Fantasy Football Today - 🚨 Steelers-Titans Postponed: What to Know and What to Do (10/01 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

We react immediately after the news of the postponement of PIT-TEN. Should Fantasy commissioners give IR status to players on these teams, or just treat it as a bye week? We'll lay out the scenarios for you and tell you who to add as replacements for Week 4. 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

All right, bonus pod for you here. We just got done finishing up an hour and 15-minute podcast talking starter sit, and then we get the news that the Titans and the Steelers are postponed. So, guys, what do we know right now? What do fantasy managers need to know? Well, we know that they're not going to have Derek Henry, Ryan Tannehill, John O. Smith.

You're not going to have Ben Roethlisberger, Juju Smith-Schuster, James Conner. So you have to adjust. And this is basically now the Steelers and Titans bi-week. At least that's the way I would anticipate it being ruled. And so we have to figure out when this game is going to be replayed and how to adjust your schedule moving forward. But the good thing is that you can prepare for this before the Thursday night game

to get guys into your lineup and have replacement options, as opposed to if it would have been after Thursday or certainly, you know, closer to the weekend where you don't have the chance to make some waiver wire moves. If you have not, and I suggested this offseason, not specifically for this purpose, but kind of for this purpose, I suggested that your waivers should run on Tuesday night slash Wednesday, and then it should be first come first serve for the rest of the week. And I know Adam kind of hates that. If you chose not to do that, and you're listening to this before the Thursday games, you should make it first come first serve today. If nothing else, just for today. So people have a chance to go pick up those Thursday night players

to start them in place of their Steelers and Titans. Like who? Who's available that you'd actually start tonight? Well, I mean, you may have to get pretty desperate in this situation. Frank Gore is not bad in a game against a Broncos defense that's down Jarrell Casey, and he's getting a lot of work for what we're looking at. You're talking about, I still think Jeff Wilson is going to have a role as long as Raheem Mostert doesn't play for the 49ers.

There are a lot of receivers you can find. Greg Ward is going to get a lot of targets for the Eagles with most likely no Alshon Jeffrey and no Deshaun Jackson. And even if Jeffrey does play, he is rostered in 20% of leagues. There's, uh, you know, I'm trying to think of it.

Cole Beasley, two wide receivers. You could find that are probably going to get a lot of targets. Um, Robert Tanyan, if you're looking for a tight end replacement has scored in two straight games and is facing the defense that allows the most fantasy points to opposing tight ends. So there are guys out there for you.

And obviously you're looking at no Roethlisberger and no Ryan Tannehill. Ryan Fitzpatrick is in a great spot against a Seattle defense that's miserable. Teddy Bridgewater is probably going to be throwing a lot in a matchup that hopefully he has more than one touchdown. So Nick Foles is now a starter for the Bears and just came off a 23-point outing where he didn't even start the game it's a tough matchup but again you're stuck so this is uh this is the nightmare and you know the the fact that it it it's it's happening without you know prior to tuesday when you run waivers but it's also prior to the games being played so you have the entire rest of the

slate to go find some scraps that can hopefully get you by. And you're probably not the only person to deal with this. We're talking about six to eight guys that are really fantasy relevant in a lot of cases. Some great receivers in Deontay Johnson and Judas Mischuster and for what Corey Davis has been. Two amazing running backs in James Conner and Derek Henry. And at least two good quarterbacks for what they've been fantasy wise. Heath, do commissioners need to do anything?

Do we need to give some IR spots or do we just say, Hey, this is a bi-week, you know, you got to deal with that. That's the thing that we don't like. I wish that we'd gotten the announcement. It seems there's a pretty easy fix that you move the Steelers by week,

one week, have them play the Ravens that week. And then the Steelers and Titans have the same by week and they would play then. If we got the announcement that that was what was happening and this was definitely the Steelers by week, then I would feel pretty okay with just saying to fantasy managers, this is their by week.

You don't get any extra IR spots. We've not heard that yet. If it's some solution other than that and they're still going to have a buy at week seven and eight this year, then I think that we would need to allow, not necessarily add extra IR spots, but allow

people to put Derrick Henry in an IR spot for this week. And it depends on how you've set it up. Most of our leagues are set up to where you don't have to be on IR to be on an IR slot. Some of them require it. Some of them don't because some guys who are out are just okay on IR.

And this is where there's a little bit of a loophole with all of this because as far as I understood it, and if you guys understand this differently, please explain it to me. I thought if you were in contact with anybody that was considered tested positive for COVID, you were supposed to be put on the COVID list, which obviously would lend itself to believe that the entire Titans organization

has come in contact with somebody. It depends on the proximity. That's why they have these chips where they're monitoring GPS basically to see... The total now is, and we are in full disclosure, we are recording this as it's unfolding. Right, right, right. We got off, like you said, we got off the air, and Schrager said to us, let's do an emergency podcast.

So in the time that we started and just until now, both Tom Pelosaro and Adam Schefter have tweeted that it's two more positive tests this morning, so now it brings the total to 11 within the organization, five players and six employees, including some defensive assistant coaches. So what that could mean is like Derrick Henry, for example,

could have, and I'm just speculating, could be one of the five players. If that's the case, he's going on the COVID IR list. Right. Which means now you can place him in an IR spot, even if he's on his bye week.

But right. But we may not know. And I would just say that any rule like and again it's going to depend on your league settings but any special ruling a commissioner is making for titans players should be made for steelers players even though they've not been exposed to what's causing this delay their game is being delayed for the same reason. But I do think you make an important distinction of being able to put someone on that IR spot as opposed to adding IR spots, saying, okay, well, you already have Christian McCaffrey on IR.

I'm sorry, we don't have enough IR spots. You're out of luck. Each commissioner can make up his or her own mind, but there's two ways to go about it. You could add spots, or you could just out of luck. Each commissioner can make up his or her own mind, but there's two ways to go about it. You could add spots, or you could just say, this person's now eligible for one of your already existing IR spots. And then I think in terms of the CBS leagues, if you're the commissioner,

I think you can put somebody manually into an IR spot, even if they don't have the IR designation. I'm sure. And you can also just like there's a button to just change your settings to where they don't have to be on IR to go into. Yeah, you could do that, too. Right. I think commissioners need to be flexible. I mean, that's the most important thing. Like you said, you know, you can allow for ad drops in an emergency situation. You can allow for putting guys on IR spots. But if it's just their bye week, I don't think I don't see how you can justify doing something different than if it was just a bye. Like for my leagues, if they say this is their bye week, I'm sorry. I know you hoped to prepare

for this. I have a lot of these players. I'm sure we all have a lot of these players. They're great players. So, you know, like I'm in a 14 team league. It's a team that I share with my son. Our only quarterback has been Roethlisberger. Prior to this, I made a trade offer last night to try and get Cam Newton for a manager that has three quarterbacks. I don't think he's going to make the trade because we're playing each other this week. But, you know, I'm going to have to make a tough call.

Like, we have a very good bench. I'm going to have to drop somebody to pick up a quarterback. And it's probably going to be Phillip Rivers or Teddy Bridgewater. Like, that's the scenario that I'm stuck with. All right. So Heath and I are co-commissioners of a league that Heath's really supposed to be the commissioner of. One of us is going to have to send a note to the league.

I have a feeling it's going to be me because Heath is basically giving me all the responsibilities to that league. But what are you going to tell people if it's their bye week? I'm going to say if it's their bye week, then there will be no changes made and you're going to have to just adjust. If it's not their bye week, you'll be able to put Titans or Steelers in an IR spot. Here's my question, though.

I don't disagree with that at all. Is the NFL going to announce when they're playing before Sunday? Here's the NFL's announcement so far. This is a statement from, I'm seeing this, the NFL statement on Steelers-Titans game. So the Pittsburgh-Tennessee game scheduled for week four will be rescheduled

to later this season after one additional Titans player and one personal member tested positive for COVID-19 today. An announcement of the new game date will be made shortly. So if we want to stay on the air for another couple minutes,

maybe something happens. I think we've covered the scenarios where people can do, people who know what to do. If they announce they've just moved the bye weeksweeks around and this is their bi-week then you don't have to do anything special if they don't then you probably should

okay thank you so much everybody hope this has been helpful make sure you listen to that starter set episode and you can fast forward to the part where we talk about this game at the beginning of the show and alright we'll talk to you Friday.