Starts of the Week + Week 6 Breakdown, Smell Tests - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/15

You're going to start him. The number one tight end in fantasy football right now. Yeah, I mean, I think you start all four of the relevant pieces for the Titans. This is an overall game that I love. I think what we saw last week from the Texans was a little bit of getting it together. You know, the Bob was out. And so all of a sudden, this team had a little pep in their step. Brandon Cook started getting involved. Will Fuller was still good. And I think that the Houston Texans.

will be able to at least hold up for a while where this should be a back and forth game. And if that's the case, this is one of those games I want a lot of pieces in. I'm actually okay taking that crazy chance in my flex on a Brandon Cooks. Will Fuller probably should be in your lineup. It is interesting to note the Tennessee Titans, they have given up a lot of points to the wide receiver two.

They are very, very beatable, and that's done. Shout out to Mike Beers, does great work. That's based on Draft King's pricing of wide receivers. So essentially, it's not like the slot wide receiver. It's the second best fantasy relevant player for your team according to what the expectations is, you know, what ADP would be basically. And then that second...

wide receiver has been torching the Titans. So who is that in this game? I would say that's perfect for Houston because they all, they only have twos. Yeah. I mean, Will Fuller, Brandon Cooks, Randall Cobb, they're all the second option. That's rough. I wanted to highlight real quick just how good Will Fuller has actually been because week one, wide receiver 17, but then you have the, what you did at the beginning of the year, it hurts.

Week 2 gets hurt. He leaves the game. He has an actual full goose egg. But then after that, wide receiver 28, wide receiver 8, wide receiver 23. Will Fuller has been steady for your team. Will Fuller is an absolute must start. Yes. And I have him in different leagues. I have no qualms about putting him in there. He's the wide receiver 17 on the year, including a game where he ended up getting knocked out and gooseing. And I think he might.

still be undervalue. Similar to what I was saying about Chris Carson before last weekend, I know that the ranking is there, but just the sentiment for Will Fuller may not be caught up to what he is actually doing for fantasy and on the football field. You may be able to go trade for him still. Well, you like the opportunity for this game to get to that over under number to have it be a high scoring affair. Jason said he likes the game a whole lot. Darren Fells, who is the...

I don't know the status of Jordan Aiken's. Is he still out this week? He has a high ankle sprain, so I can't imagine he's going to play. So Darren Fels is very sneaky once again. Yeah. Well, we might talk about him. Very nice. What is your guys a confidence level here for David Johnson? He's been fine for fantasy purposes. Volume play. He's volume.

But now you have the whispers from Houston that they're going to get Duke Johnson more involved. You look back at what the Titans have been able to do. Yeah, they, you know, in that season long, it looks like they're a matchup you want to attack, but they were strong against Denver running backs. They were strong against the Buffalo running backs this past week. Where are you expecting?

Low-end running back one. Is he a volume low-end running back two? Where are you? He's a middling running back two, and that's where he's going to be the entire season. If you look at what he's done so far this year, he's pretty much all but one game, he's been a top 25 running back. But top 25 running back isn't like great, you know, the last three weeks, 24, 23, 25, those are his ranks. So he's, you know, he's.

He's got enough volume. He's like a very David Montgomery type player where the workload will be there, but he just doesn't really have the juice. Who would you rather have? Yeah, those two. That's a great question. If David Montgomery or David Johnson, one should be a much better offense now with Deshaun Watson. Man, that is a really tough question. I lean David Johnson just because we've seen more flashes from him. Do you mean rest of season? Yeah.

Oh, okay. I don't say this week in particular, it's David Montgomery. Yeah, without a shred of doubt. Yeah, that's a tough one. I think they're very, very similar. They both, they really, really try hard both of them to finish as the RB 24 on the week. That's their objective and goal. And it's done by volume and not being very spicy. No big plays.

Brandon Cook's, though, to Jason's point, last week, eight for 161 and 1. If he is that number two option, there's always the possibility that it's a Brandon Cook's type of week, or like last week, both were startable. I mean, Deshaun Watson, with the amount of targets that Hopkins was getting in this offense, if he just breaks it up between a couple of guys, it's high value. I mean, Deshaun Watson's a great.

quarterback. Yeah, I guess we should mention him for fantasy as well. You're definitely starting him. I mean, the weapons here that are starting to click. Fells and Randall Cobb are still fine options for him. Everything goes to Deshaun Watson. I would certainly start him this week. All right, the Cincinnati Bengals, one three and one, taking on the Indianapolis Colts at three and two. The Colts, eight point favorites, 46.5 point over under. They're my favorites on the week in terms of

being really boring and kicking a lot of field goals and probably winning this game. I was really tempted to go almost upset here with the Bengals, but I just think Joe Burrow is going to struggle again in this game against this Colts defense. They are stout. They have been great this year. They're still number one against the posing fantasy quarterbacks, number one against the posing fantasy tight ends, number three against running backs, eighth against wide receivers. They're a great defense.

It's going to be a problem for Joe Burrow once again. I imagine AJ Green is going to miss this game, not that you would play him. Tyler Boyd T. Higgins. I'm not excited about it in this Colts matchup. To be honest, you're looking at Joe Mixing. And then I'm not really trying to start another bengal. Completely agree. Completely agree. In a PPR, if you want to start a Tyler Boyd. Would you play McColl Hardman in a PPR or Tyler Boyd? That would be, so obviously Tyler Boyd would be the higher floor.

this would be a matchup thing where I'm looking at my opponent. He's 4-0. He's putting up 150 points every week. I need a big performance, and that's where I might go to McCle Hardman, who could end up with a much bigger. I just don't see a breakout type of game coming from Boyd. Mike, break down the cult side of the ball in this one. All right. Are we going to get the Jonathan Taylor game we've dreamed of at this point? Not this week. I mean,

Jonathan Taylor is very difficult, mostly because of Jordan Wilkins. This is a three running back times here, which is not at all what anyone expected, hoped, or dreamed of for Jonathan Taylor. Were they, I guess it, you know, if we think back to the process, right, draft season, when it was Marlon Mack, they talked about, okay, it's going to be Marlon Mack, it's going to be Jonathan Taylor, and then we knew Naeem Hines would be worked in.

That's a three-player time share at the running back position. So maybe that is simply what Frank Reich desires. We've speculated perhaps Jonathan Taylor is being saved for when the weather turns, you know, when things get real spicy down the line and you really can just rely on Jonathan Taylor. But maybe Frank Reich, despite the second round draft capital, just wants to use three running backs.

I think it's a matter of necessity. Do they need them? Do they need Jonathan. Jonathan Taylor is clearly their best running back as far as a, you know, just hand the ball off and see who gets the most yards. It's clearly Jonathan Taylor. Wilkins stinks. But do they need Jonathan Taylor to beat the Bengals? No. Next week, do they need Jonathan Taylor to beat the Lions? No. It'll be after that when you start seeing, you know,

Tennessee, Green Bay, Tennessee again, the Ravens. I think we're about two weeks away from Jonathan Taylor's big stretch of games where he will be very valuable. I think the more difficult the matchup actually, as far as NFL winning the game, not fantasy points against running back, will be better for usage. I mean, I guess Wilkins was not really used last week, but still Jonathan Taylor was only on the field for.

percent of the snaps. Now, I mean, he came through RB17. He got the touchdown, but these opportunities, the last three weeks, after the week two explosion of opportunities, he's averaging 16 a week or so, which is, it's not what you told for. You play him every week. He's the running back 14 on the season. Right. With opportunity, I think the Cincinnati Detroit games are very interesting from the perspective of softer defenses and situations where, um,

I think, you know, the Jets game, that one was obvious. They were up 36. They won that one 36 to 7. You know, last week they lost. They lost the game. And he still was limited in opportunities. I, I, you know, obviously with easier matchups, there's going to be touchdowns that come easier like he had with the Jets. He's just so consistent.

it's a matter of what what is going to, what's it going to take for him to be great in a game? Because right now he's good every single game. You don't have any. Two touchdowns. I mean, it'll be that two touchdown game. It'll be that matchup where he's got a couple goal and opportunities probably. We haven't seen the big play. But he's still averaging, you know, last week, 4.8 an attempt. So you're right about him being the best guy. I think what threw everybody off was the Minnesota game. He had 20 carries in the first half.

He had 28 opportunities in the game. Right. And then the first week having six targets, six catches, and the targets haven't been there. And to be honest, Philip Rivers hasn't done the Philip Rivers thing since then. Because we expected, between Heinz and Jonathan Taylor in week one, it was like, okay, Phil Rivers is the same guy, the Echler guy. Well, the last three weeks, it's not like you can count on either of those players in the passing game. Yeah, Heinz has been completely unusual. Like, do you drop Naim Hines now?

I'm very open to it. I have such an investment in Fab in week one, and you probably do have to move on. Yeah, you do. What do you make of T.Y. Hilton, if anything, he finally saw double-digit targets, a wide receiver 35, so a flex play, but the snaps. He finally jumped up to a 95% snap share player. We did retire him.

Yeah, look. Is he still retired? It's like if you're going to have cereal in the morning and you don't remember if you still have milk and then you see that the milk's like a day or too old, you'd still rather have the cereal with milk. Right. But you're like, this is not how it's supposed to be. I don't want to start my day with the risk, me thinking about my stomach all day. Yeah. So it's like if it's a day, if it's a day past, you're like, I'm probably still going to, I'm going to have the cereal with the milk, but you're not excited about it.

You're not excited. And that's Hilton. I put him in my lineup because I have to. I think it's different for everybody. That cereal would go back in the box for me. I don't drink expired milk ever. If it's one day gone, that milk is in the garbage. Do you do the smell test, though? Like the smell test on Hilton last week, it didn't smell that bad. It's a little bit off. So here's a difference, though. I mean, we were just talking about the game script. If they're up, if they're down, yada, yada. They lost last week.

You know, they lost to a team that was obviously winning. And that's where the 10. That's how it happens. Genius. That's where the 10 targets comes from. In this game against Cincinnati, they're not going to need to be throwing nearly as much as they did last week. So I'm OUT on. Can we put it this way then? If you have to start a Colts wide receiver, it's still Hilton. It is Hilton, yes. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm willing.

One day, Mike, are you somebody that's willing to take the shot on the milk? Do you do the smell test if it's a day past? Here's where I am. I mean, what can even happen to you if you have milk? Doesn't how they make yogurt and stuff like that? Yeah, but there's other things involved in the process. I mean, if you drink bad milk, you get sick. I will do the smell test. I will pretend that I know what I'm doing, but.

To be honest, like all milk always kind of smells a little bit of fresh milk. I'm like, you can't smell anyway, can you? Exactly. So that's why I am far more on the Jason side of things, but I'll at least pretend. Do you drink it on the date? No, this is out. What if it's the exact day of? The day is the last day I can use it. So you can, if the date matches what your watch says. Drink all the milk. That's how I feel. If the date is what the watch says.