Starts of the Week + Week 13 Breakdown, Reindeer Month - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/1

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Visit Samsung.com to learn more. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. It's football time. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a good one for once. Welcome in Thursday. December 1st. Oh, Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas, Jason. Oh, man. And now the rest of the world can actually stop saying I'm a, you know, early, early holiday or, I don't know what they call me. They don't really call me anything. Early Clause. Early Clause. That's a good one. I try to pay attention to when, like, big media out there goes from like more fall leave.

related graphics to the snowflakes to snowflakes and uh you know wreaths and and bells yeah little jingle bells little jingle bells some uh rain this is the month for reindeer like this is a big month for reindeer this is they don't really get a lot of attention the rest of the year but they do i mean they're around it's their only month this is the big month yeah for sure to celebrate the reindeer welcome in one and all today's show is is Jam packed. Never not working. News and notes. Fantasy forecast starts the week. Boom, boom, boom kicker. I've been informed. What are you laughing at? I'm laughing at boom, boom kicker already. Oh, great. Yeah. Great. So the saga. Saga continues. Saga. Thank you. That was really uncomfortable what you just did to me and to the hundreds of thousands of people listening. Saga? Yeah, I don't think that's right. No, it's definitely not right. Potato potato. Yeah.

Mike isn't here. Still on the hunt. If you've seen him, please dial our voicemail hotline 302464 TFFP. Let us know where you've spotted him. I looked all through my car, could not find him this morning. In the cracks and everything? Yep. In the trunk. You know, backseat couldn't nowhere. Nowhere. Under the mats, nowhere. Wheel well? Didn't check there. Okay. Check thereafter. I've been told that the DFS pass is now. 66% off since we are 66% of the way through the season. To be honest, we have not mentioned this nearly enough. We've left Matthew Betts of the DFS podcast to shill it relentlessly on Twitter. But I think it's like 10 bucks. So if you want to get in there, it's, I hear Kyle, you got to jump on the microphone, Kyle, because you are part of the DFS podcast. And I heard you laughing. That's not a lot of money. No, $10 is.

It's what you guys think of us. No, I like it. I like how that has become a reflection of your worth. We think that the DFS pass is worth 10 bucks. It was, you know, 20. We're like, we got to move this down. Honestly, these guys who have been doing the DFS pass have been crushing it. We have some prop betting in there. We have incredible Fandul, Draft Kings, whatever you're playing. The info is great. People have been winning tons of money. People have been enjoying it. I use it. I use the tools and resources in there every single week. It is phenomenal. And these guys have been begging us all year to change the price, like way up. And we keep just lowering it to where it's just. It's DFS for the rest of us. It's not DFS for people like Kyle with their, you know, Hamptons mansions on the beach. Yeah.

DFS for Brooks. Yeah, I mean, Brooks would pay more. Books probably has to pay more because you don't carry any denominations below like 100, right? Yeah, I pay a lot more. Okay. But look, I took a poll this morning, Jason. I asked a very simple question, have you enjoyed fantasy football this year? I voted. Absolutely yes at 28%. Is that you? That's me? Yeah, of course it is. Somewhat yes is at 35%. Somewhat no at 13%. And misery and suffering is at 21%, which... Did you vote on your poll? Um, no, I didn't vote on my poll. Where would your vote land? Somewhat, yes. Okay. Uh, I, but, but what I'm saying is this DFS pass, just target, we're targeting the misery and suffering. If you need to move on from the pain, which maybe it's injuries, right? Like, uh, maybe it's, uh, the daily or the weekly sweat. Uh, you can hop into the DFS pass check that out at DFS pass.com and, um,

You'll enjoy it. Twitter at the FF ballers. Follow us over there. And the community is join thefoot.com. Let's move on. Never not working. Presented by Head and Shoulders, Scamp Shield Technology, available at Walmart. Very excited to hear from you and never not working here in a moment, Jason. But I, do you think we'll ever get to the point where we're selling it so cheap that we actually make bets and Kyle pay out to each subscriber? A little bit of their. Own money? I think there's too many subscribers for them to pay out to them. But if they would pay out to us, there's three of us. And I think, you know, hey, you got a new subscriber, you owe me a dollar. Oh, that's a good new system. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a lot of fun for us. What do we got here for Never Not Working today? So we wanted to take, we're heading towards the playoff weeks, the final, you know, six weeks of the season here. And we wanted to.

Take inventory of rookie wide receivers who are out there. What is telling of what these rookie wide receivers have done in the past through the first 12 weeks versus the end of the year? You know, we've got Chris Oliva, who's been a top 15 wide receiver. Garrett Wilson's had some absolute explosions. Christian Watson is now a touchdown machine. George Pickens, highlight waiting to happen. We've got some great rookie wide receivers out here. Had Wondale, had Sky Moore, had some other players making their mark on certain weeks. Absolutely. Have Traylon Burks, who could pop here at the end. And we wanted to take a look at every rookie wide receiver since 2014. That was, if you don't remember, that was the explosive rookie wide receiver year, the Odell Beckham, Mike Evans, a bunch of guys. And we took a look at...

How they performed some of the behind-the-scenes metrics. What was their first 12 weeks versus the rest of the season? Yeah, is there a boost at the end? Exactly. So we have the outliers. That's people in their rookie season who scored 12 fantasy points or more in their first 12 weeks. Those are the crazy of crazies. Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson. We don't have any of those this year. But we have that next tier just before Elite. And we took a look at that. We've seen 27 rookie wide receivers who've averaged between 8 and 12 points through those first 12 weeks. This year, that's Olavi, Wilson, Watson, and Pickens. They're all currently sitting right there. And 40% of them historically have jumped to the elite tier in the final month. So we want to say, well, what do they have in common? Is there any predictive thing that says indicators as to which ones might be the 40%? And one of the stats that we found, and we've talked about how predictive this stat is for other things, but we didn't use this stat.

back in 2014 and 15 and 16. This is kind of something the targets per route run metric. That's something we've really looked at the last like three or four years. And when we look at how that affected these rookie wide receivers, there is some good correlation here. We see that wide receivers that average 23% targets per route run is a great gauge for a really good rookie wide receiver. You have Tyree Kill made that jump. back in his rookie season. He had a 31% targets per route run, and he went from 9 points to 12 points in the final part of the season. You have a bunch of players that made that jump who had great targets per route run. Jalen Waddle just last year and A.J. Brown a couple years earlier, most everyone who made the jump.

There's only one. Juju Smith-Schuster is the only player who was under 20% target per route run in his rookie first 12 weeks who made the jump. So made the leap from a solid week 1 through 12 to a higher tier, higher fancy points for game week 13 through 17. So here's how that stacks up for the basic rookie wide receivers we're looking at. Chris O'Lavi leads all rookies in this tier. He has a 27% targets per route run, a 26% target share only has three touchdowns. He's the guy that to me says the metrics say he should jump to elite as the end of this year goes, just like a lot of these other rookies since 2014 have. Garrett Wilson, since 2011, only seven rookies have multiple games with 90 plus yards and two touchdowns. Odell Beckham, Julio Jones, Mike Evans.

Alan Hurons, Darius Slayton, AJ Brown. Oh, Alan Hurts. And Garrett Wilson. And Wilson still has five more games to go and played a lot of these games without a quarterback. He had a Zach Wilson problem. So those two guys seem like they are going to pop. And even Christian Watson. He hasn't played a ton, but he has a 23.6% targets per route run. That is a great number that indicates he could pop in the rest of the season. Here's a downside player. a player that kind of is outside that model, the highlight machine, George Pickens, he has the lowest quality of targets. His targets per route run 14.5%. So if I had to say whether or not he's going to jump to the elite tier of averaging 12 fantasy points per game over the rest of the season.

I would bet against it. I would bet against it based on the history. And then you have kind of the last man standing. We've seen rookies go insane in the final month and they kind of came out of nowhere. I'm in Ross St. Brown, right? I mean, weeks 1 through 12 in his rookie season, which was last year, 5.7 fantasy points per game. And then in the final month, I mean, just went massive. That was with D'Andre Swift and Hawkinson out, but obviously showed his talent. So of those players, Where their situation could change and they have talent, you got Traylon Burks, right? He's been injured most of the year. He's back. He's healthy. Maybe he pops off. Sky Moore. The opportunity is there. The last two weeks, 38% targets per route run. And I would just throw David Bell out there as well. Change at quarterback. Voldemort returning has five targets or more in three straight weeks. So to me, those are a riddle.

Yeah, a bit of a riddle out there. I like that. Those are the guys that could come out of nowhere as rookie wide receivers. And I would, you know, if trade deadlines are open or even if you're playing DFS or whatever you're doing, Chris O'Lavi. Or just start sit decisions. Garrett Wilson starts sit decisions. And Christian Watson all look like they should have really strong finishes to this season. All right, well, you can get up to 100% standard of protection. That is never not working with head and shoulders scalp shield technology available at Walmart.com. Use it every time you shampoo to see the difference. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Do we have word on whether the Rams have a full roster to field or are they just given? Yeah, no, they have open practice on Tuesday, tryouts, open tryouts for the team. And then they're going to just, you know, kind of.

Go from there. Yeah, what was the, what was that movie with Tony Danza? The Philadelphia kicker movie? The garbage kicking, field goal kicking Philadelphia phenomenon. There it is. Well, well done, Kyle. Bravo, that's a lot of pressure. Now, Matthew Stafford and Aaron Donald are not going to be in this game. Yeah, or probably most other games. Al, is that where Mike is? Is he trying out for the Rams? He is, yep. Come on. They must not have seen me throw him a few passes in practice. And have him break his thumb and catch a ball. Lamar Jackson. That is a true story. That is a true story. Left practice early for treatment. Unavailable to reporters. Quad injury is what it's being reported as. Which is new. He had the hip injury he was dealing with last week, the quad injury this week. Hip bones connect to the quad bone. Oh, no, the knee.

The knee is next. I'm not putting that evil out there. I retract that. I take it back like a fishing line. Stay healthy, Lamar, but. Tony Zanz is so little. I'm just seeing the cover of this garbage picking, field goal kicking Philadelphia phenomenon movie. He's so little. That is the whole name of the. That's the whole name. Yeah. Wow. Marketing wizards. I'm guessing Kyle watches that regularly. Is that a monthly thing for you in between Mighty Ducks? 90s Disney sports movies were spot on. They were pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, the Lamar situation, look, he plays Denver. We had a long discussion. Was it yesterday on the show or on the party room? The party room on Spotify Live. Just about how many different quarterbacks I'd like to play over Lamar Jackson this week. And how Lamar Jackson is a bit of the Kyle Pitts at quarterback situation right now. There's been eight weeks in a row now where he's on 16 total touchdown pace. Receivers, the skill level right now in Baltimore?

Not great. Mark Andrews is even dropping passes. You kept playing Kyle Pitts because you know what he's capable of. People right now are, they keep playing Lamar Jackson because they know what he's capable of. Denver's not a good matchup. Now, he could be great. I've already had plenty of people scold me on the party room yesterday. He's going to dominate Denver. He's going for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm just looking at the last eight weeks and it's a little bit. You mix it with injury? If you tell me Lamar Jackson can't run? Half of the last eight weeks, he has finished outside the top 12 at quarterback. And when he finishes inside the top 12 at quarterback, it is a low end quarterback. He's only crossed 20 fantasy points twice since that week three number one finish. He has one touchdown, one touchdown, one touchdown, zero two one zero one. Passing.

Not a good. And I know we can make excuses with the drops, but I mean, it is what it is at this point. Yeah, and obviously you're not starting anyone and everyone over to Lamar Jackson. He's... But golf, I brought up Jared Gough. I'd start Derek Carr. Trevor Lawrence is in contention this week. Yeah, I would not start Derek Carr. I do not believe. Oh, man, the Chargers. That one's really, really close to me. That was really, really close. I like the situation that the Raiders keep finding themselves in, which is... coming back and having to go to the... They get an extra quarter every week lately. Jamar Chase officially limited in practice. It was very interesting listening to him talk about the injury with respect to coming back from it and acknowledging he doesn't really know how he's going to feel until he's on the field. And the way he talked about having some reps in this game. Yeah, he...

specified. He walked us through. It was really cool. Walked us through the injury process and what was going on kind of behind the scenes, the decision making and how he played kind of through this and scored two touchdowns in a game. But then that re-aggravated it. And they want to be really careful and cautious. But he said that he wouldn't be practicing right now if there was any pain. If there was any discomfort, he's at 100%, but they're still being cautious. He did say, some reps, which is scary and frightening. Yeah, I'm not really excited this week about Jamar Chase. He's a risky business. Do you put, I mean, it's against the Kansas City Chiefs and the highest over under of the week. The greatest pace of play game we've had in a while, certainly of this week. Do you start Jamar Chase on your fantasy roster if he is active knowing that he could be limited to 15 snaps? At least he can.

at least he can score one big play and make your day. So I think you have to draw the line someplace. But like, I don't know, Garrett Wilson or Jamar Chase, I'm going to play Garrett Wilson this week. Yeah, me too. So it's a tough one. He could surprise you. And the one thing he did say in this long, transparent interview about the injury was that multiple times in this process, adrenaline literally fueled him through. the remainder of games when he was hurt. And it does, I mean, we need to remember that. Like we've talked about ankle sprains. People coming back into the game playing. They're fine. Then they're out for a longer period of time. You know, Zik came in. He played through an injury in the back half of the game. Jamar scored twice. That would tell you that, you know, maybe the fight with Kansas City gets him through the rest of that game and you could regret benching him. It just depends on your options. Mike Williams still sidelined. Christian McCaffrey did not practice on Wednesday.

That's something to monitor just because the knee irritation, I think, is how it was discussed. And you just need to pay attention there. I would have been shocked if he practiced on Wednesday, but it's still not something you want to hear. And then tonight, Thursday night football, we did the preview on yesterday's show. Jacoby Myers expected to play. Damien Harris officially out. I think Pierre Strong Jr. is expected to get the remnant from LeMondre. He might get two carries. He could get two to. Two and a half. Two to two carries. Very cheap and showdown. DFS. If you need some Pierce Strong Jr. Oh, man. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. You know, you should listen to me in DFS. I should. No. I know you want a millie maker. Yeah, that's it. Okay. That's all. That's all I got. But it lasts forever, doesn't it, Kyle?

Well, maybe in tournaments, I'll listen to you and cash. You can listen to me. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Sounds good. I wish I had been out of town last weekend and just left Jacobs in. That would have been nice. That would have been nice. Your team would have been great. Let's get into the forecast. Fantasy forecast. Feel like that Jacob's situation is the kind of outlier that will ruin fantasy players for about 10 other decisions. It's like generally speaking with an injury late in the week, that type of situation, totally should avoid it. Yep. But then I can hear people saying, yeah, but look what Josh Jacobs did and justifying some starts. All right, lots of matchups this week. We do have a couple by weeks. What is it? Arizona and Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Thank you. Pittsburgh, four and seven, taking on the five and seven Atlanta Falcons. Draft King Sportsbook line Atlanta minus one over under is 42 and a half.

Look, this game, yeah, I agree. I mean, it looks ugly. Pittsburgh's defense, I think, is in play against Atlanta, Marcus Mariotta and company, you know, not a huge threat. We have questions at running back for Pittsburgh. Naji didn't practice on Wednesday, but we know it's not a major injury. Jalen Warren came out, said he's expecting to play. Benny Snell showed out in his opportunity. McFarlane being worked in. Do you have any new? kind of inclinations or convictions around the running back room compared to the waiver show? Well, the only change from the waiver show is I thought that this week Benny Snow would be the better play than Jalen Warren if Najee was out. If Jalen Warren is practicing on full on Wednesday, this was a hamstring issue. If he makes it through full practices all week, I assume he's going to be good to go. He is just a better running back to Benny Snow. I know Benny

Good this last week, but at the same time... Oh, he mostly looks bad all the time. Yeah, so I believe I would put Jalen Warren ahead of Benny Snell. Naji, you got to keep an eye on. Matthew Betts, our injury expert, said he would be surprised if Naji plays with the oblique injury. So it's too early to know right now with only the Wednesday practice report out. If he is out, I think Warren or Snell become a break glass in emergency. play. I'm not smashing them into lineups as a, if both of those guys are active and Anthony McFarlane might be mixed in, you know, I don't think that it's clear enough to just force one of those guys in. You're saying if Naji's active? I'm saying if Naji is out.

Jalen Warren and Benny Snell, either one you could throw in your lineup, but I'm not recommending like, oh, you've got to get them in there, even though it's a good matchup against Atlanta. Yeah, I'd be comfortable with Warren without Najee, but what if Najee's active? Where's your confidence in Najee that he will get the majority of the work coming right back? I do think if Najee's active, he'll get the majority of work. They're not going to have him be out there and be the backup. So if I were to start one with Najee active, it would be Najee and the matchup is okay.

He's played through injury most of the year, but most of the year when he's played through injury, he's been nine fantasy points. You know, that's what I think you're going to get from him, nine or ten fantasy points. So hopefully you have better options. The Muth was not Luth last week. Went from 12 targets to, I believe, four. George Pickens, Deante Johnson, Pat Friar Muth are the passing offense for the Steelers and Kenny Pickett. He has a 1.1% touchdown rate so far this year. Fryer Mewth? Nope, Kenny Pickett. Okay. Yeah, that makes more sense. And it's just, it's interesting because Kenny Pickett has not been, he's not at a breakout incredible Herbert type of rookie year, but he's also not had a Zach Wilson, Justin Fields rookie here. He's been probably like if there's a scale of good to bad, 10 being great, one being bad, I think he's about a four, four to five. And so progression is in the cards for him.

He looked okay last week. Is Pat Friamuth still somebody that you put in the upper echelon of tight ends? Yeah, absolutely. Tightens all suck. They all suck. If you're beyond Kelsey and Andrews, they suck. So you're going to start the guys that are talented, who are a part of the offense. Friamese are Hearst. Both of them are very similar to me. I lean Hurst this week only because the over under, the game script, and the matchup with Kansas City, I want assets in that game. And then Pickens, always a threat to score. The targets have been up since the departure of Claypool. But if he doesn't score, that's where you'll be disappointed, I think.

Yeah, I mean, this is a game with 42.5 point over under. Atlanta, in the first half of the season, was surprisingly scoring a lot of points. Last couple weeks, they have not put up that much offense. The Steelers defense has gotten a little bit better, having Watt back. I just don't love the assets in this game. I mean, Honestly, if you look at like a slog of a game. Yeah, you can start George Pickens. You can start whoever the running back one is for the Steelers. I don't think, and you can start Pat Framese. I don't think any of those three positions are good or great starts this week. And then for the Falcons.

It's pick your running back and check out. You're not throwing Drake London in there. Yeah, it's Patterson too. Sure. I mean, Patterson is obviously the guy. Tyler Algier has been getting enough work and has looked decent enough to where an emergency start is there. But yeah, it's Patterson and check out. All right. Let's move on then. Let's talk about the Green Bay Packers taking on the Chicago Bears, a team that Aaron Rogers has historically owned. Packers are four and eight. The Bears are three and nine. If the Bears win the game, they have the same record as the Packers. Oh, come on Bears. Justin Fields Limited on Wednesday. We could have Fields back. We could have Trevor Simeon. And you've got David Montgomery with the majority of all the work in the backfield for Chicago that we feel pretty comfortable with. Packers over the last six weeks, that defense is not getting it done. 27th against quarterbacks, 29th against running backs, 22nd against wide receivers.

I'm really comfy with Montgomery this week. I love Montgomery. I think with, you know, he's got the backfield completely to himself, and the Packers cannot stop the run right now at all, even when they know it's coming. The Bears with Justin Fields, without Justin Fields, they're going to run a ton. So David Montgomery is in my lineup. And then when we look at the other pieces of this game, Darnell Mooney's out for the season. Chase Claypool. Are we going to start seeing? seeing an emergence of Chase Claypool in this offense? I don't think so. Five targets last week, but just 40% of snaps. Yeah, I'm not putting him in my lineups. I mean, I'll keep an eye out and I hope he does great things, but you can't just start Chase Claypool, who's done nothing simply because Darnell Mooney is injured when you don't even know who the quarterback is right now. Anybody else you want to mess with on that Bears offense? No, I'm not going to Colcomo. I'm playing David Montgomery and.

Justin Fields of Feet plays, and that is it. But the Packer's side, the Packer's side seems like there's some really good place. What do you do with the wide receiver room? Christian Watson's number one to me. He's number one because of his explosiveness, his targets per route run, the fact that they drafted him to do what he is doing. He's on fire NBA Jam rules. So I don't see how you bench Christian Watson right now, not in this matchup. against the Bears who are terrible. Would you take a shot on Lazard after three bad weeks? No. I mean, to say Lazard can't get a touchdown is ridiculous. He has probably better odds than a lot of the players we're going to talk about starting. But Lazard has really succeeded when he's been the necessary option. You know, when Dobbs wasn't there and...