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

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Coming to you from Draft.com Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in to another episode, the most recent one we have ever done. Wednesday, December 12, 2018, the Fantasy Footballers podcast. The Bear is back. Jason is here as well.

It's going to be a good, good, good show. I disagree. Great. It's going to be a great show. It's going to be so great. We have Pump the Breaks on the show. All your fantasy football news, updates, information. We'll be talking Melvin Gordon. We've got the mailbag. We'll answer your questions. What else we got? We got Thursday night preview, right, Brooks?

Yeah, it charges chiefs. I think this is going to be a fun show because this is, look, Mailbag, this is the time of year where things both really matter and also don't matter. You know what I mean? Like for there's two people. No, I don't know what you mean. There's two people out there listening. There's the people in the playoff hunt.

They're like yourself and like myself that are, they need that advice. They need to make sure that they get the win this week. They bring home the hashtag foot clan titles. And then there's the people listening that, hey, they just missed. They're in it. They're sticking around for next year. But, but they're asking different types of questions. They're asking like, without Mike here, who's doing the mailbag drop? Questions like that. Oh, that is a great question I had not considered. Yeah. Yeah. So they'll, they'll.

They'll have the opportunity to find that out. There's just going to be a lot of fun, is what I'm saying. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. No doubt about it. Unlike putting together a 12-foot Christmas tree. Yeah, that's what you did last night? I found out... That is huge, by the way. How tall 12 feet is. It's... Too tall. Your whole scale, discernment, it doesn't seem to be working. Because if you don't know this, did you, do we mention this on the show? I don't think we did. A 15-foot...

inflatable snowman for my front yard. It looks like the puff marshmallow man is outside haunting your neighborhood. It could swallow my house. It is too big. It has rarely been inflated because when it's inflated, it's a danger to our entire neighborhood. I mean, it's like too much Christmas spirit. I didn't think it was possible, but you actually have too much. I do. I don't have a ladder tall enough to decorate this tree.

Because the base is so far away from the tip. How did you? No, it's not. I've got to literally go by a ladder. So the top of this tree is empty? The top of the tree has no decorations. And in fact, not only is not decorated, but you know how you have to like separate the branches and fluff it out? It's not that either. No, because you can't reach the thing. How did you even get it up there?

Oh, that was a true... Did you do it all in the ground and then do the whole like... Christmas miracle. The whole stand-up thing? I did the... I'm on like the top rung of the ladder, grabbing the tree with one hand, kind of bending the tree towards me leaning. I'm just glad I didn't buddy the elf and have to jump on that tree. So this is the new tradition, is you're going to be hanging up a... I hate that we have this tree forever now. I mean, it's impressive once you see it. Yeah. It dwarfs most everything. Yeah.

I've ever seen. Well, Merry Christmas. Thanks. But we should pump the brakes on things over 10 feet as Christmas decorations. Public service announcement. That makes sense. Since that's two decorations you have. You can follow the show at the FF Ballers on Twitter. We're on YouTube. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Check us out on Instagram as well. And join thefoot.com is our fantasy football community year round.

Come hang out with us. We answer your questions on an exclusive extra weekly episode. There's a bunch of perks, giveaways, a lot of cool stuff over at jointhefoot.com for our supporters. Well, Jason mentioned it. It is Wednesday. So, O'O, O'Reilly. O'Reilly. Otto parts. Not bad, Jay. Thanks.

I had to use my falsetto, but we got there. Well, how about me, guys? It was bad. Oh, way better. Actually, I'm going to be completely honest with you, Brooks. It was real bad. Oh, yeah, totally. But compared to last week. Well, you were more confident, but you were in the completely wrong range. You weren't down low. You weren't like, oh, oh, oh. That's where you needed to be, and you were more like a, oh, oh, oh. You see what I'm saying? Look, it was terrible. But it was so much better. Right.

So they're not mutually exclusive. That's all I'm looking for it. All right. Improvements. Yes. Next week, next week you might just be bad and incredibly better. Sure. Sure. He's working his way. All right. All right. My pump the brakes this week. It's going to be the man we talked about yesterday. Maybe he's the law hanging fruit. I don't care. Derek Henry had himself a game of games or in his case, a season of seasons, because it had been 16 consecutive.

games for Derek Henry in which he was at the 58 total yard mark or lower in terms of rushing performance and then goes out and throws up 2.17 and 4. Derek Henry is not going to do this unless he has found a very, very special illegal substance. I don't think this is the norm for Mr. Derek Henry. The Jacksonville Jaguars quit on that game nice and early.

A 99-yard touchdown is not, you know, that helps the equation. And the week before, 10 for 40, 8 for 30, 9 for 46. He could still fall into another touchdown. You know, he always can. He always can. He had, he has nine on the season. And if you take away the four, he still had fine. So, so, I mean, and he had scored five times in the previous, what is that, six games? Yeah, I mean, he had. So a touchdowns.

Pumping the brakes on 17 for 238 and 4 and bringing that down to... So what is your expectation then for Henry? Sure. Henry. What would you... Give me a line. What do you expect? Derek Henry carries yards point touchdown. Yeah, I mean, your best case scenario, in my opinion, is 11 for 55 and 1. 11 for how much? 55. That was as Brooks as it gets.

My pump the brakes this week is Kenyon Drake. Look, I love Kenyon Drake. He's talented. He's Kenyon great. He's one of my favorite players since he came out of college. He should be getting the ball 15 to 20 times a game and dominating for fantasy football and for the Miami Dolphins. But he's not. In fact, if you look at his last three games, he had eight carries, seven carries, six carries.

What's next? Five carries? It's a whole 12 days of Christmas thing. And, you know, look, I realized he had a great fantasy week last week, right? You look at the final box score and you go, you know, a catch for 55 yards and a touchdown. Another. Oh! But the reality is he had the crazy once in a lifetime miracle play at the end of a game to save.

a performance, and really his last few weeks, he's been getting a touch. I mean, he has two touch. He's found a way. He's found a way to score. Two touchdowns three weeks ago. Touchdown last week, a touchdown the week in between. So you're starting to get confident in Kenyon Drake. Then you have the matchup against Minnesota in Minnesota. And you go, well, goodness, Seattle just ran all over Minnesota. And maybe I can play.

Kenyon Drake this week. I'm not as confident as your maybe. I would prefer to bench Kenyon Drake. I think going on the road when he's not getting the volume against a very good rush defense, you're going to have to have that touchdown to be happy. I just don't see a world where he has more than 60 yards. He's always high risk. Yeah. And I've said before, you've got to start his bad to get his good.

In the playoffs right now, in this matchup, I don't want to take that risk. And that play was his only target in the whole game, too. Right. So essentially he was what, six carries for a couple of yards, no targets. He was not really that involved. I will not call that a target either. No, that's true. Yeah, so really zero targets. Here's the thing, though. I know that as a fantasy football fan and a Kenyon Drake fan.

You are embittered by Mr. B. Hole's decisions regarding the workload for Kenyon Drake. Yes, 100%. But Kenyon Drake last year, multiple injury reports, knee strains, hamstring strains. Oh, since college. This year, shoulder injuries. If they give him the work you want him to have, he'll probably not play football. That is 100% fair. It's actually worth bringing up in the pump the brakes concept here that he is dealing with a shoulder injury that every game he has continued to.

re-aggravate. You could argue Adam Gase is pumping the brakes on him all year long. Well, and specifically, with regards to the shoulder injury, he's saying, man, I don't want to use him too much. And so, yeah, five carries. That's the thing. Five carries is a legitimately realistic outcome for Kenyon Drake in this game. How could you start a guy that could realistically have five carries and nothing else? You just, that's not enough involvement. Yeah.

And then a bad defense. Kenyon Drake or Derek Henry? Oh, gosh. I'm going Derek Henry for sure. Derek Henry will have more carries, a better matchup. I'm not telling people Derek Henry is a must start. But, yeah, I mean, they're not that close in my rankings, to be honest. I think they're about 10 spots apart. I've got Kenyon Drake down outside. He's basically a running back three. Okay. You're not a fan this week.

It pains me. News and notes from around the league. By the way, that was, uh, pump the brakes with a Riley auto parts, better parts, better prices every day. Here's some news for you. This is the big one. We may talk about this for a while. Melvin Gordon says he is feeling, quote, much better and expects to be a game time call on Thursday night. He practiced. Was it limited yesterday, Brooks? Wasn't that the designation? Yeah. Look, this is the big.

playoff decision for tons of people um you know if melvin gordon is active if he's inactive how do you feel about him does justin jackson you know if you're expecting the ability to play justin jackson then melvin gordon is made active do you bench justin jackson immediately do you put gordon in immediately what is your thought process here and how do people go about the melvin gordon conundrum now we're

mercifully, it's Thursday night. That's great news for fantasy owners. You don't have to make Thursday night decisions based on not knowing what's going to happen with Melvin Gordon on Sunday or worst case on Monday. So you get a heads up into what your week's going to be like. But if Melvin Gordon is active, Justin Jackson should not be. And I understand Austin Echler has had plenty of value.