Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Wk 16 Studs, Duds, Rising Stars, #FootClanTitles

Summary

Fantasy Footballers Podcast Summary: Week 16 Studs, Duds, Rising Stars, #FootClanTitles

Release Date: December 26, 2016

Hosts: Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike "The Fantasy Hitman" Wright

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1. Christmas Reflections and Holiday Stories

The episode kicks off with the hosts sharing their personal Christmas experiences. Mike Wright humorously recounts how his oldest son found unwrapped presents in his locked office on Christmas Eve, leading to a tense conversation about being on the “naughty list” (02:13). Jason Moore shares a smooth Christmas with his kids, except for a minor hiccup when his youngest opened a tricky letter puzzle early (02:53). Andy Holloway narrates the challenges of assembling a massive dollhouse with his two-year-old daughter, highlighting the joys and mishaps of the holiday season (01:21).

Notable Quote:
Andy Holloway (01:07): "The best gift that we had was my wife bought our daughter... a dollhouse. It's the biggest dollhouse. I slept there last night in the dollhouse."

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2. Championship Game Drama

The hosts discuss a heartbreaking championship loss where Team Two narrowly missed victory due to two key players, Jeremy Hill and the Broncos Defense, underperforming (04:05). Andy shares a story about a league where a small point deficit led to the loss of the title because Jeremy Hill only scored 0.9 points instead of the required 1.6 (04:40).

Notable Quote:
Mike Wright (04:50): "I don't think my children have ever received so many gifts."

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3. Injury Reports and Their Fantasy Impact

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing injuries that have affected fantasy outcomes:

• Quarterbacks:

  • Derek Carr: Underwent surgery and is out for the season (09:00).
  • Marcus Mariota: Suffered a broken ankle, a more serious injury affecting his mobility and fantasy value (10:01).

• Running Backs and Other Positions:

  • J.J. Ajayi: Delivered a stellar performance with 206 yards and a touchdown but raised concerns about long-term reliability (12:38).
  • Taylor Gabriel & Malcolm Mitchell: Let fantasy owners down with poor performances (52:36; 53:42).

Notable Quote:
Mike Wright (11:21): "Marcus Mariota's with an A. With a broken ankle. That's far more serious to me."

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4. Studs, Duds, and Rising Stars

The hosts analyze players who have either outperformed expectations (Studs), underperformed (Duds), or shown potential for future success (Rising Stars).

a. Running Backs

• Studs:

  • David Johnson: Consistently scored 20 touchdowns, proving invaluable in fantasy playoffs (24:37).
  • Le'Veon Bell: Delivered strong performances with over 120 yards and touchdowns (25:03).

• Duds:

  • Todd Gurley: Struggled with inconsistent performances and reduced productivity (29:59; 31:05).

• Rising Stars:

  • J.J. Nelson (WR, Arizona Cardinals): Showed remarkable consistency with double-digit performances over four weeks (41:31).

Notable Quote:
Andy Holloway (24:54): "David Johnson, he's pretty good, he said. 20 touchdowns later, 20 touchdowns on the year for David Johnson."

b. Wide Receivers

• Studs:

  • Adam Thielen: Surpassed expectations with impressive yardage and touchdowns (32:40).
  • J.J. Nelson: Emerged as a reliable target in Arizona’s evolving offense (41:47).

• Duds:

  • Malcolm Mitchell & Taylor Gabriel: Failed to secure expected receptions and yards, disappointing fantasy owners (53:42; 52:36).

• Rising Stars:

  • Charles Clay (TE, Arizona Cardinals): Stepped up with consecutive touchdown games, becoming a key tight end target (45:40).

Notable Quote:
Mike Wright (33:12): "Adam Thielen was almost the greatest call of all time."

c. Tight Ends

• Studs:

  • Travis Kelsey (Chiefs): Became a pivotal part of the offense, delivering monster performances and touchdowns (38:52).
  • Antonio Gates: Provided consistent tight end targets with multiple receptions and touchdowns (40:25).

• Duds:

  • Zach Ertz: Underperformed, disappointing fantasy managers (55:17).

Notable Quote:
Andy Holloway (32:50): "Adam Thielen is turning into everything that we had hoped Stefan Diggs could be."

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5. Playoff Outlook and Team Strategies

The discussion delves into the playoff possibilities, forecasting that in the AFC, the Patriots, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City stand out as the likely Super Bowl contenders (09:16). In the NFC, Dallas and Atlanta are favored, with Seattle and the Cardinals also in the mix despite some defensive shortcomings (10:31).

Notable Quote:
Andy Holloway (09:33): "There are only three teams in the AFC that have any chance of getting to the Super Bowl. Number one far and away is the Patriots."

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6. Offseason Plans and Future Episodes

Looking ahead, the hosts tease upcoming offseason content, including the Foot Clan award show, truth episodes on various positions, rookie rundowns, and mock drafts. They emphasize the importance of maintaining engagement year-round to improve fantasy performance.

Notable Quote:
Andy Holloway (46:10): "We will have episodes. The truth about fantasy quarterbacks, the truth about tight ends, running backs... Everything that will set the landscape out for you."

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7. Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Mike Wright (00:00): "We did it. We did it. We have made it through the fantasy season."

• Andy Holloway (16:01): "You're not regretting being an Aaron Rodgers owner at this time of year? Four touchdowns, throwing laser beams."

• Jason Moore (04:05): "Yeah, congratulations to the other team."

• Mike Wright (14:44): "My cautionary tale is this. I went all in on a player that I don't like and I didn't really believe in, and I lost a lot of because of that."

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8. Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

As the episode wraps up, the hosts encourage listeners to participate in future Foot Clan titles and engage with the Fantasy Footballers community. They emphasize the continuous support and insights available to help listeners improve their fantasy strategies.

Notable Quote:
Andy Holloway (58:20): "We're done on this show. We'll talk waivers. We'll get you ready for week 17."

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Note:
This summary excludes advertisements, introductions, and outros, focusing solely on the content-rich segments of the podcast to provide a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Mike Wright]

Hey, Foot Clan. We did it. We did it. We have made it through the fantasy season. Well, most of us. Some of us play to week 17. However, if you took home a Foot Clan title, you head over to shopballers.com right now, get yourself some swag. And you know what? We're hooking you up with a coupon code foot clan title. Save 20%. Get that shirt. Let everyone know that you are a champion for the football.

[Jason Moore]

Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast coming to you from the fantasyjocks.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

[Andy Holloway]

Welcome.

[Mike Wright]

We made it.

[Andy Holloway]

We're back. My house is full of toys. So many toys.

[Mike Wright]

There are many toys.

[Andy Holloway]

Told my wife this is the best Christmas ever because they're never getting that much stuff again.

[Mike Wright]

What's so funny? Holy guacamole about that Is my wife had said, this is here. Okay. We're gonna pull back on the amount of stuff.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

And I'm with you. I don't think my children have ever received so many gifts.

[Andy Holloway]

The. The best gift that we had was my wife bought our daughter. And I do mean. I mean, we bought our daughter. She bought it, right? A dollhouse. And she wanted to put it together a couple days before Christmas in the garage because it might take a while. You know, lots of stories of parents taking four or five hours to put stuff together on Christmas. And I was like, I'll just do it the night before. It'll be easy. Like, I'm thinking, this dollhouse, it's a dollhouse. This is like a house house. She gets done with it. I go in the garage. My daughter cannot reach the top floor. That's how tall this is. She's, you know, a 2 year old. She cannot reach it without a step stool. It's the biggest dollhouse. I slept there last night in the dollhouse. That's how big it was.

[Mike Wright]

We had a situation where my oldest son found his way into my locked office.

[Jason Moore]

Oh.

[Mike Wright]

On. On Christmas Eve. And discovered there was some things unwrapped. There were some things unwrapped.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, no.

[Mike Wright]

So there was quite the conversation with him.

[Jason Moore]

Wow.

[Andy Holloway]

Did he get a pot of coal?

[Mike Wright]

Well, he.

[Andy Holloway]

Was that a thing?

[Mike Wright]

Maybe he was. He was very upset. He was very concerned that he was going to end up on the naughty list because of this. Yeah, everything is pretty naughty. Everything is okay.

[Andy Holloway]

Jason has no stories from Christmas.

[Mike Wright]

We skipped it.

[Jason Moore]

My Christmas just went swimmingly. The kids were happy. Everything was good. Other than when my youngest opened up a letter puzzle to help him learn and he opens it.

[Andy Holloway]

Aw, man.

[Jason Moore]

Yep. Sorry.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, man.

[Mike Wright]

But we got my youngest a letter puzzle as well. He was very excited.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, well, your son's smarter than mine.

[Andy Holloway]

You see, a friend of ours gave his son's both iPads, but they were like iPads from CVS, the pharmacy. Oh, video.

[Mike Wright]

Your eyes.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, they were like, for people who have injured their eyes. Oh, they were eye pads. Yeah. It was great video. All right, welcome to the show. Yeah, I know. We. We talk Christmas and hopefully you had a very merry Christmas. Happy holidays to everybody out there. Still celebrating. My son went to bed crying because he didn't want Christmas to be over. That's how my. And it's a great day, though. Great day with family and football. So many things to dive into today. Obviously, a lot of Foot Clan titles were won yesterday. Crazy games, big games by a lot of players. Expectations met for many. Some not so much. We also had a ton of injuries today. We've got all the studs, we've got all the duds, we've got injury reports, and we'll tell you about everything that happened. We have some good stories from the Foot Clan. It just goes on and on.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

I don't even. I'm sitting here and I struggle to know where to begin. So I. Here's a story for you. This is crazy. Team one is in the championship. This is. This came in this morning. They had all positions done on Saturday and ended with 115.7 points. Team two was only down 1.8 points and had two players left. Sorry. Down 1.6 points. You know what? Two players they had left.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, no.

[Andy Holloway]

Jeremy Hill.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, no.

[Andy Holloway]

Broncos D.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, man.

[Andy Holloway]

Lost the championship.

[Mike Wright]

You needed 1.6 and Jeremy Hill got 0.9. Who was averaging like 23 touches a game or something.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Oh.

[Andy Holloway]

Got 0.9.

[Mike Wright]

And.

[Andy Holloway]

And then the Broncos D was negative four in their format.

[Mike Wright]

Goodness.

[Jason Moore]

So congratulations to the other team. The other team. Wow.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. This was just a story. It didn't involve him. He said somebody. It was his league. Jason.

[Mike Wright]

That's rough.

[Andy Holloway]

Jason. The week of you feeding me horrible stuff for lunch is over. And I've gotten this week off to a good start with the top 15. Hunter Henry bet.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

How did he finish? Was he in the top 15,000? Top 15,000.

[Jason Moore]

Just outside. Just outside the top 15,000. So there's that.

[Andy Holloway]

Just outside the top 15,001. Mike mentioned the shopballers.com coupon code. Foot clan title. It's 20% off over there. If you want to grab a shirt.

[Mike Wright]

Lasts For a week, right?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

All right.

[Andy Holloway]

And we still got a game tonight.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, yeah. There's. Even if you're not a Week 17 player, there's a lot of people waiting on who's going to win your championship based on tonight's action. So that's great. Also great news for the Foot Clan listeners.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, no.

[Jason Moore]

Oh yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm so bitter.

[Jason Moore]

I know. But all spots in next year's listener league shall be open for you to play in because we took out the listeners this year. And by we, I mean I also.

[Andy Holloway]

Should have been me.

[Jason Moore]

The three of us play in three leagues together, which I see those as my main three leagues because were in those.

[Mike Wright]

Right.

[Jason Moore]

And a few weeks ago I thought, man, I lost all my champ gonna champ rhetoric. But no, because champs go to jail.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. And I, I think I outscored you by 35 points this week and I missed the championship game by two points last week thanks to Ajayi who twisted the knife this week with his 200 week 200 yard performance.

[Jason Moore]

Fantasy football.

[Andy Holloway]

Here's a quick question of the day, guys. Raz in Israel writes in. He says he's winning by 0.3 points with only Des left in his lineup. His opponent is done. Do I play Des and risk the negative points or sit him and risk stat correction?

[Jason Moore]

You're under a point. You got to play him.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, you do.

[Mike Wright]

You have to.

[Andy Holloway]

The odds of stat correction are higher than Des scoring you negative points.

[Mike Wright]

I know that DEZ is probably the only wide receiver of note to actually finish with a negative game this year, but it's not happening again.

[Andy Holloway]

No, it's not.

[Mike Wright]

So you got to play him.

[Andy Holloway]

The Lions and Cowboys tonight. We'll catch up on any new news and information about that game. You'll find us on twitter@the ffballers. The website is the fantasy footballers.com. we're jumping into the rewind.

[Jason Moore]

Weekly rewind.

[Andy Holloway]

Now. Look, it, it was a busy week. It was a very busy week. Lots happening, lots going on to the point where I forgot who our streamers were. Oh, our quarterback stream. Last week we came on and we said the quarterback streamers were very difficult for the final week because we try to choose a streaming quarterback that is owned in less than 60% of leagues. And at this point in the season, people stocking up for the playoffs, there weren't a lot of options.

[Jason Moore]

Got to dig deep.

[Andy Holloway]

So I didn't even remember that my streamer was Tyrod Taylor, who was the number three quarterback. Jason, you had Bortles Blake Bortles he.

[Mike Wright]

Put his faith in Bortles.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I did.

[Andy Holloway]

Was outstanding.

[Jason Moore]

It's crazy, man. Tennessee is not a good secondary.

[Andy Holloway]

He was incredible. And then Mike had Colin Kaepernick.

[Jason Moore]

They call three top nine.

[Andy Holloway]

I had the least amount of confidence in our streams ever this past week, and we ended up, what, three, five, and seven. Is that what you said so far?

[Jason Moore]

Seven, nine. Yeah. Good week.

[Mike Wright]

Good week.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, that's hilarious.

[Jason Moore]

We ended up far better than Derek Carr at the end of that week.

[Andy Holloway]

We'll start there. All right, so Derek Carr, Marcus Mariota, both of them, broken fibula. Mariota has the broken right fibula and ankle. I believe Carr was in surgery yesterday. Both these guys, super disappointing. Derek Carr, that story for the Raider. They're done.

[Mike Wright]

Yep. Well, I mean, you got.

[Andy Holloway]

We got Matt McGloin. No, this is. I mean, it's brutal. It's brutal. I mean, you look at the. If we want to muse for just a second on the. The NFL playoffs, to me, there are three. There are only three teams in the AFC that have any chance of getting to the Super Bowl. Number one far and away is the Patriots.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

And then it's Pittsburgh and it's Kansas City.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

You. You take McGloin out of it. The Raiders, you take Houston out of it, because I don't think they have a shot. What's the last playoff team there? Miami.

[Jason Moore]

Miami.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, whatever. And then, you know, on the other side, I don't know how you'd hand handicap it.

[Jason Moore]

You've got all three of all three of those final playoff teams. You just ment have made a quarterback change at the very end of the season.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. Matt Moore, McGloin and Savage. Savage. So those are not three championship contenders. To me, on the other side, it's a little more open in the nfc, I think you have, obviously the Dallas and Atlanta. Those are my two favorites. You have Seattle. They have some holes, but they're Seattle. Cardinals did their best to make it annoying for them this year.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

Sticking them on the road. Yeah. Take that draft position. Cardinals. And then you have the Giants and probably the Packers.

[Mike Wright]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

So most likely a few more in contention, I think, on that side, but going to be very interesting. Obviously, we'll be here throughout the playoffs. We'll do some playoff challenge. We'll play with you guys, play some games. It's fun. All right, let's get to the injuries.

[Mike Wright]

You got car, Mariota moving forward, Derek Carr's injury. I mean, if you're. If that's the injury, you're going to get to Your leg, He'll be fine.

[Andy Holloway]

I had that injury. I broke my fibula. Yeah, yeah. But you just, you're fine. You get, you get better.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah. After a couple serious couple weeks, as we've talked about, it's not the weight bearing bone of your leg. Marcus Mariota's with an A. With a broken ankle. That's far more serious to me. We'll see how much damage he had. We had Thomas Rawls last year, late in the season, broke his ankle, wasn't even ready to go week one. So hopefully, hopefully Mariota is ready.

[Jason Moore]

In addition to the actual injury, there's the play style that is even less conducive. You know, Marcus Mariota running around, going on rollouts, being a mobile quarterback. Their car pretty much stays in that pocket.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah. Oh, just brutal.

[Andy Holloway]

It was. You also had injuries to RG3A concussion, Carlos High. We just heard Torres McL. Oh, man, he'll miss the last game of the year. You had some players getting banged up. You had Thomas Rawls with a shoulder injury and cost him the entire second half, which was devastating for fantasy owners. Poor Tyler Lockett finally got back into great condition. Now severe man leg and ankle injury.

[Jason Moore]

Don't, don't, don't Google it.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, man. If you've ever seen Anderson Silva.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, it was floppy.

[Jason Moore]

It was no good.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Jason Moore]

Football, you know, it's like, we joke sometimes of like, oh, this guy needs to get injured because it helps my fantasy. That was the one where it's like, no, like I just felt so bad for the guy.

[Andy Holloway]

Moncrief, shoulder injury.

[Mike Wright]

Moncrief, man.

[Andy Holloway]

Kenny Brett, shoulder injury. Cameron Brait, back injury.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, you skipped over Jay A Jai's because you could have kept with the shoulder.

[Mike Wright]

He went back in.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. JJ, when you, when you run for 200, I save you to the end.

[Jason Moore]

It was similar to what we saw. Lamar Miller have a big week last week at the very end of the game, get injured, and then he missed the game. Granted, you know, Ajayi came back in, but that was right at the end of the game. And I remember kind of putting that. My mental notepad of just, let's see, let's see.

[Andy Holloway]

Because they got playoffs locked up to your credit. Ajayi said, I remember these guys and did the same darn thing to them again.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. The bills gave up 200 yards.

[Andy Holloway]

The Bills couldn't tackle. That Devonte Parker touchdown was so stupid. It didn't make sense. No, it was like an optical illusion.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Because you had two guys tackle devonte Parker with no arms.

[Andy Holloway]

Is that who I said? Devonte? Parker.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, okay. I thought I said Adams.

[Jason Moore]

No.

[Mike Wright]

And I feel like Parker and even Parker thought I was supposed to be tackled. What?

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Why am I still running?

[Mike Wright]

What happened? Oh.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, okay.

[Mike Wright]

I guess we'll run him for.

[Andy Holloway]

It's crazy. All right, here. Here's another headline that just blew our minds in the middle of Saturday. Doug Martin, healthy scratch.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

And we're talking in the middle.

[Andy Holloway]

I mean, this was. This was not expected from anybody. And out of the blue, you know, Dirt Cutter said, we have four backs. We can't give them all touches. Are you kidding? That's the worst thing I've ever.

[Mike Wright]

That is. That is a brutal remark. Brutal. The guy you just paid. You paid him a.

[Andy Holloway]

That's an attitude. And it was a healthy scratch. This was not an injury.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, he wasn't on the injury report at all this week.

[Mike Wright]

And then Jock quiz came in and had himself a pretty solid game.

[Andy Holloway]

This sounds like maybe Jock Quiz was part of the game plan to begin with. And Martin complained, and then he said, okay, you don't get a play maybe.

[Mike Wright]

And so I'm just going to throw out. So, quick story. The pivotal moment in my fantasy season was in the middle. I went all in, trading the future for Doug Martin, for Ty Hilton and Doug Martin. If you're a follower of the show, you know that I am not a Doug Martin fan, so to speak. He's. He is who he is.

[Jason Moore]

You're not a preseason believer?

[Mike Wright]

No, no, not at all. And even he started the season okay. But the schedule was so good towards the end. My. My cautionary tale is this. I went all in on a player that I don't like and I didn't really believe in, and I lost a lot of because of that. I mean, I couldn't go in on anybody else. I traded for him. And that sucks. So incredibly much to lose with a guy that you don't like.

[Andy Holloway]

That's because when you're losing, you're saying to yourself, I knew this.

[Mike Wright]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

You're saying to yourself, I know he stinks. You're almost cheering along with the fact that he stinks, but he's hurting you.

[Mike Wright]

So it's one of those weird things about fantasy football is you look at a guy, you think, okay, I have this other option. Maybe he's not the right play, but I'm not going to lose with this guy because I think he stinks.

[Andy Holloway]

Right.

[Mike Wright]

Well, I did that. I went against myself.

[Andy Holloway]

Is he your keeper now?

[Mike Wright]

He apparently is.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, great.

[Andy Holloway]

Wow.

[Jason Moore]

Lessons learned.

[Mike Wright]

Just saying. So it's so painful to lose with a guy that you don't want to lose with.

[Andy Holloway]

So I'll get you a jersey.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, sir.

[Andy Holloway]

But Dougie Martin jersey. Oh, my goodness. All right. Well, without further ado.

[Jason Moore]

This week's fantasy stud muffins.

[Andy Holloway]

You're not regretting being an Aaron Rodgers owner at this time of year? Four touchdowns, throwing laser beams. Really a great performance from Rogers. Four touchdowns, 347 through the air. Just ran one in just for fun.

[Mike Wright]

We didn't really. We didn't talk about it because I guess it's not really fantasy news. But you read the Vikings DB story, right?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. That's just sad.

[Mike Wright]

It's the weirdest story.

[Jason Moore]

Gone back and forth a little too well.

[Mike Wright]

It's not. Things don't add up anywhere if you haven't heard. What happened was allegedly Mike Zimmerman. The game plan that he installed was Xavier Rhodes will shadow Jordy Nelson no matter what.

[Andy Holloway]

Seems like a good plan.

[Mike Wright]

Now, where it gets a little bit weird is because Randall Cobb was out, Jordy Nelson operated out of the slot a good bit. Rhodes doesn't generally go into the slot anyways. But so regardless of that, Zimmer said, okay, Rhodes, you're going to shadow him. And the team, the DBs got together and said, now we're not going to do that. And Zimmer is basically saying, this is what happened. How do you. How do you not bench the second. How do you not bench Newman? How do you not bench Rhodes? And you say to them, you can't do that on the coach. You will follow the game plan. But he just. So he's. He's doing the. The cake and eat it too thing.

[Jason Moore]

I saw a comment said Bill Belichick would immediately trade them to the Browns.

[Mike Wright]

Yes, Bill Belichick would.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, that's. That's an embarrassing thing. And that. That makes you wonder about Zimmer's control of that team.

[Mike Wright]

Weird. So weird.

[Andy Holloway]

And then Xavier Rhodes shattered him in the second half and kept.

[Mike Wright]

And Jordan Nelson got shut down.

[Andy Holloway]

Two catches.

[Mike Wright]

So bizarre.

[Andy Holloway]

It's one of the reasons that we were. I think we brought up Xavier Rhodes earlier in the week and. Yeah, is he going to be shadowing Jordy Nelson? Because if so, you know, Adams. Adams could be in good. A good position. Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson, 29 for 45. 350 and 4.

[Jason Moore]

Pretty good. Almost all of that came second half. Cardinals were crushing them. But, you know, you're not going to have.

[Andy Holloway]

I wanted that game to end In a tie so badly for the second time this year.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Some people think that Chandler Catanzaro at the very end of that game, winning it with a kick, got back on my good list. And you got to understand, we wouldn't have been in that position if he didn't miss a kick earlier that game.

[Andy Holloway]

So, no, he also stared down the Seahawks.

[Mike Wright]

It was a pretty boss kick.

[Andy Holloway]

I mean, it wasn't.

[Mike Wright]

When you have no timeouts, it's fourth down and you just have to run on and your entire job is as a kicker. You know, it's rhythm, it's setting your nerves, and you just have to run out and kick it.

[Andy Holloway]

That's why he made it.

[Jason Moore]

I was going to say he didn't.

[Andy Holloway]

Have to set his nerves.

[Jason Moore]

Maybe that's the key. Every time that they're going to just run him out, they wait for like, they're going to wait until the game clock, the play clock is at like 17, and then go, okay, go.

[Andy Holloway]

Tyrod Taylor, we talked about it. Is that right? 36 for 39.

[Jason Moore]

Wait, what?

[Andy Holloway]

That can't be right. There's no way that's right.

[Mike Wright]

But he did have the over 300.

[Andy Holloway]

Yards in the 36 for 39.

[Jason Moore]

That would be pretty good.

[Andy Holloway]

Someone vet that while I talk about this game. Okay, 36 or 39 is what I'm reading, but 329 and 312 for 60 on the ground in a game against Miami that they ended up losing in overtime. I thought they were going to come away with that win.

[Mike Wright]

It certainly is not correct. I'm sure the 36 is.

[Andy Holloway]

It's like 26, 26, 39. Yeah, that makes way more sense.

[Jason Moore]

Brooks.

[Andy Holloway]

Sam Bradford had a game 382 and three. Kirk Cousins doing the damage. Would you have won your dynasty title game if you had put Cousins in over Winston?

[Mike Wright]

No.

[Andy Holloway]

Okay.

[Mike Wright]

There was, I think, a few moves I could have made, but just not obvious ones. Like put Brandon Lefell in. Yeah, that Washington game, man, super frustrating for Robert Kelly owners. As I played Robert Kelly, I thought the matchup was great. And you know what? The matchup was spectacular. Chris Thompson with the dose touchdowns and freaking Kirk Cousins running into touchdowns.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. Four rushing touchdowns. Washington. And there's no Robert Kelly.

[Mike Wright]

I mean, is brutal. He did get dinged up. Robert Kelly did. And it looked a little rough there. He got back in the game, so maybe that affected it.

[Jason Moore]

He missed a good chunk of action, too.

[Mike Wright]

But I'm saying, well, even after he got in, then it was. You fell. Okay, here comes. Here comes Kelly. And Cousins ran it in.

[Andy Holloway]

You had Bradford, we said Kaepernick, luck, Bortles, and then Derek Carr before the injury took care of business. 228 and 3. Tom Brady efficient. 214 and 3. And then big Ben, he was destroying people until that, the end of that game.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I thought he was one of the people in my championship lineup. And I conceded towards the end of that game because I thought, well, you.

[Mike Wright]

Pulled the Andy Holloway.

[Jason Moore]

Right, Right.

[Mike Wright]

Which if you're not familiar with the Andy Holloway, the Andy Holloway is you concede a loss despite the fact that your team looks like they're on track to win.

[Jason Moore]

Right.

[Andy Holloway]

And then that you get a groundswell of momentum.

[Mike Wright]

Yes. The concession, it worked. That turns your team late in that game.

[Jason Moore]

Right after that, Big Ben throws two touchdowns. And I scamper on.

[Andy Holloway]

We're going to take a quick break and thank today's sponsor, pristineauction.com great friends of the show. One of the neat things about Christmas morning and our Twitter @ the FF Ballers is we had literally tens of people sending pictures of gifts they bought for people. We had, I remember one, one girl got a signed Antonio Brown framed picture and she said that her, her friend who she bought it for was crying when she opened it up. She was so excited you won Christmas. It was awesome. So. And if you, you know, if you want a little extra something something, check out pristine auction today. They got a signed Tom Brady jersey on there. Jerry Rice full size authentic helmet on there. Three time super bowl champ inscription.

[Mike Wright]

We know that Jason is scouring pristine oxen for a signed Charles Clay jersey.

[Jason Moore]

Y to get that on there.

[Andy Holloway]

You got. Are you gonna write foot clan title on there too? Because he brought it, brought one home for on his back, hopped on his back and rode Charles Clay. And not many have done that, so that's impressive. But look, you can find hundreds of daily auctions. It would take us all day to read through every one of them and then they change tomorrow. So it's awesome. Check it out. Pristine auction.com P R I S T I N E auction count.

[Mike Wright]

Let them know that the fantasy footballer sent you when you make your completely free account.

[Jason Moore]

Also, we want to thank today's sponsor, SeatGeek. SeatGeek is the best and the only place to go for tickets. We've talked about them. I mean, we're going to real NFL games. Your fantasy season might be over with a victory or with a loss, but now your team might be in the playoffs and you got to get to those games. And maybe the Tickets are sold out.

[Andy Holloway]

Real games.

[Jason Moore]

The real games you use, SeatGeek, it is the best. It is so easy to find tickets there because they give you color coded grids. When you Download the free SeatGeek app, you can zoom in, pick your exact seats out the way you can't do on every other site. It's really good. They pull in tickets from hundreds of different providers so you know you're getting a good price. And if you haven't used SeatGeek yet, they are going to give you $20 back after you buy your first tickets. That will help you go down, get some hot dogs, get some snacks at the game. So Download the free SeatGeek app, go to the Settings tab and click Add the promo code. The promo code is footballers and then SeatGeek will send you $20 after you made your first ticket purchase. Download the free SeatGeek app and enter promo code Footballers today.

[Andy Holloway]

Moving on in the. Moving on in the stud muffins. We're talking running backs and I'll tell you right now, if the Cardinals were a winning franchise mvp, you think he'd be the mvp?

[Mike Wright]

He'd at least be talked about.

[Andy Holloway]

That's what I'm bringing up. We're talking about David Johnson.

[Jason Moore]

David Johnson. I missed, I missed out on that. I was distracted. I was thinking of the fact that the only other guy to ever have 15 all purpose, you know, 15 games with over 100 all purpose yards was consecutively. No, no, no. I think he just.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh no, it was.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, it was the only person that's.

[Jason Moore]

Done it, but the only other guy that's ever done it got an MVP that year in Barry Sanders in 1999.

[Andy Holloway]

One game left to 95 yards, three touchdowns on the ground, four for 41 through the air. David Johnson, he's pretty good, he said.

[Jason Moore]

I remember early in the season arguing with someone on Twitter because they said it was just situational and he's not really that talented.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. 20 touchdowns later, 20 touchdowns on the year for David Johnson. He's rewarding you in your fantasy playoffs, not just in the beginning of the season when you drafted him. It's been consistent every week. Yeah. And the same can be said about Le'Veon Bell who just, he came on second half of that game, 122 on the ground and a touchdown, three for 15 and one. Those are your top two of maybe the top three picks. Next year I would expect David Johnson left Bell and Ezekiel Elliott to be heavily discussed, maybe league format, determining which guy goes where another, you know, a Big guy. I almost made it my start of the week. I was so close but I was so afraid. I'm so afraid of Mark Ingram. Yeah, but I loved it and he, he went 18 for 90 and 2. Big game for Mark Ingram. Rewarding you if you started him this week. J. Ajayi we talked about it. 206 yards and a touchdown. They just kept handing him the ball.

[Mike Wright]

Is Jai, is he a running back one next year?

[Andy Holloway]

I don't know. I don't know. I really don't. I don't think so.

[Mike Wright]

I mean where do you think he's going to get drafted?

[Andy Holloway]

He might be drafted as one.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, I think he'll get drafted in the second, second or third round.

[Andy Holloway]

But you have Emmy, Kenyan Drake look great in that game. You've seen what that coaching staff has done. Trying to bring in CG Anderson and Matt Forte and trying to bring tried.

[Mike Wright]

And then Jai said I'm going to have three 200 plus games.

[Andy Holloway]

The five games before this he had no game over 87 yards. He's inconsistent.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's hard.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes. He'll be drafted as a one.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, it's, it's pretty hard to trust him. Here's another guy. What do you do? How do you trust which is DeAndre Washington had a great game. We loved him early in the season. He was my favorite handcuff to have. And then he was healthy, scratched and Jalen Richard was taking over. Now we come into this game and you got him running 12 times. There's a good number for that type of back. 99 yards, two touchdowns. Nobody played him. But are you picking him up? Is he now the.

[Andy Holloway]

Oh no. I mean that's a good question to me this was hot hand, right? He had two 22 yard touchdowns. He probably accumulated carries with the hot hand approach. Latavius Murray by the way, we'll talk about him. The Raiders Richard scored in this game was my point. I mean Rashad was in there, he scored.

[Mike Wright]

The Raiders have gone full Cerebrus. They are just, they are the three headed dog that are. That's, that's what they will be. We had a portion of time there with where Latavius Murray was the guy and quickly apparently I said that Thor was a Greek mythological God.

[Andy Holloway]

That was Norse.

[Mike Wright]

Yes. I don't even know how we didn't catch it. Clearly he is not from the Greek mythology and that was a gross, gross, gross.

[Andy Holloway]

Did you make the three headed dog went right into the mythology. Is that how it came back to.

[Mike Wright]

My, that's how it reminded me of it. Okay, well, I'm just, I'm embarrassed.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, you should say something. Knowledge is power. That's what you said you saw.

[Jason Moore]

Basically Latavius Murray still lead in touches. He got 15 touches. So he had all the options. Opportunity. Even more so than DeAndre Washington. DeAndre Washington with 12. Jalen Richard got six. So take it for what you want.

[Andy Holloway]

Take it for what you want. No, I mean, I think, I think that backs up the kind of hot hand approach with DeAndre Washington, you know, Shady. Shady was my number one back on the week. He had a good game every week.

[Mike Wright]

LaShawn McCoy is just fantastic.

[Andy Holloway]

I think he was one of our wins this year. We really pushed Shady early in the season when he was going more second round, he was going, he was a third round guy. Yeah. Made no sense coming off the injury plagued year. People were disappointed in that offense and that team. Tevin Coleman had a good game because.

[Jason Moore]

He was on the road.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, talk about that. That's just a crazy, crazy stat you found.

[Mike Wright]

This was from Evan Silva, but he had tweeted out. I'm trying to remember the exact numbers, but it was something like 10 of 12 of Freeman's touchdowns were at home. Meanwhile, 9 of 11 of Coleman's touchdowns were on the road. It was just this weird, fluky, anomalous thing. And then Tevin Coleman adds a touchdown.

[Jason Moore]

On the road and his was similar.

[Mike Wright]

To Parker where the tackling was just horrifying and even Coleman could not believe that he was running it in for a touchdown. Jason was, Jason was screaming at the screen saying, break it, go. Like just being facetious.

[Jason Moore]

I was playing against Matt Ryan, so I just, every time they handed the ball off, I'm like, take it to the house. And he, and he did, he listened. It was very nice.

[Andy Holloway]

Legarrett Blunt start of the week. Got a couple more touchdowns to add to his stat line this year. Chris Ivory had an okay game. Isaiah Cruell, Todd Gurley, another start of the week, scored. Still couldn't put together more than three yards of carry.

[Mike Wright]

What do you do with Todd Gurley?

[Jason Moore]

87 total yards and a touchdown you're happy with, but 67 yards on the ground with 23 carries against San Francisco.

[Andy Holloway]

I think you. I'm going to be close to clean slating him next year. Depending on personnel moves and things.

[Mike Wright]

This week would have helped me.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, but are we being.

[Mike Wright]

I mean everybody, everybody destroys The San Francisco 49.

[Jason Moore]

Here's the reality.

[Andy Holloway]

Here's the reality.

[Jason Moore]

I don't know because yeah, I mean Trent Richardson came in, he's supposed to be the best back of all time. Rookie year, he has double digit touchdowns and he's the number one drafted guy the following year and he fizzles out and he was gone.

[Mike Wright]

He's his rookie.

[Jason Moore]

It was anomalous, right?

[Mike Wright]

Was for at least for fantasy was all touchdown. Gurley was making things happen.

[Jason Moore]

Gurley was getting the yards done.

[Andy Holloway]

But when I watched his game, he's pressing now.

[Jason Moore]

He doesn't look like it's. Sometimes you watch a runner and you go, their offensive line is stinky. But he looks good. Every time he gets in space, he looks good. I don't see that right now with Todd Gurley. When I watch him, I think why? Like he doesn't deserve to get the ball 26 times.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah there and we talked about it and he finally broke a 20 yard run. But he hadn't done it all year long. You know, David Johnson's offensive line is stinky. There's, there's major injuries in the Cardinals offensive line. He makes something happen. Gurley's not making those special plays happen right now. I don't know if he's pressing. I don't know if it's the frustrations of this season. I, you know, it's a good question. And I said I clean Slayton, but I, that would be foolish. That would be foolish because you'd be buying into that first year name and the pedigree and you never know with these guys. So I think you need to see what happens to that offensive line in the off season. See what happens at the quarterback position, at the coach, at the coaching. Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

Well, let's hit coach right now. The, the over early analysis. If you're in the second round, would you be okay taking Todd Gurley?

[Andy Holloway]

I probably would, but you got to put some names out there for me to decide between.

[Mike Wright]

J.J. i take, yeah, I take Gurley.

[Andy Holloway]

I take Gurley because I know he's going to get 23.

[Mike Wright]

I would take a Jay, I would.

[Jason Moore]

Take, I would take Gurley there be because what Andy was alluding to next year, Todd Gurley is going to get 16 games of opportunity where he's touching the ball.

[Mike Wright]

Ajayi next year will have, or at least entering the year will have a fully healthy offensive line. And when Ajayi had that healthy Miami line, they're good.

[Andy Holloway]

All right guys, we're moving on to the wide receiver position and we'll just start it like this. Are you in love with him?

[Mike Wright]

Adam Thielen Is turning into everything that we had hoped Stefan Diggs could be.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, really?

[Mike Wright]

I think so.

[Andy Holloway]

That's a strong statement. Well, he's, I just think he had a great game. 12 or 202 and 2. Diggs has been hurt. Diggs had been the PPR machine before he got hurt. They're different players. Thielen's a. He's a taller guy. You can go up and make a tough catch, sideline catches, end zone threat. Really impressive game. I mean, Mike talked about him earlier in the week.

[Mike Wright]

Adam Thielen was almost the greatest call of all time.

[Andy Holloway]

You had you backed off a little bit.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, it was, it was. If seven Diggs is out, you were hooked on a thief. But then seven Diggs was in and it was like, darn it.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, you were still hooked.

[Mike Wright]

The matchup was still incredible because the Packers DBs have been awful.

[Andy Holloway]

I, you know, Jordy Nelson, 9 for 154 and 2. He's right there with Thielen on a fabulous week. He has Detroit next week. You know, we talked about the Xavier Rhodes situation, but Jordy Nelson, he's one of my mistakes of the year because I think I pumped the brakes on him. He had two down games and then a good game. And then I pumped the brakes on him and he said, well, even his.

[Mike Wright]

Good game nitro at the beginning of the season were not the normal Jordy Nelson.

[Andy Holloway]

There was no yardage.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, but me, to his credit, he was coming off the acl. He's a little bit older. Maybe the healing process just, you know, it took some time. And now Jordy's looking fantastic. I mean, he's making all of his normal Jordy Nelson moves.

[Andy Holloway]

You had some of the biggest names that you hoped perform for you. Antonio Brown, ldell Beckham Jr. Mike Evans taking care of business. Huge game from Doug Baldwin. And by the way, Mike Evans coming through. Thank goodness, because he hadn't been there for a couple playoff weeks.

[Mike Wright]

Doug.

[Jason Moore]

Doug Baldwin.

[Mike Wright]

Doug Baldwin stole a championship from me.

[Jason Moore]

I will say, I'll say this about Doug Baldwin.

[Andy Holloway]

13, 171 and 1 Most of the game.

[Jason Moore]

It was one of those. Brandon Williams are the rookie cornerback for the Arizona Cardinals was just getting torched left, right and center. I mean really Right, right, right. Because that's where he is. But, but he was just, I mean, he is terrible. And then, and then towards the end of the game after, after Doug Baldwin was, you know, humiliating him. The last one was Patrick Peterson and he got Patrick Peterson just. He fell asleep at the wheel and Doug Baldwin went off 171 yards.

[Andy Holloway]

If you're playing next week, I mean, you have a situation where Tyler Locke is no longer a part of this offensive. And so Doug Baldwin. Jimmy Graham.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, Jimmy Graham. You. You turd.

[Andy Holloway]

That's why, that's why you play Jimmy Graham. Not every tight end gives you the chance for a big touchdown over the middle.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah.

[Jason Moore]

Samuel Watkins.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. Monster game. Seven for 154 and one. You had LA fell with an 80 something yard touchdown. Turning on the jets, Cameron Meredith, JJ Nelson, who we're going to talk about soon. By the way, we got the rising stars on the show. Yeah, momentarily. So we'll talk about those guys. Steve Smith. Mike. Mike. Yeah, Mike, Mike, Mike.

[Mike Wright]

I was. Hey, I said I was okay playing it, but this was. I thought Steve Smith was fading off there the end of a long season, but he had himself a spectacular game. Seven for 79 and a touchdown.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, man, it was hard listening to that. I started Larry Fitzgerald over Steve Smith and I did not enjoy Steve Smith constantly getting it done.

[Andy Holloway]

You talk about a week of redemption. You know, you got that a little bit from Mike Evans redeeming himself over the last couple weeks. You got it from Todd Gurley getting you a touchdown. And you got it from Alan Robinson. Hello, Bortles. Who said, hey, remember us?

[Mike Wright]

You know what we didn't say about Blake Bortles? He caught a touchdown.

[Andy Holloway]

Yes, he did.

[Mike Wright]

Because of course that's, that's how ridiculous that game turned out to be.

[Andy Holloway]

From Marquis Lee, right?

[Mike Wright]

Yep. Marquis Lee.

[Jason Moore]

Marcus Lee had a pass who also caught a touch. He caught and threw a touchdown.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, yeah. He's the new quarterback we talked about. Devonte Parker had a good game. Shepard Tyree Kill is a lightning bolt.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, man. I pumped the brakes on Tyree Kill this week because, you know, and I said this is dangerous anytime you take it. You know a guy that could take it to the house. But I was worried against Denver and.

[Andy Holloway]

The last two weeks, Tyree Kill has zero catches. Dude, two weeks in a row he's.

[Jason Moore]

A wide receiver with no catches. Who's torching you because he is so lightning fast.

[Mike Wright]

Is Tyreek Hill what the Rams thought Tave on Austin would be?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, sure. I think Tavon Austin's pretty good though.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, but if you put those two guys. We've never said race. Tyree Kill is going to torch and.

[Mike Wright]

We'Ve never seen Tavon do do that. Have a string of games like this, like Hill has.

[Andy Holloway]

No, you're right, you're right. I mean, Tyree Kill Mike put it best last night. He said, when you pump the brakes on Tyree Kill, you're playing with a nuclear device. Sometimes it doesn't go off, but when it goes off, it goes off. And you don't destroys. You don't really miss. I mean, you either miss big or, you know, Calvin Benjamin showed up again. Tyrell Williams had a game. Ty Hilton, you know, four for 105.

[Mike Wright]

Yep.

[Andy Holloway]

Some honorable missions.

[Mike Wright]

Standard Hilton stuff.

[Andy Holloway]

Zeus, there's your, there's your Greek gospel. Oh my goodness, you can mention it now.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah. Travis Kelsey and coming into the season, I was, I was lukewarm on Kelsey because I thought that the offense would never finally accept that we need to over target Travis Kelsey. I loved him two years ago. I mean he was the guy I was driving the Zeus bus and he let, he was okay, but for what I was expecting, let me down. Since, since the Macklin injury, the team has said, well let's, let's see what happens if we give Travis Kelsey double digit targets pretty much every week. And you know what he does? He comes through with monster, monster production. He carries your team. I quizzed the guys here this morning. I said who was the leading wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs. The answer was Chris Conley. And I don't remember what.

[Jason Moore]

14 yards. Was your leading receiver.

[Mike Wright]

14 yards because Travis Kelsey was doing so much work. And that touchdown, his long touchdown, I mean there's not, there are very, very few tight ends in the league that can do something like that. Get him the ball.

[Andy Holloway]

I was just looking back at my UDK rankings of Kelsey.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, you love, to your credit, you loved Kelsey. And I just. And I was on the opposite side because I didn't believe you got burned.

[Andy Holloway]

By him last year that Smith would.

[Mike Wright]

And coach Reed would actually use him like that.

[Andy Holloway]

Their offense, I mean, I think they have a legitimate shot. I think a few couple months ago I said Kansas City was my pick for the Super Bowl. You know, they manufacture offense in the best way that they can. Whether it's Dontari Poe doing a jump pass or Tyree Kill taking jet sweeps or Travis Kelsey being involved or Alex Smith running the ball, they don't, they don't care that much about, okay, we got to give 20 carries to Spencer where we have to target Jeremy Macklin 20 times.

[Mike Wright]

I mean, do you think it's possible they cared about that last year because they were coming off of the season where a. There was zero wide receiver touchdowns. Did that get in their head at all?

[Andy Holloway]

I don't know.

[Mike Wright]

Well, I'll show you we can use a wide receiver.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah. A great game for Kelsey. Won a lot of people foot clan titles. Charles Clay and Antonio Gates were the other two big names. Eight catches a piece, two touchdowns for Clay. That's four in three weeks.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, we'll talk about him in a minute.

[Andy Holloway]

Antonio Gates did what Hunter Henry could not and caught the ball eight times.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah. I mean against. You wanted. You wanted the tight end that was going to get it done. Against the Cleveland Browns it was Antonio. Raising Canes Rising Stars of the Week.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, well it's time the Raising Cane's Rising stars of the Week. Look, I think we are all looking at these with two different perspectives the next week. Can you have confidence in playing these guys next week? If you're. If you're playing in a Week 17 title game as well as maybe a little bit of long term discussion on these rising stars. I'm going to kick it off with J.J. nelson, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver. The last four weeks he's been double digits 1221, 1222 and a half point league. As I would say. Four straight weeks of fire because he scored. Four straight weeks. You have a very interesting wide receiver situation in Arizona. I expect Palmer to be back, the offensive line to be improved. Michael Floyd is obviously gone. John Brown hopefully will be back and healthy. But you just don't know what the sickle cell trait and the issues we've had this year. And J.J. nelson has proven himself to be a very capable wide receiver. Hopefully Larry Fitzgerald's back again. He could retire. You don't know. Despite leading the league in reception.

[Mike Wright]

Right.

[Andy Holloway]

You don't know. And J.J. nelson seems to have solidified himself a role in this offense. He's a field stretcher. He can break that long play. You saw he put a move on Richard Sherman in this game that was turned him around and then he took the ball, I don't know, 40 something yards. So it was an impressive game from Nelson. I just want him to be on your radar not just for next week but for next year. I've been pretty impressed with him.

[Mike Wright]

The Cardinals go three wide a lot and he's the third wide receiver now with Michael Floyd gone. So I love that pick. Do we. Is it possible to cue the music at all?

[Andy Holloway]

It is not. I'm so sorry.

[Mike Wright]

Putting you on the spot.

[Jason Moore]

Hooked on a Thielen. There you go, Mike.

[Andy Holloway]

As you can see, I did not cue the music.

[Mike Wright]

Adam Thielen 12 for 202 and two touchdowns. And I just wanted to point out I mean last week he had the big injury so he ended up with the goose egg because he got just exploded going for a. What was a been expected, what would have been a spectacular catch. However the week before that 4 for 101. Adam Thielen is getting far more involved in the offense. I want. He has a lot of variables similar to J.J. nelson next year. Who's the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings? You guys remember that guy Teddy Bridgewater?

[Andy Holloway]

I've heard of him.

[Mike Wright]

First former first round pick was the Stording card Storting quarterback storing Carter back the starting quarterback for the Vikings coming into the season. Obviously they had to make the trade for Bradford so we don't know who the quarterback is going to be. There's a lot of moving pieces here but I think that Adam Thielen is moving up the charts for Sam Bradford. We'll see if. If he can do the same thing with Teddy Bridgewater. But if Bradford is the quarterback, I mean this, this offense is evolving. It's changing. Adrian Peterson will be gone next year. I feel very confident saying that their offensive line cannot be rebuilt overnight. Especially when you gave up draft picks for Sam Bradford. They're going to have to throw the ball like they have been. And Bradford's completion percentage has been borderline historic. When you look at his completion percentage compared to the rest of the league, it's. It's pretty weird. But it's because of the west coast offense where Adam Thielen can be a huge part. So just keep your eye on him for next year.

[Andy Holloway]

I'm super impressed with Thielen. I think he is a kind of go to type of receiver. He's super reliable, hands, makes tough catches. So yeah, good call bro.

[Jason Moore]

My rising stars. I was looking. There's a guy out there that, you know, there's plenty of metrics and reasons to go. He should be more on our radar. But the reason he is my rising star is I just hopped on his back and he took me to a championship.

[Mike Wright]

There's nothing wrong with this.

[Jason Moore]

Charles Clay is a guy that we have to at least pay attention to at the tight end position. Remember last year how Tyrod Taylor started getting it together at the end of the year and was really good for fantasy from week 10 on. Last year he was the number seven quarterback in fantasy football. Him and Sammy Watkins were getting it going. The offense was moving. Well we saw that yesterday with Charles Clay and Sammy Watkins and Tyrod Taylor. And this following week they end the year with the New York jets who are being Thrown all over.

[Andy Holloway]

So they're tossed around.

[Jason Moore]

They are the 25th best team against tight ends. Charles Clay has three consecutive games with a touchdown, two in this last game. He looks like the number two target behind Sammy Watkins, least yesterday. So with this world of barfy tight ends, Charles Clay is rising to me.

[Mike Wright]

Charles Clay, if you go back to last year, I mean he had stretches.

[Jason Moore]

Where he got there before when he was with Miami.

[Andy Holloway]

I mean, yeah, he got paid big money.

[Jason Moore]

Finally making his. Yeah, he's like an $80 million contract or something.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, those were the raising canes. Rising stars of the week feed. Your holiday party, your New year's party with a raising cane's tailgate. This year their 24 hour marinated cook to order chicken fingers will make anyone have a holly jolly new Year's. And while you are there, don't forget to pick up your raising canes gift cards for the perfect gift. I actually received a raising cane's gift card this past weekend.

[Jason Moore]

That is quite a good gift.

[Andy Holloway]

And then I'm going to give myself the gift of some chicken fingers. So right now you can buy a $25 gift card, get $5 bonus for free. Now that is a raising cane's kind of jolly.

[Jason Moore]

What do you guys got any lunch plans today?

[Andy Holloway]

Oh, I think that's where we're headed.

[Jason Moore]

Yes.

[Andy Holloway]

Here. I wanted to take a quick time out. We've got a through the poop. All right. We're going to fly right through it. We're going to get into the pooped in the big boy pants segment. But I want to tell some, I want to tell you guys out there, you've just won your title. You hear us say all the time we're a year round show. But what is the. You need a taste of what that is. Okay. And you say to yourself, well, how can you do that? Well, football is, football is great. It's a year round sport. It really is. Here's a little bit of what you're going to get. Mike talked about it last week. The footies, the award show will be early January. Okay. We will have a number of episodes. These are so important. You have to hear these. We'll have episodes. The truth episodes. Okay? The truth about fantasy quarterbacks, the truth about tight ends, running backs. Every position will tell you the truth about this past year because there are biases that happen with end of year performance. There are biases that happen with injury and things like that. You need the truth and that's going to set the landscape out for you. We'll have a rookie rundown. We'll talk about the fantasy impact of coaching changes. We'll talk about. We'll get into mock drafting again, early mock drafts.

[Mike Wright]

Free agency is sooner than.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah, we'll have a lot of fun doing it as well. That's the cool thing. This is football's fun. Fantasy football is even more fun. And so the off season is a blast and it helps us. We've had a number of people who, you know, struggled for years winning championships, and when they stick with us, they brought it home for the first time this year.

[Andy Holloway]

That has been the fun part of this past weekend is getting the emails from somebody you know this morning. Last year I was a dead last in my league. Started listening to you last year. Made it to the title game, lost the title game, decided I'm going to listen all year long. Tuned in right after the season ended. Wrote names down, made trades, did all of that. Won the first Bookland title. So. All right, we'll move on.

[Jason Moore]

Hooped in his big boy pants.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, so I was wrong about that Cam Newton guy. Not a good game for Cam Newton.

[Jason Moore]

18 of 43.

[Andy Holloway]

There's some type of mental disconnect that happened with him this year. You know, you, you say he needs wide receivers, so you give him a second year. Devin Funches and Kelvin Benjamin back. He's got wide receivers.

[Mike Wright]

Ted Gann, he just needs really fast guys.

[Andy Holloway]

I don't know what he needs.

[Mike Wright]

Really, really fast guys.

[Andy Holloway]

He needs to kind of right the ship. I mean, disappointing game for them at the running back position. We've said their names. Thomas Rawls with the injury, 8 for 8 destroyed you. Jeremy Hill, 7 for 8. You know, you heard the injury report early in the week. Obviously that was an impact here. Rex Burkhead got more carries. Jonathan Stewart, very disappointing time. Montgomery didn't do it for you. Yeah, you know, Latavius Murray, bad game. So, I mean, out of those guys, is there anybody you have confidence in going into next week? Teams that need to win? I mean, Tom Montgomery gets Detroit next week. You'd think he'd be an okay played, wouldn't you?

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, well, they're playing for the division.

[Andy Holloway]

Exactly.

[Mike Wright]

So it's. There's no rest. I mean, you have. Which we didn't even. We didn't talk about. But, but the. There was a report that the Giants may be resting players next week because they're locked. They're the five seed no matter what. So maybe you get half a game from Eli, half a game from Beckham, which is of Course, why we talk about it's don't play to week 17. If you want to do it, fine. But this is the fire that you play with that the team that brought you to week 17 may not be your team.

[Andy Holloway]

By the way, if you want to make a change for that, because a lot of longtime leagues are the ones that do that or new leagues that just didn't make that adjustment. The time to make that change is right after the season. Just go to the league, say, hey, we want to do this. Take your vote or whatever, establish it for next year so you don't run into this situation. And you know, you shouldn't have to be playing with a different team in week 17 than what got you there the whole year.

[Jason Moore]

I'll tell you the guy on this list that I'm not fading next week and it'll surprise you guys, it's latavius Murray. Despite DeAndre Washington having a good game, Latavius Murray was still the lead back. He got 15 carries and they lost their quarterback and they're going up against Denver who just lost their playoff chances. So Denver is going to have a letdown. Do you remember what Latavius Murray did last time they played against Denver and they just kept running the ball, running the ball. And their offensive line beat their defensive line. It's not a good run stopping team. I think Latavius Murray is going to be fine now.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, I can agree with that.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, what do you think about the two running backs in Tennessee now that Marcus Mariota is. Well, he's gone. He's gone. And you had, you know, Derek Henry and DeMarco Murray both let people down this week. That game script went. I mean, there are people that started that Tennessee defense. A lot of people.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, yeah. And that. Which is. I mean, that's fair. You think that Bortles will have a lot of interceptions on. Except Bortle said, well, now is the time. I'm going to play like a number three overall pick. Now was the time they did that.

[Andy Holloway]

Just so that we can be thinking about him in the offseason. Just so we can remember what Alan Robinson can do.

[Mike Wright]

You know, Bortles was playing for his job.

[Jason Moore]

Yeah.

[Mike Wright]

If Bortle came. Bortles came out and just stunk these final two weeks. He's done. Yeah.

[Jason Moore]

With a new coach coming in. This isn't. The coach drafted you.

[Mike Wright]

So he's playing for his job. Derek Henry is. You're. You're playing with the fire.

[Andy Holloway]

You're playing with fire with a game script. There yeah, you expect the Tennessee to be out ahead. He only.

[Mike Wright]

He played 23% of snaps last week when he had his big game. His big game was because he had two touchdowns. Yeah, I like Derek Henry, but he's just, he's not going to get on the field because DeMarco Murray has been so incredible this year.

[Andy Holloway]

All right, let's talk about wide receivers that let you down. Jordan Matthews, Taylor Gabriel. Yeah, Taylor Gabriel gave you the example of the, you know, the opposite of Tyreek Hill where limited touches and he didn't score. And that's all it takes. You don't get PPR baseline with Taylor Gabriel, the two wide receivers. This was Denver crazy. Did you see the completion percentage for Simeon? Yeah, it was atrocious.

[Jason Moore]

Emmanuel Sanders and demarius Thomas, if you combined their stats, they would have been on this list. They would have been 4 for 46 and no touchdowns combined.

[Andy Holloway]

It does, it does put a little bit of a worry into you as an owner of these guys for them figuring out this quarterback situation. You know, a report came out last week saying, oh, you know, they have confidence now. Simeon is this future quarterback. How in the world do you have that after last night? I mean, it was.

[Mike Wright]

I was going to say, when you're watching the national broadcast and then they do the side by side shot of your quarterback and your backup quarterback standing on the sideline, you know, that's never ever a good sign.

[Andy Holloway]

I mean, listen, Demarius Thomas had eight targets and any. Sanders had three. They only had four total catches. Yeah, I mean, Simeon was 17 for 43. That's a 39% passing.

[Jason Moore]

That's completely Newton numbers. Am I right?

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, you are right. I had moved those two guys down in my rankings, but I never thought we would see anything this bad.

[Jason Moore]

That bad. Malcolm Mitchell.

[Andy Holloway]

Exactly. Cam Newton's numbers, by the way.

[Jason Moore]

Malcolm Mitchell. I know, right? Malcolm Mitchell was very disappointing. We disagreed on him and you were right. I will say this, you lost that bet too. Yes, I did.

[Andy Holloway]

He's not going to be in the top 30.

[Jason Moore]

Basically none of. None of these.

[Andy Holloway]

Why didn't I make these lunch bets? I swept them.

[Jason Moore]

Yes. Sorry, bro.

[Andy Holloway]

We need to build in the sweeping of bets as the lunch bet. If you make two or more bets, you sweep them. Let's do it retroactive, ratified.

[Mike Wright]

Oh, you can't. Not retro, but I've ratified this.

[Jason Moore]

If you watch the game, Malcolm Mitchell, he got, he got enough targets. I think as far as the type of targets, he had two really deep downfield targets that were just Tom Brady missed them a little bit. He was close to having a good game, but when you end with 3 for 29, he pooped your team and you're very disappointed.

[Andy Holloway]

A lot of regret out there for people trusting the Houston offense and DeAndre Hopkins last week.

[Mike Wright]

Larry Fitzgerald, I apologize. I really thought that Hopkins would be able to get it going.

[Andy Holloway]

Only six targets after 17 last week. Larry Fitzgerald let people down the last couple weeks of the season. You don't get extra points for very difficult catches. Otherwise, he would have been. He would have been in good shape. But some disappointing performances. Dontrell inman was targeted 10 times, but only had three catches on those 10 targets. You know, it looked like he was in line for that 5, 6 reception game that he's been doing, but it didn't come to fruition. And then, you know, Julio Jones, probably not what you wanted. Four for 60 on seven targets.

[Mike Wright]

No, it's definitely not what you wanted.

[Andy Holloway]

So at the tight end, Zach Ers let you down. That's probably the biggest name worth speaking of.

[Mike Wright]

You know what? We didn't really. And then Hunter Henry was a. Congratulations to the city of Cleveland.

[Jason Moore]

Oh, my goodness, what a Christmas. They had a. They had a trifecta. They had a trifecta of, oh, yeah.

[Andy Holloway]

My heart will go on.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, I retweeted that one out. That was a spectacular.

[Jason Moore]

I mean, you win your game, so you're not winless. That's great. But, oh, no, when you did that, you lost the first pick in the draft. Oh, San Francisco one. We're back to having the first pick in the draft and we got rid of Robert Griffin. That was so good, all three of those things.

[Andy Holloway]

If we want to muse for just a moment, I'm curious, and I know, I guess, where Mike stands, but I'm not sure where Jason stands stands at this time of year. You know, you have this discussion on what's best for your team, Right. You lose losing a game, getting you a better draft pick versus winning a game. It is. It is not as simple as it seems, because I know Mike would just.

[Mike Wright]

Be like, yeah, and we're referring specifically to the Browns, where they were. They were winless. Would you rather take a winless season on your record and guarantee the number one pick? The number one pick, or win a game and risk having that overall number one.

[Jason Moore]

That's a great question. And I'm getting that win.

[Andy Holloway]

See, so am I. And that's. I did not think you were. I thought you were going to go very pragmatic there, but in general, I am pragmatic.

[Jason Moore]

I'm going to lose to get better picks. But there's something about history wanting my name, not in it as a loser.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, yeah, there is. And there's something else too, even that. You know, the Cardinals winning that game against Seattle hurts their division mates, but doesn't help their draft position. You have a lot of implications like this. And it's like, I think about how coaches are evaluated. Coaches, your win, loss record, the way you perform, like it impacts you being kept as a coach next year.

[Jason Moore]

Here is the perfect way to get Mike on board here. Mike, in our league of record, last place gets watered, you know, 12 times and then drafts wet. If you are out of the playoffs and you've got a bad team, where would be your perfect spot to finish in our league? Would you want that first pick?

[Mike Wright]

In our league? It will. You can get the first pick without being wet.

[Jason Moore]

Technically, in our league, in the situation where it was. If you. If you got wet.

[Mike Wright]

If I'm wet, I get the first pick. But if. Or I could be dry and have the second pick, right? Well, yeah, I would take the second pick.

[Jason Moore]

And that's. That's kind of the same situation.

[Mike Wright]

The owners at the NFL draft don't have to draft wet.

[Andy Holloway]

Not yet.

[Jason Moore]

My. My point.

[Andy Holloway]

Working on it.

[Jason Moore]

My point is not an apples to apples comparison. It's a. There is a thing that says, I'd rather just have a smidge less value so that I don't.

[Mike Wright]

Yeah, or you're the Detroit Lions who are now in the playoffs. Remember when they went winless?

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah, but I also remember them as the winless team.

[Mike Wright]

They're in the playoffs now and they're.

[Andy Holloway]

They're shamed for it.

[Mike Wright]

They're in the playoffs right now.

[Jason Moore]

The coach.

[Andy Holloway]

They're going to get beat.

[Mike Wright]

Maybe, but they. But they're in the playoffs.

[Andy Holloway]

No, you're right. All right. The only news that I want to mention about tonight's game is that Darius Slay has not practiced and is not expected to play, which means good things for wide receivers on the Dallas side of the ball. This is my almost upset of the week. You know, the game means more to me. It means more to the Lions.

[Mike Wright]

Means more to me than the Cowboys.

[Andy Holloway]

Well, yeah, I messed that up. So the Lions, I think, can win this game, make it a close game. So I'm excited for that. We're done on this show. We'll talk waivers. We'll get you ready for week 17. Very excited. Hopefully you had a great holiday. Thanks for tuning in and thank you to everybody. That leaves us reviews on itunes. Really appreciate that the support that you can give us just with a free review on itunes helps the show out. Helps the show out.

[Mike Wright]

Go to fantasyjocks.com and get those trophies. Dakotas football ballers.

[Andy Holloway]

Yeah.

[Jason Moore]

Thank you for listening to another episode of the fantasy footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot. Com and follow us on Twitter at theffballers.