Fantasy Football Today - 🚨Ravens-Steelers on Tuesday; Todd Gurley Out! (11/27 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Right now, Ravens-Steelers is set for Tuesday. If it gets played, Lamar Jackson won't participate. What does that mean for Gus Edwards and Justice Hill? Where is Mark Andrews in the rankings? Does this change anything for the Steelers? And then we'll focus on Brian Hill's value as Todd Gurley is out this week.  Listen to the brand new Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-in-5/id1528634304 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow the new FFT Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/FFToday Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter 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

Bonus Pod Steelers and Ravens set for Tuesday, let's hope. And Todd Gurley is going to miss this week's game, Brian Hill. Go ahead and add him. We'll talk about that in a minute. Also tell you why, he might not be super jazzed to add him. But anyway, I am Adam Azer and Dave Richard is here. Dave, let's talk about first things first. Is there a chance J.K. Dobbins and Mark Ingram can play this week if the game does go ahead on Tuesday? Well, sure, because the game was originally supposed to be on Thursday.

Then it got moved to Sunday, and now it's Tuesday. But from what I understand, and I checked in with Jason LaConfora on this, there is a 10-day mandatory period for players who test positive and are symptomatic. We know that Dobbins and Ingram tested positive. I don't know if we know if they were symptomatic or not. Now, I don't know if they are, if they test positive and are asymptomatic, there is a way they can come back sooner than 10 days,

but it is the belief of, of mine and of Jason Lock and fours that they do not have a chance to play in, in week number 12, same with Lamar Jackson, but all three they do not have a chance to play in week number 12. Same with Lamar Jackson. But all three of them do have a chance. Jackson probably the slightest chance of the three to make it in week 13 against the Cowboys. Right, because that game is going to tentatively be moved to Monday, from Thursday to Monday. So we could be looking at another week with no Thursday night football, which would be disappointing, but a Monday night double header. Now in terms of fantasy value, since RG3 is going

to be the quarterback of this game, and let's say Dobbins and Ingram are both out, Gus Edwards now, are you moving him down? Are we worried about the score? You know, they've lost four games this year. Only one of them was more than one score. And in that game, there were only, I want to say, 12 carries by the running backs. That was the chiefs game where they lost big at home. So if they lose big here to the Steelers with RG three, that could really be bad for, for Gus.

Maybe it would be better for justice Hill. So what's your read now? Something interesting happened on FFT on Friday. Jason Leckman four was on to talk about the situation and he was adamant that justice Hill was going to be a valuable player for the Ravens run game. He talked about how Hill is the better edge rusher, the better pass catcher, and he actually doubled down on it in a text exchange that I had with him. He really thinks Justice Hill is going to be the primary replacement for Dobbins. I don't see how they necessarily get away from Gus Edwards as being their hammer.

But if they fall behind in this game, and my guess is that they're taking on a Steelers team that's ticked off over what's going on and they're healthy and they've been practicing, I find it hard to believe that we're going to see Gus Edwards get a lot of work in a low-scoring, medium-scoring, competitive back-and-forth game. This could end up being a one-sided game, just like the Steelers game against Jacksonville ended up being. And if that's the case, Justice Hill could end up being an interesting flex option, maybe more so in PPR than none. But the bottom line is that I think you're taking a chance either way with Gus Edwards or Justice Hill. They have both moved down. Well, Hill actually moved up, but Gus moved down in my rankings.

So let's take a quick peek ahead to our next topic here. I'll come back to the Ravens, but Brian Hill is now going to get an opportunity, you'd think anyway. It could be Semedo Smith, we don't know. But Todd Gurley's out. So what are you expecting? Would you start Brian Hill over Ravens running back?

I think I'm at the point where I'll start Brian Hill ahead of Gus Edwards, which is frustrating because it was Gus Edwards who I was excited to pick up off the waiver wire this week, but Hill's got the better matchup. He's the one who's been preparing as the starter all week for the Falcons. And if he does end up splitting with, you know, Smith, so be it. But I think that we've, we've seen him in this opportunity before he's let us down,

but they need something going with their run game, and Hill has shown flashes this year, whereas Gurley has just been just a brawler between the tackles who occasionally can break free for more than four or five yards and can work at the goal line. So I'd be a little more encouraged by Hill, and he definitely has the better matchup.

He's going up against the Raiders. Their run defense is not very good at all. They rank fourth in fantasy points allowed to opposing running back fourth most yeah fourth most yes the steelers rank second in fewest fantasy points allowed to opposing running backs so i'm i'm i'm okay going with hill uh with brian hill uh with the assumption that even if he does split with ito or whoever he's gonna be the most effective of the assumption that even if he does split with Edo or whoever, he's going to be the most effective of the guys that we're talking about. All right.

Hill had 20, he had two games last year with featured work, 20 carries for 61 yards at the saints. Horrible. He also caught a touchdown in that game. Then he got 15 carries for 30 yards, even worse at Carolina the next week. And he never had double digit targets or running or carries rather after that.

So there's that factor with him. And then there's also the fact that they've got new Orleans coming up next week, I believe. Yeah. New Orleans next week, then Tampa Bay in a few weeks. So if this is a long-term thing for girly,

I'm not sure you're going to feel too confident starting Hill in week 13. So if you don't need them in week 12, you're probably not going to use them in week 13 against the best team against running backs in New Orleans saints. You kind of get my drift, but look, you need, you need a body week 12. You're probably not going to use him in week 13 against the best team against running backs in New Orleans Saints. You kind of get my drift, but look, you need, you need a body right now.

You need a warm body. Brian Hill is at the time of this recording, 17% roster in CBS leagues, Mark Andrews. How far down are you going to move him in your tight end rankings? Not terribly far. When you look at the options that you might have with him, I would still go with Ebron over him,

Hunter Henry over him, Evan Ingram over him, Hunter Henry over him, Evan Ingram over him, Dallas Goddard. Zacherts, no Zacherts, doesn't matter. The tight ends have been the ones doing damage for Philadelphia. I would suspect that would continue to be the case against the Seahawks. It's when you get to Hayden Hurst with the Falcons and Rob Gronkowski, who just hasn't been getting a ton of targets, that's when I would probably put Mark Ingram at.

And again, if the Ravens are trailing in this game on Tuesday, the one surefire target that RG3 can lean on could be Andrews, who's just a big body in the short passing game. And he's been rediscovered over the past couple weeks. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if he kept getting targets. Finally, your thoughts on the Steelers. Do they

run the ball more? Do we sit the wide receivers, thinking this won't be as competitive of a game? We shouldn't jump to conclusions, by the way. Can't just assume the Ravens are going to get blown out here. Didn't we do that in the Bills-Titans game earlier this year when the Titans couldn't practice and the Bills did? Yeah, but the Titans didn't have their backup

quarterback playing. Right. But still, I mean, they played week 17 and the Ravens beat the snot out of the Steelers in week 17 last year with RG3. Of course, no Ben Roethlisberger, but you get my drift. I don't think the Steelers were, you know, I guess they were fighting for a playoff chance. I guess they still had a chance to do it and the Ravens necessarily didn't. I could see the Steelers being ticked off over this whole situation.

And the Ravens really haven't had a chance to prepare. They're not allowed back in their facility until Monday, so they might be able to get one practice in on Monday. There's still not going to be Calais Campbell on the D-line, no Brandon Williams on the D-line. I think this is going to be tough sledding for that entire Baltimore defense, and Roethlisberger should have a pretty good game.

All right, I'm going to allow fantasy managers in my leagues to put Steelers and Ravens on the IR for now and pick a replacement off buff waivers and say, hey, at 1 o'clock, by 1 o'clock p.m. Eastern on Sunday, send a note to the entire league and say, this is the situation. I've got Mark Andrews is in an IR spot. I picked up Jordan Reed. I'm starting Jordan Reed this week.

But if the Ravens game gets played on Tuesday, then give me the Mark Andrews points. That's how it works. You have to designate this beforehand. You can get the replacement points if the game doesn't get played, or you get the guy on the Ravens or the Steelers if the game does get played. Dave brought up an interesting point. This does sort of let the fantasy managers who have Ravens and Steelers on their team kind of stash someone. What's to prevent you from putting your backup quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, in IR and picking up a handcuff? Not really in the spirit of what this is all about. Dave, I don't have a great answer for that. I don't know if it's an honor code situation. I don't know if it's, I'm going to

put everybody back in free agency before waivers run next week. Anyone that was picked up in this scenario, but I just don't think it's fair to make people have, you know, fantasy managers drop someone in this scenario when the game might get played and it's in limbo and it just, I don't want to make them use a roster spot basically.

What if you limit the player to get added off the waiver wire as an emergency replacement be of the same position as the player that you're putting on IR? So if I've got Roethlisberger, I can put him on IR, but I can't go pick up a running back or a wide receiver to stash

for week 12. It's got to be a quarterback to replace him. Okay. All right. Good stuff. Thank you, Dave. And that's it. That's it for this bonus pod. Thanks for listening, everybody. We've got a mailbag coming out tomorrow. We did not know this news about the Ravens or Todd Gurley when we recorded it. So just keep that in mind and have a good one.