The Ringer NFL Show - Fantasy Football Pain With Bill Simmons, Plus the Championship Start-Sit Index | The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: December 17, 2019

It’s championship week, and we offer up our top players to add off of waivers after going over a few significant Week 15 injuries (4:40). Then we highlight some key players who might be on your start-sit bubble this week and help you decide which way to lean (16:00). Finally, Bill Simmons joins the show to talk about his recent playoff loss, why fantasy is about pain and suffering, rule changes, and Bill’s playoff fantasy league (46:45). Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Dantasy Football podcast 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 is also brought to you by Dreamers.

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That is drinkworks.com. Use our promo code ringer NFL. R-I-N-G-R-N-FL at checkout. Greg, what's your drink of choice? Gin and tonic. Gin and tonic? You're moving a shaker. More like gin and tectonic.

There you go. What's your favorite? I'm actually at a crisis in my life. I feel like Martini are so far in the distance. They're like equally how far away college was in my past. I'm not even close ready for martinis.

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The Dynasty Football Podcast on the Ringer NFL show, on the Ringer podcast network. My name is Danny Hyfitson. I'm joined as always by my co-host and my co-danny, the hero we need and the analysts we deserve the Dark Knight himself. Danny Kelly! How are you doing, D.K.? Well, that intro just gets better every time. I'm doing really, really well, riding the high from a couple of victories and a couple losses this week also to balance it all out.

I'm doing well. How are you doing? I'm fantastic. We don't have many more of these left, man. I know. It's kind of crazy. This is nuts. The season is flown by. No, it's not flown by. It's exactly where it needs to be. It's not one week too soon and not one week too late. It's exactly Week 16 in my mind.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Craig? How are you doing? Craig? We had a big win, Ringer Fantasy League. It's championship week. Danny Hyvitz and I are in the championship against Sean you. Big week. Big week. A lot of prep going on here at the ringer. A lot of trash talk.

A lot of Venmo money going back and forth who's going to win. Who knows? It's nice when you Venmo Sean and then you get to just re-get the Venmo like 10 weeks later. Yeah. By the way, we need to get him to do the collections at the very beginning of the season for once. True. That is Commissioner 101. We just wait until the end and I kind of wish everyone could just Venmo us personally.

I would actually enjoy that more. I would like to get like nine or 11 separate Venmos. That would be better. Commissioner 101 is you don't draft unless you have all the money. Commissioner 101 is you don't make it 0.75 PPR when half vote for half and half vote for one point. This is a whole other bod. Like, it's a fucking anarchy. Like, what is this?

Did you even hear the story? That was a couple years ago. He got chick flight last time, so it's fine. Anyway, we're going to do a special championship round episode for everyone. We're going to run through who we like more. or less than some people kind of sit-start on the fence and we can't tell you all of our sit-start opinions because we don't know exactly who your alternatives are,

you're scoring, but we do know that there are certain people you might be on the fence about that we're either going to be high or low on for this week, so we're going to talk about those people. We're also going to look at, I mean, some key injuries, tough. Chris Godwin, Dalvin Cook. Yeah. Hamstrings in Tampa Bay. That's frustrating.

Also, Bruce Ariens is candidness about them because every time someone gets hurt, 31 coaches are like, Yeah, you know, we'll see the x-ray. And Bruce Aaron's like, doesn't look good. It's unbelievable. He's the only person who just says what's out of his mind. I respect that.

It's great. It's so refreshing. He's like, oh, that didn't look good at all. But first, before all of that, a public service announcement, if you take one thing from this podcast, it is not our advice. It is literally this. There are three games on Saturday. I repeat.

Set your lineups. There are three games on Saturday. It's anarchy. The NFL is trying to dominate. Like Saturday, like never before, because they want to take over your life. There's no Thursday in football. The Houston Texans are at Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Eastern. The Bills play the Patriots at 430 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.

And the Rams play the 49ers at 8.15 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. I don't know what the hell you people do on the weekends, but make sure you set your lineups because that would be like the most annoying possible way to lose is that someone is benched and you did not realize that there was a 1 p.m. Saturday lineup. decision you had to make. And obviously, waivers or whatever is influenced by that, too. So just make sure your lineups are set. And there's no Thursday game this week.

And there's no Thursday game this week. You're traveling. It's a holiday. Set your lineup at work on, like, Thursday night. There you go. Set and forget it. And if we do nothing else, the rest of this podcast, but you didn't know that, then I feel like we did our jobs.

Yes. And the rest is just gravy. So fantastic. Every season, I forget that there are Saturday games at the end of the season. I think it's stupid. Yeah. Well, I think it's just, it's just college football ends. And the NFL just kind of, like, expand.

Like, you know what I mean? Chia pet. Yeah. Wow. All right. Let's get into, I very briefly just did want to mention the insanity that could have dictated some semifinals of Kenyon Drake's. How many touchdowns do you have? 11?

Four. 14. The Eagles defense going from like, depending on your scoring setting, zero points. And then Dwayne Haskins like rolls the ball backward. And then they pick it up, get the sack, fumble and touchdown with no time of the clock. and then the Falcons score a touchdown to Austin Hooper that basically gets overturned on replay and then the touchdown goes to Julio Jones.

Did you guys think he caught that? Since we're the foremost Hooper experts in the world. I hate, as much as it pains me to say this, I think he caught it. I think he caught it. If Craig thinks he caught it, then he caught it. Everybody on the TV and the official guy

that was doing like the official review or whatever for the station was saying it hit the ground. To me, it looked like it landed on his foot. Well, either way, the ball can't hit the ground if you have possession of the ball. Yeah, he clearly had possession of it. It dragged. It came up, and then he lost possession of it again in the air,

and then got it in the air. The ground never jostled the ball loose in any way. Here's the point. If you won or lost your matchup because of Hooper or Julio Jones, or especially if both were involved, I think we would love to hear from you, whether it is Facebook or Twitter or whatever. Snapchat.

DMs? Sure, whatever. Yeah, I don't know. Bumble, Twitter, whatever. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Just whatever it is, I would like to hear of you, especially of Austin, Hooper, and Julio were involved.

But everything wasn't so fun on Sunday. Next man up. Unbelievable. One week after Mike Evans is out for the season. Chris Godwin for the Buccaneers goes down. Hamstring injury in the second half against the Lions. James Winston had like 300 or so yards, but it was kind of a downer.

And the second half asked about the severity of the injury. Bruce Arian said, quote, doesn't look good. So, D.K., what do you make of this Godwin situation? I mean, based on the fact that's what Arian said about Evans and then Evans was pretty quickly ruled out for the rest of the season. I would assume the same for Godwin. I mean, he was limping pretty heavily and the hamstring injuries are just always tough for receivers and guys who have to use explosive movements. Well, that's basically everyone on the football field. But yeah, it's just not looking good. I would assume that he's going to be out in week 16 at least. And that's really all that matters for the fantasy playoffs. So going forward, and this is a guy that we've talked about a couple of times on this podcast, Prasad Perriman becomes definitely startable in my mind as a flex option going forward. James Winston obviously proved that his hand was not an issue in this game. I mean, he threw for 400 plus yards.

He threw a ton of touchdowns. Perryman was on the receiving end of three of them, five catches, 113 yards, three touchdowns, 34 PPR points. And that was with Godwin in the lineup. with Scottie Miller in the lineup for a while in that game, and both of those guys are now out with hamstring injuries. So he is the de facto number one. I think they're going to feed him.

And I think that there's enough volume in this passing game to be pretty confident starting Perryman, even though on paper that it is like a risky start in the playoffs because it's Perryman. And, you know, he carries that sort of stigma of a former first-round bus. But he's the number one guy in this offense now. I think it also bumps O.J. Howard up a bit, too. And if you're really desperate, Justin Watson's another option.

I mean, I've only said nice things about Prasad Paraman. That's, you know, everyone knows my record on this. Craig was touting him a couple of weeks ago as like he was trending in the right direction. That was with Evans and Godwin in the lineup. And now both of those guys are gone. Yeah, I got to stop talking about potential injuries.

I hurt Chris Godwin and Mike Evans as soon as I said it. Yeah, you're blowing it. You're bad. Grim Reaper, if you call him the cooler for a reason. Bad juju. You even did it to Juju Smith-Juster, actually. Speaking of Juju Did I say he might get hurt?

Yeah, you said you were going to replace him for Steelers tryouts. We lied when you went on vacation and said you were doing Steelers tryouts and then Juju got hurt. Wow, sorry, Juj. We always just let people behind the curtain too. Craig did not actually audition for the Steelers. No, I was on vacation.

I went to Canada. Yeah. It's great. Real imaginative. All right, running back Dalvin Cook left the Vikings game. 3910 went over the charges. It was dominant.

But Cook left with the shoulder injury was quickly rolled out of the game. Still not a ton of details about how serious this is, but Mike Zimmer said in his press conference on Monday that the shoulder injury is something Dalvin Cook can play through and quote, it feels good today.

This just muddles it more because either he could play and, you know, Alex Madison, who's his primary backup is also banged up but could also maybe return. And then Mike Boone, your boy, D.K. Yes. I was so excited to see Mike Boone finally get to show what he can do. Yeah, Mike Boone had two touchdowns.

So now this is completely muddled because Madison was the backup. Madison's hurt. Dalvin Cook's hurt, but he could play. Mike Boone looked incredible and everything D.K. promised. So, D.K., what the hell do people do with the Vikings? We're recording this Monday afternoon. So news can break here. But as of Monday afternoon, what do you make of this situation?

Let's say, Dalvin Cook playing and Dalvin Cook not playing. Okay, so if Cook is out, then it gets very, very interesting. And I think in an ideal scenario, claim both Madison and Boone to see how it goes. If you can't do that, I would probably lean, Boone just because Madison was a did not participate. That was DNP all last week was ruled out on Friday. So there was like no chance he was going to play. So it kind of implies that his ankle injury is serious enough to keep him out this week as well,

which means Boone is the next man up. That's, again, that's a bit of an assumption because it's early in the week. We don't really know, but you have to make these decisions for your waivers early on in the week. They also play Monday night. Yeah, the other thing that's like a major bummer about this whole scenario is, it's a Monday night game, which means you have to set your, like if you're going to go with these guys,

it's a big gamble because everyone else is going to have. One of your other options might play on Saturday. You got to sit every, if you have any Viking, I think you have to just sit them. That sucks. Makes it very tough. It's kind of one of those like swing for the fences things.

Like if you, you know, it goes with your gut on this one. I think Mike Boone, if he does play, if he is the starter, has a chance to really go off. But at the same time,

it could just be cook. And so we don't really know. I would definitely claim either Madison or Boone. And if you can, both. I would lean Boone, but if you can get both of those guys. Definitely try to grab both if you can. Last one, Kyle Allen benched for Will Greer, the West Virginia third rounder for the Carolina Panthers.

Greer. I mean, he's not the most famous person in his family. All his siblings are like Instagram stars. So Craig, Instagram correspondent. Do you have any thoughts in Will Greer? I actually am familiar with his siblings. They'll make terrible, terrible content. Terrible content.

Awful content. Maybe you're just not the target demographic. There's a difference. I think I'm like five years too old now. Yeah. I don't even have TikTok. Who are you? Anyway, Will Greer is playing for the Panthers.

If you were relying on Kyle Allen or Will Greer at this point in the season, then I guess you are the owner of the Carolina Panthers. But for everyone else who's fantasy, whether it's DJ Moore, Curtis Samuel, to an extent, Christian McCaffrey, D.K., does this change anything for you for the other guys? it makes me a hell of a lot less confident in DJ Moore. I'll put it that way. I think Moore has already proven that he's pretty quarterback, like, proof or whatever,

just based on the fact that he's had such a good season with Kyle Allen at quarterback. But it's just another layer of uncertainty. Moore hasn't exactly been scoring touchdowns and bunches, so it kind of lowers his overall ceiling again. I, you know, if you have other options, go for it. I still, like, you know, if you're really needing on Moore all season, you probably don't have major other options to probably stick with him,

but I think it makes Curtis Samuel same difference. I'm just less confident in Curtis Samuel this week. Greer was actually pretty terrible in the preseason. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. He's had a whole season to kind of learn the offense and get some reps and things like that. But he was only 34 or 61 in the preseason, 55 percent, 3 to 85 yards,

average 6.3 yards per attempt, not great, two touchdowns, three picks, 65 pass a rating. So he was bad in the preseason. There's a reason he wasn't playing in front of Kyle Allen all season. And so this overall just lowers the potential ceiling, I think, of this offense overall. And, you know, the floor almost falls out potentially too. So it makes me a lot more worried about DJ Moore and Curtis Samuel.

I'm still starting more if I have him. Samuel, I'm probably looking for someone else at this point. And important number, important update, Hayes Greer is with. younger brothers 19 years old born June of 2000 5 and a half million followers on Instagram

That's so many more than I have That's It's like 5 and a half million more than you have Yeah just about 5.49 million more than I have Born June 2000 That's somehow way more interested in me than Wilger himself

All right let's get into the Dynasty Confidence Index Again This is not straight up Sit Start advice This is more we are identifying people who maybe, you might be 50-50 on. Sit-start is always contextual based on your lineup,

your alternatives, number one, and you're scoring. We can't tell you exactly what to do if we don't know your lineup. But here's some guys that we are, I mean, ourselves, like, going one way or the other, and what we think of them relative to, you know, maybe some expectations. So, Dika, who's someone that people might be on the fence on this week that you're either high or low on? So I'm just going to start out with Christian Kirk of the Cardinals.

He's been to me a tough sit-start decision for most of the season just based on he's always gotten a lot of volume and you want to chase volume. And then, you know, he had that huge game, three touchdowns. And it was like, all right, he finally arrived. And then it kind of went back to like, you know, the roller coaster ride. With him, I think I'm starting, Kirk. To me, you know, on my team, I just like this matchup going up against the Seahawks. the Seahawks are really banged up right now and that's kind of the biggest factor to me

number one he gets a lot of volume so I like that number two the Seahawks defense is suffering from a lot of injuries Shack Griffin their good starting corner has a hamstring injury he missed this past week it doesn't sound super promising that he'll play next week so his status is up in the air for next week so

they could be out of their number one corner Quadre digs their safety who's helped turn around their defense since they traded for him is also out with a multiple week injury that opens up up things in the middle of the field. And prior to getting digs in their lineup, the Seahawks' past defense was pretty bad.

And so there's a good chance to Seattle's past defense kind of regresses going forward until they get their guys back. And so I think on paper there's a good matchup. The other thing, a couple other factors I like for this game. Seahawks are probably, based on what we saw last week on Sunday, Seahawks are probably going to sell out trying to stop the Cardinals run game, which has been really, really good this season. And that could make them vulnerable on the back.

I think Pete Carroll seems always trying to make teams one-dimensional. And I guarantee you he's not going to want to get beat by having Kenyon Drake rush for four touchdowns. So I think that's going to be a big focus for them. That could open things up for Kirk. And the other thing is the CX passing game finally kind of got back going last week and hitting some downfield shots. Tyler Blockett kind of finally looked like himself for the first time in about a month. And so with the CYox passing game kind of getting going,

there's some sneaky shootout potential with this game with Cardinals and Seahawks. So overall, those are the factors that make me lean start with Christian Kirk. I'm going to start with him on one of my leagues. And it's not an easy decision, but I'm just feeling like that match of it's good for him. All right. Let's say everything you just said is right. Pete Carroll wants to stop Kenyon Drake. The Seahawks' past defense is awful. But Kirk isn't the guy who gets the ball.

Who do you think is the Cardinals person who would benefit from that? Is it Larry Fitz? Is it someone else? Andy Isabella, for God's sake. Who's next up? I mean, it probably, it would, next guy on the rung would be Fitz, and then there's like three or four other guys,

whether it's Demer Bird or, or whoever in that offense. There's like five guys that kind of like rotate in and out. I would not lean on Isabella. I think, I think Fitz is a fine choice, but Kirk, to me, is their clear kind of top choice

in terms of the volume that he's going to get. All righty, Craig, who's someone you're on the fence on, and you're up or down on them, or I guess side to side, because it's a fence. I'm down on John Brown. I think I'm going to sit him. He's playing the Patriots this week.

Most likely you will be shadowed by a defensive player of the year candidate who, I have it just talked about on the recent ringer NFL show. Stefan Gilmore. The paths have given up the few as fantasy points to wide receivers this season. It's not even close.

They're giving up 2.8 half-PPR points less than any other team to wide receivers. 19 a game. They're giving up 19 fantasy points a game to an entire wide receiver's core. So if you're expecting John Brown to give you 19 points, know that the bill.

might not get 19 points. Gilmore is so good, man. Yeah, the Bill's wide receiver scored 24 points against the Steelers. And John Brown had a great gram. He had 99 yards. He went over 1,000 on the season. But he had nine points against the Pats in week four.

It's a bit more stakes with this game. This is a big game for Josh Allen. I kind of can see this being like a collapse for the Bill's passing game. And I don't think I'm starting John Brown. John Brown's been so good, but there's so few people behind him that are reliable in that.

I mean, Dawson Knox's can get open, but he just dropsies McGee. I think he is among the leaders and drops among tight ends at the opposition. Dropsies McGee. Well, I mean, I stole that from Cam Jordan, who two years ago in the playoffs called Matt Khalil,

who was the left tackle for the Panthers at the time. He got like four sacks on him, and he called Matt Khalil Speedbump McGee. So I just love McGee. It's just a great nickname. So anyway, yeah, tough for Dropsy McGee and John Brown. I make it dead in this one. I like Dawson Knox, though.

I don't want that to be the takeaway from this, but I guess it will be. D.K., who's another person you're like on the fence on that? So I'm sitting David Montgomery of the Bears. Going up against the Chiefs, typically I would like this because the Chiefs have a very soft run defense. I think they came into last week, fifth worst against posing running backs in fantasy points.

And I generally like David Montgomery as a runner. I liked him for the draft. I think he's a good dynasty hold type guy. But just in this offense, in this specific offense, the Bears would have, the way that they've been playing. I just don't think he has a very high ceiling this week. In fact, he has a really low floor, too.

He had 39 yards on 14 carries on Sunday, just 5.9 ppr points. And that was his fifth single-digit finish in his last six games. You know, you keep going back to, he had a couple of like 20-plus point games earlier in the season. You keep coming back to that like, oh, man, this is finally his opportunity to kind of get back there. I thought that might be the case. Last week did not happen. I don't know if it's going to happen against KC. either because I could see the bears getting down early against a good KC offense and then having

to just go to their passing game. And so just wouldn't surprise me if Tariq Cohen is kind of the featured back in this game, this upcoming game. And I'm just staying away from David Montgomery. I'm sitting in this week. Yeah, the Chiefs run defense was really exploitable in the middle of the season when they had a lot of injuries in the middle of their defensive line. You know, there was a point where they were like it was a full go, whoever the running

backs where you could play on maybe two running backs against the Chiefs. But Chris Jones is back in the lineup. I think they had third string defensive ends on both sides of the line at one point. And now that's not the case anymore. They're still banged up, but they have a lot more players in. Spagnolo's been blitzing a lot more.

The defensive coordinator, so they're not nearly as not, I mean, it's almost flipped. They're actually gone from a really green light matchup with running backs to a pretty not great one. Right. So I agree with you on that. And I have... He's touched on our butt.

in my mind and I don't want to rely on that in the play. Also, it's just, let's just, there's a certain practical matter that at the end of the day we are predicting the future and that that is a fool's errand and you can only really choose not, you can just choose, do you want to die with dignity? Do you want to go down to ship or do you want to be like, you know, trying to rip life jackets off people and children? I don't, you know how I don't want to spend my championship Sunday? Begging Mitchell Trudebiskey to like convert a third and eight so that the drive can continue

so they don't have their fourth three and out in a row, not how I want to spend my Sunday, personally, and you have David Montgomery and, like, Mitchell Trubisky can't do anything. Like, you know what I mean? Sometimes, like, when it's really 50, 50 in your heart of hearts and you really don't know what to do, go out the one that won't make you feel stupid. That's always great advice. What will you feel less dumb about the next morning? Yeah, exactly. Like, you're waking up, like, I thought Mitchell Trubisky's offense could move the ball. Don't do that. That's my two sense. Process. Yeah. Process. That's what process looks like to me. Don't wake up and feel stupid. Craig, speaking of which,

who is someone that you will wake up and, well, not feel stupid, but even if you lose, you'll feel, you know what, that's okay. If I'm in a Bind, if I'm in a fantasy championship bind, maybe I had Chris Godwood.

I think I'm leaning start on Randall Cobb. They're playing the Eagles. The Eagles give up the second most points. The Cowboys are playing the Eagles. Yes. Sorry for people who don't know that. Randall Cobb's in the Cowboys. I used a Packer for like 10 years.

You're right, you're right. Okay. We still think Evan Silver works at Roto World. That's true. He does not. Establish the run. Great website. So the Cowboys are playing the Eagles.

The Eagles give up the second most points to wide receivers. The Bucs give up the most points to wide receivers as well as the most targets of wide receivers, meaning that teams have thrown the most against the Bucs to their receivers and have then, in turn, given up the most points. The Eagles are interesting, though, because while the Bucs are kind of like a quantity over quality shitty past defense, the Eagles are like a quality over quantity shitty past defense. Because the Eagles give up the second most points to out receivers, but only the 14th most targets. which is interesting, which just tells you that whenever people throw at the Eagles,

they're so fucking bad that they still manage to be the second most, even though they get the 14th most passes. Dude, no stat I've ever heard us talk about this podcast matches the eye test more than what you just said, like a shitty quality over quantity. It's so true. It's unbelievable.

So the last two weeks, Darius Slayton goes 154 yards and two touchdowns in the first half. And then Terry McLaurin has 130 yards at a touchdown last week and it's like each one it's there's so if you watch the slate and touchdown in the McLaur one they're so similar in that the Eagles are so slow in their like they're secondary Ronald Darby is like the fastest guy but he's I don't think he's 100% healthy right now I mean none of them have really been healthy so they're not a particularly fast group all of them are

hurt mostly with lower body injuries so like I'm not saying they're slow people it's just they're not healthy but it's like the amount of times you've seen a play against the Eagles defense and someone just accelerates and just is gone. Like everybody looks as fast as Tyree kill against the Eagle's secondary right now. It's unbelievable. And like McClorin did his five catches for 130 on five targets. Darius Slayton did his five catches for 150 on eight targets. That's what I'm saying.

It's just truly quality shit that the Eagles are producing for receivers. So this game's going to decide the division probably. Amari Cooper's got a bad ankle. Cobb is produced at the highest level in playoff games. He's got 11 playoff games under his belt. I think I would start Randall Cobb over John Brown this week Ooh that's a good one So here's my my two cents on this is

I think I would go Michael Gallup over Cobb As would I Because Okay oh well good we go Well I feel strongly about Michael Gallup this week I feel like Gallup was a gimmie He's obvious Okay

Oh wow so I'm just all right Well I'm digging deeper into the quality of the shit I'm panning for gold in the shit And Randall Cobb has emerged You're sticking your neck out There you go Well You might get chopped off

and I'll be looking at him like, and you're like, cool, I'm the guy who said Michael Gallup, but everyone's like, oh, you host a fantasy podcast? You know, like, after your head gets chopped off, you actually still, like,

awake for a five seconds so we can make eye contact and, like, one last thing. I'll be like, I told you about it. Anyway, I like Gallup this week if you're on the fence about him, which I know people are

because it's like 40% I think people benched him, at least on Yahoo this week. This, by the way, this got really macabre over the last time. Yeah, I would like debate it if I should say that, but yeah, maybe we'll cut that point.

Let's roll of it. I don't know. That's, it did. Also, I've never said that word out loud, macab. Isn't there an R in that? Yes, but it's French. Macabre. Oh, okay.

Like, the way we pronounce it is not the way you should pronounce it, but... Yeah, would you say macabre? I don't know how to pronounce it. I don't know how to pronounce it. I think it's just macab. Anyway, Michael Calip... I can't speak with a French accent. I think Michael Gallup will do good at football this weekend against the Eagles because

Randall Cobb is like their slot guy. They take deep shots to him, but he's mostly over the middle, and when he breaks a big pass, it's because someone messed up a tackle and he takes like a crossing route up the sideline. Gallup is their deep threat. He's not as fast as Dary Slaten or Terry McLaurin who burned the Eagles last two weeks.

Slaten ran like a 4-3-9. It's like a 4-4. It's like the 5-11 and a half. It's like the 6 feet where it's like it's a lie, but reverse like 4-39 to 4-4, just like 6 feet's really 5-11. Terry McLaurin's a 4-3-5. That's a legit 4-4-35.

Gallup's not that fast. He's like 452 or something, 40-yard dash, which is the difference from like 98th percent. on like 75th. But he's still their deep threat and the Eagles can't handle deep threat. So I really like Michael Gallup to get a big pass this week. Like I really, really like his odds.

Yeah, he's a big play machine. So I, and he's also not, like last week we plugged Chris Conley, which worked out, good for us. But Chris Connolly is someone real boom or bust. I like Michael Gallup because a lot of that upside, but not nearly the floor where it's like if Michael Gallup doesn't get a 60-yard touchdown that he's useless. So I like Gallup a lot as well. So there you go, Craig. Yeah.

Speaking of boom bust, I'm going to go with Kenny Goliday next. And he's playing the Broncos this week. Obviously, the lions have quarterback issues. David Blow? Is it blow or blow? I don't even know. We only need to know for a week or two, and then it won't be relevant anymore. Anyways, he shat the bed last week against what should have been a very good matchup for him

against a Buccaneers defense that'd given up, you know, hemorrhaged yards to opposing receivers this year. he ended up giving Danny and Dola 30% target share in this game. I think he had 13 targets in the game and only connected with the Goladay three times. He had three catches for 44 yards and 7 PPR points. So I think Galdi

is massively boom-bust and I'm tentatively sitting him this week. Now, I know he's gotten me here and he's been awesome. He's been outstanding. He's like on his way to being one of the best receivers in the NFL. But he's so tied

to the performance of David Blow that it just makes me really, really worried. The other thing is, there's probably a good chance he'll get matched up with Chris Harris in the shadow coverage. Harris has shadowed a good chunk of the Broncos opposing receivers this year

according to PFF. If you look down the line, he shadowed Alan Robinson in week two, Devante Adams, week three, T.Y Hilton, week eight, O'Dell Beckham in week nine. Stefan Diggs in week 11, John Brown, week 12,

Keenan Allen, in week 13 and Andre Hopkins in week 40. Now he's done pretty well against like the bigger slower guys. He got toasted by Tyree Killed yesterday and he didn't do great against like TY.Y. Hilton, two catches for 54 yards.

But he's done really well against like I said the bigger kind of like possession. I don't want to call them possession receivers because they're big play receivers but the guys without like elite speed. Hopkins he held to four catches for 52 yards. Keenan Allen two catches for 16 yards.

And this is on, he's not covering him 100% of the time, but this is what he was doing in coverage. Devante Adams, he held a two catchers for 36 yards. So I think it looks like a tough matchup. He's going to get shouted by a good corner in Chris Harris. Harris is maybe not as elite as he used to be, but he's still a good player. And you're going to have to trust David Blow to, like, feed him the ball.

So if you have another good option, I think you can feel fine on the sitting Gulladay down this week. You know, if you don't have any better options, then don't do it because he, He's been, like I said, he's been a big play waiting to happen, but he's definitely got a huge boom and bust potential this week. This is Balzy. I like it.

This is what fantasy analysts do. No one would expect this. I love it. I just want to point out that I said on the Galaxy Brain segment on Friday for Daily Fantasy, that David Blow would not be the, he would be the best six foot tall Purdue quarterback that's weekend. And I want to point out that we are playing on Monday after, this is Monday afternoon we're recording before the Saints game.

so I'm not wrong about that. Obviously he was awful and he had like five yards You also said to sit Tyree Kill and Mahomes. Well, but that depends on who else. I said for Kenyon Drake, obviously. That was what I meant. All right, so who's up?

High Fence. You have a running back. So with that excellent runway. I think someone who could have a big week, Joe Mixon on the Cincinnati Bengals, they're playing the Dolphins this week. Nixon has only started about 60%ish of Yahoo Leagues last week,

So obviously it was against the Patriots, but I think that makes him a pretty good fence sitter for a lot of people, especially if you've made a year championship with Joe Mixon, it's probably definitely not because of Joe Mixon. He's been really bad. I think he didn't have a touchdown in the first nine weeks of the year, at least not a rushing touchdown. But they have really recommitted to running the ball,

especially giving Joe Mixon the ball after their by week. It's one of those situations where, like, we're going to run more, and then they just started running more. He's really been getting a lot of carries. He had 25 last week against New England. I think it had like 60 plus in the first quarter rushing yards. You had 23 carries the week before that in Cleveland, at 19 at the Jets.

And it's actually translating to yardage or touchdowns now, whereas it was not necessarily in the first half of the season. He really is just hitting 17, 18 carries every week. And I think the dolphins are one of the worst rushing defenses in the whole league. There's a reason Sequin just had his first 30-point day last week. Seekwon had his best game of the season. It was like rejuvenated. And just the last four weeks, again,

So the dolphins have had so many. The dolphins really shut their players down. Like, that's the key thing to understand. And always a huge thing for these last weeks of fantasies. There are some teams that are just very quietly close-up shop. Like, you know, it's not listed on the hours, but like this place closes at three on Fridays, not five. That's the dolphins. Like, Zavion Howard's been on IR for like eight weeks.

Like they put Rashad Jones on IR, Bobby, Doug, like Bobby McCain. All these, like, they have played 80 players this season. That is an NFL record. That's a really interesting stat. Yeah, it's like the churn. And that's according to... Just a bunch of randos on the field at any given time. ESPN's Cameron Wolfe pointed that out and thank you to Cameron because it's a great

freaking point. It's like the 2019 Warriors. There's just nobody in the court that you've heard of. That is exactly the cuff. That is exactly it. If you scroll through the Dolphins box score and like just look at the start, you're like, who are these people other than Devonte Parker and Ryan Fitzpatrick? They're going to replace all five offensive linemen.

And then their secondary is the similar thing where they're just throwing stuff against the wall and like, oh, maybe we'll sign him. All these guys are on one-year deals. Oh, maybe we won't cut him for next year. That's all they're doing. And newsflash, playing secondary is not really about individual performance. It's about how you guys work together.

Again, NFL record 80 players. These guys don't work together. It's really easy to exploit them in the secondary and in the run game. It's a disaster of a defense. And I think Joe makes sense, a huge game. And just to punctuate that the last four weeks, which is when this really started to happen. This week, Sequin Barclay at 30 points.

week before that, Levy on Bell was out, so the Jets kind of sucked. And then before that, Miles Sanders had 21 and a half points. And the week before that, Nick Chubb at 25 points and Creamhunt at 13. So it's really been a thing for the last month or so. So I think Mixing is well worth starting for you, even if he's been terrible, the first, everything till now. To keep that ball rolling, another guy who I think is worth consideration who had leaned to starting, if you're really in desperation mode in your championship, or playing for third. Some people do money back for the guy who gets third.

I'm going with John Ross. They're playing the dolphins, just as Joe Mixon is. So he's been back for two games now from IR, and he played 40% of the Bengals past snaps the first game back, and yesterday he played, or two days ago, he played 56%. So he's increasing. If this playing time continues to trend in the right direction, I think this could be a game where we see kind of early season John Ross,

where he posted 158 yards and two touchdowns and 112 in a touchdown against Seattle and the Niners to start the season. this is just a classic Fitz Dalton old school shootout Red rifle Fitz Magic John Ross

gonna win your championship It's really upsetting because the draft order is not determined by head-to-head record which is really upsetting because I've always wanted to watch an NFL player

like do with the thing in Madden where you just run backwards for 80 yards and I just feel like we'll never see that because it doesn't actually matter if they beat each other it's too bad

pride or lack there of. No, the players have pride, despite the 80 players who've played for the dolphins. Of course. When you're on the field, you want to win. They're trying to get jobs.

They're trying to look good. To be clear. Every game is an audition. To be clear, because we joke about it very much. In basketball, the coaches have to participate in the tanking to a degree that they cannot admit. Not the case in football. Coaches cannot do that, just to be clear.

Brian Flores, excellent coach. D.K. Took me a second. I don't know where he's going. Give me a segue. Where is the segue? Well, that long breath was like, is Craig or DeKamp next?

I just did the hoo-hoo-hoo. Someone you're on the fence about, or many people are on the fence about. Philip Lindsay of the Broncos, who he's been very, very quiet over the last month or so. I'm leaning, starting, Phil. Nice.

Wow. How far are you leaning, though? Like a little crook of the neck or like all the way? I'll go ahead and say start Philip Lindsay. How about that? This one is really tough, and there's plenty of,

warning signs kind of against starting Lindsay. He's scored single digit PPR points in four of his last five games, so that's obviously not great. He's just one touchdown in that stretch. However, he did have one touchdown called back this week. He got vultured for a touchdown by Royce Freeman

the week before, so there is some reason to believe that was just a little bit fluky. This week he did set season low with 32 yards and 3.2 PPR points. However, that game got away from him so fast. And it was an ugly snow game. In theory, you would have thought that it was like a good matchup for Lindsay. Like I said,

you know, the Chief's run defense hasn't been good this year. But they just got down really quickly. And I think Drew Locke ended up throwing the ball 40 times. So the run game was pretty much non-existent in that game. So going up against the Lions this week, things could definitely change. Lions are fourth worst against opposing running backs and PPR this year. So that's obviously a really good matchup for Lindsay. And Lindsay has also dominated touches since taking over a couple weeks ago as the teams de facto. They basically had a committee approach all year long with him and Royce Freeman, but then at one point, kind of late in the season, they're like, okay, he's managed to stay healthy this long. Now we can ride him for the rest of the season. He's out touch

Freeman 77 to 41 in the past five games. So there's a lot of like underlying, I think, you know, stats that tell you that Lindsay is kind of due to have a good game again, I think, this week, going up against a bad team. I don't think they're going to get behind early on against the Lions. And so I think they're going to ride Lindsay, and I think he has a chance to finally kind of get off, you know, get over the hump and get into the end zone. And so, yeah, I think he's a risky flex play,

but I'm leaning starting him. What about Royce Freeman? No. He's very, he's, like, way risky. He's, he's touchdown or bust. He's just not touching the ball enough, no. Craig, who's someone you're on the fence about? I'm going to start Mike Williams this week.

He was only started in 31% of leagues last week, and that needs to be a lot higher. He's had six receptions of 20 plus yards over the last four games, which is six most in the NFL. Mike Williams has always passed the eye test to me. I feel like every time you go deep, like you should go deep with him like four times a game. He catches three of them and then the other ones a flag. He's been a wide receiver two over the past four weeks. He was the wider share 21 overall. They're playing the Raiders.

The Chargers are who have given up 34 more points in the last three of the last four games. two of those to Sam Darnold and Ryan Tannahill. Mike Williams just had 100 yards or a touchdown in three of the last four games. This is just kind of like a – and this game is going to come down to the wire because it's a Chargers game, so you can count on like one last 40-yard catch that Mike Williams will get with 30 seconds left. But I just think that you should start him with confidence this week against Oakland. You mentioned the 20-yard passes. Mike Williams leads the league in 40-plus yard catches.

He's tied with Stefan Diggs for eight. I mean, anecdotally speaking, it feels like... Wow, eight? That's every other game. Of 40 plus yards. Well, anecdotally speaking, it feels like six of those were in like the last five weeks. It's also like, it's unbelievable.

So he's just been wildly good at contested catches, which is funny because that actually isn't like always the best skill because it's better to like be open than like be good at getting contested catches. Phil doesn't care though. The fun fact. Phil slinging it. Yeah, Phil doesn't give a shit.

And then also, again, the Raiders have given up the most 40-yard passes. So love Mike Williams Yeah There you go Is it time? Is this sleeper stream Of the week? Oh, it is?

So you've already clinched this But I guess there's like 20 NFL Teams that can't make the playoffs That also have to play So I guess if they have to play That we have to do it in week 17 Sure, I mean we can go one more And then we can just make dead last

Has to get the mustache We're going to do this through the Super Bowl So it's not actually over I think the playoffs should be double or nothing We never said that We're doing streamers So it's going to be last We're going to do streamers

for one game No, well would you be like DFS is the same thing. It's not. No, but it's like the playoffs will be worth double the point. So like every win is worth two wins. That makes my lead less advantageous.

It's hard to believe Danny's moving the goalposts. So I just, it's shocking. Unfortunately, good sir, you will be sporting the Gardner-Minshoe mustache for the month of January. It'll keep me warm. You know it drops to like 60 degrees here in the winter? It's awful.

I'm going to need to be warm. We got to make it a point to not choose players that are playing on Monday night football going forward. but this week. We speak we Craig I want to Tyler Higby he had 12 catches 111

pbR points he's just been going off lately Danny's Isaiah Ford call three catches 21 yards Devonte Parker ended up playing And Albert Wilson played It was a bad beat It was a bad beat for you You could have maybe seen that coming

That's fine Look dude They had concussions They had 40 points combined I feel vindicated. And then Craig went with Zach Pascal, who is not playing until tonight. Again, this is Monday afternoon, and we'll see how that goes. I feel like, I'm feeling pretty good about my 23.1 PBR points, though.

So, we'll see how that all goes tonight. But I'm assuming, well, I'm not going to assume anything, but I'm guessing that I'll win. If Isaiah Ford, if Wilson and Parker had not played, Wilson would have had both of their points. So really, I feel like I won this week. That makes sense to me. That's like, see, Craig, Craig gets it. Craig's on myself. Oh, okay.

Okay. So that gives me the win. So I'm in second place, and you'll have to grow the greater minchu, fu-manchu, mustache, whatever he's got going on there. Should we talk about it this week, guys? Yeah, let's go. All right. I'm going to go with Deontay Johnson.

Man, I really, really wanted to go with Mike Boone because I've been the Mike Boone hype man since, I guess, the preseason or whatever. But I just can't, man. His status is just too up in the air with it looking likely. right now that Dalvin Cook will end up playing and then also we just don't know about Madison. So anyways, I'm going with Yante Johnson and the Steelers. He's 15% owned.

Going up against the very bad Jets defense over the last two games, which have both been started by Duck Hodges, he's been a big part of their offense, 15 targets, 11 catches, 122 yards, sorry, 122 yards, one touchdown plus a punt return touchdown. So yeah, it's that kind of added bonus

as a punt returner. It seems as though Hodges trusts him. Hodges definitely didn't play his best game. this week, but going up against the bad Jets defense, he could have a good bounce back. So I'm going with Johnson. I've never done this to you the whole season, but I think you're making a mistake,

and you should switch. You should have Mike Boone. You are the Mike Boone guy. You have been on Mike Boone since July, and you are now seating the high ground on Mike Boone Island, which you own, and you're selling, I'm blown away that you would do this.

Here's the reason I'm not going to do it. It's because it's a Monday night game, and I don't want to have conversation where we don't know who wins again. So I'm going with Johnson. I'm sticking with it. Final answer. I'm going to be happy if Mike Boone does well.

Good to know. All right. Well, I picked Jacob Hollister. He's the tight end for the Seattle Seahawks. And I was like, look, I must be honest, this is just I want one last run with the tight end against the Cardinals who cannot guard tight ends. They are the worst. I'm just running it back because it's just so fun and it's easy.

And it's last week, Ricky Seals Jones. Who? Ricky Seals Jones. No, I know. Formerly of the Cardinals, ironically, on the Brown's day. played the Cardinals, three catches, two went for touchdowns. It is staggering how the Cardinals cannot even get a fathom of a shadow of a doubt to be able to guard tight ends this year.

It is stunning, and I want to run it back. But I also intended to just take Mike Boone now. You know, I'm taking Mike Boone. Let's stay away for Monday night, man. Fine. Yeah, stick with Hollister. He's a good. He's a good player.

I'm going to regret this. Craig, what are you doing? I was going to pick Brashad Perryman, but honestly, I feel like it's not fair. I feel like when guys get hurt and then you just pick the next guy out, even though they're going to be owned probably more than 40%, but in the moment, technically they're not.

So I feel like it's unfair to pick somebody like Breshad Perman in this situation, right? It's like, cool. This basically just becomes whoever's the first person to open this dock as we're preparing for the show gets Breshaad Perman. I just don't really... That's how you got all five of your wins.

So now you're contemplating the nature of victory. Start the dock and you're like, oh, I pick the best player. That's definitely how you got mostered. Yeah, I'm always less. That's why I needed a win. I needed a win. Okay. All right.

Anyway. I needed a W.D.K. So how the game was being played. I'm going to go with Kenny Stills on the Texans. They're playing the Bucks. Will Fuller is playing right now, but he is playing the Bucks. And it seems like anyone associated with the Bucks pulls their hammies. So if that happens, Kenny Stills will step into the number two role.

And when he does, he's been great. But even as the number three role, he's been okay. He had two touchdowns last week. he still plays a decent amount of stabs. They're playing the lowly bucks, as we talked about earlier, the quantity over quality shit defense. I like volume. Kenny Stills is going to get it.

They're going to throw a ton. It's going to be a barn burner with good old James. Like Kenny Stills this week. I'm so hesitant to chase those touchdowns he got because the Titans' cornerbacks are banged up and that they were doubling DeAndre Hopkins and Stills was like shredding their essentially four of fifth string quarterback.

I don't know. Having said that the bucks are worse. They have worse. quarterback depth than the Titans do. So I don't actually see a reason that this would go wrong. That'll do it. And now. Is it time?

It's time. Bill Simmons has arrived. It's just such a sad, sad Monday. How are you doing, Bill? You need to talk? We're here. I need 28 points from Jack Doyle tonight. I don't think it's going to happen.

I don't think it's happening. I did take like five minutes to try to figure out what chain of events would need to happen. where he's like 110 yards and three touchdowns. It's still not enough. It would have to be 125 yards and three touchdowns. This is why people do PPR. I mean, they're banged up. They're banged up.

You never know. But it's that sad. Do you guys do the bookmarks on your phone for different things? Like the little... Yeah. So it's that sad day tomorrow. I'm looking toward when you delete your league's thing because it's over. Yeah, you delete the Yahoo app and your phone.

Yeah, you have to delete whatever the app. abs are and it's like, that's it. It's officially done, I'm done. Worth mentioning that last year's fantasy championship in the ringer league, you needed 3.6 points from another tight end, Jared Cook on like Monday night football. And he was three and a half points you would win the fantasy championship. And they threw the entire second half, but somehow he, I'd still hate his guts. And you lost to Moes.

And it was also you, head of the company versus Moes, who was literally the youngest person at this enterprise. Yeah. And Mo's won. And it was... On his 13th birthday. Yeah. So I had Evans go down in eight minutes in round one.

Still managed to eke at the three-point win. Then I had Godwin getting carted off on his way to a 240-yard Lions game. I had... I hit all the check marks. Cooper Cup, zero all game on the other team. Oh, he disappeared. The garbage time touched out. 44 seconds left.

It's like, oh, Cooper Cup. There's one. 37 to 7 or 44 to 7. It was... It was so egregious and so bad, the announcers actually acknowledged the fantasy implications. Well, you know,

and then he actually just tosses the ball to the ref because he wasn't even happy. So that was like eight points out of nowhere. Sean McVeigh must have had every ram on his fantasy team. They played that whole game. That was bizarre. Then I spent 20 hours agonizing over Cortland-Sutton, Jarvis Landry, Darius Slate, and I had two of the three.

Yeah, you tweeted. You didn't even add us. I think they had like 14 points combined. You asked the Twitterverse instead of this podcast. Maybe that's the problem. problem here. Whatever you recommended, I would have lost anyway. Then I had Marlon Mack who

lights out and then he broke his hand so he can't catch passes so I couldn't start him. And it's just, and here's what kills me is I had Lamar. I stumbled into Lamar for no money, $8. It'll never happen again. Yeah, there's never going to be another season like this too. If you had Lamar, you're automatically top four. How many quarterbacks were on your bench for this matchup?

Well, I had Rathusberger tore his elbow and, what, three hours. Yeah. And then it was like, I had Baker. I had to wave him. Braun and Kirk cousins. He was a corpse. I was just riding Lamar.

Lamar's going to have 500 points in my league. He's going to have a 500 point season. And I'm still, and I still didn't even make the finals. He was like a later round pick too. So that was like the perfect storm. How does this make you feel? I feel terrible. I feel like I squandered Lamar.

I feel like I was handed Applestock in like 1989 and then lost it. No, like, I lost it. It was like, oh, it was in my car. What happened? Here's the thing. Take that feeling you have in the pit of your stomach. Yeah.

That's how, like, everybody feels about their football teams in real life all the time. Right. So that's what, if you've ever asked, like, why do people do fantasy? This sucks. That's how we all feel about our real teams. That's why we play fantasy football. The Patriots are the Lamar Jackson of teams. Yeah.

Well, I hesitate to tell you guys this, but, um, November 14th, 2019. I traded for Cortland Sutton in the Niners defense. I got rid of old man Alshan Jeffrey and Tevin Coleman. So I have this new receiver and I'm like, I don't really need to keep my fingers crossed that A.J. Brown's going to turn in anything. I'm going to wave him and roll the dice with Brandon Cooks is coming back. Oh, no.

I wave A.J. Brown, who immediately turns into the next Calvin Johnson. Yeah. And then I go against him yesterday as he puts up. Oh, he was on the other team? He was on the other team. Just haunting me. He's like pointing at me after every first down catch. And I'm like, I'm just destined to never win again.

That's like selling Bitcoin right before it doubles. To keep Brandon Cooks. Who sucks? What was I doing? Who's happy? Who leaves it? Danny. Danny Kelly.

Who leaves a fantasy league happy at the end of the year? Literally one team. But even that person's not really. happy because he's mad because nobody everybody hates him. Nobody's emailing him, texting him, congratulations. It's just bitterness. They're all begrudgingly venmoing them. That's what I was going to ask is

do you guys get more upset about losing out on the money or is it like the fact that you mismanaged your way into a loss? Like you just think back on the things that you did during the season. You're like, damn it, I should have freaking kept AJ Brown. Like I would have freaking won if I had him. But

is it more depressing about the money or just the fact that you are too dumb to like figure out how to win. I had such an amazing realization last year because last year we were the one seat in the ringer fantasy regular season and then we marty shot in high-emered it and got crushed in the actual playoffs and won and done. But there was no combination of our lineup that would have worked. So it was like very peaceful.

It was like a sweet death. It was like, all right, yeah, that's fine. But when you made the wrong choice, can't sleep at night. That's brutal. Here's what I've learned over the years, having done this for 30 years. You never want to peak the first 13 weeks. Like the guy who's probably going to win my league that I'm in with sour, we vote people off as Damashek,

who was 5 and 8 during the regular season and was able to sneak in as the number two seed because we stupidly do conferences and he was the number two team in the other conference. My conference had like four or nine-win teams. But now his team's peaking because he has like Hopkins and Sequin Barclay and all these guys who are just starting to get hot right now.

It's like March Madness. You've got to get hot the right time right at the end. Totally. Because it's not really, unless it's like Lamar, if somebody fluky like that, that it's not realistic for somebody to be awesome the whole year. You end up with like a Kenyon Drake situation where it's like, oh yeah,

Kenyon Drake has 38 points this week. He was not on a roster three weeks ago. By the way, I should say I went up against Mina Kimes. Yesterday I lost her. She set a new record in our freaking league. She had Kenyon Drake, Julio Jones, Sequin Barkley, and James. Oh, my God. It was just I ran into a buzzsaw.

James is that, did you say he's the first quarterback ever? to have two four-fifties in a row. 450-yard passing games? Wow. First ever in the history of the league. Four-fifty two weeks in a row. Well, first of all, Mina's going to have to come back on to dunk on you for me. I know.

I've been dreading this, but it's true. But James, I mean, that's your guy. Bill, do you think you've been playing fans football longer than anybody? Yeah. 1990? Yeah. Do you think a lot of people precede that? I don't know if anybody's beat that.

I feel like, even though I was on the East Coast and there was no internet, I had a pretty good feel for what was going on. And I never heard of fantasy until the late 80s. Because we had it in baseball first and then mid-80s basketball. So basketball is before football. But you play fantasy basketball before fantasy football? Yeah, because it was easier to keep track of because it was just points, rebounds, assists, and, you know, I don't know.

It really started in the late 80s. I don't know. I hadn't heard of any other league before that. But as I told you guys, we had to like mail the stats out every week. That's my favorite. Stale? Stim. And you were stuck with your team and you couldn't wave guys.

I mean, I walked into a post office last week, and I just, I felt like the Mr. Crabs meme, I was just, I had no idea what was going on. Right. The idea of sending mail. It's incredible. They just bring it somewhere for like 30 cents. It's amazing. But the good thing is is we've perfected the whole industry of fantasy now, I feel like. No, it's not.

We have big discussions to talk about it. We have to change everything. No, no, I'm just saying like the actual being able to change your lineup. Yeah. Being able to get information. Being able to know that somebody got hurt a half hour before the game. The tools are all there. No, we're at 2.0.

Yeah. Next up is, 3.0 is coming because, among other things, why, if someone, for Mike Evans, let's say he gets hurt into the second quarter, why can't you swap out Mike Evans, middle of your lineup, middle of your game? So, mid-game? Yeah, why can't you swap him out? He got hurt. The bucks can, so I can't wait.

Why can't you? Because you couldn't before, but like, now you could. Why can't you do that? Along those lines, what are you guys, what's your stance on best ball? It's just mock drafts that you can like pretend to care about. What's best ball? It's everybody on your team. It's basically just optimal lineup.

Yeah. It's really whoever does the best. Oh, so it's not about starting. No. You start everybody. So you draft more high upside guys. It's really about mock drafts, but what if you kept track of them? And they're like, well, no one wants to manage that many leagues.

So they're like, well, you get the best lineup every week. You can add guys throughout the season too, though. Yeah. So, but it really it's about. But every week, it's just your best optimal lineup is your lineup. And there's more scoring. You don't have to agonize over start, sit starts, and all that. I actually think it's really fun.

I mean, I wouldn't necessarily only play best ball, but I think it's fun. Isn't that part of fantasy, though, is to abjectly hate yourself when you pick the wrong person? Like, why else would we do it then? It's about pain. It's about agony, pain, suffering. Doubt. Suffering. Yeah, it's not suffering, reflection.

Why are we removing that? It's like Judaism. I think that's why I'm drawn to both. It's like, you know. What a way to end it. Yeah, that's a good one. The thing that I am most intrigued by is now in are my fourth decade of fantasy next year. Fourth decade.

Jeez. A lot of decades. Keeper leagues. Like, I wish, like, I was able to keep Lamar. And it would cost, like, an extra $5 for the next year. And then another five, every year I keep them, it's an extra five. But I can potentially have them for six, seven years, right? Get into Dynasty, man.

Let's start a Dynasty league. It's the best. I think I need to get into Dynasty. Yeah, you do for sure. It's fun. It's a good way to keep it. Like a ringer Dynasty League? Yeah, you do Dynasty League.

It's a good time. You can do one. I'm willing to consider it. You can ponder that. Do you want to do fantasy court while you're here? Yeah. It's really simple. Do you think you should be able to claim...

Do you think people who are not in the fantasy playoffs or even not in the championship round? Be able to claim players off waivers? Like, is that a dick move? If you're not in the championship round, but you're claiming... So you just like add Breshad Perman for the fuck of it while the guy who's in the championship who has Godwin is now screwed because he can't go grab Bresa.

Like you. If you go to add Breschardt. Rashad Paraman this week and you were still in it. Yeah. And then someone playing like the five seed versus the six, they'd even make the playoffs, grabs Brashad Perriman. Are you pissed or are you like, yeah, fine, that's whatever. Our league doesn't even do playoff ad drops.

Oh. Yeah. That was, we added this injury wrinkle this year that if somebody, if you had no person to put in, you could do it. And that set off a Hornets Nest that emails. I don't, have we figured out a right way to do playoff bad drops? Is it like a set $25 and you can spend, that budget in playoffs or is it just a claimer thing?

Well, it depends. If you're in like one of those free agent auction bidding leagues and you have the cash, you can spend it as much as you want. Here's the, this is why we're not in... I think that's a dick move to affect the championship race. Yeah, I think you shouldn't be allowed. Is there money at stake though? Oh, I mean, most people...

But for fifth and sixth place? Oh, no. Absolutely not for that. It's just to win. That's why I'm not against it is because, like, I don't want to tell people they can't be managing their team throughout the end of the season, because that's the biggest issue for league is

if people aren't managing. So I feel you should be setting your lineup It's a fake game That'd be like if week 19 The bucks and the Fucking dolphins just decided to play a game for fun It's not a lot You can't do that

I mean. In week 17 All of the games are completely meaningless anyway And they still crash their very real skulls Into each other's real skulls I don't know I think the waiver should be turned off for people not playing Do you know what my East Coast League does Have we ever talked about this?

I don't know the Velvet Edge The Velvet Edge The top four teams make it, and they get to draft players. So after 17 weeks, playoff start, four teams, they get to draft players from the other six that didn't make it.

Oh, wow. That's sweet. And you get to add. Pick up basketball. So you get, so you're the one seed, but Mahomes, his team, the guy who owned him, got knocked out. So now Mahomes is number one.

And then it's just cumulative points throughout the playoffs. I actually think it's one of the best ideas I've ever had. You know how golf it's like so much better now that they're experimenting and doing weird stuff? and you're like, wow, we need more weird versions. We need more weird versions of fantasy. It's a fake game.

But think how great this is because it's now it's fantasy. It's 21 weeks. And we also, we value the guys a little bit differently. So like the Patriots defense is, you're like, oh, this is great. They might make the Super Bowl. Although now the Ravens defense would be better. But somebody like James doesn't really have any value when you get the playoffs because he's out. You'd have like Deshaun Watson's more.

valuable. So anyway, it's good. I can send you the rules. It's good. So you protect, I think you can protect six on your team, and then you draft from all the free agents until you fill out your whole team, and it's really good. That's amazing.

I like, well, I think, is it fake yet? But here's the thing. Fantasy football, it's kind of like porn. It's like, it's kind of like. Bring this home, Danny. I know you can do it. It's a rough start, but I know you can circle this back. You start out with, too long.

You start out with the basics. It's like, you know, 10-team league, you know, standard stuff, like, you know, one quarterback. How is this like porn? It's essentially there's... You slowly experiment and some things are weird and you get used to it. So you're saying you have to find your kink. You need to find your category. You have to find what's right for you.

This is all the thing. You have to find what's right for you. I don't know. I think I need you to explicitly describe porn more. You almost brought it home, but not quite. There's a certain level where it's like you get so far into it that there's eventually the Wild West. Because I've seen leagues where you can trade things like stocks. There's 64 copies of every player.

And you can buy and trade Patrick Mahomes. There are leagues where there's positionless. There's just 10 spots. You can get, we put whatever 10 players you want in. There are things you've mentioned there's an NBA league where it's like your actual salary. There's crazy stuff. The salary thing? The salary cap league's fun.

The problem with the salary cap league is like certain guys just, don't get picked up. Like, Russell Westbrook's on no team. Because nobody wants to pay $41 million for Russell Westbrook. But wouldn't that be better fantasy football if, like, no one actually wanted Joe Flacco? No one wanted 80 Dalton because they had to pay him like $18 million. Or Jared Goff. Jared Goff go unowned for five years in a row because he's $36 million next year.

When we were the first year at Grantland, we created the bad quarterback league. Oh, yeah. And we had all these categories. It was really fun. It was just too hard to keep track up. But we should get that going next year. Yeah. Why don't we should bring that back now?

It's like they invented Google Sheets since then. Yeah. It was actually really fun because I remember somebody was just awful that year. And Jacobi was writing the updates from now of Jalen and Jacoby. But there was somebody that it was, oh, it was Fitzpatrick. Oh, my God. And it was like a really bad Fitzpatrick year. So he was picks Patrick.

And he was like the Lamar Jackson of this league. Every week he was doing seven terrible things. But that would be fun to do that. Well, it's tough you just whiffed on the Blake Bordles era, which is kind of a tragedy. Right. That's so sad. Do you guys think missed PATs and missed field goals should be minus? Yes.

Absolutely. You got it. It's like a pick. My league doesn't do that either. No, here's my real galaxy. Would you do minus three for a miss field goal? Maybe just minus one. It's like you should get let minus three for a miss pat.

The thing I feel strongest about that actually fundamentally needs to change is that passing yards need to be the same as rushing receiving yards and passing touchdowns at the very least. Passing touchdowns need to be worth six. And passing yards should be a point. point per 10 yards. And now everyone's like, well, you can't do that because then quarterbacks will be the most important player. Yeah, that's the point. Right. Like, this game was invented 50 years ago. Scoring has not changed essentially other than PPR on 50 years when running backs were like the gods of the game. And now it's like quarterbacks, like Patrick Mahomes going in the 40s or 30s or

whatever is normal. That's crazy. It has so gotten so far from the actual sport. Like I had Lamar who 39.2 points, exactly, on this week, and I got knocked out. Mark Ingram had like 22. Yeah, exactly. Was he half as good as Lamar? Lamar threw five touchdowns and ran for 80 yards. He should have been worth 100 points in that game. If the rules of fantasy football don't make it that Lamar is the number one pick,

then the rules are wrong. Yes, I agree. Yeah. Oh, it was a pleasure as always. I hate fantasy. I'm never doing it again. I want to come back, though, and do the playoff league because, or I'll walk you through the whole thing. We can do the special fantasy pie because I made the final four.

So my team heading into the playoffs, I get to keep six. And I have Lamar, I have Devin Singletary, Hopkins, Metcalf, Tyree Kill, George Kittle, Tucker, and the Patriots defense and the Ravens defense. So I can only keep six of those. And I have to, you know, have to fill a roster and try to figure out what free agents are going to be available and all that. And I'm going to spend probably seven, eight hours on this. It's going to be great. Everybody else's Fantasy League is over. I'm still going.

It's going to be awesome. Low-key Tucker and Kittle are actually huge. Yeah. Because you can't just get kickers as it gets later. Totally. Well, I'll probably let Metcalfe go. Yeah. Kittle I would have to keep.

Probably let Singletary go because you might only get one game out of them. Like the goal is you want to get. Longivity. Two or three games. Four is the best. Kittle and Tucker for sure. First round team that plays four games and gets to the Super Bowl is like the dream scenario. Does it screw you for teams with buys, though?

Does the buys matter? Byes do matter a little bit. Yeah. But then you think like usually the buy team, one of them is going to make the Super Bowl. Right. Just the rule usually. So you're getting three games. You want to get three games.

So anyway, that's my league. Wait, who's your quarterback again? I mean, I have Lamar. Oh, so you're set. You're shit. You're shit. You're sure. That's the irony of this year is.

I'm going to lose all my leagues and I was all in on Lamar. But can't you win this league? I could. So there you go. So you focus on one. One out of three is great. But now I have cold weather Lamar for the playoffs. Don't do that.

That might be a thing. Don't do that. Cold weather. I'm having a thing. Right now, I'm saying don't do that. Cold weather Lamar might be a thing. We don't know. Cold weather golf is a thing.

It's cold out there. Well, we do actually love the weather thing. The turf gets hard. He's from Florida. Whereas like Eli, when the elements, The worst they got, the better Eli got. That's when he's shy. It's like minus 30.

He couldn't have think. He just reacted. If Eli had been in the CFL, he would have been the greatest quarterback of all time. Well, he already is. So it's fine. Does he, did a thing on my pod today that the Hall of Fame Committee should announce whether Eli finishes 500 or not will determine whether he's in the Hall of Fame. So the last two games would have these incredible stakes.

Huge ratings, honestly. It's like, watch it. Coming up later, Eli Manning's Hall of Fame candidacy at stake. Do you think he lies a Hall of Famer? He has to go 500 or better. He really does. I don't mean to simplify it, but he actually has to go... You can't be under 500 to make the Hall of Fame a quarterback.

You can't. Some like fourth and seven pass to Darius Slate is going to decide it. It is. It would be great. Trust Darius Slate. Dika, do you think he lies a hall of favor? It's good real. All right, I'm coming back to do my playoff roster in a couple weeks.

Thanks for having me out. Yeah, thank you. It was fun. All right, so before we wrap, next, that's it for... Monday advice for fantasy football season. Yeah, championship week. That was quick. Championship week.

So for the rest of the NFL season, we're going to be doing DFS shows on Friday, and we're going to be Dillon Hour playoff advice. It's fun. Play on Fandual. We're going to have one more Monday show that we're going to be doing superlatives. We're going to get out of some season-long awards. We're going to have some weird, kooky awards that aren't real. I love it.

I love that you use the word kooky. Kooky. It'll be kooky. Wacky, whatever you want. Maybe we'll get serious for three seconds, and we'll talk about what we actually. actually learned, maybe. Yeah. But then DFS shows for the rest of the playoffs.

That'll be fun. And I guess Bill is going to need some help on drafting his team. So we'll do that too. Thank you to Bill. Thank you to Craig. Thank you to D.K. Again, thank you to Eli Manning, who will be 500 or better. Thank you for listening.

We'll see you guys out of this week.