Championship Studs, #FootClanTitles (+ Week 18 Waivers) - Fantasy Football Podcast for 1/2

What's up, Foot Clan? It is championship basking time. We're going to sit and talk about all the big performances for week 17. And don't worry, you scoundrels with Week 18 title games, we've got your cover to in the WaverWire segment. You don't want to miss a minute of today's show. Make sure you subscribe. We're here all year long. The Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in the fantasy footballers. Feeling good. Feeling great. I've asked the producers to. We are all feeling great. All three of us doing well. Happy to be with you. Oh, come on. What is this nonsense? I did ask Al Borland to just bring a little something. Here we go. I forgot this. Into the studio.

Everyone here's got a trophy. That was mine last year. Just put this right here. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. We got enough room? I think there's room over here. It's very large. Yeah. Congrats, fellas. Let's just kind of one on each side of Jason here. Prouty. I miss you guys. So happy new year, everybody. And what a new year it is, the rain begins. What do you? Okay. I can touch my plaques. Jason's finding his plaques on our trophies. That's fine. No other part of my trophy, though. Okay. Happy to report that after defeating the evil one, Josh, I did finish the job, took care of business. That is great. That is great news. Jason graciously handed me the trophy that he had won last year, which I received and then embraced and then, well, we won't talk about anything else. Yeah, because it's private times. But, and then Mike, Mike defeated me. Yep.

Quite handily in our dynasty league. Your team did me a favor and a few of the guys took the week off. I thought I could do it without CMC and Mooster. Oh, man. The, uh, Camara and everybody else that got hurt. The first goal line opportunity for Chris McCaffrey was like, here we go. Here we go again. Get stuffed. And then the old trickerousky to Debo. And I was very pleased. And then two minutes later, they were back on the goal line. It's like, oh, you are going to get wrecked. I knew. I'm, I'm happy for Mike. He has a famous history of second place in our dynasty league. This is your first title. First first. Your first first. And, um, well, Jason's here too, guys. Yeah. He's having a real special time this morning. Mike and I are walking by each other saying.

Hey, champs. We're just congratulating our championships. I'm happy for you fellas. And Jason, it's been so long since you haven't really got to experience glory. It is my most, my most proud achievement is that since we started this show, we're in four main leagues, a lot more, but there's four main leagues I actually care about. And we've been doing this nine years. And in those four, in those nine years, this is the first time I do not have at least one championship. It sucks. I mean, it sucks. I feel so bad. This is like, well, congratulations. The giant trophies making you feel inadequate. It just, it just maybe it needs to fuel me, make me hungry for next year, you know, but instead I feel dead inside. Congrats to everybody out there that managed to win a Foot Clan title this season. We were, you know, on Twitter talking to so many of you. I jumped in the discord this morning.

and thanked everybody for an awesome year. And obviously there are some of you, scoundrels, I call them, that are in Week 18 championship games. And we're here all week long. This is the final week of five shows, or four shows, I guess, without New Year's, before we shift to two a week. But we're a year-round podcast, so do not go anywhere. We'll be reflecting on the season. We'll be looking to the future. We've got some... The footies are approaching. The footie awards, the nominee show coming up very, very soon. It's the greatest award in the history of humankind. Mike, I don't know about you, but I went over to shopballers.com this weekend. Oh, I have not yet. And I purchased a championship shirt. Okay. Maybe two of them. Okay. Maybe a mug as well. I got them all. I wish they were here right now.

And so shopballers.com, lots of you have been grabbing those shirts. Why am I here today? Honestly, you're superfluous. I should have just let you to run the show. You're entirely unnecessary today. Andy and I are, we're pretty tired. Yeah, from all the celebrating. Yeah. I mean, it was New Year's and we were champs. Ooh, 2024. Yeah. What's a great year. And then. If you need actual swag, which I've also been here, fantasychamps.com, we have a special promotion. You buy a trophy for your league, which you can get engraved with your name. You get a free individual championship ring. You just put the code free ring in, and you get a $59 championship ring for free with the purchase of a championship trophy or belt at fantasychamps.com. So you can swag out. And a couple other shoutouts.

A couple champions to mention at the top of the show. We've got a Megalobole winner. Oh. Oh. Congratulations to, how do you pronounce that username there? What? Oh, Caleb Ski. That is very loud. Celebration music. That is, that was very loud. That feels good. Andrews Jackson. username Caleb Ski won the Megalobol with 216.6.4 points. I thought you were confused in the pronunciation of Andrews Jackson. No. That's pretty easy. It's Andrews. It's really close to your name. Congratulations. And if you didn't hear us tease it earlier, we're going to be making some big improvements to the Megalobole for next season as well. But how many entries? I mean, Andrews Jackson ended up atop.

20,000 people, 20,000 plus people. So you are the champ. I went back. I looked at his draft. It was excellent, solid top to bottom, had some of those, you know, surprise draft picks late. And I believe he had the Lamar Jackson, Mark Andrews Stack, thus the name Andrews Jackson. And then the listener league champion was crowned and it was not any of us, which means M.G. Phil? whose name is Maddie. Congratulations. Took it home. And also, I believe. Call sign Wilson. I believe she had the best record in the regular season too. Yeah, she was very good. Pure domination. Great job. Great job, Maddie. We'll see you back next year. Yeah. So that's what we have here at the top. We're going to get into studs today. We're not going to focus a lot on the duds today. It's going to be the studs, the league winners.

Tomorrow we'll have a chat about some disappointing players and what you view them as going forward. Follow the show all offseason long at the FF Ballers on Twitter. And let's talk some quick news before we get into the studs. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, this didn't help my attempt against Mike. Christian McCaffrey left early with a calf strain. You weren't here in the studio, Mike. Jason and I were here. What did I say, Jason, right before the injury with Christian McAfee? Oh, this was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. He literally turns to me and says, I just love that Christian McCaffrey never leaves the field. I don't think Christian McCaffrey played anymore after that. It was like he had like a snap and a half. Yeah, it was almost like the next snap. He was gone. Elijah Mitchell was in there. He's not going to play in week 18.

Devante Smith, right ankle injury into the game, was on crutches in a boot. It's considered a minor ankle sprain unlikely to play in week 18. Jaden Reed, two touchdowns and then left with a chest injury, going to have more x-rays or more tests. He is fantastic at two things. Do you really good at both? Being hurt and scoring touchdowns. Do you believe my prophecy about him? That he will be the best player. That he's their best wide receiver. Yeah, I think that's, it's fair to say going into next year, Jaden Reed will be the player that you want. But it's, to me, it's like a lost season for Christian Watson. Watson is much more to me the pickings of the situation where I think, I think Jaden Reed will be the Deontay, the finer, more involved player or Watson can still be an explosive player. But that's just how I view it. I think that's a really good comp.

showed a lot of skill this year. He looked great. Every time we watched it, it was like, this is a very good wide receiver, and he's got enough speed where even though he's the slot guy and you don't usually get the top, like for instance, Deontay Johnson doesn't usually have high-end finishes, but Deontay Johnson doesn't quite have that same, you know, trick that Jaden Reed does with his speed. 10 touchdowns. Yeah, I mean, he had, he was awesome this year. All right, more injury news, Trevor Lawrence, hopeful to play in week 18, dealing with the shoulder. Arthur Smith said Taylor Heineke is dealing with an injury. They don't know whether he's going to play. Mike Tomlin said Mason Rudolph will start again. Mike Tomlin, you old dog, you keep doing it. Now, their odds of making the playoffs are very low, very low, like 17%. Yeah, but with this roster, which is not that good, to still have a non-losing season is incredible. And this.

Which he's already accomplished, right? Yeah, that's a done deal. But with regards to Mason Rudolph, this is not, like, can he picket is okay. This is, he's made the move to Mason Rudolph to keep things chugging along where they're going well. And then Alvin Kamara left early with a sprained ankle. Another one of my dynasty running backs. And disappointing. I know a lot of people were counting on him in the big week 17 title games. But we don't have any more information on that injury. But, you know, we got one week left. Any other news you want to talk about, Brooksie? No, sir. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. One other thing I want to mention is we are going to get into all of the playoff scenario discussion tomorrow. So all the week 18 playoff motivation, player incentives.

All of those thoughts. We'll dig into that tomorrow. It should be an exciting final week. I mean, the headline there is like Buffalo wins their game. They are the division winner. Buffalo loses their game. The potential is that they're out of the playoffs. That is very all or nothing. Oh, man. That's amazing. All right. Let's talk some studs. This week's fantasy stud muffins. I thought I would read you the top 10 performers for Week 17 to begin this segment. Number one was Lamar Jackson. Big time. Unbelievable performance. Number two, Jordan Love. Jordan Love. CD Lamb was three. He was awesome. Oh, man. Who's got him in Dynasty? Devon, Jason can't speak on this show. It's really hard. He has nothing to say.

Well, because it's just anger. It's all bad. It's all bad. You say Lamar Jackson. Well, I was in two championships this last week. I played against Lamar and both. I don't, I'm not happy about that. You say, oh, Jordan Love was number two. Oh, it was one of those was a super flex. Guess what two quarterbacks he had? Lamar Jackson and Jordan Love. I'm not, I'm just here to. But we got that Citi Lamb and there's nothing bad you can say about. Yeah. He's great. I had him on my dynasty league. Double champs. Until you two fools. Convinced me to trade him away. How about this? Number four, 21 targets. Devante Adams. The pendulum came back. Yes, yes. So if you want to know how my championship game went, I had Lamb and Adams as my starting two wide receivers. Kyler Murray, big game, beat Philly, ruined our draft pick. Way to go, Kyron Williams. Boy, what a season for Kyran delivered.

All season long when he was healthy. He is going to be very fun to discuss in the off season. Top 10 pick. 100%. That's what I mean. Immediately you go that, and then we're going to be rolling in that NFL draft. Every time the Rams are on the board, you go, uh, uh, they got their guy. They got their guy, man. They, yeah, I mean, I think so. And then, uh, Joe Flacco? Just, just guy. And number seven. I mean, well, it was a really easy matchup, an obvious play against the Jets without your number one wide receiver. Justin Fields and DJ Moore at eight and nine. Oh, that stack that. Oh, man. That stack you created.

would have won Josh the championship this week if he beat you. Oh man, but he wasn't there. And then number 10, Isaiah Pacheco back from injury and just running like a cartoon on every single play. My takeaway from Pacheco is the apparently the time off like rejuvenated his leg speed. This guy is the, is the, he is a dinosaur out there. He's just stomping. He is destroying the ground. Yeah, he hates grass. He's also like on that one play where he goes to the right sideline and he like really gives it his all to just sprint. It's almost like he's doing high knees. It's just like, I'm pumping these legs so hard. Some guys glide like Arian Foster when he ran. It was just, it was smooth. Like how I don't know how he's moving that fast. But Checo, you understand how he's at the speed because he is.

giving everything he has into every single step. Stop. Stop. Every single stop. Every time he takes the ball, it's like he's trying to run faster than he ever has before. And I give him, he's like a jagged piece of glass out there. I mean, incredible. All right. So those were your top ten performers for the week, but let's dig into each position and give credit where credit is due. Starting with, before I get into the week's 17 performances, I just want to mention the, top five quarterbacks for the playoff weeks. That was Lamar Jackson at 31 points a game, Jordan Levitt 28 a game, Baker Mayfield at 27 a game, Joe Flacco just under 27 a game, and Derek Carr. He did it. That's your top five from weeks 15 through 17. Well, at least Lamar Jackson is there. Wasn't Dak, wasn't Josh Allen, wasn't Patrick Mahomes. Jalen Hertz. Wasn't Jalen Hertz.

So, you know, we have a streaming quarterback segment all year long, and four-fifths of the top five quarterback performers were streamers in that category. We had some of those, Baker and Derek Carr this last week, both. And I'm sorry, Joe. Sorry, I didn't believe. So Justin Fields had a big week 17 as well. In fact, he finished three of the last four weeks in the top four at the position. If they keep him, which... Does you see the crowd? No. The Chicago crowd, Channing, we want fields. Really? Yeah. I mean, he played a heck of a game, so the mob is going to be on your side. But they were very vocal in letting Chicago know what they wanted. Chicago has made a vast improvement over the second half of the year. They have. Defensively, they've taken a step forward. And, you know, if you're, if you're Chicago, it's tough. Because half of me is just like, you just got to take the shot at a new quarterback is.

The question that I would ask myself if I'm Chicago is Justin Fields legendary. And do you take the chance of hitching your wagon to maybe a middle of the NFL quarterback versus going for the legendary ceiling? That's thought one. But then thought two is like, well, Justin Fields became much better when you added DJ Moore. And if you added Marvin Harrison in the draft, Marvin Harrison Jr. and DJ Moore? Yeah. Which they could, I mean, they have the number one pick. They can do the move that we were all as Cardinals fans hoping for. You look down the draft board. You go, oh, hey, Patriots, hey, Washington. You sure. You sure need a quarterback, right? Well, give us a bunch of stuff. And then we're going to take Marvin Harrison, which would be absurd. Think about this scenario for a dynasty manager of Justin Fields right now. Two outcomes. Outcome one, you don't know where he's quarterback. If he's a starter. Option two.

They add Marvin Harrison Jr. Those are the two outcomes. And if they do, then he is a great fantasy asset going forward long term because that means they've committed to him. They're going to be too good to have, you know, another one of these top five picks. And his fantasy production will be off the chains. That's exactly right. So you have the possibility. If they add a Marvin Harrison Jr. to Justin Fields team to the Bears, is he a top three pick, quarterback? I mean, I think he should be. It will be worth discussing for sure. Yeah, I mean, he's ahead of Mahomes. Yeah, you would have Allen and Hertz. Yeah, there's a mickey. Two I was going with. Right. And then number three is up for grabs. Yeah, he would be in that tier of what comes after those two guys. Kyler went for 232 and three in this game. In fact, he looked really good. The Cardinals dropped a couple spots in the draft because of beating the Eagles.

Being the playoff-bound Eagles. You realize the Cardinals with four wins this year they beat Dallas and Philly? Those are two of their wins. Well, I mean, if coaching matters, you do have a coach who has some history with that division. I don't know if you heard me on Sunday live, but I- I basically said that I agreed that Arizona was going to be close in this game because Jonathan Gannon- I didn't think they would win. I know. At one point, Andy's like, oh, they're going to win. And I go, oh, they're making it close. They're not going to win. And then 10 minutes hours, we're going to win this. Yeah, we just knew. We knew where it was going. Did you see Josh Allen finished the season? He is now the number one quarterback. That's how he finished the fantasy season, which means he's finished one, one, two one, the last four years. Josh Allen wasn't an amazing game, no passing touchdowns, two rushing. Fine. No Joe Flacco.

Right. He just kept running. Well, and dude, he missed Diggs on a big, I mean, that's another player we're going to talk about tomorrow. Diggs, Kelsey Mahomes, they're going to be brought up tomorrow. So quick break, coming back with some more studs to talk about at the running back position. All right, your playoff league winners at running back, the highest scores through weeks 15 through 17. Christian McCaffrey was number one. That's kind of not fair. Yeah. That's how big his previous two weeks were, especially that first playoff week when Mike and I got McCaffreyed out of the playoffs. Where was the where was the McCaffrey version? Nice. Kyron Williams was number two, 22 and a half points a game. Breece Hall, number three at 20.8 points per game. James Connor, number four at 20.6 points per game. And Jemir Gibbs was fifth. Which.

James Connor in that Philadelphia game. He was fantastic. He ran the gauntlet of fantasy football difficult matchups for the final four weeks of the year and finished as the running back 5-11, 5 and 3 in that stretch. And he was so doggone good. I'm so happy that James Connor was your start of the week this last week, encouraging people to like, look, I know it's a tough matchup. He's just been too good. And he was too good. The Eagles great D-Line. They could not stop him. Every single play was just a huge chunk. And then, of course, every third down, we would take him out. Oh, we kept making fun of that. Failed to pick it up. Yeah. There's one-handed catch for a touchdown. And it's like, oh, that guy should probably, maybe Michael Carter shouldn't be out there, although Michael Carter had one run where he dislocated the ankles of the.

Eagles defender. James Connor, people want to know. He's 28 years old. And I'm curious your answer to this. Is he a keeper option for people? He is absolutely a keeper option. Jonathan Gannon was asked the question point blank about the age cliff. And he said that there are some players like James Connor that you bet on. Well, I mean, you see it right now. The play style of James Connor, right, it's almost more of a Marshawn Lynch type of body capability. It's a tough, it's really hard to tackle that guy. He's not some electric speedster that's going to lose a step and all of a sudden be more difficult. He's a big, strong, tough runner. And so the point is, James Connor is already under contract for a lot of money.

He has proven himself at the end of this year to be really, really good. And he has the support of his coaching staff. It was five a carry this year. Just under five a carry this year. And the devil's advocate, we'll say, is he is a eight and a half million dollar dead, or cap hit for next year. If they did move on, it's a $3 million dead cap. So a savings of five for the team. And yes, he's under contract, but it's zero guaranteed. So. There could be a situation where they go back to the contract room and say, can I just, can I get something to make sure that I have some guaranteed money this year? But it will be, that'll be a storyline to watch for the offseason. What a finish for James Connor. And Isaiah Pacheco, what a finish for him this year. You know, they just kept trusting Pacheco more and more in the offense. Clyde Edwards-Alaher didn't get his swan song. That was upsetting.

And Pacheco ran wild, 18 for 130. Look, Pacheco is a better runner and a better player than Clyde Edwards O'Lear. But that matchup, watching what Pacheco is doing, yeah, Clyde would have had himself a good game. Jerome Ford finished strong on Thursday night. Travis E.N. did what we hoped he would do. Two rushing touchdowns, including a big one. in this game. And first multi-touchdown game for him since week seven. So if you survived his down a couple of weeks, which I don't know how many people did. Yeah, it's tough. And then this was really the surprise of the week on the ground. Naji Harris and Jalen Warren, they ran wild against Seattle. Just eviscerated them. It looks like just under 200 total yards between the two, three rushing touchdowns between the two.

They really couldn't stop Noggy. Every play, it was a very James Connor type of game where it was just like, it just kept working. Every play was like, wow, he's getting an extra two yards past wherever he's touched. Breece Hall ends the air at RB6 against all odds, or against every obstacle, I should say, doesn't have a quarterback to threaten the secondaries, doesn't have an offensive line, but he could catch the ball. At a recovering ACL. All year. long. And I will be very curious. Like I was making fun of the Simeon offense. They were down two scores. It was dump, dump, dump, dump, dump. Uh-huh. I'm curious what a good, what a normal involvement will be. I would expect if I had to project it right now with Aaron Rogers coming back next year that Breeze Hall is still very active in the passing game, not to this degree, and way more efficient in the running game than he was this year and very much in play as a top five option. I would agree across the board. But.

The involvement in the passing game this last month has just been comical. Take a guess what is his 17 game pace at running back from the last month? For targets? Yeah. 17 game base? Yeah. Targets is, you're going to tell me something silly like 150. No, it's going to be higher. No, 153 target pace. That's a running back. Yeah, that's not going to keep happening. That's winning football. There's a lot of people that believe Devante Adams will be on the New York Jazz next year. A lot of people. And so that'll be another discussion that we had because. Soften up the running for him, but it'll take away a ton of those targets. Devon A. Chan, 14 for 107, five targets, got into the end zone. I'll be very curious where Devon A. Chan goes next year in drafts. I'm thinking second round. Sounds about right. And then Khalil Herbert finished strong the last couple of weeks. Jonathan Taylor back into the end zone. So there's your studs for week 17. I hope that the Bears.

clarify running back for us this year. Like it was a pretty muddy mess over this past off season. Yeah, but it was, Foreman ended up getting the healthy scratch. And it was, yeah, the foreman, I mean, there's something off the field going on with Foreman or a, uh, uh, an argument between him and the team because there was some weird social posts and, but anyways, the point being, you knew there'd be value there, but you couldn't feel. really confident, as showed by the ADP of, like, Khalil Herbert was their first running back selected, but he was a very, very late round pick. And he, I mean, he started okay. Then Foreman was great. And then Khalil Herbert has been great the last couple weeks. So hopefully we know. Yeah, hopefully they invest in a running back and make it clear. Right now it looks like Khalil Herbert has one year left on his rookie deal. So he's not paid much. He wasn't a high draft pick. No, he was a sixth rounder.

We'll spend lots of time talking about prospective free agent running backs as well on the show over the next couple of months. At wide receiver, the league winners, the best fantasy scores for the playoff weeks. Yeah, we see you. 15 through 17. Here's the fun. We see you. CD Lamb number one, 23.7. What was that, Teddy? Was that 92? Yes, it was. Oh, man. I was pants off screaming through the home. when that happened because it looked like Dak, who I had the stack, was going to get safetyed on the play, and suddenly C.D. Lam, you know what I love about C.D. Lam, Tyreek, Jefferson? There's only a handful of them. You think that the defense could play defense against them, and they can't. And they were so smart with Citi this season. They move them around all the time. He goes into the slot. Nobody ends up shadowing him because of that. It just means that he can be targeted like crazy. Number two.