Starts of the Week + Wk 13 Matchups, Ninja Smoke Bombs

Leonard Fornett is out with the suspension. How do you decide between Carlos Hyde and T.J. Yeldon? Every ranking that I see, it's far and away T.J. Yeldin. That's what everybody has. That's what the consensus is out there. I don't know if the gap is that big, but that's what I'm seeing. So what do you make of that backfield situation? They obviously brought in Carlos Hyde. Do they want to see?

More from Carlos Hyde? Yeah, I think they do. I believe that when Leonard Fournet went down early in the season with the hamstring and they started losing games, look, Yeldon was fine. He's good at his role as a pass catcher, but they said this guy can't do what we need to do as a team, and they went and they traded for Carlos Hyde. Carlos Hyde is the Leonard Fournette replacement. He's the backup. He's the Chris Ivory of last year that when Leonard Fornett's out,

Carlos Hyde will be the primary ball carry. The only reason that I would go, maybe Yelden ends up with a better game, is based on this specific matchup where Yelden, I expect to be the past catching running back, and the Colts, that's where the Colts have been beaten. They've given up a large percentage of their targets to the running back position. So I'm close. I actually have Carlos Hyde ahead of Yelden in my rankings. Yeah, I do too. I would much prefer Carlos Hyde.

The Colts have won five in a row. The Jags have lost seven in a row. Jags defense was so bad last week. They had zero fantasy points. Yeah. And they did play in week 10. The Jags lost that game, 26, 23. Ebron had three touchdowns in that game. Bortles was the starter at that point in time. Andrew Luck, three touchdown passes in eight straight games.

You obviously start him. Yes. How do you feel about the current situation with Marlon Mack, Naeem Heinz, Jordan Wilkins, Marlon Mack still in Concussion Protocol? Brooks, do you have any update? Is there any news on Marlon Mc? Nope. As a yesterday, he was still in the protocol. Yeah, the last that I've seen is that he's fully in. You know, sometimes you're in protocol, but you're progressing. I have not heard of a step of progression, which leads me to believe that he might be out this week. And even if he's not out.

If he comes in, I am not wanting to start Marlon Mack because Frank Reich is a game plan scheming coach. And he said this before, and we saw it when Mack was coming back from injury earlier in the year, that if you're not there for practice against the team that you are planning for, then that hurts your ability to be involved in. So he would be limited, in my opinion. If he's back, he'll be...

more limited than his full go of the last several weeks. The only running back I'm really willing to look at here from the Colts is if Marlon Mack is gone. Naim Hines is a little bit interesting to me. We had Wilkins with the fumble last week, and then it was all Naim Hines. In fact, look, Marlon Mack went out last week. Hines ended up. He's the pass catching back. He ended up with nine carries. Jordan Lucas ended up with zero. See, I...

I kind of want to stay clear of all of them. That's kind of the viewpoint because it's on the road. And Jacksonville, for all their problems on defense, they still only give up 15.7 fantasy points per game to the running back position. And if you have to split a time shirt up, even if you give them 20 points. And you've got to split that up. It's hard to predict exactly where that's going to go if Mac is active. For the Jags-wide receivers, this is a rematch, Moncrief.

Had himself a day. He had the 80-yard touchdown against the Colts the last time they played. But new quarterback, would you prefer Dante Moncrief or Didi Westbrook? I don't. I know you don't want to play either of them. Okay, so I have to choose one. You have to pick one of them. Yeah, I would go Didi. I would go Dudi. Doodoo Westbrook? Yeah. Oh, come on. Can one of you make him a ceremonial start of the week so that?

Doodoo Westbrook can come up if he fails? The problem is we like Didi. Like I like Didi as a player. He was the opener of the show today. I like, I like Didi as a guy. So I don't want to, I don't want to poop on him. But his name is so close to Dudo. It's like, it's not our fault. It's your parents' fault. It's your parents' fault. Here's the one thing. So the Jaguars, you said they've been good against the run. They have been the second.

most difficult matchup against the run on the year. Over the last six weeks, they're actually the hardest matchup, giving up the fewest fantasy points. But where they have struggled is where Andrew Luck likes to throw the ball. The tight end position, would you be willing in this gross tight-in landscape with Jack Doyle out of the way? No. To throw out Gigantor in the line up. Oh, Mowali, Kyle!

And say, hey, look. Let's go. Ebron's dealing with a bag issue. Moe Alley Cox, the tight end, the enormous mountain of a tight end for the Colts. Moe Alley Cox around the studio has become the equivalent of the fish story. Yes. Where Mike goes, you know, you go fishing and the fish gets like a foot bigger every time the story. I once saw a tight end this big. I mean, he's what, 6'6 to...

Oh, stop. He's like 8.3. Yeah, he's 8.3. 350. I'm going to look up. Bill Burns a 3-9. I'm pretty sure he was out last week. He was out last week. Because he's so big. We have to take every other week off. Yeah, man. It's a lot of energy. We need a Moe-A-Cox jersey on the wall. Pristine auction needs to make that happen. That one's going to be hard to find. You probably have to get, if you don't know about Moe-A-Cox, you probably got to get a basketball jersey.

Because he was a basketball college superstar. He's a beast. I'm only interested in him. He three. He did sit out practice on Wednesday, so. No, I'm not, yeah, I'm not looking his way. It is giant bed. If it's him or, you know, Swoop. Ed Dixon. No problem. No, Swoop would be the one to step in and could surprise with 18 touchdowns the way that Andrew Luck is playing.

Isn't it Swope? I don't know. It's so stupid because his name is. I think it is Eric Swope. It's clearly spelled swoop. Like it is Forcer's spelt swoop. The problem is double O. My kids are, you know, they're in school. They're learning phonics. Double O is ooh. So you can't have double O and be O.

That's just false. It's Swope. I know. The Hall of Fame quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, Jason, he played a really, really long time in the 90s in 2000. What's his name? Brett Fabra. Thank you. Come on. It's clear. I don't need your arguments about letters in the English language. We got to get to the bottom of it. When Swoop becomes a Hall of Fame roll. I think it's because we want to say, Swope. There it is. Yeah. Swoop. There it is. It's pretty cool. Yeah. It is. Swoop. There it is.

But his name is, it's not his name. Yeah, it is now. What was the name that we were, uh, what, Clement or Clement? Yeah. Oh, that one was difficult. Wrong. We have a difficult job. You know, to put the emphasis on the wrongs. The hardest job on earth. Clement. One more big score. All right. The four and seven bills. That's what Gigantor is all about. Take on the five and six dolphins.

If you need a backup to the upset of the week, it's this one for me. The dolphins. Like upsetting that you have to watch this? It's upsetting that they're playing. It's a 40 point over under. I don't know if that's figuring they'll just play a half and then they'll just both lead the stadium. But the Buffalo Bills, look, Josh Allen put up a huge fantasy week last week. Goes to Miami, takes on the dolphins. Dolphins are, you know, they're trending, trending downward.

What is baby Josh doing, Brooks? Someone's at the door. Oh, okay. Forgiven. Never mind then. I just heard sounds. It sounded like he was tripping over something. He's running to the bathroom to throw up over this game. Yeah. LaShawn McCoy. What are you? What? Take the tip. Mike, you have them on a couple rosters. You lucky old soul? Yeah. How are you feeling? Yeah. I mean, he's, yeah.

Look, he's there. I'm pumped. He's getting, he's getting that volume. Sort of. Uh, dolphins, 28th against the running back position, 26 and a half a game. They've been, they're 20th in the past six weeks when you adjust for the schedule. So it's been a little bit better, but that's a very, very plus matchup. I'm going to play Shady McCoy. Jason, no comment on Shady.

Yeah, I think you can play him. The volume and the matchups say that you can play him. He's talented. Obviously, the offense for the bills is the issue. They haven't been able to score a lot. And overall, I mean, that's my issue here is that while the dolphins, you know, they've been bad against running backs, they've been bad against tight ends. When it comes to final game scores in the NFL, sometimes they have, you know, those close drugout games.

You know, so that I'm not excited for any bill this week. Robert Foster, big week last week. He's had actually, what, three fantasy relevant games out of the last four. Robert Foster is so unknown, wide receiver for the bills, that, oh, did you finally link him up? I thought maybe he didn't have a pro football reference page, Brooks. That's what I was getting into. But any interest in Robert Foster? Minimal. Minimal.

And then on the dolphin side of the ball, Kenyon Drake, always limited touches. He's a very good play this week. The Bill's defense, they're legitimately good, except against running backs, especially if you watch the game against Leonard Fournett, to me it was, fornett's success was not so much the man of the talent was, you couldn't stop for it. It was, they just chose not to even try. He would just go right up the middle.

They rolled out the car, the red carpet and said, oh, Mr. Fournett, right this way. So Kenyon Drake is, this is a good match. They have a sign in the middle locker room. They go out. They always touch the sign. It says, we're here to stop the pass. And that's, so they touch that on the way out and they know, oh, this is a run? They absolutely do that. So I, uh, I was glancing at Brooks's dynasty roster because we're facing each other this week. You know how they, they give the breakdown, the projection breakdown. Yeah.

The difference in our matchup is right now it's 0.9 points. Ooh. I was checking to see if he was going with Kenyon Drake against me. You're not playing Drake? He's considering it. Kenyon Drake or Josh Adams? Yeah, that's the decision. Josh Adams. Drake. I think Drake has. Neither. Neither, please. I think in that situation, Drake has a higher ceiling, but I think Adams has a decently high ceiling as well. The floor.

You're not bothered by the coach Peterson coming out and saying, nope, it's still a committee. It wasn't Peterson that said that. Oh, it wasn't? Nope. No, it was the running back coach. Yeah, I apologize. Yeah, that was this morning. Also, Darren Sproles is practicing this week. But they said for Josh Adams, it's still a committee. It's still a hot hand. Josh Adams just happened to have the hottest hand. So hot. So hot. Is Frank Gore a floor play?

I mean, would you 14.5 touches. He's infinite. He's safe. Yeah, I mean, I think when we talked earlier about like Naim Hines, Naim Hines, people are more willing to start than Frank Gore, but Frank Gore is the much safer play, I think. By the way, we're going to jump into starts of the week, but an update for the Saints Cowboys game tonight, which we previewed on yesterday's show. Trey Kwan Smith is in. Remove from the injury report.

Expect him to play tonight and a reminder. No time more important than right now as you head into the playoffs. Get your – it's the Thursday reminder we give you every week. Yeah. But make sure you get your guys into their – out of the flex position and into a position like running back or wide receiver if, you know, you need flexibility for the rest of the week. It just lets you make that decision. Let's go ahead and get into the starts. Starts of the week. All right.

I'm going a little deeper this week. Love it. Starts of the week. Let's go ahead and start with the running back position because I think I'm going to surprise you. I'm actually going to highlight Carlos Hyde. He's my start of the week. Now, here's all I mean by that. Carlos Hyde will get 15 carries. The rest is up to him. All right? Wouldn't you say it's always up to him? No, most weeks, it's 50%, me, 50% them. But look.

If that is interesting to you, if 15 carries from Carlos Hyde against the Colts is interesting to you, start him. The reason I'm bringing him up here is because I've seen so much Yeldon talk. It seems like there's expectations with Yeldon. Carlos Hyde is going to receive at least 15 carries. Yeah, it will not shock me. Like Jason had said, the Fournet replacement is Hyde. The volume that Fournette was receiving like earlier on in the season when it's just Fournette and Yeldon.