Starts of the Week + Week 2 Breakdown - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/12

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. It's football time. I was really excited. It was very low. Yeah. That was a little gristly. I'm a man. That was like the first thing you said today. There's like the fresh out of bed, gristly. It's football time. I just, I'm warming up. I got a, uh, I got a set as a metal singer after the show, boys. Nice. So I got to get, I got to get the, uh, the vocal fry. I mean, just added to the long list of gigs you've had over the years, right? Yeah, which I'm performing. It's football time. Have you done, have you done any, any metal before? Uh, not pure metal. I mean, I've, I've, uh,

Like done covers. The medal wasn't part of your local fair tour. Nope. Nope. We've got a big show today. Thank you for joining us. Quick here at the top, I wanted to invite you to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Follow the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Wherever you're listening to it, it helps us out. We've got NFL news to talk about injuries that have Jason shaking in his boots. We've got starts of the week. The fantasy forecast, one crown and two clowns. Today is going to be a good one, and we're happy to have you with us. Email out, an email went out this morning, inviting people to the new Ultimate Dashboard, which is a brand new in-season tool we have built into the join thefoot.com membership. You can check that out.

You get an extra episode of the show every week. You get access to the dashboard, which lets you import your team, get an optimized lineup. It's very helpful if you manage multiple teams. And I took a poll yesterday over on X about how many teams you have. One to three, four to six, seven to nine, ten or more. What do you think the results were? Well, I'm hoping that the 10 or more is very small. It's only 6.8% of... nearly divorced people. And then 7 to 9 was only 8%. And then the other 80% were between 1 and 6. So we had the winner was 1 and 3, but 33% of you are managing 4 to 6 teams. It's helpful if you manage more than 1 to use the dashboard. You can check that out at join the foot.com. I want to jump right into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Devon Aid Chan.

remains a game time decision. It seems like he is going to play. Yeah, he's been at practices. The worst case scenario. Yeah, I know. He's been limited to practices. The reports we're getting from, look, I'm not saying the name of anyone because this is not a personal distrust, but the reports that are coming out, they're showing a picture, like a video of him stretching. or walking and saying he looks great today. They're like, yeah, he's cutting and he's, well, show us the video of that. But, yeah, I'm a little worried. Last year, there were, you know, there were a handful of games where he was on the Andrew Report and limited through practice. And they did not have heavy involvement of him those weeks. So everything that the head coach has said all off season is that that room, that running back room, there is trust.

from one to four. But at the same time, I think in truth, I don't think you can bench him. Most people don't have a good enough option to have the chance of, you know, a 25 point great game sitting there on their bench. So if he's inactive, a Christian McCaffrey for Monday night football, if we get the inactive, he's supposed to go through a pregame workout. It's a game time decision is the official designation. He's optimistic. If he's not there, the question in everybody's mind is, can you just play Jeff Wilson? Can you just play Jaylen Wright? If there's no A-chan, no Moster, are both players in your lineup no matter what? Yes. I think if both of them are gone, and obviously Moster is already ruled out, he's not going to the IR, but he will not be there today. If A-chan is not there, then I will be starting both of the other guys. Do you agree with that, Mike? I do.

All right, so we'll pay attention tonight. We've got the Dolphins and Bills. We previewed it on yesterday's episode. What if, just for Jason, what if you like your backup option was Alexander Madison of the Raiders in what projects to be pretty negative game script against Baltimore Ravens? Which is positive. for Alexander Madison. Yes, yes. No, I wouldn't go that far. Okay, I'll tell my friend. I do think, you know, it's tough because there's a player, like Jordan Mason, that would be a great play where I would be willing, but you can't take that risk because you've got to know today. For all we know, Christian McCaffrey. Yeah. Maybe Ramondre, that would be a player. We'll talk about him a lot today. Wait, you're saying you would not take the risk on, on. He's saying waiting on Mason because it.

Because Christian McCaffrey came out yesterday and said, like, if you saw the quotes, because as soon as it hit, they went crazy of, I'm mentally, I am preparing to play the game. Like, and then you went on, and this was the clip. This was the sound bite. But you're saying this is in relation to A-chan? Yeah, I'm saying if you were looking at who you're going to start, A-chan or someone like Jordan Mason, if I knew both, you know, if I knew. I don't need to know about Mason. He's starting. in that situation for me. I don't care about the McCaffrey thing or the agent. Like today, I would, if it's a game time decision for A-chan with the risk of limited work, I'll just play Mason. But what if you don't have a pivot should Christian McCaffrey be active? Don't care if he's active. You're saying even if CMC is active, you would rather play a backup Jordan Mason over an active A-chan? I would. Okay. I would not. Yeah, I mean, I think Mason, the utilization is going to be.

They're not putting Christian McCaffrey in and giving them all the work in this game. And the 49ers are going to win the ball game. They're probably going to get a lead. Jordan Mason, you know, we talked about this. People like J.K. Dobbins. He had, what, tin carries? People like Tank Bigsby. Like, Mason's got tin carries in the bag. No matter what. That's some confidence. And I don't want, last year, people played A-chan off of a game time decision. and he walked off the field into the locker room. It does worry me tremendously. Yeah, I mean, right now I've got Devon A-chan as my running back 19. Again, in most leagues, that's still going to be someone you start by the time you go through running back one, running back two, and your flex. But if you've got... Both of you guys would play him over or waiting on, or as you call him, waiting on Mason? I'd go Mason. I think McCaffrey's not playing. I would go A-chan to take the risk of CMC playing out.

Puka Nakua has been reported by head coach Sean McVeigh that he can miss more than four games while on IR. This seems inevitable. Everything that I've seen has been six games with three more games of potential limitations or lack of production or reduced production is a better way to put it when you recover from this kind of an injury. Yeah, I mean, six weeks is everything that I've been seeing as the kind of standard for this as well. They do have a week six buy. So he misses four games. That's guaranteed after that fourth missed game is their by week. And then we'll see if he returns after their buy or if he needs more time. All right. Jordan Love, Matliflor left the door open for him to still play on Sunday. But he's got to be cleared. I would be shocked.

However, the line, whether it's this news or, you know, my confidence in the Packers, the line has moved to minus two and a half now. The coach saying the starter for the Green Bay Packers might still play. Has it, like the weight versus Andy Holloway. Right. almost upsets. I mean, it's probably it's pretty balanced. Yeah. Oh, you go you side on that. I think it's probably Andy. Yeah. Because remember when he said it, he, he knew. Well, normally lines move when there's heavy betting action on the other side of it. Right. We know what happened yesterday. We know how many. Psychopaths bank accounts are in my hands right now. T. Higgins, hamstring.

Didn't practice. Ken Walker, oblique, didn't practice. I hate that one. That's a bad one. Jake Ferguson didn't practice. Dalton Schultz didn't practice. Kenan Allen Roma Dunesay did not practice. Wednesday practices are very often missed. If you're a little banged up or if you're a veteran, whatever, I don't worry too much about the Wednesday practices. Kenneth Walker is the one to watch for the most because it's the most impactful. You've got to pay attention. If you miss his practice tomorrow, then you start getting worried and. And or, you know, excited if you got Charbonnet. I agree. And Keenan Allen is one to watch. He's Sunday night. And he left, you know, he was going into the game with a heel problem. He, like, obviously re-agravated something. So he is, if you're counting on Keenan Allen, you better have a pivot. And I would presume Rome is not going to play. It just, it seems that way when you go for an MRI and then it's diagnosed with an MCL and you miss practice. I mean, why put him out there?

you know, this week, but TBD. The Broncos placed running back Audric estimate on injured reserve. He'll miss at least four games of an ankle injury. You skip the most important one for our bet. Okay. What are you talking about? The Denver wide receivers valet and Reynolds missed practice, which means, which means there is a chance that either Marvin Mims or Troy Franklin can play on the field. Oh, man. I'm going to go back to Estimate here. Jaleimo Glofflin and Giovante Williams, like a consolidation of opportunities in the Denver backfield is what you're looking for. And look, it was fully consolidated this past game. Estimay only had, I think, two touches. One was a big run. I can't remember which, and he fumbled. I don't remember which touch the fumble was on. That was the problem. He came in early. They seemed like he was part of the rotation. And then he fumbled. And then he fumbled. So this is more of a, to me,

Look, we'll see if Javante is. Which would you play? Which of those two would you play? I would still play Javante. I would as well. But the point being of the fear that like the rumblings of fear that could start building up if Javante goes out the next two games and still looks awful that estimate like the coaching staff might make a switch over to him, that's not happening. Due to him being on injured reserve. Correct. Yeah. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USA.com slash insurance. Starts of the week. All right, it's time to throw out our starts of the week before we jump into the forecast. This week at quarterback, I'm going with tonight's game. I'm going with Tua Tunga Vailoa against Buffalo. I think the, you know. You're talking on Superman's Cape over here. We had a slow start to the year.

But you saw Arizona put up 28 against them last week. This game has the second highest total of the week, which I love Waddle, was back in the game, Electric, Tyree Kael and company. And the need, a lot of this comes down to the fact that we have question marks at running back as well. Might have a more pass-heavy offensive plan, and this was the game he could already perform in. He averaged 73% completion percentage at home last year. and 273 passing yards and two touchdowns. If you get anything near that, you're very happy, and he could go way above it. I'm going with Tua. I am going to go with another player who disappointed last week. I hope he does better for you than he did for me. He should do better. I'm going to go with Jared Goff, go back to the Dominator. One game does not, you know, the last couple seasons make. And that game against the Rams was a just a brutally hardcore.

slug fest. And so this game is still at home again. It's a 50 point over under again against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who do not, I believe, have as strong a defense. And more importantly, they don't have as strong a secondary. Last year they gave up the fifth most passing yards. And we saw these two teams in the divisional round last year. Jared Gough threw it 43 times, had 287 and two touchdowns. So it's a little bit more difficult to run than pass against Tampa Bay. I expect Jared Goff to have a really strong fantasy week at home. I'm going to, oh, you got something? I just was curious. Would you play Jared Goff at home against Tampa or would you play Jaden Daniels against the Giants? Asking for a friend. Oh, man. That is really, really close. I like both of those plays. If I had to go with one, I've got them back to back. I'm going to go with my rankings, which is Jane Daniels. I would play Daniels. I'm going with my stream of the week. It's Stafford against Arizona.

Same arguments. The Arizona Cardinals defense is very bad. Josh Allen, the number one quarterback on the week last week, who completed five total passes in the first half. That did not stop him from going on to having 232 passing yards and two passing touchdowns. The Rams have the number. Since McVeigh has taken over, the Rams dominate the Arizona Cardinals. And since becoming a Ram, Stafford averages 250 plus and two passing touchdowns. All right, my running back start of the week is going to maybe surprise you. I'm going with the Gus bus against Carolina. I don't hate it. We had J.K. Dobbins stealing the headlines with the big runs. It was really three big runs and then pretty pedestrian efficiency. I think Gus is going to get, I don't think anything's changing in the workload for the second week of the year. And you're playing against Carolina this week. Positive game script is in the cards.

You can start both chargers running backs with confidence in this game. They gave up 180 total rushing yards last week and two scores. That is the – that's not good. That's not good, Carolina. And now you've lost your all-pro defensive tackle. So high T. Greg Roman, trusting the Gus. I'm playing the Gus bus this week. I like to play a lot. When I was putting a lineup together on DK, it was like – I kept going back and forth. Would I rather have Dobbins or rather have Gus? And in this one, you would expect a couple of rushing touchdowns against Carolina. And so rushing touchdowns are, I think at the end of the year, there'll be more for Gus than JK. Both are good. My running back start of the week is Ramandre Stevenson, who is coming off an excellent week one. He looked good. 25 carries against Cincinnati for 120 rushing yards and a touchdown plus three receptions. Now he's at home against Seattle. If you look at his utilization,

He touched the ball on 44% of their offensive plays. Only Bijan had a higher rate. How did that work out for him? It worked out pretty great. They won the ball game. They won the ball game. He was breaking tackles like crazy. And look, Seattle's not a great defense. Last year, at least, Seattle ranked 31st in rushing yards allowed. So I think Ramandre is a really, really strong play. Like if I had... a flex option of remandre versus A. Chan with the questionable status, I'd be willing to put Ramandre in. Am I running back? It's Jordan Mason of the 49ers against the Minnesota Vikings. We all saw what happened last week, and it's just maybe it's people being hopeful for Christian McCaffrey, but the consensus rankings I'm seeing on Mason are way too low. Like this guy is a, I'm forcing him into my lineup as essentially a top 12 play if I have him.

Look, they're five and a half point road favorites. I expect Jordan Mason to see all the work yet again. Yeah, I mean, it's not like there weren't committee backs last week that had great success. That's what I'm going to look at Mason like myself this week, you know. Even if McCaffrey plays. Even if McCaffrey plays. The fact that he's dealing with an injury that is a pain tolerance is a long-term injury at this point. It's over five weeks. and you're a team with Super Bowl aspirations. The level of insanity to give him a full workload in this game, if he's back, I don't believe that the 49ers will do that. My start of the week at wide receiver, I really wanted to come here and tell you that it was Marvin Harrison because I felt like the world needs.

to hear that Marvin Harrison's going to be okay. Yes, we do. And that you didn't draft him to bench him for Jameson Williams and you didn't draft him to bench him for Rashid Shaheed. And I mostly believed those statements, but not to the degree of start of the week. I watched the film. Jason watched the film. It was not good. It just plain wasn't good. He came out this morning. He basically said, yeah, it wasn't great. I was like, yeah, no, it wasn't great, Bob. Wasn't great. My start of the week is another rookie Malik Neighbors against the Washington commanders. They're going to throw him the football. He's going to go nuclear this week. This is going to be an amazing week. In fact, if you have any shot of trading for Malik Neighbors, it's going to be right here right now before this week happens. And I mean, I would trade a lot of players that, I mean, like Chris Olivaire, Malik Neighbors, I'm probably doing that deal. So.

You know, Jason's face says... Think about it for a second. That is calling your shot. And I understand where you're coming from. I don't think I could pull the trigger on that, but I get it. Here's the real question. Hand me the weapon. I'll pull it. Here's a real question. You drafted Marv. I didn't want this to come on. Would you trade Marvin Harrison from a leak after week one? Throw draft capital away. That doesn't matter anymore. In redraft. No. He plays, I'm in full agreement. He plays Washington. Like, we're going to be attacking the Washington secondary all year, and it's going to be glorious. Like, I'm not saying do it, but Daniel Jones is going to have a good game. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He will have a good game against Washington. But then it's just to speak to the long term from a league.

It's Cleveland and then it's Dallas are the next two weeks after that. I wouldn't do it. But I want to give some perspective here. Like week one rookies at wide receiver, they don't do a lot. Now one for four for Marvin Harrison is a disaster. But Malik Willis or I'm sorry, Malik neighbors put up five for 66. You're like, okay, that was the 10th best performance for a rookie wide receiver in game one in the last decade. So it's not like it's some terrible end of the world performance. It was good. Five for 66 is good, especially with what Daniel Jones put up negative four points. Like, you're playing a much worse secondary. Washington is the matchup for wide receivers. Malik, neighbors, all the way. I am going with my start of the week. This is really funny because it's like a... You're going to go with your start of the week as your start of the week? Yeah. Cool. It's a Marvin Harrison barometer because I do think you could still start Marvin Harrison, but I was trying to look for who...

What I have possibly that I would say, you know what? I'm going to go this guy over Marv. For me, that's Chris Godwin. In Detroit, talked about the 50 point over under. They can throw on, you know, the lions allowed the most explosive pass plays in the NFL last year. Week one, we were promised how he was going to go in the slot. He did go in the slot. He was eight for 89 and a touchdown. Everything seems like he's slotting in to be a weekly wide receiver two. And for my next two starts. As I get to him, these are just confidence boosters. It's DJ Moore against the Houston Texans. Week one was awful, but this is also look at the situation. Keenan Allen is banged up. Roma Dunzee is banged up. This could be a full consolidation of targets for DJ Moore. Hey, you get the island game. That's fun. It's in the dome. The over-under has recently moved up. We like to see that. And DJ Moore...

we think that he can exploit some one-on-one-man coverage opportunities in this game. It's long term for DJ Moore, we will see. But this week with the other two guys already a little bit hurt, I think that Moore's a strong play. Love this play. Do you, I'm going to ask you this, Mike, as it gets to my tight-in start of the week. Are you putting any underpants on this week? I am, well. Can I borrow them? Oh, yeah, brother. I don't need titanium. What levels do we got here? We got steel. That's your starter set. We got. We got titanium. You need a little extra protection for the undercarriage. And when you need to go invincible from the crotch kicks, you put on the unobtainium. I don't, I don't recommend going on your first ride. No, no, no. That's for season veterans only. Can I get, you got to be callous? Can I get the steel please? You got it. Underpants. I'm going to go with Colby Jack. That's Colby. Yeah, baby. John Parkinson, tight end for. For the.

uh rams um mike i'll do it i'm in on this play there there's going to be i don't know if that's good for you there's going to be a game plan change with no pukua yeah colby parkinson last week it looked pretty good he played the most he had the most routes run among all tight ends in the NFL we care about routes run at tight in he was the tight end seven on the week four for 47 if that's the worst you get cool that's great that take that that was the tight in seven and uh there's a chance he's the

Like we want to say Tyler Johnson or maybe Jordan Whittington shows up. And then DeMarcus Robinson is obviously going to be out there. But maybe, just maybe, a lot of Cooper Cup, a lot of Colby Parkinson, a lot of steel underpants. I think it's worth it. All right. My start of the week at tight end and look, I'm, I really like this start. I'm, I'm pretty confident. I'm even bullish. And this will be surprising. But it's Pat Fryer Muth. I think the Muth will be Luth. in Denver. This did surprise me. Denver allowed the most fantasy points to opposing tight ends last year. This is like where you beat them. They also have Patrick Sertan and right now the Steelers have one wide receiver. You know, I know where Sertan's going to be on that field and it's going to be, you know, it's going to be riding Pickett. And so Pickens. Pickens, yes. Kenny Pickett no longer on the team. No. George Pickens will have to deal with Sartan and Denver is beatable at tight end.

Their next best weapon for the Steelers is the Muth. He had four targets in week one. They didn't throw a ton, but that was an 18% target share. So I do think, and we also saw last year, Fields play against this Denver defense do very, very well. We've also seen Fields throw some touchdowns to Cole commit. So I think for one of those later starts, you had an injury, you didn't get likely on waivers. The Muth is a guy that I'm willing to start. Mike? Close us out. Mine is, this is a full confidence push. It's Mark Andrews. And the reason that Mark Andrews is here is because I am seeing him ranked under Kyle Pitts, Dalton Kincaid, George Kittle. I'm not there yet. He ran the second most routes of the position last week. He just ran him into triple coverage. Yeah, we're all excited for Isaiah likely. That doesn't mean Mark Andrews is toast. The Ravens are eight and a half point home favorites, 25 point implied team total. Last year, the Raiders.

They gave up the sixth highest opponent tight-in target share. I think that Mark Andrews gets back to being a top-tier option. All right, those are our starts of the week. Let's take a break. Come back with the forecast. I got to be honest with you, Mike. What do you got? These underpants are pretty uncomfortable. They are made of steel. Yeah, they are no give. No. And I need give. All right, here we go. It's time for Fantasy Forecast, presented by Draft King Sportsbook. The New Orleans Saints at 1 and 0. After that whoopin, they put on David Tepper. Take on the Dallas Cowboys in Dallas. This is not going to be like that one. The drafting sportsbook line, Dallas minus six. The overrunners 47. And the, look, I'd take Dallas in the points. Minus the points. So our listener league that we drafted that I've talked about, that was the hospital draft team that went awry.

When you say hospital dropped, I'm imagining all your players are injured. Yeah. Well, that's like you took. No, that's my league of records. You took players that are injured already. I was at the hospital. I have named my team the Saints because I have all of them. I've got Camara. I've got a lava. I've got tasem. I've got car. And so that was fine week one. I got the W because I played Carolina. And I'm looking at this. I'm like, oh no. Dallas, this is not going to work well for my team. You know, so far the Dallas defenses looked great. They didn't have to throw the ball a lot, so people were disappointed with Dak and C.D. Lamb and, you know, we had the injury to Jake Ferguson. But things are trending in a positive way for Ferguson to maybe be out there. I don't think I'd play him. You would just make the pivot. There's other options. Yeah. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. You'd go Colby Jack? I think I would. I would rather play Colby Jack or Fryer Muth. Both of those starts over a banged up Ferguson.

So DAC is in there. CD is in there. Brandon Cooks to me, I was very encouraged by the week one opportunities. He had seven targets in a game where they passed for half the game. So Brandon Cooks to me is a flex play. Do you guys agree with that? I do. And then Zeke and Rico Dowdell, if you're taking the shot, heavy favorites in the game, right now I'm just playing Zeke. Yes, I'm not going to disagree with that. Zeke was at 51% of the snaps, 12 opportunities. Dowdell was at 44% of the snaps, 10 opportunities. So while it's close, but it's still Zeke, and the goal line opportunities went to Zeke. And the first half of the game was not quite that close. And then there was, you know, it was like a blowout later in the game. And Rico got more involved. I think Zeke is an okay play here, but the New Orleans Saints defense is still good. So I'm guessing that.