Christmas Eve Extravaganza! + Week 16 Matchups, Fantasy Grinches - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/24

We found something out yesterday. Oh, this is unbelievable. I told you that my son mispronounced Leonard Fernette's name, and he called him Leonard Fornett. That's his brother. Yeah. That's his actual brother's name. In real life, his brother who plays football for LSU, played for L. Leonard Fornett. Their parents named their children Leonard and Leonard. Dude. Okay. I want to. People keep the names close, man.

They did. That's real close. Now the joke is kind of dead. Yeah. Because his brother's actual name is Leonard. So. Yeah. We thought we were insulting him like, oh, we said your name wrong. We were just calling him his brother. Like, ah, you're your little brother. Yeah. Got him. That's a little bit of an insult. Doesn't call someone their little brother. Yeah. That's true. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown. It's all about the matchup. If you have them.

You have a reason to play them because of the matchup. How would you order them? I would order them Mike Evans, Antonio Brown, Chris Godwin. I would do it that way, too, just because of the big play for Antonio Brown. But if you want a floor play, Godwin's going to be safer. Yeah. I say that, and Godwin's put up, you know, an 81 overall week for two for 25, two weeks ago against the great Minnesota matchup.

I still would go Evans, Godwin, Antonio. Hawkinson and Grancowski are both startable tight ends this week without question. Hawkinson had a down week last week. It kind of came out of nowhere, but he's the tight end three for us this week. Yeah, you know, everybody has a bad game, especially at tight end. Don't freak out from one from Hawkinson. He's been solid on the year. Yeah, I mean, we know the rule. Sometimes you get hockey league. Yeah. Sometimes you get the hawkestrap. Yeah.

Yeah, and same for gronk. It was a bad game, but... Sometimes you get groncules. Sometimes you get the gronk strap. Right, exactly. But he did have seven targets, and Brady was looking for. In-zone targets, too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, drawn penalties and stuff. Just didn't go his way. The San Francisco 49ers at 5 and 9 take on the Arizona Cardinals, another Saturday game. Cardinals are five-point favorites. It's a 49.5 point, or I'm sorry, a 49 point over under.

The Cardinals could technically clinch the division, or not the division, clinch a playoff spot if some things go right along with a win. Yeah, that's not happening. The Bears would have to lose to the Jaguars. Stranger things. Last week, the, I don't know if you know this, the Jets beat the Rams last week, and the Bengals beat the Steelers last week. That's fair. All right, C.J. Bathard is going to be the starting quarterback for the 49ers. Brandon Ayuk has been automatic. Ayyookin.

And I don't think that changes. They build the offense around one wide receiver very often. No Debo. Yeah, and their involvement is not just down the field. They manufacture touches for these wide receivers. So 495 receiving yards in his last five games. Yeah, matchups don't matter to me. Who the quarterback is doesn't matter to me in that offense. Brandon Ayyuk is an absolute must, must, must start. If George Kittle is in, we talked about it yesterday.

You're playing them over the majority of tight-ins. He would be my tight-in four. What if he sits again, though? I wouldn't play him. And Jordan Reed is the starter. C.J. Bethard loves a good tight-in, and the options are not plentiful right now. Is Jordan Reed in streaming tight-in consideration? He is for me, but just because you know that the last couple weeks, he's been, he's scoring, and that's all you want in your streaming tight-end is an opportunity that they

score. Yeah, it's fine, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to go Jordan Reed over any of the, I wouldn't go Jordan Reed over Jared Cook. We've seen more out of Jared Cook and the offense and his, you know, ability or a Noah Fant or guys like that. I'm going to play all of them over Jordan Reed. I agree. I agree. Reed has not delivered on the, any of the hope quite yet. To be fair, he's been forced to play with backup quarterbacks. I was excited when.

when he was going to be with Jimmy Garoppolo. The targets are not awful for him. Though if you look back, since returning from the injury, you know, six. Quantity, but maybe not quality. Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying you're trying to find volume at the tight end position, and he's essentially averaging five targets a game. What about if you look across the field and Dan Arnold, do you go Jordan Reed or Dan Arnold in that situation? That is so rough. Because Arnold is much more of a lower target volume.

But big play. But big play. I mean, three for 54 last week. I would go read there. You've got, I mean, I want my player playing more than, you know, 30, 20% of the snaps. Dan Arnold's involvement isn't enough to me to where I feel like there's a baseline. There's a baseline with Reed. All right. Circling back to the running back position, Jeff Wilson. My name is Jeff. Should be starting this game. We know Rahim Moster's out for the rest of the year.

Jeff Wilson, they seem to have a lot more trust in him than anybody else in this backfield. So if he can stay healthy, this is a pretty interesting matchup. I'm going to give you some start-fits, though, that have been coming through the website. Jeff Wilson or Lev Bell against Atlanta? Jeff Wilson. I'm Lev Bell there. I am Levy on Bel there. I am so 100% fine with Lev Bell there. They're identical because they both are being forced into opportunity and they both have some problems and baggage with them.

Jeff Wilson or Daryl Henderson? Darrell Henderson for sure. That would be Jeff for me. JD McKissick or Jeff Wilson? That decision's probably made for you with the Antonio Gibson. If Gibson plays, it's easily Jeff. Right, but this game is earlier, you'd have to make that decision based on not having the Gibson news. If Gibson is out, I'd rather play McKissick, I think. All right.

Oh, my gosh. He did it again. Oh, my God. You old so and so. We got, I am going to, I hope that someday I remember that when we start talking about McKissick, I need to be fearful. I'm afraid. I'll tell you that. Kenyon Drake was out snapped by Chase Edmonds last week, 36 to 34. Yeah, thanks. He got injured, if you remember, missed a significant chunk of that game. You're talking about Kenyon Drake? Yes.

And Chase Edmonds hasn't practiced in the last couple days. So he's somebody that, you know, we're recording the show on Thursday morning. We're not going to be recording a show tomorrow. That's why this is a huge episode. So you will need to follow up on some of these reports tomorrow, especially with this game being a Saturday game, is Chase Edmonds going to be active? You know, it makes sense to me. He was limited in practice last week, played a full allotment of snaps.

It's a Saturday game, giving him an extra day of practice off. Heading into Saturday makes sense. I don't have a reason to believe he's going to be out this week. There was nothing on the field that made me think he was going to be out this week. So it'll be both of them. We have Drake at the RB 18 this week. It's not a great week for Drake, but he's always a chance to score. Yep. Yeah, I think running back 18 is perfect. He's running back two. This should be fine in your...

you know, as your secondary option, but it's not a great matchup and he's got some health concerns. The Miami Dolphins at 9 and 5 taking on the 7 and 7 Las Vegas Raiders. Dolphins are 3-point favorites. It's a 48 point over under. Miami is currently in 7th ahead of Baltimore. Vegas is 9th. Both teams love running the football. They'd love to run it 30 times against each other.

Las Vegas is the highest rush rate when leading a game, although that'll be a difficult thing against Miami this week. I don't think that this is a super complicated matchup for fantasy purposes. Sure. Because I don't think Tua is really in consideration for championship week. Derek Carr certainly isn't against the great Dolphins defense. You know you're starting Josh Jacobs. But Mr. Grimmons. Oh, we got our first grid.

Is Jacobs your Grinch? Josh Jacobs is my Grinch. Oh, no. Of the week, the end, let me preface this. You are not sitting Josh Jacobs, but I am very concerned. Like, we talk about Dalvin Cook. You know, the matchup says Dalvin Cook will probably be more outside of the top five, but you can't bench a running back with volume.

But I am very concerned about Josh Jacobs. Why you got to grinch my guy on Christmas of all the days? Because over the last eight games, Miami has given up points to one backfield. And that was that really fluky Denver game. If you remember, they're shutting everyone else down. Other than that Denver game, they have held team running backs outside of the top 15. The dolphins are allowing the fewest points in the NFL. Did you guys realize that?

That is how elite the Dolphins defense has been. They're allowing only 18.4 points per game. They run a slow game. They're 25th in pace of play. And then we got a little game here. Do we want the drop? I want the drop. All right. This game is called Josh Jacobs or James Connor. Oh, brother. This is unnecessary. But it's fun. Yes, it is. Let's hear it.

Josh Jacobs or James Connor? Who has more rushing attempts? Josh Jacobs. Yeah. It's Josh Jacobs. Yeah, that's the setup for the rest of the stats. It is a, it's by a wide margin. Okay, so 245 to 143. But who has more 15-yard runs? Josh Jacobs or James Connor? I know that Josh Jacobs has had extremely few.

a long run. So I'm going to go James Conner. Yeah, obviously. It is James Connor. It is nine to six. All right. Top 20 performances. Josh Jacobs or James Connor. That feels like it should be Jacobs. Top 20. See, if you said top 10, I know it's Jacobs. Top 20, you're trapping us. So I guess I'll go with stupid James Connor. Jason.

I agree with the logic. I'll go James Conner. Oh, it was a trap. They're actually tied at seven of a piece. All right. But, and how about this? We'll, we'll finish with this one. Yards per carry. Not to be all end all, but it's still a fun stat to talk about. Oh, I have no doubt that. Oh, man. James Conner's been so bad, though. Yeah. But he's had an equal amount of huge runs. And Jacobs gets the ball 37 times and they're up at the end of a game. That's fair. I bet it's close, though.

It is James Connor at 4-3 and Josh Jacobs at 3.7. This is what I say. It's unnecessary. Josh Jacobs is a much better runner. Is he? Yes. Definitively. He is. But no, your point is well made. This is a difficult matchup. Yeah. The expectations. Here's why it matters for fantasy. Josh Jacobs, you've locked and loaded him, and Mike's not saying sit him. No. But now you have an expectation. Now it determines how you play your flex position. You might need more upside. You might need bigger play. You can't go floor.

If you're staring down a stupid decision like I am in one league where I have to decide between Frank Gore and Edo Smith. Look, Gore is a 20 carry for 47 yard, maybe falls into the end zone once every two years player. Edo Smith is an invisible upside. We don't know what it is with no Todd Gurley involved. So I'm going to go if I need upside with the unknown as opposed to the floor if I think Jacobs isn't going to give me a big game. So I.

Love Miles Gaskin on the other side of the ball here. Coming off the COVID list, knowing the guaranteed workload is going to be there, knowing he's the guy. If it wasn't Gaskin, I loved Savon Ahmed, but I love Gaskin now that we know he's going to be back. Gaskins, he's just topped off with premium. Yeah, no, he's, he's ready to rumble. I love starting Miles Gaskin this week. The Las Vegas Raiders defense, they've been bad. Then they've been injured.

You know, they were missing, they were down four starters last week. And now they're pretty much eliminated from the playoffs because of their loss. So you've got a team here that has something to play for in every way in the Dolphins and a team now that is kind of let down from losing their what to play for game last week. I love the Dolphins in this matchup. Now, we're sitting, Devante Parker. Yeah, I just don't know that you could trust a wide receiver for Tula. I agree.

And he's been limited in practice too. Nelson Aguilar. Miami's cornerbacks are outstanding. I think Aguilar is probably a sit too. Yeah. If you have any type of better option, I would not be going with Aguilar. Gassiki's been limited. Like Chad Hanson. Even if Kiki QT plays, I would rather play Chad Hanson over Aguilar. Yeah, I would mbop there over Aguble. Darren Waller, yes. Mike Gisicki with the limited tag. Are you a little worried there?

Or would you put him out there? You're probably going to play him. He, you know, he's been a top 10 tight end the last three weeks. The last three games. The last three games. Because he didn't play last week. Correct, yes. The Atlanta Falcons at 4 and 10 take on the 13 and 1 Kansas City Chiefs. Sometimes I just forget about their record. I assume they never lose and it's pretty close to that. It was the Raiders, right? That was the one game this year. That is correct. They're 10.5 point favorites. It's a 54 point over under.