Week 16 Matchups + Mike's Back, Wheel of Shame! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/20

Learn more at usaa.com slash insurance. Let's take a quick break and we'll jump back into the forecast. It's time for fantasy forecast presented by DraftKings Sportsbook. All right. Yesterday we covered the Texans, Chiefs, Steelers, Ravens. Uh, those are our Saturday games. Don't forget to set those lineups early. Giants, Falcons, Lions, Bears, Browns, Bengals, Rams, Jets, Eagles, Commanders. And we're moving forward. Tennessee three and 11. Indianapolis six and eight games in Indy where they are three and a half point favorites. Over-under is 42 and a half on the DK Sportsbook.

It's going to be Mason Rudolph on the Titans side. Going to be Anthony Richardson once again at home. Uh, Tony Pollard, we think could be active. Uh, we talked about his contract incentives. He's got a little ways to go to get to 1100 yards, seven touchdowns. Tajay Spears was your hungry for more, Jason. And then yesterday, Mike, this will be breaking news to you, but I am, I'm shooting my shot on Chigakonkwo this week. What? That's going to be my, um, that's going to be my tight end start. So that is over Otten. League of record? That is over Britain Strange.

Wow. So this was the breaking news yesterday. Uh, one more piece of data. I brought up the fact that the Colts are who you want to play. If you're in a tough, if you're a tight end, um, we talked about the targets per route run being in the same place that Ridley's at over the last three weeks. Here are the tight ends targeted the most on a per route basis. Number one was Najoku 31% of the time. Number two in the NFL ahead of McBride, Britain Strange, Hunter Henry, anybody else. Um, it's Chigakonkwo. He's number two in the league, 29% of routes run.

And so I am taking my shot on an athletic tight end as opposed to the plotting. You know, we got news that Britain Strange has an AC joint injury. Kate Otten is now missing two practices. We've got a concussion that maybe Zachary gets back from. Like if you're bottom of the barrel is all I'm saying, it's going to be Chig for me. He's in my lineup. That's the way I'm riding. All right. I get it. Enough to the point where Jason has apparently put, did you, some sort of touchdown bet down on Chig? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to play.

And I'm, I'm also in one of the leagues where I was in that situation of like, am I playing a, uh, Britain Strange? And I decided I'm riding, I'm riding with you, man. I picked up Chig. You're, you're, you're, you're, I mean, he is a player. Oh yeah. He had a drop. Oh, con quo. Um, 10 targets last week, by the way. I, yeah, I, I see that. Yeah. The thing is, is athletically, he is a really good player. There was a time where we were very excited for him. I do think that the, the opportunity is there for him and Mason Rudolph, not a huge upgrade

from Will Levis, not a downgrade from Will Levis. So, you know, you could hopefully see him, uh, duck foot run another big, long touchdown. Is that how Chig runs? Dude, it's yes. On that big, long touchdown. Yeah. So you like his feet are out. Yes. His feet point away from center. What's that? Does he quack? There's his feet or is he? It's a feet. No, it's a feet. It's like, I don't know how he runs so fast when his toes are pointing like guys looking in two different directions. Oh my gosh. Uh, Jonathan Taylor, Jason, after he hurt you, I'm surprised he's not your start of the week.

I did think about it. I, I mean, he's a good start this week. Obviously last week, the boneheaded play that, what did you say? Seven point nine percent of people in Yahoo leagues lost because of that play. Holy crap. Yeah. Because he just dropped the touchdown. Went from a touchdown to a fumble. But how cool did he look? I, I, I can't. Like if that had been a touchdown and the way that he was like timing the drop, how cool is that? Is that where the like NFL street cred is? Is like how quick can you drop the football after breaking the plane?

Yeah. So everyone's trying to get it close. They had to review that thing 10 minutes and it called me a touchdown. Um, Jonathan Taylor's a good player. He, he was awesome last week. Obviously. He doesn't do that again. I'm sure he will never do that again the rest of his career, but the matchup is pretty good against the Titans. They're at home. They are favored. I think Jonathan Taylor is a very good start. For whatever reason, he hasn't had huge games against Tennessee in the past, but the matchup looks good on paper. Is there a wide receiver on the Indianapolis side that you would feel a level of confidence

in this week? No. Uh, I mean, you could, I know Alec Pierce is banged up. Maybe there's a little bit of consolidation, um, of the 45% completion rate. I mean, I, I would put Josh Downs in first and I would hope that I'm not putting Josh Downs in. I hope I have a better option. You know, last week you had nine targets to Michael Pittman, eight targets to Josh Downs with the completion rate, it feels like you need about 20 or 30 targets to have a good, um, game. But I mean, Josh Downs has had a handful of good games already with Anthony Richardson.

So if you've got to play one of them, that's who I would play. Yeah. I, I want to hit the almost upset button, but it feels like this game is so. Did you see the Brian Callahan? It's so boring anyways. Did you see the Brian Callahan press conference where one of the reporters asked about his team being soft? No. Oh man. If you had saw that, I think you would have hit the button. Cause he got it. It's fine. Andy's almost upset of the week. He got fiery on that. I mean, he, he, he told that reporter, like whoever's saying that has absolutely no idea

what they're talking about. 38 expletives. Oh, it was, it was, it was, it was really like I, I, it was Dan Campbell. It was so 38. It was so. That is the stats that Kyle's already had. Genuine and real. Oh, you made that up Kyle. Okay. Well, it was, there were, I mean, if he's, if he's not, he made it up. All right. It's not too far off. But I mean, it was a great, like if I was a player and I watched my coach the way that he got my back and the, it, I think it would amp this team up.

It would fire them up. What if you're actually soft? I don't think they are, man. They don't have a good record. They've lost a lot of games, but honestly it's quarterback. I mean, not, not every, not all of their woes is quarterback play, but in the beginning of the year, I mean, it's hard to win games when you're constantly throwing the other team touchdowns. It's like, that doesn't mean your team is playing soft. Remember in the beginning of the year, we didn't want to face the Titans defense. Yeah. Cause they just, they, they go out and they hit hard and they play strong, but they,

you know, maybe, maybe they're a little bit phoning it in. And now it's hard to play hard at three and 11. It's also hard to play defense on a short field because Levis gives you a short field. The Cardinals are seven and seven taken on three and 11 Carolina Panthers, the DraftKings Sportsbook line, Arizona minus four and a half. The over-under is 47. There you go. Carolina. Uh, we got a little bit of a retread. No, that's not the word. A retracement. Retracement. That's not a word. For bright. Yeah, it is. Retracement. Yeah. For real. That's new. I mean, you retrace.

Yeah. I mean, I, I've got Mr. Stocks over there looking at me. Uh, Bryce Young just, he, he went backwards a little bit last week. That was the point. Oh, this was a, a retracement is a technical term used to identify a minor pullback or change in the direction of a financial institution such as a stock or index. All right. Andy. My man. Look at that. That's impressive. I'm just saying shares of Bryce Young. The price went down a little bit last week. Um, you know, turnovers, uh, Arizona on the road, four and a half point favorites. He's still a competitive NFC West Cardinals right there.

One game behind Carolina's rush defense. It's awful. They're giving up 173 rushing yards a game. That would be the most all time. James Conner is going to be pretty good. How is James Conner not the RB one this week? Yeah. I mean, he, that's Jason made him his start of the week on that basis. Basically. It was him and Brees. I had Brees as kind of a second because who's not starting James Conner, but James Conner is like the start of the week. He should be in this matchup. You're favored. You're playing a perfect matchup. Your backups are injured. So you're going to get all the work and he's just been on fire.

Also the last like three years in a row, you know, when he's on the field down the stretch late in the season, when, when defenses are tired of the way he plays concrete, he's, you know, it's, it's tough to take him down. So talk to me about the other parts of the offense. Cause I think people have been laboring with the Kyla Murray decision this week. We've seen him in there. It's Kyler or love. It's Kyler or Darnold. It's Kyler or Goff. There are situations where I would start Kyler Murray and it's not the names that you just said. Obviously Kyler can have big explosive games.

The Carolina matchup is a good one to be in. The over under is fine, but I'm, you know, if I'm looking at starting Kyler or, you know, Caleb Williams. Okay. It's really difficult for me to say, I'm going to trust him over guys that I think are playing good football on a regular basis. Like Jordan Love, like Sam Darnold, uh, like Baker Mayfield. I don't think I'm going to take someone who is as volatile this season as Kyler over them, but it's not to say he's unstartable in a good matchup. It's just like they win games where he doesn't have good fantasy.

That's the issue of last week. I liked where the, I liked the spot the Cardinals were in. I thought Kyler was a decent play. The Cardinals put up 30 points and Kyler did nothing concrete. Yeah. James Conner had the Russian touchdowns and, and this, this matchup, it can happen again. That joke needs to stay offline. We can, we cannot proliferate. That's a Mark Sanchez. Give any credence to that nickname because we only use it because it's so bad. So it's concrete. Mike, Mark Sanchez, what's up? Uh, we still, I mean, when we're watching the games, we, we yell concrete. We were watching, it was the Jets game.

Was it? I don't remember which one it was. The Cardinals are playing and it's just all of a sudden the announcer just keeps yelling concrete. Yeah. No one's ever heard about that out here in Arizona. This is not what everybody calls him. This is not a nickname. You can't make it happen. It's also the name concrete. There are better nicknames. All right. On the other side, Chuba Hubbard's Russian receiving line is 90 and a half. He's also a very good play. Going right back to Chuba Hubbard after a disappointing week. And then Adam Thielen. I think Adam Thielen is a great start.

Leggett, Moore, Coker, all banged up. Be careful. Yeah. No, don't be careful. I'm going to play him and I'm going to play him over Jacob. I'll be Myers, Jason. I made that decision. Oh, yeah, you are. Yeah. We can all make that decision. So Adam Thielen to me is like the barometer test of like he this week. He's the name of waiver wire type of guy that will I start, you know, Jerry Judy, who's now got DTR, but he's been on fire or Adam Thielen. I would take Judy in that situation. I'd probably stay with Judy. I would take Myers.

But, you know, Josh Downs, we were just talking about. Can you start Josh Downs with, you know, against with Anthony Richardson against the Titans? Yeah. But I would rather have kind of the known volume that that is expected with Adam Thielen. So that's kind of my barometer test this week. Yeah. And Thielen's in that group over the last five weeks where, you know, it's 12.3 points a game. It's about where Shakir is. It's a little bit. It's 0.2 ahead of Myers. It's where Tyreek's been. It's where McConkie's been. So it comes down to, like Bryce Young was the, did we get fooled?

Fooled's the wrong word. Did we get, did he just get this, you know, he played really, really well after coming off the bench. And now the old, maybe like some of the habits or things that they had. I don't know if that came through the mic, but Jason, Jason's over. If you're not on the video, Jason has two mugs. He's got two mugs. And I'm like, what is clinking them together frequently? I'm not on purpose. I keep hitting the handle. Because you have two mugs in a very small space. What do you think's going to happen? At least separate them.

There was a water. And then I decided right before the show, I want a coffee. There you go. Right hand, left hand. There we go. There's no way he's not spilling that mug on the other side. I'm not used to right handing this mic. Like, is Bryce Young just, is he going to revert right back? I think there's 10 targets in the cards for Thielen. I would agree with that. Whatever you're happy, if you're happy with 10 targets, he catches 75% of his passes. He's going to be fine. Having said that, I would play Thielen. Trey McBride, he spat in the face of my touchdown guarantee after they tried to get him that little.

Everybody in the entire world is now doing the every single week, this is it, I'm calling the Trey McBride touchdown. It's not happening, ever. It's happening this week. It is not. It is 100%. It is never happening. They will try a little harder at the end of games to get that done. The big question, I think, on most people's minds who are in the playoffs is Marvin Harrison Jr. That's the guy that they don't know what to do with. You know, if you've got a Zay Flowers type that is, you know, do you start Zay Flowers? Or, you know, you can honestly have the conversation of like, is Adam Thielen a safer, better start than Marvin Harrison?

He is a safer start. Yeah. Safer floor. He's only had one target, I think, inside the 10 in the last month. So Harrison is very, I mean, he's a wide receiver 28. You need to treat him appropriately. You need to treat him that way, not the way you drafted him. And then you'll be fine. Marvin's been seven or fewer points than three of the last four. Yeah. I think people are. How is this possible? Cardinals could win the division still. Ugh. Minnesota's 12-2, taking on the 8-6 Seattle Seahawks. DraftKings Sportsbook line, Minnesota minus three. Over-under is 42-1⁄2. An amazing job by Kevin O'Connell with these Vikings.

They have been outstanding. The defense, so formidable. Make you basically, you know, you have to pass. You don't really get the choice to run on them. That's where the dilemma of Ken Walker becomes more complicated. There will be a re-injury risk. It might not be high. But he's been hurt multiple times this year. And you're coming back from injury in a terrible matchup. You know, he missed two weeks early in the season. He missed two weeks late in the season. And we were already a little bit, Mike, you've been frustrated with the bone zone becoming the char bone zone anyways.

So it does feel a little nerve-wracking. We talked about it a lot earlier. My start of the week at wide receiver was JSN, who is the guy right now and has a safe PPR floor. And upside, I think. Not only based on his talent, but the matchup is fantastic. The Vikings put up so many points and you can't run on them. So it's just like the end of games is so valuable for opposing teams against the Vikings when you talk about the passing game. What do you do with Metcalf? So Metcalf and Marv, those guys are in the same tier to me of like, these are good players.

That you can get a good game from this week who have not been performing. And you've just got to decide. You know, it's obviously going to come down to your options. But neither one is a must start. I would be playing Harrison over Metcalf if I had that choice. Because Metcalf has had, what, two months of disaster? Yeah, it's been his previous explosive week would have been week seven. Gets the Atlanta Falcons four for 99 with the score. Misses two games. His first game back after the bye week. Seven for 70. Okay, that's fine. And then it's just been subpar every game after that.

Yeah, he actually was off to a really strong start. He was. On the course of the season. Got injured and hasn't been the same. So I don't know if that's correlation or causation. It's mixed with Jason's emergence too. Yeah, I mean, it's been long enough that you need to be scared. But the matchup is so good here. You guys, would you roll Jawan Jennings over Metcalf? Yes. Jennings. Jennings for sure. Jalen McMillan over DK Metcalf? No. That one's. I think it's close. I really do. I think that's name over opportunity. I think that one's close. I probably wouldn't have the guts to not see if I can get a Metcalf game.

Aaron Jones on the other side is rushing line is at 66 and a half. He's RB 15 on the year. Jefferson and Addison, are we feeling good this week for both guys? Yeah, I mean. And then where are you with Hawkins? You're never going to not feel good about Justin Jefferson. And Jordan Addison's averaging 16 fantasy points per game over the last seven games. So I think you've got to have him in there. Hawkinson is always going to be in because, you know, there's six or seven tight ends you can rely on. And if he's one that you have, he's in.