The Ringer NFL Show - Week 12 Matchups, Must-Starts, and Must-Benches

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

We kick off our shortened NFL Week 12 preview by wondering if it is crunch time for Tom Brady, preview the Kliff Kingsbury-Brandon Staley Fraud Watch Bowl, worry about Lamar’s fantasy impact the rest of this season, wonder if the Steelers offense is due for a strong finish to the year, and more. Check out our Week 12 Fantasy Football Rankings for this week's positional rankings and more! Email us! [e-mail] Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An Instagram post gets an unexpected boost. A TikTok catches in the algorithm. Sometimes that's all it takes to launch someone into internet fame. But then what? This blew up is a new podcast documentary that reveals how social media stardom is made. It's a different kind of fame that's not always as glamorous as it looks. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Alyssa Boresnack. You can listen to This Blue Up on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hife. It's I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Coralbeck. If you're wondering who to start, who to sit, go to Fantasyfootball. Dot theRinger.com. Our rankings are there, so all your starts and questions you can answer them there. We'll make sure to update those to the weekend. If you want to follow us, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitter.

What, D.K., you're Danny B. Kelly on Twitter. I'm Danny B. Kelly on everything. Danny B. Kelly and everything, even better. Craig, you're Craig Craig Kerrullback on Twitter. Yep. Super easy. Last name to spell. You shouldn't have a problem finding it.

I'm Danny. underscore hyfitz. And then if Twitter explodes, because whatever Elon Musk is doing, I'm just Danny Hyfitz on Instagram. So come, come follow us. Hyfitz posts a lot of thirst traps on IG.

A lot of thirst traps. Come for the thirst traps. Stay for the thirst traps. We're recording this on Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but we're giving a little Friday preview because we love you guys. So we care. If we're wrong,

if we have no idea who's playing, that's because we're quoting Tuesday. If we're just idiots, that's because we're us. But you can't see in the future. future, all right? Yeah, geez, we wanted to give you something to do when you're stuck in the airport on a Friday. Craig's just upset because you have to fly on the Wednesday of Thanksgiving and it's just not excited about it.

But if you are listening to this right now in an airport trying to live on Black Friday, I'm sorry. So with that said, we're going to get to the games, the Sunday games. We're going to do some awards, a little vibe check in. We do a little vibe check in on Tuesday, but it's fine. Does anyone want to start off here? A little Sunday action. I'll start. My first award is titled,

Time to Crank Up the Hearing Aid and Double the Morning Meds because it's crunch time. And this goes to Tom Brady. Old Tom. Tom is back from Germany. Who knows what medical treatment he received there?

He's had a buy. Two weeks off to recover his 45-year-old bones are hopefully healing. Got 45-year-old bones. What are these mystery medical things that we're assuming he got in Germany. Well, that's the question, isn't it?

Well, you know about the whole Germany thing, right? Is it just like the blood platelets or something? Yeah, there's just some, there's stuff going on in Germany. All the end employers go to Germany. I think the real answer is that Germany has advanced medical technology because in America, our healthcare system, we're a captured state and so no progress can be made. I think that's where we're going to be. Wow. Okay.

Or just, I don't know. Sorry asked. I don't know. So anyway, essentially, so. as people perhaps know, Tom Brady has been on my fantasy team this entire season, much to my ship game. Same. It's really crunch time right now.

I'm going to need to see something out of Brady in the remainder of this season. The bucks are barely in first place. They're half game up in the NFC South. They're five and five, the Falcons are five and six, and the Saints are even hanging on at four and seven. I just need to see it out of Tom.

The schedule is not too rough, and I need him to take me to the Promise Land. Really, he's been playing better. He's trending. up. The team is getting healthier. They're probably the healthiest they've ever been. They now finally have their four big receivers back. Godwood and Evans are still healthy. And Gage has been practicing

this week. He practiced Monday. Again, it's Tuesday right now for us. I don't know how if he practiced later in the week. And then Julio seems to be relatively healthy. They've kept him on ice a lot this season. They're playing the Browns. I know the Browns have been playing well. They actually held Burrow and Josh Allen to their worst fantasy performances

of the year. But you know what? Tom Brady's the greatest quarterback of all time. And I'm going to need to start seeing it. I'm going to need to start seeing it. Some results out of Tom. It starts now. I love how we get 20 plus years of of greatness and now we're just like fucking sour grapes about it. This team is 5 and

5 in the shitty NFC South. They need to go in a four game winning streak or I'm gonna be upset. I love listening every week to you guys bitch about having Tom Brady and I'm always just like I like players who weren't retired but then I just feel like I'm Donald Trump talking with John McCain. It's like I like soldiers who weren't

captured so I just feel bad. Yeah, that's rude. But it's, I think it every time, though. I like it's rude. It's rude. Yeah. That doesn't bother me. The retirement doesn't bother me.

The part that bothers me is that Brady just seems to be completely checked out this season because of everything is going on in his life. He's doing it to personally slight you, Craig. He probably is. But he's at two weeks off. There's no excuses now. The team's healthy. His old bones. His old balls?

Gross. This is the funniest. This is the weirdest segment we've ever done. Tom Brady. We've done some weird. Don't you feel like it is kind of crunch time for the bucks? It does kind of feel like, all right, put up or shut up. I think the bucks are going to win six straight games.

I'm not even kidding. I think the bucks are going to win six straight. And they're just weird to be like, oh, okay, that's the team. And it's going to be the Cowboys, the Niners and the Bucks in the NFC. He needs to start throwing some touchdowns. Well, the great plot twist of the season is that I think that the NFC is going to, by the end of the season, the NFC will look better than the AFC. All we talked about coming the season was the season was.

was the AFC was better. And when we actually get to week 17, and we're like, wow, Eagles, Cowboys, I think the Niners will join that group and the Bucks. And then the AFC, it's just the Chiefs and the Bills. Do you guys remember one of the funniest tweets,

I believe it was ESPN. I am always, I always love, Hyford, you actually sent us that, I love when corporate accounts try and be funny. Oh my God, it's mind, soul-sucking. There was a tweet when,

I don't even remember if Brady was in the Bucks or the Patriots. But the tweet was this. It said, when you give Tom Brady lemons, when you give Tom Brady football lemons, he makes touchdowns. Which doesn't even make any sense because they didn't include lemonade.

It should have been, when you give Tom Brady football lemons, he makes lemonade. Here's the thing. You just owned yourself and you don't know it. Because this is why we have bad commercials. You remember to tweet from five years ago

because it was bad. But no, like, you know what I mean? It's like, unintentionally. But the anger is more memorable than the best commercial could ever be. My point is, is that I'm going to need to see Tom make some touchdown lemonade. All right. We'll get some touchdown limited from Tom. All right, well, speaking of great, great, great brands.

I want to do another version of SBF fraud watch presented by FTX. Great brands. The Chargers Cardinals game. Dude, we got Brandon Staley for the Chargers, who's. brand is struggling. And then we got Cliff for the, for the Cardinals. And I'm like, one of these guys is getting fired at the end of the season. Has Cliff's brand ever been good?

I think Cliff is well known to be a fraud. I'm not sure today is the refer. This week is the referendum on Clif. I guess that's kind of my point. What happens if the Chargers lose to the Cardinals and known fraud, Cliff Kingsbury? Like, what happens? Well, the entire offense seems dependent on if Keenan Allen's hamstring can stay intact. So it's really up to him.

I thought it was weird that Staley punted on fourth and inches to the Chiefs. His entire brand is not doing that. It was really odd. I'm just kind of like, I'm just looking at this game. And I'm like, I like Brandon Staley. I think he's a good coach.

But getting harder to defend. I'm not sure he is a good coach. Why do you like him? I actually think it took courage to like actually come out and do the fourth down stuff. I think the combo of like, once you do that and that's your mentality, he's deviated from it this year in ways I found very difficult to defend

he had like a fourth and four fourth and five or something against the Browns where he went for it and it just felt absolutely reckless and it was not backed up by math or analytics or anything and then meanwhile he also like against the chiefs

like declined this fourth like it was one of those fourth and inches where the blue line and the yellow line were like intersecting right right like the same line it was just green just green line and I'm like Justin Herbert's six foot six.

I get you're on the 45 yard line, but like, this is your whole schick. It's like if you believe in all this stuff, there's no doubt. And it's weird to see him being, on one hand, sometimes doing the Josh McDaniels.

Like, we're going to go for it fourth and down sometimes because I'm emotional, but on the flip side, like not. I don't know. It's just the inconsistency, I think,

is going to erode the confidence combined with just the lack of just meeting expectations this year. You think the world is just grinding him down to dust? I do think he's, I do think he's coach.

scared. Maybe that's just the long... It feels like he's lost sense of who he is. Yeah. So, fraud-wise. That's got kind of sad. He's the fourth down guy. And every fourth down, they're like, hey, fourth down guy, do your thing.

And he doesn't know what to do it. Dance, monkey. Yeah. He's like a TikTok star who got big doing the same thing. And now he doesn't know what to do a year later. He's like, do I just keep doing this for the rest of my life? It's so true. It's like, so like, I bend the paper clips into 69 and like, am I just that all the time now?

Is this my career now? I throw objects at my friend and he tries to guess what they are? Is this what our career is now? We're making $100,000 a month. He's about to go on like a casino tour of going on going for it on fourth down. Like he's just relegated to casino concerts. Pete Rose, deciding baseballs. Also, it's like, fourth and five.

What are you going to do, Staley? Go for it. All the famous TikTok people, like, it's so true they grew up and you're like, the TikTok. But it's like the Zoolander when it looks in the puddle. And it's like, who am I? and then it looks back, it's like, I don't know. There's that entire account of this guy who paints himself like a mime,

and then he just hurts himself and doesn't make a sound. And he's been doing it for years. And my friend and I talk about it all the time. Like, I'm gonna run into that guy at like a bar in 10 years, and he's gonna be like, I'm 40 years old.

I have a net worth of $20 million. And all I do is like bang a razor scooter into my shin on TikTok every week. And I've been doing that for 15 years. Have you seen the people? people who do it while they're sleeping. It was in the Wall Street Journal this week. Just all the sleep economy,

it's just like all these people who are just live streaming themselves sleeping and you can like pay money and like they'll wake them up. Like you do? Oh my God. Yeah. It's like they got light boards and it's insane.

And you could like donate a dollar and turn out of light see if they wake up. You could send them like $100 and like just like turn their alarm clock on. It's unbelievable. But people just like watching them sleep. People just like you watch them sleep for free. people like in Australia will get up in the morning

go to their day and they're watching this guy in America just sleep. There's something wrong with us. Craig is like, I can't tell if Craig's upset for humanity or like pissed he never thought of that. No, he's like, he's like, he's happy. He's like impressed. No, well, it's like it's both beautiful and horrific. It's both like, wow, horrible. Why do I not do this? Why do I not literally make money

while I sleep? Imagine waking up and fighting. finding 10 grand in your bank account people sent to you trying to wake you up. Well, so like what? Throughout the entire night, you're just like waking up every 20 minutes because somebody just put in 20 bucks. Well, it's not just a slot machine for money. It's like people are also streaming. Like a lot of people are just watching him sleep.

Like thousands of people are watching him sleep. Am I already like losing touch where I'm like, I don't get what these kids are doing? Well, you know, when we were growing up, I always felt like because like our parents are always asking us questions about tech and like, how do I use my email? How do I use this? How do I download this? Blah, blah, blah. And he kind of assumed it would never happen to me.

It happened like 10 times faster to me than it happened to my parents. Well, the thing now I understand is that, like, people will figure out every way possible to make money in the dumbest of ways. And I, so while the sleeping is, like, baffling to hear about it, it doesn't surprise me that somebody came up with it. Like, people make money and make content out of doing literally anything. And they've accomplished it. Yeah, this is actually probably not even remotely, the weirdest thing. Oh, my God. Oh, obviously.

My God. non-sexual, you know. Well, we'll get to that later on the only fans. Dark fantasy after dark. Okay. Next award here, D.K. All right.

I'm going to bring up Lamar Jackson again because, I mean, honestly, he's very important to fantasy. He has been one of the, like, best players in fantasy over the last few years. It's just not happening this year.

It's kind of frustrating. Very frustrating. Dance clown! This feels like, yeah, really. This feels like the litmus test award for him. Like,

this is a litmus test for him for the rest of the year. Like, they're going up against the Jags. If he can't deliver in this game, I'm actually going to start kind of getting worried. The Jags are the 30th ranked defense per DVOA. They're 30th against the pass, 15th against run. Top 10 in yards and past touchdowns allowed

to opposing quarterbacks. 10th in points allowed to fantasy quarterbacks. Like, I understand that the Ravens passing offense is struggling. It's not very good. Like, it's schematically not that good. They don't have a lot of talent. But, like, if he can't come through in this game, like,

it's going to suck. I'm going to start to get really worried. I completely agree. I mean, the Ravens could not put away the Panthers for like 53 minutes. And then, like, we're very, very dominant for like seven minutes. And I know it's weird because, like, well, you helm the three of the defense playing well. But like, this offense was like inept against the Carolina Panthers. And if they can't get something go off their buy against the Panthers.

And if they can't self-correct against the Jaguars, it's like, I thought the Ravens were going to win the division. I was big on that this season. and it's like, I, it has ramifications beyond. They're negotiating with Lamar. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Yeah. I mean, it's a huge deal.

I mean, literally and figuratively, but like Lamar's contract, but then it's like, I mean, I think Greg Roman, the offensive coordinator is probably going to have to go if they don't really, if they just fizzle out again in the playoffs. They're not letting Lamar go.

And so, I don't know. I think there's, I don't think it's hyperbole to say there's like an existential crisis looming for this offense if they can't, put up points on the Jaguars. Because they got to play the Bengals. They got important games coming up.

Yeah, because like this is actually what I was going to ask next is, like, does this game potentially sort of like a turning point for the franchise in terms of like what happens at the quarterback position? What happens with their offense? What happens with their offense coordinator? I think two and three. Lamar is staying, but two and they got, Greg Roman, I don't think has a future with this team if they just fizzle out and have three points in a playoff game again.

Like, do they, does this, like, they might need to change their entire identity, honestly. and like, Hyphitz, you always talk about how, like, in five years, we're going to be talking about how Lamar is just destroying the NFL in a spread system or whatever. Like, I'm just very curious to see. Lamar and Cliff Kingsbury are together three years from now. Just lighten the world on fire. Just incredible. Oh, man.

But anyways, I'm very fascinated with this game and Lamar Jackson in general, because I keep thinking it's going to happen. I think it will happen. But if it doesn't happen this week, I'm going to be worried. What do you think? Yeah. so we'll see so you also want to see

just still real vibes check fascinated morbidly by Titans bangles this week why morbidly I guess not morbid I don't know I guess I just think of the Titans morbidly because they're like a bad team that is just always beating good teams

maybe you know what I mean I don't know how else to put it but like I don't know I think that just the Titans bookending that win last week that in the playoffs with like the two Tudanahill interceptions and they had nine sacks of burrow in between this feels like such an important game for both teams and I'm just kind of like fascinated. I don't even have much

it's fantasy wise like you're gonna play who you're gonna play but I kind of look at this it just feels so crucial for the Bengals to like come out and actually win and not just let Joe Burr get sacked all the time again but also I think mentally

it's really important for the Titans to not lose to the Bengals again. They're gonna so the Bengals are gonna have to pass in this game almost surely. The Titans have been the best run defense in the NFL if not, right? Easily one of the best, if not the best, in the NFL. And I think a big thing here is, is Jamar Chase going to come back?

We don't know. It's a Tuesday, so it's still very early. There's some hope it sounds like that he's going to be able to make it back for this game. But if he doesn't, like T. Higgins has been, you know, kind of the rock of this passing game. The Titans are my new team because the Vikings and Giants have failed me that I can't wait to bet against in the playoffs, as I do every year with the Titans. Oh, see, I'm the opposite. I don't think I've been against the Titans. The Titans are just like unbettable against.

The Titans are so... They lose every season. Every year they're like 12 and 4 and they blow it in round 1. Every loses every season. They're only 12 and 4 because they win games. They shouldn't win. They were like the 1 seed last year and they blew it.

Yeah, but like they weren't good. That was the crazy. It was crazy that they became the 1 seed. That's my point is they do this every year. They're always, they always finish much better than they actually are. I mean, this team has two losses with Ryan Tannale. They lost weeks 1 and 2 and they haven't lost sense with Tanale. That's what I'm saying.

I don't know. what we're arguing about. That's incredible. Yeah, but I'm saying it's fraudulent. This team is not good. They're well-coaching. They're not fraudulent. They are huge fraud.

No, it's different. It's different. The Vikings are frauds. Because we know what the Titans are, which is just like disgust. They drag you to the muck and they just like beat you there with experience. Like they drag every, like they just,

and I don't know. They just win. But like no one thinks like, oh, they're like the best team in the NFL. But they don't win. They disappoint. They lose in some playoff game where there are seven point favorites. It's every single year.

Yeah. I'm curious in a year like this year where quarterbacking is bad, like generally. Obviously, a lot of the good quarterbacks are going to be in the playoffs, so this might be like a moot point. But like the whole drag you into the muck philosophy, which they clearly have, like they just want to slow the game down, they want to run, they want to kick you in the mouth, all those cliches. Will it actually work in this type of season and this type of like environment?

To Craig's point, no. But there's always a team that isn't like the best team in the NFL that people are like, oh, no one wants to play them. But when you say that for like every team, every team, it's like no one wants to play these guys. The Titans are actually the team that nobody wants to play. I like how Craig spends all his waking hours just trying to figure out who's the biggest fraud. Probably you had been a little involved in the FTX thing that would have earlier. All right. Probably unanswerable questions of the week.

Yeah, could the Steelers' offense actually be fantasy relevant for the rest of the season? Kenny Pickett had one of the most brutal stretches ever for a rookie QB. It was quite literally just toss into the deep end of the pool because the guy barely played in preseason wasn't taking first team reps, Mitch Trubisky was, and then they just tossed them into the hardest schedule I can imagine for a rookie. He came in. It's like Madlibs for bad teams you don't want to play. And played the Bills, Bucks, Dolphins, and Eagles back to back to back to back.

Yeah. Somehow won one of those games. they beat the fucking bucks. But if you look at the difference in statistics for Pickett... Can't Pickett beat Tom Brady. It's unbelievable. Turn it on, Tom, now or never. But if you look at the stats,

if you look at the stats and Pickett since that Gauntlet ended, it's been a lot better. He's like markedly improved on pretty much every way. I mean, he's throwing deep way more. Yards per attempt is way up. Completions, 20 plus yards is way up. His EPA on dropbacks is way better. It's passerating in general is just a lot better

And look, I mean, the last two weeks After this gauntlet ended, they played the Saints and the Bengals And in those two games, Naji Back to back best two Russian games of the season Pickens coming off his best two games of the seasons Fryermuth coming off his best game of the season And the next five games They're playing the Colts, Falcons, Ravens, Panthers, and Raiders

For how much shit we've given the Steelers And deservingly so And we burn them in like week three or whatever I actually think there's like four to five players on the Steelers that could be fantasy relevant through the rest of the season. We're so reactionary, it's unbelievable. Like, when Kenny Pickett came in,

we all, everybody, not just, everybody had more or less the same analysis. Kenny Pickett should play over Trubiskey. However, the next five weeks are like the hardest possible weeks that Kenny Pickett could be entering the game. So it's like he's probably not going to play, well, he's probably going to play terribly.

And we'll see after that. Those five, six weeks came by, He was horrible. And now we're like, whoa, what if he's good? It's like, yeah, the Steelers, like, that's why I've been saying for two weeks. Like George Pickens is a bylo, Deonti Johnson, Naji, all these guys are bilos because like, that's exactly what just happened. So yeah, I completely agree, Craig.

Craig, the numbers would be even better if he, if Pickens hadn't dropped a 50-yard touchdown pass that catch late in the game too. I mean, I think just anecdotally, obviously Craig put together all the numbers, but like, I will absolutely agree. it just seems like he's pushing the ball down the field so much more and so much more accurately, so much more assertively, just in terms of like he feels more comfortable with where he's going with the football when he drops back, you know what I mean? Like I think he was just...

You know what makes it easy to push it down field is not playing the Eagles bucks and that? Yeah. I mean, I think it's funny because we talk about matchups a lot, but at the same time, we probably still underrate matchups. You know what I mean? Like strength of matchup and how much resistance a good defense will provide against like the guys that you're going to be, like, starting in your lineup every week. I don't, like, there's, there's no easy way to, like, quantify matches because there's just so much chaos and so many different, like, guys are not going to line up against the same corner every play, usually.

But just good teams, good, like, good defensive lines versus bad offensive lines. Like, that can really, really stifle an offense. And we saw that, obviously, with the Steelers here. So I like this one. I'm very excited to see. I want Pickett to be the answer for the Steelers. I don't want them to start over. You know what I mean?

I don't want him to have to start over next year because I want all these guys to thrive. I want George Pickens to become the star that I think he could be. I want Pat Friarmouth to be just help us with the tight end position, somebody. Like obviously, it would be great to have him become a very good player in fantasy. So, yeah, I'm kind of invested in the Steelers in the second half year, or down the stretch, I should say. I mean, look, Kenny Pickett has started six games in his career. Six. Yeah.

And it feels like everybody has an opinion on what his career is going to look like. And the first four games were against like three of the top five defenses in the league. A lot of time left. All right. Next to word here, D.K. So going back to the they're not hot, they're just famous word, I don't know if this really applies to the Seahawks. But I'm curious to see. Can you put a, can you attach a celebrity to this category title?

That's a good question. There's a couple that come to mind for me. Okay, this is a terrible example. I thought of Woody Harrelson for some reason. I don't think anyone thinks he's hot, though. Is there a large group of people that are really into Woody Herald? No, I don't know. He's just like a...

Well, I would say he's like a leading man in Hollywood, but he's pretty ugly. Yeah, but that's just because that's how patriarchy works. There are two people who come to mind from me. Hyvitz, do you have any? There's one clear, clear winner. Pete Davidson. Oh, my God, yeah. No, it's...

Well, I don't think that's about his looks. I think that's about... the, um, Oh, the BDE? Yeah, well, no,

it started out as like, the aura, wink, wink, Pete Davidson, huge dick. And then it became dating Pete Davidson is like, the best way to like, get headlines and like,

cover of magazines and stuff. So, like, now your PR team can just kind of set you up on a date with Pete Davidson and get the photo shoot. And now you just like kind of shoot to the top of the paparazzi. Yeah, he's like,

he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, yeah, well, no, it's not even that.

He's like a, I don't have like the pop culture lexicon, but it's like Kim Kardashian did that so that Kanye would see it on his phone. Like it's to get a push notification sent to Kanye. You know what I mean? And now he's allegedly dating Emily Radikowski. But anyway, I do it.

Who's your other one, Craig? Adam Driver. Adam Driver is not hot. He's just famous. Everybody needs to relax. He's extremely tall. What's also funny is like, I love. actor, I like him a lot, charismatic, objectively and not hot.

I also love when men try to tell women that men aren't hot. And women are like, no, you're wrong. Men are like mansplaining two women who's attractive. I do think that what straight men think is hot in another man is completely different than what straight women think is hot in another man. Yeah, so that's why I'm like, well. Like, I feel like guys just pick like whoever's the most ripped. We're like, uh, Henry Cavill.

And then like girls are like, no. Pete Davidson's harder than Henry Cavill, and I'm like, what? Look at his muscles. Henry Cavill is beautiful. You shut your mouth. Yes, I understand that there's a lot that goes into it, the personality, the vibes, you know,

but I don't know. King of Staten Island. Anyways, so we talked about, we used this category last week about the cowboys and whether they're hot or just famous. Turns out they're hot. Yeah, they're both. They're hot and famous.

The Seahawks don't really apply to this, but I still wanted to talk about kind of like are the Seahawks for real? Are the Seahawks actually going to be an NFC playoff team? Coming off a box, a loss into the bucks that I thought was pretty demoralizing, I would say.

Like, they didn't play terribly, but I don't know, I was kind of going into that game, expecting the Seahawks to win and continue their magical season and all this. What were you going to say? They did play terribly. Did they?

I mean, it wasn't like terrible. I thought, well, regardless. I mean, I guess like the point is they lost and they were not as good as they used like were earlier in the season. It felt like the wind came out of their cells a lot. And so I'm very interested. For the first time, I'm succumbing to the idea that like the Seahawks could be good. I'm succumbing to hope, which sucks.

Because I came into the year like not caring at all what the Seawks would do as a Seahawks fan. And now I'm like, oh, God, I kind of want them to win now. So they're playing the Radars this, the Raiders this week. Radars. We mentioned on the Wednesday pod, which we recorded like half an hour ago. because we're banking them before Thanksgiving. And we were talking about how the Broncos, like, if the Broncos hand the Seaculks is top five pick,

it's like one of the greatest trades ever. But the flip side is, if the Broncos get a top five pick and the Seahawks win the NFC West, I kind of do think it is actually probably a top five trade ever at any sport. It's like pretty hard to find five trades better than that. And I kind of, the Niners, I thought, looked unbelievable. rocking the Cardinals and I do think

the Niners are going to be great like the McCaffrey Kittledeeble thing is kind of everything you wanted to see but dude I hear what you're saying like the Seahawks good teams

one of the best instances of good teams is like good teams should crush bad teams and it'll be really cool if the Seahawks come out and just beat the Raiders by like 14 points

that would be nice to see yeah I mean the Raiders did they're coming off of a big win you know emotional so that could go in the Seahawks favor disgusting Broncos Raiders game.

It's like, we did it for Josh. I swear, man. Every time Devante Adams and Derek Carr complete a pass, it's like they just like solved the problems of the world. They like hug each other and look into one another's eyes. But hyphids to what you said like the 49ers. I think the 49ers by dominating on Sunday night football, kind of like leapfrog back into the consciousness of the nation.

in terms of like the 49ers are who to fear in the NFC West. And these uniforms are so cool. McAfee looks unbelievable in the gold helmet. Jimmy G's playing really well. Like they've got incredible weapons on the offense. Like they just look good. I was like, fuck, this guy is so hot. Yeah.

I think Chiefs Niners is a great. And women do think he's hot. Well, he is hot. Chiefs Niners is a great Super Bowl bet. A little repeat of two years ago. Ooh, yeah, that would be fun. I kind of like the Cowboys is going to make the Super Bowl. I'm kind of there.

There's no way Mike McCarthy gets there. I thought. All right. I want to shout out a little awkward family dinner award. Sure. You know Thanksgiving seems appropriate? Dude, you know when like you're fighting with your family and it's like bad, but like people are coming? So you kind of have to like resolve it.

Put on your game face. Yeah. And then people come over and it either like dissipates and you get over it or like it just blankers and boils and explodes. I want to see what happened to the Zach Wilson thing. It's Tuesday. We don't know if he's going to start or not. Robert Salis saying he might not.

I feel like he's going to start. I think he gets one last shot at it. Yeah. I think he has to. I think that they should he should start. I think it's not hyperbole of say if Zach Wilson plays, I think this is easily the biggest game of this entire career and not to be dramatic. It's like an inflection point for his entire life.

Yeah. Is he going to go the way of Josh Rosen? It's like how you respond to this moment where Stephen A. Smith is like yelling about you in first take and saying you're a boy. like you know what I mean like you're a boy Eli you boy

men face accountability boys run from it it's incredible but Bears defense not good right now I want to see

thing though so like if the if the Jets win 14 to 10 and a banged up Justin Fields loses like what do we like what does that say? I don't think no but that's the thing is I don't think anyone's going to have any illusions

but what I'm watching for is body. language. Like Bill, Bill always talks about being the body language doctor. It's not even just Zach Wilson's body language. I want to watch Garrett Wilson, Elijah Moore, all these receivers. Every time, like, he does bounce a pass at them, are they like kind of like, all right, cool, we're going to, or like, are they going to keep slumping their shoulders or throwing up their hands? Like, what the fuck, Zach?

It's like, I almost don't care who wins in like a banged. If Justin Fields doesn't play, it's Trevor Simian. Who cares if the Bears win or not? Like, the Jets, it's important for the playoffs. But, like, I'm so interested to see if the team in any sort of way. like hate to say this, but like uses the adversity to like come together or if they're still like, fuck this guy. He's getting, he's getting absolutely freaking destroyed as he should.

Yeah. He should. Dude, again, again, seeing a while at Stephen A. Smith rant in the wild, he's like, Stephen A. Smith was like, he had negative 21 yards of net passing in second half. And Stephen A's like pauses for like 11 seconds. And he's like, well, I could do that. also you're right

Steven how you could do that he has no Zach Wilson has has no characteristics of a leader it feels like I'd love to know I wish we could have

you know how Mike Sando does the quarterback tiers and he has people anonymously vote I'd love to know which quarterbacks are just the best

in a huddle the best giving a pregame speech I want to know who is the best all the way to the worst I have to imagine Zach Wilson

is in the bottom two yeah I don't think he's yeah I have my doubts about You know what I mean? Who's the best Brady? I don't know. He's out of the grade.

He's never died. He can't die. Somebody like Justin Herbert who's like a little bit quieter. Like I'd like to know what the players actually kind of get from him on the sidelines in the huddles. I'd love to know who is just like

or like a mediocre quarterback who's just like electric in the huddle. I want to know that. That's a good part. Like if you've seen that. Josh Allen. All these miced up things of Trevor Lawrence Lawrence.

And it's like Lawrence, a quiet guy and you hear him mic'd up and you're like, oh, he's like not great at the talking. And like he just, it's so awkward trash. Yeah. Some people just have it. Yeah. You know, like Joe Montana, the famous story about him pointing out John Candy in the final drive of the game. Like, I want to know which quarterbacks have that component.

Well, the irony is Brady's really bad at shit talking. Like, he's not creative. It's just him being Tom Brady eventually led to him commanding respect. But in terms of shit talking, he's like, he's awful. How much of it is? also media created too. That's what I'm curious about. Like,

I think Joe Burrow has some mythology around him, you know? He's like, this gamer. Yeah, but... I mean, I think he probably really is, and people rally around him, but like, how much of it is media? Like, I just want to know who in the locker room,

like, before running through the tunnel, is like giving the Remember the Titan speech to fire everybody up. I feel like I'm going to run through a wall for Josh Allen. I will have no doubt that Tom Brady is going to carry my team to a win. Those are the first two I think of. I think J. Cutler's last. Joe Flacco is last. I bet you pre-Iiwaska Rogers was good.

Yeah. Before Rogers got weird, I bet you he was good. Well, you know who actually we're dancing around this. You know who was last and is always last was probably Russell Wilson. Oh. I do think in Cornwall ass-day. I think in his heyday, though, like they did believe in him. I think in the last like five or six years, it's falling off a cliff. It's worth in real quick. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is like why people were down on Herbert, I think, coming into the NFL, too. It's just because, like, his quote-unquote bedside manner or whatever. Like, he just, like, not a leader of men.

Jared, dude, Jared Goff on Hard Knocks when he was like, the cameras came to his home. And he had that golf thing in his back. And he's just like chipping and he's obviously just been practicing that all day. And like, I don't know. That whole LA Hard Knocks season, I was like, this guy does not seem like, it was like they hated him. It just was like, this person, this person doesn't seem believed. No, you don't want to follow him in the battle. We're completely forgetting my homes, too.

but 100% I have zero doubt that he's going to like do something ridiculous. But being good solves 90% of it. That's true.

That's true. But I think Mahomes is I don't know. I don't know. Mahomes is kind of like a dork to me. I don't know. Honestly,

wait, you talk about someone who's like, the key is you need who's bad but respected. The answer is Taylor Heineke. Pitbull. He's got the moxie.

Like he's not good but all the players are like, man, we love this guy. Jalen Hertz is also like obviously. Yeah,

Jalen Hertz, I'd say like inspires confidence. Like he's just so even keeled and confident. That's like contagious. No, Eagle players are liking Instagram comments, shit talking Jalen Hertz, the way the Steelers players are already liking comments about Kenny Pickett. Like, do you know who else is bottom of the barrel?

Kyler. Yeah. Did you see the Kyler and Hopkins fight? I don't know what like, you know, that kind of stuff. Pouting, not really getting like, not talking to anybody on the sideline. Although I think Brady does that a little bit too.

I don't know. Well, he's so old. now. Brady can do it every once, man. Yeah. I think there's shades of gray

with every fucking quarterback. Let's be honest. It does help if you have like, yeah, I was going to say if you've won in the past,

you're going to build that mythology. So. All right. Those are our words. Real quick, email, not even any emails,

some tweeted us. Just got to mention this. We can do this on the Friday show. We have been asked. Also, if you have kids here, or must. If you with your family,

you must. Again, this is just, we, We, earlier, we, earliest week, I don't know how, I don't know why. A lot of talk about, I don't like saying this word out loud, cucking. A lot of cuck talk, a lot of disagreements on like the nuances of what cucking is, what is cucking in a fantasy term?

I got to tell you, every time we do this, we're like, should we talk about this? Is this inappropriate? Is it weird? And we vowed to like never bring this up again on the pod, like privately. That lasted one podcast. We were like, two podcasts is enough. And yet, as soon as we decided to never bring this up again. someone actually nailed, so to speak, nailed the exact answer of what cucking is in fantasy football.

I can't believe it took this long. Yep. Fantasy cucking is when you are rooting for your player to score against your own real life football team. It's 100% the answer. It's probably happened to all of us where it's like, hmm, giants are already going to lose. The giants are like two and nine this season, do they really do it? But like, man, got Tony Pollard. come on Tony

score on the Giants and you're like, you feel bad? Watching Stefan Diggs put up a hundred in a touchdown on the Steelers and I'm just like

quietly aroused. Gabe Davis is a 98 year touchdown and you're like yeah Gabe do it to him give me another one. Oh boy.

That's it. We solved it. We'll never talk about this ever again. Yeah, probably will for at least one more podcast. We probably will

in the next show. All right. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, everyone for listening. Hope you had happy Thanksgiving. Thank you to whoever doesn't fire us for talking about that a third time. Thank you, Lauren.

Lauren. Thank you. See ya. Look at D.K. The singer. I know who that is. Doesn't she have like an interesting backstory? I'm not familiar with it, to be honest. Well, I do know that she has terrible stage fright. It's why she's always covered. It's why you never see her face or she sometimes sings turning around. Isn't like the pop singing industry so obviously age as skewed toward having like beautiful young women that she was much, like, way older than normal for pop store to emerge. So they basically, like, didn't reveal the whole.

She's like 46. And they didn't really reveal that so much later because she was afraid of getting shut under the industry. I also believe she started as a really popular songwriter. She writes a lot of songs for people. Seah has had a lot of bangers in her day. Very talented. Titanium?

I'm fascinated by these people who just are like the people that like the Beyonce's come come in to, like, write their songs and just like these A-list songwriters that we've never heard of, but have put stuff in our brains. Pretty much since Taylor Swift's beginning, she has had a co-writer who's like a 65-year-old lady who writes all of her songs with her. What?

Are you serious? Wait, is Taylor Switch is the vessel for this wise 65-year-old woman? Taylor Swift does write a lot of her songs, but she's nominated for, you know what I'm talking about? The most recent one, like the hi, it's me, I'm the problem with me?

No, no, no, because that's not eligible to be for these Grammys. Grammy nominations. I actually lost track because she's released so much music in the last year and a half. I actually don't know. Why is it so hard to find Grammy nominations? Dude, I swear, there's like a thing. Finding nominations for any award show online is hard.

Oh, not even that. Google is worse. I am convinced. Please email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com if you have thoughts on this. I think Google is, it's worse. It's harder to find things than it used to be by a lot. A hundred percent. Like the SEO has been game to a point where,

it's like, I feel like I've never had to filter more to get basic stuff. Also, Craig, not to be an asshole, I found these Grammy nominations in like five seconds. What's the Taylor Swift album or whatever nominated? What's it called? Oh, I just deleted Swift.

It is called. Oh, this website's broken. I see what you said. What's this? He got cocky. I'm on Grammy.com, and you're right. It's like read more, but there's like nine read more.

It's a fucking catastrophe. This website's terrible. I see what you're saying. It's like trying to find a recipe. It's like, I don't know where I'm going. This is so bad. I spoke way too soon. Oh, my God.

The album is called Evermore, which came out in... Do you know how many people were screaming that at us for the entire time? They just want to ring our necks right now. If people knew that, we're like, EFOMR! I know.

But anyway, she has this co-writer lady who, Can you find your name? Anyway. Liz Rose. Liz Rose, that's who it is. So Liz Rose is this like super genius that we've remembered. Liz Rose is 65 years old from Texas.

And she's responsible for like 17 of Taylor Swift songs. She was there back in the day for you belong with me. Just this old country writer woman. Just cranking out songs with Swift. She's probably so rich. Oh, man. Oh, my God. Teardrops on my guitar.

She's written like a quarter of Taylor's her songs. Yeah. Who is this woman? Oh, my God. Can we become songwriters? How do we do this? I'm not sure. Try and write one, D.K.

Write a pop song. Just think of a phrase. I've listened to songs before. I know how to do it. Just think of like a common saying about like relationships. And that's your hook. It's so true. but also like it's insane how like singers will just take a saying and make it a song but like how jimmy

buffett gets credit for like it's five o'clock somewhere is unbelievable i know like that like jimmy buffett came up with that come up with like any like when a couple breaks up but you still have the t-shirts of your ex there's a song you still got your sweatshirt you got t-shirts made together and you still have them like you have matching t-shirts is what i thought you're I'll see you a country pop. No, country pop, but can I get my sweatshirt back and just rhyme something with like. Fucking Marin Morris could have a song called like, I still wear your shirt when I sleep at night. And it's, it would be huge.

The pain. I can't sing, but like the pain it hurts. But can I get my sweatshirts? Yeah! You know, just like Florida Georgia line. Where are you? I'm keeping that in the pot for sure. So people can hear that.

And they can steal it and get famous off that. Come on, guys. It's free. All right. Goodbye, everyone.