Starts of the Week + Week 12 Breakdown, The Walrus and the Hare

Just so that you can, you know. I am not. I am not. You know, we just mocked the Arizona Cardinals rightly. So he scored in three straight games. Two of those three games were against Arizona Cardinals. One of them wasn't. Sure. I'm sure he'll have other touchdown games in his career. But I'm not going to Kendrick Bourne in this matchup. And, you know, speaking of George Kittle, I don't expect him to. You don't expect George Kittle to play. That's correct. I don't expect George Kittle to play. In which case, because it's Sunday night, you have to have.

That decision probably made, like I am willing, unless, you know, obviously tomorrow if he gets in a surprising full practice and the expectations change, I am willing to play someone in my Sunday morning game as opposed to waiting to pivot to Dwelly or someone in the Monday night game. So does that answer Brooks's question here? Brooks has his own little selfish start sit question in here. Oh, yeah. He says, Kittle Dwellie.

So basically, kiddle with the dwelling insurance. Or Cam and Bray, just start Brate in the morning. Is that right, Brooks? Yes, sir. Is that your situation? Yes, sure is. Well, wow. I would go, uh, I would go the kiddle dwelly route. I, my, my belief is that kiddle, if he plays is great in any situation. So follow the practice reports, maybe pivot if something changes. Now, Cameron Brate with O.J. Howard getting.

benched for his absolute ridiculous half-catch Harlem Globetrotter around the back ends up being a fumble. Cameron Brate, for those who did not pay attention, ended up with 14 targets.

This past week, 10 to 73. It was a weird game, though. I read through his last two years game log, and he doesn't do this. So I'm not chasing camera break. He doesn't, but he did. Yes. When I say that I'm willing to play someone on Sunday versus waiting for Monday, that doesn't include camera break. I'm not chasing. I think there are better options. I'm saying if you had a Hollister or if you had, you know, Vance McDonald, other options that look, I think, more promising. I would rather do that. Ryan Griffin?

Yeah, Griffin for sure. Griffin makes sense. But if Emmanuel Sanders and Debo are out, you know, Dwelly. Yeah, he could be all right. Dwelly has not been very good. If you look at his, you know, he is getting a few targets and doing very little with them other than the two touchdowns against Arizona. I mean, he really didn't do much. What did he have? 14 yards. But I mean, aren't you just playing touchdown roulette regardless?

Yes, but if you look at whether or not Jimmy Garoppolo is going to keep throwing a lot of touchdowns, I would bet that he's not versus touchdown roulette with Russell Wilson and Jacob Hollister or an option like that. Yeah, you're playing touchdown roulette with all these guys. I just don't believe that Garoppolo plays Arizona this week.

No, but he plays the fifth worst team against tight ends who have given up the number one, five, eleven, and eight in their last four matchups. Are you still confident in Hollister with the activation of Red Dead Dickson? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not really worried about Ed Dixon. Okay. I've never been confident in Hollister yet. And I think it's to my own demise, but I'm just concerned about. I am confident in starting tight end for Russell Wilson. All right. Ed Dixon you're talking about?

That remains to be seen. All right, Muhammad Sunu. This was breaking news this morning. He can miss multiple weeks with a possible high ankle sprain. That's terrible news for a team that can't find a depth chart at wide receiver on a consistent basis. It seems like whoever they put out there gets hurt. Dorset has been a little banged up right now as well. He's in concussion protocol. They are hopeful that he will clear. But, I mean, Nikiel Harry, are we interested in here? Yes.

Okay, he had four targets, three receptions for 18 yards against Philadelphia in his debut. Interested enough, the roster. Yeah, you keep an eye on him, but I don't think you can put him in your lineup. Yeah, it's strange. It might be next year when you start to be able to look at him, but he was a first round pick. We kind of dealt with this with the late season Sonny Michelle, maybe.

Harry by necessity comes along. I don't know. Thursday night updates. Jordan Wilkins removed from the Colts injury report on Wednesday. T.Y. Helton and Eric Ebron are listening as questionable. Our number one start-sick question on the website, the fantasy footballers.com. If you go look at the most popular start-sits, it's Jordan Wilkins, Jonathan Williams. Who do you play between the two of them? I tried to get our engineer to program in the Welp face for me.

For like when people ask this question. Oh, when they answer it? I just want to go, who? I don't know. The way that I see this, because I've dug deep on this as the Mac owner, I still believe Jonathan Williams is the back to own. I currently have, and I'm starting out of forced necessity, Jordan Wilkins. I hope I'm wrong. But the reality is Jordan Wilkins was not healthy at all last week. Missed pretty much the entire week of practice didn't play. Now they haven't.

They haven't really practiced much this week. These reports of like, oh, he's taken off the injury report. Okay. You know, walk through Wednesday. They play today on a short week. I just can't imagine that he's super healthy now. Like, just instantly because he's off of a injury report. I mean, I hope so. But I'm still rolling with Jonathan Williams over Jordan Wilkins. Wasn't James Connor removed from the injury report last week? He was. Okay.

I lean Jonathan Williams. I won't be surprised if you are unhappy in both circumstances that Jonathan Williams picks up, you know, 55 on the ground and Jordan Wilkins ends up with like 19 yards in a touchdown. It's not looking as clear. And then Naim Hines will be working in the passing game. Basically, you're looking at three players playing running back for one team on Thursday night. And you could take your shot, but confidence has got to be dwindling. Very low.

The number four starts a question on the website, Naim Hines versus Jonathan Williams. Mike, you're on the hindsight. Well, I'm just on the hind side of I know what his role is. And there is just fair. Just trying to look at the game script. It's very possible that the Houston Texans get out to a lead. And then if that happens, then all the Wilkins and all the Williams owners in the land are super frustrated, disappointed, because it will be Naim Hines. Yeah.

No doubt about it. News and notes is always brought to you by the Sleeper app. Don't forget about Foot Clan. Game Day alerts at join the foot.com. The latest, the active, inactives on Sunday morning. Mike is also live with Sunday live one hour before kickoff. Yeah, so don't miss that. You can follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers and we'll let you know when he goes live. Yep. Before we move into the forecast, I want to thank today's sponsor. Pepsi! Pepsi takes all NFL celebrations to the next level.

Hail Mary touchdowns, defensive stops on the goal line. Your team winning at the buzzer of overtime with a field goal kick. And you know what I've learned, Jason? What? I'm starting to celebrate the small things. Yeah, you got to celebrate the small things. One, because I'm not an NFL player. Right. So I'll never know. You're not going to win a Super Bowl. You don't get to celebrate big things. But you know what happened today? On my money dynasty league, Ryan Griffin.

Tight in for the jets. He was there. All I could do is throw a dollar bid on him. Boom. I got Ryan Griffin. That's a Pepsi. Oh, you know I grabbed the Pepsi and was celebrating that moment. I got the kids into bed on time last night. No, you did it. Get that Pepsi. You know you got to get that Pepsi. Crack it open. It doesn't matter if it's 9 o'clock at night. It was a victory, and you take your small. He went to bed right afterwards. You take you.

I fell asleep halfway through the Pepsi. It was a delicious way to fall asleep. Look, Pepsi, they take it to the next level, and Pepsi is the official sponsor of the NFL, and they remind you to always be celebrating. This episode is also brought to you by Amazon Logistics. Right now, Amazon is looking for delivery service partners, entrepreneurs who can start their own package delivery business and build a motivated team of drivers to operate delivery routes in the community.

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That's L-O-G-I-S-T-I-C-S dot Amazon.com. Fantasy Forecast. All right, we're into the forecast. Let's start with the Buccaneers, taking on the Falcons, both teams, three and seven, divisional game. Falcons, four-point favorites. It's a 51 point over-under. I'll take the under in this one. I will.

The Falcons defense has improved dramatically since head coach Dan Quinn has given up play calling duties. What about the note that Tampa Bay Atlanta has gone over in five of the last six? Well, then I'm in the one-sixth category, I guess. Maybe five of seven is on the table. 51's a lot. 51's a lot of points. Like I said, we've had divisional games in the NFC South disappoint. Last year it was a couple of Buccaneers Saints games that did that. In this one, I think we're looking at.

You know, that's just my opinion. Vegas has it at 51. Matt Ryan is Jason's start of the week. He sure is. This is going to be fantastic watching him torch a hapless Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense at home in the dome. James Winston is our consensus QB6. So both players startable this week. Winston is, well, difficult to watch at times leading the league in air yards. 17 plus fantasy points in eight straight games. I mean, for James, the explanation leads the league in air yards.

And interceptions. That is James. I saw someone had tweeted about, like, why don't you guys talk about Jameses' turnovers ruining fantasy days?

They're not. Because they don't. Yeah. He's been top 10 three of the last four weeks. It ruins the fact that he should be putting up top three production. Like if he stopped having minus six every single week, then he would be like a leaf for fantasy. Not only minus six, but minus the ability to continue on with the drive he was on. Like if he stopped throwing these interceptions, he has the ability to be a phenomenal fantasy option. But that's like, you know, that's like saying if.

Josh Rosen was Tom Brady and he was a different person. I mean, James is who he is. If I were you and you were me, he was your body to get to the top. He is the quarterback nine on the year. So you can play him. You don't have to watch. Just take the fancy points at the end of the game. Yes. Mike, you brought this up in the studio. Ronald Jones. Starter Ronald Jones. Anointed by head coach Bruce Ariens. His snap counts have gone down three straight weeks? Yeah.

Look, do you know what that means, Bruce, when you say starter? Yeah, when he earned that job because he was in on 55% of the snaps. Thank you. Thank you. And he put up the 18 for 67 against Seattle had the two targets that week. You know, then against Arizona. He had the eight receptions except 46% of the snaps. And he was okay. And then all the way down to 31% of snaps.

I'm no wizard when it comes to the mathematics, but my starting running back, that's not what I do with his offensive snaps. 31% of them. Yeah, that's not good. Peyton Barber had no carries last week. What has happened? We're getting all the Agumba Waleigh? They just got, they really got rid of the, they went away from the run.

last week in serious fashion. And, you know, that's the result. That's the risk with their defense. Right. And I, and I, yeah, and in this game, I mean, Matt Ryan, he's, you know, my quarterback started the week. I think we all love him and we would all play him if he's on your roster. And if he does destroy, this could be another game script where it is poor for the running game of Tampa Bay. That being said, I do think Ronald Jones is.

is startable. I don't expect them to always be going away from the run. And the Falcons have been beatable on the ground. You know, the last five games they've played, three of those games they've given up top 12 against fantasy running backs. So this, you know, I think Ronald Jones is a flex option this week. Devonta Freeman didn't practice on Wednesday. Brian Hill could end up the quote unquote starter again. He did have 15 carries last week. I don't want people to ignore that. I would play Brian Hill over Ronald Jones. And he had a touchdown. Agreed.