoff matchup. Austin Eccler, Aaron Jones. Honestly, the bigger deal for Aaron Jones. The rushing, it finally broke off. We know that Aaron Jones can rip off a huge run. Seven targets. This is what we have to see from Aaron Jones to come back to running back one life. Chicago at home next week, you start him with confidence. This is where two weeks ago, I brought up, we were talking about, you were bringing up the fact that the targets weren't there, and I talked about what LaFleur said.

He said he needs to do a better job because he was targeting running backs. He just wasn't targeting the right running back. He said that. He said, when I'm calling plays to throw to my halfback, I need it to be Aaron Jones. And since then, it was six targets last week, seven targets this week. Aaron Jones is involved in the passing it. I can just see Devante Adams in the background. What about me? Grimising.

Joe Mixing, have a day. 23 for 146, another 40 through the air, had a touchdown, was a monster. He's the RB 14 on the year now. After that slow start, he's just a great player, and he's finally giving you consistent greatness. Derek Henry as well, two touchdowns, 103 yards on the ground. Ho-hum, it's a Derek Henry kind of week for straight 100-yard games, and...

I would bet he has another next week against Houston. I think that's accurate. Yeah. One and a half touchdowns next week. You're going over or under? One and a half? I'll take the over. I know. That's insane. I will too. Yeah. Rahim Mostert. Colonel Mustard is the number one running back for that team right now. 10 for 69 and it touched in. Caught a pass from Emmanuel Sanders had another touchdown.

I mean, Rahim Moster is a season saver. But are you really starting him next week? I believe we said, this is what we said last week about the running backs. I was like, I'm not touching any of them. Yeah. Because someone's going to have a good game, but good luck predicting who it is. Breita came back. Coleman's the starter. Is he? Well, no, no, he's not. But I mean, going into last week, we all thought that Coleman was still the starter. Yeah. But he, Moster clearly overtook that role. But I still have a hesitation to trust it.

to say that the following week is not just going to be, okay, Breda gets the most touches. The nice thing is... I believe this is three straight weeks where you could have played Rahim Moster. I think you go into Atlanta with the confidence of this offense to say, hey, Moster is a flex play. Oh, for sure. I mean, this is three great weeks back to back to back. But as far as touches, I'm just... Three carries for Tevin Coleman?

Is that what? Yeah, Coleman was. There was a point in the game when it was 42 to 40 that Tevin Coleman had three carries. It was. Kevin Coleman had three carries and five carries last week. And Camara, just since we're on that game, Alvin Camara and Tevin Coleman, these two star running backs for their respective great rushing offenses, in a game where almost 100 points were scored, did Jack Squaw?

That feels bad. It does feel bad. It does. We're in the studs, Jason. Don't make us feel bad yet. I apologize. We've got to get to the stinkers first. But yeah, I have confidence in most. I do. I do have enough confidence to play him. He looks great. He looks great. Atlanta helps for sure. Yeah, and then the Rams in both games at home to finish out your season. So you've got two home games. He just tore up New Orleans. So it's a great offense. And this is a smart coach. A dumb coach puts the same.

players out there regardless of their production. Zeke, big game on Thursday night against Chicago. And then shout out DeVant to Freeman, 17 for 84 and a touchdown big game. Yeah, start of the week. He did it. All right, let's go to the wider receivers. It was the Carolina defense. They are bad. How many people had Emmanuel Sanders in the lineup? That's the question. How many people went on to the next round of the playoffs? Yeah, that is the answer to the question.

Nine targets, 157 yards, threw a touchdown, caught a touchdown. Unbelievable. I mean, this was great. Yep. We were optimistic. Mike and I that he would have a good game in the slot. Nobody saw this coming. No way. A.J. Brown, 5 for 153 and 2. Jason brought it up. The snap percentage through the roof, averaging 20 yards per catch. And he...

I haven't seen AJ Brown to date catch a pass and not break a tackle afterwards. That's the way I feel. You can't tackle this guy. The defensive backs that are out there, these little itty-bitty guys, they try to tackle him. And I just don't get why he's so big because he's not on paper.

On paper, he's like six foot. Yeah, but all his pictures were next to D.K. Metcalfe in the draft season. That's the problem. You looked at, oh, look at that baby. Yeah, he is a beat. He's a tank out there. Nobody can tackle this guy in the open field. You have little crossing routes. You know, you're 15 yards away, a little five-yard cross, and then there's three guys that they're dragging on him as he falls into the end zone. He's...

He's a beast. Breaking news, Michael Thomas is good. 11 for 1, 34, and 1 on 15 targets. No drop for that? Michael Thomas? The breaking news drop. No, sorry. Hey, Deontay Johnson. Six for 60 and a touchdown on eight targets. Johnson played Arizona. He did. But I thought he would have just as good of a game as James Washington because the targets had been there the previous week. And he got the special teams touchdown. So in your league, you might have got the double touch. But are you?

playing him against Buffalo? No, because I am not. Not with duck. Not only that, but the expectation in addition to the bad matchup is that Juju will be back this week. That could have been in the news. Juju's like, why you got to bring me back against Tradavius White? Yeah. So no, you're not starting any of the Steelers weapons there. It was a good day to be a Robbie or a Bobby. Robert Woods, seven for 98 and his first receiving touchdown on the year on nine targets. Robbie Anderson.

7 for 1, 16, and 1. What is this? Four straight good games for Robbie Anderson. It's taking over. It's the end of the year. It's Robbie season. This is what does. It really is. What was the... Because he's reminded. He's like, oh, crap. I got to get a new contract next year. Jason, are you pulling up snap counts for Rams wide receivers? Can you do that? I can. I know that it was a bizarro game that they implemented a...

A new strategy, they being McVeigh and the Rams, that they had not ever done before, in which they dominated with it. Heavy run game, heavy tight ends. And if you played Brandon Cooks, one, what were you doing? You shouldn't have. But if you played Cooper Cup, you were very frustrated. Cooper Cup was in on 28.6% of the offensive snaps. He...

didn't play two-thirds of the offensive game. And the thing is, is it worked. This was a specific game plan. So you don't know. You don't know. Is this just they saw something with the Seahawks defense that they could exploit with this specific matchup? Or did they see something with their personnel where they said, I think we're going to be better served?

rolling out this offense. And we don't know for sure which one it is. One of them is going to hurt Cooper Cup going forward. One of them is not. Yeah, I read very little into it from an implication standpoint for Cooper Cup. This is a game where they were up 21 to 3.

That's very true. To start the game, Cup had a touchdown. Mind you, it wasn't a high yardage day, but he had four receptions in a touchdown. And they were protecting the lead for the back half of the game. So I think they came out. They caught him by surprise. Robert Woods has been so heavily involved lately. A lot of it in, I mean, he had two rushes, I think, in this game. He had some screen passes. So I'm not.

I'm personally not overreacting to it. It is very interesting. But how are you reacting to Robert Woods last four games, 11 targets, 9, 18, 9 targets? Thumbs up. Thumbs up for Robert. But I said like Robert Woods is...

back. Yes. Robert Woods is back. He's, I mean, he is, him and Cup are both guys that you should be starting. Great, man. He has, in those, in those four games, he has had no fewer than 95 receiving yards. Yeah, well, he, he's been a top 20 wide receiver for this last month now every single week. And so, yeah, you, you keep, you keep going. This is two back-to-back top ten performances for Woods. Robert Woods and Robbie Anderson are actually both in the top three.

in total receiving yardage from weeks 11 through 14. Julian Edelman, 8 for 95 in a touchdown doing his thing. No one else around him can do anything. No, they can't. Alan Robinson, the big game on Thursday on eight targets. And then Zach Pascal, it was the Pascal week. He did it. He came through. You guys were right. And he hadn't done anything through about.

half the game. No catches and turned it into five for 74 and a touchdown on nine targets. On the Sunday live, Pascal was a huge question mark. He was involved in tons and tons of the questions and it was like, I'm playing him. I should have more confidence in Zach. Like everything is there. He's, you know, he's a fine wide receiver, but the opportunity against the worst, like the worst secondary in the league, all the offensive players for the Colts are missing. And yet.

There's still hesitation to play this guy, but thankfully it worked out this week. Yeah, it was funny. We had someone tweet us, our ballers on a budget picks this last week. They were like, they hated them. Yeah. So they didn't play them in BFS. And I believe it was Zach Pascal. Did you have? I had Emmanuel Sanders. Yeah.

and Ian Thomas. Yeah. Three cheap options. It worked out. It was a good week for that. It was. It was not always a good week, but it was. But this one was. Noah Fant, four for 113 and one. This was, uh, this was hard to see coming for me because the previous week he had just one reception with Drew Locke and, uh, hireman had actually had more. So who by the way, scored in this game too. So both tight ends friendly for Drew Locke at the expense.