Hey everyone, it's Matt. This is Fantasy Football Almost
Daily today, a very special episode where we tackle some NFL
post season fantasy with our friend and the godfather of the
NFFC, Greg Ambrosius. But before we go to that, make
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Let's talk some NFL playoffs with Greg.
But first, Tate's sweet, sweet music.
From the Sports Hub Games Network, this is fantasy
football, almost dated with your host Matt Harrison.
Goodness gracious, we got a newbie here to fantasy football
almost daily with me today. A true fantasy sports legend.
He's the founder and general manager of the National Fantasy
Football Championship. He's an FSGA and FSWA Hall of
Famer. He's been on SiriusXM for years.
Unfortunately, he's a Packer fan, but he's Greg Ambrosious.
How you doing, Greg? I'm doing great.
Looking forward to this wild, wild weekend.
As I said, I mean the College Football Playoffs on Thursday
and Friday. Then you got the NFL Saturday,
Sunday, Monday. This is a man's dream weekend,
right? Yeah, and you might notice I'm
wearing a UW River Falls hat right now.
Division Three national champions, not too far from your
neck of the woods a little, maybe a little closer to me.
I'm a Platteville grad, so I was on the western side of the state
for four years. So yeah, River Falls,
Platteville, we had some great matchups when I was back there
way, way long ago. You called me a newbie.
I'm an old, old man, man. I went to College in the 70s.
I wasn't born in the 70s. So there we go.
All right, we're going to talk about some of our favorite plays
in the wild card round in a little bit.
But first, Greg, for those of you who don't know you and we
probably have little bit of different audiences between our
two shows, how'd you get into the fantasy sports world and and
kind of what brings you to to fantasy sports?
Yeah, like I said, I've been in the industry a long time.
So I got in in 1989. I was a newspaper sports editor
for seven years. I saw an ad in the Green Bay
Press Gazette, believe it or not, on the day that the Packers
drafted Tony Mandrich second overall instead of Barry
Sanders. And I couldn't believe.
I was like, they were looking for a rotisserie magazine
editor. I was like, that's right up my
alley. I've been playing this for three
years. When I came to interview for the
job, they were like, you've been playing for three years.
Wow. You know, I was a veteran and so
I got hired and we started Fantasy Baseball Magazine in
1989. We wanted to call it Rotisserie
Baseball Magazine, but Glenn Wagner is going to sue us if we
use the rotisserie. So I said everybody's playing
fantasy football. Let's just call it Fantasy
Baseball Magazine. And that's what we I did.
So I was the editor of that for 15 years.
I was in the baseball card industry at that time, editor of
baseball cards magazine, Sports Collector's Digest, if you
remember way back then. And so in 2004, the Internet was
killing magazines. And so I thought, why don't I
start a high stakes game? People have to buy my magazine
to play the game. Well, the game took off, became
this monster National Fantasy Baseball championship, National
Fantasy Football Championship. The magazines died.
And so now for the last 20-3 years I've been doing this
instead of editing. I I mean, some of the best
businesses in the world are, are just built on a pivot and you
pivoted perfectly in this case. I pivoted, but I wasn't sure
what I was doing. I had never run any games right.
I was a commissioner of local leagues.
But that's different from guaranteeing.
In the first year we guaranteed $100,000 grand prize in
baseball. We lost our ass.
I mean, we lost 10s of thousands of dollars.
So we did it again in football and we lost even more money in
football. And my publisher said you have
one more year to make this right.
They like the idea that we're getting hundreds of thousands of
dollars from scratch from an idea.
And the next year we sold out both contests.
And then for baseball, we've sold out the main event 21
straight years. Oh my goodness.
So NFFC is National Fantasy Football Championship.
NFBC is really the gold standard of baseball.
Anything in the in the world, if you play fantasy baseball at
all, and I do, everybody just talks about NFBCADP because you
guys have the best AD PS in the world and that's how you figure
out who to draft basically this early in the year.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know what?
It's a 15 team league. There was never any 15 team
league in fantasy baseball before I came up with it and I
didn't want to make it too easy by having a mixed league, 12
team. I was in labor from the
beginning in 1994 and those were twelve team AL and 12 team NL
leagues. They were very, very tough, so I
thought. And labor is a league you
weren't actually physically. In labor no LABR league of
alternative baseball reality, which is really the best experts
league in the industry. And really I wanted to come up
with a tougher format. So I thought 16 teams, 14 teams,
let's try 15 teams and everybody loves 15 team format and that is
just taken off and really we're the only high stakes game in
baseball, not the case in football, but in baseball, like
you say, we are the gold standard.
Yeah, and not everybody really knows what NFFC is, but I mean,
it's legitimately the best way to play high stakes fantasy
football out there. So you kind of told us how it
got its start, but just in this last season, give people an idea
of how much in prizes NFFC gave away.
Yeah. So this year for prizes for
football, we gave away $6 million.
We did that $5,000,000. For baseball, we have given away
$115 million since 2004. So in 22 years, we've given away
116 million. You know, CDM Fantasy Sports was
acquired by Sports Hub as well. They've given away about $60
million since 1993. So really our division has given
away over $170 million in prizes, and that's why people
keep coming back, because they can trust me and us to pay every
year, right? There have been instances where
games have not paid all their prizes.
That was unfortunate in the 90s and the early 2000s, but now
it's all whittled down. We've got really good game
operators and I think we're as trustworthy as anybody out
there. All right, let's talk a little
bit about the NFFC postseason holdem contest.
And there's two entry points. There's a $200 contest, it's got
$125,000 top prize. And then there's a $5050
postseason mini and that's got a $50,000 top prize and that's
some pretty good scratch there. That's life changing money.
Yeah, I think $50.00 for 50 thousands got a good ring to it.
We did not have that contest right away.
We had the $200 one all the time and I thought, you know, maybe
we should do a little better price point.
Well, now we're going to get 2000 twenty 800 teams for the
$50 one. We're shooting for 15125 teams
for the $200 one. So it's both are really, really
good contest, but people are taking multiple entries in the
50s. This is like I say is going to
be a wild, wild format. I'm going to tell you something,
Matt, that nobody knows to be truthful.
Rob Fithian came to our offices in Iola, WI in 2000 5 and was
talking about a NASCAR game that he had that had a multiplier
scoring format. Each round that the that you had
the driver and I looked at it, I was like I could do that for
football. I didn't have a postseason
contest and I thought why don't we do this in football?
That first year was 2005. Ben Roethlisberger was a six
seed and LED the Steelers to the title.
Our guy won a $10,000 prize, Chris Schenker that year.
But that multiplier format was put in my head by Rob Fithian.
And and it all comes full circle because Rob of course started
Sports Hub. You're part of Sports Hub.
I'm part of Sports Hub, one big crazy, happy family.
So I don't get to play in these postseason holdem contest
besides our internal contest. So I don't know how much you're
going to share with me since I'm competing with you on this, but
no. Problem.
You brought up the multiplier points and maybe tell people how
the multiplier points works in this specific contest.
Yeah, so this is a contest. There's no draft, there's no
salary cap. We allow you to pick the players
you want. The only thing is, you can only
pick one player from 12 different teams in round one.
There's fourteen teams in round one, so you're fading 2 of them,
right? So you just pick one player from
those 12 teams. Well, as the players stay on
your roster in Round 2, they're two times their scoring points,
You're on your roster again in the third round, they're 3X, and
if they get to the Super Bowl, they're 4X.
So this multiplier is a really big factor in our contest.
When you lose players, you're allowed to pick up new players,
but they start out as 1X. So really Round 2 is when it
gets real interesting. And in the second round, the
divisional round, you can have two players from each roster on
your team. So that's when you can start
pulling those stacks out and stuff, figuring out different.
And then in the third round, the conference championship, you can
have three from each. And then in the Super Bowl, 4
players from each team, only 8 on your roster at that point,
they whittle the rosters down a little bit, but.
Yeah, we don't want to go 12 at that point.
Everybody have the same six guys basically, you know, so so it's
1212 players around 1-2 and three and then eight players in
Round 4. So you definitely do have to
come back and make lineup decisions each week.
It it, it doesn't set it and forget it for you.
Like I run a big fantasy playoff cough league and it's you.
You draft your team and that's it.
You're not touching it for the rest of.
The year, plenty of contests out there like that.
Without a doubt. This one, it takes a little bit
more time, but it doesn't take much to fill in four players,
let's say. So again, in round one, you want
to lose only four players, right?
You're going to pick 12 teams. Six teams are going to lose.
You may have the two by teams as well, so you get those in for
Round 2. So you really want to lose just
four players this first round, so you have as many 2X's next
week as possible. I'm glad you brought up the bye
teams because I was, I, I was looking at my roster in our
internal contest. And do you always pick those bye
week teams and do you pick like legitimately good players at
Seattle and Denver this year? Are you picking like a Bo Knicks
or a Jackson Smith and Jigba or are you leaving those to like
the lesser positions like the team defense or the kicker or
something like? That So both of those teams, if
you look at the rosters, they don't have great offensive
players, right? Their defenses have really
brought them. So you could certainly take
their defenses if you want. I think JSN is a must.
I think you got to have him. But for Denver, it gets a lot
tougher. Do you want Sutton?
Do you want Harvey? Do you want the defense?
I want both of those teams because they're going to start
out 2X and listen, they're going to be at home the first round.
They've had a bye. They should win, your player
should go 2X3X. They may not get to the Super
Bowl, but don't worry about leading the contest after week
one. That doesn't mean anything.
You wanna lead after the final game of the Super Bowl, so
definitely take by players. Yes, you're getting a zero in
week 1, but they're starting out 2X and hopefully 3X and maybe
4X. So there's not a lot of people
who believe in specifically like the Chargers or the Steelers or
the Panthers right now to make a long run.
Do you do you completely fade those teams or do you pick out
individual players for the first round that you think might have
a really good shot at at coming up big?
Like, for instance, I'm looking at Omarion Hampton this week
against the Patriots Rundy and the Patriots Rundy,
surprisingly, he's been pretty bad for about a month.
So I'm like Hamptons in a good spot.
But do I think the Chargers are going to beat the Patriots?
I do not. So what do I do in that
situation? So.
The first thing you do with this contest again is pick your two
fade teams, right? And the two obvious ones are
Carolina. They're 10 point underdogs at
home against the Rams. And I think Pittsburgh to me is
a fade. I don't like any of the players
on there. Do you want DK Metcalf?
Do you want Jalen Warren? So I'm gonna fade Pittsburgh
myself. I think they're gonna lose the
Houston. So those are the two teams I'm
fading and I am taking a Marion Hampton from the Chargers.
I don't think they're gonna win as well, but I do think that
Hampton can put up points. So for the other 12 players, not
counting the two by guys, you want the best players to score
as many points as possible, right?
That's what you're looking for on these games.
Well, with Hampton like this is this is kind of a good case
strategy. Like if we look at Hampton and
you, you like his matchup, but you think he's going to lose.
Do you put him as a running back or do you put him as a flex if
you think he's going to lose to get you the flexibility of
picking different players? Yeah.
So you can move them around in Round 2.
If you had them at flex, you can move or running back, you can
move them to flex. But again, you're going to lose
4. And think of this as well.
You need to pick up guys the next round.
So if I'm going with Stafford, which I like Stafford a lot, I
definitely want puka in round two, right?
So I don't want all my wide receivers and the flex to go on
and have all my running backs get eliminated because now I
can't get puka in unless I bench one of my guys who's going to be
2X. So think about the next round.
I'm making sure that I'm getting puka in there for sure, either
in the flex or the wide receiver spot.
So. But yes, you're going to be able
to move a guy from running back to flex in Round 2 if you want
to. Do you try to get like your two
Super Bowl prediction teams in a certain position, for instance,
the quarterback position, do you want to get 4X on two
quarterbacks going into the Super Bowl?
Is that kind of your strategy and how you look at it?
That is definitely my strategy. Again, NFFC scoring is 6 points
per passing touchdowns. So I'm looking at the two
quarterbacks. I pick my 2 fade teams.
That's the first thing I do, and then I pick my 2 quarterbacks
with me. I may be wrong.
The AFC is wide open, but I like Drake May an awful lot.
I think he's gonna score in round one.
So I'll take those extra points. And I do think they can go to
Denver and win. I think they can win on the
road. I like all three phases of the
game there. So I'm going with Drake May in
the NFC, man. It is wide open.
You can pick anybody hurts, but I'm I'm going to go with
Stafford and again, I know a lot of people are going to put Puka
in because then you can get Stafford at 3X.
But with Devante Adams back, he gets those one yard touchdown
receptions, right? He gets a touchdown reception
inside the five. So if they're going to score a
lot, I think Stafford outscores Puka.
So I'm putting Stafford in there.
So right now I'm going Stafford and Drake, man.
Interesting that that's a way to make your line up different.
And I mean, how do you kind of stand out and differentiate your
line up in these kind of things? Because it's probably really
easy for people to fall into the trap and go, well, I'm going to
pick McCaffrey because he's obvious.
I'm going to pick either James Cook or Josh Allen from the
Bills. I'm I'm going to pick the same
guys over and over again. Like do you flip to a Kyron
Williams this week on the Rams over a Puka or a Stafford?
Because the match up for against the Panthers is really nice for
on the ground for Kyron. Right, so guys will take
multiple teams and doing that, if I have one team, I'm not
going to be a differentiator in round one, right?
I'm taking the best players in round one.
Again, it's in round two and three.
Tom talked about this on our podcast.
James White won this contest for people back when they came back
against Atlanta in 2016. I believe it was right Williams,
Damian Williams won it for a lot of people because they were 3X
at that point and people didn't have James White at 3X.
So really the differentiators I think are in round two, don't
get too cute in round one. I think get the guys you think
are going to get 3X and maybe 4X.
Those are the ones you really want to have in your lineup
right away. But round two and round 3 is
when you get the differentiators.
And I know you and Tom Kasinich and Jeff Stein dug in deep to
some of the different strategies in your latest podcast, High
Stakes Weekly. You can find that just by
following you on Twitter at Greg Ambrocious, right?
I got that right. There we go.
I'll. Try to spell the last.
Name just at Greg AMB and see if it fills out the rest of it.
All right, let's take a quick break.
We're going to come back and talk a little bit about about
each of the games individually, but first Pat Mayo is going to
tell you about a huge contest coming up in a little over a
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All right people, it's that time of year again.
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Just $250 to play. This is the year.
Unless you blow it again. But hey, you might not sign up
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January 15th. All right, welcome back to
fantasy football almost daily. Greg.
Let's talk really quickly a kind of about these six wild card
games, maybe some knee jerk reactions to each of these
matchups. And Rams at Panthers is the one
that kicks us off on Saturday afternoon.
And as you said, the Rams double digit favorites on the road.
We talked a little bit about this already.
Stafford, Kyron Puka, if you really wanted to be contrarian,
you could go with that. We year old friend Devante
Adams. How do you kind of treat this?
Yeah, absolutely. So Rams -10 I think they're
going to win on the road. Obviously, they lost to Carolina
during the regular season. They got some revenge and stuff.
Again, I'm starting with Stafford.
I'm hoping to get Puka in round 3 around 2, Kyron around 3:00,
and then Devante in round four. That's how I'm going to try to
build my team. Carolina, I'm fading.
If you're not fading them, it's Ted McMillan, right?
Who else are you going to have? Rico Dowdle?
But I'm fading Carolina. Yeah, I think that that's
probably the proper way, although the Panthers did beat
this Rams team in Carolina just a few weeks ago.
So it's it's a little thornier than it seems.
And maybe the Rams not traveling well to that part of the country
because they lost to Atlanta a week ago, too.
Yeah, no, they haven't been good on the road this year, certainly
towards the end here, but I think Stafford's going to rally
the troops here. Having Devante Adams back in the
lineup does make a difference here as well.
So he should be healthy from the a hamstring injury had I feel
really good about this on Rams are going to cover for sure.
Well, and last I checked, the Rams are the second highest
favorite to win the Super Bowl right now.
So as a five seed that's pretty impressive.
I hope the Rams win. It probably sets up a pretty
interesting game next week, either with the Eagles, Bears or
Seahawks. Any of those games would be
absolutely awesome. But let's talk about the Packers
and Bears. And I don't know if you can be
objective about this one guys. So I can.
So it's basically a pick em. It's fluctuated.
It started with Packers by 1 1/2.
It's now Bears by 1 1/2 last I looked.
I I'm not trying to blow smoke here.
I think the Packers have a pretty good opportunity to win
this game. Obviously in the last game they
lost that lead in the last 2 minutes of the game, but they
were winning by 10 points. Yes.
Basically without Jordan Love. Yes, with. 2 minutes to go and
that would have been their second win against the Bears.
Well, all they had to do was cover the onside, which
everybody does, you know, So that was just bizarre, the way
it ended. They played very, very well.
No, I can be objective. I'm, I'm, this is wild.
I was on DraftKings yesterday. Packers are favored by 1 1/2.
Now the Bears are favored by 1 1/2.
On DraftKings, the Bears should be favored.
I'm sorry, the Bears should be favored.
Packers have lost four games in a row.
They're beat up Now here's the one thing they did rest
everybody against Minnesota and they are really pretty healthy.
Jacobs should be as healthy as he's been since the Giants game.
So and Love is definitely past a concussion protocol.
He should be. He hasn't played though, in
three weeks. So will there be rust?
You know, I said this yesterday on our podcast.
I think whoever gets the ball first is going to set the tone
like the Bears were terrible on Sunday.
They were not aggressive. I think that offense comes out
and throws the ball around and gets really aggressive, runs the
ball down the Packers throat. But the Packers, if they get the
ball in that last meeting, they had the ball three times in the
first half. Seven minute drive, 7 minute
drive, 6 minute drive. So the Packers are going to want
to hold on the ball. I think the early part of the
game is going to tell what's going to happen here.
So on the Green Bay side, it it feels like unless you think
they're make going to make a deep run, you don't go Jordan
love here. So that kind of leaves you with
Josh Jacobs or maybe Christian Watson.
Correct. I think Jacobs is the play here.
I'm going to put him in my lineup.
He scores when they get near the goal line, right?
Like this is probably going to be a defensive game.
I think it's going to be in the 20s.
I think they're going to score more than they did the other
night the last time they played together.
But this could be a 2021 game, something like that.
I think Jacobs gets in the end zone.
So I'm going with Jacobs. If they would win, I would go
with Watson in the second round. I mean you could go with Dobbs
at some point, but really I think Watson and Jacobs are the
top 2 guys you go for. I think my initial lineup that I
made had Watson as as my my first guy in.
I just really like the way that that the matchup lines up for
Watson against the Bear secondary that hasn't looked
great in the last few weeks and the bears randomly kind of good
at run defense right now. So Speaking of run defenses, the
Packers randomly not very good at it.
So it feels like DeAndre Swift is kind of the guy that you want
to go with here. That's who I'm going with for
sure. You know, it wasn't just the
Micah Parsons injury. It was a Devonta Wyatt injury
the week before against Detroit. They have nothing in the
frontline. Then they then they got Riley,
who played pretty well and then he tore his Achilles against
Baltimore. So now another practice squad
guy from the Bears. So to me it's swift without a
doubt. Round two, maybe you look at a
Doones, a right Loveland and round three, if they were able
to go and I'm not, I'm not going with Caleb at this point for
sure. So but but if you were to think
the Bears could get to the Super Bowl, you put them in as your
quarterback, right? But I think Swift is the play
here. Yeah, I think, I think you
definitely, if you think that the Bears are going to go on an
unbelievable run here, yeah. Then you go Caleb.
Right you go, Caleb, without a doubt.
All right, Bill's at Jaguars is the Sunday kickoff.
Bill's favored by 1 1/2 right now.
Basically also a pick em. The Bills are easy because it's
Josh Allen or it's James Cook and it's do you believe that the
Bills are going to the Super Bowl?
Then it's Josh Allen. Do you not believe that they're
going to the Super Bowl? Then it's James Cook, right?
Without a doubt, that's easy to say, right?
And then if you get to round 3 is a Shakira Diggs, they don't
really have a lot of skill position guys, right?
So definitely I'm going with Cook myself.
I'm not doing a Josh Allen. Jeff went on our podcast, said
he's going to do it, He's going to listen.
This is a slap in the face to Jacksonville.
They just won eight games in a row.
They won their division. They've been as impressive as
anybody and their dogs, home dogs, this is ridiculous.
But this is a 1 1/2 spread on Josh Allen.
Listen, I think Jacksonville can can win this game.
So I'm kind of laying off. I'm taking the James Cook
numbers that they're going to get when it comes to
Jacksonville. ETN, you know, we're using up
all our running backs, but that before if we wanted to use them.
But to me, it's ETN again, if you think they're going all the
way to do Trevor Lawrence. But otherwise, Parker Washington
would be my second round one for Jacksonville.
But I'm going ETN here. The the Jaguars are so similar
to the Bills in many ways right now with it's either the
quarterback or the running back game and and that's who you have
to go with almost. I mean, you'd love to go, Brian
Thomas, but you're not doing that, that's for sure, after
what he did to you this year. Yeah, I I think that that's very
fair. All right, Niners at Eagles.
And man, this is not the this is not the matchup I wanted in the
playoffs. I wanted the 49ers to go against
a weak defense so we could have a points bonanza.
Instead, they got to go across the country to the Eagles, who
are going to slow down this game.
And there's probably going to be like 25 points scored in this
one. Right now, the Eagles are
favored by 4 1/2. They are favored by 4 1/2, which
is kind of surprising. I mean, listen, the Eagles
should have played their starters for 1/4 and they would
have beat Washington, right? They could have got the Packers,
which would have been a terrible match up for the Packers.
Instead, they got the Niners. Again, this is an easy one, CMC.
If you got room for them in your line up, you got to put them in
there. Philly.
What do you do with Philly? Their offense has been
horrendous. I'm leaning A.J.
Brown, but Devonta Smith has had better numbers than him.
Do you think they go all the way?
Tom says he's putting Hertz in as his quarterback.
I don't trust them to go all the way.
Honestly. Philadelphia, to me, this feels
like the 2023 version where you said, man, their offense has
been bad, but once they get in the playoffs, it's going to pick
up. You know what?
This offense has been bad for a long time.
And I don't think they just turn on the switch like that in the
playoffs. So I'm not in on Philly in the
playoffs here. I could see San Francisco going
here and winning this game. I think that's true.
I think the the weird thing about the Eagles are, is they've
just shown you exactly who they are in the last month.
That game against the Bills where they won by one point, I
think it was 1312 or something like that, It's just going to be
a slog. Nobody's going to want to watch
these games. They're going to be ugly.
They're going to be annoying, but man, I think the Eagles
still probably are the class of the NFC right now.
Their defense is unreal. And so you talk about that
Buffalo game, they didn't get a first down in the second-half.
Their defense held on and held on to that lead.
But I mean, give me a break. You got to be able to control
the ball at some point. So I could definitely think
Philadelphia is going to be favored and be the win win this
thing. But I could see San Francisco
going in there and after being embarrassed offensely.
But this Philadelphia defense is a #1.
It is. Is that the defense you choose
then, if you don't think the Eagles have it for the full
playoffs, is this the team D that you go with and you just
go, hey, Brock Purdy, he's pretty good, but he does make a
few turnovers. He's going to be on the road.
It's going to be cooler conditions maybe than Santa
Clara, but yeah. Yeah, possibly.
And you know, I want to put CMC in my lineup.
I want him to get 2X, so maybe I won't go A.J.
Brown, maybe I will go defense for Philadelphia.
They can get sacks. We know that Brock does turn the
ball over, so there's not a bad play if you pivot to the defense
there. All right, the Sunday nighter is
Chargers at Patriots. Patriots favored only by 3 1/2,
which I think is kind of surprising.
I thought that number will be way higher.
We already talked about a little bit about how I like Omarion
Hampton here. The the Patriots defense over
the last month against the run has been really bad.
I think a lot of people are citing, you know, the schedule.
The Patriots only played two teams with a winning record this
year. It was the Bills who they split
with and the Steelers who aren't that good.
So I think that people are saying, hey, the Chargers could
just come in and steal this one, which is possible.
On the past side, yeah, it's possible.
I'll say one thing. The Patriots have been blowing
out teams, though, right? Like, they're not just beating
bad teams, they're blowing them out.
You know, obviously The Jets are terrible, but, you know, they
just get on top of them and it's all over with.
So, OK, so again, I'm going Drake May for New England.
I think they're gonna run the day you'd go digs.
But Trevian, Henderson, you know, even in the backfield,
though, you got Stephenson and Henderson and they're going to
split touchdowns. They're going to split carries.
Who do you even go there? So I'm going to easy route.
I'm taking Drake May. When it comes to the Chargers, I
agree. Hampton, Ladd, Mccocky hasn't
put up great, great numbers. So I think Hampton or Fayette is
the way you go there. I think they're going to win by
3 1/2. My goodness.
I'm surprised that spread doesn't move up.
Patriots are going to win this by more than 3 1/2.
Yeah, I think so too. Texans at Steelers is the Monday
nighter right now. Texans Rd. favorites 3 1/2.
It seems to me like the Texans D is the best play on the Houston
side, If not, probably Nico Collins, right?
Yeah, I was going to say I'm. I'm probably going to put Nico
Collins in there. I think this defense gets after
Rogers, right? I mean, my goodness, I can't
believe they won that game the other night.
Rogers was just chucking it down behind the line of scrimmage and
having those guys take off, but it was.
Back to Aaron, glory days there for for that last 10 minutes of
that game, he looked like he was a youthful guy again.
Absolutely, and he can still throw the long ball right?
It's not like he's just dinking and dunking because he's got
Matt or he's got Phillip Rivers arm strength.
He could throw it, no doubt about it, but without DK Metcalf
in there. So getting him back is obviously
going to help this offense a ton.
But this Houston defense is just like Philly.
They're just dominating. They're going to get after
Rodgers and I think Rodgers is going to show his age this week
myself. So again, I'm fading Pittsburgh.
I like Nico Collins but I am leaning towards Houston defense
as well. If you were going to fade the
Chargers and the Panthers and you picked somebody on the
Steeler side, here's my sneaky play, Pat Friarmouth.
The Texans have given up five touchdowns to tight ends in the
last five weeks. Wow.
Yeah, it's a risky 1 for sure because if they do advance then
you got them at 2X. But you know, I mean Gainwell is
the guy I would think. I mean that's a guy who was
getting 8 receptions a game basically and Rodgers loves
them. So I think Gainwell over Jalen
Warren myself would be the play. But.
Rodgers loves all those old guys, though.
The older you are, the better he, the more he loves you.
He does, he does. He relates to the older guys,
but you know, I, I love Rodgers. I always have love Rodgers.
I got a fathead of them looking at me right here in my office.
But I hope he hangs it up after this year.
I mean, he's he's taking a punishment.
He doesn't need it anymore. Yeah, nice to see him in the
playoffs one more time, but we'll see how it goes.
It'll it'll be cool to see him at home against the the Texans
and see if he can decipher what to do against that crazy Texans
D. Yeah, that that Texans D is
good, and Stroud has been bad on their bat on the games that
they've lost, even when the defense is good.
So it's going to really be up to Stroud to move the ball against
this Pittsburgh defense. All right, that's that's the six
games in the wild card round. And I mean, do you, do you go
through the the wild card round and you bracket it out how you
think that the tournament's going to go to kind of fill out
your post season hold em bracket?
Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, I'm
definitely picking who I think the six teams are going to win
this week with the 2 by teams that I have.
And then who's my next picks after that, right?
I don't go beyond round two, to be honest.
But I do have a depth chart of every team right here where I'm
4 deep on how I would do it. But you know, it's not Rockets
science like we say, you know, you're looking at the bearers.
My goodness, Swift O doing say that's about it, right Loveland?
And so then move on to the next team and find 4 players that you
would use. So I'm I'm mapping out my first
two rounds and then from there I'll go on.
You know, I want to say one thing about the defenses.
Don't think that the defenses are inconsequential.
I lost our internal league in 2020 when I had Mahomes in the
Super Bowl and Trevor had the Bucks defense and the Bucks
defense outscored Mahomes and he passed me on a 4X.
So when Trevor put that line up together, he didn't think the
Bucks were going to win. They're a wild card team, right?
They're on the road. He didn't think they were going
to win. That's why he put them at
defense and they ended up winning the internal league from
him and I took second. Fans of this show know that
Trevor's already always Galaxy braining everybody else.
He he knows what he's doing every time.
He does, but that time it was lucky.
I'm telling you right now. All right, a reminder on NFFC,
you can go play the postseason holdem tournament by going to
play nffc.com and it's $125,000 to the winner of the the big
contest, the $200 contest and 50,000 for the post season mini.
That's the $50 contest. And like, like I said, life
changing money in the fantasy playoffs.
Absolutely. I wish I could win it myself,
but I'm happy to give it to anybody listening out there
right now. Hopefully we helped you put your
lineup together, but you know, sign up, secure your teams
because once we get our marks, we're selling out, we're done.
All right, So you can always change your lineup.
In fact, the good thing about this contest, you can change
your lineup before each game on Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
So in other words, the first game you got to set your Ram and
you got to set your Panther. Then after that you can still
change your lineups if you're in not not sure who you're going to
take for the Packers and such like that.
So just secure your teams and then set your lineups this
weekend. Excellent.
All right, Greg, anything else that that you got going on this
this coming week as we head into the playoffs?
No, I mean the baseball, like I said, bat fantasy baseball right
now is through the roof. Our NFBC signups are way ahead
of record pace right now. Our main event is 50% sold out.
So go to playnfbc.com. We have drafts filling every
single day. Find ouradps@playnfbc.com/ADP.
They're the gold standard and they're free.
You can sort them by any day that you want.
It's fantastic. It's hard for me to concentrate
on fantasy baseball as soon as like September hits and the
football season goes. But as soon as the regular
season ends, I start getting that itch a little bit and I
start like start looking at ADP's on on NFBC and start
listening to a few podcasts here and there.
Man, I love fantasy baseball. It's because we live in
Minnesota and Wisconsin and the winter is so freaking long.
We can hardly wait to see Sunshine Baseball and Cracker
Jack, right? We got so much ice here today
that my kids school was canceled.
It was canceled here today too and we didn't get as much ice as
you, but the roads were ice this morning for sure.
I I went and I have a slight slope on my driveway.
I slid down it just a little bit and then I got about halfway
down the driveway. I turn around and go.
I don't know how I'm going to get back up there.
Well, I got tired of snow blowing my lawn or my my
driveway so my wife bought a four Wheeler, put a plow in
front of it and she does it now. She loves doing it.
So find toys to get through the winter.
You need to buy toys, I can tell you that.
I love it, I love it. Maybe, maybe my wife would like
a four Wheeler. She would love it.
She would love. To get her that for Valentine's
Day for sure. All right, thanks, Greg.
This was fantasy football almost daily.
We'll be back on Thursday with another episode with Trevor and
Maj. as we preview all of the wild card weekend games, Fantasy
Friday style. Oh, excellent.
We're going to see you then. All right, thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time. This was fantasy football almost
daily. Please subscribe and give us a
five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts.