Fantasy Football Today - Trevor Lawrence Injury + MNF Recap (12/05 Fantasy Football podcast)

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Another game, another significant injury. Chris Towers breaks down what Trevor Lawrence's injury might mean for the Jaguars, plus what to make of a surprisingly great showing from Jake Browning and the Bengals offense Monday night.  Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs. You can listen to Fantasy Football Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast." Watch FFT 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 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 businessplatinum. Bet mode activated. The Scorebet app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game?

Well, statistically speaking... Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees? The Scoreback. Trusted sports content.

Seamless sports betting. Download today. 19 plus. Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexOntario.ca. Another game, another significant injury. We'll talk about it next on Fantasy Football Today in 5.

Welcome to FFT in 5. I'm Chris Towers flying solo today. I don't want to come on here every day and talk about injuries but it's just this is the the 2023 fantasy football and nfl season in a nutshell we saw on one sideline monday night joe burrow and sweats recovering from his season-ending wrist injury and then late in the fourth quarter trevor lawrence gets stepped on on his ankle by one of his offensive linemen gets rolled up all over bent back at the knee and another significant injury we don't know the extent of Trevor Lawrence's injury as of Sunday night but given the way this season has gone would you blame anyone for assuming the worst here uh the Bengals beat

the Jaguars 34 31 and what's really unfortunate here uh sitting here Monday night is this was a really fun game with a lot of things to talk about beyond just the injuries and of course we have to talk about what Trevor Lawrence's injury means because that's the significant storyline coming out of here. Assuming, you know, it was as bad as it looked where Trevor Lawrence, you know, immediately threw his helmet to the ground and frustration. Couldn't put any weight on his leg, went to get x-rays after the game. We don't know the extent of the injury again, but assuming the worst, we're looking at CJ Beathard starting for the Jaguars. And then look, he had one nice drive in helping move the Jaguars down

into field goal territory, but we're talking about a guy who, even having played most of his career in the Kyle Shanahan system, throwing to George Kittle and then those guys who just always boost everyone's efficiency, CJ Beathard for his career is at 6.9 yards per attempt. He's got 18 touchdowns, 14 interceptions on 514 pass steps. He's probably not the worst quarterback we're going to see play in week 14 because there are 10 quarterbacks, 10 starting quarterbacks who will miss week 14 with an injury.

If Trevor Lawrence's injury is as serious as it looked. And of course, if Derek Carr's out and you out and all the other injuries that we're dealing with. And that's not counting Justin Fields, who missed four games earlier in the season, and Kyler Murray. It's just been, as you all in the audience know, it's just been... I've been doing this for 13 seasons. This is the worst season I've ever seen for injuries. There's no explanation for it.

There's no, you know, nothing we could have done to avoid this. It's just sometimes bad luck happens over and over and over again. And, you know, this week of fantasy football has just been defined by injuries. Tank Dell's season ending injury, Kenny Pickett, uh, having surgery on his ankle. Derek Henry looks like he's going to play, but Ramondre Stevenson has that ankle injury. Unlikely to play on Thursday. At this point, you have to assume. It's just, it's a really tough situation. We also had Christian Kirk leave Monday's game with a groin injury. So we'll talk about the fallout for the Jaguars offense in particular to start off. And you know, what we did see on Monday night was, unfortunately,

a bust game from Calvin Ridley. Now, it was almost a bigger game. He had four catches for 26 yards. If you watch the game, he had about a 40-yard gain at the end that was called back because of, let's say, a questionable holding call. But even then, you know, this like, oh, when Zay Jones plays, Calvin Ridley's good. Maybe not. I don't know how to handicap that with Christian Kirk leaving the game

because it might just be a situation where when the Jaguars are fully healthy in their wide receiver core, they feel comfortable moving around Calvin Ridley, having him be you know being a little more creative with how they use him and maybe that's the key but with kirk leaving with a groin injury you know that argument kind of goes out of the window if he has to miss time so ridley still just a boomer bus wide receiver two slash three for me moving forward we got a big game from evan ingram nine catches for 82 yards and a touchdown. That was really nice to see. He's been consistently solid, but what we haven't seen from him this season is the touchdowns. This was his first of the season. And look at that. He had nine catches,

82 yards and a touchdown, massive fantasy game. That's been waiting to happen. And it was nice to finally see it. Zay Jones, five catches, 78 yards on eight targets. He had as many targets as Ridley in this one. If Kirk has to miss time, I think Jones is in that wide receiver three slash four conversation, but that all takes a hit if Beathard has to start instead of Lawrence because that's going to be a downgrade for this offense. We're used to that by now across the NFL. There are a lot of offenses that are downgraded because of the quarterback play and the Jaguars might be the next one. The Bengals might not be, I don't really know how confident to feel in what Jake Browning did on Monday night,

but it was a terrific performance, 354 yards and a touchdown on 37 pass attempts. The touchdown was more Jamar Chase being a superhero. It was a 76-yarder where he beat the defender one-on-one and then outran the defense after that. Jamar Chase is a superhero, though. This is why I could never bring myself to sit a guy like Jamar Chase. You can also throw in Garrett Wilson. You can throw Justin Jefferson coming back from his injury this week

with potentially Nick Mullins starting at quarterback, but even Josh Dobbs. I can't bring myself to start guys that are that talented because they can make it happen on their own. Quarterback play obviously is super important. I don't want to downplay that. But when Jamar Chase is getting featured the way he has been, I mean, he might be the best wide receiver in football. 11 catches, 149 yards, and a touchdown. You just cannot bring yourself to sit him at any point. I don't care who

else you have. He's more like a low-end wide receiver one, but you probably don't have three other top 10 wide receivers. And if you do, congratulations on your fantasy championship, I guess, but don't sit Jamar Chase. Now, what we saw on Monday night, Tee Higgins, three catches for 36 yards. That's not terribly surprising with, you know, a backup quarterback in Tee Higgins first game back from missing three games with a hamstring injury. Hopefully he gets more involved moving forward, but not necessarily someone you can start with any confidence. I'm going to put him below Calvin Ridley in that wide receiver three range where there's big upside. T. Higgins

is incredibly talented in his own right, but not someone that you can rely on at this point. The running backs in this game are interesting. Travis Etienne, 45 yards on 11 carries. He was dealing with an injury coming in, so I think the limited workload probably reflected in that. But he did score a touchdown, four catches for 34 yards. Solid game from him. You're not sitting Travis Etienne. Joe Mixon's a little tougher because he actually had a really good game. 19 carries, 68 yards, two touchdowns.

Also made some plays in the passing game, six catches for 49 yards. So that's one where I still view Mixon in that RB2 mold but you know Jake Browning looked competent you know I don't want to go too far in praising him he played very very well but I'm not sure how sustainable that is but you know the schedule versus the Colts versus the Vikings the next couple of weeks those aren't terrible of weeks those aren't terrible matchups those aren't matchups that you think the the Bengals are necessarily going to get buried so if Browning can just be competent you know that keeps Jamar Chase in that wide receiver

one range that keeps T Higgins in the startable range it keeps Joe Mixon in that RB2 range and that's where I'm going to rank Joe Mixon moving forward, certainly behind someone like Travis Etienne. Probably this week I would rank him behind like Ezekiel Elliott, but that's an interesting one because it's a similar situation. Ezekiel Elliott probably in a worse offense with New England. The Bengals scored more points on Monday night than the Patriots have scored since October combined.

That's a real stat that I saw on Twitter today. So, yeah, I think, you know, Elliott versus Mixon, that's an interesting one. If you pick up Elliott, you're going to have a lot of tough decisions to make on him. You know what? I think I'm talking myself into Mixon based on what we saw here. It's more upside than the Patriots have shown really at any point since week one so I'm okay with mixing as like a decent solid RB to not more than that but it's good to see some upside from this offense to wrap it up you know make sure you listen to the full episode of fantasy football today on your podcast feeds

for a full breakdown of the week 14 waiver wire. Obviously with all the injuries that we had this week, there are just going to be a ton of guys to talk about. Ty J Spears, Roshan Johnson, Ezekiel Elliott, Kenneth Gainwell, potentially. So make sure you tune in for that.

Hopefully we'll have an update on Trevor Lawrence by sometime Monday before the way, or sometime Tuesday, excuse me, before waivers run because that's going to impact how we view this Jaguars offense. Maybe Week 14 won't have so many injuries to talk about, but the way this season has gone, I kind of doubt it.

That's going to do it for FFTN5. We'll see you tomorrow.