Week 16 Waivers + Playoff Pickups, Monty Fallout - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/17

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is brought to you by Amazon Prime. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Here we are. Round two. December 17th, the Fantasy Footballers podcast, semi-final week in the majority of fantasy leagues.

Maybe more important than all of that. The Monday night football games are over. You don't have to watch them anymore. You know, Mike, uh, who is still sick. He is not recovered yet. TBD on his, we, we know nothing. He's, Mike is not a, he's a man a few or words than a man a few words. Yes. Yes. So, uh, apparently he is not at the communication stage of health yet. Um, but one thing that he has said. many times in the past is that Monday night football, these doubleheaders, is good for when you have a bad game because then you can switch over to the other one. He couldn't see this coming. He couldn't see both games being so unwatchable. I believe he switched over to mash reruns. Yes. I mean, I think that's what he. With a theme song like that. Yeah, no, I think, uh, I think he was disappointed. I think that would have been a pick me up. Maybe you would have seen him today.

But we don't know. We don't know when he'll be back. Yeah, when we talk about those games, let's blitz them. I just hope that you were in the position where you didn't need to come back to win. You know what I mean? Because if you really needed that comeback, you're like, I need so-and-so to score a lot. It's like, well, sorry. No, it didn't happen. I mean, Jefferson did enough for your team. Aaron Jones did enough for your team last night in the 30 to 12. Shalacking by the Vikings. You, you know, Keenan got it going again. Yeah, found the end zone. A little bit Keenan. A little bit Keenan. DeAndre Swift did his thing where he doesn't practice all week. Soup's injured and then gets 20 carries. Yeah, kind of got it going at the end. It was, I mean, in the end. Okay, Keenan, six for 82 in a touchdown. Fine, fine for fantasy. Like you said, Aaron Jones, 86 yards at a touchdown. Justice Jefferson, 73 yards of touchdown. It was.

In the end, it was okay for fantasy, like if you didn't watch. But this was the most boring, non-competitive. You knew both games were over instantly. Worthless game. That's the biggest part to me is. It was like you knew that the Raiders couldn't beat the Falcons, even if the Falcons tried to beat themselves. Oh, and they did. That game was... I mean, Kirk Cousins had 112 yards in the pick and a touchdown. That game was far worse than the Bears Vikings. And the, and please don't hear what I'm not saying. The Bears Vikings game was terrible. And how Darnale Mooney do. Darniel Mooney.

Uh, Darnell Mooney, he did what they call a Cooper. Oh, a reed. Yeah. Oh, a cup. A cup or an Amari. Either one. They both goose this week. Um, and so did Darnell Mooney. It was obviously very, very disappointing. Did you see that they threw on first down one out of 24 times? I was going to bring that up. Running on first down, first and 10, a, you know, which is a very... Common play, probably about 40% of the time to 50% of time. Nothing wrong with it in moderation. Nothing wrong with running on first and 10. However, less effective than passing on first and 10. If I was a coach, I would certainly be passing 70% of the time on first and 10 and probably on, you know, second and 10. They threw the ball one time. One time on first and 10, that's, I've never, unless it's like a crazy weather game.

Snow Bowl. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Well, it's one of the best ways that I've seen strategically, and I've been around the game for a long time. If you run on first down, that is guaranteed to not be a pass by Kirk Cousins. Or an interception by Kirk Cousins. Right. He can't do either of those if he doesn't get the opportunity to be fair. The one time they did throw on first and 10 was an interception. It was. The only time. They're like, lesson learned. Dude, he is... Is he going to start next year? No, no, no, no, no, no. Every week, you've got to ask the question, is he going to start next week? And right now, they're pretty vehement that he is, he is their leader. He is their captain Kirk. But he's done. D-U-N. Like, he sucks. It's a shame. We've always, this show's always been a huge fan of Captain Kirk back when he was...

The rookie behind RG3. He was firing phasers before Baker had lasers. Absolutely. And, you know, I was rooting for him. I've been excited for the Atlanta Falcons team as a whole. The division is winnable. They added some good defensive pieces and their defense is legit with their weapons on offense with Mooney in London. And I'll even throw pits out there, but Bijan and Alger. Like this should be a much better team than it is. But Kirk Cousins is late stage Peyton Manning. Yeah, I mean. He's got $300 million to comfort him at night. You know, if you're a Brock Bowers manager going into a semifinal because you survived his three for 35 night, you need to get on your knees and pray that it's not Desmond Ritter again. 39 passing attendance for Desmond Ritter ending up in three for 35 for your superstar tied in. This was the.

It's not that it's much better with Aden O'Connell either. Oh, it's much better with Aiden O'Connell. Yeah, this is like a factorial thing. This is like Gardner Minshu was much better than Aiden O'Connell's for Brock Bowers. Sure, yeah. And then Aiden O'Connell's much better than Desmond Ritter. And Desmond Ritter is much barely better than you. Yes, correct. I don't think I could get the ball to Brock Bowers once. Maybe once. Maybe I could get the ball once. So I'd say Desmond Ritter's about two passes better than I am. Okay. Yeah, and I'm glad we broke that down. And we had an injury to sincere McCormick. That was a monstrous, you know, significant situation for fantasy managers because he left with an injury. They went to Madison after that. He did nothing with the seven carries he had before the injury. And so, you know, this is one of those things where, like,

In a few years, we'll probably be saying, like, do you remember that guy, sincere McCormick that was relevant for like a week? I doubt will remember his name. Yeah, probably not. Moving on. Welcome to difference makers. Presented by I'm Spad Food. Well, I didn't realize that you had picked out a difference maker as well, Jason. I'll let you lead. Yeah, no, I'll back cleanup. I mean, it'll be bad in second. Well, no, like you're going to load the bases. Okay. Because you're talking about a handful of players. I got you. I got you. No, that's good. You just, you walked right into that. Well done. Yeah. I'm going to walk off too. Okay. Another one. I'm on baseball fire, baby. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. I got finger guns. I, uh, yeah, I, I, I, I like it. Uh, JETS, Jets, Jets. We talked yesterday about on ready to roll incentives for players.

We are talking about incentives for teams coming down the stretch. I talked about Houston. They don't have a real shot to change their playoff position. It's what freaks me out about Joe Mixing this week is that, you know, Joe Mixin had another one of those hip-drop tackles happen to him where that's where he missed three games earlier in the year. So as far as we know right now, he's going to be active. But if he was banged up and I was Houston, I wouldn't play him. So we talk about team incentives. We talk about player incentives. I'm going to talk about a pride incentive. I'm going to talk about a trend that is happening right now, and this is difference makers. So I thought about this, and to me it is the Jets. Aaron Rogers has been a top 10 quarterback each of the last two weeks. I was so close to throw in Rogers, Adams, Wilson, and against the Jags last week in our draft Kings lineup. I was a coward. I didn't do it, fortunately still.

I am not the shame, mercifully. But believe it or not, Garrett Wilson and Devante Adams right now are top, they are two of the top 12 fantasy wide out. It's wild. I saw that, I saw that yesterday that right now, both wide receivers, for the, for the Jets who have really stunk it up, not won games, Aaron Rogers has looked, you know, like a bad version of himself. an old version of himself. You're disappointed with the offense as a whole. And then it's like, wait, both these guys are on the season. They are a wide receiver one. And Rogers in his last four games, that's a full season pace of 4,234. You know, that's a 34 to 4 touchdown interception ratio. That's more vintage Rogers. We don't know how banged up he was, but the matchups, the Rams, and then Buffalo, who, yes, they.

They win, but they give up 40 a game. Well, that's because the other team just has to go hard after points. I mean, when you're playing against the bills right now, you play, you know, it's kind of like years past when you played against the chiefs. You would go for it on fourth when maybe usually you wouldn't as a team as a head coach. You're just like, I have to, I know I've got to try to put up 30 or 40 if I want any chance to win. And it's great when you are facing an offense like that. Yeah, but they've been bad in terms of giving up total points. And I think that Rogers and Adams are a couple of guys at this stage of their career that, look, you're not playing for a playoff spot. But there's a lot of pride there. There's a lot of pride in showing some signs of what they were capable of on the offensive side and we're seeing it. And I think they're going to be difference makers down the stretch, playing the Rams at home, playing the bills on the road.

where the defense has been awful. I mean, Devonte Adams has literally said before. I think it was last year, maybe it was the year before, where it's like, I don't want to abuse the quote. It wasn't as egregious as what I'm going to say, but it was basically wins aren't the only thing that matters to me. Legacy. I care about my legacy. Yeah, yeah. He cares about being a legend on the field. He wants to go to the Hall of Fame. You know what I mean? And right now he's On the cusp, but I don't think he's a... Well, he's in an ideal situation where he literally can focus on himself because there's no playoffs. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like incentive? Yeah. Player incentive is, hey, Rogers, I want to go crazy. Get me more yards to move up the list of all timers and touchdowns or just focus on me. And why not? What else are they playing for if not that? If you look at his yardage recently, like this last week was insane, 198 yards.

But the week prior was 109 yards. The game, two games before that, 71, two games before that, 91. Like, they are connecting. And, you know, that's a long stretch. You take the first two games out when he got to the Jets, when he was just getting integrated. And we thought it would be quicker because of the history with Rogers. But if you take those two games out, you look at the last six games. He's on pace for 1,600 yards. Yeah, it's vintage. 120 receptions, 14 touchdowns. Yeah, he looks like a difference maker down in the stretch. So that's, I'm sure Al Borland really thrilled to hear that as he has Devante Adams rostered, made the trade midseason, and I applaud it. We're a keeper league. We have players that, you know, even when they're injured, they have value. He managed to turn the Brandon Ayuk injury into Devante Adams for the remainder of the season. It was a great, it was a great move. Good, good job. And owl, I am officially.

100% like you know how like in the political season there's like you have my endorsement oh are you doing I am officially formally endorsing owl Borland has my vote for league of record champion this year I will be rooting for you young man thank you sir I accept the nomination yeah that's that's wonderful I'm thankful I would do the same in your position now move on to your difference maker ah yeah this will this will matter the real difference maker And we have buried the lead until whatever this is, 13 minutes into the show. Yeah, this was like we didn't get to talk about it yesterday. Jamir Gibbs is this year's difference maker. Thank you, Santa. Jamir Gibbs is in 100% of playoffs. Like, I've gone, you know, I'm in eight leagues. Did you go and look? I went and looked. Every single league, Jamir Gibbs is in the playoffs. Oh, that's because he's, though, running back three on the year.

Yeah, and the thing is, it's like, he just happens to be on the teams that made it past the first round. Like, Jamir Gibbs is still in the playoffs. Okay. And so this is the guy who's going to win championships. Jamir Gibbs, we have seen him without Monty in the past, and he was a workhorse type of running back. He is the running back three on the season while sharing time with a running back one on the season. The amount of touchdowns, you know, you go, Like, I would not doubt if next week, this week, the Draft King Sportsbook line for multi-touchdowns for Gibbs is minus 110. Like, I feel like that's assumed at this point because David Montgomery's touchdown goes to him. You're going down the stretch in the three-week playoff run, and the crazy thing is sometimes you worry, okay, maybe Craig Reynolds will be.

far more involved. You know, it's not just going to all go to Gibbs. And while he won't be 100% of the snaps, I mean, we've already had, we've got Dan Campbell coming out saying he's got to be ready. He's our workhorse now. Like, they've done this in the past. We've seen it. The coaches come out and said, he's got to be ready for the workload. It's going to happen. He's going to be the biggest difference maker of the rest of the playoffs. You know what's, uh, A slight encouragement there too is the fact that there are now three teams in the NFC at 12 and 2 and there's one by. Yeah. So this is not going to be they've locked it up by week 17 and in the championship. They're going to take an easy approach. You've got Chicago and San Francisco as the final two matchups in most people's leagues. Minnesota in week 18, if you are in one of those dumb leagues that plays championships in week 18, please change that in the offseason.

Yeah, Chicago and San Francisco, both on the road. I expect them to be essentially a top three back both weeks. All right, that was difference makers presented by IMS pet food. When you choose IMS, you can see the difference in your pet with your own eyes. Healthy energy in five days, healthy digestion in 10 days and healthy skin and coat in just 25 days. Feed Ims and see a visible difference. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Clearly, Mike is not. discovered the IMS for people yet because not a healthy coat right now. He needs 25 days. David Montgomery is out for the year. That was the news we missed. It broke moments after releasing yesterday's show. Out for the year. So it's a torn MCL, meaning he won't be back for the playoffs. If they make the Super Bowl, he will not be back. The timeline should be fine for week one next year. We'll learn a lot more in the offseason.

We'll see his recovery. We'll see him later, but not anymore this season. And it's a devastating blow. I know there are teams with buys. Like maybe Montgomery didn't get you through last week with that performance. But I know, you know, Kyle the Borgogan, he's got a team on a buy. He wasn't very happy about this. And it's because Montgomery's been so solid. He has been unbelievable. Until this last week when he got injured, he had only had one single game outside of the top 24 because he gets a touchdown every week. Derek Carr, probably not back before the end of the season. We got word that has broken hand. It's a few weeks away. Alvin Camara undergoing more tests on the injured groin. That's not a great sign, and he's Monday night football. So I know in one of the leagues where I had a buy, and I'm going into round two as the favorite. Alvin Camara is a big piece that got me there.

You figure if you don't have Derek Carr back, that means to me that you don't have Chris Olavay back. He was eligible this past week, and they've said everything's on the table still. He could return at any time. But like, if Derek Carr's not back, why would you throw Chris Oliva out there? You just paid Alvin Camaro. Why would you put him out there? Right. You're waiting for him for the next season. Yeah, that's what it feels like. And you're going into Lambo. If he's got an injured groin, yeah, you want to go into the freezing cold and see how that's going to hold up? I'm really scared about Camara this week. I have made, like, in the one team that I have in the semifinals with him, he's on the bench. I'm not expecting to have him. I'm not expecting to play him, and I'm not sure he's worth the weight in this Green Bay matchup. I'm sure he's worth the weight if he were to play.

But that's the thing is that you have to have a pivot option. Like I've got Brian Robbins and Jr. How do they give him a full allotment of snaps? Well, I don't think they'll give him a full allotment of snaps. That doesn't mean he's not going to catch six or seven passes, though, even in limited work. I expect he would. Usually when you've got a player of his caliber and the workload is limited, it's really snaps that's limited. And it's like when they're on the field, it's like, okay, Camero's on the field. Let's utilize him and go to him. You see like the targets per route run just go north. Kendrae Miller obviously would be the guy to play, but without the other offensive pieces, you don't expect a lot of touchdown opportunities. So I was saying I've got Brian Robinson Jr. against Philly. Not excited about that matchup at all. No. But I feel like I have to start him Sunday morning because I don't see a world. I feel like I'm doing the exact same thing with the Ramandre.

I feel like. I'm playing Ramandre Sunday morning instead of Camara on Monday. There is a world where we will know he is out by Sunday. We'll know, okay, they've decided he's not going to play. Yeah, well, all the practice reports. I don't think there's any world where we will know definitively, like, he's practicing in full all week. He's good to go. He's not on the injury. Like, I don't see that as a possibility. I really, yeah. This is the one of the biggest stories heading into the semi-final week is. certainty on Alvin Camara and then by extension certainty on Kendra Miller as a start, he could get a lot of checkdowns. He can catch the football. He's a, I mean, I've said this for years. I loved him coming out of college. The issue has been his health, but he's a really good player. Kendra is great. And if Derek Carr were there, if Derek Carr were there and Camara was out, Kendra would be like a top 10 option for me. But without Derek Carr and Chris Oliva. You could be in a sincere McCormick situation. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Joe Mixon talked about it, the hip drop tackle.

Demico Ryan says he came out fine, Joe will be fine. It just freaks me out, man, because Joe Mixing. That's a fart in the wind, man. Don't worry about Domeko Ryan saying anything. That's irrelevant. Saying he's going to be fine means nothing. You're saying that we need to wait and see what the practice reports. Yeah, and see what the ankle does because he was able to go back in the game. But the last time when he got injured, he went back in that game and then missed three weeks. Yep. And like you said, they're playing for nothing. Yep. So not great. They're going to the playoffs. And if they're going to the playoffs, nothing helps them more than a healthy Joe Mixon. Honestly, if I were the head coach, if he was pretty okay, I put him, I want him to have fresh legs for the playoffs. Houston is sitting at nine and five. There is a chance that they could take the two seed from Buffalo. Yeah, I mean, your bra. There's two.

Well, I mean, yeah, Buffalo would have to lose. You ready for this schedule for Buffalo? Uh-huh. New England this week. And then the Jets and then New England. Okay. So they've got to who was who was the fire that Mike Tyson lost to way back in the day when he was like a bus. Yes, Buster Douglas. So they've got to parlay three Buster Douglass in a row not happening. No, no. So that's that's freaky. Um. That's a scary one to me. And we'll be monitoring it. Patrick Mahomes might be out in week 16. They still have a two-game lead on the one seat. By the way, Houston's the Saturday game this week. We have multiple Saturday games this week. And then there's the Christmas game the next week for championship week. But isn't there, I mean, isn't their matchup this week?

Wait, there's a Christmas. I mean, it's Kansas City. There's a Christmas game. Is it Christmas on Wednesday this year? Mm-hmm. They're doing Wednesday football? It's Christmas football, too. It's both. Christmas Football.com. We own that, right? I'm checking. We do. All right. We own them all, baby. This is where the money is made. Yeah. We license that out. A lot of people don't really. Bingo bingo. They think that they support us by going to join the foot. Getting all of our premium tools, all of our waiver wire tools and doing all that. We've got mini helmets now on shopballers.com. The replicas of what's on the set. They think that's how that that's not where we make our money. We make our money licensing all of the something football.com. Wednesday football.com. Tuesday night football.com. Christmas football.com. It's groinindex.com. Millions of dollars. That's where. Groinindex.com.com.

It just prints money. Growing index.com is just prints money. My bank account goes up. Geno Smith, hopeful to practice this week. Al is having a good time back there. Jaylon Waddle will not need surgery on his knee, nothing major in question for the week. Matthew Betts, our injury expert says likely a sprain MCL could miss two games. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the truth is, is there's a lot of stuff we're monitoring this week, and it's Tuesday, and it's waiver day, and we'll talk about options if you need them, and then we will keep track of stuff and let you know what to do this weekend. Yeah, I mean, Jalen Waddle is the type where when we don't have the information right now, I'm fine dropping him. Like, you need to make a waiver wire maneuver. Yeah, if I told you it was healthy right now, how confident would you be to put him in your lineup next week? Mildly? Yeah, barely. Barely?

All right. I think that is it by way of news. Is there anything else, Al, do you got anything for us? I think you got it. Any other of my players on my roster getting stronger heading into the semi-final? Hopefully not mixing. Well, that's not some kind. Marshawn Lloyd. Bring that name up for the 100th time. This is the new Kendrae Miller, talented player who's never played football. You're bringing his name up. Yeah, because he is now eligible to come back. He was. healthy and came back. Just stop. Then he got appendicitis, man. It's not his fault. It's so dumb. He had an emergency appendectomy and now he's had a month to recover from that. So he gets his name mentioned because he's got his appendix, no appendix? No, he gets his name mentioned. We don't know no appendix.com with all the guys without appendixes. He gets his name mentioned because I think he'll play football this week for like the second time in his life. No, he won't. You don't think he's playing this week? I mean, active or not, he's the third fourth string on this team. I mean, Chris Brooks has looked good.

No, he hasn't. Okay. All right. Yeah, the unplayed Marshaun Lloyd. Take it from Jason, the start of the week. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. We'll take a break. We'll talk about waivers, not named Marshaun Lloyd. All right, here we go. Come to the waiver wire. I am still, like this moment, cleaning up hair from that. That wig? That wig. What was that? The troll? We were both trolls. gnomes it was like noms yeah and that beard was it just was two dollars on timu a magical shedding masterpiece i still find the hair everywhere you're not far off on the price and it actually came in a 10 pack so we have eight more back there two dollars for 10 wigs i'd like

One wig for $10 that doesn't fall apart. I think what they did on that wig is they took, they're like just trying to find a way to use leftover product to make stuff. And they're like, if we take this asbestos and don't have it pink, can we turn it into a wig? I mean, that stuff was awful. Yeah, we, we suffered multiple weeks. All right, running backs. Now I am on first glance not seeing Lloyd in this list, but I am seeing Jerome Ford at the tippy top of this list who has a. magnificent matchup who in my opinion on film watching him every week has looked like not just a better runner than nick job but a pretty good runner receiver all year long so Jerome Ford you had a 62 yard breakaway run this last week and we've seen him when given the opportunity be a very solid back I don't look at Jerome Ford as

one of those players that because of the injury, he's going to get so much work that he's a top five guy. This week with the matchup, with the over under, with what I expect to happen offensively, you could see, you could see him, I could see him being a top 12 running back, but I don't see a world where he's not top 24. Like to me, he's a safe RB2. He's the top of my waiver wire rankings that I think there are some other guys that might have more upside. Should the starter be injured? But we know Chub is out. That's where Jerome Ford needs to be number one to me because it's definitive as of this moment. You also need to remember that before Chubb returned when he was more of the full time back, he was on pace for 72 receptions on the season. I think it's going to be Dorian Thompson. For multiple reasons, I don't think it does the team any good to put Winston out there anymore. I also believe that, you know, if you don't come out and basically.