Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Week 15 Waiver Wire and Injuries

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

2021 Week 15 Waiver Wire and Injuries --- 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 for the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.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. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Fantasy Points podcast. The Fantasy Points Injury and Waver Wire podcast on Tuesdays, which we've done every Tuesday of the NFL season. There are too many Tuesdays in the NFL season. Edwin, it is week 15, and COVID is spreading around the NFL, like wildfire.

And it's, I think the most testing, Adam Shepard said the most positive test since COVID began, not just this season. It's spreading like wildfire around the NFL. We're going to talk to Dr. Edwin Ports about injuries and these COVID protocols. Then we're going to talk to Tom Broley about who can help your fantasy team as you get to the playoffs. my name's Joe Dolan and of course he is Dr. Edwin Poris Edwin. Congratulations, my friend. First on your new job in the sports world.

So, congratulations. Tell the people about this. Yeah, so I appreciate that, Joe. I am the new, one of the new minor league physical therapist for the twins. So it was a whirlwind of two weeks within eight days. I had a job offer. And it was kind of a crazy story. And I didn't anticipate it.

whatsoever. And they offered me eight days after Thanksgiving. I had a message from one of the employees and ended up accepting the job. So that is, it's a crazy story. Like I said, but I'm super appreciative, super excited. It's a quick turnaround. I have to be out in Fort Myers, Florida, where the home base is by January 17th, Joe. So after you win, after you win all your fantasy championships, that's where I'll be heading. Well, congratulations, my friend. I hope we so have you on the podcast. I believe that's part of the package deal as a matter of. Absolutely. Yes, I will still be here. Yeah, so that's incredible. So you're going to be, you have insane credibility.

That's awesome because I'm not credible in any way whatsoever. I just talk a lot. So that's great for you, man. Congratulations. Make sure you follow him on Twitter at FB injury doc. Might not have to change it to BB injury doc. Aha, yeah. I like what you did there, Joe.

That was the worst pun that you could ever The worst joke to start off the week. I don't have one. So we're going to have to roll up. That's good. That's good. I came up with one off the top of my head. So I'm delirious right now.

I'm tired. But at least I don't think I have COVID. At least I don't. Half the NFL seems to have it. Edwin, I mean, and for fantasy purposes, all I can say is just hope you get lucky. I mean, I don't know what else to say. I think there was like 30-some positive tests. Just, Jamal Williams, Alexander,

the entire Miami backfield, Darrell Henderson, Canarius Tony, Tyler Higbee, just what are the protocols break it down for us? What are the chances these guys play this week? I think Alexander Madison's unvaccinated, so he won't. But what are the chances some of these guys play this week? Yeah, so it really depends on their vaccination status, and we are not certain of what their vaccination status is. It also depends on whether they're considered a close contact or if they test positive themselves. Remember, if an unvaccinated player test positive, they have to isolate for 10 days minimum, even if they're asymptomatic, right? And if they're experiencing symptoms, they have to isolate until they pass all these testing protocols and the 10 days.

So being unvaccinated and testing positive basically fries your week. And depending on when the team plays, could fry two NFL weeks for you. If the players vaccinated, they can come back within 48 hours as long as they test positive, basically for 48 hours. are straight and are asymptomatic. Close contacts get a little trickier. If a vaccinated player test positive, but they're considered a close contact, they do have to isolate immediately, but if they remain asymptomatic and they have two negative tests within 24 hours, they could technically rejoin the team after 48 hours.

Now, unvaccinated players who are considered high risk close contact, they have to isolate for five days, even if the initial test that they get back is negative. they're tested every day. If the test, if each test for five days comes back negative, they're then permitted to return to the facility. So this is a crapshoot keeping track of it, Joe, because we do not know for a fact which player is or is not considered vaccinated. And we don't know unless Schefter lets us know, this player, you know, is vaccinated. They're not vaccinated and or they are close contact or not or they actually had a positive test. So a lot of times it's hard.

It's just a crapshoot to keep track of all of these. So really you just have to keep a close eye on the on the injury tracker over over at the site. And that's where we'll update most of this stuff. Yeah. So basically it's it's a bunch of mumbo jumbo. I don't know where they came up with this stuff, but it's clearly affecting the fantasy playoffs. And guys who test positive are much less likely, even if they're vaccinated to come back in a short period of time as we saw with Keenan Allen. So let's just cross your fingers, hope to die, stick a needle in your eyes.

and just hope that your players don't test positive for COVID, but it is out there, guys. So unfortunately, it's happening at the fantasy playoffs. Okay, something else that was unfortunately happening as you're playing for the fantasy playoffs is Lamar Jackson plays like 10 snaps and then is out for the rest of the game with an ankle sprain. Now, John Harbaugh yesterday, oftentimes we will see coaches be pretty optimistic earlier in the week and then things change.

But no high ankle sprain for Lamar Jackson. Harbaugh thinks he's got a chance to play this week, Edwin. What did you see on film? What's your read on the situation? Yeah, so it's a really difficult angle to see based on a guess, honestly, because it really is a guess, because the defender's covering his ankles in every which way you could possibly look at this injury. It does look like it's just a lateral run-of-the-mill ankle sprain.

Now, you can look at it as an ankle sprain that's going to last about a week or it's going to last two to three weeks depending on what his x-rays look like. You did see Diana Rusini, who's usually on top of these kind of things, report that it is not a high ankle sprain, sort of like you mentioned. And it did look on film like it was more than likely a lateral ankle sprain. And I do think that Lamar can be back next week. Typically, John Harbaugh is a little more optimistic than usual. So I wouldn't bank on that quite yet. The average return, depending on which study you're looking at for lateral ankle sprains is somewhere between seven to 20, 21 days.

so obviously one to three weeks is what you're looking at. But what you did avoid is the Kyler Murray type, you know, ankle injury. You did avoid the high ankle mechanism, which would definitely put him out next week. So you're going to want to watch the reports. And honestly, this is one of the cases where I know you always hammer the table, you know, analyst hammer the table for start your studs. If Lamar is DNP all week and then plays, I would be nervous for his upside. and I would think about starting another quarterback in the fantasy playoffs.

Because if he comes back and we don't think he's 100%, obviously that limits the rushing upside. Obviously that limits the entire reason why you're starting him. So we'll keep you updated on that. But that's something to just consider as we head to the waiver wire. Let's now go to Josh Allen, another quarterback who he's got that rushing upside. And now I know, I know you were out there on the street. saying, look, running quarterback. Lamar, Lamar got hurt trying to throw a pass, okay?

But it is kind of funny. Josh Allen, everybody's like, they need to do more design runs, more design runs, and they do that. And he picks up a turf toe. And turf toe, as we have determined on this podcast, Edmund, I'm going to use the scientific term, is a bitch. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes, turf toe's a bitch. I'm glad that you're paying attention in these classes, Joe. Okay. So he had 100 yards rushing. And what you need to know about these rushing quarterbacks, First of all, go to my Twitter profile. Go to AFP injury doc. You can read an entire breakdown of rushing quarterbacks, mobile quarterbacks,

versus non-mobile quarterback's injury rates based on thousands of samples, thousands of instances. And there's really not a lot of hard evidence for this has happened. Now, of course, is running safer than, you know, sliding or throwing a pass? No. But we also don't know for a fact how much this running actually impacts players. And if they're smart, which Josh, Josh Allen, you wouldn't necessarily categorize in the smartest or safest of players did suffer a turf toe.

So what you know about turf toe, for example, is that Patrick Mahomes played through an entire rupture of the bottom of his big toe for the Super Bowl. And I think he played through it actually through the entire playoffs. And he has actually, Patrick Mahomes has gone on the record interviews and said that when he was running during the Super Bowl, he actually had to curl up his toes so that he didn't have to press through that toe. So this can be extremely painful, but he can still be effective. Josh Allen can. It's not something that, you know, I was just talking about benching Lamar Jackson. We don't think right now that it's a severe injury based on everything that the bills are saying themselves.

And so this is actually a reason to not bench Josh Allen. This is one of the scenarios where I've seen fancy players make big mistakes, go Galaxy Brain outthink themselves and bench Josh Allen because it's fancy playoffs. Don't do that. Don't bench Josh Allen because of this turftoe. Austin Echler picks up an ankle injury. Now, apparently had an ankle bruise, and it kept him out,

limited him in practice a little bit, Edwin last week. Then I see him get tackled in the game against the Giants. And his, it looked like he kind of got a helmet to the ankle. He limbs off the field. They tape him up excessively. I mean,

and he probably still doesn't have that shoe off. But he doesn't come back into the game. Brandon Staley said he could have returned to the game, wanted to return to the game, but the game is kind of out of hand so they didn't put them in there. I saw somebody else, it wasn't you, but I saw somebody else opine that it might be a high ankle mechanism. They have a short turnaround. They play on Thursday.

They play the Kansas City Chiefs, which is another complicating factor because it's a huge game for the division. Austin Echler is a star. There is a lot of layers to this onion here with Austin Echler. Help me peel them back a little bit. What did you see? Well, first of all, how dare you consider you? injury content from anybody else, Joe. How dare you?

I cheated on you. I'm sorry. You did. You did. You, you, you injury horror. So, okay, I have not seen this injury because, Joe, I'm coming back from a wedding this weekend and I was on a plane most of the day yesterday, which was terrible. I don't even want to freaking, I don't even want to talk about it.

So I need to go back and watch this injury. Now, there is a bit of concern for high ankle, always. always. But again, I need to go back and check the film and see exactly what went on. It does. I'm actually pulling it up right now. It does look like it was a potential high ankle on the left as I'm watching this video. But you also see a bit of his right ankle for lateral sprain. Moral of the story. This is something that's going to be concerning for Austin Echler moving forward because we've seen, as you did with Dalvin Cook earlier this season, you are concerned for the partial sprains that players try to play through.

Now, yet another situation where just because you're in the fantasy playoffs and Austin Echler did, you know, he didn't practice three weeks, three days in a row and then he tries to give it a go. This is something that could backfire on you. These high ankle sprains are one of the few injuries where start your studs does not apply. So again, keep it locked here during the week. Prepare yourself to not have Austin Echler in the first place. and you unless depending on what your options are you might have to go another direction with what the hell happened with tj hockinson yeah okay i don't know because i was literally writing the

injury report and i was thinking to myself oh no big deal hawkinson should be here we didn't see any injury to his hand we i didn't i didn't hear anything you know the circles that i run in on twitter usually have something on them and this was this sort of came out of nowhere um but yeah apparently he was uh limited in practice and when i was doing that i was doing that i was the injury report. The Friday report still weren't out. He has gone LP, DMP, LP, LP, this year. So I wasn't really that concerned. Turns out that he's just out now. So this, this injury seems to have happened either last week and it was sort of under the radar or it happened in practice. So this is something that you, you get concerned about like potentially he got stepped on. It's probably something

less severe than like the Dawson Knox thing, at least as of right now that we think of. But we don't really know what's going to happen. So you had another situation where you're really going to have to pay attention to the injury reports, pay attention to the site over at injury insights. This is going to be a big heavy week on the injury insights. Edwin, what is monkey knife fight? Well, it's the fastest growing daily fantasy sports site on the planet. And it's a daily fantasy sports operator offering a unique style of player props. One of the things we love about MKF is you simply don't have to spend all day analyzing salaries to create that one lineup that finally makes you a millionaire, like on some other sites. The third biggest operator in DFS offers all the major

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You can also find out more information on the fantasy points homepage. Tell me about plantar fascia. Now, this is not plantar fasciitis, which is, I think, like an inflammation. This is a full-on tear for Tony Pollard. It doesn't really sound fun. But I've heard tail, Edwin. I'm out there. I'm listening.

I have my ear to the ground. that a full-on tear of the planar fascia is better than a partial tear of the planar fascia. Why is that the case? What is the deal with Tony Pollard? I still can't imagine it's good. I can't imagine he's like, oh, man, I tore it. I want to do that again. But what can we expect from Tony Pollard?

Because it is very clear that Zeke Elliott is not 100% healthy either. Yeah. So the thing about these reports, Joe, is that we don't really know how, you know, how true. these reports are Tony Paul is out here telling us he's got a full tear of the of the planner fascia the planner plate that's possible it's it's more possible that he has a partial tear just because I don't know it just it just seems like these players always exaggerate the types of tears they have but it's totally possible now depending on your perspective depending on your positional demands and depending on what the team wants to do this could be an injury that was a

lot more minor than they let on, but they did want to sit him out because the playoffs are coming around. The Cowboys are contenders. And, you know, they need their, their RB1 on the field. So they're going to give him a little bit of rest. Now, the reason that people will say that a partial torn plate is more painful than a full torn plate is because of the fibers that are remaining are doing 100% of the work and there are only 50% of the fibers. It's the best way to think about it. So that's totally plausible. Now, I saw yesterday, which I thought was really funny. And this goes to the fragility of these reports and when their player reported specifically.

Yesterday, Tony Pollard didn't do anything different from Friday or Saturday. He didn't, you know, get mad. He wasn't magically cured. He didn't wake up in his planar fascia was back together. Mike McCarthy comes out and he said he's feeling, quote, a lot better about Tony Poller's fascia. So we don't really, Mike McCarthy actually has been pretty forthright with injuries. He was pretty forthright with Michael Gallup. He was pretty forthright with Amari Cooper.

everything that that's gone on in the in the in the in the training room he's been pretty honest about so if he's feeling better about tony pollard it was probably a sprain a mild sprain and you might see tony paulard back this week so i wouldn't be too concerned about this i think this was a little overblown okay oh fantastic interesting nice take there edwin i think that the people are going to like to hear that dj more uh looks like he's got i think a little a little hamstring is what they said uh that never makes me feel good DJ Moore's hamstrings, Joe,

are probably the size of your head. So when they say he's got a little hamstring, uh, I think that's a, I think that's a bit of a miss number. So yes, he's got a little bit of a hamstring, which means essentially that he is to a certain group of subpopulation,

who, you know, has DJ Moore. He's volatile. He's volatile. Now, typically these result in about one, one point four games missed,

but of all the injuries on, you know, on the on the docket on the menu these are the most volatile as you saw with christian mcalfrey as you saw with dionre hopkins as you've seen with julio jones over the last year plus these are extremely volatile injuries and if teams don't give players the time to recover they will recur even if the teams do give the the player time to recover these tend to occur so it's one of these things you're going to have to again watch the injury report understand that if you throw him in a lineup next week week 15 the fantasy playoffs he is high

highly volatile unless he can get in at least a, you know, one full participation in practice without any setbacks. You can't be too confident in DJ more quite yet. We have Terry McClaren, nasty looking concussion. I mean, he slammed his head off the turf on a horrible throw by Taylor Heineckee, a hospital ball from Taylor Heineke. And it put Terry McLaren in the hospital. Again, Edwin, we understand that. Concussions, you can't tell how bad they are just by how they looked, but you watch this, his head bounce off the turf and that was a pretty nasty looking hit for Terry McCorn. Yeah, you hate to see this. I mean, this is just, there's no way around it. It doesn't, it's never fun to watch it. We know one human get their head knocked

off the turf. For Terry McLaren, he is obviously in the protocol now. This is his second concussion since 2019. So there is, there are some studies showing that after two years, the impacts of a first concussion start to minimize in terms of, of recurrence. However, it still is a cumulative effect. This is a brain injury. Don't let anybody tell you any differently. These are brain injuries. So it's really going to be something you're going to have to take day by day. I've said this before on the podcast. This is another, you know, in addition to hamstring strains, another volatile timeline. Typically after their first concussion players can come back since this is his second, can come back within a week. Since this is the second

players do typically miss a week after their second concussion and further on. So he's not a slam dunk to get out of the protocol quite yet. These are extremely volatile situations. These are extremely volatile injuries. So make plans to be without Terry McLaurin completely. If he's active now, you do want to start him. He's going to be highly volatile, but you're going to want to start him if he's out there. So you're just going to have to pay attention again to the injury insights this week to see

if he can make it out of the protocol by week 15. Well, once again, as we always mentioned here on the podcast with concussions, as nasty and as serious as they are, you're not limited with a concussion. if you clear the protocol. You play. Yeah, exactly. It's very rare that you'll see a concussion, you know, I guess unless you're Brandon Staley, who did sit Bosa, which was a good idea, in my opinion.

You rarely see teams take it easy with concussions, which, you know, we could talk for an entire hour about, you know, the repercussions of that and whether that's a good idea or not. But yeah, if they pass clear the protocol, teams will put them out there 99.99% of the time. Yeah. All right. And we've got one more to get to. Kareem Hunt. He suffered an ankle injury.

Apparently wanted to come back into the game, Edwin. And they said no. And then all of a sudden, Kevin Spansky after game, he wanted to come back in. He's fine. Well, yesterday on Monday, he's like, well, we play Saturday. And, you know, it doesn't look like Kareem Hunt's going to be able to play. Did you see this injury?

What's your read on the injury? So no, another injury that I'm going to have to go back and watch, which is why you need to go to the injury tracker and bookmark it. I am going to talk about this a little bit further down the line, but he did, Stavansky did say that it's highly unlikely that that Hunt is going to play this week, which really just makes it Nick Chubb season. We've seen that when Chub is out and you and Tom will talk about this a lot more. There really isn't another, another guy that they use.

Durnis Johnson is somebody that comes to mind, obviously, but he has only been usable when Chubb and Hunter out. So this might be a multi-week absence for Kareem Hunt. I'll have to go back and watch the film on that one. All right. Edwin, thank you so, so much for your wonderful insights. Follow him on Twitter at FB Injury Doc. This guy is awesome.

He gets a job with the twins because of his unbelievable Twitter presence. But instead of just casting us to the side, he decides, you know what? I want to keep going with fantasy points, and he wants to keep going for you people. Edwin, that is awesome. And congratulations. Thank you for taking time out of your morning to talk to the people. continue on and have a wonderful day. I appreciate that, Joe, and I won't let you get off that easy.

My bill will be in the mail. I'll let you and Hans and take care of that one. All right. Well, we will. It's Christmas time. You know, we always like to take care of the people. Ben Cucanis, though. He's taking care of the sponsors.

He'll talk about that. And then after that, Broly will be here and we'll talk Waverwire. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Edwin, and welcome Tom to the podcast to talk Waverwire. Tom, it's week 15. And as I was talking about with Edwin, at this point with the freaking COVID going around. There's really very little you can do, but cross your fingers at this point when it

comes to that. But there are some replacements out there on the waiver wire who might be able to pick up. Maybe you had Miles Gaskin or Alexander Madison. There are some guys out there you might be able to pick up. But that's all I can tell you guys. I mean, it's just the worst time for it. But thanks for extending the season by a week NFL. You know, like seriously.

We really needed that. Who would have thought, John, this year has been more. chaotic than last year. I wouldn't have guessed that in a hundred years. I think it's because they relaxed the protocols like in building. Yes. For vaccinated folks. Completely right on that end. And like you said, it's the longer season here too. So I think coaches are, you know, not as stressed to get these guys back on the field,

you know, right away. They'll get these guys an extra week. So, you know, we have the COVID stuff. And then we have these guys maybe sitting out extra, you know, extra week or so. to get healthy. It's chaos right now. So if you've made it this far, you know, congratulations. You've done a heck of a job to get to this point

if you're still alive in your legs. You know, we do this waiver wire early look on Tuesdays, but you have to stay vigilant up until Sunday morning at this point. You know, keep checking news, keep checking Twitter for the latest COVID news. And, you know, up to inactos on Sunday morning. This is a full-time gig at this point. if you've been managed your teams a week 15 here. Yeah, so let's go to, let's first and foremost talk about Lamar Jackson.

Tom, quarterback is not great on the waiver wire. One of the simplest things you can do is maybe pick up that Tyler Huntley, who's played pretty damn well when he's had the opportunity to play for Lamar Jackson this year. But Tua Tua has a great matchup in week 15 against the Jets if you need it. Yeah, he scored 18 and a half fantasy. he points in this matchup earlier this season. And I don't think he had Devonte Parker for that game. He's been in and out of the lineup.

So he's expected to be back. He played before their by week. So unless he has some sort of setback, which he has had a couple times with this hamstring injury. But it looks like he'll be ready to go. So he'll have a full comp, you know, not a full compliment. Will Fuller probably isn't playing again this season.

But we're having, you know, at least Devante Parker and Jailen and Mike is sicky at his disposal here. And the Jets are, you know, the Dets are the Jets at this point. They got run over by the Saints offense, which has been pretty ennapt here recently. So, you know, the only, I guess, concern would be that the Jets can't keep pace and it's kind of a blowout game. But the dolphins don't have many much help at running back right now. They might not be able to run the ball out.

And, you know, so it might be more on two his shoulders. then anticipated into this game because, you know, the Jets have been the best matchup for running backs here. But they're having all kinds of issues in their backfield with COVID. Let's talk about that backfield right now because the guys who you might be able to pick up are out there. I mean, they're available in virtually every league. Duke Johnson, who they're elevating off the practice squad, and Malcolm Brown, who I think is on IR but is eligible to come off. Yes, he's been out a long time. had the quad injury.

I think he's been out since at least like week seven or week eight. They've kind of given the backfield to Miles Gaskin, but Gaskin and Ahmed went on COVID in the protocol there towards the end of last week.

So there's a chance that they're ready to go. It's usually in this seven to ten day range where guys start popping back, you know, come rejoining the team here. So they have a, I, would put above a 50% chance that these guys are back, but hardly a guarantee. And as we said, this Jets matchup has been, you know, the one you want to attack for fantasy

all season long here. I would put Malcolm Brown. It sounds, he's had a lot of time to recover from this injury. I think he's probably ready to go as long as he's been at least doing some work on the side for the last week or two. I think if he gets a full week of practice in here, he should be the number one guy. Gaskin and Ahmed can't play, but Duke Johnson isn't a bad, you know, secondary option here. But, you know, if you remember back to the preseason, they kind of wanted to give Malcolm Brown the starting job.

They were tinkering around with the backfield. They kind of even, I think they even opened the season, maybe giving him the majority of the touches in the first couple of games. But he kind of fell back in the order here. So I would think he would jump towards the top to the very top if both Gaskin and Ockman can't play this week. Rashad Penny, Tom, Pete Carroll's been talking him up all season. Well, he finally talked him up before a big game. Now, Seattle had an easy matchup against Houston, but Penny looked pretty good out there. Of course, I also saw him kind of stretching on the sidelines and like trying to keep himself.

He always had the injury risk when it comes to Rashad Penny. But that's a guy who's got an opportunity to be a lead back the rest of the season. Yeah, he played 57% of the snaps, which is pretty, pretty. be promising here. There was no Adrian Peterson. But after seeing what Penny did, I think it would be pretty foolish to, go back to Adrian Peterson or Alex Collins here this week.

You know, the Seahawks have kind of every incentive to see what they have with Penny, too. They declined the fifth-year option on his, you know, first, you know, he was a first-round pick, so the team has the option of picking up a 50-year option on these guys. And they declined it. So he's entering free agency this off-season. but, you know, he still might be kind of in their plans if he impresses down the stretch here. So I think, you know, and they're five and eight here. So, you know, unlikely to make the playoffs.

But so you need to do a little bit of evaluating here. And I think this is a good opportunity for them to do it. And, you know, Penny was their first round pick from, you know, four years ago. So certainly has the pedigree to be a big time back. And just injuries have derailed his career here in the last two seasons. but maybe we're finally getting to see, you know, what he can actually do here. I wouldn't get my hubs way up. You know, every time we, you know, start to get a little bit excited about him,

something, some sort of injury derails him. But maybe this is the, maybe this is his finest time. He'll be a fantasy football legend here maybe over the next couple of weeks after a tough two-year stretch. Craig Reynolds, the Adam Schepter Nugget turned out true. He was the guy who kind of led the backfield. against Detroit, but tough matchup coming this week against Arizona, a reeling Arizona team all of a sudden, because they lost to the Rams.

Yeah, they're going to be coming in, highly motivated. I saw the spread for that one is sitting at 14 points, so not exactly, you know, the best spread here. And DeAndre Swift could be back as well. That is, that's the big one. Dan Campbell, yeah, he's been pretty forthright with the media for most of the season. You never know with these new coaches, but he's been pretty forthright. And he said, hey, he said that both DeAndre Swift and T.J. Hawkinson were day-to-day at this point. So, you know, that puts him in line to potentially return this week.

And you would think he would. That was a shoulder injury on Thanksgiving Day back in week 12. You know, we saw Dalvin Cook with a dislocated shoulder, you know, coming back and play 11 days later. you know, this was a more minor shoulder injury. So I think he's probably physically ready to return here. So, you know, I don't know if I'd go, like, busting my budget. You know, I guess we are pretty late in the year. Maybe you do want to.

Yeah, I mean, at this point, you might not even have a budget. Exactly, yeah. But, you know, maybe he's not a bad guy to stash on your bench here, spend a buck or two. You know, it seems like at the very least, if Adam Schaefter is getting nuggets that he could be something. here. They're at least intrigued by this guy. So he could at least maybe see a rule next to him here. You know, it seems like Jamal Williams is kind of falling out of favor there. He's a, you know, they can get out of his contract pretty easily this off season. So maybe this Craig Reynolds does work his way, maybe into being that number two back the rest of the season.

Now let's go to any other running back. Yeah, we just talked on that Echler here. The, uh, it sounds like he's going to play. You know, He could have returned into that game, but he came into the game. He missed some practice time with the ankle injury. Came out, got it more heavily taped in the second half. But it was a 30 to seven game at the time, up three scores. You know, and it was Mike Lennon running the offense for the Giants. So I don't think Brandon Staley was too concerned.

But it's a quick turnaround for the Chargers. They play Thursday night here. We can maybe even get into the receivers here next. it looks like he's going to play, but just in case he doesn't, if you've been riding Eckler all season here, I would give the nod to Justin Jackson. They split the back field pretty evenly between Jackson and Kelly, but, you know, Jackson has a little bit longer track record. Yeah, he's a more explosive player too here.

And the way this game might set up, might be more of a pass-heavy game anyway against the Chiefs. So I would lean towards Justin Jackson as the handcuff here. if you've been using Austin Atker all season. Come prop up on Thrive Fantasy this football season. Thrive Fantasy is a daily fantasy sports and e-sports app for player props. And with Thrive, you can eliminate countless hours of research and focus on only the top-tier athletes who have the biggest impact on the game.

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sign up and prop up today. Tom, at wide receiver. KJ. Osborne is still out. They're probably not in a competitive league, though, as he did a great job filling in for Adam Thielen. Gabriel Davis with Emmanuel Sanders picking up a knee injury, all of a sudden, Davis is having himself a nice little end of the season, somebody who can help your team in the fantasy playoffs. Yeah, touchdowns in two consecutive games here, both in the red zone. You know, he's a big, big target there.

and, you know, Sanders, you know, he got that knee injury and he was knocked out pretty quickly. He didn't return to the game. I would expect him to be out at least the next week or two, which gives Davis. He's only 3% owned on Yahoo. So he has a bit of a runway here. I don't think he's going to be, you know, a huge difference maker, but he's definitely a guy you can plug in your wide receiver three and has some upside to score some touchdowns here. They're pretty big favorites against the Panthers this week.

So, you know, there's a chance that, you know, the bills could get to, you know, four touchdowns or more maybe in that match up here. So Davis is, you know, he's been sitting around, you know, 30% of the snaps, 40% of the snaps all season. But now that's going to probably spike into the 80 to 90% range going forward. And he was a, he made some plays towards the end of last year and in the playoffs there against the Colts. I remember him having a big game there. So I'm almost a little bit surprised they'd have. haven't been giving him a little bit more run anyway with Emmanuel Sanders tailing off the last six to eight weeks here since they're by in the middle of the season.

You know, it's time to give Davis more of a role anyway. So even if Sanders does come back, if Davis has an impressive performance this weekend, maybe he sticks in the starting lineup anyway. So he's got some upside here and, you know, he's widely available. So a guy that can help a lot of teams here that might be hurting at the receiver. now. Robbie Anderson, John Hansen calls him Fantasy Santa because his, his tendency to pop up in December. Forgive me for not really trusting him, Tom. But if you believe in that and you believe in the fact that I believe in Santa. The new offensive coordinator, Jeff Nixon there, is going to get on the ball.

He is out there in about 65% of leagues. Yeah, I don't love the matchup this week. It gets the bills. I got, but they have Tampa, New Orleans, teams that have given up. up some production to receivers in the upcoming weeks here. You know, he's been dropped a lot. It at least seems like, yeah, you're right. The new OC tried to factor him into the offense, you know, 34% target share, the best of the season for him. So at the very least, the change of OC seemed to get him more involved in the offense, which is a promising thing before.

And he's certainly capable of producing these big, fantasy games if he's going to see some volume here. So, scored 21 points last week, which was also a season high. So, you know, he's trending in the right direction with the changes in Carolina. Donovan People's Jones picked up team best 90 receiving yards against the Ravens. He's been really untrustworthy because that past game's been so inconsistent. But he's kind of in that Valdez scantling range where he can make a big play for you. Yeah, and there's just hasn't really been anybody,

real consistent in this passing game all year. And now it looks like Kareem Hunt could be out for another stretch of games here. So you take another, you know, a weapon out of the offense. And Hunt contributes a little bit more in the passing game as well. So, you know, De Arnais Johnson is a nice player, but he's probably more of a runner than a receiver here. So it's really thin. You know, David and Joku and Harrison Bryant have also been out of the picture recently. So, you know, there's some runway here for him.

You know, I don't, he's very untrustworthy, as you said, Joe. He could see a 20% target share, but you've got to hope that he, you know, he's kind of like an NBS in that, Marquez-Veldos Scantling in that perspective. You know, he's going to get some targets, but you got to pray that he connects on one of those deep shots and takes it to the house. But he did make some really nice plays in that game. He had one of the best catches of the week on that sideline to get those toes down on. Sure, you may have seen it on the highlight show over the weekend here, but he's a guy that's at least a rising second year prospect here as well. And obviously, just to talk about Valdez Gatling, also Alan Lazard, it's like roll the dice on those two guys every week.

But because of Aaron Rogers, you've got a shot for any one of those two guys to have a big game any given week. Yeah, and it's noteworthy that Randall Cobb is kind of out of the picture here. It sounds like, you know, he might be lucky to return by the playoffs here. So the receiver tree has been thinned out a little bit in Green Bay. So it's a rule of the dice. Who's going to be involved? I was on the NBS side. I thought he was going to have the big game in week 14,

and it turned out to be Alan Lassard. But, you know, if you're playing in deeper formats, there are at least guys take shots on. One other situation we should touch on Joe is the Chargers situation. with Keenan Allen. They have a big game on Thursday night. Hopefully we get Keenan Allen back in the mix, but still hasn't been activated off the COVID list. Maybe by the time you're listening to this on Tuesday night, maybe he is off the list so you can skip ahead 30 to 30 seconds on this one. But it was kind of Josh Palmer that jumped into his role. He played in two wide receiver sets,

was played in the slot. Both guys actually came through. But I kind of like Palmer a little bit more than Guyton here moving forward if Keenan Allen's out again. They'll be playing the slot in the offense here if Keenan misses Thursday night. Yeah. Now, Brandon Staley was pretty optimistic on Keenan Allen, but still worth pointing out that there's an opportunity. He doesn't come off that list. Tom, just a tight end to touch on is Austin. Yeah, the tight end is just brutal right now. Now we have Travis Kelsey crapping it up. It's really ugly out there at tight end. If you have a Mark Andrews or, you know, you should be lucky your lucky stars at this point. But, yeah, Hooper, you know, this is another situation.

We need to watch if Harrison Bryant. Seems like Harrison Bryant will probably miss another game. But David Injoku is the big one. He's still on the COVID list. We'll see if he's able to return. But if both of those guys are out of the picture, it at least kind of condenses the targets that, you know, go to these tight ends here. So he came through with a touchdown. It was one of his best fantasy performances of the season here.

And it is a Saturday game. This is the return of the Saturday game. So just a little bit, you know, one fewer day for both Bryant and Joko to get cleared to play. So keep an eye on that. He's 41% owned. So he's not out there in too many leagues. But if you're looking for a streamer, he's looking like the best option right now. It's slim pickings out there at tight end right now.

T-bro, thanks for breaking down the waiver wire here. You want to check out the whole waiver wire article. Go to FantasyPoints.com and subscribe. I understand the season's almost over, but that's why the prices are so low. More importantly, Tom, you're contributing to our college football bowl guide props, confidence pools against the spread. Devy, you're contributing, but our guy Josh, Kevin, and Wes, They broke that down incredibly.

You're entered into a chance to win a Trevor Lawrence autograph football. I mean, just it's a really wonderful project that's constantly updated. It's not like, oh, they wrote it now and that's it. No, it's going to be constantly updated when props come out. Maybe the spread moves, news comes out. It's really a great package for just $25. If you are making any wagers entering any bullpoles, that is a smart thing to do is to get in there on that college football ball guide.

Yeah, I totally agree. It's a great little product. I mean, this is one of my favorite times of year, Joe. We get into all these bullpoles and, you know, we kind of know what we're doing, you know, watching the college football. You know, it's more of a recreational thing for us on Saturdays. But, you know, getting to read those guys, they live in brief college football. So if you're looking to get more information on these guys that, you know, if you're just looking for a guide to watching the games, or maybe you're just looking to get a leg up on, you know, what you might be expecting from some of these players when they come to the next level. This is a little guide to get. So it's 25 bucks. I think it will be well worth your time to spend a few bucks and to read up on all these players.

For Tom Raleigh, at Tom Raleigh on Twitter. For Edwin Porras, at FB Injury Doc on Twitter. For Ben Cucanus, he's got the nude man as his avatar at B. Kukcanus on Twitter. Twitter. I'm Joe Dolan at FG underscore Dolan on Twitter. Thank you for listening to the week 15 edition of the WaverWire and Injury Podcasts here at FantasyPoint.com. And we will talk to you guys next week. 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 fantasypoints.com.