Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 15 Matchups, News, Playoff Mailbag

Yeah. And that's all you got right now. In a week of scrambling and scraping for information, any kind of speculation, that's all we've gotten so far. From anything reported on Carolina is Ron Rivera saying, well, Fazi'll start. I think if this game's put away for Carolina, you'll see a lot of opportunities for Cameron Artis Payne. Yes. If it's not, there's a trust factor, past protection, keep Newton healthy, different aspects that go into play there, Tolbert, things like that.

Tedgin confidence? Pretty solid this week. Pretty solid. I think he's got a, I'll go 30% chance to have one of his Tedgin plays. Yeah, okay. So that's good because Tedgin's been doing that a little bit and he's got a red hot, white hot quarterback. Let me ask you this. How many questions have you gotten on Twitter through the website, the fantasy footballers.com that have said,

Would you, what is your concern level with Odo Beckham Jr. against Josh Norman? I've gotten a few. You have? Yeah. Okay. I thought I would have some more, but I've gotten just a few of them. Proportional to the Julio question. Oh, not even close. See, I haven't gotten any. And I think it's interesting because. If people decided they made up their mind as a war. I think people just said, because O'Do Beckham Jr. is coming to this game on fire, by the way. Only, we looked this up. Doug Baldwin and him.

They're separated in our league by about five points over the last five games, where Baldwin actually has outscored him because he got eight touchdowns to five for Odell Beckham Jr. But Beckham Jr. is now the number one receiver in most leagues in terms of fantasy points. Most receiving yards and most receptions ever in NFL history through 25 games for Odell Beckham Jr. 24 touchdowns in 25 games. Nobody's doubting it. And I think...

The reports about coughing putting him in the slot have given people a little bit confidence. And he's got the physical ability to beat him. I don't know why people, you know, Julio had an okay game. Julio had an okay game after Josh Norman was not guarding him. Right, and he had one big play. And I think... After Josh Norman was not guarding him. Okay. So that's the difference is if that had been... This game is also at home. That other game was in Carolina. Right, but if the Atlanta- Carolina game was close and Norman had stayed in the whole time,

I think Julio Jones would have ended up with two catches. I think it would have been really, really bad. Now the reports from the Giants are who watched what happened when the coaching staff of Atlanta said, we're just going to put Julio out there against Norman and not try and take advantage of matchups. Why would we do that? Coughlin saw that and said, you know what, I think we're going to put Odo Beckham in the slot some more because that's the smart thing to do.

Come on. Yeah, the Atlanta offense is just, I don't even like to think about it anymore. It's so sad. Yeah, it's not good. So, Eli Manning, though. People want to know, can you stream Eli Manning in this matchup? There seems to be a lot of optimism towards it compared to what you might expect against the team. Panthers are fourth in the league and run defense, fifth against the past. Obviously, have been on fire as a defense, but people still want to start Eli. Eli is not safe to me. Not safe. Not safe.

We were talking about could it turn into a shootout? The game flow could do that. Do I think that's going to happen? Probability says no, and I would much rather start a guy like Ryan Fitzpatrick than Eli this week. All right, let's talk about that vaunted Falcons offense as they head to Jacksonville to take on the Jaguars. The Jaguars are favored by three and a half points in this game. The over-under in the game is 48, so we're expecting some points to be put on the scoreboard, which I expect as well. You got Matt Ryan facing...

Blake Bortles, you've got the Devante Freeman experiment that continues, and I have a lot to say about him. You got the Yelden-Dinard Robinson situation in this game, and then you've got Julio, who, you know, hopefully. Free Julio! Sure seems like this would be the game for it. And then you got Alan Robinson, Alan Hurons, and Julius Thomas on the other side of the ball. Free everybody. Free, well, that'd be all right. I think all the owners in this game would take a 50-point.

The problem is the Falcons have only scored 29 points in their last three games. Total? Total? I believe that's... Is that two games or three games? That might be two games. But still, not good. It's been a rough out. And what it's doing is everyone's starting Julio Jones. Yes. You saw last week, I mean, Norman or not, it doesn't matter. The game flow, 11 points in our league, whatever it is. Even the worst of games is an okay game. It's, you know, like Antonio Brown against Denver this week. Everybody's still rolling them out there.

That being said, what do Devante Freeman owners do right now? Because you might have other options. Right. You better have a great option. Freeman in this situation isn't my favorite. The Jaguars have been a decent running. 29 over the last three, by the way. That was accurate. 29 points in the last three games. The Jaguars have been a pretty solid running defense. But talking about game flow, I think this one turns into a shootout with...

where I actually have confidence that Matt Ryan is an okay play before you go crazy with that. There's guys I'd rather play over him. But we've seen recently the Jags get into a lot of these matchups where it's just going back and forth and who can score more points. And in fantasy football, if you were talking to me, let's say August, and you said, okay, it's my championship or my semi-sumay championship.

I was coming down to this. I got to make a decision. Blake Bortles or Matt Ryan. You wouldn't have even comprehended the question. My brain would have exploded. And then I would have thrown in there, I'd have been like, and are you playing Devante Freeman? You would have been like, what? And what I would have said to that is, wait, he's still on the team? Yeah, I know you would have. That was your one whiff. Captain Whiff on that one. Yeah, I've been asked, what was my biggest miss is I did not think Freeman was going to be very good. Yeah.

But we're here, and Freeman has let people down a little bit with the offensive failures, and people are seeing Carolina next week. And they're saying to themselves, what do I do? Because Devante Freeman, do I trust him or would I rather play David Johnson? The thing with Freeman is what he was doing in the middle of the year was...

historic pace of scoring touchdowns. I mean, you... Which, yeah. That has to regress at some point. You can't stay on that kind of a tear, which is kind of a warning flag for Doug Baldwin, where he's on a historic type boss of tear. You cannot score 45 rushing touchdowns in a season. You cannot score 45 passing touchdowns in a season. Right. It's just, it's not going to happen. So now you're getting that, you've got that touchdown regression, and you've seen what Freeman can do. And in half point and full point PPR, he's still been good.

He just isn't winning you the week when he had that stretch. When a guy has games like that, though, the name gets associated with those games. And so now you start looking at it. And if you bench him, you start saying, am I benching 40 points? Am I benching 30 points? Because you think in the context of those games. So that's the hard part. And we have a question, I think, in the mailbag that deals with it. So I won't linger there too long. But Alan Hurons, are you feeling confident about him? Yes. Alan Robinson had a weird game last week. One catch.

One catch for one touchdown. They scored 50 points. He had one catch for a touchdown. Yeah. It was a tough outing for Alan Robinson. But we do like DeNard if Yeldon's out. Absolutely. And we like Bortles. Yep. Okay. I like all the Jigs. I like this game because the 48, I would take the over. That's not my level of expertise to tell you. I'm not advising you. You take that to the bookie. Sure. Sure.

But that's where I would go. All right, the Packers head to Oakland, take on the Raiders. This is an interesting game. We've already talked about Carr and Cooper and Crabtree, our feelings on those guys. So I'd like to get your opinion on the running backs and then also on Randall Cobb, now that Mike McCarthy has taken over play calling. What are your thoughts on Cobb compared to where they were a couple weeks ago? On Cobb? You've got to have a rebuilt confidence that...

McCarthy came out and he said, okay, I'm calling the plays. And there was an instant change in level of production for Cobb. I believe he had eight catches last week. He did. Which that's what you need for Randall Cobb. If you expect... For that baseline. And then with a chance for a touchdown. If you expect a touchdown from Randall Cobb, you're not really looking at what Randall Cobb is good at. And what he is great at doing is giving you a high volume of catches with an opportunity.

to score a touchdown because he plays for the Packers. So now that McCarthy's, because the transformation was instantaneous, that gives me a great level of confidence moving forward. The same with Lacey, where it has transformed. Unfortunately, for Lacey owners, they are splitting that time. They're splitting the carries and snaps between Starks and Lacey, so Lacey can't just have one of those unbelievable weeks where he's going to win you the game. I take that back. He could still do that on his limited work. It's just unlikely.

where last year at this time Lacey was just destroying him. Well, I was saying, and if he keeps having success like he's having, he might, those carries might lean his direction more too. But you did see Stark succeed with smaller carry counts again last week. So I guess that would be a question. Would you flex Starks in this game? Yes. Okay. Yes. The Raiders defense, however, is only given up three point.

Zero yards per carry since getting blown up by Adrian Peterson earlier in the year. They recorded 19 sacks over the last five weeks, but we still have confidence in the Green Bay offense traveling across the country, West Coast game. Yep. Even though a lot of people have been very disappointed with the Aaron Rogers performance because he was a first round pick. If you had him on your team, you likely paid that premium pick. And so you're expecting, you know,

close to 50 touchdowns, or at least 40, and games of over 300 yards, multi-touchdown games every single week. But he's not been bad. He hasn't crapped your team. He almost did in that Lions game, but he saved you with the Hail Mary. So he's still a very safe play. I'm not starting other guys over Rogers. He's still an elite top five guy for me.

I agree with you. All right, so the Browns head up to Seattle for a good time. Do you think the Browns are going to have a good time? Yeah, they're heading up there for a good time. Heading up to Seattle for a good old time because you want to play Russell Wilson right now. And you certainly want your head coach to come out and say that you don't think Russell Wilson's an elite quarterback because that's not a motivating comment. I mean...

uh, Browns, I hope you take in the fish market and the space needle. You know, get some bank for your buck on this. Seriously. In fact, if you don't jump for the stadium, it might not be a bunch different. I've never been to Seattle. It's one of those places that I've always wanted to go. So for me, enjoy it. You know, see the sights. Yeah, enjoy your time there because you're not going to enjoy it in the stadium.

This is going to be trouble. There's nobody who's playing at a higher level right now. Yes, the Mattis have been cakewalks right now for Seattle, but this is going to be trouble. When we put the line in into our dock here, the Seahawks, it could have changed, but at the time, they were favored by 14 and a half points over two touchdowns. You don't see that a lot. No, not at all. So Russell Wilson.

You are our sit of the week, obviously. We've said that our honorary sit of the week. So continue. He's had a perfect pass rating when they've gone empty set with four wide. Russell Wilson is just gnarly. Or five wide. Narnily right now. It's just incredible. And the Seattle defense, the only thing that really worked great for Cleveland last week was Isaiah Crowe actually ran the ball well. Seattle defense gives up about 44 yards a game on the ground. I mean, it's just...

It's not a pretty picture there. You lost Heartline for the season, who was actually productive. You lost him. He's gone. You can't start. So the question for a lot of people is Barnage, right? Like, is it Barnage or Kelsey? Is it Barnage or Gates? Barnage? Yeah, Barnage. Barnage. So what are your thoughts on Barnage? Because I'm fading on him. I know Seattle's been not that great against tight-ins, but it's a different Seattle defense right now than it was earlier in the year. I still like him. I think that he will get enough targets that.

He'll give you a decent outing. I think he's safe, where his potential to have a monster game like he's been having throughout the year, probably on the lower scale of the probability. But he's still a safe guy. So when you're saying you're fading on him, who, what level of guy are you looking to play over? Travis Kelsey. You'd play Kelsey over Barnage? I think I'd play Kelsey over Barnage this week. Okay. Because I like playing against Baltimore and having kind of the upside of that equation.

I just feel like... Baltimore, because you feel like the offense for Baltimore is so bad? Well, more so that the... Yeah, because the offense is so bad, the Chiefs will have the ball. They're at home. The Chiefs have a lot of... You know, you saw Russell Wilson score five touches against the Ravens last week. The upside to me for Barnage, like you said, his potential to score is very low to me in this game. And so you need...