Starts of the Week, Wk 6 Matchups, Dad is Back

Because he's running back. So I think that if you think he could do it, you do it. He is still available in, what, he's actually 30% owned. So he's available in the majority of leagues still. If he's available on the waiver, I would not trade John Brown for him. I agree. You would not drop John Brown for him. Fair point. What do you guys think about?

the wide receiver split with Winston. Evans, Jackson, Godwin. Look, Evans is a must start every week. Yes, Evans and Evans and Deshawn Jackson. Those are the two guys I actually want to start. I did highlight Chris Godwin, but there's concern because two weeks ago, Adam Humphreys played more snaps than Chris Godwin. It defies logic. It appears that Chris Godwin is the far superior wide receiver, but I'm not the coach making the decisions.

And then you have a difference of offensive philosophy between Ryan Fitzpatrick, who targets only wide receivers to James, who heavily utilizes his tied ends. So I have my concerns about starting Chris Godwin this week. I hope I'm wrong, but I would prefer not to play him. Flipping to the other side, the home team, the Falcons, Matt Ryan at home, he has a 76% completion percentage. He drops down at 58% on the road.

thus far. And I have a note here. I guess Brooks, you might have added this. It says Julio Jones destroyed the souls of Tampa Bay's secondary last year with 12 catches for 253 yards and two touchdowns. Do you think it's possible that he could score again in his career? I think that it's never going to happen. No, actually, he's my number one wide receiver. What happens first? Julio's scoring or are you getting a league of record win? I believe one in the same week.

Yeah, Julio scores this week. So the win will come at the end of the week. Julio's will come during the week. So Julio's first. Julio's my number one wide receiver. I mean, everyone's starting him, but I think you can expect a huge game from him at home. You just described how good Matt Ryan has been at home. They need this. It's a divisional matchup with a beatable defense. So, yes, 100%. Now, Austin Hooper, that's a name that has been very interesting because the tight-end landscape has been.

We'll say piss poor. And, you know, you don't know who to start. And I think Austin Hooper is a guy. He's had enough volume that I would rather start someone like Austin Hooper than do the tight-in that you're just hoping for a touchdown. And that's it. Yeah. Hooper is a startable top 12 tight-end. Yeah. You're not excited. Trust me. I'm rolling them out there. I'm not going like, yeah, I've got Austin Hooper, sucker.

Yeah, it's tough because between the cornerbacks on Tampa Bay, M.J. Stort, Brent Grimes, Carlton Davis, the receivers for Atlanta have such positive matchups across the board. I'm with you that Hooper's worth the dart throw, but I don't think he's getting anywhere close to the volume he got last week. The two, two and one Steelers take on the four and one Bengals. The Bengals are two and a half point home favorites, 52 and a half point over under.

Let's start on the Pittsburgh side of the ball. Big Ben, I love him this week. Again, the over-underer is on the high side. This is a divisional game. I think both teams are going to come to play, and the Steelers are, look, they're in need of a victory. The Bengals are 4-1, they're leading the division. What do you expect to be the biggest decisions that fantasy owners are going to have to make in this matchup?

One of the decisions is going to be, what do I do with Tyler Boyd? Because he's not a huge name. It's just like in the NFL, when you draft a guy with the first round pick, you have more rope to mess up. And in fantasy, when a guy has a big name, he was drafted high in our drafts, you give him more rope. Whereas Tyler Boyd had a disappointing game this last week, something like 4 for 44. It was disappointing. You want to go away from him immediately. That's a mistake. Tyler Boyd is still...

the absolute number two target in this offense, and I think that this is going to be a higher scoring game. I would recommend starting Tyler Boyd again this week, despite the fact that he didn't blow up how we wanted last week. I think he's a similar mindset than what fantasy owners had last year about Robert Woods, actually, where because Robert Woods was kind of like having these games and...

You didn't know what to believe. You didn't know whether you could buy into it all the time. And I find this tendency happens at this point of the year every year with certain players. I'm sitting there at my roster looking at my League of Record roster this morning. And I'm thinking, how do I leverage a guy like Kenny Gulliday to go get a better wide receiver? And then I had to ask myself the question, maybe I already have a better wide receiver. It's like our tendency is to want to go and replace a player that's unproven over a long period of time with a name.

Sometimes we want to do that. But the production is going to be just as good with a guy like this year, Cooper Cup, right? That's not the name everybody wanted, but he's the number two wide receiver or Robert Woods or a Tyler Boyd. Look, Tyler Boyd, what name do you want more right now? Jarvis Landry or Tyler Boyd. Now Landry's kind of who you want, right? He's the one. Yeah. But the production of those two guys is very similar. The volume of targets and things like that, it's just interesting to break.

those trust problems down. It certainly is I really like Tyler Boyd this week. And that's because I have my concerns for AJ Green who will be matched up with Joe Hayden. This is not a bench AJ Green. You always play your studs. But Joe Hayden is back for Pittsburgh. He has been shadowing. He nearly shut down Julio Jones. He mean, he did for an entire half. So I'm expecting that.

Andy Dalton will have to look for his secondary and tertiary targets. And I'm, I'm looking for a return to form for Tyler Boyd. Yeah, obviously you start Joe Mixen. Yes. Geo Bernard is out, which is great news for Joe Mixen. It's good news for us to be able to talk about Mark Waltenberg. You know, he's out there saying, hey, hey, Joe. Can I?

Can I get a snap? Oh, no. Okay. That's cool. Say how to any mother for me. I got your water. I got your water. Yeah. Look, I think, let me ask you this. CJ Usama or Austin Hooper this week. Because last week, CJ had 91.7% of the snaps ran 28 pass routes. He only caught two passes. Only a couple of targets. But the targets for him were.

designed plays to go to him, which is, it's nice that he's not just like, oh, the fourth option is open. I'm going to go to him. The Steelers are giving up the second most tight-in fantasy points per game. So that's one of the reasons I ask as well. If you're taking a shot. I would rather go with Usama than... What was that? Really? Usama. Usama. Secret of the ooze. Secret of the ooze. Yeah, I would rather go with CJ Usama because...

In the red zone, Andy Dalton has been known to use tight ends a lot. And so with the Tyler twins, both being injured, one on IR, and I don't have an update on Tyler Croft, but I know he was dealing with another injury. If it's actually...

Usama for the whole game. I mean, he was in for 90% of the snaps. Croft was in almost 50% of the snaps as well. He got, you know, a target. I do believe based on the matchup being at home and with if Croft is out. Yeah, he's in a walk. He was in a walking boot on Wednesday, I believe. Yeah. So I mean, I like both guys willing to start both guys. But I feel like the touchdown upside plus the between the 20s is there for Usama.

Obviously, this is at least one more week of James Connor at, you know, top 10 running back production. He's got the most snaps in football other than quarterbacks with 254 snaps tied for the third most touches in football. Those are the things that kind of raise your baseline each and every week, right? It's just pure volume. Yep. And then he's been productive as well. So he's out there. You're starting Antonio Brown, had the big bounceback week, kind of gave you...

Antonio Brown stuff. And then Juju Smith-Schuster. So the other question is Vance McDonald. I like him in this matchup because it's a high over-under. I think there's going to be plenty of opportunity to go around. So do you guys agree with that? Yeah, the Bengals have been getting beat by tight ends, even though Vance McDonald was disappointing this past week.

I'm still good playing it. You're going to be, every tight-in in his tier. It's going to disappoint. Austin Hooper could very well have one catch this week. I mean, that is in the range of his outcomes. So I think McDonald, he had the disappointing week, but I don't like bouncing around either. If there's a better player with a better matchup, that's fine. But I don't like just arbitrarily bouncing around when McDonald had the opportunity. He ran 28 routes. I mean, disappointing week, but he was out the runner-routes.

Three and two chargers take on the two, two and one Browns, 45 point over under. Browns are one point underdogs at home in this one. Do you guys think that line is interesting? Yeah, no, I mean, you have to respect the Cleveland Browns defense right now.

and Baker's been able to move the offense enough. They're at home. So I think this would probably be what I would guess the line would be slightly underdogs against the Chargers who have been very good. And they're a fine road team considering all 16 of their games are road games this year. The concern there's, you know, this is one of those games you'll want to monitor the weather as we get closer.

13 mile an hour wins. Once you get up to about the 15 mile an hour wins, that's where you start seeing a shift to more rushing plays over passing plays. So that's where you just monitor it. You know, Antonio Calloway is the type of guy that we're talking about this, right? Like we don't want to talk about him, but his opportunity is perfect here. I mean, he really should be good. And I'm willing to take another flyer on him this week unless.

you know, Sunday morning, you're checking the weather and you go, yeah, it's 16, 17 mile an hour winds. If you've got another factor in there and you've got a guy like Antonio Callaway that you don't entirely trust, that's where I go, yeah, okay, I'm going to look elsewhere. Mike, are you playing somebody like Antonio Callaway this week? Are you playing somebody like Keel and Cole? Ooh, that's an excellent question. That's a team dependent question of what I need.

I am likely playing Antonio Calloway, where I have him in Dynasty. I like the opportunity. The chargers are giving up the fourth most points to the wide receiver position. Casey Hayward for Los Angeles Chargers. Last year was an absolute elite shutdown corner. This year, he's allowing over 16 yards per catch, a pass rating of 140. It's not been going very well. So I'm interested in Calloway. See, Callow, Callow, he actually called me. He asked me. He said,

Can you play me this week? I said, prove it. I said, show me, show me first. Bring me your stat sheet and then maybe next week. Yeah. That's where he is for me. I think that at the wide receiver position, there are so many guys you can play. Yes. Why force it? No, I completely agree with that. I mean, I see Callaway is, I would rather have him if I'm in a, like, a tournament play and he's cheap on a daily fantasy, you know.

swing for the fences because he could have a monster game. And that's why you take the chance. But what we've learned so far is you can't catch the ball. And that's, that sucks. Eric, well, it's one of the biggest, you need to do that, right? Features of a whiteout. Baker, Baker's throwing for over 300 yards a game. Granted, he's going into overtime, so he's playing five quarters. But, yeah, and Andy holds up his Blessum T-shirt. But Jarvis is weak, guys. So let's, let's.

Let's test it then. Antonio Calloway, who should be on the field for, what, 80 plus percent of the snaps with Richard Higgins out. I mean, he was already on the field last week in his declined role of nearly 70 percent of the snaps. Antonio Calloway is going to be on the field or Josh Gordon in a juicy matchup, but he's playing like 18 snaps a game. Give me Gordon. Yeah, I'm going to take Gordon. I think Duke Johnson could be more involved.

with the absence of Higgins as well. I wouldn't be surprised to see the game playing go that way. And also the short-passing game, if the wins get up there, could be viable both with Landry and Duke Johnson. This will be an interesting game. I guess I'm a little bit surprised that the Browns are getting this much credit in Vegas with the chargers playing as well as they are. But the Browns, look, they're two, two, and one.