Week 8 Matchups + In-or-Out, Dad Returns!

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Every football fan is different. Some won't wash their lucky mustard-stained jersey until the season's over. Some insist they can't sit down on third downs and some pick their favorite team because, I don't know, just like football fandom, nobody's life is exactly the same. And that's why State Farm gets to know you, not as a policy number, but as an actual person.

so they can help personalize a coverage plan that's just for you. Whether it's game day or just another Tuesday, State Farm has you covered.

Granger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Costs climb? Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it. So you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800 Granger. Click ranger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

Hi, this is Eric Dickinson, NFL Hall of Famer, and you listen to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Coming to you from pristineauction.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome back. Welcome in. It's indie time. I was talking to myself first. Welcome into the show. Andy Mike and Jason, the fantasy footballers.

I'm trying to book in the week. When I was a kid, I always said weekends should be four days. Okay. And you should go to school for three days. I think that my children would approve that message. But no, I'm rejoining just before the weekend. I can handle one show before the weekend. I appreciate you guys holding things down for me. My daughter is doing perfectly fine now. She is well. She is better. So she is much stronger than you. Much stronger.

I get into the office. Shout out to the asthmatics out there. I get into the office today. Oh, no. I'm like, oh, Andy's cards here. There was rumors, whispers from the bushes that Mr. Holloway was going to make his triumphant return. And I walk in and to burr, look, man. And Andy's going buck wild on the nebulizer. Just looking super cool. Yeah, yeah. Well, Mike, you can relate. Oh, you know I can. Puff, puff, puff.

But no, it's, it's been a long week. I'll say that. I appreciate you guys holding everything down. And we're back. We've got more matchups on the show today. We've got an exciting weekend. We've got the game last night bringing us back to the early 50s, like once again. And a whole lot to get into. I'm going to even share some my starts of the week real quick at the top here. Oh, that's great. I was just going to say that game at least was merciful because.

Like, I'm usually putting my kids to bet a half time. And this game was over. Didn't 19 to 9 just feel like the right score? I mean, that just seems like that this is the kind of matchup that Bill Callahan is like, ooh, a high scoring affair. So this was Pat Dorman, great friend of the show. He tweeted out, Washington has run 41 snaps in consecutive games. For context, the five offenses with the fewest plays run in each of the last five seasons, average 57 snaps.

They were out 41. Since 1970, only three teams have run 41 players or fewer twice in the same season. Too many. Too many, says Bill. Wild Bill. Me, look. Yes. Mild Bill. Adrian Peterson. Look, he looked okay. 14 for 76. You know, running for 5.4 a carry. He's been over four a carry of the past three games. That's impressive to me because everybody knows it's coming.

It 100% is. But you know what it's not doing? Winning football games. Well, let's be honest. They weren't going to win them anyway. Yeah, they're trying to lose by less. And I think they're doing a good job. The Jay Gruden strategy or the Bill Kalli Ann strategy, you weren't going to win. I even said about Haskins. You know, people are so excited and about the McLaurin Haskins collegiate connection. Well, Dwayne Haskins is not in college anymore. Yeah. And it shows because everyone that would be a McLaren reception is an interception.

Yeah, McLaurin was wide open for a nice game. He was on trawling out in the beginning of that game with Case Keenham. I was like, oh, fantastic. Yeah, I think he was like four for 39 or something in the first, in the first half. I mean, it is not a question as to whether Terry McLaren is good. He's great. He's a great separator. He was consistently open. If you're a McLaren owner, just be saying your prayers for Case Keenum. You need him back. They have said.

that he will be the starter if he's healthy. Which is great. We haven't got the proclamation yet then. Okay, it's Askins time, which many, many teams at this point of the season, where the season's gone, they would say, okay, let's see what the rookie can do. I think the problem is they've seen what the rookie can do in practice. That's the only fear I have with Cortland Sutton. I love, like, Emmanuel Sanders leaves. Coralynne Sutton's been a baller.

The only fear in the back of your mind with Cortland Sutton are for those of you want to go acquiring real quick before the end of the season for the big run without Emmanuel Sanders is what happens if Flacco plays two more games. If Flacko is there, Cortland Sutton is going to be a... You're saying, and then they go to like Drew Locke? Yeah, they go somewhere else. And then all that consistency...

The strategy, even in Washington, it hurts 41 plays a game. Even with Case Keenham, it hurts McLaurin not having more opportunities. Yeah, it's funny. You can make fun of Joe Flacco and Case Keenum, which we do. It's easy. But the problem is when you compare them to a mid-level, basically to a non-exceptional rookie quarterback.

They are so much better than that. And, you know, when the first change was made in case, you know, was when they went to Haskins the first time. Right. I remember saying, look, this is bad for Terry McLoren. You just look at rookies yardage and touchdown totals at the quarterback position. They don't support quality wide receivers. Just for Flacco right now, I mean, he's got Brandon Allen behind him. Drew Locke, it.

All the news on him because they put him on the IR at the beginning of the season. I don't know when he's going to come back. So I think Flacco is actually a little – he's safe right now. Things can change quick when you watch Joe Flacco with your eyeballs. That's all I'm going to say. If the team has to watch him for a couple weeks, different things can change quickly. I know that – always come out and talked about Drew Locke. He says he's not ready yet. And he means it developmentally, not just physically. Right. He's just not ready yet. So there's a lot of hope there. I'm not saying throw something away.

It's just got to be the fear in the back of your mind that your F1 can be thrown into neutral. And then back to the game that happened last night real quick. Kirk Cousins was freaking awesome. Like he was sensational, 23 for 26. And I think his incomplations were two throwaways and a drop. I mean, he was essentially perfect. Fantasy owners don't care. I know. That's...

That's a crappy part of Jason's flexing. Yeah. Here's the problem. You guys made a top 12 bat, right? We did. We did. And here's the problem. Cousins, you would agree, Jason, was an excellent quarterback yesterday. Oh, absolutely. He was, he was 285 yards. But for fantasy, nothing. Because the almighty touchdown is so incredibly valuable that he will now be.

Like QB 17 on the week, even though he was awesome. Have hope. As of right now, he is the quarterback won on the week. All right. Can we end the bet right there? It is Friday. Put Clan Friday. All right. Today's winner of a $55 gift card to shopballers.com is a foot clan member, Mayo lover.

That's their name. Oh, I was waiting for... Not just a male lover, which many of us are, but mayo lover. Okay. So congratulations. Mayo. Mayo lover. All I was hearing... I heard the same thing you were hearing, Mike. I was hearing mail. Yes. And then I was like, what, like the post office? I was trying to find the spelling because I was like, I love getting a fresh envelope and going to town because many of us are male lovers. Mail versus Mayo, though. Yes.

Which direction do you go there? I'll go with mayonnaise. Oh, I love mayonnaise. Yeah, I just picked up, I finally did it. I picked up that combo thing, the mayo chup. The mayo chup? Oh, like mayonnaise ketchup combo? Yeah, they released that into stores. I mean, it's pretty much Thousand Island without relish. No, it's different. It's different. It's.

You really need to check it out. Oh, I'm sure it was delightful. All right. Before we get into the rest of the matchups, I want to invite you to follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers, Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers. We're on YouTube. You know where to find us. And then I want to throw these out there because I heard, I mean, you spoke from me yesterday at wide receiver. Which was perhaps out of turn, but you were not here to stop it. No, no. But I'm here today and I.

I feel like I need to throw my starts of the week out there briefly, quickly here. And they'll all be in the I'm not dead yet theme because I am physically not dead yet. I'm back. And so my quarterback start of the week, Matthew Stafford, this week. I actually haven't been number two on the week. Love it. Against New York 330 plus point games, driving it downfield. You guys know. And then this one is going to be a little bit different. This one's a hot take.

It is. And look, it'd be very easy and obvious. Everybody's starting Austin Neckler. If you have Austin Eccler, you're starting him. So I'm not going to make it my start of the week. It seems stupid. But a lot of people want to know whether you can start Melvin Gordon against Chicago. And most people think you can't. And I think that you can't. I don't think Melvin Gordon is dead. The wheels have fallen off for Chicago's run defense. There's potentially no or a limited Keenan Allen in this game. The last three games, the Bears' run defense has given up six touchdowns. They've been absolutely decimated.

read anything about what's going on in Chicago. The linebacking court is just a disaster. Roquan Smith finally came back, played terribly, was indicted. They're moving people around. They can't stop the run right now. They're giving up tons and tons and tons of yards. So let me ask you this. I just want to say you can start Melvin Gordon. When the wheels have fallen off of the rush defense, which I agree with that, what happens when a car where the wheels fell off is put up against another car.

where it looks like the wheels are also not attached, being Melvin Gordon. I think they never collide. I think that's what happens, right? That's good for a running back. You don't want him to collide. They never hit each other. But he can't collide because he can't move. Sure. The nice thing is Russell Okun, the left tackle. Yeah, he should be back. He should be back. And that's huge because I think a big part of Melvin Gordon's problem. And, you know, they lost their guard. They lost their center.

Those are major problems. At least they're getting their left tackle back. I just want to put a little bit of a confidence play out there with Melvin Gordon. My team appreciates them. And you guys talked about it yesterday. The passing defense in Chicago has been stout. But the last three weeks they've lost it on the ground, whether it was to Jacobs or Latavius Murray. It's been ugly. Yeah. And then you guys threw out my wide receiver start of the week already. We did. Yeah.

So we'll go Kenny Stills at wide receiver. Kenny Bills. Also, we need to apologize to the footclan. I did see our start sit tool. Yes. Was apparently broken because it couldn't find Kenny Bills. If you search Kenny Bills. Well, he's like, the system rejected Kenny Bills, which it's really, that's on us. Yeah. We're not going to change that, but that's still on us. And then, I think you can take a shot. Tighten starts of the week right now.

It might as well be a streamer. You guys know you're starting the big players right now, but you're looking for, hey, can I start a Josh Hill? I think Ben Watson is somebody that you could throw out there this week. He played on 62 of 82 snaps last week. Five targets. Always a possibility for him to bring in a touchdown in this matchup. You know, it doesn't look like Chris Herndon's going to be back this week as an option. Jared Cook is out again. There's a lot of struggling tight-in start situations if you don't have one of the big guys.

And so I'm actually, look, Ben Watson's going to be my play over Chris Herndon, who's going to probably sit again. So I'll throw that out there quickly as another player I have more confidence in than some others. But it is Friday. You guys want to do some in and out? Mm-hmm. What's it going to blame it fly? Are you in? There was one tiny bit of news first, just the Robbie Anderson trade rumors. Do you buy into the fact that...