Fantasy Football Today - NFL DFS Week 17 Lineups, Picks, Stacks & Ownership Projections (Fantasy Football Today DFS podcast)

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

Download and follow Fantasy Football Today DFS! You can find FFT DFS on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else podcasts are found. Join our $5 Week 17 DFS contest over on Draftkings- https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/139266765 Sia Nejad and Mike McClure are previewing the NFL DFS Week 17 main slate. They run through each game, offering their favorite stacks and plays, also letting you know which players to avoid. (3:20)- Cardinals at Falcons (10:02)- Colts at Giants  (13:40)- Bears at Lions  (19:00)- Jags at Texans (24:54)- Browns at Commanders  (28:50)- Saints at Eagles (34:30)- Broncos at Chiefs  (40:18)- Dolphins at Patriots (43:15)- Panthers at Bucs  (48:00)- 49ers at Raiders  (51:36)- Jets at Seahawks  (54:30)- Vikings at Packers  (59:50)- Rams at Chargers  (1:02:50)- MIKES TOP 3 for Week 17 (1:04:51)- Week 17 Cheat Sheet 'Fantasy Football Today DFS' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT DFS team on Twitter: @FFToday, @Mike5754 @SiaNejad Watch FFT DFS on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today DFS on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Welcome to Fantasy Football today. DFS, it's Thursday. You know what that means.

It's our game-by-game preview. I am Cian Ajad, of course, at Cian Ajad. And I am with Mike McClure at Mike5754. You know us all too well, hopefully, at this point. And hopefully you had a really successful week last week. You know, Mike, it's funny. We got a tweet that you were tagged on, I don't know, two hours ago. You know, we're live.

For those of you listening to the podcast, we're live at 5 o'clock every Tuesday and Thursday. And some of you listen. Some of you watch live if you're watching live. You know, hit the Like button. Do all of that stuff. But we got that tweet. And it's funny because somebody had your lineup. And it's not that we give out. Mike, you know, hit the like button, do all of that stuff. But we got that tweet and it's funny because somebody had your lineup and it's not that we give out, Mike, you know this, we don't give out the lineups, but you had a real, you know, hard stance you

were taking in terms of your tendencies. We went over your lineup on the Tuesday solo pod. Were you surprised to see that lineup? Honestly, not only because I almost did give a full lineup on the, uh, on the pod i basically listed every position and said we're going to swap in cd lamb for justin jefferson and that was essentially the lineup i didn't give the defense i didn't give that uh but yeah it was it was a lineup that uh i was happy to see others used it um and the user did well. You know, over 60 extra investment is never, never a bad thing. That's for sure. That's for sure. And, you know, again, it was, it was a really nice week, I think, for a lot of people who consume this show. And one thing, Mike, I tried to

emphasize on the Tuesday solo pod was it really comes down to roster construction a lot, especially when you have, and we always, we always talk about this, but especially when you only have like a few games that people are really interested in. And I want to get your opinion before we get started. What games are you interested in? Not, not specifically what games, but how condensed is it? Because I just want to know, is this a week where you can pivot off the popular games or is this another week where it's, I have a few games I really like, and I'm going to do my roster construction. And by my, I mean yours, which was very successful last week. Yeah, I think it's pretty similar to last week, honestly. There are isolated plays you can

make in a lot of these games. Some of them, the games that don't really matter. But as far as games that really do matter and situations that are great price points that work, uh, yeah, I think there's like three to four games that really take up 80% of where my player pool is going to be. Awesome. So I don't see any reason not to just get right into it, Mike. There's some games I think we're going to go pretty quickly on. And by the way, we're going to have a moment to touch on showdown tonight. There's obviously a lot going on. I think everybody knows at this point, I do the early edge for Thursday night football. Mike's on the early edge all the time, but for Thursday night football, I think Mike's not on that particular show. I'll be on it. We'll be discussing

props. We will be discussing this game tonight, but Mike, at the very end of the show, I want to get your opinion because it's such a crazy game, right? We know the quarterback situation. It's going to be Joshua Dobbs. It's going to be starting at quarterback. Obviously, Derek Henry's not playing. The Titans have a host of injuries. So maybe from a showdown standpoint, we'll just touch on that for a couple minutes at the end of the show. If any of you have questions for the main slate or for that slate, feel free to put them in the chat. But let's get started. Let's get started with a game that I actually think I have a decent amount of interest in, Mike. It's going to be the

Arizona Cardinals at the Atlanta Falcons. The total is only 42 and a half. And I think that's more of a, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, Mike, this total seems more of a game script thing to me more than anything. And what I mean by that is we know both offenses really like to run the ball, particularly the Atlanta offenses. And I think Tyler Algier is going to be very popular play this week because of that. We know he's commanding a lot of touches. With that said, I see both of these teams moving the ball pretty freely, especially if Colt McCoy is the quarterback for Arizona

with his pretty much full complement of weapons. How are you feeling about this game? Because we see so many value plays here. And Tyler Algier at 5,300. Drake London at 4,900. Greg Dortch at a flat 3,000, a guy who had 11 targets caught 10 of them. Granted that was with Trace McSorley, not Colt McCoy. And then of course, James Conner at 7,200, so much value to go around here, right? Yeah. Lots of value to go around. I like James Conner a lot. Tyler Algier, I think is going to

be very popular. I'm going to have a little bit of an underweight status there. He's on the fringe of being in my full player pool. Uh, that's because I've got a relatively contrarian running back that I'm going to be playing a lot of instead. Uh, that's in a very similar price range. Um, I do like them though. The guy I want to speculate on here is still Greg Dorch at 3000. Uh, you know, obviously you see games where it didn't really play. Uh, you see two games had basically 10 targets in each game and absolutely smashed, uh, scored 22.3 points in both of those games. Um, yeah, at 3000, I'll speculate on Greg Dortch here. I don't think that at this point in the season, we see massive workloads for guys like Hopkins and Marquise Brown. Uh, I just don't think there's a ton of reason to go out there and risk, you know, serious injury on any of those guys. I think they play,

I think they get some snaps and some work, but I do think it's, you know, more times to kind of evaluate what they have in Greg Dortch and some of the other players. So I think that Dortch at 3k right now, he's a necessary value piece for me. Is this the type of game we saw last week? And again, I understand that the total is really low, but we saw last week with that Giants game, all your lineups pretty much, and all of mine too, by the way. I wasn't as successful as you were last week, Mike, but I certainly had Gardner Minshew in pretty much all of my lineups.

With that said, is this the type of game where you could potentially pull three pieces out of this game without actually stacking it with the quarterback? Or is the total too low? Is the game flow too low for you to be able to do that? And my thought here is, well, let me grab Greg Dortch, of course. Let me maybe grab James Conner as well. And on the other side, let me grab either Tyler Algier or Drake London or both

and then just move on from this game knowing that a lot of the volume is going through potentially at least three of those guys and potentially four yeah i think that you could get away with it i don't think that uh you know i think there are many paths to it failing i think there are many many paths to a great dorch game that ends at four fantasy points right and i think there are paths to either algier or one of the others busting like Like, I don't think they all bust. I, you know, if Dorch doesn't do anything, I think it's likely that James Connor has 20 fantasy points. Um, but I do think that there is still a really strong possibility that, uh, Dorch and one of the other two, uh, give you single digits. So I wouldn't go overboard on it. Um, where I like

to use Dorch in this particular spot, which Dorch will be my highest known guy out of this group, and then it'll be Connor. Dortch will be just the guy that makes a ton of lineups that make everything work when you want to play guys like Emmanuel St. Brown or Justin Jefferson or any of the expensive running backs. You know, playing a guy like Greg Dortch is going to be necessary in my opinion. Um, and it stands out as great value, but it again, highly, highly speculative. We've seen games in the twenties. We've seen games at zero when he's been on the field. So, um, I wouldn't stack a ton when you're playing a guy like Greg Dorch. I wouldn't stack a ton unless you just love the quarterbacks. That's fair. And we got a comment here, which was showing up on YouTube. Thanks to Zach.

Justin Noy, I believe, longtime viewer, first-time commenter, just wanted to say love the content and looking forward to thoughts on a great full slate. We appreciate that, Justin. Justin, thank you for being in here. Thank you for commenting. Comment, question, anytime you want. One thing more before I leave this game, I actually like, and I know you do, everybody knows you do a lot of stuff,

you know, with the totals and against the spread, you do the Tuesday show with a lot of the guys from Sportsline talking about your favorite games and things of that nature. My lean here is, you know, I saw Arizona as of yesterday was plus three and a half. I really liked that, and I kind of also leaned to the over, but I really liked the Arizona plus three and a half play. Is that something you're on, or are you just off this game altogether? Mostly off the game altogether, but we were waiting on status of quarterback with Colt McCoy. I'm going to go ahead and pull up my numbers here

and see where we are on it quickly, but I don't. Let's see. Yeah yeah it's a slight slight lean there the bigger lean would be to the over um i think the over should be a 43 and a half total not a massive massive edge but if you could find this yeah 43 and a half is where the number should be um so i'd lean over on the game. Yeah, absolutely love it. Speaking of I love Buffalo woes his comment. He says what's up easy cash last week, all double ups. Thanks, Mike and Sia. So yeah, if you remember Buffalo, if you watch the Tuesday show, my cash game only played one one cash lineup, I should say and it actually crashed and burned a little bit. Thanks to a

couple of low end players that just didn't work out but again cash has been profitable for the most part on this show i mean i think i've only had three weeks where my main cash lineup and i only do one usually sometimes two where it's not cash so yeah everybody you know continue with the cash we're having some some good luck here when it comes to the double ups and if you played the tournament lineups that were anywhere similar to what Mike had last week, you did really well. Reed Phillips. Okay. So this is the live YouTube feed. Been listening to the pod for two years, but this is the very first time I'm checking out the live show. Reed, we really appreciate you. And I promise we're 10 minutes into the show. We're not going to spend all the time on Arizona Atlanta. So let's move on. Thanks for listening, by the way. I see everybody in here, Jimmy, a lesson learned,

Dowens 89 or Dowens 89. Everybody hit the like button if you haven't already. If we get to 100 likes early, we're going to go ahead and give Mike's top three at each position. We usually save that for the end of the show. But if we get to 100 likes early, we're going to go ahead and give that out when we get to 100. And I trust somebody in the chat will tell us when we get close to that.

Okay, the Colts plus 5.5 or plus 6, depending on where you're looking. At the New York Giants, it's only a 39-point total. You'll notice a lot of low-end totals here. For the record, I like the Colts here in this spot, plus 6, especially against the Giants because I think their defense is relatively formidable. With that said, I think it's Saquon Barkley's season in this game. I think he is a really solid play.

I trust he's going to be a relatively popular play. But again, without the dynamic weapons for the New York Giants, and knowing they probably don't have to push the tempo too much or push the ball down the field too much in this particular matchup, I see Saquon getting his trusted 20-plus rush attempts and some pass-catching work as well. What say you about Barkley, and is he the only piece you're interested in this game?

Yeah, I like Barkley. I think he's got a lot of upside. I love that he's fighting the end zone consistently. That helps a ton here. I like him more than guys like Christian McCaffrey, for example, this week. So he's fringe on the player pool, probably going to work his way in if we can solidify roles like Greg Dortch, for example, or any of the other value pieces we're looking at.

I don't think I'm going back to the Giants wide receivers. I think it was a very isolated case last week that we got to take advantage of. And I think we're going to take advantage of it with another team again this week that we'll talk about here in a little bit, but I'm not going to go back to the Giants wide receivers. So it's possible that they mess around and find in a game script that allows for it. What I will say there though, is I don't expect 15 plus fantasy points for both Richie James and Hodgins again. I think it's likely that he could continue to lock in on Hodgins and he can get there and have a great game. Not something I would recommend chasing after this week though.

For those that just feel like playing in one of those two guys again, I know I asked you to do this last week and I think you basically had Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins kind of in a, in a one a one B situation. And then you had Slayton like fully behind them from a points per dollar standpoint, which of course ended up being perfectly correct between Richie and Isaiah Hodgins. If you had to play one of them, who would you play? I'll play Hodgins. I think he's got a little bit more upside. I think Richie James is safer in the scenario that the game is just really, really, really competitive.

And it's a necessity. I think Hodgins is going to have a decent floor either way. And I think he presents some upsides when they want to take some deeper shots down the field. So yeah, I would lean Hodgins over James. And for the record, if you're wondering, Slayton, Richie, James, and Isaiah Hodgins, they're all around the 20% target share number. And for the record, because we mentioned Tyler Algier probably more in that first game than we've ever mentioned Tyler Algier's name. Over the last two games, you've got to keep in mind contextually, Caleb Huntley's not playing, right? So it's really just Cordero and Tyler Algier. Over the last two games, you've got to keep in mind contextually, Caleb Huntley's not playing, right? So it's really just Cordero and Tyler Algier.

Over the last two games, he's got 40 total touches. Again, this is Tyler Algier with 253 total yards, and the Arizona Cardinals are allowing 4.7 yards per carry, which is good for 25th in the league. So that's why the Tyler Algier sort of popularity is all of a sudden popping up this week relative to pretty much every other week. Okay, so we hit that Tyler Aldeiro stat. We covered the Colts and Giants. Now we're going to go to a game with an actual real deal total in excess of 50 points. And by the way, I love that teaser, Mike, when you said, I like going to two receivers in another game. And I have a feeling that's a game in a cold weather climate, but I don't know that for a fact. So we'll just have to wait and see where

you're going with that. This is not in a cold weather climate. This is in a dome, which is part of the reason people are going to want to play this Bears-Lions game, especially considering the fact that Jared Goff and his offensive weapons tend to go off at home in these curated environments in a dome. You got the Bears on the other side, which I think that's the tricky part, Mike, because we don't know what receivers are going to be healthy. Equinemius St. Brown, Chase Claypool, they both had limited practices today on Thursday. But that's pretty much it, right?

You got those two guys. You got Dante Pettis, maybe Byron Pringle, then, of course, Cole Komet. So I think from a stacking standpoint, I think a lot of people are going to want to play Jared Goff. They're going to want to play Amon Ross St. Brown. They're going to consider playing DJ shark at, at tremendous value at 4,300. And then they don't, they're not really sure who they're going to want to run it back with. Obviously David Montgomery enters the conversation. Cole commit, maybe one of those low end receivers. Is this one of your primary

games and how are you stacking it? It's one of the primary games, but I'm not, I'm not game stacking it. Um, I'm stacking the lion's side and that's it. I don't think I'm playing anybody on Chicago side. I don't think it is necessary to have a bring back here. Um, for many reasons, one, I do think the game could be very, very competitive. I do think that, uh, the bear can put up points here. Um, you don't get to play two quarterbacks. So we know for stacking golf, we're obviously not playing quarterback on the other side. A number of running backs that I like already. And as far as a passing game,

it'll be a little bit hit or miss there. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to force bring backs this week with the bears, mostly just going to bet on the lions to go score 30 points. Right. So that that's mostly what I'm looking at doing. It's going to be golf to a monitor. St. It's going to be Goff to Amonra St. Brown is going to be the clear number one.

I think you could play Swift in there. I think you could play any of the secondary receivers if you want to take a shot on them. But it's mostly Amonra as a core play. I think he has a huge week in this particular bounce back spot. And I just want to bet on the Lions scoring a lot of points. And I

don't, again, I don't think the bring back is necessary because I think the Lions are truly going to try and run it up this week. I don't think they want to leave any doubt. I think that it's all in 100% till the final snap of this game. I think they truly try to run it up here. So I'm going to bet on the offense scoring and I'm not going to worry about what the other side does in this one personally. To the extent we are going to run it back with somebody, maybe we just think Cole Komet is value just in the first place. Is he a guy that would maybe make it into the conversation? Forget about the game stack part of it. Just the idea of playing Cole Komet at 4,500 in Detroit in that dome environment. Is that a guy that you could conceivably run it

back with or just make an isolated or skinny stack play with? Yes. He is definitely the one that's closest to making the player pool. There's no doubt about that. We've also seen him absolutely smash in this matchup already this year. Didn't smash in the point of usage. He just smashed because he landed on the end zone twice. I believe it's a week we played him actually. You can play him again if you want to, but he didn't smash in the terms of having a ton of volume. It was literally just landing in the end zone. And the last thing here, if Jamal Williams is out, and I'm not sure what his status is at this point. I know he had some sort of vague ambiguous knee injury, but would you go to either Justin Jackson at 4K or DeAndre Swift at 5,300?

And again, I'm not talking about a stack necessarily. I'm just saying, does that present value for DeAndre or for Justin Jackson if Jamal Williams can't go? I think it does. The thing that we like about Swift is that he's still active in the passing game. He's still five targets, eight targets, nine targets, three targets, whatever it may be. Uh, I think Williams is going to play. I don't

think he's on the injury report ahead of this game now. So I think he's, but, um, Swift, I do like him at 5,300. And this is a good question from Dominic Giannini. I believe I'm pronouncing that right. Who was a San Francisco 49ers fan Dominic, by the way, my preseason pick for the Super Bowl was the Bills versus the San Francisco 49ers. So hope that comes true for your sake and for my pick's sake. But he has David Montgomery or Tyler Algier. And I'm not even sure he's asking from a DFS standpoint. But let's just turn it into you can't really turn it into a DFS question because I think we would all take. Would we take Tyler Algier at 5,300 over David Montgomery, you David Montgomery 10 out of 10 times at 6,900 because of the price?

And either way, how do you feel just from – forget about the dollars. Who has the better game, David Montgomery in that environment or Tyler Algier in a good matchup as well? I'm going to default to my projection. It's Montgomery by the smallest of margins. And that's your flat projection, not considering the price. Correct. In terms of price, it's Algier if it's a DFS question. If it's not a DFS question, it's definitely Montgomery.

Yeah, Algier decisively, it sounds like, considering how small that margin sounds like from your projections, David Montgomery over Tyler Algier. Okay, I think we can move on from this game. If anybody has any questions about other players, like you're really gambling at that receiver core for Chicago between all of these guys, you know, down to Nikhil Harry, Vilas Jones. Like this is just, it's just a, I don't think you can really take that gamble unless we hear something that somebody is going to get a lot of reps. Okay, speaking of a lot of reps, what a professional transition there. Jacksonville Jaguars minus four at the Texans, the 43 point total. When it comes to reps, we know Tennessee is resting a lot of players.

And if I'm the Jags, I think I'm probably resting a lot of players if I'm in charge of that organization. But we don't really know what's going to happen there. And I suspect based on the limited news we have, I suspect that the Jaguars are going to roll out their team for four quarters. They're their starters. Is that what you suspect? And if so, is this a game that interests you with respect to guys like Travis Etienne, Zay Jones, some of those guys that really could come through in a great matchup at Houston?

Yeah, I am so torn on this one. I've projected them to not play four quarters. I'm projecting them to play a half. We will see. I could be very, very wrong on this. I have no clue what's going on in their mind, what they would want to do. There still is not a ton of motivation to win the game, especially as Tennessee loses tonight to Dallas. If Tennessee is able to pull off a miracle, then it obviously becomes a little bit more important. But if Tennessee loses this game, I get what the Jags are doing.

You don't want anyone to just necessarily take a ton of time off. And they also have to prepare as if the Titans could potentially win. So they've taken this entire week as if they're also have to prepare as if the Titans could potentially win. So they've taken this entire week as if they're going to play the game because the Titans beat the Cowboys, right? I don't think that that's what happens here. I think that they prepare and they bring everybody out. We keep everybody, you know, in the rhythm of going through the motions of preparing for an NFL game. They go play a few series. They go play a half. It's don't get anybody hurt, right? That's priority number one here, in my opinion.

And if you follow the Jaguars for a while, especially in the last game, the game against the Jets, right? Trevor Lawrence has been on the injury report with a nagging toe injury. The only thing that helps a toe injury is rest, getting off of that toe, not cutting, not having that kind of play. I think that it would be wise for them to not force them into some of those situations. Does that mean he still plays, but it's a very conservative game call? Very possible, very possible. We don't see him run at all. Uh, I think it's very possible though, that they don't play the full game. So I am completely, completely off of this game. Just the stance I'm going to take on it. I'm fading ETN. He's going to be very popular. I could be very, very wrong on the fact that they may play four quarters, but it's the stance I'm going to take. Yeah, that's the stance I'm going

to take as well. Cause I just, I personally don't think it makes sense. The following week you have a very, very important game. I just don't think I'd risk injury again for Trevor Lawrence or Travis at TN. I think you're right. I think rolling them out for a half certainly makes sense. They get the reps, they get sort of the wheels in motion. So they don't feel rusty or out of place week 18 against the Tennessee Titans. With that said, you know, this guy, Chris Moore, I do have some sort of love affair with here and he's only 4,200 and Houston's been very competitive. Brandon Cook's missed practice today, but it doesn't appear that it was injury related. And from what I understand, he's going to be at practice tomorrow, Friday. So I guess I expect him to play, but don't forget Nico Collins isn't playing. So it's really Brandon Cook's maybe,

and Chris Moore, it's a 43 and a half point total, almost 20 points implied for Houston. They're not getting it all done with Royce Freeman and Daria Gumbawale. So I would imagine Chris Moore would get some work with Davis mills. Is it worth it though? Yeah, I don't think it's going to be worth it up to 4,200. I don't mind it. Like if you want to speculate there,

I think it's fine. Personally, I'd rather play in one of those value guys. I'd rather honestly play of those value guys i'd rather honestly play greg dorch i had three thousand saved a couple more bucks and kind of move on um the thing that i have to ask about the texans is you wanted them to compete you wanted them to fight hard they finally got that win there they don't want to win another game like they they really don't they're in a territory where they could actually mess up the the number one pick at this point right um that's not something that

they want to do will they i don't want to say not try as hard but will efforts be made to ensure that they still don't mess around and win a game especially if the other team is starting to rest players uh we we could see a ton of running plays in this game. Again, could be totally wrong. They could be throwing. They could be excited to win. Chris Moore could have a massive day with 10 targets and two touchdowns, right? I don't know on the game. All I know is I don't want the Jacksonville side, which I think is the side that should in theory be scoring more points. So I'm mostly, well, not mostly I'm a hundred percent off this game at this point.

Yeah. The one thing I will say about Chris Moore and, and I don't, you know, I don't know where I stand on him. I'll probably play him in some lineups. Although there are a lot of guys that you could play in that exact price range that probably have much better situations.

DJ shark comes to mind, of course. And we know Greg Dortch is 1200 less expensive, but if the Jaguars aren't, if they're not playing some of their defensive players at some point in the game or the entire game, I mean, this is Davis Mills last chance to like prove that not he's a starting quarterback, but that he's a backup quarterback, that he's a second string quarterback. At least that's how I see it for Davis Mills career. And it would be nice for him to like get a kind of like a soft

matchup and pepper some of his targets and throw for maybe, you know, 240 yards. Whereas normally he'd be, you know, sub 200 or something like that. So it's just something to consider from a narrative standpoint, but Mike, I largely agree with you. I'm certainly not playing any Jacksonville Jaguars. I think it's really just Chris Moore that I'm even considering. Speaking of guys not playing, well, there goes the Taylor Heineke show, which I don't know if anybody follows me on Twitter, but I have a pretty strong stance. I was on a show yesterday and just kind of talking about it. I just didn't think this made a lot of sense.

With that said, we know Wentz is the starter. To me, Terry McLaurin's stock goes down. I don't know that this is a game people wanted to play anyway. The Browns are two and a half point dogs. It's only a 40 point total. This game's in Washington. I don't think there's anybody to consider here other than Brian Robinson, because we know Antonio Gibson has a foot sprain. It doesn't look like he's trending toward playing. And we know Brian Robinson gets the lion's share of the carries. Anyway, you might get a little bit of Curtis Samuel in the running

game, like, like we we've seen Washington do before. And you're certainly going to get some Curtis Samuel in the passing game with Carson Wentz back because as Zach pointed out on our Tuesday show very adeptly, Curtis Samuel is sort of like Curtis Samuel season, which has been on hiatus for two months. It's kind of back to some degree. Now, is it back in this particular game with this particular total? Maybe not. But I do think Brian Robinson is a pretty good play. Do you have any opinion on either Curtis Samuel or Brian Robinson

in terms of playing them this week? I'm probably going to sit out on the Robinson side just because I like a couple of running backs already. I do like Curtis Samuel, and I do like Jahan Dotson. I think both of them are cheap enough. I think both of them are super talented and should have all the opportunity because i think that with the quarterback change they're going to be where they're going to have to continue to throw the football late in this game i think this game is all but guaranteed to be a very competitive football game and that's what i want

i want a competitive football game where we have to force our way to Curtis Samuel and Jahan Dotson. They're probably so similar to guys like Chris Moore, for example. I like them. I like speculating on this spot. It's a team that really has to go win the football game. So yeah, I like Curtis Samuel here. Is there the possibility that you consider a skinny stack here or anybody on the Brown side, whether that be Nick Chubb, Amari Cooper, Donovan Peoples Jones? I don't think so. I think it would be isolated plays on Samuel or Dotson, not together, just isolated plays. Okay. I think that's all we need to touch on with this game. And for the record, I'm just curious, what's your opinion on Wentz being the starter? Are you kind of just,

you don't, you don't really have an opinion or you think Wentz is the play going forward? Yeah, I don't have a strong opinion on it. You know, I don't think it's a great situation to be in it. I think the most interesting thing about it was the speculation before the last game and the coming out and saying, hey, if things aren't going well, we're going to go to Carson Wentz in this game.

Like if you're willing to make that statement ahead of the game, knowing that you think things aren't going to go well, just start them to start the game, right? If you have already made up your mind that, okay, if we're down seven points after halftime at any point, we're going to Carson Wentz.

If that's something that's predetermined before the game, just play Carson Wentz, right? Yeah, and if I could, before we get to Saints-Eagles, if I can reframe what they said before that game, yeah, they said exactly what you said, but I could just say it a different way. If Taylor Heineke doesn't do well against the best defense in the NFL, then we're going to make a change.

How unfair is that? I mean, if your barometer is, oh, he's got to do well against the San Francisco 49ers healthy defense, well, then you've pretty much predetermined his future. It's just one of those things. That's not the game where the barometer should be set, in my opinion. And I understand there are games prior to that where he didn't play very well, but the Ws were there for Washington. He certainly nursed that team back to playoff contention and back to relevance, and Wentz wasn't doing that. So I just think it's a

very curious move. But speaking of quarterbacks, maybe Jalen Hurts, probably Gardner Minshew. I'm not even sure where to go. I know Jalen Hurts was thrown it around today at least a little bit, listed as limited in practice. It's a game that they'd like to win to secure their number one seed. I mean, they do have to win or probably have to win one of these last two games to secure the number one seed. I still think it's going to be Gardner Minshew, but I got to admit, I'm kind of guessing here. Do you like anything in this game? It's Saints plus six and a half at the Eagles. It's only a 42 point total, although that could shift maybe one or two points depending on the Jalen Hurts situation.

How are you feeling about this game? Yeah, this one is interesting. Eagles fans might kill me for this, but I think that the Eagles should be placed on upset watch in this game to start here. So number one, I don't think he's playing. I think Jalen Hurts playing in this game would be almost on the level of playing Tua with a concussion. I think it would be malpractice to start Jalen Hurts in this game. I think he's actually been hurt. I don't think that it would be smart to put him in this game. It's very easy to aggravate the injury that he has considering the way that he plays football. I don't think it's smart to play him in this particular game. Personally, I think Minshew's going to play here. I think it's great that he's kind of rehabbing and getting back involved in

practice, but I don't think he's playing in this game. As far as defense goes though, I think the Saints defense is pretty legit. They play very competitive games. They find a way to keep themselves in games. The only thing that I'm worried about is Alvin Kamara's status. He's dealing with an injury and some personal issues that have kept him away a little bit here. So he mispracticed today as well. But I think the Saints are able to manage things enough. I think they're good enough defensively as great as Gardner Minshew was in terms of moving the football, racking up some fantasy points for us. He was also very, very close to having a few disastrous turnovers

in the game against Dallas. I think the Saints defense is good enough. Miles Sanders banged up a little bit. More time for the other team to prepare for Minshew. I think this game is a very competitive one score game. Wouldn't shock me if the Saints were able to steal it. So I'm not playing Minshew again this week, not playing anyone other than potentially Dallas Goddard. I just, the tight end position is relatively weak. I expect Goddard to get more targets in this particular matchup,

but it's mostly a game I want to watch and not bet on. I mean, not play fantasy players in. Fair enough. Yeah, I think it's a game I'm probably going to get away from too. I mean, I do think Minshew at 5,500 should be intriguing to people, but with that said, 42.5 point total, somewhat formidable defense. If you were going to play Gardner Minshew, would you be playing him naked or would you try to pair him with A.J. Brown or Devante Smith or Dallas Goddard like we tried to do last week? I would go ahead and pair him.

I don't think that there's a real upside to having him naked there personally, not in this matchup. I think the scenario where you want to play him is in a little more of an obvious shootout potential type game. I don't think this game is obvious shootout potential. I would be stunned, frankly, if the Eagles scored 30 points in this game. So yeah, not going to play Minshew personally. And I'll just comment before we get to the next game, which is going to be Broncos at Mike's Chiefs. Rashid Shahid's been a target guy ever since Chris Olave has been out, and he's only, let's see, he's only 4K. And for the record, I'm guessing Traquan Smith is going to be playing the slot, and that's where you generally have success against the Eagles.

We know on the perimeter they're great at covering those boundary receivers, but it's since Avante Maddox has been out that they've been at least somewhat susceptible. So again, if you're looking at dart-wide receivers, we talked about Greg Dortch. Maybe if Greg Dortch is super popular, you know, maybe you pivot to Trey Kwan Smith and hope to get lucky there in perhaps a bigger tournament. But I do think Rashid Shahid, which is very hard to say, unfortunately, is a pretty, I think he's a solid, you know, slightly contrarian play at 4K. So those two guys, I think, should be in the conversation

as potential one-offs. Do you have an opinion about either of those guys, Mike? I think they're fine. One-off place. Uh, they're in that, that range of guys like Chris Moore, Curtis Samuel, like you could throw them in there. Um, I don't think it'll be massive volume or big enough volume to like put them in multiple lineups. I think it'd be a one lineup kind of thing for me. So I guess how to translate that to others, no more than 20% exposure to them across your lineups. But I don't hate including them in the player pool, but I personally see this as a very, very low scoring defensive battle.

Okay. And we are going to transition. We got a few more one o'clock games, a few four o'clock games. Then we get to Mike's top three. By the way, if we get to 100 likes early, we'll just go ahead and interrupt the show and do that. I think we're kind of on our way to 100.

We might get there early this week. And then of course we do Mike's top three, like I just said, but the cheat sheet as well. So before we get to Broncos Chiefs, I do want to take a break because we want to hear a word from our partners. Did you know that across Ontario, utility damage happens 19 times a day? That's over 4,222 incidents a year. Don't let your next dig

be one that causes costly delays or safety risks. Before you break ground, make it a point to request a locate. It's not just the law. It's a step to keep your team and community safe. Visit OntarioOneCall.ca and avoid unnecessary to keep your team and community safe. Visit ontarioonecall.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. Okay, we are back. Everybody hit that like button if you haven't already. My name is Sina Jha. That's Mike McClure. This is our game-by-game preview, and let's fly through the next few one o'clock games before we get to the afternoon games. We got the Broncos at Chiefs. It's a 12 and a half point spread. Obviously the Chiefs favorite here. It's a 45 point total. I guess the big question here, Mike, for you is, is the

Mahomes stack in play? And if not, are there pieces on the Chiefs? Is it finally Isaiah Pacheco week or is it just like a true split between him and McKinnon, which I think is what we expect, frankly, from a production standpoint. And maybe you just don't play either of them. Are there receivers or Travis Kelsey in play? And then on the Broncos side, is it the Jerry Judy show? Do we go back to Greg Dulcich? So I know there are situations where you can stack a quarterback or not stack a quarterback, take a quarterback, play him naked, and then literally kind of air quotes, stack him with the receiver on the other side. Have we potentially met that situation with Mahomes and that as a sneaky kind of contrarian game to play with Mahomes naked

and Jerry Judy on the way back? Uh, I think that for me, if I were, I'm not playing anybody currently, uh, if I were to play, it would probably be a Mahomes naked lineup and just kind of bet on Kansas City racking up 30 points, hoping that we get receiving touchdowns, passing touchdowns. He runs one in. I think it's fine to do that. I think it's totally okay to bet on scoring 30 points in this game at home. At this point in the season, though, it is still stay healthy when the game stay healthy. i think that that's why we want to play pacheco the issue here is is mckinnon is there and he's definitely going to get work mckinnon's got more upside clearly uh just because of the passing game and what a weapon he is there

um i don't it's boring to say that i can't get to anything in this game because we want to play this team because they're so good and they've got obvious weapons um i just don't it's boring to say that i can't get to anything in this game because we want to play this team because they're so good and they've got obvious weapons um i just don't trust anything on the denver side really to make it a competitive enough game where i would feel great about rolling anyone out consistently other than a patrick mahomes naked lineup again hoping we get four touchdowns from kansas city um i'm'm very worried about Jerry Judy. He's on the injury report, limited snaps in practice, ankle injury, left practice early the other day, limited today. Um, you know, are they conservative with him at all? Just trying to protect his future. Do they, is it obviously it's not a massive ankle injury, but it's one of those

where I could totally see an effort from Jerry Judy that is, we play two series in the first quarter and he's done, right? The ankle flares up, things aren't going well, whatever it may be. I think the spot's really fragile. So I, I'm not going to go there. I totally get it. I totally understand the upside. Kansas City's terrible in the passing game defense. All the opportunities should be there.

I think it's really, really, really fragile. With that said, if for some reason we hear that Jerry Judy is out, I know we've gone to guys, and I think he showed up on the injury report recently as well, but we've gone to guys like Kendall Hinton before, Courtland Sutton trying to get back. I'm not really, Sutton I wouldn't pay up for regardless of Judy at this point, but would a guy like Kendall Hinton make it in the conversation if you were to try to get a couple pieces in this game? And by the way, I think Mahomes naked is a decent play certainly. But we saw what Cam Akers did against this very defense just last week. And I don't want to just play that card like, oh, what happened last week has got to happen this week.

I think I might have to have a lineup with Isaiah Pacheco and just, you know, because we've had this sort of conception about Isaiah Pacheco over the last month. Not we, as in you and me, but like, you know, I certainly, I own this a little bit where it's the Pacheco game. It's the Pacheco game. Well, it's not because Jarek McKinnon just keeps gobbling everything up. This seems like a matchup where I actually don't think the Chiefs at home are going to get pressed. We saw in the Houston Texans game, they got pressed. Their defense is very susceptible to making games competitive.

This one, I'm not so sure. And so it just strikes me as if you were going to go back to the Pacheco well one last time, granted, it's been very dry and that's not necessarily his fault. I feel like this could be the game to play him. And I'm not asking you, Mike, to agree with me because you just gave your opinion on who you're playing in this game. I'm just kind of telling it for the listeners. I do think if you were going to have a Pacheco game, I think this would be the one before the playoffs.

I've been wrong before on Isaiah Pacheco, so that's that. But Kendall Hinton, would he be in the conversation if Jerry Judy happens to be out? So I got good news, bad news. Yes. But the bad news is he's also on the injury report dealing with a hamstring also limited in practice. Uh, all three of the receivers, um, Judy Sutton and Hinton, all of them limited in practice. Someone's going to play. They might all play. I have no idea. I'm not going to play them. I will say though, I should have talked about the Kansas City defense. I will be playing the Kansas City defense in this game. 3,800 at home. It's a great spot for them. Yes, they gave up 28 points to this team the last time they played. They still scored 15 fantasy points while

giving up 28 points. They sacked the quarterback six times, two interceptions, defensive touchdown, very well within the range of outcomes. Once again here, however, I don't think they allow 28 this time. Um, so I do like the Kansas city defense here. I think it's fine to pair them with Pacheco. If you want to, Dulcich is fine, especially if those receivers are all out. Um, I still think it's very, very fragile though. I think that the Broncos are in rough, rough shape right now, and it's hard to trust anything that's going on over there. Okay, fair enough. I think that answers your question, Garrett Bocchella.

So fire up, Dulcich. You certainly can do that, especially if some of these receivers are out. Okay, let's go to the Dolphins plus three at the Patriots. 41-point total. This one's interesting to me because obviously Tua's not going to be playing this game. We've got Teddy Bridgewater. And I think the question here is because the game total isn't very enticing, right, at 41. But I think the question becomes, is this a game where A, is Tyreek contrarian, which I suspect he will be, and B,

is it worth playing a Tyreek contrarian play knowing that there's a lot of value on this slate? Obviously, Ramondre Stevenson is going to be a popular guy. I'm not really sure what the status of Damian Harris is at this point in terms of whether he's going to play or not, but it sounds to me like a lot of people are playing Ramondre kind of regardless in this one. Again, Dolphin's a dog. It's probably going to be a relatively neutral game script.

Are Tyreek or any Dolphins really in your player Tyreek or any dolphins really in in your player pool and his remandre in your player remandre definitely in the player pool uh going to be a core lineup piece for me probably every lineup or very close to it um just I like the obvious price point here 6800 don't expect Harris to play he's dealing with the thigh he's also dealing with a personal matter which is why he was away again today. Typically not a great thing when you're dealing with both the injury and the personal matter and missing on Thursdays, not typically going to lead to playing. So as far as everything in this game, I think that if you want to speculate on a Dolphins receiver, I think it's fine. I would say potentially look at Cedric Wilson or Trent

Shurfield, both going to be super, super cheap in this game. We talk about it a lot on this show and on the early edge and the mega previews, all the things there. Some of these backup quarterbacks typically have a chemistry with wide receiver three, wide receiver four, wide receiver five on the depth chart. Guys that they spend a little bit more time working with in general it might seem easy to go play with a guy like Tyreek and Waddle not as easy as you would think because of the way that they play it takes a while to understand first of all how quick and how Tyreek it does throw timing off it's not as easy as it might seem and I know that might sound like a really silly and crazy comment because the guy might be open for longer. I understand that.

But it's not always super easy just adapting there. Sometimes we see guys like Shurfield or Wilson. I think it's fine to speculate there. But this game for me is all about Romandre and the Patriots defense. I think that we're going to see, I think we see some turnovers on the Miami side. Okay. Sounds to me like you like the Patriots minus three or is it a stay away?

Yes. I played minus two and a half on the Patriots. This was before the two news. We mostly knew Tua wasn't going to play on Tuesday, but yes, I am on the Patriots. I'm also fading. I've been fading the Dolphins for the last four weeks. I have a ticket for them to miss the playoffs

at plus 350, but on the Chargers against them, so I'm happy. Yeah, happy. That's literal money in the bank. Follow Mike on the early edge at Sportsline. He gives all these picks out on this show and on

Sportsline itself. So, Panthers plus three at the Bucs. I like the Panthers. Speaking of against the spread, I like the Panthers plus three in this one personally. I'd be curious as to what your thoughts are. I think there are pieces to play potentially on both sides. We know DJ Moore has been getting a little bit more production with Sam Darnold back there. I think on the Bucs side, Leonard Fournette, I mean, he drastically out-touched Rashad White last week. And I think though, to the extent he has a foot mean, he drastically out-touched Rashad White last week. And I think, though, to the extent he has a foot injury, he's clearly been playing through it.

And this is a must-win for the Bucs. So I expect the volume to be there for Leonard Fournette. I think Godwin's a good play. The Carolina defense has improved, but they're certainly susceptible against slot receivers. I mean, Godwin's always in play, but particularly against Carolina, I think that's where we're going to see Tom Brady go. I don't, I'm not really, this doesn't seem like a very sexy game for me to really grab anybody, but I do think there are some plays to consider. I don't really want to consider any of the Carolina running backs because I don't know who's going to get the lion's share. Are you on anybody in this game?

I am. Leonard Fournette is a core lineup play for me. That's the reason why I wasn't on Tyler Algier as much. I love Leonard Fournette here. I think he is a minimum of $1,000 too cheap. I think he should be $7,000 in this matchup. $6,600 for sure, but I think the price point should be $7,000. You saw it last week. I think you're going to see it again. Tom's not right. And when he's not right, he looks to check the ball down. He can't throw the ball over the middle of the field to Gronkowski anymore. This is a much better spot for Godwin.

So I expect Godwin will have a pretty good game as well. He's going to dump the ball to Leonard Fournette. They're going to run the ball to pick up any first down under five yards. They're going to attempt to do that first. And he's going to check down to Lenny Fournette. Lenny Fournette had 10 targets in the last game. We're going to see that again. He's going to out-touch White. I think the price point is far too low. So I am all over him. I will say I absolutely love Tampa Bay in this game. We might have to have a showdown on it,

but I do love Tampa Bay. It was my best bet of the week by far i i put that one in tuesday as well um the look ahead line so we talk about look ahead lines last week's line on this game was six and a half this line has moved three and a half points based on the result of the carolina game over detroit and tampa struggling in the desert with arizona now tom is at home in the must-win situation. This line, if we look back to when McCaffrey was traded, right? When McCaffrey was traded, if they were playing the Bucs on the road, the line would have been 10.5, 9.5, 10.5 in Tampa.

I just think it's too much of an overreaction considering everyone is healthy. I know Lenny Fournette's healthy. I know Godwin's healthy. I know Mike Evans is healthy. Yeah, I'm going to ride it here. So I like the Bucs a lot. Leonard Fournette is going to be in most of my lineups this week. I do love the Leonard Fournette play. I think the only pushback before we get to Niners Raiders and the Jared Stidham show, the only pushback I give there is that the last time these two teams played, the Panthers rushed 26 times for 176 yards. And this running game seems to be even more effective now than it was back then in week seven. And in that game, Tom Brady, who I think

we could argue at least looked better in week seven than he does now, threw for zero touchdown passes. So I just think from a matchup standpoint, we conceive of the Bucs as like a pretty formidable defense, but particularly against the run, but they just haven't been. They're in the bottom half of the league. They're allowing four and a half yards per carry. If I'm the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I fear this running game. I don't fear Sam Darnold. I hope I turn Sam Darnold over and I win the game because of that.

But I fear, believe it or not, Deontay Foreman, Chuba Hubbard, and Blackshear. I just think that's a formidable trio that can just kind of, you know, chip away at you and at least cover the spread. But I hear you. I mean, it's still the Bucks. It's still Tom Brady. I just wonder about the identity of this team at the end of the day. Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. And if the spread was say even five and a half, four and a half, I'd be much more interested in backing the other side. I do think the way Carolina plays this game is it's going to lead to just a very competitive game either way, right? They're going to pound the football. They're going to run the clock. They know they're not winning a shootout. They know they can win a game that may only require

them to score 20 points, right? They know they're not winning scoring 35. At least I would assume they know that. Right. Uh, so I think it's going to lead to a competitive game either way, but yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to back Tom in this particular spot. Fair enough. Okay. Let's go to the first four o'clock game. This is a four Oh five start. It's the San Francisco 40 49ers at the Las Vegas Raiders. I don't think there's a lot of pieces that were super interested in this game, particularly with Jared Stidham at quarterback. You know, I have this again, if you follow me on Twitter, I have these soapbox issues. And one of them is, let's get Josh Jacobs off the field. If we're going to take Derek Carr off the field because of money concerns, then let's

take Josh Jacobs off the field and take care of his money as well. But maybe Josh Jacobs feels completely different. So that's on me if he does. But Jacobs, 7,400. Devontae Adams, 8,500. You got Darren Waller at 4,300, which I think is interesting. And then of course, Christian McCaffrey, that's sort of the guy. It's certainly a better matchup against the Raiders. You know, he had a tough game last week, barely, you know, he only caught two balls on two targets.

I think he averaged 3.1 yards per carry against that Washington commanders defense, but this is a much better matchup. He's nine K. I don't, I'm looking at it now. It looks like he's going to be pretty popular. So it seems to be like a good place to pivot off of him and to pivot off of this game entirely. What say you? Yeah, I'm going to pivot off of it. Uh, pretty much entirely. The only thing that would get me to playing McCaffrey or not playing McCaffrey, playing someone else. I could play Davis price, the running back, the backup. Uh, if Mason, who is dealing with the hamstring injury is inactive and we get any sort of report based on the 1pm games, because 1pm games can still influence the 49ers motivation to win this game in a little bit of a way. Um, depending on that,

I think that we could be in for a very reduced role for christian mcafree uh i shanahan's great right we saw it last week and it kind of frustrated me because i you know i had a great week last week right i was four or five fantasy points away from an extra thirty thousand dollars right and christian mcafree sat out two different series where they handed the ball to davis price six carries in a row right right? And it's one of those situations where Shanahan's being smart. He's protecting his players. He understands that it is a massive long game. I think that we see more of that from him. I don't think we see a direct McCaffrey's not playing kind of thing, but I think that they get in, get out with a win. I do not expect McCaffrey to be in this game,

taking tons of handoffs if they're up by 10 points or more. So I think Davis price at 4,400 is worthy of a look in something like a, like a 100, you know, you're playing one 50 entries, you're playing 20 plus. That's where I think you could take that look. And for the record, if you decided to play Christian McCaffrey and you put them in your flex, for example, and you get news that maybe they're not going to be running him as much, but you get that news at like two 30 or three o'clock, uh, there's a guy named Justin Jefferson that plays in a four o'clock game as well. And so that the, again, if he's CMC is in your flex spot, you can easily swap them out. If you're not already playing Justin Jefferson,

there's obviously other players you can swap them out for, but that's just one example. So it's just something to consider if you get cold feet on CMC. That's what late swap is for. But is there anything else to address in this game? I mean, on the Raiders side, are you playing anybody? I'm not. I'm not. I do, like you said, I wish Josh Jacobs wouldn't play at all for his own personal well-being.

I think he's going to play a little bit, but I expect him and Devontae to be limited. So unfortunately, I think those guys are completely off the table for the rest of the year. Yeah, Josh Jacobs is leading the league in rushing yards. He probably wants to secure that, but he's got a big lead on Derrick Henry, who's not even going to be playing tonight on Thursday Night Football. So he pretty much has that wrapped up as well. For those of you that don't know, he's in the final year of his contract. Only signed a four-year, $12 million deal. You know, with running backs, if they get injured,

they're damaged, they're washed, they're just not going to get that big contract. So it's his only time to cash in. That's why I'm sort of on this soapbox thing. The Jets at the Seattle Seahawks, Jets are favored by one and a half at Seattle. It's a 41 and a half point total. You know, I'm not really interested in this game. Normally I'd want to play a Mike White stack because he's always seems to be presenting value. And I think you could play Mike White to Garrett Wilson here in maybe have a run back, maybe not have a run back. I think guys like Noah Fant are potentially in place since Will Disley is on IR, but I just don't think I'm getting to this game. I'm not interested in DK Metcalf. Lockett appears to be playing, but you know,

he's got that finger issue and against the Jets. I'm just not super interested in DK Metcalf. Lockett appears to be playing, but he's got that finger issue. And against the Jets, I'm just not super interested in that either. I think an interesting play would be Zonovan Knight if the Jets can establish the run against Seattle. I think it would be Zonovan Knight with the rushing attempts as opposed to the pass catching work. But I don't think I'm getting there either. Mike, do you like anything in this game? I do. I like one piece. Tyler Conklin, $2,900 tight end. We like cheap tight ends. You know we play two of them. We played two of them last week.

We're going to probably end up doing it again this week. Tyler Conklin, $2,900. The closest thing to a free square gets an ideal situation of matchup. The Seahawks are the worst team in the NFL defending the tight end. Obviously gets an upgrade of the quarterback position again. He's had some chemistry there. He's even getting four targets against Jacksonville. He's got some upside.

There's not a ton of touchdown equity here. It's all bonus if we get some touchdowns. But at 2,900 in a game that's competitive with a team that's got to win, I think you could do a lot worse. So, yeah, he's in my player pool at 2,900. Fantastic. All right. I'll take that. Is there anybody else? I mean, he's just a one-off play then. Just a one-off play.

Any of the Jets pass catchers I think are fine as one-off plays. I think it's hard to really isolate on any of them, but Conklin, because of the position that he plays, I think is the most interesting. And then I want to go quickly back to Christian McCaffrey. I could see the scenario where I end up playing Christian McCaffrey, but the only scenario, it's going to be a late swap scenario. The scenario that the Saints are beating the Eagles,

that's when I'm interested. If the Saints beat the Eagles here, it probably means Jalen Hurts is not playing for one. The 49ers are live to still capture the number one seed in the NFC. If the Saints beat the Eagles here, the Eagles have to lose the final two games. The Niners have to win both of them

and the Vikings have to lose one of their next two. I'm very confident the Vikings are losing this week. If the Saints lose in the one o'clock window, we would, in theory, have time to swap on to Christian McCaffrey. If the Saints beat the Eagles in that game, it'll be all systems go 100% Christian McCaffrey in that game. So something to watch out for. Yeah, no, that's really, really good insight.

Again, use late swap to your advantage, which again, I mentioned it on Tuesday during the solo pod, Mike, So something to watch out for. losing. They are plus three and a half at the Packers. It's a 47 and a half point total. It's a game a lot of people want to get a piece of. Christian Watson, it was stated that he actually practiced today, but I don't think he did. I think he came out to practice, but didn't actually practice. So some confusion there. I don't know if that means he's playing or if he's not, but I think he's trending toward potentially not playing, which I think puts some of those other kind of receivers in play, like Alan Lazard, of course, maybe Romeo Dobbs. With that said, on the Vikings side, there's a couple of guys that are pretty undeniable. I mean, TJ Hawkinson is a guy that won a lot of people, including yourself, money last week.

But then you got Justin Jefferson. Does Dalvin Cook have his pop game at some point? I don't know. I've been counting on it. I was counting on it last week, and that hurt me pretty bad. But I assume you like a lot of pieces in this game, including a gentleman by the name of Aaron Rogers. I do like Aaron Rogers. It's a great spot in my opinion. It's the biggest home field advantage in the NFL for me is playing at Lambeau. That is especially true when it is January. Look, we watched what the giants did for us last week,

right? We're going to see something similar here. I like all the receivers. I don't think Watson's going to play. If he does fire him up. If not, Alan Lazard is by far my favorite receiver really on the entire slate. Maybe I'm on ahead of him. So, but in terms of value, it's Lazard for sure. Romeo Dobbs, love him. Randall Cobb will work his way into my player pool as well. That's a pretty big if, but if Watson is out. I want to talk about Minnesota in general. They just have really struggled defensively. I tweeted this out the other day, what, three or four days ago?

This team has not played outdoors since November 13th. It has been seven weeks. It will be 50 days since the last time they've played a game outdoors. Now they've got to do it at Lambeau. Aaron Rodgers backed into a corner. That's where he thrives. Typically. I like the spot for the Packers a lot. I think it's going to be a ton of Lazard. Yeah. Alan Lazard, Aaron Rodgers. That's my stack. So let me ask you this. Is there a double stack in play? Is there a second receiver or the tight end that's in play? And from a runback standpoint, who would be the primary runback? Uh, primary runback, probably going to jam in Justin Jefferson. Honestly. Um, Hawkinson is definitely right there as well. I'm not going to touch

Dalvin Cook personally um I think it's possible he has a big game I just I've already told you I'm playing Leonard Fournette and Ramondre Stevenson so it doesn't leave a ton of room for for the Dalvin shares I'm going to focus on those receivers so I like Hawkinson a lot I like Jefferson a lot um I think the other maybe interesting call out is the last two weeks we've seen Mercedes Lewis pop his head up in the relevance again. He's only 2,800. If you're playing Aaron Rogers,

it's another way to take advantage of some of that, that stack ability in this game. So especially if Watson ended up not playing. Yeah. On the Minnesota side though, for me, it's just going to be Jefferson and Hawkinson in the fire pool. Okay. And for the record, in case we didn't mention it,

Justin Jefferson, 9,500 TJ Hawkinson, 5,400 and for whatever it's worth, which it hasn't been much lately, a Dalvin cook is a flat seven K. Okay. Did you have something else, Mike, on this one? No, I mean, I think you could argue to play A.J. Dillon still if you wanted to. He's getting all the workload. He's getting red zone looks. At 5,800, if you wanted to take a little bit more contrarian stance, I think that, you know, say you wanted to build a Jared Goff lineup and still wanted some pieces of Green Bay,

A.J. Dillon's score is still highly correlated to Aaron Rodgers just because of what a weapon he is in the red zone. And there's certainly some ambiguity to what's going on with Aaron Jones, right? I mean, is it possible that there's a lingering injury that's maybe more pronounced than has been let on? Absolutely. I mean, he's listed on the injury report with knee and ankle. I think it's the knee that they've been worried about to be honest with you i think it's it's really bothered

him and they've wanted to limit touches i don't know if it's it's some of its limiting touches some of it is aj dylan's actually been quite effective in the situations they've asked him to be effective in um but yeah i think they've been monitoring it and trying to avoid a more serious injury as they look towards the playoffs and try and get in. We'll see if all of those concerns are thrown out the window and they must win game here. Fair enough. Okay, let's transition. Serious injury. That's Cam Akers. Achilles last year, he bounced back in the Super Bowl and wasn't effective because he had just torn his Achilles. He probably shouldn't have been playing in the Super Bowl and wasn't effective because he had just torn his Achilles. He probably shouldn't have been playing in the Super Bowl. But here we are. He's had a really tough time coming back. He plays against the Chargers, which is a team you can run on. They're

allowing the most yards per carry in the league. Rams plus six and a half at the Chargers. It's only a 43-point total. Not a super sexy game, which is a surprise, right? Because any Chargers game usually is. A couple questions here. Do we just go right back to Cam Akers or Tyler Higby as maybe one-off plays? And is there anybody on the Chargers side that you're interested in knowing that this is a very low total? Yeah, I'm not super interested here, honestly. If you want to play Akers, I think it's fine. You know, you just have to ask yourself, do you want want to play them for me i i'm trying to make a big case for leonard fournette right so i'm not going to play 6100 for him do you want to play him over remandre stevenson that's the question you got to ask

yourself right they're close enough in price point um i think it's okay i think it's possible the question i have there is you know at this point do they still want to run acres into the ground do they still you're removed from a very serious injury. Maybe they let him keep going. Maybe they dial it back a bit. It's, you never know when it's going to come like that. So I can't get anywhere in this game. I'm never going to say don't play Keenan Allen. If you like Keenan Allen,. I think that he's going to get targets. I think he's got some upside, but as crazy as it sounds, I think I'm off this game as well.

Yeah, fair enough. I think I'm largely off of it, but I think I will sneak in Cam Akers, maybe Tyler Higby. There's other tight ends I like this week, so Higby may take a backseat, but I think I'm going to play because I noticed my Cam Akers ownership was certainly lower than I anticipated it being. I'm not saying this guy's like Austin Eckler all of a sudden or Christian McCaffrey. But I thought, you know, based on last week and based on what the Rams game plan is likely to be against the Chargers, that he'd be in the 10 to 15 percent range.

But or 12, something like that. That's not what we're seeing, right? Yeah, no, it's not what we're seeing at all there. OK, yeah. I want to quickly call out Keenan Allen's success recently too. Just because he's an absolute target monster. He's got 14 targets, 9 targets, 14 and 14. Those are his last four games.

Yeah, that's pretty incredible. He has not had fewer than 86 receiving yards in any of the last four games, averaging 12.5 targets a game. Insane. Wow. That is insane. Okay. What else is insane is we are,

we're at, we're at your top three. We can do your top three at QB running back wide receiver, tight end defense. The insane part is we have like twice as many people as we have likes. We have 89 likes. We're really close. So we're going to go ahead and give it to you.

We're going to give you the top three at each position, but, uh, don't hesitate. We've got a lot of people watching. We are very fortunate to have all of you watching. We just ask you to hit the like button when you get in here. If you can, if you're driving, don't hit the like button, obviously. If you can, review the podcast as well. And I do want to mention our FFT DFS contest is live. It's only 200 deep. So you kind of got to get in there. It's only five bucks. Give it a shot. And we'll go ahead and rep out the number one person. Like we always do on the solo pod every single Tuesday, uh,

Chargy, Victor, Carlos Garrett. We see all in here. Thank you for the questions in the comments. Kevin Slater, uh, appreciate you and PVP naked before we get to your top three, he says first time seeing Mike after two seasons of only listening to the podcast. I always pictured him much older than he looks. I don't know what to say about that. Mike, any comments before you get into your top three at each position? No comments. The secret is the San Pellegrino, I suppose. Yes, that is the secret. Okay, Mike, give me your top three at quarterback and then just run through running back, wide receiver, tight end, and your top three defenses.

All right, quarterback. Number one is going to be Jared Goff. Uh, look, we love the lions in a controlled environment and the dome absolute must win game after getting embarrassed last week. Pretty self-explanatory based on the salary. Number two, Aaron Rogers also must win game. Love him against this Vikings defense. We've been picking on the Vikings defense all year. Why stop now? Number three, Tom Brady. Tom Brady's going to throw three touchdown passes again in this game. No one's going to play him. I'm going to play him. I'm going to pair him with Leonard Fournette, who is my number one running back this week. I love Leonard Fournette this week. I'm going to be very right or I'm going to be very wrong. And if you've

been here all year, you know that's how I play. And it is a profitable strategy for me. And it's going to continue to be so this week. I think number two, running back Ramondre Stevenson, love this spot for him. I think he's put in some really great situations and he's going to touch the ball 25 times total in this game against the Dolphins. Number three, James Connor. I expect James Connor to have his workload. I expect him to score the touchdowns for the Arizona Cardinals. Two wide receiver. Number one, Amonra St. Brown. Number two, Alan Lazard, my favorite Green Bay Packer wide receiver this week. Number three, I've listed Greg Dortch just to highlight his value.

Not my number three overall wide receiver, but someone likely having to work in if I want to play guys like Justin Jefferson in some of my lineups, uh, at tight end, we're going to go number one, TJ Hawkinson. That's the way I want to bring it back against the green Bay Packers, Dallas Goddard. Number two, I think he's going to be a check down valve here for, I believe it's going to be Gardner Minshew playing. Number three, Tyler Conklin, $2,900 tight end for the Jets, facing the worst defense in the league in the Seahawks. For the defense, everybody wants us to include the defense.

Number one, 49ers. Number two, Kansas City Chiefs. Number three, New England Patriots. Absolutely love it. And I'll get to my cheat sheet. I've got Jared Goff to Amon Ross St. Brown. My chalk play is going to be Saquon Barkley. Value, I'll go to my cheat sheet. I've got Jared Goff to Amon Ross St. Brown. My chalk play is going to be Saquon Barkley. Value, I'll go Drake London at 4,900. Contrarian, I had two

different picks here. I settled on Cole Komet, which isn't a super inspiring play at the tight end position. But knowing that to the extent I'm having a bring back in that Lions game, Cole Komet's probably going to be one of the primary ones, if not the only one I bring back. Again, you don't have to correlate all your games. Mike said he's not necessarily having a Bears bring back in his tournament lineups, but I do like Cole Komet to get some targets and to get some production. The other player I was considering because of the low ownership that I was surprised about was Cam Akers at 6,100. So my contrarian play is going to be listed as Cole Komet, but I do like Cam Akers as a potential pivot off some of those guys that are very popular in that range. And my fade is going

to be Travis Etienne for all the reasons that we talked about when we covered that game. Travis Etienne, of course, 6,400. Mike, time for your cheat sheet. Cheat sheet stack. Aaron Rodgers, Alan Lazard, talked about him a lot today. I love this spot for the Packers that he's going to be the number one wide receiver for Aaron Rodgers. Chalk play. Amonra St. Brown. Love the Lions. Love Jared Goff.

Love the Goff 2. Amonra stack in this game. Great time to jump back on Amonra St. Brown. Value play. Greg Dortch talked about it a couple times. We're going to speculate there. He is the bare minimum $3,000. Love it in this spot. Contrarian play. Leonard Fournette. We'll see how cont there. He is the bare minimum $3,000. Love it in this spot.

Contrarian play Leonard Fournette. We'll see how contrarian it is. We'll see how many people want to follow me when we tout this throughout the rest of the weekend, but I'm on Leonard Fournette again. I think it's a great spot for him. And then my fade for now is Christian McCaffrey with a little caveat that could change if the Saints beat the Eagles in the 1 p.m. window. And if you're hearing just this part of the podcast, because you just stumbled in here

in the live feed or in the podcast, go back and listen to sort of the end of the show when we were talking about some of the implications to some of these teams, if some of the one o'clock games go a certain way, particularly that Eagles game in the, in the case of Christian McCaffrey. So we talked about that toward the end of the podcast after we'd covered the 49ers game. Okay. Last thing we got Thursday night football tonight. I'll be on the early edge tonight. Mike, I know you'll be on the early edge on the Sunday night football game. So everybody's going to see you there, but it's an interesting game, obviously from a showdown standpoint, I think people are going to be really curious. Is there a captain that might just be a value captain tonight, or do you just

run out Zeke? What do you do, and are the value pieces kind of the obvious ones? Is it Hassan Haskins? Is Dobbs going to make it into lineups at the quarterback position? How are you feeling about some of those just random pieces, and is it a huge Zeke game for you, or in showdown, you want to pivot off of that because you think that's where a lot of people are going. Yeah, it's going to be a big Zeke game for me, but I also have a ton of Haskins, a ton of Dobbs. The other one is Malik Davis. You know, we know Tony Pollard's out.

I would expect them to still take it easy a little bit with Zeke. I think we might see a ton of Malik Davis between the twenties and then maybe let Zeke punch it in. I think we see a little bit of that with this. So I like Malik Davis. I've got a ton of him. Obviously playing the Cowboys defense. As far as captains go, I've got Dak and Zeke right at the top, then Lamb, Haskins, Dobbs, and then the kicker, Brett Maher.

You want to play the Cowboys and the captain, I think it's totally fine. But yeah, I'm focused on a lot of the running backs and the captain, I think it's totally fine. Um, but yeah, I I'm focused on a lot of the running backs in this game. Um, particularly Malik Davis, Hassan Haskins, um, a little bit of Julius chestnut. It's, it's a really crazy slate. We talk about it all the time that you don't have to use all the salary. Uh, many of you you know now from following, I play exactly five lineups for every slate. I do it on every main slate. I'm doing it on every showdown slate.

My five lineups tonight on DraftKings that are in, one of them uses 100% of the salary, has $0 left. One of them has $20,500 remaining. Wow. That is incredibly interesting. I mean, yeah. In showdown, you certainly can leave money on the table, but this is one of those where don't worry about only leaving a thousand bucks or let's say you have 10,000 on the table. Don't worry about that. There's got obviously like Dobbs, Julius Chestnut, Malik Davis. These are guys that can have a high

impact that were not contemplated to be playing, to be starting when these prices came out. So this is one of those, Mike, where you can kind of ignore the pricing, right? It almost doesn't even matter what the price tag is at this point. You can ignore the pricing for sure. You know, I don't like to do this, but I'm going to give my full lineup of the one that leaves $0 on the table because it's already going to be duplicated hundreds of times tonight because it's so easy to build it yeah ezekiel elliott cd lamb dak prescott

josh dobbs hassan haskins and the cowboys defense it's the cowboys top weapons at every spot the quarterback and running back for the titans and the cowboys defense like everyone that lineup is going to be duplicated hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times because it's so easy to build. It's essentially lining up the top projected players in the game and clicking on every single one of them, literally. And it fits in the salary cap

because we didn't know these guys were going to play when the pricing was released, right? So you can play whoever you want tonight, ignore the salary cap. i've seen others say it's not the best night to play my argument against that would be it's probably the best night to play yeah the reason why so many people are going to build that exact lineup or one very very similar to it there is the highest probability that we see a unique winner that takes all $500,000 tonight instead of a split for $8,000 between 200 of your closest friends.

That's not happening tonight, most likely. It's going to be a, it's very easy to build a more unique lineup tonight. Yeah. And for those of you that are listening, like you don't even have to do like the big contest. Do the 20 max $1, 20 max $3 or something like that. And just you don't even have to max it out necessarily. Like experiment with some different type of game scripts, some different type of players that you would otherwise never play. Maybe make five, 10 lineups. It won't cost you too much under those parameters. And you can really have some

fun watching this game and just kind of seeing which of your game scripts, which of your random pieces ends up having a ton of impact. Cause we're going to have some random pieces for sure, which we'll talk about on the early edge tonight when we do Thursday night football. But for now that's Mike McClure. Hopefully we have as much success with Mike's lineups and Mike's lineups, Mike lineups choices as we did last week, because it was an incredibly successful week for him and anybody who followed

his lead. I'm certainly going to do that this week. My name is Sian Ajad. That's Mike McClure. This is fantasy football today, DFS. And we're going to see you on Tuesday for the solo pod. And then again on Thursday, hope you have fun with week 17. And I hope it's profitable. We'll see you soon.