Playoff Primer + Strength of Schedule League Winners - Fantasy Football Podcast for 11/17

Oh, he's back in practice the next day. He's 100% fine. He's, dude's got a broken finger he just had surgery on. It's not 100%. This doesn't. It's a human being. It doesn't make sense to me. Like, anyone out there who's gotten, if you had a small surgery, like you've had a mole removed, just anything that involves a knife and your skin, that area of your body.

hurts for multiple days. Dude, paper cuts. And you're saying that it's your finger, which is pretty important to holding onto a football. And you're like, oh, well, you can numb it up. Okay, if you numb up your finger, you don't want to do that. It becomes very difficult to hold on to a football. So maybe he does play, but this is just, I don't understand how this can even work. We do have precedent. I know that there's been a number of running backs that this has happened to surgery.

Pin played that week, but we will see Debo Samuel also day to day with a shin bruise. You think I'm not coming down with a full chop on your hand every single time I can? Yeah, it's, it's, it does seem questionable, right? Also, Cordero Patterson will be a game time decision. That is from head coach Arthur Smith. Oh, Arthur. I believe he was limited yesterday. So we shall see what happens with Cordero.

It's not a good matchup. I mean, a dude with an, if it's actually a sprained ankle, I mean, how can you trust that? Against New England. Yeah. You saw in years past when Sequin and Alvin Camarric, great superstars came back from an ankle injury. They weren't quite ready right off the bat. So it's so hard because Atlanta has no pass catching options. So Cordero could be fine. Yeah, he could be. He could just catch.

five passes and then a PPR league, yeah, be, you know, be serviceable enough to get a start out of. But I would have, I am still skeptical that he plays. Game time decision, I'm going to guess that he does not play. Okay. And then we have Miles Sanders designated to return from injured reserve. Today's the playoff primer. I'm just going to say it right now. I think Miles Sanders is a potential league winner. Yeah, I agree. This team is committed to the running game. He's by far their best runner. We saw it.

on the limited amount of carries he got before the injury, and they play a juicy playoff schedule. I would be looking his direction. I really would in trade. Yeah, this is a great time of year. He's the perfect type of target because he was a borderline waiver wire drop candidate. And so it's not going to cost much to get him. And you risk very little. The reward is outstanding.

I mean, you said they're committed to the run. They weren't when they had Miles Sanders. They get Jordan Howard, like, oh, man, you see what we could do all the grab? When they get Miles Sanders back, I think maybe they should go, oh, this guy's even better. They are running 68% of the time in neutral games scripts. He has to be activated, though, by 4 p.m. on Saturday to play Sunday. So that's the way that works with the window to be, you know, activated in play. So you can pay attention to that.

We have other news. Joe Flacco. Yes, Joe Flacco is going to start for the Jets this week against the Dolphins. Not Mike White, not Zach Wilson. That. Joe Flacco. Man. What do you? So that's a thing. What do you do with like Michael Carter now? Not that he was, you're super psyched to play Michael Carter ever, but you know if Mike White is there, the running backs are going to see 30 plus percent of the targets.

Can you feel safe that that's going to happen with Flacco? I don't think you can feel safe that that's going to happen. I don't, you know, look, he's in the pocket. He's a statue. He's willing to, you know, in this version of Flacco, like early career was a down-the-field gunslinger type, and then he really changed the short targets. So I'm not too worried about that. I mean, my ceiling wasn't very high on Michael Carter anyways. It does kind of bump up.

Jameson Crowder to me because it's the short target wide receiver that he hyper targeted before. So, you know, now I'm maybe willing to like throw Crowder into a lineup whereas before I wasn't. All right. And Levi-on-Bell, your days are done. Wave by the Ravens. This probably means that Latavius Murray is ready to be activated. Just max confidence in Devonta Freeman. Like we just want to give him the back feel by yourself. And for.

Out there, the Tyson William Shruthers, if you're holding on to the hope that maybe he gets involved now, I would say probably not, because they had three active running backs this past week, and Williams just doesn't get on the field. And I've leaned with Jason that's Latavis will be back. The three of them will be active, Tyson will be the emergency running back, and they won't use him because he's just, he's too fast.

That was today's news and notes presented by Sleeper. The leader in breaking news alerts, grab the Sleeper app. Check out their breaking news alerts channel. It's faster than every other source. Let's do some playoff primer. Playoff primer. Did we have that drop before? No, that's a new one. I was going to say, I do not remember that at all. We have great memories. You, Mike does. We're known for that. Yeah, when I have someone, I'm like, man, I cannot remember what happened.

I turned to you two fellas. Especially like yesterday. Right. Right. Let's start with discussions on playoff strategy in general because we're going into week 11. Playoff weeks are what, 15, 16, 17. And playoff matchups are not the be all end all, right? You're not going to bench all your best players just to play ones that have slightly better matchups. In fact, even on today's show, we're going to break down.

some of the players with advantageous playoff matchups and bad ones. But again, you're looking at data and information from weeks 1 through 10 accumulated. So there are defenses that we've seen year after year that improve vastly. Like Tennessee right now is a, it's a bit of a trap.

if you're basing your lineup decisions, just looking on their year-long numbers. They're playing much better than their accumulation of data. They are a smash play on paper for quarterbacks, wide receivers, except they haven't been, and they've turned it around, and they aren't actually a smash play anymore. So that's a good point. And on the flip side, you're going to have great players who have lousy matchups, and you don't want to overreact to that.

On today's episode, I'll spoil it already. We're about to go into the quarterbacks. Josh Allen projects for one of the worst quarterback playoff matchups. And I thought to myself, self, last year, Josh Allen and Stefan Diggs won the most fantasy championships for players in fantasy football. He dominated during the fantasy playoffs. And so Brooks and I went back and we looked at last year's playoff primer to see when you got a superstar, did he have?

a really nice schedule. He had one of the worst schedules for the playoff matchups. When I look at playoff primer, I'm talking about middle of the pack players. I don't really care if a phenomenal player has a bad strength of schedule in the playoffs. They don't count to studs. You know what I mean? Like Derek Henry in a bad matchup is still Derek Henry. I mean, not anymore because he's injured. But like Dalvin Cook in a bad matchup.

Right. I'm not... I remember we had... Was this last year that we had the discussion of Henry had the incredible schedule and Dalvin Cook had a bad one? And it was like, do you actually go out and trade Dalvin Cook because of the matchups for Henry? Yeah, I mean, at least there it's stud to stud. But I think the point here is when I'm focused on great playoff schedules, it's four players that I think are affected.

by their matchup more. Yeah, no, it makes sense. Now you're bringing back my incredible memory of deciding to play the Tom Brady only one half against Detroit game versus Josh Allen against New England and it was worrisome. And then Josh Allen just destroyed the Patriots through and through. I mean, last year, Lamar Jackson was a player that we highlighted on this show. You had league winners like Jimmy Graham breakout of, you know, come out of nowhere. Oh, man.

Number one tight-in in championship week was Jimmy Graham, Irv Smith, who obviously out for the year, but was a big tight-end winner in playoffs last year. So looking at the quarterback position, we have a strength of schedule tool in the arsenal at the Fantasy Footballers.com that we're utilizing here. And we brought it up early in the week. But Jalen Hertz jumps out as a player that, you know, he's been very consistent throughout the year.

But I think in championship weeks, you know, you are also looking for upside. You're looking for the potential to be number one, number two on the week. And he has the privilege of two Washington matchups out of three playoff weeks. That's so good. Washington is the number one. Most fantasy points given up to the quarterback position. They just lost Chase Young. You know, some, we're just talking. Some defenses get stronger and healthier as the season goes along. They lost their superstar pass rusher. Yeah. So it's not looking great for.

the Washington football team defense to be able to play them twice in the playoffs. Obviously, this will coincide with the wide receivers as well. But Jalen Hertz is certainly someone to target because he is actually able to put up a 40-point game. He's not past his prime. So I would be targeting Jalen Hertz. Now, it is worth noting.

He has a week 14 by. So we are talking about playoffs in week 15, 16, 17. That is, I think, what 90% of your leagues out there are. However, your league might be different. Maybe it's 14 through 17, in which case the first week of the playoffs, he ain't playing. Or maybe you play in.

The last week of football in those leagues, I apologize for you and your family. Don't do that, but if you do... You should apologize to your family. Right. If you play in week 18, Andy was talking about the strength schedule tool. If you use that on the website under the Foot Clan tools, you can change the weak ranges to whatever you want. And see who has the best 16, 17, 18. Exactly. But in just the last note, I mean, it goes without... It's one of those things, but just pointing it out.

If you are a team that is you have to win out to get in, Jalen Hertz may not be the target for you because you've got to have a good quarterback in week 14. And I'll just give you a personal examination that I did yesterday. Like I have Justin Herbert. And he's another player that has a very good playoff schedule. He faces Kansas City who is behind Washington as the number two best matchup. Then he faces Houston. That's...

That's great because you know he's going to give you something and he may give you a lot. And I looked at him and I looked at Jalen Hertz and I was even messaging Jason on the show. Like we got to make a deal for Jalen Hertz. And then I saw that week 14 by. And then I was just like, I don't know if, I don't know if that change for me is worth it with a player like Justin Herbert who's given, you know, there's been four huge weeks for him with those matchups. So again, it's what you have. How big of an upgrade is it?

I'm going to say something that has never been uttered on this show before. I dare you. Well, look, it's almost right at you, Mike. Jimmy Garapolo has a great playoff schedule. You want to know why? Because the phrase Trey Lance has a great playoff schedule has been uttered over 5,000 times. Excuse me, 6,000. 6,000. And Jimmy Garopolo just happens to be the starting quarterback of said team.

So we've never really acknowledged the reality. Yeah, really. That's a big deal this last week. I mean, Jimmy is, he's got Atlanta, he's got Tennessee, and he's got Houston. It doesn't get better than that. No, I make no bones about it. Those will be the most three, the three most terrifying starts of your life if you have to go that route. But we've been here before. We've been with the Blake Bortles and the Alex Smiths. We've been there during these fantasy championship weeks.

and you could do worse. No, I love it because not only does he have Atlanta and Tennessee and Houston, he's got Debo Samuel. I mean, you don't have to be a great quarterback to throw a screen pass. I'll say that like if you're looking at Carson Wins and he's been your starter and you haven't looked at Jimmy Groplo because why would you? And then you look at Carson Wins and he plays New England and Arizona in weeks 15 and 16.

And Jimmy Garoppolo is a, I mean, I would play Garoppel over Carson Wins in both of those games. Oh, for sure. I would say my hesitation for going that direction. Not that Garoppel, in his range of outcomes, is good fantasy weeks. He has two, he has two top ten games this season. And Kittles finally back. And Kittles, yeah, everybody's back. The biggest difference to me between like that Blake Bortles year was the teams can score.