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

You know, it's a little worrisome to me to see how Winston operates against that cover 3D. I just don't think the Falcons defense can hold up long term. I think we've seen the breakdown on the offensive side of the ball. I think I heard a stat that, you know, the Falcons aren't taking deep shots. That's one of the problems.

Believe it or not, I think Matt Ryan is like fourth in the league in completing those passes, but they're like 14th in attempts. So like they have the fourth most completions, but they're just not taking those deep shots, which hurts Julio owners. His touchdown receptions have been super low over the last seven weeks, which obviously you're starting Julio. That's not in debate here. I start Mike Evans. The questions become, do you start Vincent Jackson? Where would he fit in?

The bucks, like you said, they rushed the ball well. I think you said Doug Martin, right? Yeah, Doug Martin, I think, is going to be good. Let me give you a couple stats here against the quarterback for the Falcons, because they started the year off giving up plenty of points, plenty of yards. Now, the last half of the year, how have the Falcons been playing? Good or bad? Bad, right? They've been losing. As a team, they've been bad, yeah. Sorry, Falcons. Sorry. But here's...

At that same time, while they have been losing games, their defense, this is the yards they've given up through the air in the last five games. 174, 213, spoiler alert, that's the high. The high is 213 yards. I like that you warned me, or you gave me a spoiler alert on this. Yeah, 185, 177.

187. So this is where I don't see James Winston having a huge game. I don't see really Evans or Jackson having a huge game. One of them is probably going to catch a touchdown. It's, you know, it's playing craps to decide who's going to do it. You probably only have one on your team. So if you want to roll them out, you can. But I would prefer to stick with the running game here for Tampa Bay. Yeah, we know that the bucks, they're averaging 141 yards on the ground. That's third in the league,

a tremendous pace. So I love Doug Martin this week. And Jacob Tammy is a sneaky start. He's had a couple of good games, and one of his good games was against Tampa Bay. Now we do say that whatever has happened can happen in reverse. It's one of our most wise, wise saying. Whoever said that is really bright.

So I'm not guaranteeing that, but he's just, if you're an Eifford owner and you need a handcuff. Yeah, you sure. Yeah, you could do worse than Taylor. You know, speaking of that, and I've really been following the news, this is not probably worthy of a breaking news, but Austin Severian Jenkins has been practicing and is not cleared to play. So by next season, he might be practicing in full.

He's only been able to practice for about two months now. Did you realize, actually, I found this out. This entire time, he's been practicing chess. He's been learning how to play chess. He really needs to practice. He had nothing to do with football. Yeah, so, you know, deeper league, league where you get, you know, points for benched guys. I do have a little bit of breaking news. I just, I just check. Well, no, it's not quite in that category. This is more, you know, very good information for the Lacey owners. Lacey came out and said this when they interviewed him.

I don't feel as though that's something I should get into yet. When I asked about his roles being scaled back. When I heard that, when I heard that, the first thing that went through my head was like, was there something outside of practice? Like, is there a suspension coming? Well, I mean, he said, Eddie didn't have a great week, so we went with James. That is another, you know. A.k.a. something. There was a pie. And McCarthy and Lacey were going in. Oh, my goodness. And Lacey took the last piece.

That's just rude, Eddie. I have different directions I could go with this. I'm going to choose the high road. I'm going to head back to the game previews. I'm not going to go anywhere near Andy Reid. All right. Andy Reid. The Broncos and... Wait, I actually have legitimate breaking news. Hit the button. We got it. Breaking news. Alan Hearns officially ruled out. He's... Sorry, Jason. I know. I know. I thought he was going to do it. So...

He's officially ruled out. I still give him a 25% chance to play. Yeah, exactly. All right, go on. All right, we're moving on. Denver heads to San Diego in my... Andy's Almost Upset of the Week. Wow. Go ahead and put Brock Osweiler on the road against the team that can score some points if need be. And you've got my almost upset of the week. The Chargers are four-point underdogs at home.

Not a guarantee here. The original game. But I think it can happen. It's really going to depend on what the defense for the football chargers can do. I think it's possible that they upset the Broncos at home in this matchup because of the offensive production from the Denver side. Some people have written in and they said, someone wrote in and they said they had Osweiler and, you know,

Foles or something as their quarterback options this week. I'm like, no, there's got to be somebody else that you have. Osweiler's not, they picked up Osweiler because he was a new name, is what I'm saying. And Osweiler, just to understand, is not somebody that we're recommending in any real context for fantasy football because of the formation of the offense and the numbers involved in the running game and what they're doing with Osweiler. I will say this, 10 out of 10 times I'm going to recommend Brock Osweiler over Nick Fultz. Yeah, that's, that's legit.

I agree. I'm going to recommend Cecil's shorts at quarterback.

over Nick Foles. That's funny. What Brock Osweiler does do well for the offense, though, is he changes the running game for Denver. And what San Diego does not do well is play defense against the running games. So this is why I believe C.J. Anderson is your start of the week. Is that correct? You're darn tooting it is. You want to hear what C.J. Anderson's games difference with Brock Osweiler under center?

Versus Peyton Manning? Versus Peyton Manning under center? I would love to hear that. Well, in an average scoring system, with Peyton Manning 6.3 fantasy points per game. Okay. That sounds like the first round bus that we drafted. Yeah, it's not good. With Brock Osweiler, 18.75 fantasy points a game. So, I mean, he had more touchdowns, obviously. That's in it. Small sample size, two games. But when you watch, you could see that the running game, and this is true for Hillman, too. I'm not completely on.

CJ Anderson as the guy, I think it comes down to the carry splits. And if CJ ends up getting 60% of the carries, I think he's going to have a really good game. I'm curious how the carries break off, but I do think Hillman and CJ, the combination, whoever gets the ball for Denver is going to run well against San Diego. Here's not, yeah, the only thing I'll say about that, there's not.

a situation where that's guaranteed to happen where one guy is just going to get the ball. If they straight up split, would you start them both? Is a real good question. If they straight up split, I would start C.J. Anderson happily. But would you start? And I would start Ronnie Hillman unhappily. Really? Yeah, I think I could flex him in. Because I don't think he's going to have as good a game. I'm saying if they both get 15 carries, which I think is a perfect number, they could both get 15 carries this game. I think C.J. Anderson ends the game with a very good fantasy day. And I think Ronnie Hillman ends the game with a serviceable.

Fancy day. Because C.J. Anderson, with the 15 carries, is likely to get three or four catches where Ronnie Hillman might get one. Yep. That's a great point. So what we're breaking down here is once C.J. Anderson started playing with B.O., he's been a lot better. Like the nickname. Yeah. I mean, it kind of makes sense. He smelled like B.O. for the first half of the season, so it's hard to get back on that. But once he started playing with him, that makes sense. Good analysis. All right, Danny Woodhead.

Kind of back on, you know, a little bit more involved last week, six for 39 through the air after a weird one reception week. Do we flex Danny Woodhead? Yeah, you flex him, but you don't. The Chargers, come on, man. Because you know that they're going to run Melvin Gordon into the Denver defensive front like 16 times. Yeah. He's going to get about 25 yards.

I think he'll pick up plenty of yards. No. He'll pick up 50. If you want to make a water bed about 25 yards, I'm happy to do it. 25 yards is being very hyperbolic. Yes. Melvin Gordon will do what Melvin Gordon do, which is 16 carries 58 yards and no touchdowns. You're probably right. I tried to get Jason into a, I was willing to bet Jason that Melvin Gordon would score a touchdown as long as I took one water if he didn't, and he took 10 if he did. That's a little too far odds.

Up on the air again. I'll give you three to one odds. Three cups to one. How many touchdowns has he scored in the history of his professional career? Zero. Okay. Yeah. So since he was born, he's had zero touchdowns as an NFL player. Is that what you said? But 10 to 1 odds is on something like that is just ridiculous. 10 to 1 touchdown odds, even though through 11 games he scored now. That's a horrific bet. I disagree. It's horrific. Of course you do. You're trying to make it. So make it 10 to 10.

No, that's ridiculous. Oh, how that's ridiculous? Because he hasn't scored. Do you know how odds work, Mike? I do. You actually, the odds favor the situation whether it's going to happen or not. Right, but 10 to 1 is way off.

You know, 3 to 1 is perfect. 10 to 1 on whether Gordon... I bet you... 3 to 1 is a... 3 to 1 is perfect. And going 10 to 1 is a coward's way of getting out of the bet. Oh, whatever. You would take... Whatever. If you believe in that bet, you'd go 3 to 1. That's ridiculous. I'm not doing that. Oh. What I am going to do is I'm going to curiously take a look at the prop bets for that game and find out what the actual prop bet is for Gordon scoring a touchdown. And then I'll give it to you. And then we'll see if... I like that. We'll see if Jason...

has what it takes. Thank you for getting involved though, Mike. We really appreciate that. So, uh, give me some more context. While you do that, I'll talk about, uh, one of the fascinating points of this game. So what you, what you have here. That's Andy doing doing work. Look at us. You have the San Diego Chargers who are one of the highest passing rate, like they pass the ball.

nonstop. I know that they have been giving Melvin Gordon a decent amount of touches, but they still end up with so much production through the air. And yet you're going up against the number one through the air defense who's been giving it up on the ground. So what is? They get so confused by that. They give fantasy points on the ground because yards per game, the Broncos are second. Fair enough. Fair enough. Which bodes well for Melvin Gordon getting a touchdown, right? I mean, just history repeats. The only thing that Melvin Gordon needs will be a

a 50-yard pass interference call on Malcolm Floyd that puts him at the one, and then they run him three times, four times. If they run him four times from the one, he'll score. There you go. So you make that point, and you don't back up a 10-to-1 bet. Because 10-to-1 is just ridiculous. Akees-Taly loves pass-interference calls. I mean, Andy, you know, I only bet when the odds are ever in my favor. Yeah. Well, we already have one with Yeldon. Does anybody know about that? Because I think we made it on the Patreon Mailbag show. Yeah, the Yelden bet is what sparked this bet.

rushing touchdown. If he gets a rushing touchdown this game, I take three waters, and when he doesn't get a rushing touchdown this game, Andy takes a water. If he gets in through the air, it's a null bet. That's perfect. That's a perfect bet. I can't find the... So Antonio Gates, we are comfortable starting him. He is Jason's start of the week as a more of a confidence boost saying, we believe he can get it done.

What about Demarius Thomas versus Emmanuel Sanders? If you're looking at that situation, what are you doing? D.T. to bounce back. I do. I don't know how much they're going to need those guys if this game's going to be run dependent. But I would play, I would play Demarius Thomas over Emmanuel Sanders this week. Because Sanders had a pretty good rapport going there with Brock Osweiler. I'm looking up the targets. Well, we've seen two different games, right? I mean, you obviously had Demarius Thomas get plenty of targets last week.

13 targets. He got 13? Yeah. Oh, that's right. And he caught one ball. So it wasn't for a lack of targeting Demarius Thomas. I forgot how bad it was. Now, if it's just a cold weather thing, obviously San Diego is going to be a great change of weather. What is that condition you have when you smoke a lot, that disease you get? Bronchitis? No. Oh, oh.