Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Sits of the Week, Nando Di Fino, Week 15 Mailbag

if you guys are the same way, but I was stunned. Like, for the last three weeks, I've been dumping, like, my wide receivers and backup tight ends, whatever, on my bench for handcuffs. And one of them was Fred Jackson. And I really saw Fred Jackson would just slide right in, and it didn't happen. So I'm putting them, I'm putting them behind, even like Fossey Whitaker right now, because it seems like they're just going to kind of cannibalize each other, and it's going to be one of those Ronnie Hillman, C.J. Anderson, mid-season situations where...

No one runs away with it. I like how he says we're not going to go with a two-back approach. Like the Pete Carroll quote was kind of like, we're going to have a competition to see who is a starter. But I don't know if that really kind of eliminates the 15-carry versus eight-carry for each guy kind of scenario. The only problem I have with ignoring the situation myself is I keep seeing that...

Cleveland matchup on the schedule and just realizing that somebody's probably going to do something there. But I'm having a hard time prioritizing those guys right now without seeing practice reports and seeing which guy's going to be that lead dog. If you look at it like a, you know, if you got someone like a Fossey Whitaker who, if Jonathan Stewart's in that walking boot and he's out for a week, maybe two, you know, Whitaker's going to get, let's say, 80 to 85% of the work there. Whereas it could be Bryce Brown getting 55.

you know, Fred Jackson getting 15, and then DeWan Harris just kind of falling off. If, you know, his yards per carry don't look great, or he's not cutting well, he's not blocking the quarterback well. It just seemed like, yeah, one could take off. It's conceivable, but it's tough. And Russell Wilson might be the fill-in in some regard. Yeah. Yeah, now, getting over to the Fossey Whitaker's side,

We're of the belief here. You know, there's been some reports recently, and they came from preseason and on, that if something were to happen to Jonathan Stewart, it would actually be the rookie Cameron Artist Payne as the guy that comes in. Do you think that Cameron Artis Payne is going to be able to take that? I mean, you're saying Fossey's going to get 80, 80, 85% of the workload there. Do you discount those reports on Cameron Artis Payne or not think he's going to be involved? Yeah, my guess is that

they're 13-0. They got a veteran who's, I'm assuming, because Cameron Ars Payne hasn't played nearly as much as Fosie Whitaker, especially last week. I think it's going to be you go with a veteran who can block for Cam Newton, who can fit that role. Cameron Aris Payne might be kind of like a giant's Andre Williams situation where he's green. Like maybe he's not good catching passes yet. Maybe he's not good blocking yet. And Fossey Whitaker, if he only gives you 70% of what Jonathan Stewart was able to.

It's better than Cameron Artist Payne who could just be a disaster and isn't ready to kind of take up that mantle. I think if this Carolina team was six and seven at this point, it'd be a different story. But right now, I think they're going to go with a veteran who kind of get fit in the role, do what he's got to do, and kind of help them tread water until Jonathan Stewart comes back.

Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. Now, one of the more trepidacious situations in fantasy at the running back position is the New England backfield pretty much any week. But if Blunt, you know, they said he's on crutches today. If he's out, would you consider streaming Bolden in that position? Or do you think more carries would go to white? Or how do you see that situation breaking down? Because obviously you have a top offense and some opportunities on the goal line there, 16 carries for Bolden last week.

Yeah, I think that kind of speaks to Bolden taking that role. And he can catch passes, too. Whereas James White, I don't think he's your typical rusher. Even Bolden, Bolton's a big-ish kind of bigger than you would expect him to be. He runs hard, too. Yeah, he fits that blunt role a little better than I think James White does. And at this point, with the way things are going with the Patriots, if you try White out there and he gets hurt, you've kind of eliminated the pass catching back. Right. You know, Bolden can go in there and he can run, and then if something goes awry, you know, maybe you did.

bring in Kristen Michael or bring in Jonas, you know, pick someone off another team's practice squad. But if you lose James White right now, you've kind of, you've already lost Lewis, you lose White, you've kind of lost that role. So I think he does have value there. They don't want to risk him running the ball hard. So let's move on to the quarterback position. And we're going to talk the streamers. And there's also the people who, they've lost Andy Dalton. He's gone. He cannot help their team anymore. So let's talk about potential replacements for...

for the quarterback. Now we got Alex Smith in a matchup against Baltimore. We saw Alex Smith do very Alex Smith-like things, but there was, last week, but there was some nasty weather in that game. Are you still confident buying into a guy like Smith, or would you rather go with a guy like Ryan Fitzpatrick, who is red-hot, but he takes on Dallas, who's a bit of a tougher defense? I think I would go with...

I tend to lean more talent than match up because weird things can happen in games. Alex says, you look at him, and I know he's prone to like, you know, a four touchdown game or something, but 230-yard cap, if he's not hitting Macklin, I don't know who he's going to hit. Spencer wears out, so maybe that helps him a little bit because he'll throw more to Charkandric West, I would guess. But, like, see, if you just want to go, like, right to A.J. McCarran, for me, if you look at, like, Blank Gabbert, had some pretty good games.

Blake Bortle's had some pretty good games. A.J. McCarran isn't exactly, you know, not a first-round pick, but he was a he's been runner-up. He's got some talent. He's got the right attitude. You know, he's got to be ready coming in. I would actually take, I would put McCarrant ahead of someone like Alex Smith. Yeah, that's hot. I like here. That's the hot cake that you wanted. That's my stream of the week right there. You're smart man. So this is, here's a question that I think a lot of playoff teams are really struggling with.

They might have the alternative middle of the tier guy options on their team like a Staffordor or a Bortles or someone that, you know, is not, I guess Bortals is pretty hot right now, but someone middle of the line, not waiver fodder, but not someone you normally start. And then also on their roster, they've got Big Ben Rafflesberger going up against that Denver D. Do you just roll with Big Ben because he's Big Ben?

Or do you roll with that middle of the – the Fitzpatrick even. Would you rather play a Fitzpatrick – The talent versus matchup thing he was just saying. So do you side that way with quarterbacks too? Yeah, I would play – like, look, if this is a game where they break down the Denver defense, Pittsburgh has enough weapons to do it through the running games or the passing game, whatever. I would even have that second quarterback on my roster. I would be filling up my entire bench with handcuff running backs just in case of some kind of weird injury killing me for my championship game, just looking ahead an extra week.

So, yeah, I would roll Ruffisberger. I know, look, you've got to be afraid of the Denver defense, but I think on the flip side, the Denver defense has to be a little afraid of Ben Ruffusberger. And if he could exploit some holes and hit Martavis Bryant for a couple long passes, and Antonio Bryant, I'm sorry, Antonio Brown like eight times, you know, 120 yards. It's doable. I mean, people have done things against Denver before. So I'm going with Ben Rufflesberger, and I'm cutting the other quarterback.

All right, that's my opinion too. I've had a hard time convincing these guys. And obviously with the zero touchdown week for Ben last week, it was a little discouraging, but you had the game flow with McCarran and Dalton and all that stuff. So I'm with you on starting Big Ben. But Denver's pretty good. Yeah, you can't deny that. It's just, you know, once in a while these things happened. Oh, remember that game in week 15?

Denver gave up 400 passing yards. Well, and a lot of it, too, it's like I don't want to lose with Big Ben on my bench having him performed well and having streamed Matt Stafford and said, oh, my goodness, you know, the guy that got me here, now I'm going to roll out a matchup play and lose that way. Sometimes it's just how you can tolerate your losses. Exactly. You know, you save the matchup stuff for the daily games. You got your hair in season long. You stick with Rosasberger. Yeah. So thank you so much to Nando Defino.

We know that he is an extremely busy man up at the fantasy sports network. He's got to keep up with Pat Mayo. That's got to be exhausting. Impossible. Don't even, I don't even try. So last question, Nando. Are you going head to head with me and Pat in Fantasy Bachelor? Yeah, man. I've been like the last two, and I've been terrible at it. But I like it. It's so much fun. Yeah, I was horrific.

in The Bachelorette. So I'm looking to regain my street cred as a fantasy bachelor superstar. So I'll be dishing out those hot takes. Now, you guys are all doing a podcast together too, right? I'm in. I'm in. A daily, a daily podcast. It's easier than The Bachelorette. So this is my bread and butter. So thank you to Nando. Hey, Nando, where can our listeners find you on Twitter? Just Nando Dufino. Try spelling that.

Good luck. Have you thought about changing the handle? No. The fewer questions I have to answer on Sunday mornings. That's right. Very strategic. You're going to work for that. All right. Thanks, Nando. Appreciate it. I hope to catch something with you the next time. All right, guys. Take it easy. Thank you.

It was great to have Nando on the show. It's interesting that we have some different takes on our waiver guys. So it'll be great to see Nando versus the ballers on Cameron Artis Payne. Honestly, it's not even, to me, on the Harris and the artist pain situation. It is, it is.

It's like the weather report a few days before it's appropriate to tell you whether it's going to rain or not. Because we don't have, we can't see the cloud patterns that are coming from Peach Cobbler and from the Jonathan Stewart foot yet. Those are things that, it's hunches. It's hunches based on information, but it's hunches because we don't have, we haven't seen enough. Information comes out all the way up until game time. So we drop our Twitter handles a lot of the times in the beginning of the show or at the end of the show.

But in the playoffs, this is a good time. If you want to follow us for that, I mean, that's where sometimes we're done recording for the week. It happened with DeMarco Murray this past week. We're done recording. There's no other format, no other medium to be able to get it out. So we'll post something on Patreon, though. Yeah, we have mailers. But yeah, Patreon and Twitter. They're expensive. The door hangers? Well, and there's a, you know, quite a few doors to knock on. Yeah. And I would say, DeMarco Murray, fourth string running back this morning.

Fourth string, fourth string, play Darren Sprouls. What kind of a door knocking sound effect is that? I knock with a wooden spoon. I bring my wooden spoon around. Woo, save that, didn't I? I have fantasy information, and if you have a stew that needs stirring, then I'm your man. Multi-purpose. All right, let's get into the sets. Sense of the wig. I do the screaming until you fix that drop.

Here's a little hint for the Foot Clan. I could have fixed that last night, but I got trapped in Ansaroth. Whoa. It's a little, if you know what we're talking about. Oh, my goodness. Then you know what we're talking about. Yeah, that gives them confidence. All right. Jason, who do you got as your sit of the week at the quarterback position? My sit of the week this week is going to be Mr. Ryan Tannahill. Tana Hill has...

What looks to be a decent matchup, San Diego, could be high scoring. I am not saying that Ryan Tannahill can't have a good game. I'm saying that I cannot trust him. You're saying he won't. I'm saying I cannot trust whether or not he will, and there's no situation where I would choose to start Ryan Tannahill going into this week. You have... Sounds like the story I told myself in my head about four weeks ago. Yeah, yeah. About Ryan Tannahill. And that's what you've seen. You've seen a week where he throws for 350 and three touchdowns against the Jets.

a great D, and then the next week, 86 yards for one touchdown against Baltimore, a bad passing D. You have no rhyme or reason for what goes on with the play calling in Miami, and I am avoiding Ryan Tanna Hill this week. Sit him. This is the playoffs. A.J. McCarran or Ryan Tannow? I would feel more confident starting A.J. McCarran than Ryan Tannan. That's a hot take. Actually, I know who's calling the plays in Miami. It's Ryan Tannenhill.

Ryan Tannehill is the new play calling. That's why Lamar Miller carries the ball. What's incredible is the entire offense, the head coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, all switched, play calling is still suspect. Everyone hates Lamar Miller. Yeah, what's he doing? I don't know. Marcus Mario is my sit of the week. Yes, he's had some big time games over the last five or six weeks. But listen, the paths are shutting down quarterbacks, fantasy quarterbacks. Mike mentioned it yesterday. I said that I was a little bit.

afraid because when you when you play a defense that is against somebody who's had like a 40-50 point week it gives you a little bit of hesitation that being said we saw mariotta last week the weapons he doesn't have them right now in the passing game he only produced fantasy wise because he caught a touchdown pass he turned into the passing way right he passed to is a pass to himself by calling that play but 20 or less points for fantasy quarterbacks against the Patriots the last four games and that's the number i want to key on on and the reason why i would start somebody other than marcus mariotta