Fantasy Football - Week 14 Matchups + Wheel of Shame, TNF Reactions - Podcast for 12/5

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Friday, December 5th, 2025, the fantasy footballers podcast, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Welcome in one and all. The rest of the fantasy forecast on today's show. We'll play a little fantasy face off. We'll talk some news. And we'll recap what happened last night, which he got off to a little bit of a slower beginning. And I started to wonder, oh, boy, here we go. The big game, everybody's asking for with the, what, 53.5 point over under. And you know what? If it was a 73 and a half, it would hit the over. I know. I know whose fault it was. Just lost. No, that was on when Ross St. Brown's fault. He ruined the magic.

You weren't content with 74 points. We had it going. Imagine if they started off hot. Imagine. Could have been 100. Look. Look, it was a surprise. I said earlier in the week there is, he's like Baker Mayfield. Ammon Ra is a tough. He's just so tough. And did you see the? People were like he'll be a deco. I'm like, no, he won't. Do you see the note that he is like, yeah, he knew Wednesday. Yeah. I'm on a new Wednesday who's going to play them. Yeah. Insiders. Where are you at? No, you don't get to. Where are you insiders? No insiders with Sun Gods. I mean, 44 to 30 the Lions win. Somehow in a game with 74 points, there were only two passing touchdowns. But there's Jemir Gibbs, three touchdowns. He caught seven passes. The leading receiver for the Lions, Jameson William, seven for 96.

inexplicably didn't score on an end around. Oh, man. I don't know how. Lost his feet. He was coming around the edge and it was just a clear path. And then I'm in Ross 6 for 92. There was. Mike's, Mike's mentions blowing up with the touchdown for Tisla. The Tessla touchdown was awesome. The missed touchdown on the right side where the, like the defender fell down. And it's like Jared Gough. How do you miss that throw? I think how do you miss that? I think there's a good answer for that, which is that was pretty much a play made to throw the ball away. And by the time he was letting go, he didn't realize the guy fell down. I think it was just dead to stop the clock real quick. Perhaps. Man, he was, I mean, he was wide open. It was even if you started Montgomery, who only had six carries on the game. You were fine. You were very happy. Giovante Williams, you're happy. There was just one. Just one disappointments.

George Pickens? George Pickens. Yeah, five for 37 in a game in which CD Lamb, who got his... I should say massive disappointment. Like the quarterbacks, it's salvage. With 300 plus yards, you're okay. Almost 700 passing yards between the two. You're okay, but when there's 70 plus points on the board, I get it. I could be, you could be a little frustrated, but George Pickens was the frustration of the night. Yeah, even Javante against a tough lion's rush defense was very good, 67 yards and a touchdown on the ground. They basically had to go to Ryan Flanoi, who had nine for 115 and a touchdown on 13 targets. Pickens only having nine targets in a game that C.D. Lamb was knocked out of. If you didn't watch it, C.D. Lamb, he was concussed. Yeah. The bad news, it's the week before fantasy playoffs. The good news, it's Thursday. Yeah.

So you hope and pray. And look, they're seasons on the line. He's also a pretty tough player. They're six, six and one. They're not out of it. They need him on the field, especially if George Pickens is going to leave his brain at home. The picking stuff is honestly, it's very difficult for me because there was, he's getting just dogpiled on social media. Richard Sherman let him have it in terms of effort. And there were definitely plays. where you, especially late, a deep shot that the ball was mistrown. But, I mean, it's like, it's underthrown. It's a little bit to the right. But Pickens didn't even try to come back to the ball, which was that one was like egregiously bad to me. But at the same time, as soon as CD was out, it was just full double cover George Pickens, make Flanoy or whoever else beat us. Now,

superstar wide receivers this happens and you got to rise above it so i'm not i'm not letting george pickens off the the hook here at all for it but it was i think a a combination of factors and there's got to be stuff we don't know about there there is like what he was doing last night maybe maybe maybe it just he's got the physical talent to be a premier number one highest paid record breaker this is why he went in the second round of the NFL draft to begin with. It happened in Pittsburgh. The ones that bother me the most, it's not necessarily even that deep ball if he doesn't think he can get to it. It's just the plays that you know somebody like Amanra would never do, which is like giving up at the point of impact with the ball or not challenging so you give up an interception. It just makes your, it makes your brain very confused because.

It's all out in front of it. He's been a dominant receiver almost all year long. And this contract that's on the table, maybe it'll just be a franchise tag for a year. Maybe that was it. Maybe he got told this week. We're going to franchise you. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. That was weird. C.D. Lamb, 6 for 121 before the injury, which was fortunate. And Giovante, 17 for 67 and 1. It's Friday. Put Clan Friday. Every Friday all year long, we give $100 away to Fantasychamps.com. It's a great time to get it because you have your championships coming up, trophies, rings, belts, all your swag for your leagues, or if you want to show up on draft day, fully swagged out. Fantasychamps.com is the place. We're giving $100 a way today to P. Conley, 453. P. Conley, 453. Congratulations. Pecan.

Pecon. Lee. Pecan pie. Okay. Thank you, Mike. We'll get into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by progressive insurance. Well, we already talked about C.D. Lamb. So let's talk about T. Higgins, who was upgraded to a full practice with the concussion. I thought it was a very good sign that he was limited on Wednesday. Oh, for sure. And it seems like with the season on the line and a big game coming up for the next two weeks for Cincinnati. T. Higgins is on the path to return from a concussion. Dalton Kincaid remained limited on Thursday. He was added to the injury report with a knee issue. Oh, that's not good. But we're still practicing. Maybe this is compensating for the hamstring. What's really tough here is I do have a bunch of leagues where I have like Dalton Kincaid and Kyle Pitts. And so, you know, Kyle Pitts, I think he's good this week. I think it's fine. But then Mike made Buffalo.

tight ends the start of the week as well. Well, Cincinnati did that. Yeah, Cincinnati. Honestly, I didn't do very much, guys. So there's part of me that wants to hedge in some leagues at least and have Dalton Kincaid in there. I mean, you'll know the bills are the morning game. Yeah, to me, if Kincaid is active, I'll play him over the pits tier players. Crystal Lave returned to a limited practice with the back injury on Thursday, Alvin Kamara not practicing. Mike Evans, Jaylen McMill-Millan still limited on Thursday. Jaden Daniels trending in the right direction to return this week. Well, this is going to mess up my prize picks. Oh, yes. Did you not see the Jaden practice full yesterday? I did. I just didn't put the pieces together. I might have had a Marcus Mariotta. Maybe. Well, we'll find out. Well, no one else in this office put it together either because I sent it to multiple people. Not me.

I don't send my lineups to you. But also, if you had sent it to me, I sent them to the garbage. If you sent it to me, I would say, this looks incredible. Great lineup. Yeah, great. You should definitely go forward with approval. Don't even think about it. Ship it. This is Monday, right? Full cent. It's a Monday game? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Let me get my phone out. Why don't you guys cover some of the news here? All right, let's see. Burn $25. We got injury updates. Lamar is the interesting one. He did not practice Thursday. He got stepped on in Wednesday's practice, but he's still expected to play. It was funny because it was reported all week. Like, hey, finally, we're going to have a full week of practice for Lamar. These last couple weeks are Sunday. They were Monday last week. Yeah. You know, the last couple weeks.

Lamar's been really, really bad for fantasy, not scoring like nine fantasy points. And he has not been practicing in full. And this was like, oh, good. Lamar's healthy. He's going to practice him full. They got stepped on, misses an entire practice. They're saying he's expected to play. I don't think it changes anything. We think he's banged up and you're rolling the dice when you start him. I still think you can, you know, to me he is like the quarterback 10, 11 on a week where if there are other really good options. Like, I think Stafford is a good option this week. I would, I would do that. Jacobi is the default for everything. Yeah, Jacobi, for sure. I would do Jacoby. But then, yeah, I'm still going to play Lamar over. I'm not going down to like a tier four quarterback. All right. Roma Dunesday is still sidelined on Thursday. A lot of people last night, they were like, oh, man, now that I'm not going to play to Slah, I got to play Rome. And I'm like, Rome's not playing, I think. And so third option?

Leave to Slaw in there. Get some information. Marvin Harrison, not practicing again on Thursday, giving a little bit more of an upside for Michael Wilson. Yeah. And then Rams wide receiver, Devante Adams returned to a limited practice on Thursday. That was News and Note sponsored by Progressive Insurance Quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and third party insurers. Not available in all states of situations, coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. Fantasy Forecast, presented by prize picks. Yesterday we covered the Seahawks, Falcons, Bengals, Bills, Titans, Browns, commanders, Vikings, dolphins, jets, saints, and buccaneers. Seven more to cover today. Four of the seven matchups between teams with the exact same record.

Oh, just kind of weird. Two palindrome games. Oh, fantastic. Those are the best. Inverse records. They're not that great. And one featuring a current non-playoff, tent-seated AFC team called the Chiefs. Wow. So there you go. Man. All these teams are going to figure it out. I know. We're still waiting. We get closer and closer where now for the first time you go, well. Maybe there's a chance they'd miss. Like the bills, the lions, the chiefs? Yeah, but then in the end, they're going to figure it out. We'll start with a same record matchup. We're here. I mean, the Colts eight and four, Jacksonville, eight and four. Oh, baby. Battle for the number one seed. Well, it's a home game for Jacksonville, but they're not favored. Indianapolis minus one and a half on the road. Over under 47 and a half, tied for the third highest of the week.

You know, what I think is, I think Jacksonville wins the ballgame. That's my opinion. With the injuries on the defensive side for Indianapolis, with the fact that Daniel Jones is playing through this injury with the momentum that Jacksonville has built, them at home, I do like them to win the game. Sounds like an almost upset to me. I don't know. I mean, one and a half points. It just sounds like an upset to me. This is the kind of game, though, where you talk about Jacksonville in a positive light and they can beat 35 to 3. That's kind of the way that it works with them sometimes. You know, the three division leaders right now, like one of these teams is going to lose the game because that's how games work. And that team might be tied with Houston at the end of the day because Houston's 7 and 5. They've won 4 straight. Colts have lost 2 straight. Jacksonville's 1 3 straight.

Titans are apparently still in the NFL. You got Dunez there on the bottom. So Jason, you know, Mike had Trevor Lawrence just start of the week. You feel as confident as he does? I think he is a fine start this week. This is a matchup. I do want pieces in. Lamar or Trevor Lawrence? I won't go to Lawrence from Lamar. I would stick with Lamar. Okay. That's basically like the tear break to me where you're going from like. Top 12 and four of five weeks. No, I mean, Lamar's four points. Trevor Lawrence was my stream of the week. That was my pickup to play off of the waivers this week. I like it. And it makes sense. This is a great matchup with a high over under. They're at home. Andy believes they're going to win the game. I think you could start Trevor Lawrence. But I'm still in the, I'm still in the side where I don't think Lamar, you know, forgot to be a great quarterback and doesn't know how to do it anymore.

Man, I think that's a really tough decision, Mike. Would you go Trevor Lawrence? I would. I think I would too. Well, actually, I said I'm not answering Lamar questions this week. Oh, crap. Take that back. Edit that. But in general. Change his voice to one of those deep voices. I would play Trevor Lawrence. Thank you. In the pitch black over there. Yeah. We need that as a bit. Oh, we do. If you could shut one side down and just like turn them into a black, a backlit camera with no light on the front. Yeah, black silhouettes. And you can just tell your darkest truth. I would start Kyle Pitts this week. We, you should look into that. Carry on Johnson is a my guy again. Oh, sorry. These things happen. Jonathan Taylor, you play him. It's amazing the lack of confidence I've seen.

in the fantasy community about Travis Etienne right now. You know, it's weird because there have been... Because he's weird. I mean, Travis Etienne is a top... Well, he's at 13 right now on the year, but that's with a buy week. And he's had like, what? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven of 13 weeks, he's a top 12 running back. So you've had these like prolific games. And then even when he's struggled, 1830, 23, 32, it's not been bad. And then last week, you have one really bad game. Worst finish of the of the year? And everyone's like, do I even play him? Well, I think it comes in concert with the work that Bachel Tutin's getting. And you just, you, you are fearful that the takeover will happen where Tutant ends up at least in a 50, 50 times share, if not getting even more work. That's the fear. But Travis ETN is definitely a playable running back. The, you know, the last six weeks, the Colts are 24th against running backs.

I don't view this as a terrible matchup for him. And they're going to need him. I mean, this game is so important for who's going to be playing at home in the playoffs. And then the Brian Thomas Jr. questions, I mean, look, I understand the narrative and storyline and why it could work. I just think there have been a lot of times that the same conversation has happened over and over again. That conversation is. It's pretty true against Tennessee last week when he did nothing. It was pretty true against Las Vegas before the injury when he did nothing, right? It's been true against Cincinnati when they had no defense and he did nothing. So that, you know, this is the hardest player type in fantasy to deal with. It's the player that's done it. It's the player with physical gifts, skills, and abilities. It's the player with high draft capital that isn't doing it now.

Yeah. And those players, you always see the path to them doing it again. Uh-huh. And it might happen. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you where I have him in my personal rankings, like, kind of who I would play over him and who I would play, you know, him over. I'm going to play Michael Pittman and Cortland Sutton and Alec Pierce ahead of Brian Thomas. Those are the three guys I was going to ask about. Well, there you go. I would play all three of those guys ahead of Brian Thomas. I got one more. But. D.K. Metcalf. So I've got, I've got D.K., it feels bad, but I've got him behind Brian Thomas Jr. Kalil Shakir behind Brian Thomas Jr. Terrible behind Brian Thomas Jr. Although that one, if you want to roll, you know, in the heat, Troy Franklin, Roma Dunes. Would you play Kobe Myers over him in the same game? No, I would not. Because I would do that. I would. And I don't, I don't fault anyone for choosing to play Myers over, who's looked good with an early connection with Trevor Lawrence.

But also that early connection with Trevor Lawrence has been while, you know, Brian Thomas was dealing with the angle of injury. Brian Thomas is their number one wide receiver. He's also their best wide receiver. So you believe that Jacobi Myers is a better wide receiver than Brian Thomas Jr. I think there is a chance. The, what you kind of get, you have to remember, you know, because Jacobi Myers has had multiple good seasons for, back for the Raiders. I mean, he was paid a lot of money. Week one is quite good, and then he falls apart. And while you don't know what the truth is yet, you don't know whose fault it really is, as everything just completely fell apart. And it's Gino Smith and the offense. Like, he was in an impossible situation. He gets traded immediately is commanding a target share, and it is producing. So my confidence with Jacoby is, it's coming back.

Yeah, it's just what is Brian Thomas at this point. You know, there are players in the league who none of us would save Xavier Worthy as a worse wide receiver than Juju in Kansas City, right? In previous years. But we'd also go into a week and say, you know, it can just go really weird for Worthy, whereas you're going to get what you get with Jacoby. Like, Jacoby's going to catch five or six passes. He scored in two straight weeks, one of them with Brian Thomas Jr. I don't know. I just don't have any. I'll summarize it like this. I don't have any confidence at all on Brian Thomas Jr. I would have. None. I would be more surprised if Jacoby had one of those, just, you know, a nuclear game, at 8, 120 yards and two touchdowns. I'd be more surprised at that than if Brian Thomas did it. But at this point, I'd be surprised that Brian Thomas does anything for the remainder of the season. I don't think anybody could have seen.

48th and points per game, Brian Thomas Jr. So you take away the injuries and you just look at his performances and 48th is incomprehensible. Really hope he figures it out because this sucks. This is a great matchup to figure it out. I mean, a game where you're going to need to score because the Colts are going to be scoring. They are down their number one corner. And this is also a matchup where we've seen Brian Thomas do well. Last year against Indianapolis, wide receiver 9, wide receiver 11. Who's throwing the ball? I don't know if that was Mack or... I would imagine what weeks did you just say no he just said the two performances against indy one was t law one was mac yeah okay all right yeah i just nothing nothing makes sense and precedent for me this year with brian thomas junior because all year has been awful i will say again i don't know if i brought this up on this show i talked about on the dynasty show i went back and watched every on field brian thomas junior snap

not just the three targets, obviously. And he looked very healthy. In the last game? Yes, this last game. He looked very healthy. He was open. He looked fast. He was down. I mentioned he was the reason Jacobi had that 66-yard reception because he went down and took out that guy that was coming to chase him, blocked the heck out of him. He was helping every teammate up after every play. He was like a big part of the game, even though he was only three targets. So I am confident he's healthy. I will say this, Parker Washington came back to practice. Yeah, that's fair. The ball could get spread around there. Yeah, Brenton Strange, your start of the week at tight end, Tyler Warren, you keep playing him. He leads the team in targets per route run, yards per route, run, fancy points per route run versus zone defenses, which is basically Jacksonville's defense is his own defense. They play at 80 plus percent of the time. Alec Pierce, I think you can start with excitement because you always get big playability and he's just on the field and doing enough. Michael Pittman.

I think was it last week that was a really bad disappearing act. Yeah. But he's playable in a high over-under matchup here as well. Daniel Jones is not so much in the conversation anymore. No, not with the leg injury. You don't expect to see him scrambling a lot and he's not playing the same. All right. We'll take a break and get into some more matchups. Pittsburgh, 6 and 6, Baltimore, 6 and 6. Feel like. That's just begging for some sort of Jason Mark of the Beast comment. It's tough because we're four. I know. I thought about it. Did the Beast get a tattoo? This is like a mega mark? Vegas line, Baltimore minus five and a half. Over under just 42 and a half in this one. What a wild division. I mean, Baltimore and Pittsburgh leading it at six and six. Cincinnati, very fortunate for that to be true.

Man, it's going to be, this is a big playoff game for both teams. Lamar, we've talked about him at length, terrifying on every level, not just because Lamar is obviously capable of giving you a great game at any moment, but because it's a divisional game with a low over under and a, these ones can be dog fights. These ones can be, you know, T.J. Watt is just got an extra pep in his step for a game like this. You know, I think it's fortunate the games in Baltimore, but still, this could be, like if you had to wager on 42 and a half, I'd probably go under. Yeah, me personally. I think the line is set perfect as it usually is. This is a game where I agree it could be a dog fight. What happened last week where they got the Baltimore Ravens got criticized for their use of Derek Henry? And Harbaugh came out and talked about.

how that happened. And it was pretty logical how it happened. But Derek Henry was awesome. And when they used him, he was doing great. And this matchup where, I mean, look, the Steelers, they're, you know, they're great, lauded, long time, amazing, hard-nosed, tough, you know, blue-collar defense. It doesn't exist. They are one of the worst run defenses in the league. uh if you adjust for scheduled their 30th in fantasy points given up to running backs on the season and they just gave up a million uh this last week so to me i liked er kenry uh quite a bit zay flowers is not really in the conversation for me anymore on a week to week basis i'd play dkad play pity city i'd play really calil shakir yeah i have zero dot zero confidence in anything meaningful for my fantasy team from zayflowers and then the over under

the Lamar injury, you just start stacking up the reasons why, you know, any player can do anything on any week. But are you playing D.K. Metcalf, Mike? I'm on break. Well, okay. If you had, I mean, you, you have this matchup, right? You've got, right, right, right. And I have these two guys. I, it's, D.K. Metcalf is far more likely to hit the ceiling. But flower, I think I'd still, honestly, would probably still play. zay flowers like if it real a small sample literally one game uh but the tyler huntley game should lamar miss it wasn't incredible for zay he was seven for 63 but he was 41% of the targets like he just immediately would go to zay as the as the number one option i mean it's been oh well it's been it's been it's been average

It's been average. He hasn't scored since week one. Yeah, the touchdowns, well, he scored last week and they said, no, we're not allowing that to happen. He just, he is, his games are between 8 and 11 and a half points. He's just been very average where D.K. Metcalfe has more ceiling games than he does, but he has more just catastrophic games than Zayflowers does. Jalen Warren? Yeah, you play him. Also, the thing with, with, with D.K. like this rogers injury is weird he he's only averaging 190 passing yards a game anyways which you feel every week and now you add adam feeling to the mix in some capacity i don't not worried about this guy sure i'm not worried but i'm just saying if you if you're throwing for 190 yards a game

And you're worried about Thielen's four yards. I'm worried about every four yards. Feeling is so meaningless, it doesn't matter. It's a game of yards. Mark Andrews. I believe the Steelers are the only team this year that is not thrown for 250 yards in a game. I mean, I think they've been incomplete on 25 straight 20 yard throws, something like that. I think they haven't completed a ball. Over 20 yards. What? Yeah. They've, Kyle, you'll be able to track that down real fast for me. Give me the actual number. It's the amount of... Like a 20 air yard pass? Yes. Any 20 air yard passes, it's like 25 straight that they haven't completed. Yeah, and this is... And there's like games. They've gone games and games without completing a big play. This is in Baltimore. I don't think this is going to be a fun game for the Steelers. I think it's going to be fun for anybody. I think it's not fun for either side. I don't even know if it's fun for Henry. I'm fine, but Henry's still a top 12 start at worst. Jaylor Warren just...

continues to get it done and i mean kenny gainwell if you need him yeah this is this is gonna be a crazy crazy very very meaningful game that may not be as meaningful for fantasy yeah i can agree with that did you find it kyle you're on the microphone do you end up finding the number they haven't completed a 20 plus since week eight yeah it's week 14 it's a long time dude arthur arthur smith ron rogers yeah you know but but i'm saying our powers combined yeah can be soup trash just saying of like he had drake london nothing he had pickins nothing like guy i don't know it's just it's it's crazy to me that you have guys who we now look at you're like that's potentially a superstar wide receiver and arthur smith is like yeah they've lost five of their last seven games