Hey there. It's Matt Harrison, and it's the
first fantasy Friday of your fantasy playoffs.
This is fantasy football almost daily and I just said fantasy
about four times. We did so well last week.
We just ran it back with the same Co host this week.
With me today, the Co host of the DFS Podcast.
It's my friend and yours, Trevor T-bone Jones.
How are you doing, Trevor? Yeah, doing all right.
First week at the playoffs for a lot of people.
Hopefully we give out some winners this week.
Yeah, that's that's the hope. And since his Bears lost to the
Packers last week, a man who has now signed the deed of his
Colorado home over to Trevor. It's our good friend Anthony
Maggio. Yes, I good thing I have
multiple homes. I just passed one over to
Trevor. Makes things easier.
They're they're. Very small homes, they're like
sheds and stuff like that up in the mountains.
But there's 15 more games to get to this week, so let's not delay
too much. But I will remind you that we've
got nine 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. And at the very end of the show.
It worked out last week, so it has to work out again this week.
It's lightning round. Speed, speed.
I am speed. Catch a chow guys.
They really need your best effort on lightning round this
week so you better bring it. Have we helped you out at all
this year? Help me help you by showing your
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So I said fantasy 4 times to start there and then like help
like 4 times in that sentence. Really mixing it up here.
All right, let's get to the match ups and we're going to
start with Trevor today. The Browns head to Chicago to
take on the Bears. Can Chadur Sanders build off his
career day last week and get the Browns offense going?
He cannot. Let's get up a little context
here. The Browns are projected for
less than 16 points from Vegas. The game in Chicago will be no
warmer than 10° at game time. Possible 25 mile an hour gusts
in Chicago. So be aware Chidor's on the
bench. 3/5 of his starting off to fly.
Didn't practice Wednesday or Thursday.
Second lowest game total. Keep him on the bench.
Quinn. Shawn Judkins, we're going to
give a bronze to drone. Drone Forward is now out for the
year, which helps consolidate the run game around Judkins and
Dylan Sampson. Judkins has at least 15 touches
and five straight and the Bears gave up 160 and one to the
Steelers backfield duo a few weeks ago and then 96 and one to
Packers backs in the last three weeks.
Samson actually didn't practice Wednesday or Thursday, so that
could be a little more work for Judkins.
Jerry Judy and the receivers were putting on the bench.
Matt was right last week with Judy paid off 16 PPR points.
However, he hasn't posted back-to-back double digit PPR
games since week 17 and 18 of last year.
Harold Phanton actually a good grade.
This week we got a silver. Fannin took advantage of and Jo
Ku's injury last week with career highs and catches and
yards over the Bears. Last three games they've given
up 8 for 62 and one to those Steelers tight ends, 5 for 57 to
the Packers tight ends, which not Tucker Craft.
That's all the other guys fans got solid chemistry with
Shudoor. Three straight contest with four
catches or a touchdown and Jo Ku was training towards being out,
which would be good for him. We'll flip over to Chicago, put
Caleb on the bench. It's a really bad match up
against the Cleveland defense. It's allowed the fewest passing
yards in the league this year. Top five in rushing yards and
rushing touchdowns given up to quarterbacks.
That which negates some of Caleb's scrambling ability.
Both teams really want to run the ball.
Should be a low scoring affair, putting both running backs for
Chicago with a bronze. Swift and Monungi.
Chicago's been backslit running the ball recently.
Only two sub 135 yard rushing efforts since Week 5.
The two backs have split evenly over the past four weeks.
Swift's got 65 touches. Monungi 62.
Will give Swift a slight edge for the pass game work
Cleveland's quality run defense, but they just got whooped for
Titans by Titans backs for 180 and two last week.
Receivers were putting them all on the bench.
The Browns are first and 2nd and catches and yards allowed to the
position. Rome got a couple limited
practices in which kind of muddies things.
I'd throw a bronze on Luther Burden if a Doomsay missed.
He had four for 67 against Green Bay with a Doomsay out last
week. In the last month, only three
Bears pass Skechers with 50 yards.
Yeah, Loveland and Kinet putting on the bench, too.
Loveland's kind of the low end tight end, 15 targets.
You hope he falls into the end zone.
He does have at least three catches at nine straight, so
there's a little bit of a floor. Although Cleveland's faced
Bowers and Kittle in the past three weeks, and they combined
for just 10 catches, 120. Twenty, 122 yards and no
touchdowns. Kinet and Colston Loveland are
not those guys. That is true.
It sounds like a bench festival on on the Cleveland Chicago
game. Probably good to note for the
first game out of the way Maj. It's a huge reality game in New
England this weekend when the Bills come to town.
But from a fantasy standpoint, is this a breeding ground for
success or is it kind of similar to that Bears and Browns game?
If you like bronze medals, you're going to love the
Patriots part of this match up here.
It's going to be another weather game in New England high of 30.
It's not going to be I don't think they're going to have the
wind gusts like they're going to have in Chicago, but 70% chance
of some rain snow up in Foxboro. So we'll keep an eye on that.
As long as it's not super windy though, you typically you're not
going to, you know, knock these guys too much.
We'll start with the bill side. Josh Allen's gold because he's
Josh Allen moving on James Cook, he's actually going to be down
to a silver this week. He's only got 2 touchdowns his
last six games, 4, so 4 scoreless games in that stretch.
He's fumbled 4 times in his last two games.
Not great. And New England's one of the
league's best against the run, second overall in rushing yards
and rushing touchdowns allowed. Their 4 running back combo
scores allowed this season is the lowest in the NFL, so you're
benching Ty Johnson as well. And of course, Ray David.
Per usual on the wide receiver side, Josh Palmer may come back
this week. Just more reason to bench
everybody, basically because there's too many cooks in that
kitchen. Maybe with the exception of
Khalil Shakur, you can give a participatory bronze.
He only has seven targets in 21 yards combined the last two
weeks. He did break that five game
scoreless streak in last weeks contest though, and he does have
one of the better matchups with Marcus Jones on him this week.
So if you're desperate so you can throw Shakir in there.
Tight ends Dalton Kincaid came back last week.
We'll give him a silver. He got 34% of the snaps after
that three-game absence. But he continues to see fewer
snaps than both Dawson Knox and Jackson Hawes and the last four
he's played. These two teams met in Week 5.
Kincaid had a nice Game 6 for one O 8 and that was actually
the last time he saw more snaps than Jackson Hawes in the game.
Crazy enough, and that's actually the best yardage total
of any tight end against the Patriots this season.
The Pets have not allowed a tight end touchdown since both
Harold Fannon and David and Joe who both scored Week 8.
Thus, you are also keeping Dawson Knocks on the bench.
I know we popped last week, but that was because of that
terrible Cincinnati defense. So 6 for 93 is not likely to
happen again there Patriots side.
Like I said, this is a bronze fest.
We'll start with Drake. In fact, everyone that's not a
bench grade is a bronze. So I'll just that.
Now, don't have to say that again.
Bills have allowed the fewest completions in passing yards in
the league all season. That's in part because of their
bad but improving run defense. Now, May.
He's been very consistent, 259 to 294 passing yards per game in
his last six he's been in that range.
He hasn't topped 2 passing scores since Week 8, though, and
he has toned things down with his legs recently, rushing for
no more than 22 yards in any of his last five after hitting 28
or more in five of his first 8. So you're not getting quite as
much of that floor. Bill's defense could get Joey
Bosa and captain and linebacker Terrell Bernard back this week
as well, which just makes which makes things even more dicey.
Speaking of Dicey, that backfield, they're back to split
in time. Dan Henderson and Ramondes,
Ramondre Stevenson. You know, I could go through all
kinds of stats here, but just it the Bills horrible run defense
has improved in their last three games and that's against Texas,
Texans and Steelers and Bill's running backs combining for just
200 and not Bill's running backs, excuse me, Bengals
running backs combining for just 202 rushing yards, 47 receiving
yards and three total touchdowns.
So, you know, like I said, they're getting a little better.
They're splitting work. You can start either one of them
not feel great about it. On the receiving side, Stephane
Diggs is probably the one with sort of the biggest range of
outcomes here because if he's probably not going to see
Christian Benford, but Benford has shadowed slot receivers
before Crystalabi being one of them.
Only two receivers have scored among those of victims that he's
had none of top 43 yards but digs.
He's getting his revenge game again for the second time this
season. Back in week five against his
former team, he popped off for 10 catches, 146 yards on a
season high 12 targets. But since getting 11 targets
against The Jets back in Week 11, he has just seven in his
last two games and only 46 combined yards.
So Keisha Booty, You know he's still getting the snap share.
He went for 343 against Buffalo in Week 5, but only has 50
combined receiving yards his last two games.
And if he's the one who ends up seeing Benford, of course, that
causes him problems. Matt Collins continues to lead
that room in snapshare. Five straight games now, but
might get Trudavius White a lot in this one.
He's getting consistent targets, four more in five straight, but
he hasn't scored since Week 4 or top 64 yard.
He's only top 64 yards once, excuse me, in his last five
games in twice all season. And finally, probably the
highest graded, highest grade bronze.
What is that? OK, yeah.
So that's going to be Hunter Henry.
Bills have allowed the fewest tight end receptions and 2nd
fewest receiving yards and touchdowns to the position this
season. They did just get touched up
last week by Mike Aseki though, for 686 and one before that.
No tight end had top 46 yards against the Bills all season,
and those 46 yards happened to come from Hunter Henry back in
Week 5. He's got six or more targets in
three straight and then four of his last five and five
touchdowns this season. 4 of those five are coming home.
And of course, like I said, this game's in Foxborough, so you can
roll out Hunter Henry. He's probably not going to be
quite the Kyle Pitts game for you, but you might get a little
something from. Him all right, sounds like our
first segment of matchups is just a clomp fest of guys that
you probably don't really want in your lineups and we'll
continue that with The Jets and Jaguars.
Bruce Hall barely limps in with a bronze grade and I was pretty
close to benching him here, but he's still seeing the volume.
Even in a blowout loss last week, he still led The Jets
backfield with 14 touches. The other two guys had a
combined 3. Jags are great against runners,
though. They're allowing the fewest
touches per game at just under 22 and the second fewest combo
yards at 99. But that's almost all haul if
they can get there. So it's still bronze.
Tyrod Taylor is out this week with a graun injury.
Justin Fields is also hurt. So it's Brady Cook this week for
The Jets and unfortunately that brings the entire Jets passing
game to the bench in what would be a great match up.
The Jags are seeing the most pass attempts per game against
them, but Cook couldn't even complete half of his passes last
week and he threw 2 to the wrong team.
So I'm leaving AD Mitchell, John Metchi, and Mason Taylor all on
the bench as well. If you have to go with one, the
best option would be Taylor, who led The Jets and targets last
week with eight. And it's usually dump off City
for a backup quarterback. And The Jets are actually
terrible against the tight end. They're lying the third most
receptions and 5th most yards. And actually, I'll upgrade Mason
Taylor to a commercial bronze grade.
Kind of a dart throw there. But you probably have better
options at tight end if you've made the fantasy playoffs.
Like maybe you're going to start Brenton Strange on the other
side, who was second on the team and targets last week with six,
just actually tied with Brian Thomas and Tim Patrick.
The Jets have been strangely solid against the tight end
lately though, only allowing 1 touchdown in the last five
weeks. But they've still allowed the
7th most tight end touchdowns on the season.
So I've just got a bronze grade on Strange here.
Jacoby Myers and Brian Thomas Junior both get bronze grades as
well. It's been, and this is really
because it's been way too easy to run the ball on The Jets
since Quinn and Williams left. Wide receivers just aren't
getting the ball anymore. Only one wide receiver has
topped 5 catches against The Jets in the last four weeks.
Only two wide receivers have scored a touchdown in that span,
and only one wide receiver has topped 100 yards on them in the
last eight games. So it's tough sledding for the
wide receiver position. I'd probably rather leave both
on the bench if you have better options.
Trevor Lawrence. We're 13 games into the season
and The Jets have still not had one interception yet.
Not one. And Trevor Lawrence is tied for
third in picks thrown. Something's got to give.
It's mostly because no one throws on The Jets.
Quarterbacks are only averaging 18 completions for 202 yards per
game against The Jets. That's nothing.
So Lawrence's bench Lawrence. Just bench him, you're going to
be better off benching him. Travis Etn is solid gold though.
Yeah I love gold too. Last week against The Jets Devon
A Chan had 105 combo yards and a score on only 8 touches before
he got hurt and then Jalen Wright took over and had 24 for
one O 7 and a score and then Ollie Gordon scored too.
So if you combine those 3 backs together, it was 41.9 PPR
points. The prior three top running
backs to face The Jets had 3222 and 30 PPR points.
ETN carried the ball 20 times last week, had 74 ground yards
and two rushing scores. ETN will get it done.
There may even be some Bashel Tooten garbage time in the
fourth quarter. But you're absolutely nuts if
you start Bashel Tooten in a fantasy playoff week.
That would be crazy. All right, we're going to go to
a wow. My computer monitor froze here,
so that's good times. So.
We're going nowhere. We're we're not.
You know what we're going to do? We're on the dock.
We're going to roll the dice without the fancy video intro to
it because it's stuck. Hopefully you're on podcast this
week instead of yeah, you know, well, but on the live stream you
still get the lamps. So it's.
Cool. I mean, yeah, so these are 9
players that might not normally be in your line up, but you may
want to roll the dice on them this week.
Trevor, let's start with you in the quarterback possession.
Who do you got? Yeah, I'm going to CJ Stroud
against the Cardinals this week. Stroud hasn't really had a
ceiling yet since returning from injury a few weeks ago, but this
could be the spot on the season. Arizona's middling matchup for
quarterbacks. However, three of their last
four opposing quarterbacks have thrown for exactly 3 touchdowns.
Stroud's also working with his most talented pass catcher this
year, with Jayden Higgins the rookie starting to play well and
all the other pass catching options healthy.
The only concern is that we do need Jacoby Brissette to keep
his forty attempt streak alive so that we can kind of push
Stroud to throw it a little more.
But I think he's, I think it's got a good floor in and a decent
ceiling if the Cardinals can get that 40 pass attempt that they
want to. All right, hey, I found it.
Watch this. It's now time to roll the dice.
Better light than ever on the. I got an add to get to too, but
we'll do that after. Roll the dice.
Mashudi you got to roll the dice on.
Roll the dice on Marcus Mariota at the Giants this week.
Giants have allowed multiple touchdown passes in six of their
last seven games, and that's after doing so just once in
their first six games. One of those games was against
Washington to open the season, but Jayden Daniels was under
center in that one. So this will be Mario, which has
first crack at the Giants. Mariotti's taken a majority of
the snaps in seven games this season and has 2 scores, 2
passing scores and five of them. So he's kind of a low end QB one
this week. All right, for my roll the dice
quarterback, I've got a a Ron Rogers against the Miami
Dolphins. Is he getting a little bit of
his swagger back? It was his best fantasy finish
in two months. Last week in Baltimore, 284 and
one through the air. Added a 1 yard touchdown run and
a discount. Double check his first touchdown
run in three years And the Dolphins defense.
Not very scary. That is if you're a starting
quarterback. Through 13 games of the season,
they've only faced 8 quarterbacks who were the
starters at the beginning of the season.
The average line for those quarterbacks?
240 yards and two touchdowns. So that seems like a startable
spot for Aaron Rodgers in the Monday night Hammer.
Yeah, that's right. They've faced 5 backup
quarterbacks, almost all in the last couple of months.
All right, the running back position, Trevor, who you got?
Yeah, we're going to dig kind of deep here.
Taipei Spears, Titans running back against San Fran.
Spears of the Titans pass catching back all year.
San Fran is allowing the most receptions to enemy backs in the
league, so hopefully a good set up there.
The Titans are A2 touchdown underdog, so the game script
should set up pretty favorably for a whole lot of low volume
PPR points or yard PPR points I should say.
Spears is averaging more than 4 catches per game over his last
four, so there is a little bit of a floor there for just a guy
who's a pass catching back. And he also saw 8 carries last
week, which was his most in six weeks.
So it's pretty gross, but this guy could get to like 15 on just
nasty volume. I used Ty J Spears last week and
it was gross. Yep, it's always It's a little
less gross this week. All right, Maj., who do you got
it running back? Well, folks who listened to this
show last week will notice that this is echoing a lot of what
what I said a week ago. But Devon Singletary in that
same Washington, New York game. Singletary before the bye.
As I noted, he kind of got that hot hand.
It seemed like he may be a Wally Pip timer on Tracy there.
Tracy then got hurt with that hip Stinger.
Tracy, I will note, is back healthy and should be good.
Good to go back in the line up this week.
That does cap Singletary's upside.
But if you if you're looking at rankings, it's kind of around
the industry. Tracy is generally ranked ahead
of Singletary. And I'm not necessarily sure
that that is right. Singletary is the goal line
back. And even with those guys
splitting snaps, you got Singletary with opportunities in
their last three games, 1714 and 15.
And Washington's allowed the third most combo yards to
running backs this season. So frankly, both of those guys
are startable, but for the sake of rolling the dice, it's Devin
Singletary time. All right, my running back at
the roll the dice position is Devin Neil against Carolina, and
this one only works if Alvin Kamara is indeed inactive and I
don't think he's going to be active.
He didn't practice on Wednesday or Thursday.
Still coming back from that MCL sprain, Neil had 20 touches last
week, 84 combo yards and a score.
Evan Hull and Audric estimate they're the other two backs.
They only combined for five touches.
So if Neil gets another full workload against Carolina,
things could turn out well. And since Week 8, here's how the
running backs have fared against the Panthers.
James Cook, who's a bell cow, had 33 PPR points.
Josh Jacobs, who's a bell cow, had 20.
Camara and Neil combined for 20. Bijon, who's a bell cow, had 30.
McCaffrey, who's a bell cow, had 27.
Corum and Chiron combined for 27 points.
So it feels like there's 20 points here for a running back,
and it's probably Devin Neil since he's getting most of the
work. All right, let's go to the
receiver position. Wide receiver or tight end.
Trevor, who you got? Yeah.
We're gonna flex it out to tight end with the Rams.
Colby Parkinson. Parkinson's kind of been on fire
recently. He's got 4 catches or a
touchdown in five straight games, including four touchdowns
over those five. Detroit is top third in the
league against the tight end, although in the last three weeks
they've allowed both Theo Johnson and Jake Ferguson to
clear 10 PPR points. It's also the highest total
game, I think, of the season at 55 points last I checked.
So if there's a guy you want to throw a dart on, it's going to
be the maybe 8 or 9 touchdown scored in this game.
I'm going to take a shot with Colby Parkinson.
All right, sounds good, Maj. Who do you got at wide receiver
or tight end? I'm.
Going to go with Jordan Addison at Dallas this week.
The Cowboys have allowed the most yards and touchdowns to
wide receivers this season. Addison's now got 7 or more
targets in four of his last five games, with four or more
receptions in back-to-back games.
You know, certainly we've seen the good, the bad and the ugly
with JJ McCarthy, but it was more of the good last week.
And given this match up, I think you can roll the dice on
Addison. All right, my guy is Isaiah
Likely at Cincinnati. He did score last week and then
he scored again, ran about 3 steps and had it stripped out of
his hands in the end zone and they called it no touchdown.
He would have had 19 or 20 PPR points if he held onto that ball
and they ruled it a touchdown. And the week before against the
Bengals he dropped it on his own at the goal line.
He had five for 95 in that game, but it would have been 20 points
as well had he held onto the ball for one second longer.
We're like 2 seconds away from Isaiah Likely having
back-to-back 20 point games and he's going up against the
Bengals. Last week on the show, I
mentioned the Bengals were six PPR points worse than the next
worst tight end defense. They gave up 137 yards and two
touchdowns to the tight end last week, so they're now eight
points worse than the next closest tight end defense.
Tight ends are averaging 24.1 points per game against
Cincinnati and the best tight end group in the league
offensively is the Cardinals. They averaged 12 1/2 points per
game. It you get a double game of the
best tight end group in the league when you play against the
Bengals, you got to you got to fire up likely in pretty much
any situation. All right now I can go to our
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Welcome back to the show. I should mention that you can
find me Matt Harrison on Twitter or Blue Sky at explosive output.
Explosive output, not explosive output.
That would be way worse. Trevor is at T Jones 5 on
Twitter and Anthony Maggio is at Blue Sky at Noco.
Maggio as in Northern Colorado? I'm guessing Maggio.
You guessed right. There we go.
Hold on. All right, here we go.
Let's go back to the match ups here and we got Arizona against
the Texans and Trevor, Jacoby Brissett and the Cardinals face
their toughest test yet, the crazy good Texans defense.
It's got to be tough to like a lot of players on the Arizona
side this week. I think this is mostly where the
magic ends for this Cardinals kind of dream offensive run.
Put Jacoby percent on the bench. It is the most difficult match
up in the league for opposing QB's.
Houston just held Mahomes to his lowest output of the year.
Josh Allen to a second lowest output of the year in the last
three weeks. I'm not messing around with 35
year old percent here running back.
I'm putting all of those guys on the bench as well.
They're just not productive or voluminous enough right now.
If you absolutely need one, it's Bam Knight, who is the
healthiest guy and has 14 catches over the past four
games. So if you need someone Houston's
top five and brush yards allowed, it's just not a good
match up. Michael Wilson will give a
silver. I've seen on the Internet some
people refer to Michael Wilson as Marvin Harrison Senior, which
I think is pretty good. He's been incredible without
Marv, although only three teams have allowed less receiver
touchdowns and yards than the Texans.
Again, we're hoping Brissett gets to that 3540 pass attempt
mark, so we'll get there on volume, if not efficiency.
And maybe Michael Wilson's just really good.
I don't know. Marv didn't practice Wednesday
or Thursday. He's on the bench.
I don't trust him to finish the game with that heel injury that
I think knocked him out of the last game as well.
And Trey McBride gets a silver. It's he gets a silver despite
Houston being top five and fewest catches and yards allowed
to the position. But McBride is still fantasies.
Tight end, one on the tight end, one on the year, double digit
PPR points. All but one game boasts the
team's highest team targets here for a tight end at 26%.
It's not the best match up, but you're playing McBride of
course. On the Texan side, CJ Stroud is
my roll the dice quarterback at running back.
What do you marks? We'll get a bronze grade 2.
The workload was excellent. At least 16 touches and five
straight matchup is also very good.
Cardinals are getting destroyed by enemy backs since their week
8 by having given up at least 70 combo yards to every single #1
back they faced. And then last week the wheels
completely fell off of Arizona's red defense, giving up 250 and
three to the Rams on the ground. And Nick Chubb looks like he'll
miss this game, leading just to Dari Agumba.
Wale is the other back. That's a 31 year old pass
catcher. Shouldn't infringe on the
workload too much. Nico Collins has a goal.
Cleared 18 PPR points in four O 5.
Only concern is Cardinals don't score enough.
Jayden Higgins is on the bench five straight games with three
catches, but he's only cleared 55 yards once all season.
And then Dalton Schultz, what is it?
The commercial bronze? Is that the poor man's bronze?
The diet he's got? Schultz has at least 6 catches
in four of his last six games and faces a Cardinals defense
that is bottom half the league defending the tight end.
He's kind of the, you know, not exciting. 5 catches, maybe falls
into the end zone type. All right Maj., it looks like we
get a Kenny Pickett start this week for the Raiders in Philly
and but many people may not realize that this is a Kenny
Pickett revenge game. And stealing my Thunder there
with the Kenny Pickett revenge game.
Yeah, this this is a tough one for the Raiders, man.
I mean, they've been obviously bad all year.
This is a weather another weather game 85% chance of snow.
I didn't actually double check that today.
That was yesterday's forecast for Sunday, so it could have
gone up or down since then. But Raiders are 11 1/2 point
dogs in this one. So their implied team total is
the lowest of any team this week at just 13 and a quarter.
So not not expecting a whole lot of scoring from this team.
Thus, not a lot of fantasy options with thicket You're
you're leaving them on the bench despite the revenge game angle
here. So Gino has been taking a
beating behind that offensive line and now it's Kenny's turn.
Unfortunately for him, he didn't look bad last week and place a
Gino, you know, against a tough Denver defense.
But I mean, Denver had taken their foot off the gas really by
then. So the eight for 11 with 90 for
97 yards and a touchdown in garbage time is not enough to
put him in your lineup. Genti is a silver grade in a
volume play here. Even with the volume, though,
he's only managed 99 combo yards in his last two games combined
without a score. He's also been limited to just
14 opportunities in two of his last four games, which is not
quite the volume you want from a volume play.
But the target share has gone up, so that's brought the floor
up since Week 917.4% target share and 28.8 receiving yards
per game in Philly's. Just not anything special
against the run. At least one running back
touchdown allowed in all but three games this season.
Chargers put up 171 combo yards last week Bears 268 the week
before and since Week 10 Philly these run defenses, he has
allowed the fifth most rushing yards per game.
Brock Bowers. I mean, he's getting the the
name, the the the gold name plate because his name is Brock
Bowers. But Phillies only is is very
similar to Trey McBride this week and you've got your high
end tight ends with these tough matchups.
Phillies only allowed three tight end scores all season and
the fewest receiving yards just 428.
If you are looking for that silver lining on your gold
rating for your Brock Bowers. Two of those scores have come in
the last three weeks. But aside from Kelsey, 61 yards
in Week 2 and Ferguson 60 in Week 12, no tight in his top 43
against the Eagles and Trey Tucker, Jack Vetch on the on the
bench. I I think with the ladder there,
he caught all six targets for 50 yards last week.
And it that was his first time running as a full time player
this season. So he's one of those guys maybe
you can stash and see how things go down the stretch here.
But yeah, not not messing with those guys in your line up on
the Eagles side. Boy, oh boy, this Eagles team
we're going to, we're going to step over Jalen Hurts here.
Under normal circumstances against this Raiders team, I
would really expect the Eagles to take the air out of the ball,
which would cap Jalen Hurts upside.
But with three straight loss, Hurts coming off A5 turnover
game that included A2 turnover play, he now has, you know,
they, they need to get them right.
You know, he's gotten 5 picks and two lost fumbles in his last
two contests, multiple touchdowns just once in his last
five games, hasn't topped 33 rushing yards since Week 4.
The the list of bad kind of goes on and on for Hertz here.
You just again, you hope that they really hit the gas in this
one and try to get this offense back on track.
Vegas has allowed the third most rushing touchdowns to
quarterbacks since Week 9. So maybe this is a spot where he
uses the legs a little bit more and gets in the end zone.
We'll see. Saquon Barkley is the one gold.
Excuse me, not the one. I have two goals.
This team the the one of two goals.
At least one running back touchdown in three straight
games against the Raiders. Saquon broke A4 game touchdown
drought last week and in his first 100 yard game he had since
week 8. And those opportunities keep
coming. 15 or more in all but one game this season.
As much as you'd like to try to sneak Tank Bigsby or Will
Shipley in against the Raiders because you hope for some
garbage time, those guys are split in snaps.
So so really just can't mess around there.
A.J. Brown is the other goal he's
likely to see a lot of Darien Porter with Caillou Blue Kelly
done for the year with a knee injury suffered against Denver
last week. Porter's made 6 starts this
season. It's only topped 50% of snaps in
the game three times. Did actually do a nice job
against Court and Sutton last week all things considered.
He knocked away 2 passes, but Brown's been featured the last
month 46 combined targets in his last four games, which almost
double S what he had going into those 4.
Three triple digit yardage days in that stretch as well with
three touchdowns. So probably see that continue.
I've got a bronze on Devonta Smith.
You know he's managed 8 plus targets per game the last three
during that resurgence from A.J. Brown, but he's only topped 48
yards once and hasn't scored at all in his last four games.
And lastly, I'll give Dallas Goddard a bronze as well.
He had a fantastic game against the Chargers 8 for 78, but it
was his first time over 6 targets in a game since week 6
and now he's gone five straight without a touchdown.
Vegas has only allowed three tight end scores all year, just
one since Week 6. Hunter Henry, He had 66 yards in
week one, way back in week one. That's the only time all season
a tight ends top 54 yards against the Raiders.
All right, let's move on to the Ravens and Bengals, who square
off for the second time in three weeks.
And since he kind of embarrassed Baltimore on their home turf on
Thanksgiving. So I feel like it's a get right
game for Derrick Henry, who I'm given a gold grade to.
He faces the worst run defense in the league.
Henry only had 11 touches against the Bengals 2 weeks ago.
He still had 104 combo yards in a score, but they did not feed
him enough. In the last three years, every
game that Henry has had 11 or fewer touches, his team has lost
the game. So feed Henry, win games.
Lamar Jackson gets a gold grade as well.
Showed signs of life last week. Ran for 43 yards in a score.
It was his first rushing score since Week 1 and the most
rushing yards he's had since he came back from injury.
He would have had two more passing touch touchdowns in the
last two weeks had Isaiah likely not buttered his hands before
every play. And the Bengals are just a great
match up. Second most passing yards
allowed. The 4th most passing scores, the
ninth most rushing yards allowed to quarterbacks.
This all sets up really nicely for Lamar.
I think people will remember the bad month and fade him, but I
don't think you should. I think you start him in this
game. Zay Flower saw 11 targets last
week. 8 catches for 1:24. But he's just a bronze grade
here. I'm not sure if since he is good
against wide receivers or just so bad against running backs and
tight ends that no one even tries the wide receiver
position. They've wide receivers have seen
the third fewest receptions and the 6th fewest yards in the
league. They held Zay Flowers to two
catches for six yards on 7 targets 2 weeks ago.
That scares me quite a bit. So he's just a bronze.
I mentioned Isaiah Likely as my Roll the Dice player and Mark
Andrews. He also gets a silver grade in
this one. And if you didn't hear those
stats I said about Likely during Roll the Dice.
The Bengals are the worst tight end defense of all time.
There's four games to go. They've allowed 15 touchdowns to
the tight end. The 2019 Cardinals gave up 17
touchdowns. Their stranglehold on the worst
tight end defense in history is in peril.
The Bengals have already allowed more yards to tight ends than
the 2019 Cardinals. I think that they're going to
break the record here for the worst one ever.
By the way, Darren Waller next week goes up against the
Bengals, so plan ahead. And Trey McBride in your fantasy
championship, Oh my God, he might score 50 points in that
game. Well, I got mad.
I got I got to ask with a little T like a warm up for lightning
round here. Andrews are likely at this
point. I mean, maybe you, maybe you
flex one of them, but if you had to think, you seen those you
like. I think I like likely more right
now just because he's kind of seen a little bit of the hockey
stick game going up and I think that he has the explosive upside
there. All right, let's switch over to
the Bengals side where Joe Burrow gets a gold grade in this
one. Since coming back 261 and two
against the Ravens 284 and four against a much better Bills pass
defense last week, the Ravens are bottom 10 in completions and
yards allowed. This one has shootout potential
written all over it. So like Joe Burrow and Jamar
Chase, he gets a gold grade too. T Higgins is the guy that we
have questions on and he had an outstanding week last week, but
he went back into the concussion protocol.
He was seen practicing on Thursday.
That's good. If he's active, I think he's a
silver grade at minimum, probably like an electrum grade.
I think that's what CP said was between gold and silver.
He scored a touchdown in five of his last six games and in that
span he had two two touchdown games.
The Ravens are allowing the eighth most receiving yards, the
7th most receptions to wide receivers.
This sets up really nicely for both Chase and Higgins to eat.
Chase Brown is the only other Bengal you'd consider playing.
He had 18 PPR points in back-to-back weeks, which
includes a game against these Ravens.
But he did it in really different ways.
And where I get nervous is touch totals have dipped in games
where Semaj P Ryan has been active, which does include the
last two weeks. And it was a really nice match
up against a bad Buffalo run defense last week.
He only managed 23 yards on 12 carries.
Now, he did score one on the ground and one through the air
last week and that buoyed him, but I'm a little scared that the
running production just might not be there.
I'll give him a silver. It's closer to a Shibuichi
between silver and bronze for Chase Brown, but I think you can
still start him here. I wanted to remind everybody
that today's show is brought to you by Game Blazers.
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All right, Trevor, Chargers head to Kansas City and it's kind of
a playoff atmosphere there. The Chiefs need a win to stay
alive. The Chargers are kind of
clinging to that number seven seed.
Can the one armed bandit, Justin Herbert, get it done again?
I don't know, but I don't think it's going to be.
If they do get the win, it won't be because of Herbert.
I've got him on the bench. He hasn't thrown for 200 yards
in a month. His offensive line is down to
left tackle 2 and right tackle 3.
He still has a broken left hand. He's taken 2 sacks in the last
two games. I just we're not interested
here. The running backs, we do have
some interest in Commodity Vidal.
I know Marion Hampton, both get bronzes.
Hampton returned from injury last week.
Both backs saw 15 touches, though.
Vidal saw 69% of the snaps while Hampton was at just 31.
I assume that's kind of just the Chargers easing Hampton in to
the role a little bit. So I think the snapshare gets
much closer to 5050 this week. Kansas City does allow just 76
yards per game on the ground to enemy backs, but the Chargers
don't really have a choice. They need to attack with either
runs, short passes, screens. I don't know if you guys watched
that Eagles Chargers game, but like I've I I was hurting for
Justin Herbert just seeing him on the TV like scraping his body
off the turf every play. So.
Oscar Zinc version on ESPN 2 and it didn't look as bad.
I see, I, I saw Sully had four interceptions or something.
So that was shout out Sully. Maybe, maybe he'll be a roll the
dice guy next week. I don't like the I didn't like
Herbert's. I don't like his receiving
options. Quinton Johnson has just five
catches in his last three games. Keenan Allen has a crack 10 PPR
points since week 7. Put both of those guys on the
bench this week. I will give a kind of AI guess
Bronze to Lad Mcconkey. 2 career games against Kansas City.
He's got 567 and one and six for 74.
So a couple decent outings. If there is any receiving
production to be had, it'll probably be through Lad.
Ronda Gadson are putting on the bench as well, just not enough
volume. 7 catches in his last four games going on the chief
side. Like you said, Matt, they have
to have it. I think they're basically out of
the playoffs if they lose. So it is a challenging match up
from a Holmes when I'm throwing a bronze at him.
LA has given up the fewest passing touchdowns, the third
fewest passing yards, only giving up over 200 passing yards
once in the past six weeks. Although we got Wentz War, Geno
Rogers, not exactly the who's who there.
Holmes did put a hurt on this Chargers team in week 12581
through the air and then 57 and one on the ground.
LA is not great against quarterback rushing, so that
could be kind of a little edge for Mahomes there.
The running backs will get cream, hunt up Bronze Pacheco's
off the bench. Hans Lebron's almost purely on
touchdown consistency. He's got 6 touchdowns in his
last six games. However, just 64 total yards in
each of those games on average. Not exciting, but passable.
Pacheco has seen 5 and 9 touches.
It's coming back from injury. Doesn't have the goal line roll.
We're not interested there. Rashe Rice will put a silver on.
He's averaged 9 targets per game since returning from suspension.
Dominates the Chiefs red zone offense.
He has 46% of the Chiefs red zone targets.
That's nuts. The next closest player is Drake
London at 40%. Chargers again are an excellent
pass D, but Rashe Rice is sort of the goal line back for this
team right now. Rest of the receivers on the
bench. Hollywood's got 4 catches over
three weeks. Xavier Worthy hasn't scored a
touchdown or surpassed 65 yards since Week 6.
Top five passing defense Kelsey throw a bronze at last week.
He had a dud one for eight against Houston, but a lot of
Houston does that to a lot of opponents.
Before that though, Kelsey had four plus catches at five
straight games with three touchdowns during that five game
stretch. On the season, the Chargers are
a top 10 toughest tight end matchup, although the past two
weeks they did get cooked by Brock Bowers for 63 and two.
And yeah, Dallas Goddard, as Maggio said for 878.
All right, Commanders and Giants Maj.
Things did not go well for the Commander's offense last week in
Minnesota. They were shut out in that game.
Jaden Daniels is back to the sidelines, though, and he nurses
that elbow back to health. I know you said you liked Marcus
Mariota. Mariota, can you get it?
Mariota. Leviosa.
Yeah, it's not Leviosa. Yeah, I do.
I I do. Get it done against the Giants,
Maj. Yeah, I, I think more than 0 is
likely in this one for that offense this week.
One note just on the Mariota, the IT was a bronze grade I had
on him. I don't know that I mentioned
that in Roll the Dice, wanted to know.
He has in six starts this season, he's actually averaged
more than 35 rushing yards per game and has 3QB1 finishes.
So three, you know, top 12 finishes at the position.
So very viable there. Also a bronze for Chris
Rodriguez. I haven't seen practice reports
today. He was DMP on Wednesday, limited
with shoulder injury on Thursday, but he's been playing
through it. I expect he'll be the starter.
Still held on to that lead role for the third straight game now
against Minnesota. Minnesota and managed 52 yards,
10 carries, which is not awful considering the final score of
that game. New York's defense is far more
generous against running backs than the Vikings.
Second most rushing and combo yards allowed to the position in
the NFL this season, and 16 combo scores since Week 10.
They've actually allowed the most rushing yards per game in
the league. That said, I'm still benching
Bill Merritt. Krasky Merritt and Jeremy
Mcnichols Plan enough to eat into the the grade of Chris
Rodriguez, but not enough to get a a medal of their own.
Participation trophies for that nice shot, fellas.
Terry Mclaurin gets a silver. You know he's got a nice
individual match up this week going against Paulson.
Edebo here, you know, and the the giants overall, they've
allowed the 4th most wide receiver yards in the league
this season with the seventh highest deep ball completion
rate, excuse me, and the third most deep passing yards per
game. So it's a really good bounce
back spot after Debo really dominated the targets in last
week's blowout loss. I'll give LeBron to Debo as
well. He's going to see Andrew
Phillips in the slot where he racked up 7 for 77 and it
actually got a touchdown carry back in week 1 when these teams
met. That was AJ Daniels game, not a
Mariota game just for so it's there.
The let's see, the Giants since week 10, they've actually
allowed the most PPR points per target and 9th most receiving
yards per game to slot receivers.
Everybody else on the bench, Zach Ertz maybe career ending
ACL tear. Unfortunate way to go out for
dude who's done a very nice job for many years.
So tip of the cats is Zach. Zach, tip of the cap.
There we go to Zach Ertz yeah. So here's here's free cats for
Zach. But yeah, you're you're benching
Benson and John Bates there on the Giants side.
I've actually got a gold grade on Jackson Dart in this one.
Washington's allowed the 4th most passing press.
Yeah, I've been pretty stingy with those goals, but the
Commanders, they've allowed the 4th most passing touchdowns in
the league. And you know, JJ McCarthy got
three last week. That's the sixth time this year
they've given up three or more. Dart's actually the QB 4IN
fantasy points per game since Week 4 when he took over as
starter. Dart was not the starter when
these teams met back in Week 1. You know he he hasn't done as
much on the ground, but he's still in in these last few
weeks. They're trying to rein him in a
little bit. He only rushed 4 times last
week, which is his fewest as a starter.
But you know when is there by the end zone.
If he's scrambling around the the the seven rushing T DS he
has now could very easily turn to 8 against this Washington
team. I mentioned Devin Singletary,
I've got a silver on him and I've also got a silver on Tyrone
Tracy. Now back in that week one game,
it was actually Tracy with 50 snaps.
Singletary, which is 10, didn't really do much actually 35 combo
yards and 15 opportunities in that one with Tracy before the
buy. So he played in Week 13.
His 11 opportunities that week was the fewest since Week 9.
He's only found the end zone once all season though, so he's
gotten a lot of work, just hasn't been scoring touchdowns.
Like I said, singletary's the goal line guy, which is why I
kind of have him maybe slightly ahead, but still his last four
games, 162324 and 11 opportunities with more than 100
combo yards in Week 11 and 12, so very much usable there.
I've also got a silver on Wan. Dale Robinson.
He had 6 for 55 against the Commanders in Week 1, and that
was with Malik. Neighbors remember him getting
12 targets in that game. Fantasy Pros notes that since
Week 11, Washington has led the league playing two set 2 high
safety rate of 70%. And against that look, Robinson
has a 25.6 target share this season, so the PPR goodness
should continue there. Commanders have allowed the 6th
most PPR points per target and 12th most receiving yards per
game to slot receivers. I'm going to give a bronze to
Darius Slayton as well. Last week was actually the first
time Slayton found the end zone this season.
Only has nine combined targets the last three weeks.
Only one game over 62 yards all season, but has a decent
advantage over corner Mike Sanderson though in this week
who's allowed the second most receptions among corners this
season at 51 total. And Washington defense has
allowed the third highest deep ball completion rate this season
since week 10, allowing the seventh highest yards per pass
attempt. And finally, I'm going to give a
bronze to Theo Johnson. Season high 8 targets last week.
Unfortunately, only 29 yards to show for it, which was his worst
fantasy outing since Week 8. So has five touchdowns this
year, 75 plus and two of his last four.
And Washington's allowed nine touchdowns to tight ends this
season. That's the second most in the
league. They can't quite compete with
Cincinnati. But yeah, 9 times commanders
have allowed the second highest yards for target, the fifth
most. And I mean, when we say when I
say second highest anything in tight end defense, I mean it's
first for most. Like, you know in the non
Cincinnati division right? Fifth most fantasy points per
game and 9th most receiving yards to tight ends.
All right, last match up of this segment is the Carolina Panthers
and the New Orleans Saints and there's not a ton of blue chip
talent in the Panthers Saints match up.
There's a few guys that you can start in your fantasy play offs.
We'll start with Rico Dowdell, who are I'll throw a bronze
grade on. He hasn't topped 60 rushing
yards in over a month and hasn't scored in three straight weeks.
He's been staying alive in fantasy leagues by catching a
lot of passes, and the Saints run defense is very strange.
They've allowed the third most rushing yards to running backs,
but the second fewest receptions and 3rd fewest receiving yards.
So don't count on Dowdell helping you out that much in the
passing game. And he's not rushing all that
well. He played the Saints team in
Week 10. I'm going to reference that
several times in this matchup. He turned 21 touches in that
game into only 63 combo yards. But he did score.
So just a bronze grade for Dowdell Bryce Young.
His last five games have included a 448 yard, 3 touchdown
game against Atlanta, a 206 yard, 3 touchdown game against
the Rams that was before their bye week last week, and then
three absolute stinkers. 102 and 0 against Green Bay, 169 and one
against San Francisco, and 124 and 0 against these Saints.
The Saints are allowing the 6th fewest pass yards at only 196
per game. It is a bench grade for Bryce
Young. Can Ted McMillan get it done
though? I will throw a bronze grade on
him. 5 catches for 60 yards in the first match up with the
Saints. That was enough to get to 11 PPR
points, but he scored four times in his last three.
And if the Panthers have a passing score in this game, it's
probably going to be McMillan. The Saints are top ten in
receptions and yards allowed, but they've allowed the 12th
most touchdowns to wide receiver.
So you're saying there's a chance?
Devin Neal was my roll the dice runner and I'd like to feel
super confident about either Chris Olave or Devon Valet, but
in a cake match up last week, neither really delivered in that
in that game. Olave gets the bronze grade here
though, and I'll leave Valey on the bench.
In the earlier match up it was Olave going for five catches,
104 yards in a score. He's managed double digit PPR
points in 11 of 13 games this season and Vele is definitely
seeing a bigger workload, but the results are just a roller
coaster and the Panthers only give up 9 receptions.
Yeah. Nine times.
To the wide receiver position as a group, 9 receptions per game.
So that's 5 for Olave and three for Vele and one for some other
random dude who I don't know the name of.
Yeah, that's probably it, but sure.
Mason Lipton, yeah, makes good T Juan Johnson, he's a bronze
grade as well. When they throw it to him, he
catches it all. Caught all four of his targets
last week, caught all four of his targets in the Week 10
meeting. And he had 92 yards in a score
against the Panthers last time. The Panthers allowed the 6th
most receiving yards in the league to the tight end
position. So you can fire up Juan with a
bronze grade. He's he's better than some of
the other bronze tight ends that I've mentioned earlier in the
show. Tyler Shuck has to get a bronze
too, because that's what his receivers got.
He got it done on the ground last week with 55 rushing yards
and two rushing scores. Passing game didn't go crazy
well in Tampa though, only 144 yards and a pick.
He did go for 282 and two in the Week 10 game though.
But notably, that was the most yards the Panthers have given up
through the air all year. 282 yards is the high watermark, and
it was Tyler Shuck. So just a bronze grade here.
Or Shuck. All right, we're going to go and
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All right. Welcome back to the show.
Now it's time for a segment that we like to call 2 Tough Nuts.
It's time for two tough nuts to crack.
Yeah. So those of you at home who want
to play along with two tough nuts, remember, make sure you do
it safely. All right, These are two
questions that I think my panel of experts here will have
trouble figuring out. We'll start with tough nut
number one Josh Allen, Leeds quarterbacks and rushing yards.
This year he's on pace for 636 yards.
That will be the first time since 2018 that a quarterback
didn't rush for at least 700 yards in a season.
In the last six years, in fact, there have been 15 quarterback
seasons of over 700 rushing yards.
So I guess the question is, is the day of the true rushing
quarterback? Over.
We'll start with Maj. I'm First off disconcerted by
you moving from left of screen to center of screen.
I got that too. It's the commercial.
Here's what I did. I I, I did some fancy stuff, you
know, when my screen was frozen? Yeah, I exited and rebooted at
the same time during the commercial, so now I'm in the
middle. I don't, I yeah, man, I don't
think people appreciate how technically savvy you are, Matt.
So for the cap, for getting that done anyway.
Gosh, I, I dove into quite the rabbit hole with this question
yesterday. I did way too much work on this
one, but so hopefully I get it right.
We'll see. If you're defining the day of
the true rushing quarterback as 700 plus rushing yards, then I
would say the answer to your question is yes.
But that day really wasn't very long considering from that
stretch you mentioned right before that from 2011 to 2018,
there were only five of those 700 plus rushing seasons from
quarterbacks combined. So what we have been seeing
though is just more and more athletic quarterbacks entering
the league where rushing is a part of, but not all of their
game. We're on pace right now for 13
quarterbacks to top 300 rushing yards this season, which would
match last year's number. From 2020 to 2023 that number
was between 9:00 and 10:00 each season. 2011 to 2019 that
average is under 6.5. And that pattern holds.
If you look at 400 plus yard seasons as well, we're on pace
for eight of those this season. We've averaged 7 per year the
last five years and only averaged 4 of the nine years
prior. So what's happening is I think
teams are becoming more and more wary of their high-priced
quarterbacks getting hurt as a result of rushing.
See Jackson Dart and Jane Daniels for instance this
season. So they're just gonna be more
hesitant to call as many design runs for them, but they're able
to get away with not calling as many because these athletic
quarterbacks are still pass first guys.
So the TLDR version of the answer to your question I
believe is yes, but. A yes, but answer.
All right, Trevor, tell me about your butt.
Yeah, I have a similar answer. That's not the first time you've
asked me that, of course, but I had a similar answer as Maggio
did. 2010 quarterback rushing numbers.
We had three guys clear 360 yards rushing.
The names are funny by the way, it's Eagles, Victoria Rogers and
then Josh Freeman. 2018 we get 8 quarterbacks to clear that 350
mark. 20/24/10 guys pass the 350 mark.
I'd also add the slowest 40 time for a first round quarterback
since 20/19 was Mac Jones at 488.
The next highest was 481. We aren't getting Jared Goff or
Sam Bradford style #1 picks anymore.
Cam Moore, obviously the most recent number one pick, He's
kind of a pocket passer by design, but he's A47240 guy.
When Rogers ran A471 in 2005, it was like this superhuman no one
had ever seen before when he took the field.
Now that's kind of the baseline for modern quarterbacks.
If you can't move, you're not going in the first round, IE
where the league finds its best quarterbacks.
So no, I think we're going to just kind of keep seeing the the
Russian quarterback trend continue.
All right, the answer is the day of the true Russian quarterback
over. For this generation of players,
the answer is yes. Josh Allen turns 30 in May Lamar
Jackson turns 29 next month. Justin Fields will never hold a
job again. Jalen Hurts is more tush push
than anything. Kyler Murray and Daniel Jones
both unlikely to start the 2026 season as starters.
Justin Herbert is second in the league in rushing yards right
now. I don't think that he's a
running quarterback. The new batch of quarterbacks,
it seems kind of like what Mosh said, they want to keep a little
bit more bubble wrap on them. Caleb Williams and Drake May,
they're both elusive, but they don't really run.
They extend pass plays for the most part.
Jaden Daniels and Jackson Dart, they're both runners, but
they've also both been injured this year because of it.
And they're getting some big hits and some bad hits in many
cases. So I think, yes, the day of the
true Russian quarterback is over.
Tough nut #2. Who will be the number one
overall pick in fantasy drafts next summer?
Trevor, you get to start this one.
I think I'm over 5 on tough nuts, so let's yeah.
That's right. Try to get up the snide here.
I won Premier Gibbs. David Montgomery will be 29
before the 2026 season starts. It's got an $8.4 million cap hit
in 2026. The Lions can save up to
6,000,000 if they cut him and they are currently just
14,000,000 under the cap, which is very little, so they will
need to make some moves to become cap compliant.
I'm sure the lines would add someone if Money was cut, but
it's unlikely he'd be as much of A threat to Gibbs playing time
as Montgomery is. Detroit's been widening the
workload gap this year, recently between Gibbs and Montgomery the
past four weeks. Money has seven, 810 and seven
touches, while Gibbs had 172623 and 19.
Detroit's also on track to finish behind the Bears and the
Packers, which would give them the third place schedule.
So hopefully one extra easier game next year.
It's kind of a process of elimination.
CM CS too old. He's going to be coming off a
bunch of touches. Bijan and J TS quarterback
situations aren't good. Yeah, Jamir Gibbs was kind of
the last man standing for me. All right, Maj., who's going to
be the number one overall pick in fantasy drafts next summer?
And pretty much Ditto everything that was just said there.
So if you're wrong again, Tyler, we're we're going to be wrong
together with with Gibbs. The only thing that I'll add are
he's 4th in PPR, the scoring third in in half PPR the guys
ahead of him, Christian McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor.
And then in the half PPR you got Josh Allen as well.
Unless you're in the Super flex League, Josh Allen's not going
one overall CM CS age and injury history is enough to let you
know, like you noted. And then with with JT, yeah, we
just don't know on the quarterback situation.
So I think we saw like with the question marks this year, you
know, what was going to happen if Ben with Ben Johnson leaving,
right? How is that going to change the
offense? Well, if that offense has stayed
consistent just Despite that. So.
And he's just such an explosive player, you know, on his own.
So yeah, I'm right there with you, Jameer Gibbs #1 next year.
All right, those are both good answers.
Let's see if you got it right. The candidates I had, Jonathan
Taylor, Jameer Gibbs, Jackson Smith and Jigba Puka Nakua and
Jamar Chase, I think those are the top five candidates.
Taylor, he's averaging the most fantasy points per game.
It's going to be him, right? No, because his workload is
crazy. He's already at 282 touches with
four games to go. His quarterback situation
certainly influxed and he's already burned people in the
past as the top number one overall pick, so I don't think
he has a chance at it. Jamar Chase was last year's
number one overall pick, but he's only scored five touchdowns
this year and despite leading wide receivers and targets on
the season. Even without Joe Burrow, I
should add, people are going to throw him as the top player, as
current wide receiver number six.
I don't think so. It's not Chase Pukanakua has
caught the most passes, but his quarterback could retire at any
minute and he's only scored six times, so he's out.
That leaves us with two options, JSN and Jameer Gibbs.
I landed on JSN as the correct answer.
Fantasy players for better or worse, replay last season when
making their selections and so many people run do the opposite
or 00 running back drafts that it's just too common to pick a
wide receiver with the top pick and feel safe about it.
JSN is only four off the most receptions in the league.
He leads wide receivers in yards by a lot.
He scored the second most touchdowns of all wide receivers
this season, only behind Devante Adams.
His quarterback situation is stable, the running backroom
isn't going to steal his Thunder, and there's enough
respectable talent in the wide receiver room to keep teams
honest. I think Gibbs is going to score
more points next year, but I think JSN is going to be the top
overall pick. Great, great way to thread the
needle there. We were right, but we were
wrong. You were.
You were completely wrong. We're we're of course going to
check AD PS next year in September and rewind the tape
and see see what happens. I'm, I'm sure I'll put this clip
up on the on the Internet and we'll, we'll see where we're at.
Those were my 2 tough nuts. I hope you cracked them, Trevor.
Sure it hasn't. He hasn't yet.
Well, you got a chance to totally redeem yourself with
this week's Yukon Cornelius Game of the Week Rich with gold.
Gold, gold and. Silver, silver and gold.
There's a couple of really good teams playing in Los Angeles
this weekend. It's the Lions and the Rams. 1/3
revenge game for both starting quarterbacks, the highest over
under of the week. Trevor, are we just blindly
starting everyone with gold and silver grades?
Pretty much Yukon Cornelius. I don't he pretty much nailed
it. It's just silvers and golds and
have fun. We'll start on Detroit's side.
I'll give Jared Goff a silver. Rams are a quality passing
defense, though recently they allowed Brissett Arnold and Mac
Jones to clear 260 passing yards in their past five.
Goss traditionally known as a much better in the Dome.
Obviously this is Rd. game, but he's actually thrown for
multiple passing touchdowns in half of his 2025 Rd. games.
Jamir Gibbs, Platinum, No brainer.
We don't need to talk about it. David Montgomery, I am putting
on the bench. Despite Gibbs being a gold play,
the Rams have only allowed two rushing touchdowns to backs this
year. And that's kind of what Matti's
fantasy value is right now is falling into the end zone.
He's only received more than 8 touches once in the past four
weeks. Jamo and Ammonra.
I'm gonna give Ammonra a gold and Jamo a silver.
You know, Monroe's returned from injury last week.
The two of them both saw 9 targets each since Dan Campbell
took overplay calling in week 10 and he kind of made it a point
to get Jamo the ball. Jamo has three touchdowns in
five games and then cleared 88 yards and four of those.
So he's kind of been on fire recently.
It's an OK match up. The Rams have given the 10th
most catches to enemy wide outs. Amonra has seen 12/13 and 9
targets in his last three full games.
Chance to go nuke here in this environment.
I will say eyes like Tesla has a touchdown in back-to-back games.
If you're like crazy, crazy desperate for some reason and
it's, it could be a shootout. So maybe he gets, you know, 5
catches in the touchdown on the LA side.
The whole passing game gets a goal.
Stafford's goal. Detroit's giving up 25 passing
touchdowns already, which is bottom five in the league,
bottom third in the league of past yards allowed.
It's a revenge game, like you said, Stafford's two career
starts. He's got 317 and 1 and 367 and
two against Detroit. And Stafford actually has more
games with 3-4 or five touchdowns than he does with one
or two passing touchdowns this year.
It's got 7 games of three. Plus Puka's a platinum.
He's a beast. We don't need to really go
through it too much. Detroit's a dream match up.
Second most receiving touchdowns, fifth most wide
receiving yards. Devante's a gold as well.
Just in the last three weeks, 9156 and 1 to Wandale was
allowed by this Lions team 194 and four of the Packers
receivers and then CD Lamb and Ryan Fornoy each cleared 115.
This might be Puka's best all time spot.
Colby Parkinson was my roll the dice player and Kyron and Korum,
I'm going to give bronzes to both of them.
It's getting kind of murky right now.
Blake Gorham's gotten more work. He popped off last week with 128
and two on the ground with 12 carries.
Kyron had 15 touches himself for nearly 100 combo yards with a
touchdown as well. Detroit is the toughest match
up, one of the toughest match ups for opposing R BS this year.
Just six touchdowns allowed to the position.
However, I think you're getting 10 plus touches from both of
these guys in the game that the Rams were projected to score 30
points, so I don't think you could keep them under bench.
All right, that one was fun. I I, I want more Lions and Rams
in my line UPS this weekend. So do I, yeah.
All right, let's move on to a different game that probably is
going to be a little bit more defensive, and that's a battle
between two teams who have designs on the number one
overall seed in their respective conferences.
Can Jordan Love and the Packers get anything done against this
awesome Broncos defense Maj. Yeah, Packers coming to town
here. This is I think my first non
weather game that I've had in today's show.
It's supposed to be 58 and sunny here in Denver, so you don't
have to worry about that at all. But it the over under just 42
1/2 in this one. Packers are 2 1/2 point
favorites right now. So implied team total 22 1/2
there. It's not terrible.
I I only have a bronze on Jordan Love despite, you know, the
seven touchdown passes he has the last two weeks.
You know, he's hitting the deep ball obviously really well
clicking with Christian Watson as receiving core has gotten
healthy the last couple weeks. But he's only thrown for 234
yards, actually exactly 234 yards in each of his last two.
And those are the only two games that he has over 176 yards the
last five weeks. So you know, it's sort of been
boom or bust there. You know, he's hitting those
deep balls and it's it's kept him alive.
Now, only two teams have allowed fewer than the 13 touchdown
passes given up by Denver this season.
They've only seeded 3 multi touchdown games all year and
just one of them here in power field.
The the silver lining for love and you know why he's got a
bronze grid here is that since week 10, the Broncos haven't
been quite as sharp. They ranked just 15 in passing
yards per game and pressure rate the run game.
This one, you know, you're going to have to keep an eye on this
if you're if you've got Packers because right now DNP on
Wednesday and Thursday for Josh Jacobs with that knee injury,
you know, Broncos have made life difficult for running backs.
I have a bronze for Jacobs if he plays because of the couple
things. One, the risk that the knee
injury causes and problems in game and he has to come out.
And two, just this rush defense. The Broncos have lot of the
fewest combo yards, second fewest receptions in the league
to the position, just 10 combined touchdowns.
They've been even better the last five weeks, allowing the
fewest fantasy points to backs in that stretch.
You know Jacobs gets to work, right?
18 or more opportunities and four of his last five games.
But he scored just once the last three weeks and topped out at 92
combo yards in those last week against Chicago.
So if he doesn't go, you've got Emmanuel Wilson, his next guy
up. I would give him a bronze as
well if Jacobs doesn't go. So you just want to make sure
you've got that handcuffed situation worked out ahead of
time. He was the workhorse in Week 12
when Jacobs missed that Vikings game, hit 28 carries and two
targets in that game with two touchdowns The previous week,
Jacobs left early in that one. I think that was against New
York Giants. Wilson got 11 carries and a
target as a clear backup in that game and also scored back to
those receivers. Now I've got a bronze on
Christian Watson and Jaden Reed and a bench on everybody else.
Denver's five wide receiver scores allowed are the fewest
given up in the league. So as dominant as Watson's been
since he returned in Week 8, and make no mistake, he has been
dominant 3 games with 80 plus yards and five touchdowns.
He's about to face his biggest test going against Patrick
Surtain, who has shadowed five times so far this season, and
Watson could be the guy that makes it number six here.
Among those previous 5 shadow victims, only Terry Mclaurin has
scored and none in top 61 yards. Like I said, Daz is on the bench
with it. With this room being healthy now
there's just, it's, it's too murky everywhere else.
With Jayden Reid, he came back last week for the first time
since exiting very early in Week 2, ran 47% of routes right away.
And, and you know, we kind of know the story with Jayden Reid.
He's not going to make it in the line up in those two wide
receiver sets, but they are going to pepper him in those
three wide receiver sets. He caught all four of his
targets last week. So I do think that there's a
little bit of potential there. Broncos decent against tight
ends. Musgrave hasn't done much all
year, so said bench him. Let's go to the Broncos side.
Implied team total of 20 for them.
So I've got just the bronze on Bo Nicks since week 10.
Packers allowing the 7th fewest passing yards per game.
They actually went on a stretch allowing just one total
touchdown pass in four games before they allowed two to bolt
off and Caleb respectively. In back-to-back weeks.
Yardages stayed low though. Only one game over 279 yards
allowed and four of them below 200 passing yards the last six
weeks. And with Nix no multi score game
since week 9, he's got a two to three touchdown interception
ratio in the four weeks since. Also hasn't topped 16 rushing
yards in those games. Have a rush and touchdown his
last QB 1, so top 12 performance Week 8.
It's been a minute for Bonex running back real quick.
I've got a silver on RJ Harvey, so a season high in Rush's 17
and targets with six last week. He's got 3 scores his last two
games. Since taking the starting job,
he's averaging nearly 18 touches a game and over 70 combo yards.
Tough test though. Packers D hasn't allowed a
running back to catch a touchdown pass all year, and
only 7 total rushing scores and four of Harvey's 9 touchdowns
this year have been through the air.
I will note though, all three of the last two weeks have been
rushing scores. You're still getting snaps from
Tyler Bede and Julio McLaughlin here.
Enough to take the edge off of Harvey's upside, but not enough
to get anything more than those participation.
We'll give them ribbons, not even trophies.
Receiving game. I've got a bronze on Cortland
Sutton. He had a tightest season high
actually, with 10 targets last week.
Been incredibly consistent, 596262 yards the last three
weeks. Four more catches in all three
of those, including a score at Washington.
Really. He's only had one fantasy dud
the last seven weeks, but probably going to see a lot of
Carrington Valentine this this weekend.
Only allowed 21 receptions all season, so again, real tough
test here. So only a bronze grade.
I've got a bench on Pat Bryant. He hasn't practiced this week
due to his hamstring injury, so he's likely out this week
against the bench grade. That means that Troy Franklin
maybe comes back a little bit and can earn that low end
bronze. He's he had lost snapshare in
four straight games, 26% last week was a season low because of
Bryant's emergence. Marvin Mims and Lil Jordan
Humphreys still getting work as well.
So with Franklin only 7 combined targets and 32 combined yards
the last two weeks, but he had eight or more targets and five
straights with Bryant out. You hope that he get kind of
bounces back to that hence and then gets that bronze grade and
I've got a bench grade on Evan Ingram in this one.
I mean that makes sense. Nobody likes to play Evan Ingram
in their line UPS. He's a nice guy, I'm sure.
By the way, Carrington Valentine, a cornerback or a guy
you met at the Yacht Club? That reminds me of the Winthorpe
Valentine shirt I just ordered for to add to my Christmas shirt
collection. I don't know if you've you've
managed to watch Trading Places. I hear this.
That's one of the it's always in the holiday rotation.
It's one of my favorite Christmas movies.
I have not seen that movie. Are you kidding?
You've never seen it, like ever in your life.
No, Oh my God. Trevor Trevor's.
Trevor's being real quiet over there.
I hadn't heard of it until. Oh my God, you guys do.
We do we need to do a fantasy football almost daily offseason
movie podcast. We're next week.
I'm not Co hosting next week. Bring me on for tough nuts.
We're going to talk Christmas movies, all right.
All right, Indy travels to Seattle to take on the Seahawks
and things have obviously been very quiet around the Colts
organization this week. Or not the Colts quarterback
situation. Daniel Jones, he's out.
Anthony Richardson, he's out. Riley Leonard, their third
string quarterback, suffered APCL sprain.
He has practiced in full this week, which is kind of wild.
And then they signed Phillip Rivers.
He's their other option. Ian Rappaport said that Rivers
is taking first team reps and ESP NS Stephen Holder says the
Colts are prepping for Rivers to start.
The good news? He knows the Colts playbook
because he runs the same offense as head coach of a high school
in Alabama. That's where the good news ends,
right tackle Braden Smith for the Colts.
He's been ruled out with a concussion and they're facing a
Seahawks defense that's seen the 4th most passing attempts this
year. So people are trying to pass a
lot, but they've allowed the 13th fewest yards and the 7th
fewest touchdowns. People aren't getting it done
against the Seahawks. This could be a bloodbath.
I'm benching the whole Colts passing game except for Tyler
Warren who I will give a bronze grade to because Philip Rivers
loved Antonio Gates right way back in the day.
Whoever is in at quarterback, they're going to have to dump it
off short and a third Stringer or a 44 year old probably is not
going to have the best deep ball.
And the Seahawks provide a soft landing spot for tight ends.
They've allowed the second most yards and receptions to opposing
tight ends. And as Maj. mentioned, that's
like being the first most yards and first most receptions when
you factor out the Bengals. Plus, they've designed runs in
the playbook for Tyler Warren. He's run it 6 times this season.
He scored a touchdown on the ground.
They might have to pull out some trick plays to stay alive in
this one just to kind of stay somewhat relevant.
So I think Tyler Warren is the guy who in the passing game has
a starting grade. Michael Pittman, Alec Pierce,
Josh Downs, they're all on the bench.
It wouldn't have been a good match up if Daniel Jones was
playing. The Seahawks allowed the fewest
yards to wide receivers in the league, only 108 per game.
Now split that three ways, and since Week 9, only one wide
receiver has topped 44 yards against Seattle.
That was Puka. He got to 75.
We're probably not seeing one of these guys hit 50 yards.
So they're all on the bench now. Jonathan Taylor might catch 10
balls in this game, which is why I'm going to leave him as a
silver grade. You have to figure that it's got
to be a heroic JT game to keep the Colts somewhat alive.
Seattle's going to be expecting that they're going to stack the
box on him. They have the lowest allowed
yards per carry in the league at 3.5.
They're allowing the third fewest rushing yards and rushing
scores. But they've allowed the second
most receptions to opposing backs and the 6th most receiving
yards. So especially in PPRI, think
Jonathan Taylor is going to get it done?
Go back to a guy who needed to get it done for a team.
Christian McCaffrey caught 9 passes against Seattle in week 1
of this season. That's what it might have to be
for Indy to do anything this week.
I dump offs to Taylor, dump offs to Warren over and over again
for whoever the quarterback is. Jackson Smith in Jigba is 24
karat gold, Rasheed Shaheed is a silver and Cooper Cup is on the
bench. Sauce Gardner still out.
Charvarius Ward is in the concussion protocol.
He's probably going to miss this game too.
So in the slot against JSN, it's Makai Blackman, PFFS 104th
ranked corner. Kenny Moore and Jaylen Jones are
the other two corners. Moore is 74th ranked.
Jones didn't have enough snaps to qualify with a ranking, but
he has 122 passer rating in his coverage this season.
So Shaheed was targeted five times last week.
He caught four of them for 67 yards.
He's obviously much more of a deep threat right now than
Cooper Cup. Plus, he scored a touchdown last
week on a kick return. That's good.
Scottie Fish told me earlier in the week on our first podcast of
the week that Sam Darnold leads the league in completions over
10 yards this season. So I I like Shaheed here and cup
hasn't cleared 35 yards in a month, 35 in a month.
He's way too touchdown dependent to rely on at this point.
He scored one last week, but it's been like a another month
before he scored his last one. So Sam Darnell, he'll get a gold
grade too. The Colts are allowing the third
most passing yards in the league.
And remember that part where all their corners are either hurt or
bad? Or that one that retired earlier
in the year? Yeah, like mid game.
That was great. Six of the last 10 quarterbacks
the Colts have faced have had at least 275 passing yards.
That leaves us with Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet.
They're both kind of eating each other's lunch here.
I'd prefer to keep both of them on the bench, although I'm
pausing just for a couple of things.
One, I think this is a blow out and Seattle may not have to pass
the ball in the fourth quarter at all.
The Seahawks are 13 1/2 point favorites in this one #2 Indy's
allowed the ninth most rushing touchdowns this year.
They hardly give up any yards to runners, but they give up a lot
of scores. So I think that brings Zach
Charbonnay in with a bronze grade.
He's the preferred red zone guy. He's kind of just running the
ball better than Walker right now.
And by the way, Walker is a terrible name for a running
back. Either he's got Walker or he's
walking. So Walker's on the bench, but
Charbonnay gets a bronze grade. All right, Trevor, the Titans
and Niners square off on the West Coast.
You mentioned that you like Taije Spears as your roll the
dice runner. Are there any other Titans you'd
start in this one? Nope, I'll run through it quick.
I'm not the Niners. So yeah, the Titans averaged 15
1/2 points per game this season. That's second worst in the
league. They're projected for 16 on
Sunday. That's gross.
Cam Ward Bench cleared 195 passing yards just once in his
past five games. 20 Pollards on the bench.
He had 160 and two last week. Prior to that, he had seven
straight games with 15 or less touches and 0 touchdowns.
I'm worried game script is kind of going to write him out of it
a little bit. San Francisco has given up less
than 70 yards rushing at two of their last three.
Like I mentioned, Taiji Spears, roll the dice.
Maybe a little pass catching work.
And if Cam Ward is not throwing for 200 yards, we're not putting
any of his wide receiver tight ends.
Gunnar Helm, if you have to play a Titans pass catcher for some
reason, 6 catches and two of his last three.
So that's that's all you got for the Titans receivers.
It's that weird EFC. South only league that we're
yeah, Yep, my favorite league type.
Yeah. So on San Francisco's side, we
got Brock Purdy. We'll give him a bronze.
The good news is the Titans are bottom 10 and passing yards and
touchdowns allowed, and the Niners have the second highest
team total on the slate over 28 or at 28 1/2.
However, in the three games since he returned from injury,
Purdy's averaging just 187 passing yards per, and that was
against Arizona, Carolina and Cleveland, teams with below
average offenses much like Tennessee.
So I kind of think Purdy's a lower end QB one this week.
CMC is a platinum, Biggest workload in the league.
You start at CMC, Joan Jennings, give him a bronze.
He hasn't cleared 71 yards in the game since Week 2, although
he does have seven straight games with four catches, at
least 4 catches and he scored four touchdowns during that
stretch, so the floor's been pretty good.
And the Titan set permitted the 6th most receiving yards to
enemy wideouts, so there's a little bit of room for Jawan
Jennings there. Pierce Hall's on the bench.
He has five catches in the past three games.
Not really sure what's going on with him.
We'll give Kittle a goal, too. Faces the middling Tennessee
tight end defense since the Week 10 by Tennessee's given up 651
to Dalton Schultz, 3 for 45 and a score of Brett Strange.
And then Harold Fannon went nuts last week.
Career day 8114 and one over his past four.
Kittle's averaging 6 for 74 and more than 1/2 touchdown a game.
With Bowers and McBride facing hellacious tight end defenses,
Kill might be the best tight end play on the slate.
All right, Maj. the Vikings and Cowboys square off on Monday
night. And for JJ McCarthy, he didn't
look half bad last week. Can he keep the momentum going
up against this Dallas defense? That's horribly.
You know, it's funny, you know, with McCarthy and how bad he's
been and just sort of the the thoughts of this, this, you
know, how is this guy even a quarterback in the league?
He started seven games this year and he has 2QB1 performances in
those seven games like one was last week.
Of course the season high 3 touchdowns last week against
Washington and he now faces an even worse, in fact the worst
pass defense Cowboys have allowed the most passing yards
and touchdowns. Now they they had the mid season
editions that have helped shore things up.
So only Mahomes has thrown for multiple touchdowns against them
in their last four games and only Jared Goff as he clips 300
yards with last game. You know McCarthy threw those 3
touchdowns but only 23 pass attempts.
He's only topped 25 pass attempts twice in his seven
starts. So clearly the Vikings are going
to do whatever they can to hide him.
Their hope is the defense keeps this a lower scoring game that
then that 47 1/2 over under might imply.
So that way McCarthy doesn't have to throw.
But this is a good Cowboys offense.
So you know, we'll see. This is actually going to be a
pretty fun game to watch. So I don't know if I said I put
a bronze grade on JJ McCarthy. I've also got a bronze for Aaron
Jones. He shook off the shoulder injury
from Seattle to get 14 carries and a target in that blowout of
Washington last week. Still only has 2 total
touchdowns in nine games this season.
He's yet to hit the century mark in combo yards.
And the Cowboys had been a stout run defense lately before they
allowed Sonic and Knuckles to go nuts for four touchdowns last
Thursday. They've gone four straight
without seeing a running back score.
And in fact, since Quinn and Williams arrived in Dallas,
they've allowed the second fewest rushing yards per game.
So like I said, just a bronze there and a bronze on Jordan
Mason as well. Well, had those 11 carries in
last week's blowout, had 70, excuse me, 52 yards in a score
in that game. His most rushing work since Week
7. Two rushing scores in his last
four games. And those have all been with
Jones in the lineup. The problem is the floor is
lower here. He's only got 15 targets all
year, you know, so his bronze isn't quite as shiny as Aaron
Jones's bronze. Speaking of bronze, Justin
Jefferson is going to be a bronze grade for me.
Season low, 4 targets last week. Vikings of course didn't need to
throw much. That's now five straight weeks
without a score for Jefferson. Back-to-back games, which was 2
receptions. In McCarthy's seven starts.
Jefferson has zero wide receiver one weeks and just two wide
receiver two weeks, so has been top 24 just twice in those seven
starts. Since Week 10, Dallas has
allowed the 11th most PPR points per target though, and 5th most
receiving yards per game. 2 perimeter receivers per Fantasy
Pros. SO basically what you have here
is another situation with a super low floor if Minnesota's
defense can keep Dallas from lighting up the scoreboard.
But the Cowboys have allowed the most yards and touchdowns to
wide receivers this season. So you kind of have to keep
Jefferson in most lineups and and hope this is the week it
happens. I mentioned Jordan Addison in my
roll the dice, so he's a bronze. He does have a 17.7% target
share with two red zone targets in games with McCarthy this
season. So I like I said, I think
there's an opportunity there. He's actually been played in
five games with McCarthy. He had that two game suspension
to start the year. I'll give Hawkinson A bronze
just because it's the tight end position.
Dallas isn't anything special. Hawks getting over 4 1/2 targets
a game. But I mean, he only has four
fantasy viable games all season, so you can likely do better.
And don't go chasing that box score of last week.
Josh Oliver pops for his score every now and then, including
the two last week, but only 11 targets all season.
Cowboys. This one was a tough one for me
because of that Minnesota defense.
Once again, I've got Dak Prescott.
I was kind of wavering. Bronze, Silver.
I ended up going with bronze. The Vikings have not allowed a
single touchdown pass or more than 193 passing yards in their
last four games, which is nuts. Minnesota's allowed the second
fewest completions, 4th fewest passing yards, 5th fewest
passing touchdowns all season. You know, Dax really fallen off
as well since this. He had that really strong first
half from weeks one to seven. He had a 16 to 3 touchdown
interception ratio from weeks 8 to 14.
That's just 10 to 7, three of his last six games with one or
fewer touchdowns. His only game over 2 in that
stretch was against the very stout Las Vegas Raiders.
So things haven't been going as good for DAC lately and this is
a pretty tough test. I do have a goal on Javonte
Williams Vikings defense allowed the fewest receiving yards and 0
receiving scores to running backs, but has seen a triple
digit rushing yardage in four of its last five games.
And Javonte's got one of the most consistent workloads in
football, 20 or more opportunities in four straight.
He's also scored in two in a row and has 11 touchdowns on the
year. So I do think that Dallas really
leans on Javonte in this game. I've got a silver on Lamb and
Pickens. Lamb cleared concussion protocol
Friday, so that puts Ryan Flournoy on the bench.
Lamb will be good to go. Vikings.
They've allowed the fewest wide receiver receptions, 4th fewest
yards, 6th fewest touchdowns in the league, with the last five
weeks actually being even better than that with the third fewest
fantasy points and fewest touchdowns allowed to receivers.
Lamb, even with that early exit with the concussion last week,
still topped 100 yards for the fifth time and 10 games played
this season. Aside from the Bears game when
he only played seven snaps in Week 3, he has at least 4
catches or 66 yards in every game.
Hence still that silver grade. Got to give a silver to Pickens
too. You know, he had his first dud
really since week one last week at Detroit, but he still saw 9
targets for the sixth straight game.
You know, at or above that mark. He's been too good to bench.
But his effort last week along with the tough match up, that
certainly tempers expectations for me.
So it's not as shiny of a silver as you might want it to be.
And then finally, Jake Ferguson, I've got a silver on him as
well, but that's if he plays calf injury limited in
Wednesday. He missed practice entirely
Thursday. I've not seen reports yet for
Friday. So Luke Schoonmaker and a
brevens band. Ford with split snaps.
If Ferguson misses, I wouldn't start either of those guys.
Vikings decent, not great against tight ends.
Fergie's got 5 or more targets and five straight and six of his
last seven and seven touchdowns this season, so if he does go
he's got to be in most line UPS. All righty final match up of the
week 15 Fantasy Friday is a classic Monday night match up
between two teams that were good in the 1970s.
That's the Dolphins and the Steelers.
I'm going to give Tua a bench grade here.
Even in an easy matchup, the Steelers are allowing 261
passing yards per game. That's the fourth worst in the
league. But Tua at this point basically
needs 2 full games to get to 261 passing yards.
He's been held under 175 passing yards in four straight games.
He's only had three touchdown passes in his last five, and
despite him winning his first cold weather game ever against
The Jets last week, he barely did anything in that game.
This is also a cold weather game too.
It's going to be 20° game time temp with a wind chill down to
10. I don't think Tua's going to do
all that well in this one. I'll give Jalen Waddle a bronze
grade though. He's had at least 7 targets and
four of his last five, The one he failed to hit that mark, he
had six targets, which basically helps him get to double digit
PPR points, something he's done in four of his last 6.
The Steelers allow the most receptions and second most yards
to wide receivers, so volume shouldn't be an issue for
Waddle. It's just whatever he can do
after the catch. I think that's in doubt here.
Darren Waller. I wanted to go there, but I'm
going to leave him on the bench this week but hold him for next
week against Cincinnati. The match up is good, but not
since he good and he's only had three targets in each of the
last two weeks. Devon A Chan is the only Dolphin
you can start with some confidence he's going to play on
Monday. I'm going to start him with a
silver grade. He's had 16 or more PPR points
in every game but one this season, and he scored four times
in the last four weeks. He's 4th in the league in
running back receptions behind only CMC, Bijan and Gibbs.
Jalen Wright filled in nicely after A Chan went down.
A Chan said he could have came back in last week though, but
they were up 3 touchdowns already and Jalen writes only in
line UPS if A Chan is out. I know a lot of people blew a
lot of fab on right this week, but it might be all for Naughty.
The Steelers are allowing about 134 combo yards per game to
opposing backs. 90% of that is A Chan.
Aaron Rodgers was by Roll the dice quarterback.
DK Metcalf's going to play on Monday night as well.
He missed the flight home with severe abdominal pain, which he
was hospitalized for. Nobody got checked out.
He's back in Baltimore or sorry, Pittsburgh.
He's practicing in full coming off his biggest week since Week
4. Had 7 catches for 148 yards last
week. And it feels like something
changed a little bit in the Steelers offense last week.
Like there was just like a little bit of a turning of the
page. Miami looks tougher on paper,
but Miami really hasn't played any tough wide receivers this
year at all. The best wide receivers they
faced, Michael Pittman, lad Mcconkey and Garrett Wilson.
That's like literally the best guys they faced they all top 20
PPR points. So this is fictitious good
rankings for Miami here. So silver great on Metcalf.
It's a good match up for the tight ends, but don't play the
game of Steelers tight end roulette because there's like 8
zeros on that roulette wheel and you're going to hit them.
Even if you that red or black, that's not going to be good.
Jalen Warren and Kenny Gainwell are the last guys to talk about
right now. It's about a 5545 split in this
backfield, with Warren having the slight edge in touches every
week, but Gainwell having more receptions and receiving yards.
Gainwell's actually LED in PPR points in three of the last four
games for Pittsburgh. Miami's allowing 4.7 yards per
carry. That's bottom 10 in the league.
That works for both of these guys.
They're allowing the ninth most receiving yards.
That helps gain, well, a little bit more than Warren.
They're allowing the 6th most combo yards to backs.
That helps both of them. But they've only given up 7
total touchdowns to running backs all season, which is why I
can only get to a bronze grade on both of them.
I really don't like 1 better than the other.
It's pretty much a tie, so I hope Gainwell versus Warren is
not a question in Lightning Round.
It's time for Lightning Round. That's what that sound means.
To end the show, we do the Lightning Round.
It's your hardest decision between two players and two
players only. If you include three players, we
metaphorically hang up on you. And if you'd like to be featured
on Lightning Round, find my Twitter handle at Explosive
Output. Each week I'll put up a
Lightning Round thread. We'll pick a few and answer
them. Rapid fire.
We're going to go through a lot this week.
Maj. and Trevor, you ready? Doesn't matter, let's go.
Doesn't matter at all, all right?
Trevor Brew, daddy asks Trevion Henderson or Quin?
Sean Judkins in a guillotine league.
Yeah, give me Henderson in a great matchup.
Bills have allowed the most rushing touchdowns on the year.
All right, Maj. Daryl Hancock wants to know
Woody Marks or Devin Neil. I would go with Marks.
He's got the easy your matchup, shoves out injured so no touch
competition there. I like both guys, but Marks gets
the nod. All right, Trevor, Rico Dowdell
or Ken Walker, This is for Anthony Clap.
Yeah, Anthony, I'm gonna go with Ken Walker.
Seattle should get like 35 to 40 carries off in this game, and
Ken Walker should see 18 to 20 of those.
Man, I gave Rico Dowdell a starting grade and I gave Ken
Walker a bench grade. I understand that.
I wow all. Right.
Listen to the fantasy veteran or the guy who's third.
Show All right, Maj. Tim Whitley.
Not to be confused with Tim Watley, who converted to Judaism
just for the jokes. He wants to know Justin
Jefferson or Michael Wilson. This one's incredibly close for
me. I'm not going to actually fault
anybody for choosing either direction.
I'm going to go with the guy that has 49 targets in the last
three games as his team's number one.
Despite the tough match up, I fully admit this is the
conservative play. If you're chasing ceiling, you
go with Jefferson, but otherwise I think you got to stick with
Mike Wilson. It's come to this man.
If only people would have listened to my Justin Jefferson
is sabotage dropable take back in the day.
All right, Maj., I'm going to stay with you because Clayton
Cobb wants to know Michael Wilson what his other option is
Jayden Waddle or? Jayden Waddle, even.
Yeah, it would be even better, but I'm going to go with Wilson
again in this one. You know, Waddle has the great
match up and actually comes with the floor.
I think that's the problem with Justin Jefferson in that last
question, right? There's no safe floor.
Waddle has the safe floor, but he doesn't, he doesn't have
anywhere near the ceiling of Justin Jefferson because of what
you noted in your match up with the the way Tua's kind of had
the car keys taken away from him here in the last, you know, half
dozen weeks or so. So it's I'm I'm Wilson over
Jefferson for floor, but I'm Wilson over Waddle for ceiling,
if that makes sense. We've done it.
Wow. Threaded that needle.
They're probably ranked like, you know, right next to each
other in my fictitious rankings. All right, back to Trevor, Dak
Prescott or Jalen Hurts, and that's for Mark Giannini.
Yeah, I like Dak. He's got 320 plus yards in three
straight games and I don't. I hate everything about what the
Philadelphia offense looks like right now.
So let's go back. So all.
Right in Philadelphia. Tyler Morgan has a flex
question. It's either Juan Jennings or
Omarion Hampton. This one is PPR.
Yeah, I'm going to go with Jennings in this one.
He's got the better overall match up here.
Hampton's still sharing that backfield with it all and going
against easily a top ten run defense at Arrowhead.
So even though I think his The Arrow's pointing up on Hampton
here, I still go Jennings. All right, Trevor, here's a fun
one. Touchdown only league for
Minnesota sports fan on Twitter, either DK Metcalf or Ted
McMillan. Which 65200 and 30 lbs don't
like a God would you like to go with?
I'm going to go with T Mac. He's got 4 touchdowns in the
past three, so I'm going to give Ted McMillan the edge there.
He's an Adonis. Twin adonises.
All right Maj., we got this exact question for two different
users, EJB and David Glenn. David Glenn said his is 6 point
passing touchdowns and -4 for interceptions though.
But they both want to know Trevor Lawrence or Marcus
Mariota. And I I believe you can count
the number of interceptions The Jets have this season on no
hands. Correct.
That's what you had said. Zero.
Yeah. So, you know, this one's close.
You know, Mariota. Mariota was my about roll the
dice, but Lawrence has been fantasy's QB nine since Week 9.
He's had a QB one performance in four of his last six.
And since Week 10, The Jets are allowing the ninth highest
success rate per drop back. So I do give Lawrence the slight
nod in this one, but I think you're probably in decent shape
with with either of those guys. Lawrence Higher ceiling, maybe
slightly lower floor. I mean, you got the no negative
fours for Trevor Lawrence for sure.
That helps. It's a, it's a, you know, and
he's got no picks in his last two games, Lawrence, whereas
Mariota's got a three to three touchdown interception ratio in
his last three. All right, Trevor, in
Guillotine, this is what it comes down to.
It's Jonathan Taylor for Travis Etienne, and that's for Adam.
Yeah. So I think Maj., you ought to
hold on. Travis, ETN.
I don't even know because I didn't do that match up.
Hold on, ETN and. A silver on I agree, I think
it's insane. It sounds insane, but I'm going
with ETN. Indy's team totals a pathetic 14
points like we just saw. I'm just worried we're going to
see the Max Bros were two point O kind of thing going on where
it's just dead on arrival. This offense can't do anything.
So, Travis ETN over Jonathan Taylor.
What a world. I mean, that's guillotine,
though. You're down to like the last
four or five teams. They're all superstar rosters at
this point. Maj.
Michael Pittman or Devonta Smith in a non PPR league.
And this is for Jason Hansen, who I'm guessing is the former
Lions kicker. Definitely is.
And Trevor and I, we were so on the same wavelength today.
We had, we both had the Gibbs pick.
I've got a Max Brosmer joke in my answer to this question.
Like we're it's nuts. I've got I've got Devonta here
by a pretty healthy margin. You know, if Rivers is, is the
quarterback, Look, I'm, I'm a huge Phil Rivers guy.
I would love for 17 to come in and light it up at Seattle.
But yeah, we're we're far more likely to see Brosnar 2 point O
here. All right, Trevor, Steve
Bartman, 2 point O has to choose between Stefan Diggs and
Christian Watson. PPI.
Broke in the matrix today. Yeah, Steve, I want to change
his bad luck moniker before the fantasy playoffs here.
I'm going to go with Steph Diggs in the revenge game, which we'll
remember he went nuclear in the first Bills Patriots matchup of
the year. And Christian Watson just being
maybe get the PS2 treatment I think sends me towards Diggs.
All right, Maj. last one for you, PPR League, Darren Waller
or Theo Johnson. That's for Aaron Gage.
Yeah, I think you go, Theo, in this one by a decent bit.
There's that lack of upside you noted Matt in the Miami passing
attack right now. But that doesn't mean get rid of
Darren Waller. Like you said, he's got that
nice Cincy match up next week. So don't go far, Darren Waller.
All right. Final choice in Lightning round
is for Trevor, Trey McBride or Harold Fannin.
You're playing Trey McBride, but how, how smart would you feel if
you benched the best tight end for like the backup, you know,
rookie Brown's guy and and it paid off like what a in the
fantasy playoffs, that would be the like the ballsiest thing you
could do. But I'm going to play Trey
McBride, Kuchao. Speed.
I am speed doesn't want to play my Kuchao button.
I don't know why. There we go.
We got it now. Kuchao, that was lightning
round. All right.
Thanks guys. Trevor Maj. you guys did a ton
of hard work this week. We all had five matchups.
That's a beast to go through. Not an easy task to get this
show going for sure. So give those guys a follow on
their social platforms. Noko Maggio on Blue Sky T Jones
5 on Twitter and make sure that you're rating and reviewing
fantasy football almost daily to help others find our show.
Reminder on Game Blazers real quick, try Game Blazers this
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Learn more at gameblazers.com Mosh Trevor.
Anything exciting happening this weekend?
Staying warm, watching football, that's about it.
The the the former will be more difficult than the latter, I
think, for you. Got a little Christmas party at
my house this weekend. Otherwise, yeah, watching some
football. So thank you, Matt, for putting
this together. As always, thanks, everybody,
for listening. Hit us up with questions on
those socials if you have any. Good luck in your fantasy
playoffs, everybody. Couldn't have said it better
myself. Thank you guys all for watching
and listening and we'll see you next week on more fantasy
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