Pump the Brakes, Playoff Q's + Breaking Wentz News

behind Melvin Gordon. The games where Melvin Gordon has played, Austin Eccler is not going to play this week. I don't believe it's been officially ruled out, but he's not playing. Extremely doubtful. Yeah, I believe he is also in concussion protocol on a Thursday night game. It's just, he's not clearing. So it's going to be either the Justin Jackson show or Melvin Gordon with Justin Jackson. I think in a pinch you could put Justin Jackson in the lineup because maybe Melvin Gordon reagravates, gets injured, leaves, or Justin Jackson has a good game.

while Gordon is in there. But I am not going to imbue what Austin Echler was doing to Justin Jackson in that backup role. It is rare for a backup to be as good as Echler has been in games where the starter is active. And I'm not going to just take my guess that Justin Jackson can play that role. No, you can't. You can't do that. You can't, you know, he's proven nothing. Justin Jackson has proven nothing in his career. Austin Echler has played a complimentary role to great success. There's a big difference.

I'm with you on that. And Melvin Gordon, for what it's worth, every time that he's been in this kind of a situation for fantasy owners, he's gotten you what you needed. Like if you were worried about him a few weeks ago, even the game he got injured. So let me ask. He had a monster touchdown before he was injured on a game he was coming back. Let me ask this. This is the follow up, right? Melvin Gordon is active, let's say, hypothetically speaking. But you have other decent options.

You know, you still have to worry about the reaggravation on play two for Melvin Gordon dealing with, you know, a bum knee. Would you play Melvin Gordon over Chris Carson? Yes. I would not. Really? I would play Chris Carson over Melvin Gordon because I think Chris Carson is a great play. How about Sony Michelle? I'll play Melvin Gordon. Let's do it this way. I will play Melvin Gordon over every single player.

outside of Gurley Barclay McCaffrey, Lindsay Camara Elliott. So Leonard-Pornet. So he would be my number seven overall, yes, over Leonard-Fornet. Did I say Lindsay Fournette? No, you didn't. That's good. That's what my brain said. All right. I think that's enough, Melvin Gordon. So, yeah, I'd play him under all. It's the playoffs. You want to lose with Melvin Gordon on your bench? No.

I don't want to lose with Melvin Gordon in my lineup either. Oh, my goodness. All right. Mike Tomlin left the door open for James Conner to play this week. Of course he did. James Conner's ankle is probably going to close the door. Yep. But we'll find out. Raiders have waves. CJ Anderson. Oh, my goodness. He's going for a record. Yeah, I mean, C.J. Anderson is. How many weeks are left in the season? There he goes. To the 20. Tugboating to the 21.

22. Yeah, there's two weeks left of fantasy football. Shame on you if you play your championship in week 17. Three weeks left of NFL football, which I believe means he can sign for probably four more teams before the end of regular season. And who knows, including playoffs. See, I thought you were going with. There's a couple weeks left in the regular season. And then also there's a couple weeks left in his playing days. I hope not for my dynasty team.

Eagles have placed. Who thought Frank Gore without CJ Anderson last season? He is, um, he's infinite. He's all. Gore is all. Yeah. Eagles have placed Cory Clement on IR and signed Boston Scott. That's actually a really good signing. Boston Scott's comp to me was like a Darren Sproles type and maybe a long term. I don't know. I'm going to keep my eye on. A dynasty glance. Yeah. By the way, Mike will be returning.

to the footballers fold on Sunday morning for the live stream. So he's with some family this week, doing family things, and then he will return on Thursday in full force. I have no doubt he's been drinking beard tonics. Oh, he's got to grow the beard out. But unfortunately, the beard tonics are hair tonics. They make all your hair grow. So he's going to need to wear hats again. Yeah, that's going to be gross. Isaiah Crowell spotted in a walking boot.

Elijah McGuire is very, very interesting and sneaky this week. Yeah. But he also didn't practice. I was going to say, Crowell didn't practice, Cannon didn't practice, no running backs practiced. So look for CJ Anderson to sign soon. It would have been nice of you. The Jets took the day off, no practice. Yeah. This is huge news. This is unbelievable. Monstrous news. Just crazy. The Vikings fired their offensive coordinator.

Up and coming. They're probably one of the most talked about guys for a head coaching job next season. The whole year has been John D. Filippo. He was in consideration for potential head coach jobs last year, but he needed to step up after his Philadelphia days. Goes to the Vikings in what was assumed to be a one-year pit stop before his first head coaching gig. It didn't make any sense. Fired. I mean...

I don't understand anything that's going on in Minnesota. I don't. They have a lot of good pieces. You spend $84 million on a quarterback. You bring in John DiPo. He got Adam Thielen, Dalvin Cook, Stefan Diggs. Well, and if your whole point in spending that money is to give Kirk Cousins the ability in a spread type of office to succeed, and now you want to, you know, you're hearing he wants to run the football. Right. And Mike Zimmer, it's never a good sign when the head coach.

or in Jacksonville's case, Tom Coughlin, the frustration gets to the point where you feel like the best option you have is to take everything over. Like the smartest people in the world that I know know how to delegate roles so that they can exceed in their own role. Mike Zimmer is not going to have more success just kicking John D. Felipe to the curb and then taking over play calling half the time and running the football with Delvin Cook and not using your $84 million man. Yeah, it's a weird situation. I wondered like, okay.

Let's say you're an up-and-coming offensive coordinator. You want that Vikings job next year? Yeah, I probably do. Really? I don't know, man. I mean, yeah, people will take jobs anywhere. Well, because what's crazy is if he doesn't fire John D. Filippo and Filippo has a bad season, I think he still gets a head coaching job. But you don't give a head coaching job to a guy that was just fired midway through the season last year. Anyways. No, but he'll be somebody's offensive coordinator, I bet. Yeah. And Philadelphia. How, what?

What changes in your mind? You know, is this more optimism and hope because they've been so bad? And any change is good for Kirk Cousins and Dalvin Cook? No, this late in the season, I mean, with just a couple weeks left, I don't expect much to change. The one thing that we do know is that Zimmer wants to run the ball more. So maybe Dalvin Cook gets a, you know, gets a slight bump in here because you assume his volume and opportunity is going to come.

Latavius Murray would as well, but he's irrelevant right now as the backup. So I'm not going to change my opinion. Like for this current week's rankings, I'm not really changing anything from last week's rankings. The offense is not going to drastically change. It's in place. It's too late in the season to just go, okay, guys, I got a new playbook. Last week against New England, Miami only.

They only gave up 2.55 per carry on 29 carries to Sonny Michelle and James White and company. They were pretty stout against Buffalo, pretty stout against Indianapolis. They had been pretty bad. They're 24th on the year, but I... Who are you talking about? The Miami Dolphins, the team that the Minnesota Vikings are playing this week. Oh, got you. So when you talk about Dalvin Cook projecting him, the potential of a workload increase, I still like Dalvin Cook. But, I mean, Dalvin Cook's carries right now.

9, 10, 9, 13. Well, and that's why Zimmer is like, why do we have this superstar running back supposedly? And he's getting 10 or fewer carries every game. That would be frustrating to me as well until you go, well, look at what happens when he gets a carry in the offensive line camp block. Who's more talented? Dalvin Cook or Kenyon Drake in your mind? I think Kenyon Drake is more talented. But I don't think Kenyon Drake can.

He's not a full time. No, he could not withstand the volume of a bell cow running back. I mean, that was the thing coming out of even college. He was Alabama, right? I believe. And he was not a, he was never the starter, which is rare for an NFL player to just not be the starter and come in. All right.

We're going to get into the mailbag. I don't know who's doing the mailbag drop. I think it's Jay Gris. I think it's Jay Gris getting it in. He wanted to. But I want to thank Omaha Steaks, not only for sponsoring, but more so for the deal they have right now because every time it comes around, we're waiting for it. It is such a good deal. I get it. Mike gets it. Andy gets it. We all are always stocking our freezers and.

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I wonder how he's feeling about his bears this week. How are you feeling about... Let me tell you how he's feeling about his bears. Because if you know a Bears fan and let's say you're friends with them on social media, you know how they're feeling. Yeah. Because... They pop their collar. Their collar is popped. Their social media is letting everyone know that they are a Bears fan. I have Aaron Rogers at 18 this week. It's his fantasy playoffs. I have them at 18.

You feel like you want to play Aaron Rogers against the Bears this week? I feel like I would be willing to play him. And no, I don't want to play him. I mean, there's just better. There's too many better options. Can we do a Rogers or look at some guys? Because we had a lot of those questions. Why don't you do a Rogers or? By the way, Rogers hasn't had three touchdown passes since week five. How about the same game? I think that one's the most interesting to me.

Rogers or Mitchell Trebisky? You want the home quarterback who has looked, I mean, last week, he looked bad, he's coming off of a bum, it's a shoulder injury for Trubisky, right? Yeah, I have him at 17, I have Rogers at 18. Yeah, that's why I brought it up. I've got them pretty close in my rankings as well. You'd go Trubisky? Man. No, I probably. If you had both on your roster, I'd probably be dealing with who I want to lose, who I'd feel.

Like, losing with Aaron Rogers on my bench is mental. Would you go, let's say, so this is a hypothetical world, a little crazy, you've got Aaron Rogers, you've got Mitchell Trubisky, do you look to the waiver wire for someone like Josh Allen? Would you play Josh Allen or Dak Prescott off the waiver wire? I'd play both of them over Aaron Rogers, and I'll tell you why. But you would do it. Like, you would put them in your lineup. Yes.

Yes, Aaron Rogers, do you think at home against Arizona was a good matchup? I do. 233 and 1. Do you think at home against Atlanta's defense is a good, you know, without Mike McCarthy weighing him down? That is a great perfect matchup. 196 and 2. That's not good. It's not going to happen. Aaron Rogers is not going to throw. Now you've got to go into Chicago, into Chicago? Well, it worked out well for Jared Goff. By the way, it didn't.