Transcription
Good morning friends and enemies. Welcome into the very last Waverwire show of the fantasy football season. It is week 17. If you are watching this, you are alive and well and you are in your championship matchup.
Now, today's video will be going over some player analysis, but also some strategies about how we're approaching this week's waiver wire because it's not only as important to grab the right guys to mold your lineup, but it's equally as important to look at the opponent's lineup and block them from securing the best lineup possible. So, this is a chess game in week 17. So, let's set up the board, let's set up the pieces, and let's talk about it.
So, the very first thing I want you to do is look at who you're playing against. Find the biggest weaknesses in your lineup and then match them to your waiver wire. Go see who the most likely candidates are for them to pick up. And since it's week 17, this is the final week. It doesn't matter who you drop as long as your opponent is not going to pick them up and play them. So, if you've been holding on for high upside guys, handcuffs, receivers that are your fourth receiver, and your opponent already has three solidified wide receivers, and there's no way he's going to start this guy, those are all drop candidates for you. If you have fab left over, you could use it all in this week. And I'll give you a little bit of an example of that.
This week in your Idiot League mates, I'm in the championship and I'm playing against Jack. Now, Jack's team has studs at the running back position. His team is so good that if Emanuel Wilson ends up being the starter, if Josh Jacobs is out, he can't even put him into his lineup because his running back room is that good. So when I look at my team and I'm looking at my roster, I'm like, Han Swift, cool. My other running backs are Kungai, Kareem Hunt, Rico Dattle. All three of those guys are drop candidates for me. It's like, sure, I don't want to drop Rico D if I don't have to. I don't want to drop Kungai if I don't have to. They're not getting into my lineup this week. And I know that Jack can't put him into his lineup, so I don't care that they go and hit the wire.
His team. He's got Drake May as the QB1, but his QB2 is Cam Ward. Now, Cam Ward's coming off a good game, but do you trust him in the championship as your QB2? This is a super flex league, so we start two quarterbacks. Therefore, last week, I actually picked up Gino, not because I'd ever play him, cuz I have TAW, Brock Pery, and Stafford who all put up 31 pieces this week. But because I knew that Jack needed a quarterback, too, next week. It's Cam Ward versus the Saints. Maybe he's going to be a better option than Gino, but I know Gino plays against the Giants at home and the off chance that he picked up Gino, started him over Cam Warden, and that was a differencemaker. I went ahead and preemptively made that move. So, that's what you're going to be doing today.
If your opponent needs a quarterback, too, I know Jack does. Malik Willis is sitting on our waiver somewhere. So, Malik Willis would be a guy that I go and try and block. He also needs wide receivers bad. So, I would look at our wide receiver position and say, "Hey, maybe I go grab a Matt Collins. Maybe I go grab Trey Tucker or try to at least to block Jack from having that as an option." So, that's first and foremost what I want you to do. Again, chess games here. Same thing with defenses. You might want to pick up two or three of them if it blocks your opponent from having the best one available.
So, we can get into the actual player analysis now. And as we always do, we go through the trending up, trending down tab and talk about guys that I think are worth picking up that are owned in fewer than 50% of sleeper leagues.
Now, the top running back room to probably talk about right now is the Cleveland Browns. We have Quinchan Judkins who breaks his leg. He's going to be out for the remainder of the season. What does that leave us with in the backfield? On Sunday was Raheem Sanders, who was an undrafted free agent rookie this year. Big body dude, 220, 230 lb, 61, whatever. He's a, you know, he's a he's a bruising type of back. You had Trayvon Williams stick in for the pass catching role. So, they they had very, very clear defined roles there. Sanders as an early down guy will get the goal line carries. Trayvon Williams as the scatback in that offense.
Now, the wrench here is Dylan Samson. He was their fourth round rookie who showed a lot of promise this year and had a bunch of good games. It's snowing out here in New York right now. Samson. I really like Samson. I think he's an awesome back. They play against Pittsburgh this week and Samson has missed the last couple weeks with a calf injury and then a hand injury. The hand injury is what kept him out this previous week. You would think that a hand injury, if you're not having surgery on it, you'd be able to come back from pretty quickly. And I do think if Dylan Samson is back for this game, he will take over as the starting running back in Cleveland. But it does leave a little bit of a messy situation because we have not really seen him operate as like the clear bellcow at any point this year. So, while I do think he's by far and away the most talented guy they have on the roster, if he's healthy, I would imagine there's some sort of a committee here. I don't know. He might get pulled on the goal line for a guy like Raheem Sanders, which does make it messy. So, if you're in a PPR league and Dylan Samson ends up playing, I do think he's a flex worthy ad for you this week. If he doesn't play and it's Sanders and Trayvon Williams again, I'm not interested in playing Trayvon Williams. Raheem Sanders, I think, could be made the case for that he could be a flex play as well. Him and Trayvon Williams kind of split the snaps evenly last week when Judkins left, but he did get 11 carries, took it for 42 yards. He's a fine back. He's not overly talented by any means, but if it's just those two for the entirety of the game, you know, Cleveland's going to want to lean on their running backs against a team like Pittsburgh. So, I do think Mahm Sanders has like a 15 touch outlook on the horizon.
After that, you've got Emanuel Wilson, who's obviously a must own. If Josh Jacobs is out for this week, Wilson will end up being likely a bellcow in this situation. And just to touch on the quarterback room in Green Bay, you had Jordan Love who suffered the concussion on Saturday, but it doesn't give him an extra day because they play again on Saturday, this upcoming week. So, he's got seven days, the normal, you know, week- toeek timeline to clear the concussion protocol. If he doesn't go, it would be Malik Willis filling in there. If he's good to go, he injured his shoulder late in the game against Chicago on Saturday, but he did finish the game. So, it does feel like it leans more towards him being okay to go. When Malik Willis is under center, they're typically a much more runheavy offense. I just think Emanuel Wilson will obviously just end up being like a top 12, top 10 fantasy running back for the week. Last time he filled in for Josh Jacobs, he went for like 125 yards and two touchdowns. So, he obviously needs to be owned at this point.
There's no one else really on this list that's under, you know, 50% owned that I think is worth having right now. Rodriguez is at 51%. He's a flex play against Dallas. He took back over the starting role. We'll get the goal line carries here in Washington against a a good matchup here, but they might be without Marcus Mariota in this one and Jaden Daniels obviously. So, they're going to turn to whoever their third string is, and it's probably going to get messy. I think it's Josh Johnson there. So, don't expect a lot of success there in Washington on Thursday. The other one that might be unowned in your league is Michael Carter here. He was the starter last week against Atlanta. Ran effectively 11 for 65, but didn't have much else going on there. They do get a really good match up against Cincinnati in week 17, though. So, Michael Carter would be a dude that has flex appeal if he's available in your league.
Moving over to the wide receiver position, you have Parker Washington, who obviously exploded. He's like a really good after the catch type of player, but like banking on his consistency going forward feels a little crazy. He's obviously had some ceiling games, but he's had a lot of floor games as well. I think that's just the consistency of this passing offense. The positives here are they play at Indie, so they're in a dome, and I don't think this indie passing defense is really any good. They just got shred by Brock Pury. It would be the window that they open up to get Sauce Gardner back though, right? They didn't put him on the IR, so he's missed three weeks already, which means that they had the possibility for him returning after 3 weeks, which would put him in the return for this week. Why I think that's important is last week they were playing at Denver. On paper, very tough matchup to throw the ball against. Basically, Patrick Certan kind of lined up against Brian Thomas Jr. most of the game, which led the middle of the field kind of open, which is where Parker Washington did a lot of damage. He did some like screen damage on the outside, made guys miss after the fact. So I don't want to just like take that away from him obviously. But I do think again if Indie gets back Sgardner they're already down Travarius Ward and S Gardner which is why like their quarterback room is completely depleted. If Sau is back he'll probably primarily play against Brian Thomas Jr. which should open up some secondary targets but I do think I would very much caution people to like go ahead and label Parker Washington as a mustart here as he's still only playing on around 50% of the snaps. We're going to have a lot of recency bias just based on this big game.
Of course, uh, Mumfield, he's way too low of a Florida player for me to want to start him in championship weekend. Matt Collins, I actually do think, is a pretty damn good, uh, pickup and sharp start this week if you're desperate for like a 10-point guy. They got a great matchup against the New York Jets here. Drake May should kind of have his way there if he wants to. Matt Collins, you know, normally running around 80% of the routes in this offense, coming off of a nine target game, eight targets a week before that. He's got like a floor of five to six targets and every once in a while he kind of splashes for a big player or two. Hasn't scored since week four, but if he pops for a score, he's just a guy that's attached to one of the MVP candidates, a guy that runs a lot of routes, a guy that's in a proficient offense and has a great matchup this week. So, I think like M. Collins, if you're desperate and need a wide receiver, Phil, uh, don't hate him this week.
Kind of the same thing with Trey Tucker, obviously not attached to a good quarterback, but they do play against the New York Giants at home. And I think Gino Smith and the Las Vegas offense, mainly Ashen Genty, busting off big plays, probably put forward their best effort of the year last week at Houston. So, good matchup. Trey Tucker, you know, hasn't done much since really exploding in that week three game against Washington back in the day day. But I think Trey Tucker is like another dude that you can kind of make the case for. Shimray DK has been all right. Three touchdowns in his last five games. That's not even including the return touchdown. He's very, very boomer as you could see. It's like 321 negative 13 513. So very low floor, decently good ceiling here. Don't really want to trust the Titans pass catcher. So I'd probably look elsewhere.
And then we could probably move on to the tight end position. You have Taesm Hill and Jake Tongis are probably the only ones that I would discuss here that are owned in less than 50% of leagues. Taesm Hill kind of came out of nowhere on Sunday and became like the featured running back, the featured player in the Saints offense against the Jets defense. But I do think it's important to highlight that point. It came against the Jets abysmal defense. And as you could see, he scored 15 fantasy points and that was the first time he's gone over 6.1 fantasy points this entire season. It's like his worst fantasy season of his entire career. But that being said, you know, it feels like they lost Kamara, they lost Kendrick Miller, they lost Deon Neil. Felt like that was their breaking point. They're like, "Okay, you know what? Audrey Esté, this is where like Taesm Hill, we'll put him in there." So he had 12 carries in this one, which was more than double Esté and Evan Hull combined. He caught four passes. He threw the touchdown to Chris Ave at the end of the game. So, he was involved everywhere. And if Alvin Kamar is not back, it kind of feels like that's probably going to be the game plan again. I do think for me, Taesm Mill's not a mustart, but we've seen we we've seen this movie before. Taesm Hill in the fantasy playoffs like explodes, does everything on the field, becomes the focal point of the Saints passing offense, the focal point of their running offense, and just has these major high ceiling games. Going to be very volatile, though. If he comes out and has a three-point game, no one should be surprised there. So, because of the volatility and the range of outcomes for Taesm Hill, he still won't be a mustar for me. He probably won't even get inside like the top eight, maybe even top 10 tight ends for me, definitely not a must-ar guy, but think it should be noted, obviously.
And then last night, we had George KD leave the game with an ankle sprain. Now, the severity is still to be determined. Twitter doctors are saying could be a high ankle sprain. Don't know. He left, but they might have just been up enough points that like it wasn't crucial that he came back into the game. So, could be severity, could be the flow of the game. Not exactly sure what George KD's injury status is going to be, but if George KD misses, they play against the Chicago Bears next week. Middle of the pack against tight ends, but Jake Thomas has filled in pretty damn well for George KD when he missed time in the intermediate part of the year there. Week four, five, and six. Very, very involved. Those are legit tight end one numbers. And this is a passing offense that revolves around the tight end in the passing game. If it's not CMAC, it's typically the tight end. And if George KD doesn't play Ricky Pier Saul, I would say I'm like relatively pessimistic reagravating the knee that he ends up playing in this upcoming week. So there's going to need to be targets going somewhere. And if I had to bet Jake Tongus would be a pretty solid streaming option in week 17.
I mean, other than that, I I don't think I have much else to say. We're not going to do a drop list, obviously, cuz anyone that you're not going to use and your opponent's not going to use is is droppable in the final week of the season.
For defenses, as always, uh, one, I have my rankings up in the Waverwire rankings, of course. Course, if you're a big dog member, you'll have access to those on the website. They are live as I'm filming this. Always with defenses, look for teams that are expected to win their game. So, look at point spreads. Teams that are sevenpoint favorites, eight-point favorites, 12-point favorites. Those are the best teams to stream their defenses for. If they're at home, that's a great tiebreaker. If they're playing against turnoverprone or rookie quarterbacks, that's a great tiebreaker. High overunders is good if there's a big spread because you want the opponent's quarterback dropping back because that ends up leading to sacks. That ends up leading to strip sacks. That ends up leading to interceptions. And more often than not, those are where the touchdowns come from for defenses.
So, I will leave you there. Go dominate the waiverwire this week. Go dominate your opponents. And I will be back with the next video, which is our rankings video. Of course, I won't leave you hanging here before Christmas. I am undecided on how I'm going to do this final video or two. If I'm going to split them up into the running back and wide receiver version or because we are tight on time before the holidays and I'm not sure what my editor's schedule is going to be this week and I'm going home on Wednesday. So, normally I film the wide receiver on Thursday, I might do one big ass video where I just do running backs and wide receivers together and just shoot that out to you guys as one. So, you let me know if you have a preference. I doubt you guys kick give a [ __ ] but yeah, that's all I got. So, uh, if you guys have appreciated these waiverwire videos throughout the season, of course, make sure you drop a thumbs up down below, subscribe to the channel. If you are new here, somehow in week 17, we will have the rankings for you. Otherwise, happy holidays, merry Christmas. Go light up the manora. Go light up your opponents on the waiver wire. I love y'all's smoochies. Down.