The Ringer NFL Show - Week 11 Matchups, Must-Starts, and Must-Benches

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

We kick off our NFL Week 11 preview by discussing the Browns-Bills game moving to Detroit, if Allen Robinson II or anyone else on the post-Cooper Kupp Rams offense is fantasy-relevant, which teams are secretly frauds, Amari Cooper’s bizarre home and road splits, Vegas’ curiously small line against the Colts, and more. Check out our Week 11 Fantasy Football Rankings for this week's positional rankings and more! Email us! [e-mail] Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill finally gave the ringers Philly crew a podcast. I'm Ben Solac. And I'm Shield Capadia. That's right. Just a couple of Philly guys with a new space to fire off some Eagles takes, get caught up in the Sixers, Chaos, and more. We'll be coming to you twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays, plus bonus episodes whenever we get breaking news or Philly drama. Join the Fun and follow the Ringers Philly special now on Spotify.

Welcome to the Rainier and Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hyphitz. I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Coralbeck. It's week 11. If you're looking for who to start, who to set, please check out fantasy. Football. Dot the ringer.com. We got our rankings there.

You can check positions, all the different kinds of scoring. Check everything out. Fantasy football. dot the ringer.com. So we recorded a whole thing on the Browns and the bills and what's going to happen

with the snow and lake effect and all that just. Turns out they're not even playing in Buffalo. They're going to play in Detroit. So I'm going to spare you the whole conversation we had on like Thunderstow and why doesn't thunder happen

more often during snowstorms? You're spare you that. And we're just going to drop you into the moment. We found out live on the podcast that the game's going to be Detroit. So here you go. But I keep galaxy braiding myself. The snow's going to be done by like Saturday. We'll see. Weather change. Oh, so it's not going to be accumulating during the game. That's the thing. So I'm like they're going to clear the snow on the field. Right. So the question

isn't, will these guys be playing in a foot of snow? It's like, will the entire Buffalo metropolitan area be completely impasseable roads and like no one can get to this game? And so I went to from like, oh man, a foot of snow, to like, is this just going to be a completely normal game even if they don't go to a dome? I don't know what to make a mess. You guys, they're moving the game. It's on Twitter right now.

Oh, really? To Detroit. So this is just a useless conversation. I got to bet the over right now. No, they've already thought of that. Don't worry. Wait, let me check. Oh, do they take it off the board?

Those bastards. Anyway. So we get to leave this whole conversation in the podcast? I don't know. We'll figure that out later. Are they going to Detroit? Yeah. Here's the question.

Here's my question for you now. The other, this is, I guess, a probably unanswerable question. This is going to be a Brown's home game now. Well, this, I'm so glad you mentioned this,

Craig. My probably unanswerable question is, what is with Amari Cooper and the home road splits? I don't know if you guys have seen this. Amari Cooper has more, half p. Amari Cooper has more fantasy points per game

at home than he has fantasy points total on the road. Wow. What the hell? He has 18.3 points per game at home. And he just has like 18 points period on the road. Is there a simple explanation to this? Do they only have they just happened to be playing great teams against a pass on the road?

So I was like, that's what I thought. Yeah, let me check. We have five touchdowns at home. And he's like 300 more yards at home this season at the road. Here's the weird part. This is Amari Cooper's entire career. And that's what I kind of- He hates traveling.

I think I'd always know that this was like vaguely a thing. Amarie Cooper has basically the same amount of games in his career home and road. That makes sense. That makes sense. Well, no, injuries. I don't know. Yeah, it does, right? But twice, but not just basically the same amount of targets, too.

So the same amount of games, same amount of targets. He has 1,200 more receiving yards at home. Oh, my God. And twice as many touchdowns. How weird is that? I'm like the same number of targets, basically. Does anyone ask him about that? Yeah.

He has been asked, but what's weird is it was a thing for the Cowboys. in 2019. And they asked them about it. And him and Dak, both were like, wow, I didn't know it was that big. But in Dallas, he was being targeted, like half as often on the road. And so that's like, okay, well,

his numbers will drop he's being targeted. But at least targets, it's like, oh, well, he's not targeted, maybe he's plays worse. But the fact that in his career, the targets are basically the same, but he has 1,200 more yards at home. But what happens when he,

so they're on the road, but like they're in Detroit. So like, it's technically probably still a Bill's home game, but it's in Detroit. so presumably there'll be more Browns fans. What's this count as a home game or not? What do you do with the Markup? I mean, I just looked it up.

Detroit is a two hour, 40-minute drive from Cleveland. Like, that's not too bad for Browns fans. I can't imagine how many people in Buffalo are going to be traveling this weekend? Maybe this is Galaxy Brain, but D.K. doesn't like when I psychoanalyze. However, there must be a lot of Lions fans. For all the Lions fans that like to go to the Lions games that are always in Thanksgiving, there's probably more Lions fans that would want to go to the Lions on Thanksgiving

but don't want to miss Thanksgiving and so all the fans who like I don't know like there's just a lot of people who might want to go Thanksgiving I don't know that home road split thing is bizarre I could like understand it on some level if you're a quarterback or if you're in like basketball

if you're a shooter or whatever like you're just more used to like the way that the stadium looks the way that the rim looks the way that you know like everything looks. Like, what does that have to do with receiving? Like, that's so weird to me. Do you think it just doesn't like traveling? I mean, maybe his body is just an ultra-sensitive to airplane travel or something like that.

Hyper-sensitive. Well, Dallas plays in a dome and maybe on the road they don't. It sounds like a low-stakes conspiracy theory. We actually got a low-stakes conspiracy theory that someone said that anything over 20 miles an hour is bad for you. So maybe that's something like that. Can we dig deeper? Is there like a real grass versus turf, indoor versus outdoors or anything like that? Well, the weird part is

It's his entire career From the Cowboys, the Raiders, and the Browns. That's the inexplicable part of it. So I don't know why, but anyway. Seems like there would be enough, yeah, there would be enough of a sample there to like figure it out. But I don't know.

Who knows? Three different teams? I don't know. But the whole thing's a weird situation. Okay, wait, let's give advice here. So everything is the same now, right? Them being in Detroit in a dome on Sunday, you know, treat everything as it was.

Yeah. Fired up. Fire it up. Okay. DK, what's your Sunday scary for this weekend? So, I mean, this feels like something we talk about kind of a lot, but it's especially bad this week. Increasingly depraved state of the tight end position.

Dallas Goddard, Zach Earth, Zach Ert, Spolt on injured reserve now. Gerald Everett's banged out. Mark Andrews and David and Joker are kind of question marks going into the weekend. I don't know if they're going to be healthy enough to play. And if they are healthy enough to play, I'm not going to be super confident that they're going to be healthy enough to go off. Yeah, they play banged up Gerald Everett? That's not really exciting.

So, I don't know, to me, this weekend, just set my lineups. I'm very, like, worried about the tight-in position. There's some really just sketchy tight ends and starting lineups this week. Who's your guys' like worst tight end in lineups this week? Or scariest, I should say. I actually might be playing Tyler Higby and Trey McBride this week. Yeah, Trey McBride. That's the thing is, like, there's several rookies.

Greg Dulcich, Trey McBride, maybe Isaiah likely. Typically, we hate playing rookies because at tight-end position in particular, just because, you know, it's usually a position that takes such a long time to develop. You're essentially playing two positions. Maybe that's a little different going forward with guys that are more or less just receivers, like big receivers with Dulcich, likely in McBride. Maybe that's going to give me a little more confidence. But overall, just like, man, riding with like Tyler Conklin, Tyler Higby, Cole Comet,

even Cole Comet who's been really good lately, Craig, you laid it out on the last show. It's just the volume isn't there to be really confident about it. Yeah, I mean, if you had to redraft, if you had to redraft tied in right now, starting from scratch, obviously Travis Kelsey is still number one. A banged up Mark Andrews is still probably number two. Then you probably go to T.J. Hawkinson and I guess George Kittle,

and then it dives off a cliff. I mean, I don't even know who you would take fifth, six and seventh. It is bleak right now. Pat Friermouth? Friamuth easily. I would try to trade from Pat Friarmooth as you're in this hole, because Pat Frymerth is like the guy.

The Steelers traded away Chase Claypool in part because they're like, Pat Frymerth can just do his job. And that's the guy that I think is going to be a big deal. But yeah, I mean, it's a land of halves and have knots as much as anything. Like the people who have Travis Kelsey, again, are like just the 1%.

And the people who are literally being like, do I play Trey McBride or just, I don't know. It's like the tight end positions at like the French Revolution. What's funny is if we did redraft type ends right now. Kyle Pitts is still probably top 10 just because it's so bleak. Well, okay.

That's sad. Well, while we're here, I actually was thinking about Kyle Pitts this weekend a lot because even amid all this, I was like, you know what? Let me just cut this guy. I'm just going to cut him. Just get it out of your life. Did you do it? Well, I'm just so emotional about it. And I'm like, I should just play

Hayden Hurst over him. Why don't just play Hayden Hurst over Cowitz? Who cares? And if I'm going to play Haydenhurst over him, why don't I have this guy on my team? I'm sick of him. I get, he's getting like targets now, but I don't care. Marcus Martin is sailing passes when he's open or just, like, you can't throw. Kyle Pitt, the whole thing's frustrating. So, Costanza, if every instinct you have is wrong, the opposite must be right.

I think Kyle Pitts is his best game in the season. Because I just never wanted to cut Kyle Pitts so badly. Last, that would be great. This is the week it's going to happen against the Bears who barely throw to. There's going to be like 15 pass attempts in this game. Yeah. Well, that's like, this is the Navy midshipman. It's like, Craig, you called him the Navy midshipman the whole year for the Bears.

This is the Service Academy Bowl. This is Navy versus Air Force. These are the two teams that don't pass. Love it. You're right. I saw a stat from Ryan McDowell today. It was like basically there's like six or seven guys in the NFL right now with a 30% target rate. And Kyle Pitts is one of them.

It just doesn't matter because they don't throw. It's like 30% of 15 targets. It's like, oh, it's like 30% of the chiefs. It's like a pie. And then you're like, oh, let me split this bagel bite up. And it's like, okay. But on that note, though, So the Bears, we've mentioned this before, but they're back to it.

The Bears are passing 21 attempts to game. That's literally the fewest pass attempts per game. Wow, I was like, voice crack. That's how upset I am about all this. I'm just like losing my mind. I can see it, yeah. That's the fewest past attempts per game in 40 years. It's D.K.'s entire life.

D.K.'s entire life has happened, and nobody has passed fewer per game in the NFL than the Chicago Bears. However, if you just take week one out and you just look at like week two through week nine, the Falcons pass less than the, the Bears do. They're passing less. Love it. This is going to be a fun game. So I was like, but here's thing.

It's funny. I think so Air Force just beat Navy and the score was 13 to 10. And so I'm thinking if bears are Navy and then the Falcons are definitely Air Force, because Air Force actually leads college football like rushes and rush attempts in their last and passes, if you bet Falcons to beat the Bears exactly 13 to 10, it's like 200 to 1 odds. that's good well the thing about the bear is now

is although they're not throwing the ball they're scoring a lot more right I mean the over under in this game is 49 and a half which is remarkable for how little these two teams throw the ball but both defenses suck

and are completely torn apart so I actually think this will be like a sloppy points filled rushing bonanza for both these teams well I just did the NFL show with Stephen Solek

and Stephen was Stephen who is a Justin Fields hater but he was also basically saying that Dean Peas is the Falcons coordinator on defense and that he's always done a great job containing Russian quarterbacks and that kind of just made me think

is Justin Field I'm also you can't go anywhere on the internet anymore that's seeing all the SBF memes and about FTX and everything and I'm like Justin Fields is just like a cryptocurrency He has just gone up fraud No no no no no no I'm not calling him a fraud

I'm thinking about just how all this has cratered and crashed and like how, you know, this guy's, SBS $16 billion gone to zero. And I'm like, if you have Justin Fields, just cash out. Yeah. Trade his ass.

Very much. This guy is just magically the number one quarterback. A month ago, like, you picked him up. You were hoping you could get like a spot start for you. He's literally the number one player in fantasy football last month. Just cash him out. Just trade him away. Take the profits and go live, you know, live your life.

Go retire. Exactly. Take the profit put in your pocket. Go get Travis Kelsey. Just go get, let's go. I very much agree with this take. Make sure that you get a lot, though. Yeah, but trade them away to someone who thinks this will keep happening.

And then if it does, cool. If it does not, you'll feel great. So they play Atlanta this week, which should be another great week for Fields. But then after that, they go at the Jets, then they play the Packers at home. Then they have a buy week 14 right before the fantasy playoffs on buy. Then they go straight to playing the Eagles and then the bills. You know how I noticed, sell Justin Fields? I keep looking at the team

in my league with my friends where I've added him and I'm like, you're so smart, Danny, great job. And I'm like, that's when you sell. When you like get the urge to pat yourself on the back, get rid of that thing. Once you begin thinking that maybe all of this

isn't luck and it's a little bit of skill, trade, sell. Exactly. Yeah, so trade his ass away. Any other study scleries? I have a Sunday scare I was going to say Great

I don't know We open the floor to everyone else first But yes We have a rundown that you can see I thought you were just going to go Like all right mine next Sunday scary I don't know Well I went all that to order with my other stuff

So that's fair All right dive in Dude what the fuck are the Rams going to do about Cooper Cup I'm worried What on earth is this team going to do Is Alan Robinson though number one now He's my kombucha girl as a week

Is Alan Robinson startable now? Like, is he a must start? No, well, there's no must start. No, there's no, well, that's, it's not a must start because you look at this takeaway that they, first of all, talking about the frauds, the Rams, this season's so bad that it almost like takes away from their Super Bowl last year.

Like, this is the worst Super Bowl follow-up I've ever seen. And if you take away the Rams, take away the big names, take where Aaron Donald, like, just forget that they just won the Super Bowl. Aside from the Colts when they had Sam Ellinger in, and like maybe the worst offense in the NFL. Like it's probably Trubisky Steelers. But like the Rams are last in yards per play.

They're behind the Steelers. They're last in rush attempts per game. The last in rushing yards per game. The only thing that was keeping this operation going was Cooper Cup. And with we've been talking about it all season. Like what happens to they lose them? I think the Rams, they're like 28th in all these passing categories. Without Cooper Cup, with their number one receiver being Alan Robinson,

who was incapable of catching passes for the first six weeks of season. Tyler Higbee, who just cannot catch a pass in an important moment. He just drops everything. I think that this might be the worst offense in the NFL now, without Cup. But I don't know what's going to happen. They came into the week 27th in offensive DVOA. They were eighth last year. And then they lost their best player. I think Stafford has fallen off a lot. The offensive line is terrible. They cannot run the ball. They cannot run the ball. Every week they lose two more offensive line. The Rams

look like a team that traded away all their picks. Right. It's literally like they were a top-heavy team and they won the Super Bowl last year because they

were absurdly healthy and all their stars were healthy in Stafford and Cup and Jalen Rams and Aaron Donald. And then suddenly when you lose all your depth and you realize, oh yeah, right, we traded away our picks.

We have nobody behind any of these guys and they look like it. And then you've been Scoronic suddenly the number two wide receiver on this team. And the resources that they've sunk

get into the receiver position over the last few years. Two, two, out well, he can't even get on the field. He's, like, he's inactive on game days. Yeah, Cam Acres, a couple years before that. Obviously, that whole situation is totally effed. I don't know. Yeah, this, it's just not working out. This shows you, I think this is a great example of, like, how big of a factor variance is in any given season.

You know what I mean? It's like, sometimes when you win a Super Bowl, you just get lucky. What would we be saying about the Rams if they had not won the Super Bowl? Can you imagine what we would be saying about this process of getting rid of your picks if they had just, you know, not, if they had just not hit that pass against the bucks and the comeback where they just, like, or Jikwiskit Tart and the NFC championship game, just catches that punt interception that hit him in the chest. If he just catches that ball, what are we saying about this Rams team? Like, less need is on the hot scene. Yeah.

Yeah. Sean McVeigh, literally in an alternate universe, instead of retiring to make $20 million a year in Amazon, is like, they're like, well, I guess they wouldn't fire McVeigh, but it's like, firstly, you should have retired. My God. Sean, you got to talk to, Craig, you got to talk to Sean, your brother. He's going to be, like, playing offensive linemen soon for the Rams,

the way it's going. How badly do you think McVeigh wishes he had just, like, gone to Amazon and just been making a huge mistake? Kirk, Kherb Street's job. Michaels and McVeigh would have been great. And then they're watching the Rams and they fall apart, and then McVeigh's legend grows because they look worse

with Adam. Ooh, that would be nice. But with that said, Alan Robinson, we have him on our composite rankings that are up on

fantasyofofofofobal dot the ringer.com. We have Alan Robinson as our wide receiver at 37, so he's still technically right outside of the startable three wide receiver group. They're playing in New Orleans.

Looks like Marshall and Latimore might return, cornerback for the Saints. Would you start Alan Robinson? Well, it's a weird week at receiver because the dolphins are on by, so that's Tyreek and Waddle. And then you also got the Bucks are on by, so that's Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. And then you also have the Sealks end by.

So that's Tyler Lockett and TK.K.M.K. So it's like, it's a lot of starting receivers when you also affect the Cooper Cups out from the season. It's a lot of people that are just out. Startable is a vague term, Craig. Yes, he's startable. I would not be excited about starting it, but you can throw them in the flex if you want. Cooper Cup had a 33% target share. A third of Matt's coverage basses went to Cooper Cup.

The difference is that Cooper Cup is always open and Alan Robinson is always covered. I will say that you can actually play Al Robinson. They play different roles. Like Cooper Cup is mostly on the inside. He's like, you know, I don't think it's going to necessarily transfer right to Alan Robinson. He's definitely going to get a higher. I think it kind of will. Who is going to replace Cooper Cup other than Alan Robinson?

I kind of think Alan Robinson will move into the slot more and take that role, more than Van Jefferson will or Ben Skoronic. there's no replacement. Look, you can absolutely throw a dart. I think honestly, the real winner of this is probably Tyler Higley. Like, Tyler Higby had tight end, even though he was probably like cuttable two weeks ago. He had eight catches last week. I think he's the sleeper for this weekend for sure.

I think Tyler Higby has 10 catches this week. Like you can, I don't know how else they're going to get yardage. I think Tyler Higby, if you have him and you're like, please play him over like the Hayden Hirsts of the world and the Kyle Pitz's. But I, obviously, you can play Alan Robinson and hope that he just gets a lot of targets and catches. because Cooper Cup served. I think it's worth keeping in mind, though, that there's always like two offenses that just don't actually produce anyone

in the passing game you want to play at receiver. Like how the Panthers were for the first two months in the season. We're none of those people were helpful except Christian McCaffrey, and that might be the Rams. Like there's a chance that none of these people, it's Tyler Higby at tight end, and that's kind of the only person

in the entire team you want in your lineup. I'm trying to figure out how many points the Rams are going to score this week. And I want to make an exact score bet in this Saints Rams game and see if I can hit it. Like if you go Saints 17 Rams 3, it's plus 17,000. I would make that bet. I'm not, I put a dollar on that. I would put a dollar on that.

The Saints 17 Rams 6 is plus 27,000. So what does that mean? I always need it converted. 27 to 1. So what do you buy and you put a dollar on it? You get $27. No, it's 270 to 1. 270 to 1.

Excuse me. So you put $1, you win $270. This is why I always ask, because I can't do that. $10. $10 down, you win $2,2,270. This is definitely going to do it. No, I'm never putting $10 on the exact score, but I'll put it. $10 to win $2.

Come on, you can do it. Live a little. What if it's $20 to 3? I bought a freaking power ball ticket. 20 to 3 is 190 to 1. all that feels good. I might just bet a bunch of them. Put five bucks on three separate scores.

I like that. Make a couple grand. I'm going to do that. Sure, Craig. You're going to do it. What are the odds on the Rams do not score touchdown? Because that's the real bet

that I would make, is that they do not score touchdown this week. It would be so funny if they just go off this weekend. Cooper Cup is holding them back. Cooper Cup. Yeah. No, Uint theory,

because he just wasn't Super Bowl MVP. Saints 17 Ram Zero. 390. The Rams are going to score points. I think. Are they? How? Throwing the ball through the air.

I don't know. I don't know. We'll put some of these down, Craig. The Rams have scored 13 points and 14 points in their last two games. Just saying. Do you have any other probably unanswerable questions other than how the Rams will score, which is also unanswerable? Is this the week Lamar Jackson finally gets going? I'm very curious about this.

since week four, he's been the QB 15 in points per game behind Jimmy G, Matt Ryan, Tom Brady, Daniel Jones, in that stretch. That's obviously not what you want from a guy like Lamar Jackson, who is the former MVP, runs all over the place.

I don't know. We just need to get him back on track, I think, for the home stretch. I think he's going to do it. I want those explosion games back. If you remember early in the season, he had a couple 40-point games. He's winning you weeks.

The Panthers, generally speaking, have a pretty good track record. this season against quarterbacks. But if you look at who they played, they played a bunch of crappy quarterbacks for the most part. They gave up 19 points to Joe Burrow. That was a decent game from him.

They gave 23 points to Kyler, 22 and 17 to Marioita, so maybe that's like something to do with his running. Otherwise, they face Jacoby Brissette, Daniel Jones, Jimmy G, Stafford, and James Winston. Maybe this is the week that finally happens. What do you guys think? Jackson has been a kind of an under-discust storyline this year.

Like how disappointing. And he's been kind of bad. The weird thing, though, is it's not as rushing. I mean, he's still averaging like 70 yards a game on the ground. It's his passing. I mean, Lamar's had one or less touchdowns in like every game but one less six weeks. I mean, the receiving course is very depleted. Mark Andrews's been out.

Rashad Bateman is out for the year. But the passing game is what seems like the problem here, not Lamar's rushing ability. I think this is like the Packers trading way Devante Adams. It's the dead dove, do not eat. And you're like, I don't know what I was expecting. It's like the traded away Marquis Brown. And they're like, I don't know what you were expecting. Like, it got worse.

And Rashad Bateman, at the end of the day, we're still relying on this guy to break out. And, like, he has not been healthy. And again, D.K's just, like, for all our fears of, like, ACLs, it's like foot injuries. Ooh. Yeah, they're always just hanging around. And they, like, they trade away Marquis Brown.

Roshabatman just has foot problems now. It's just like, okay, well, they have no one. Like, Devin de Vernear is the number one receiver. It's like he is a kick returner. Yeah, he's, like, kind of like a gadgety guy. The other thing, I think that also matters here is everything you just said high fits plus the fact that Greg Roman is their offensive coordinator, and it's just like getting rid of Marquis Brown compounded

all their passing game problems because of the scheme that they run. Like literally, they go out there with one fewer guy than every other team in the NFL. Like they have a, like, basically full-time fullback who has caught like five passes in season or whatever. So again, doing the NFL show on Fridays with Selleck and Ruiz just like radicalized me against like Greg Roman. Greg Roman in his own words, the offense is medieval. And that is Greg Roman's work. not mine. Every time I watch the Ravens now, and I think about how everything looks hard for the Ravens.

Well, with Mahomes, it's like things look easy. I'm like, why don't the Ravens spread out? Like, it's so weird to me how they're like condensed and they try to power through everything and they don't have receiving options. It's like, why don't the Ravens have Tyree Kill and J. Lin-Wattle? You know what I mean? Yeah.

I just kind of can't stop thinking about this now. And so, yeah, I don't think Lamar is going to have this. Like, great because, like, you had that great passing season, when everything, all of this Lamar offense was new. But now that teams don't fear this passing game because they're not designing anything creative. And I don't know. I increasingly just wonder why the Ravens don't have

three receivers in the field or four at all times. We just spread everything out. The Ravens are on a three-game winning streak. There you go. They're six and three. This is the personality of our podcast, like, in a nutshell. No, but the Ravens have been underpin. coaches and then say, oh, by the way, they won the game.

They just beat the Browns, the bucks, and the sense. That's true. All right. Other inanswerable questions. What does Vegas know about the Colts? The spread for this game, the Colts are playing the Eagles. The line is six and a half. Eagles are favorite?

I was listening to Bill and South this week. They guess like 10, 12, 13. The spread is six and a half. They're in Indianapolis. Is this any given Saturday? again? Are we back? Matt Ryan and Jeff Saturday? So I was looking into this. I was trying to figure out why Vegas thinks this game is going to be closer than the general public. So Matt Ryan at home is averaging 32 yards per game and a 7 to 1 touchdown interception ratio. Oh, wow.

There we go. So he's like Amory Cooper. He just can't leave. He's reinvigorated Paris Campbell. Passing game seems, you know, seems serviceable now. Jonathan Taylor had his best game of the season last week. He finally looks healthy. The Eagles lost Dallas Goddard. to IR, who is a great run blocker as well as pass catcher. Jordan Davis, the Eagles star rookie defensive tackle. He's on IR. And when Jordan Davis is off the field, the Eagles are 31st in the NFL and success rate on running back carries.

They've been getting torched. So, and the Colts D, flipping it to the other side of the field, not that bad. Only the Broncos have allowed fewer fantasy wide receiver points in Indianapolis. A.J. Brown, a little beat up, twisted his ankle last week. Had one catch for four yards. So I'm trying to envision this game plan. Is it like Colts control the ground game? Charleston Taylor runs like crazy.

They own time of possession. The Eagles struggle to run the ball because the Colts have a good run, D. Hertz hasn't really been running as much. Over the past four weeks, he's averaging six rushes for 22 yards per game. So I guess the question is, is Vegas. What are you up to?

This is a Costanza. This is definitely a Costanza for like, oh, you know how this is, my dad is going to call me at 1245 Eastern on Sunday and he's like Danny we got to bet the Eagles the Eagles only six points this is so easy and that is how I know that this is bullshit this is not real like the

there's something to this this is something's up it's a short week for the Eagles that's probably a big variable too do you think that they factor in in the line making like just the chaos that an interim head coach would bring to. Like positive chaos? Right. Like they just don't know exactly what this team is with this new coach.

So maybe they're just like being conservative. But they also do because it's not like just Saturday taught them a new offense. He like just tweaked like they're going to run more than the basically the whole Matt Ryan. Yeah, they're playing their best players. Yeah, they're going to play good players. Like that's it. They're fucking playing Matt Ryan. Who knew?

Benching Matt Ryan was the weirdest thing. They were like three, three and one. I think it was hurt. The owner wanted it. Jim Ursey wanted it. I think Jim Hersey wanted it. And I think Jim Ursay, I don't know, whether he looked at it this way or not,

it was like, well, either it works or it doesn't work, and I'll fire you and use that as an excuse. But yeah. Also, if you want to go even deeper, the Colts run a ton of zone, like the six most in the league. And Jalen Hertz is way worse versus zone.

Versone, he has four touchdowns three picks. First man, 14 touchdowns three picks. I'd be very curious to know how much of all these, variables go into the line making for, I mean, I'm sure it's different everywhere. I mean, more or less all of it. Yeah, I think it's like a massive algorithm.

Yeah. I'd love to know who builds those. Like, let's get that guy on the pod. I'm sure he's like all of Warren Sharpe's friends. Right. But I just, there's just something up with this, with this line. I just, I were hearing Sal and Bill, they were like, uh, 12 and a half, 11 and a half. And Sal was like, it's six and a half.

So what do we do? And they were like, what? That's weird. Do I bet the Colts? How do we make money off of this? You probably just bet the Eagles. Right, after all that. Yeah, problem.

All right. Next to word, DK. They're not hot, they're just famous. Talking real football, Cowboys versus Vikings is a very fun game this weekend. This is going to kind of tell us, number one, are the Cowboys hot or are they just famous? You know what I mean?

Like, it's this Cowboys team for real, because I think the Vikings proved last week that they're at least going to be contenders in the NFC, you know what I mean? They have to be taken seriously. And so I think it's going to be fun to watch how Cowboys do against this Vikings team. Obviously, the Vikings have incredible vibes right now.

But also, I think this is going to give us a good idea how good the Vikings are in the NFC. Like, can they hang with the Cowboys who have a great defense? They're going up against Dak. The Vikings famously, outside of last week when they faced Josh Allen, have faced a not very good line of quarterbacks. Taylor Heineke, Heineke, Tyler Murray, who, you know,

pretty good. Taylor Heineke, Tyler Murray, bad quarterbacks. I mean, do you think Taylor Heineke's good? Like, are you... No, that's not the guy I was laughing about. I was laughing about you're like, bad quarterback,

Shadale. Taylor Heineke, Kyle Murray. I wasn't done with the list. Scalor Thompson, Teddy Birdswater, Andy Dalton, Jared Goff, Jalen Hertz, they lost that game. Aaron Rogers.

So, overall, the list. It's mostly bad. I think you could make the argument that Kyler hasn't played all that well either. Skyler, Kyler, you know, bad quarterback. Scared Gaw, Aaron Rodgers. Bad Justin Fields when he was really bad early in the season. So,

again, this is a good test for the Vikings to see whether they're, you know, another good test. Obviously last week, I think they played really well, but they get DACD this week. Somewhere in Australia, there is like a Vikings fan in like Queensland, Australia, getting his kid ready for school, who's just like absolutely irid at us for like being like, yeah, you beat Josh Allen last week, but like, who have you beaten?

I mean, if Dallas loses this game, they're frauds. Should this be the SBF game of the week? Who's the fraud? Who's the fraud? Brought to you by FDX? The Vikings are 17th in total DVOA. They're 8 and 1.

17th to DVDA. Vikings fans are mad and understandably so because they beat the bills, you get credit for that. Having said that, I also, again, people will get mad at me, But, like, again, if Justin Jefferson doesn't catch the miracle fourth and 18, they just lose to the bills in a game that they almost came back, but they were down 17 points. And it's like they just keep coming back from down.

And again, the Giants keep doing that. But what's better is to just not keep being down late. And eventually, like, not being down late is probably better. And then you have the Cowboys who, once they put up that 195 to zero stat entering the fourth quarter, up 14 points, you're like, you knew they were going to lose. But, like, the Cowboys and the Vikings are like the same energy. Cowboys are like if the Vikings had once been really great and dominant

but in the 21st century I feel like these teams are actually very similar where like they both have been good but never reached their potential and they've had great players but like never quite done it and something about like these are the teams I think that are most frequently

like kind of fraud watch and I kind of lean toward the Cowboys and I'm sure Vikings fans are just going to be like absolutely apoplectic whatever I think Cowboys are a better team some fan basis is mad at us every single week, whatever. The Jags have a higher DVOA than the Vikings.

Are you serious? Yeah. Wow. People are going to be mad at DVOA now. The other thing that comes to mind when we're talking about this, isn't DAC and Kirk their career numbers per game? Or like crazily similar, like almost exactly the same? Just different branding.

I'm a Giants fan. And so I've never once wanted the Cowboys to win a game, generally like ever. But I think that I almost want the Cowboys to win this game because I don't think I'll be able to handle people, I mean how often Bill is just like, tell me the difference from Kirk Cousins and Dak. Like, Dak is better than Kirk Cousins. And I kind of can't, oh my God,

don't make the face, Craig. Is he? He is. I think, I think, I think Dak's career is going to end, and we're all going to look back and realize that he just was fine. Like, I think there's always been this potential with Dak that he's never reached,

and I'm coming to terms of the fact that he's never going to get there. Like, is he just Tony Romo? again. You're just pissing off so many people now. I know that you're offending like multiple different kinds. No, I'm curious to see how this game goes. This is like a very important. Because on one hand, it's like the quarterbacks never actually play each other.

Like Brady Manning, they're not on the field. Having said that, it's a big game. It's a litmus test. I think that the Cowboys are a better team. It's in Minnesota for what it's worth. I don't know how much that matters. I think it's interesting the Cowboys are favored by a point in half on the road in Minnesota. The home team who's 8-1 and has the best

record in the NFL is not favored. Yeah, get mad at Vegas. In other words, Craig says, get mad at Vegas, not us. What are you up to, Vegas? Every year, though, there is a team like this. The Titans are the number one seed in the AFC last year. Oh, Steelers, when they started 11 and 0, the same thing. Eleventh O Steelers, like, the most

fraud, and, like, there is always just a team that has a lot of wins, and it's just like, yeah, and honestly, even the year before that, the Patriots also when they started, like, 8-1 and their Patriots defense on special teams, like, their fantasy defense was, like, a top-five player overall. But, like, they just played all the young, bad quarter- backs first and then they played normal teams and they the page tom brady left the fucking team do you you guys think there's a media talking point that riles fans up more than when talking heads or whoever

called team fraudulent like fraudulent is the most offensive thing you can say well it's the spf this is the spf you're a fraud fraud game brought to you by ft x dk which of these teams is a ponzi scheme which one of these yeah which one of these teams is actually taking the season ticket deposits and then actually investing them into like the Rams. That's the Rams. No, definitely Washington. You're wrong. Definitely.

Literally, yes. I was speaking metaphorically, but yes, literally they are fraudulent. Whose books are cooked? I can't remember a year where so many teams in like the top 10 record-wise are just complete frauds. Like the Vikings are 8 and 1, in my opinion, frauds. We have the Jets, six and three, in my opinion, frauds. The Giants, seven and two. In my opinion.

Huge frauds. Well, no, no, no. The Giants are actually good then, because all the times they came back, that was skill. Right. The Vikings coming back is luck to win those games.

But the Giants coming back is because Daibles is a good coach. There's going to be like three, 11 and 12 win teams in the playoffs that I think are just complete frauds. You're already betting against them. Yes. I just hope they don't play each other

because then I won't know what to do. If it's like a Vikings' Giants' playoffs game, I don't know what I'm going to do. Well, I do think, this is suddenly very serious. football conversation, but Meena Kimes in Orlovsky, and they had a great segment on NFL live this week about basically this. It's like, wise football weird, but really it was about the running game being back. And they, Meena had this incredible stat bowl that basically it's about the

type. So not only is rushing at an all-time high with yards per carry and then like yards per completions at like an all-time or yards per attempts at the all-time low, but the types of runs, It's like power run, which for lack, without going, there's a man in zone coverage. There's also man in zone blocking. It's like zone blocking, you block a space, man blocking, you block a man. Basically, man blocking is up a whole yard per carry,

which doesn't sound like much, but to go from- Per carry, that's a lot, yeah, yeah. Per carry, to go from like 4.1 yards, it's going to basically four yards of carry last season to more than five yards of carry. Now, that is a crazy jump that you more or less, never seen in a season to season. That's always gradual.

Yeah, that's the difference between getting to a third down or not. It's insane. And so looking at it and so they had this conversation, but basically the big picture conversation, Ryan Clark then made this point that I've been thinking about like all for like 48 hours, which was all these defenders have been trained to like go horizontal and like chase all these fast people. Think about Tyreekill emotion.

Running. Yeah. Like Tyree Kill bubble screen. And you're like, run, run. Horizontal. And like, but they're growing up like that in high school football. and then you go to Georgia and you got to chase down Alabama receivers. And then now in the NFL, they're like, you know what's back? North-South.

Taking them up Felix. Can those like fast athletic people we put on the field? Can they actually like come up and fill the run, like an attack you the way it was like 12 years ago when it was like the Mike Vrabble big shoulder pads linebackers were playing? And it was so interesting. But I think about that a lot with this game because I kind of think I don't know. Much like this, the television landscape and streaming ecosystem we're currently living in that's inevitably headed back

towards a large cable-like bundle. I'm very excited for the NFL to resort back to just power running and 280-pound linebackers. It is literally true. It's literally the same. Passing is streaming and cable is like is the running game

and everyone's like, you know what? I miss cable. Give me cable back. I want to just pay one fee and get all the channels. Just stop with the shit. You know what's nice? Just being like, oh, the game's on.

I'm going to turn that on. I hate having to use five different freaking streaming platforms and VPN, all this stuff, and it still never works. I had someone over to watch the games with me on Sunday like a couple weeks ago.

And I was, I have like, I don't know, I brought down this like third TV because I wanted to put like this game on CBS. But like with Fox, you can stream through the app. But on CBS,

you have to go to the Paramount Plus. But there's also to be DBS Sports, I couldn't put it on. And I googling it and it says it's on Paramount Plus. And I'm like checking and it's like, yeah, this game's on the parent. And I couldn't get it. And I'm like, this is my job. I spent 20 minutes on this.

I don't know how to find this football game. I don't know. Sounds like my experience with Bluetooth. You need like an engineering degree to figure out how to watch and operate every streaming service. You need to be able to write code. I just go to Reddit and illegally stream shit half the time now. I'm like, you know what?

I'm not paying for the 12 network. Craig, who is a professional, like, you're paid to watch football, just illegally streaming. The problem is that it's easier. Oh, it's 100% easier. Like, I have Sunday ticket. That's all fine. It's not even cheaper. When you need to watch, like, a random game that's on like a weird channel,

I'm just like, I'm just going to Reddit. But that's the fundamental problem and how you know cable is to come back. The entire, like, tradeoff of the internet era thus far with watching shit has been, if you want to do it for free, it's harder. Now we're at the point where if you want to do it for free, it's kind of easy because it's so hard to pay for things. And like ads are coming back on every streaming service now. Oh my God. Netflix is getting ads.

I got an idea we can call them commercials. Also, YouTube. Dude, I got one of the first times, for the first times I got like the second long ad. Like it's one thing to like five second ad and the other five second ad. And the other five second ad. but they're rolling out like 15 second ad unskippable to the other unskippable 15 second ads or like the unskippable like and I'm like nah that the the the the the ah also ads on streaming are 10 times worse than ads on cable because it's like the same four ads on repeat over and over and over for three hours you feel like you're going insane once again begging you how does advertising work I don't understand how is it still possible that when you stream like Monday night football on the SPN that they can't sell more than like free commercials.

Like how is this possible that the same free play every time? Streaming commercials are worse than TV commercials. I think that their budgets, I mean, assuming the budgets for making those commercials, those ads are far less than like a television commercial. So the actual ads are terrible. Except for that very, did you guys stream that very nice gentleman in the pandemic who is like, mental health is important. Here are some tips.

take walks, check in with loved ones. And I'm like, what is this for? Is this going to be like some weird ass job? And it was just like, I don't know, some mental health organization. And I was like, I like this guy. I just thought it was going to be for like, I don't know, Toyota. And it was just not. If I have to suffer through the witty repartee between Adam Scott and Cessley Strong one more time

about the fucking Verizon plan, I'm going to jump off the bridge. Oh, my God. You know, here's the thing. The only thing Julian Edelman likes less than dropping balls is dropping calls. So why are they sitting on the logo? You know, who knows? I just can't wait. I just love the idea of like some business executive

at Netflix or HBO makes like $15 million a year got like their business degree from Harvard, sits down and goes, hey, I got an idea. What if when you're watching Stranger Things every 15 minutes you break and it takes you to an ad and then you come back. And we do it three times in an hour. You know, we hit our, we get so much added revenue from the ads

subscriptions and someone's like genius. I'm giving you a raise, sir. This is like how VCs in or whatever, Silicon Valley like geniuses or whatever reinvent buses. Uber bus. Uber bus. That's just a bus. What if an Uber picks people up at designated locations around the city?

We'll call them Uber spots. I just can't wait for what is the new? Uber stuff. They're never going to use the word cable. again. Like, inevitably, when Apple and Amazon just buy all the other streaming services, and it's just two massive bundles, is it going to be called bundling? You're right. We should come up with the name. Yeah. When Amazon buys like HBO and Paramount Plus and Netflix,

and it's like you can get all of these together in one with live sports, you know, that Amazon is providing, they just can't call it cable or else people are going to be upset. They're just going to give it a new name. It's that, no, it's, well, again, I can't emphasize enough how little I know about business. I want to be super clear on that up front. But the only three even in competition, it's Apple, Google, or YouTube, or Google or YouTube, or Amazon. It's like, YouTube has to be the frontrunner, right? So, like, what would it be called?

It would be called because they already did YouTube TV and, like, that's, it's going to be like YouTube something. And like the plus is out. Like, the only good commercial right now is Hulu, where they're like, what should we call it? Hulu plus plus? Like, that's the only funny one. So it's got to be like YouTube all, not YouTube all, but like YouTube universe. You know what I mean? I think it's going to be like a YouTube something.

Yeah. Anyway, running. It's coming back. It's five yards of carry, not bad. Power. It's all cyclical. Everything is cyclical if you really- email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com

if you know what will replace the term cable or bundle for like the exact same package. Ethernet. Something else. What? Ethernet instead of cable. We're workshopping in it, so keep going. Keep going.

Move it along. All right. Next award, D.K. Let's do the Mario Car Rainbow Strip. I mentioned this team. last week or a week before I can't remember, but the Texans run defense. Woof, it's bad.

Washington running backs get the Texans this week. The Texans have the worst run defense in the NFL, or according to opposing points to running backs and fantasy. They are pretty good against quarterbacks and receivers and tight ends for what it's worth, which means it's a huge run funnel defense, like basically telling teams to run the ball. Are they a run funnel or do they just suck?

And then teams are running on them to run out the clock? That's a good question. I don't know if it matters for this case. But you're probably right. There's something there. They can just easily run, and so therefore, teams do. In the last month,

I'm just going to read off their last four games. Sequin Barclay, 35 carries 152 yards and a touchdown, 22 points. Miles Sanders, 1793,

and a touchdown, 15 points. Derek Henry, 32 rushes, 219 yards, two touchdowns, 35 fantasy points. Four games in a row.

I still think that's the craziest of her all season, is that Derek Henry, 200 yards and four straight games. There's not a goddamn thing you can do about it. We're going to run.

I think you could convince me if you wanted to argue, what are like the best football stats you've like ever heard, period? I could make a really good case that Derek Henry runs through. Are we 100% sure this is actually true? He's done four times against the Texans? Four times in a row. How many crazier things have ever been done in NFL history? There's only like 30 of those games, period.

Anyway, sorry. Oh, that's okay. The point is they suck. You're awful. You're making my point, hype. It's like, I appreciate it. And then Josh Jacobs, week before that 20 rushes,

143 yards, three touchdowns. So I just think this means confidence for Brian Robinson and Antonio Gibson. I think Washington's just going to run the piss out of law. I know that we've said this before,

but I just can't get over. They're like, all right, we're playing the Titans this week. Ryan Tannels out. Now, I know that Derek Henry has run for 200 yards, each of the last three times

we've played him. However, how do we want to defend the Titans this week? Which are we focused on? We're just off the past. Like, what's worse? them not identifying that or them preparing all week to stop Derek Henry

and him getting to a G. yards anyway. I don't even know which is close. The commanders are kind of good and they're only favored by three against the Texans. I might take that. What's up, Vegas? What's going on?

What are you up to, Vegas? What do you know? Heineke's good. Heineke is so annoying. What was your guy? This was divisive. What did you think about him celebrating like he'd like won the Super Bowl after he got that?

Oh, I know he drew the personal or the late hit or whatever. I both get why he celebrated like that. However, that was the most off-putting celebration by a player in years. Whatever. He just beat the undefeated Eagles on Monday night in Philadelphia. He can do it every once. Yeah, he was a backup in the XFL or whatever.

I get it. What I'm saying is I can also be annoyed by taking a knee and then celebrating because you won because someone who was chasing you and you gave up and they fell into you and you won the game. It's like drawing a charge. It is celebrating drawing a charge. It's like he drew a charge by accident. And then whatever.

There is no more exhilarating feeling in basketball than taking a really pivotal charge. But that requires, but you can't take a charge. Like you have to do it on purpose. Maybe, well, maybe he knew what he was doing. It was a crafty kneel down four seconds into the play. It's actually, I think it's not like taking a charge. It's more like, it's closer to like how Rodman used to just like

poke and prod at people until they would like punch him and like draw a tee. No, it's, you know what it is? It's like a player. No, it feels an accident.

Yeah, he was afraid of fumbling because he's like, I'm going to get sacked and I'm going to fumble. It's the only way we can lose the game. Panic, panic, kneel down.

And then he just got, and then, oh. And then 10 seconds later, Brandon Graham hit him. What are he doing, man? Pit bull. It was such a long,

like, people were talking about how like, oh, it was like a bang, bang, I'm like, dude, he was like five steps. away. No, I don't think it was that close. No, because he was sprinting and like in that situation, one, he can't just stop on a dime. He's running as fast as he can. And then also like,

he tried to stop. Like if you watch, it was like, oh, I have to touch this person, but not hit them. And that's what he did. I mean, it was, it was a weak call, but still, like, I feel like it wasn't a bang, bang play. Like, there was several steps in there. It's also like one of the more unnatural things you have to do on the field. Like, how often does the quarterback kneel down four seconds into the play and you have to let up. Like it's just so unnatural in your brain. It's out of sample from everything you've ever done in your life. Yeah, this is like a good point because I was asking just the world on Twitter.

Basically, why so many often. I was chatting with the world. I was just throwing it out there, putting it out into the world and see what happens. Basically, the amount of times wide receivers get called for like crackback blocks and stuff just seems crazy to me. Like, do they not know that it's a rule that you can't do that? I had that actual question in my head. Are they unaware of this rule?

Because it feels like it gets called in every game. And then I think Mitchell Schwartz responded is basically like, it's just very difficult for football players who are trained to like play highly aggressive, hit, run and hit, you know, go balls at the wall, all that stuff to like not do it in the moment. Like it's just like you got to switch that flip that switch or whatever. This is a similar situation, I think. But like that's just part of the game now with. like quarterbacks being protected so much is like

these defensive players have to really I don't know it's just like they're not used to playing like that I'm gonna bet the commanders yeah no I think actually they're getting better all right that's all we got thank you DK thank you Craig thank you ever for listening thank you to everyone shoveling snow

in Buffalo even though they're not playing the game there seems super hard good luck with that I'm sorry that I called Dak Prescott 20 Romo is that an insult I don't even know no you didn't you didn't call that Prescott, Tony Romo, you said that Tony Romo was fine.

And a lot of people are going to be upset about that. How many people believe that he was great? I'd like to apologize to Sam Bankman-Fried for calling you a fraud. Sorry about that. Tony Romo, two and four in the plows career. Thank you, Lord. It's just,

uh, thank you, too short. Ooh, nice. Too short. Oh. You still don't know who he has, do you? One of the cooler names. No idea. short is.

Totally trying to get away with that. It's funny because I feel like the short guys go by big and then the big guys go by little, but too short. It seems like he's actually short. No, he's short. He's too short, actually. That's below you. That actually was, that was absolutely.

All right. Goodbye, everyone.