Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 13 Matchups, Hail Mary Fallout, Mailbag

Carlos Williams missed practice again on Friday. Don't think he's going to play? No, I don't think he's going to play. And that's just more a note of a bigger boost to Lashon McCoy. Now, some news came out yesterday. We've seen this type of thing from different teams throughout the year with different players. But Ron Rivera said he'll look for chances to spell Jonathan Stewart during the Panthers stretch run. We know he's had about seven straight weeks with 20 plus carries.

I think this will happen in blowout games. I think Tolbert will see the field in blowout games more than he is right now. How worried would you be as a steward owner? I mean, if it's a blowout game, then they've put points on the board, and Jonathan Stewart has likely done work. So I'm not going to be concerned about it. We do need to remember that the Cardinals are competing for that and any other team in that range. Well, the Cardinals, the Cardinals, the Vikings, and the Packers.

Right. Now, the Vikings and Packers are both at, are the Vikings? They're both at eight wins. Yeah. I guess the Packers are. The Packers are at eight wins now and the Vikings could get to nine. Yep. So they're all close. If the Panthers were to lose a game, they would be playing to maintain home field throughout the playoffs. Yep. Okay. And then Nick Foles is going to play quarterback again this week. Well, in the National Football League nonetheless. Can you call it that?

No. Nope. No, you cannot. All right, let's go ahead and... He's going to take snaps. Let's play in and out here. What's it going to pay me, fly? Are you in? All right, Jason, Big Ben, is he playing? He's playing. He's playing. He's practicing in full. He's cleared. He's a go. All right, Mike. Case Keenom's the guy that is not playing. Correct. Sorry. Yeah, I was going to say he benefits from Nick Foles being out. We would all benefit from Nick Foles being.

All right, sorry, Nick. I don't feel that bad because he went to U of A too, so I mean, I'm an ASU guy. I'm an ASU guy, so Nick Foles, you can just don't worry about it. All right, Jason's laughing. Running back, Carlos Williams. Out. Out. Char West. In. Yep, he's practicing in full. Devonta Freeman. In. In. Ryan Matthews. Out. Andre Ellington. Out. Danny Amindola at the wide receiver position.

In. He's back. I think he's only limited right now, so you do need to monitor it, but I believe he's going to play. All right, Cardinals, wide receivers, John Brown and Michael Floyd. Limited on Thursday, but they'll be in. They played last week and had no setbacks. Willie Sneed, have to think he's going to play. You do? I do. I think he's maybe not going to play, but I will say this. The last time he missed this many practices and then played, he stunk. He put up a goose egg. So for me...

For me, Willie Sneed might be in on the lineup, but I'm afraid to play him. If he doesn't practice today, then he's out. Alan Hearns. Out. You know, the news is if he gets cleared on concussion protocol and misses every second of practice, he's going to play. That's what they said. So just monitor it. Because I'm telling you, until Alan Hurons is throwing him out. Yeah, absolutely. He's missed practice every single week and been great. So I'm just saying, if he's not dead, I feel like.

There's an inkling he could play. And really, he almost died. So, you know. He needs Mr. Miyagi's stat. Richard Matthews. Out. Broken ribs. Yuck. Nelson Aguilar. Everyone's favorite Philadelphia Eagle. It sounds like he's. For those deeper leagues. He's going to play again. Those deep, deep leagues, rookie leagues. All right, tight ends. Tyler Eiffert. I'm looking at his info to see if there's anything on him. Anything updated? Not practicing Thursday. It's not good. You better.

If you're an Eifford owner, you're really hoping he practices today. Pick up Richard Rogers. But he's looking. He's really good. Or Vance McDonald or Zach Miller or some other options. At this point, you need to consider, you need to consider Eifert highly doubtful. Yeah, you have to have someone on your roster. Heath Miller. Man, what was the last? I haven't heard that I'll verify him as well. Heath Miller. Because he got knocked out of the game on Sunday.

So let's see what we got going on for Heath Miller. He remained sidelined. So he's the same thing. I'm going to go with highly doubtful. All right. Rob Grankowski is not showing up in ESPN leagues as out. We know he's 99.9% out. Is that correct? Classic. Yeah, this is just Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick is never going to, I mean, he just doesn't rule people out or in through the week. So it's going to be annoying for Gronk owners. If you've got that IR spot, he's not going to be able to use it. Although last week,

They were very kind with Danny and Nolobinole owners and I got to move him to out on a Saturday. There's been a day early. A fair amount of transparency with the Kronkowski. It's kind of like they came out and they were transparent with the injury and the fact it's week to week and that we're going to mess with you. I mean, they're very transparent with their intentions now. Like when you, they like structured it. When you say week to week, that means we can take it up to game time week to week and make you prepare for Kronkowski. I want Bill Belichick to just talk in the third person and be like, um,

I'm Bill Belichick, you're not going to know. Next. Saying I'm Bill Belichick, is that really third person? If he was saying it? Yeah. You have to refer to this. Yeah, you're right. You just say Bill Belichick doesn't do that. There you go. Thank you for the correction. I'm a master of third person. Yes. So before we get to our fantasy forecast, we want to take a moment to thank our sponsor of the day, Topps and the Topps Huddle app. Look.

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are heading to St. Louis to take on the Rams. Take on Todd Gurley. Take on Todd Gurley. It's the Cardinals versus Top Gurley. We saw that Todd Gurley is not invulnerable. Yeah. Last week with Nick Foles under center. And now the Cardinals go and they face Nick Foles. The Rams are averaging about 188 yards through the air this year. This is not good.

So for Todd Gurley owners, the Cardinals, that was when the Todd Gurley explosion happened, just to kind of remind everybody. 146-yard breakout game against the Cardinal. Now, we also must remind people that it was almost all in the fourth quarter, where through the first half he had, I think, two or three yards. It was bad, and then he opened it up. But like I was talking about with Eddie Lacey, that's the kind of game you need from Todd Gurley. You've got to commit to it all.

the entire game. So are you scared of playing Gurley this week? Am I scared? No, I'm the same attitude I am with a top flight running back that has a bad matchup. He's out there. I mean, he's going to play for me no matter what because of the potential and because of his track record, right? He had, last week was the first game that he hasn't produced. Is there anyone you would bench him for? I mean, how- Bench him for? No.

No, there's no situation I would bench him because he's not my two in any situation, I think, where I'm benching him for somebody. He's very similar this week to Mark Ingram in the sense that you've got a guy who's been producing weekend and week out with a terrible matchup. But then again, I mean, you saw Todd Gurley run on the Cardinals. So I'm not too worried. You know, a lot of people are worried. Teams are stacking the box more and more against Gurley. There's going to be 10 guys in the box this week.

Yeah, but the Cardinals are the type of team. The one thing I would say is they're run-y, which is very good. It does seem to get worn down by this type of runners. And especially guys who run to the outside, because Gurley has speed. And this game, you know, the Vegas line on this game is six now. It's a six-point line. It's in St. Louis. You know, they're not putting this at a 10, 11-point line. The game's going to be closer. The St. Louis defense is not bad. It's a divisional game. We saw this last. We got the Cardinals and the Rams.

There'll be holes for Gurley. He'll find his way, especially if he catches some passes because the Cardinals can't guard that for some reason. Okay, so what about Fitzgerald, he's a start, Palmer is a start. Michael Floyd, John Brown. Do you guys have any feelings of going with one or the other, or do they both sitting down? I would play John Brown over Michael. Over Floyd? I would. I'd temper expectations with both, but I would have no problem starting Brown as the three.

I can check to see where we have them exactly on the rankings, consensus-wise. But do you guys have any thoughts on Floyd or Brown or who you prefer? I think I actually prefer Michael Floyd, only from the standpoint of when the Cardinals go up against a very good past defense, they tend to take bigger shots. So, you know, if you want more of a boom game, you saw that right in...

Seattle. The Seattle game. The Seattle game. Michael Floyd, you know, against that good defense, they went with the taller, you know, stronger guy. John Brown was still a bit banged up during that game. True. We have them back to back in our rankings. They're 29 or 28 and 29, 29 and 30. There you go. 29 and 30. And none of us really has different opinions. Jason has them both a little bit higher. Jason has them at the back end of a wide receiver two, which is interesting to have them there. But I think one will end up there.

I think one of these guys is going to end up as a two this week, so I don't mind that. It's just picking which one it's going to be difficult. The Cardinals' defense is a great start. We know that. Is there anybody from, I mean, Tavon Austin had a good bounceback game? He's picking them up on these into rounds and the rushing attempts. Do you start John Brown or Tavon Austin? You are flying with the flimsyest of...

flight machines when you throw Tavon Austin in your lineup, so I'm not comfortable doing it. If the question is Brown versus Austin, it's definitely going to be brown. There's just, there's, it's Todd Gurley or bust for the Rams for me. Yeah, we do not have Austin ranked very high. Anything else from this game? Nope. Running back situation. We know the Cardinals. Oh, what are we doing? I know, I know how to stay there until we need to move on. Who are we talking about? David Johnson.

Back into the limelight. Every expectation that I have is that, you know, you're going to see a pretty good game from David Johnson. Because the workload involvement in the passing game, I do expect there to be a very similar situation to what we saw with Buck Allen on Monday Night Football, where the rookies being involved, but they're going to involve Stefan Taylor, they're going to involve somebody else in the backfield. It's Kerwin. Kerwin Williams got brought back up. Yep. Yes, but I expect David Johnson.

Unless he makes an egregious mistake, he will be the guy. And his opportunity to score, you got to put it very high, at least a 50% chance to get the end zone. So he's very solid play with a massive ceiling. All right. The Falcons head to Tampa Bay to take on the Buccaneers, and the Falcons are in a tailspin, and the Buccaneers are favored in this matchup. This is the Matt Ryan, James Winston.

Extravaganza. Winston has been playing a lot better. He's offered fantasy owners in deeper leagues, two quarterback leagues, a very nice baseline, including a five touchdown game a couple weeks ago. Matt Ryan is going the wrong direction, in-zone interceptions as opposed to end-zone touchdowns. Who would you rather have between those two guys? You're going to start Matt Ryan over Winston? Yeah. I'm going to start Matt Ryan just because of Julio. I see Julio Jones having.

a magnificent game. Anybody want to bet me Matt Ryan versus Winston? I take Winston. I'll take that. I'll take Matt Ryan on that. You just said that. You and Mike too? Yeah. Okay. Two on one. Two on one. Okay. I'll take James. Yeah. I do like James's talent. But the problem is while Atlanta has proven to be what I think we said for a long time, which is.

more of a sham than their beginning record showed. They still do have a very good past defense. I think you're going to see Doug Martin having a better game. So Vincent Jackson, I think, is okay. I have Mike Evans in our league of record. I'm a little bit scared. I think the last time they played the Falcons, he ended up with three catches for 40 yards, somewhere around that.