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

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Hey, Foot Clan, before we start today's show, I want to remind you, the time is now, Mike. The time is now. My trophies, they're in the mail, I assume. You know what I love? Trophy. Yeah, trophies, belts, rings. Every league needs some sweet hardware for the fantasy championship season. We recommend you go to Fantasychamps.com. Use the code ballers. Get a little discount. Save a little money. And pick up a sweet, a slew.

Oh, a slew. Just a full slew. An assortment. A suite. A suite of trophies. Sweet slew. That's a race. That's a horse. A horse. That's a Kentucky Derby horse. Yeah. He won Triple Crown. Sweet slew. Trophies, belts, rings. Fantasychamps.com. Use the code. Ballers. Check it out. Hey, this is DeAnd Jondry Hopkins. We're listening to the Fantasy Footballers podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway.

Jason Moore and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Friday, December 11th, 2020. Andy Mike and Jason, the fantasy footballers, back with you. All the playoffs are here. The taunting between Mike and myself has begun. Oh, it's heating up. Why? It's really not been much more than me just flaunting Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey, but that's good enough for me. And me averting my eyes and pretending like that.

Doesn't exist. Your comments this morning. First, you posted a gif of you hiding from that reality, but the comparison you made on the drive-in. Would you share that with the listenership? Sure. So I showed that I was hiding. And then once again, you just kept throwing Travis Kelsey and Mahomes in my face. Yes. It's so wonderful. And I said, I feel like going this weekend, I am tracking a hurricane because it, like, it.

With all the advanced weather metrics and science we have, you're paying attention to the hurricane, you know that is coming, you know the destruction that a hurricane can bring. Landfall is Sunday. It's bad. Your house can be gone. But sometimes at the last second, these things just take a slight shift and they never break the coast. So I am hoping that the weather people are wrong and that...

The hurricane just slightly misses my town. Or misses Miami, right? Because they're in Miami this week. Yes, that too. Oh, it was funny, Mike, because it's true. And I feel like half of the fun of Mahomes, Kelsey, is the intimidation factor. The fact that you can be over there in your seat and know that 75 points could be coming your way. Your walk intro into the fight. Yeah. It's nice. I mean, it's like Connor McGregor.

The Irish ballad is playing. The light show is happening. And then I just ride in on my little clown car. I'm like, beep, beep. I'm here for the fight, everybody. Oh, it's going to be fun, Mike. And the nice part is our matchup that the listeners can, if they want to follow along with. It culminates with Lamar Jackson on Monday night football. And you have Lamar Jackson. So it's going to be a good time. And lots of fantasy playoffs.

kicked off last night. Guys, I figured it out. I figured out why Cam Acres shoulder was hurting early in the week. It was phantom pain from today. It was from premonition. Carrying the team on him. He knew he was going to be carrying the load. Holy crap, Cam Acres. 29 carries for Cam Acres. 171 yards. And.

It felt like every time he touched the ball, he was going to rip off a 20-yard run against the New England Patriots. I just feel like this highlights the extremes that can exist with injury concerns heading into a game. And I'll be the first to admit. I was concerned. New England, Bill Belichick, they were on a hot streak, plus the shoulder report on Monday. Like, do you get the Clyde Edwards-Alair injury situation where he's active and, oh, okay, I can play him and he's good?

Or do you get the Cam Acres where, look, he took over last night. This was like the stock, if you bought into the stock right before they released the new product. Apple before the iPhone. Acres this week was so difficult. You had the injury. You had the short week. You had only seen him lead the Rams backfield once. And, I mean, we had just experienced this with J.K. Dobbins, where a couple weeks ago you went.

I mean, at least I did when I was watching. J.K. Dobbins is clearly the best running back. It looks like the coaching staff has said, now is the time we got to make the transition to J.K. Dobbins, which is why I was fully endorsed him last week. Now, it worked out, you know, for Dobbins, he had, you know, 70 rushing yards and a touchdown. But the takeover didn't happen like I had hoped or projected. Meanwhile, Camakers told the rest of the Rams backfield, you no longer work here.

This is, I am the captain now. Yeah, clear out your desks. And on top of that, for the concerns for Cam Acres, this team had just won, what was a 45 to zero? Yeah, the Patriots. What? What are the Patriots, man? Here's the thing, if you picked up Cam Acres off of waivers, even if you did not play him, or if you played him, great, fantastic. If you didn't,

This is the type of player that becomes a league winner because he's clearly taken over the lead role. You've got the Jets next week. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they didn't even, they seemed committed to him when the game was well in hand. It was like fourth quarter. I'm like, oh, here comes there. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Daryl. No Malcolm. Just Kamakers, 29 times. And unfortunately, if it wasn't Kamakers or the Rams defense, you were bummed.

There was another cam in this game, and he didn't play as well. There was cam on cam crime because Cam Newton was benched. I mean, he did nothing. Booty scooting cam acres. Booty scooting cam acres. That's right, as we've always said. Did you guys catch the quote from coach Bill Belichick? Yes, about who the starter is next week. He was asked, and this was like the, I like Bill. I like that he is.

I like his crumagony attitude towards the... He's got the same face you do. He's got a resting angry face. Oh, he does. And he lives into it because so many of the... 95% of the questions that these guys get after a game, it's just garbage. These are not good journalistic questions. It's like, you won. What happened? You lost. Get out of here. It's just, I don't care about any of that stuff. But he was asked, who's the starting quarterback moving forward? Because Cam Newton was benched. Stidham came in.

really have any success. He got sacked a lot. He did. And Bill Belichick's response was, great question. Really glad you asked it. Cam's our quarterback. Yeah. Just the snide of, I'm really glad you asked that question. That's how he should respond to everything. If he did every question, I'm really glad you asked that question. It's March on Lynch. I'm just here so I don't get fined.

Bill's smart because... Really glad. What increases your odds that Cam Newton plays well? Is it questioning him at a press conference or is it just endorsing him instantaneously? I mean, coaches need to be smarter about that stuff. Just shut it down. Don't get it in it. The quarterback's odds of playing well, don't go up questioning things over the course of seven days. That's part of being the coach is you are managing people's emotions. You are managing the team. You're not just making X's and O's decisions. You're managing people.

The Patriots are not out of the playoff hunt. No. And Cam Newton is the best chance that this team has to win. Yeah. That's why, you know, Mitch Trubiske felt so encouraged when Matt Nagy was like, I don't see why not when they said it's he the starter. It just felt so good inside. Yeah. He's like, yeah, the coach loves me. Oh, it's Friday. Put Clan Friday. All right. Every Friday we have a weekly giveaway for a supporter of the show from Jointhefoot.com. This week's item for.

from pristine auction a Calvin Ridley signed jersey aptly timed yeah yeah the winner churroly we can talk about it that's the name on patreon thank you for your support yes yeah and we do have we've got a new pristine auction jersey up on the wall today we do the timing of that one is not not the greatest does that frame have turf toe but like it we

We got to respect the man. We got to pay homage to what he has done for fantasy teams thus far. My dude, Antonio Gibson, he is proudly hanging on the wall up there. He may not be able to help you in your playoffs, but at least he brought you there. Makes the wall look good. He dropped you off. And he said, have a good time at the dance. I'm going to go to the doctor. If you miss show 1000, I encourage you check it out on YouTube. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers.

We talked about the game last night. Let's get into the news. News and notes from around the league. Yeah. Yes. Oh, I didn't know where we were. Oh, I remember it like it was earlier this week when the joy came about being able to click the activate from IR button on Christian McCaffrey. You were boasting. You were thumping your chest. It was, yeah.

All the struggle to make the playoffs without him. Activate. Activate. And then yesterday I found out that there's a third injury for Christian McCaffrey. He will not be playing. Very unlikely. For me this week. He's not ruled out yet. No, but neither is Derek Yetty, who I am playing against. Matt Rule doesn't expect Christian McCaffrey to play this week.

New injury. Jason melted, literally melted out of his chair. Yes, I had no idea what was happening. I didn't know if we had another seated injury. Which is always a possibility. It's very frequent in this office. And then Jason just slid out of his, out of his chair and laid on the ground as a deceased man. You posted on your Twitter timeline, the security footage.

of that happening. And you tweeted actual live footage of Jason seeing the Christian McCaffrey news. And usually that's like fake. And you put a funny gif with it. But that was the actual live footage of me seeing the news. I was all alone. And I felt worse than being alone after that. Yeah. All right. So Christian McCaffrey, it stinks because here's the truth. It increases the probability that you don't see him again this year. It tremendously. This is not a team.

Like, at least with Antonio Gibson's injury. If Washington was out of the playoff picture, shutting Antonio Gibson down makes the most sense for his future and the team's future. But they're not. They're competing. He could come back. He could try to push through. And McCaffrey, they invested so much money into him, and the team is not threatening for a playoff position. So it's scary, and it stinks. So we don't know if he'll be back. And it's unfortunate. And it seems like, you know, with a quad, shoulder, that type of thing.

You know, could he get re-injured in week 15? It stinks. Also, Julio Jones. This stinks. Out. O-U-T. Julio Jones not going to play this week. Matt Ryan, downgrade. Calvin Ridley is going to be the offense. My start of the week, Hayden Hurst receives a downgrade as well. My start of the week, Justin Herbert, I believe, receives a downgrade because.

You know, part of the rationale here was you've got a really good offense, two good offenses, two bad defenses. That's what I love. But we've seen Matt Ryan without Julio this year, and it's not been a great offense. It's been middle of the pack. They'll score a little, you know, Ridley will be fine. No one else gets it done. Ryan's not someone you can start or rely on. And so that just doesn't push the chargers to have that big offensive performance you want in the playoffs. I would still start him, but he plays like a quarterback.