The Ringer NFL Show - Start Anyone vs. Seattle, Dalvin Cook’s Comedown, and Week 10 Bold Predictions

Episode Date: November 13, 2020

We discuss the fantasy scoring boom including Seattle's historically bad defense before offering up our gut calls and bold predictions for Week 10, looking back on our Week 9 predictions, and building our million-dollar daily fantasy lineup. We finish the show by introducing the world to the Bullshit Scoring Fantasy League Jared Goff, Rams (10:50) Rams WR (13:25) Tyler Boyd, Bengals (15:45) Dallas Goedert, Eagles (19:15) J.K. Dobbins, Ravens (20:30) Jalen Reagor, Eagles (22:15) Jarvis Landry, Browns (23:40) Troymaine Pope, Chargers (24:35) Dalvin Cook, Vikings (27:05) Million-Dollar Lineup (34:00) Fantasy Court (36:30) Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode of the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, why we love the Rams, why D.K. loves to hate on the Seahawks, and Craig says why Dalvin won't cook this week. Also, D.K. says Troy Main Pope will be elite, even though he forgot about Troy Main Pope like two days ago. We also give our million-dollar lineup of the week, and we examine a fantasy league where punters are the highest scoring players. Stick around.

Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. I am Danny Heif. It's here with Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck. Are you guys ready for a fun fact? Let's do it. All right, this is from Peter. Every Granny Smith apple originated from the tree of an Australian woman named Maria Ann Smith, aka Granny Smith. Oh, wow.

So it's like a biologically custom, it's a custom thing. It's a custom apple? No, it's not custom. It's just, first of all, this was one of those that I instantly was like, that's not true. And then I like, research, she was like, holy crap, this is true. She just found a green apple in her. She just threw crab apples in her backyard and just found this apple tree. she was like, oh my God, this is nuts.

And then they were like, okay, these are great. And then it just spread. Granny apples weren't really a thing to like the 1970s in America, apparently. So she's just like a marketing genius? I don't think she profited off. And someone else is the marketing genius. No, the marketing genius is the person who's like delicious red or whatever, which sounds better than other ones.

But anyway, do you guys like apples? Because DK's got some numbers. How about them apples? Oh, I was wondering if you were going to say that. Yeah, I wanted to open up this episode with a little just chat about how crazy this year's NFL scoring boom has been. Like, basically, you know, the NFL in terms of scoring and points and yards and everything is unprecedented. I wrote a column about this on the ringer.com. So I'm going to throw some numbers at you guys.

Are you guys ready for that? We'll see if I can catch. Through nine weeks, NFL teams are on track to score 12,967 total points, which will be a record by almost a thousand points. And so to give you some context on like how big of a difference that is, the difference between first and second, so like 980 points, is approximately the same between the second highest and 14th highest seasons in the NFL history. Teams are averaging 25.3 points per game, which is two, almost two points higher than the second most prolific scoring season ever, which was 2013 when they averaged 23.4 points per game. That 1.9 point

margin between first and second spots is equal to the gap between the second and 31st ranked scoring seasons by points per game per team. So what we're seeing this year is pretty unprecedented. And obviously it's been awesome for fantasy football. And I guess this is the same thing we've been asking all the season. But I'm really wondering if this is going to be like a long-term thing or it's just like a one-year blip on the radar. What do you guys think? Is this here to stay? Why is this happening? Why is this happening? There's a lot of reasons. I think the main reasons are the officiating. They're not calling offensive holding.

That's been huge for offenses clearly. And then they're also calling quite a bit more defensive pass interference, it feels like. So both of those are advantageous to the offense. The other thing that's interesting, I think, is the home field advantages evaporated this year. And a large part, obviously, because there's no fans in the stands, but that, you know, in turn just makes it more of like a level playing field for both teams. you can communicate. You know, there's not a bunch of noise on third down, things like that.

So I think those are two main reasons. Do you think just like the fact that people are going forward and on fourth down more, people are starting to go for two after a touchdown more is just, you know, causing the scores to go up more and more? Yeah. In fact, Nora Pritziani wrote a really interesting article this week about how punters are basically bored as hell this year because like punting is down like 18%. The league is on pace to have the fewest punts of any season.

A lot of it has to do with, you know, clearly just offenses are producing at record pace this year, but also teams are going forward on fourth down more often. And teams, I think I saw this on CBS, teams are converting on third down at a higher rate this year than ever before. So it's like all these variables that are in, you know, in favor of offenses. And it's not just passing, by the way, either. Teams are running the ball really well. 116 yards per game this year through nine weeks, which would be the second. highest total in the in the in the 20th like the 2000s in the 2000s in this century so obviously in the old days NFL used to be way more run heavy but teams are having a lot of success running the ball they're

averaging 1.03 rushing touchdowns per game this year which is the best mark since 1979 wow dk i have a question for you you may not know this might be too a two kind of deep of a stat do you know if on is it like all of the teams in the league are kind of scoring more or is it just the top third of teams are scoring so much that it's kind of compensating for the rest of the league. I don't think, I don't have the exact answer on that, but I lean towards the ladder where it's just like, or the former, I should say, where everybody's just kind of scoring. Because I'm trying to like work this into fantasy and like, are there, does this just mean there are certain teams out there that we should be targeting more where like you maybe

start the fourth wide receiver on the Cardinals or the Seahawks or the Packers this year just because they're scoring so much? Or if it's just everyone's scoring more and there's not a ton of like actionable fantasy advice just because scores are higher. I don't think there's, yeah, I don't think there's a ton of actual fantasy advice other than like start Russell Wilson's receivers because he's on pace to set the NFL record for touchdowns in a season. He's on pace for 56 this year. But I do think just overall there's more fantasy, you know, there's more fantasy applicable people in the league right now. Like they're spreading it out. I want to say I saw that Stefan Diggs right now. He had,

is 813 receiving yards. And you'd think in a season where the NFL's on pace is set, you know, records and yards and receiving touchdowns, all that stuff. Stefan Diggs is leading the league

with 813 yards right now, which is only 61st all time through nine weeks. And Tyreek Hills nine receiving touchdowns right now is only 16th. So what that tells me, you know, this is just like a non-scientific.

What are the spread the ball around? Yeah, it just feels to me like more people, more players are getting involved in this instead of having like one guy on a team is just going absolutely bonkers other than Russell Wilson

it's just like everybody's kind of like the rising tide raises all ships kind of deal it does feel like anyone can blow up on any week like I don't know how your guys's fantasy leagues are going but there's a lot of parody in ours like everything is pretty even in my two leagues you know like there's a lot of like teams that are five and four or like four and four and stuff like that

and it feels like in any given week you can lose to anybody Well, this is the incredible, right? When everyone's super, nobody is. And then it actually makes the people who are super powerful more valuable. So, like, when everybody's catching touchdowns and anyone can get a touchdown a given week, makes Devante Adams more valuable. It makes McAfrey when he's healthy or Dalvin Cook more valuable because those guys are tier above everyone. And the guys below them who are usually like solid second tier, there's not as big of a difference between the second and the third tier, third and fourth tier. But the gap between the absolute elites, the 1% of you will,

is just bigger than ever. But it's so, I don't know. I mean, this is weird. My mind just goes to streaming. Is it easier to stream this year? Like from tight end position of receivers? Because I don't know. It's been a strange year.

I mean, it's certainly been a bad year to stream defenses because defense is bad. It feels easier to grab a receiver off the waiver wire than it does a running back this year. Yeah, I agree. There's more receivers that I'd be like, oh, I could start him. Like, if you go on the waiver wire in the ringer league right now, there's like five guys that I could easily pick up. I'm just like my team's already like, it's like I already have a lot of good receivers. I don't need another good receiver.

That's like Craig being like, I have too many friends. I don't need more friends and you're like, I have so many good players. I don't need any of the good players. I have so many friends. I mean, shit. My team is just too good. I can't pick these guys up is my point. But yeah, I definitely, I feel like that's, you know, that's kind of like the story of the season is just incredible scoring.

And I'm trying to enjoy it now because I'm not 100% sure the NFL is not just going to go back. and like, you know, two points per team more per game is a lot. So you're saying that the entire NFL is due for regression? It might be. The entire league. It depends on what the NFL does. Or is the NFL Aaron Jones? And it will just do it year after year.

It really depends on what they decide to do with this officiating, I think. Like if they go back to calling tiki tack holding calls, which are drive killers, right? That is going to be a big deal. And that is going to change the whole complexion of the league. I think that's like what's happening this year. Because I remember before the season, I was like, man, we're going to have some ugly. football. There's no practice. There's no preseason. You know, you got new

quarterbacks coming in. You got guys having to like gel on the offensive line together. And then week one, it was just like, dude, offenses took off. And well, because the NFL was like, it's going to be ugly football. Let's not call any penalties. And we're like great. Exactly. Who wants penalties?

And it's gone so far in the other direction. It's like, this is probably one of the most fun NFL seasons I can remember. And I don't know if it's just because of like all the young quarterbacks. There's like, it's pretty much every game besides like whoever the are playing. The game is like kind of watchable because it's like one of the two quarterbacks is pretty fun. And I think the NFL wants that. My question is like, is there going to be pushback and from like teams and stuff, you know, about calling more

penalties and things like that? I don't know. We'll see. It'll be interesting to see. But yeah, so I thought that was kind of like a big picture thing that was very fascinating. We did a bunch of stuff at the ringer this week, kind of like mid-season, look back, look forward type stuff. And so that was what I was working on. I just thought that was fascinating. couldn't believe, I couldn't believe how big of a difference. Like, if you look at the graph of points per game this year compared to like the average over the last 50 years, it's insane. So, wow. All right. Well, Mr. Smarty Pant studied every touchdown in the NFL over the last 30 years. Who's going to score a touchdown this week?

Anybody can look back. Great question. Yeah. Are we, are we getting into our gut, gut bolts? Yeah, gut calls. Give me all these numbers. Give me some like, some thing that you just intuit. it. Well, let's just start with the Seahawks because I think the Seahawks defense, the Seahawks in general, and this is what I wrote, are a perfect microcosm for this season, like elite offense, just atrocious defense. So I'm saying Jared Goff looks like a great streamer this week against the Seahawks at quarterback. The Seahawks defense has given up, you know, more. This is a crazy stat. The Seahawks defense through eight games has given up more receiving, more passing yards than any other

team has through nine games and the CX have only played eight games. Oh my God. That gives you an idea of like how terrible. Crazy. And I saw this stat per per fantasy points, the top three highest scoring quarterbacks in fantasy this year are Kyler Murray number one, Russell Wilson number two, and the and the quarterback that plays the Seahawks is number three. No way.

Wow. Holy shit. So I don't know. This, maybe this is just too obvious, but. Well, wait, so the quarterback playing the Seahawks is averaging than what, like 360 yards per game? Yeah, like 26 fantasy points or something? 28. Isn't that like more than like Peyton Manning in 2013 or Grease?

Isn't that like almost the record? I do think I saw that on Twitter actually. Yeah. Oh my God. Peyton Manning had the all-time record or whatever passing yards. The average X amount. I don't know the exact numbers. But yes, the Seahawks, the quarterback playing the Seahawks is on pace to out to out pass.

that Peyton Manning said. Yeah, apology. Someone tweeted that apologies. I don't remember who threw that out in the world, but that's absolutely no. So what's your number on Jared Goff, D.K.? So for Goff this week, I'm going to go with 22 points. And that would be pretty high for him. I think, let's see, looking at his previous highs. His highs this year are 28.

So maybe, okay, let's do 25, actually, for shit. Wow. 25, which is pretty damn high for him. Gough has been a little bit disappointing to me this year. Actually, I had a lot of high hopes for him coming into this. season, but the Rams just did a lot. They do a lot of running on first and second down. That's just like who they want to be.

Goff has been pretty bad in some cases, but against the Seahawks, I mean, shit, we saw what the Bills did last week against the Seahawks where they ran like 27 times to one rush. Or they passed like 27 times. Yeah, it was like crazy splits in the first half. They just passed the whole game. And it worked really well. So maybe we'll see the Rams do that this year or this week. But overall, I just think Goff has a chance to have really.

really good game against the Seahawks. Because the CX defense just sucks so much. It's like this is an auto start for anybody. Yeah, that leads right into my gut. I mean, my gut was just, I think the Rams are going to have two top 20 receivers this week. Honestly, that might be kind of conservative. To everything you said about why Gough is going to succeed by nature, his receivers are going to succeed. We don't have to belabor the point.

I did want to just note Mike Clay wrote for ESPN this week that two CX cornerbacks, Quentin, Quinn Dunbar and Shack Griffin, are both in the top 10 in fantasy points allowed in coverage. even though they've both missed two games and the Seahawks have had their buy. So they're basically three games behind every other cornerbacker safety and they're both top 10, which is nuts.

So, you know, I mean, Robert Woods, if you have them, you're obviously playing against the Seahawks. I think Cooper Cup, he had a big game last week. It hadn't really done much for the previous month.

You're playing Cooper Cup. The Seahawks are maybe the worst coverage team in the league against the slot. And honestly, if you need a streamer, Josh Reynolds, you could do a lot worse than Josh Reynolds. I think the Rams are just, you want the Rams.

Play all the Rams receivers. Don't worry about your start sick questions. Play them. And I think if you need a streamer, Josh, you could do worse than Joshy, Josh Reynolds. By the way, I found the tweet that we were talking about before, Brett Coleman. And he said in Peyton Manning's 2013 season,

he averaged 342 yards per game. The CX are giving up 362 yards per game passing. So it's by a lot. You know what's weird about Seattle is that obviously they're terrible against the pass. They're PFF's number one graded running defense. Really? Wow. So maybe don't start any Rams running backs this week.

I actually think that's true. I think it's interesting because Sean McVeigh was asked about the Bill's game plan, as you mentioned, D.K., where the Bills had a historic first half game plan where they basically came out and just threw the ball and didn't run. And McVeigh was like, we're best one were balanced. I don't believe McVeigh. I don't think he's really going to give out any information. But I think that he's almost kind of like an IQ test in a way of like the bills came out

or like, oh, you're historically bad at one of the two things we can do. Let's do that over and over. and if the Rams come out and really do try to have this balance attack and it doesn't work, it's going to be really hard to not blame McVeigh. So you play Daryl Henderson, but I wouldn't play KMakers, I wouldn't play Malcolm Brown, obviously,

and then I don't know. I'm hesitant about the Rams running game. One other thing that we're not even talking about, like if the Seahawks get ahead early, the Rams might not have any choice but to pass. I mean, the Seax offense is still really good, too. Remember that Bucks game last year where Jared Gough through like 50 passes

because they were down like 20 points immediately? I feel like that could happen here. Okay, Craig, you had a call for the week? Yeah, I think Tyler Boyd is going to have a big week. And I'm going to say seven plus catches for Tyler Boyd. So obviously they're playing the Steelers, right? And Steelers on the surface have this great defense. Steelers, for years actually, including this year, not good against the slot.

They've never been good against slot receivers, which is where Tyler Boyd plays. This year, Pittsburgh's only behind Cleveland and percentage of throws given up to the slot, a.k.a. quarterbacks just pepper it. And Burrow has already been kind of peppering wood a lot this year. And I think it's going to continue even though they're playing Pittsburgh this year. Also, the Steelers quietly give up the eighth most fantasy points of wide receivers this game. I really like the Bengals in the spot. I think this is

going to be a letdown game for Pitt. Ben's got like one total working knee. If you combine two knees together, it's probably equal one healthy knee for Ben. And I think the Bengals' kind of game maybe win. Yeah. I think this is what Bill Simmons would call a reverse jinks. You're trying to reverse jinks the Steelers into winning this game. To be quite honest, I don't want the Steelers to go 16 and now. Like, I'm flying with a couple

losses. Get the fuck out of here. I don't. If they go 16 or not when you're going to... Go to hell. My team is, I don't even want them to win every game. You don't. You don't. You don't want them to. I mean, the Giants, yeah,

the Giants proved that against the Patriots. That's how I feel about some of my fantasy teams. You got to get, like, you have to go through some, you know, adversity. But would you it's true, but would you guys play Joe Burrow this week against the Steelers? Because maybe Boyd is a good game. I actually didn't know that stuff about the Steelers and the slot. That's interesting. But at the same time,

Joe Burrow is running for his life on like every play. The Steelers are still the Steelers, even if they were really embarrassing against the Cowboys. Would you guys be hesitant about playing Joe Burrow this week if you have Burrow? Not really. I mean, I do think the Steelers defense is very good. But I think Burrow's just going to

get enough volume and enough pass attempts and probably going to be playing for him. behind have to do a little bit of hero ball. And I kind of, he's one of those guys where like, I trust him in garbage time. Some players just wilt. Wait, what did he say this week that was notable? Didn't he say, like, he doesn't like scary movies and we don't like scary movies? He's afraid of House?

We were having this discussion in Slack. Is he afraid of the show House? I love the show House. I was obsessed with House when I was. And House MD. And apparently Joe Burrow was too afraid to watch it when he was a kid. And now he's watching it now. first of all I get that because a lot of blooded house

a lot of words had never heard of like random things like a lot of lupus and sarcoidosis and things you don't want on Wikipedia when you're 10 but I have to say I've been thinking about getting in a house on my own he doesn't like scary movies I feel like I'm me and Joe Burrow have a lot in common I can't believe he's watching house there are so many television shows house well Manuel Sanders was in quarantine

for for COVID and he was like he watched the entirety of Schitt's Creek which is that's relevant though That show just won like every Emmy. Nobody watched the whole show in like a week. It was like a lot of, someone did like the numbers breakdown, like DK for scoring, but Emmanuel Sanders for Schitt's Creek

and they're like, that's like 12 hours a day. I just don't get the house thing. Like, hey, like CBS's house on 2004 to 2011. Like let's fire that up. House is an amazing, house is an underrated. He's extremely quote,

Love House, okay? Everyone knows. Okay, who's up here? DK. Yeah, DK. Give us another gut call. House, all gut calls. The whole show is just house has good calls.

Oh, my God. I'm going with the Dallas Goddard breakout game. It's not really a breakout game since he's been around for a while, but the breakthrough game, I guess we'll call it. Against the Giants this week. He was a dud kind of coming off of his injury in week eight prior to the buy, just wanted to catch for 15 yards. However, he did run quite a few routes.

I saw he ran a route on like 85% of once his dropback. So he's, you know, getting out there in routes. He's making himself available or whatever. where he just, it just didn't work out for whatever reason in this last game. But I do think it's coming.

I think his production's coming. He has a good connection, good chemistry with Wentz. The entire Eagles... This is great, D.K., I have a question for you that pertains exactly to me. This relates perfectly

to your gut call. Should I start Dallas Goddard over Mark Andrews? Oh, that's a good one. I think I would. I think I would. If it says no, Mark Andrews is just playing New England

and Dallas God is playing the Chinese. Oh. I mean, dude, it's come to that. This is, Mark Andrews, very good player and has that upside to catch like two touchdowns,

but he could also just give you a complete goose egg. Doesn't Goddard have that upside too? I think so, yeah. Interesting. Damn, am I about to do this? I don't know. I don't even think it's that crazy to think about. Well, we're talking about Mark Andrews.

That's actually my other gut, is that Mark, I think this is the week to play like J.K. Dobbins and throw a... I mean, we don't... We're recording this Thursday afternoon. I don't know if Mark Ingham's going to play. I kind of doubt it, but even if he does, I'm not worried.

I feel like Dobbins is going to be the leading guy. I think this Ravens Patriots game is going to be a rushing bonanza. Like they're going to run all over the Patriots. Obviously last year, funnily enough, the Patriots were coming off the Jets game against the, like there was the Donald Seen Ghost game, right? And then they went right into that Ravens game.

And then they got rocked. Now the Patriots are once again coming off like the Monday night football Jets game. But it's like, it's like the most pathetic defense. Like they couldn't be further from last year. defense. I mean, this Patriots defense is soft. There's no other way to say it. Like the front seven

can't, they're not physical. They can't set the edge. They can't really do anything. I think that that Niners game we saw like a month ago where the Niners ran for like almost 200 yards. I think we're going to see a repeat of that with the Ravens, but maybe more, if not more dominant, more yardage. And I think J.K. Dobbins

is the guy, but I don't know about Mark Andrews doing the work for the Ravens in this game. D.K., what's your prediction for Dallas Cutter? I'm going to say 70 yards and a touchdown. By the way, High Fits, New England is 31st in defensive DVOA this year. Well, what did that like 32nd when they made the Super Bowl the other year? But yeah, no, Craig, I think, Craig, put me down for, I think Jake Y Dobbin top 20 running back.

You should start Jake Dobbins. I think he's going to have a good game. I certainly hope so. All right. You have another gut call? That was your gut dilemma. That was my gut dilemma. Yeah, thank you for.

So I'm going to start Dallas Scott or over Mark Andrews, so we'll see how it goes. I actually think you should, yeah. All right. So my second gut prediction for this week actually has to pertain to the Eagles. I think Jalen Rager adds his name to the impressive Ricky Whiteouts after this game. Nice. I think there's a – basically it all comes down to who. So the Giants' best quarterback, Bradbury, he's been really good this year.

And if he ends up taking Travis Folgum, this could be the Jalen Rager game. Al-Shon Jeffrey, the ghost, who we don't even know if he's a real football player. He might come back. don't buy that. I don't care about that. He's like made a glass at this point. Regger was pretty good last week. He had like, I think he led the team in targets or a second on the team in targets, scored a touchdown, didn't have a million yards, but completely passes the eye test. And I think this is going to be a big week for him. Does he pass the eye test or does he pass the name test? Yes. Yes. He has a great name. Both. I mean, you're definitely right.

If his name was like Travis Folgum. If his name was Travis Folgum, it'd be different. I still don't think Travis Folgum is good because of his name. If Travis Fulgum was named Jalen Rager, you know what we'd be doing? That's like the Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert thing. A hundred percent. Fulgin would be like the coolest player in the league if his name was Jalen Rager.

Now no one gives a shit about him. We'd be like Justin Jefferson and Jalen Rager, amazing seasons from the rookies. But yeah, this is Rager's week for me. I'm going to say he has 75 yards. I'm just going to say more than 75 yards. Okay. I like that.

While we're going to receiver, it's bold time, right? Yeah. This is just random. I just think Jarvis Landry is his best game of the year. Like I just, you know what? That was written as one of my backup guts. Oh,

really? I just, I just think he does. Like, they're coming off the by. He's had a rib injury, which, like, suck.

And I think that rib injuries are one of the few injuries that I feel like coming off a buy matters. Obviously, Odell's not getting, like, you know, playing anymore. And I think that the Browns are targeting more to Jarvis since then.

Obviously, Richard Higgins, too. But I think Jarvis is in the slot. They're playing the Texans. Texans kind of suck against the slot. Bradley Robey's their best cornerback in Houston. He's not going to go to the slot with Jarvis Landry.

He hasn't scored a touchdown this season. I mean, he's thrown a touchdown, but he hasn't caught one. I think he gets his first touchdown in the year, and I think he has his best game of the year. I mean, this isn't that bold because he hasn't gotten more than like 88 yards, but I think that it's his best game of the season, fantasy-wise, by a while, by a lot, and I think he gets his first touchdown. So I would start Jarvis Landry. I like it.

D.K., what's your bowl for this week? So I'm kind of, I feel like I'm going out on a limb here a little bit, but I'm saying another big Troy Maine Pope game against Miami for the charge. This is bolder than mine. Here's, how do you spell his name? T-R-O-D-Mondon. You forgot about him on the last episode we did.

You forgot he existed on the last one we did. Now I remember. Here's the deal. This is bold. This is very bold. Yeah, I'm saying this is bold. I want to do this pituit. You never know how to do these

like really unclear backfields where it's like four guys could potentially be the bell cow, be the starter or whatever in any given game. And for whatever reason, I'm just feeling good about Pope coming back. So, um, Chargers offensive coordinator, Shane Steichen, how do you say, how do you say his last name? Stichen, stichen, stichen? I don't know enough to correct you, so sure. I don't know either.

Whatever you want. I feel like it's stikin. Craig, it's called Shane. You're the backup quarterback on his team, man. How do you not know the offense? He just calls him coach. He never talks to me because I'm so deep on the devil. That's true.

Anyway, so he said this week that he's basically going to go with a hot hand approach. He said you kind of go with it, go with the flow of the game and see how it's rolling. You see how guys are playing. It's looking like Justin Jackson is going to be out with a knee injury. Joshua Kelly has been kind of like up and down. I don't know if they really trust him quite yet. And then Kalin Belage is Kalin Belage. Obviously, we talked about him last week or earlier this week about a potential

add. But I'm just going to go with Pope because he looks so good two weeks ago when he came in before he got injured. He got a concussion now. He's out of the concussion protocol. He's got that veteran experience. I just feel like, you know, with Anthony Lynn being like a former running backs, running backs coach, he's going to go with the guy that he trusts the most. And going with Troy and Pope, he had 10 rushes for 67 yards plus five catches for 28 yards in two games ago before he got hurt. I'm going with 12 points and half BPR. So trust the Pope.

The other reason is like I actually think Pope is good. Like he's a good runner. Wow. Okay. I feel like I should just take my Jarvis Landry thing of like shove it somewhere because I didn't I'm not as bold as you. This one's salty. You're in the Saltis Patoon.

Those are in. That's in a class of its own. Yeah, that's like you get equity. You get like the second lounge, the second floor lounge for the Salty's Poutin. Craig, you got a bold prediction? Dalvin Cook not a top 15 running back this week. Okay, that's salty spatoon. Okay, I'm intrigued.

You have my attention? Dalvin Cook is playing the Bears this week in Chicago. We're getting as close as possible to like if Chicago loses, they're done. Like, they're really spiraling. Like, they need to win this game. And they need to shell out and stop the best player on the Vikings, which is Dalvin Cook. The last three games that Dalvin Cook has played the Bears, he's averaged

46 total yards a game. His last three games against the Bears, he's had 34 rushes for 86 yards. It's 2.5 yards per carry. The Bears know how to stop Dalvin Cook. I feel like the Bears is your fret. I think you're right that they're spiraling. This is it, man.

The Bears are the worst winning record team of all time, probably, and they've lost, I think, three straight. And if they have any hope of making the playoffs, like they need to beat this divisional team. it's too bad this game's on Monday night football because it would be the perfect thing on Sunday to like not watch instead

of the Masters. I know. But now it's instead of some prime time and I'm going to have to make up some reason to like not watch it. You know, it's terrible. Like the bears. The bears have like taken the Giants his place as the team that's on prime time way too much. Totally. It's just awful. And the Patriots this year. Oh God.

Every time I see that I'm like God damn it. It's like when the Pelicans had all those prime time games and then like Zion got hurt and we're just like Like, why are we watching the pelicans Sunday afternoon? Anyway, is that all a boat? Oh, my God, I can't speak like, is that all of our bolts? That's like saying the toy boat thing. You kind of had a toy boat situation there.

You can't say it three times in a row. You got all tongue twisted. Yeah, wow. Okay. You know, it's just, you know, it's just, it's been a long year, man, okay? Yeah. We can all be forgiving. All right, so which of those do you guys like the best?

You can't pick your own. I'm just an awe of D.K. picking Tremaine Pope. I know. That's absolutely stunning. I don't know. What do I like? I like Dallas Goddard. I'm willing that one.

You're just hopeful from Dallas Goddard. Oh, my God. All right. Well, that was exciting. And you can add a little excitement to your sports watching experience by betting on all the action on Fandall's sportsbook this football season. There's a reason why Fandall is America's number one sportsbook. Their app is simple to use. They've got great odds on all different betting markets.

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1-800-9 with it in Indiana. 1-800 gambler in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Tennessee Red Line is 1-800. 1-800-889-9-9-7-889 or visit 1-800-gambler.net in West Virginia. All right, let's just quickly recap last week's gut calls. D.K., how's the jurors do? You had Jerry Judy. You guys were both on the Jerry Judy train.

Congratulations. Chee-choo. I was happy to see Judy have his big day. He had 22 points and half BPR, which clearly beat my 15-point prediction. He had 14 targets. 14 targets, 7 catches, 125 yards in a touchdown. My other gut prediction, Marquise Brown, Squeaky Wheel Game, did not happen.

Now he's in the book. Get him out of here. We're done. Bakersfield Brown now. Bakersfield Brown. And then my bold prediction was that Jordan Howard would have a big game, 12 points was the prediction. I was wrong.

He did score a TD, however, and kind of salvaged that. It had 7.9 points and a half PVR. So technically wrong, but at least he salvaged it with a touchdown. I just want to shout out everyone who voted in the poll for Mark Keith Brown. and Bakersfield overwhelmingly won. So thank you for voting. The democratic process is sacred. I'm glad we all took care of that.

Craig, you also had Johnny Judy. Jerry Judy. Yes, Jerry Judy. Johnny Judy. I'm losing it. Yes. I also had Judge Judy for over... I had for the most receiving yards

of his young career, which it was correct. And then I kind of like sprinkled in like Noah Fant would have a good game too, which he only had 45 yards, but he got hurt in the middle of the game, came back. My second prediction was that Jonathan Taylor would have less than seven points. I was very close.

He had eight. He still played like crap, so I still count that as a win. And my bold was that Mike Kisiki would have a double-digit half-p-R game. He did not. He had 5.7. He had the fourth most points of the season,

you know, kind of a normal game, slightly above average. But I still think it's there, especially with Preston Williams now on IR for Miami. I think Kiski could still be salvageable. Dude, Preston going on IR was very upsetting to me. We love Preston Williams. My thing from last week, I said,

Gigi would have his best game since week one. That hit, he had almost 100 yards in a touchdown. I said, Will Fuller would have the revenge game because they were going to trade him. So I said 20-half ppr fantasy points. Almost. He had 100 yards in a touchdown. So he had 18 and a half, not 20, almost.

And then Matt Stafford, I said he'd have a good game. Well, not only did he have a concussion, end up in concussion protocol. Before that, he was playing terribly. So I'm not even going to blame the injury. He just really was awful. Turns out practice matters. But overall,

I think we did all right. Yeah. Million dollar lineup time? Yeah. Let's do that. All right. Fandil, people know the drill. If you don't, Fandil DFS lineup, we're going for a million dollars.

We're going out there. We're going to beat like 700,000 entries. So it's going to be a little weird because we're trying to win a million dollars a week here. The year I turned 26 as the head of my own brokerage firm, I made $49 million, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week. Did we win a million dollars last week? No. It actually was our worst lineup of the year.

Because we weren't even a little bit close. Like, not even remote. Not even, like, not even close to close. I once had a friend who was, like, trying to, like, go in the Grand Canyon. And, like, there's little, like, donkey rides you can take down. But there's a weight limit. And my friend was like, can I go? And she was like, no.

And he's like, is it close? And he's like, no, he's not even close to close. And that's how I think of our DFS. lineup this week. Just not close to close because we didn't have who burned us. We didn't have McAfrey. But this week we don't need to be close. We're going to hold it. Like John Rom, we're going to skip it alone the water and we're going to hold it.

Why don't we have D.K. read through our lineup this week because we're feeling good about it. All right. So here's our lineup for this week. I'm feeling really good about it. Josh Allen at quarterback going up against the Cardinals, Antonio Gibson against the Lions at running back. Aaron Jones at the other running back spot. Bobby Trees, Will Fuller, and Jarvis Landry are our three receivers. Austin Hooper at tight end going up against

Houston and then Christian Kirk who has just been on fire lately going up against Buffalo at defense. We got Philly, the Philadelphia Eagles going up against Danny Dimes and the Giants. I like that matchup a lot. So that's our lineup. Can we note that Craig tried to weasel out of us picking Austin Hooper at the last second?

I was like, guys, we could do Tyler Higbee. We were like, no. Absolutely not. I mean, I think it makes sense. It makes sense. O'Dell's out. He's been getting more involved. I feel like no one's going to put him in their lineup because he had an appendectomy. He's been gone for a while.

People think he's hurt. I love grabbing guys off of biweeks or off of like an illness or something like that because everybody assumes that they're not going to play and they haven't been good. Is that what you're going to tell him at your high school reunion? Like, hey, Austin, don't got your, you miss your appendix, dude? He didn't go to my high school, Danny. He went to my middle school. Oh, geez.

Tough. He didn't go to Cal High. He went to Dale Sal. I'm not even going to touch that. All right. Should we do fantasy court? All right. So there's some preliminary rulings we have to issue here.

There is a terminology language that the court most settled, which is the wide receiver phenomenon that Craig has identified. It's been very popular with people. We've gotten a lot of feedback about this, about what to call receivers who outdo their projections. We decided that wide deceivers has a negative connotation. We got a lot of feedback here. Someone said in wide acceder,

we've gotten wide achievers. So J.C. said in wideouts, like wide out. Oh, I like that. Whydouts is really amazing. But multiple people, Nicholas Cam, Patrick sent in basically just call him John Wick. And then Patrick sent an elaborate email saying we should call him the Baba Yagas or whatever they call it the John Wick nickname, which is like the boogeyman, but like in the John Wick world where the like Baba Ayaga. But here's the thing. I actually was thinking of, you know the Rick and Morty episode, Pickle Rick, where they make fun of John Wick? Yeah. And they're like, they call Pickle Rick, the Salenia. I kind of was thinking about Selenia. I think Wydowdow is just right out the gate.

That's the best punt. Good for. Who ever thought of that? Great job. Whiteouts is from JC. Shout out J.C. for Y.D. Good job, J.C. Maybe we go in YDoubt out. I like that. All right. I love Salania, but I think I'm out. numbered here. Haifitz, to be clear, that is for the guys that you see that are in your opposing teams lineup, and you're like, ah, God, damn.

Well, that's when you're, like, projected to, like, win and you're, like, up five points. Yeah, and it's like, D.K. McHath, 14 points. You're like, that's not going to fucking happen. Yeah, exactly. You're like, well, he's going to get 30.

Like, so I'm going to lose. Like, that's, okay. We do have, so fantasy court, though, we have a special case here, DK. Do you want to explain to us what we're, what we're reviewing here? Actually, it's not really a fantasy court.

it's just like a fun fantasy league that I found out about on Twitter the other day. So Nora wrote this amazing article about the punters and how bored they are this season. And this guy responded to Nora on Twitter about how he, like, he wanted to thank her on behalf of their fantasy league, which, quote, focuses on punters. And so naturally I was just completely aghast at that. And this is from Dev. What is focus is on punters made? It's so funny. That was what I was wondering.

So I asked. And so Dev like kind of went in. explained, explained to me and everybody on Twitter. People love this, by the way, on Twitter. It was hilarious. Explained their league, which is called the bullshit scoring league, which is really applicable to this league. Basically, you know, the idea is it's best ball,

so you just draft like your league. You don't have to do waivers. You don't have to do any of this other stuff. But it's a standard fantasy offense. There's a couple IDP spots. And then there's two punters. And basically the punter scoring is based on, everything that ESPN tracks in terms of punting like net,

return yardage, all that stuff. You lose points for opposing team returning for touchdowns or touchbacks or whatever. And based on the screenshot that Dev sent, that was like the scoring for this league, the punters are by far the most important because they're scoring literally hundreds of points every week. Everybody else is like standard. Like you're getting like receivers are like 12 points or whatever. And these punters are scoring 270 points like in a week.

it's absolutely bonkers, it's hilarious. Wait, the net yardage, like every yard's a point? So every punt you get like 60 points? Yes. That's incredible. Sounds amazing. And then so that's not even it. That's not like, that's not even the best part of this league, I think.

I mean, it's great. But the best part is basically this league is like Calvin Ball. Have you ever heard of Calvin Ball from Calvin and House where it's basically they just make up rules. And the only rule is the same. same rule can't be used again. It's like... Oh my God. It's like, have you ever seen

a true American on New Girl? Yeah, yeah. It's like, none of it makes any fucking sense. Basically, so Dev went on to say that the winner of the league every year gets to make up a whole new rule. And so the whole league has to do it. So examples of past rules that they've instituted

are all passing stats are negative. Every year, the week of the playoffs, they randomly shuffle the schedule. So in other words, like, you don't even know if you beat anyone in week four. Like, you have to, like, go back and look if you won in week four based on your new schedule. It ends up screwing someone every year. As Dev put it, it's such fun bullshit. So the bullshit scoring league, it just sounds incredible to me.

And so, yeah, anyways, I just wanted to shout that out because, I mean, man, it sounds like pure chaos. The idea that you get to make a rule every year. So someone was like, I want, there's two putters and every yard is a point. That is unreal. I love that. Holy crap. So the fantasy court judgment is that's fucking awesome. Yeah, that's awesome.

Certified sealed in approval. Yeah. All right. Wow. Okay. I think that's all we got. Mm-hmm. Okay.

So wide outs. Bullshit leagues are great. Play the Rams or literally anyone against the Seahawks. Anything I'm missing here? Wow, that's it. You got it. Denzel Mims is not playing this week, so unfortunately you can't start him. Damn.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Lorne. Thank you for the people who emailed us about the Lorne. Thank you to live. Thank you, Radiohead. Thank you. What? Yeah, remember they said name a random band? Thank you, radio, band. I'd like it that me there. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

For Cating Wilde. We'll see you on Monday.