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

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We're back. It's Wednesday. It's up day. That was a rising locomotive. Was it all right? Of energy. I enjoyed it very much. We're back again. We are the fantasy footballers, and we are here. It's December 15th. Somehow Christmas is around the corner. Well, because it's December. No, no, no. Not somehow Christmas. Like, it was more of a new line, a new sentence. Oh, okay. Christmas is around the corner. Thoughts?

Thoughts on Christmas? Pro Christmas? I am pro Christmas. I love Christmas. All right. Well, I mean, it is, you know, near the end of the fantasy football, regular, you know, our 2015 season. I thought maybe... That's not the favorite part about it. Right. That part's not as good. The season. My Christmas tree went up on November 1st, though. I know. I know. You're a wild man. A true story. Wild Christmas man. I used to be ultimate, ultimate Scrooge and Grinch. I did not enjoy Christmas.

I let the bad aspects of just the busyness, congestion at all the stores. I let that get to me. I let it bring me down. But now you have kids. But have really since I had children, now Christmas is just fantastic. Magical. It is. It is truly magical. And it's also not 100 freaking degrees outside. So there's that. Well, as Arizonaans know how to enjoy, not 100 degrees of weather. That's for sure. So.

Welcome to this show. We've got a good one. We got our sits of the week on the show today. Going to do a little trivia for the fantasy season. Going to jump into the mailbag, answer questions. And we also have a special guest on the show today, who is none other than Nando de Fino of the Fantasy Sports Network, one of our favorite people in the industry and has been for years. Got to love the fantasy sports. The notorious.

Nando daffino. Yes, yes. So that will be exciting, and we'll talk to him. You can find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Check us out, as I said. Nando's from the Fantasy Sports Network. You can also watch our show on the Fantasy Sports Network. You can watch it on YouTube, subscribe to us on YouTube, on iTunes, and elsewhere where podcasts are found, which is a lot of places. There are a lot of really good apps out there. So what else do we got going on, guys?

Do you want to just get right into the trivia? Yeah, I believe I am prepared. I'm trying to focus the brain. Now, Jason took this last time. Is that correct? No, yes, he did. That is correct. Okay. I'm going to the memory banks, getting everything lubed up in my brain. Okay. Well, you know, we'll stay back a couple feet. I'll be a slippery show. You need the file cabinets of the memory to be... I use an SSD. Your brain is a solid state. That's right.

You can't tell that by now? All right. There are, I know there's no moving parts of your brain if that's what you're inferring. Yes, yes, that is what I'm inferring. All right, I am having the best season of my career. I've only scored in single-digit fantasy points one time this year. I've already eclipsed my season high for touchdowns, but despite not being considered the starter from the first day of camp. I've only thrown for 300-plus yards one time, but I'm a quarterback one.

So who am I? Ooh. Wow. I'm going to give you limited time on this too. Oh, I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. You're a jerk. Not considered the starter. I thought I had it all the way up until that one. Yeah, I got it. Not considered the starter was the hard part. Ryan Fitzpatrick. Yep. That is correct. I got that. That is correct. Ryan Fitzpatrick, impressive year for Ryan Fitzpatrick. Absolutely. Had a little bit of a lull.

where you heard rumblings in New York about, oh, would you consider a switch back to Gino, blah, blah, blah. They had gone on a great start, got back to 500, and now they won three in a row on the arm of Ryan's Fitzpatrick. I think I said his name Ryan's Fitzpatrick there, but Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's as good as two. All right, so you both got down one. Let's see if you get this one. I, too, am having the best season of my career. I had an average draft position of 55 for wide receivers in PPR leagues.

I'm the only player in the top 18 in fantasy points without 65 plus catches and 100 targets. Yet, I'm a wide receiver 1, who has only eclipsed 100 yards twice. I think I've got it too, but I feel like. Let my answer first this time. We're going to stay in the flames with Doug Baldwin. Oh, that's a good one. I think he's been over 100. Oh, does it say twice? That's a great guess. Just give me another answer.

I feel like this is my answer every other week is the Eric Decker Alan Hearns wide receiver 2 guy. I'm going to go with Eric Decker. It is Doug Baldwin. Oh, my boy. He is having a heck of a year. Yeah, and I saw a stat of that we need to keep in mind with Doug Baldwin. Before the buy, there was a three-game stretch where he was averaging about four points. I know. Per game.

I've seen Doug Baldwin play football before. I've seen it for years, and there have been games where he flashed. He streaks. And you start him, and then you're disappointed. But it's different right now because I think Wilson's just so on fire and the options, the passing game options have reduced the running game. I don't know. He's on fire. I'm starting him over a lot of guys this week. He's like the three-point shooter in basketball.

When it's just going, you give him the ball because it's going to go in the net every single time. And he's a good player. He's never not been a good player. It's been the offense is Marchion Lynch. The offense is good for a game, off for two games, no passing game. All right, let's see if you guys get this one. Mike got that one. This one's really tough. Unlike the last two players, I'm only having the second best year. Second best year of my career. Third most rushing touchdowns.

Despite not starting in about half of my team's games, I was able to eclipse 20 points in five of those games. The league's second highest scoring fantasy running back since week nine. Easy peasy. Too much information in here. Yeah, too much info. I was... Well, what's the name? Do you got it, Mike? No, actually, I don't. Easy peasy. Well, think about... Well, one, a guy who hasn't played in half of the games, and two, has had an incredible season before.

Right? This is his second best year. The part that's alluding me is the missing half his games. DeAngelo William. That is correct. That is correct. All I could think of was Doug Martin and I couldn't get him out of my head. What was impressive to me is that this is the second best year of his career.

post his prime, right? Like he had that monster year that I remember picking him up. I don't even remember the name of the guy I traded for him anymore. It was nobody. That's right. Donnie Avery, I traded for DeWill at the, right before he went on that massive tear, took me to a final. But this is his second best year despite not playing in the full...

you know, slate of games. So a great guy to have in the fantasy playoffs, that's for sure. So let's go ahead and get to a little bit of news and notes before we move on to what do we have next? What are we doing? Sits? Yep, sure. Are we going to bring Nando in? We'll go to Nando before the sits. How about that? All right. Let's get to the news. News and notes from around the league. Do we actually have any news? There's not a ton, but the standouts are the standouts. The standouts.

Jordan Matthews, not practicing. And there's some good news from the Joe Hayden front that we do expect him to fully recovery. But next year. Yes, next year. And this was a legitimate concern for the Cleveland Browns that Joe Hayden had been getting concussed so much that maybe Hayden's going to shut it down. He's been one of the best corners of this generation. His plays really deteriorated. So we're happy to hear this for Hayden that he'll make a fuller. And he was one of the three that all got paid.

Right, between Peterson, Hayden, and Sherman. Now, Andre Ellington is not practicing as well. This is good news for David Johnson. The injury for Johnson last week, for those that didn't hear, it was just a thigh bruise. That's why he was off for a little while and came back on. Everybody in the world thought the Cardinals were insane. Johnson was playing so well, and then they brought in Stephentieler for the goal line who got stuffed, but it was an injury. Is there anything else we need to mention? I want to hit the breaking news button. Breaking news. Up in New England.

Brandon Bolden is an option for the New England Patriots. Sorry. Yeah. That's the best summary for their backfield that I've ever heard. Guys are different, different guys are options. Yep. With that, though, you saw. How do you not get mad at the John Fox aspect of that?

Well, because we have respect for Bill Belichick. That's correct. That is correct. That goes a long way. Blunt was on crutches, which is not a good sign. That was the news yesterday. Yeah, so I think Brandon Bolden's going to be involved. I do too. I like Brandon Bolden as a going way back, a sneaky snart. Do you remember that, Mike? That's really old. That's even like, that's an inside joke for me and you.

That's the throwback snarts in the week. Throwback, yeah. All right, so before we get into our sits in the mailbag, we do want to welcome in Nando Defino of the Fantasy Sports Network and ask them some questions about everything that's going on this week, important week for fantasy owners. So let's go ahead and do that right now. You talking to me? The fantasy footballers.

are pleased to bring in special guest, Nando Defino from the Fantasy Sports Network. He's been in the biz for quite some time, so it's pretty awesome for us to get him on the show and get some hot takes for the weekend. What's going on, Nando? Not much, man. We are doing well. I was doing better last week when I was in our fantasy playoffs, and I'm now currently out, but I'm surviving. So we want to help the listeners stay in their leagues.

And we want to talk about the running back situation. We had some injuries. We had Thomas Rawls go down. We know that he's out. Jonathan Stewart went down with a foot sprain. We have to believe that he's going to get rested. So there's just situations all over for these fantasy playoff teams that they need running backs. Now, waivers may have run for some teams, but there's other teams that they haven't run yet. So we want to run through guys. And Yeldin, he's another guy who's possibly out. So we got...

DeNard Robinson, Tim Hightower, let's start there at the top, because I think those are kind of the unanimous top two guys. Which one of those are you targeting? For me, it's High Tower, just because we know he's going to get those carries. I don't think C.J. Spiller is really a threat. The Denard Robinson situation, I like him a lot. I like him better than Hightower. But the situation is kind of, it's weirdly fluid. If I had to do it today, it would be Hightower. If I found out tomorrow that Yeldon was going to be out for three weeks, it would be Robinson.

Just because of the timing right now, though, it's got to be the guy who's coming off a 28-carry game, as opposed to the guy who might or might not play depending on the injury status. Absolutely. So let's throw in, then the guys from Seattle. We got DeWan Harris. We do have a situation with Bryce Brown, who was recently signed, and head coach Pete Carroll has said they're going to fight it out for the starting position. What do you make of what's going on in Seattle? Yeah, I don't know.