Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 12 Review, Studs and Duds, MNF Preview, Fantasy News

dominant force because this is an injury that's going to take a full year to get back from. We're already late into a season. So if he can come back next year, it's not going to be game one. So now you're talking about him being 31 years old coming off of a year and a half. It's going to be challenging. Yeah, it's going to be tough. So Big Ben was not on the field for the last drive due to the concussion protocol. However, they said he's expected to be cleared. He was moving along. His symptoms were going away very quickly. So,

Wait, what is that? Rathesberger does not have a concussion? Is that the report? The last I read is he had reported in the game, he was the one who self-reported symptoms, so they took him back to get evaluated. Just to make sure. Yeah, I haven't heard that he didn't have one. Yeah, everything says he's going to be back at practice and he's through it. A couple injuries for the Cardinals, Chris Johnson and Andre Ellington both left the game, both way back to the locker room. Yeah, it's David Johnson time.

David Johnson got a touchdown in the game. Kind of a dirty game for the Cardinals. They snuck by Blaine Gabbardt in the division. Thanks to the rest. So if Chris Johnson and Ellington are out, how do you feel about David Johnson against the Rams? I like him very much. The Rams, as much as people love, the Rams defense, they have been brutal against the run in the last few weeks. We saw Jeremy Hill having his best game of the year against the Rams until, of course, Jeremy Hill kind of...

twisted his ankle, but he said he's going to be fine. So I love David Johnson moving forward. I believe that the offense of the Cardinals can be better as long as David Johnson's not fumbling the ball, clearly, but I think he is a boost to this offense. The one thing I'll say about David Johnson being on the field is that he is a more capable pass catcher out of the backfield than Chris Johnson is at this point in his career. And so if that aspect is there in one player,

versus kind of like CJ and Ellington were both of those guys. We'll have to see what happens. I think Chris Johnson will probably be back. That's my hunch. So Bill, Laser was fired this morning in the season that never ends for the Miami Dolphins. Don't play the Jets. The Dolphins, they went to London, played the Jets, got some coaches fired. They go to New York, play the Jets, get a coach fired. But I think this is good news for the running game. You've seen the...

imbalance that originally got them fired and Guns Mahoney says, I want to have a more balanced team, they have a more balanced running attack, and then they get away from that in the last couple weeks, and then Bill Laser gets fired. So I'm not saying that, you know, oh good, Lamar Miller's back to being a great option. I think you're still going to have the games where...

You know, you just get game flowed out of a running game entirely because you're not good enough. However, I do think this is better for the running game in the sense that they want to be more balanced. And Bill Laser is completely willing to go away from it coming from the Bill Belichick system or the Chip Kelly. Tannenhill, I believe, threw the ball 61 times yesterday. Yeah, I feel like it's one of those difficult things because you can spin it in a positive way, but you're still talking about a very bad team.

I mean, at the end of the day, you're talking about a bad team trying to figure out the pieces and these, you know, coaching changes, you know. My question now for the dolphins in their play-calling situation moving forward, a question I'll put to you guys. With Lamar Miller and J-HI, you got a basically similar workload in the game, and Devante Parker went ham towards the end of the game. Strong words, four for 80, though.

He scored a touchdown. Four for 80 with a touchdown. That's a good game. I agree. But moving forward with the season's probably lost, even though, I mean, if things got turned around real quickly because the AFC is so tight and terrible, maybe you could sneak him. But I think basically the season's over. Do they start giving the young guys like Ajai and Parker, who are the future of the team? Do they start giving them...

More looks with Lamar Miller's on a contract year. There's not much buzz about him getting re-signed by the Dolphins. So does Lamar Miller... He won't get phased out, obviously, but does he go to what, 50-50 while they try and take a look at the new guys? Yeah, I mean, 50-50 hasn't meant as much. I don't read too much into it with a smaller workload like this. But yeah, you've got to take a look at Ajaya. Jai's been efficient and good. Both guys stunk in this game. But, I mean...

The last few weeks, Ajayi's outperformed from an efficiency standpoint, Lamar Miller. So, yeah, you've got to take a look at them, and they're part of your future. Devante Parker not being on the field has been a travesty. Yeah, Devonty Parker. The only reason he got on the field was Richard Matthew's injury. Yeah, Devante Parker, I agree with. Actually, the last few weeks, Lamar's been a little bit more efficient. A couple weeks ago, Ajai was definitely coming on hot. I think with Guns Mahoney there...

He needs to win to show other franchises. I can be an NFL head coach. You know, I don't see them bringing him back. So he's playing for his future, I think, more than the Dolphins future. And that, to me, says, try to win now at all costs. I'm curious who it was, you know, was this the owner that fired Bill Laser? Was this Guns Mahoney's decision? Dan Campbell is his name. Yeah. His name's Dan Campbell. Well.

Yeah. Just so anybody is curious who you're talking about. If you haven't been listening, you don't know who. You can. But here's the truth. If you hear Guns Mahoney and then you see the current interim head coach of the Dolphins. If you see him, then you know who we're talking about. He is a beast. He is. Dan, yes. All right. Let's move on. All right. This week's fantasy stud muffins.

All right, Matt Stafford's at the top of the quarterback list, guys that performed incredible this week. I believe it was his best game since 2011, 27 for 337, five touchdowns, dominated a Philadelphia defense that can barely be called that. I mean, they're very bad right now. Things went south real quick for the Eagles where I felt like they were a decent defense. So I listened to the show, part of the show last week, and we talked about the Eagles defense, and you asked me the question directly.

would you play the Eagles defense against Detroit? And I couldn't remember what I said. But what I said is whenever you have a week like you did against Tampa, you better wait a week to see if that's a trend. And that's kind of what the thought process was. Because I had somebody else text me and say they played the Eagles and they're so mad. And I'm like, they just gave up five touchdowns to James Winston. If you wanted to roll them out there and roll the dice, go ahead. And it did not pay off. Two negative weeks in a row. The game started at 10.30.

At about 10, 10, I dropped him. Yeah. And I made the last second decision. Like, I'm not, I'm not screwed around with this and that. And it was, that paid off. Yeah. I'll tell you what did not pay off. For me, Russell Wilson. Yeah, I think some people might want to hear you speak about that. I did not like Russell Wilson coming into this week. He had not been efficient. And he, people probably felt more positive of him because he had that huge week against San Francisco, his best week of the year.

So I didn't like him. He was my sit-of-the-week, and then he has the best game of his career. Five touchdowns. With the Steelers had been playing good defense. It wasn't that I thought Russell Wilson would be zero touchdowns. I expected him to have, you know, an average game. I was very wrong, and Russell Wilson would just crush.

The Steelers defense. You know, you know what was really weird for me this week? Because one of the reasons that I like that as a set of the week was Pittsburgh was coming off the buy. Normally the teams coming off a buy. I mean, you've seen it this year. They have really had the upper hand. Not this week. You had the New Orleans Saints, the New York Giants, and the Pittsburgh Steelers so far as the three teams that have played coming off the buy. That's fine. And they all gave up, I mean, they.

And the Browns tonight, right? Yeah, the Browns tonight. So that's just weird. I don't remember the last time where the whole week, buy teams coming in just stink. I mean, relatively. Other guys with big weeks, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Philip Rivers, Tyrod Taylor, Derek Carr, Blake Bortles. They all had kind of top 10 weeks. Is there somebody that stuck out to you moving forward? Was it good to see Bortles kind of bounce back in that way? Yeah, it was nice to see Bortles bounce back.

Unfortunately for Blake Bortles, the line of scrimmage became an issue where if he could just move that forward a couple yards on his plays, then he would have had a few more touchdowns. Alan Robinson would have another touchdown. Unfortunately, that's against the rules. Yeah, you can't run past it and then throw. So that was a problem. They just added that. For me, for me, Derek Carr was great to see him get back on track. Not that we really doubted he.

He would. Really, really nice game-winning drive in the rain with a minute left against Tennessee. Yes. And Seth Roberts exploded, and we'll talk about him. All right, let's move on to wide receivers. Then Doug Baldwin, six for one, 45 and three, the main beneficiary of the Russell Wilson Big Day. Sammy Watkins, huge day for Sammy Watkins. Watkins and Taylor had it going, and it looked nice. It going equated to.

I'm going to throw the ball up to you over and over again. That's really what it was. That's what you need to do with Sammy Watkins. And it paid off until they stopped doing it in the second half. Because the Chief's defense actually played a pretty good game. They lost Justin Houston too. Yeah. Aside from Sammy Watkins was going off. But the Chiefs as a whole looked pretty good. With Doug Baldwin.

What was very funny in that game was it turned into Doug Baldwin versus Marcus Wheaton. Oh, the two monster wide receivers going at it. As everyone saw. Was it like a combined 350 yards or something like that between those two grade A wide receivers? Now, I've got a question for you guys, though, in all seriousness about Doug Baldwin.

or Tyler Lockett or whoever. With Jimmy Graham going down, he was one of the highest targeted players on that team. The reason we have always been all year off of Seattle is because you just don't know. Is it going to be Jimmy Graham? It's going to be Doug Baldwin. Is it going to be Lockett? Well, Russell Wilson looks like he's throwing the ball more, right? And he's playing well. And now Jimmy Graham goes down. So more targets to go to your wide receivers. So Doug Baldwin.

You know, two weeks ago was seven for 134 in a touchdown, caught six receptions last week, six this week for 145 and three. Is he a player that, I mean, I think he's worth picking up. Is he a guy that you would start? He's definitely a three to me, and he...

This helps the injury to Graham establishes his baseline to be at that five or six catch level to me. Lockett's still going to be involved. But Baldwin's been that guy. He's having the best season of his career right now. He's very reliable, breaking some big play, scoring touchdowns. I think he had two against the Cardinals is the game you were referencing. So yeah, I mean, for me he's at the wide receiver three. He's just a flex and a three to me still. We've seen what he can do at his peak, but I just don't see it that way. I believe he's had.

one double-digit target game the entire year. About eight targets last or on Sunday. So it's just, with Jimmy Graham going down, that just bumps up Luke Wilson and the backup tight-end situation in Seattle. It doesn't move the needle very much for me on Baldwin. He's a fine pickup if you want, but he's not anybody. I'm losing my priority or spending out the rest of my fab. Sure.

So Marcus Wheaton and Seth Roberts, Seth Roberts for Oakland, had six for one, 13, and two touchdowns. Marcus Wheaton had nine for 201 and a touchdown. These are guys that just flashed, right? Yes. Yeah. Don't go rush out? Nope. No. Seth Roberts, you know, his last touchdown kind of came on a partially a fluky referee called it.

allowed them to get there. But that play, there was kind of just a broken coverage, and he was open, and it was just right guy, right place, you know. And Wheaton was, to me, in more of a situation. They sacrificed Antonio Brown over to Sherman, that basically the entire game. And Sherman played a great defensive game against Brown, nearly shot him out.

So I think that was just a situation of the Steelers decided, okay, we'll take Sherman on Antonio Brown. If it happens, it happens. If not, we'll feed somebody else. And Wheaton was the beneficiary. All right, Jarvis Slandry had a huge week. 13 catches, 165 in a touchdown. Jeremy Macklin, 9 for 160 in a touchdown, giving me a little bit of hope for all my Macklin water bets that I made in the beginning of the year. Mostly the one that...