Hey everybody, it's Matt Harrison and it's the Final
Fantasy Friday of the year. We've been so happy to keep
those Friday vibes going for you this season and we want to help
you in your championship. So let's do this.
Trevor Jones, you're a little bit under the weather, but over
the weather is your fantasy advice as of late.
How you doing, Trevor? What is over the weather?
I don't know Where's the? Where's the?
Line on the weather. I don't know.
Yeah, no, I I am feeling a little less than 100%, but hey,
it's late in the season, everybody's bagged up so.
I mean, the kids might say that your advice has been sick
lately, and that's a good thing. I guess so, yeah.
And after serving his one week suspension for the show, Anthony
Maggio back to gloat about his Bears beating the Packers in a
heroic game on Saturday last week.
How you feeling, Maj. I'm.
Feeling great, man. Yeah, that was a that was a hell
of a ball game. That's I'm not used to seeing
like multiple things go right for a Bears team within the same
game. Like that's just, I felt like
the last time a game like that happened might have been like
the Denny Green let him off the hook.
Arizona Bears game where it's like 6 low percentage things
happen to make the Bears win, you know, But it was a blast,
man. Had had some feelings of almost
the Minneapolis miracle Ness to it.
Absolutely. Yeah, crazy stuff.
All right, programming note, this podcast is being recorded
on Tuesday. We're giving you the best
possible information with what we have right now.
If you're listening on Friday or Saturday and looking for the
pair of Saturday game previews, Kent Wyrock and I did a
Christmas Plus Saturday preview of those five games earlier this
week. Feel free to grab that episode
and listen to that. We've got 11 more games today to
get to, so let's not delay too much.
But I'll remind you that we'll give you 9 players on whom you
can roll the dice and we'll see if our panel of experts will be
able to solve my 2 tough nuts to crack the very end of the show
and abbreviated lightning round today.
But I wanted to say if we've helped you out this year, give
us a great rating review on Spotify, Apple Podcast, I Heart,
or YouTube. And Fantasy Football Almost
Daily won't completely end with this episode.
We'll have the DFS pod Trevor and I are going to do through
the playoffs. And we'll also have some other
special guests who will be joining ahead of the NFL
playoffs. There might be 1 Greg Ambrosius
from NFFC joining us. Who knows?
Maybe we'll even drink whiskey again on Fantasy Football Almost
Daily. Trevor, do you remember that
from back in the old days? Yeah.
Probably like what, 6 years ago with Dalton Wade maybe?
No, we just drank whiskey in the office at the.
She's not talking about any show or anything, he's just talking
about going to work and drinking, which by the way, I'd
like to be invited for whenever this is happening.
Yeah, Sam Brimicombe was the whiskey commissioner and we did
a whiskey tournament that was that was pretty good times.
Hey, maybe we'll do that in the offseason.
Whiskey tournaments are pretty fun.
Yeah. All right, let's jump into the
matchups. Trevor, we're going to start
with the highest over under game on the slate this week.
That's the Cardinals and Bengals.
Both offenses can move the ball. Both defenses are brutal.
It should be pretty decent weather in Cincy this Sunday.
Are we basically firing up every Cardinal and Bengal we have?
Yeah, it's pretty close to the Yukon.
Cornelius Silvers and golds throughout.
We'll start with the fridge with gold.
Gold, gold and silver, Silver and gold.
I'm sure I'll be seeing Mr. Cornelius on my television here
in the next few days. Looking forward to that.
We'll start with the best spot in the whole game in the whole
world, Maybe Trey McBride against the Cincinnati Bengals
defense. What else is there to say?
McBride outpaces all their tight ends by 29 catches, 244 yards,
tied for the leading touchdowns, and now gets the worst tight end
defense of all time. That's it.
Jacobi percent. He's alive with a silver.
Last week was his first non 20 point game of the year.
First time he failed to reach 40 pass attempts since week 9.
I do expect him to bounce back here since he's bottom 5 in both
passing yards and touchdowns allowed.
Even Quinn Ewers went for 260 yards at his first start against
the Bengals. If we like percent, we also like
Michael Wilson. He's got a Silver as well.
Everyone bashes Cincinnati V the running back in the tight end,
so their numbers against receivers are actually pretty
good. They've committed just the third
fewest catches, yards and touchdowns to enemy wide outs.
However, Wilson's got a touchdown in three straight
games, even with Marvin Harrison returning to the lineup last
week. Speaking of Marv, he had just
three targets in his first game back.
He solidly third in the pecking order now.
Keep him on the bench, on the ground.
We will keep Michael Carter alive with bronze.
He was a little disappointing last week.
He had just 11 touches. However, that was the lead role
among Cardinals backs. That was as many as the rest of
the running backs had combined. It's a dream match up for Carter
as well, since he's given up the most rushing yards and the
second most receiving yards to opposing backs.
So we're keeping Carter alive this week.
None of the Bengals. It's a lot more gold here.
Joe Burrow Gold 4 touchdowns in two of the past three games.
Now gets a Cardinals defense that's permitted at least 40
points in half of their eight games since the bye.
Nominated throughout last week since he had nine more pass
attempts than rushing attempts in a 24 point win.
Bengals are still playing hard. Maybe for Zach Taylor's job next
year. Tomorrow, Chase is not obvious
gold. I will just say Arizona ranks
top half of the league against enemy whiteouts.
But we're starting to see Higgins.
Is it Shibuichi? Am I saying that correct?
Yeah, you got it. OK.
We'll give T the Shibuichi, he only got my targets last week.
Chase is 11, only 63% of the snaps as well, which was his
lowest angles. Week 10 by Arizona hasn't
allowed more than 30 yards to a wide receiver two since Week 15,
and that includes a game against ramp.
Still, the game environment and T just being a beast keep them
starting and then Chase Brown, I'm getting a gold too as well.
It's a prime match up against the Cardinals, who are bottom
five that touches, yards and touchdowns allowed to enemy
backs. And actually Chase Brown has
eight straight games with at least 16 PPR points.
So it's a great floor play and there's a real ceiling here too.
Yeah, I in in DFS, I've got this massive mega Cardinals Bengals
stack ready to go for this this weekend's thing.
So I'm I'm pretty excited about that game, Maj.
We'll move on to the opposite of that game.
The lowest over under of the week, 34 1/2.
It's the Steelers heading to Cleveland on Sunday.
They'll be doing so likely without DK Metcalf, who got a
two game suspension. He's appealing it right now.
But with Metcalf maybe out, is there any part of the Steelers
passing game that you can play in this one?
Passing game? No, in fact that over under
dropped to half point with that DK news.
So it's 34 the last. I was actually just updating
that while Trevor was talking and it's supposed to be 49 and
rainy on Sunday. I mean that we're, by the way,
we are, like you said, recording this on Tuesday, December 23rd,
but it's already past Christmas for everybody listening.
So hope you had a wonderful holiday and check those weather
reports because the Tuesday weather, not the Tuesday report
for the Sunday weather is not typically all that accurate.
But yeah, so that puts the Steelers implied team total at
18.75. Not great Bob.
So I'm going to have Aaron Rodgers on the bench in this
one. He did go for 2:35 and 2:00 in
Week 6 at home against Cleveland on the road against this really
tough pass defense though without DK Metcalf most likely
you know that's just not not enough.
So if DK, did you know, if that, like you said, he's appealing,
if for some reason that gets, you know, things get changed or
pushed down there, Ken gets kicked down the road.
I think you could put a bronze on DK.
He had a 495 and one against the bronze in Pittsburgh Week 6, but
just two scores and one game over 55 yards since then.
Calvin Austin, the third, actually left last week's game
with a hamstring injury, too. So you've got Adam Thielen,
Marquez Valdez Scanling and Scotty Miller is sort of the
last men standing. But not none of those guys are
getting enough work in in a way that we could be confident one
would, you know, sort of rise above the others.
So yeah, just benching those guys.
Same with the tight ends, Darnell Washington leading them
comfortably in snapshare but hasn't top 4 targets in the game
since Week 11. So some somebody might have some
numbers, but it's going to be impossible to figure that one
out, so stay away. Jalen Warren, though, will get a
silver floor's lower than you'd like, splitting work with Kenny
Gainwell and a decreased target share as a result.
But he's only got 1 dud all Year 5 scores in his last five games
combined. His early down share last week
dropped into the low fifties, but his third down snaps
actually creeped up for 50%, while Gainwell's getting most of
the two-minute looks. So with Gainwell, he's going to
be a bronze for me, but those guys are pretty close, you know,
Warren and Gainwell. Gainwell's now got three
straight games with 7 targets and he's got 9 or more carries 4
times in his last six. So in APPR setting, he does
actually have a little maybe higher floor than Warren does
because of those catches, but only two touchdowns for him here
in the last five weeks. On the Brown side, implied team
total of 15 and a quarter. Again, not great.
Given that this is championship week.
Let's we can make this quick. You're benching all Browns
except for Harold Fannon. If in Joku's out again with
injury, Fannon's gold. He's got 3 touchdowns in his
last four games, 5 or more targets in 10 straight.
Now, if in Joku's back, it only takes a little shine off that
gold, maybe drops him down to a silver.
But you got Shudura on the bench and the Steelers have allowed
the fewest combined running back touchdowns to just 7 all season.
And with Quinch on Judkins broken leg, now you've got
either Raheem Sanders and Trayvon Williams split or a
three-way, including Dylan Sampson if he's back from
injury. And a holiday three-way in
Cleveland sounds like the absolute worst kind of seasonal
adult film, so we'll just let all that go.
There are seasonal adult films that.
Don't act like you don't know. Let's take a quick break and
view this seasonal adult film. The National Fantasy Football
and Basketball Championships have a huge holiday bonus on the
line this Christmas Day. The NFL Christmas Day Bonanza
has a 40K prize pool with 7500 bucks to 1st and the NBA
Christmas Day Jam has over 8000 in prizes with 5K to 1st.
Both contests are just $100. To enter,
signupforthenflbonanza@playnffc.com/bonanza and thenbajam@playnfbkc.com/jam.
Was I wrong that that was seasonal and also meant for
adults? Yeah, no, you hit the nail on
the head there. By the way, I am wearing my
Trading Places Christmas T-shirt today.
I don't know if you noticed that.
Oh, still haven't seen it so. Well, you've got hopefully by
the time this show airs, you. Will all right, you can find me
on Twitter. Matt Harrison at explosive
output. Trevor's at T Jones 5 Maj.
Is at No Comagio on Blue Sky, and it's time for a little
segment that we like to call Roll the Dice.
It's now time to roll the dice. These are 9 players that might
not normally be in your starting line up, but you could roll the
dice on them here in your Fantasy Championship week.
Some of them we can say we we put a guy in each of these
positions, but some of them like my.
Quarterback, for instance, I don't think I would start, but
Trevor, you would go ahead and tell me who your quarterback is.
Yeah, well, we'll start with Tyler Shuck against Tennessee.
And Shucks, first three starts, the Saints played it pretty
conservatively. He only averaged 27 pass
attempts per game. However, over the last five,
Shucks got over 36 attempts per game.
And that's Daniels has 30 rushing attempts for 135 yards
and two scores. It's a solid match up against
Titans bottom 10 and past yards allowed.
And if the 0 interception Jets didn't exist, it would be the
Titans in last with just three picks all season.
And like I said, New Orleans is absolutely still playing hard.
They've actually won three straight games.
So, Tyler Schock, roll the dice. All right, Maj., you got a
quarterback that we can roll the dice on.
I'll go with Kirk Cousins here. He's gotten into the group the
last couple of weeks on the road with a 5 to 1 touchdown
interception ratio. Now he comes home.
Where oddly enough, he has no touchdowns in two interceptions
in three games this season. But he did just get Drake London
back last week and and he's going to have to throw to keep
up in this game where they are, I think 8 1/2 point underdogs at
this point. So go ahead and roll those dice
on Kirk Cousins. I don't feel that great about
Bryce Young at home against Seattle, but I will note he's
playing well at home and he's playing well at home against
good teams. He's at home games against the
Rams and the Bucks in the last three weeks.
Both were leading their divisions at the time.
He had three touchdown passes against the Rams.
He had two against the Bucks. All of his multi touchdown games
this year have either been at home or indoors.
Seattle is coming to town as division leaders.
Yes, Seattle's defense is tough, but they did give up 457 yards
and three touchdowns to Matthew Stafford last week and multiple
touchdown passes to Stafford again, Brissett, Lawrence,
Mayfield, Kyler and Purdy. And Seattle's beat up on Philip
Rivers, Kirk Cousins, Max Brosmer.
I hope Bryce is a little bit more of Column A than Column B,
and then maybe he's super flexworthy.
All right, running back position, Trevor, who you got?
Yeah, we'll stick in that same Saints game with Tony Pollard
home against the Saints there. The Titans have committed
heavily to Tony Pollard over the last three games.
He's getting over 20 touches per in those, and the efficiency's
been good as well. He's cleared 100 rushing yards
in three straight. The New Orleans is just the
middle of the pack match up. They have allowed the 7th most
rushing yards and the third most touches to the position.
So again, Pollard's getting loaded up with work.
There's work to be had. Tennessee's just a 2 1/2 point
home dog in this one, so it should keep the game script a
little bit tilted in favor of Tony Pollard over Ty J Spears,
who's more of a passing game back.
All right, Maj. A running back that maybe we can
use this week I'm. Going to go with Blake Korum in
this one. He's got double digit carries in
three straight games and at least one touchdown and four
straight. So even though he's not really
getting any passing down work, he's involved enough that in a
match up like this one on the road at Atlanta indoors and as a
heavy favorite, like I said, 8 1/2 points in that one, I just
expect he's going to continue to get more than enough work to pay
off here. All right, my running back is
Ramandre Stevenson and I, I really do think you can use him.
Trayvon Henderson is in the concussion protocol and it would
seem insane that the Patriots would rush him back to beat The
Jets. Now.
They don't need that. So it's probably Stevenson in a
lead back role, and he's been really good in a relief role in
the last two weeks. A combined 14 carries for 101
yards in a score, plus 5 catches and 54 yards in two weeks
combined. But that was with less than 50%
of the snap share. So put that all together, you
got a full complete game against The Jets.
And The Jets have allowed the most touchdowns to running backs
in the league this year. 23 so far.
So if you've been holding on to Romandre for a long time waiting
for your chance, this is it. Receiver position, a wide
receiver or a tight end. Trevor, who you got?
Yeah, I just took my Saints Titans match up and slapped it
on to roll the dice. We're going to stay in that same
game with Juan Johnson, tight end for the Saints.
His floor has been very good for a tight end.
He has nine straight games with at least 4 catches or a
touchdown. The Saints number one tight end
flashed ceiling last week too. Without Devon Bailey, he had 9
targets. He put up an 8 for 89 stat line
on those. It's not an opposing match up
either. Harold Cannon and George Kittle
each cleared 6 catches and a touchdown in the last three
weeks on the Titans D. All right, Maj., Who you got at
the receiver position? I'm gonna make a strange call
here with Brenton Strange. He's got three or more targets
and five straight. Three tight end, 1 finishes in
his last five games. Unfortunately, those other two
just 4 for 53 yards and one of them was a three for 27 effort
against the same Colts team he will be facing here.
But Indy is not anything special against tight end.
So I do think that this is an opportunity for him to continue
a relatively hot streak after coming here to Denver and
putting one on the Broncos, those those Jaguars.
All right, my receiver is a wide receiver.
It's Mack Hollins at The Jets, and he's far and away, at the
very minimum, the number 2 wide receiver in Drake May's offense.
And you could argue that he might be the number 19 targets
last week. Oh, here we go. 9 * 9 * 7
catches, 69 yards. He was one target behind Stefan.
Digs. 8 targets the week before had four more than digs.
He has 130 more snaps than Stefan Diggs this year.
He's on the field consistently. He's the guy who's always on the
field and he's playing The Jets again.
I already told you that Drake May is going to be in a great
spot. This is a great way to get Mack
Hollins, who maybe is the top wide receiver in New England,
against the team that gave up ten catches, 148 yards and two
scores last week to Chris Olave. And those were nine players on
whom you could roll the dice this week.
We'll move right into the next round of match ups here.
And it's me. It's the Patriots and Jets.
And Romandre Stevenson and Mack Hollins were my roll the dice
players. And if Trayvon Henderson clears
concussion protocol, you'd start him with a bronze grade and
you'd also lower Romandre's grade from a silver to a bronze.
But I think it's going to be Stevenson, so silver grade for
him. Drake May gets a gold grade.
He's topped 270 yards five times in his last six.
And when you combine rushing and passing scores, he's responsible
for at least two touchdowns in every game but three this year.
In Week 11 against The Jets, he hit 281 passing yards but only
had one touchdown pass. I guess the risk is the Pats get
up too big too soon and just stop passing.
But they got to get up big first.
And that's where Drake May probably comes in.
The Jets are not good at anything.
They've allowed the ninth most passing touchdowns and still 15
games in, they have yet to intercept a single pass on the
season. It's amazing.
Stefon Diggs gets a bronze. I talked a little bit about The
Jets D against wide receivers earlier.
Diggs had 9 catches for 105 yards in the first meeting.
But again, my worry is they don't need to pass it all in the
second-half and Diggs is only on the field for like 50 to 60% of
the snaps right now. So that's just a bronze grade.
He's been making good with with good efficiency out there, but
I'm a little scared that he just won't be on the field enough in
this game. Hunter Henry, if you're
absolutely desperate, scored last week, did nothing the week
before, but had two double digit PPR outings in the prior two
weeks and then he basically did nothing in October or November.
So he's like a shot in the dark upside play.
Like if you go against a puka like game on Thursday or
Saturday and you need a miracle, that's when you play Hunter
Henry and you pray loudly On the jet side.
Breece Hall is the only one you can consider.
He's still getting like 18 touches per game, but everyone
knows that he's getting the ball about 18 * a game.
He hasn't topped 4 yards per carry since week 11.
That was against the Patriots. I'll extend just a bronze grade
to him. The Pats have allowed the fifth
most receptions to opposing backs Hall can catch.
That's kind of the only option for the window here is Reese
Hall getting 5 receptions and making a half decent PPR day and
that's it. Let's go to Trevor.
The Saints traveled in Nashville to take on the Titans and all
the Roll the Dice players were in this game, so I assume you
must like Chris Olave a little bit here too.
I do. Yeah.
Chris Olave's got a straight goal.
Tennessee's a good match up. Titans have allowed nearly 160
wide receiver yards per game, seventh most in the NFL prior to
shutting down Gardner Minschu and something called Chris
Oladukun. Oladukun Chief's backup
quarterback last week, the Titans had given up at least 75
receiving yards to the last five wide receiver ones they faced,
including five touchdowns to those players.
And obviously they didn't get to see Rasheed Rice last week, so
they didn't really face a receiver one.
Jawan Johnson and Tyler Schuck were roll the dice players along
with Tony Pollard. Taysom Hill, I guess we have to
mention he had a nice game last week as Devin Neil and Alan
Camaro were out. He did have 12 rushing attempts
and a passing touchdown. If you can play them at tight
end and you're like really desperate, it's not terrible,
but you really got to play. Have some stones to play Tayson
Hill in your fantasy title game. And then on Tennessee, like I
said, it's just Tony Pollard. Taija Spears did have 18 touches
last week, but that was mostly due to just beating the crap out
of a dead Chiefs team. So I don't think that continues.
Again, Ola Dokun. Ola Dokun.
That's how we say it. Ola Dokun.
My apologies to the Ola Dokun. Family I just it's they said UN
like Ola Dokun. That's what that's what I'm
seeing on the pronunciation thing.
Yeah. O.
ON Kuhn rhymes with soon. I'm using Google AI so you can't
trust that. I am too and I'm not trusting it
either. We we need the Sunday Night
Football intro with him saying his own name to get to get the
information I think. Well, I mean, they are playing
Thursday night, so maybe we'll we'll see that.
Actually. You'll you'll have by the time
you've heard this podcast, you will know how to correct us.
Yeah, exactly. You're all done with that match
up, right Trevor? We're just yeah, yeah, sorry,
that was. It there's nothing else going on
there, Cam or Nope. Receivers.
OK, fine. Jacksonville and Indy and Maj.
The Jags are coming off that huge win in Denver last Sunday.
Can Trevor Lawrence and the boys keep the strain rolling?
Yeah, man, that was quite the quite the beat down to
touchdowns they put on Denver here.
Empower Empower Field at Mile High.
There's a lot of names for that stadium.
The Jaguars actually have a implied team total of 27 in this
one. And this is a team still in the
running for the number one seed clinched the division, although
with Thursday's games, I don't know how that plays into it.
So maybe they already have, but still the number one seed in
play. So Trevor Lawrence is a gold
grade. He's got QB 1 outputs in six of
his last eight games. Just torched that elite Broncos
pasty his last four games. A 12 to 0 touchdown to
interception ratio. Not to mention two rushing
scores to put him up to seven this season.
He's got 26 passing scores overall.
When these teams faced off in Week 14, Lawrence went for 2:44
and 2:00. So keep that Trevor Lawrence
gravy train rolling. That means a silver grade for
Jacoby fires now five straight weeks as the snap leader among
those Jags wide receivers, 6 or more targets and six straight
and actually 25 total in his last three combined.
So he just keeps getting more and more work.
He has at least 41 yards or a touchdown in all seven games as
a Jaguar, but has only topped 71 yards once and hasn't scored in
back-to-back games. Now heading in the last week's
game of San Francisco Indy since Week 10, it allowed the third
most receiving yards per game and the fifth most fantasy
points. Those numbers obviously went up
after Monday's beat down against the 49ers.
So you like Myers's chances in this one.
I've got bronzes on two more receivers here, Brian Thomas and
Parker Washington. With Brian Thomas, he's now to a
73% snap share minimum in four straight games.
It's coming back from industry. How about injury?
His target share has been inconsistent, 13 combined in his
two previous games, but then the Broncos game marked his 2nd and
the last four with just three and he only had fewer and he had
fewer than 30 yards receiving. So it's a much easier match up
this week. So that should hopefully elevate
the floor for him. But because he's only got 1
score in his last six games, 31 or fewer yards and three of
those he's just tough to trust. So that's why just the bronze
grade here. And with Parker Washington, he
actually LED all Jacksonville wide receivers last week, a six
145 and one line A-Team high 10 targets.
And that was the fight just playing 56% of the snaps.
But you do target the Broncos in the slot.
And that's where Parker Washington's doing a lot of his
damage. He now although has 53 or more
yards and three of his last four, two touchdowns in that
stretch. So he's a red zone threat, only
had three targets each in his last two games prior to the big
one here in Denver. So it's it's a risky chase, but
because of that high point total and just his involvement, I
think you can put a bronze grid on him already talked about
Brent Strange. I will throw a bronze on him as
well. Travis ETN is the last one on
that side. Another gold here.
I'm assuming no basil tootin in this one.
I think it'd be a very high end silver if tootin came back, but
that's not expected. He he did he being ETN squid
goal line work with Laquint Allen junior here in Denver, but
played more than 95% of early downs.
Got all the short yardage work, not to mention A4 catch 1
touchdown only 16 yards. Would you like that touchdown
receiving line against that tough Broncos defense?
So keep ETN rolling on the Colt side.
Actually, not AI mean not a high team total, but an implied team
total of 20 1/2. Not too bad for a Phillip Rivers
LED offense. I'm going to give the old timer
a bronze in this one. Teams just tend to throw on the
Jags for a couple reasons. One, their run defense is
awesome and two, their offense is putting up points so you've
got to keep up. Jags have given up the second
most passing attempts, third most completions, and ninth most
yards. Monday night was a game where
Indy really had to keep pace the high scoring offense, and they
let Rivers throw. He threw 35 times, managed 277
yards and two scores before the game, stealing pick six late in
the fourth there. So a little bit of throwing
means there could be a little bit of wide receiver usage here,
but I've got bronze on all three of their main guys.
With Pitman, he's got 5 targets in both games with Phillip
Rivers under center, but has only combined for seven catches
and 58 scoreless yards. He led the team in targets
against Jacksonville back in Week 14 with 12 and actually
managed 79 yards on 9 catches in that one, but that was mostly
with Riley Leonard under center. Alec Pierce of Bronze, he led
the team with 80 yards against the Jags back in Week 14.
Had two touchdowns on Monday night.
Nice to see him getting the red zone looks but he's only gotten
5 targets on River. 62 pass attempts so far.
So he's caught off 5 which is great but that's super super
risky. So he's probably the lowest and
bronze here just because the lower floor may be higher
ceiling. Josh Downs has a bronze.
He's actually the most targeted Phillip Rivers wide receiver
with 14 in two games, so he's been viable in both those.
He had a touchdown in Week 15, five for 65 + a rushing attempt
against the Niners on Monday night, but didn't do much in
that Week 14 matchup with the Jags.
Only four catches for 23 scoreless yards in that one.
And the Jags defense is easier to attack on the outside than it
is in the slot. So, you know, again, very low
end bronze for for kind of all these guys.
Tyler Warren silver team leading 15 targets with Rivers under
center, but he's only turned that into 6 catches for 49 yards
and he only had two catches for 15 in the previous Jags matchup,
scored just one time in his last eight games.
So I don't necessarily call it the rookie wall here for him
because he's been dealing with some quarterback changes
obviously. But I do think where he was a
goal earlier in the season that you can only top him out here at
silver, Jacksonville's allowing the 7th most receptions, ninth
most yards and 12 most touchdowns to tight end.
So, you know, there's a little bit of possibility getting
something done there. Last but not least, Jonathan
Taylor. We're going to keep him at a
goal. He's earned 21 carries into 74
yards and a touchdown against the Jags in Week 14.
And that was despite Riley Leonard being under Center for
most of it. That was actually his only game
all season without at least 2 receptions, and Rivers just
targeted him seven times in two games.
So he's still getting a little bit of that passing down work.
He only had 46 yards against San Francisco last week.
That was one try of a season low, but he did still score
managed 79 combo yards. Yes, the Jacksonville run
defense is among the best in the game with the fewest running
back rushing yards, second fewest combo yards, and 6th
fewest combo touchdowns allowed to the position all year.
But Taylor's just been too good. That Andy team has been too good
for you to do anything but put him in your lineup and hope for
another nice day. Yeah, it'd be, even though it's
a tough matchup, it'd be crazy to bench Jonathan Taylor,
Fantasy Championship week. I mean, he's the guy who got you
there. Right.
It'd be like having Chase Brown on the bench last week and
starting Bucky Irving over him and and then losing because of
it. That'd be silly.
Who would do that? A long, slow sip.
Hey, you know what, it's time for another holiday themed adult
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Learnmore@gameblazers.com Happy holidays.
My wife's going to be super surprised I was in two adult
films this week. Yeah, why don't you just tell us
what you want to tell us about Game Blazers?
Just kidding. Welcome back.
It's time for a segment that we like to call 2 tough nuts.
It's time for two tough nuts. 2 crack this is this is kind of
the the end one of the year here.
So I've got I've got one tough nut and one that's more of a
soft nut. So let's start with the tough
nut here. Which running back will lead the
NFL in touches in 2026? Maj.
Why don't you go first? Well, I mean, I could make the
case for a lot of guys here. I think my top five that I
narrowed it down to were Gibbs, Taylor Bijon, James Cook and
Ashton Genti. Devon A Chan and Josh Jacobs
were honorable mention, but I'm going to ultimately go with Cook
of that top five I mentioned because I think he's in the
offense that's the likeliest to make a jump in plays run per
game just by virtue of bringing in pass catching help.
Like they can't keep doing this to Josh Allen, you know?
And then everything else is already kind of in place in that
offense. Cook is currently 4th in the
league at 21.3 touches per game despite the Bills offense being
14th in plays run per game. So I look at those other guys,
it's like, well, the Detroit offense really can't get much
better. So I don't see them running more
plays next year. Indian Atlanta are likely to
kind of remain where they're at. Their coaching Staffs are going
to kind of stay in place. So I don't see them making big
jumps. And I don't think the Raiders
can make a big enough leap next year to give Ashton Gentie
enough overall opportunities to catch James Cook.
So that's my case for James Cook.
All right, Trevor, which running back will lead the NFL in
touches in 2026? Yeah, I the way I went about it,
I just kind of looked at the recent touch leaders and kind of
the profile of the teams that those guys came from.
So recently we've got Jonathan Taylor LED once they missed the
playoffs the last week of the season.
Derrick Henry in 2022 barely missed 2023, Derrick Henry LED,
he fully missed the playoffs. But otherwise we're looking at
like 49ers CMC 2019 and 20, Derrick Henry, Eagles, Saquon,
Cowboy, Zeke Steelers, Lev Bell since 2015.
So it's got to be somebody who's probably at least in the playoff
mix, if not going to make the playoffs that has the huge
workload. So it's either a Chan, CMC or
Bijan. I don't think a Chan or Bijan's
team is making the playoffs next year.
Just with the state of the quarterback play for the Falcons
and just the talent in Miami. So I went with CMC.
I don't know if that's insane. He, he'll be 30 years old in the
2026 season starts. He'll be coming off of a 400
touch season. But if we just laid out
everybody on the table and said who is the most likely if they
play 17 games to lead the NFL in touches, it's Christian
McCaffrey every time, I think. Those are both great answers,
but they're wrong. And I, I, I went back and I
looked at history. I went back a few years here.
So in 2022, the, the, the benchmark I have is how many
backs hit 320 touches, which is a lot.
In 2022, there were only four backs who hit 320 touches.
It was Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, Nick Chubb and Saquon
Barkley. In 2023 there were only three
backs who did it. Christian McCaffrey, Rashad
White and Travis Etienne noticed there were no repeaters.
Last year there were 6 running backs that hit 320 touches.
Not one of them repeated from the prior season as well Saquon,
Henry, Kyron Williams, Bijan Robinson, Jonathan Taylor and
Josh Jacobs. And then this year, James Cook,
Jonathan Taylor, Bijan and McCaffrey have already hit it.
Barkley will probably get there. So it's the first time in
several years that three of the six will repeat 320 touches.
That's Bijan, Taylor and Saquon Barkley.
And to me, that means that none of those guys can hit it.
They, they have no chance. They're they're going to get
wiped out by injury over usage, that kind of thing.
So three out of the last 13 players have done it from one
year to the next. So Cook, Taylor, Bijan, CMC,
Barkley, they're all out due to regression.
So it's got to be a guy who owns a backfield by himself.
So I'm kicking out Jameer Gibbs and Kyron Williams because they
don't own a backfield by themselves.
I settled on Ashton Genti and I didn't think I was going to get
there. He's at 274 touches right now.
He's on pace for 310. The Raiders are looking for a
new coach probably, and a new quarterback probably.
Whoever joins that offense gets two shiny toys, Genti and
Bowers, and I expect they try to makeshift a much better
offensive line. If he gets any improvement in
that offensive line, he can turn 320 touches into a lot of good
stuff. He's going to get a ton of work
next year. I think it's Ashton Genti.
I will say Pete Carroll, his son, is the offensive line coach
for the Raiders. So maybe if they have like a
real offensive line coach and not a Napo baby, Ashton Genti
can pile up 400. Touches.
Wow. Trevor calling out the Carroll
family. Geez, tough year for Oakland,
for Vegas. All right, so this one's more of
a soft nut. What is the best way to play NFL
fantasy football? And Trevor, there's no wrong
answer to this one, so you're going to get it right.
Yeah, I'm trying to keep a straight face after the
description of the second nut here.
So I think I know what Matt's answer will be.
So I'm not going to steal his Thunder.
I will go full company, full, full company shield here.
I'm going to pick the NFFC format, which you can check out
on the NFFC website, one of many great sports health properties.
So you start by picking a roster of one player per team.
Each round that player advances, they get double points in the
next round, so on and so on as they advance.
No salary cap, it's just the per team roster limit.
One of your players gets eliminated from playoffs, you
add a new player of the roster and so on and so on.
I like that part because as you get further into, you know,
divisional round, conference round, it's a little more like a
DFS strategy element where it's like, well, yeah, I want to pick
up, you know, Jamar Chase. But what if I keep, you know,
whoever Devonte Adams a 2X over Jamar Chase or I'm down 30
points. I need to pick a low owned
player who could go off and not the top player.
So I just enjoy that kind of the daily element to the NFC format.
Good job, Trevor. That's a correct answer.
It's one of many correct answers.
All right, Maj., what's your favorite way to play NFL playoff
fantasy football? Well, great minds think alike.
I just, I basically wrote an NFFC commercial I was going to
read, but I'm not going to do that because Trevor mowed my
lawn so. What other playoff scenarios
have you played? What other playoff games have
you played in the past? The, I believe there's a Matt
Harrison playoff game out there. So that's always fun.
Our, our old friend John Tooby used to do a playoff thing, I
think, and I'm getting old and I don't remember stuff.
So the, the, the formats where you just pick the players and if
you lose them, you lose them. Your toast is interesting.
You know, it's fun. It's a, it's a different angle.
I do like on the NFFC side, you get the multiplier, but then you
also backfill. And so it, it is, you know, it's
and they're, they're all fun in their own, you know, in their
own way to play. I think the, the cool thing with
the NFFC ones is just the, the, the prize money, right 'cause
in, in the big NFFC contest, I think it's 200 bucks to play,
but first prize it's 125 grand, the mini games, 50 bucks to play
and you 50,000 to 1st. So it's like, yeah, there's
more, you know, more players. You got to, you've got to sort
of narrower path to victory, but when you win, you win big.
Yeah, that's life changing money right there.
So you guys kind of mentioned it.
I like salary cap draft and hold.
That's the game I've been running like personally for 15
years or so. And in that you pick your team
at the beginning of the play offs using a salary cap similar
to like ADFS game. They're locked for the whole
post season run. So if you lose a couple of guys
in the wild card round, you're, you're out and, and a lot of
people will pick like two or three teams that they think have
a chance to make the Super Bowl and, and go that way.
But it when one of your teams loses you, you really lose
players pretty quickly and your points dwindle pretty fast.
So you have to Galaxy brain 4 weeks where the playoffs figure
out who's going to score the most points, who's going to be
alive later. You kind of have to bracket it
out in a couple of different ways to go.
Oh well, they're the seven seed and if they beat the two seed,
they'll move on to the the one seed.
And is that a good match up for my running back?
It it's a lot of fun to play and it's a lot of fun to kind of
come up with the different scenarios to go.
So those were the final two tough nuts of the season.
Thank you for playing along with us and we really appreciate that
that you stayed safe in this game.
All right, let's jump back into the matchups.
It's a bit of a trap game here for the Seahawks as they head
across the country to battle the NFC South leading Panthers.
A ton of playoff implications in this game with both teams
winning in emotional fashion last week, taking control of
their respective divisions. We can start with the easy one,
Jackson Smith and Jigbug gets an easy gold grade here.
The guy pitched a 23 point game last week after being shut out
at halftime. That was just the second-half.
He can go off for 20 points and a half easily.
Chow Smith, Wade is in the slot. He's not scary at all.
JS NS in a good spot. Rashid Shahid is on your bench.
He had a 31 yard electric run, but one target besides that
against the Rams last week. You can't use that in a fantasy
championship. That's insane.
Sam Darnold gets a bronze in that crazy comeback.
Last week you would have thought that Darnold might have put up
like 350 yards. He only put up to 70 and two
touchdowns. I would have thought it was way
more. If you just like talk to me
about that game. The Panthers have allowed over
270 yards in a game just three times this year.
Only one of those quarterbacks threw 2 touchdown passes, so the
Panthers aren't giving up much. The Panthers have only allowed
four passing scores in the last five weeks, so it's just a
bronze for Darnold. Ken Walker had the big day on
Thursday night, 164 combo yards in a score, but he's still only
LED in touches 14 to 13 over Zach Charbonnay.
And Charbonnay scored in that one too.
So both of these players have the ability to throw you a
touchdown or two, but both have the ability to give you a four
point game, which sucks and they've both done in the last
four weeks. The match up is great.
Carolina is bottom 10 in rushing yards and touchdowns allowed,
but Bucky Irving took 19 carries last week and only managed 71
yards against these Panthers. It seems like the 15 to 16 point
upside would be Kenneth Walker, so I'll give him a bronze.
I can't start Charbonnay. He always gets a couple fewer
touches, so I just will leave him on the bench.
By the way, on in the running game, Rico Dowdell, he's in a
timeshare, too, and it feels like it's kind of going the
wrong way for Dowdell right when we need him the most.
Last week, Dowdell had only 13 touches.
Chuba Hubbard had 7. The week before, it was 17 to 9.
Dowdell has in top 12 PPR points in a month.
But the interesting thing here is that they played the Rams a
few weeks ago and the Panthers just ran the ball all day.
Hubbard had 17 carries. Dowdell had 18 carries in that
game. Seattle's excellent against the
run, but they've allowed the most receptions to opposing
backs this year. It's it's an intriguing match
up, but I think I'm going to leave both on the bench.
If you have to start one in one of those Panthers running backs
required leagues, Dowdell's the better play so he gets a higher
bench grade. But this just seems like it
could be more downside than upside here.
Bryce Young was my roll the dice quarterback and then the only
receiver of his you could start is Ted McMillan.
He was back to his wicked ways last week. 10 targets, 6
catches, 73 yards and a score against Tampa.
If the Puka Nakua tape is watched by the Panthers locker
room this week, they might think that they could just target
their alpha receiver over and over again because Puka had 46
1/2 PPR points last week. That was just about triple the
amount of any wide receiver against Seattle all year.
It's crazy. The receiver that hits 16 points
against them back in week 7, that was Pukanakua again.
So I'll float a bronze grade to Ted McMillan because it's a
super tough matchup. It's almost a Shibuichi but it's
definitely a high ish bronze grade here.
So Puka's got to have like 20% of the fantasy points scored by
wide receivers against them, pretty much.
Yeah, it's crazy. All right, let's move on to the
next match up, Trevor. The true battle of Florida
commences as the Bucks head South to take on the Dolphins.
This has to be a get right game for Bucky Irving, who was
evidently on one of Maj's teams and that Tampa offense.
Yeah. I'll throw the Shibuichi at
Bucky Irving. The workload has been good, at
least 17 touches in each of his four games back from injury.
In the matchups quality Miami gives up the fifth most combo
yards to enemy running backs. However, Sean Tucker has just
fully taken the goal line role like it's just Sean Tucker's
now. So Bucky has to score from
distance. He's not going to get those
touches and then he's also losing a bit of pass game work
to Rashad White. So it's not great, but the
workload to match up are too good to pass on.
This week we'll switch over to the passing game.
Baker's really been struggling. He's been below 200 yards
passing and failed to throw for multiple touchdowns in five of
his last six. And this wasn't some murderer's
row. It was Zona, Carolina and
Atlanta he faced in that stretch.
I'll keep him in play with the bronze just because Tampa is
still alive for the NFC South here in the match of the solid
in Miami's four-game since the buy, only Brady Cook failed to
throw for multiple touchdowns. That includes Tyler Shuck and
Aaron Rodgers kind of guys at Baker's tier.
The receivers. Mike Evans gets a gold.
He immediately regained wide receiver one status in Tampa.
He's got 21 targets in his first pair of games back from injury,
putting him back a buk on the bench.
He has 0 touchdowns in just one game, clearing 42 yards since
week 10. I can't trust him in fantasy
title week. Chris Godwin does get a bronze.
He's averaged over 10 PPR points in the past four matchups, good
for Bucks whiteouts. Miami's let six different
receivers clear 100 yards or score in the three non Brady
Cook games since their bye week. Flipping over to Miami, we just
have three guys here. Obviously Devon, A Chan as a
goal, Awesome play. My only note here, Tampa allows
the most running back receptions in the league and A Chan leads
the Dolphins in catches. So maybe, maybe he's a platinum.
And then in the passing game, the only two guys to consider
here are Jalen Waddle and Darren Waller.
Waller gets a commercial bronze. He mostly whiffed in the dream
tight end match up last week with Cincinnati.
However, he does get another favorable spot here against the
Bucks tight end defense, giving up the 4th most touchdowns and
10th most catches to tight ends. So if you really need one, he's
he's in there a bit a bit. I will give Waddle of bronze as
well and Quinn viewers first start.
He peppered Waddle with 9 targets, which was Waddle's most
since week 9:00. So at least somebody knows where
the good players are located on the field.
Ted McMillan just hit Tampa for 73 and one last week and wide
receiver won Kyle Pitts without Drake London a couple weeks ago.
Had the all time game against the Bucks on Thursday night.
That all makes sense to me. All right, Maj.
Unfortunately, you drew the short straw and you got the game
that will decide the number one pick in the NFL draft.
It might be two teams that are actively trying not to score
with the Giants and Raiders in Vegas.
Do we just start the Giants and Raiders defense special teams
and hope for a million safeties? Yeah, something like that.
I mean, the the over under here is 41 1/2.
So like a good touchdown over the Steelers rounds somehow.
I mean, it's because these defenses are bad.
But yeah, to your point, it's like you kind of feel like you
got to take the under on this one as they battle.
I mean, with the Giants, at least they, you know, they've
they've sort of got their quarterback figured out, whereas
the the Raiders do not. But of course want that value,
that first pick. So anyway, so in this one, the
Raiders are actually a point and a half favorite.
I don't know if they've been a favorite yet this year.
So good, good on y'all Raiders. So for we'll start with the
Giants being the visiting team here.
So they've got an implied team total of 20.
That means Jackson darts a silver grade in this one.
He was just awful last week, in part because the Giants called
just 13 pass plays the entire game against the Vikings and
their league leading pass defense.
The Raiders provide just a little bit less resistance in
the past game than than the Vikings.
You know, Dart's still among the league leaders in fantasy points
per game at the position since he took over as starter.
But teams just run so well against Las Vegas and we saw
that game plan just last week against the Vikings.
So I just think the upsides capped a bit, which is why he's
just a silver. With him as a silver, that means
Wandale Robinson is just a bronze.
He did still get 6 targets in last week's run fest, and that
was his lowest number since Week 8, but his yardage has been at
36 or less three times in his last five games.
He's only got 4 touchdowns all season, so really a lower floor
here than you'd like to have in your title game.
Benching Darius Slayton, his floor is even lower than
Robinson's. He's got just one touchdown all
year. I will give a bronze to Theo
Johnson. He played 100% of the snaps last
week for the first time all year.
The two targets he had were his fewest since Week 3, but he does
have 70 yards or more in three of his last six games.
Raiders solid against tight ends, only 6 scored a lot of it
all season. Johnson, he's gone six straight
scoreless, so hence just the bronze there in the run game.
Tyrone Tracy's a silver. He's got the higher snapshare
than singletary now in every game he hasn't left early in
since Week 10 and 18 or more opportunities in each of those
games. The Raiders have allowed 15
running back rushing scores. Tracy.
Tracy only has two rushing scores all season.
That is kind of Devon Singletary territory if they do get right
on the goal line. But I'm not going to start
Singletary at this point. I thought a handful of weeks ago
that that split might have started to lean in his favor,
especially after the Tracy injury.
That didn't happen because two weeks ago we only had six
touches, but then he bounced right back to getting work last
week. He's got 12 or more
opportunities in four of his last five games.
But because Tracy's getting much more of that passing game work,
you know, Tracy's singletary's looking at, you know, 40 yards
and then coin flip at a touchdown.
Not something you necessarily want for your fantasy title
game. So Maj., are you saying the the
inside the five infrared zone is the single territory?
That is what I'm saying. I'm saying that exactly took the
words right out of my mouth. That's pretty good, man.
Top of the Dome two days before Christmas on his third part of
the day and he's just rang out elite content like that.
It's woo twice the best. Yeah, Matt.
Matt has grown a goatee during the course of his podcast 3.
He was clean shaven when his podcast started here on the 20.
3rd I, I, I was thinking since we're, we're recording three
pods today, I'm recording three pods today that I was going to
change my facial hair throughout the pods and we're recording
them out of order too. So it would have been really
weird if I had a clean shaven face for the one that's first
and and a mustache at the end. Who knows?
I don't know. Yeah, I almost came back after
that Bears game on Saturday. I almost decided to come as
Ditka this week, just all week after work.
But yeah, so that's a lot of keeping up with the facial hair.
It's just it wasn't, it wasn't worth the time.
And it's been so warm here and Denver.
I didn't want to wear the sweater.
I wanted this, the T-shirt. I mean, you could wear the
sweater vest without the shirt underneath.
It's not a vest though, it's the full sweater.
I don't have the vest. Oh, that's a bummer.
Yeah, that's I'll add that to next year's holiday list.
Where were we? Raiders Las Vegas implied team
total of 21 1/2 points. I've got 2 gold grades on this
team. Geno Smith is not one of them.
I've got him on the bench. I honestly love the match up.
He's at home, but he hasn't topped 23 attempts in his last
three games. He's barely averaging more than
200 yards passing a game this season.
It's like 2O3 and also only two games all year with more than
two touchdown passes and none since Week 9.
So there's just no ceiling and on the floors that low.
Yeah. Not not somebody you want to
start. Trey Tucker, bench and him as
well. Just one touchdown since Week 3.
No games over 47 yards since Week 6.
And that's despite being the leading receiver as far as snaps
shares go. I would keep an eye on Jack
Vetch here. Jack Beck.
Beck Bench, whatever, I've got him on the bench, but he has
taken over #2 wide receiver duties, benched.
Dante, yeah, bench, benched. But yeah, he might be 1.
If you're in a dynasty league and you can still pick up guys
and you've got some stash room, he might be somebody to hang on
to you just to see. Only three targets in three of
his last four games, a high watermark of 50 yards.
But he's getting some work, and they might have a good
quarterback, you know, coming to start a next season.
So we'll see. Brock Bowers, I'm keeping the
gold grade on. The Giants have actually been
decent against tight ends. Only 4.6 receptions per game
allowed and five touchdowns to the position overall.
But you got Bowers on a heater right now. 4 scores in his last
four games, at least four reception in in each of his last
six games. So you you plug and play Bowers
on the Gentie side. I've got my other gold grade
here. This one's interesting.
And actually, Trevor kind of started touching on this in the
tough nuts section. I should keep touching and tough
nuts away from each other in future sentences.
The the the offensive line here has gone through this shift in
these last three weeks. So it was just it was a mess.
They lost Colton Miller and Jackson Powers Johnson injuries
in Weeks 4 and 10, respectively. And they just would not play
their third round draft pick, rookie Caleb Rogers.
Just he was doing so bad that that Pete Carroll was just like,
Nope, can't. He's looked so bad in practice.
It would be a disservice to the team to play him.
Meanwhile, it was a huge disservice to the team to
continue to play the guys that they were playing instead,
Jordan Meredith and Will Putnam. And so finally, you know, they
had to cry uncle. Alex Kaplasin's taken over at
center. Rogers came in at right guard.
And there's actually been some consistency now for a couple
weeks. And we saw that actually, you
know, bear fruit against that Texans defense that who would
have thought? Ashton Genti, who I did play
against last week. Thank you for that.
Ashton Genti. Congrats to Ryan Bozer on on
that. So you look at who they played,
all right, rough match ups against Philly, Denver, Chargers
and Brown's defense all in a row, you know?
And then the Texans, the last time they played an easy run
defense was Dallas in Week 10. And Gen.
Z did terrible, 7 scoreless yards and he caught six of eight
targets for 27. But that was with that old
offensive line configuration. Now they've maybe figured
something out. They like I said, just torched
the Texans in Houston and now go against a much worse sieve
Giants defense giving up the most yards per carry and second
most running back combo yards allowed all season.
Like Genzi went from like you stardom because of volume and
hope for the best to holy crap, like he could be the RB-1 this
week, like in the course of a week here.
It's crazy. So, you know, if you're looking
at this like, oh, was it a, you know, he just popped off for one
game. It was an outlier.
It's weird. Totally possible because it's
not like this offensive line is, you know, Herculean by any
means. But they may have figured
something out here and going, you know, using the momentum
from last week and going against this bad defense.
I think it's going to be another big game for Gen.
Z. All right, I I'm hoping for
Genti. I got him in one of my fantasy
finals this week. So let's let's go Ashton Genti.
Hey, fantasy football season is almost over, but fantasy golf
season is just about to begin. We got a huge fantasy golf
contest and my friend Pat Mayo is going to tell you about it
right now all. Right people, it's that time of
year again. The Mayo Cup is officially open.
That's right, your yearly reminder that you could win life
changing money if you stop making coward picks and actually
commit to greatness. Let's talk stakes.
Is the Mayo Cup not messing around?
$110,000 to 1st place. 110,000 actual real dollars, and with
your $250 entry, you're playing for a prize pool of $1.2
million. That seven figures of pure,
delicious fantasy golf sweat. And this season, the Mayo Cup is
fully available in the Fan Ball app.
Week to week. Picks, leaderboard sweats,
berating yourself or feeding the guy who wins by 6.
You can do it all right from your phone, so head to the Fan
Ball app, search for the Mayo Cup and get yourself entered.
1.2 million in prizes, 110,000 to the winner, just $250 to
play. This is the year.
Unless you blow it again, but hey, you might not sign up now.
The contest Tees off January 15th.
Woo. I love me some one and done
fantasy golf. And by the way, if you go to my
pinned tweet at explosive output and you want to play in a $25
one and done contest with me, I'm hosting one.
It's called the one T Open. Come play with me.
It's limited to 40 people. I think we're about 1/4 full
already. Maj.
Trevor, if you want to get into it too, you're I need to reserve
my entry shortly here before. Listeners, fill it up.
It's it's it's a pretty fun way to play.
Go check my Twitter if you want to join me in that contest.
All right, the Eagles and Bills seem to play what should be a
really good game. It's one of the two afternoon
games, but this game means absolutely nothing to the
Eagles. So how do we treat them in this
game in Buffalo? I, I, I really kind of dug into
like their injury reports and what they're planning on doing.
And the Eagles are looking to bring back Lane Johnson and
Jaylen Carter this week. And you don't do that if you're
resting guys. You don't.
You don't bring back two guys who are key to your offensive
and defensive line if you're resting guys for that week.
So they might be resting guys going into Week 18.
I don't think they will be this week.
I've got a gold grade on Saquon Barkley.
That means he's coming off his second best day of the season.
It was last week in Washington. The Bills are terrible against
the round. 5.2 yards per carry, third worst, the 4th most
rushing yards allowed and the most rushing scorers allowed
this season. So easy goal for Saquon.
Let's hope he gets there. Jalen Hertz gets a bronze.
The Bills being bad at defending the run does extend to the
quarterback position. They've allowed the 4th most
rushing yards to quarterbacks as well and that's why Hertz is
startable here because it's really hard to pass against the
Bills. They've allowed the fewest pass
yards in the league and the 4th fewest touchdown passes.
They're averaging, or I should say opposing quarterbacks are
averaging 181 yards and just over 1 score per game, so that's
why it's just a bronze. Hertz is only averaging 207
yards per game anyway. His rushing yards keep him
alive, so he's just a bronze grade in this one.
A.J. Brown has double digit targets
in five of the last six games and he's hit 95 yards in four of
the last five. But as stated, the Bills are
tough to pass against their top ten in receiving yards and
touchdowns allowed to wide receivers.
So just a bronze grade for A.J. Brown.
His consistency keeps him startable.
Devonta Smith, I think you leave on the bench though, because he
doesn't have that consistency. Hasn't topped 50 yards in a
month, and despite scoring last week, it was his first touchdown
since Week 10. Dallas Goddard has scored three
times in the past two weeks against two terrible defenses.
But the Bills tight end defense is elite.
They're the best in the league. Number one in receptions allowed
#2 in receiving yards and touchdowns allowed to tight
ends. However, Harold Fannon scored
last week. Mike Gasicki scored against them
three weeks ago. I'm going to put a commercial
bronze grade on Goddard, but he basically needs a score or that
won't hit. So if you believe Goddard can
get to that score, I think he might be the touchdown pass
receiver here if they give up one.
That's why he gets the bronze. Josh Allen is going to be in
your line up, but he has a foot injury and it's a pretty tough
match up. The Eagles allow the fewest
passing scores in the league and are only giving up 205 passing
yards per game. They do allow the sixth most
rushing yards. These two defenses are very
similar, by the way. DAC, Baker and Stafford are the
only players with multiple touchdown passes against the
Eagles this year, so it's a silver grade for Allen.
That's as low as you can go on Josh Allen, but you're still
starting him in a fantasy championship.
I don't want to play any of his receivers, though.
Shakur would be the best option, but his target totals over the
last month have been 553 and four, and that's not enough to
get it done. Dalton Kincaid only had one
target last week. Dawson Knox had two and Philly
is the 6th toughest wide receiver defense and the second
toughest tight end defense. None of those guys are in play.
James Cook is in your line UPS though.
He gets a gold grade. He's coming off 2 match ups
against two absolutely stud run defenses in New England and
Cleveland. Just in the last two weeks he
had one O 7 and two on the ground against the Pats.
Added a receiving score in that game too. 117 and two on the
ground against the Browns last week.
Had that highlight reel rushing touchdown that everybody was
talking about where he missed. Made like five guys miss him.
He dinged Houston and Pittsburgh to two more top 10 rush defenses
for over 100 yards in the last month as well.
The Eagles have struggled even more recently against the run.
Bill and Chris Rodriguez combined for 94 combo yards and
two scores last week. Both Chargers backs hit double
digit PPR points. Swift and Monongi ran for 255
yards and two scores against them just about a month ago.
So James Cook a gold grade in this one.
Trevor, your final match up. This one looks pretty
interesting. It's the Bears and the 49ers.
Both of these teams have outside shots at stealing the number one
seed in the NFC for fantasy. What parts of the Bears offense
can you actually trust? Because while Caleb's putting up
some huge days in, in reality, his fantasy numbers aren't.
The best in the world, they're not.
So we will start there. I'll give Caleb a silver.
He I do think he is playing the best ball of his career.
I agree it hasn't totally materialized in the stat sheet a
ton, but he does have multiple touchdown passes and three
straight games and no picks in that time.
And two of those games and all three of those games were
against quality defenses. Twice, Green Bay and then
Cleveland once. And since they're by San
Francisco's allowed, Cam Ward and Phil Rivers took them by for
a 64% completion rate, nearly 225 passing yards per game, and
they gave up two passing touchdowns to both of those
guys. And you can argue those are two
of the worst 7-8 fantasy quarterbacks in the league right
now. Here's where it gets tricky.
So neither Roma Dunze nor Luther Burden practice last week.
They were both ruled out. Obviously it's Tuesday, we don't
totally know what their practice report looks like yet this week
without both of them. Last week, Chicago went heavy 2
tight ends with Colson Loveland and Cole Comet seeing over 75%
of the snaps and then DJ Moore and Zacchaeus were basically
locked into the 2 receiver sets. It's a great match up there as
San Francisco's bottom 3rd and catches and receiving yards
allowed to receivers. So it's a decent match up for
these guys, which depends on who plays.
So here, here's where we get to the ifs.
If it's just roam back Rome and DJ more get bronzes.
If it's just burdened back bronzes unburdened and DJ more.
If both return, it's just Rome and DJ more.
If neither returns, upgrade DJ more to a silver as he's cleared
21 PPR points and three of his last five and would get every
snap receiver treatment. The other two games though were
complete duds that he had at 5 and one points so just be
careful. So I like in order to give me
more a Dunze burden and more to Silver if the other two are out.
That was a pretty good flow chart there, Trevor.
Good. Job it was OK, I'm glad.
It looks really bad. It like, I don't know, it's
just, it's just sentences and sentences.
It's a lot of excel. If, then statements there
haven't. You you should hear my Packers
wide receiver match up in the other fantasy Christmas episode.
If Watson? If Yeah.
So this one's easy. Colston Loveland gets a bronze.
Either way. He has at least three catches in
10 straight games. The Niners are at bottom half
defense against catches and yards allowed to tight ends.
They've actually given up 9 touchdowns to Titans this year,
which is fifth worst in the league.
And DeAndre Swift get some bronze as well. 15 plus touches
and four straight for Swift. San Francisco recently allowed
Titans backs to give them 151 combo yards and a touchdown and
then Browns backs combined for 149 combo yards.
That's just in the last three games.
Kyle Manon guy hasn't seen more than 12 PPR points since week
nine against Cincinnati. When he got all the touches.
He is on the bench flipping over to the other side.
The rock Purdy. He gets silver in the Niners
pass game, rocks back to full health.
He's balling right now. He's got 590 yards and eight
touchdowns combined in his past two games.
Chicago's hemorrhaging passing touchdowns this year having
already allowed 28, which is a bottom 5 mark.
Bears have also permitted permitted the second most QB
rush yards this season, which is notable because now that Purdy's
kind of healthy and moving, he's actually picked up 55 ground
yards in the past two combined. Biggest part of the passing game
is the running back at CMC. He's a go, you're playing him.
Jawan Jennings gets a silver. He's been excellent recently.
A tight end, a touchdown catch, and seven of his last eight.
He is mostly relying on touchdowns though.
He's only got 3 games over 50 yards in those last 8.
But it's a good spot to score though the Niners have a 27 1/2
point team total. The Bears have already allowed
nineteen wide receiver touchdowns, third, third most in
football. Ricky Pierce all missed last
week's game, Also didn't practice at all last week.
If he does start, I'd kind of throw the commercial bronze on
him if you really need it. And the last guy we'll talk
about is George Kittle. It's going to be interesting
here. Kittle, I think, has A7 for 1:15
and 1:00 before leaving with an injury on Monday night.
And he said it was not a high ankle sprain.
And the Niners do kind of need to keep winning because they had
a shot, I believe, at the division still.
So if we get where the Kittle's good to go, he is a goal.
He's a shot at the one seed. Yeah, the Niners went out.
They get the one seed. And Kittle's, you know, as tough
as anybody. So he's at double digit PPR
points in eight of his last nine games and 22 PPR and four of his
last 6. Chicago's just middle of the
pack against the tight end, not a scary opponent.
And George Kittle's, He's George Kittle.
All right, that's great. I, I got Kittle.
I hope he's his ankle's fine. Let's let's roll with George
Kittle. He he's one of just a few tight
ends that gives you that crazy. Upside.
Imagine keeping him on the bench and then like watching him go
for a 30 ball on Sunday night. Like, oh man, that would be
brutal. All right, Final match up is the
Monday nighter as the Rams head to Atlanta to take on the
Falcons. The fantasy hero last week was
Puka Nakua. The week before it was Kyle
Pitts. Which one of these guys will pop
off again? Maj.
And I got to find who I'm playing against and they'll be
able to tell you. No, I, I've been, no, I was
listening carefully to your guys's last ones because my one
title game, I've got us, I've got Alan Purdy and Hertz.
And it's a super flex lead, so I can start two of them.
I can't can't imagine benching Hertz or Alan.
And Purdy's probably the best play of the three.
So yeah, I'll be, I'll be wrestling with that one for a
while. Here's I think I'd go Alan and
Purdy and leave her on the bench.
Yeah, yeah, a little early lightning around there, but
yeah, I'm kind of, that's kind of how I'm leaning.
We'll we'll see where I end up. But anywho, back to Rams and
Falcons. So this one, one of the higher,
if not the highest over under of the week 49 1/2.
And the Rams are 8 point favorites going back east again.
They've gone EA lot this year. I've played in the Eastern Time
zone. I'm going to go with a silver on
the silver haired Matt Stafford here.
Week 6 was his last time without multiple touchdowns and 243
yards is his low watermark in the Rams.
Five games and so we saw him without Devante Adams last week.
He went for 4:57 and 3:00 in that game.
I mean, it was an overtime game, but still just absolutely nuts.
Falcons are mid pack against the quarterback.
So of course, Stafford's not doing anything with his legs,
but he's still a very high end play high, very high end, very
shiny silver for Matt Stafford in this one.
Puka's gold next. Devante obviously on your bench.
He's not expected to play with with him gone.
You know, Xavier Smith actually saw the biggest bump in playing
time. But Kannada Mumfeld was the
number two receiver only 46% of the snaps though.
So you can't really do anything with these guys as far as
putting them in your line up. And I expect those past attempts
to normalize. Stafford threw 49 times in that
game last week and that was his first time over 38 since week 5.
They're huge favourites, like I said in this one.
So I do think that's really going to temper the the throwing
numbers there. As such, you're leaving the
tight ends on the on the bench. Atlanta's the third most
difficult matchup for tight ends anyway.
And again, it's a it's a 3A group of three trying to decide
who's going to do what here. If you wanted to throw a dart at
Colby Parkinson, you'd probably just end up hurting yourself.
So just put the darts down on the running backside.
Kyron Williams going to be a gold here.
He's still running plenty ahead of Blake Gorman snapshare even
though they are splitting overall work.
No fewer than 13 opportunities in any game all year, with 15 or
more in each of his last three. He's also found the end zone 13
times this season and has three multi score games.
Falcons just mid pack against running backs.
I think this is a real nice game for Kyron and I already
mentioned Blake Quorum in my roll the dice.
I mean, it's probably better than roll the dice.
Frankly at this point. I got a silver grade on him.
Falcon side, I mentioned Kirk Cousins already is my roll the
dice quarterback. Drake London.
I'm putting a gold grade on. He played 69% of the snaps last
week coming back from that four-game absence.
I expect that number to climb in a game that the Falcons
absolutely will have to pass to keep up in.
Even with that lower snaps here still at 8 targets last game.
And that's the minimum number he's hit in all by one game this
season. So you're you're good to go.
All systems go on, Drake London benching Darnell Mooney and
David Sills. I'm going to give a silver to
Kyle Pitts averaging just under 10 targets per game in his last
four, and that includes 9 last week when Drake London returned.
His 57 yards were his lowest in that stretch.
That was last week's output, but he did get in the end zone
again. So I've given 4 touchdowns in
the last two weeks. Not too bad.
Rams only allowing 43.4 yards per game to tight ends. 6
touchdowns all year. So I certainly am not expecting
a Kyle Pitts eruption game for the second time in three weeks,
but I think there's enough here to make him useful.
Bejan's getting the gold just massive workload at least 22
opportunities in each of his last four games and he's got A
and he's got 11 targets in back-to-back contest.
That's a lot of passing game work that's probably going to
continue again, given that point differential here.
So extremely high floor Rams have only allowed five running
back rushing TDs all year 7 combo to the position that is
the fewest in the league. But Robinson gets plenty of work
where if he doesn't find the end zone, he'll still be just fine.
I'm going to bench Tyler Algier double digit opportunities in
four of his last five games, but just one target combined in his
last two, only one touchdown in his last five.
And as I mentioned, this is not a team that gives up a lot of
running back scores, so you'd have to be pretty desperate to
play a Tyler Algier this week. The end.
Sorry, my mute button was on.
You know how that works. But before we hit Lightning
Round, I wanted to remind everybody this episode is
brought to you by Game Blazers, which is celebrating the
holidays with a special $40,000 prize pool for week 17.
Each week is a new chance to win thousands in free roll contest.
So whether your season long squad is chasing a title or are
they packed it in early this year, now is the time to get
started at Game Blazers. If you use referral code FFAD,
when you sign up, you get a free starter pack, a free rare pack,
and then you get a spend 5 get 50 offer to get two more rare
packs. That's pretty awesome.
Download the game Blazers app today and I noticed in our
internal contest it is it you Trevor who has like a 1.5 X puka
Nakua and I and I, I just looked at it and I was like, well I
give up. I have a 1.5 X puka that, yeah,
I just packed it out of like a common Gray pack too or
whatever. And as soon as he hit that on
Thursday night, it's like, cool, I won 50 bucks, all right?
How are are you just like raking all the money in in our game?
Blazers internals every week with the 1.5 X puka.
There's been a couple where I forgot to put him in where he
was like on a Thursday night and I didn't get him in in time, but
but yeah, no, he's he's kind of nice.
What an idiot. All right, to end the show, this
is what we call Lightning Round and we have an abbreviated
Lightning round this week. So I'm going to let both of you
guys kind of answer. And guess what, They're all
quarterbacks this week. Big quarterback decisions.
Maj. you had a quarterback decision.
You kind of previewed that a little bit here, so here we go.
Brew Daddy looking for an Empire League championship.
He's either going to start Jackson Dart or Jacoby Brissett.
For me, it's easily. Jacoby, we saw Jackson starts
floor last week, and he's also with the quarterback probably
most at risk of leaving the game early.
Yeah. So Jacoby?
Yep. I second that.
All right. David has a choice between yeah,
aforementioned Jacoby Brissett or Brock Purdy.
I'm going Purdy with that one. I like Brissett.
I think those are two good options.
And you know, if I did weekly ranks, they'd probably be within
a couple spots of each other. But I like Purdy better.
I was. Going to say it's actually a lot
closer than I initially thought, but I I lean Purdy as well.
I'm I'm with you guys. Daryl wants to know, is it Tyler
Shuck or Bryce Young? And I'm pretty sure Daryl had
this exact question on the show last week.
Both of these guys were our roll the dice quarterbacks, Trevor.
So yeah. I'm trying to.
Remember, if we got it right last week, hopefully.
Oh yeah, clearly he's in the next round, so we must have done
something right. I would go Tyler Shuck.
Carolina can lose the game, and it doesn't affect their NFC
South odds. Correct.
Yeah. So yeah, I just actually, I
weirdly kind of like how the Saints were playing a little
bit, right? They've got five wins this
season, man. They've been, they've been
competitive all Year 3. Three in a row too, yeah.
Yeah, I'm with you. Tyler Shuck over Bryce Young for
sure. Last one, Ryan Schwartz asks
Drake May or Josh Allen in a guillotine league Maj.
Who do you think? You know, I'm going with Josh
Allen in that one. I mean, both teams obviously
have a lot to play for with the Patriots and and the the Bills,
But man, I don't that that's one of those decisions that I'm
like, what could I live with more Drake May going off on my
bench or Josh Allen going off on my bench?
And the answer for me is Drake may but call that plan scared
too. So they're both very highly
rated quarterbacks this week. They're probably, you know,
again, if you're looking around the Internet at rankings, you're
probably going to see both of those names in the top 4.
So not necessarily a bad action among them, and I'm going with
Alan. Scared money doesn't make money.
We're going with Josh Allen. Wow.
I just, I just think that Drake may like, it's tough for me to
with picture scenario where The Jets even score like 20 points.
So, you know, Drake can still get there on a couple passing
touchdowns, a couple rushing. But I think Josh Allen's got the
hey, the Eagles put up 30 on us. We need 35, Josh.
Yeah, go make it happen. I gave May a gold grade and I
gave Alan a silver grade. So I'm I'm the DE factor.
Yeah, tie goes to Drake. Yeah, I'm.
I'm Alan. I, Like I said, I'm going to
play Allen. I'd be I.
Play Allen's versus 1 Drake, but I don't think there's a wrong
answer in this one. Yeah, fortunately for Ryan.
Yeah, good on you for having both guys there.
Yeah, All right, that was about Lightning Round.
We could shout it. Hey, thanks to both of you guys
for all your hard work in these last six or seven weeks.
Anything you guys want to say to your adoring fans of Fantasy
Friday before we get going? Yeah, I just want to say I
appreciate listeners for giving the new guy a chance here in
these last few weeks. Hopefully we were I was able to
give a few winners out, especially in the the daily
streets. Then the last thing I wanted to
say was, you know, for as much work as CP, Ken Fish, Maggio and
I put in as Co hosts, Matt's got all that same stuff plus hosting
duty, tough nuts, coaching us up and everything else that I
missed. So just want to shout out Matt
for keeping the, keeping the goobers in line and and keeping
the show going as. Well, as the yeah.
I'm, I, I absolutely echo that. The only other thing I wanted to
add is for those of you in dynasty leagues, even if you're
not in the playoffs, if you're in a dynasty league that knows
what it's doing, you can still pick up players.
So make sure you're checking your waiver wires to see who's
out there. You know, they're all shots in
the dark at this point, right? But if especially like in a
Superflex and is Anthony Richardson out there, he might
be worth a roster spot. I guess Malik Willis, who came
in and played very well in Chicago last week, is your
contracts up. He might have played himself
into a a job elsewhere next year, right?
Like, look for that kind of stuff to put yourself in better
position for next year's team. Yeah, both, both good things you
guys said and I, I just wanted to mention that we put the show
in place here for the for the Fantasy Friday show specifically
'cause there was just kind of a hole in in the hearts of many
fantasy fans that were missing a certain other show.
I hope we could help you fill it this year, and I urge all of you
to stay subscribed to fantasy football almost daily.
We're going to be talking NFL playoff fantasy.
We still got the DFS show going. We're going to talk some Dynasty
with Scott Fish coming up NFL draft Super Bowl prop bets.
We're not just going to go away. We're still going to have some
some good content for you. So stay subscribed and and
TuneIn, we'll have a little bit of fun and maybe we'll start
drinking whiskey again in the middle of the winter because.
I I like that you brought the show a full circle, from holiday
adult films to filling people's holes in their hearts, in their
hearts. Spot if I might throw the R tag
on this one. Oh no, did I say something
dirty? Oh, man.
All right, guys. Thank you guys for all tuning
into Fantasy Friday on Fantasy Football Almost Daily.
Good luck in your fantasy championship games.
We'll see you next week. This was fantasy football almost
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