Starts of the Week + Week 6 Breakdown, Burgles, Penguins, Boom-Booms

In three games played, Michael Gallops the wide receiver seven in points per game. I think he is a by-low because his name hasn't been established. But on film, I've liked everything I saw from preseason. You guys know that. So it was time to move out of the Odell Beckham waiting game. Yep. You still have to play him because he's O'Dell Beckham. Yeah. And the Brown schedule opens up the second half of the year. I think the next two weeks are hard. They've got the Seahawks. I want to say the Patriots or the Patriots are in two weeks, something like that. After that, they've got a pretty...

easy schedule. So hopefully things do turn around for the Browns. Through five weeks, Landry is the wide receiver 32. Odell Beckham is the wide receiver 35. And the offense has to get rolling. That's all that has to happen. All these players, the chips will fall in the right direction. Ricky Seals Jones is a desperation tight in play. He is receiving targets. He almost had a great catch in this last game, but it's desperation mode. On the other side, you got to start Will Disley at this point. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's a big Montana.

He's an absolute beast. Well, we're saving that. We're saving that for later. Thank goodness. Thank you. Oh, no. Tyler Lockett is the wide receiver 10 on the year. He's out there. Chris Carson, you're starting. What do you do with D.K. Matcalf? Is he a flex play for you this week against Cleveland? This is a... He's in flex consideration. The Brown's defense, I mean, they're ranked fifth against fantasy wide receiver. So it's on paper is not a great matchup. But as...

has been very evident this year Russell Wilson is not to be taken on paper. Well said. Bengals, oh and five, take on the Ravens, three and two. This game's in Baltimore. The Ravens are healthy favorites, 11 and a half points. It's a 48 point over under. If you look at Lamar Jackson right now on this season, he's the quarterback three on the week for us, by the way. He's on pace for 35 passing touchdowns, 986 rushing yards.

He's averaging 10 attempts per game. He's probably as safe as you can get near as safe as you can get at the quarterback position at this point because of the rushing attempts. So you're obviously playing him in a favorable matchup at home. I'm sure you'd like to see Mark Andrews out there. Mark Andrews is missing practice on the reg. Yeah, he's been dealing with the same issue the whole season. Obviously, over the last three weeks, you've been much.

You've been disappointed in Mark Andrews compared to, you know, he gets off to the unbelievable start of the first two weeks. You just assumed he's locked in as an every week, you know, he's leveled up. I think he is still very good. This matchup against the Bengals, if you're looking at, you know, you go, oh, you know, they're top 10 against tight end. Some of that is a mirage. If you look at their last three weeks, they played teams that pretty much don't have.

tight ends. One of those was against the Steelers when they didn't have Vance McDonald. So I think Mark Andrews is a great play. We'll talk about him a little later. All right. Looking at the Bengals side, we have to first say, hey, what are the Ravens doing on defense this year? Last year in 2018, fourth against quarterback, second against running back, sixth against wide receivers. It was the Baltimore Ravens you know and love. This year's not been the case. They're 14th against quarterbacks. 23rd.

in fantasy points against the running back position, 24th against wide receivers. They've given up the fourth most passing yards per game. They're the one defense that actually got beat by Baker Mayfield in that offense. So this is not the same defense, putting the same amount of pressure on the quarterback. That being said, this is a home matchup. So what can you really count on from the Bengals side? Well, for the Ravens, their defense, I mean, they've just been.

hit with injuries like Jimmy Smith. They're hoping he is back soon. Brandon Williams was out the week that Nick Chubb went nuclear on them. So it's... You think it's going to get better. I do believe that it's going to get better. And this is one of those trends where right now the Ravens is a nice mashup for your fantasy players. In six weeks, that may not be the case. And that's why making the decisions five weeks in can be difficult. Yeah. Yeah. And I just also want to bring up, I mean...

The Ravens lost a lot of key pieces in free agency. They did add Earl Thomas, but, you know, when you lose CJ Mosley, Zedarius Smith, those guys. Terrell Suggs departed finally. Yeah, I mean, this isn't the defense of last year. And while, yeah, if they get some of these injured players back, they'll be better than what we've seen. I just don't take the Baltimore Ravens as a super difficult matchup on defense right now.

All right. I didn't mention Marquis Brown. I mean, obviously Mark Eingram's in. Markies Brown is dealing with the ankle injury. If he plays, are you playing him? I imagine. Yeah, but I'm adjusting expectations with Lamar Jackson. He's not going deep as much. Like we talked about this, where those first few weeks it looked like Lamar Jackson was going to be right there with Patrick Mahomes, just slinging the ball all the time. But that disappeared quickly. Tyler Boyd on the other side, would you rather start Tyler Boyd than Marquis Brown? Yes. Yeah. Okay. What about Auden Tate?

Do you chase the touchdown last week? Is he still a desperation play? I mean... Yes, he's still a desperation play. Flex at best, though. Yeah, I don't think you're chasing the touchdown because, you know, we were talking about him as a desperation play before the touchdown. In the same situation exists where John Ross is out, AJ Green is out. He's a wide receiver two for a team that you assume is going to have to throw the ball a lot who's playing with a...

faster pace of play. So, yeah, he's not the prettiest start, but, you know, you to throw him in there. He caught a touchdown, and he also early on in that game dropped what would have been an easy touchdown. So it was, he was almost done for a big game. All right. We're going to do one more matchup on today's show before we hit the starts of the week. We'll cover the rest of the matchups on tomorrow's podcast episode. Saints, 4 and 1, taking on the Jags at 2 and 3.

The Saints are one-point road favorites. It's a 44.5 point over under. Teddy Bridgewater had a big game last week. It's his first real relevant game at the position. He's kept the Saints in the win column. Four touchdowns last week. Gardner Minshu. We have Minchu ranked higher than Bridgewater this week. He's at home. He's got a 9-to-1 touchdown to interception ratio so far. His fantasy finishes.

quarterback 15, 15, 16, 13, and then last week, quarterback 8, is that correct? So it's been improving. I'm sure he feels more comfortable with the offense. He has a weapon DJ Chark. The Saints defense has given up fantasy points to the quarterback and wide receiver position, not really to the running back. How do you feel about Gardner in this matchup? You know, I don't love Gardner here necessarily. I know, Mike, you're a little bit higher on him. He's been...

consistent. He's not been, you know, a quarterback 25 ever, no bust game. He has not exploded, but he's also been, he's been very safe for you. Yeah, I mean, in fantasy, in a normal league, I'm expecting, like, I don't want to start someone that I don't think is going to be top 12. You're always wanting to at least have a top 12 quarterback on the week. You know, if you're 15, okay, it wasn't the worst week in the world, but it's not winning. And that's kind of where I see.

the Jaguars. I think that this is going to be a lower scoring game personally. You've got, you know, two teams that have good pieces on defense. Jalen Ramsey was back to practice. He's playing this week. The owner vowed he's already playing. Yeah. So that's been a big loss for the Jacksonville Jaguars defense last few weeks. So Teddy Bridgewater, yeah, you had a great week last week. I don't think he's going to have a great week here. This is just a game that I.

I don't see being a fantasy bonanza. I think that's fair. Right now, the Saints have given up the 10th most passing yards. It's interesting. Everybody wants to talk about DJ Chark, and that's fair, right? He's been excellent. Yes. It's interesting, though, that DJ Chark and D.D. Westbrook have the same target share on the season at 21.9%.

DJ Chark is ranked much higher for most analysts, but is D.D. a sneaky start here where you have a slot cornerback in PJ Williams that has given up the third most fantasy points to slot wide receivers. He's not good. No, he's not. And D.D. is good. And D.D. is a good wide receiver. It will be interesting to see, like, Marshawn Lattimore doesn't always shadow. But in the games where they've played against big time wide receivers,

like Hopkins and this past week of Evans. Don't talk about that. Oh, I apologize. Thank you. Will DJ Chark get that treatment? I'm very interested to see what the Saints choose to do. But your point is... If he does, though, it could be a problem. Yes. A problem for him. Yes, but that's where D.D.D. is going to... I mean, you saw it from Chris Goblin last week as he went off. D.D.D. is a really sneaky start here.

Jared Cook or O.J. Howard this week. Jared Cook in this matchup or O.J. Howard. What if your fantasy league gives you points for foul ball catches, like at baseball games? Is he going to do it again? Like, can he in the middle of a game do that? I don't think you can retroactively apply that. No, that's a good point. But Jared Cook, six targets each of the past two weeks. He's behind Camara and Michael Thomas.

Teddy Bridgewater is going to Jared Cook. Yeah, I would go cook over Howard. Starts of the week. All right, week six, starts of the week time. Mike, I'm going to hand you the baton. Let's start at the quarterback position. Kyler Murray. He's up on the wall for a reason with the signed jersey from pristine auction. Atlanta. That is the matchup for Mr. Murray this week. They are giving up the most points to the quarterback position.

And my notes here say when Marcus Marieto goes 227 and 3, RIP.

To your defense. To your D. I should have finished it that way. Yeah, that would have been better. I'm going to take the landing. The quarterback right on the other side of the field. This game looks like you've got two defenses. Juicy. They can't hold up. So Matt Ryan, who had an explosive game last week, you were disappointed a little bit over the previous few weeks. He's had some of those quarterback 15 type of performances. But he's going to be a monster this week. Whenever I think about, like if they wanted to throw to Julio Jones every play, they can.

Who in the Arizona Cardinals can guard a Mohammed Sanoo, let alone a Calvin Ridley, let alone a Julio Jones. Sanoo is real sneaky this week. So, I mean, it's one of those situations where these two quarterbacks are going to be great. You want pieces in this game. All right. I'm actually going to go a little deeper and throw the trust and confidence at James Winston.

I'm going to do the London matchup for James Winston against Carolina. They just gave up 28 to Gardner Minshu. Trust is a powerful thing, and you are seeing a trust both from, when you look at Bruce Herons and what he's doing in this office, James is doing what his Bruce Harriers' quarterbacks do. He's averaging the highest yards per attempt, the highest touchdown percentage. He has two elite wide receivers, and he's going to be put in a position.

to where, you know, at the end of the day, Bruce Ariens is going to trust his passing game. You saw last week, we didn't talk about it in the matchup today. Maybe we should have. But Ronald Jones, Peyton Barber, Daray Agoon-Bowale. There's like 33% of the snaps each. And so... You can't trust any of them right now. No, so I'm going to put my confidence in James Winston having the opportunity to air it out in this one, especially after seeing, you know, Gardner. So what do you guys think at the running back position?

Well, I'm going with, this is more just to save my Twitter mentions because people are going to be asking, do I play Austin Echler? Yes. Yes, you continue to play Austin Echler. Oh, you're doubling up. I am. Two straight weeks. I am. Because all the reports are. The pat on the butt. Melvin Gordon, he's going to be more involved in the game plan, as he should. He's the number one running back for this team still working his way back. But Echler is, he's going to get that, he's going to get attempts. He's going to get.

targets. He will still be involved in this game plan. And against the Steelers, I think that a way that the Chargers will have to move the ball is going to be dumping it off to Austin Echler. So when you're, I think it's interesting. I mean, obviously everybody who's had Austin Echler is riding that wave at this point. But when you look at Echler and I'm still hanging 10, man. Let's see, let's see you have to make some decisions though. Okay. Echler for a lot of teams was acquired later.

turned into a superstar. So you have other players that you're saying, okay, when Echler falls out of favor, when Echler's no longer the guy that he's been, I'm going to put this player in the lineup. Would you be playing Austin Echler or would you be playing Sony Michelle tonight against the Giants? Sony. Those are guys back to back in our rankings, so I'm not being fair to you. Sony by a hair. What about a guy like Philip Lindsay who's had some really big weeks? I don't like the matchup, so I'm going to go with Austin Echler.