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

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This is D.D. Westbrook here with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. The Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Coming to you from Draft.com Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah, welcome in. Show who's about to begin. It's time to win. I just realized something, fellas. You're wearing a very bright t-shirt?

No, I knew that when I picked it out of this morning. Oh, okay. You know, it's just, you try and get loose before the show, get the blood pumping, get the brain going. So I'm doing some twists. Of course, of course. And I realize what we are all missing. We sit a lot. Yeah. And you got to sit for the show, for the recording. We need those electronic ab machines. Oh, heck, yeah. Because I'm, look, I scientifically, they are proven to work. I just have never gotten one. They're proven? No, they're not.

Oh, okay. You got me. You're supposed to keep the joke going about how we need electronic ab machine. I was too excited. I mean, genuinely, if one of those stupid things that I could just wear can fix my body, I'm all in. Name your price. Take my money. You know, we, how many people are around in the world today? Seven and a half billion people. And not one can figure out how to make sleeping my workout time. Oh, that's not one.

Come on. I'm calling you out, scientists. You scientists. I bet they could figure it out. I mean, give me a workout while I'm dreaming while I'm sleeping. But it would not be good. It would not be good for your body since your body actually needs that period of rest. Hold on, hold on. When you say it would not be good, you mean it would not be healthy, but I would look good. Okay, fair point. Okay, so that's good. That's a win.

That's like, oh, this guy got lucky catching that touchdown. But I won. Yeah. So I want something that's a combination of the ab machine. And then like it also just dynamically inserts vegetables into my stomach without me eating them or tasting them. That's just a vitamin drip. You get on an IV when you go to bed. I want to be in a hospital is what I'm saying. Welcome to the fantasy footballers. Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast. It's a busy day. That's why we started with.

those very important topics. It is Thursday. We've got starts of the week on the show, half the match us, boom, boom kicker. We're laying out the forecast for the upcoming week 13 matchups. Starts of the week. Right, right. Yeah, good to reiterate that. And you've got some great starts, I hear. I sure do. They're the talk about town. Here's a quick question for today's show.

By the way, you can follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers. We're on YouTube. We're everywhere. Quick question. This one comes in from Instagram. As the season comes to a close, what should I do to prepare for next season? So this is a big question. Probably got a bunch of answers. But what do you guys think are some of the big things you could do to prepare for next year?

Well, look, I know my tip. This is a tip that I gave myself a long time ago, that I gave other people before we were doing this show. It just, I hate saying it because it sounds so self-serving. But the reality is this is the week where a lot of people are going to figure out they got in the playoffs or they just missed it. People listening right now are usually those that are still in that playoff hunt. There's a lot of you out there. And if you happen to fall on the bad side of a,

The dark side. The dark side of the playoffs this week. Then you pack up shop sometimes. This is what I used to do back in the day a decade ago is as soon as I was out of the running, if I didn't make the playoffs that year, I would kind of pack up my fantasy footballing.

I'd stop paying attention. Get one-way ticket back to normal life. Yeah, I mean, you know, back then I would still listen to podcasts and I would stop and I would stop reading articles. I wouldn't care so much about watching the games. And it dawned on me after several years of this impacting me, how much I missed going into the next year.

Starting the next season, I was always behind the eight ball of the teams that made the playoffs who were paying attention. The teams that kept listening that knew the new guys. Look, there's going to be players that we haven't talked about so far this year that will be drafted next year based on what they do after today this season because the actual NFL season, which all of it matters, not just the fantasy football season of the next three weeks, goes for the next two and a half, three months.

We're not that far in. So my biggest piece of advice, this is the time of year when you quit listening, I would highly recommend listen forever year-round. Well, we are a year-round podcast, and that's why we, you've got to tell some jokes about ad machines sometime. You've got to keep it lively. There are other pieces of, you know, helpful tips as well. Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing is the reason the show even exists, we wanted a year-round show.

Because there's stuff to talk about. Even through the NFL playoffs, we got our awards. Then we're turning the page to draft. You're getting into so many different things that you can be ahead of the game on. And it's just fun. We have a good time all year long. So. I know Mike and I have a book. We got a little notebook that. I thought you wrote a book together. No, that you don't want to read the writings of Jason. The ABCs from Mike and Jason. Yeah. Not if our red deadding last night had anything.

It's in the book. We aren't good people. But the thing is, is we've got a little notebook, each one of us, where we make notes as the year goes on of things we don't want to forget next year. It's simple. It's kind of, you know, it's silly, but it's worth it because every year I look at that, you know, in draft season, and I go, what was it that I wanted to remember last year? I never would have remembered it if I didn't jot it down. So maybe start a little fancy football journal. That's the dear, dear diary. Dear diary.

Rookie wide receivers are more of a second half thing than a draft season thing. There you go. Some news to catch you up on before we get into the fantasy forecast. Mr. Biskey will not be starting this week. So it'll be Chase Daniel again. He was pretty good last week. He had a very favorable matchup.

as well last week. As he does again. As he does again. Well, let's put it this way. Let me give you guys. Place the Giants. A decision to make. Yeah, I was actually looking at who does Washington play this week? Philly. Okay. You want Colt McCoy on Monday Night Football in Philadelphia? Or do you want Chase Daniel at home against the Giants? I'm going to take. Chase Daniel is at New York. Correct. I'm sorry. In New York. I'm going to take Colt McCoy. I think he is the better quarterback.

I think he's going to run the ball. I think Philadelphia's defense is completely destroyed by injury. Chase Daniel outperform Colton last week by a few points. I get it. It's a pretty tight mix there. I'll probably go. I'll go with Chase Daniel. I'll go with Chase just because I think the Washington defense is, it's just better equipped to make it a lower scoring affair.

with Philadelphia. But it's close. Yeah, it's interesting these guys. You never thought we'd be talking about Cole McCoy, Jeff Driscoll and Chase Daniel. Yeah, fantasy football. This time of year. Markis Goodwin remained sidelined at Wednesday's practice. He's not looking great, but we'll keep you up to date on him. And then we'll talk about some news as it relates to guest Edwards. I tweeted about it this morning, but we'll do that as we get into the matchups. Fantasy Forecast.

All right, let's go ahead and start with the Ravens game. The Ravens are six and five. They've won a couple games with Lamar Jackson, a quarterback. They're taking on the four and seven Falcons who can't get their running game going. This game's a 48 point over-under. Falcons are one-point home favorites in this game. And the big news that I wanted to bring up, Gus Edwards has an ankle injury, and he did not practice. Alex Collins, with the foot injury, did not practice.

Do you start looking towards Ty Montgomery as a surprise, sneaky start this week as a flux guy? Well, it's the Wednesday practice. If Thursday reports come out today and say the Gus bus is still getting a transmission, getting it tuned up, then I will start to be a slightly concerned. But a guy who's had over 40 carries the past two weeks, giving him a Wednesday practice off, I think it's just.

part of the plan for the Ravens. If he does miss the Thursday practice, Ty Montgomery, in really his first week involved, he was 40% of the offensive snaps. Time Montgomery was out there. He got some valuable snaps. I mean, if Gus is gone and Alex Collins is still dealing with the foot injury, yeah, I mean, I would, I would.

Take a look at Ty Montgomery. But I do agree with Mike. I want to today matters so much more. This could just be a day of rest. And for Time Montgomery, I mean, Kenneth Dixon, if you recall, Kenneth Dixon's a running back on the Baltimore Ravens. It's been quite some time since we've actually seen him do anything of relevance. It sounds like they may bring him back. If they activate him, that's the signal for Gus. Yes. If Gus is fine, they won't activate Kenneth Dixon.

Yeah, I believe Kenneth Dixon started practice two weeks ago. If Collins is actually really hurt, then you might bring Dixon back. That's true. Look, John Brown, Michael Crabtree, these guys are not in the top 40 with Lamar Jackson at quarterback. Maybe he connects like he did last week with a goal line, you know, target for Michael Crabtree. He ended up with a touchdown. But it's really a crapshoot at this point. That's not, Lamar Jackson's strength is not going to be volume in the passing game. And you're going to need.

more targets than what John Brown's getting. We agree on that? Yeah, 150 passing yards, his first game, up to 178 against Oakland. So he can certainly get you, Lamar, that is. He can get you maybe close to 200 passing yards, but with that you need those incredible, like Tony Romo level touchdowns. We're just, he's super efficient, 200 dropping three touchdowns, but I don't think that's in the cards for Lamar Jackson yet.

Now, they are facing an offense that, look, at home, Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Calvin Ridley, Mohammed Sanoo, do we expect this game? 48 point over under is not out of control. What are we expecting from Falcons offensive pieces here? It's a tough Ravens defense, but they are in Atlanta and they can surprise. Yeah, I mean, Atlanta at home, the first half of this year, was a must start.

offense, you take every piece you can grab, whether it was Ridley or Hooper, you know, obviously Julio. But the Falcons have, you know, they've struggled a lot over the last month playing both at home and on the road versus their expectation. Now they get Baltimore, who has been just a really great D. The last six weeks, they've been a little bit worse. They've been giving up more points to the tight end to the quarterback. But on the season, their top five.