Championship Week Prep + Hungry For More, Underdog Tips | Fantasy Football 2023 – Ep. 1531
Oh, we’ve got Championship Week beginning right now. We got to get you ready for those title games. Big matchups, a tough Thursday night game to break down and a whole lot more, including your questions on today’s show. Make sure you click subscribe and enjoy. Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your hosts Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway, back with you. Al Borland, Papa Josh, and Deucers Alley this morning, Wednesday episode of the show. Happy to have you with us. Championship Week. It’s in
the air. You can feel it. It’s electric. The tension. Yeah. The anticipation. Yeah. The fear. The stress. We have. This is for fun, right? How much stress do you have right now, Jay? I’m pretty carefree because the two that I’m in, I don’t give two farts. You’re sleeping like a baby. It really does show like. You probably extended your lifespan. Yeah. At least a week. Wow. So we did get news this morning, just breaking news that Tyra Taylor is going to start for the Giants. Yeah. Just seeing that live and Jacobi Brasets going to start
for the Manders. Oh, that’s new information for me. It was humorous because yesterday when the news is going, you know, the news
got your cash anywhere you possibly could. Yeah. I mean. He looked like he was having a good time. That’s what you got to do because at any moment, at any particular halftime, it could be gone. It is funny how quickly those things evaporate. The I posted a tweet yesterday, a poll over on X. Now don’t don’t go look because I’m a quiz. I want to see what you think the answer was. I missed the poll. I was talking about those of you out there that were on their way to the title game and what do
you think helped you the most along the way in their four choices? Oh, picking the right players. Well, one option was having a great draft. One option was great waiver wire pickups. One option was great trades. Then one option was great start, sit decisions. I know what order it should be in. All right. Let’s hear what you believe the order should be. I think it would be draft waivers for sure as the as the top and then start set third in trades for. Okay. Mike, do you have any theories? I will go waivers at the
top because we had we had some Puka, Kyren monsters this year where if you went on if you went on when I got Kyren and you had wanted to draft him but I wouldn’t let you do it. I was like, why would we draft Kyren Williams? I’m like, because man, you don’t his can makers really the guy. I don’t know. Hmm. Yeah. You hold that against him even today? No. No. Okay. You’ve let it go. No, I’ve not let it go. All right. So Mike, you think waivers first? Yeah. All right. Well, the answers as
of right now, 13,000 votes, 40% voted having a great draft. Okay. That’s good. The foundation of your team. We talk about it every year. I mean, hopefully some of those 40% picked up the UDK got them off to the good start. 37%. So very close. Great waiver wire pickups. Well, that is the majority of the vote. The 14% was great trades. For me, it was great trades that didn’t happen. Oh my great trade rejection. Oh my goodness. I mean, yesterday I spent the day taunting people with trades that I had offered that they rejected. I
mean, I had a pro move, which is just a good old time. Mike’s been doing that with Pittman. I’ll give you one. This was, I mean, it’s so crazed. This is perfect example of don’t veto trades because you don’t know what’s going to happen. Andy offered me and at the moment that this was offered, it wasn’t even that close. No. No, you got, it was a quick rejection. But to think back only a few weeks ago and think of how insanely lopsided in my favorite would have been that you offered me, you were coming after
Austin Eckler, who has since that exact moment collapsed. And in return for basically nothing that I gave away, I would have received Kyren Williams, a second round pick, which is our golden goose in our keeper league and a Mari Cooper who at that time was a worthless. He hadn’t scored five points in like three straight weeks, they had no quarterback. Yeah. I mean, it just seemed, and Kyren was injured and whatever. Had I accepted that, I would be in the championship right now. You’d be in my boat right now. And you would be, oh my
goodness, easy rejection. I also went back and looked at the famous betrayal trade with Papa Josh, he’s in studio today and didn’t realize in that trade, he would have also received a Mari Cooper. But a lot of the trades that sometimes those ones that don’t, that’s why we say don’t veto because you don’t really know what the next few weeks are going to hold. I could see trade, there are leagues that would have had you taken that deal, the Kyren deal with Eckler. There are leagues that would have vetoed that because they wouldn’t have wanted
Eckler going to a playoff contender or something. And that trade was lopsided in the opposite direction. So please, commissioners out there, it starts with you. Be wise, do not veto trades for any reason other than collusion. Open collusion, veto and boot those managers. But otherwise let it fly, we’re all grownups. So yeah, and situations change every single week. Yeah. Every week. I mean, it’s actually really upsetting how bad our memories are. When you think about like, Mari Cooper, I mean, he’s just dominated with Joe Flacco. But you almost can’t remember how bad it was right
before you had Flacco and you had the quarterback roulette of, you know, is it DTR? He was good with Watson, he was better with Watson. But then the second Watson went out for the year, it was like, I tried to trade him to everybody. Nobody wanted to touch him. Because the Cleveland Browns, it was either, it was PJ Walker and then they’re like, no, it’s not him and then it was DTR who they said, even when they, they picked up Joe Flacco and Joe Flacco got in on a game like, no, no DTR is still
going to be our starter. So if you teams, teams change, fantasy outputs change, it’s, it’s a wild world this year. It is. And we’ve got hungry for more on today’s show. Some news to catch you up on. We’ll preview a very, honestly, I find it to be a, a difficult matchup to break down for Thursday night football in terms of fantasy decisions to be made. Some mailbag on the show today and we want to get you ready to rumble, give yourself the best odds of winning on Sunday, which I last I checked, there are 10
games in the early window. That’s stupid. So we don’t have enough TVs here. I don’t, I, now you’re speaking my language because Jason and I have been pushing for TV number 10 for a while. Honestly, I think this is like what the second week, it would have mattered on the whole year. There’s usually one or two weeks per year, but it, why? What are it? The NFL, your entire existence, like all you want is to dominate everything. Like you took- 10 morning, three afternoon, one evening. You took over Christmas weekend with an insane, insane barrage
of games, just nonstop football because you, it’s all about the NFL. And then you’re like, no, we’ll do 10 games. We’ll just get it over with real quick. What are you doing? 10 and three, maybe like eight and five. You can still lopside it, just at least four. Yeah. There should always be four afternoon games minimum. We’ve got a big Thursday game with players that people have been playing. We have a big Saturday night game with the highest over under the week by a lot. That is the Dallas, Detroit, Saturday night matchup. Oh man. That’s
gonna be great. 53 and a half point over under last I had looked. And then we have the Sunday barrage. No Monday night football though. No Monday night football. So your fantasy championship will be over. Monday night football is on Saturday night. Yeah. So New Year’s Day, you can bask in it. We don’t have a show that day, right? On Monday, no. And then Tuesday we’ll come in and we’ll reflect on how it went. And we’ll be, you know, this is a year round show. So we’ll be getting into the 10 things to remember. We’ll
be breaking down all the lessons from the past year and the NFL playoffs will be upon us. All right. A couple of reminders here at the top before we get into Hungry for more. I’ve got three reminders for the folks out there. The first one, brand new Dynasty Pod episode this morning. Jason was on that one with Kyle and Matthew Betts. And it is a Dynasty Sync or Swim. Yeah. We talk about a lot of those questionable players and are they gonna sync or swim? You want to know about Stefan Diggs? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I
hear that name now and I just tripped. Yeah. FootclangGiveaway.com still going on a sign Travis E.T. in Jersey, a bunch of fantasy footballers swag. It was really fun seeing a handful of videos over on X of people that they were celebrating with some footballers swag on Christmas morning. Some of the significant others out there picking up some significant gear. Yeah. Thank you. fantasychamps.com right now, it’s a good time to mention it. This is where you go and get your swag. Get your league trophy. They have belts. They have rings. And if you use the code
free ring through this show, you get a $59 championship ring for free when you buy a trophy. So in our leagues, the winner, they get a ring for themselves and then they get the trophy but that gets passed around. Check that out at fantasychamps.com. Code free ring. Put them both in your cart. Use that code and you’ll get a free ring. You guys ready to move on? Let’s go. Welcome to hungry for more presented by Uber Eads. All right. Getting towards the end of the season. These names, I think, you can’t bring up a name
in hungry for more right now without having significant championship week implications. So Mike, how are our picks just us trying to wheel something into existence? Correct. A little bit. It’s also, both of ours have a bit of a mirror situation where they’re good players. Ratings should be fine when you play them, but there’s a sandwich. There’s a little blip that rightfully should give you a little bit of concern, but I’m hungry for more Zay flowers. Have loved this guy. I mean, was very, very high on Zay flowers coming into the NFL season, looked immediately like
the number one wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens, which he was. But then it was a pretty bumpy ride with Mark Andrews there and then Mark Andrews goes out. Zay flowers is right back to a target hog. You know, last week against San Francisco, tough defense. He saw three targets in the red zone. He scored. He said 17 or more fantasy points in three of four games. Three of four because in the middle of that was an absolute one disaster, a one catch just out of nowhere, seemingly out of nowhere in a very easy, on
a very easy defense to pass on. And now he gets the Miami Dolphins who the Miami Dolphins are 23rd in schedule, just a points to wide receivers, 47 point over under a Baltimore favored by about three and a half right now. Big game. That’s it. And yeah, also that you can go the narratives of this is huge for the basically whoever wins this game is likely to get the bye week. Like if you don’t know what I mean. So both teams are playing, but there was that blip. Yeah. And the Miami has been getting better.
They’re like the Miami defense has been very legit the last couple of weeks. So it’s, what do you do with Zay flowers? So we’re just, I’m, well, I mean, look at like hunger for more of what let’s make sure we actually get those targets and we don’t have, how does, how does Zay flowers have a one catch day? How is that possible? And it just happened two weeks ago. Baltimore is an incredible NFL team, but they don’t win the same way every week. Correct. And Miami with Jalen Ramsey, Xavier and Howard, like I know CD
lamb had a good game last week because he had the long touchdown. He went like two quarters or two and a half quarters after that without a target in that game. So sometimes Baltimore wins on defense. Sometimes it’s Lamar running. Sometimes it’s Gus bus. Sometimes it’s, you know, Beckham like it doesn’t repeat. And so there’s that fear, but flowers, 17 plus points in three or four games should give you some confidence. Look up eight targets, 10 targets, two against the Jacksonville Jaguars, 13 targets. Yeah. Like, so the, the blip sends fear. Oh yeah. But you’re
hungry for more of the not blip. Cause as long as long as a fires is going to get targets, like if he gets eight or more goals, he’ll be a, he’ll be a very solid floor play with upside. You’re hungry for more targets. Yeah. And I am as well with my player. I think the targets are the key for a guy who’s been on fire. Now hungry for more James Conner, please. I’m hungry for more James Conner getting passing work. Yeah. This last week was a tough matchup and we were worried about it. It was
the Chicago Bears whose defense has been great. Their run defense has been outstanding. And so they targeted him five times and he had five receptions. I mean, if you get five receptions as a baseline for a player as good as James Conner, the fantasy output’s going to be great. He plays against Philly. Philly is the number two ranked defense on the course of the season of not giving up fantasy points to running backs. So it’s like a really scary matchup, but you look at the last two weeks and James Conner I mean, he played against
San Francisco. Scary defense, bad matchup for running backs. Well, he was the running back 11 last week. Scary defense, bad, you know, bad for running backs against Chicago. He was the running back five. So I know I’m hungry for more. I know Andy is very hungry for more James Conner because, you know, the running back five, the running back 11, the running back five on 27, 17 and 17 opportunities keep feeding this man. It’s crazy as I mentioned this last week with my somewhat optimism about Saquon Barclay. The Philadelphia Eagles run defense on the year
has been dominant, but over the last five weeks, they’re the ninth best matchup for running backs. Kenneth Walker torched him. Yep. You saw Dallas go seven points above expectation. You saw the Giants last week, three and a half points above expectation with Saquon. So there is a little bit of optimism there for Conner. Look, the matchups have been bad for Conner for a while and he just keeps getting it done. And then the running back I just mentioned is my hungry for more at Saquon Barclay. I’m thrilled they just announced Tyred Taylor as the starter.
What you need is some, like, I just want like bottom third, not dead last in moving the football. If you move the football down the field at all, Saquon’s going to have an opportunity. He went 23 for 80 in a touchdown against that Philly defense. He had six targets in that game. The Rams, it’s another tough matchup for Saquon Barclay and he has been much like Zay Flowers. He has been the red light, green light. He plays great. He has a bad game. Great bad game. But the fact that Tyred Taylor is coming back, you
just want to see opportunity inside the 20. It will be the Saquon show. 23 rushing opportunities against Philly is awesome. So I am hungry for more Saquon heading into Championship Week. And that is, that’s my name that I wanted to mention. That was Hungry for More presented by Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything delivered with Uber Eats in O-line? No. No. Carton of OJ? Yeah. Okay. Delicious. Order now on the app. Product availability may vary by region. See the app for details. All right. Let’s do it. News and notes from around the league presented by
USAA Insurance. Speaking of OJ real quick. You know, I have a 15 year old son and when you’re young, like things like Heartburn, it’s not like part of your world, right? Right. You just eat like a pig. It’s just a trash compact. Yeah. And you don’t matter, right? You don’t deal with Heartburn. You get some Heartburn from all the Christmas, you know, vacuuming up of the treats, right? And so like, he’s never had Heartburn really. And so I give him some Tums. And he takes the Tums and he starts to feel better. And then in
about 10 minutes later, he goes, I’m still feeling it a little bit. And I go, well, did you drink some water? And he goes, I just had a tall glass of orange juice. So he didn’t know that maybe that would cause a bit of a… Let me jounce this fire with some gasoline. Yeah. It’s liquid. I didn’t know whether to be mad, disappointed. Hey, that’s a tough lesson. I was like, buddy, you drank some acid. You just got to tell him, like, maybe just have some more. Yeah, I was like, you got to be kidding
me. So, wow. Also going back to where we were beforehand, you were talking about the Rams as a tough defense against you’re hungry for more. I just looked it up because I know the Rams have been a tough matchup. They are the absolute most difficult matchup for all running backs over the last six weeks, over the last three weeks. Yeah, they ruined Camara last week. They ruined Camara. We’re talking not like three points below expectation, 10 points below expectation, two weeks ago, 10 points below expectation, three weeks ago, 12 points below expectation. They are shutting
down the running backs. My narrative for why Camara could do well was because they played Washington without Bryan Robinson and the Cardinals without Conner and Cleveland without a running back. Well, it didn’t matter. They shut down Camara. The nice thing is, if it counts for anything, Giants are at home. That’s fair. Most of the three of those five matches were in LA. But yeah, it’s not great. No. Good luck to you, Lattie. All right, CJ Stroud’s concussion symptoms. Getting into the news here. Have subsided. He is set to resume activities this week. I had somebody
message me on Twitter. They said, oh, your rankings. They have CJ Stroud and Justin Fields really close. I said, look, if it’s me, I’m just going to play Justin Fields. I know CJ Stroud’s at home. I know that they have an opportunity against Tennessee. You guys might have a completely different opinion. It just makes me fearful, no Tankdale coming back from the concussion, seeing some blips on CJ Stroud’s resume of late. I just play Justin Fields and roll with that, assuming DJ Moore is there. If DJ Moore was out, maybe that changes the equation. Yeah,
I mean, if you look at what he did before getting concussed, it really wasn’t that great for fantasy purposes. Yes, he had the 41-point monstrous week in week nine. And he had a 30-point week in week 12. So he’s got a ceiling. But he also had a 16-point week, a 15-point week, a 12-point week in that same stretch since the bye week. So he’s not like a locked in guaranteed, oh man, I get CJ Stroud back, so my opponent’s got to be super scared. Stroud is a decent play this week at home, or I’m sorry,
against Tennessee. It is at home. Oh yeah, at home against Tennessee. It’s a good matchup. I’m fine playing him. Big news for Nico to have him back. I’m more happy for the other pieces than for Stroud. I think Noah Brown goosed again, so he’d be a dance with the devil on Championship week. I would dance with Noah Brown. I’ll dance with that devil. I’ll dance with that devil. Noah Brown should be a good play this week. I’m not afraid. I mean, look, you have been the courageous one. You mentioned Noah Brown the one week of
the last four that he didn’t goose. But he’s not goosing this week. Well, Dalton Schultz was back and had a bunch of targets. Six targets for Robert Woods, Nico Collins. I don’t think I’m starting him. TJ Hawkinson out for the season. Torn MCL, ACL. Yeah, man. The number two tight end is gone and it’s late season injury, so you just hope he’s back and healthy to start the year. He almost certainly won’t be. Because of the timeline being this late, both ACL and MCL tears, you’re going to wait to have surgery until swelling goes down.
So it’ll be a couple weeks before he has surgery. I think there’s a really solid chance that you don’t have him to start the season. The Vikings still haven’t decided which of their three quarterbacks to start. Do you have, let’s say you had Justin Jefferson. Oh, yeah. You know who you want. You want Mullins. Oh, one million percent. Every fantasy football manager out there is praying for Mullins. And right now that’s where I lean. I think it will be Mullins, but TBD. And there’s some coaches that are very restrictive and, oh, we’re not going to
tell you what’s going on. And there’s some coaches that are just really honest and open. Kevin O’Connell is a pretty straight shooter. And he knows he’ll tell you, I really believe that he’s still figuring it out. Well, the KJ Osborne question is the one for me. Like I’m picking them up in a couple of leagues where I have like Josh Downs or Curtis Samuel. Like I want to play Osborne, but I don’t want to play him with Jaren Hall and I don’t want to play him with Joshua Dobbs. So I am hoping for Mullins myself
and that would make that decision for me. Mike Tomlin implied Mason Rudolph will start again in week 17. Okay. How do you feel about that, Mike? How do you feel about Mason Rudolph’s performance? I mean, he bawled out. Well, he had some really big plays to George Pickens against the Bengals. We’ll see. Doug Peterson said Trevor Lawrence right shoulder injury is an AC joint sprain. He’s progressing. This would be the third straight week that he’s progressing with an injury that we don’t think he’ll play. And I guess what? I think he’ll play. They need him
to play. He played after the concussion. He played after the ankle. He’s probably going to play after the shoulder, but we’ll see. Does it change how you’d start Ridley? Yeah. I mean, well, obviously if Lawrence isn’t there, I would be hesitant to start Ridley. I think there’s a decent chance he does not play. So we’ll really have to monitor this one. He’s been. He’s been. He’s been. He’s been fast. Yeah, and hasn’t been performing well. Bethard provided some fantasy value for Ridley last week. And it’s Carolina. The last three weeks, he is completing 57% of
his passes. Yeah, Carolina’s literally screaming in pain after every play. Yeah. I’m not, I’m not saying I could do any better with those injuries, but. Took Zay Jones and Kirk away and then just broke most of his body. Yeah. Carolina is a terrible matchup for wide receivers for quarterbacks. So I’m not really looking forward to that matchup. ETN, I mean, especially if you’ve got to banged up Trevor Lawrence. Yeah, Ingram should be okay and ETN should be great. Will Leviss will try to practice on Wednesday. Will Leviss would give you moderate flex hope for Deandre
Hopkins where there is none in Tannehill. Chacoby Brissette will start. Hey, where’s the beef? Chacoby, where’s the beef, Brissette? He’s back. It’s good. Yes. It’s good for McClaren. It’s good for Dotson. I mean, throw last week out, they played the Jets, but, you know, he played a limited amount of time in that game, went 10 for 13, threw, you know, another touchdown. It’s good for the, I mean, his passer rating has been great the last two weeks. Yeah. I mean, it’s still a. 140. Still a tough defense. He’s playing against San Francisco, but they’re at
home. It puts Terry McClaren into the startable category. Tara Taylor, I mentioned that he’ll start against the Rams at home. That was today’s news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Quick break back with the difficult Thursday night preview. It’ll all be fine. It’ll all be fine. This will be a super easy breakdown. It’s a confidence from my friends in this one. Let’s do it. Thursday night breakdown. You think we’re ever going to get to the point where like the, you know, the medical associations, they come out and they say,
we do not recommend men over 60 to play fantasy football men with high blood pressure, men with heart conditions. Like is that going to be, is this the next smoking? I don’t think they will do that because they themselves play fantasy football. That’s true. You got to exercise. And then when people are like, why, why do you do it? Why are you out there busting your butt? You’re like, because I want to play fantasy football. Oh, that’s the reason. Yeah. So you got to get the heart strong. Most of Sunday on my, on my Peloton.
Is that what you’re telling me? No. Cause if you combine, if you exercise while tilting your face off, you just, you will spontaneously combust. He died as he lived. Tuesday, Wednesday, prepare your body on the Peloton. Just sleep through the games. All right. New York, six and nine taken on the Cleveland Browns, 10 and five. The Draft King Sports Book line Cleveland minus seven and a half at home, the over under is 35. That gives the Jets 13 points. So let’s start with the easy decisions. The Cleveland defense. Oh yeah, they’re in. We know that
Trevor Simeon is going to be back. Yeah. Zach Wilson has been ruled out. This is, uh, so the Cleveland defense. Man, this game is going to be wild. The Cleveland defense is a lock. The, the Browns can’t run the ball. They have really struggled running and they’re throwing it like crazy with flacco. Obviously mostly to a Mari Cooper, 40 plus every time, but you cannot throw on the Jets. You just can’t do it. They are, they give up 168 a week passing yards. A statuesque pocket passer in Joe Flacco trying to just air it out
on the Jets. It ain’t going to work. It’s just not going to work. I can’t imagine him picking apart this Jets secondary. I can imagine this Jets secondary picking him off and maybe short field situation for Breeze. Yeah. I mean, genuinely, I think Breeze is okay because of that. I mean, you’re going to start Breeze no matter what. Uh, you just, you have to have the, the upside play. It’s not a great, I mean, these are two good defenses. I would start the Jets defense as well. Um, I think that they’re, they’re okay. Now, the,
the Browns being favored by seven and a half being implied for over 20 points. Maybe I’m more scared than I should be of the Jets defense. There were people on Twitter and maybe they’re just angry Jets fans. They, they said, please stop hyping up the Jets defense. They’re like, it’s awful. They just, you know, they give up a 20, 28 points in the second half to Washington. And while I understand the emotion behind that, the math says they’re the very best against quarterbacks and wide receivers and not by a little bit by a lot. And
so it is a really tough situation. They give up those points. I mean, they, they give it all up really quickly. Like when they stopped playing football, they literally, they literally took their players out of the game. And then because there was like 27 to seven towards the end of the game and they’re benching their guys and then they were, whoops, we did that too early. Here’s one other guaranteed start is David Najoku. David Najoku, I just looked this up. This is not a small sample guys. This is from week seven through 16, so 10
full games. He’s on pace for 160 targets, 95 receptions, 1,000 yards and 10 and a half touchdowns in that spin. He has not had, he’s had one week outside the top 12 with the position. I can see a ton of tight end screens, short area Najoku targets. Throw right, right in front of you in the middle of the field and let Najoku take a big hit. Yeah. He’s on 175 target pace over the last six weeks. So he’s going to be targeted and he is comfortable and fine. And what about the revenge game stack? With
Joe Flacco? Joe Flacco and Elijah Moore. Well, Elijah Moore’s challenge is he can’t catch the football? I understand, but he’s going to be extra angry. Yeah. I mean, he will run around. I couldn’t stand watching last week and watching Elijah Moore because the few targets that he received were disgusting because of him. And so yeah, he is, you know, the Joe Flacco against the Jets, narrative 21 points. I mean, it’s, they can’t run the football. Do you think they get to 21 points? That’s the question. The Browns? Yeah. I think they do. I think this
game could hit the over, but not based on the offenses. Right. I think that both of these defenses score a touchdown in this game. And then, and then you will have some, you know, a Mari Cooper is the biggest question because people who have Mari Cooper, how do you possibly set him off of the biggest performance of the entire year where he balled out and was amazing? How could you sit him right now? I’ve got him as my wide receiver 24. So if you’re in the championship game and you’ve got a Mari Cooper, you probably
have, I mean, you’re in the championship game. You got a good roster. You might have other, you might have three other top 24 wide receivers this week where there’s the potential to look at saying, man, I could see how this game goes very poorly and sit him down. But I think the majority of people, you just, you’re not going to be able to sit a Mari Cooper. You’re going to hope that he’s hyper targeted. Mike, you brought up, he could, he could get a big play. You know, he’s getting targeted down the field. It just
takes one 60 yard catch to make you happy enough in this game. Obviously, around the end zone, he’s been looked at a lot. You go, what about Garrett Wilson on the other side versus a Mari Cooper? Oh, there’s no way I would not play Cooper. Without a doubt, Cooper over Garrett Wilson. Garrett Wilson to me is someone that I would prefer to bench this week. You’ve got a… He’s averaging 10 targets a game. But on the road against Cleveland without Zach Wilson, Garrett Wilson is, I mean… His last two road games, he finished with negative
points and with four points against Miami. And it’s tough because it’s just not a lot of points available to Trevor Simeon. I was wrong. I mean, last week, he was good. But I play a Mari Cooper. I play the favorite. I play the guy that’s leading the league in reception yards over the last six weeks. So like as of right now, just so personal anecdotes, I am currently leaning on, I will be playing Zeif Flowers over Garrett Wilson. I haven’t locked that decision in. I mean, the clock is obviously ticking here with the Thursday night
matchup. But so just that’s my headspace of where I am with Garrett Wilson. Yeah, the… But I’m playing Cooper. I’m getting it. I’m putting him in. It’s a good discussion. I know Brooks. Brooks is chiming in saying, look. That’s how you play fantasy. I could never live with Bench and Cooper. That’s… I get it. I think the discussion is important though. Because if you just stay stuck in the mud on these matchups, like, you know, there have been say, Juan Weeks where it was probably worth benching him. But I, you know, I didn’t have the
courage to do it because you stick with that player. I think you probably are staying in the flames here. But then that has to, you know, if Nijoku is good, if Cooper is good, everybody that I’ve talked to is benching Joe Flacco this week. That’s where I was going to go, the conversation of do you play… The number one quarterback from last week. Do you play Joe Flacco or do you go with, you know, we brought up some, what I think are the process anyways, has some good streamers of like Derek Carr, gets to play
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I would play Derek Carr. Baker Mayfield gets to play the Saints. I would play Baker. And probably again, without Lattimore. So if you have Mike Evans, congratulations, you don’t, probably don’t have to deal with that. I play Kyler. I play Russell Wilson. I, you know, if there’s a good enough option, I would play those over Flacco this week. Geno Smith against Pittsburgh. I play Geno. Gardner Minshew against Las Vegas. I’ve got them back to back in my rankings. I’m okay going Flacco. I think I would go Flacco there. They have been
on fire. That is fair. And the Jets, you know, their defenses had to fight tooth and nail all year long and they’re not playing for anything anymore. So it would be interesting if the game got away from them, what happens to their defense? It’s a tough one. It’s going to be, I mean, it’s a game with a 35 point over and under to start your championship week with players that you’ve been playing every week. Like here’s what I, here’s what I’ll say. I don’t think you get through this game or Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, Amari
Cooper, David Ndukjoku, all those guys have good weeks. I don’t think that happens. Or all of them having bad weeks. I don’t think that happens either. You’re going to have a handful of guys you’re happy with and mostly sad. The Titan one in fantasy since week seven, David Ndukjoku. Titan number one. It’s about freaking time. Right? Cleveland, I don’t know what you’ve been doing. I mean, how long has it been? I mean, the Ingram Ndukjoku stories of their career are comical. Yeah. This was five years ago you were drafted and these guys were first round
picks. They were supposed to be. This is year super stars. This is year seven. The three of those guys Ndukjoku, Evan Ingram and OJ Howard. They were number one since week seven, number five on the year already had 115 targets in this offense and career high in touch. You say this is year seven? Yeah. Wait, what? Yeah. I said five years. Wow. Year seven. Yeah. Just wait for the year seven breakout, everyone. It’s dynasty players out there. Pull your hair out because not only was Ndukjoku drafted, Ingram drafted in dynasty leagues to be great and
then you went through the mire and your soul died and then you traded them away, but then now you’re watching across the league and somebody else has them and they’re delivering for them. Yeah. It’s ridiculous it took them this long. But hey, we’re here now. It’s great. It’s great. I’m very, very happy that I snuck him into trades at the deadline. And Mike, we talked about the schedule. It just lined up for Ndukjoku as well. He’s 27 still. Yeah. He was too young. He came into the league as a baby monster. He was the biggest
man young. He was just too young. He was too young for then to fail. Kyle Pitts just 23. We’re waiting for his year seven. Yeah. We’re in year three. Three. Yeah. We got a ways to go. For sure. For more years. Oh my goodness. All right. Anything else from this game you want to discuss? I think a lot of people have been asking on the website. Number four, in terms of start set questions in the week 17 rankings has been whether you play the Jets defense on the road Thursday night against the Browns who have
been cruising or you pivot to somebody else like Chicago against Atlanta, the Rams against the Giants, the Las Vegas Raiders who’ve been on fire against Indianapolis. Like I, me personally I play those three defenses. I play them all over the Jets. Really? I would. Hmm. That’s tough. I mean you got seven point, seven and a half point favorites here. Flacco’s thrown five interceptions in the last two weeks. I know he’s been great for fantasy and he’s been winning ball games but like how you score in fantasy. You know the interception is the highest. Yeah the
pass rush and the interception. It’s the highest odds to a touchdown, right? And so is the pick. And I think Flacco throws at least two picks in this game. So I still lean the Jets. Okay. Like overall those over the Rams against the Giants? Yeah, I don’t, Tyrod just play the better defense. I think so. I mean that’s where I lean. These are all good options but I’m gonna, you know, especially since it’s that close, let me know how my defense does on Thursday, get a head start on the week if I need to make
pivot options with more knowledge getting ahead on championship week. Yeah, that’s a good point. It’ll be an interesting game. Let’s do some championship week mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag move. Alright here we go. If you have a question for the show you can go to the website, thefantasyfootballers.com, hit the submit a question button or dial the voicemail hotline 302464TFFB jumping into a voicemail question. Here we go. And it is a funny one. Hey ballers, do I dare start? Uh, David and Joku over Stefan Diggs this week somehow made a championship. Thanks. Let me know. Oh my gosh.
Yes. Do you dare? Yes, yes you do. Oh my goodness. I would. I would do that. So Stefan Diggs gets the Patriots. I would do it too. What an insane question. David and the Joku. Six year bust tight end. Yeah. Versus superstar. We need to shut this year down man. Josh, this year is a drunk. Can I make a secondary decision for you? How about David and Joku or Austin Echler this week? I would go Echler there. I think Echler is actually a good play. He, I know it’s crazy, but he worked his way into
double digit points. He had double digit points last week, 19 opportunities and he plays against Denver and Denver’s defense has been better, you know, but against the run. That’s where they get me. Diggs or Nidroku Mike? I, oh my God. His last five games, his last four games against the Patriots, seven for 85 and a touchdown, seven for 92 and a touchdown, seven for 104 and a touchdown, six for 58 and a touchdown. But that was, I know you’re not reading Diggs. I mean that’s, yeah. So cause Diggs’s last couple of games is five for
29 and no touchdown. That was Diggs against New England, the last four matches against New England. He’s dominated them, but this is not the same Stefan Diggs right now. No it’s not. And they have coincided with the change of offensive coordinator too. And the change in, yeah, the running for, Mari Cooper or Stefan Diggs? Cooper. Jason, Jason just plunging his head into his microphone. You gotta do your fantasy algebra here. If you’re going to start in a joku over Stefan Diggs, you would certainly start a Mari Cooper. Yeah. There’s no way I’m going to live
in the betting on Diggs revival after the amount of weeks that has happened. I’m not going to do that. That’s a good point. It’s a good point Mike. It’s the number. Are you playing Cooper over Diggs? Yes. Yeah, I got to move Diggs down in the ranking. Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and I think you do. I think you flex the tight end, which is redonkulous. You guys want to quit the show? A little bit. Yeah, just for this season. Where is Diggs in the rankings right now? I
have, I’m moving him down. I have him around 16 to 20. Yeah, I just bumped into 20. Yeah, he’s at, yeah, I’m looking at guys that, you know, they’re like, I’m like, I’m just like, say, Flowers, nickel Collins. Loyalty pays no dividends. Points are what win championships. There’s a handful of these guys that I would rather play over, Stayfond Diggs at this point. I mean, he’s not someone that, you know, is incapable. He still looked all right to me on the field. No. He just miss, they’ve been missing on some stuff. Well, there’s a couple
of things, we talked about this on the Dynasty Show, but they’re not targeting them deep as much. They’re not connecting deep as much. And the way that he is being used since the coordinator changed, and the way that the team is operating since the coordinator changed, puts him in a less valuable situation. He had a deep target that should have been about a 75-yard touchdown last week that Josh Allen under threw it. It was a pick. They did take the shot. And what’s crazy is they’ve won games. Four of the last five games they’ve won,
32 points, 20 points, 31 points, 24 points. All four of those games to fund digs, 57, 58, 46, 66, and fantasy finish. So it is… And yet a 22% target share, 31, 38, 38. The last two weeks he has seen 38% of the target. This is what I’m talking about. You don’t bench him at no… You don’t bench him over everybody. Right. Yeah, you can still find value there. It’s just a matter of whether or not the Buffalo Bills are going to need to throw the ball a lot. 38% of a team that has decided
against the Cowboys to just run the ball every single play and succeed and win the game that way, you could have 60% of a bad pie and not be happy. I’m very happy that they’re at home this week against knowingly. But you start to make decisions about Stefan Diggs or Rashi Rice, Stefan Diggs, or Mike Evans. Stefan Diggs or Brandon Ayuk. I don’t… That’s a fair question. I don’t know. I think of Washington game. Yeah, I mean, Devonte Adams or Stefan Diggs. Devonte Adams plays Indy. I mean, that’s a good matchup. Yeah, his quarter-matches. Isn’t
it a good matchup for wide receivers? His quarter-matches. It’s average. I think it’s a much better matchup for running backs. I’m going to play Diggs over Adams. I mean, outside wideouts dominate Indianapolis. That’s what Kyle is reminding us. Yeah, I will remind you. The Raiders had no passing yards in three quarters. Look, I understand that. I’ll take 38% of Josh Allen’s targets. But we can’t be so biased to one week that they scored 63 points where Trey Tucker, Jacoby Myers, Devonte Adams, and Michael Mayer all dominated a week prior. So I’m not saying one way
or the other. I’m just laying it out. Yep. All right, another voicemail. Hey, footballers. Steve from Phoenix here. Got a tough one. I’m in the finals in my league. And I can’t decide between Joe Nixon or Ty Chandler. Really hard one. Hope you guys are having a good day. Bye. I don’t feel great about Ty Chandler this week. I’m just going to throw that out there. Really? No, I don’t. Obviously, Madison’s going to get worked in more than he was last week, coming off of the injury. Ty Chandler really inefficient. I know it’s the Packers
matchup. There’s opportunity there. I’m not saying Chandler can’t deliver. I am curious where you both are with Ty Chandler. Mike, you have a start-sit decision with him. Yeah, so the Packers right now over the last five weeks have been the sixth best matchup over expectation. And who’s all the chiefs? Let me find them real quick. The chiefs over the last five weeks have been right behind the Packers, so not a tough matchup in terms of giving a point above your expected points. Yeah, this is eight attempts less. This is a volume play to me. Which
is mixing. Which is mixing. Yeah. The matchups are similar enough. One isn’t great and one is terrible. Where I don’t know. I think Ty Chandler is a decent play this week. I’m not anti Chandler without Hawkinson, without Addison. They’re going to need to run the ball more. And so I think Chandler is okay, but he could end up with seven or eight carries in the game. And Madison worked in more. I mean, we just don’t know how the game plan will work. We don’t even know what quarterback it’s going to be. Whereas at least with
mixing, we’ve seen him have a lot of success with Jake Browning get a ton of work. So I’m going to lean on the volume. All right. This is a good question from Braxton. Hold on here. Breaking news. What do you got for us? This is from Rapsheet. So in Rappaport, the Broncos are strongly considering having quarterback Russell Wilson sit for the final two games preserving financial flexibility for the off season. Wilson has 37 mil in 2025 salary that vests in March of 2024. If he suffered a serious injury, it would complicate matters. Yeah, they’re eliminated
now. So I don’t think that those two guys get along. I don’t think that’s the future. It’s this. It’s the right move. Mike is retiring from 2023. Wow. Don’t worry. The calendar turns over. Mike is 20. Is that Jared Stidham? You betcha. Yeah, maybe. Ironically, Jared Stidham was who took over for car when they benched car in the Jackson situation last year. Jared Stidham. You want to know who. It is. You want to know who. Yeah, I believe so. Look, look that up. You want to know who’s alerting these general managers about the contract. Jared
Stidham’s agent is calling these general managers. Like I reviewed the contracts. Look now that you’re out of it, you need to be aware of what’s going to happen if Russ goes out there gets injured. That is too funny. Stidham is mining his pees and cues. The contract is. What’s great is one of my one of my championship leagues that I’m in. It’s a best ball. Superflex. I got Stidham on the roster. Sit him down. Sit Russ down. Sit him for Stidham. Yeah. Nice. Also, I mean, we’ll see if Cortland Sutton plays, but thank goodness. That’s
brutal. Well, it’s brutal, but it’s also, thank goodness, there’s. Who plays in this league? There’s real no fantasy options here. What’s the, is it the Chargers? Chargers. Yeah, Chargers. At Denver. What’s, I mean, if you have no Cortland Sutton, you have no Russell Wilson. Bet the under. Yeah. I guess you would never play the Chargers in defense. East in the stick. Well done, Jarrett. You figured out. Sit him for Stidham. That’s the campaign every year. This season. He needs to find, that’s what he’s doing. He’s finding. Gloated contracts. That he knows at the end of
the year. That’s the team he goes to that year. Genius. All right. This is our final question here. It’s a good one from Braxton because a lot of you are in this situation like Mike. I’m playing against a juggernaut in the championship. That’d be, that’d be me. Mike, you’re playing me. Yeah. I’m the juggernaut. All right. Yeah. What are the tips you have when you’re overmatched? Do you play a player like Kyler over Stafford? Stafford’s been a low ceiling option this year. Do you play upside type of options like a Darius Slayton over a Wondale
or a, that’s a bad example, but like a, you know, somebody who would, do you sit Cooper because you don’t think a ceiling game exists and play someone like Devonte Adams or maybe a ceiling game does exist? I think you’re, you’re definitely looking for more ceiling, more explosiveness, high upside. It’s the type of matchup where you can get yourself to play a Gabe Davis, someone that can have a 70 yard touchdown, even though you could really hurt you, you know, who has the explosiveness and the matchup. I would also try if you can, um, to
stack, you know, if you’re, you know, if you’ve got, um, the decision between Stafford and Kyler and you think, oh, Stafford hasn’t really had upside Kyler has the upside. Well, if, if you’ve got Puka or, or Cooper cup or some, or you’ve got Trey McBride, play the one that matches your quarterback, because if that player gets the touchdowns, it’s, it’s a powerful tool. That’s good advice. The stack is powerful. You need touchdowns. And is what you need. Focus on touchdowns with your DST. Look at who’s going to throw picks and try to get, I mean,
the, the, the, the, the, the those are, you want to beat a juggernaut, you end up with 15 points from your defense. You know, that, that’s the put work into that. I played, uh, I was in several playoffs and in two of them, I faced the Raiders defense on their 24 point week and I was eliminated in both of those and I was the favorite in both. So you’re, it’s a good point. If you get an overwhelming defensive performance, that is, that is massive. So, um, that’ll do it for today’s episode of the podcast tomorrow.
We’ll dig into the matchup starts of the week and get that going for championship Sunday, pretty much. I mean, it’s going to be a big week. Um, a reminder, you can head over to jointhefoot.com. If you’d like to support this podcast, if we have been bringing you entertainment advice, uh, anything you appreciate, check out the community of 30,000 strong, more than that actually, uh, you get access to all of the discord channels, premium tools and resources, extra episodes during the off season when we drop down to two regular shows a week. And um, you get
to hang out with the best people on earth. So, uh, just jointhefoot.com. Quick update Jeremy found. So Denver, if they win, they actually will maintain a 12% chance to get into the playoffs. So essentially eliminated, but not totally. Okay. So is it a 12% chance to lose $37 million? Is that worth it? That’s the question that Sean Peyton and company will have to decide. Maybe he’s made up his mind on Russell Wilson already. We’ll be back tomorrow to talk more about that and all the matchups. Take care for clan. Good night. Thank you for listening
to another episode of the fantasy footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers.
