Week 14 Matchups + It’s Playoff Time, Bette Midler - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/11

The weather is supposed to be very bad by the evening. It's supposed to let up and be about 15 mile an hour winds. So it's one of those things where if it was okay, it's a good matchup, you've got a little bit of wind, whatever. You're trying to find a reason not to start it. I'm a little worried about the stallion in this matchup against a great Steelers defense, but they've now had some injury problems. It hasn't translated yet, though, to the opposing fantasy quarterback situation.

third over the last six weeks, only given up 12.8 fantasy points per game. They can scheme their way to some success. They still have T.J. Watt bringing the pressure and Minka Fitzpatrick roaming center field. It's tough because there's two questions. Can Allen have a good game? Yes, because he does it in different ways. He can run the football. He can score on the goal line as the goal line back.

He can connect with Cole Beasley. He's got two number one wide receivers on this team right now. You love Cole Beasley. You're darn right. I love Cole Beasley. I have a playoff matchup in a PPR league and I am playing Cole Beasley over Chase Claypool. I mean, the Beasles has been contagious all year long. He's been outstanding. Wide receiver 19 on the season in PPR leagues, number one in Mike's heart. Stefan Diggs you play. Allen's that tough decision where you are deciding between Brady.

and Josh Allen in League of Record. What is the decision that you're going to make final answer right now? As of right now, it will be Josh Allen due to the Mike Evans injury. All right. Oh, that's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. Looking at the weather, looking at the injuries. I don't blame you. That's the whole point. That's the whole thing we're doing. Fantasy football, man. These are the time you're taking all the information in. Now, Big Ben and the Steelers, they got their first loss last week against Washington. Shocked the world.

He was 305 and 2 last week. Six wide receiver drops last week. I'm playing Ben. I think Big Ben's solid. Yeah. He's been solid essentially all year. Juju, Deontay, Claypool. Hopefully Claypool's back out there with the illness. I think we expect him to be. They can't run the football. They haven't been able to. Their all line has been horrible in the running game. They're creating 0.92 yards before contact. That's the worst rate in football. And you've seen the volume.

of opportunities just go down. I mean, it's like if Benny Snell fails on a couple carries, they abandoned the run last week. Yeah, the nice thing is James Connor should be available for this game. He's obviously been far, far, far more successful than Benny Snell as far as creating stuff on his own, in which case maybe they have a semblance of a run game. What do you do with...

James Connor, as far as your confidence level starting him, this isn't a bad matchup. Obviously, I think some Steelers fans would say they need to establish the run a little bit better. Where are you going into the playoffs for a player who's coming back off of injury? Or he's coming back off of COVID. Sure, coming back off of COVID. My confidence level is that he is a very, you know, he's on a good team and he's going to get all the work.

but he's not able to establish his will and hasn't been able to all year. And the offensive line isn't doing it for him. So when I stare it down, you know, I want to play J.K. Dobbins against Cleveland over James Connor. What about Melvin Gordon against the Carolina Panthers? I probably play Melvin Gordon.

Okay. Yeah, here's, I think this is... I'm not happy about it, but I am. I think this is telling. Let me read you the last seven games for James Connor before he went out and what his fantasy finishes were, because if you look, they're all pretty good, they're pretty okay, but none of them are great. Yeah. The running back 20, then the running back six. I guess that one was great. Then the running back 18, 14, uh-oh, running back. Fifty-five. Not so great.

34 and 19. So he's kind of this, he's got enough volume in a good offense to be a startable asset. He's not going out there and winning you a playoff game. It doesn't seem likely the Steelers are going to be up big either and lean on the run over the second half of the game. So, yeah, he's not going to win you the week, but it'll be better than Peyton Barber. Yes. All right. He's not masking tape. He's duct tape, but it's still taping a problem. Yeah. You know. Right. You're not flex ceiling.

He's not Flex Seal. No. Just duct tape. All right. I know Al Borland's impressed with all of our, like, hardware knowledge. He's no flathead screw. Thank you. Thank you. I like it. Did you just, like, play a drop for yourself? No, he played it for us. We're men now because we talked about Flex Seal, because that's the manliest product that exists. I talked about duct tape. I feel like that's pretty manly. Yeah. We're, you know, tape is where my...

My manly hood lies. Manlyhood. Well, to expand on that, I spent, I don't know, three quarters of my life believing that it was duck tape. Ooh. Right. Right. Quack, quack. Yep. Yeah, this just did in breaking. I reset a GFCI switch this morning. Oh, I did one yesterday. Me too. I pushed that button in. Can you push that button again, please? Thank you. I noticed when we had the wives on on Wednesday, none of them commended any of our.

Craftsmanship. All right. There's such gentle souls. Oh, I can hire somebody with the best of them. Baltimore Ravens, seven and five taking on the Cleveland Browns. Monday night football. Ravens are two and a half point favorites. It's a 47 point over under. And to me, this game just screams like defining moment for the Cleveland Browns. Sure. When they play the Ravens and they play the Steelers, both of those teams have traditionally.

put them back into their place. They say, compete for third. That's kind of the message that the Browns, but the Browns are nine and three. They're well coached this year. They have a defense that can put some pressure on the quarterback with Miles Garrett. And I think they're going to win the game. The number one, their number one pick from a couple years ago, he finally showed up. Who would that be? Baker Mayfield. Yeah. I mean, this, that was such a performance from Baker.

And if I am Baltimore, I am trying everything I can to fluster him early. That's how you just disrupt him on Monday night football. Because if he starts the game and they get up and they can lean on Kareem Hunt and Nick Chubb against a beat up interior line on the Ravens side of the ball, it's going to be more interesting. I mean, the Ravens won last week. They won on the ground against Denver. I don't think they're going to be able to do that. Jason, I'd be curious what the Browns have done in that fantasy points.

against the opposition because over the last eight weeks they're eighth they're doing work on the against the opposing running backs against opposing running backs they are the 23rd best matchup meaning they're on the year yeah uh no that's the last five weeks okay on the year they're 22 wait so 23rd best matchup means that they've been good they've been pretty good yeah seventh 7th or whatever the case I didn't want to do I didn't want to do the reverse math so and neither could I uh

But they've been good. And so, you know, Dobbins is the most explosive. He is the must play. His touches have gone up. You don't want to miss out on Dobbins this week. And you never miss out on Chubb. You put him into your lineup. But playing Baker, you get into a scarier situation. I don't think I want to do that even though he was impressive last week. I agree. So Hunt, great opportunity.

To bounce back, hopefully, in this game, I have my taking it up to 100 player. He's going to get 10 to 12, 15 opportunities. Are you playing Cream Hunt or James Connor? I would play James Connor. Jarvis Landry's start of the week at wide receiver. He's been the most reliable with the injury to Odell Beckham. He's gone 21 targets, 205 receiving yards, two touchdowns in the last two games. Yeah, he's been elite.

On the other side of the ball, Hollywood Brown, I don't know if I call this heating up. NBA Jam rules says he's heating up. Really? Is the 5 for 39 in a touchdown? That's enough for you? Yeah, it's enough for him. That's, uh, yeah, you got a touchdown. That's definitely heating up. He's scored in two straight games. He's had eight targets. This is a low-grade fever, if anything. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, are you, look, let me ask you a different way. Are you playing Hollywood Brown against the Browns?

Brown on Brown? If you're desperate. You know, it's funny is, you know, we talk about guys you can pick up off the waiver wire that you could play. And we haven't really talked about Hollywood Brown. Every time we brought him up is like, I'm not playing him. I realize he's got back-to-back touchdowns. You know, but. You know who's missed the last two weeks? Willie Sneed. Willie Sneed missed last week, but Mark Andrews is the name I was going to throw out there. That's also true. I don't think it's a coincidence.

That is two touchdowns show up on the weeks where his touchdown guy's gone. Cleveland has been a plus matchup for wide receivers. And then if you look at the last five weeks in that metric I've been talking about, they're middle of the pack against wide receiver. They are the second worst against tight end. Tight end. Yeah. So Mark Andrews.

Yeah. Welcome back. And the volume, the pie. The pie hasn't changed. We haven't increased the pie. We just have a couple touchdowns. I just don't want people to get lured into a mistake. I agree with you. He's explosive enough to always be a desperation start because you can get the one big play. But what was it last week? 12 for 17 for 107 yards for Lamar Jackson. Yeah. I mean, he's. Cam Newton's like, yeah, but watch. Right. I mean, you just can't trust the passing game outside of the tight end position because the barometer is so low. All right.

Moving on. Prop it like it's hot. Presented by Monkey Knife Fight. All right. Our favorite week 14 props on Monkey Knife Fight. You can check it out at Ballerspix.com. Use the code Ballers and get a deposit match up to $50. I'm going with a Jalen Hertz prediction. The line is set for this prop at 205.5 passing yards against the New Orleans Saints. And I am going less for Jalen Hertz.

We talked about this matchup already. With Payson Hill, the Saints are slowing the game down. There are going to be plenty of three and ounce on the Philadelphia side, and there's going to be a lot of protecting Jalen Hertz from that pass rush, running centric offense. I don't think he can hit 205.5 in this matchup. I just think he's going to dink his dunk, dink and dunk his option.

Yeah, I love Jalen Hertz as a fantasy football talent, not this week. But when before the show, we were talking about. Yeah, I asked you where I thought the line was set. And I said I would take the under if it was over 185 because I just don't think he's going to throw for a lot of yards against Saints. I'm taking the under. I'm taking less than 315 passing yards from another quarterback. Yeah. It's Aaron Rogers. Oh, me, oh my.

He's got a great matchup this week against the Detroit Lions. That's why we're at 315 and a half passing yards is the mark. But the reality is, oh, is there a got some breaking news. Breaking news. Yeah, your dynasty team is not going to like it. Texas head coach Romeo Cornell said running back David Johnson might not make the trip to Chicago due to a personal issue that caused him to miss practice. Awesome.

Yeah. At least I've got Latavius Murray. Okay. All right. Well, sorry. You can resume your hot take on Aaron Rogers if you want. Yeah. So Aaron Rogers right now, 315 and a half passing yards against the Detroit Lions. Yada, yada, yada, yada. Here's a reality. Aaron Rogers is going to be great.

And Rogers must start. He doesn't need the yardage. That's not how he gets it. In fact, nine of 12 games, he hasn't hit that mark this year. So that's 75% of the time he's not getting there. And they've played already once this year. And Green Bay put up 42 points. And in that game, where Aaron Rogers was great, he had 240 passing yards. I don't think he's going to need 315 and a half passing yards. So I'm taking less. Yeah, Rogers has never been the yardage king.

He's been the touchdown king. He's the touchdown king. I'm going with J.D. McKissick, the line for this prop is five and a half receptions. I'm taking the more. I am absolutely taking the more with Antonio Gibson, not on the field. That turned immediately into 10 receptions last week. Oh, that's not the line for like one quarter? Yeah, exactly. So 10 receptions last week, we saw those first couple games with Alex Smith. Those turned into 14, like 14 reception types of, type games.

The matchup against San Francisco, it's a tough matchup. Alex Smith is going to be checking it down more than a few times. So I'm taking the more on five and a half receptions. All right, no other injury updates as of right this moment. No more breaking news. Jason's players aren't no other players going out yet. You can slide off your chair later today. Ballerspicks.com. If you want to play with us on Monkey Knife, use the code ballers, get that deposit match that I mentioned. That's ballerspicks.com. Don't miss the live tilting Jason Moore. Sunday live.