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

you have Miami running the ball with the amount that they run it, the way they control the game with their defense. We saw Ahmed come right back into the lineup and put up a monstrous game last week, and you have to start the Miami running back. Agreed. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they've just been so good. Whoever it is, if you can know who it is, you know that they're going to be very good, and we know it's the gas man this week. At running back, I'm going with Darnell Anderson. Darnell Anderson. Darnell Anderson. Darnell.

aka Darrell Henderson, my favorite nickname, because it's not against Seattle. How much of it do you like that nickname just because Mike hates it? I would say 50-50. Okay. Probably a large chunk. But look, Darryl Henderson.

was a solid running back. When Cam Acres went down in week two and didn't get back into real action until week 80, he was like 4% of snaps and some of those games where he was technically active, when it was Henderson's show, he was good. He was averaging 86 yards and three quarters of a touchdown per game. He was the running back 13 through that six week stretch. He had half of those games as an RB1. It's a slight...

plus matchup. The Seahawks aren't great or terrible, but usually they give up a little bit more. And if you're one of those teams that lost Moster, lost CMC or Gibson, I'm not saying that Daryl Henderson is like a must start as my start of the week. I'm saying here's a guy that you can start. And I think he's going to be an absolute fine player this week. Would you say he's your start of the week?

Yes. I mean, I'm not going with like an Edo Smith. Mighty fine start of the week. My mighty fine start of the week. But I do think he's going to have a solid game. Yeah. And Henderson might have been on your waiver wire this week. This player also may have been on your waiver wire. I'm going with Leonard Furnett. Big brother. Big brother Leonard Fornett. No, Ronald Jones. How's that feel? Leonard Farnett's your championship week start of the week. How's that feel?

It feels like fantasy football is what it feels like. No Ronald Jones. That turned into 19 opportunities, including five carries in the red zone and two goal line carries. Andy already outlined why the matchup is great for Tom Brady. You know, the over under, all that stuff carries over to Leonard Fournett as well. And over the last eight weeks, not only have the Detroit lines been terrible against the quarterback. They've also been terrible against the running back position. So Leonard Fornett is a strong running back to play for me this week.

All right, my wide receiver start of the week, very excited about Marvin Jones Jr. I'm trying to look a little bit deeper here than the cream of the crop at the wide receiver position. Marvin Jones has been really, really good. And Tampa Bay has been struggling the last four weeks against opposing fantasy wide receivers. Look, Marvin Jones has two.

Top five finishes in the last three weeks. Top five at the wide receiver position. He has four wide receiver one finishes in the last eight weeks. Huge over under. Stafford seems locked in on Marvin Jones. Twelve targets three times in the last four weeks. And over the last six games, I just wanted to illustrate his pace. He's on 106 reception, 1,250 yard, eight touchdown pace. If there was ever time for a Marv pick, you go Marv for Christmas.

Marvin. Christmas Jones. Yeah, and I'm going to the top. I'm going with Alan Robinson as a smash start this week. Despite the fact that he was the wide receiver 33 and 44, two of the last three weeks. He's also been the wide receiver four, the wide receiver five in two of his last four. He's, you know, he has big games and he has disappeared. This one is going to be a monster game. The matchup.

is as good as it gets against Jacksonville. I think Mitchell Trabisky is not someone that I want to start in any kind of single quarterback league, but he's a good option. If you're in a two-quarterback league, I would start him because I think Alan Robinson definitely gets a touchdown this week. And I'm going with Manny Sanders. I like the matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. Michael Thomas again is out because he is on the interim reserve last week. Four for 76 in that first game with Drew Brees. Look, that's not amazing, but four for 76.

For a waiver-wire player, it's not terrible at all. And now you have an even better matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. And you have that second game back for Drew Brees to find his feet. I think that manual Sanders is in play. You just call him manual? Did I? Did I drop the E? I thought you dropped the E. Whatever. You dropped the H for her. You're trying to be more efficient. Man. Man, Sanders. Man Sand. Yeah, Man Sand. All right. My tight end started the week. I'm going back.

to Tyler Higby this week against Seattle. All right. Seattle has struggled against the tight-in position. They are the fifth best matchup over the last five weeks. Higby has hit 80 plus percent of snaps for three straight weeks. Had a touchdown, had his highest yardage mark of the year last year. He came on at the end of last season as well. Look, Cam Acres is going to be out. They were willing to give Cam Acres, what, 29 carries in a game. I think they're going to have to rely more on the passing attack in this one.

As much as I like Darrell, I don't think they're going to give them the kind of workload that Cam Acres was getting because Cam Acres was doing a lot with it. And you're looking for your best tight end or touchdown chance at tight end. And I think Higby has a great shot in another one.

I'm going with Austin Hooper. I know you said, Andy, you were concerned. I am 100% not concerned with Austin Hooper. He had been banged up. He missed three of seven games. He lost his appendix. With two different injuries. He had the appendix injury. He also missed a game with a neck injury. And then before that were the weather game. So obviously he hasn't had a great season. Last week he was good. He was a top 10 guy, got a touchdown. But the matchup against the Jets is it's the best out there, but it's better than the best.

Over the course of the season, they're giving up 3.6 more fantasy points than a team's average at tight end. The second best is a point less than that at 2.6 more than average. But over the last five weeks, they're giving up an extra 8.4 fantasy points per week against tight ends. They are an absolute sift. Think about Higby last week, got a touchdown against them. Disley got a touchdown the week prior. That was the team that Darry. That's all I needed to hear.

Will Disney got a touchdown. Oh, I wish you could play the Jets every week. We'd have a lot more of those drops. You remember Darren Waller's big ridiculous game? I do. That was against the Jets. Gisicki had his best game of the season the week right before that. Hunter Henry, I mean, this is like, if you're a tight end and you play the Jets, you have a monster game. So I would start Austin Hooper. And I want to highlight Dallas Godderts to go along with Jalen Hertz. It brings me great pain.

because I am probably playing against him in the championship week, and I think that he is a fine play over the last five games. Dallas has not been a plus match for the tight end, but we have seen Dallas Goddard as the number one target so far for Jalen Hertz. Small sample size, I get it, but 21% of the targets are going to Dallas Goddard, and that's what you want at the position. You want the volume, and for a team to have the number one option right now being a tight end.

I'm playing Dallas Goddard. All right. That does it for our starts of the week. We do have, you know, a very important segment. Jason Moore's Ironclad, locked and loaded, 100% guaranteed boom, boom kicker of the week. Oh, this is the week. You're at war like it's the Gaza Strip. You know you need my man, Rodrigo Blankenship. Like a good Gaza Strip reference. We're bringing in geopolitical.

Wars? Apparently we are. Apparently. Brooks. I don't know how I felt about that. Jason's face tells the tale. He was not happy with that one. But he did it anyways. That's, I used, you see, I felt seen Mike. Well, Mike, what else could possibly rhyme with the word ship? Look, I had another good one, but you said it was inappropriate. Rocket ship.

Oh, man. No, we would have had to bleep whatever he said before. Brooks really likes a good Gaza Strip joke, though, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. About time. Straight from the papers. Gaza Strip. Fantasy forecast. All right, don't go anywhere. I mean, we have 10 more matchups to get into. You guys ready to rumble? I am ready. There's one I'm excited to get to. I can't wait to find out which one.

All right, the Indianapolis Colts are... Is it this one? Are 10 and 4. Not this one. They're taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers at 11 and 3. Colts are two-point favorites. It's a 44.5 point over under. That is low. And we know what's been going on. Pittsburgh's offense has struggled. And if you thought Drew Breez's end was there, you certainly thought it about Big Ben on Monday night. You're not...

It's championship week. You're not going to take your shot with Big Ben here. Correct. No way. I don't think you're going to take your shot with Phil Rivers either. Not me, not ever. James Connor, you're not going to play James Connor. Correct. If he even plays. Jonathan Taylor? Yes. You're going to play Jonathan Taylor. I do want to highlight this. Jonathan Taylor, he's been great, right? The last four weeks or so. The stats back this up. He wasn't.

Good. Now he's good. Yes. If that makes sense. It was just volume at the beginning of the year, and now he's getting volume, and he's playing well. You understand the system better, the scheme. And the matchups have been better. Through the first 11 weeks, he forced 12 missed tackles. He was 92nd in football in yards after contact. In the last four weeks, he has 18 missed tackles and 10th in yards after.

Contact. There we go. Huge jump. There we go. Maturation of Jonathan Taylor, trust by the team, better matchups, everything's come together. Yeah, the matchups do play a key role. It's a lot easier to break tackles, force, miss tackles, and have yards after contact when you're not playing against the Steelers, when you're playing against teams like Detroit and, you know, Green Bay's run defense. So, you know, this isn't a plus matchup, but the Steelers are very banged up right now.

Yeah, it's, I'm perfectly fine with this matchup. I love Jonathan Taylor here. And the last like gushing over, over JT here, JTT. You know, he's caught 35 of 38 targets? Like that's, that's a fantastic number for, for any running back. And let alone Jonathan Taylor, who's wasn't, you know, he didn't profile as a pass catching running back.

Yeah, no, he's an excellent pass catcher. I saw that at the calm mind. I mean, you saw that whenever he had to catch the ball. It just wasn't the offense he was in college. And he's been productive with his receptions. Very confident in Deonté Johnson this week. He was the go-to receiver last week. Came through in a big way. The last five weeks, Indianapolis has given it up in the secondary. Devante Adams, AJ Brown, Kiki QT, and Mbop, and Nelson Aguilar all had big weeks against his secondary. It's actually been...

Pretty bad over the last six weeks in terms of fancy points given up to quarterback, running back, tight end. This is where you have to make a little bit of a mental adjustment and not run away from that matchup for Deonté Johnson. And there is upside for Chase Claypool and Juju. There is the possibility that they get things figured out this week in a way that you wouldn't expect with what the matchup has looked like throughout the year. Right. I would expect more that could.

be done for a clay pool just because I think he can make more on his own, you know, on a deep play or even a handoff that he uses his incredible speed to get past people. I don't see big things for Juju. Juju's going to stop dancing on the logos. Did you know that? Yeah, I heard. So they, they, that we did it. We solved the problem. Yep. The Pittsburgh, all of their problems were because Juju was dancing, disrespecting other people's logos. Yeah. Yeah.

T.Y. Hilton. He's at our wide receiver 30 on the week. So this is not T.Y. Houston. No. This is. T.Y. What do we do? Yeah. I mean, he's really one of those nebulous wide receivers where he's had a good run. He's had four solid games in a row. They were all plus matchups, though. And now you've got a difficult matchup.

But he's been involved. He's looked good. And so he's someone that you can start. I think he's in that conversation like we were talking about earlier with the Russell Gage's, you know, Russell Gage in a better matchup or T.Y. Hilton here, Andy? I'm going to go with Russell Gage. I think I lean that way as well. Yeah. Let me blitz them real quick. Hilton or Jujoo? Hilton. Hollywood Brown or Hilton. Ooh.