Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 8 Fantasy Forecast, Starts of the Week, News

the lions somehow figure that out? I don't know if this is the week to count on that. I don't think we're going to see a renovated, you know, Abdullah Bell combination that's running all over the Chiefs. You know what I'm expecting to see is a lot of Megatron and a lot of Golden Tate. The, what's the, Jim. They've been neglected. Jim Bob Cooter. I love it. Jim Bob Cooter. That's the new OC up in Detroit. Rocking.

one of the best football names of all time. Wow. That is legendary. At this point, I just want him to become like the greatest coach in the history of the NFL so movies can be made about Jim Bob Cooter. Jim Bob Cooter. Look, Lombardi was not getting the ball to his playmakers. He was not drawing up great schematic things. And sure, they were getting targets. Golden Tate is one of the most heavily targeted wide receivers in the league at right now.

But he's not near the top in the other statistical categories because they're just, they were not strong plays where just get the ball in his hands. And for Calvin Johnson, don't make him run a double move or what every single time. Have these really long, drawn out routes that he needs to play where the offensive line clearly cannot block long enough for Stafford to let that route develop. Just let him run about 10 yards.

Throw the ball up to him. All right, so let me give you some numbers here in this game, and you tell me who this is. Through five games starting, this is a half-point PPR, 13 fantasy points, 13 fantasy points, eight fantasy points, then three, and then 17. Hmm. Do you think that is? Someone in this game? Correct. Oh, I don't know. That is Eric Ebron. Yeah. Wow. Would you start Eric Ebron over?

Travis Kelsey in this game? No. No. Okay. And that's just the matchup where the Lions have been very generous to the tight end, where the Chiefs have played the tight end pretty well. We all agree Eberin should be owned in all leagues. Would I start Ebron this week? Absolutely. Yeah, the Chiefs are a bad matchup for tight ends, but they're great for wide receivers, which is, I think we've seen in a couple of teams, when you've got great coverage on your wide receivers, the tight end can benefit, and vice versa. When you've got bad...

coverage from your corners on the wide receivers, the tight ends aren't used as much because they're not needed, and this is one of those matchups. All right. Last piece of the puzzle here in this game, Charkandrick West seems to be the guy they committed to him last week. He had a very good game. In fact, a lot of people ask questions about him. I'm fairly high on him the rest of season, just as it kind of like probably in that 12 to 15 range week to week, you know, based on matchups. That being said, on the other side of the ball, you've got...

Joyc Bell practicing in full. Amir Abdullah has had his ups and downs, had a pretty okay game last game, and then Theo Riddick seeing all the snaps. So put those three real quick in order of who you'd start in a half-point PPR league. West, or half-point Pee-R-Bee. No, not West, I'm sorry, just the Lions guys. Riddick-Ridtick, Abdulla, Joick-Bel. I'm going Abdullah-Jiq-Bel-Ridick. Wow. You think Riddick's role will just disappear? I'm going to go Riddick, number one, Abdullah, and then Bell.

I think Riddick's role is going to decrease as they become more balanced and look to... I'll tell you what, they get the ball to Golden Tate more, and Riddick won't catch as many passes. That'll be nice. That'll be nice. Well, you don't like Riddick? No, I like Riddick. I guess I meant it. I meant what you said, which is Golden Tate led the league in yards after the catch last year, so you've got to get him the catch part of that. He's also been a fantastic catch rate guy.

And this year he's 55%. He's also led the league in smugness. I don't know if you guys have followed. For years, as well as Hail Mary touchdowns. That aren't really touchdowns. By the way, we've got to move on to this next game. The charges at the Ravens. I want to say this for a second, though. The purpose of this segment on the show is not to exhaustively talk about every player and every team. If we did that, this...

You know, we'd have to start on Monday and end on Friday. And so sometimes we get emails and someone's like, you know, you didn't mention, you know, you didn't talk about Alex Smith a lot in this game. You know, we have our rankings up on the website. You can kind of see where we have guys slot it in. We're trying to hit some of the main points to focus on here. We know people are starting Travis Kelsey if they have them, that type of thing. So just some context for the discussions. Let's go Chargers.

Going into Baltimore, the Ravens are having a bad season. That being said, the Chargers looked really, really bad last game, minus the fantasy garbage time king. That is Philip Rivers. Kind of makes him, you know, kind of situation-proof, though, when that happens. And he has guys to dump it off to like Woodhead. All right, so let's talk about this game, though. You're starting Rivers, I assume, without hesitation. Yes.

What do we think about the running back situation in San Diego from a fantasy perspective? Jason, do you have any thoughts on who you'd start and what your expectations are? From San Francisco, you're starting Woodhead. San Diego. Or San Diego, you're starting Woodhead and you're starting nobody else. I don't have the confidence right now to put Melvin Gordon in my lineup, not knowing how much they're going to allow him to run. He could have a great game, but I don't trust it right now, and I'm sticking with Woodhead alone.

I'm still fine flexing Gordon out. I don't know if he would be my number two choice for running back, but I agree with Jason on Woodhead where, and the Ravens, when you look at game flow for the Ravens, their record horrific, but they've been in every single game where they are just blowing things at the end. Maybe it takes a miracle like the game against Arizona, but they were right into it. I mean, if that wasn't an interception,

in the end zone that Flacco threw, I feel like the Ravens probably win that game. Just momentum had completely swung to Baltimore's favor. It's true. But you're looking to, like, Steve Smith is completely startable in this matchup, where the Chargers had been great in giving up points, or holding away points, I should say, from the wide receiver. And then they sent in the car, and Derek Carr lit them up.

with just a barrage of touchdowns to Cooper and Crabtree. So I believe in Steve Smith in this match, but I'm not going to let the Chargers scare me away from Smith. All right, let's talk about Keenan Allen for a second. He's been very good this year. 15 catches this week. Okay, that's the thought. Not even joking. So rest of season, I'm not even kidding. Rest of season, who would you rather have on your roster, Keenan Allen or T.Y. Hilton? Keenan Allen. I would rather have T.Y. Hilton. Really? Okay.

I think what we've seen is Keenan Allen is great. His usage has been great. But when is the last time that Antonio Gates and Stevie Johnson have been together on the field with Keenan Allen? Do you know? I don't think it's happened yet. Never. And so my point is, Stevie Johnson's back and we're still got another week or two. But the season still has several more weeks left. When they all get together, I don't think the targets are going to hold. And I think that their running game can't do anything but get better.

So that's why. I like both guys. I'm not saying I wouldn't want Keenan Allen on my team. I can agree that there's really the only thing the running game can do is get better, but I don't expect it to get better. I expect that they will have to run through the air with their Patriot Compares, and that's Keenan Allen's job. Keenan Allen gets passes that the average depth is basically five yards or something. I mean, it's very, very low for a pass through the air.

But Keenan Allen is just, he's been sensational. There was worry about his hip, you know, because he had injured it a couple weeks ago, and he answered that with a monster game. And I love Keenan Allen. I think he's just so safe where T.Y. Hilton was saved by ridiculous defensive buffoonery. One thing I'll say is that, I'll let you respond since that was your discussion with him. All I was going to say is it's very ironic that I picked Ty Y over Allen rest of season.

I'm almost like discounting this week because this week I've got Keenan Allen my number three and T. Y. Hilton my number like 43. This debate discussion changes a little bit for me. PPR leagues are like Keenan Allen a little bit better. Hilton I like a little bit more in standard leagues or it's close. You know, Hilton has twice the amount of red zone targets than Keenan Allen does this year. And so he kind of is more boom and bust and that's why I would think that. Last piece I want to talk about here is if Gates is out, Lederis Green is he a start? Oh, absolutely.

Okay. Cardinals go into Cleveland. They face the Browns. The Browns are five-point underdogs at home. I have a start of the week that is in this game, so we'll get to that a little bit later. And I think you would have been both of your guys' starts of the week had I not beat you to the point. 100%. He is the clear-cut start of the week. Okay. So we think that Josh McCown should be playing in this game. Is that correct? All information indicates McCown. Yes, who...

you know, once played as the Cardinals quarterback back when I was like 12 years old. So he's continuing, it's kind of a revenge game. I was waiting for the revenge game narrative. But then Josh McCown would have to take revenge on half the league. So we were at the Cardinal game last week. We saw the running back rotation. It's clearly Chris Johnson's job right now. He's a start. Ellington and David Johnson, is it flip a coin?

Because last week you would have gotten more points if you started Ellington, but David Johnson seemed to be on the field a little bit more. Yeah, David Johnson's getting more snaps and just guessing on or I should say hoping for a touchdown. I'm rolling with David Johnson. Yeah, passing down packages. We saw a lot of times those two come in together. It was like, hey, this is going to be a clear passing down third and long or something like that. Let's send in Ellington and David Johnson roll them out. So really hard to...

have any kind of predictability there? There has never been a game. Actually, this set the NFL record, I just decided, for the highest quantity of running backs named Johnson. Because there is Chris Johnson, David Johnson, and Duke Johnson, all featured in this game. Duke Johnson has not been talked about enough because he's actually been very, very, I think he's on pace for in the 70s, reception-wise. And so in a PBR League, he's been actually fairly consistent.

And to me, he's the guy to start, obviously, in Cleveland. If McCown is playing this week, I think Duke Johnson takes an even higher bump because of the shoulder problem. Are you going to be throwing it long? You're going to be throwing it short. You're going to be throwing those dump-offs to the running bag. We saw that with Drew Breeze. He came back and threw like 700 passes the week that he got back from that shoulder injury to his running backs. So Duke Johnson's a mighty fine play. Arizona is among the bottom of defenses giving up.

passes to the running back. So I like Duke Johnson. Now, one thing to note for players with wide receivers in Arizona is I do not think that John Brown will be playing this week. I think John Brown will be out. And so that is a bit of a, you know, people with Fitzgerald are playing him. But people with Michael Floyd might be on the cusp of do I start him, do I not? If John Brown is out, Michael Floyd is a very, very safe start in my opinion in this game, much like we liked Robert Woods last week.

You know, Michael Floyd is going to be the guy in the field pretty much every snap of John Brown's off the field. I completely agree. I want to get your guys' opinion on Jermaine Gresham. Arizona is not known in the Bruce Arian system. They are not known for using the tight end. Jermaine Gresham was a huge part of the game last week against the Ravens, including a pretty big pass that got dropped on a big hit.

So you add that in, I think you would add 100 plus yards. So what do you guys feel about Gresham? Was that a one-week wonder, or will they actually be including a tight end? I lean much more on the one-week-wunder side simply because of game planning. And the fact, we saw this from Fells in week one where he scored a touchdown and was involved. And so I'd need to see it over multiple weeks myself.

I expect him to be more and more involved in the game plan, but not enough to make an impact. I statted him thinking he was going to be in the game plan more, and he came out as my number 16 tight-in, so it's not really relevant. And maximum barnage. Maximum barnish. This will be a test for him. The Cardinals are actually giving up the least amount of points against tight-ins. The barn burner. I actually am... The barnyard dog. There's no end.

to his nicknames. I want to throw just a smidgen of cold water on barnage this week, and I think I did this before this year, and he proved me very wrong. He's proved everybody wrong. I will have an apology for you, barnyard, barn burning maximum barnage, if you have a great week. But I think with the shoulder injury and Arizona's defense against the tight end, it's not a good week for maximum barnage. How much of the doubt about barnage comes from?

The fact his name is Gary Barnage. You think if his name was like Johnny Fly, like we would all be over him? If his name was Max Williams with two X's? Yeah, or like Billy Sticky Hands. Well, that would help too. That'd be really good. But yeah, I agree. There's at least 30% of my doubt comes because his name is Gary. Another 20% because he caught a touchdown pass with his butt cheeks. With his butt cheeks. All right. Moving on naturally to the next.