Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Week 13 DFS Recap Podcast

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) and Jordan Tohline (@JMToWin) of One Week Season (@oneweekseason) review their Week 13 lineups and DFS action. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. What is going on, Fantasy Fam? Welcome to the week 14 edition of the DFS recap pod. I am your host, J.M.2. win from one weekseason.com here with the great Scott Barrett from fantasy points.com. Scott, put a smile on that face. How are you doing, ma'am?

I'm doing good. We talked about all last week how I'm going to shift my approach for the remainder of the season. I'm going to try out the contrarian GPP strategy, really intentionally fading the chalk and building my life. lineups around basically how my cash lineup would would flop and then that was like the worst ever week to do that where just like all the chalk smashed it was yeah so uh i i did do that strategy i um but you know sunday morning i was just like damn my cash lineup is freaking awesome um so i I did enter my cash lineup into a smaller GPP and that sort of saved me. But yeah, just like a really rough week to, yeah, my my cash lineup was awesome.

The optimizer had, I think Taylor, Gibson, Minchu, Deontay, Godwin, Cup, Sony, like something insane where just, you know, flame emojis all around. And for tournaments, I don't know if I was smart or not, but. I think I had some Cousins Jefferson that did well, a Burrow Higgins that did well. And I played a bunch of, I played a bunch of Steelers game stacks. And I like that. So I started off the week where I was just like, all in on Deonté Johnson, the goat, the god, play him every week. And then for tournaments, I wanted to take it a step further.

I should have just, you know, it didn't work out. but I kind of like the reasoning. And that was because the Ravens had five cornerbacks on the injury report listed as questionable. And to me, they were already a top five matchup anyway. And Ben was only one K more than Minchu. Obviously Minchu much better play on paper. But I just didn't think anyone was going to play it. You can make a case for Naji.

You can make a case for Fryermouth. You can make a case for Claypool. So I did a bunch of dub stacks, you know, mixing and matching. and then with Deonte, and then running it back with Hollywood Brown. And the argument for him was easy. He was pretty cheap. There's the XFP leader over the prior four weeks, five weeks. And that was a decent matchup as well.

But yeah, so that didn't work out. Ultimately, cash lineup was far better than any of the GPP lineups. And that smashed. Luckily came to my senses and did enter that into one GPP. So save my GPP week. Yeah, I was. curious if you were going to stick with your with what you said last week about just going contrarian i didn't know for sure because you didn't call me on saturday

which you said before we got on air you just forgot because you've been so swamped um and it was like nine nine or ten p.m. that i was like wait scott didn't call today um i don't know how much help i would have been except that to me what i always like to do is i identify what type of week I feel that it is. So like two weeks ago, you know, we talked about me ending up on Randall Cobb and Adam Thielen last week. And part of the thinking was that chalk forms no matter what. And as we get this deep into the season, a lot of times it's not good chalk. And so I wanted to let others bet on what they felt was the most probable outcome. And I would just bet on other outcomes that weren't significantly less probable and that gave me the same type of

ceiling and was just different, betting on something different. Whereas this last week, I couldn't, I couldn't with what I know about these teams and pricing and all that, I couldn't bring myself to go super contrarian just because it felt like some of these plays were just so tremendously underpriced and some of them were going to hit. And if all of like, if we take six underpriced running backs, not all six of them are going to hit, but like two or three of them were going to hit, And people are going to have those two or three together. So you're then trying to beat the people who get the right combinations from those by trying to go elsewhere. And so I ended up being pretty, pretty much, like, focused on just trying to outbuild the competition.

And I failed in that. What was disappointing was I actually built. So I did single entry. I just played the game changer. And I built, on Sunday mornings, I sent out an email to OWS members. of inactives and late line movement email. And in that email, I broke down my thoughts on Minshue and then basically said that I didn't have Minchu on my one roster,

but I laid out the reason why I liked him, why he was a super short play. I said, I don't have Minchew on my one roster, but he's on my second favorite roster that I built. And then I sent out the email, and then I was like, man, but really I can build a better roster with Minshu than what I have right now. And I went back to the drawing board and built one more.

And I just kind of stared at it. for about 10 minutes and decided not to replace the one that I had built the night before. And it would have finished eighth place in the game changer. So kind of on the right plays. And I say that, you know, I think a lot of times people say, I was on the right plays and they just didn't come together on the right roster. And it's like, well, a lot of times the best way to win isn't by trying to get on the right plays, right? Because you're thinking that you can kind of isolate everything and get it all together when sometimes just embracing. the randomness and variance when everybody else is trying to get everything right gives you an edge.

But I felt like this was such a unique week this deep end of the season to have so many players who were in good spots where like Deontay and Cooper Cup were not underpriced, but you felt great if you could get to them, right? And then all these running backs were underpriced and Minchu stepping in. And so yeah, I was a little bit disappointed, actually more disappointed than normal. Normally, if I have a bad Sunday, I don't even really think about it until Tuesday when I sort of do take some time to assess process and whatnot. But this was one of the rare ones where I was like upset on Sunday because it was like, man, like I had this figured out and then just didn't pull the trigger on this last roster that I put together. But yeah, that last one I had,

you know, Minchu, Michelle, Deontay Cup, you know, kind of got all the, all the pieces on it together and just didn't pull the trigger on it. So, so yeah, it was, it was a, frustrating one for me, but not frustrating in the way that this season's been frustrating for a lot of people, right, where it's like, where it's like, oh, everything seemed like it should have gone this way and it just didn't. It was more like this was one of the rare weeks where I felt like that was the way to play, and I had it kind of isolated correctly and just didn't actually pull the trigger on the right roster.

So part of the ups and downs of true single entry play, but, but yeah, you know, you take some some learning from it and move on to the next one. Yeah, I wonder if I could have just, I mean, I kind of sensed it, if I should have just totally bailed on the contrarian approach, you know, locking myself in with this podcast, I felt like was, you know, I couldn't turn back. But, I mean, it did feel like this slate, you know, I felt so much better about it. And like the quote unquote optimal plays than a couple of weeks before where it felt

thinner and then, you know, the, you know, Leonard Frenet, who I loved, thought he was going to be at like 12% ownership, was at 3%. He broke the slate mixing, you know. So I wonder, I wonder if I should have just, you know, hey, this is like every week is different. And this week, I mean, the chalk feels, you know, amazing. And it really just played out with, you know, the optimal play is smashing. Gardner Minshue, I loved. I thought he was an amazing play for tournaments. He did go a little, lower owned. He averaged 19.8 fantasy points per game his last season as a starter. And now he did top three matchup with a good supporting cast. You know, 19.8, that's that's 5x his salary on draft kings. And a running back was so deep. Oh my God. I loved legitimately like 10

different running back plays. Tight end was super deep. Wide receiver wasn't as deep. But I mean, just look at the TLDR. It was Deontay Johnson, Chris Godwin, Cooper Cup, Justin Jefferson, and there's so much running back value that you really can pay up. And I loved legitimately a ton of different tight ends. And it was interesting that the Millie Maker winner had Kittle and Goddard. Johnny and I were talking about how, you know, he gives so much grief for two tight ends in tournaments, but he was saying this week is a little unique. Granc smashed. He was my leverage play off of Godwin for tournaments.

And then Kittle. I feel like I feel like I'm always so close on these sorts of plays. And I could just never, I boil it down to like three or four guys. And I never end up with the right one, though I like all four. One play I went with that I thought was interesting was John. Josh Jacobs, who I didn't like on paper, but I thought, you know, I'm trying to, you know, test the waters with this contrarian approach. And so it's a little out of my wheelhouse. And it was like, all right, well, I don't like him on paper, but, you know, 25% owned Antonio Gibson. He gets two

touchdowns and Vegas leads throughout. Like, that's a, that's a play. The one I'm really kicking myself for was, was Kittal because Brandon Ayuk had was chalk. Chuck E. And he had a bottom three matchup. George Kittl had a top three matchup. And then if you look at IUK's splits with and without Debo, Kittle only played in one of those games. So I really did feel like, you know, Kittle made all the sense of the world. No one played him on draft kings. He was chalk on Fanduel. And, and yeah, so that's me looking back at last week. Yeah, tight end. I'm glad you were out the true tight end thing. And, you know, as you said a little bit ago, every week's different.

And that was one of the things I talked about last week was it was the rare week where two tight ends actually made sense. What was interesting to me is I didn't pull the, I was debating all week. I, you know, I wasn't going to play Moreau because there's just so much that can go wrong for a guy who's 40 or 50% owned. I mean, he was, I think, 51% owned in the game changer, which is high dollar single entry. So the high-owned guys are going to go higher owned there because people are scared to lose. their $1,500 buy-in. And so they're like, well, this is the safest play and I'll sit on this. Well, I didn't want, I don't want the other cheap tight end who might outscore Moreau by

two or three points, right? Like, I want the guy who can just separate. So if Moreau puts up 8 to 10, which seemed like his reasonable low end range, 6 to 8, maybe 8 to 10, if Moreau puts up that type of score, I want the guy who's putting up 20, 25. 30 points. And so for me, that was Gronk and Kittle. And I was kind of back and forth all week between the two. And I decided to go Ayak and Grunk, as opposed to going Kittle and a buck's wide receiver. And I don't think that there's like a strong argument that that was right or wrong. I think that we could have played out a slate a bunch of times and it would have played out different ways. But what was interesting to me is I didn't get on to Goddard. Now, one thing I actually liked was Minchu, naked because he's a handsome man. But also in terms of DFS where we're talking about naked, meaning not playing a quarterback one of your past catchers, Minchu was 4K. And the big concern for me was the Eagles are already like the run heaviest or second run heaviest team in football. Part of

that's because of what Hertz brings the table and can do. But also part of that is because they've been winning running the ball. And they're playing this Jets run defense that can't stop. the run and Eagles should control this game. And it was like, how many pass attempts is Minchu really going to have? But at his price tag, 4K, he's still in good shape to get 15 points, 16 points, 18 points, 20 points with upside for more than that. But Minshu getting 16, 18 points doesn't necessarily mean that Devante Smith or Dallas Goddard is putting up a game that you had to have along the way. And so one of the things that I felt was really sharp that I had done was, as I was messing around with Minshu rosters on Saturday night, finally I was like, you know what, I don't need Devante Smith on this roster. There were better wide receivers in that, you know, 5K range.

There was better ways to spend that salary. But what was interesting is that I didn't actually take the next, like, logical leap and say, okay, well, let me judge whether or not Minchew plus Goddard makes sense. Now, granted, like, this is some Monday morning quarterbacking because Goddard had six targets, is that right? Five targets, six targets. You know, Gronk had eight, Kittle had whatever he had, some monstrous number of looks, 14 looks or something like that. And so, like, Goddard wasn't technically in the same class as those guys in terms of expected outcome. But I think that he was a super sharp play. And even, like, two tight ends in playing Moreau wouldn't.

have been a bad way to go because if you're looking at like the other value on the slate, there just weren't a lot of like 3K, 4K guys that you were going to feel great about. And so if you get 12, 15 points from Foster Moreau, but then also like one of the things I talked about last week was Gronk and Kittle, if you compare them to the 5K wide receivers. I mean, Gronk's averaging more points per game, maybe not anymore after last week, but Gromk came into the game averaging more points per game in his healthy games than Godwin and Evans. and they were both high 6Ks at wide receiver,

Gronk's low 5Ks at tight end. So just in terms of raw points, Gronk and Kittle had the potential to smash the wide receivers priced around them. And so I think that, you know, it was an interesting week in that it was sharp to kind of bet on the sharpest plays and just try to out sharp everybody else. And then also sharp to go two tight ends, which is not typically the case. I didn't end up doing a two tight end roster because I didn't want to sacrifice that

third running back. I thought running back was also obviously a place where we wanted to get extra exposure. But yeah, I think that's interesting take. And I think that especially building, if you're building a lot of rosters, just messing around with some of that different stuff was interesting to go. Did you have any concerns about Minchew's passing volume? Or were you pretty comfortable just in terms of what you were paying for and that you felt good about what you could get from that? Yeah. So actually the top three lineups in the Millie Maker all had Goddard and Kittle. And Goddard especially pissed me off just because like it's so rare that I don't even write up a play like that where he was fringe anyway. He was like a very good play.

And then you had this nuclear performance because I was in a bunch of FFPC playoff leagues tight in premium. And I started Goddard over Moreau, over Logan Thomas, over Noah Fant, over. And I was just like, oh, like our projections disagree. No, like no. Oh, no, no, no, Goddard's a bell cow tight end now. He's seeing an 88% route share. I think Gardner Minshue coming in is actually an improvement for him. And it was just one of those sort of brain fart things. One of our best GPP players in Discord, Darren, was in my ear all week saying,

I love Devonta Smith this week. There's a little bit of a squeaky wheel narrative. He was seeing complaining on the sideline last week. He's really good. Minshue's going to be beneficial to him. And so he went all in on Devanda Smith. And I was just like, oh, if you just picked the other guy, that would have smashed. Was I worried about Minchu's volume?

No, I mean, like, so I loved him. I really thought he was an amazing play. And part of that was like, this is a guy who's like arguably more competent than, you know, a top two backup, like, starter caliber. And so, like, what's his edge over? Shailen Hertz is like, this guy can, he can't run it as well, but he can chuck it. And so he would come out and he would come out and really flex that aspect to his game that Hertz is lacking and, you know, make Devonta Smith happy, get him that double-digit target game he's been waiting for, really flex with, you know, his accuracy and things of that nature.

I was also just like an amazing matchup. I will say I thought Boston Scott was going to be out. He didn't practice all week. He was questionable with an illness. He did play. But if he was out, I was going to have 100% exposure to Miles Sanders because no one else is talking about him with all of these like amazing running back plays. And so yeah, I mean, I mean, that definitely could have been a concern and could have been like

a massive Miles Sanders blowup game as well against this like horrific. terrific Jets run defense. But I mean, they're, they're bad against the past as well. So no matter what, that was like a top three matchup for Goddard, for Smith, for everyone on that team. Yeah, one of the things I really liked this last week, and I played around with it and didn't end up, again, just one roster, so I didn't end up with it. But I like the idea of Minshu plus Miles Sanders plus one of the past catchers because it kind of mitigates the risk of the game flow going the wrong way. And even you could even have gone Minshu plus Miles Sanders.

And it was 9.2K combined. And that was something that I messed around with as well. My concern there was, you know, two weeks ago, everyone was expecting Miles Sanders to take over this backfield. And there was really no, in my mind, there was really no reason to have expected that last week. And then even before he had the ankle issue, like he was still splitting time with Boston Scott in that game.

So when Boston Scott was active, I figured that he was going to be getting more than zero touches in the game and didn't pull the trigger on Miles Sanders. Miles Sanders, Jamal Williams, Sony Michelle, Antonio Gibson, James Connor, Elijah Mitchell. I mean, there was so much to like in that range. So I actually ended up, I ended up going, and again, my better roster that was kind of the last roster I built and didn't put in play. My last roster had Sony Michelle, but I ended up justifying Jamal Williams over Sony Michelle because Sony Michelle's, past catching chops are an issue. The Rams don't involve the running back in the past game that much.

I expected Sony Michelle as the cheaper player to be significantly higher owned than Jamal Williams. In the game changer, he was more than twice as as highly owned as Jamal Williams. And I figured Jamal Williams would get six, seven, eight, nine targets. And all of my projections around the Jamal Williams play was based on this expectation that he would get all these targets. he ended up running nine routes. And George, maybe you'd like to say his last name for me, Scott, ended up running 26 routes in that game. So that was a little bit disappointing for me.

You have any thoughts on that lion's back, the only way that that played out? Yeah, no, I mean, I just got that all wrong. I thought that was going to be a bell cow workload. It was a bell cow workload for DeAndre Swift when Jamal Williams was out. And it just clearly wasn't. He was a bell cow, you know, in the Green Bay days, when Aaron Jones would go down.

And I don't know. Sometimes it just shakes out like that. So that was an L on my line of reasoning. I didn't like him because, you know, Detroit was expected to score like 15 points, but he was up there for me. Yeah, yeah. And obviously that's the concern is the chances of him getting like a 30-point game

or so low because he's not super explosive and the lines just aren't going to score many points. But although they ended up scoring a decent number of points because Mike Zimmer and the Vikings. But yeah, that was disappointing for me. And did you have any other things from like the running back position that you thought were interesting as far as like how you ranked those running backs or how you ended approaching things? Like were you on Connor over Mitchell? Were you on either of those guys? Or did you just end up to the higher? I mean, because there was some attractive higher price guys too. Mixon obviously concerns about past game role, but mixing in a good spot. Echler, Jonathan Taylor.

I'm sure you were high on Jonathan Taylor last week as well. I had it Michelle Gibson, Taylor, Sanders, if Boston Scott is out, Elijah Mitchell, James Connor, Leonard Fernett, and then Jamal Williams, Joe Mixin on draft Kings. I had Gibson as my kind of top priority. Over Sony Michelle? Yeah, I mean, I didn't end up playing Sony Michelle. And, you know, because I'm also thinking about where I can get 35 to 40 points. I'm always thinking about where I can get like separator scores. Darrell Henderson's best game this year is what, like 22, 25 points, and he's top 20 points a couple times.

And I mean, I've watched Sony Michelle, I haven't missed a Patriots game in decades, right? like Sony Michelle doesn't do anything that impresses me or makes me feel like he's a higher probability than Henderson of getting a 30 point game. And so salary kind of goes out the window a little bit in terms of if I'm thinking about ceiling. And so yeah, Gibson was at the top for me. And then Connor, because again, I felt like the scoring expectations were high for the Cardinals and Connor's going to be involved in all aspects of the game, has a good shot at 25 plus

touches obviously failed to score down in the one yard line several times and Kyler ran in a couple touchdowns. I was expecting the ankle to be more of a concern for Kyler than obviously it was. And so expect those touchdowns to go to Connor. And then kind of a decision point between Jamal Williams and Miles Sanders and Tony Michelle and kind of figured that Michelle, if everything comes together, he's getting 20 to 25. And I felt like Jamal Williams' chances of getting there were higher, like Michelle could actually have a 30-point game if just all the touchdowns go through him, and Jamal Williams' chance with a 30-point one were pretty low because you just don't expect the Lions to put up a lot of points. But in terms of like median expectation,

Jamal Williams just with the past catching work, and then taking into account like the ownership gap, if one guy is twice as highly owned, he has to outscore the other guy twice as often, and I just didn't see that. But I loved, I mean, I loved all those plays. That was what made the week so unique was usually it's like you're scraping around to try to figure out which couple running backs you feel comfortable enough with these days. And it was this rare random week where all these guys had like 80% snap rate expectations and 20 plus touch. But you muted yourself, J.M. I haven't heard anything you've said for the past 30 seconds. Well, there you go. Where did we leave off? Do you know?

No, sorry. Okay. But yeah, it was, I wish I could go back and play the week again. There was just a lot of, a lot of, it was rare to have that many running back to like a 20 plus touch expectation and an 80% plus snap rate expectation. And so, yeah, it was, it was, again, like I said, disappointing for me just because a lot of times, a lot of times I feel like people want to control things too much. And they want to predict everything just right. I tried to take advantage of that by letting everybody kind of overrate their ability to predict everything. And so it was the rare week where it was like, oh, I'm going to play this prediction game and try to

beat everybody at that game because I felt like that was the way to win this last week. And I kind of got there and just didn't quite pull the trigger on that actual roster that was my last roster I built. What I ended up doing, by the way, was I was back and forth before like the Jalen Hertz news became more legitimate, like, oh, he's probably going to miss this game. I was on Derek Carr. And so, like, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that was kind of where I was looking was Derek Carr.

And what I thought was interesting was Renfro was going to be popular and Moreau was going to be popular. There have been eight games, had been eight games this year where Henry Ruggs or Deshaun Jackson had like, where Jackson was actually playing like 40 plus snaps, where they actually had this role. And in three of those eight games. games, Carr plus that downfield threat had combined for 40 to 50 points. In all three of those games, Waller and Renfro had bombed, or Waller slash Moreau and Renfro had

bombed. And so it was a really nice, like sneaky leverage play to play Carr, who was going to be decently popular, but Carr with Deshaun Jackson and basically say, if this hits, it's not only helping my roster, but it's hurting all of the Moreau and Renfro roster. as we got deeper into the week and more certainty opened up with the savings on minchu. I started heavily reconsidering that. What was interesting, though, was that Minchu plus Devante Smith was basically the exact same price as Carr plus Deshaun Jackson. It was a $100 difference.

And so I kept thinking in terms of like in binary terms of Minchew plus Devante or car plus Deshaun Jackson. And Minchew plus Devante had a higher like median projection. But if Carr plus Deshaun Jackson hit, I, felt like it was going for a higher ceiling and better leverage, like hurting these, these Renfro and Moreau rosters. So yeah, I ended up pulling the trigger there, which obviously that game did not play out the way that I wanted it to in terms of the passing attacks.

And that was kind of part of what I bet on was like a barbell type approach, was either this is hitting really well or it's missing completely and I'm out of the running. But it was more risk than I probably needed to take on once all of this other stuff opened up Yeah, I saw I saw car getting a lot of buzz and I really had no interest. I just couldn't trust him without Waller unless you think like Moreau's just going to be a seamless transition there. I think that really, really hurts him. I think my process was awesome. Like it's frustrating that this is the first week. I went almost full contrarian when this is like the first week where like everything played out almost exactly as I said it would. No, I did think Sony Michelle was. far and away the best play of the slate. Because if you look, you know, he's been getting 30% of the snaps, seven carries, three targets. And so he was a much better play in my eye than Daryl Henderson has been. He played 97% of the snaps. With Elijah Mitchell, my RB5, and Joe Mix and my RB9, I said it really came down to game script where these sort of guys, like Mitchell, you know,

if the 49ers win this, you can lock in like 27 carries. If they lose, you know, you're looking at like 18 to 22. And like that's just in and of itself, like a major difference. Of course, you know, near end zone work and things like that. And yeah, the spread was, they were both favored, but the spread was really close. And so you have to factor in a lot of volatility to those plays. But, you know, they're clearly amazing GPP plays. For Ned, I said, was basically Jonathan Taylor and wins.

They won. He keeps seeing ridiculously good passing down usage. He's a bell cow, and he needs to be viewed as a top six fantasy running back. Jonathan Taylor, I was saying, you know, you should view him as identical to Derek Henry in this Texans matchup. The Colts offense now runs their offense to the same degree that 10% percent. Tennessee did with Henry where you heard Frank Reich say, so we're now a one-back team. And as such, we have to get creative in the way we use our running back. I still want to run the ball 25, 30, 35 times per game, but we have to get creative in the way we do that with RPO's and things

of that nature. And so to me, it was just Derek Henry, similar efficiency, but he's been getting targets. I don't think he did last week, but he had been getting targets. It's just a perfect matchup. Wide receivers, I mean, I think there's more to learn from this because it wasn't perfect. I had a Cooper Cup, Chris Godwin, Brandon Ayuk, Deonté Johnson, Darnel Mooney, Michael Pittman, Hunter Renfro, Josh Reynolds. And so Iyuk, again, the thing I said with him is it's a literal, like bottom three, maybe bottom two matchup. The Seahawks have been superb against outside wide receivers, against wide receiver ones.

And the matchup was they're a top, tight end funnel. So why wouldn't we think that's George Kittle? Mooney, I mean, he had a string of excellent games, but he's definitely a volatile player, like the catch rate on the obscene amounts of volume he's been getting extremely low. So definitely a volatile play. Pitman, I liked him for tournaments as leverage off of Jonathan Taylor, where they're very negatively correlated together. But Pittman's been amazing. And he's actually

PFF's number one wide receiver by separation rate and by a decent margin. So he might be way better than anyone thinks or anyone really realizes. But at the same time, if it's a Jonathan Taylor game, he's screwed on volume. And I had Justin Jefferson as a time. I had Justin Jefferson as a top three play on fan duel, but not on Draft Kings. He was just a little too expensive, but, and Adam Thielen went down on what, the third play of the game. So, um, but outside of that, yeah, I think Rob, Rob Ronkowski, second best tight end play on draft Kings Kittal, best tight end play on Fanduel. Yeah, so finally a week that made sense. And of course, I, I, took the opposite approach on my own lineups. I'm pretty sure that this next week is going to be

kind of flip flip back the other way i don't know if you've looked ahead at all but yeah i looked at it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah jake triby does our first look dfs article and i took a look at it and it was i'm like are you sure about this guy are you sure about that guy i can just like you can poke holes in every single he's like no no no no just look at pricing it's really great yeah look at the slate it's going to be an ugly one for sure um so we were talking before we got on air um this will probably be the last recap pod with both of us because next week my family does our Christmas on Monday, Tuesday before we travel until the earliest we'd be able to do the pod is Wednesday. And then I'll have two weeks with really bad internet connectivity at my in-laws.

So what I want to do before, which by the way, I think for any of you listeners, I think Scott's going to keep things going either with a guest or solo pods, which I did a couple of last year. but before I'm out of here and done annoying all of you and done annoying Scott who by the way Scott you have like resting bitch face today you just look angry so I'm going to try to cheer you up a little bit what I want to do is I liked your naked bitch you a joke by the way I didn't I didn't laugh like drinking something but that was a good one as long as I get a smile out of you today it's a win some thoughts your way. We're getting to kind of obviously crunch time in DFS like the last five weeks of the season, but also we're basically about to enter playoffs for season long.

And there are some interesting situations, scenarios, whether injury driven or just player driven, that I wanted to throw some names at you and get your thoughts for the people. So first one is Ramandre Stevenson, assuming that Damien Harris, is going to be out with this hamstring. Obviously, the Patriots on five, so they could come back, and Harris could be healthy. But when you see a guy, leave a game with a hamstring injury, come back in, and then very obviously visually tweak that injury. That's the type of situation where we often see a multi-week setup. So Remandre Stevenson, rest of season, thoughts on him. Yeah. So I really like him. This is a player. I was way,

higher on than anyone else in the off season. I wrote it up like this where, you know, every guy has a type, some like them, big, small, tall, short, skinny, thick. And like Ramandre Stevenson is exactly my type where he's, you know, big, thick, built like a truck. He's slow in a straight line, but his lateral agility is special. He moves like a 205 pound back. And he's like a 231 pound running back. And, you know, we saw last week, you know, this is an offense that runs through the ground game, that runs through the running backs. I'm hearing, Damien Harris is likely to miss the next few weeks. And, you know, what happened in Ramonjay's one start of the season, 20 carries, five targets hit the 100-yard bonus and

scored two touchdowns. I think that's firmly within the realm of possibilities. if you get Buffalo again in two weeks, that's the fantasy playoffs, and then they get the Jaguars and your championship. So he really could be a league winner. I think you have to view him like, remember peak Patriots, Lagart-Blunt, where DFS every single week, you check to see the spread. And if the Patriots are favored by seven or more points, you just play Lagart Blunt and DFS.

And if not, you just fade him. and if they're favored by seven or more points, he drops like 25 plus 80% of the time. I think it's like that, but I think it's legitimately a little bit better because we have seen Ramandra used in the passing game two pretty good success. And that was an aspect of his game that was underrated as a prospect. I have a really good staff for you. I have to pull it up. But yeah, just a player I loved way more than draft capital.

he had a bad pro day that made me waffle and, you know, unfortunately dropped him down below Trey Sermin and some others. But yeah, so since 2015, there are only four power five running backs to average at least 100 rushing yards per game and 35 receiving yards per game in a single season. Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, and Ramandre Stevenson. So he does have some past catching chops to his game. but yeah, I like him a lot. Yeah, I actually, I was loading up on him in bestball before the Patriots preseason games when he was like going on.

And then he exploded in preseason. Everywhere. Then he exploded in preseason. He jumped up to like the 15th, 16th round, even 14th round in best ball drafts. But I was doing like a Patriots backfield draft where I would get Damian Harris, James White, Sony Michelle, and and Ramander Stevenson, figuring that you get a good starting score out of that group every week. and then Michelle got traded, which helped even more because kind of spread that out a little bit. Okay, sticking in that same division, Corey Davis is now out for the rest of the season,

but Zach Wilson is back under center. Elijah Moore thoughts, rest of the way. Yeah, I mean, this is my guy, you know, absolutely love Elijah Moore. You rank second among all wide receivers and fantasy points scored since week nine. That's despite bottom one levels of course. quarterback play, Zach Wilson, Flacco, Mike White, Josh Johnson, PFF's number four highest-rated wide receiver since week eight, ranks top six in separation rate across the full season. And then last week was the most impressive performance to me because, all right, it was his third

20-point game over his last five games, but he finally saw true wide receiver one levels of volume, 12 targets, 187 air yards. He led all wide receivers in XFP. was also 48% more than his prior high. So it was a massive jump. And that would really help him offset the poor quarterback play, which clearly has been an issue. But the guy's awesome. You're going to keep starting him as a mid-range wide receiver two or better. Does it hurt to be right all the time?

It's delayed. You've got to wait a little while sometimes. I was so depressed, you know, week six. but I was saying prayers. I was saying prayers. So thank God for Elijah Moore not making me look like an idiot. All right, bingles. Let's move to the AFC North.

We've got T. Higgins versus Jamar Chase where I feel like Jamar Chase is that when a player has a huge high profile, huge game, the perception of them changes. Obviously, I don't mean as a player. Like Jamar Chase is an awesome player, but I just mean their role. in an offense. And I think that Jamar Chase was being viewed, like when his price tag got up into whatever, like the high 7Ks, low 8Ks, he's not been seeing the volume to support that. He just has that type of upside. Now all of a sudden, T. Higgins has been kind of blowing up. You have any thoughts on that situation? Do you think that it's just like, these guys have

always been this evenly matched and we're just seeing the variants play out differently? Or do you think that we're going to see one sort of emerge over the other down the stretch? Yeah, no. So I think Jemar Chase is like an elite, elite prospect. I think what could be happening in recent weeks is defenses are really going out of their way to stop him with safety help, brackets, double coverage, things like that. And it really tips the scales in favor of T. Higgins. I think, I think that's a legitimate thing. I tried to get those numbers from a buddy who still works at PFF, but he was like, even if you want to look at that, like don't really, it's hard to trust it. haven't perfected that yet. The other thing is, is really bad luck. He was due for a massive regression

anyway, just because he was the most elite wide receiver ever in terms of, you know, yards per deep target. That's something that always regresses to the mean. But he's also, the drops that were supposedly an issue in preseason, that's really coming to haunt him. He has six drops over his last five games, and those drops couldn't be coming at less opportune times. Two in the end. And end zone three deep and those are worth somewhere between 6.5 and 11.5 fantasy points per game, that's massive. That's just absolutely massive. And then you look at the numbers. I mean, he had 77, 159, 97, 201 yards in four games, and then the last five are all, you know, less than 55 yards. So he's a tricky one to, I mean, I'd still, I'd still have confidence in him

turning things around. But yeah, that one's that one's tricky. It's just like a lot of things out of this control or out of your control. You can't really, it's hard to factor that into a start-sit analysis. Yeah. And as, as Deonti Johnson could tell you, sometimes you have to have some drops in order to be the greatest. It's just part of the profile. So maybe George is just taken. I mean, it drops are a thing that not sticky at all year over year and especially in a player's rookie season to sophomore season. So long term, don't worry too much. All right. And again, again, it's like the least opportune times. It's all end zone and deep targets where like if he catches it, he breaks 60 yards to the house. Devante Adams has

me blocked on Twitter because as a rookie, I kept, I kept tweeting about how he has like 10 drops and eight have come in the end zone. So that's worth like 50 fantasy points. And I just kept tweeting about it and like hey that that guy turned out all right and it's it's kind of the same thing with jimarchase i love that you're blocked on twitter by devante adams put that feather in your cap all right let's go to the afc south the titans so a couple things here Julio jones looks like he could be coming back how interesting is that and then this backfield how do you see this backfield shaking out is it is it Hilliard and foreman kind of splitting the work moving forward or do you see one guy taking over down the stretch. Yeah, I see the Titans completely falling apart. So the only running back

who would interest me would be the SCAP pack. And maybe that's Jeremy McNichols when he returns from his concussion. Or maybe it's Dantrell-Hillard who looks like a SCAP back plus. We've seen without Derek Henry the SCAPC back getting double-digit targets in like maybe three of three games where they've trailed. But maybe. Maybe you've been, you know, maybe Dantrell-Hillard could be a little bit more than that. They signed him off the street just a few weeks ago, but Adam Kaplan said they really love him, he really impressed them. So maybe that's the guy. You know, the ground and pound early down workhorse doesn't really intrigue me in a team. I don't think is going to be very good.

And then Julio Jones, I don't know how you could trust him at all. His body just might be broken at this point. The Titans could literally go five and oh down the stretch and and fall apart. They have the Jags and the Texans as far as that's their first and last games of these last five. And then in between that, they've got the Steelers and then at home 49ers and dolphins. Like all of those are still winnable games for this kind of broken down Titans, which is crazy because if the Patriots had lost on Monday night, the Titans would be the number one seed currently. Like the Titans could legitimately have one of the higher seeds in the playoffs. Obviously, they could they could lose to the Steelers, the Titans, the Dolphins, and kind of fall way down the ranks. But it's an interesting

setup because they've been set up for this from like A.J. Brown and Derek Henry and they're a different team now. But they got enough out of those guys that, yeah, yeah, it's going to be an interesting run down the stretch. In the AFC West, the, let's go to the Chargers. Let's do the charges here. Keenan Allen on the COVID list, Mike Williams, you basically back in this downfield role again, he had a couple weeks where we've seen some shorter targets, but you see them just kind of emphasizing Mike Williams and Austin Echler and making that the offense if Keenan Allen misses. What was that one more time? Sorry. If Keenan Allen misses on the COVID list, do you see the chargers just kind of turning the offense into Mike Williams plus Austin

plus Austin Echler, or do you think that we see a little bit more of this, you know, Mike Williams downfield and Echler underneath and somebody else underneath? I don't know. I would go all in on Mike Williams for DFS, though. Since 2018, there are four games Allen either sat out or played on fewer than 35% of snaps, and Williams averaged 22.5 fantasy points per game over that span. I definitely see him as the primary beneficiary has a really good role. This year, very productive. And I think the coach will get creative in how to use him correctly, scheme him open.

I really like Mike Williams, like as a player. And I really liked, obviously, really liked the way that they were using him at the start of the season. It's been weird the way that they've kind of shifted his role as the season has gone along. because I think that he's, I mean, he's such a great weapon if you kind of use him at all levels of the field. And they've kind of lost that a little bit. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see if Keenan Allen's out this week, what that means for Mike Williams this weekend. NFC. I want to go to the Panthers in the NFC South. Matt Ruhl thinks that the way to win NFL games is to run the ball 30 plus times.

and Christian McCaffrey's out and Joe Brady's been fired and Cam Newton is going to be under center. Do you think that there's a chance that Cam Newton, after his awful showing in his last start, just goes totally overlooked and is actually a very viable quarterback option in season long end in DFS over the next couple weeks? Yeah, I mean, the thing about Cam Newton is like he ranks, what, fifth in rushing touchdowns over the past two seasons despite missing half the season. So just that aspect of his game makes him so a huge upside, you know, really safe floor. Like he just needs, he just needs those goal line carries and no McCaffrey now. I think Amir Abdullah could be a thing. Like this is a bad team that has no business running 30 to 35 times per game.

I think Joe Brady really saved the Panthers from that rule and then die to martyr. But I mean, if you're talking that levels of rushing volume, Amir Abdullah could be a thing. Yeah, the Panthers play the Falcons this week. And I think it's an opportunity to target this rushing attack in a week where other people will take a wait and see approach. I think that's an interesting one to pay attention to, especially after how bad cam looked this last week. And there are a lot fewer, like, interesting scenarios in the NFC. Obviously, Thielen is probably going to miss some time and Justin Jefferson is going to be. an alpha in that offense, but not much to explore there.

I think probably the last one I want to hit on here is this Rams passing attack with Odell Beckham in there. Odell Beckham had a 10 target game and a five target game so far. Obviously, Cooper Cup is the alpha there. But do you see there being some more games kind of down the stretch where O'Dell Beckham has a shot to actually, like, blow up? Or do you think that's Fool's Gold at this point? I'm inclined to, you know, just not really chase.

And he's dealing with two really bad shoulder injuries and he hasn't been good for like three or four years. I'd say don't overlook Van Jefferson, who has 14.3, 11.8.8.8.8.18.18.13. 16.1 fantasy points over his last six games. He's been like a really steady high-end wide receiver three. but yeah this is this is the cooper cup show for forever Cooper Cup is awesome it's funny because I remember what was this was his rookie year 2018 or 2019 and I was telling my buddy who was asking me questions for a season long league

and I was like oh draft Cooper Cup and he was like I don't know who that is and like that's how low profile Cooper Cup was as a rookie was like if you weren't paying close attention, you really didn't know who Cooper Cup was. He was drafted in what, the seventh round, got a lot of buzz that year in training camp. But man, he is, he is like ascended in ways that you couldn't have anticipated even just last year. But it's been fun to watch him this season. I agree. Like, I think any opportunity where they have to lean on him, that's what they're going to do in this offense. Any other thoughts before we get out of here, DFS season long love life.

I'll just say it's really funny. So I never win my home league. It's like every year my toughest league and I have no idea why. And the flukiest things always happen with my teams. I have way better success in high stakes. But we have one guy who barely checks his team who last year, the only player he cared about was Cooper Cup. And like when he drafted him, he was like, I won the Cooper Cup. Like it was the Stanley Cup. And this year is the same thing. He only wanted Cooper Cup and he got sniped the

pick before by someone else. And that guy is dominating the league now. And it was just like so weird. Like I had endless debates with some other fantasy analysts over Cup and Woods because that was such a tricky situation to rank. And the argument like the people on the Wood side would have was like, well, Woods gets all those rushing attempts near the end zone. And like that was the tiebreaker for so many people. And it's just like so funny in hindsight now where cup is, you know, Jerry Rice. But yeah, I mean, that's that's fantasy. Yeah. I love these wide receivers who honestly Hunter Renfro is is starting to become one of these. But you can put Antonio Brown like vintage Antonio Brown into this category of just like guys who are so good in in tight spaces of shaking a defender

that they don't need the same speed or like the measurables that everybody else pays attention to and they just keep getting better and better at that area of the game and it's just so hard to cover them because they can they can do it in the short areas and the intermediate areas and the downfield areas that once they have one-on-one coverage whether it's in zone or man like just they're alone with a guy. They can get away from that guy. And if you have a quarterback who can target that guy at the right times and in the right ways, it can be pretty unstoppable.

So, yeah, it's been fun to watch the Cooper Cup show this season. I was just talking with Mike Renner and DMs about, you know, athleticism for wide receivers. And I was saying, like, well, athleticism is really overrated in general, but especially for wide receivers. And it basically, like, doesn't matter at all for slot wide receivers for whatever reason. I was like my model had Cooper Cup as a bottom five percentile athlete, which is, you know, just horrific. And then like Hunter Renfro exists. Like he looks like an insurance analyst.

And like how is he, but you watch the highlights and like he breaks ankles. And it's like just just create, but like route running is something that doesn't really show up in three cone or 40 or anything like that. And just there needs to be a metric for, you know, can move like that. And, you know, Cooper Cup, Hunter Renfro. Like Hunter Renfro this offseason, there was a bunch of hype over him dominating Jalen Ramsey. And it's just like, hey, that's a Trump card is when you can, that short area quickness, little dance moves, you know, pristine route running. Crazy. Yeah, I remember that. And Ramsey was talking about like, oh, well, you guys don't see the coverages that we were calling. And and he wasn't really beating me.

It's like, no, he probably was actually beating you. Yeah, like, Jerry Rice, same thing. And even like a guy like Devante Adams, I was watching a Devante Adams route a couple weeks ago where, so Devante Adams has this thing where he always wants to square up the cornerback, if they're playing like outside leverage or inside leverage, he squares them up like shoulders even regardless of whether he's breaking inside or outside. But it was interesting, like he was running a,

slant and the corner had outside leverage on them. So most guys just run that route. But Devante Adams, like, did his little hop step to the outside and squared up the corner and then still broke inside for the for the slant. And obviously that sets up stuff for later in the game, but just watching like these technicians at the line of scrimmage and some of the things that they do is go so far beyond athleticism. And that's why the guys like David Najoku, who people fawn over for years and wait for their breakouts because they're athletes. They don't end up succeeding in the ways that some of these other guys do. I guess that's it for this week. Do you have anything else to add before we get out of here? Yeah, I'll just say on Devante Adams. He's one of those guys

where you watch the tape and you, it's like hard to understand or quantify like how he's the best wide receiver in football where it's like nothing super flashy, but he just nails all those intricate levels of his game where it's just like perfection and like he doesn't have freak athleticism or anything like that and so you just watch it and it's just like it's just perfect football but it's it's hard to you know it's it's hard to quantify or explain to someone like why he's so amazing and that and why you and i that's why you and i do what we do beyond just stats and measurables and all that stuff because there's so much more to the game. And it's so much more fun to understand that side of the game, in my opinion.

Well, Scott, for the people. Jayam. I am J.M. To Win. I want to thank you guys, as always, for hanging out. If I'm not here next week, I want to thank you for hanging out with us this season. Scott's always a blast, always a pleasure to do this. We will see you guys back here next week. at the very least, Scott will see you back here next week,

and we will see you at the top of the leaderboards. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points Podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform, and come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.