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

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

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 Wild Card Saturday DFS contest over on Draftkings- https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/140040814 Join our $5 Wild Card Sunday DFS contest over on Draftkings- https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/140040860 Sia Nejad and Mike McClure are previewing the NFL DFS Wild Card slate. They run through each game, offering their favorite stacks and plays, also letting you know which players to avoid. (3:45)- Seahawks at 49ers (15:50)- Chargers at Jaguars (33:00)- Dolphins at Bills (39:32)- Giants at Vikings (45:20)- Ravens at Bengals '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. My name is Sian Najab. That right there is Mike McClure, and it's the playoffs. I can't believe we're through 18 weeks, Mike.

I'm really excited about the playoffs because I do recall my own lineups and this show kind of really doing well in the playoffs last year. And I think it's because roster construction wise, you can do so many different things and we have so much predictive data when it comes to ownership and things like that. Are you as excited as I am? I am incredibly excited. You know, there's two different slates. They're drastically different, right? It's a two-game slate on Saturday, a three-game slate on Sunday. They couldn't be any more different. And I love that.

So we get to talk about both, break them down. And both of them really lead to strategies that we've used, honestly, week in and week out throughout the season that have maybe been a little different from what a lot of people do. So yes, I am very excited. I think we are going to print some money this week. Yeah, being different than what a lot of people do, I think that's sort of the key line here,

especially when you have these condensed slates, right, Mike? Because you kind of know where people are going in a lot of different areas. You kind of know, for example, in this Saturday slate, well, a lot of people are probably going to play Christian McCaffrey. That certainly makes sense. In the Chargers-Jaguars game, there's going to be guys that are clearly going to be, without even looking at ownership, there's going to be guys that are clearly going to be more valuable to people than other guys. do on this show. It's not just about fading such and such person. It's about, well, yeah, you can do that too, but it's the roster construction right now. And I always go back to the holiday season, Mike, where you had that lineup with Gardner Minshew, and this was a great

lineup. And our whole fantasy football today, DFS community did really well that week when you had Gardner Minshew with Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins. And then you had TJ Hawkinson from Minnesota. And I believe Justin Jefferson in that lineup too. And it was a different roster construction because most people want to pair receivers with their quarterback, especially on a shorter slate, which that was. And you didn't have to do that, and it really paid off for you and everybody that listened.

So speaking of those of you that are listening, Robert Picciano, he says he's very excited to hear what Mike and Sia have for us today. Playoffs, baby. Let's go. Garrett is in here already. Thank you everybody for being in here. Hit the like button if you can. One quick thing before we get to that Saturday slate, and we'll start with the Seahawks and the Niners. Remember, we have two contests, one for Saturday, our FFT DFS contest, of course, one for Saturday and one for Sunday. With that in mind, I would go ahead and register for those now. You can actually, if you're watching on YouTube, you can click on the link right now for the Saturday and Sunday contest.

Reminder, they're only $5. But if you're listening, go ahead and click on it now because they're only 100 deep. In other words, we normally have 200 people in each contest. This week, it's going to be 100 for Saturday, 100 for Sunday. I believe the Saturday slate's already almost half full, which certainly makes sense. So get in there so we can, you know, wrap out your lineup next week. And one other thing, programming note, Monday, we're not going to talk about Monday night football. We're not going to talk about the Cowboys and Bucks too much on this show because we have a special show

coming at you Monday at 10 30 a.m eastern standard time it is going to be a show all about the Cowboys and the Buccaneers from a DFS standpoint I don't know Mike maybe we'll throw in some bets and some props in there too just to just spice it up a little bit but that show will be specifically for that game so 10 30 a.m mark your calendar mark your phone mark something because we'll be here and we want you to be here too. All right, Mike, you ready to get into the Saturday slate? I am ready for the Saturday slate. It's such a great slate. I can't wait to talk about it. Let's go. So speaking of great, we have a great player on the Saturday slate. His name is Christian McCaffrey. This is the second time I've referenced him and we're only three minutes into the show.

Mike, obviously people want to play Christian McCaffrey here. It certainly makes sense. With that said, there might be a nice little contrarian move knowing that people want to play Christian McCaffrey. Before we went on air, Mike, you brought up maybe some possibilities where, well, maybe you grab some pieces of this game in a two game slate, obviously, but maybe Christian McCaffrey isn't one of them. Tell us more. Yeah, I personally am going to, at least on DraftKings, maybe not the same thing on FanDuel, different scoring rules, et cetera, pricing, but on DraftKings, I'm going to be fading Christian McCaffrey in this two game slate. Yes, he is the best player on the slate. He is definitely the most talented player taking the field. No doubt about

that, right? However, Elijah Mitchell is back. Debo Samuel is back. George Kittle has the best individual matchup you could possibly have. And oh, by the way, like you like to say, I love when you say, oh, by the way, it's my favorite thing to hear, honestly. The defense, the 49ers defense has a tremendous matchup against a team that probably shouldn't be here in the Seattle Seahawks. They have been awful. The defense is going to potentially create points, but definitely create short fields that robs what McCaffrey is going to be great at, which is racking up big plays between the twenties. What we're fading here is essentially that he doesn't score all of the goal line touchdowns, right?

So there's a narrative out there that he was limited a little bit last week because Mitchell was back. They were taking things easy. I don't know that that's necessarily the case. We've seen these guys be active together at the same time four times so far this season, right? In those four games, Christian McCaffrey, his rushing totals in those games, 45, 32, 39, and 38 yards. His highest rushing total in those games, 45 rushing yards. Yes, he's going to be involved in the passing game. I think this game's overall very, very slow, right? I think that the 49ers keep the clock rolling. I think Seattle keeps the clock rolling. They still want to try and run the football. They know the way they win this game is a low scoring defensive battle. Get the game to the fourth quarter as quick as possible. In my opinion, that's their path to beating the 49ers. It's not to try and outscore them by scoring 35

points. That's right. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I was going to, I was going to say, and there's evidence of that, right? When, when, when Seattle, and I want you to pick up on that point in a second, but the last two times this season when Seattle actually played San Francisco, it's not like Geno was chucking the ball downfield. I mean, you can't really against this defense. It's a very stout defense. And you're right about the clock management too. We have a 42 point total. I think some people might think, well, that seems a little low, like I'm going to take the over, but it's there for a reason. And I think controlling the clock is really Seattle's best friend. And you hope Brock Purdy makes a mistake and just isn't able to get the ball down the field on multiple drives. But with that said, I certainly agree with you from a game plan standpoint, Mike. Yeah, definitely. And then when we look at the ownership projections, I'm projecting 60% owned on Christian McCaffrey. I think the number is truly going to be 70% on this two game slate. At 70%, if he doesn't have the ceiling game, you've all but guaranteed that you're going to minimum cash in contests on a two game slate, right? As long as the rest of

your roster is solid, you've all but guaranteed that here. So what we're looking for is we're looking to not have Christian McCaffrey score 30 points in this game. In the scenario where he scores 12 points, has a decent day but doesn't land in the end zone because the defense scores or Purdy throws a touchdown or Elijah Mitchell gets a carry, whatever it may be, you are drastically ahead of a large portion of the field. So considering the overall game script and the number of mouths to feed in the San Francisco offense, I'm willing to make the bet that Christian McCaffrey does not have the ceiling game of 30 fantasy points or more. That would, you know, if he scores 30 points, he's going to crush me. I'm not going to win, right? And I'm okay with that. I'm willing to bet against him scoring 30 fantasy points. That's simply what this play is about.

And when you're not allocating that kind of salary to him, I think it goes a long way in changing the way your roster looks. So that's what I'm going to be doing here. He's a fine play. He's probably going to score 20 fantasy points. I'm willing to bet that 20 isn't enough to win the tournament. Yeah. And I like what you said, though.

I think there's really two fine points because everybody's going to listen to that and they'll be like, man, I can't imagine fading Christian McCaffrey on this particular two-game slate. Well, there's two things that Mike highlighted there, and I'm going to say the first one, which is probably less important, in my opinion. The less important one is, well, what does it allow you to do with your roster construction? Now that you don't have Christian McCaffrey in there at his price of 8,500, which is a reasonable price, mind you, but it allows you to do kind of whatever you want. And whatever you decide to do without Christian McCaffrey, you can pretty much guarantee it's

going to be different than most of the field. And that leads me to my second point. The second point and the more important one on this two-game slate is Mike just told you that what he's seeing with CMC is about 60% ownership. And it wouldn't shock either of us if by the time this ball kicks off that Christian McCaffrey is closer to 70% in tournaments. Well, if Christian McCaffrey, again, doesn't have that ceiling game, now 70% of the field is in a little bit of trouble and you might really be able to crush it. So again, it's not a fade of Christian McCaffrey in a vacuum. It's a fade of Christian McCaffrey, which allows you to build your roster different, but also know that you have tremendous ownership leverage on the field with your other plays and just not having Christian McCaffrey.

So kind of like a, you know, this is hard one, right, Mike, because most people listening are like, I just can't resist putting in Christian McCaffrey. And what would you recommend to those people? Let's say I see Chargy65 in here, Haslan in here, Chris. Thank you. By the way, Haslan, that's a really nice compliment. Best NFL DFS podcast on the air, just straight DFS content without the annoying filler that other podcasts tend to have. Well, thank you very much.

With that said, let's say somebody is building five lineups. Would you recommend, in their tournament lineups specifically, would you recommend that maybe, you know, that they only, I know what you're probably going to do, but would you recommend that maybe they only do three lineups without Christian McCaffrey? Or like, how do you expect sort of the non-professional DFS player to handle that particular scenario? Yeah, I think, look, I think it's fine to play Christian McCaffrey. I think the point here is also if we project him to be 60 to 70% owned, play him in one or two lineups, right? If you're playing five, playing him in one lineup, you're still drastically underweight to the field, which is the point that we're trying to hammer home. At least the point I want to hammer home

here is I want to be underweight drastically on Christian McCaffrey because I don't believe he has the ceiling game. So yeah, I think that if you want to protect yourself in the scenario that he does have that ceiling game, what I personally would recommend doing is building a lineup that looks correlated to what his ceiling game looks like, right? And what I think that that looks like, this might sound a little crazy, but for him to have a ceiling game, I think it comes through the air. I think it's got to come through some of the passing yards.

Yes, the touchdowns could be rushing touchdowns. I understand that. I think that it's going to have to be, the scenario that he has a ceiling game, it is likely that he catches like a 40- yard touchdown pass, right? Like that's where I think the true ceiling comes from. So if you want to build a lineup that capitalizes on that, you're going to, obviously you want the 49ers defense for that correlation.

I would probably take it a step further and potentially play Brock Purdy with them. I'm thinking that the scenario that he plays and has this big game is a scenario where maybe the game's more competitive than we think. And maybe they've got to throw the football to him more. Um, I would, that's the way I would handle it personally. And if you're doing that in that particular build, obviously you're involving a good amount of Seattle Seahawks because that would mean the Seattle Seahawks are kind of pushing not just the pace, but the scoreboard too.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So it'd be looking most likely at a guy like Tyler Lockett on the other side. Yeah, gotcha. Now, real quick, before we move on from this game, let's assume that some people want to do what you're going to do, and that includes me, of course, and your fade Christian McCaffrey.

Who in this game do you like on the San Francisco side? I mean, I think certainly we know George Kittle has some touchdown equity, not necessarily a lot of target equity, but Debo Samuel comes back. It's really hard to decide who to pull from this game. To me, it would probably be George Kittle. And maybe you want to take a shot at one of the backup running backs like Elijah. Maybe he gets in the reds in the end zone. Or is it just one pass catcher and you leave or no pass catchers? At this point, I think you could speculate on Elijah Mitchell.

If you really want to apply that leverage a little more and bet on Mitchell landing in the end zone and not McCaffrey, I can tell you my optimal lineup from this game doesn't use any players in this game other than defense, right? So it's full on game stack, the Chargers game while fading McCaffrey, you might think that it's not going to be contrarian. Like, yeah, a lot of people are going to want to play everyone in the other game, right? Not the case. 60 to 70% of the field is playing Christian McCaffrey. When you do that, you can't do the exact same thing that we want to do here. So I can tell you right now, my optimal lineup, lineup number one has the 49ers defense and zero other players from this game.

I think it's advantageous for two big reasons. Number one, this game is first, right? We know the 49ers defense. If they hold serve at home, we expect them to roll. We expect them to score no less than 10 fantasy points as a defense. Number two, there's a significant question mark on a receiver in the late game. You have all of the late swap opportunity available in that game. You've used nobody except for the defense. If McCaffrey busts, 70% of the field is busted. If anything else in this

game busts, you are in a very, very, very good position heading into the night game. I love that. And just to go over some of the Seattle people, like I'm going to be on Ken Walker unders probably in the betting market. I'll wait and see where those numbers settle at. DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, it seems like you kind of already answered that question. You like the Tyler Lockett play better. And that's what I mentioned on Tuesday,

that I like Tyler Lockett better than DK Metcalf. Noah Fant, Colby Parkinson. Let's say you're playing a McCaffrey lineup or you're playing a lineup that just happens to be expensive. We looked on the Tuesday show, Colby Parkinson has been getting some targets. We know Will Disley is on IR. If you absolutely need the savings, is that somebody you'd go to? Are we just getting into fantasy land here, no pun intended, where it's like, okay, now you're diving too low on a 2,500 Colby Parkinson? I don't mind it. The only the only scenario I do it honestly is probably in a Christian McCaffrey lineup. Um, what just for salary, right? So he's $2,500. It saves some

money over the tight ends in the other game. Um, I'm not going to play Gino of course. So I'm not really worried about correlating anything there. Um, but yeah, I don't mind Parkinson, uh, fan. It looks like he's fine. Not going to really have much of an injury designation headed in here. But for me personally, if I get to a Seahawk, which I might, it would be Tyler Lockett here. DK Metcalf, he's very, very talented. If you watch that game, he almost cost them that game in that last one. He's always into the matchup with Jalen Ramsey.

But I think he's really kind of upset Geno Smith a little bit in some last one. He's always into the matchup with Jalen Ramsey. But I think he's really kind of upset Gino Smith a little bit in some of these. And I think their chemistry and timing is definitely off whether actually offer by choice. I'm going to be avoiding DK Metcalf until I'm proven wrong. Okay. I like it. All right. Let's finally move on from this game to the game that I think everybody's really excited about. I think you're right, Mike. People are going to grab Christian McCaffrey. Maybe they'll throw in Kittle because they love what he did last week. Again, you got to be careful. I think Kittle might have a good game. I think he's going to have about four catches and his prop, by the way, is three and a half. By the way, Colby Parkinson's, if you guys are like,

what are you guys, why are you talking about Parkinson? It's for salary relief, but I do want to mention his prop is up. His receiving yard prop, I believe, is 17 and a half. So it's not like it's extremely insignificant. He's a guy that's probably going to get a couple of looks. But I bring that up because you're probably going to grab one or two pieces, maybe two, three, or four, depending on how you want to play that first game. On this show, we're not grabbing many pieces there. However, then you go to the Chargers and the Jaguars game.

The Chargers are minus 2.5. That line has been kind of moving around. It was minus 1, then it was minus 2, then it was back to minus 1. Now it's Chargers minus 2.5. They are the favorite. It's a 47.5-point total. Wouldn't shock me if that ticks up to 48. Both these defenses are pretty bad.

The one part of either of these defenses that's kind of good is the Chargers, excuse me, the Jacksonville Jaguars run defense is very solid, particularly from a yards per carry standpoint. So I do think the method here is the Chargers through the air. Chargers have all their pass catchers healthy, except, oh wait, Brandon Staley decided to play Mike Williams and everybody else last week. So Mike Williams didn't practice today. I, you know, I'm speculating, but I kind of think he's not going to play. And if he does, it's not going to be many snaps on, uh, on this Saturday, but that's just me speculating with all of that said, knowing that both past defenses are very bad, Mike, and knowing that you can really do almost anything against the chargers offensively to their defense. I feel like a lot of these Jacksonville Jaguars and Chargers are in play. Yeah, there are a ton of them are in play. Like

I said, I can tell you my optimal lineup now is 49ers defense. That's it. And then everything else comes from this game. So I really, really love both sides here. My favorite player in the game is going to be Austin Eckler. I do love Austin Eckler here. Yes, the yards per carry against are very concerning, right? It's certainly concerning. However, I think he's going to get there through volume. I think he's massively underpriced. I think he should be the same price or more than Christian McCaffrey, given the individual matchups and the mouths to feed on each team. The one thing I'm speculating the most on, we've seen Austin Eckler's workload not be as extreme as it has in years past.

I think that was a little precautionary throughout this season. I think that when it comes to a must-win game, a playoff game like this, I think they lean on him incredibly hard. I think his usage is sky high in this particular game. So I love, love, love Austin Eckler here. On the other side, I like Travis Etienne. I think he's going to be able to move the football a ton between the 20s, right? I think Jacksonville is going to move the ball

really well between the 20s. Whether or not they convert for six each time, I don't think that's going to happen. I think they're going to be held to some field goal attempts or turnover on downs if they go forward on fourth down. But I expect them to have a ton of success moving the ball. So yeah, I like both running backs a ton. In terms of raw fantasy point projection, I have Christian McCaffrey behind Austin Eckler and dead even with Travis Etienne. And the cool thing about fading McCaffrey is now you can kind of like, you can literally do whatever you want. And that includes Justin Herbert with Austin Eckler. And let's say Keenan Allen,

is that a stack of like a double stack you'd be interested in Mike? 100%. That'll definitely, I probably going to have that on all three of my lineups. I'm playing three lineups on the two game slate. I play three lineups. I usually play five. I play three on the two game slate. Yeah. Herbert Eckler, Keenan Allen will be in all of them.

Okay. And then obviously you're bringing it back with some guys. And I think, by the way, these two teams played in week three and the Chargers ended up losing that game kind of convincingly, but keep in mind, Justin Herbert had that rib cartilage injury and he wasn't really supposed to play that game, but the NFL is weird and they trotted him out anyway. And, you know, he had a subpar game. So I wouldn't necessarily look to week three, but I will say, you know, in terms of the Jacksonville offense, they were pretty good in the receiving game. Christian Kirk, Zay Jones in particular, had a really good game. So both those guys seem to be in play. Do you have a favorite? Do you think in that lineup you just referenced, you might just play both of those guys? I will be playing both of them in most lineups. Yes. I'll lean to Zay Jones if you've got to

only play one. Reason for that is just the price point play, $4,300. Very easy to get in in any scenario. But I love Christian Kirk as well. The thing that I will mention about that previous meeting, I think the previous meetings, part of the reason why we see a ton of people want to bet Jacksonville this week. I think you have to throw that game out on the Chargers side. Herbert clearly injured, was not effective in that game at all. Keenan Allen wasn't even active. He wasn't able to play in that game. Mike Williams caught one target, one of his six targets. It was a game where they had no business playing Herbert in that spot. So I would throw that game out entirely.

As far as the defensive concerns for the Chargers, they're going to get run on. They invite the run. Travis Etienne's going to have his success on the ground. In the passing game, though, since week eight, they've been a top five defense against the passing game. I think that that only allows for more passing attempts, more targets. I think that they're just not going to be as efficient, the Jaguars. So this is clearly the game to stack. The thing that you have to do is what I'm doing. I'm choosing to fade McCaffrey to get different. You've got to figure out a way to get different

because we are obviously not the only ones who know that this is the game you want to target. So is there a way in this game to get different? Now we know Mike Williams, well, we don't know anything about Mike Williams, but we know that if he's out, that gives some of these secondary pass catchers some room to throttle up and get some work.

That's specifically Joshua Palmer, maybe DeAndre Carter, maybe Gerald Everett. Is there anybody from that? Or maybe you just want to get really different and throw Donald Parham in there, who, by the way, can get downfield on some of his targets and certainly has some touchdown equity as well. Any of those targets that you have in mind, or is it the other side of the ball where maybe you want to grab somebody a little different, like a Marvin Jones, who we talked about on the Tuesday show, who who by the way, over the last four games, I believe has had six plus targets in three of those last four games. And he can get downfield to anybody, you know, interesting to you out of

those names. Yeah. So right now with the information we have, it's Gerald Everett, just because he's going to be active and involved no matter what happens with Mike Williams. If Mike Williams is out, it's going to be a ton of Josh Palmer. I like playing Josh Palmer as it is as well. If you have the salary room to do so, I think that he's certainly going to be involved still. The thing that I want to build for, and I want to continue to speculate on, right? I think there's very little doubt in anyone's mind that if Mike, like I, first of all, I think it's very possible. Mike Williams does not play in this game. Right. I think we would all agree with that. If he does play, I think it's very fair to say that he's not a hundred percent. I think it would

be very difficult to be a hundred percent at this point. It's possible that he's out there as a decoy. It's possible that he's out there because he's convinced them that he's healthy enough to play and literally leaves on the third snap of this football game. It's incredibly possible that that happens. I want to build for those scenarios and what that looks like. It doesn't necessarily mean jam in guys like Carter and Parham, but what it does mean is Keenan Allen is a massive focus on for both teams, right? It's is the lone remaining sure target. He's also going to draw more attention defensively. So what does that look like for the chargers? It looks like a heck of a lot more dumping the ball off to Austin Eckler, in my opinion, which is why I'm so,

so high on Austin Eckler in a must-win game. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm playing, I'm playing Everett. I'm playing double tight end. I'm playing both Ingram and Everett. I can tell you that right now. But what you called out on Parkinson and Parham, I love. And I think a lot of people need to consider that it's totally different than playing either of those guys on a normal week. On a normal week, you've got 30 teams, one and a half tight ends per team. That's a lot of guys you got to outscore to be optimal, right here. We've got two games. You got to outscore five to eight tight ends. Total.

All it takes is one of them to catch one touchdown. Uh, yeah, I love the call out of the backup tight ends. And, uh, Eric, Eric David asks, and Eric David called into our, Spectacular, which is our Wednesday Twitter Spaces show. We did it at 3 o'clock Eastern Standard Time today. By the way, the prop show with prop stars Dave Richard and the coach and myself, that'll be at 4 o'clock tomorrow. And I know I'm going to have a Keenan Allen prop in that one, Mike, but I'm probably going to have an Austin Eckler one too. Because on that Twitter Spaces show earlier, I did mention how I liked Austin Eckler in terms of his receiving work specifically. And Mike,

you have bold face that for me. So that's something we're going to look forward to during tomorrow's prop show. But what I'm watching on the TV, you know, I actually turned it to the golf channel because I don't know when the Sony coverage starts. So I'm just waiting for that to happen.

I would imagine it starts in a half an hour, but I don't know that for a fact. So Mike and I, for those of you that don't know, we do a lot of work for Sportsline. That work is not just football. It includes golf. In Mike's case, it includes really every sport, including the NBA and Major League Baseball. But I do a lot of golf for CBS Sports and for Sportsline. And I've got some picks out there that I can't wait to watch some primetime TV because this tournament, for those of you that don't know, is in Hawaii. So we get golf at night, at least my night, not their night. With that said, anybody else that we left off, I want to dive into your core four for the Saturday slate, but is there anybody that is worth mentioning? Joshua Kelly at 5K,

it sounds to me like that's not a dart you want to throw. I mean, I will mention Kelly does get a lot of work between the tackles, but certainly not going to get any passing work and like i agree with you that now that the playoffs are here like we're going to ramp up everything austin eckler wise i still think kelly will get some work between the tackles but i don't think it'll be significant enough to actually play him let me ask you this one last question on this game travis at the end so you just mentioned how you like Zay and you like Christian Kirk. Given, I mean, I guess you can play. First of all, it sounds to me like Justin Herbert is your preferred stack on this slate.

Is that accurate? Yes, definitely. He's the lead. Okay. Is Travis Etienne going to make it into a lot of your lineups? I mean, obviously he certainly can, but you can't put everybody in there. There's only so much space. Does Travis Etienne, in spite of the fact that he can run all over this defense, does he

take a backseat to Christian Kirk or Zay Jones? Can you rank those three for them in terms of, hey, listen, you think it's going to be a shootout? You think it's going to have a big back and forth, particularly in the passing game, but that doesn't mean Travis Etienne doesn't have room to run. So among those three guys, you can add in Evan Ingram if you want. Where does Travis Etienne sort of rank in the pecking order? Yeah, I'm glad you asked. I actually have it pulled up here from the lineups when I run them. Zay Jones is number one. He's going to be a core piece just because of the price point.

$4,300, it makes a ton of sense, right? But Etienne is number two. You've got to play two running backs. That's the thing on this kind of a slate. You're required to play two of them Uh, I'm hoping people don't play them after looking at the box scores, seeing less than 10 carries in each of the last two games. Uh, one of them was a little bit for rest. The other one was against the Titans defense. That is amazing at stopping the run. Uh, this is the 180 degree opposite matchup, uh, for him. So I think that his usage is certainly going to be there. I also, again, I think that

Trevor Lawrence really struggled in that Tennessee game and kind of exposed himself a little bit. Yeah. If we start to see signs of that, I think the coaching staff over there is good enough to potentially not make Trevor Lawrence have to make as many decisions. What that looks like for part of this game is getting the ball to Travis Etienne both on the ground and through the air. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Travis Etienne's rushing prop, by the way, just as rushing, not rushing and receiving.

It's all the way up to 76 and a half. So that's what happens when you go against a defense that's allowing, what is it? That's higher than Christian McCaffrey's rushing prop, which kind of makes sense with where my data was. I told you I had them dead even in terms of raw projection with Christian McCaffrey's rushing prop, which kind of makes sense with where my data was. I told you I had him dead even in terms of raw projection with Christian McCaffrey. No, it certainly makes sense.

So let's go. You mentioned Zay Jones as a core piece. And by the way, before we get to your core four, and then we're going to get to the Sunday slate, I promise. Shout out to Joshua Dobbs. This guy probably played well enough to win that game. It really was a very timely blitz by the Jacksonville Jaguars coming off the edge. Dobbs just simply guy probably played well enough to win that game. It really was a very timely blitz by the Jacksonville Jaguars coming off the edge. Dobbs just simply didn't see it. And it was a

strip sack for a touchdown. It was just like exactly what Jacksonville needed. They got on a singular play. And Joshua Dobbs for being in Tennessee's sort of vicinity for 14 days, 15 days, and to be able to play two games at a very competent level, more competent than some of the starting quarterbacks. I'm a commanders fan. I'll take Joshua Dobbs on eight or 15 days over Carson Wentz at this point. I'm not trying to trash Carson Wentz, but I literally feel that way. And it's just one of those things. I hope this guy gets some chances in the NFL, at least as a backup, because he showed so much with his brain, with his legs and with his

arm in that high stakes, basically a playoff game against Jacksonville. So I don't want him to be forgotten because that was like really, truly, I don't know how to describe it, like an honorable performance. It just, you can't do better under those circumstances, in my opinion. So shout out to Dobbs. Okay, Mike, let's get your core four for the Saturday slate. All right. We're going to start with Austin Eckler. Love Austin Eckler. I'm speculating the workload goes up even more, especially if Mike Williams is limited or out.

Keenan Allen. Love Keenan Allen. You got to play him, in my opinion, because I'm playing Justin Herbert. Zay Jones. Need a piece here. Mostly avoiding the first game of the day for many, many reasons, but love Zay Jones. I think this sets up as a really strong individual matchup for him. And then finally the 49ers defense. I am playing the 49ers defense. I'll eat the chalk there. It's correlated to Christian McCaffrey for the most part.

I'm fading McCaffrey. So give me the 49ers defense in the core four. Right. I love it. So just so everybody's aware, why did you bring up that it's correlated to Christian McCaffrey? Is that because as chalky as the San Francisco 49ers defense is, well, at least you're not correlating it in the same way as everybody else, right? Yeah, I'm not correlating.

Chief, easy, buddy. We're not correlating it in the same way, but yeah, I think they're the top overall defense by a considerable margin. And in the scenario that Christian McCaffrey has that game where he has multiple touchdowns, it's very likely the 49ers are winning and putting some pressure on Seattle, potentially creating turnovers, short fields where he just is in the red zone more frequently, which leads to more fantasy points for him. And for the record, we know the 49ers defense is the most expensive, a relatively expensive defense, and most people are playing Christian McCaffrey with him. So imagine the limitations of those people, maybe somewhere between 50 and 70%

of them that are going to correlate Christian McCaffrey with the 49ers defense. Now, granted, if you play Christian McCaffrey, you're not necessarily going to the 49ers defense, but there will be a chunk of people, maybe it's only 40%, that are going to do that correlation. How does that limit them in this game that we love in terms of playing Keenan Allen, Austin Eckler, Justin Herbert, Zay Jones, you name it, Travis Etienne.

Of course it limits them. It doesn't allow them to do things that we can do if we fade Christian McCaffrey in our tournament lineup. So love the thought process there. I promise we won't spend this much time on each game, by the way. Mike, did you have something before we go to the Sunday slate? Nope, I'm ready for Sunday slate. All right, well, before we get there, I do want to take a quick break.

We'll start with the Dolphins' bills, and we'll probably fly through that one a little bit quicker than the last two for a couple obvious reasons. But with that said, we're going to get there, but we've got 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 damages to get the job done right.

Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. And we are back. This is Sia Najad with Fantasy Football Today DFS. And, of course, I'm joined by Mike McClure. You can catch him at Mike5754 on Twitter. And, course, you can catch me at Cianajad on Twitter. Sunday slate. We got our first game at one o'clock and there's a lot of questions in this game, but I feel like some of the questions are being answered by how high this line is. So the Dolphins are 13 point dogs at the Buffalo Bills. It's a 43 and a half point total. We're not really in Mike, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we're really sure what's going on with the quarterback situation. It looks like it's trending towards Skylar Thompson. Teron Armstead, you know, I think that's a pretty big deal.

I don't know that he's playing. Raheem Mostert has a thumb injury that looks pretty serious, so it might be the Jeff Wilson show. Tyree Kale has the nagging ankle injury, which I'm sure he's going to suit up and play, but you never know, you know, when that gets aggravated. This is one of those games, Mike, where I feel like a lot of people are just going to, again, different slate. We're on Sunday now. A lot of people are just going to want to say to themselves, let me go somewhere else. And that includes Josh Allen, Stefan Diggs,

some of these high flight players. I don't think they're as interesting in this matchup to people. What say you? Yeah, they're certainly not as interesting in this matchup to people. What say you? Yeah, they're certainly not as interesting in the matchup overall. As far as the quarterback situation, I'm pretty confident it's going to be Skyler Thompson. That's everything that I've planned for at this point. Even if Teddy Bridgewater were to play, we really haven't seen Teddy Bridgewater complete a game. He's been knocked out with injury essentially every time he's taken the field. I don't think they're going to throw him out there with the injuries that they've got considering the situation they're up against here. That takes Tyreek Hill and Waddle out of play for me. I was, look, I thought that Skylar Thompson might flash a little

upside based on what we saw in the preseason. We learned very quickly that the preseason is much different than late season NFL. He was unable to manage a touchdown drive against the New York Jets, a team that had been eliminated from contention. I think that, and he was playing at home, by the way. So now they're playing on the road in Buffalo. It's going to be cold. I think it's a really, really difficult spot that they're up against. So I'm not playing anybody on the road in Buffalo. It's going to be cold. I think it's a really, really difficult spot that they're up against. So I'm not playing anybody on the Miami side. The Bills defense is the highest owned defense overall. It's my highest owned player overall. And yeah, I'm playing the Bills defense. You can play Josh Allen. I like playing Josh Allen naked in this game, mostly because I

think he could still have some upside running. I think he could throw three or four touchdowns that are likely spread out across the weapons that he has. But I'm certainly not stacking this one. Yeah. I don't, I don't think I'm really interested anywhere here. I mean, if Jeff Wilson is the only running back,

obviously he would be backed up by Salvin Ahmed. Is that a situation where at his price? And I believe it's 5,400 that you would maybe throw him into a lineup, just knowing that he's going to get all the work. It's possible. The issue is, is I think that the upside is still in incredibly limited. Yeah, that's fair. Any pass catchers other than like, you know, obviously you mentioned playing Josh Allen naked. Are there any maybe low-end guys? I'll consider, especially because of his price, Gabriel Davis, perhaps a low-end guy.

He only caught three of ten targets last week. But we know he's probably going to get some targets, and he certainly could be more efficient. And then, of course, you've got some lower-end guys like Dawson Knox. Any of those guys in play for you? Honestly, I'm probably going to stay off of it. If I were to play anyone on the Buffalo side, it would be Diggs. Just because there's definitely a scenario where Stephon Diggs has the 100-yard, two-touchdown game, and he just catches two of the three total touchdowns that the Buffalo scores in this game.

And I think he's going to take a little bit of a backseat ownership-wise to guys like Jefferson and, uh, Jamar chase on the slate. So other than that, I'm not going to speculate on low end bills, pass catchers. I think it's a dominating performance from the defense and just simply not enough volume to, to win on a three game slate. I do have a question and it's, it's a little speculative, but you know, it was backed up by somebody in the chat.

And by the way, Garrett asks, is this show going to be, quote, less than an hour like the Tuesday show? So that's a little joke, inside joke, for everybody that was watching on Tuesday. Because the slate, we didn't have as many games to talk about. Like I said, this is definitely going to be less than an hour, and it was literally like 59 minutes, because apparently I like to hear myself talk. So Garrett, thanks for pointing that out

and also slightly making fun of me at the same time. But the question from Jeff Loro I think is appropriate, because I talked about James Cook on Tuesday as well. If this game gets out of hand, like you said, and if the Buffalo defense is such a viable play, you probably don't have Devin Singletary in late. You probably have a little bit more of James Cook. Now Naheem Hines could make an appearance as well.

But if you look at the snap counts and the touch rates over the last, let's say, four or five weeks, James Cook is starting to narrow the gap where this thing is like, could be 50-50 by the time we get past the next couple of games. Does James Cook make sense in a lot of, because he is pretty cost efficient, and you have a slight correlation, even though he's a split time back? Yes, I might get there after looking at it. I pulled it up. The only way I'm getting there, though, and the correlation that I would want to focus on, I would only do that in a lineup that included either Josh Allen or Stefan Diggs.

The only scenario that I want to play James Cook is a scenario where I think the Bills have already scored 30 points. That's the scenario that I want to play James Cook is a scenario where I think the Bills have already scored 30 points. That's the scenario that I want to play him. If they do that, it's likely that he's having a big game, Josh Allen that is, or Stefan Diggs is doing Stefan Diggs things. He scored two touchdowns. They're running away with it. That's kind of the scenario where I really want to play someone like Cook. It's the scenario where they're up, you know, two to three scores for a full quarter, maybe the entire second half. It's not the scenario where they're up 10 late and they're just icing the game. That's not the scenario that I want to play them. I want to

play them in the scenario where they've absolutely dominated. And speaking of domination, they have dominated the implied point total for this slate. They are 28 and a half in terms of their implied point total. The next highest would be, it's close between the Vikings and the Bengals, but it's the Minnesota Vikings at 25.75. And that's actually the next game we're going to go to. But first of all, I do want to just say hi to some people that are in here. Grant, you are in here yet again. Raphael, I see you here and again telling us hi and good evening. Hit the like button.

We got a lot of people watching. Not as many like button hits as we normally get, though, so go and hit the like button if you can, but let's move on. We don't need to spend too much time on this Miami-Buffalo game. Probably we already spent too much time as it was. This next game, I think we need to spend a little bit of time on. It's the Giants at the Minnesota Vikings. The Giants

are plus three, as in three-point dogs. The total here is 48, 48 and a half, depending on where you look. Obviously, this is a dome. These are very good conditions. We know the Vikings' defense, particularly the secondary, is absolutely horrible. And when these two teams recently played just a few weeks ago, Daniel Jones and all those backups, you know,

if you want to call them backups, they're starters, but backups on most other teams, Isaiah Hodgins, Richie James, which you're the president of those fan clubs, Mike. And I assume you like them to some degree this week. My question is, is that true? And how are you playing this one? It is definitely true. I'm going to be playing this game heavily.

It makes a lot of sense. It's the dome game, played indoors, controlled environment, two teams that really can't defend the pass well at all. So yeah, I think this game is definitely one you need to be targeting. It starts and ends with Ray. It doesn't start and end, but it starts with Richie James. He's definitely the top option for me, mostly because I think he can get there in any game script, even the game script where they are leading. I like his upside a little more in the game script that you think they're falling behind. You got to throw in Isaiah Hodgins.

I'm throwing them in anyway. Um, they're just simply too cheap again at this point, 3,900, 4,100. Um, I'm playing Bellinger a little bit, not as much, but I will sprinkle him in a bit. And then, uh, on the other side, it's a ton of Hawkinson and Jefferson and Cook. The guys that I'm not getting to would be Saquon Barkley and Adam Thielen. And is that just almost a game script dependent thing when it comes to Saquon Barkley? Because I don't think he was very effective ultimately, at least not through three and a half quarters against Minnesota. And Minnesota's run defense isn't nearly as terrible

as their secondary. Is that just one of those, I just don't think he's going to pay off his price scenarios? Correct, yeah. I don't think he's going to pay off the price scenarios. I think that Minnesota is, while they are vulnerable against the pass,

they're still going to invite it because it's not what the Giants do well on paper. Yes, they've had time to scheme for it. Yes, they've got an excellent coaching staff, but in general, the Giants are not an offense that's incredibly threatening, moving the football through the air. Saquon Barkley is threatening when he has the football in his hands, right? So they're going to do everything they can to not get beat by Saquon Barkley. If I'm the Minnesota Vikings here, if I'm losing this game, it's because Daniel Jones goes out and carves up this defense, right? It's not because Saquon Barkley touches the football 25 times out of the backfield and runs all over us. So that's the angle I'm taking on this. Yes, Barkley is

electric. He could have 10 receptions in this game. Wouldn't shock me. However, I think that it's really going to be Richie James, Isaiah Hodgins, and Daniel Jones potentially running. That's really going to be able to do the damage. I think there's going to be a spy on Barkley. I think they're going to stack the box on him. So I'm willing to fade Barkley in this particular slate. And it sounds to me like you're maybe your favorite quarterback on the slate is Daniel Jones? It will be potentially Daniel Jones.

I like Kirk Cousins a little bit as well on the other side. But yes, it'll be one of those two. It'll be in this game. And we have Robert Picciano. I hope I'm pronouncing that, Robert. He says, Wink is going to blitz. That's Wink Martindale, of course. JJ, one-on-one question mark. He says, Wink is going to blitz. That's Wink Martindale, of course. JJ, one-on-one question mark.

So yeah, Wink is going to blitz. And the Giants like to blitz a lot, which tends to mean you get man coverage quite a bit too. And last time these guys played in Week 16, Justin Jefferson caught 12 of 16 targets for 123 yards. And I believe he had a touchdown in that game as well. By the way, TJ Hawkinson, if you already forgot, he caught 13 of 16 targets for 109 yards in week 16 against the Giants. That was part of the big week that Mike had because he had Hawkinson in those Hodgins and Richie James lineups. Are you doing a construction where you

can get JJ and Hawkinson in a construction, Mike? I would like to, yes. Hawkinson for sure. He's going to be a core piece. I like him a lot. The Giants, they're one of the worst defenses against the tight end position. You're dead on that. He's going to get blitzed though. He's going to get blitzed. It's going to be a lot of Hawkinson. It's going to be trying to hit Jefferson one-on-one. The other thing I want to watch for in this game though, I think Dalvin Cook could have a big day through the air as well. Just something I'm speculating on. I like Dalvin Cook straight up over Saquon Barkley. Yeah, I actually had a little rant on Dalvin Cook because he's burned me so many times, but the truth is it's not really Dalvin

Cook's fault. Last time these two teams played, Dalvin Cook had 40 yards in five minutes and then Minnesota just decided they wanted to get away from the run for whatever reason. I think he only had like seven or eight rushing attempts for the next, you know, two and a half quarters. It was very strange. So, you know, I guess you got me with my mind changed a little bit. Dalvin Cook certainly has some explosive ability. And I think most people will be leaning into Saquon Barkley. So if you can get Dalvin Cook and maybe you don't play Justin Jefferson and you get like Dalvin Cook and let's say TJ Hawkinson

and Justin Jefferson doesn't get there. Barkley doesn't get there. I mean, you're in for like a pretty good day, obviously. So very, very interesting there. Anybody else to mention before we get to this Baltimore Cincinnati Bengals game? And of course, we're going to give your core four out for this slate as well. But I do want to mention KJ Osborne, you know, at 4,600 seems like there's some value there. Is that somebody you're considering on this slate? Definitely would be in consideration. I'd like to play him over Adam Thielen.

If I'm looking for a second receiver on the, on that team are in this game, not going to be a core play by any means. Just, I think the giant side's a little better. Okay. I guess we can move on to this Baltimore Cincinnati Bengals game. It's at 815. And listen, the Ravens are nine and a half point dogs. We don't know if Lamar Jackson is going to play,

but it's trending to me like he's not going to play. I don't believe he practiced today again on Thursday, and he's been out for quite some time. We just simply haven't seen the guy. And I think it's a pretty troubling quarterback situation, kind of like what you have with the dolphins which is part of the reason you see a nine and a half point spread bangles at home playing very well now this ravens defense is pretty good and i thought handled themselves pretty well both times they played the cincinnati bangles including last week joe burrow's numbers tend to be a little depressed uh when they

when he plays the ravens relative to other teams. Nonetheless, Jamar Chase caught 8 of 13 targets for 86 yards and a touchdown last week. Not bad. Tyler Boyd has had some good luck against the Ravens as well. But nothing that really stands out to me here. Obviously, Jamar Chase seems like a good play. Tee Higgins, not quite as much to me. Boyd seems like a decent speculative play. I don't want to play Mixon personally. He's been very inefficient. And I think this Ravens defense

proof last week, they can completely shut him down in the rushing game in particular. Now he does get some receiving work though. Anybody you like you, I know Mark Andrews is in this game and Mark Andrews looked really good last week. Yeah. Um, look there, I think there's a lot to like in this game as well but it's all concentrated on the cincinnati side um i actually like joe mixon i'm going to be playing joe mixon the reason for it is the involvement in the passing game um i i like the involvement in the passing game you look back at a lot of these games you know the last three here um the numbers are too nice in the passing game for me on a such a short slate uh if we're right about Saquon Barkley being shut down a little bit by the Minnesota side I really think that Joe Mixon could be the optimal running

back here just through sheer volume right they still let him run the football he may only have 30 rushing yards in the game but if he gets that goal line carry for a one yard touchdown, what he does in the passing game is going to put him certainly at least close to being the optimal running back on the slate. So I'm going to play Joe Mixon. I love Jamar Chase. He's one of my favorite plays on the slate as well. How can you not? I think it's been four straight games with at least 12 targets. Clearly the preferred target for Joe Burrow. I'm not going to play T. Higgins. I would play Tyler Boyd over T. Higgins. I think that the Ravens are a little vulnerable against the slot receiver.

I don't think Higgins is fully right and healthy at this moment. So it's going to be Chase. It's going to be Mixon. It's going to be a little bit of Boyd. Okay. And just to kind of highlight It's going to be Mixon. It's going to be a little bit of Boyd. Okay. And just to kind of highlight what you mentioned on Joe Mixon, you know, 11 carries for 27 yards last week. He was a little bit more efficient the game before that,

but more importantly, he caught five of five balls last week. The game before that, he caught seven of nine, and the game before that, five of six. So it seems to me like he's locked in, you know, somewhere between five and seven targets, and he's been very efficient on all the targets that he's received. So I get the mixing call, especially if he can get a short area rushing touchdown with the passing equity that we think we have. I get the mix and play for sure. So mix in and chase. Now, are you playing mix in and chase in a lineup together? Because if so, that's obviously pretty expensive.

You get the offset of Richie James and guys like maybe Isaiah Hodgins. You're already fading Saquon Barkley in a lot of these lineups. So how does that construction work? I mean, obviously, I assume if you're playing Mixon and Chase, are you still going with the quarterback in that higher scoring game, or does Joe Burrow make it into the conversation from a stacking standpoint? It won't be the Burrow lineup, but it's mostly a product of the pricing overall, right? So what I'm looking at here, again, I'm looking at it over on my other screen here, as far as price points go, getting in either Kirk Cousins or Daniel Jones at only 5,900 or 5,600, I'm willing to play those guys with their stacks and then treat Mixon and Jamar Chase as the two spend up guys. Again, I'm speculating and building on the scenario that they're the two that land in the end zone for Cincinnati.

But I'm less concerned about trying to stack them with Joe Burrow. I think it's a scenario where Daniel Jones, through rushing Kirk Cousins through sheer volume and a really high-scoring game, can put up a score that's within, say, three to five points of Joe Burrow. Makes sense. And again, I'm looking at some of my notes, and I do want to remind everybody one more time that we do the prop show tomorrow. Me, Prop Stars, Dave Richard, and Jonathan Coachman, of course. And I've got a couple mix in props that I'm going to, one is going to be an under and one might be an over. So it's good. That sounds like it's contradicting itself, but just stay tuned for that show. There's a lot of props I like actually going into this wildcard weekend. So we'll get there. And Eric David asks, sorry if I missed this already, but will you guys have a DK contest for the Sunday games as well? Yes, you did miss it.

It was at the very beginning of the show. No worries, Eric. Thank you for being in here, supporting us, hitting the like button. We have a Saturday and Sunday DK contest. If you're watching this on YouTube, I believe the link is just right below the show. Worst case scenario, you can just go to the podcast. While you're there, go ahead and hit five stars, review the podcast, but you'll see the link for the Saturday and the Sunday contest. Now they're both only a hundred entries deep. So, and then obviously it's single entry for those of you that are new. So get in there sooner rather than later. So you don't get shut out, but Eric, we would love to have you in that contest. And I'd say the same for given to live who's in here and Richie Smalls and charge

you 65 and King Noel, by the way, Richie Smalls has a question. Would you play CMC and Mitchell in the same lineup? So, Richie, you got to go back and listen to the front end of this show or the podcast because we pretty much answered that question. We are going to be largely, not completely, but largely team fade CMC. But, Mike, you'd agree with me, but there's really no scenario where you do CMC and Mitchell. Again, this is on the Saturday two-game slate where you do CMC and Mitchell in the same lineup.

Yeah, no real scenario that I would personally do that. I think that if you want to do something like that, honestly, I would just bet both of them to score an anytime touchdown in the betting market. And you're likely to, you know, it's possible you both get them in the end zone and they're still not an optimal pairing in DFS. Um, it would take a lot for them to be optimal in DFS. They would both have to score touchdowns, no doubt. Um, so I would rather just bet on it if you, if you have the option. Yeah. And definitely Richie, uh, definitely go back and listen to the first, probably like 15 minutes. We spent a lot of time on the Saturday slate, but specifically Christian McCaffrey. So you're definitely going to want to want to hear that. Okay, Mike, I think we're done with the Saturday slate. Now, we're going to get to your core four in a second. But those of you that are just stumbling into the show, don't forget, we have a 1030 a.m. show on Monday to cover the Buccaneers and the Cowboys game. You know, I'll probably give out a prop on that show as well, since it's an isolated

game. But of course, that's going to be a DFS show. We're going to talk about showdown. And I'm actually really looking forward to Mike's thoughts specifically on that. So it might be team Brady yet again. But there's a lot of things to analyze in that game specifically. Mike, Sunday's that three-game slate. You have a core four to give out for Sunday.

You already gave it out for Saturday. What's the core four for the three-game Sunday slate? Yeah, core four here for the Sunday slate. We're going to start with a defense. That is the Bills defense special teams. They will be in every lineup of mine. Richie James, I like him and Isaiah Hodgins, but I'm going to list Richie James here.

I think he's going to have a lot of opportunity against Minnesota. Number three for me, I think it's going to be very different, but it's Joe Mixon. I won't be different in that he won't be popular. He will, but he certainly won't be a core play for most people across the industry. I love Joe Mixon in this particular matchup. And then TJ Hawkinson, I think Hawkinson is going to have another huge day against this giants defense. Um, love those guys there. And then quickly while we've been on the show, Lamar Jackson has tweeted himself that he will not be playing. We all kind of knew that and assumed that, but Lamar Jackson has officially ruled himself out. Wow. You usually don't hear that from

the player himself. That's a very interesting... Anyway, well, that's too bad because I think the playoffs could have used some Lamar Jackson and frankly could have used some Tua as well. Those games are probably going to be, I don't want to say blowouts, but I don't think there's going to be a lot of mystery in who's going to win that game. And it's because two-star quarterbacks aren't going to be able to play. But that's the NFL. That's football. And by the way, Brock Purdy's playing for the 49ers. Listen, you need a good backup quarterback in this league. Oh, and by the way, you need a good third-string quarterback in this league.

You should carry three. Don't even put the third one on the practice squad because you're probably going to need him at some point, especially if you have a quarterback that runs the ball. So that's going to do it. We're going to end in less than an hour, which is pretty exciting, Mike. Yeah. This is Fantasy Football Today, DFS. You know what?

Actually, Zach, can you put that comment from Robert up there before we close? He says, this isn't necessarily self-serving. There's like a task at the end of this. I've learned so much valuable information from you guys this year and just want to express my thanks. Thank you sincerely, says Robert. Robert, we really genuinely appreciate that.

If you haven't already reviewed the podcast on Spotify or Apple or both or wherever you listen to your podcast, please go ahead and do that for us. And I don't say that to Robert, obviously. Anybody that's listening, please go ahead and do that. Obviously, anytime you're in here,

hit the like button. But believe me, like, listen, we're going to be going through the Anybody that's listening, please go ahead and do that. Obviously, anytime you're in here, hit the like button. But believe me, like, listen, we're going to be going through the playoffs, you know, and we'll have shows leading up to the Super Bowl. But I can't say it enough that we appreciate you all being in here and you all telling us that you're learning and potentially winning money and things of that nature. It means a ton to us. So, Robert, we really appreciate you. Thank you for the comment.

For now, that's it. We're going to see you Monday again for that special show Monday at 10.30 a.m. Wishing you the best on this Saturday and Sunday slate. I thought this was an amazing show. I really encourage you. If you just heard this just now, if you're just watching just now,

go back and listen to it again before you make your lines. I highly encourage you to do that because you can't retain everything. And I thought this was a very unique show from a roster construction, fade, ownership standpoint, all of those do that because you can't retain everything. And I thought this was a very unique show from a roster construction, fade, ownership standpoint, all of those things that make you a successful DFS player. This show had it.

So for now, that's Mike McClure. My name is Sian Najab. This is Fantasy Football Today DFS, and we'll see you soon.