Fantasy Football Daily - Week 14 Injury Roundup Podcast

Episode Date: December 10, 2022

Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) and Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc) discuss recent injury updates, possible GTDs, return to play timelines, and more ahead of Week 14. --- 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 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. Yo, welcome back to the Fantasy Points podcast. I'm Graham Barfield. I'm one of the co-owners here at FantasyPoint.com, and I'm joined by my pal. Like I'm every week. I bring porous.

We're going to be talking through the week 14 injuries. And guys, it's kind of like good news, weirdly. A lot of the injury news is already in. So if you're grinding out your final playoff bids, you're trying to wrap up a first round by. There's a lot of injuries, but there's not a lot of fresh injury news, which everyone makes our lives a little bit easier. But first and foremost, before we get into our feelings about Sequin

and hopefully the fact that he plays this week, and how are you doing, my friend? I'm doing well, man. I'm excited to talk some of these injuries. Both of us were saying, like, it's been kind of a whirlwind of a week. So we've been trying to keep up on the news as best as we can. But I think we're ready to roll. And yeah, like you said, a lot of the injury news is in. It's just a matter of managing expectations and tempering expectations for a couple of guys. So let's do it. Yes, sir. Let's get to start then with Sequin because he popped up on the injury yesterday with his neck injury and everyone on Twitter freaked out. it seemed kind of minor-ish, but then Brian Dable came out and said this morning that he's, like, seriously in doubt a little bit. He's pretty stiff. This happens all the time with football players. These guys just, I mean, they're literally putting their necks on the line and they have, you know, just shit that rolls over and, you know, sometimes you wake up in the morning,

it hurts. I don't know if that was a situation with Saquan, man. I'll let you speak on it, but Giants are in a really bad spot here this weekend with, you know, obviously all the receivers. have been hurt this entire year and now Sequin up against the Eagles here with the season on their line. What's the deal here? What's your read? Yeah, this is a tough, kind of a tough read just because it came out of nowhere. The stiffness could have been literally from anything. Like, we can't even rule out he slept wrong and he came into the facility and he told the trainer's like my next stiff. We really don't know where this came from because it came up yesterday and Wednesday he was fine.

I did look today on Dan Dugan's Twitter, and he is up first in drills. You can't tell a lot from the neck and that, obviously in that short little clip he posted, but he's at practice. He's at least doing individual drills. I mean, in a worst case scenario world, this is like a Chris Carson, J.D. McKissick thing, right?

But that's, it doesn't seem to be that. It doesn't seem to be a worst case scenario. You don't love to see neck, like a running back listed with a neck issue. But, I mean, it happens. And here's a list just real quick of guys running back specifically since 2017 who've been on the injury report with a neck issue. Adrian Peterson, Amir Abdul, C.J. Ham, Kyle Ushik, Patrick Ricard, Austin Eccler, Ricky Ortiz, Tywin Jones, Don Trell Hilliard, Don Trelleyer, Jim Lillard, Jalier, Jamal Williams, James Devlin, Leonard Fornette, Wayne Gallman. The list goes on and on Duke Johnson, like Damien Harris. A lot of these guys are on the injury report with the neck issue and then it ends up being nothing.

So that's what we hope for it. You're not doing it. You're not changing, you're not changing, making an alignment. of changes you're starting. Barkley, it seems like he's going to be active. And, I mean, his volatility is raised a little bit, but you're not making any changes from this. And hopefully it just, it just ends up passing and being nothing. Yep. Yeah. I mean, obviously, you're not taking Sequin out of your lineups whatsoever. He's been bottled up here in recent weeks. Really just hasn't had an explosive game since they played the Jags. I believe that game was in London. It wasn't London. He really hasn't like hardly any explosive carries. Teams, you know, opposing defenses are obviously just

scheming to slow him down. And obviously the Eagles will do. The same this weekend. They got Jordan Davis back. They're humongous six, whatever he is, six, eight, 400 pound. He's a behemoth. And he runs, what doesn't you run like a four, six or something insane? I don't know if it's that fast, but it's like probably four eight. He is an absolute unit.

But yeah, man, tough spot for Sequin. At this point, you know, we're just hoping he's active, gets his usual 16, 18, 20 touches. And maybe he'll pop into the end zone because, I do think it's going to be another week of tough sledding for Sequin. Transitioning here to a couple Steelers players, Edwin, we've talked about Najee Harris basically every single week on the show. I don't think we need to talk about him this week. He's going to play.

He's battling through an opalink injury. And to my eye, he looks kind of back. He looked like 40% of his rookie season self to my eye last maybe in the first six, seven weeks of the season. And he's really picked it up. I think the foot injury is behind him. he picked up this minor opalic injury he's fine but ebbling the guy i want to ask you about here is dante johnson here he's had a horrible season still without a touchdown which is incredible to say out

loud but dante's got a hip injury he was limited on excuse me limited on wednesday did not practice on thursday and he's not questionable for week 14 i mean outside of like deep ppr leagues you've probably not been playing much dante uh but i do think it's it's worth mention here just in the context that Chase Claypool was gone and George Pickens might actually see more than two targets with Deontay Johnson sidelines. So what do you know here about Johnson's hip? Yeah. So a lot of the times, whether it be for PR reasons, whether it be for simplicity's sake or whatever policy, a lot of times medical teams will classify groin issues and soft tissue strains as a hip issue because it technically, you can't argue that it's not. And so when you look

it that way, there's a chances as a soft tissue strain for Deonti Johnson, which would make sense that he came in, you know, kind of randomly limited on Wednesday. And then on Thursday, he was a DNP. We don't assume he took contact on Wednesday and that made him limited. But, you know, the chances of this being something that makes him miss a game right now, I'd say it's a coin flip. Like it doesn't look good for him this week, especially if it's a soft tissue strain. So it's not looking like he's going to go as of now. Keep monitoring the practice reports, obviously. in the final actives and inactives, but it looks like they'll be without Deonté Johnson.

But it's like, what difference does that make? I mean, are you starting Deonti Johnson? I mean, geez. No, no. Like I said, I mean, outside of like DPPR, you've not been playing Deonté all season, basically. Stephen Sims will play a little bit more. Who cares?

I'm interested to see if they actually do throw to George Pickens. Staying in the same game, Ed, when we already know Lamar Jackson's out, it's one of the big injuries we were talking about. That's, you know, we already got the news in, but he's dealing with the PCL. injury. Ravens are obviously right in the thick of a AFC wild card. And frankly, they're still in play for the division too. I think they're just playing it really safe with Lamar. He's been dealing

with a number of injuries, but I'll let you speak on what this PCL injury entails and what his return timeline might look like. Yeah, so most PCL injuries for skill players end up being somewhere between two and three weeks of mistime if it's not beyond a grade two. that should be enough time for Lamar Jackson to get back on his feet. I said in the beginning I wouldn't be shocked if he sits out two games at least, potentially three, but I think that by the time week 16 rolls around, he'll be practicing again and getting his feet back under him,

again, assuming it's not a super severe injury. And by all accounts and reports, it doesn't seem like it is. They're just going to try to let him get back to where he is, where he needs to be from a running perspective. So if he misses two games, I wouldn't be shocked. But once he's back, I do think that he's a little more volatile just from a taking contact perspective.

So that's something to consider. But really, man, it's been such a weird year at quarterback. I don't know how much more equity you can get from starting another guy unless you have, you know, unless you'd rostered a guy like Justin Fields or Tua. Like you kind of have to start Lamar, I think, in a lot of instances, right? Yeah. I mean, when he's back, you said week 16, they get the Falcons. You're dialing them up, man.

There's no way you can get away from it. and hopefully he'll be back for week 15. I mean, these are two huge games. I mean, I know the Steelers and Browns have not been great this season, especially, you know, the Browns looking super dicey last week and with Watson back. But, you know, Ravens are, like I said, right in the thick of it. Both Bengals and Ravens are 8 and 4. Bengals have the tiebreaker right now.

So they're right there on the thick of it. I think if Lamar feels a little better next week, they could push into play, but I'm with you. The Ravens are usually, usually pretty sharp with their injuries. They've had a rough year, though, man, with Edwards coming back. Andrew's coming, playing through a number of injuries,

trying to rush baiting back. Anyway, I'll digress. The other thing I want to bring up about this game real quick before we move on is interestingly, Steelers have remained strong favorites, which is like, well, I shouldn't say strong.

They're two-point favorites. It's not strong. But in the context of this game, that's pretty strong. I find it interesting that, you know, Steelers have been so dog shit for the last couple weeks, that they're still getting two points.

even though the Ravens have been competitive with Huntley under center. It should be a really interesting game there, Raven Steelers, this weekend. Evan, keeping it moving here. Texans, you know, you're probably not playing Nico Collins, Brennan, Brent Cooks. Regardless, did want to mention they're probably both not going to play this weekend. We'll probably see a lot of Chris Moore and Philip Dorset, Texans backup receivers, but just wanted to touch on that real quick. Obviously, Edwin, Texans are in a world of her.

against the Cowboys, there's 17-point underdogs, but Kyle, or excuse me, Davis Mills will have to do it back under center without his top two weapons, most likely. Yes, yeah. It's unlikely that those guys are going to go. And I don't know how much more there is to say about it, honestly. Yeah, man. I mean, yeah. It's been Cook's just kind of quiet quit on the season, feels like.

That's right. That's right. I'm good. I want to play with this dog shit team. I can't say I blame them, but it's been at the loss season for the Texans, has there been, maybe you can think of a scenario. Has there been a bigger gap in a team in individual players, I'll put like projected ceiling versus their actual outcome? Like, has there been another situation with a wider gap that you can think of? I mean.

Because we had some opt-up, right? Even most of the industry was like, hey, they could be okay. Like, they could be fantasy contributors. They could be fine. And I think that was a reasonable projection. Yeah, I was in that camp. I was big on cooks this year. I don't know, man.

I just think they, first and foremost, didn't need to fire their coach. I mean, you know, they brought in one with unnecessarily, frankly. And Pep Hamilton has been a really good quarterback coach in my opinion in his career, but he's never been a great play caller. So it was a lot of risk kind of changing over the staff. And I think that was it. I mean, there was just no continuity from Mills. And, I mean, let's face it, Davis Mills was never a great prospect.

That's why he didn't go early in the draft. But he was fine last year. He was better than Trevor Lawrence. Obviously, that's great of assault because Jags, obviously, we're dealing with Irvin Meyer last year. But the point is, I mean, I think it comes down to coaching. You know, a lot of a lot of this shit does. I mean, we saw it last night with the Raiders, man. They had 15 chances to put away the Rams, and Josh McDaniels is just a donkey.

Like, it's, it's kind of sometimes that simple. Like, it really, these guys, man, I think these coaches, they have so much on their plate week to leave that they just overthink, like, little in-game stuff. And we just see it every single week. Yeah, Texans are just like the stone worst of the bottom of the range of outcomes on all of that. So, yeah, it's a lost season, man. Cowboys 17 point favorites.

We'll keep it rolling here. A couple of more injury notes in the late window games, Bucks 49ers, Lerunet has looked awful all season, to be frank with you. He's not been anywhere close to where he was. Last season, he's going with a foot injury. He says he's going to play, but I got to think they're going to play a little more Rashad White. Fournett did out snap White last week.

I wonder if that flips a little bit. here with four net dealing with this foot injury but edwin it's it's a dead season for four net at this point um i mean he he's he's last i was telling me before the show i mean he's last and this stock was forced over the last eight weeks i mean it's not going to get any better here with this foot injury no absolutely not i mean he's got the the the foot soreness and foot you know you never want your guy your uh headliner to have a foot and ankle issue i guess he's not really a headliner anymore but he's the starting NFL running back i guess depending on the game depending on the day and you don't love to see that.

And he was also battling the hit pointer already. And, you know, we see this. We were talking about this before we hit record. There's not really a cliff for these running backs, man. It's impossible to predict. I've done so much research, like unpublished research, trying to find correlations and correlates to how to identify when these running backs are going to fall off.

Dude, there's just nothing. Like, it just seems to happen out of nowhere. And to, I mean, to this day, I haven't been able to find anything from a performance. standpoint, from an age standpoint, like, if anybody's got the answer out there, let us know so that we could have predicted Lenny to start, you know, start falling off around week seven or eight of this season. It would have made our lives a lot easier. Yeah, it's like when Stan goes to the bank in South Park and he tries to give his money to the banker and he puts it in the bank, 45 seconds later,

and it's gone. It's just like that, dude. Literally like that's their talent is just like one week. It's gone. And it's gone. And I think. I think the only people who would ever be able to tell you that it's coming is them. They would probably tell you they're so in tune with their body. These athletes are like so in tune with their body and so in tune with, you know, what they're feeling and seeing and how quickly they can move out there. But they'll never be the ones to admit it. They will never admit it.

They won't be. And that's, that's fine. I totally get it. But look, I mean, just look at the list here. Todd Gurley. I'm just going off the top of my head here. Todd Gurley, DeMarley, DeMarco Murray, now Leonard Fortinette, world class athletes, that one. And Fournette was like one of the most explosive players I've seen out of college since I've been doing yards created.

Like he was that good at LSU. Dude was unbelievably explosive. And now he's just, you know, six, seven, eight years of attrition. Plus that in high school. I mean, all these guys were 300 carry guys in high school because they're just, like I said, the world class athletes beating up against guys like me in high school. So, I mean, it's really 15 years of attrition for these guys. and like, can't do it forever.

Yeah, their bodies just fall apart. It's just, they hit the wall and that's it. Some good injury news. Real quick, Deonté Foreman was taken off the injury report. I was a little concerned. He had a foot injury coming out of the by, but he's fine. Monster spot here in Seattle.

We don't really need to talk through it that much, but I do like Deonté Foreman quite a bit this week. And if you are trying to decide between him and somebody else and start sit, running back is really weird this week. There's like three guys to feel really good about at the top. And then there's six or seven that are pretty strong. Like you would feel good about them as like low-end R-R-B-B-B-1s, but they're definitely shouldn't be as high as they are with all the buys.

And then after RB15, it falls off a cliff. I like Foreman right in the mix of that like 13, 14, 15 range this week. And then Chargers. Looks like Mike Williams should be back, man. I'm crossing my fingers here. crossing my fingers too, yep. Because Justin Herbert getting Mike Williams and Keenan Allen both back sounds incredible, but Chargers probably rushed Mike Williams back off his high ankle injury.

We'll see if he's actually right this time. There's not much else we can really say beyond that. But yeah, curious for your thoughts on Williams' ankle. It's tough. And I said this yesterday. I think it was on Twitter. If he's going to be ready in 2022, he's going to be ready now. this is going to be it.

It's not to say they won't ease him in. It's not to say he won't be that he'll be 100%. He's unlikely to be 100%. But I mean, at this point, it's been, what, six weeks, seven weeks since the initial injury in the first place. And so, again, if he's going to be ready in 2022, it's going to be now. I don't necessarily think that he's a must start.

I have two specific rosters that I'm thinking of right now, two leagues where I'm starting him in one, but not starting him in the other. And I think it totally comes down to what you have available with the buy weeks and things like that. So I wouldn't be unreasonable to bench him. I'll put it that way. Yeah, I'm with you, man. I mean, it's all, you know, it's all roster specific with Williams this week.

I mean, he's completely boom-abust, wide receiver three. He has massive splits against man in its own coverage. Dolphins do play a little bit of man, which, you know, if you want to just hold her hat on something. But, I mean, yeah, you can't project him. much higher than like wide receiver 25, 28 this week. It's just not possible with his downside risk. I don't know. I think that's going to do it, man. I mean, there's really, like we said, there's kind of a lot of the injuries. Let's touch on the Seahawks backfield. Oh, of course. Thank you, dude. That's like the most important one. Can you, Ken Walker? It's a long week of,

but how could I figure? I guess I've just pushed this one out of my mind because I have Kim Walker everywhere. Yeah, Kim Walker has this tricky foot injury. I don't trust Pete Carroll at all when it comes to injury news. He didn't really give any specifics. Not surprising, but what exactly is this injury? It sounds like a ligament issue and not a bone issue, which I guess is better, but you know way more than either. So the answer is yes. The issue itself, it seems to be, so there's this thing. You can get, if you Google it, you'll find it. There's a condition. It's It's called impingement. It's called an anterior or posterior impingement.

And it's exactly what it sounds like. It's like the joint space. And Pete Carroll kind of alluded to this. Pete Carroll is the master at like lying to us and telling us what we want to hear. And then it end up not coming through. But as a medical professional and an injury analyst, he actually says things. I've said, I've talked about this before. He says things and like gives like drops key words that medical professionals would like understand what he's trying to say.

day. And so one of the things he said specifically is like there's a small space in the foot where, you know, he's injured or something like that, which is like tell tell signs for an impingement. Because what an impingement is is the space where the joints live in the middle of the foot and the ankle, those small little joint spaces where you have a ton of like cartilage and you have joints and you have ligaments. They run out of room and they're essentially jammed together. And so when he planted, he jammed the top of his foot. slash front of his ankle. And it sort of like crunched that space together when it wasn't supposed to be.

And so that's why they said it's more of a jammed foot. So usually you get that over time. This is something that like builds up if you have lack of if you don't if you don't have like enough mobility in your ankle. But this was a traumatic event. Moral of the story, they said it's it was swelling up and it was painful last week. He hasn't practiced all week. If he goes, he will not be 100%.

He might get a pain injection. in the joint or on the surface and he's going to play through it and maybe he'll fall into the end zone for you. Like I think ultimately you have to start Kenneth Walker if he's active, but I wouldn't necessarily anticipate him being active because it would be, it would be a risk for him to, to re-injure that ankle. And so I guess the flip side is DJ Dallas, who also suffered a high ankle sprain, a pretty legit high ankle sprain. He hasn't practiced this week either. I would be less optimistic that DJ Dallas goes. Yeah, I mean, that leaves us with Tony Jones and Travis Homer.

Travis Homer has been dealing with a number of injuries this season, but I think he got full practice in yesterday. So it'll be some sort of rotation between Homer and Jones with Walker and Dallas most likely out. And I was going to mention, I mean, Seattle is obviously right in the thick, the thick of the NFC West and, you know, an NFC wildcard berth. So it's tricky. They're kind of in one of these spots where like, okay, they're against the pants. anthers this week. That's by far their easiest opponent looking forward here. I mean,

they got to play the Niners Chiefs and Jets coming up. I think they play it. They definitely play it safe and don't play Walker this weekend, but I think they're going to be trying to get him back next week. The trick is they play on Thursday night. I mean, San Francisco. So it's going to be tricky with Walker these next two weeks. I'm going to be, I'm preparing to not have him week 14 or week 15, especially since Seattle's on a short week. Unfortunately, so, probably week 16 for Walker. That's just kind of my gut. I don't know if you have any other thoughts, but, you know,

I think it'll, yeah, it'll be, it'll be close. It's going to be close. Yeah. Because if he, and we'll get a better feel, a sense for it, like throughout the week. I think there's a chance for him to come back on Thursday, and his chance of re-injury will be a little lower. But, you know, ultimately those four days are just four days. So I think he's, he's still at a high risk to sit for, for week 15.

I agree there. I didn't know they were on a short week. Yep, it's unfortunate. Like I said, man, that's why I didn't want to talk about it. I've been so bummed about Kenny Walker. Just, I mean, it's every single year, it's a war of retression at this point, you know?

I'm just getting, you know, obviously Walker's been a big part of, you know, my teams and your teams out there who's in the playoff hunt. But, yeah, it's unfortunate. It's usually. In our injury prone league, I traded him away to Matt Harmon for T. Higgins. So I'm living on that one.

I'm still riding that high. T. Higgins has a hamstring injury, too. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I'd prefer. He'll be fine, by the way. For those wondering about T. Higgins, he's going to be fine. They've said he's going to come out. A little bit elevated volatility. You could probably still use him in cash. Just be careful about it. No, I think he'll be fun. Yeah, man. That's going to wrap it. Fun 20 minutes here of injury talk. Like I said, not a ton of pertinent news. Like I said, we've already got most of the news then. But thanks for listening, guys. As always, make sure you're check.

checking out Edwin's injury insights this weekend for his thoughts on Ken Walker and all the news for next week. It's a huge week, obviously, next week with the playoffs starting. So, yeah, being on top of injuries and everything is in your best interest. And Edwin is the best in the game for it. And we always thank for him for his time. Thank you guys for listening. I'm Graham. We'll be back with you guys next week for another Injury Roundup podcast on Friday. We'll catch you then. again 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.