The Ringer NFL Show - Week 15 Awards

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

We recap the Week 15 slate by giving out brand-new awards, including The Bermuda Triangle Award, The Super-Zero Award, The “Am I Reading the Bottom Ticker Wrong” Award, and more. Later we induct two players into the 2021 Fantasy Burn Book. Email us at [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz (@Danny_Heifetz)​​ and Danny Kelly (@DannyBKelly) Associate Producer: Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, this is Warren Sharp, NFL analyst over at Sharp Football Analysis. I want to welcome you to The Ringer Gambling Show. Join me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays each week during the NFL season with guests Chris Vernon, Ben Solack, and Joe House to guide you through the NFL betting landscape. We'll be talking spreads, game totals, parlays, player props, futures, and much, much more. Be sure to follow the Ringer Gambling Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. my name is Danny Hifitz.

I am joined by Danny Kelly. Craig is off. It's Christmas. Whatever. He can do it every once. It's fine. He gave up on you. It's on vacation.

He gave up on you for the fantasy playoffs. We have not. Sunday of Week 15 is done. That doesn't mean Week 15 is done because there's like eight teams that haven't played yet, even though Sunday night's over. I don't know. Bizarre. Weird week.

But Sunday's over. So we're going to give out some awards. Starting with how unbelievably. weird and frustrating and I don't know, flaccid this week was, D.K. Where do we begin? Yeah, between COVID injuries and players just straight up

disappearing. Like, not showing up for these games. There was definitely some weird, weird outcomes. I mean, I'm in one league. This is just anecdotal. I'm in one league in the playoffs. I was second in the standings overall, 10 and 4, this team.

Coming out of Sunday, I have a total of 23 points. 23. I'm not going to win that league. The only player on this team that has scored in double digits so far is my defense. So things are going great. I think that's just a good sort of microcosm for what happened this season. And so to kick it off, I wanted to do the Bermuda Triangle Award for the players who completely disappeared off the radar in week one of the fantasy playoffs. I saw this actually, Scott Hanson from Red Zone was tweeting about it.

and then NFL research responded to him. A total of 40 touchdowns were scored in the NFL on Sunday. That's the fewest on a Sunday with at least 10 games since 1994, since the 90s. So obviously there's a little bit of a caveat here that there's not typically a 10-game Sunday slate, like the Bipocalypse, for example. I just looked this up. There was 11 games that day because there was, I think, four buys between like...

Six-one. by that week. Yeah. So anyways, it was, it was a, it was a very bad week for fantasy football

and football in general. Set that NFL back several decades, I think. But even then, it's like, on one hand, obviously there weren't

that many points scored because they had to move like, now there's two games on Monday, two games on Tuesday. The flip side is, at the same time,

the players playing today also played poorly who were usually good. I mean, just the bucks, for example, Tom Brady, who's the QB2 in the season,

had five points today. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Leonard Furnett, all left Sunday night football in what felt like the same 10-minute span. Yeah, it's just right after another. And for context, like Evans was the wide receiver 9, Godwin, the receiver 6 this year, both of them. Well, Godwin had 11 points. That was fine, but like Evans two points. Fournette did okay, but he left an injury. Gronk, who was the tight-on three in points per game, had five points.

This was just a, you know, like we always preach, play your stars, you know, play. the guys that got you here kind of deal. But like, that didn't work this week for a lot of reasons. And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers weren't the only team. Well, the Bucks got shut out. Let's not like,

the Bucks got shut out on Sunday Night Football. Yeah. And then the team that beat them is the Saints who beat them nine nothing. They're the first time team to ever beat Tom Brady without scoring a touchdown. Bill Barnwell pointed that out. Wow.

The first team to beat Tom Brady that was scoring a touchdown. So Alvin Camara has five points because they don't score. Tase Hem Hill has nine points. And then you got, again, Lenny Fernett, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin all go out in the first half. Brady then stuck with Grunk and then they both suck. So right there you're talking about that's like seven legit starters on Sunday Night Football. People have been looking forward to all day.

They were all pretty terrible except for Godwin who was just disappointing. That's one game. And then the rest of the slates filled with people who were disappeared too. Did you see this before we move on to the next game? Brady was 29 the last time he got shut out in any game, in any start. He was 29 years old. He's 44 now. the last time he was shut out,

there were zero current NFL defensive players in the NFL. Zero current NFL defensive players were in the NFL the last time Tom Brady got shut out. That is pretty crazy. What the owl, dude. Anyways, moving on, another guy that just disappeared off to Fantasy radar this week, Najee Harris for the Steelers.

It was just a bummer. Regular season, this guy's the RB4, 19 points per game in PPR. Today, he turned 14 touch. Or sorry, 14 touches. They were only 40 touchdowns on the day. Very important delineation there. 14 touches into 26 yards.

He had five PPR points. It's tough. And he had the volume too. I actually saw this from J.D. Zacharison. He had 4.6 ppr points despite seeing every running back carry for the Steelers and a 20% target share for their passing game. So it was just absolutely ridiculous. you know, just lack of production, lack of anything from that offense.

And it was just extremely disappointing. If you had Najee Harris, you probably aren't going on to the next round. So the Bucs got sucked into the Bermuda Triangle. The Saints got sucked in the Bermuda Triangle. Naja Harris got sucked in the Burenda Triangle. So did kind of Deonti Johnson. Pat Freimer with got concussed.

The Steelers just kind of all got sucked in. And then also went through the Falcons in there too. Because Corderole Patterson, who's been averaging 18 points per game, had four points today. And the first drive of the game, the Niners fumbled the opening kickoff, Corrielle Patterson scores a touchdown. They review it.

They reverse it. He doesn't get it. And basically doesn't get any more points the rest of the day. He had 13 touches, 23 yards. The Falcons got goal line standed three times. They ran like 20 plays in the red zone. They got three points in the red zone. Who gets stood up at the goal line three times?

I mean, do you know, I mean, think about that if that happening in real life. Imagine if you went to a date and got stood up and then, happened two more times. That's tough because Patterson arguably one of the top MVP players for the NFL, like for fantasy this year. And just, I mean, I guess it's fitting for this week in general, but like the fact that he ghosted everyone in week one of the playoffs, you know, for most people,

I know some people have started the playoffs already, but for most people I'd say this is like week one, you know, it's finally you're losing you're out type deal. And it's just, man, so brutal. I want to bring up one more team. in this Bermuda Triangle Award section. And that is the Cincinnati Bengals, just in general. Jamar Chase finished as the wide receiver seven this year,

17 points per game of PPR. This week, one catch, three yards. One catch, three yards. And by the way, he had a target rate of 19%. It wasn't like he wasn't getting opportunities. He did only have four targets, but they just didn't throw the ball very much today. speaking of that, Joe Burrow, 13 points.

T. Higgins, four points in PPR. And Joe Mixin, who, by the way, was the RB 5 this season, seven points. He did hurt his ankle and leave a little bit early, but, I mean, he just wasn't doing anything before that. It was just like, man, all the offenses sucked this, suck today. It was so frustrating. J.G. Zachar recent also had a great note in Jemar Chase. That was, there's basically being among receivers who see 15% of the targets in a game. So basically of the receivers who get like one in six targets for a given game,

there's been like 800 of those this year. Like 800 different moments or games, sorry, where a receiver got 15% of the targets. And Jamar Chase had like the sixth worst one out of those almost 800 games. You can't get that many targets and just get one catch for three yards. Again, like it just, but you know what? While we're here, though, I'm actually going to, I'm going to do another category.

I'm going to do a subcadigua within the Bermuda triangle. Okay. Which is the super zeros. which are like superheroes, but the opposite. Oh. Because there's a few dudes who actually did less than Jimor Chase and didn't get a catch. They got zero catches. Jerry Judy.

Yeah. Zero catches today. I know Teddy Bridgewater got hurt. Maybe it's unfair. But still, zero. He had zero catches. Chase freaking Claypool had two points today. He had a rush.

And then he caught a lateral. And for scoring purposes, if someone catches a ball and laterals it to you, you get the yards. catches. Oh, that's why that happened? Oh, my God. Yeah, so he had zero catches for 12 receiving yards. That's Chase Claypool's day.

Chase Claypool's like dead to me. Classic. Yeah, and again, this is anecdotal. I know that people probably don't care about my fantasy teams, but I had one first place team. We got like 1.2 points out of Jamar Chase and Jerry Judy combined. Just what the hell? Just brutal. It's just ridiculous.

But I think so generally speaking, this is something that has. happened to a lot of people. Based on what I was seeing on Twitter, you know, people complaining about everything on Twitter. Like, it was a rough day out there for a lot of very good fantasy team. But the flip side is it's also a great day

because maybe your mediocre team is now going to advance. That's absolutely true. Like if you came in, if you snuck in like at sixth place or something, you're playing a three seat or whatever. I mean, you might have won today. So congrats.

All right. Let's pivot here because that was a lot of negativity, mostly because there was a lot of things that didn't happen. But all the good stuff. were concentrated in like six people. Yes. We're going to do the Greg Jennings, put the team on my back award.

If you know, you know, DK somehow had never said, I just send him this video. He didn't know the Greg Jennings put my team on the back. I remember it now once I watched it. I just couldn't remember the exact,

like quotes because I thought it was Marshawn Lynch. When you first said put the, put the team on my back, I was like Marshawn Lynch, but oh, this is like a Greg Jennings video game review. Anyway,

the Greg Jennings performance there was Mark Andrews, who had 35 PPR point to that Lamar Jackson, which was insane. He's, man, he has looked insanely good. I know that he's had sort of some ups and downs over the last couple of years. Like, there's been moments here where we in the fantasy community have said, like, oh, he is the next great tight end.

And then he goes cold for a little while or whatever. He had a lot of drops last year, which is extremely frustrating. I mean, he, he to me looks like the torch is being passed almost. You could say from like Travis Kelsey to Mark Anderson. I think the same thing. I think fantasy, but also real life. Like, I think he changed his reputation today. Yeah.

Like, Mark Andrews, I think for a couple years, was this very talented dude who was really bad in clutch moments for the Ravens. There were so many moments in regular season and in playoffs where he's just straight up dropped passes of moderate difficulty in huge spots. And today, it was like, first of all, he just dominated. I mean, he had 63% of Baltimore receiving yards today. Like, that's insane. he nobody else had a catch longer than eight yards except mark andrews but like every catch was important every single first down every third down every moment where ravens were like if we don't get this first down we will lose it was mark andrews even when he was double covered he was always open

i changed how i think of him as like this was the last thing missing from is like can you be clutch can you get can you get these first downs when everyone knows you're going to the ball you're getting the ball and i didn't know he had it in him and his last two games he's like 250 yards and like three touchdowns. I agree. I mean, I completely agree with everything you said. I do feel the need to like preempt people on Twitter or whatever.

Like he did not catch the what would have been the game winning two point conversion. However, that please. I'm not saying that. I'm preempting. Get the, get out of here. I'm preempting the well actually people on Twitter.

The ball was tipped right before it got to him. Anyway, but the point is we can't do this. Also, Tyler Huntley deserves some freaking love. Oh, hell yeah. Because no one had him on their fantasy teams. but that was insane.

Tyler Huntley, first of all, is the QB1. I started him in the ringer league today. You did? Yeah, we have a Super Flex League and I have Lamar. I did not win,

however, because the rest of my team sucked. But he's the QB1. Tyler Huntley has two passing touchdowns today and two rushing touchdowns. Somehow, some way, Lamar Jackson has never done that before.

Oh, wow. Lamar Jackson's never had multiple passing touchdowns and multiple rushing touchdowns in one game. Tyler Huntley did it today. Cubie controversy.

He just played fearlessly. He was really impressive. I thought the Packers were going to wipe the floor at the Ravens. I still don't really know how they didn't because the Ravens were down like four or five cornerbacks entering the game and then lost a couple in the game. I don't really know how they did this. Yeah. But anyway, the Ravens were super impressive.

I think that Tyler Huntley thing is very interesting from like a big picture point of view because and I think, you know, this guy might deserve to be a starter in the NFL. I don't think that he's going to be. Slow the roll. I'm not going to say he's going to be the starter for the Ravens. I'm not saying he's taking over for. for Lamar Jackson. But in the same way,

we talk about sort of like Gardner Minchew or whoever. Like, he's been pretty impressive in all the spot starts that he's made, all the relief starts

that he's made or when he comes in midway through a game, I've always been pretty impressed with him. He was pretty good in college. He was one of the biggest combine snubs ever. He should never have gone undrafted.

How does, serious question? So he was an undrafted free agent. How does he, how does Tyler Huntley not get invited to the combine? Was he the PAC 12 player of the year? Yeah,

He over Justin Herbert? Yes, he'd be out Justin Herbert. I mean, I'm serious. How does the bat, maybe I don't know

how the combat works. How does the PAC 12 player of the year not get invited to the combat? I don't know. I really don't know. And it wasn't, it's not even hindsight.

People were very upset about it at the time. Like he was by far the biggest snub and like no one, everyone was like, this makes no sense. And then he got undrafted. He went undrafted. Like it just none of it made any sense.

But I think he's proving that I think honestly, I think he deserves a shot to potentially start for a team. We'll see what happens. It might take a couple of years to get to that point because I don't think the Ravens are necessarily just going to give him up. He's Lamar Jackson's backup though, right? Like there's a certain point where obviously like more athletic quarterbacks, you know, including a lot of black quarterbacks coming up and like stylistically, they're kind

of bucketed until, oh, well, they're not an NFL quarterback. And so they look, they see Tyler Huntley playing in college. Like, oh, that won't work. And then when it does work, we're like, oh, wow. And so, you know, maybe this is one of those examples of like, like, It's not just Lamar doing this. There's a whole type of quarterbacking at the position that actually can work if you give it a try and you're open-minded to it. Absolutely.

Sticking with going back to the Mark Andrews thing, I think it's kind of a fun challenge, or not challenge, but like a heavyweight bout between Kelsey and Andrews right now for who's going to be the tight end one, like overall the season. I know that the regular season is over or whatever. But Kelsey, so Mark Andrews, came in to this week as the tight end one in fantasy. And then Kelsey must have heard all the haters, including maybe we may have said something to the effect that he's slowing down. I don't know what we said. We were in haters.

We said he's not the number one tight end anymore because he wasn't. So all Kelsey did on Thursday night football was coming in and catch 10 balls for 191 yards and two touchdowns. Score 41 fantasy points. in week one of the fantasy playoffs. So that was good. That was cool. People that have Travis Kelsey on their teams probably won this week, probably moving on in the playoffs.

However, Andrews, obviously, I love that he came back and kind of like, you know, did his version of it. He didn't outscore Kelsey, but he did maintain his lead on the number one spot in fantasy tight ends right now. So I don't know. I just think it's a lot of fun kind of seeing them go back and forth.

Like these are two of the biggest players in fantasy this week. Well, on that note, of all the weird ways that this week was strange. And well, obviously the NFL game is getting moved because of the global pandemic returning. That's the weirdest one. But like the way it bared out in the stats, the top four tight ends this week by scoring. Kelsey, Mark Andrews, Hunter Henry and Dalton Schultz vastly outscored the top four receiver, the top four running back, the top four quarterback.

I genuinely wonder how often that's like ever happened. Or like the top four tight ends had more points than like the other four combo of any other position. Or you could just take the top quarter of a line. If you had one of these four, if you had one of these four tight ends, they were weak winners for you. Yeah, I just, I just feel like that really is like not never, but like really rare. Anyway, that's crazy. Also, Greg Jennings award just to the Kansas City Chiefs. Again, there's like four games left.

If you just search by PPR just players this week, Travis Kelsey is the number one player and obviously the number one tight end. Tyree Kill is the number one receiver. Mahomes is the number one quarterback. Yeah. So they're back. Oh, I don't know if they're actually back. But for one week anyway, they're back.

Take whatever you will that it's bizarre a week that the Chiefs come back. But I don't know. Anyway. All right. Do we want to mention Jonathan Taylor? I know that he played on Thursday night. Well, she's played on Thursday night. What, you got something against Saturday?

Sorry, Saturday night. Man, I'm just getting all confused. Yeah, Taylor went off on Saturday night. especially the 67-yard ice the game touchdown that he just like broke through the line broke through the Patriots line basically two guys in the gap and he just ran right past him anyway. I was traveling during this moment.

I was trying to figure out what way to watch this Saturday game because they're hard to stream. Yeah. It's like, oh, it's like a Thursday of football on Saturday. It's like an Amazon prime and it wasn't anyway. I got the ESPN alert that the Colts had the ball and then the score changed. And I was like, oh, that must be a glitch.

And then I was like, oh, my God, Jonathan Taylor did something. It's like everyone knew they were going to run and he still hit a 67-yard, like, basically walk off touchdown. So Taylor is good. That's all I have to say about that. He's just so clearly the best player in fantasy football and the number one picked next year. I think, yeah, it's funny to like go back and put ourselves in our mindsets coming into the season where I think a big worry was that he wasn't going to catch any passes. he was going to be splitting reps a lot with Naim Hines. And, you know, at the beginning of the year, there was a little bit of that.

But, like, he's basically just take it over this backfill. He's doing, like, you know, everything this backfill. Naim Hines is, like, a bit player at this point relative to what he's doing. And, yeah, I mean, absolutely. Taylor is what Christian McCaffrey was three years ago when Christian McCaffrey was just available as like a second round or 15, 16th overall. Like, that's Jonathan Taylor. Like, yeah, yeah.

If you got them, you're probably in first place or whatever. looking back now. Yeah. I got an award. A lot of new awards this week. Am I reading the bottom ticker wrong award? You know, like the games, they got the bottom ticker and you read the stats. And then every now and then you see a stat that you like crank or you sit up in your chair and you're like, do I need glasses?

Like, that's not right. I saw that. I was like, did that say the lions are up 17 to zero on Arizona at halftime? This was the weirdest game because not only did they take like a big early lead. but they like never looked back. The Cardinals never really challenged in this game. The Cardinals, we could have put them in the Bermuda Triangle, like the whole team or just D.B. Cooper. Like the whole, the week 15 was D.B. Cooper.

No one should have showed up. Maybe, but like I, Amon Robb for St. Brown had like 70 yards in a touchdown at half time. I genuinely, I was thinking about my cousin Vinny when he holds up the fingers in the courtroom. He's like, now, how many fingers am I holding up? And he's like, do you need thicker glasses? And I was like, do what? Maybe I need contacts or something. it seems that the dions have two people named Reynolds

that have like 190 yards combined. Josh and Craig. Excuse me. That cannot be right. Josh and Craig. It's only sunny. Like Dennis and Dee's cousins. I don't know what was going on.

Anyway, Craig Reynolds had 117 yards on 27 touches. Number 46, I believe. It's just so funny. Oh, yeah, he is the weirdest number. I keep thinking he's a fullback. Every time they hand the ball off, I'm like, Oh, they're not given to a running back. He's like their fifth string running back.

Yeah. 46 is 100% a number you give to. Somebody you never think is going to play football for you. Yeah. They didn't have any numbers left. So he just got 46. It's unbelievable. Also, Amonra St. Brown, so he had 11 targets today.

You know, actually, can we do a little two-toot for ourselves? Let's give ourselves a little tutteut award. Yeah. Let's do that. We've done a lot, especially, you know, I've done a lot of, what is it, self-flagellation? Like the beginning of DaVinci Code. I've done a lot of it for Mike Davis. We could do a little too, dude.

We plugged three people this week at receiver. We were like Amonra St. Brown, Gabe Davis and Russell Gage. Amonra St. Brown, 11 targets, eight catches, 90 yards. I think now that Godwin's hurt, Amonra St. Brown might, he might be third in targets over the last three weeks. I'd have to double check by the end of the week. Well, it was 12, 12 and 11. That's crazy. I have to guess he would be, maybe even number one.

35 targets in three games for Amonra St. Brown. Yeah. Yeah, he had a great game. Honestly, and the cool thing about him is it's not just like, oh, he fell into a situation, although it did help, obviously, that Hawkinson's on IR now. It helps that Swift is out. Oh, yeah. But he's been playing on the outside. He's been playing in the slot. Like, he started out the season as basically like a slot only player. He was only playing like 60% of snaps or something like that.

And now he's definitely expanded his role. They used it. They got his touchdown came on like a leak play. Like he basically like snuck across formation and leaked down. is really cool. And I mean, I don't know. I think he's like honestly a good player and he's here to stay. I don't know if he's necessarily going to have 12 targets a week forever, but I think he's a legit talent. Jared Kauffolfo's a little good.

Also, Gabe, yeah, the lines, I don't know what happened. That was just like a fever dream. And then Gabe Davis, it's sad that Craig isn't here for this Gabe Davis moment. It's kind of like, Craig's like the Samantha not being here for the sex in the city reboot. I have no idea what the overlap is of more audience and the sex in the city. but anyway, Samantha's not there. I was happy to see Gabe Davis go off because I did a podcast at the beginning of the season with the NFL show with like Evan Silva and Kevin and a couple other people. And one of my breakout candidates was Gabriel Davis.

And he really didn't do that this year because he was mostly stuck behind Emmanuel Sanders. He's only coming in when they're doing four wide sets. And so it just didn't really work out for him. I feel like you really ignored my Sex and the City reference. You know, I don't really have much sex in the city knowledge. I get what I got what you said. It was definitely a hilarious joke, High Fitz. So there you go.

But you had hilarious reference to Evan Silva. And great job with the Gabe Davis. You're only 14 weeks late. 15, who knows? And also I'm going to- Never wrong. Only early. No, sorry, never.

Never wrong, only early on Gabe-Dave. Also, you all laughed at me about Russell Gage, and here we are. I know. He's the number one receiver anyway. Look, you touted Russell Gage after he had a zero target game. And that was ballsy. And I commend you for that because it's absolutely freaking paid off. Like Russell Gage has gone bananas, like the last three or four weeks.

And same, same as Vain as Amun Rost, St. Brown. Like, Gage looked really good in this game. There was two plays at least. I didn't see every target of his this week. But there was two plays where he like went up and Mastodud, like on these jump balls, on the sideline and like went up and won at the catch point. You looked really good. Okay, but that's enough to, too, too.

Let's get back to the self-flagellation. The Ricky Bobby Award for, You're Wrecking my life! I was a terrible accent, I'm sorry. But you know the scene in Ricky Bobby when he comes home and Cal Norton has just taken like, he took his wife, took his kids, took his house, and he's like,

can we still be friends? He's like, Cal, you're ruining my life. You stole my life. Like, that's Miles Gaskin and Duke Johnson today. Like, Miles Gaskin comes back from the COVID list, and they're facing the Jets to the worst run defense in the entire league. It's like the perfect fantasy football matchup. And Duke Johnson just takes his life. Just 23 touches, 127 yards, two touchdowns, just takes it all from him.

And it's literally the best game of Duke Johnson's correct. Starts winning races. He starts winning races. He's like, I like coming at first. The cobra. I'm going to have a... What does he call it? The cobra?

No, no, no. He's, I'm the magic man. That's Duke Johnson. He's the number one running back. Duke John, if you're not first, you're last. Duke Johnson is first. The number one running back today. This is also, I think this also goes under as like never early, or sorry, never wrong,

only about four years early because everybody in the fantasy community is touted Duke Johnson for like four years. And he's never, I think, so did you say this already? He's never had a hundred yard rushing game in his life. Or sorry, in the NFL career. And he's never, and he's never had a two touchdown performance. in his career. He never had a 20 carry performance either.

He literally had 20 carries, 100 yards, and two touchdowns, all of which were first. Every time I saw him run the ball today, I was like, why is this guy on a practice squad? Like, legitimately. What was he doing like on free, he was a free agent for a while this year? I don't know. I was just bad because, like, everyone with Miles Gaskin was like, it's like, it really is like the Ricky Bobby seat. Like, it really is where he was like, I was gone for three hours. And then you watch it.

And Duke Johnson's like, Ricky, your marriage to Miles Gaskin was a hollow shell. It was a cruel charade. And you know what? It was. Here's my question for you, Hyfitz. Are you starting Duke Johnson next week? Okay, assuming we don't hear anything concrete from the coaching staff about what's going on.

Like, do you have the faith? Are you keeping the faith? Are you going to start Duke Johnson in week 16? No, you start just by picking him up. You have to pick them up. Anyone is the number one running back. Cross that bridge when we get to it. But like, the reality is what we want.

want to know is, did Miles Gascon out play this week because he had COVID for a week and couldn't practice and there's a lot there? Or did, you know what I mean? Like, again, Duke Johnson looked good against this situation where probably a lot of people would look good. I don't know. Sure. I mean, the Jets have made a lot of running backs look really good this year. Exactly. Duke Johnson is probably going to be number one on Showtime time this week. Okay. Oh, yeah. A new award for you, D.K. Okay. The How Am I Down 20 points to Hunter Henry award? Oh, yeah. First time, we're giving it to Hunter Henry, spoiler alert. Like, Hunter

Henry had 77 yards and two touchdowns on Saturday against the cults. 26 PPR points, literally the second best performance of his entire career. I want to know the people who are starting Hunter Henry in the fantasy playoffs. Like, what do you think the

percentage of fantasy playoff teams that started Hunter Henry? A surprisingly good amount because you look around and say, first of all, Hunter Henry was being significantly outsnap by Johnny Smith like 10 days ago. So just going to throw that out there. Yeah.

But I saw a weird amount of people were sending us pictures that like there were matchups that have Michael Pittman versus Hunter Henry and Michael Pittman got ejected after one catch for seven yards. And Hunter Henry had two touchdowns for 77 yards. And it's like, why do we do this to ourselves? Why? So stupid. By the way, Carson Wentz, 57 yards passing in that game.

It was like the Matt Jones game. Like three passes. I think he completed four passes. Okay. The Brandon Cook's award for the guy do not want to admit is good at fantasy. It's Brandon Cooks. Once again, the all-time leader in the Brandon Cooks award.

Yeah. He had 100 yards and two touchdowns today. Do you trust Brandon Cook still going forward though? Like, he's literally the number two receiver today after Tyree Kill. You have to play him. I know, but it's, I guess you're right,

but it's like so scary. That's the whole point of the award. He gets this every week. Well, yeah. I mean, I think he's a lot better than we thought coming into the air, but he doesn't do this every week. He's definitely had some duds. Also, this feels like he's healthiest season ever.

There's not even really been a lingering injury with him compared to past seasons. That's true. Let's see. He had... He didn't miss a lot of games, but he always has something lingering. You know, you're right. Like, he's had double-digit points in five out of less seven games. He did have a 3.8 game and an 8 game and an 8.

eight point game, so that's like whatever. But yeah, never mind. I take it back. He's been really good. That was just quite the 180. I don't know. For whatever reason, that three point game, I think, was sticking in, like, sticking in the front of my brain, but I ignored all the other ones.

Sticking in your craw. Maybe I just don't want to admit that he's good at fantasy or something. Sticking in your craw. You know, if you ever used craw on like a different set, like, other than stick in your crawl, it would be really weird. I don't even know what a cry is. There's one phrase where you can use craw on that's it. Anyway.

Okay. next award. All right. Next up. The Mitchell Trubisky Just Don't Watch Him Play Award this week goes to Cam Newton.

Also could go to Taysam Hill, but Taysam Hill didn't score very many fantasy points. And Cam Newton did, weirdly enough. This is actually similar to the Hunter Henry thing. I wonder how many people actually started Cam Newton. If you started Cam Newton in the fantasy playoffs, like send me a screenshot of that because that's ballsy. That's ballsy as hell.

He had 15 rushes to 71 yards and a touch it on the ground. 18 of 38 passing. 18 of 38, 156 yards, touchdown, pick. The Panthers offense is disgusting, frankly. And yeah, I don't know. If you started Caminoon. I'm like the kicker getting hurt before the game.

Oh my God. Yeah. Didn't they have like a receiver or something kicking off? They had, I don't even know who was kicking off. They had PJ Walker, who was the backup quarterback. They had all they had like basically tryouts. Yeah. like an hour before the game.

And like some of the things were hilarious. Also, did you see all the memes of Urban Meyer? No. Like as if he kicks in Gonzalez and it was like, make a kick, shit. Yeah.

That's tough. That's tough. It's tough. It's tough year for the Panthers. Real tough. And Tassam Hill, if you watch them in a football, that's why you don't watch them play.

My God. The Saints offense, I mean, obviously the Bucks offense was worse, but not much. I mean, you could make the argument, the buck's offense was better, even though they scored zero points.

I think that that's true. I actually think that that's 100% true, as crazy as it is to say. Oh, man, I started Taysam Hill in a couple of fantasy leagues this week, and it's just like brutal because, like, I think I said this last week. There was definitely some variance with Tassam Hill where, like you said, two games ago, he hit this, you know, touchdown with like the two minute, the two-minute mark where Deonté Harris zigged and zagged across the field, like 95 yards. to score a touchdown.

75, but he ran, probably, like 140 yards. And then, you know, obviously he had the garbage time rushing touchdown, like breakaway rushing touchdown. And I'm like, I'm a little bit nervous that this is going to, you know,

the bottom's going to fall out and the bottom did fall out. I think, in fact, I saw Mike Clay pointed this out. This is the first game that he hadn't had two touchdowns in any of his starts. So, it's brutal. It's tough. Brutal out here.

Okay. Weird flag. but okay. I think we should rename this the Duke Johnson Award. Okay. There was no weirder flex than Duke Johnson that worked out that paid off handsomely.

Oh, man. Well, we were texting about the whole Duke Johnson debacle during the game and we're like, man, did we miss something here? Like should we have been suggesting people to start Duke Johnson? But it's like, this is such a unique situation because a lot of the times coaches

will just give the job back to the start of the guy who's been getting a lot of the work. But we just don't have a lot of press. when it comes to guys missing time with COVID, where not only are you missing practice, but potentially you're really, really out of shape or, you know, like, you're not going to be conditioned because you've had a disease that affects the lungs. You know what I mean? And so it's like one of these things where we just, you know, I want to, I want to look back on the process and be like, we should have known Duke Johnson was going to go off. But like, I don't know if we should have,

you know, because it's just like, how do you, how do you guess this kind of thing? I mean, I I don't work for the CDC. I don't. I, yeah, I, I, I, I, I constantly go back and forth between, I cannot believe we didn't tell everyone to just bench Miles Gaskin. But even then, I don't know if we would have said to play Duke Johnson, to be honest with you. Well, I think we weren't like super high on Miles Gaskin, but we definitely weren't like, you've got to play Duke Johnson this week. And then, but like in retrospect now, you're like, why would we ever think that they were going to give a lot of volume to Miles Gaskin? Well, D.K. experience is what you get just after you need it, isn't it?

It is. All right. This was just a weird week. I think the whole week just gets Not Mad, just disappointed, like the Data Award. It's like the Data Award just goes to Week 15. I'm not mad at week 15.

I'm just disappointed. Not mad that this. Deke has 23 points in one of his leagues. That is actually, it's like true. It's like, I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. This is the Not Mad I'm Impressed Award. Not Mad.

You ate a whole wheel of cheese? Christian Will. Caulkins caught a touchdown even though he's a defensive lineman? I'm not even mad. Devonte Freeman at three points for the Ravens, even though they scored 30. I don't know. Your second, your 10 and 4 team scored 23 points. I'm not even mad.

I'm impressed. That is impressive. Okay. With all this said, DK. We've a big job right now. Okay. It's time for the burn book. All right.

We are like an unprecedented run with the burn book. Last week we burned Urban Meyer. Right before he got fired. Right before he got fired, which followed up again, we burned O'Dell right before he got, like, well, cut, whatever, it was weird. This is a very important burn book. Who do you have in mind? I think there's a couple candidates. Yeah.

You can throw out Jerry Judy, who had zero, literally zero catches today. I'm ready to do it. However, emotionally speaking, I feel like it has to be Chase Claypool. Yeah, it does. Like Chase Claypool, even though he is better than Jerry. Judy right now fantasy wise and has been more consistent and like Jerry Judy just is not playable honestly if Jerry Judy weren't like a cool cool guy with a cool name and like highly drafted in fantasy in real life probably wouldn't even be rosterable right he's like

he's like it's like eight points a game yeah however Claypool with like the thing that happened last week with the celebration like that get mad at his own lineman yeah I I'm down to Can we put both in? I mean, we're running out of time here. I'm not starting Jerry Judy the rest of the season. Like, I'm out. I think should we do second year? What about just the second year breakout receivers?

Just burn all the second year breakout receivers. Chase Judy and like in our lives that we're very disappointed about. Yeah. I'm trying to think of more guys. Oh, I got it. The alliteration. No, that's it. It's the second year breakup candidates with alliteration.

So Jerry, Judy, JJ, and Chase Claypool. I was trying to think of other ones that might fit into this category. Like Brandon and I, you think had like one catch today or two catches. But he's not going in the book because he's been pretty good. But like... No, he's good. It's disappointing.

It's the alliterative second year break-air candidates. It's Claypool and it's Claypool and it's Judy. Yeah. Now, for an equally important thing, it's the unburned. The Calisi. The guys we would take the Calicysys, the unburned candidates.

We burned. We burned. Patrick Mahomes. I kind of look back and regret this a little bit. At the time, it made a lot of sense, but it's Patrick Mahler. At the time, he was like the, he was barely in the top 20 and literally had been outplayed by

Ben Rathesberger. And I get it. Ooh, you had a good week ago. But I'm just saying, should we unburn Patrick Mooms, or is this how they get you? That is, so in my mind, look, there's a lot of reasons to do the burn book, right? Like, for me

personally, I know it's a little bit different for you guys For me personally, it's like, save me from myself. We're putting this guy in the burn book. So I know that I'm not going to start him ever again. I don't really feel that strongly about Patrick Mahomes. Like, I'm willing to start Patrick Mahom's. I know I'm going out of a huge limb there. Wow.

Yeah. You're brave. You're brave. But like in the context of where we were a couple weeks ago, he had had one good game in like seven weeks. But to me, it's still Patrick Mahomes. and, you know, I'm just going to bet on that talent. I'm going to bet on him. And also, their offense does seem to be, like, catching fire and going into the right, you know, going into playoffs.

I am willing to unburn Patrick Brahms. We can, we can perform the ritual. But I do, people were asking about whether we should reburn Miles Gaskin. Yeah. Did we take them out? We burn, unburn, reburn. It's like, it's like, it's like, take it out of the freezer. You put in the fridge.

I don't know. Just eventually it doesn't work. Like, you free, free, free, freeze. it again. But I think, you know, since, you know, in light of like the global pandemic and that he literally had COVID, I don't, I think that's not fair. I think we can leave. That's important context here. Unburned.

Our burn, our burn book is still pretty good. I think we got one email saying we should probably take Kyle out, Kyle Shanahan. It's probably true. It's probably true. No, no, no, no. He's got, so look, look, the 49ers have actually some pretty big time fantasy guys now. No, no, no, we're burning Kyle Shannon.

I'm going to leave him in there, but I'm just saying we should have, we should probably like discuss. it, acknowledge it. No. I, with Craig gone, I have veto power

and I just absolutely veto. Kyle Shannon's thing in the book. Mike Davis, Alan Robinson, no regrets. Robbie Anderson actually came back

from the dead today, but he's still burned. Julio Jones, literally zero catches. Yeah, he heard his hamstring again. And the left of the hamstring injury. Can we put him again?

Can we put him deeper into the burn book? Like the eighth level of hell or whatever? I don't know. And then Quarlin Sutton. We should have burned Quillin Sutton and Judy at the same time. That was really the mistake. It's burn the Broncos. Receivers. Save the running backs.

Okay. Prop bets. We actually did all right this week, D.K. The second we strayed from props, you did all right. You won your two. We could even make three bets each. There weren't even enough bets on them. High Fitz, I would like to thank you for sticking with me on the Carson Wentz. Under bet is under 225 yards.

He passed for 57 or something like that. I think I got that one. And then my Texans Jags over did hit. our teaser for the Texans and Jags did not hit because the Jags lost, unfortunately. But I'm just pretty happy that Carson Wentz had 57 points. Or, sorry, 57 passing yards. I have no words. I think the more I watch the season, the less I know about football.

Well, it's like the Billy Madison thing. It's like, I award you, everyone in this room is having stupid or for having seen it. Everyone in this room is dumber for having seen this week. I don't know. I award you no points. May God have mercy in all of your fantasy teams. Dek, I think that's all we got. Better luck next week.

Obviously, you know, we're coming to you a little bit before several games happened. So I'm hoping these last couple of games, Monday night, Sunday or Tuesday night, will sort of reverse the trend that we saw today. Of what games are being played? No, I mean, just like fantasy points galore, hopefully. Oh, no, it was a joke. Like, I hope they get played. Oh, yeah, that too. God.

Obviously that. So we will ask a programming note, we will be coming to you with waivers at our usual time. A little sticky because there are going to be like, you know, games to be played after that. We're going to do our best to get you guys waivers.

We're not going to have a Friday show because of, you know, Christmas and stuff. But if there are any huge moves for waivers after we post our waivers episode in the four games on Monday and Tuesday combined, follow DK and I on Twitter, our Twitter bios will be in the episode

description for this episode and follow us and we'll make sure to like post any updated list of like what our showdown time stuff would be and how we rank certain guys but otherwise we're going to have a regular show Monday and then we're not going to have our Friday for Christmas. So have a happy holidays. Yeah. And again, just

man, may God have mercy on all of ourselves. D.K. I really hope you break 30 this week. I do have a couple guys left so I'm really hoping that haven't. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Mike Wargon, for producing this episode. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Wax Taylor.

I don't know who that is. Am I supposed to? No. That's the problem now. Probably not. I never know if I'm supposed to know the person. No, I don't think, I mean, I don't think you need to, like, pretend to know anything. It's Taylor like you're tailoring a suit.

Oh, oh, wow. What a hat this guy's wearing. Yeah. I think you might like it. There's some good stuff. I mean, is this country? I mean, it looks like a country. No, it's not country.

It's, I don't even know what you'd call it. I don't know the, I don't know, genres very well. Like, I don't know how to define genres. It's hip hop-y. Hip-hoppy. This guy's a hip-hop artist. Yeah, maybe you don't know. No, I don't know. Again, I'm terrible at the genres. You're right. I should have put you on the spot like that. Maybe that's your, you're too cryptidates, doing math on the spot and doing genres on the spot. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you, Wax Taylor.