Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Starts of the Week, Week 3 Matchups, Debate

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dot com right now enter the code footballers at checkout and claim your free trial set and post shave balm that's harrys dot com code footballers so let's move on from the thursday night game so you're taking the patriots by the way i am i'm going to take houston i'm going to take a tie i think it's going to happen three to three it's going all the way no i mean look uh i would have to take the texans i don't see how the patriots past defense has not been great this year

Now, I realize they were in a position to defend pure passing game at the end of the Miami game, but they gave it up. So I think Hopkins and Fuller, they're going to be a problem. I think they're fine. I'm just, it's hard to take the Patriots to find a way. Yeah. All right, the Cardinals take on the bills, travel to Buffalo. Look, the bills are four point dogs at home. Yeah. And I think it's going to go that way. I mean, I.

Don't feel confident in anybody. McCoy has not been impressive because you kind of have the girly situation going on in Buffalo where, okay, the offensive line isn't blocking well enough and McCoy can't do everything. He hasn't been getting massive volume on the ground and they can't move it through the air.

Well, the nice thing is that he is involved through the air. So there's no game script that's going to take him out of the game and make him irrelevant. He's still going to have opportunities as the game goes along. We've seen the Arizona Cardinals be beat in the screen game many times over the last few years. His first two games, Lisham Koi, has four receptions in each game. I don't see any reason for that not to happen in this game. I give him another four receptions. Mike.

And when you get four receptions, you're going to probably get, you know, I don't know, 25, 30 yards, stack that on top of the 50 he rushes for. And then, you know, he's going to end up being an okay start. And he probably won't get a touchdown in this game. So, you know, low end running back two. There's no real reason to discuss David Johnson. He's an every week start and auto start. And he's been very, very efficient with his carries. They haven't had to lean on him for, you know, 20 carries a game or anything like that.

Let's talk about Larry Fitzgerald. Larry Fitzgerald this week at Buffalo is our consensus number eight wide receiver. I have him at seven. Mike has him in nine. Jason has him all the way down at 11, which is also known as a wide receiver one across the board. He's been great. He's the number one Red Zone read for this offense. I want to platform for a second for Larry Fitzgerald. I'm so glad you're bringing this up because.

You know, we are so close to the Cardinals here in Arizona. And, you know, there's always the new young greatness that's coming. The Michael Floyd's and the John Browns and the old man is just not sexy. But the more that we look at Larry and what he's done and whether or not he slowed down at the end of last year, here's a couple facts. Last year, he tied in receptions with Brandon Marshall.

He had 109 receptions. He was the sixth most, you know, receptions in the league. He also is obviously a first ballot Hall of Fame type of player with great hands. He's the number one red zone option over the last two years for the Arizona Cardinals. Clearly he has been so far this year. I see no reason for him to slow down. And if you look, Mike, tell about that slowdown at the end of last year for Fitz.

Oh, sure. Yeah, we talked about, we were talking about this in the office of why were we, why were some people looking away from Fitzgerald and just the...

You looked at the end of the season and you thought, well, maybe it fell off. But then that's not factoring in. Carson Palmer being benched in two games and not in a bad bench, a bench because they didn't need him. The David Johnson explosion against Philadelphia, the Green Bay game where the defense scored twice. And so it looked the, you couldn't go box score hunting with Larry at the end of the season. So that's just where people have overlooked him. And some of those things could happen again. But the point was it wasn't like Larry slowed down and got older.

He's not that old. The last part of this game that we need to talk about, and the overrunners 47 for it, is Tyraud Taylor in the passing game. You know, you have a new offensive coordinator in place now. The reports this morning, McCoy was saying how much simpler the offense is than it was under Greg Roman. Do we expect any volume changes for Taylor, or is this just a stay away from the Bills game through and through? I can't.

I cannot in good conscience recommend people play Taylor right now. It's already a bad matchup. Taylor is averaging 16 completions a game. That is brutal. That's near the very bottom of the league. So this is the game where let's have a look. Maybe Taylor starts to throw the ball a little bit more. Andy alluded to it of the simplification of the offense. Maybe that helps them out. Although the last time...

Someone played a simplified offense against the Cardinals. It was Colin Kaepernick, the game where he was destroyed and lost his job. All right, the Vikings traveled to Carolina to take on the Panthers. Panthers are seven-point favorites over under a 43 in this game. We'll call this the Platoonosaurus Rex because the running backs are McKinnon and Ozziata and Whitaker and Artis Payne because the starters are down. So to me, the big debate here is...

You know, what do you do with the running back position? Are you just flipping a coin between these two teams? Or are we going to pretend we're more intelligent and know how this game script's going to go out? Because to be honest with you, I don't know. I can tell you what. I ranked them. Sure. But, you know, this reminds me a little bit of the Panthers Denver game.

They kicked off the season. You had, you know, what appeared to be a low-scoring, highly, two good defenses going at it. And what you saw in that game was, obviously, Kelvin Benjamin's going to get his. But with the running back specifically, you saw that there were going to be plenty of rushing attempts from both sides. But the guy you wanted is the guy that would catch passes in C.J. Anderson to be involved in that way. Jonathan Stewart.

whoever's playing that role of that first and second down back, I think he's going to be running into a lot of walls. And I think it's going to happen on the other side as well. So who is the past catching back in this situation? I feel like that could be Mike Tolbert for the Carolina Panthers. And I feel like that could be Aziata personally. But I think that's where it's like, is the past catching back Aziata or is it McKinnon? That's to be determined. People say that they're different guys. Right now.

The highest ranked among all the running backs in this game that we have on our consensus rankings is Matt Ozziata at 26. We have McKinand 29. We have Fazi and Artis Payne back to back at 36, 37. But those high double-digit numbers should tell you how the running back situation here looks. It's one thing to predict these guys in a great running matchup. It doesn't look like one right now. Sure.

The Panthers have not been great against the run so far this season. They're 17th in the league, so they have not been in that upper echelon, but their seventh against the pass. You know, the 43 over under says it'll be a fairly low-scoring game. I think if anybody makes hay here, it's going to be the Carolina offense more than it will be the Minnesota offense playing at home. And so for me, the only guy that I feel really great about starting.

is Diggs, and if you need a running back, Aziata, to me, at least has a baseline. You're saying from the Vikings. From the Vikings. I think if you picked up, McKinnon, you most likely picked him up because you are in a position of need. So you're starting him. I think he's an okay start. You're not very happy about it. Diggs is fine. Of course, you're playing Kelvin Benjamin. But the question for me now is Kyle Rudolph. How do we feel about him? Now that Sammy Biscuits is there,

throws it to the tight end. Rudolph got in the end zone with a great reception last week. I feel like he's worth monitoring pretty darn closely. Okay. Because of the change in the quarterback. Now, you know, like I said, the Panthers are good against the pass. We'll see what happens this week. Interesting kind of another something got to give moment of this game. Stefan Diggs is averaging 17.8 yards per reception this year. The Panthers.

are giving up just 10.4 yards per reception, one of the best in the league. And Diggs is right now first out of all the wide receivers. So I'm not, I did not project a great game for Diggs. I think this is a return-to-earth game for Diggs. I really do. I don't see how he can blow up again against this defense in Carolina. He is not, he's not in that wide receiver one or two range. The thing I would say for that, for the stat is Carolina has not been tested by a...

competent quarterback yet you had Trevor simeon week one and you had blaine gabbert week two how dare you so so no but seriously how does sam bradford not go out to dinner with those two guys i mean historically speaking that's like the perfect friends for him to go to peter piper with yeah because he'd be the coolest

Yeah. He'd be like, oh, it's Sam Bradford. Does the helmet always just look like it doesn't belong on his head? It's the shoulder. Is that what it is? The shoulders. I don't know. Does he put in two? Does he not wear them? No, he puts in two big. They're so high. The funniest thing I've seen on Twitter is, you know, those things are biscuits. He puts biscuits under that. What does, what does this person look like? And it's San Bradford looks like.

a child dressing up with Sam Bradford to play in an NFL game. That's exactly what he looks like. Yeah, he kind of reminds me of Captain America before the procedure. Things just don't fit. Yeah, and I'm always amazed when guys like that have powerful arms, but he doesn't look like a big guy. Sure. So, yeah, I'm not excited about anybody in this game, but I will say this. If I had a drop for it, I think this would be my almost upset of the week. Just because a seven point line.

is not giving Minnesota enough credit for their incredible defense so far this year. And so, you know, the Panthers will probably still win. But I would say it's close. All right. Well, there you go. We got a few more matchups to get through. We have a few more matchups to get through. And we have our starts of the week. So the Broncos head to the Bengals territory. Bengals are favored.

Yeah, the Bengals are three-point favorites at home. In a low-scoring projection. Low-scoring projection. C.J. Anderson is a must start. Let's talk about the wide receivers, though, on Denver, because the confidence level has to be waning. Manuel Sanders has had a tough start to the year. He was complaining yesterday or today about his role in the offense. Demerius seems to find a way because he's just a man-child. A man-child? Yeah, he's a man-child. I mean, he could just take.

a screen pass, 65 yards, any time. I mean, last week we were worried about his health. He performed okay. Virgil Green, do we think he's back? I don't know. I have concerns that he's not going to play this week. Yeah? Yeah, and if he does, he's going up against a good defense, so I don't think it's the right matchup to plug him in for a start. Well, he's going up against a good passing defense. Thus far, the Bengals have been surprisingly terrible against the run, as in dead last in the entire league, giving up 138.

rushing yards per game. Yeah. Does C.G. Anderson have more upside than what it looks like this week? C.J. Anderson is a locked and loaded running back one until further notice. All right. Let's talk. Would you start Sanders at all? I mean, is he a flex? Or would you just want to sit him down? I'd prefer to sit him down, but he's an okay flex. Jason, what do we do with the running backs on the other side of the ball, on the Cincinnati side? What do you do with Dalton and the running backs?

With the running backs and with Dalton, honestly, when it comes to the Denver defense, this is pretty much, if my team is playing against them, I'm looking to sit them. I would not want to start either guy. I think the Denver running game right now has been pretty darn good. They actually, I mean, they did give up that touchdown to Frank Gore on the tiptoes. But other than that, I mean, you saw them pretty much stifle Carolina in week one.