Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Starts of the Week, Week 6 Matchups, News

You know, four for 81, you know, stuff like that, taking the deeper shots. I will say this. The only question mark with Edelman that if you want to write a story about it is they had to lean on him so heavily last year with the injuries. You even had gronk out at times, didn't have Martell's Bennett, didn't have Chris Hogan. Amandola was out a lot. Amandola was out a lot. So, you know, is this?

Game plan specific, I think Edelman's the focus still. So I'm fine starting Edelman. I'm confident in Edelman. I do think that you might have a few more outlier games with Edelman than you did last year, just because there are more weapons. I have Edelman as my wide receiver 14. I have absolutely zero worries about him. He got 10 targets last week. He's an excellent wide receiver. If people are down on him, I would be trading for him now.

You know, hey, Brady came back and he didn't get it done. He's not the guy. It's Chris Hogan. I'd be trying to say that that type of stuff. But Edelman, I have no, no fears about him whatsoever. I'm happy to start him. And Mike, I believe you've got him in our league. If you disagree, please trade him. No, I don't disagree. Disagree. And give him to me. I want, I'm just, I like to. All right, we've got, we've, we've got the Panthers and the Saints in the Dome, 53 point over under in this one, and then it might be low.

That might be low. The Saints defense is allowed two rushing touchdowns per game. That's dead last in the league. What do you do with Jonathan Stewart coming back off an injury? Is this all, you know, signs point to start him? Do you worry about him at all? Do you think they've taken enough time with him? Will he get a full workload? I think he will. I think they've taken their time. They made sure that he was healthy. A telling sign will be is Cameron Artis pain active?

or inactive because when Jonathan Stewart is healthy, Cap is a healthy scratch since they do basically the same thing, so they'd rather have an extra special team or extra player for a different position. I think Jonathan Stewart gets a full workload. I think Jonathan Stewart is going to Golden Corral Feast upon the New Orleans Saints. So you like Jonathan Stewart quite a bit this week. Greg Olson last week set a career high in passing yardage. He's an auto start. I'm sorry that Derek Anderson will not be starting.

Greg Olson players. Calvin Benjamin rest of the season. What is he? I'll put him at a low-end wide receiver one. I mean, he's been burning me lately. We talked about this because Jason has him very high. I have him as my number two wide receiver this week. And we're just wait. We keep waiting and waiting for Kelvin Benjamin. I think he's still a fine play. But I'm just, I don't have that confidence that you had after the first couple games.

But he's still a one to me. Still a one. Yeah, he's a one to me as well. Jason, I know you're going to talk about cooks in a little bit, but the Saints wide receivers are averaging 23 receiving yards per game that is first in the league. I know you're going to talk about cooks. Let's talk about Sneed. He came out on fire. I, you know, I think I told people go trade him because...

I mean, he's just in an offense with multiple weapons. They seem to love Michael Thomas. They're using Michael Thomas around the goal line as well. How does this break down this week against a Carolina defense that's struggling right now? Yeah, I mean, when you've got the ancillary weapons. They're in the dome. They're at home in the dome. When you've got the ancillary weapons of Willie Sneed and Brian Coleman and Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. Fleaner. Cooks and Fleener.

It's difficult to know which one to start, but I think in a game like this, you're going to want to put your Saints players in. I would, you know, if I don't have, if I'm looking at my flex, and I've got a couple guys with question marks where I go, you know, they could be okay. I look towards the game, and this is the type of game. Do you guys remember the last time that Carolina came to New Orleans last year? I do not. Remember what Cam did? I do not. 331 yards, five touchdowns. Yeah, I mean, look. Decent.

Pretty all right. But the point is here is this is a game where the Carolina Panthers are going to be able to get their offense together. And at home, Drew Brees is going to be able to say against this struggling Carolina defense, I can come back and score on you. So it's just going to be back and forth. And I like players in those games. So I'm fine starting just about and by just about. I really mean. Pretty much mean everybody. Everybody except. Let me ask you a question. Michael Thomas.

If you had to start Michael Thomas or Kamar Aiken this week. Oh, that's a great question. Who would you start? I'm going to start Michael Thomas over Kamar Aiken. I expect that Kamar Aiken will see more targets, maybe even have more receptions, but the touchdown opportunity is going to be higher with Michael Thomas than with Kamar Ake. I agree with that. And as far, for Willie Sneed, I still buy in. I still believe he had the two monster games and then he had the toe injury, so he missed a game. I don't think he was fully back.

But what is buying, look, that doesn't mean anything to me. I think, what is buying in mean? I think that he's of a fine. Is he a wide receiver two rest of season? Is he a wide receiver three rest of season? He's right on that cusp. Wide receiver two, wide receiver three. But he's not the one we got in week one. No, no. Okay. No, no. Starts of the week. I'm going to start at quarterback. I'm going to give you my guy. I mentioned him earlier. It's Brian Hoyer.

Brian Hoyer taking on Jacksonville 300 plus yards for three straight games, two touchdowns for three straight games and only one turnover. And while Jacksonville hasn't given up a ton of yards, I think this is going to be his opportunity to keep the streak going. And they give up, you know, nearly the most points to fantasy quarterbacks on the season. So I'm going to stay with Brian Hoyer. I think I have him around five or six this week, which is very high. But look, three times, what do we say? He's on fire. You do it thrice. You're on fire.

You're in the flames. I'm staying with Brian Horace. Do you guys know who has more fantasy points at the quarterback position than Brian Hoyer over the last three weeks? Yes. I do. It's Ben Rothlisberger and Matt Ryan. And that is it. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Wow. I mean. What a world. Yeah. Sometimes you sit back and you look. Look, there's so many players that want to play professional football. A whole universe of potential collegian athletes.

And you sit back and you see Case Keenham and Brian Hoyer and Charlie Whitehurst played last week. You can do it too. Believe. It's almost the opposite point. It's like no one can do it. So you have to, you know, it's just incredible to me. So Mike, who's your starting, your quarterback's start of the week? Carson Palmer. Love it. We have the New York Jets coming into town. The New York Jets are giving up over 320 passing yards a game.

on average. They've given up 16 passing touchdowns so far. You have the, we talked about the road trip for San Francisco. The Jets have to make that road trip over the West Coast. It's a little easier to travel that way, but there's just so many factors for pointing me towards a great game for Carson Palmer. The secondary of the Jets is horrifying. The run defense is still okay. So I don't expect David Johnson to run wild.

But I expect Carson Palmer to be back and to be at full health and get to write the ship, so to speak, for Carson Palmer. Jason, you have an interesting quarterback start of the week. Yeah, it went a little bit dangerous here. But I'm going to go with Tyrod Taylor this week. We haven't talked too much about Tyrod Taylor. I don't think our show has been, you know, super high on him compared to other analysts. Tyra Taylor is a boom.

bust quarterback clearly. I mean, you look back at last year and what he did, and you get a week of 14 points or 16 points, and then 30. You know, he has those big blow-up explosion games, and if he's going to have one, I have a feeling that San Francisco traveling across the country, their offense is so fast-paced with Chip Kelly's system that their defense cannot keep it together.

Buffalo's on fire right now. That crowd in that stadium is going to be raucous. You've got the legs and the touchdown opportunities on the ground for Tyrod Taylor. If Tyrod Taylor runs for 50, I'm not surprised at all. And that gives him a baseline where he's a fine start. He gets two touchdowns. I mean, look, the last four weeks, four touchdowns, two touchdowns, two touchdowns, two touchdowns given up to the quarterback by San Francisco. And they're on the road. So I think...

Look, if you're looking for a big blowup game, if you're like, hey, I'm streaming the position or, or, you know, I've got Andy Dalton or Tyrod Taylor, but I need a big game. I think that game has a good chance of coming from Tyrod Taylor this week. All right, let's move over to the running backs. I am taking what these guys think is a risk here. Yeah, I'm going with Jamal Charles. Ooh. He's taking it on Oakland, 23rd against the run, but the gist here is that I think Jamal Charles is back. Now, what does the start of the week mean?

Doesn't mean you start them over every player on your team. It means that I think you start worthy this week. And I put him, look, if you're fighting that decision of, you know, Terrell Pryor in the flex or Jamal Charles, because you don't know what you have, I think you can confidently put Jamal Charles out there in front of a Terrell prior type of guy. I think if you are in a bi-week situation, you can roll out Jamal Charles as a two, a running back two.

I think he's going to get the ball this week. I think it's going to be a shootout type of game. Oakland has been playing great. Derek Carr has been playing great. I think this game has the potential to be a very high scoring game. So I'm going to go and give you Jamal Charles. I'm going to try to trade for him later today. So there's your confidence. Thanks for the warning. I appreciate it. My start of the week, I'm going with the woke one.

Chris and Michael up in Seattle against Atlanta. They are six-point favorites at home. They're coming off a bye week. I expect Seattle to really handle their business. In our league scoring, we are a half-point PPR. Kristen Michael is averaging 16.5 points a game. Since he has been the starter, he rattled off a 28-point game and a 19.3. Chris and Michael is a legitimate running back.

Atlanta is very susceptible to the running back position. So I just, I see Seattle controlling this game and riding the back of Kristen Michael. Climbing on. Yes, climbing on. And saying, take us to the promise land, my friend. All right. My running back start of the week this week is a guy that I have been very bipolar. I feel like I've understood my position on him very clearly. No one else does. But I, I've been able to.

predict him pretty accurately so far this year. And I'm sticking with my thoughts on Ryan Matthews. There's no reason that Ryan Matthews doesn't have a great game this week. I thought last week he was going to come back off that by and dominate the touches. And he did. While he didn't get to the 15 water bet, he actually did get to the 15 touches. But they were, you know, the Philadelphia Eagles.

bizarrely were super down early, and what did they do? They actually got Ryan Matthews involved for the first time in the passing game. He caught five balls last week for his first touchdown. He's got four touchdowns so far this year, and that's including the games where, you know, he did nothing. But, Doug Peter, oh, but Jason. Yeah, what you got? Doug Peterson said, everyone's going to be involved. It's going to be a full committee.

That's fine. He could say whatever he wants. He said that Ryan Matthews is going to be the guy. It's like every other week he goes back and forth. But the reality is Ryan Matthews is a talented running back. Is there any disagreement that when he's healthy, he's talented here? No, I was sending you up to say that Wendell Smallwood and Barner didn't touch the ball. Oh, you're saying a couple weeks ago. Yeah, Wendell, Smallwood, Kenyon Barner, they didn't touch the ball. And here's the reality. The Redskins rushing defense is not bad.

They're terrible. I mean, four out of the five weeks, they've given up over 100 yards. And some of them, we're talking well over, 150, 167. You want to know how many yards they gave up on the ground to the running backs when they didn't give up 100 in their only week? 96. And, okay, well, maybe they don't give it up, you know, they don't give up touchdowns. Nope, they've given up seven touchdowns on the ground. So Ryan Matthews, start of the week, put them in. All right.

We're moving on. Wide receiver. Mike, you want to kick it off? Sure. You got your stack. I'm going with a full cardinal stack. Call me the Homer. Whatever. Don't at me, bro. Because he's taking on the Jets. Here's the last two games of John Brown with Carson Palmer. Six for 70 and then 10 for 144. I think that John Brown is back fully from that concussion problem at the beginning of the season.

And like I said, the Jets are giving up 320 passing yards a game and 16 passing touchdown so far over the year. I think John Brown is a spectacular start. I have him ranked extremely high. I expect this to be the, we thought 10 for 144 was a breakout. Maybe he doesn't get to 144, but I expect right around a hondo and a full touchdown. Not a half touchdown. Yeah, you don't want those half. Look, I'm staying.