Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Week 15 Fantasy Forecast, Starts of the Week, News

Summary

Fantasy Footballers Podcast Summary: Episode - Week 15 Fantasy Forecast, Starts of the Week, News

Release Date: December 17, 2015
Hosts: Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, Mike "The Fantasy Hitman" Wright

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Introduction

In this high-energy episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast, hosts Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright delve into the latest happenings in the fantasy football landscape as Week 15 approaches. Packed with in-depth analysis, timely news updates, and strategic advice, the trio ensures listeners are well-equipped to make winning decisions in their leagues.

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Quick Question Game: 2015 Player Season Snapshots

To kick off the episode, the hosts engage in their signature "Quick Question" segment, where they describe the fantasy performance of various players using just one word. This playful yet insightful game offers a snapshot of each player's season trajectory.

• Aaron Rodgers

  • Jason Moore (04:44): "Sad."
  • Mike Wright (04:48): "Mediocre."
    Mike clarifies: "Aaron Rodgers has still been very good. But for a quarterback who a lot of people are drafting at the end of the first round or so, that's not the production you're expecting."

• Tom Brady

  • Jason Moore (05:09): "Overproduction."
  • Mike Wright (05:10) echoes this sentiment by highlighting Brady's elevated performance compared to previous years.

• Eddie Lacy

  • Jason Moore (05:40): "Fat."
  • Mike Wright (05:47) counters: "Late bloomer."

• Deonte Freeman

  • Jason Moore (06:07): "Winner."
    He explains: "He's the type of player that changes a losing team into a winner."

• Calvin Johnson

  • Mike Wright (06:32): "Aging."

• Philip Rivers

  • Jason Moore (06:56): "Explosion."
    He elaborates: Rivers started strong but has seen a decline in touchdowns over recent weeks.

• Chris Ivory

  • Mike Wright (07:36): "Steady."
  • Jason Moore (07:53): "Fed."
    Mike adds: "He's been that very reliable guy."

• Cam Newton

  • Jason Moore (08:18): "Dab."
    Andy comments: Newton is embracing his celebratory gestures confidently.

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News and Notes

Washington Redskins Running Backs Shuffle

• Dejuan Harris Cut

  • Andy Holloway (09:56): Dejuan Harris, initially benefitting from Jonathan Grimes's injury, has been released from the Redskins.
  • Mike Wright (10:35): Highlights the impact of Christine Michael's signing on Harris's departure.

• Bryce Brown Signing

  • Jason Moore (11:40): Anticipates Bryce Brown to take the bulk of the carries, with Christine Michael serving as a solid backup.

• Christine Michael's Seahawks Move

  • Mike Wright (10:27): Christine Michael's sudden signing by the Seahawks garnered over 4 million tweets in 30 seconds, signaling Seattle's aggressive moves.

Patriots Running Back Updates

• LeGarrett Blount on Injured Reserve

  • Andy Holloway (14:17): The Patriots lose another running back for the season with LeGarrett Blount's placement on IR, exacerbating their RB depth issues.

• Brandon Bolden and James White's Roles

  • Jason Moore (15:17): Predicts continued carries for James White and potential shifts in game plans affecting Brandon Bolden's usage.

Injury Updates and Player Statuses

• T.J. Yelden's Injury

  • Andy Holloway (16:46): T.J. Yelden is doubtful for Week 15 due to a sprained MCL, though there's hope for his return next week.

• Julian Edelman's Recovery

  • Mike Wright (22:10): Julian Edelman is practicing in full, suggesting his potential return to the lineup and its implications for fantasy decisions.

• Tyler Eifert's Concussion

  • Andy Holloway (24:18): Tyler Eifert remains out following concussion protocols, impacting tight end options for the week.

• Alshon Jeffery's Calf Strain

  • Jason Moore (26:50): Alshon Jeffery's calf injury is a concern, leading many to consider sitting him in favor of more reliable receivers.

Team Performance Insights

• Chicago Bears' Offense Struggles

  • Jason Moore (57:05): Discusses Matt Forte's inconsistent performance and the Bears' offensive inefficiencies against a formidable Vikings defense.

• Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins Matchup

  • Jason Moore (40:36): Analyzes the Cowboys' defensive prowess and Predicts muted offensive output, advising fantasy owners to be cautious with high-risk players like Des Bryant.

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Fantasy Forecast: Starts of the Week

The core of the episode revolves around strategic starts across various positions. Below are the highlights from each category:

Quarterbacks

• Alex Smith (49:30)

  • Andy Holloway: Presents Alex Smith as a reliable option against a Ravens defense notorious for interceptions.
    Quote: "He's not going to kill you with turnovers and I think he'll put, you know, one or two into the end zone this week, if not more." [64:35]

• Ryan Fitzpatrick (64:03)

  • Mike Wright: Endorses Fitzpatrick as a safe streaming option, citing his recent performance spike with nine touchdowns in three weeks.
    Quote: "I just think he is a great safe streaming option." [64:48]

• Blake Bortles (66:01)

  • Jason Moore: Advocates for Bortles, highlighting his multi-touchdown games and favorable matchup against Atlanta.
    Quote: "He's been on fire. I really love Blake Bortles this week." [67:04]

Running Backs

• Darren Sprols (68:28)

  • Mike Wright: Chooses Sprols for his favorable matchup against Arizona's defensive weaknesses on the edge.
    Quote: "I think that, they will game plan sprolls and he's. I got him down for five or six catches. I think he's going to be great." [68:39]

• Denard Robinson (69:12)

  • Jason Moore: Selects Robinson as the preferred RB for the Jaguars, emphasizing his reliability and improved performance.
    Quote: "Denard Robinson is the only guy that I want to start from the majority of waiver claims this week." [69:48]

• Tim Hightower (72:00)

  • Andy Holloway: Opts for Hightower due to his high carry count and dependable performance against a tough running defense.
    Quote: "He had a touchdown the last two weeks, which is why we're thinking of him as locked and loaded." [72:27]

Wide Receivers

• Michael Floyd (63:52)

  • Andy Holloway: Picks Floyd for his consistent performance and big-play potential against a vulnerable Philadelphia defense.
    Quote: "He's being utilized to the full. I really like Heath Miller." [75:00]

• Ted Ginn Jr. (70:59)

  • Jason Moore: Chooses Ginn for his high upside and consistent touchdown scoring, especially against the Giants' weak secondary.
    Quote: "He's a guy that is still on waivers. He started in almost no leagues and he should be." [70:59]

• Golden Tate (72:35)

  • Mike Wright: Starts Tate based on his high target volume and the favorable matchup against New Orleans' defense.
    Quote: "They have to keep pace with the score of Drew Brees and his wide receiver core." [73:17]

Tight Ends

• Gary Barnage (73:17)

  • Jason Moore: Advocates for Barnage due to his consistency and favorable matchup against a Seattle defense that struggles against tight ends.
    Quote: "Gary Barnage is a safe play this week." [74:18]

• Heath Miller (75:30)

  • Andy Holloway: Starts Miller conditionally based on his participation in practice, valuing his reliability and matchup against Denver's defense.
    Quote: "He's reliable. Big Ben loves him. I really like Heath Miller." [75:58]

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Notable Quotes

1. On Aaron Rodgers' Performance
   Mike Wright (04:48): "Aaron Rodgers has still been very good. But for a quarterback who a lot of people are drafting at the end of the first round or so, that's not the production you're expecting."

2. On Tom Brady's Unexpected Overproduction
   Mike Wright (05:13): "This is Tom Brady closer to the Randy Moss type years. So it's. I personally was not expecting anything close to this."

3. On Denard Robinson's Week 15 Prospects
   Mike Wright (18:07): "Denard Robinson is not a guy who can do it week after week after week. But good news, everybody. One week. That's what you need from Denard Robinson."

4. On Julian Edelman's Potential Return
   Jason Moore (23:03): "If Edelman plays, which I got to think if he's practicing in full, that he's going to play, then I would start him and I would again hedge my bets against, you know, if you've got other good options to start, then sure, wait a week."

5. On Mike Evans vs. Randall Cobb
   Jason Moore (33:40): "Mike Evans has that high ceiling. He has that game that you can have in a playoff that you need in week 15. You need a guy that can go out there and dump 30 and have that opportunity."

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Conclusion

As Week 15 looms, the Fantasy Footballers provide a comprehensive guide for fantasy managers navigating the final stretch of the season. From managing injuries and player availability to identifying optimal starts, the hosts equip their audience with the insights needed to clinch playoff berths and ultimately win their leagues. Whether it's leveraging the high upside of breakout players like Blake Bortles or securing dependable options like Alex Smith, this episode is a must-listen for any serious fantasy football contender.

Listen to the full episode for detailed analysis and more insider tips to dominate your fantasy league!

Transcript

[Mike Wright]

Foreign.

[Jason Moore]

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, cue the Chewbacca. Not what I expected to see come from Darth Vader over there. That's. I'm glad I asked for that. Also, I'm. I'm almost certain I saw Darth Vader jazz hands during the intro music.

[Mike Wright]

I'm pretty sure I saw it as well. Yeah.

[Jason Moore]

We call this a YouTube special.

[Andy Holloway]

Welcome to this show. We are the fantasy footballers. Despite that introduction. Thursday, December 17th. We're here to deliver you the goods. The Millennium Falcon of podcasts.

[Mike Wright]

Falcon.

[Andy Holloway]

I was hoping that just didn't. Didn't come out incorrectly.

[Mike Wright]

Did I say that? No. I'm gonna keep going.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm just gonna go like that way they question whether they actually heard it and move on. All right, we've got a good show today. We have news and notes. Tons of it. Jam packed. So much going on. So many. I delayed as long as possible with my running back rankings because of the quantity of unsettled situations in the. You know all these emails were coming in flooding in. Bryce Brown, right? Denard Robinson, Brandon Bolden, Fozzie Whitaker, Cameron Artist, Payne. What do we do with these guys? So you're waiting for some news. We're gonna deliver all the goods. Everything we have, everything we know about those guys. We've got our fantasy forecast for week 15. This is the matchups. We're going to talk all about who to start, who to sit. We have our starts of the week. The guys we love this week put a lot of time and research into those guys so we can deliver. It's always exciting this time of year to hear about listeners that are in their semifinals in there. A lot of championship games are beginning this week too and so very excited about that. If you want to get a hold of the show, you can do so on Twitter, the ffballers. You can check out our fantasy football community for this show on jointhefoot.com and you can also visit our YouTube channel. The. You know, if you want to see Jason busting out his. Well, actually it's my son's Darth Vader mask. If you couldn't tell.

[Jason Moore]

It was a little.

[Andy Holloway]

That was not an authentic Darth Vader.

[Mike Wright]

Helmet and or Jason is not just a gigantic man.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, with the like that is the authentic. Jason's just humongous.

[Mike Wright]

He's eight feet tall.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. It's not that we did I mentioned the Twitter handle.

[Mike Wright]

I don't think so.

[Andy Holloway]

At the FF Ballers. You got the website the fantasy footballers dot com. I think that does that pretty good.

[Mike Wright]

Before we get to the quick question, I just want to say I'm gonna try to have a good show.

[Andy Holloway]

There is no try.

[Mike Wright]

Thank you. Man, you were looking at me like I was lobbing up a softball for anyone who wanted it.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, I just didn't know if you were actually going to try this time.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

[Andy Holloway]

No. So, yes, Star Wars.

[Mike Wright]

I always have a good show.

[Andy Holloway]

I think I'm the only one going today.

[Jason Moore]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

I am taking the kids today. This afternoon, against all logic, I told Jason before the show, I'm simultaneously very excited to see the movie with the kids and no way. Excited to endure whatever is going to take place.

[Mike Wright]

You are. You're Jesse from Saved by the Bell. You're so excited. So excited. So scared.

[Andy Holloway]

Scared because. I don't know, we're getting down there like three hours early. You can only save one seat. We've got the two kids and the wife and myself and so.

[Jason Moore]

And a group of your 40 closest friends.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. Friend of ours bought a million tickets, but you can't reserve the seats themselves. You still have to get down there. Get in line.

[Mike Wright]

Good luck.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. And I was. I was trying to catch up and watch the old ones this week. That didn't happen. So I got through, like, the first one halfway through, and there's too much football. I can't watch these science fiction documentaries. All right. Hey, quick question. It's kind of a different question. We're at the reflection phase for a lot of people on the season. All right, So I have this for you. When I say a player's name, I want you to say one word to describe their 2015 season so far, or them in your eyes, but the fantasy context. Okay. Aaron Rodgers.

[Jason Moore]

Sad.

[Mike Wright]

I will go with mediocre.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay. Not the expectations we had for the correct. Okay.

[Mike Wright]

And by mediocre, I mean Aaron Rodgers has still been very good.

[Jason Moore]

Right.

[Mike Wright]

But for a quarterback who a lot of people are drafting at the end of the first round or so, that's not the production you're expecting from. From that. From that pick.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay. All right, how about Tom Brady?

[Mike Wright]

I will go.

[Andy Holloway]

Is that a word?

[Jason Moore]

That would be my word.

[Mike Wright]

Okay.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, that's fine.

[Mike Wright]

I'm going to go with over production because this is not the Tom Brady we've seen the last couple years.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay.

[Mike Wright]

This is. This is Tom Brady closer to the Randy Moss type years. So it's. I personally was not expecting anything close to this. So I.

[Andy Holloway]

If I Could have a roster full of overproduction. I would be very happy as a fancy.

[Mike Wright]

Completely agree.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. Eddie Lacy.

[Jason Moore]

Gotta go. Fat.

[Andy Holloway]

Fantasy context. You got to rename it. You think about it, Mike. Eddie Lacey.

[Mike Wright]

I'm trying to think of the right word. We'll go with it's. Maybe it's hyphenated. I know, but late bloomer.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay, I'm going to go with disappointing.

[Jason Moore]

I'm going to go with destroyer.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay. Okay. I like it. Devonte Freeman.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Mike, you got to lead off on this.

[Andy Holloway]

I'll go with surprise, surprise.

[Mike Wright]

I'm going to go with volume.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay.

[Jason Moore]

I'm going to go with winner.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. Because he won, people. I mean, he's a winner.

[Jason Moore]

He's the type of player that changes a losing team into a winner.

[Andy Holloway]

I like it. All right, few more here. Calvin Johnson. Ooh, is that the word?

[Mike Wright]

Calvin Johnson.

[Andy Holloway]

Calvin Johnson.

[Mike Wright]

I already used mediocre.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm going to use it. I got. I got one concern.

[Jason Moore]

It's ironic because mine was another hyphenated one like Mike's, and it was just, uh.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, okay.

[Mike Wright]

I'm going to go with aging.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, Good, good. Philip Rivers.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, man.

[Jason Moore]

Explosion.

[Andy Holloway]

All right.

[Jason Moore]

As in he exploded, but then exploded. It was gone.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. Because the bomb went off three out of four weeks. Philip Rivers. No touchdowns. Three out of the last four. Zero touchdowns.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, the bomb went early.

[Andy Holloway]

And the game he had just. It was four.

[Jason Moore]

Desolation and destruction after that.

[Andy Holloway]

Trying to think of a word for Philip Rivers.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, I need, like, a source dot.

[Jason Moore]

Com that's Philip Rivers.

[Mike Wright]

Well, because I'm trying to think of one word that is not his fault.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah. But I'll go with the phrase.

[Jason Moore]

Sure, sure.

[Andy Holloway]

Patsy, Patsy.

[Mike Wright]

Patsy.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, two more. Chris Ivory.

[Mike Wright]

I'll go with steady.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, that's a good one. That's a great one. I think that's what he's been.

[Jason Moore]

I'm going to go with. I want to say something with, like, hunger or eat. He's eaten this year. He's fed.

[Andy Holloway]

Feast.

[Mike Wright]

Well, well, well Fed.

[Andy Holloway]

Steady. Because he's been that very reliable guy. He's the only guy I have left in my league of record. Injury wise. Yeah. Alive. I would use the word alive, which is great, you know, has not been reaped.

[Mike Wright]

Oh.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, last one, and then we'll move on to the news and notes. Cam. Newt.

[Mike Wright]

Oof.

[Jason Moore]

Dab.

[Mike Wright]

That's the best one.

[Jason Moore]

Gotta be.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, I will go with Elite.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, those are both great. So I'll just say Amazing.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. All right, let's go ahead and get into everything that's going on right now. Yeah, dad takes the cake.

[Jason Moore]

News and notes from around the league.

[Mike Wright]

He's dabbing on everybody right now.

[Andy Holloway]

You know what? And he should be. Yeah, he should be. When you, you know, when you're cruising like Cam Newton is cruising, I got no problem. Enjoy the ride.

[Jason Moore]

Cruising like a new.

[Andy Holloway]

Roll the window down, take a little run around the stadium, thank your fans, and then obviously you dab. All right. Lots of news. By the way, got a few tweets yesterday saying, wait, did you, did you record that show later? What was with. We didn't have the news about dejuan Harris being cut in yesterday's show. We record the Wednesday show, just the Wednesday show later on Tuesday night. Wednesday's kind of our. The morning pretend, a pretend half day off with the family. You know, we work on the weekends with the Sunday games and we work all the other days. So Wednesday, we try to record the Wednesday mailbag show late on Tuesday. And so that's why that news was a little different. We had Nando Defino on the show and we asked him some questions, but we had him on on Tuesday night. So just context for you. So we will bring around the news that you heard yesterday.

[Jason Moore]

If you want that news quicker, follow, Follow us on Twitter because we were still on Twitter talking about what's the repercussions of these things.

[Andy Holloway]

Absolutely. That's a good point. We are, we are on there. We're answering questions that day, but we don't record that morning. All right. Dejuan Harris was cut. He was the initial benefactor of the Rawls injury. He was cut. A little bit of a surprise. Bryce Brown was signed. Jason and I talked about this yesterday. Harris's departure probably had a lot to do with Christine Michael being released from the Washington Redskins practice squad. Mike received over 4 million tweets in 30 seconds when Christine Michael was signed by the Seattle Seahawks.

[Mike Wright]

That is the real number.

[Andy Holloway]

He was. I was on the phone with him and he said they're coming in hot and heavy because it's Christine Michael.

[Mike Wright]

I love them very much. Thank you.

[Andy Holloway]

So Bryce Brown, Christine Michael, Fred Jackson laid out. Tell me exactly what's going to happen, guys. I want to know to the carry count.

[Jason Moore]

Well, then you're going to talk to me. No, nobody, nobody knows exactly what's going to happen there. The one thing that you can, you can see what has come out was that Fred Jackson is going to stay in his third down role. I don't expect that to changed too much. Maybe he'll get an extra carry here or there. But for the most part it's going to be. For the most part it's going to be the same role he's been in. So then you have Bryce Brown and Christine Michael saying whether or not they're going to. Whether or not they're going to. Who's going to be the starter there? And Bryce Brown was in practice, practicing as the starter. Based on what Carroll has been saying, I expect Bryce Brown to get the bulk, have Christine Michael be a good solid backup and Fred Jackson be the third down role. But it could be the exact opposite. So it's very scary to actually start any one of those three. But if I had to start one, it would definitely be Bryce Brown.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, it's really a brutal situation. There's no way you can confidently start any of them if you have to make the decision. As of now, Carroll has said that. That Brown would be the de facto starter.

[Andy Holloway]

Is that the word? Because I, I was wondering that's. What are you hearing from Carroll? Because I have been in the dark about it.

[Mike Wright]

That's the last thing I had read somewhere when we can verify that.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay. However, because there was a beat reporter that said he thought that they would split carries.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

I'm just saying Brown will start.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay.

[Mike Wright]

He'll be given the first opportunity. Everyone's gonna be given a chance. But Michael knows the system.

[Jason Moore]

I mean, Pete Carroll, these were some of the words after they signed Christine Michael. I mean, he knows the system. Exactly. He's a much better backup than dejuan Harris or even Bryce Brown. Yeah, or Bryce Brown. If. But I mean, one of them has to be the backup. But this is. He said that, you know, that he likes Christine Michael, but he said that doesn't mean he's going to be the feature guy or starter or anything like that. He's just coming in here and trying to. Trying to help us out and we'll see if that works out. That's what he said about Christine Michael.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay. That's helpful. That is helpful. And I think this situation, like many others in fantasy football, to the patient one goes the spoils. Very often a lot of people want to lock and load a lineup on Tuesday. I can't tell you to do that. I can tell you who I would lock in if today was the day you needed it. But you need to pay attention to those reports because if tomorrow we come out and if what Jason's saying gets confirmed, Carroll says, hey, he's gonna get the, the lion's share. It's gonna be Bryce Brown. That's gonna change how I start him. Compared to guys like Hightower, Gore, some of the other names.

[Mike Wright]

So the, the voyage of Michael this year, let's just break it down from a player standpoint, is pretty. A pretty fantastic voyage of. You start the year, super bowl contending team, right?

[Andy Holloway]

Yes.

[Mike Wright]

You get traded away to Dallas, you're like, okay, well, this, this could be worse. This could be worse.

[Jason Moore]

But.

[Mike Wright]

And then Dallas, you're like, okay, it's okay. And then they fell apart. Like, oh, you get cut. You get picked up by a practice squad on a team that may or may not make the playoffs, then back to a Super bowl contending team.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. And we'll see. He'll do what he always does.

[Mike Wright]

I'm not, I'm not saying that Michael's going to be the reason they're there. I'm just saying his, his voyage around the NFL is pretty funny.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, let's go ahead and talk about Legara Blunt. He was placed on injured reserve, which means the Patriots have now lost two running backs to injured reserve this year with Dion Lewis and LeGarrett blunt.

[Mike Wright]

I'll tell you what's going on.

[Andy Holloway]

We don't know if Blunt will even be back in dynasty leagues. I don't think he'll be back in New England.

[Mike Wright]

Arian Foster's brother is at it again, people.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes. You put a lot of blame on him unduly. It's just.

[Mike Wright]

It's a joke.

[Andy Holloway]

Is it? There's some rumors about Stephen Jackson that have not come to fruition. Brandon Bolden is a very valuable player to that team, but you still have to be looking at depth, at reliability, at not inducing an injury on a very valuable special teams player. And Brandon Bolden, and he's not really your prototypical every down, not the guy that they want for the playoffs. Monte Ball was signed to their practice squad. He's weighing in at about 230, 240 pounds. Drafted at 205, Steven Jackson has 3.7 a carry last year, hasn't played all season. Probably not in game shape, although he's known for being in shape. I don't know if they're going to sign him or not. Nothing imminent is what I'm hearing. So that has no bearing onto this week's game. So it's Brandon Bolden this week.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Unless they sign someone last minute that it would have to be someone like a Steven Jackson. They sign anybody below that kind of level you can't imagine they're going to come in and be ahead of Brandon Bolden. So at this point for this week, I think it's Brandon Bolden and I think it's James White as well. You're going to see a few more carries go his way and maybe just a different game plan for the weapons that you have. And you know, everything changes every week with the Patriots. So you don't really. It's almost no different because if you just take LeGarrett blunt out, put Brandon Bolden in, you still. Are you really confident starting Brandon Bolden? No, not really.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. You're not really confident. So he was obviously a big waiver wire pickup. I think teams like myself who are desperate for running back would have loved to just roll him out there and see if you get that lucky game where the the big back gets two touchdowns in New England. Let's move on. There is a lot of news. I'm not going to skip anything because I think it's really important that everybody get caught up on the big news here. So if you guys think of something else or something breaks during the news, let me know. TJ Yelden did not practice. The report is a sprained MCL most of the time. That is a multi week injury. That being said, Fred Jackson has played straight through it before. We don't expect Yelden to play this week. He. He's out. Yeah, I'm just going to say that he's out. He does say that he hopes to play next week. How much do you like Denard Robinson this week?

[Jason Moore]

Denard Robinson and we'll get to this later and I'll give my reasons why.

[Andy Holloway]

At home versus Atlanta.

[Jason Moore]

By the way, I like Denard Robinson quite a bit this week. I think of all the waiver claims he's the guy that you can. He's the only guy you can start confidently this week. I'm not so sure about that. Week 16 it is normally a multi week injury but. But we have seen with Yelden once before in week seven where it looked for sure like Yelden was going to be out and Denard was going to be the guy and Yelden started and got all the carries and was okay. So you know when I look at an injury to a player the best thing of predicting the future with them is looking at their past. And so we've it's too small a sample size with Yelden but we've just seen that once so I'm definitely not going to say, well, an MCL keeps him out week 16 and I will.

[Andy Holloway]

Retract the official out. It is not an official out. So doubtful for this week.

[Mike Wright]

But when the, when the news is coming out that a guy hopes to play in week 16, yeah, he's he. You need to be prepared for him to be out. I like Denard Robinson a lot this week. He's he to me. He's not a guy who can do it week after week after week. But good news, everybody. One week. That's what you need from Denard Robinson. This right now in a great matchup. I with a volume, who else is going to get carries and catches?

[Andy Holloway]

Robinson. Frank Gore.

[Mike Wright]

I'd go Robinson.

[Jason Moore]

I would as well.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay. I'm just putting some. Those are the decisions people are making.

[Mike Wright]

Fresh. He is fresh.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm going to stay at the running back position right now and then I'll come back to Ifert and Edelman and some of the other news. Ron Rivera has ruled out Jonathan Stewart. Stewart's out. The, the reports in weeks past have been Cameron Artist Payne, the rookie who we've talked about in the beginning of the season might have the bulk of the early down work, but yesterday Ron Rivera kind of came out and said, well, it's going to be, it's probably going to be Fozzie. It could be Tolbert Cameron, Artist Payne will have his chances. So to me, this is called reading the game flow. It really is. And to me, playing with a different offense like the production from Jonathan Stewart has been statistically nearly twice as efficient as the other backs when they've gotten carries this year. So the offense, to me, it's going to struggle to some degree. Am I wrong? If you don't have a guy that's been twice as efficient as the other running backs.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

I mean they can make adjustments. I'm not saying they can't.

[Mike Wright]

It's, it's, it's very possible. It struggles. I'm not going to doubt Cam.

[Andy Holloway]

No. And it's not so much that I think Cam's going to have a problem. It's just the Giant you're going to New York game. Flow wise, what do you project is a score in this game and who will be out there in that context?

[Mike Wright]

I think it'll be a higher scoring type game. And what I mean by not doubting Cam is I think Cam will pick up the slack and he'll take over for, for the, for the lack of Jonathan Stewart. I think the running backs will be okay. The Giants are a very Poor running defense. So I don't think there will be much trouble for Carolina really.

[Andy Holloway]

But. But what does that mean? Here's the thing. Here's what I'm getting at, and maybe I didn't explain it good enough. If the Giants are out of the game in the first quarter, it's going to be a lot of Tolbert or maybe some opportunities paying in the end of the game. If the Giants are putting up points at home, fighting for the playoffs, a little bit of a, you know, Carolina's defense is on fire, but you've got Odell Beckham Jr right now based on, you know, Fozzie would be out there in a close game, is my point.

[Mike Wright]

I would play Fozzie.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. If you have to play one, you have to play the guy that has been said as the de facto starter because he gets first opportunity. Now, I could absolutely see a game where you're giving him that first role that, like veterans start, you know, because he's been there so long and the. But then roll to the rookie. I could see that happen. What I would say is you can't really. You don't want to start Fozzie and you don't. You definitely can't start Cameron, Artist, Payne. But with what is coming out about Jonathan Stewart as far as week 16, you know, maybe resting, then we. We look at the history of Jonathan Stewart when he gets injured, that generally speaking, is something that is a little bit slower to come back from. So I would want both of those guys, or either of those guys, Fozzie or Cap on my bench and wait and see because I think one of them is going to be very valuable.

[Andy Holloway]

But you can't just. You cannot wait. There's two weeks left.

[Jason Moore]

Well, I'm, I'm.

[Andy Holloway]

How do you wait and see? There are plenty until you start on Sunday morning.

[Jason Moore]

No, no, no. I'm saying four, week 16. I mean, we make. We make, you know, defensive special team grabs for week 16. I'm saying that these are good week 16 guys.

[Andy Holloway]

So who's the guy this week?

[Jason Moore]

This week it's got to be Fozzie.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay, so you would start Fozzie over Bolden or. No, no, you start Brandon Bolden.

[Jason Moore]

Yes.

[Mike Wright]

I'd go bowling.

[Andy Holloway]

Would you start Fozzie Whitaker or Chris Polk?

[Jason Moore]

I would start Fozzie Whitaker.

[Andy Holloway]

Fozzie Jonathan Grimes. Fozzie Fred Jackson, Fozzie Alfred Morris, probably Fozzie. Okay. All right. That's. That's what I need to know. So Ian Rapaport reports, like I said, nothing imminent. Between. Oh, we already talked about Steven Jackson. All right. Julian Edelman, practice in full.

[Mike Wright]

Hey, that's dangerous.

[Andy Holloway]

This is dangerous for Danny Amendola enthusiast.

[Mike Wright]

Well, Danny Amendola was. He was already getting limited work where you can see that he's still coming back from that. The injury. The Patriots are not playing him full. They didn't play him full time last week. And funny enough on this, one of the newest news blurbs is Calvin Pryor from the jets saying that DEZ Bryant doesn't look the same since he. Which maybe this is or is not, you know, functional news, but if other players are talking about Des Bryant does not look the same since that foot injury. Edelman had the exact same injury, right?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

I thought he had a Jones fracture.

[Andy Holloway]

That was the initial report. I don't. I don't know for sure either way.

[Mike Wright]

The Edelman, let's say he plays this week. I'm not playing him.

[Andy Holloway]

That's interesting because I have the completely opposite opinion. I think if he's healthy enough to be put out there in their situation right now, if he starts, he'll be what Gronk did last week, which he'll be utilized to the full. You know, I think that what the practice reports say on Edelman is that he looks super crisp in and out of routes and looks good. So I guess, yeah, that's a gut call for you as an individual fantasy owner, if you have the room to start somebody else. I understand the protection against the injury. That's. That makes a lot of sense.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. I can break the tie here at least and just say my personal, you know, if this was a choice I was making on my team, if Edelman plays, which I got to think if he's practicing in full, that he's going to play, then I would start him and I would again hedge my bets against, you know, if you've got other good options to start, then sure, wait a week. That's a luxury. But I think if Edelman plays, most people should start him. And if Edelman plays, I would not start Danny Amendola. I would look elsewhere.

[Andy Holloway]

Yep. Tyler Iford is not practicing yet from the concussion situation. So we are not going to. We don't have anything else to report other than we'll know more in this week and we'll tell you whether we think he's going to start. We have our starts of the week at the tight end position at the end of today's show, so stay tuned for that if you need another guy to pick up.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Spoiler alert. It's Not Tyler Ifert. It's not our start of the week.

[Andy Holloway]

No, he's not.

[Mike Wright]

My gut tells me he would. He's not going to play.

[Andy Holloway]

I know. I feel the same way.

[Jason Moore]

When people don't practice coming off of a concussion a week later, that's not usually a good sign.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, we do expect C.J. anderson to play in Week 15 against the Steelers, but how much can you really expect from him?

[Mike Wright]

If they think he's back, he's going to get out there. All right, A guy because Ronnie Hillman was atrocious.

[Andy Holloway]

But would you start him?

[Jason Moore]

Well.

[Andy Holloway]

Fozzie Whitaker or C.J. anderson this week?

[Jason Moore]

Fozzie Whitaker.

[Mike Wright]

Fozzie.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay.

[Mike Wright]

They're playing Oakland, though. That's tough.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, but they're playing the Steelers. The number one fantasy run. D. I mean, C.J. anderson is.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, who's who? Never mind. For some reason, I was thinking the Broncos are playing Oakland.

[Jason Moore]

Oh.

[Mike Wright]

Because I was way off. Way off.

[Andy Holloway]

That is not correct.

[Mike Wright]

Thank you. Thank you for the update.

[Andy Holloway]

So we'll move on. Dante Moncrief is in a walking boot. It doesn't look good.

[Mike Wright]

His walking boot doesn't look good.

[Andy Holloway]

It's not very stylish.

[Jason Moore]

He hasn't had enough people sign it.

[Andy Holloway]

Fashion Police bedazzle it.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. My wife to the rescue. You know, I believe. And I could have gotten this report wrong, but it looked like the Colts offense is in a walking boot.

[Andy Holloway]

That is correct.

[Jason Moore]

Okay.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, here. Here's the incredible thing about the Colts right now. And we'll get into it in the matchup. Trending the wrong direction. Given up a lot of points over the last two weeks. Something like an average of 49 a game or something. Ridiculous. So, yeah, not looking good for that situation. But if. If Moncrief's out, do you just de facto start Hilton and expect the volume to be there? Because he's been. He's been all right with Hasselbeck.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

I would start him either way, but if Moncrief is out, maybe he gets a little target bump.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, a couple more quick bits of news. Matt Schobbs expected to start against the Chiefs, so.

[Mike Wright]

Really?

[Jason Moore]

So.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes. Yes. So that is.

[Mike Wright]

That helps. That helps Buck Nasty.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. It might help Buck Allen. It might also help the Chiefs defense more than Jimmy Clausen because two pick sixes, four interceptions in his last two starts. Andre Ellington not expected to play. So David Johnson and Alshon Jeffrey. Limited at Wednesday's practice with Alshon Jeffrey.

[Jason Moore]

I couldn't let it go. Sorry.

[Andy Holloway]

That's fine. I respect that. With Alshon Jeffrey, though.

[Mike Wright]

All in.

[Andy Holloway]

You cannot ignore a report about his calf in practice.

[Jason Moore]

No way can you ignore that. This calf has been a lingering problem all year long. It has affected whether or not he's able to play. It's affected how he plays in the game. And so this is. This is concerning news. If you're an Alshon Jeffrey owner. Might make my difficult decision between Mike Evans and Randall Cobb very easy this week. If he misses.

[Mike Wright]

The answer may be both.

[Jason Moore]

The answer may be both.

[Andy Holloway]

Except for you have to choose one tonight. If you're going to play Mike Evans, you have to start him today. Thursday night.

[Mike Wright]

No.

[Jason Moore]

No. Well, that's. Wow. That.

[Andy Holloway]

I guess. Mike Evans is in your lineup.

[Jason Moore]

Mike Evans is definitely in my lineup, and I will not put him in my flex. Just another Eddie Royal weekly public service announcement. Put him in your wide receiver.

[Andy Holloway]

Would you handcuff Allison Jeffrey with Eddie Royal in the event that he's out? No, you would not.

[Jason Moore]

I would not. I don't think Eddie Royal is going to.

[Andy Holloway]

No. Marcus Wilson.

[Jason Moore]

Right. I just don't see Eddie Royal right now how he's been this year. I don't. I don't see him being a replacement for Alshon Jeffrey. I would hope that playoff teams have a better option on their bench.

[Andy Holloway]

Fair enough.

[Jason Moore]

Than that replacement.

[Andy Holloway]

Fair enough. That makes a lot of sense.

[Mike Wright]

Eddie Royale with Cheese is just not getting targets.

[Andy Holloway]

No. So, yeah, but. But he just came back from injury, so I still think he has a lot of potential.

[Jason Moore]

He's been injured all year. It hasn't been good for him. So before we get to the fantasy forecast, want to take a second thank today's sponsor, which is pokerstars.net, one of the most fun places to play any game imaginable. If you like poker, if you enjoy the game, go to pokerstars.net it's completely free. It's easy to get started. You click a button, you install their software. All you need to register is an email. That's it. And you get 1000 free chips and it reloads for free a couple times every hour. So you can play forever for free. It's a fun thing to do with you and your friends. You can grab it on your iPad, your iPhone. You can be sitting waiting for hours for the movie Star Wars. Movie Star wars to start.

[Andy Holloway]

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[Jason Moore]

Play some poker on your phone for free, for fun. You can also start for free a club for you and your friends. So if you've got friends across the country or across the City or across the neighborhood. They don't even have to come to your house anymore. So here's what you do.

[Andy Holloway]

Stay out.

[Jason Moore]

Yes. To stay away. Play for fun. Play online. Play on your devices. Sign [e-mail], get 1,000 play chips to get you started. And have fun today. Fantasy forecast.

[Mike Wright]

That was a lot of news.

[Andy Holloway]

I know.

[Jason Moore]

I didn't.

[Mike Wright]

I'm exhausted.

[Andy Holloway]

I didn't feel. And there's more news. I had to leave out smaller stuff that we'll get to later in the week, but it just is hard to leave something off where people are making decisions, and I just didn't want to do it. So Thursday night game, as we alluded to, Buccaneers facing the Rams and. Well, I really like the Buccaneers defense.

[Mike Wright]

That is very fair. Very fair.

[Andy Holloway]

They're still fighting for the potential of a playoff, are they? They're not eliminated. Right. Because they're six and seven, I believe.

[Mike Wright]

Mathematically. I don't believe.

[Andy Holloway]

No, they wouldn't BE, because the 8 and 5 Minnesota Vikings, 6 and 7, you've got the problem, you know, the potential mathematical chance there.

[Mike Wright]

So you're saying there's a chance.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, what I'm trying to do is come up with an angle as to why they're gonna play hard tonight.

[Mike Wright]

Well, I'll tell you who's trying to come up with an angle is the NFL Network, as they're stuck again.

[Andy Holloway]

Like, I know the angle.

[Mike Wright]

Bucks versus Rams.

[Andy Holloway]

No way, man.

[Mike Wright]

What is.

[Andy Holloway]

Seen those color jerseys? I love the color jersey coming out again. Oh, yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, we got.

[Andy Holloway]

The Rams are like highlighter yellow.

[Jason Moore]

Really?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

That's awesome.

[Jason Moore]

That is. That. That. Now I'm gonna watch highlighter.

[Mike Wright]

But that's Seattle. Well, Seattle has that neon green.

[Andy Holloway]

No, that's like highlighter green. Yeah, this is yellow. Green and yellow.

[Jason Moore]

Those are actually different colors.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, but just as a highlighter. But the Rams highlighter yellow. Where?

[Jason Moore]

Where?

[Mike Wright]

On their.

[Jason Moore]

What? They're yellow?

[Andy Holloway]

The Rams are yellow. They're yellow.

[Mike Wright]

They are not highlighter yellow.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, I know, but the color rush, you know, that's the whole.

[Mike Wright]

You pick a color from your team, and then you run it through the.

[Jason Moore]

Highlighter machine, and then you run it through the extreme machine is what you do, Mike. You take one of your colors and you say, oh, that's extreme.

[Andy Holloway]

Highlighter's probably wrong. Bright yellow.

[Mike Wright]

So they grab the uniforms and they just dump Mountain Dew all over it.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes, they're hopped up.

[Mike Wright]

No, they're extreme.

[Andy Holloway]

And after the radiation dies down, they put them on. I've Got them right in front of me, by the way.

[Jason Moore]

Sterilized sights.

[Andy Holloway]

And apparently I've also got an advertisement playing in the background. You can't go on the Internet anymore. Autoplay ads. All right, public service announcement. Get rid of those. All right. Winston Keenum. Keenum has averaged. He's been held under 140 passing yards in both of his starts.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, brutal.

[Andy Holloway]

So you're not contemplating Case Keenum in any fantasy context, but you are thinking about him with the Tampa Bay defense, which has been the 8th best run defense. They could keep Gurley in check and make Keenum try to do something because he doesn't have anybody to throw to and he doesn't have the playbook to throw the ball and be productive. So I don't mind the Tampa D in a streaming start here at all. I'm starting Todd Gurley.

[Mike Wright]

Yep. Yeah, you get. We had a bit of a scare there with Todd Gurley after a couple weeks of really bad production. He came through big last week. It's. It is. It's tougher though. It's tougher though when you have a guy like Gurley on an offense that's just so bad against a great run defense where you're. You're counting on one of those one bit.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm counting on one big play, a 45, 50 yard run.

[Jason Moore]

I don't have any problem at all against a good run defense. The thing that I have a problem starting Gurley with is against a good offense because the only thing that's going to hamper Gurley, I don't think it's a great run defense. I mean, you saw him, you know, he was able to destroy Arizona early in the year when we weren't scoring and the game was where they were still in the game. And so that's what I care about with Gurley is are they going to be able to just keep handing the ball off? And I don't expect Tampa Bay to go up by two or three scores quick. I mean, it's possible. But I think that, that to me says Gurley is going to be able to continue getting the ball and if he gets the ball, he's going to wear down a defense.

[Mike Wright]

Okay, so are you. I guess. We've, we've already talked a little bit about Mike Evans of. We're pretty comfortable with him with Vincent Jackson being out. We've seen when Jackson was out, Evans just getting a gigantic whale size of targets.

[Andy Holloway]

The problem is just what we saw last week. The Rams, they're at home again. They held Calvin Johnson down. That offense didn't do much the over under in this game's 40. It's not that I don't. I'm not saying don't start Evans. I'm just saying I don't know if I'm going to get, you know, a monster game out of it.

[Jason Moore]

Evans is very scary for me. I'm an owner this week. And again, I just mentioned I was deciding between Randall Cobb and Mike Evans, and to me, it was very, very, very close. In my rankings when I started guys out, I actually had Randall Cobb with a better game than Mike Evans. But Mike Evans has that high ceiling. He has that game that you can have in a playoffs that you need in week 15. You need a guy that can go out there and dump 30 and have that opportunity. He's got a much higher probability of that than Randall Cobb. And you've seen, you know, the Rams, they had such a great defense for the first half of the year, especially against the wide receiver position, but in the last four weeks, they've given up a touchdown every single week. Two touchdowns, half of those weeks, over 100 yards in three of the four and over 300 two weeks ago. So they're, they're a beatable team. I think you start Mike Evans in most situations.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, so Doug Martin and Austin Safari and Jenkins. Now Martin is in.

[Jason Moore]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

He's locked and loaded. What about asj? Where does he fall into your tight end rankings for this week? He is to me, a back end one this week with some upside.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, I can absolutely agree with that. I mean, he. You at this point with. For a guy who's had one great game in his career, you can't expect it, but you've seen it, so you at least know that it, that the unicorn exists and it could happen. Vincent Jackson is out like we were talking about, so he's not a terrible player. Where do we. I have him?

[Jason Moore]

You've got him lowest and both Andy and myself have him 13th. I think in a playoff matchup, there's probably guys that are better either on your roster or, you know, I would rather start Richard Rodgers personally against Oakland. I'd rather start probably Heath Miller or Zach Miller over those guys over Safari and Jacobs.

[Mike Wright]

I completely agree. Where there's, there's guys who I'd rather play.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, A lot of the stock that you're putting into guys nowadays has a lot to do with the quarterback throwing to them. You know, that's how I'm thinking about a lot of these matchups, you know, you mentioned Richard Rogers. I don't know. I might start asg over Rogers, but when I think about Rogers, I think about the Rogers throwing to him as opposed to Winston and getting locked up in a matchup where I'm depending on Winston right now. Jets face the Cowboys. This game is Saturday. People do not get caught off guard. This is a Saturday night game that is called Thursday Night Football. It is Thursday Night Football. That's what they call it.

[Jason Moore]

Wow.

[Andy Holloway]

When you watch the game on Saturday, it will be introed as Thursday Night Football.

[Jason Moore]

Is that real?

[Mike Wright]

Because Thursday Night Football is the brand.

[Andy Holloway]

It's a. Yeah, exactly.

[Mike Wright]

Come on.

[Jason Moore]

I never watched TJIF on Saturday. Come on.

[Mike Wright]

Well, I didn't ever watch Snick on Friday.

[Andy Holloway]

The point is, is you're gonna be really confused about what day it is. Even more so when you hear the introduction to the show, the jets take on the Cowboys. I want to talk. You know, Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker are locked and loaded.

[Mike Wright]

Correct.

[Andy Holloway]

In fact, something interesting I saw last week about Brandon Marshall, he was the third fastest speed measured last week.

[Mike Wright]

Ooh, Marshall still got it.

[Andy Holloway]

Now the top two was the same guy who on two plays and his name is Ted Ginn Jr. Yeah, he's pretty fast. But Marshall on that broken play actually hit the third fastest miles per hour in those next gen stats, which was kind of interesting because he still got it is my point. All right, so Ryan Fitzpatrick, we all like him as a start this week.

[Mike Wright]

I love him this week.

[Andy Holloway]

It goes beyond like for Mike. It goes to love.

[Mike Wright]

Yes.

[Jason Moore]

I've got a healthy like for him this week. You know, the question mark for me in this game is which Cowboys are going to show up? The Cowboys that have been playing lose.

[Andy Holloway]

By 30 or lose by 4. No, no.

[Jason Moore]

I mean the Cowboys have been in most games all year because of their defense and their defense has been very good. Now they're out of the running. All their dreams and hopes of, hey, if we win, we're just one game back, that's crushed, that's gone. And we saw last week they didn't really show up. And so if that's the new Cowboys that come out and say, look, this year's over, you know, we're not excited, we're not playing with all of our energy. We're not trying to save our team with our defense to get Tony Romo back, then the jets are going to go hog wild because they have to win out to get in. Assuming, you know, they're going against the Steelers and they don't have the Tiebreaker. So I'm very interested to see which. Which defense is going to show up for the Cowboys tonight. If I had to pick, I'm picking the one that phones it in and I expect big things from.

[Andy Holloway]

What about the game on Saturday, though?

[Jason Moore]

On Saturday.

[Andy Holloway]

Let's confuse him even more.

[Mike Wright]

Some interesting stuff here for Darren McFadden. Who Darren McFadden, for me, for weeks has been an auto start because of volume. And you look back at what happened last week, very interesting. Darren McFadden got the majority of the. Of the snaps, 77% of the snaps, yet he only ran the ball nine times and he got two targets.

[Andy Holloway]

Guess who had seven carries?

[Mike Wright]

And I was just going to say, you know, on 10 snaps, a guy who got seven carries and looked. Okay, Mr. Robert Turbin. So for me, is there. There's a little bit of concern here for the Darren McFadden volume play. There's a lot of concern, especially against the Jets. It's already a bad matchup. So Darren McFadden is not an automatic start from.

[Jason Moore]

He was your set of the week, right?

[Mike Wright]

He was mine, which I love it.

[Andy Holloway]

The jets are the number one rushing defense right now, and now they get to go up against Matt Castle. Matt Castle completed 13 of 29 passes in week number 14.

[Jason Moore]

Man, do I love the Jets.

[Andy Holloway]

I love the jets defense. Absolutely. Mike, are you starting them in your consolation ladder?

[Mike Wright]

I am, and I'm also starting them in my money league, so you guys can eat it.

[Andy Holloway]

Hey, by the way, don't play Des Bryant.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, he is my sit of the week.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, you can't do it.

[Jason Moore]

You know, he's still a guy that could go out and have a fine game, but I'm fine having that game on my bench because more often than not, the rest of the way here with Castle throwing the ball and him not looking like the same Des Bryant, he's going to be putting up turds.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, man, the Bills. Oh, man, the Bills at the Redskins. What do we think about this game?

[Mike Wright]

It's a game.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. It's a game. The Bills, obviously. You have Tyrod Taylor. How do you feel about him against the Redskins in Washington this week?

[Mike Wright]

I feel pretty good about Tyrod Taylor. He's. He's been getting back on track where he didn't give you the monster game last week. He's still. But the connection with him and Watkins is really starting to develop, which is fantastic news for his outlook. But the problem with Taylor is that is the throwing attempts. If he's not getting you the touchdowns on his on his lower volume of passing, then he's giving you just an average game. So is he's. He an automatic in guy? For me? No, not necessarily. I think I have him as a lower one. I would still. He's still an okay option for me.

[Andy Holloway]

So let me see some.

[Mike Wright]

Pull up my rank. Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

And say I want to see some guys that you have around Taylor because if people are making streaming decisions this week, I want them to know kind of where you have him laid out.

[Mike Wright]

So I have Fitzpatrick ahead of him right now.

[Andy Holloway]

That makes sense.

[Mike Wright]

Right now I actually have Taylor a couple spots ahead of Big Ben. I think I'm going to take a look. I'll take a closer look at that. I'm not sure I would be willing to pull that trigger.

[Andy Holloway]

I have Matthew Stafford one spot ahead of Tyra Taylor.

[Jason Moore]

I believe I've got Taylor the highest this week. I think that what you mentioned a second ago, that connection starting to heat up with him and Sammy Watkins with the Redskins. I think he's a safe play, especially because he gets 50 yards on the ground every week. So his floor is something that should be okay against the Redskins in this matchup, but his ceiling, I mean, I know he doesn't have as many attempts, but he has several games with three touchdowns he can run in a touchdown. So I like this matchup quite a bit for him. I would play him over Fitzpatrick, who I like. I've got him ahead of Derek Carr and Matthew Stafford. So to me, Tyrod Taylor is one of the stronger streams this week.

[Andy Holloway]

Are you guys as scared of desean Jackson as I am in this game?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

With. Well, coming off of his injury, of maybe he's going to play, maybe he's not going to play. That's not a situation where I'm comfortable playing a guy who's. His game is built on the speed and the long ball. Sure, he's been getting some. Some more targets closer to the line of scrimmage. But for a guy who you want that big play and he's saying he's. He's hurt, he's not a guy I want to start.

[Andy Holloway]

If you're starting a Redskins running back because you've been depleted with the Rawls injury and these other. The Stewart injury, you are starting a guy whose name begins with Matt, Matt Jones.

[Mike Wright]

But it's probably that coin, you flip the heads I win, tails you lose type of a coin.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, heads you lose, tails you lose.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, probably starting Matt Jones, you're probably, probably in the consolation bracket either now or next Week.

[Andy Holloway]

I don't know, man. I'm starting Fisi Whitaker against you. There's a lot of people, a lot of people who. Thomas Rawls carried through and got enough done last week.

[Jason Moore]

I like the comment that somebody made on our, on our poll on Twitter where it said fozzie Whitaker versus Tim Hightower face off. Because we've got like this pretty strong monster roster. And then you get down to our RB2 and it's Fozzie versus Hightower, just.

[Mike Wright]

Like we all thought.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

In the beginning of 2008, those, those guys might have been on the same roster in 2008. Fozzie Whitaker started on the. He was playing for the Cardinals preseason.

[Mike Wright]

Was he really?

[Andy Holloway]

Yes, he was.

[Jason Moore]

Wow.

[Andy Holloway]

And if I'm wrong about that, I'm sure I will hear about it on Twitter, but I'm pretty sure he played at some point in time on our practice squad.

[Mike Wright]

There you go.

[Andy Holloway]

So, okay. Other relevant LaShawn McCoy's out there. Carlos Williams is expected to be back this week, but I'm not worried about him at all. You saw last week, even I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Gillisley.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, the backup running back.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

He scored is my point. You still got a few carries to him. They'll go to Carlos Williams and I'm not starting any backup there.

[Mike Wright]

Obviously Shady's tearing it up.

[Andy Holloway]

And then Rule 86. Locked and loaded.

[Mike Wright]

Absolutely.

[Andy Holloway]

Stick him out there. Jordan Reed, Chiefs face the Ravens in what I expect to be a lower scoring game. Matt Schaub, like I said, likely to start. Not a game that I'm worried about Alex Smith in at all. I think Alex Smith was my stream of the week.

[Mike Wright]

He was. You staying on board?

[Andy Holloway]

I am.

[Mike Wright]

Okay.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. I really like Alex Smith this week. He hasn't. He doesn't throw interceptions. The Ravens are. Their interception rate is the worst of any team since the 70s. I'm not expecting this game to be disrupted by turnovers that somehow make it a competition, you know, a more competitive matchup against the Ravens. I do expect the Ravens to play hard. They're well coached. They still go out and fight. And with Alex, you know, with Matt Shaw back, maybe they're a little bit more efficient in the passing game than they would have been with Clausen, even with the interceptions. That being said, love the Chiefs, D. They're an elite option for you this week. But I don't know about Travis Kelsey, and a lot of people don't know about Travis Kelsey. You still want to believe the upside Is there. But with somebody like Jordan Reed, you've seen him put up two touchdown games. You've seen him have a baseline Kelsey. Two touchdowns seems like an impossibility right now.

[Mike Wright]

The difference between Travis Kelsey and Jordan Reed is his targets. It's not necessarily the talent level. I think Jordan Reed, if you're just going talent. Kelsey and Jordan Reed are actually among the elites of tight end. But can, can somebody get him the ball please? Alex Smith get and coach Reed get Travis Kelsey some targets. But until that happens, he's. He has to be looked at as a lower end starter at this point which is just infuriating.

[Jason Moore]

And the Ravens are very good against the tight end they have all year long and they're very bad against the wide receivers. That's just such a combination that keeps tight end scoring low against this team. Travis Kelsey on all three of our lists is quite low this week. And if you've got another good option, you know like that Jordan Reed, I would start him over him the biggest question mark in this game to me by far. It all comes down to where because Shark Hendrick west at the running back position is a guy and I want to know if you guys are have the same opinion that I do. But the way that I look at this matchup, if Ware is out, west is a great play and if Ware is in, I don't really want west in my lineup or where I do.

[Andy Holloway]

Not have that opinion.

[Jason Moore]

Okay, so you are I'm guessing on board with west either way.

[Andy Holloway]

That is right.

[Jason Moore]

Okay.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. I think west represents, actually I don't have him ranked super high, but I think he's one of those guys where, you know, you kind of rank them where you think they'll end up. But he has this, this larger upside to me where he could have a really, really good game.

[Jason Moore]

Very similar to Mike Evans. What I was saying, I marked him where I thought he would end up, but he's got potential for a blow up game. The problem is just, you know, when, when he started taking over, he was getting, you know, 20 plus carries a game. And then as soon as Ware came back, now it's like nine or ten and so you know, you're talking half, literally half of the production opportunity. So that's where I just see what's happened since Ware's been involved and I don't like it.

[Andy Holloway]

So he did have a 57 yard touchdown callback last week on penalty. So he still has some of the. But I understand they might not need to really air it out much in this game. But I like west with some upside.

[Mike Wright]

I like, I have no problem with west, especially with Ware being banged up and the running back situation where it is of all the guys who have gotten hurt, I think west is still an upper level option. Like west or guys you just picked up west or Denard Robinson.

[Andy Holloway]

I would play West.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. I would play west as well.

[Mike Wright]

I mean, like this guys in Seattle, the guys in Carolina.

[Jason Moore]

But this is a great example of just where I'm coming from. I've got. I've got west right now ranked as my top. As my 10th running back because I'm, I'm going. I started him without stating where because where completely missed practice yesterday. He wasn't involved at all. Wasn't even a limited participant. So if that continues and Ware's out, man, I love west, but if Ware is back, I would start Denard Robinson over West. I've got denard as my 14th running back.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, I'm more basing the wear stuff on. He's going to be limited if he plays because of pain tolerance, rib injury, things like that. But hey, this is called forecasting for a reason. It's because we don't know how it's going to. We don't know how it's gonna play out. We don't. And so we have to play what we know right now. Jeremy Macklin very confident in starting Macklin.

[Jason Moore]

Very confident. I am. I am the anti Macklin guy through the year. But I think.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, you're also gonna be the wet guy.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

Because I'm gonna win that bet probably.

[Jason Moore]

Unless he gets injured.

[Andy Holloway]

So. Oh, my God.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, come on now.

[Jason Moore]

Just saying.

[Andy Holloway]

So just so people are telling me there's a chance. So just so people know, the bet was a for Jeremy Macklin. He is presently at 935 yards and.

[Jason Moore]

He'S got three weeks to do.

[Andy Holloway]

Three weeks left.

[Jason Moore]

So it's going to happen without an injury.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. I hope he doesn't get hurt.

[Jason Moore]

It looked. I mean, you rewind the.

[Mike Wright]

He could go on a stretch like he had in the middle of the year.

[Andy Holloway]

I don't like Buck Allen and I don't feel confident enough with Kamar Aiken to start him. And I mean, there is a place where I would start Kamara Akin, but I don't feel that good about it in this matchup.

[Mike Wright]

I feel okay about it. It's. It's. I don't think it's the worst.

[Jason Moore]

Buck Allen last week against a good defense in Seattle was terrible. Now, if you were in a Point per reception or a half point per reception. He just kind of was bad.

[Andy Holloway]

Pretty terrible.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I know. I'm just saying at least he got five receptions and he got some points, but he was garbage against them for the most part. And I think Kansas City is a. Is a better defense against the run, so. I don't like Buck Allen at all.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's going to. Mike was right. He's going to have a level of baseline shop. Got him eight catches a couple of weeks ago.

[Mike Wright]

You know, 12. I'm 12. A couple of weeks ago.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. 12 catches a couple of weeks ago. So there's going to be a baseline for him. It's just. Can he do anything with those? We'll see what happens. I start a lot of guys over him. He was a sit of the week this week. All right, Texans and Colts, man, this is. We talked. Oh, man, 96 points. 96. This is. This is the headline to me. Okay. It's not the Yates versus Hasselbeck.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, come on.

[Andy Holloway]

That's it.

[Mike Wright]

That's the story.

[Andy Holloway]

The headline is the Indianapolis defense giving up 96 points in the last two weeks. This has to have some sort of ramification on the Texans offense. Do you agree? Do you not. Oh, you guys are the.

[Mike Wright]

I apologize.

[Andy Holloway]

The mics talking to the puffy. The puffy black things in front of you.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. So the question is really, who's going to pick it up? Because last week we can joke all we want about the Jaguars. The. Jack, the Jaguars being.

[Mike Wright]

People are so mad at you right now, but me. No, he will go. He could keep on the Jaguars.

[Jason Moore]

Who would be the guy from. I mean, you got DeAndre Hopkins. Could. Could completely go off. But are you confident just because it's the Colts starting one of these running backs? I'm not.

[Andy Holloway]

It's impossible to be confident. But can you look at the situation and see Denard Robinson having success last week? It's probably Polk. Grimes was more efficient, but Polk got the start from the staff and Blue was out playing special teams. So I've looked at that. I had Grimes a little higher on my waiver priority because of big play. I think Polk's safer because he was given the start.

[Jason Moore]

Last week I said that it was going to be Polk, and I think I was right there. I think this week it's going to be Grimes.

[Andy Holloway]

You mean given the start or just.

[Jason Moore]

The better, the more carries. I think Grimes going to get the actual more carries in this game because of game flow. Polk is a Guy that throughout the majority of the year has been a guy coming in on pass catching downs and things like that. That doesn't seem like what's going to happen against the Colts to me as much.

[Andy Holloway]

Two weeks ago, Polk was 12 for 61, 5.1 a carry. This past week he was 11 for 34, 3.1 a carry. Catches a couple balls. Grimes caught a couple passes. Grimes was 7 for 53. Had a really good week. I don't think I'd want to start any of them, but if I got news. Let me give you an example. If I got news that Whitaker, who I'm having to roll out there because of my situation, that he's going to only have a handful of carries, he's going to be really sharing with artist paint, I might play Polk.

[Jason Moore]

So you would play Polk over Grimes? Yeah, I would play Grimes over Polk. But that's. But that's my point is I think this is a situation we have to steer clear from in week 15.

[Andy Holloway]

96 points over two weeks. They're going to be in the red zone. They're going to have opportunities in the red zone. Jonathan Grimes is a smaller guy. I think Polk would get those carries. Just putting it out there into the. Into the fantasy stratosphere. Mike has nothing to say on the matter whatsoever. He's just sitting there.

[Mike Wright]

I was watching two Titans go head to head with some stellar analysis of Chris Polk versus Grimes.

[Andy Holloway]

These things matter. They're going to win you your week. Or they're not. They might lose me my week against Jason. All right, so T.J. yates has upside.

[Jason Moore]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

Because he's facing this defense is 29th against the past, 25th against the run. Doesn't he have streaming upside?

[Jason Moore]

Yes.

[Mike Wright]

Would you.

[Andy Holloway]

Let's say IFRT's out. Do you like Yates or McCarran? You know, the culture at the Colts are at home. So both teams are on. You know, McCarron and Yates are on the road. A.J. green, DeAndre Hopkins, a defense that in San Francisco that at home has been a lot better than the Colts. Yeah, I think I'm throwing it out there.

[Mike Wright]

I would probably go Yates.

[Jason Moore]

I can completely see the argument with DeAndre Hopkins. I got no problem if you want to go Yates, but I would go McCarron. And if you want to touch that bet and you can go ahead and touch that button.

[Andy Holloway]

Are you in with me?

[Jason Moore]

Waterbed?

[Mike Wright]

This is.

[Andy Holloway]

But this has a Yates vs McCarron.

[Mike Wright]

This is based off better the year. I thought you said if IFRT is out. Well, that's that's where I was going.

[Jason Moore]

I'll just take it straight up. In or out?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, straight up.

[Jason Moore]

Straight up. This is just be me and Andy.

[Mike Wright]

All right.

[Andy Holloway]

All right. Yeah. Straight up. Yates McCarron. I don't hate McCarron in two quarterback leagues as a streamer. I don't. I just. I just think that the Texans are going to win this game. I think that the Colts are going the wrong direction right now and they just don't have a lot of weapons on offense. You're going to not have Moncrief most likely. You can't run the ball with a beat up Gore right now. I don't. I don't know what they're going to do.

[Jason Moore]

This is as important a game as possible for these two teams.

[Andy Holloway]

I was gonna say for this week. This is a playoff.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. This is a playoff game.

[Andy Holloway]

Yep. Boy, we got three more matchups to get through before our starts of the week. You think we can do that or do you want to. You want to knock one over to tomorrow?

[Jason Moore]

Let's keep going and see how far we get.

[Andy Holloway]

The Bears head to Minnesota. The Bears head to Minnesota. Take on the Vikings. Cutler Bridgewater.

[Mike Wright]

Who are you going to start?

[Andy Holloway]

I'm not starting either guy.

[Jason Moore]

Really?

[Mike Wright]

I think I'm okay playing Jay Cutler. I want to hear some reports of.

[Andy Holloway]

How the alshon Jeffrey.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, I forgot.

[Andy Holloway]

If I'se Jeffries banged up.

[Jason Moore]

I thought that's what you were gonna say is. You want to hear more.

[Mike Wright]

I want you. I want to hear more reports on Jeffrey and I want to hear more reports on. On the Vikings defense.

[Andy Holloway]

The Vikings defense did not collapse last week.

[Mike Wright]

I understand that they did not collapse last week, but can they sustain these. We've seen these things happen where a team can rally for a game or two. So this will be the second one if they're missing all those starters in a divisional game. A team that the Bears know, the Vikings very well. They know the flaws and the weaknesses. So can they take advantage of that?

[Andy Holloway]

Fair enough. Their Vikings are at home. The Vikings are an interesting fantasy team because you start. I think you start. Nobody on that team except for Adrian Peterson.

[Mike Wright]

Correct.

[Andy Holloway]

Is there anybody you would even think about?

[Jason Moore]

No, no. No chance. All right.

[Andy Holloway]

So on the other side of the ball, Matt Forte is locked and loaded. No, no, no.

[Jason Moore]

Yes. And that's what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to bring up.

[Andy Holloway]

Say no, you say yes.

[Jason Moore]

Yes. I wanted to bring up the conversation of the Chicago backfield so that we can. We have actually had been tweeted at by some. Some of our listeners saying, hey, can you guys talk about Matt Forte, how confident you are? I saw you actually respond to one of those and say you're. You are locked and loaded with Matt Forte. Now, I am not saying no, that I wouldn't start Matt Forte. I've got him.

[Andy Holloway]

He's a one.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

For you.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's talk about the backfield, because he got a touchdown the last two weeks, which is why we're thinking of him as locked and loaded. He had fewer carries last week than Jeremy Langford.

[Mike Wright]

That's fair.

[Jason Moore]

He got 10 carries. Jeremy Langford got 11 carries. They are really starting to split that workload there. And if Matt Forte goes and doesn't get a touchdown, Matt Forte is not going to be that valuable against a Minnesota run. D. I mean, he had 10 for 45 last week. You take away that touchdown and he just crapped your team.

[Andy Holloway]

I think it does have a lot to do with whether those linebackers are available for Minnesota. He's locked and loaded for me. But your argument. It hit home. It hit right here. Because when you see a carry count of 10 carries, it makes you a little concerned.

[Mike Wright]

And I just dove in a little bit deeper, which I had not looked at, apparently. I did not realize this. Langford got seven targets last week. Where for. That's Forte's role. Forte's the pass guy. That's what he does. Yeah. Forte got two targets.

[Jason Moore]

Forte caught one ball last week.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. The week before he had five.

[Jason Moore]

Sure. I mean, that's the thing. We don't know. But when you. When you're talking about. All of a sudden, Forte's been so golden because who.

[Andy Holloway]

Are you really going to start over him in that situation? Because that's the problem. There's not. I mean, Denard Robinson. Let me ask you that one of these. Denard Robinson, Tim Hightower, Fozzie Whitaker, Matt.

[Jason Moore]

Forte over all of them. And I'll tell you the truth, when I did my rankings and I published them yesterday, Matt Forte was so low that it scared me on my rankings. And I took a look.

[Mike Wright]

Do we have that sound?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Do we have the scary sound?

[Andy Holloway]

You mean the.

[Jason Moore]

And I took a look and I said, would I really start all of these guys? You're naming the guys. It was Tim Hightower and Denard Robinson and Frank Gore and Latavius Murray. Would I really start those guys over Forte? And I had to wrestle with that, and I said, no, I wouldn't. Now I think there's reason to possibly do that. And I'm scared of Forte, but that's why I moved him up, and that's why right now Forte is, like you said, ranked as an RB1 in the back end of the RB1. Yeah, I just, I. You know, it's a matter of. I mean, Forte still has the higher upside. So you've got to start Forte. But I'm scared for you is gut check.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Check time. If you're looking at starting Denard Robinson over Forte, because the matchup and the volume says that's the right thing to do. But are you okay having Forte on your bench and losing?

[Andy Holloway]

So because we have so much time on the show, we're wearing our Foot Clan Star Wars T shirts today.

[Jason Moore]

The Foot Clan Awaken, which, by the.

[Andy Holloway]

Way, you can actually get them on the fantasy footballers dot com. But that's not why I'm bringing it up. This is not a shameless plug for our shirts. I put stars on this shirt, okay. Because it's Star Wars. There's stars on the shirt. Every time I look down, I think I got bad dandruff.

[Jason Moore]

I know. Every time I'm like, oh, there's lint I can't wipe.

[Andy Holloway]

I can't wipe these little stars off my shirt.

[Mike Wright]

I'm not sure if you've ever been to Advertising 101, but when you talk about your glorious shirt that you have.

[Andy Holloway]

Available, you don't see dandruff.

[Mike Wright]

Then you feel like. I feel like I got dandruff all over my shirt. That's.

[Andy Holloway]

You too can have the feel. Maybe you've got some dandruff issues. This is the shirt for you.

[Jason Moore]

Cover it up.

[Andy Holloway]

If your dandruff could fall off and.

[Jason Moore]

Become stars, we'd like to thank tomorrow's sponsor, Head and Shoulders.

[Mike Wright]

Yes.

[Jason Moore]

We're just pre plugging Head and Shoulders. Great.

[Mike Wright]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

Let's set up opportunity here. Mike can't even. He doesn't even know what's going on.

[Mike Wright]

Mike is got the fantasy dandruff.

[Jason Moore]

All right, let's get one more game at the Patriots.

[Andy Holloway]

That cannot be the line. That is not the line. That is a wrong line.

[Jason Moore]

That you have to be correct.

[Mike Wright]

The favored by three.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, that is absolutely favored by three.

[Andy Holloway]

Unadulterated liar.

[Jason Moore]

I think you're missing a zero after the three. I'm pretty sure that's accurate. Patriots.

[Andy Holloway]

So talk about that game and I'll get the right line so that we know what the heck.

[Mike Wright]

Well, you've got.

[Jason Moore]

You've got Julian Edelman that we talked about early. That's going to make a, I think, an improvement for Brady. I expect him to be there. It's going to be a downgrade for Amendola. So watch the Edelman news. If Edelman is in, I would start.

[Andy Holloway]

You're right. It's 13. 12 and a half. 13.

[Jason Moore]

There you go. And if he's. If he's out, I'm still very confident with Amendola. Obviously with Legarette Blunt being gone, they've got to change some of what they're doing.

[Andy Holloway]

And there's, I think, Brady, man.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

Brady is going to be good this week. If he. And you're sagging your head because I'm playing him against you.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. James.

[Andy Holloway]

James. White's in the backfield and Gronk's back on the field. Practice in full yesterday.

[Jason Moore]

And Edelman's back.

[Andy Holloway]

Did you see they signed Jason just. He's gone.

[Mike Wright]

Mike and I are left.

[Andy Holloway]

You know, he's gone yet tomorrow.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I will not be here tomorrow.

[Mike Wright]

I'm sorry to hear that.

[Jason Moore]

Thanks, bud.

[Andy Holloway]

Leonard Hankerson was signed. Leonard Hankerson was signed by the Patriots.

[Jason Moore]

Leonard Hagerson, he just was put on IR but then was released from IR and picked up.

[Andy Holloway]

He's healthy.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, but he was on ir.

[Andy Holloway]

That's correct. He's like, I'm not on the IR anymore, and I would not doubt that he has a contribution. If Bran lefelt keeps Buddy fingering the ball away, I would.

[Mike Wright]

I would strongly doubt it.

[Jason Moore]

You know what dawned on me? Like I was looking at that, I go, oh, they must want another guy who drops the ball like crazy. Like, what? You already have Brandon lefell. Why are you bringing in Hankerson? That's what I thought.

[Andy Holloway]

That's true. That's true. Hankerson has had some bad drops this year. Is there anybody on the other side of the ball that you would roll.

[Mike Wright]

The dice with, Mariota, if you're struggling for a qb?

[Andy Holloway]

Delaney Walker.

[Jason Moore]

Delaney Walker. Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Well, Walker's Walker is an auto start, but I'm just saying. So Mariota, the Patriots defense has been great, so he's not a guy I'm advising, but in a pinch, you've at least seen what he can do. Running the ball, throwing four touchdowns a game. So you could do worse.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay, we got to move on. Let's get into the starts.

[Jason Moore]

Starts of the week.

[Mike Wright]

I'm starting Selson Blue.

[Andy Holloway]

You look like you're reading a tweet. I'm like, who's live watching the show? Alex Smith is my start of the week at the quarterback Position Russell Wilson had five through the air against Baltimore last week, the 31st against the quarterback in fantasy. And I think that Alex Smith will be solid enough to not lose you a fantasy playoff matchup, which is what you need. If you've got power positions elsewhere and you're streaming the quarterback position, you can go a lot worse and take a lot more risks than Alex Smith. He's not going to kill you with turnovers and I think he'll put, you know, one or two into the end zone this week, if not more.

[Mike Wright]

And I'm going, I'm sticking with Ryan Fitzpatrick. He is my stream of the week. He's also my start of the week. I think Dallas is trending the wrong direction of just really hard to start.

[Andy Holloway]

Marshall, stop Marshall and Edgar and there's.

[Mike Wright]

Wrapping it up so, so to speak in Dallas And Ryan Fitzpatrick has been dominating. Like we talked about earlier, if Russell Wilson wasn't doing what he's doing right now, the focus would be what Ryan Fitzpatrick is doing. He has nine touchdowns in the last three weeks. He a game, it was an overtime game but almost 400 yards. So he. I just think he is a great safe streaming option.

[Andy Holloway]

So when you mentioned Ryan Fitzpatrick, you need to. We need to give the context there. Same with Alex Smith. Would you start Fitzpatrick over Stafford?

[Mike Wright]

That one. I have struggled with that simply because.

[Andy Holloway]

The start of the week.

[Mike Wright]

No, no, not the start of the week but just what will Stafford do? We know that the Saints have been an auto QB start.

[Jason Moore]

Not recently.

[Mike Wright]

So I'm saying so last week they kind of shut down Winston and Stafford has looked either white hot or white cold white knot.

[Jason Moore]

I've got Stafford as my last QB1. He's QB12. So I've got Fitzpatrick ahead of him. Personally I would rather start Ryan Fitzpatrick.

[Andy Holloway]

Or Derek Carr against the packers in Green Bay.

[Mike Wright]

Derek Carr it in Green. Isn't that game in Oakland?

[Andy Holloway]

No.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, that game's in Oakland.

[Andy Holloway]

That game is in Oakland.

[Mike Wright]

That game is in Oakland.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. I don't have any problem with Derek Carr this week. I've got him one spot behind Ryan Fitzpatrick. But my. Since we're talking about all these quarterbacks, let me give my start of the week is Blake Bortles. Blake Bortles has been really hot lately. He has three weeks in a row with multiple touchdowns. Five touchdowns two weeks ago, four touchdowns. One of those was on the ground last week and now he's going up against Atlanta who has a decent past defense. But they are just, they're imploding. I mean they are. They look bad. They're playing bad. It's in their heads. Obviously, Cam Newton ripped them apart last week. I think that this is a game where you can. You can trust Blake Bortles.

[Andy Holloway]

Let me ask you, though. I mean, who at this point is not starting Blake Bortles? Because for you to make him your start of the week, I need to know who that's helping.

[Jason Moore]

You want to know what is crazy is that Blake Bortles was started in 50% of 56% of leagues. So a lot of people aren't starting Blake Bortles. And I'm saying, what are you doing? He's been on fire. He's a great option. He's a top half QB one this year. I'm clearly starting Blake Bortles over Big Ben this week. That's me.

[Andy Holloway]

Aaron Rodgers.

[Jason Moore]

Aaron Rodgers.

[Andy Holloway]

Cam Newton.

[Jason Moore]

If you weren't watching on YouTube, you saw my life flee my body at that question.

[Andy Holloway]

That's the second time.

[Mike Wright]

Okay, Drew Brees.

[Jason Moore]

I think I've got Blake Bortles ahead of Drew Brees.

[Mike Wright]

You do? I was testing your. Testing your might.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, we got to get. We got to get moving running backs.

[Mike Wright]

This is the longest show in the.

[Andy Holloway]

History of the world. I wasn't doubting the start at all when I brought that up. What I was saying was I'm trying to think about the guy who's actually got Blake Bortles because a lot of people grabbed him when they had Big Ben and they had other guys and they're saying to themselves, well, how confident can I be? And I appreciate that you gave him that confidence. I was just trying to think about the other guys they're thinking about.

[Mike Wright]

Yep.

[Andy Holloway]

I think which is the guys we mentioned.

[Mike Wright]

Most owners of Blake Bortles. I believe most owners of Bortles have another quarterback option. They're not just rolling one guy. They're not a Rogers team where they say, I don't need a backup. So I am fine with it.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, running back starts of the week. Let's try to get through these. Who's your guy, Mike?

[Mike Wright]

I'm going with Darren Sprols. And this is especially in a PPR focus because edge speed is the Achilles heel of the Arizona defense. We've seen it week after week after week.

[Andy Holloway]

Linebackers cannot get laterally to the edge.

[Mike Wright]

The Minnesota, when they tried to go up the middle were not successful. And as soon as they started going around even, even tight end screens to the edge of slow behemoth men's like Kyle Rudolph were having Success. So if they game plan properly and we know that the running back position up in Philadelphia is a complete influx of. They're just stirring the bowl. They have no idea what's going on. So I think that they will. Game plan sprolls and he's. I got him down for five or six catches. I think he's going to be great.

[Jason Moore]

For me, I'm sticking with the Jaguars over there with Denard Robinson. And the reason that I'm making him my start of the week is because Jaguars, there were so many running backs that looked great during the waiver period. You had your Brandon Bolden, you had, you know, Fozzie and Brown, Bryce Brown, an amazing start. Denard Robinson, he's really the only guy that I want to start from. The majority of waiver claims this week, the Atlanta run D has not been good. And I think you're going to get a good week from him.

[Andy Holloway]

And I'm going to go with Tim Hightower. I cannot get the number 28 out of my head. 28 carries last week and more than Ingram had all year. No competition. They don't believe in Spiller. Spiller won't be back. Hightower's paid his dues in practice and he was okay last week. He scored a touchdown. I just, I can't throw 28 carries out the window for very many other options. So I'm just starting Tim Hightower. If I have him, the line probably ends at about forte for that, for that situation. But I like Hightower a ton. I'll just jump over to my wide receiver. My wide receiver is Michael Floyd. He is playing even this morning. Bruce Arians came out. He's playing at an elite level. Last four healthy games, over 100 yards. He's scoring touchdowns. He's a big play receiver. And we've seen Philadelphia get torched before.

[Jason Moore]

A perfect matchup for him. I was so upset because I went to make Michael Floyd my clear cut number one start of the week and you had already had him in there. I really love Michael Floyd this week. So instead, my real start of the week is Ted Ginn Jr. Oh, I.

[Andy Holloway]

Thought it was Dwayne Bowe.

[Jason Moore]

Well, Dwayne boy, now Dwayne Bow.

[Mike Wright]

Truthers unite.

[Jason Moore]

Ted Ginn Jr. It's just you, buddy has been doing it all year. He has big upside in the playoffs. You have to have a guy that has top end potential that can put up a big game.

[Andy Holloway]

Wait, who did you say your start was? Ted Ginn Jr. Oh, okay, okay.

[Jason Moore]

So with Ted, Ginny, you, you've got him in back to back weeks with two touchdowns. He's been on fire. He's done it through the year and he's facing the New York Giants that have given up, you know, those, those type of big plays. So I feel confident. I mean, I'm not telling you you can't get a four points out of Ted Ginn Jr. You can, but you can also get a 30 points and if you need a high potential guy. Ted Ginn is a guy that is still on waivers. He started in almost no leagues and he should be. He can win you a week this week. And my other honorary mention was Doug Baldwin. He's only started in 60 something percent of leagues. He's going up against Cleveland. The running game is in shambles.

[Mike Wright]

That'll be up this week.

[Jason Moore]

I know, but I'm just saying if you've got him, have the confidence to start him personally.

[Andy Holloway]

Doug Baldwin or Antonio Brown this week?

[Jason Moore]

I knew you were going to do something like that.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, no.

[Andy Holloway]

Antonio Brown against Denver. Doug Baldwin against Cleveland.

[Mike Wright]

What kind of.

[Andy Holloway]

I know my answer. All right.

[Jason Moore]

Okay. I know my answer and my answer.

[Mike Wright]

Is Doug Baldwin, Antonio Brown.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm an Antonio Brown as well.

[Jason Moore]

Makes me want to gouge my eye out with water.

[Andy Holloway]

No way. All right, Mike, who's your wide receiver start?

[Mike Wright]

My wide receiver start of the week is Golden Tate. He is getting 10 targets a game with something, something weird is going on with Calvin Johnson. Add in the fact that they're in New Orleans, they are on prime time and you know who shines on prime time? Mr. Drew Brees. He get when the lights are on. Drew Brees is always fantastic. And why is that? This for the, for the guy in the Lions? Because the Lions will have to keep pace with the score of Drew Brees and his wide receiver core. So I like, I like Golden Tate a lot to get targets, possibly get in the end zone.

[Andy Holloway]

Might as well let you continue down the line here with your tight end start of the week based on what you just let it be.

[Mike Wright]

Same game, Ben Watson. They are at home and it's prime time. Drew Brees and Watson has been great when they were. When they're at home. So I'm firing him up. And if you're saying who am I going to fire up if I got Ben Watson and I got Travis Kelsey, I'm playing Ben Watson. Gross. But I'm doing it.

[Jason Moore]

My tight end start of the week seems a little obvious at first glance. I hope to our listeners it's Gary Barnage. He's been as consistent and as good a tight end as you found in the league, he still only started in about 60% of leagues, which blows my mind. And so if that's what's happening, you've got a roster with a lot of people out there where you've got Barnard and someone else, and then you've got the matchup of Seattle, which a lot of people think is really scary. We've said it on the show a lot. Seattle is terrible against the tight end. It's going to be Cleveland's main option. So I really think Gary Barnage is a safe play this week. I'm giving full confidence. Don't be afraid of Seattle. Start Gary Barnage. He's going to be fine.

[Mike Wright]

What cannot be seen by the Foot Clan on the video or in the podcast is that you had actually spelled it Gary Barnage.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, really?

[Mike Wright]

And I think that is a fantastic.

[Jason Moore]

Gary Barnage.

[Mike Wright]

Very fancy name for Gary. Gary Barnage. That's a. That's an international spy. Gary.

[Andy Holloway]

Gary Barnage.

[Mike Wright]

Gary barnage. Hey, double O5.

[Andy Holloway]

You can call him whatever you want. Heath Miller is my start of the week with extreme excitement. Now I am going to conditionalize it because he was. No, listen, listen.

[Mike Wright]

I'm very excited to maybe play Keith Miller.

[Jason Moore]

That escalated quickly. Go. Go on. God.

[Andy Holloway]

He didn't practice yesterday, guys. He played great last week, but he didn't practice yesterday. So my condition is that he plays.

[Jason Moore]

That's pretty good.

[Andy Holloway]

That's pretty good if he plays. He had 10 catches last week. Listen, the Denver defense, for all of its glorious ability, has given up double digits to the tight end position three straight weeks. They're 23rd against the tight end in fantasy football. And the pass rush of Denver puts Big Ben in a position to throw short. Those 10 catches last week were on 10 targets. He catches what's thrown at him. He's reliable. Big Ben loves him. I really like Heath Miller. You're an ifert owner who, by the way, breaking news, didn't practice today again. All right. I don't think Eifert's going to be on the field. Heath Miller. Heath Miller is a great start.

[Mike Wright]

So you're telling me if Heath Miller doesn't play, you're not going to start him?

[Andy Holloway]

Correct. Yeah. I'm going to conditionalize my starts on them playing.

[Mike Wright]

Well, you know what I'm.

[Andy Holloway]

You know who I don't like this week?

[Jason Moore]

Who's.

[Andy Holloway]

Jon Stewart.

[Jason Moore]

Jonathan Stewart.

[Mike Wright]

I'm going to conditionalize Thomas Rawls, all my starts, Jamal Charles, that if they have bad weeks they were not my start of the week. How about that?

[Jason Moore]

I think that's going to give you sounds good odds.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm not surprised. All right, that does it for this everlasting episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. We'll be back with the rest of the matchups and a very good we'll get daily dose tomorrow. We'll give you some DFS knowledge, break that down for you and an assortment of injury updates, get you ready for the weekend. We want championships for the foot clan. We want to see them on Twitter. By the way, you bring home the title. I want to see a picture of that trophy and you and. And if you want to intersperse some very defeated, dejected league mates in the background of the photo, that'd be great too.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, that can't hurt.

[Andy Holloway]

Maybe they're being watered using the Wheel of Water app. I don't even know. Don't know what's going on.

[Jason Moore]

So, clan for life.

[Andy Holloway]

Any parting words, a friendly reminder?

[Mike Wright]

Be kind, keep the sport spoilers off of social media.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. And may the force be with your team.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Goodbye.

[Jason Moore]

Thank you for listening to another edition of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Don't forget to visit us on the web at www.thefantasyfootballers.com and follow us on Twitter @the ffballers.