Week 13 Studs & Duds + Vanishing Players, Injury Reactions! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/4

What a wild weekend of football, some good, some bad. We're going to get into the studs. We're going to get into the duds and talk about our feelings on today's episode. Make sure you subscribe and enjoy the show. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Jason, did you unplug yourself? Your headphones? We have a malfunction? Oh, I'm back. I'm back, baby. Welcome into the fantasy footballers. Mike, the fantasy hitman, right, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Back in Deucers Allie, we have the judge himself, Al Borland, and Papa Josh. Yeah, he looks like. Oh, he's dancing. He's dancing. The Ducers. Why do the evil prosper? The Ducers took us out this week. That's true. Al took me out.

probably eliminated me. If I beat Papa Josh this coming week, I will be in the playoffs. I will not beat Papa Josh this week. His team is unfortunately very good because Andy, you came up with a great trade for him. Yeah, I did. Yeah, now he's in the top of the world. I did lose to Papa Josh. I think I had the second most points or something like that. Lost Tankdale for the season. Want to cry. Don't fall in love with the Texan. This is what I'm learning over the last 15 years of fantasy because I had the... the famous Arian Foster when he went down. That worked for a long time. Goodbye my lover song. And I'm singing it again with Tank Dell. Yeah. And so, yeah, Papa. What's funny is I was disappointed to lose to Papa Josh. And then we did the math this morning. It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all. I was clenched regardless. But Papa Josh riding high in the regular season here. But the injuries, they were, there were lots of them this week, not just Tank Dell. Derek Henry went down. Ramandre Stevenson.

will be lost for a while. That's one of my guys. Austin Eckler. Totally healthy. Totally healthy. Nope. Dude. Dude. What? Yeah, thoughts on Austin Echler, Jason. Um, well, I think Mike said it best before the show. Mike said he got Thanos snapped out of existence. He just, he just poof, just gone. One, one week, everything was great. And then three weeks ago, he was a good fantasy asset, good football player. And then all of a sudden. As soon as I turned down the most incredible trade offer from Andy for Austin Eckler. Thank you. Thanos snapped his fingers. And now, I mean, he has just vanished from relevance. Something is very wrong. And every time he gets the ball, it's a negative play for the Chargers. It's been hard to watch. But Brees Hall, your other running back, at least he was 13 for 16 on the ground. Mr. Efficiency. That's just wild.

We've had some bad football. Hey, both of those running backs did barely outscore Ramandre Stevenson. All the studs, all the duds on today's show. We'll break it down. We'll look to the future. We've got a couple buys next week, but then it'll be fantasy playoffs. I mean, last week of the regular season for fantasy players. And we're not alone in our reactions to this weekend. You guys submitted your best puns. We're jumping in right now. Let's start with the good. The good? How about Nico Ballin? Oh, three-bow Samuel. He's also Debo Manuel. There was a Brock party. Brock sturdy. Yeah. Mike, heavens to Betsy. I just, I like what he's doing. Wowvin Camara. Oh, my guy's back. Devon, a champ. Yeah. Sam LaPorsch? I think it's better if you say Sam LaPorsia. Oh, yeah. Oh, the Porsche.

Aluminium. And then, yay, McBride. But they weren't all good. You got my guy, Zach Lost. Oh. Pat Fryer poop. That's the best. What about exhaustion? Exhler. Yeah, Austin. What the heckler? Terry McGuson. And Justin Herbarf. Oh, tanks. Tanks for the memories. Too soon. Oh, thanks for the memory. Hollywood frown. Hmm. Hollywood Brown is gone too. He just, poof. He's got a heel problem. He needs a heel up because he does not look very good. How could you possibly start him anymore? You, you can't. Well, thankfully he's on by, so you can't. We should like have a segment this week, Brooks. That's like big names, big, big drops.

Because there are some people in that category. Because you kind of have confidence in the playoff to put them in there. But maybe the injuries mean you're stuck. I mean. I mean, I'm Mari Cooper went out this week too. Yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of injuries. But yeah, to speak to Austin Eckler, I mean, you talk about confidence to put a player in. I mean, he had 17 opportunities. That's not like, why aren't they involving him? Why aren't they using him? He had. 14 carries and three targets. Do you guys know in half PPR how many fantasy points he scored without looking? I, I, you're looking. You're looking. Okay, don't look, Andy. No. What was the question? He had 14 carries and three targets, 17 opportunities. How many fantasy points that Austin Eckler score with 17 opportunities in half PPR? I don't know. I'm getting, I mean, I'm guessing it's like 10 points or like I told you. 3.7.

He scored, he did not crack four fantasy points with 17 tries. His career, well done, Kyle, pulling that data so fast. I was asking Kyle, his career points per opportunity, because if you have 17 opportunities, his career, his career has been 0.95. So he should have about 15 to 17 fantasy points on those opportunities. This year has been 0.65 and plummeting. The last three weeks is point nothing. I mean, this is, you know, this is fantasy football. We have had a long history of Austin Eccler's dominance. Yes. And carrying teams and being the checkdown guy that you would think like the math had said when Mike Williams and other players are out, he fills in the gap. And suddenly.

Heading into free agency, it all changes. Kai Borg also sent out a tweet with regards to his yards gained on rush attempts the last two weeks. Negative one, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, three, five, five, five, six, negative seven, negative two, zero, one, one, one, two, three, four, four, four, four, four. So, yeah, confidence is not going to be there. Here's the problem. Let me, let me translate this to some meaningful advice. Austin Eckler's playoff schedule is great. Sequin Barclay's playoff schedule is terrible. Yeah. Austin Echler's playing bad football. Sequin Barclay's playing good football. Yeah. So when you start to look matchup versus performance, that's going to be the most difficult discussion for people when they're heading into the playoffs. I mean, it should be easy. Like, Sequin is the much better play right now. Austin Echler is great. He is.

He is awesome dude. Taji Spears versus Austin. I would play Taji Spears without question. Right now, I believe nothing has come out. It's not on the injury report. Maybe it's just my glass half full hope. But I believe something is up with. He's injured somewhere. And after the season, we're going to find out like he was playing through a bad back or whatever the case is. Even though he helped lead them to a six nothing victory over the Patriots. A shutout victory. Which the Patriots covered. Yes. Because it was the Patriots plus 6.5. It was 6.5. I thought it was 5.5. And they cover, at least the way the weekend opened. It was 6.5 because I looked at our picks that we do every week. That has to be the first time. And I took the Patriots and they covered the spread with zero. That has to be the first time in the NFL. Someone has covered the spread while being shut out. Well done, New England. All right.

Shall we talk news? Let's go. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Jonathan Taylor underwent surgery. Three to five weeks. He's going to miss time with the thumb injury. That timeline is the perfect amount to drive you insane. It's, I mean, like, legit. If you have Jonathan Taylor in, you're just in a redraft league and you're holding on three weeks. Okay. I will hold on to. To Jonathan Taylor. Three weeks would be fantasy championship? It would be the second round. Semis. Yeah, it would be. So that's great. Okay, I get Jonathan Taylor or he's out through the fantasy playoffs. One of those is in the timeline. Tank Dell. Crashing down to block on a Damien Pierce touchdown. That was the old, just so, you know, that was the ultimate knife twist play for my team because I started Tank Dell and Devin Singletary and they gave the ball to Damien Pierce.

who ran in for a touchdown and then Tankdale broke his fibula, fractured fibula will be placed on IR. When you have a 165 pound player, you want them blocking right in the center of the line. They never saw it coming. It worked. That's true. They did score touchdown. I don't know the details. I don't know if anybody else does on how severe the fracture was. If it's just a, if it's not a displaced fracture, for my knowledge, it's like not a major injury to come back from. So we should, you know, I start thinking about next year when a player breaks their legs. Yeah, of course. Kenny Pickett undergoing ankle surgery. Oh. Not placing him on IR for now, hoping he would be back by week 18. Let me tell you guys. I don't know the amount of money I would pay. But if they could move the Thursday night game this week to a channel I don't have access to, I would really appreciate it. The New England Patriots.

and Zappy against Mitch Trubisky, maybe, and the Steelers with an over under of 31 points. Yes, nice. And do you take the under there? Because I want to. Yeah. It was just 6-0 with the Chargers and Patriots. It was real, real rainy, though. Is it going to be rainy in this game? Man. I mean, I guess the probability is... Down goes another quarterback. Yeah. Down goes Derek Carr, concussion. Down goes Derek Henry, concussion. Then goes Amari Cooper concussion. We finally saw the hit that it would take to take Derek Henry out. I have not seen the hit. Oh. We were watching all the games. I missed that. Goodness. Let me take a look. Goodness gracious. It is a thumping. I mean, he goes airborne. That seems hard to do. Yeah. And then he hits his head on the ground. I mean, it was a big time hit. I'm looking at it. Okay. Like that's what it takes. That is the level.

of physicality. He was in the air and then took a helmet show. Yeah, the odds of him playing next week seem low. They do. Christian Watson exited with the hamstring injury. This one is devastating. Christian Watson second consecutive week with the big game, heavily involved, multiple touchdowns. Breakout finally happening. And did he? And look the part. Look the alpha. Did he get hurt? When you guys were watching it. Yeah. Did it seem like he got hurt and then he stopped? Or did it seem like he was trying to do the right thing and not go out of bounds? No, no, no, no. And then hurt himself. It was hurt and then stopped. Okay. Yeah, for sure. I think he got hurt like about three or four yards before where he stopped. Exactly. Yeah. And it's not good because he was a hamstring earlier in the year. It's been a hamstring of his whole career. Yeah. It's a chronic problem now. Ramandre Stevenson. This is high ankle sprain? Yeah. Goodbye. See you later.

Yep, you're going to have a really bad situation here with Ramandre because, you know, Jonathan Taylor, the three to five week timeline on the thumb. But you would expect when he comes back, it's full go. Yeah. You know that usually when players come back from a high ankle sprain, they take a loss for a couple of weeks on production. So he's probably gone three weeks. And then when he comes back, you don't have a lot of confidence. Let me ask you something, Jason. Do you want? more of this do you want to make the playoffs i won and watch eckler and not remandre i i could tell you where i'm at now emotionally is i hope what happened to you

yesterday happens to me next Sunday. Well, where you get like 200 points scored on you? Where, where, I mean, you knew you lost. This is a clean death. This is a sharp knife. Oh, this is, you, you, you didn't, you didn't know. Sharp in the axe, please. Right up behind you, you never saw nothing. Never felt nothing? Never, no, you just nine, night. Josh scored like 100 points at about 30 seconds. Yeah. You knew it didn't matter what you did. Simultaneous to tank Dells fracture. That's what I want. I just want to pee out. You want to be out of your misery? Free me from this pain. I want to focus on our champ champ champ league that I believe we took the buy, right? We did. This is like a fantasy euthanasia situation. It is the time of year when you start finding out what the most important league really is. And it's Dino Jr. And sometimes it's your tertiary league. Your tertiary.

Um, yeah, yeah, well, I can't wait to hear about that. Ryan Robinson hamstring, teams on by. You saw, I mean, Antonio Gibson's going to come up on waivers. Yeah, he would, he would have been a really good pickup. Chris Rodriguez. No, did I get the name wrong? Uh, let's think I got it right. Somebody tell me. Yeah, Chris Rodriguez, junior, yep. Uh, Hollywood Brown, heel injury, full goose. Uh, goodness. Yeah, Carlo. continues to look bad. Jalen Hertz left came back. DeAndre Swift took a big hit, went to the locker room. Pooka Nakua went out, came back. Pook had a big game. Puka had a monster game. Could have been bigger. Obviously missed some time there, but he's tough. He plays through these things. And then at the end of the game, you got Cooper Cup with the touchdown. So there's just something special about Pooka Nakua where, you know, all the draft pundits and the, you know, the,

track numbers and everything. It betrays everything he really is on the field. Like people, oh, you're not an athlete. I watched him pull away from three Browns on a 70-yard touchdown yesterday. That, where's the four, he's not a four-four guy. Okay. If he runs away from the defenders, all of them, that's more valuable. Yeah, he's, he is. Do the darn thing in pads. Run the 40 and pad. Yes. Yep. They really should. I mean, goodness gracious. I mean, at least a helmet. That's how you play football. Yeah. Football speed. Put a football in their hand. Yes. And let them run if it's a running back. Otherwise, if it's a wide receiver, they can run without football. I mean, stupid people. All right. And he should have been, I mean, Pooka Nakua now. Redraft the NFL draft right now. Oh, my goodness. First round wide receiver. 100%. Before huge. I think most players would be before Clinton Johnston.

I mean, I know, I know, Johnson should be drafted in the sixth round as like a developmental prospect. I know it was raining. But that doesn't mean you have to do the, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, if you're going to drop it, just, just do a straight drop to the ground. Don't do the juggle for 15 feet. It looks worse. He wanted to drop it four times. And he did. That's painful, man. That's painful. Yeah. Maybe he can turn it around. Hey, they won a shutout. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Studs of the week, presented by NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV. Well, it wasn't all bad. We had some studs this week, including the Thursday night quarterbacks, Gino and Dak. We talked about that game. Both were huge, dominant. Dak plays Philly, Buffalo, Miami coming up. Gino plays San Francisco this week, and so I don't think you're going to react to his big performance with a...

Must start type of situation. Probably not. No. But how about, let's talk about this guy because humongous performance. Jason started the week was already the quarterback seven on the year before the week began. It's going up. Brock Purdy, four touchdowns, no picks, has his weapons, has the second highest yards per attempt in NFL history at 9.6. You know, he is now the favorite for league MVP. Brock Purdy is plus 300 for League MVP. Jalen Hertz and Dak are very close at plus 350. Those are your contenders right now. And, you know, as the wind blows, right? I mean, one bad performance and that'll go away for Brock Purdy because that's the way people treat him now. If he has a bad game, he sucks. And if he has a good game, he's a hero. But this is, I mean, at some point, you've got to give Brock Purdy his due.

Yeah, I mean, he looks awesome. He makes some plays happen that I don't think would happen with another quarterback in there. There's a reason that Kyle Shanahan was so bullish about him, stuck with him through injuries, through this off season. He knows this is, this dude's got it. He's real. He's here to stay. Even with the backwards cap. Yeah, even with the backwards cap. Oh, man, if you don't know that take, that was Colin Coward. Talk. Did you see that might? That's a long time. Yeah. Oh, that was a long time ago? No, no, no. It has to be a bit now. Yeah. It's been going on for years. Started with. Yeah. Baker or Stafford. He talked with the backwards. Yeah. He always says. You're saying that's a tongue and cheek situation? I think so. I think it's started not tongue and cheek. Yeah. That would comfort me. Yeah. Now he's like backwards hat guy is, is bad. I think that was mostly. Points per game. Brock Purdy is sitting at six right now. I think it for cowherd, it's, it's just clicks.

Nevertheless, I was just making a joke about it. Brock Purdy, sixth and points per game. You know, outside of Alan Hertz and Prescott, you know, Brock Purdy over Mahomes is like, it seems like an easy decision right now. Mahomes with another sub 20 point performance. Yeah, so. I mean, with those weapons, Brock Purdy is. Brock Purdy's upcoming schedule, Seattle. We just saw it back and forth with deck. That's great. Arizona. Yeah, you can throw on them, although I could also see, you know. A beat down. Baltimore might be a little bit hard in the second round of the playoffs. But then championship week, the Washington Manders. Perfect. That is perfection. To the point where like over everybody. Look, I toyed around with thought about did not. I don't think I could have done it. I don't blame my process. Brock was my start of the week. He's on my bench because I've got Jalen Hertz. Yeah. And I wasn't going to bench Jalen Hertz ever. And Jalen Hertz still had a good fantasy game.

but I think I might have won had I put in Brock Purdy. And so if I just would have needed some of Mike's titanium or adamantium underpants. Yeah. And so, but like week 17, if I'm in the championship and Brock Purdy's there, I don't care who else I have. Brock Purdy is going to be in that line. Also get your quarterback starts of the weekend for a championship week. You already put yours in? Jalen hurts. It was all right. I mean, they got their butts kicked. He has 12 rushing touchdowns on the year. Let's talk about this for a second for fantasy players. Dylan Hurts is going to continue to be a top tier option for fantasy leagues. But genuinely, it came out this week that Roger Goodell is going to have a heavy influence on the tush push rule set. His opinion is going to weigh heavily on what the committee does. They're definitely. And his committee, like his opinion, it came out that he wants to ban it permanently. So what will be the difference, though?

for a referee to call on a QB sneak. The difference is the players coming and I'm assuming pushing the booty of the quarterback, right? Yeah, right. But players are, players get pushed all the time now. Like when there's a pile. And then like the offensive linemen see it that their players up. Well, they run and they start pushing the pile. Right. I mean, I guess I'm saying if this play doesn't exist for Jalen Hertz. It will make a, it will make a big impact for his fantasy value because right now. It is a 100% guarantee. Not that they get the play right, not that they succeed. It's like 90%, but that they run it. And that's more important. There isn't a question when they're at the one yard line. They don't want to be like, play around. Oh, we're going to make you think we do the tush push. We're going to run. They just run that play 100% of the time. I love it as a Jalen Hertz manager when it's like, I just know. They're there.

He's got a touchdown. The amount of alerts I've gotten on my phone that just say Jalen Hertz, one yard touchdown. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Well, over the last three seasons, he has 35 rushing touchdowns. He has in his entire touchdowns. That's five more seasons. Jalen Hertz has five more touchdowns than Sequin Barkley has in his entire career. The rushing. 35 rushing touchdowns. That seems like a made-up number. Yeah. Now, I do think if they get rid of the tush push, Jalen Hertz will still dominate with quarterback sneaks. It's not like, you know what I mean? It's not like Tom Brady didn't win every quarterback sneak back in the day. Yeah, he, I mean, certainly, I think it takes your distance. It changes the equation when you're like a yard and a half or two. You might hand it off a little bit. Yeah, they run it from the two. Jordan Love. Dude. 25 for 36, 267 and 3. Basically perfection in the first half.

had only a couple of incompletions at all. And the last four weeks for fantasy, 12-9-5 in fantasy finishes, you know, the dynasty, Jordan Love managers that were panicking in weeks five and eight and nine, suddenly three straight wins in the playoff contention. Al Borland, how are you feeling? Pretty good. Nice. Thanks. Yeah, they are. I wanted to remind you of not too long ago when I said I thought he would get it together and you guys all laughed at me. Yeah. Well, see, that's the, that's the thing about these situations is that, you know, what happened the last couple of weeks is not like they, they don't engrave that into a stone tablet as the permanent completion of his career. Just like those bad weeks, they didn't do it. But this is, he deserves a ton of credit. His completion percentage over the last three weeks has been outstanding. He's thrown.

Let me see here. We got 10 touchdowns, two interceptions. And a very nice 69%. Completion percentage? Yeah, and three wins and over great opponents. Well, now no Christian Watson, though. You beat the Chargers. You beat the Lions. You beat the Chiefs. That's a run. Plays the Giants next week. You could play him. Plays Tampa Bay. You can. I believe right now the Packers are the number seven seed and would be in the playoffs. Which I will remind you, these Packers. I believe that's true. I think they took it from the Rams. They did? I think so. We can double check. Yeah, let's double check that. They have the tiebreaker over the Rams? Info is right. But I believe that is correct. Okay. I know they have the same record. So you guys are probably. Aaron Rogers on this team last year did not make the playoffs. Yeah. I mean, they're a well-coached team. They really are. Yes. The Packers are currently the seven seats. So the Rams are out. Yeah. Rams won again. Matthew Stafford was very good.

So let's take a quick break, talk about some running back studs. Alvin Camara, 14 for 51, two rushing touchdowns, eight target, six for 58. Should have been three rushing touchdown. Yeah, he had one called back that I couldn't see why it was called back. And it looked like a touchdown. He ended up going to taste some hill. But, you know, Alvin Camara right now, you know, I made that trade, Kyron Williams, Alvin Camer, based on the longer schedule. We'll see how it turns out. Nice to see Camara get this work. Derek Henry, two rushing touchdowns before the injury. And 100 yards, yeah. And what's crazy is he went out pretty early. He was dominating. I think he had 17 carries at the half. So he was in line for an even bigger game, but he was awesome. Tadj Spears is going to be fantastic going forward. Yeah, 23 opportunities for Henry, which was the most since week eight. We need you back in two weeks, big man. Devon A. Chan. Oh, yeah, my back.

In the first half of this game pre-blowout, I believe Moster had something like 21 and 29 snaps. Moster played four snaps in the second half. It was all A-chan and a little bit of Jeff Wilson mixed in. This is why Jason said he wouldn't sit to Von A-chan is because you don't want to be caught. missing out on a game like that. Yeah, there's only a handful of players in the league that can reliably or, you know, with any kind of expectation, have monstrous blow-up games. And you can't leave those type of players on your bench because those are, those are league winners. I did have confidence that James Connor against his former team would do all right. 25 for 105 and 2. You guys were talking about your confidence rather. It was very low. And how you just assumed he would get the work. 77% of snaps.

This was the game script. They were winning the entire game, and so James Connor got the ball the entire game. 100%. And that's what I was bringing up. I think James Conner looked great. He looked unbelievable in this game. He's looked great every time he touches the ball. But for some reason, I think it's the wrong call. But it is not my choice. I'm not the coach. If the Cardinals are down, they use James Connor a lot less. He is not their third down, speeded up, come from behind, passing downs back the way that I still think he could be. If they're winning, they're going to.

rely on him, lean on him, 25 carries for over 100 yards here. Now they go on a buy and they come back against San Francisco. For the first week of the playoff. Yeah, that's not a game. I think the Cardinals are going to be up, you know. It's worth mentioning that Amari DiMarcato, the third down back, got concussed and left this game as well for the snap counts. But yeah, the San Francisco game, it is at home. Not excited. Going to be stuck playing him. 100% have to. Just have to hope he does what he. Look, when he was at.