The Ringer NFL Show - The Trubisky Secret, Fantasy Tanking, and Week 13 Bold Predictions

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

We lead the show with the bizarre Steelers-Ravens Wednesday game as well as the players eligible to return from the Reserve/COVID-19 list this week. Then we offer up our gut calls and bold predictions for the Week 13 slate, look back on our Week 12 predictions, build our million-dollar daily fantasy lineup, and rule on a Fantasy Court case about tanking. Players Returning From the COVID-19 List (4:23) Week 13 Predictions: Allen Robinson, Bears (12:50) Denzel Mims, Jets (15:34) Duke Johnson, Texans (18:50 Miles Sanders, Eagles (21:06) Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Chiefs (23:20) Drew Lock, Broncos (25:45) Jarvis Landry, Browns (28:10) Mitchell Trubisky, Bears (30:57) Matthew Stafford, Lions (31:50) Kirk Cousins, Vikings (37:45) Million-Dollar Lineup (47:00) Fantasy Court (52:00) Email us! [e-mail] Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, we talk COVID chaos, give our gut calls and bold predictions for the week, and give our million-dollar lineup. And we also explain why Mitchell Chubisky is like Raphael and Hidal. Stick around. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hyphids, and I'm joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck. Are you guys ready for a fun fact? Yes. It's a real fun fact, or are you going to hit us with a football one again?

I'm going to fake. It's a fake fun fact. You know, remember, like, last episode when Craig was shitting on people for drinking coffee? and said it's for the mentally weak? Craig is drinking coffee right now. Craig is literally drinking coffee as we speak. It's decaf coffee. You're drinking coffee, though.

That's completely different. You said it was for the mentally unmotivated like 48 hours ago. You moron? Not the beans. It's the caffeine. I'm just shocked. You're just sipping coffee. I just can't even get over this.

I like the taste on a cold winter morning. How do you feel about being the Skip Bayless of coffee takes? I'll take it. can I be the Stephen A. Smith? How cold is it where you are? Because you said cold winter morning in southern California. In Los Angeles? It's probably like in the 50s right now.

But it's chilly in the house I'm in. My feet are cold, you know? Okay, well, this is an absolutely brutal tape. And we also had to watch an absolutely brutal game this week. This week was just ravaged by coronavirus. I mean, week 12 was a disaster and it was capped by Wednesday afternoon football in the middle of the workday where I don't know about you guys. I had three people in my life,

text me and completely forgetting the game was on. After it was over, they were like, wait, I miss Steelers Ravens. So how did you guys think that this game went? Because obviously this was so annoying from a fantasy perspective. We have more coming down the docket because now there's Tuesday night football. There's two Monday night games. All that's really annoying. But just what did you?

I thought it was a really ugly game. What about you? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, I think there was like four turnovers within like a, a two minute. First eight minutes or something. It was crazy. It was like back and forth.

It looked like the teams hadn't practiced all week, which I think was exactly what happened. And yeah, I mean, it was an ugly game, backup quarterback for the Ravens. He kept getting mildly hurt, RG3. It looked like he tore his hamstring on one play and he came back in the next series. And then he like tweaked his ankle later. Did you see what they wrapped RG3's hamstring at the end of the game? They put like a, like the whole world around. his hamstring. They must have given him the Will Fuller treatment at half time to keep him in because he definitely tore his handsring in his end quarter. Like a doctor or a masseuse in the wrap that they put on his leg.

Like there was a little tiny masseuse just, I don't know. It was really weird. How did you feel about having the game on at, well, in our case, we're on the West Coast. It was 1230 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. You're on the East Coast, right? You're so it's a little bit different. But I don't know. It's bizarre. I was working and I was like, do I have to stop working to watch this football? game? No, it sucked.

Come on. I hated it. I had to like, you know what's lucky is, I don't know how you got, how do you guys watch, if you can't watch like an NBC game on TV, how do you watch it? Like a Monday night football game,

if you're not around a TV with cable, how do you watch it? I mean, I haven't not been around a Sunday football. I mean, it's literally my job. I haven't not been around one and a while. But you can stream it on the, no, you can stream it on the NBC Sports website for like free. For like, they give you a pretty generous window.

And if, you know, you can sign in or there, you know, there are a certain, you know, incognito window methods to kind of get around the 10-minute timer they give you. I was going to say, I'm not going to publicly announce how I watch games. How dare you ask, Craig, in the year of 2020, how dare you ask how anyone watches anything live that you supposed to pay for? What's it wrong with you? I play the fifth. Yeah, but in terms of fantasy football, I mean, this was just annoying, but just growing through a couple things for this week, there are just players that came off the list. There was just people going on and off.

so just to recap. Adam Thielen came off the list this week. Jonathan Taylor came off the list this week. Mark Ingram and J.K. Dobbins were eligible to come off the list before the Ravens Steelers game, but they were not activated. Brandon Ayuk from the 49ers was activated off the list. And probably most importantly, Lamar Jackson, who tested positive on Thanksgiving, could become eligible to come off the list in time for this Cowboys game on Tuesday.

But we have no idea because obviously we don't know how he's doing. So this is just chaos. And then not only is it hard to figure out who. going to play, who's not, what's going on. The schedule's all screwed up. Because when you have like a start sit decision that hinges on the one o'clock, at least you can look at the game time decisions and make a choice. But when one of your game time decisions is like a Monday game that's always annoying,

now you've got a Tuesday game time decision with Lamar Jackson. You're not going to know the deal. There's two Monday games. And also waivers are screwed up because I don't know what you guys. I had leagues where on certain apps, they automatically extended the deadline for waivers. Other ones, there was a whole argument in the group chat about like, oh, when should the pick up?

be because there are people picking up people for a whole new week before the Steelers Ravens game ended the previous week. Now, stuff like that's going to happen again. Like, did you guys have any experiences with that or just general things you want to share after waiting through the chaos? Few of my dynasty leagues had to waivers run a couple

hours after the game on Wednesday. So that was different than Yahoo and ESPN, who I believe are still set up for Friday. So, yeah, it was just, it's just, it's like perfect for this whole season. It's a perfect microcosm is because you have to keep track of like 200% more things this year than normal.

It's so true. I mean, waivers in general, like, especially for me, and people like me who play in a lot of leagues, I know Craig is like two leagues is my maximum. I play in legitimately 12 leagues right now, I believe. Which I don't understand how you play. Just him being like a few of my dynasty leagues. I imagine D.K. just has this massive library and it's just filled with all the information of all these teams.

You have like a portfolio. You're closer to like having like a stock index. It's truly a full. Do you have an assistant who helps you? I wish. I was actually thinking about this last night. I'm like, there should be some sort of, there probably is an app

that, like, aggregates all your teams and, like, tells you who, like, who you need to add and stuff on every league. Shout out, Eitrade. Sponsor.

It should get into fantasy management. I had an idea when I was in, like, college, because I loved fantasy football and college. I wanted to start, like, a small company where I helped,

like, really rich people manage their fantasy teams, and I would, like, get 10%. Oh, like the Avengers's League. The Fantasy Caddy. The Avengers. Yeah, all the actors from the Avengers are like in that league together.

It's like all the stars. Because like these big time CEOs or managers at these big companies, like they're probably have to be in like office fantasy leagues. They probably don't pay attention. They're too busy. So I could just manage it for them. Yeah. It's like Chris Hemsworth is not managing his own team.

He's from freaking Australia. There's no football works. You'd be like. Who's managing his team? Rusty from Ocean's 11 and when he's like teaching all these movie stars how to play poker. You're like, damn it, dude. You have to, no, you have to start a whatever, like in a flex spot. You can't, no, you can't start.

That's a quarterback, Robert. You can't put him in the flex spot. And then he's like, well, it's Taysam Hill. And I'm like, oh, God, that's a whole other thing. It's hard to explain. Okay, so the Tuesday thing, is there anything people should just be wary of for this week or just, as you said, D.K.? It's kind of this weird thing where it's just more effort to be falling and keeping up with everything.

Is there anything people should be watching effort specifically or just like, you know, we all die in the end and eat Arbys? No, it's just, I mean, just remember that nihilism, like just might, My nihilism mottoes is basically like we're all going to turn to dust. So like what matters. No, actually,

but like legitimately, no, it's just the same deal as last week. Make sure if your league has replacements for guys that are playing on the Mondays or Tuesday games, that you have them ready to go

because like we saw, you know, like this game could get moved again if we have more teams have like an outbreak this week. So it's just. One note I would have for people is as you move into playoffs

and this is what my league is doing, If you haven't already set up the backup system where you designate somebody just in case a game gets canceled or moved, that you will use a new player and count their points, set that up just for the playoffs. It's easier for the commissioner anyway. There should be half the teams are playing.

Just get that going. Just designate a backup just in case. And also, on that note, make some non-obvious moves. So, for example, like, if the players playing on Tuesday game, put them in your flex, no matter what. Like, you want the players to lock and order flexibility. So if you have a Zecal Elliott,

who honestly, you could bench this week, maybe if that's kind of crazy, but he's still Zeke Elliott. so you're not going to, you're going to play them. But put them in your flex. Because at the end of the game, that game's on Tuesday, and you have no idea what's going to happen

with the Ravens anymore. You know, in theory, it's going to happen. We have no idea. And at the end of the day, you do want to be able to flex out Zeke Elliott for a receiver if that's your best option. Well, yeah, but how would you do that? I mean, I guess if the game got canceled on Sunday,

then that would make sense. Game gets canceled on Monday, and there's two Monday night football games. So Monday afternoon, they're like, hey, the Tuesday game tomorrow is not happening. You have Zeke and your flex. Now you have receivers or running backs, and maybe tight ends, depending on your lineup,

from Washington, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, San Francisco, that maybe you could pick up someone in desperation, which again, is it crazy we're talking about these kind of scenarios? Yeah. But, like, that's kind of how every league I'm in has been going this year. It's those little decisions people are really making where it's like, oh, no, I've Gus Edwards, what am I doing? And then he ended up scoring a touchdown on Wednesday.

So question for you guys, which do you think will have a larger asterisk next to the championship this year? The real Super Bowl or fantasy championships? Like, which is more fraudulent. If the Chiefs win the Super Bowl and you're like, well, it's the COVID season, or if, like, Danny Kelly wins his high school league. And everyone's like, well, half my team had COVID in week 16.

What do you think is more fraudulent? I think fantasy football because... I think fantasy football because, I mean, I try to delegitimize when other people win all the time anyway. I'm like, oh, yeah, they're just finding fantasy points in gutters and dead people are scoring fantasy points and stuff. And you know what I mean? I'm like, we should really look into this.

Like, I only want to count the legal... Last year, I called for her. recount. I made the commissioner of my other league recount every point for the entire time. Yeah, they're just finding fantasy points in Michigan. Turns out all the points are correct, but go back and make sure that you didn't have any like stat corrections that didn't get applied to you. Exactly. Finally for stat corrections. So like, I feel like everyone always tries to like, oh yeah, the year didn't even count when your friend wins. And then this year, it's like, well, actually people feel that way. Whereas football,

they're like, oh, well, you know, we all tried very hard. Also, I think that if the super, if the playoffs go smoothly, no one will care. Everyone will be really excited that there was a Super Bowl. as long as there isn't like gross competitive amounts in the playoffs no one's going to remember the Kendall Hinton thing we're gonna like we're gonna forget that so soon if the Super Bowl's good but exactly but a fantasy football no matter what happens people are gonna be like yeah that year didn't count didn't count next year I'm gonna make a fantasy football bubble

me and my friends just got 12 of us in a house for the entire year hope that works that's a good reality TV show it is actually you know the Princeton football players are doing that they're like 20 seniors at Princeton who just like we were going to finish their senior year. So they just, instead of taking classes, they all suspended their senior year as students and are just living and, like, working in jobs

and not taking classes. They're going to resume next year as students. So they're just like doing construction jobs to stay in shape. Yeah, basically. Shouts out Princeton football, Kyle Brand. Let's make a cookies together. Okay. Got calls, gut, got bold.

Yeah. All right, let's get into week 13. And off the job, I just want to shout out one more random COVID-related thing. I can't get over this. The Niners are playing. They're hosting the bills as a home game, but they're in Arizona,

which is San Francisco's division rival. Oh, yeah. I just wanted to mention that, which is the craziest thing. So it's a Monday night game. This is the bills returning to the site where they had the Hail Murray. Like, the bills lost the Hail Murray in Arizona.

And now I have to go back to play the 49ers. And the 49ers just move there. That's a whole other thing. I'm telling you, Arizona Stadium is cursed. Especially, like, from a Cajs fans point. The Giants won the Super Bowl there over the undefeated Patriots. It's the greatest place in the world. That's where my Seahawks lost.

lost on the worst play in Super Bowl history. And there was also a game in Arizona where they like, they lost Cam Chancellor and Richard Sherman, like for the season. Oh, yeah, that was where the Legion of Boom ended on that Thursday. Yeah, literally, I hate that field. I don't ever want any team to have to play there ever again. So I definitely feel the bills came. It comes in and out of the stadium and it slides out.

Yeah, it's gorgeous. But yeah. Okay, gut, gut, D.K., what's your first gut call of the week? So I've been thinking a lot this week about Alan Robinson's terrible body language. and I just think it's hilarious. And so I'm going with Alan Robinson top seven finish. And actually, I saw this on fantasy points from Graham Barfield, and it was a great stat. Mitchell Trubisky has targeted Alan Robinson 38 times this year.

And that's a 29% target share. And that's quite a bit more than what he has been getting with Foles. He's averaging 18.6 p.m.R points with Trubisky, which if that would carry out through the whole season, it would have made him the wide receiver five on the year. Mitch Trubisket knows where his biscuit gets buttered. Nice. Yeah. And so basically with Trubisky starting again this season, I'm 90% sure that's the case.

I believe I saw that Nagy said that Trubisky was going to start. I just like that connection, even though the Bears' offense is pretty terrible, and Trubisky is pretty terrible in general. But I think there is one thing you can kind of rely on is that Trubisky is just going to throw the ball to Alan Robinson like 14 times. So. Death taxes and Alan Robinson moping around until he gets balls on the fourth. quarter. Yeah. And the other thing, there's a few other things I like about this that make it sort of like a definite gut thing. Alan Robinson is sick to death of playing in Chicago.

We've talked about how contract year players outperform, you know, like what they normally would do. This is contract month for Alan Robinson. He's sick of it. He wants that. Contract month. I love that. Contract month. The personal playoffs. Holy crap. Contract month is forget contract year. I love this. If there is a time that any person is going to dig deep, it's when they're in the final month of their last year on a, like a lame duck team. And he just wants to like, you know, squeeze every dollar out of it as he can on the free agent market. So anyways, that's pretty dumb. But also the Lions are top tens and top 10 and points allowed to opposing receivers. The other, and the other fact that I like here is Darrell Bevel, who is the new Lions interim head coach, talked this week about speeding up their offense, which could mean the game instead of running at like a glacial.

pace could have a few more possessions, more plays, more points in in theory. So well, you're burying the lead here. The lion's fired Matt Patricia. So are you worried their defense will immediately get better because he's gone? That's a slight worry, but I don't honestly like the floor is the floor with the Bears off or Bears offense. It's like we've seen it. It's I don't know if it could get much worse, to be honest. And so I think that Alan Robinson's going to get the volume. I'm saying top seven finish and half BPR. Love it. You say the floor is the floor. It reminds me Mitchell Trubiski's obviously a UNC legend, and it reminds me of

other words of another UNC legend, which is Michael Jordan saying the ceiling is the roof. And that's how Alan Robinson's ceiling is the roof. Okay. Craig, what's your gut call all the week? Denzel Mims, best game of the season for him. Love it. Can I blow your mind? I thought of the same thing, and I was like,

no, I'm a coward. Craig is Mims''s biggest fan. You had MIMS? I thought about it. I was like, I'm not doing it. Hyvitz, this is the same thing as you're essentially drinking a cup of decaf coffee right now. I am. I am a hypocrite, too. If you admit it, if you admit you're a hypocrite about the cough, I'll admit I'm being hypocrite about MIMS.

No, because you're actually being a hypocrite. I'm not. I like MIMS. Obviously, I love MIMS. Everybody knows I love MIMS. He pretty much puts up just 8.5 points a game. Every single game, that's what he does. He has like eight targets, four catches, like 60 yards, just every game. I think he's going to be better than that. This is the second game back with Darnold, maybe a little more chemistry, maybe a little more practice to play in the Raiders, who have been kind of getting shredded over the second half of the season. and they've allowed the fifth most passing yards

to wide receivers over the past four weeks. Mims is fourth in the NFL in air yards over the last three weeks. They're slinging it to them. Yeah, that's what I saw. James and Crowder's targets have gone way down. Hi Fitz, what did you see, the target numbers? The amount of air yards he's had over last month

is what convinced me about because the Raiders defense, I'm not very convinced. He's also, he looks good. I honestly think he looks like off-brand Alan Robinson. Dude, he is good. I actually, and so like I'm kind of biased, I think, because I really liked him coming out, and I wanted him to do well.

And then it was a bummer to see him go to the Jets. But just watching, like, Jets beat reporters who, at this point in the season, man, it's hilarious to read what the Jets, beat reporters are saying. Like, this has been a slog. They're 0 in 11. There's not a lot of positivity coming out of these B reporters.

You know what I mean? And so to see them, I saw, I can't remember who I saw, but a couple of them were just like raving about MIMs. He's going to be great. And I totally believe it. Like, once they get a good, you know, hopefully they'll get a good,

coach in there. Hopefully they'll get Lawrence. Mims could just legit go off next year. I think he's really good. I think I'd rather be the Jets than the Jags. I think if I could inherit the team, I'd rather have the Jets. Yeah, no shit. One's in New York City and once in Jacksonville, Florida. No, I'm saying the roster. I'd rather have the Jets roster. Oh, the Jets roster. I was like, you're going to own a team. It was like, yeah, the Jets roster? I don't know. I like the Jags. I like chart. You got Chark Chalch, uh, Chanel. You got James Robinson. I don't know. There's some The Jets have two good defensive players. But the Jets are going to get Trevor Lawrence.

They got Mims. I don't know. I'm in. Mind you, if they win this game, then they're not suddenly just magically getting Trevor Lawrence. The Jaguars are very much in the conversation for Trevor Lawrence. The Jets could hold it. Every Jets fan knows they could win two games just to screw up the Trevor Lawrence thing.

Well, that's why I think they are trying to move back to how Adam Gase call plays because they want to lose. Yeah. Also, Dika, can you speak to like, I don't want to just ignore that while we're talking about Trevor Lawrence is automatically fixing everyone. I know he's a great prospect. but we're also on the side, also trashing Carson Wentz, number two pick,

Jared Goff, who sucks number one pick. Trubisky. Trubisky, former number, well, no one thought he was doing. Baker. James Winston and Marioo, who both went one to. Okay, all right, cool, but like, what are you, are you telling us that it's predicting quarterbacks is difficult?

Obviously, yes. Trevor Lawrence is not just magic going to make the Jets better. That's all I'm saying. I actually don't think it's magic. I think no matter what he will make the Jets better probably. It's just like by default. That's probably true to it.

Not better enough. Okay. Oh, I guess I got to do it. a gut call now. I am very proud. I said Duke Johnson would be a good player on Thanksgiving. I don't remember my exact metric. He hit it. I'm rolling the dice again. I'm trying to restore trust in Duke Johnson again. Duke Johnson has been the most tantalizing fantasy player for a few years. Not the most, but he's been tantalizing. I think he can kind of be trusted now for a receiving role. I think now that Will Fuller's out,

it's not like he's doing the Will Fuller role. Like obviously Will Fuller's the deep stretch. but I do think De Saxon's offense will get kind of worse, which actually leads to more checkdowns ironically. I think Duke Johnson is going to catch a lot of passes. He's been on the field more than three out of every four plays, which is a lot for a running back. There's only like all the good running backs are the only ones who get way more than him. Like we're talking about the, not even Camero has ever really been consistently in the field,

three out of four plays. So I love that he's just always getting the ball. And even if they're not getting a lot of running offense, if you're in a PPR league, I think Duke Johnson's a really high floor the rest of the season. So I like Duke Johnson as the top 20 running back again. I think you can play him in a flex because you probably have him for a price where he doesn't have to

one of your top two guys, but I think he can flex him. ProCise can a vulture TD or two in this next game again. How do you feel about the Texas designated David Johnson to return from IR? He could play this week.

Do you not care? I don't think he's going to play this week. We'll see. I mean, obviously it affects things if he plays this week. I don't think he's returning for this week. But at the end of the day, I don't think David Johnson's receiving

is going to have the same thing. We'll reevaluate if David Johnson when he returns, but I don't think he's coming back for this. this weekend. DK, got it. So, Miles Sanders, since he's come back to the Eagles lineup, has been pretty worthless.

He had 7.6 half PBR points in week 11, 5.2 last weekend. His snap count has gradually gone down a little bit, playing for the Eagles. And people are pissed. So I'm going with the angry Philly mob narrative that they're going to play, they're going to feed Sanders this week. It's kind of like the squeaky wheel narrative, but also maybe just like based in fear of the Philly mob. I think Sanders is going to have his get, like, get right game this week against the Packers, who have been very bad against opposing running backs. I want to read off the Packers' last five opponents in terms of, like, their starting running back,

their number one running back. Last week, David Montgomery scored 22.8. The week before that, Jonathan Taylor, 13.4 points. He had 90 yards on the ground. The week before that, James Robinson had 109 yards on 12 carries. The week before that, Jared McKinnon had 14 points. And then the week before that, Dalvin Cook had his three touchdown game where he had 38 points. So the Packers, who are their opponent this week, have really, really struggled to defend the run.

And with the way that, you know, Wents has struggled and the way that, you know, they just haven't really been able to get anybody going in that offense, I think this is the Sanders game this week. So what's the benchmark here? Even though they're bad. My benchmark is 12 plus half-pPR, which is not, it's not obvious. Obviously, that's not like a ton, but we just got to get him going. I was going to say, what's his projection on Yahoo here? Oh, I don't know. I never really look at projections, to be honest.

I mean, look, he's had less than eight points the last two weeks each. His projection is 14.02. All right, why don't we say 14 plus? He's going to hit the over. He's going to hit the over. How about that? Okay, cool. Okay, yeah, I like the over.

Jeez. Miles Sanders, Samad, Smashes that over. Slash the over. Write down 14.02. If he hits 14.01, it just does not count. That would be hilarious. Oh, my God.

Now I'm saying to root for this week. Geez. All right, Craig, what's your call the week? 14.02. I think, I think Clyde Edwards Hilaire will kind of come back into the, I think we'll all feel better about Clyde after this week. I think that it's been...

Yeah, I like this. Everyone's been pretty. I mean, ever since Levyon Bell came around, his carries have gone way down. It's not like his playing time necessarily has, but I think it's been more of the fact that the chiefs have been passing way more, not that Clyde Edwards-Helair's not as good in their minds or, like, Levyon Bell is really, really stealing stuff from him.

The chiefs have really cranked it up passing. I mean, last week they played the Bucks, who actually have been quite vulnerable against the pass and have been fantastic against the run. So that's why I think Clyde only got whatever, he got eight carries. Yeah, on the season, the bucks are the eighth easiest team against wide receivers. And the last five weeks are the number one

easiest first wide receivers. So it's like, I'm sure the Tyree Kill game kind of skews that. Wait, what do you mean they're easiest for wide receiver? Giving up to most points. They've given up the most points wide receivers over the last eight weeks. Over the last five. Is that kind of crazy? That is crazy. Yeah, because their defense had been so solid.

Their secondary is so solid, but it's kind of crumbling a bit. I wonder if you removed Tyree Kill from that if they would just drop to average. I'm sure. But on the season, they're eighth. So it's like it's there. And like last week, Clyde played 60% of the snaps Lev played 32. They're playing Denver this week. Last time they played Denver,

Clyde had a good game. I think the thing with the Chiefs offense to remember is that they're like a basketball team in that sometimes they're playing at such a high level that sometimes the person who made the play isn't always getting the bucket. Like sometimes like Clay Thompson in the corner is making a three and sometimes he's just standing there

and like the fact that Clay was standing there opened up a layup for like David West. I know he hasn't been on the team for. years. But the chiefs are similar in that way and that sometimes Clyde is going to get, I think eventually he will have the three touchdown blowup game because Travis Kelsey gets tackled at the five. You can't bench him or whatever. He's going to have big games. I think this is a really good call. Yeah. And like I think I do think at the end of the day, Kansas City wants to say balance. I think they know what Levion is. I think they want to continue to test Clyde, give him the ball. They want him to

be reliable in the playoffs. Also, Denver has been sneakily pretty good against wide receivers and quarterbacks and terrible against running backs. They've given up the second most points to running backs in the second half of the season this year. Like, I think this will be the Clyde game. I like that a lot. I'm doing 75 yards in a touchdown, by the way. I like that. I got one that's related to that game, so why don't I just go?

Oh, yeah, go for it. You're bold? This is my bold. And I don't know, it's not that bold, I guess, but I'm claiming-14.02 points for Patrick Mahomes. Drew Locke, top 12 week. Oh, aka the garbage time king. reigns. The Garbage Time King is going to take back his throne after being

removed briefly and having to go on the run and live as an outlaw in the countryside for a week because he got tested or it was too close to somebody who tested positive for COVID. Anyway, Drew Locke coming back and again this is not, I'm not trying to tell you that the Broncos are going to win this game or

even necessarily play well. But as we've seen in the past, Drew Locke has actually played pretty well in the fourth quarter, third and fourth quarter. in garbage time, bring them back, make it a game. Drew Locke a couple weeks ago scored 20 against the Chargers in week 8. He had 30 plus in week 9. A lot of garbage time in both those games.

And then QBs against Kansas City over the last few weeks have actually done pretty well. Last week, Brady, who is notably better than Drew Locke, but still kind of like he's 43 years old. There's a lot of questions about his arm, all that stuff. I'm not saying they're the same guy, but he had 24 years old. 23 points. He was the QB5 on the week. The week before that, Derek Carr was the QB7 against the Chiefs. I basically just think the Broncos are going to kind of like come back offensively this week after having to weather the storm and start this practice quad-wide receiver at quarterback.

To be clear, are you thinking the Chiefs go up by so much he'll clean up in garbage time? Yes. Or that it's going to be competitive. Because I like the garbage time thing. Because I kind of, my general vibe, my gut call for this game is that everyone will remember, oh, yeah, it didn't matter if the Broncos had quarterbacks or not. Like all their quarterbacks suck because it's true. And people, like the whole Kendall Hinton thing was a distraction.

If Drewlock played, the Saints was still going to cream the Broncos. Like, it didn't really matter. And I feel like this game is kind of just going to remind everyone of that. Like, they all are bad. So, but if you're saying they're going to clean up in garbage time, I can see that. It's going to be similar, I guess, to like last week's game against the Buccaneers where the Chiefs were in control of that game the whole time. But the Buccaneers kind of came back and, you know, got some garbage time points,

got some garbage time touchdowns. and I say the Saints are the Bucks. Anyways, the Bucks came back. And I think, that's what I think will happen. It's like the Broncos will probably fall behind early and then, you know,

it'll look like the scores a little bit closer by the end of the game. I like that. So now we're going to high fits here for a gut. So I am a sucker. I'm like Craig when he plugged Jonathan Taylor. I'm just going back to the well. I know we burned him. I just like Jarvis Landry,

man. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know. Maybe I just like, like self-pain. I kind of regret putting him in the book. I know. Well, this is also the opposite of what we're supposed to do,

which is you're not supposed to just like see someone have a huge game and be like, oh, yeah, that'll keep happening. That's not, you're supposed to find the next thing. It's why he's in the book. It's why he's in the book. It's why he's in the book. Here's the thing that I look back on.

Odell Beck and went out for the season. And we, and I really liked Jarvis Landry to pick up the role in the Brown's offense. And we had hesitations and reservations about Baker Mayfield sucking. but still Jarvis clearly the best person left in the passing offense. And then there were three, and then he did nothing when three consecutive Sundays, the Browns had like ridiculously weird weather on game day. Like not during the rest of the week, just on Sundays they had weird.

So you're saying Jarvis has only had one real game without O'Dell Beckham and it's when he exploded. Kind of, yeah. Interesting. The first game where there was not sideways rain and wind or how. hail or like the broadcast was then obscured because there was so much rain. The first time that happened, Jarvis went off. So I'm not as willing to just say that won't happen again as we usually are when some midling person is a huge week.

I'm kind of wondering if actually you should keep playing Jarvis Langerie, especially if you have him in your flex. Hopefully you have he's not one of your top two options because that would mean you probably haven't been doing so well the first half of the season. But I think he's a good play. And the Titans suck too. Well, not the Titans, but the Titans defense is not very good. no offense to Mike Vrable,

but I don't think they're going to be able to defend him very well. And he just, he has such a high floor of targets. I'm just more open-minded to, I think it's going to kind of keep going well from the rest of the season. So I like Jarvis.

I like this too, but I'm going to read off his points totals this season real quickly. Week 11, 3.6, week 10, 4.4, week 8, 7, 8.4, week 6, 5.5. Oh. I understand that this is a terrible idea.

But I just, I do think it's important. I like where you're coming from here. Weren't one of you trying to tell me that you knew someone in Cleveland who was explaining that the weather had been perfectly fine except those three Sundays in a row? That was not me. Oh, that was completely different conversation? Okay, well, what was it one of you? But the point is, I'm just saying maybe crazy weather events.

I don't know. I do. I'm into it. That's my bold prediction, too. Jarvis Landry can control the weather. Wait, what is your benchmark here for Jarvis? Oh, I think he's a top 20 receiver. you. All right, so I'm up here with a bold.

Bold. Bold. Yes, sir. So I think the Detroit Chicago game will be a high scoring affair. I like the over at 44 and a half points. And I think Mitch Trubisky and Matt Stafford are going to be top 10 fantasy quarterback.

Oh, top ten. This is spicy. Mitch Trubisky is a parley. Let me tell you something about Mitchie Biskey against the Detroit Lions. The last four times, Mitch Trubisky has played the Detroit Lions. he's thrown three touchdowns

in every single game and he's only had one interception. Oh, I forgot about this. Wait, aren't like most of his career wins against the Lions? Yes. He's had 12 touchdowns in one pick in his last four games against the Lions.

He's already played them this year, week one, in which he threw three touchdowns and zero interceptions. Also, the Lions, very unimposing defense. I like his rushing ability. Even if they get killed, it's going to be garbage time. Like, I kind of think either way,

Mitch Trubisky can put up a good game. And with Stafford against Chicago this year, he put up 300 in a touchdown in week one. I love that Patricia's out. It looks like Goliday and Swift have a chance to come back. The bears have been a little bit more vulnerable than we thought.

They just got shredded by the Packers. They give up the number one most points to tight ends, which is why I like Hawkinson. Yeah, I love that Patricia's gone. I love the Rahim Morris Falcons thing. I think it's going to happen with the Lions. I just think this game

is going to be more high scoring than Vegas thinks. I love this so much. I like that Trubisky is basically like Raphael Nadal on Clay. or whatever. Just against the Lions. Dude, I just look this up because this is such a good call.

Because here's the thing, Mitchell Tribusky's 57 passing touchdowns in his career and 14 are against the Lions. Yeah, I love it. So a quarter of his passing touchdowns are against Detroit, who they play twice a year. The only thing here is that Patricia's God

and maybe everyone else in the Lions is like, just fix it. But I still love this. I like this. The only thing I'm worried about is, and it's Thursday afternoon, so we don't know exactly how it's going to go. But both Goladay and Swift were not at practice today. So it's looking a little iffy that they'll play. Are you still confident if they don't play at me? Honestly, kind of. Yeah. I think one of the two will hopefully play and that'll be enough. I hope it's Goliday. I was going to have a swift bounce back gut call, but then I saw that he was like maybe not going to clear concussion protocol, which sucks. So these, The ones, the concussions, I guess, that kind of happen late, like where you get late developing symptoms,

those tend to last quite a few weeks. Yeah, it is weird how some people get concussions and they're back the next week, and then you get, like, David Johnson, who misses, like, three, four weeks. Well, I think it's weird because the word concussion has been, he said so much, it's meaningless. Concussion's a brain injury. Brain bruise.

For all that we know about modern science, we don't really understand the brain really well yet. You know, so honestly, we should probably stop using the word concussion and just say, he has a brain injury, and maybe it would be a more. In your brain, high fit specifically. I'd like to study it. Me too.

The other thing that I like about this, Craig, is the Beville narrative. Yeah. So Bevel, I mentioned this. He's talking about speeding up the offense. But Beville, I think, wants to be a head coach. He interviewed for head coaching jobs a couple times back when he was with, I believe it was when he was with the Seahawks. Like he interviewed he didn't end up getting head coaching jobs.

But, you know, he was on that circuit of guys that players or teams that were interested in getting. And so this is kind of like his mini tryout. It's like Rahe Morris in Atlanta. He has a chance to kind of turn this thing around. If he can, and I don't, honestly, I've never seen Beville not under a defensive head coach like Pete Carroll and Matt Patricia. For all we know, Beville just wants to go balls to the wall on offense.

He probably doesn't. But this is why I'm kind of interested to see how this all plays out because he was under Pete Carroll, who is just like restrictor plates. Don't do anything that would cause a turnover ever. And then under Patricia, I figure it's probably like kind of the same. Patricia, very defensive-minded head coach. So we'll see. So it's Friday, right, in people's ears, hopefully if they're listening.

So the NFL show will be out at 9 a.m. Pacific with House and Sharp. We were doing the Wednesday show with them. And after the recording, I was talking to Sharp. And he has the most amazing take about offensive coordinators that sit up in the booth. Play colors that sit up in the booth. He thinks are way more likely to like be best. better and their offenses are better when you're in the booth because you're less likely to be influenced by your coach to like make their shitty calls you know this is the skybox shoddy this is

the schottinheimer went up to the box this year yes he talked about schottenheimer he talked about oh there was two other teams i forget you'll have to listen because he's going to talk about it but um it was just an unbelievable take that booth i like that coordinators are better you can just like put them on mute like the coach is like in your ear sorry it's ah we're having some communication issues I'm going to call a pass here on first down. Yeah. Wow, I am blown away. That's brilliant.

And I asked him, I was like, did you read that somewhere? He's like, no, I don't know. I just kind of thought about it a couple weeks ago. And I was like, that's incredible. Dude, this is honestly a big narrative in Seattle because Skybox Shottie is the thing. Shotnymer was on the sideline. He was on the sideline last year.

Oh, you know what is? It's the Bills offensive coordinator. He does it too. Dayball? Yeah. Or who is the Bills? Yeah, I like that a lot. That's cool.

Yeah. Let's see if this pans out. He didn't last year. and this year he did and they're like a completely different offense. I'm going to start doing this podcast from a booth. I'm going to just,

I'm going to isolate my guys. Yeah, we are. Imagine like though, really, imagine being in the booth versus on the sideline. Like you can only see

a fraction of the action from the sideline. Well, Matt, you know when you take a test and the teachers walking up and down the aisle you're just kind of nervous? Like it's just,

stop looking at it. Stop breathing down my neck. That's amazing. I've always, I was thinking of that so much for golf this season of just like all all the sports and like, oh,

what's the impact no fans. But I was there about golf. I was like, these guys grew up their whole lives playing golf without fans. Like for football players, they've always had fans. So they're used to it. And they're like, I miss the fans. Golf, it's like you go your whole life. You get so amazing and playing without fans. And then on the biggest platform ever, there's like 10,000 people watching you play. That must be nuts. And I was wondering. I kind of was wondering about that with Dustin Johnson at the Masters. That's why he dropped, you know, 20 under or whatever it was. Yeah, someone who looks so calm on the outside, maybe in the inside is a little more nervous.

I don't know. I hate getting paired up with two. If I get paired up with two, if I get paired up with one guy I don't know golfing. I'm nervous on the tee ball. I can't imagine. Someone asks you to play through and you're like, oh, no problem. One person. Can you turn around while I fucking... Yes.

I've never... The most relatable thing in golf is when someone plays through you and then they flub their tea shot. And you're like, oh, I don't worry about. And there's nothing you can say because you want to be like, hey man, like I would have done the same thing, but it doesn't help. You know, it doesn't help them. You just feel shame.

It's the worst. Speaking of shame. Uh, my bowl picture for this week. So all the numbers say that Kirk Cousins is going to be an amazing starting quarterback for play for the Jaguars this week. Sorry, against the Jaguars this week because the Jaggers offense is bad. Kirk Cousins has been playing out of his mind. I mean, he has the second most passing touchdowns over the last month only to Aaron Rogers. It's Kirk Cousins.

And then the Jaguars past defense is not that good. I mean, they're giving up, I think they're one of the five most to wide receivers. I mean, it's just everything on paper, basically. suggest Kirk Cousins is a perfect plug. If you have Brady in your fantasy lineup, you can plug him for Kirk Cousins or DFS, whatever. My bold take is I don't want Kurt Cousins. I want him outside the top 15.

I don't think he's going to have a good game. And this is not really backed up by math. It's backed up by a lot more of. He's going to be Kurt. It's going to be a Kurt week outside the top 15. It's solely based on every time. It's being a hater. It's based on me being a hater,

being a non-believer, based on the Vikings being like, oh, you think Dalvin's Cook's hurt? we're going to run the ball. This could totally just come back and bite me, but I just feel like Kirk Cousins, I just don't rely on him. I don't want to rely on him. And I feel like there's two other really good streaming options.

I would want more. I think there's Fitzpatrick going against the Bengals. I think there's Derek Carr going to get Jets. Obviously, Derek Carr was awful last week, but I'd rather have a car against the Jets this week, and I'd rather it fits over the Bengals. I just don't trust Kirk Cousins. Let me ask you this.

Would you rather have Mitch Trubisky? No. No, I'm not you. That is a level of, the fact that you were able to walk over the hot coals of that take to just get it out, I don't think I could do that yet. You're on a higher dimension than me. I could have jumped off the coals at top 12th,

and then there was an extra 10 feet to go to top 10, and I was like, I'll keep walking. That is, I can't believe. No, I, no, I, I'll take Kirk over, Mitch. I don't share your faith. I think it's hilarious, but I just, I'm too, I hate Mitchell Trevisky, irrationally, to be honest. I mean, bless his heart, but I also.

deeply despise him. Deeply. Really deeply. Million dollar lineup? No, we got a recap last week's quote. I mean, I'm fine with skipping this part if you guys want it. DK.

Zip through it. It's real zippy. All right, two out of my three calls from last week almost got goose eggs. So I'm just going to go ahead and say sorry for that. I called it Jordan Aiken's game. I said he was going to have his best game all season. He did not.

He had 0.4 points. I will say in my defense, he had two almost touchdowns that one one Sean Watson who's playing like the best quarterback on the planet right now just straight up missed him when he was wide open in the end zone it was like Baker Mayfield time um so that was tilting but I'm gonna take it I'm gonna take the L on that one my other good call it's so different than like other sports like basketball like

if a basketball player has nine points like they had a shitty game but like Jordan Aiken literally could have had like two wide open red zone targets but like Deshawn Watson overthrew him and that's the difference between him scoring 16 and zero, but like the right next to each other. There's various. This is just more evidence for that we really should do next year, the almost fantasy league where we just count targets. I love that.

We're going to have to hire an intern because that's going to be a lot of work. To track it all. Yeah, I know. Targets, goal line carries with defensive pass interference, that's how you get points. Okay, so with Aiken's, his first almost touchdown was an incredible, very lucky play by the defender. He was trailing him. He did not look back to the ball.

He just stuck his hand up. And the ball hit the guy's hand and glanced. It's not luck. That's a skill that you learn. You know what I mean? Like it's unlikely to happen again. Watch their eyes. The receiver's eyes.

One of the reasons Randy Moss was such a good receiver is he trained his eyes to not show. No, it's like if you're targeting, if you're tracking a ball in the air, you're taught to watch the ball, watch their eyes because they're tracking the ball. You know when the ball's coming. Randy Moss taught himself to not let his eyes widen so the DVs couldn't play him. So Jordan Aiken should freaking get Mossed. But in this case, maybe lucky.

is not the right word. Why don't you just wear a visor instead of you have to trick your eyes? D.K. Mekkaff does. Yeah. There we go. Anyway, so Aiken's,

that was a tough one for me personally to see that happen. And then he ended up getting like one rush. He had a rush, which was weird. And that was his only points. Nelson Aguilar,

I said 80 yards and a touchdown. He ended up with five catches for 54 yards. So did not hit the benchmarks, but at least it wasn't a goose egg like Darius Slaten was for my bold call. He had a goose egg, his first of the season.

So I don't know what to tell you guys. Obviously, it did not help that Danny Dimes went down. No, I believe he had a bad drop deep. So I don't know. I did not see this, but someone... He almost hit a long touchdown. Wasn't it overthrown slightly? It was in the gray area.

It was like one of those things where like maybe the best receiver in the league catches it. As a Giants fan watching that game, I did not come away thinking it was the Danny Dimes problem. It was like, damn, Dary Slaten, first time I can remember being mad at him. It was like full arm extensions, hit his fingertips.

Yeah, but this is, let me ask you this. This is the litmus test, Danny. What did you think of that Evan Ingram drop, that famous Evan Ingram drop from early in the season? Was that a bad drop to you? Was that a bad throw? No, that was one of those where the throat, no, it was Evan Ingram.

That was Evan Engram. Really? Okay, so that makes me think, that makes me think that thing. If the ball hits your hands with the game on the line, catch the freaking ball. I think that that's not a high standard. That's how all receivers and people pass catches for a live, catch passes for a living feel.

like you should catch the ball if it hit your hands and the game I always kind of feel for receivers depending how you feel well like run some slant and Trubisky will like line the ball to the very tips of the guy's reach and then like calling stuff to be like you gotta catch that ball

out hit you in the hands pretty hard there's two levels to it there's catching and then there's you're supposed to be able throw the ball in a place where they can keep running which Mitchell Trubisky maybe someone should just tell them that and he'll get better

but I don't know yeah okay mine I did a little better no offense the Duke Johnson sorry I was super pass. Offense taken, Danny. No, I'm glad someone did. Offence, take it.

I said Duke Johnson would be a top 20 running back. He finishes top 12. Said the Seahawks would be a top 12 defense. They were, in fact, the 12th defense. They would have been higher for the freaking Hail Mary. Oh, my God. Yeah, I forgot about it. Which was ridiculous.

And then I also said... Can you say this one nice and slow? I want to set this up for the just a bit outside clip. Thank you. I said Alex Smith would be... God damn you. I said Alex Smith would be the number one scoring quarterback at Thanksgiving. It's my bold call.

Vaughn into the windup in his first offering just a bit outside. He tried the corner and missed. He was in the top six of the Thanksgiving. No, he's in the top four. There was only two games. One of them got moved. So there was four.

So he came in the fourth of the four. I think, so that's not great. I probably learned don't, you know, don't just hope that the karma universe will just, you know, magically make people play better. Especially in a year like this, Hyfitz. Come on. Yeah, you're right. The real problem was I bet on hope in the year of 2020.

Where have you been? Yeah, you're right. All right. Craig, how'd you do? I did all right. So I said Will Fuller and Brandon Cooks would have 100 yards each. Technically wrong, spiritually correct. Will Fuller had 171 and Brandon Cook said 85, so pretty close there.

I said that Robert Tunyon would be a top five tight end. He was the tight end two. I think you're taking PEDs. You're trying to lubricate your muscles or whatever, like Will Fuller. Oh, hydrate them? Yeah, you're trying to hydrate your muscles. Lurricate. I said lubricate.

I think you need to lubricate your joints. and hydrate your muscles. Would you just keep getting further and further from what Will Fuller was doing? Maybe you're Will Fuller, you just learn to run better. You learn to run in a different way. He can run good now. He can run good now.

My blood's working better. And then, well, my bold one was that Danny Dimes would be top seven quarterback. He was not. He got hurt. Maybe if Slaten catches that pass, he doesn't get hurt. Maybe he is, but I was wrong.

Maybe if Slaten catch that fucking pass, we'd all be happy here, right? Dude, we would all be happy if he'd cross the palace. Damn it, Terrence. We sound like that high school athlete who's like, man, I would have been the NFL. Coach hated me, though. Coach didn't play me late in the season, man.

Yeah, I was going to get recruited, but didn't play. Are you, like, making this thing up, or you're just recounting a memory you have of yourself in high school? That sounds specific. There's always kids like that. You're scratching your neck, like an actual person who's like... Oh, no, honestly, there's probably, like, a handful. And then they get their dad trying to, like,

lobby the coach to, like, give him playing time. Because in my high school had, like, a few kids who would go D1, and it was like, but there was like always 15 who'd be like, I could have, but like fucking coach Nichols hated me. I could have been right about Alex Smith for Thanksgiving if like, you know, he just outscored the other three people who played, you know?

So I don't know what happened. All right, million dollar lineup time. Every Friday we're making a Fandul, DFS lineup. We're playing for a million dollars. Trying to move on a million dollars a week. The year I turned 26 as the head of my own brokerage firm, I made $49 million dollars, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.

Did we win a million dollars last week? No, because we made a lineup on this podcast that included the Steelers Ravens game. So, Sos, we thought the game would be played as schedule, and then we didn't. I didn't feel like bothering any of you on Thanksgiving Day. They were like, hey, guys, you want to like change the lineup? Maybe I should have called me. I didn't know if we were there yet. I was like, do I bother them on Thanksgiving Day?

Like, that just seems like such a sacred thing. And I was like, do you want to hear from me, really? It's a million dollars, Hyfitz. Come on. You're right. Can I say that last year in the Ringer Fanaged Football League, Danny Hyfitz and I were co-managers of one team. There was many a morning on like Sunday at 8, no, I guess 948 Pacific, right?

I'm like on the toilet waking up on a Sunday. I even just calling me. He's like, what do you want to do with Flex? And I'm like, I thought we said it. And he's like, I know, but like, Sterling Sheffers got a pretty good match. I think we go for it. Like, whatever, man. If I had texted you guys like, hey, we got to update the DFS lineup because the game

got canceled and I texted you that at like Thanksgiving. How would you guys have reacted? I would have said do whatever you want. Yeah, me too. I've been like, I trust you. So we didn't enter a thing this week. I actually did. We just didn't have the lineup set for the Ravens and Steelers. I was like, I would have said, yeah, I trust you. Go ahead. So yeah, okay. Go with your gut. All right. This week, Craig, you want to run us through the lineup we got for this week? Uh, yes, I do. All righty. Starting off at QB. We're going with Ryan Fitzpatrick. Hopefully he plays. Uh, we went on have another last week situation, but they're going up against the Bengals who are just decimated and have no point of living. So we love fits. And honestly, Devonne Parker, if you wanted to pair

him along, not a bad choice. We're going with Austin Eccler, who is playing New England. Great week last week. We like him to continue that. Alvin Kamar is their second running back. We're a little contrarian here with Kamar. No one's going to plan. He's had two terrible weeks. You know what? He's like the second best running back in the league. So if you can get him for cheap and for low ownership, why not? Next for our three receivers are going, Devonte Adams, because how can you not Denzel Mims Danny Hifetz

finally gave in and we're getting Mims And then our third guy One week on the train Our third wire receiver We're going with Me and DK's boy Alan Robinson

With old Mitch Biscuits Contract month Contract month commences this week We're going with Hawkinson As our tight end For all the reasons We talked about

In that Bears Lions game We're going with Hyfitz's boy Jarvis has our flex This is gonna be the one that screws us I already know.

Oh, for sure. And then our defense we're going Green Bay against Philly, who looks like just the safest bet in the league. They look like the team that the Eagles fans deserve.

Right. Oh, wow. You're going to get some, you're going to get some pointed commentary about that. Yeah, Ringer Fantasy Football at Gmail.com. Email me Eagles fans. Yeah, really.

Email us everything. I want more fun facts. I want a ton of stuff coming in this. Somebody tweeted us a fun fact about a deck of cards. Did you guys see that? I had to Google. I had to fact check it.

I didn't have time to fact check it because it was so outrageous of a fact that I was like, let's push this the next week because it blew my mind. All right, we'll wait on that. The facts have to be fact-checked. Let's be real here. Otherwise, they're fact-oids,

which are things that sound like facts, which are not. Is that right? Yeah, factoid is not like a little fact. It's like a fact that you don't really know if it's true. It just sounds true. That's crazy. I didn't know that,

and I didn't think it was a little fact. Did you know 100,000 Titanic could fit inside Mars? I don't know if that's true. I just made it up. But the point is it sounds true, and you can't dispute it. And that's what a factoid is. I feel like they shouldn't give, like, whatever you're, like, that phenomenon, they shouldn't

put the word fact in that word as well. I feel like that's kind of tricky. Well, this is what you said yesterday. We need to respell words. We also just need to make, you know what like the Germans have all these words for like in-depth emotions and like English just doesn't? Shut and Freud. So we got, we got an email about that.

Teddy Roosevelt tried to do what I said in the early 1900s. He tried to change words to make them easier to spell. And basically nobody wanted him to. And he did get a few into it, though. There was a, there was a couple of British words that got change. That's why we spelled draft D-R-A-F-T instead of D-R-O-U-G-H-T. There were a few words that actually got changed. So this was the culture wars of the Teddy Roosevelt era? It's a simpler time. You're cancel culture. You're trying to cancel words. Can you imagine if Trump was like his big thing when he was

president was like, we need to change words. Well, this is like, look, I think this reveals something about human nature because it shows that even when there is something that is just objectively a better system, we don't want it. Like the metric system, which they try to introduce in the 80s or whatever. And they're like, uh, something basically. in decimals of 10? Like, no, let's just stick with the freaking foot yard thing. That's crazy. Absolutely crazy system. But we were like, never doing that.

You're trying to take my freedom. Please. It says a lot. People want flawed familiarity over change that is better. Now that we're kind of in this political air, let's get to fantasy court. Okay. All right. What's the fantasy court case from Billy?

Oh, wise fantasy court. Good call, flattering us. Billy. I have Billy. I have a case that I must bring to your attention. The situation is Leslie. I like to use the word Leslie. It was week 12.

All right. Power through this, though. Billy wrote a novel. The final week before the playoffs began in our league, Week 12 pitted Team B versus Team C. And throughout the week, it became clear that the Team C manager was going to throw the game and start no players in order to get Team B into the playoffs instead of me. Oh, yeah.

This is a classic end of season. move by this really is. Because Team B's roster is awful has the third fewest points scored.

I don't know how we got that far but it's irrelevant. To avoid this tanking, our commissioner announced that he would be giving out a cash prize

to the team with the most regular season points, something that Team C was in strong position to win if you fielded at any old roster. So the team C manager

fielded a roster, won the game the most points prize and team C governor said, okay, he's using the word governor in this email. I don't know why he's

calling him governors. They're met. I think he's just trying to appeal to like the fantasy court of it all? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Well, anyway, the team C manager is saying it was crooked of our commissioner to offer this cash prize, saying that it was well within his rights to just throw the game to get Team B into the, team be into the playoffs instead of me, in my team. It's worth noting the commissioner did not disagree here. So who is in the right? Is it wrong of our commissioner to offer the cash prize to disincentivized tanking so late in the season? And then how can Team C complain about the, system but still take the money for the points scored.

I'll be honest here. The specifics of this case of like the person took the money and the thing, I'm not so interested in that. I think that the idea of should a team be allowed to just throw a game in the last week of the season to get a worse

team in the playoffs? Listen, absolutely. What are we doing here? Hell yeah. What? This happens in real sports. Teams like jockey to like play different teams in the playoffs. You want to get an easier matchup. Dude, like,

Greg Popovich used to just, like, sit Kawhi Leonard and Tim Duncan for random games when he just, like, wanted them to rest and everybody would be mad. This is Machiavellian, but it should be legal

because you're, it's a strategic play. You're not doing anything illegal. You're just sitting your players. Theoretically, any team. Was Team C was trying to get team, whatever, the bad team into the playoffs

because he wanted to play that team in the playoffs? Yes. He wanted the worst team, the team that's terrible, to make it in the playoffs, so that you could play the team of the playoffs.

So he resorted to, to benching his entire team. I think it's lame the commissioner made some last second rule so there was no tanking. If there is no rule, then I think, yeah, then in this case it is sort of like,

a point goes to the Machiavellian, like, strategy here. I will say in my leagues, in a lot of my leagues, at least, we have rules that you have to like at least start a somewhat optimized lineup. And that's the rule. And if you're not doing that rule, then the commission changes the lineup.

So here's the thing, though, and this is where it's Machiavellian. it's not, the issue that always comes up here is, is it good faith or bad faith? Good faith is, are you competing? Like, are you trying to win? And I would argue, yes, because the point isn't to just win one week. You're trying to win the championship. And if the person's like, this is my best chance to win the championship,

then they've decided that is the optimized lineup. They found a legal strategy. Yeah, and if they're saying, well, there's no rule against it, your job isn't to manage my team, my job is to manage my team. I think this best improves my chances of winning a championship. and in this specific instance, it means that if I lose this week, my odds will get better.

And then I think that if that's the driving motivation, yeah, sure, screw it. I mean, think about it real football, man. Like, if a team is like 15 and 1, they're locked into their spot and week 17 comes around and they bench all their players, are they competing in that game

as they, at their full capacity? No, but they want to keep their players healthy because they want to win the Super Bowl. It's kind of the same thing. Yeah, I think he can bend. And also, here's the thing. Someone could complain, well, it's cheating because he's like doing it to not let me in.

Yeah, you know what? don't leave it up to the refs and you don't leave the game up to the last week of the season. Before you clinch a playoff spot before you put yourself in this situation. Play fantasy defense. I don't care how many points scored you have. I want to be in a league with a commissioner that just randomly starts awarding cash prizes for shit. Like, is he paid for this out of his pocket or what? We do highest score against money in our league.

Yeah, but that's coming out of the pot. Like this commission is just like funding you 100 bucks. It's out of this slush fund. Yeah. Yeah, it's the discretionary fund. Well, did he have all of the other players in the league, like, agree to, like, pitch in 10 more bucks for the high score, even though some guys in last? The court should have requested more documentation here. Yeah, we didn't go through proper discovery here.

Yeah, you didn't go through the discovery period. We got to go through the, like, emails and stuff. Yeah. But to be clear, the ruling is, is it unanimous ruling that teams can tank to get a worst team in the playoffs? Or, DECA, are you the dissent? No, yes, I'm saying if it is, in fact, for his benefit in terms of the competitive, yes. If it's just he doesn't like one guy and he wants one guy in the playoffs

I'm kind of down with that too I'm kind of down with that too if you do it's like fuck with your friend and you're like no I don't want my friend to make the playoffs I think that's hilarious. That's collusion in my mind but in this case because you're not colluding with anyone else you're just tanking your own team

you're like I hate that guy so the position of the court is like it's cool to just fuck over someone that you don't like in the league well it's what does Scalia say he said that I wish I had a stamp that said stupid but constitutional. I would say that this is like a situation where it's a stamp that's petty

but constitutional. Like, you know, it's pretty low as a human being thing, but like, I don't have a problem. It's got a funny. Okay. Yeah. I think in this case, though, since it's like he wanted to he wanted to compete in the playoffs, I get it. We're going to allow that. I'm standing

by. It's collusion otherwise because otherwise it's like, I do you know this other guy's not like, hey, dude, I'll get you, I'll pitch you 50 bucks or whatever if you. Yeah. It's a great question by Billy. Thank you for writing. Good question, Billy. I also like the flatter at the top. All right. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Billy. Thank you, Lorne. Lord. Thank you band of horses. Oh, my God. I don't even know what that is. Hold that one out of my ass. You went from Beyonce. I'm not even sure if they're still

a band, but unbelievable. Well, look them up. Well, thank you horses. All right. We'll see you guys next week.