Fantasy Football 2017 - Week 7 Studs & Duds, Rising Stars, Mr. Cooper

lock it he really extends that offense for them was impressed with him even though you know the numbers weren't all there sure what he did for the offense russell wilson 27 for 39 34 34 and three james winston alex smith had big weeks yeah man james that was a that was a tough call all week with the ac joint for the entire first half of that game i sat up in my uh i told you so tower wouldn't he had the two turnovers was looking very poor

And then James, James Winston threw a dunce cap on my head, had a monster game. So if you were, if you had, uh, if you had that courage to play James through that AC spring, you were rewarded big time. I guess he's okay. I guess so. All right. Let's talk about running backs. Ezekio Elliott, who by the way, was reported this morning. He's going to play next week. Yeah. He's going to be locked and loaded. Well, he was in this game. I mean, three touchdowns, uh, just an absolute mammoth.

game. Everything you hope, like sometimes you see these matchups on paper and they don't pan out. Yeah. Like Devonza Freeman and Tevin Coleman last night. And sometimes they do. Oh, man, that's 72 yard tiptoe through the tulips on the sideline. That was nice. Tiptoe. That was incredible. I really, I'm shocked the way that game.

happened that he finished with only three touchdowns. And that's not even a joke. Like, yeah. There was like three more opportunities where I'm like, oh, this is where he gets touchdown number four. And it didn't happen. Because Dak was just, Dak ran one in. They had the really short touchdown pass to Des Bryant. And another short one to, uh, eventually were like to Witton to what the one had eventually they're like, we got to get some of these other guys involved. Stop taking all the fantasy points. Zique. All right. Selfish. LaShawn McCoy finally got in the end zone to the tune of.

Two touchdowns. Most of his touchdowns over the last, you know, I think two years, he scores much more at home than he does on the road worth monitoring moving forward. He has Oakland next week. Gurley, once again, delivering the goods against Arizona shutting them out. Had some shutouts this week in the NFL. A lot of them. Strange. There were like six or 17, I think six teams.

that did not score an offensive touchdown this week. Yeah, the morning games are like, oh, boy, another field goal. Yeah. Hooray. Yeah. We'll talk about some of those. Some of those poopers. Jason or Mike is very bitter because he is in a battle in our league of record. And Matt Bryant was his kicker. And now. I mean, that was gold. That match. I was like, yeah, the Patriots. I'm getting, I'm getting 10 plus points from my kicker. Negative one. Yeah, that's the opposite of a positive.

Yes, it is. You're a genius. Aaron Jones, 17 for 131 and a touchdown. They're on by next week. Very interesting what's happening with Aaron Jones in that offense. He sure has the spark that they've needed. But that offense itself, we've got to talk more about it. We're going to talk about Jones in a little bit. Lev Bell, ho-hum, 35 carries making Joe Mixing and jealous. It's ridiculous, man. That's so many carries, and he's...

He just gets it done every time. T.J. Yeldin, 9 for 1, 22, and a touchdown had a 58-yard scamper. Do we read into anything with Yeldon? Probably not, because if Leonard Fournett is healthy, there's a buy week. So Leonard Fournett's essentially got two and a half weeks to get back. And then if he's in there, we've seen T.J. Yeldon be inactive, not even active for a lot of these games.

Latavius Murray, 18 for 113 and a touchdown guys. Ooh. I think he outtouched McKinnon in this one by three or four. Both of these guys are interesting. They lean on the run a lot. Case Keenham, you know, didn't get a lot done through the air. They have a good defense. You got Cleveland next week. Are you starting both guys, Murray and McKinnon? Because McKinnon still had an okay game as well, but Murray had the touchdown and was...

More productive on a yards per carry basis. He looked fast, again, which we know that Latavius Murray, he has some juice when he gets the big body moving. Cleveland's run defense is actually solid. And I would not be looking to spend a whole bunch on Murray. He's got Cleveland, which I don't, like I said, I don't like the match. Then you have a buy week. So Latavis Murray is going to be someone I will let.

another one of my opponents burn priority or a bunch of fable. If this was a keep trade cut, I would also be looking to trade him on the back of a great game because Cleveland isn't that good a match. But I would be willing to start McKinnon for sure. But I probably would only see Murray as a low-end flex option granted. So would you target the- This is byweek central. So, you know, he probably will be in that need to plug in range. Would you trade him to the McKinnon owner for McKinnon?

Oh, heck. Like his McKinnon had a lower week and he had a monster week. I would still rather have McKinnon than Murray. I mean, that would be a David Blaine's spectacle if you could pull that off. Hey, guys, we need to move it on to the wide receivers. And, uh, well, it's time to give it up. Lippa, little bit of hanging with Mr. Cooper. Mike, thank you for that. Yes. Let's hang with Mr. Cooper. Let's do it. This ain't no cooped in his big boy pants. These pants were clean. Oh, these pants were pressed. Bleached even.

11 for 210 and 2. All stains removed. Should have had an extra touchdown, dropped the ball. Another deep target. It seemed to me when watching this game that Derek Carr basically made his first read. And if it wasn't already Cooper, the second read was always Cooper. So I was like, look to the right. Okay, Crabtree was dealing with Marcus Peters in this game. And so that's one thing we need to consider when projecting Cooper forward. But like you guys got into before, if the game plan is, hey, we're not going to win without.

having some balance here, right? We're not going to win without, we can't run the ball the way we did last year. Michael Crabtree is delivering, but we're not going to win if Mari Cooper, this future superstar, this stud, this third-year guy, isn't heavily involved. They basically say, hey, let's get back on track.

11 for 2, 10, and 2. Next week will be the real telling story for Amari Cooper because we can't fool ourselves and say, okay, just because they target him 19 times, this is going to happen going forward. If you look backwards at, you know, so far the career of Cooper, this is just what he does. He has monstrous, huge games and then disappears. Which we've said multiple times when it comes to owning him, that's the risk you have. Right. I mean, I'll start him at Buffalo.

in the hopes that the change is on the, you know, is that his targets are, you know, in that teens area going forward. But, uh, it must have made you excited though. Oh, definitely. I mean, I traded for Amari Cooper, uh, two weeks ago and. The, the bylaw is gone. All right. Kenny Stills, Tyreek Hill, Julio.

Nine for 99 and a touchdown, including a goal line target. Oh, my goodness. Because they couldn't run. They didn't want to run. Delonthe Freeman, you do not get the ball around the goal line. Let's just throw it. But Julio, New York next week. Against the Jets, he should be a great start. It's nice to see him get back on track, deliver on some of that value. I think we all said go target, Julio, because we knew, you know, things return to the mean, and he's a mean man. Yeah, if you haven't seen the touchdown grab, just.

Give it a quick Google because it was awesome. He just caught it at the same time that the defender caught it. And he said, this is mine. He just ripped it away. You know, it's like most of the time you see those plays. But when they rip it away, they just rip it away a couple inches. He did a full like from the right side of his body to the left. Just like, like Patrick Ewing clearing a rebound. Yeah, the Charles Barkley elbows out. He's a man. He's a man. All right. Now you're a man.

Ted Gann, what do you make a seven for 141 in this matchup against Green Bay, seven targets? It was nice to see him get involved, but are you playing with fire with Ted Gans still? Or what do you think with Sneed being inactive? I mean, now we have two weeks because 141 yards this week. Last week it was 66 and a touchdown. He's caught 11 straight targets from Drew Brees. What? Yeah, he was four for four.

Last week. It's the greatest ad for Stickham I've ever heard. Hold on. I apologize because the previous week he was two for two. So that is a very, you know who that reminds you know who that reminds me of that reminds me of the opposite of Ted Gin Jr. I'm not going to rely on a hundred percent catch rate. I'm not going to rely on the targets being there. So I, you know, to me I'm not, I'm not throwing Ted get in.

I just don't think I can. Five weeks, flex him? Yeah, I think that he's a perfectly fine flex play. Does Bryant? There's another man. He's going to be great rest of season. He's a stunt. Washington, Kansas City, Atlanta. Tight ends. What do we think of this O.J. Howard breakout game. Six for 98. I don't think he had a game over two receptions previously. Now he had two touchdowns, six targets. Him and Brate were startable in this game.

Speaking of two, because this is the second time that Tampa Bay was able to get away with the, the okey doke. Oh my God. Where the entire defense forgets that O.J. Howard is playing football. And he's just wide open for a touchdown. And the other touchdown was a incredible play design that it was almost an optical illusion of when you, you know where Winston's going. He's clearly targeting Mike. Oh, he touchdown O.J. Howard. So it was.

I don't expect O.J. Howard to be really weakly startable. Yeah, it's very difficult to trust. He looks like he might be, though. According to Mike's. Well, he's got the tail. Mike's whiskers are kind of tingling over there. He doesn't know whether it's like I'm electric right now, but it's the draft pedigree and O.J. Howard's just a stud. This was a winning game. I don't think they can sustain two tight ends. James Winston in this game with the 384 yards.

Evans, D-Jax, Brate, Howard, all had games that you could have easily started them. So I guess, look, that defense is not very good. That team is not very good. So they may be airing it out quite a bit. We'll see what happens with Howard. Another rookie. You still would take Brate rest of season. Yeah, certainly would. I would take Bray over Howard for sure. What were you going to say, Jay? I was going to say another rookie tied in, not a breakout because he's already broken out, but Evan Ingram continues.

to impress six. What did he have? Six for 60, another touchdown. Yeah, he had a big play taken away, too, in this game. And like I said, after the buy, if Serling Shepard gets back, it's only going to help this offense move the ball. I love Ingram compared to other tight ends because he basically runs that little, I'm going to pretend to block, which is, by the way, what he runs even when he blocks. He's just pretending to block. He takes the two steps forward and then runs the drag. And when he gets that drag route,

He turns it up field. He's just so fast. You cannot cover that. I watched him line up in this game with Richard Sherman on him multiple times, and he'd run three or four yards up and then drag across the field. And Sherman wasn't falling him all the way across the field. So he finds a spot in the zone. They give that underneath pass. He's almost like, you know, it's almost like the dump off to Devon to Freeman or Lev Bell out front, and you just let him run with the ball and he gets it done. Whenever you've got a guy with those wheels who's getting, you know.

six, seven, eight, nine targets a game. He could take any one of those targets and run away from a DB, which is extraordinarily rare for a tight end. He's 234 pounds and ran a 4-4-2. He's going to end up. That's ridiculous. Top four after this week at the tight-in position on the year. So are a top five finish for Evan Engram? Do you feel that's in the cards? I think it's very possible based on the landscape of those whiteouts. Tight-in. Do you agree with that? All right. I know the landscape of the New York Lions. Yeah.

I would. I would be pretty surprised because he's not just a touchdown dependent guy. He's going to get yards and targets. Would you still go with Kelsey and Graham ahead of him? Oh, Kelsey, yes. Graham, I would go with both. Probably not. All right, real quick, the defenses. We got to give it up to my man. Oh, Jay Gris. Those bears, man, those bears.

They put it up. Two touchdowns. Mike actually had the Bears as his DFS call this week. I hope you were listening to the DFS podcast when I said you punt with the bears. Growling with pride over that one. It felt good. All right, guys. It's time. Raising Cain's Rising Stars of the Week. You know, I thought I was going to struggle to find like my guy for the rising stars this week. And I have like three guys that I love and you guys pick none of them.

So I'm going to kick it off with Aaron Jones because he deserves his time in the sun. He does. 17 for 131 and a touchdown running back for the Green Bay Packers. Time Montgomery in this game. Four for six. Four for six. Those carry numbers compared to Aaron Jones. Unbelievable to see him usurp this position. But he's been electric. He's, you know, at the end of the day, you have to wonder if the coaching staff with the drafting of two running back, if they just say, look, Montgomery is a converted running back.