Starts of the Week, Wk 4 Matchups, Mark Wahlberg Weighs In

Without, you know, this was not team announced and the media was asking him questions. And he just said, I'm definitely not getting back before the bye week, which is in week eight. He's a unique cat. Yeah, he is. He's not afraid to sit out games. That's for sure. Tomorrow is Friday. On Friday we do in and out and we'll cover all of the injuries that have been reported this week. Guys miss practice. Some take practice off to recover from something small.

But all these guys missed practice yesterday. John Brown, Juju Smith-Schuster, Keenan, Matt Brita, Darren Sproles, J. Ajai, Larry Fitzgerald, Doyle and Ebrun, and Joe Mixon. Yep. So we'll cover those in more detail tomorrow. We'll cover them in their matchups as well. Mild worries about most of that list, but everything goes away if they practice today. You know, Wednesday is the veteran day off, so you can't read too much into injuries then. I'd say of that list, the moderate concern.

Mixing's probably not going to play. Yeah, but the moderate, from mild to moderate would be J. Ajai. Just pay attention because this guy is just, can't get on the future. You guys have any updates for the Thursday night game tonight, Vikings Rams? Well, it sounds like Dalvin Cook is going to play. I'm curious, Jason. I have, yes. If Dalvin Cook plays, if he's active, I think that you should start Dalvin Cook. Absolutely. I was going to prose the question to you guys as well. Do you disagree? I do.

I would try to find another option. If you check out 4-4s, they have a schedule-adjusted fantasy points against, and the Rams are, I'm sorry, yes, the Rams. They're number one in the league in terms of stopping the running back position. Yeah. And therefore...

I am afraid because if he's back, does that mean he's got a full workload? Maybe he does enough in the passing game to make you happy. That's what it comes down to for me is how many receptions will Dalvin Cook get? How much work will Latavis? I will say there's definitely a chance he has a good game. No doubt. Like, I mean, I'm talking hypothetically here. Dalvin Cook or like Tyler Lockett?

You would clearly go, Dalvin. I would go Lockett in that situation. Wow. In a flex. If I already had two running backs in there, I'd probably not take the chance on the injury, the hamstring. You could get nothing from Cook if he re-injured it. Yeah. I don't hate it. Tyler Lockett has been, one, he's been crushing it. And we know that.

Tyler Lockett has burnt Patrick Peterson and company in the past. I'd play Philip Lindsay over Dalvin Cook. Here's the one thing that's important. If you are planning on playing Dalvin Cook, you need to make sure that you are monitoring. This is going to be pregame. This is tonight. So you can't just say, oh, they're optimistic he's going to play. So plug them in the lineup.

Leave them out of your lineup for now. And when it's, you know, 30 minutes or, you know, usually it's announced an hour before kickoff, whether or not that player will be active and starting. Right. Then put him in. If you play him, play him in your running back spot, not your flex spot. That's right. And I have an announcement for the world. Okay. I'm excited. Yesterday, there was a great discussion of talking about my dynasty team where I have Ryan Fitzpatrick and I have Kirk Cousins. Yes, on the show.

You were indecided. Akeep Taleb is on IR. It looks like Marcus Peters will not play tonight. So I will be playing Kirk Cousins. Join me. Join me. I am joining you. I'm playing Kirk Cousins in our listener league. I'm not joining you. Okay. All right. Sunday morning. Don't forget Sunday live with Mike one hour before kickoff.

Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Periscope, Twitch, Mike is live every Sunday morning. Make sure you follow us on those platforms so you can tune in, get some last minute start and sit decisions. We're going to get into the fantasy forecast. Before we do that, I want to thank Pristine Auction for sponsoring today's podcast, one of our longest-term partners, one of the absolute best websites on the Internet, because you can get authentic sports memorabilia at an incredible price from...

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All right, week four, the week that Jason's League of Record team gets on track. I sure hope so, but if it doesn't matter. You know, the people have really rallied around me. Twitter, emails, I thank you. Come along for the ride. Let's take down some unexpected championships this year. Something similar happened to me two years ago on the show. That is absolutely true. I had an 0 and 4 start. It might have been 0 in our League of Record, and I doubled down. I went in, not out.

I didn't trade away players. I traded four players. And you did well. And I made the playoffs. Yes, you made the playoffs. Did well there. Did not win the championship. So I'm going to one up you this season. Brooks and I will take it down. All right. Let's start here with this matchup. The two and one Bengals against the one and two Falcons. Falcons are five and a half point favorites in this one. 52 point over under. Delicious. That has Jason salivating.

No doubt. There are a lot of players we love in this game. Now, things are trending the right direction for A.J. Green to play. And I think that there is a lot of dependency on A.J. Green, not only for the over and under, but for Andy Dalton, right? Yeah, I love Andy Dalton. He was my stream of the week. I'm doubling down in a section later in the show. But A.J. Green plays a huge part of that, but he's...

His pelvis is apparently doing better, his groin. So we're going to see some AJ Green action. I'm confident in Andy Dalton, assuming that AJ Green plays. Matt Ryan. There's a difference between the pelvis and the groin. I know. We talked about he entered his groin, and I'm just reading off the document here. Why does it say pelvis? Well, they're very close together. Yeah, I don't know if you know that. They're near each other. A lot of things in your body are near each other. It doesn't make them the same thing. Wait a minute. I mean, I have kidney problems.

That's not your spleen. That's what? No, everything is pelvis related. That's what it is. It's your core, man. To a certain degree that, ask Elvis. Don't you know it's all about it? That is right. Everything really is pelvis related. Don't you have to be like 65 to hurt your pelvis? Isn't that the rule? Ah, 65. My pelvis. All right. It is the groin, by the way. I mean, that's, it was the.

Strain groin. The reason for this over under and the reason why it could come to fruition and have great fantasy output is the combination. It's all Falcons related. It's Matt Ryan at home. He has been on fire. He's just been awesome. You stay in those flames. You start him. And it's the combination of Matt Ryan who's been on fire leading the offensive scores left, right and center mixed with...

The unbelievable bad luck that the Falcons have had with season-ending injuries to their best defensive players. That defense is wrecked. So you can now score on the Falcons and you're going to have to to keep up with the Falcons. That's why it should be a wonderful time for all. For all. Here's something interesting because through the first three weeks, we have the top five quarterbacks, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Patrick Mahomes.

Drew Breeze, Matt Ryan, Big Ben. Percentage chance right now, based on the fact the Falcons defense is struggling, Calvin Ridley's emerging. What do you think about Matt Ryan as the top five end-of-season quarterback? What percentage chance do you give that based on the way things are going? I give it a decent chance. I mean, I would give it at least a quarter.

You know, I think. Well, I'd go higher than that. I'm going at least 40%. Really? There's a legitimate chance because we've seen Matt Ryan dominate before. And what it took was a lot of what's happening now, right? It took second year in an offensive system. That's what we have now. I mean, I pumped the brakes on the Falcons last season when Sarkesian came in. This offseason, I was all about the Falcons year two under that system, adding Calvin Ridley, and now with their defense collapse, I...

I really do like Matt Ryan's potential. He's one of those streamer guys where you picked up to play him in a matchup. You start Ryan. You start Coleman. You start Julio. And you're not ever letting him go. Do you start? Oh, Ridley. Not, I'm sorry. I didn't think. Do you start both? I think they're independent questions. I believe that Ridley is a player that should be started on most teams. I think Hooper is a player that I don't.

ever want to start. He could end up there because any tight end, any tight end in the league could, if you get a touchdown, you're a top 12 guy. Sure, but Hooper, Hooper already has two targets inside of the 10, which, you know, that's only got two. That's doing very well for a tight end, a streaming tight end option. Do you want to give, uh, yeah, for fantasy? No, go ahead. So Steve Sarkeesian has figured out the red zone this year. Matt Bryan's actually been a terrible kicker because they're scoring when they get in the red zone. They, I think.

Matt Bryan's like the 24th ranked kicker this year. He's normally a top five guy. But Steve Sarkeesans figured it out. So I want to know, Mike, do you want to like apologize to him or anything? No. Okay. No thanks. Well, talk to me after week seven. All right. Here's an interesting stat. Atlanta has allowed a league high, 107 catches to running backs. They allowed 107 last season.

which was number one in the league. This season, they've given up a league high 36. They have not fixed this problem, and Gio Bernard's likely to get the start. I'm sad? Hello, Gio. I'm so sad as a mixing owner because this would be a great opportunity for him. But Gio Bernard's going to start this game. And he's going to be an RB1 this week. Okay. Wow. Yeah, I mean, the odds are there. That Atlanta's going to put up points against the Bengals defense that has given up a ton of points to the quarterback, the running back, the tied-in position.

And then Bengals are going to have to come back. This reminds me of my start of the week in week two with Chris Thompson, where he ended up being a great start and had one rushing yard because he had whatever it was, 12 receptions for almost 100 receiving yards. Geo fits that role. This defense has a deficiency there. So I love Geo Bernard. He should not be on anyone's bench. Tyler Boyd. Yeah, play him. Or Calvin Ridley.

Tyler Boyd. I would take Calvin Ridley. I would go Boyd. Would you guys like to water bet that against each other? Boyd versus Ridley? That seems like a solid water. So yes. Yeah, I think I'm down. Water bet. Time to check my ranking. The most optimistic. Okay. It's fun. Hey. Hey, Jason. You want to throw 50 bucks? Yeah, sure. Okay. Why not? Are you throwing 50 bucks in there, too? Uh, no. No. I have, oh, get this.

In my rankings, it appears I have Calvin Ridley one spot higher than Tyler Boyle. Nice. So, and just to affirm for Gio Bernard, Mr. Mark Walton, rookie running back for the Cincinnati Bengals, who Marvin Lewis said, they're going to, they're going to share the load. What he meant was that Mark Walton was going to play on.