The Ringer NFL Show - Fantasy Court With Bill Simmons l The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

We run through Aaron Rodgers’s career day (1:30); injuries to Patrick Mahomes, Matt Ryan, and Drew Brees; and which quarterbacks are good streaming candidates for Week 8 (9:00). Then Bill Simmons joins the show for a new segment called Fantasy Court (30:30). Hosts: Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz, and Craig Horlbeck Guest: Bill Simmons Submit your Fantasy Court questions to the Ringer NFL Show Facebook page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's very special episode of the Dantasy Football podcast on The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by State Farm. When you need a game plan for protection, State Farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person, over text, or through the State Farm app. So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. State Farm. Talk to an agent today. The Danesie Football Podcast on the Ringer NFL show. on the Rigger Podcast Network.

My name is Danny Hyfitz, and I am joined as always by my co-host and my co-danny, the hero we need and the analyst we deserve, the Dark Knight himself. Danny Kelly. How are you doing, DeKin? I'm doing excellent, man.

How are you doing? I'm jazzed. We got an awesome show today. Were you with Craig? Cagorio? What is on your mind, Craig? Another second place finished for me in the streamers of the week

in the pool thing we do, so that's not great. If you first or last. I'm just going to be. It's going to be silver all year. I'm going to have more points than one of you, but still get last. So, feeling good. That's beautiful. All right. Let's dive into the show. We've got a big episode today. We are introducing a new segment fantasy court. And we are starting it off with Bill Simmons litigating.

He's got a burning question for us to solve. But first, let's get into the what's of the week. D.K., what made you go what this week? Aaron Rogers posting one of his best games ever. It was the second best fantasy day of his career 43.8 fantasy points. He had 429 passing yards, five passing touchdowns. He added a rushing touchdown, which came actually after he threw a passing

touchdown that got called back. So bonus little two points there for the rushing touchdown. Career high in yards per attempt, he just looked completely in control in that game. And he did it all without Devante Adams. He was passing to guys like Marcus Valde Scantling,

Jimmy Graham, Jake Kumero, Alan Lazard, The Zard dog. Geronimo Allison. I mean, it was just, it kind of came, I mean, it just kind of came out of nowhere. He obviously been having some up and down performances over the last two seasons,

and it just looked like vintage Rogers. So that was really fun to watch. The stat line was so throwback Rogers because there were eight Packers to caught a pass. All of them had at least two catches. Nobody had more than four, and then all five touchdowns went to five different players, and six receivers had a catch longer than 20 yards.

There were some actually very impressive touchdowns in that game. Like Cumeros touchdown, he basically, you know, tightrope walked down the sideline, dove into the end zone. There were some really impressive catches in that game. Valdez Scantling, who's like quickly becoming one of the most frustrating fantasy players of 2019. It's just like you have no idea what to do with that guy. I mean, look, he just catches deep passes. Look, Geronimo Allison did not practice last week. Valdez Scantling did not practice.

He was limited on Friday. That was it. So combined they had one kind of practice. And they still played super well. So I think that overall, like, they just dominated them. And the Raiders traded away cornerback Gary and Conley because they got burned so badly. So tough for them. Now, Roger's being good, not news.

Kirk Cousins being amazing. News. News. Cousins' last three games has been amazing. I mean, he's been a revelation. 75% completions, 976 yards, 10 touchdowns, one pick, 10.8 yards per attempt, 142.6 pass rating. Now, granted, it's come against the gym. Giants who can't stop anyone, the Eagles who have probably the worst secondary in the NFL,

and then a good Detroit defense. However, I just, I'm more, I think it was just more of like, it was a perfect opportunity for Vikings to get right on offense. They finally listened to their superstar receivers who wanted the ball more and, you know, feeding them the rock, getting more into the play action game, has really transformed that offense. And it's almost, it looks like an offense that can continue to do that even against better defense. as we saw this week.

I think Detroit's defense is pretty solid. So I think it was an impressive, impressive game from Cousins, that offense overall. And Cousins gets a really bad Redskins defense this week, so he could continue to light things up this week. So that was a bit of a surprise, I guess. Yeah, and the Viking seems on Thursday. And speaking of feeling, he did hurt his hamstring in that game. He had a touchdown catch. He's unlikely to play Thursday.

That's probably just because of the quick turnaround. Probably not going to miss super much more time than just the Thursday game. But something to keep an eye on. but still, amazing game for good old Kirk. Kurt, whatever you want to call him. But not good news for everyone. Usually this is Next Man Up and we span all positions for injuries here. And what a quarterback late in a week.

It's already been like so many injuries to quarterbacks this year. And this week was the worst one since week two. Patrick Mahomes on Thursday night dislocates his knee against the Denver Broncos. Obviously, any time there's a dislocated knee, there's a fear could be a season-ending injury. reports have said that he's only going to be out for a few weeks. Do you guys remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard this? I was legitimately shook.

I was shook when I haven't. It was like shocking. I felt sick to my stomach. I was like, oh, my God. An NFL without Patrick Mahomes is not a reality I really want to live in. And so it's nice that it's probably only going to be a few more weeks. Obviously, he's not going to be out for the whole season, according to all reports. So that's huge.

But, yeah, man, that's. was a brutal, brutal turn of events. Came on a quarterback sneak, which I've never seen a quarterback get hurt that bad on a quarterback sneak. I don't know. This injury, obviously, it could have been worse because there's obviously a threat of it being season ending if it's a dislocated decap. But the timeline they've given is three weeks.

That is really optimistic because that would put them on pace to return for Monday night football on November 18th. That would be four weeks from now. But that's against the chargers at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. That's the same field that was in such a football. horrible condition last year. They moved the game to Los Angeles. So there's no chance to bringing Patrick Mahomes back if he is even 98% healthy to play on the worst field possible. So the reality is they're not going to bring him back on that. The week after that is Kansas

City's by. So he's really probably not going to come back until week 13 against the Raiders. That's December 1st. The Raiders were probably maybe his best game all year because that was the fourth touchdown quarter he had. So it's a three-week injury, but we're probably not seeing Mahomes. until week five. And then even that's kind of concerning because it's the Raiders and then in week 14, he's got the Braitors in week 13.

And then he's got the Bears in week 16. So that's fantasy playoff time. So Patriots in week 14, that's the beginning of the fantasy playoff. So you have a lot of tough matchups from my homes and he's only got like a month left of football. And it's going to be hard to sell any of the guys you have because everybody knows this information.

So if you have somebody like Tyree Kill who got really lucky with that one touchdown last week, I'm not sure you can be super optimistic about anybody really on the Chiefs offense. I'd be willing to, if someone is trying to plan ahead and trying to get Mahomes for the fantasy playoffs and not really if they play the Bears and the Patriots, I'd be willing to offload if not.

But he wasn't the only injury of this weekend on Sunday. Matt Ryan sacked in the fourth quarter, left the game of the sprained ankle. He was hobbling into the locker room. He was wearing a boot after the game. It seems likely he missed some time. Veteran Matt Schaub is the team's backup. Matt Schaub's still in the league.

Wow. It's unbelievable. He was like the backup for Michael Vick. and like Madden like 12 years ago. It's incredible. It's just still there in Atlanta. And then Drew Breeze. So Drew Breeze, obviously he got hurt in week two.

He's practicing again after tearing a ligament and his thumb against the Rams in week two. Could play this week against the Cardinals. It's unclear. The Saints are kind of leaving the door open to him not. The reality is the Saints are 5'0 with Teddy Bridgewater playing. They're so much more talented than Arizona. They have a by the week after the Cardinals. It makes a lot more sense to let Breeze start practicing,

but give him the whole buy to return and then bring them back against the Falcons in week 10, especially since the Falcons have the worst pass rush in all of football. If they don't get a sack this week, the Falcons will be the first team ever in the NFL to not have a sack for five games in a row since they started keeping track of stacks in 1981.

So probably a good team to bring Drew Breez back against. Jeez, yeah. But the cumulative effect of all that, you have Matt Ryan, Patrick Mahomes, probably Drew Breeze not playing this week. you also have Dak Prescott and Lamar Jackson on buy. That's four of the top six quarterbacks not playing this week. Yeah.

So let's quickly discuss Dicke. Let's run through some streaming options for people trying to replace those guys. Yeah, so I wrote about this in my fantasy column up at the ringer.com. Go ahead and check that out for a little bit more in-depth breakdown of everything. My two top guys, if you're looking for a short-term fix this week, especially if you're out, you know, if you're missing Ryan, Jackson, or Prescott. this week. Two guys on the top of this. Matt Stafford, he's 58% on

on Yahoo. Going up against the Giants' defense, who I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop pitching to you on this. They're just terrible. They've given up tons and tons of fantasy. I like that bit. Okay, fine.

We'll keep it going. Danny, tell me about the Giants defense. What Giants defense? Thank you. Stafford is quarterback 8 in points for game. They've opened up their passing offense a ton. We saw him, I think he had four touchdowns. Yeah, four touchdowns because Marvin Jones had four touchdowns last week, last Sunday, against a good Vikings defense.

He's just been really good this year. I think he's an excellent streaming option, especially because that matchup. The other guy I really like on the other side of it, Kurt Cousins, 64% on it. That's a stretch call on a streamer, but if he is out on your waivers right now, I think he's definitely worth an ad. Going up against a Washington defense that's been really bad this year, it's that revenge game narrative, going up against his old team. It's on Thursday at home. So hopefully, you know, a big game for Kurt there against his old team. You get a little bit of revenge on them.

He's been throwing it really, really well lately. So those are the two top guys. There's a couple other streamers potentially this week that could make some sense. Just talked about it. Bridgewater. Going up against the Cardinals, Cardinals can't stop anybody. Bridgewater, you know, he's not done a lot like in terms of passing down the field. He's been very efficient game manager.

And you can definitely do worse in, you know, for streaming options. going forward, if you're looking for a longer-term guy, like if you're looking for a rest of season replacement, I think Sam Darnold is my favorite potential waiver wire ad this week. I'm saying this before Monday night football when he goes up against a very, very good New England Patriots defense. So, you know, hopefully that doesn't come to bite me back too hard. But Darnold played really well last week.

You know, obviously he changes the whole dynamic of that Jets offense. Got a tough Jaguars defense next week, but past that, he has probably the lightest schedule of any quarterback in the NFL. He gets Miami, the Giants, Danny, tell us about the Giants defense. What Giants defense, D.K.? He gets Washington after that, Oakland, and Miami again. So they have an absolute cake schedule from like week nine through week 14, I believe it is, week 15. So I think he's a really, you know, he's like an outside shot of being a quarterback one for the rest of the season just based on a really, really light schedule.

Okay, so I actually have to pick up All four of these guys are open in one of my leagues I have Dak Prescott who was on by I need both of your advice, who am I starting? I'd roll Stafford against the Giants because Kerryon Johnson, the lines running back got hurt in this last game. We're not 100% sure if he's going to play or not. He injured his knee in the first quarter, he didn't come back.

Also, no Thielen. And it's Thursday night is weird sometimes. Thursday night is ultimately just... That's the most telling stat of all. Thursday night is weird, which is true. I like Staffordy. The Giants, look, the Giants have the slowest secondary in the league and they don't have a good pass rush.

it's not that complicated. Like, that's the fundamental reason that they're getting burned every week. The lines are really talented. Like, Kenny Goladay had like, one catch for 21 yards or something this week. Kenny Goladay is going to, there's no one on the Giants that can cover Kenny Galdi.

No offense to Genoers-Jankins. I like staff. Seems offensive, though. The other person who's want to throw out there, this is a dart and a half. But Matt Moore, who's just taking over the Chief's offense, don't want to ignore that, I mean, he doesn't have to be Patrick Mahomes.

Like, that is the most capable yards after the catch, pass-catching group in the whole league. I mean, you've got Tyree Cale, Travis Kelsey, DeMarcus Robinson, LaShawn McCoy, Damien Williams, if he ever sees the field. Like, there's a bunch of guys who can take – it wouldn't be shocking if Matt Moore three touchdowns in this game. So if you need to scrape the bottom of the barrel, you can do a lot worse than just taking over the league's best offense. Yeah.

All right, let's just quickly touching on another – one other injury that affected – this isn't just quarterbacks. But Will Fuller has now just been unbelievable for stretches of three seasons and then miss time. This is actually the fourth year in a row. Fuller introduced hamstring first quarter against the Colts. did not return. He's expected him as several weeks. He has 34 catches

for 450 yards this year with three touchdowns. 217 of those yards and all three of those touchdowns were against the Falcons when he was started

by I believe less than 15% of people. Wow. Fuller's got to be the most frustrating player in fantasy full stop. He replaced Deshawn Jackson.

He's like a more concentrated to Sean Jackson because he has stretches where we'll just have a touch done every game for a month, and then he'll miss a month, come back and do it, and then he's off the season. So I do think there is an action item

for this injury, and that is to go and add Kenny Stills, who took over, basically took over Fuller's role in the team's offense after Fuller went out. I think Fuller went out on the first series. Stills ended up having, he got four out of five targets for 105 yards. He's actually

had a pretty good chemistry with Hopkins. I think he's a good player. He's only owned in 12% of fantasy league, so he to me is one of the top waiver ades this week just based on his role in that offense.

I think it's a good offense, a good quarterback. I think he's going to have some production. Our next guy who went down this week is Carrie on Johnson of the Lions. We mentioned him a little bit. Went down with a knee injury. The action item for this is to add

Ty Johnson. He's literally 1% owned, so I think you can get him unless you're in the most insane league of all time. And then the only other guy in the line you really have to worry about maybe is J.D. McKissick,

who's more of like a receiving guy. Yeah, five carries for 29 yards. I'd probably go Ty Johnson against the Giants defense. Maybe. Maybe like a loose flex start if you needed it. I mean, you have to see kind of what happens. Johnson actually came back. So Carillon came back.

He was riding a stationary bike. He came back to the sideline with a knee brace on before he was being, before he was declared out. So it's a little unclear, you know, exactly how much time he's going to miss. But I think we can probably assume that it's going to affect this week. Ty Johnson's actually a really explosive runner. He's got some juice. If you're desperate at the running back position, I think he's actually a must add.

So just to see how it all goes. All right, we're going to get into some deceiving yards. Guys, you're not supposed to worry about sleeper streams of the week and then a very, very special introduction to fantasy court. But first, let's take a quick break to talk about the holidays. It might seem crazy early, but that time of year is creeping up. And you don't want to go through another holiday season taking closed-mouth photos while everyone else is grinning ear-to-ear, do you?

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And while we're here, this week's Thursday- Tonight matchup should be very entertaining. Maybe I'll have you guys over, watch this game? Hey, Google, add chips and salsa to my shopping list. All right, I added chips and salsa. Thanks, Google. The Google assistant is ready to help you get more done with just your voice. In the car, at home, and everywhere you take your phone. A little help, hands free.

Just say, hey, Google, to get started. All right, let's get into some deceiving yards. Who is fools gold and who is not? I mean, the biggest one of all. Chase Edmonds on the Cardinals. 27 carries, 126 rushing yards. three touchdowns, 35 PPR fantasy points, the third highest of any player on the day.

Hell yes, by the way. Oh, yeah, I forgot you picked him last week. This is dumb luck. Okay, so David Johnson was listed as an emergency option in this game. Yeah, so here's the thing. David Johnson was listed as active, was going to play, started the game. I believe he played the first three snaps,

and then he left. And then Cardinals coach Cliff Kingsbury said after the game that basically that was the plan. But Bill Barnwell at ESPN kind of alluded that, it's more likely that what happened was David Johnson tested himself in free game warmups and said, I can go. And then like in the first three snaps was like, that was a mistake. Like, I'm not game ready.

And they switched it out. And they're acting like it was a plan. And in reality, that kind of probably happened very early in the game. But whatever the reason, Chase Edmonds took over and was amazing, this one, this one blew my mind. This was almost my one of the week. Chase Edmonds, all three of his touchdowns were from 20 yards out or more, which is tied for David Johnson's career number of 20-plus rushing-yard touchdowns. Kind of crazy.

I wouldn't have expected that. That blew my mind. Football's a weird sport. Are you deceived? Well, yeah, I feel, well, D-K-1, so I feel very deceived. Also, Chase Edmonds has 5.6 yards per carry, which is tied with Sequin and Matt Breda for third in the NFL behind Lamar Jackson and Duke Johnson. Here's the thing. I'm not deceived.

I think he's legitimately a good player. Now, you're going to have to deal with the fact that the Cardinals, at the very least, are going to have a committee approach if David Johnson comes back. However, I think the way that they've been running lately, they've been actually really good running the football of late. They've done this thing where, you know,

it's actually really logical. Spread the field to run the ball. You get fewer defenders in the box. In fact, first sharp football is Dan Pizzuta. Chase Edmonds had 27 carries and not one of them was into a box, you know, defensive box of eight men or more.

Which is unheard of. I mean, it's like usually, That's like the bizarre Lennard Fornett Award. Exactly. So what they're doing is they run some four wide receiver sets. They've shifted to more three receiver sets of late. But basically they spread the field out. It just makes defenses defend more of the field.

And then they run the ball really well. So I think he's for real. I think he's a good player. I don't think, obviously, he's not going to score 30 plus points like he did this week every week. However, I think he is going to be more involved with the game plan. If you already grabbed him, congrats because I think he's going to be a flex option going forward. And if he's still out there, I think you should definitely go grab him.

I mean, obviously don't expect 35 points in three touchdowns from out more than 20 yards every week. But I think that David Johnson, I mean, he's only 27, but he's suffered a few injuries. And they have him on a contract long enough that they want to keep him healthy. And he's got this ankle injury. He's also been dealing with the back injury. And at a certain point, he's probably not,

might just not be an 80% of snaps guy like he's been when healthy and that this might just be, look, you know, it makes more sense to spell David Johnson, you know, 40% of snaps and give Chase Edmonds like a pretty good workload. So he's not going to be as good as this. They worked out a couple of running backs today.

I think J.J.J.I.E. and Spencer Ware, I saw that they worked out both of those guys. Uninspiring. Those are uninspiring options. Tell me why J. J.J.I. is not on a football team. I don't get it. I mean, the reality is he like other running backs just has knee issue. that, I mean, as a general rule, when a big-name guy just isn't employed for a long time, it was always worth looking at their injury history to see what teams are seeing.

And I think J-H-Jai had an injury that many teams have just not signed him for. Craig, let me ask you this. Which teams desperately need a running back? Like, Tampa Bay, maybe. No one desperately needs a running back. J-H-Hs 26. Like, I just don't know what, I just don't understand. I don't get it.

Yeah, but I think it's a good assumption, instead of assuming that teams are dumb, it's more looking at what information do they know that we do not. Yeah, I mean, I understand that, but two years ago, he had 1,200 yards and eight touchdowns. I just don't know what, he should be on a roster. That's all I'm saying. I really just feel like there is, there's too many good running backs in the NFL for guys like that with that injury history that it just makes them irrelevant. I think there's like, there are no teams that desperately need a running back right now. There are teams that desperately need quarterbacks.

And the only team that thought ahead this offseason was the Tennessee Titans who traded for Ryan Tannihill, even though they had Marcus Mariotto. What a amazing thought to go get a good backup quarterback. Tannahill took over for Marioo this week. That's a starter. Titans, I mean, Marito was benched last week, midgame. Titans' offense, move the ball. Tanhill went 23 of 29, 312 yards, two touchdowns with a pick.

19 fantasy points. He's decisive. He was aggressive. They were using a lot of play action. Corey Davis is alive. Unbelievable. Hell yeah. Corey Davis had six catches for 80 yards

and a score. A.J. Brown had six catches for 64 yards. They might be rosterable and maybe even playable again. So, D.K., how do you feel about Tana Hill, Corey Davis, and AJ Brown as Titans' offense? Is this real, like, a one-week thing against, look, playing the Chargers and that was really, you know, deplorable Chargers team?

Or do you like the Titans' offense way better than you did a couple weeks ago? I mean, I like it more than I used to, and that's really not saying a lot. However, I do think that this week against the box, soft pass defense. I think it is an interesting... He's another streamer. I don't know if we talked about him earlier,

but he's another interesting streamer just based on that matchup. I think they have some talent in their past catching core. They get a soft Kansas City defense again in week 10 too, so they've got the Bucks this week. Carolina, that's a tough one.

I probably wouldn't start Taniel in that game, but then in week 10 against Kansas City. So there's a couple options there for streaming too. So I really like this for Corey Davis and A.J. Brown, though. I mean, if you watch the game, Tannenhill was, he was just getting rid of the ball a lot quicker, a lot more decisively, like he said. It just, the offense seemed to work a lot better, and they made it a point to get the ball to Davis and Brown.

That's their two biggest playmakers. So, yeah, I just, I mean, it's one game, and, you know, I don't have a ton of faith in Tana Hill necessarily maintaining it at a high level, but I do think that their offense just got a little bit better. Mariotta was just not playing well at all. Speaking of one game, Alex Erickson receiver for the Bengals These are for all the people who are too busy and have real lives on Sunday to watch football all day

like we do and they check the box score and they see that Alex Erickson had 14 targets and 137 yards Alex Erickson sounds like some Instagram influencer I've never heard of and suddenly they're getting lunch with Kim Kardashian and I'm like what? Okay, my only job here is to be like

specific don't he's deceiving all of us I saw a sad he was started in 0.2% of ESPN leagues He played minimal snaps in the last two weeks before this week pretty much. Even with John Rosconi played 22% of stats in week five. I don't know what's going on. The Bengals are weird. Tyler Boyd still had 14 targets this week, but just dropped a bunch of balls.

And Erickson had a couple drops as well. This guy should not be like a top three add to you, even though he may have one of the better stat lines of the week. At the end of the day, the Bengals might be worse than the Dolphins. And you probably just don't want a piece of the Bengals if you don't have to. That's my take, too, is if you have other options, just avoid the Bengals in general. We're worried about the Bengals. But there's guys we're not supposed to worry about.

People coming for people's jobs. You're supposed to not worry about it. And then boom. So all of a sudden, got to be worried. And maybe the biggest in the history of this segment. Kenny Goliday, one catch, 21 yards, Marvin Jones, four touchdowns this week. I don't give a F about this. This means nothing.

Look, Marvin Jones, 13 targets for 10. 10 catches, 93 yards, four touchdowns. First receiver in the Super Bowl era to have four touchdowns and less than 100 yards. And one of three receivers to have multiple four receiving touchdown games, Jerry Rice. Hall of Famers. Jerry Rice, Sterling Sharp, Marvin Jones, Jr. All multiple four touchdowns. I often think of Jerry Rice when I think of Marvin Jones Jr.

But, D.K., how do you feel about Marvin Jones going forward in Kennedy Gallaud? Obviously, this is nuts and random, but. I mean, yeah, like, I don't think it really. changes the outlook. I think Gulladay was both Jones and Goladay in a sense are kind of high variance, deep threats. And so you're going to have games like this where they

just don't click or where they do click, absolutely. I just, I don't think it necessarily changed anything for either of those guys. I mean, you, if you break down the targets this year, they're all, they're pretty similar. So targets, Galaidea had 47, Jones 42,

catches Jones 30, Goladay 25. Receiving yards. Jones, 3,000. 387, Goladay, 385. Touchdowns, Jones, five, Gulladay, four. So I think, I don't know, you can't really necessarily do anything about this. I think you just have to take it into account that sometimes Goladay or Jones are just going to have down days. Sometimes Kenny Goladay and Chase Edmonds combined for seven touchdowns and you take a gander and you move on.

Right. All right. Let's get it, sleeper streams of the week. this is a competition. So, you know, I took one on the chin. It's all right. I got a win. D.K's got the real win with Chase Edmonds.

Craig. Third among all players, I'd like to point out. Pretty good. 35 p.m. Pretty good job. Pretty good. Not bad. That's all right.

It's all right. Anyway, we're going to each pick a fantasy flex, a running back receiver at Tide End, who is owned in less than 40% of leagues on Yahoo and ESPN, and whoever among us has the guy with the most points is the winner. And I'm just really bummed about D.K. Just shredding us last week.

So at least the worst is behind us because we can't possibly lose worse than that. True. So D.K., who's your guy this week? So I'm going with the aforementioned Brown. A.J. Brown of the Titans, he's 17% owned on Yahoo. He had eight targets last week. Six catches 64 yards with Ryan Tannel at quarterback.

If you watch Brown play, it's really, really funny. He's seriously massive. He looks like LeBron trying to post up middle schoolers out on the outside against little corners. He's seriously beasts guys. Isn't it weird? He's only 6'1?

Doesn't make any sense. I don't like remember him looking that big even in college football. He's the guy next to D.K. Metcalf and all the photos of D.K. Meckin shirtless. They're both at Ole Miss, but everyone's like D.K. Metcalfe. Adrian's right next to him. Like 90% is shredded, but no one ever said anything about A.J. Brown?

For real. It's strange. It's like he got bigger, I think, in the NFL for some reason. I think that happens when you can work out all day for money. It's generally like how that goes. Sounds great. Anyhow, he's looked really good. I mean, when they get him the ball, he does good things.

I think they've made a concerted effort to get him more involved of late. And yeah, he's just been beasting. I think his trajectory is absolutely going up. So now it's time to go grab him. And this week he has a good matchup against the buck. So I'm going with him. Well, hopefully they won't be the number three scorer in fantasy this week. Craig, who's your guy this week?

DK, that was a bad pick. I'm going to do Kenny Stills. Wow. Kenny Stills is 13% owned. We talked about him a little bit. He's going to be out. Will Fuller's going to be out several weeks, hamstring injury. Kenny Stills has always passed the eye test to me, even when he was on Miami.

Every time I watched him play, he just looks good. And that's, I know, the most simple, non-sophisticated way to put it. But every time I watch him, I think he's good. He's playing Oakland this week, who just got shredded, or perhaps cremated, you could say, by Aaron Rogers. You win this word. That's aggressive. That was a cremation. It's aggressive but peaceful.

Isn't it? I don't like it. Moving on to another life. Kenny Stills is my pick. All right. I'm going with Geronimo Alasone of the Packers because, I don't know, sometimes things leap off the page.

He did not practice last week and still had four catches for 33 yards against Oakland. Rogers distributed the ball everywhere. He's going to practice this week, hopefully. And if he does, they're playing the Chiefs, whose cornerbacks are one of the few teams

as worse, if not worse, than Oakland. He didn't catch a touchdown, but it's like, Roger spreads the ball. Geronimo's still one of the most... The guys who has the best chemistry with Rogers so far, Rogers and Allison,

Rogers and Scantling. Allison seems to just... I test seemed to be a little healthy than the scantling. Yeah. The touchdowns and the Packers offense, they come around, they come and go,

they ebb and flow, and it's going to come back to Geronimo. Are you worried about Devonta Adams coming back? Have you considered that? No, because Geronimo's playing in the slot. And I think that,

I mean, the cheat... I mean, Kendall Fuller's a pretty good slot cornerback, but I'm really not. worried about the Chiefs defense shutting down the Packers this week. Dang, another bad pick from the Danny. All right. Craig.

Master of the bad pick right here. All right. And now it is time for our new segment. Yes. Fantasy court. Do you have a fantasy football dispute that needs litigation? Is there a question that only outside counsel can solve? Maybe a dilemma between owners and argument that can't be rectified?

Take it to fantasy court on the Ringer NFL show Facebook page. And our first case. is a landmark one. Calling the case of Bill Simmons versus the people. Yeah. It's a hypothetical case because it didn't actually happen.

But I realized they could happen. So I talked to Craig, who produces a little podcast called The Rewatchables, so we know each other a little bit. And I was like, if this had happened, what happens?

And now you can litigate it. You have a bug on your shoulder. Did you bring termites from the other building? Jesus. Oh, my God. So here's what happened. I mailed two different teams in my league, trade offers, trying to shot Baker Mayfield around during that last week before everybody realized that Baker Mayfield might be terrible.

So I'm dangling him around and I'm sending people trades. And then a few days passes. One of those trades was Baker Mayfield and Tariq Cohen for Jared Goff. This was before the catastrophic Jared Goff game. What was that game? Like 63 yards? Eight days ago. Yeah.

Everybody was like, everybody was like, oh my god. Jared. Yeah, Jared Goff might be out of the league. St. Donald had a longer pass than Jared Goff had in the whole game. I forgot to withdraw the trade. And on that Tuesday, the guy I sent the trade to could have just accepted it. Oh. So my question for the first, the first ever fantasy court question is, if he had accepted it, what's the ruling?

Because you could argue part of doing fantasy is remembering to switch guys when they're out of buy week, make sure you have enough people at every position. I should be aware that I have this trade out there that I forgot to withdraw. And if he accepted it, his case could have been, well, you never withdrew the trade. I thought it was still on the table. I took it. Yeah. So like if Jerry Goff tore his ACL in that game and then the guy accepts the trade. Is that okay?

The Supreme Court, I think it would get rejected. This sounds like you answered your own question. If there's an injury, I think it's open to clarification. But if he just has a terrible game, you left the trade open. So if he had accepted it, I lose Baker Mayfield for Jared Gough's corpse, basically. So it plays out. But then it works out where Jared Gough has the big comeback game, and maybe it would have been a good thing for me. So you just got to sit there on Sunday, and the second Jared Gough plays bad, you got to cancel that trade.

You can't leave trades open during football games. I agree. Because someone's going to get hurt and they're going to take you. Now, is that... Maybe that should be a rule, though, that the trade block gets shut down during Sunday. But here is, is that kind of underhanded? Yeah, but it's fantasy football.

Things go. Then you've got to bring it to your league and you're going to have to appeal to people's better senses. And that's murky. Danny Kelly. Yes. Do you think that they should have, like, a window in hours for the trade? So I send the trade to Jim Cunningham,

and it's like 36 hours. This expires after... It feels like CBS should add that to the trade. You shouldn't have to do math. You should just be able to do expires at week seven. I think a lot of trades have, like, it's like a week. It's open for a week. Yeah, they do.

It should be a shorter time period, I think. A week is way too long. I always think there should be one person who everyone anoints is just like, I mean, that's the commissioner, but just like, no matter what the rules say, like, you can still go to the commission. They're like, no, this is unfair. We're not allowing this. Look, we had that last year with the controversial Todd Gurley trade that nearly ripped my

league apart and led to thousands of emails and some of the most person. personal bitter insults I've ever seen an email ever, all because we didn't have a commissioner with omnipid in power. You need that. Fantasy court. And I think this is the relevant case law at the core of it is about vetoing. So how do you feel about league vetoes? First of all, do you believe in democracy? And then what is the threshold?

Do you need a quorum? Is it six out of ten unanimous? Or is it at the end of the day, the trust of the commissioner? You leave it up to the commish. I don't know, though, because then you get a dictatorship where if it helps his team, he'll let it go. You can leave a league, though. My thoughts in this is saluted. You have to leave.

You're not going to these guys. By that he is a similar to democracy. Ideally, you want a philosopher king, but in reality, it's pretty difficult to come up with that. So if you have a great commissioner, it's awesome. But at the same time, veto should be strictly for collusion. And I believe this girly thing was ultimately,

well, this person didn't get enough. But I subscribe to it, Matthew Barry always says, your job is to run your team. You can't tell other people how to run a job. Maybe you would have said, well, this guy's starting Chase Edmonds this week. David Johnson's playing. Like, he's an idiot.

it. And then he would have done great. Like, ultimately, it's up to you to run your team. What happens, though? The commissioner made the Todd Gurley trade. Yeah. That's the one who benefited from it. So what happens there? That's the monuments clause.

Yeah, that's a tough one. So we'll call this case the Baker-Mayfield trade case. Okay. And we all agree that it is the onus of the owner offering the trade to withdraw the trade. Yeah. Or he might get stuck with it. Unless there's an injury. hurt. I could

see an argument where that's then done in bad faith. You still shouldn't leave yourself vulnerable. But isn't that the best part of being in a fantasy league is fucking over your friends? I thought that was the whole reason we did this. So we could rub shit in their face and taunt them and that's not why we're doing this? Why are we doing this?

One time we had someone's little... Because not all was rude for the Patriots and we did winning in another form. One time we had someone's little brother log on to somebody's laptop and drop Demarius Thomas from their fantasy team. So now he was a free agent. So everyone was talking about what's the rule here? Do we allow him to re-ad Demarius Thomas because his little brother did it?

Or is he fair game? It depends where I am in the standings. I'm a big believer in the power of the commissioner and that the league needs to put their faith in the commissioner to make decisions like that. Because coming to a consensus on stuff like that is impossible. That's why we're here. But you need a strong chief executive. Yeah. But Fannie's the court.

Yeah. You need to check the strong Steve. I accidentally, I'm going to say this must have been mid-2000. I accidentally dropped one of my best players. It was one of those. Dropped one guy, but I dropped the name below the guy. Was this 20 years ago before the undroppable list? It might have been before we had the internet.

Via email. And real mail. Sent an email like, hey, can I have that guy back? And there were guys in really like, fuck that. You made a mistake on the computer. That's your fault. It's on you. I kind of agree with that.

What are you talking about? I did it on my BlackBerry from my AOL account. Well, speaking, while you're here, like, you talk about how you've been doing fantasy for like 30 years. And isn't it kind of not 30? We still do free agency and waivers, even though smartphones have been invested, and I feel like you were mailing in a free agent pick,

and now it's like Adam Schaefter tweets something, and you're like, oh, Carlos Hyde got traded. Someone picks up Nick Chubb, wins their league. Isn't that kind of outdated? I have a kind of a more stunning revelation than that. The first couple years I had my fantasy league, there were no free agent pickups. What?

Yeah. You just had who you had? There's no waivers? That was it. You could trade. You could make trades. I could trade you like John Elway for Brett Farv. But if Red Farve gets hurt.

Actually, Brett Farv wasn't even there. It would have been like John Elway for Warren Moon. And then we would just flip the stats for that week. But that was it. There were no, I don't remember free agent pickups. How would we have done it? Do we had no internet? How did you do anything before the internet?

I didn't even know if I won until Thursday. How did you meet up with your friends at a concert? if someone went to the bathroom. I don't know how you did anything before you. You don't understand. You'd be in college, and this is 30 years ago. My roommates would, you know, they'd be somewhere else, and we'd go to parties and be like, man, I hope I run into Jacket.

And then he would walk into the party. It was like legitimately excited. It was like, hey! There you are. That's what life was like in the late 80s. So if you think we had free agency, again, that's brutal. It wasn't happening.

Unbelievable. I feel very lucky to have straddled the gym. generations that in high school, we had no cell phones. And in college, cell phones were like invented. So I got both sides of that world. It was amazing. Like, I remember growing up, you have to call their house. You have to call people's house to see if they're around. Well, we also had, I mean, it was so much more politically incorrect back then. So the team names really push the envelope. And that would not have flown in 2019 society. It was a lot of stuff about people's moms. Oh, That still goes.

When I was in high school, we were still doing stuff like that. What's your favorite team name that you've heard that you can say on the air? So my initial team name was the banana hammocks. Because when I visited it was these guys, my two friends who went to Colgate, and I stayed over and I had underwear like the shorter underwear, not boxers. And they were like, why are you wearing it? It was like shorter than me, undies. And they were like, why are you wearing banana hammocks?

And I was like, what do you mean? I was the only child. I know what do you guys wear fish out of water and we're like we wear boxers what are you doing or tidy whitties or whatever so that was my team name

the banana hammocks what is it now it's been the double deuce for a long time yeah it was it was an old I had the suasy photo I was like my team was like the cooler would come in and cool

this is what 25 years ago now I'm just thinking about college and how all the things you learned about what you think is normal and you go to college, you're like, oh, wow. That's a weird thing that I do. Yeah, but you guys went to college, and one of the first ways to bond with everybody

was probably starting a fantasy football league, right? It's an easy way. You're in a freshman hall and you're like, hey, we should get a fantasy league, yeah, yeah. Especially because it's perfect timing because you show up in like either late August or the first week of September, so it's just like the first thing you can do.

And then the alpha of the friend group is the commissioner, and then he decides all the rules. Yeah. And he makes himself on nip-nip. My first, my freshman year, I hand wrote a magazine, about everybody on my hall that was called the Velvet Edge. Wait, what?

Yeah. And handwritten because I didn't even have a computer until 1991. What was the purpose of this? Yeah. It was just to make fun all my friends. Like pictures of people passed out. Yeah, it was called the Velvet Edge. It was great.

It was great. It probably has an age well. Why was it called the Velvet Edge? Because... Jim with the right questions. Well, long story. We got time. This is the late 80s.

Somebody had a porn movie called The Velvet Edge. There was 15 guys watching the Velvet Edge in somebody's room. And somebody walked by and was offended. And the RA in our hall was in there. And he ended up getting kicked out of being an RA and kicked off campus because he was in the room. So I was like naturally. Was this Holy Cross? Yes, Holy Cross.

Irish Catholic. Jesuits. What did the Jesuits think of 15 guys watching porn? They didn't like Velvet Edge. It was like we were watching it. It was more like, what the hell is that? Put that in and it was on. And the RA was in the room.

It was one of those. Yeah, it was bad timing. I was a serious question. Was this like a VHS or like what is the technology? Yeah, it was the 80s. VHS. You'd go to Blockbuster and get a VHS. Yeah, pretty much.

You'd rent movies. What a start to Fantasy Court. Yeah. Yeah. Off the rails. Thanks Bill for joining. So what's going to happen next week? People are going to suggest cases and you guys are going to litigate.

Yeah, we already have it on the ringer NFL show Facebook page. You've set the bar very high. Listen, that's what I do. That's what I do. Brought to you by the Velvet Edge. The case of the Velvet Edge of the Velvet Edge of the week three. We might as have to rename this segment, the Velvet Edge. What's got to the Velvet Edge?

Velvet Edge. Google search is going to spike this week. Yeah. I'm telling you it exists. I know for a fact. And that poor RA who had to leave campus. That was it. Guys, it was a pleasure.

Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you, Bill. Oh, my gosh. All right, let's end it on that note. If you have a question for Fantasy Court, if you have a case, the link to the Ringer NFL show Facebook feed is in the description to this podcast.

Join and ask your questions right there. Bill just set a high bar. Thank you to DK. Thank you to Craig. Thank you to Jim. Thank you, Bill. And thank you to everyone for listening. We'll see you guys this week.