Starts of the Week, Wk 3 Matchups, Boom Boom

Let's debate this because I am of the conviction. He's taking victory laps already. He needs to do it. He hasn't taken a single snap. He needs to do it now. Jason needs to take any pre-victory lap he can because he's going to end up wrong here. I'm going to end up right. I'm without a doubt going to end up right this week and next week. If you want to talk long term and say. That's how we've talked about Aaron Jones is long term. No, we were talking yesterday on the show about Aaron Jones is coming back and I said.

Look, Aaron Jones is probably their best running back as far as just talent. You can remove the word probably from that sentence. Okay, he's the best running back. Thank you. But Mike McCarthy is not good. It doesn't matter because Jamal Williams is going to be the one that Mike McCarthy has on the field, especially right now while Aaron Rogers is still dealing with the knee injury and you need your best pass blocker there. And then to have him come out and say that Aaron Jones, who's a good player and he likes will be secondary.

Why would we not believe that? Well, it's not about believing it or not believing it. It's just common sense. You don't need to say it. A guy's coming off of suspension. Two guys have played two games. The coach is not going to say, well, Aaron Jones is going to walk into a starting role. He never even said that in the preseason about Aaron Jones. I think what Mike and I believe is what happens in football is the best player plays. And when the poop hits the fan, you just put your best players out there to score points. That's all you do. If only that were always true.

But it's not. Kenyon Drake would be a workhorse. It's not always, yeah, there's certainly instances where it is not always true. But there's, I believe for the, for the Packers, there will be only so much time they can watch Jamal Williams and then watch Aaron Jones get sprinkled in and make an impact with chunk plays. He averaged 5.5 yards per carry last year. Jamal Williams.

his goal list is 3.9. I mean, that's, every morning he wakes up, he says, I hope I can get to 3.9. That's a big difference. I believe he can do it though. Yeah. Well, that's, you're in his corner and I get it. I think it'll take two weeks. So that leaves you three quarters of a season to, I'm buying Aaron Jones. I made trade offers for Aaron Jones. I like it. That's where I'm at. Long term.

Long term. Certainly has the highest ceiling. Not this week. If he gets the role, I mean, I like Aaron Jones. I just don't believe he will get that role that you guys believe. I believe it's a 50-50 shot. He has more fantasy points than the other two this week. Oh. On one play. Man. Because that's all take. I know you won't water bet on a 50-50, but.

No, I won't, but I'm just throwing it out there. Jarvis Landry listed questionable for tonight's game. He's expected to play. If you watched Hard Knocks and you listen to him talk about playing. Contagious. I don't think he's going to miss. He better not. No. He doesn't have a choice. If he misses, everyone else is going to start missing games. Because it's contagious. It's contagious. Anything else you guys want to cover in the news? That is rough. That is rough to now be publicly known for that.

Yeah. For that speech, which you better not miss a game. It's just when you take that stance, if you're marked as a cue, you better play. If you're marked as a cue, you better. Right. Yep. That's good for fantasy owners, right? You're starting him tonight. Yes. All right. Let's move on. Fantasy forecast. We have, we've got your Thursday night reminder. If you are playing Jarvis Landry tonight, take him out of your flex position, slot him right into that wide receiver position.

Don't find yourself backed into a corner on Sunday with some sort of freak fluke injury. And today's game is the type of game that has flex players. Carlos Hyde, Blal Powell, Isaiah Crowell. Those are players that you probably have in your flex. Get them out, put them in your running back, or wide receiver if it's a wide receiver. Someone asked me on Twitter when I was talking about, I don't remember which player hide or someone as, yeah, he's flex worthy this week. And they're saying, Mike.

Why are you telling people to put him in your flex? And I'm saying, no. I'm speaking of him as a flex player, as in he is the third option for your team. So if you're starting him, though, he needs to go into the running back position. All right, the Saints, they travel to Atlanta to take on the Falcons. Falcons are three-point favorites. Both teams are one-and-one. And this game has a 53 point over-under. Now, the interesting thing is, is last year when both of these teams played.

Both the games hit the under. They were not the fantasy explosions you expected. They were defensive battles. Atlanta won 20 to 17, New Orleans won 2313. Doesn't mean that's going to take place this year. Obviously, Vegas has it as a high-scoring affair. But it's been interesting this season. The Saints have not found it yet. They've not been the team you expected them to be.

Now, they came back to win against the Browns, but they were being dominated most of that game. And one of the more interesting facts so far in this season. Saints are dead last in the league and rushing yards per game. They're normally the league leader by a lot. Now, no Mark Ingram. They've been playing from behind. I mean, so maybe that's why. But right now.

I don't think the Saints are going to win this game. I was going to ask you, because I know, Andy, to give you a little to-toot, you are usually very above average when it comes to calling the game lines. And so I was curious your tape because I had a hard time here, you know, deciding you've got the Falcons at home, but the Saints have to get a, I mean, both these teams.

Really need a victory in conference. One thing that's interesting about, you know, you look at last year, these were hopeful barn burners and it didn't work out. But if you think about it, last year, both of these defenses were far better than the expectation going into the season. The Saints defense was great. The Falcons defense was very good. And now you have the Falcons who have lost two key pieces from their defense. And the Saints, like you just said, don't have it together.

So I'm still believing that this will be a high scoring. I took the over on this game, and I want all the pieces on both sides of the ball. Yeah, since week 12 of last year, the Saints have allowed an average of 29.8 fantasy points per game to wide receivers. That's dead last in the NFL, and Julio averages 90 yards a game against the Saints. You're not doubting the Julio start, but can you flex a guy like Mohammed Sunu? Can you play a guy like Austin Hooper? Man.

I mean, I would rather not. I guess when I say fire up all the pieces, I'm speaking of, you know, all the normal. Tevin Coleman, I'm totally fine with Matt Ryan, Breeze, Camara, Michael Thomas, you know, all of the main guys. If there was one player I was going to try to take a shot on, it would probably be Calvin Ridley. Interesting.

Calvin over Sunu. Hmm. What do you guys think about that? I wouldn't myself, but I get it. More explosive, more exciting. Four for 64 with a touchdown this past weekend. Yeah, it was a good performance for the rookie. He did play on 55% of the snaps, which was actually down from week one. Man. Yeah, Sunu hasn't had 20 yards yet.

I mean, I know it's only two games, but, you know, 18 yards, 19 yards. I don't think I can take that leap to make him a starter. Ted Ginn or? Ted Ginn. Okay. I really like Ted Ginn in this match. So, Kevin Coleman, this is interesting. Graham Barfield on Twitter tweeted this out. He's played five career games now where Devonta Freeman has missed or played less than 5% of the snaps. Here's his averages in those games. Good.

Good averages? Yes. Yeah, 70% snap rate, 19.8 touches per game. Yeah. 95 yards from scrimmage, almost 16 fantasy points. Yeah. You are locked and loaded starting to Evan Coleman. 100. The real question is whether as a fantasy owner you'd go try to grab him, would you trade a season long piece to get to Evan Coleman because you worry about Devont to Freeman's availability season long? Like, because let's say Freeman, look, he's not going to play this week, most likely. He could miss more time.

But even if he comes back, this is a residual injury. So does Tevin Coleman snap counts? Are they consistent to the point where you're like, man, this guy's fine to play every week, even with Freeman? Yeah, I would not doubt it. I have tried to make some offers for Freeman. It's really for Tevin Coleman. It's very difficult because there's a real tear break between the guys that truly are season-long starters and then the guys that maybe.

Take Carlos Hyde, right? You try to trade Carlos Hyde for Tevin Coleman. Most people still don't really fully believe that Carlos Hyde will be a season-long star. That's an interesting trade right there. That one's very interesting. I would absolutely trade away Carlos Hyde to receive Tevin Coleman. Would you trade away Marshawn Lynch to get Tevin Coleman? I think so. I think that Marchand's average games compared to Tevin Coleman's games once Freeman is back.

won't be that far off. So if I can capitalize on two or three or maybe four huge games in the meantime, I would do it. Mike, would you rather have Chris Thompson or Kevin Coleman? That's a really good question. I would rather have Chris Thompson. Yeah, I lean Thompson. All right, before we get to the rest of, oh, you have some? Yeah, just are you guys wanting to, let's say you're in a league, 12 team.

Six bench spots. So a little bit deeper. Are you stashing Edo Smith Falcons running back? I'm not. Okay. I mean, he was nine for 46. No. Okay. No. Look, if you give me more news about Freeman, yeah. Yeah. If Freeman ends up. Well, that's the thing is you would have to grab him before the news breaks. I don't think he's worth it. Okay. Um, I'd rather have Echler.

for example. Yes. Someone like that. Sure. Before we get into the rest of the matchups, we've got starts of the week coming up. I'm excited about that. Let's thank Seat Geek for sponsoring today's show. We all know this reality. Getting tickets online can be far too complicated. Sometimes the process, making sure that they're, you know, verifiable tickets that you're not getting scammed. Look, there are hundreds of different sites out there.

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And for Fandau, new users are going to get a $20 bonus when they make their first deposit. Come play with us at Fandual.com slash fantasy footballers. That's Fandualt.com slash fantasy footballers. The two and all broncos travel to Baltimore to take on the one-on-one Ravens. The Ravens are a difficult team to rank as well. They played Buffalo. You're distorting all of the statistics when you play Buffalo this year if you've only played two games. Now the Ravens are five and a half point home favorites.

44 point over under and lots of question marks through both of these lineups. Confidence levels. Look, we're going to talk through Philip Lindsay, Royce Freeman, John Brown, Alex Collins. Like there aren't a lot of must-start players on either of these teams. There's a lot of maybe starts. So what do you think the biggest storyline is? Because both of these teams have defenses that are historically known as great defenses and both seem like they're more, maybe they're good. Maybe they're not great.