Week 17 Matchups + Wheel of Shame, A Beautiful Trap - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/29

This is it. This is the final show of the fantasy footballers before the championship week is over. Your last minute starts, sit decisions, and a shame at the end. We got a great show for you. Make sure you subscribe. Stay with us all off season and come back on Monday with those hashtag footclan titles. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers, back with you Friday episode. Mike, the Fantasy Hitman, still with us. I showed up, everybody. Jason Moore is here. Howdy-Duty. Andy Holloway with you. Last episode of the show before our champions are crowned. So here we are. Do we have a shirt up? We do.

Okay. I didn't even, yeah, this morning, Andy Schneider, our designer, he said, any reason I shouldn't put the shirt up right now? I said, no, get it up there. Yeah, you know, I need a championship shirt. We should have put it up last week because I've been hearing more and more like, oh, I won my championship last week. And that's like, wait, what? But I forget that there are a handful of leagues. that, you know, when the season was 17 weeks and your championship was week 16, they just kept it as week 16 when they extended to 18 weeks. And so, yeah, if you need, you know, to swag out, shopballers.com and you can get the Footland title t-shirt. He actually made two of them. He made, he made like a, we have a Foot Clan title shirt and then we have a retro title shirt, which kind of looks like those old, uh,

NCAA championship t-shirts that you would get for like, you know, when the national title was one, he made one of those for the Footland title as well. He scrolled down a little bit there, Jay. Okay. But there's a couple of championship shirts available. If you want to celebrate, I hope to be purchasing some of those. Yeah, and if you want trophies or rings, fantasychamps.com. That's right. What else is going on? We've got a game to recap. There's some things that happened last night. Some days we get into the studio and we try to hit record at the same time every day. But it's hard. I mean, we are all in it and we want to talk, you know, the producers ourselves. We want to talk about what happened. And there are some days I'm just like, shut up. Shut up. Don't talk. Let's just hit record because I want to react together.

And today was one of those days because Mike was living in just a world of terror, misery, and hypocrisy. And I say hypocrisy because of what Jason pointed out this morning that yesterday you were, it's about the process. You need, you got to get the process right. Then you can live with the result. Yeah, something that you can be truly and totally comfortable with where it's like if it doesn't work, you're fine because you really understood the reason. Yeah. But in the end, it doesn't matter. No, I tweet it about that said, not even the process can save me from what I am feeling right now. So let's talk about what that is. Joe Flacko and the Browns. Superman. If you missed it, Joe Flacko is the greatest quarterback in the NFL right now. 100%. At least for the first half of it. Doesn't need Amari Cooper?

And doesn't need to throw 40 times. You kept saying he was going to throw against the Jets. There's no way he throws 49. 29 attempts. That's it. Yeah, because they shut it down in the second half. 300 yards. Three touchdowns. Basically, I think he had about 7 to 15 yards in the second half. So you basically had a first half where Joe Flacco threw for 303 against the Jets defense that. never gives up that much. No, they give up 168 yards. The process, Mike, the process said, you were still, let me put it this way. For those of you out there, because I know you're out there, those that benched Joe Flacco like Mike did, those that benched Jerome Ford because you were worried about the rushing totals. You know, there was this temptation through the afternoon. Mike was just analyzing, analyzing, analyzing, analyzing. And I think you got to the point where you were thinking about it. But.

at about 5 o'clock, an hour before the game out here, we got word that Amari Cooper was not going to play. And I had made the decision in our league to bench him. In fact, I cut him at about 4 o'clock and tweeted about that, said, look, I'm not going to play him, so I'm going to cut him, get the roster spot. I'm out on Amari Cooper. And I knew my night was going to be filled with terror because now I have to watch this game and hope that Amari Cooper doesn't do well. Well, no, I didn't because Amari Cooper got ruled out.

So now Joe Flacco doesn't even have his superstar, Mike. Yeah, it made the decision to bench Joe Flacko extremely easy. Well, because it's obvious. Because he's against the worst matchup that he could be against right now. Doesn't have his number one wide receiver. And then it took him, what, three minutes? Three minutes to score a touchdown immediately just hot knife through butter. I think 10 minutes to score his third touchdown. It was, it was. Truly an unbelievable performance by Joe Flacco. David Nijoku had 128 receiving yards in the first quarter. My favorite tweet of the night might have been, and I see if you can find this, Kyle, so I can source it. It was somebody pointing out like, David Nogoku's, and he's year seven, best yardage games. And there was like, there was one up at number one, which wasn't last night. And the second one was 10 minutes with Joe Flacko. David Nujoku had.

You know, four catches for over 100 yards just to start the game. Yeah, that was Yankee. Yeah, Nathan Yankee. Week 5 in 2021. Dave, do we, I always say his name wrong. Is it Yankee or is it? Do we know? Yeah, I think it's Yankee. Sorry, Nate, from PFF. He's great. Yeah, I mean, if you had an easier to pronounce last name, we get it right. Yeah, we'd bring you up way more. It's on you. That's on you. That's so. It's on your family. The game was, it was. this strange mixed bag of being very correct and very incorrect. Like the second half, they, you know, they shut it down. Joe Flacco, Andy, you said, I don't know, like 20 passing yards. So the regret could have been so, so much worse. His first half was basically his final fantasy total. He had about 32 in the first half. He finished with 32 in our league.

The game got reset to what we expected in the second half, which was a pathetic offensive performance by the Jets, despite a big deficit. Dump, dump, dump, dump, dump, dump. Yeah, and the Browns. I mean, they scored three second half points. Both teams scored three second half points. At least you understand why. They were up by so much. The Browns, I understand having a different offensive philosophy in the second half. To me, I'm not surprised that they would want to turtle up and just not make mistakes. It's not like Flacco didn't throw a pick six. But the Jets were in embarrassment. They were up so much that Joe Flacco was falling asleep on the sideline. If you've not seen the club, I'm not, I'm not exaggerating.

Like, it looks like the man. No, he was falling asleep. He was tired from a long night's work. From a short night's work. A reporter asked him about falling asleep on the sideline. And he asked the reporter, he's like, no. He was, did I do that? But it was like so genuine. It wasn't a joke. It was like, I mean, this is an old man who got tired at the end of a football game. Breece Hall was a great play. Jason was right about both defenses. They both scored. We saw a good handful of tweets of people who actually made like a very nice return on putting that down. Garrett Wilson was not a good play. No. No, he wasn't. Hey, got that one. Yeah, you benched him. You didn't play flaco. And it's funny because like once you make the decision not to play flaco, Mike. Yep. Like.

The net result for your team is irrelevant. Like if Joe Flacco scores five points or 50, you don't get them. Correct. And yet, and yet, I'm sure you were thrilled that he didn't throw two more second half touchdowns. Yes. For your own emotional health. Yeah, it was. It was going into the half. What did you say in our channel? You said something. I don't, I don't even remember, man. I mean, you were blacking out. I was in a dark, dark place. I think it was something like I am dead or. Yeah. Yeah, no. It was, it was a bad moment.

Because look, especially, I mean, it's compounded, right? It was, I'm telling people. I hate my life. Yeah, there we go. There we go. That sounds right. I mean, the people who come to us for advice, come to me for advice, I'm like, I'm not playing Joe Flacco. Yeah, you put your. So I've, you know, that. And that's what I want to get right more than anything. And then on top of that, in my championship math, where I made that decision, it feels extra bad. The great news is. one, it ended up just being 303. Like, if they had, if they had seriously. With an interception and two fumbles. If they had gone into the second half and Joe's at 350 and four or five, it would have just been catastrophic nightmare. But if you had another option, they at least can give you 80% of what Joe Flacco put up in a half against the Jets. Is there a team you're rooting for more in the playoffs? No.

I want to watch the world burn. Let's get. Let's go Super Bowl. Joe. I mean, Kevin Stefansky holding this team together with the injuries that they've had. They lost Nick Chubb. They lost their quarterbacks. Every single time they show Kevin Stafansky. I'm like, that's Joe Flacco. I just see Joe Flacco. Which they are almost the same age. And I mean, how good did Joe Flacco feel beating the crap out of the Jets? Yeah. I mean, he's just. The Jets deserved that. Like. They left Joe Flacco who had been in their system when they needed a quarterback desperately because they had a great defense. Their general manager was like, nah, dude, we're good with Zach Wilson. And that's fine to do week one when, you know, keep in mind. Yeah. It was week one. Week one when Aaron Rogers went down. You had so much time to fix this problem with your great defense. And Joe Flacco on this team with Garrett Wilson and Brees Hall, there's.

They're super bowlish bound. Their playoff, I mean, they're the, they're the Browns. They're literally the Browns at this point. You deserve this. Yeah, I mean, if you say, hey, Zach, paint me a picture for one week. That's cool. Then you see the picture. But when you ask him to keep painting. Zach, just as the same picture you painted last year. Yeah, and then you just keep hanging them on the wall. That's delusion. Stop with finger painting. Use a brush. So, yeah, it's, yeah, the Jerome Ford performance. It was two receiving touchdowns for Ford. Yeah. They, you know, he was pretty good on the ground as well, but just 12 attempts. And they salted that one away in the second half. So it is Friday. Put Clan Friday. It's a good opportunity to thank everybody that has supported the show. For sure. For many years over at Jointhefoot.com. We appreciate all of you. Hey, if you came back this morning after last night's debacle.

Thank you. Thank you. And every Friday we give away $100 gift card to Fantasychamps.com to one of you. And today's winner, your username, soft tissue issues, which you've got to watch out for. Oh, I've been there. Yeah, I think we notice the older we get, the more soft tissue issues. The tissue is getting softer. Is that the problem? Is that the problem? Is that the problem? Yeah. All right. Congratulations. $100 to Fantasychamps.com. Oh, and remember when you. Use that. You can still, even though it's a gift card, you can still use free ring. What? Yeah. So put a trophy and a championship ring in your cart and use the code free ring. You will get a $60 ring for free. News and notes from Around the League. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, the hits kept coming all afternoon. A lot of illnesses right now. Kyla Marie Ezekiel Elliott didn't practice due to illness. Kenneth Walker didn't practice due to shoulder and illness.

Illness going around. Everybody's thrown up. All of our producers didn't show up yesterday due to illness. Or not our producers. Our programming team. All right. Josh Jacobs hasn't practiced. Wednesday and Thursday with the quad injury. Not a good sign for Sunday availability. They were both walkthroughs, but you still have to say what you believe would happen if you had a practice. So, I mean, we saw last week. He missed practice all week. And then lo and behold, he wasn't active. He's the morning game against Indianapolis, a great matchup. Samir White, a great play if he is inactive, which we expect, I think. Is that the fair? I'm not at the point where I expect it yet. Today's practice that's an actual practice will determine it for me. All right. Keenan Allen has not been practicing either. That's one where we expect him to sit down. Correct. Josh Palmer, still not practicing due to concussion. They're out of wide outs. They're actually going to be lining up. Quentin Johnston.

That's true. Yeah. That's true. Is he in your lineup for DFS? Stay tuned. Oh, wow. Later today. Wow. Spoiler, he is not. Oh, okay. Jay's like, don't accuse me of such. That you're getting huge. No, I haven't lost it a while. I don't put players like huge in there. Michael Pittman returned to a full practice on Thursday. So he should be back from the concussion of no more symptoms. Trevor Lawrence didn't practice due to the shoulders. They flowers. Let's talk about this. Wednesday, Thursday, calf injury, nose eight flowers. Are you concerned? This was a Monday. He did play Monday night. So you could maybe look to today's practice as your firm indication. Yep. The eyebrows are definitely up looking for today's practice report. I mean, as long as we're limited today, then it should be no problem. Zay is in. But don't shut down the news. Like pay attention. CJ Stroud back. He will be starting.

And D.K. Metcalf didn't practice due to a back injury. Could just be maintenance. We'll find out. Isaiah Pacheco hasn't practiced with the concussion. So we're not expecting Pacheco. Is that fair? That is fair. And then Clyde, one of the players missing with illness. I mean, if he comes back, he's still going to be in. Because the chiefs is on the active roster. It's La Michael P. Rine. and then guys on their practice squad that they may have to go to. This guy's like Keante Ingram. So if Clyde is good to play, which I imagine he will be, I'm still going to play him. All right. And our illustrious deucer team over there will be checking the newswire throughout today's episode for any breaking news, practice reports, which we might get some before the end of the show. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance.

Fantasy Forecast. Yesterday we... All my troubles. Far away. Lions and Cowboys. We covered that game. The Patriots, Bills, Falcons, Bears, Raiders, Colts, Rams, Giants, Cardinals, Eagles, Saints, Buccaneers. Those games we took care of. You can scroll back. Click on yesterday's show. Jason's typing so furiously right now. What is going on? He's either searching for news. Let me tell you what he could be doing. Okay. Give me the list. Searching for news. That's not my leader in the clubhouse. Okay. Uber Eats. Is he trying? Okay. All right. All right. Cheeseburger. Lay off me. I'm starving. No, there's more clicking with Uber Eats, right? Not typing.

Well, what do you got to search? You got a search. I assumed it was something related to like a mid-show DFS pivot. No, no, no. I told you earlier. I'm locked. My lineup is locked. Oh, that's true. You did say that. Okay. It's not great, but it is locked. Oh, you say that every week. You're on a hot street. All right. Let's start here with this San Francisco 49er Washington commander matchup. 49ers 11 and 4 commanders, the inverse at 4 and 11. The Draft King Sportsbook line on the road. San Francisco minus 12.5. The over under is 50 points. That is a high over under because the 49ers are projected with almost, what, 31.5 points. Nice. When I saw this line, I was like, wow, that is a large spread. You're at home, the commanders, with Jacoby Brissette, and they've looked a little better with Brissette. And so I clicked on the...

Mander's side of this line, given that they were at home in such a big spread, and that lasted about 90 seconds before. Nah, that's not. What am I talking about? The Niners are going to roll them. Honestly, if you were counting on the Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, Debo, I. You were going to play them anyways. Yeah. But the fact that they're coming off a loss, that makes me even more excited for those guys, because Shanahan off a loss, you know, he crushes the team implied total. Washington, you just can't, they're like the Cardinals. Like teams just do what they want on them. We talked about it yesterday, but I think it was on the footcast, I believe. Mike, you are the only one that remembers things around here. I don't remember yesterday. It was that Christian McCaffrey is in the championship game of like over 50% or right around 50% depending on your league format of teams that drafted Christian McCaffrey, or at least who have them on the roster now.

are in the championship game. That's an insanely high number that I'm not used to seeing. But the fact that that many people have Christian McCaffrey in the championship game, and it's the commanders, I feel like if you drafted Christian McCaffrey, you have a 50% chance to win your title this year. Like, you guys are in a matchup where Christian McCaffrey is in that game. I think I know who's going to win the matchup, the one with Christian McCaffrey. And that would be which one of us, Mike? That would be you. Yeah. Yep. And what does it feel like to know? You've got all these starts-sid decisions. Look, man, what is what is dead may never die? I'm already gone. I think the only like recourse is like a voodoo doll or something. I thought you were going to say playing Joe Flaggow. You got to get. Yeah, that would have worked. No, it's black magic. That's it. The.

If you're against Christian McCaffrey, your only hope is that they get super cute and Debo gets rushing touchdowns. Well, we were saying yesterday, looking at Christian McCaffrey's average points per game, you know, you're really, you're praying for 20 points from Christian McCaffrey. Yeah, as the opponent. As the opponent. Yeah, like if you're facing him, you're like, I want 20. 20 would be amazing because it's under his average. It's probably one touchdown. Otherwise, you're in catastrophe land. It's not a guarantee, obviously. I mean, Brock Pretty could. could pass for four touchdowns easily and they could go to IUC and Debo and Kittle and look, play your 49ers at the end. Yep, yeah. On the other side, possibly some optimism for Tara McLaren and company. And I would say Curtis Samuel had six targets. Both of those players with Jacoby Brissette starting could be what I would call garbage time heroes in this game. The 49ers are, look, they're going to be ahead by a lot.

And Jacoby Brissette is competent, unlike Sam Hal right now. And Jacobi Brissette targets Terry McLaurin a lot. He is the first read, and he's willing to let it go on that first read, even sometimes when he shouldn't. Terry McLaren is a guy that I think is a decent play this week. You know, if you've got a bad matchup, like if you had Garrett Wilson yesterday and you had to bench him, I think Terry McLaren is a type of player that... would be someone you could go with. I also think Antonio Gibson is a fine flex option. While you might be getting Brian Robbins a back, he's coming back from a hamstring, and it's not a guarantee that he's active this week. Would you play Antonio Gibson or where are we going here? Ty Chandler, I assume, over Gibson? Yes, Chandler. Clyde over Gibson? Yes. Yeah, probably.

All right, the Carolina Panthers at 2 and 13 take on the 8 and 7 and injured Jacksonville Jaguars. Jacksonville minus 6 is the line right now. Kyle, if you want to confirm, that hasn't changed. Over and under is 38. We might not have Trevor Lawrence, although in recent weeks, he just plays. He just plays through injury. They certainly do not have Christian Kirk. They don't have Zay Jones, or at least we don't think they will. They could, but he's been dealing with injury. Evan Engram. He's a must start because he is just getting targeted like crazy. I had this quick moment. Let me muse on this with David Najokou and Evan Ingram because we've joked about, look, seven years in, they're the player we expected. Seven years. And it threw into question in my mind at tight-in specifically. We always say targets are an earned stat. Is that a lie with tight-ins? Because I don't think Evan Ingram and David Nijoku have...

You know, these are first round draft picks. I don't think that they're, it took seven years for them to materialize into target earners in the offense. Maybe a year or two for tight end. But to me, it just came down. When I watched even a joke who's streaking down the field last night or what Ingram has done this year, I just started thinking like at tight end, the utilization seems to be everything. Like the fact that teams basically ruin some of these. I mean, Trey McBride, you loved him. Mm-hmm. Was he not earning targets with Cliff Kingsbury? Well, you still have to have the opportunity to earn targets if you're not on the field and you're playing 30% of snaps. But I do get what you're saying. But Ingram and Najoku were on the field. Yeah, the opportunity for tight ends. It's easier for tight ends to receive a target, but they're just not the first reads in the offense usually. You're going. But that's dumb, right? With these guys, it was dumb. You should have been targeting them for years, right?

To some degree, I do agree. I mean, it's more efficient to throw the ball to a wide receiver than to a tight end, generically speaking. But with, like, Najoku's been so valuable after the catch. Yeah, it's like, do that. You could have done that for years. Like watching him run down the field, like David Najoku is the number one tight end for the majority of the season. That's what happened this year. And you could have been doing that for more than your seventh season. I saw a friend of the show, Paul Churchian, tweeting out, like, what is the single, for those that are in the championship, what's the single move that you made this year that put you there? And there were people like, oh, I drafted Tyreek or Christian McCaffrey. But one of the most common things I saw was I picked up David Najoku like five weeks ago. Whoever picked up Najoku and credit to Andy, Andy both did and.

really hammered that on the show of like his schedule, the rest of the way is unbelievably perfect, four tight ends. I think you're, you know, the co-managed team that I've got with the biggest loser in the championship, we've gotten a Joku. He's really carried teams the second half of this season. Yeah, yeah. So, sorry, we'll get back to the game. Evan Ingram, you play him. Travis T. TN, the matchup is one that you want to get him in there. Yes. You know, I'm not, I think we're differing in the fact that like Calvin Ridley, to me, because of the lack of other options, to me, I'm playing him regardless of quarterback. But I think you are less comfortable with Bethers. I am more hesitant. I mean, with, he's an okay play because he is so necessary in the targets. But when you look at what the Panthers give up, they don't give up a lot to wide receivers.

I think Calvin Ridley is just a fine flex option. McLaren or Ridley? Yeah, I would go McLaren there. And they're both okay. I think they're the same tier. I don't see McLaren as like clearly better than Ridley. If you like Ridley better and he's had bigger games, that's fine. But they're in the same tier of like a flex option where you don't have to bench them this week. But Travis E.T.N. is going to have the touchdowns. I mean, I feel like I should go bet. two touchdowns Travis ETN right now. Mike, other side of the ball. We saw signs of life last week. We actually had a big game from DJ Shark. We had a big game for Adam Thielen. We had Chuba Hubbard, who's getting 23 opportunities the week who, after I named him start of the week, decided to be limited in practice with a hamstring injury. But he's been a top 24 running back five consecutive weeks in Jacksonville. You can run on them. Yeah, yeah, Chuba is in, assuming that he is healthy and ready to go.

And should we be picking up Miles Sanders in leagues to either block or to play if Chuba doesn't play? Today's report matters a lot. Yeah. If you go to today's report and he's still hobbled, it's not the worst idea. I don't, it's more of a, I'm going to say, I don't really want to play Miles Sanders. But would you then, if there's a player that you don't want to play, do you want to block him? You just want to remove the. the variance that Miles Sanders actually has a good game? I guess it depends on your opponent. Or would you rather them play Miles Sanders against him? Well, that's the question I'm asking is like, do you believe, let's say Chuba's gone, is Miles Sanders actually a good play for fantasy? He would be. The way that they're running the ball so much. He would be an okay start, but there is. Gibson or Miles Sanders if he started? I think I'd go Miles Sanders in that one. Yeah, I would too. I would as well. So that means we should be picking them up. You could block them.