Starts of the Week + Week 3 Breakdown, V8 Special - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/24

Like, if you're super desperate, I don't mind that because the target share has been great for Keel and Cole. What if I'm moderately desperate? Moderately desperate, probably not. Okay. Okay. Did you have any thoughts there, Jason? You wanted to weigh in? I do think that more often than not this season, and really historically, when you don't play a player who is hobbled.

right in the first week when they come back from that injury, it works out to your benefit. Yeah, I mean, you brought up Parker this last week. He had a touchdown, but it was only 5 for 53. It wasn't this monster game you missed out on, whereas there's plenty of examples. You know, Mike Evans, week one. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. You chose to bench Mike Evans, and you were happy you did, even with his two-yard touchdown in totality.

If he misses, I think Keel and Cole is a strong play in the game tonight with the good matchup. Jameson Crowder doubtful for Sunday. Perriman's not practicing either. Is this the Braxton Berrios experience we have this week? Chris Hogan. It should be Chris Herndon. It should be. But I have no confidence that it's going to be him.

It's ridiculous. You don't trust anything from that team ever in any situation. I will play nobody. Yeah. Yeah. Stay away from number two. All right. Before we move on to the fantasy forecast, take a look at all the matchups. I want to remind the Foot Clan about...

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They're here. Oh, boy. The Chicago Bears take on the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons are three-point favorites. Their psyche is potentially damaged after last week's collapse. It's a 47 point over-under. They've been very productive on offense for fantasy purposes, and they are favorites here at home against the 2-0 Bears. So...

Matt Ryan, we know what we're getting with Matt Ryan. He's a start worthy fantasy quarterback, 300 plus yards or two touchdowns and 16 of the last 17 games. It's nice to know that you're getting that production from Matt Ryan. And they're throwing the ball a lot. But, you know, we have quarterback eight on the week. He faces Mitch Trubisky in this one.

Is that true? So Atlanta's given up the quarterback one in each of the first two weeks? Yeah. And I wanted to bring this up because the defense against Atlanta is one that if you've targeted this year, it doesn't matter who it was. You've been very, very happy. But is this a matter of the Cowboys and Seahawks offense being great? Or is this the Falcons defense being horrendous?

What is the truth? Well, we're going to find out. I think that, but yeah, if I had to weigh in on one, I think it's more that Dak and Russ are upper echelon offenses. So I lean the other side. I mean, you had Dak without his left tackle and he still turned it on. I actually think Mitchell Tripisky is a fine play this week. I agree. Wasn't he your? Yeah, he's my stream of the week. Yeah, I don't think.

Those can be mutually exclusive. I think it can be more about Russ and Dak and still have, you know, Atlanta's defense struggle at the same time. So I think Mitch is all right. He is on the road. They are two and no. We'll see what happens. Alan Robinson is Mike's start of the week in this one. So he buys into the fact that Atlanta's defense is just very vulnerable. And it's hard to argue with quarterback one, two straight weeks. Todd Gurley, he's only had 66% of snaps, five targets in week one, zero targets last week.

What is he? Is he a low-end RB2? Is he a RB3 at this point? He would be a low-end RB2 that you can not really even count on. Antonio Gibson got all the work last week against Arizona. He plays Cleveland. Would you play Gibson over Gurley? Wow. I, that's a very close call. I think I would go with Gibson. I think it's.

There's more upside to him. The problem that we have seen with Todd Gurley this year is that there's multiple other guys now. Like week one for Washington, Gibson, McKissick, and Peyton Barber. Last week, they trimmed some fat. They went with just Gibson and McKissick. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, you got Edosmith, you got Brian Hill and Todd Gurley. And you have those other guys, not Todd Gurley, getting the work inside the five as well.

Todd Gurley is not the dedicated goal line back. Like when you draft a girlie, you were at least hoping that was true. He's going to get some passing work. He'll be the dedicated goal line guy. What if he gets no passing work and it's not the goal line back? That's what's happening. Yes, he will be what he was last week, which was you started him in your fantasy team and went, oh, that was terrible. What are he doing? He had 21 carries. If you told me that.

Through the first two weeks, they're using Todd Gurley in the way that total opportunities, he gets 19 opportunities and 21 opportunities. I'm telling you, wow, you should have drafted him. And here I am saying, no, I completely agree with Mike. I would rather play Antonio Gibson over Todd Gurley right now. What about the running back on the other side of the ball, though? David Montgomery, 16 touches in week one, 19 in week two. He's...

5.5 a carry on the year. He is, he's surprised everybody because we didn't even think he was going to be playing. Would you start Montgomery over at Gibson? I would start Montgomery over Gibson and Todd Gurley. Montgomery to me has moved into a like a reliable RB2. I mean, we're only two weeks in. So maybe it was just, it turned out to be the matchups. But Montgomery looks like a different player right now. I mean, he was.

He was a rookie last year, smaller school compared. He's not an SEC running back. And so, like, let's give him the chance to grow. And he looks like he has come through with a great offseason. Was it Mike Davis that got the first snaps in Chicago last year? Yes. It reminds me when you brought up Peyton Barber getting like week one and then kind of disappearing. It reminds me of what happened with Mike Davis in terms of the Montgomery Gibson rookie comparison.

David Montgomery or Kareem Hunt against Washington in that defensive front. Washington's been very good up front. I don't know how in the world you don't start Kareem Hunt in every situation. I mean, I look at Kareem Hunt as someone that I will not be benching. See, Kareem Hunt has been very efficiency oriented. Because he's a phenomenal running back. That's the problem. It's not like some outlier where this is a guy who led the league in rushing.

and is just a phenomenal running back who's in a role that doesn't get the opportunities you would want him to, although he's getting more than a lot of people expected. Hunt is a must start for me. All right, looking at wide receivers. Mike has Alan Robinson as his start of the week. This is, and I wanted to go with this because, look, Alan Robinson has been not great for fantasy purposes. 40% of his targets uncatchable.

That is not Alan Robinson's fault. He's still a great player, and I believe that this is like, you'll see these with elite wide receivers having two down games. I believe it was like Hopkins last year. Hopkins or Adams. Someone had a couple down weeks to start, and we came in, said, if you're going to trade for that player, you have to do it right now because he's about to go off. And then whoever drafted Alan Robinson will be, the roots will be.

back in and they'll say, yeah, this is the player I thought I was drafting. So I love them. The matchup is too good. The Bears have only given up 24 fantasy points to opposing wide receivers this year, the six best in football. Julio Jones could sit, which makes Russell Gage very interesting because you look at Russell Gage and say, well, big target share. Julio could miss. Calvin Ridley can't catch every pass, but the Bears are a pretty formidable defense against fantasy wide outs. Are you starting Russell Gage as a wide receiver two if Julio's out?

Yeah, I'll start him as a flex play if Julio plays. I'm in. I'm in on Russell Gage. I'm in on the passing attack from Atlanta until we see otherwise. Okay. And then Hayden Hurst. Yep. All right. Jimmy, Grandpa. If you're in a tight-end premium super deep league, yeah. Jimmy Grandpa's in. What an endorsement. Yeah. The Los Angeles Rams take on the Buffalo Bills. Bills are two and a half point home favorites.

Is this tight enough? Is this spread, I guess, big enough for me to make this my pick? Sure. Andy's almost upset of the week. I don't know if you guys noticed he didn't work out for me last week. I'm not saying we tried to warn you. We're not going to get them all. But Bill O'Brien sucks. Yeah. He's a bad coach.

All right, the Rams are underdogs, and I think they end up winning this game. Taking on Buffalo, Buffalo. Against your beloved bills? Yeah, yeah. All right. It's not only against my beloved bills, Mike. It's also, in a way, against my beloved Cardinals. Because this is one of the games where I would like to see a division rival in the unbeatable NFC West, which I think has one loss. Seven and one. And the only loss was given to the 49ers by the Cardinals. Yeah. Yeah, that was great. But.

I think Los Angeles is just playing very fundamentally sound football week to week. And I think Buffalo is going to have to do the same if they want to, you know, win this ball game. Obviously Vegas has them as favorites by two and a half points. And the bills are playing good football. But again, last week it was very, very close. Miami could have won that game. The Rams, they've been playing great. The number one in terms of pace of play right now. And...

The bills have run, they're eighth fastest. So this is going to be a faster game. It's got a high over under 47 and a half points. What are some of the, I mean, I brought up Devin Singletary who may have an opportunity in this situation. And the Rams have given up a lot of points to opposing running backs through two games, which is another thing that factored into that decision. He's had 10 targets through two weeks. We hoped that Singletary would be that passing down back. What are the storylines in this game for you?

So to me, the storyline will be watching the running backs of Buffalo and seeing what happens. The transformation that this Bill's offense has seen, it reminds me of a couple years ago, the Dallas, when Dallas turned things around. The Dallas, as we call it. Yeah, the Dallas Cowboys, they turned things around. They changed the scheme. They got out of the mud and being crumaging. They start using play action.

all the time. And Josh Allen is absolutely crushing right now on play action because it works. Play action is a very funny thing because it just always works and teams need to be using it far more often. So it's relegated these running backs in Buffalo to be basically useless for fantasy purposes. And then on the other side, what happens with the, as we have dubbed it, the rammed wheel of the Rams backfield?

I think Darrell Henderson is, I think he's a decent start this week. We have Cam Acres. He exited with the rib injury. He has not practiced this week. So far, I'm expecting him to miss. Malcolm Brown has a busted finger. Henderson, this is his chance to show off he was not a mistake to take in the third round just a couple years ago. Okay. Quarterbacks, you're starting Josh now because you're staying in the fire.