Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 11 Fantasy Forecast, Starts of the Week, News

Travis Kelsey. So he takes a big bump down because the offense, you know, Reed has actually his production and fantasy. The last two weeks has been really touchdown dependent. Yeah. He had two touchdowns last week and won the week before. And if he hadn't done that, he'd have been. I think he's got about the same number of catches without a touchdown as he does with a touchdown in the last couple weeks. There you go. Yeah. So the Broncos go in to the Bears. We're going to move on to this matchup. This one is a very low over under.

total. Vegas has this game as a lower scoring game. A big reason why, not only because of the great defense and poor offense, but the weather.

28 degrees, that's one of those rare, very cold games where it actually affects, especially the passing game. So even though it's expected to be clear, did a little bit of research on games around this type of temperature, and you see a lot fewer total plays every game. Because passing plays come way down, and what ends up happening is just essentially more punts, right? You have less success.

by the offenses. And so games tend to run out quicker. Well, it doesn't, and you got Brock Osweiler now, making his debut. Yep. And then you have the Langford Forte situation. Those are a couple of the big things to look at in this game. So let's start with Osweiler. You said that you feel like Thomas benefits as opposed to a neutral situation. I do not.

necessarily take that approach. I'm fairly neutral with that. I know Peyton's been failing so much. We said Thomas only has one touchdown on the whole year. I don't really feel like I can give him an endorsement in Chicago this week because I just don't see that. I have to see Oswald. Oswald wasn't impressive to me. Yeah. Well, he really was impressive in preseason, Andy. Well, okay. So there's that. You know, with Demarius Thomas,

he's still going to be great. I mean, I think your neutral endorsement, you know, he's been still a top wide receiver. I think he's in the top three, right, for total receptions this year or targets. He's been getting used. He just hasn't been in the end zone. So we've got him at consensus number seven this week. I think you've got him at 10. I've got him at 4.

He's still a good option. The Bears secondary isn't the Broncos secondary. And I do think he targets him a little bit more. Coming out of this game, the Marys Thomas will have the most targets in Denver. Yeah, I agree with that. So do we expect Emmanuel Sanders to be okay? He is so hurt. He's still not practicing right now, at least yesterday. He's probably going to be a limited participant today.

He's a gamer, and he's always played through injuries, so I expect him to play and be decent, but in a low-scoring game, Cold Weather, Brock Osweiler, I'm tempering my hopes. No catches. No catches last week. We remind owners that don't need reminding. Yeah, yeah. If you had Emmanuel Sanders, you're not happy. Yeah. So check his status, though. We'll go through that tomorrow morning and let you know what happened on Thursday in terms of practice.

Alshan Jeffrey, we already gave you the overview with him. I don't really think you can start any other wide receivers there. Royals is going to be out. Marcus Wilson's done absolutely nothing even with guys being out. Bennett Miller, Bennett was your sit of the week.

Yeah, I just don't expect a lot of offense in this game. That's really what it comes down to. Either side of the ball, I think because of the weather, it's going to be more running. A lot of sits. If there's going to be, yeah, there's a lot of sits. And obviously, you're not going to sit a guy like Demarius Thomas when he doesn't have a terrible match up across the field. But everyone else, I'm willing to sit. I do like Langford. If Forte's out, I expect Langford to get the ball a lot in a cold weather. And he's just been on fire. So I think the flames stay in the cold.

If that makes any sense of all? No, none at all. The flames stay in the cold weather. Flames stay alive. Okay. For Langford. For Langford. For Langford. Yeah, the past defenses, Broncos are first, bears are fourth. And then you mix in the weather and you mix in the situation. And, yeah, maybe a low-scoring game. Maybe Vegas has that right. Cowboys go into Miami, take on the dolphins, and Tony Romo will return in this one. I saw Mike in one of our leagues make a sneaky little move. He signed Dan Bailey.

Very smart. Right before this week. So that would be something to mention to you if you want one of those higher profile kickers. Bailey's been good anyways. Now the offense might move a little bit. Yeah. Always helps a kicker to be able to get in field goal range. Not to mention Bailey is one of the guys that plays his home games in a dome. And this is the time of year when you need to pay attention to that because you don't want guys outside in 20 degree weather with the wind blowing and the snow falling and having to make, you know, make.

Kicks? Yeah, or even extra points from, you know, far away. Oh, yeah. And our league has a terrible penalty for missing an extra point that has been there. There's an old rule, right? It's been there since the beginning. So you got negative three points when you missed an extra point, which pretty much never mattered in our league of record. Sure. But this year. It would be once in a year and it would be laughable and you'd lose some points. Yeah.

But now this year we forgot to change that rule coming in before the season. And as they move the extra points back and you see them missing, these are affecting games. And it is infuriating. I'm sure we're not the only league like that. I have tried to change the rule twice during the season, only to get voted down both times. And Jason voted me down. I've got Guskowski.

I want those. That is so selfish. What are you trying to do when you, I'm playing to win? You vote on league rules based on the integrity of the league. In the off season, not on rules that benefit you. In the off season, you're exactly right. I completely agree. In the middle of the season, I'm not going to change it. After nine years, your desperation's showing through. All right. Ryan Tannahill, Tony Romo. You like Romo. He was your stream of the week. I don't like Tannahill at all. I'd start a lot of guys above him.

But Romo comes in. How does he affect McFadden, Des, Terrence Williams, and Witten? I believe that everybody rises here.

I think that he... Rise! Rise, cowboys, rise! You know, McFadden is not going to have the boxes stacked against him when Tony Romo is behind him. I still expect the Cowboys to run the ball and be... I mean, last year they had Tony Romo and DeMarco Murray was, you know, the league leader in yards. And so I think this is good for DMC. Some people are saying, oh, this is now the time to sell. I don't buy that.

It's obviously good for Des Bryant, hugely good for Des Bryant, good for Terrence Williams. And I think Tony Romo's got the, you know, he doesn't need weeks and weeks and weeks of practice and playbook. He knows the system. He's an, you know, an extreme veteran. So he's going to come in and have a fine game against, you know, a winnable matchup. All right. The other side of the ball, Lamar Miller, J. J. Jai. We expect Miller to be totally fine as a start this week.

Yeah, you have to keep, I mean, the Cowboys defense is very good, but you have to stick with Miller. He just gets the ball. And if he doesn't get it going in the run game, they get him involved in the past game. He's going to catch five passes and have a chance to break one off, get five for 50, which is like what you get from a middling wide receiver plus the carries and touchdown opportunities. All right, I agree with you. What about the wide receivers on Miami's side? Who are you starting Landry over this week?

Probably a decent amount of people. I mean, like would you start him over, we said Amindola earlier. Would you start Amadola or Landry? Didn't you say you'd start Amidola over? Well, no, I said I would take Landry over Amidola rest of season. Yeah, okay, got you. This week I would take Amidola over Landry. The Cowboys' defenses is decent and, you know, I'm excited to see what happens with New England, week one with Amandola.

All right. Would you start, uh, would you start Hearns over Landry? I have Hearns right now one spot ahead of Landry. So it's real close. It's really close. But if I was the owner making that decision, I would put Landry in over Hearns because of the safety, because it gives me more time. I don't love personally playing Thursday players. Uh, it's always fun when you get to watch the Thursday game, have a horse in the race. But I just don't like it from a...

from a practical standpoint comes Sunday for decisions and the injuries, you know, Hearns could come up limp in this game, so. Uh, he could come up lame in this game is what you meant. Sure. Let's go with that then. We can record all my sound bites. Uh, it's okay. It's okay. We're going to, I'm going to push these other two games to tomorrow. All right. Because of, uh, because of the clock here. So we, I want to get into the starts of the week and I don't want to be rushing through them all. So let's go ahead and do that.

Starts of the week. All right, let's do it. Jason, do you want to kick us off, quarterback? Sure. For the quarterback, you mentioned him, I believe earlier this week, but my start of the week is Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson is going to have as high a floor.

as you can have, but he also has an opportunity here against the 49ers. Remember, when the 49ers played Seattle just a couple weeks ago, they played them really well. They were in that game for a while. Now Seattle just lost at home to Arizona, and I feel like this is kind of like a double revenge factor, but the truth is you have a high baseline and high upside. With coming off that loss, playing at home, they can run on the Niners, he can,

He can definitely throw on the Niners. So I just see he's only started in, what did you say, 39% of leagues. Last week, yeah. Yeah, so this is a matchup where if you've got him, I would start him. All right, I'm going to go with my quarterback start of the week is Matthew Stafford. I know that might be painful to some former Stafford owners, but he faces Oakland. He's had some huge games this year. He's been in the 40s.

He's had a lot of crap ones. I realized that. But this is a situation with starts of the week. Oakland is 26 against fantasy quarterbacks in terms of points given up. And he's coming off a 240 and 2 game. I think it's a good matchup. You know, he just beat Green Bay and Green Bay. And I like his streaming ability this week. And Mike actually just cheated on this one. And his quarterback started the week. Here's what he wrote. I'm just going to tell you. I'm going to read it right to you.

Stafford was the one I wanted and I'm tired. So still Stafford. Very nice. That must have been after some Disneyland yesterday. Well, there you go. We got the double Stafford. I'll go next to the running back and I'll stick with Mike. Mike's running back start of the week is Joe Bernard.

Arizona is very good against the run, but Arizona has been susceptible to past catching running backs. We saw that Mark Ingram ate him alive when he was just taking little screens. And so, yeah, G.O. Bernard could be someone that you are afraid to start because of the Arizona matchup, but he should be able to eat in the past catching game. For myself, I spoke about that a minute ago, but I've got Jeremy Langford. I want to stay in the flames with Jeremy Langford. He has looked...

Fantastic. It's going to be a cold game, which benefits handing the ball off, running it more. Lower scores, keep the running backs involved. He's not going to get game played out of this game. So I like Langford. If you've got him, I would start him. If Forte comes back, obviously I would not just start Jeremy Langford. All right, my running back start of the week is Charkandrick West.

I know that's kind of at the top of the barrel there, but last week he was only 69% started. I'm sure after the big game, that was going to change regardless. But he's bona fide locked in as an RB1 this week. The Chargers are the worst team in football in terms of points given up to fantasy running backs. And that should absolutely continue this week with Charkandrick West. He's getting the lion's share. He's getting the past game targets. And he's making Jamal Charles owners feel a little bit better about themselves if they picked him up. So I'll go ahead and start.