Smashville Fantasy Football
Join Andrew Banta and Will Ott as they dive deep into the Smashville Fantasy Football League's 10th anniversary season. This weekly podcast offers a unique blend of league analysis, player insights, and friendly banter. Whether you're a league member or just a fantasy football enthusiast, you'll enjoy our hosts' distinct perspectives on roster management, player performance, and league-wide trends. From draft strategies to weekly matchups, we've got you covered with armchair analysis, historical comparisons, and plenty of laughs along the way.
Smashville Fantasy Football
When Hot Takes Go Cold: A Week 11 Reflection
Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast - Week 11 Analysis & Hot Takes!
Join Andrew Banta and Will Ott in this exciting episode of the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast as they dive into Week 11's performances and Week 12's upcoming matchups! Listen to their in-depth armchair analysis on the Kansas City Chiefs' first defeat, key waiver wire pickups, notable player performances, and crucial strategic decisions. Discover how our hosts' hot takes stack up and see who might win their head-to-head fantasy showdown. Packed with friendly banter, this episode is a must-listen for all fantasy football enthusiasts!
Welcome to the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast! I'm your trade-addict host, Andrew Banta, joined by our analyst who swears he can predict the future, Will Ott. Get ready for armchair analysis, friendly banter, and a whole lot of fantasy fun!
How the mighty have fallen. Of course, I could mean that a few different ways. We have the Kansas City Chiefs no longer undefeated.
They fell to the Bills and we are left with no undefeated teams left in the league. I have fallen in the sense that my hot take from last week is incorrect. Of course, I go out on a limb and pick the undefeated team to win and naturally that doesn't happen. I am striking out on my predictions lately. Mixing it pretty good fell to no fading on Jaden That was probably my matchup coming up that I was most worried about, so it felt good to get a win this week.
That knocked her down a couple places in our league standings, and
has now lost the last three games.
Yeah, last three games, four of the past five games. That's amazing. Dangerously close for Mixin It Pretty Good to be on an 0 5 stretch here, which is just mind boggling considering the start of the season.
And there's really no flubs that led to it. I don't recall any egregious bench blunders or anything. And then in week 8 she only beat you by a point and a half. So that narrowly avoided the 0 and 5 stretch there. Wu Tang Financial at the top of the leaderboard now at 8 and 3, the sole team. There, with eight wins. The points four, though, stands out, with only 1, 163 points.
That ranks below the other top eight teams. Really Wu Tang's gotta hold on to that lead in games one to be a lock for the playoffs, as strange as it seems. Cause the points four alone's not gonna get it done for him. Other matchups this week in our league, anything that you were watching?
The matchup that I had was rough. I ended up not starting Jerry Jeudy. Not like it would have mattered. But it was tough when you're going up against Joe Burrow. And Chris Boswell puts up the defense. 24 points, like some fluke stuff. I still put up a respectable 114. My original projection, according to Yahoo was a hundred points.
There was no one player that swung it for either of you. It was just an all around solid performance by CrunchyLeaves's guys. With the exception of Ricky Pearsall. He got, A goose egg there.
But Yea.
really matter. There was a big gap.
I wouldn't have started Jerry Judy.
Kyle Pitts has had some really good games and some mediocre games I, in this matchup, I'm probably going to need the higher ceiling rather than the higher floor. So I went with what I thought was the higher ceiling and it happens.
Your matchup against mixing it pretty good. That one was very close. The Houston Dallas game, I remember seeing your matchup and you were, projected to lose for most of that game. And then I checked back the next day and, lo and behold, you actually eked it out.
the Monday night game. So that was at the very end. And thank goodness that I decided to stream the Houston Texans defense instead of my relatively top Of the Heap Pittsburgh defense. Normally you just want to go ahead and start Pittsburgh every week, but I knew what a tough matchup it was.
So in Either dumb luck or a stroke of genius. I decided to pick up Houston seeing that they were going against Dallas who is already Pretty shaky team, but without Dak Prescott, I thought they could have even more turnovers and yeah, the defense returned for a touchdown at one point and that really swung the points in favor of me there.
That was the turning point of the game.
It was a fumble recovery for a touchdown, yeah.
What also is interesting to know, I've been watching Jaden Daniels his stats. And I was like, oh man, it feels good to watch Jaden Daniels be 14 points this week
You did predict it a little bit, thinking he'd struggle more in the second half of the season. It's a little early to say for sure.
I think he's still beating
past two games have
from the beginning of the season.
Yeah. Not a good game for him. But, other than that, I got some production out of Tyreek Hill. With a touchdown in there, so. that trade's feeling good for me right now. My running backs continue to be solid for me. Josh Jacobs Kenneth Walker, they both did great. And thankfully I got one of the boom days instead of the bust days for Jameson Williams. He's been hot and cold this year. And a good game came at the right time for me with him.
Other matchups, I thought the one between WorstEaterAround and UnderTheRadar was interesting. Finally the time has come that we've all been waiting for all year long. For Taysom Hill to go off. This is the moment we've been waiting for since Draft Night, baby. I think he won by enough that it wasn't the difference in the game, but it certainly padded the stats.
It was a big win, 144. 93 points for Under the Radar, 100. 79 for Worst Eater Round. But man, Taysom Hill comes in there with three rush touchdowns, 39. 62 fantasy points. 50 reception yards, 138 rush yards. Oh my gosh
I didn't think it would come that way. Honestly, I thought his breakout game would come from Derek Carr being injured. And then the saints saying, Hey, we'd rather go with Taysom Hill at QB. Or Hey, we'll do a mix and be like, Oh, this isn't working out. We're going to just put Taysom Hill in there and let him go.
He just played football, whatever way he could.
Yeah, this is the scenario where it's hard to predict it week to week. I mean, he had to fill in for bi weeks, I think, and he's been starting them certain weeks, leaving them benched other weeks. You had Malik Neighbors on buy, so definitely have Tayson Hill in there, and it paid off big.
man, Hill filled up the stat sheet though, you got the passing, receiving, rushing, he had an interception in there, a
I was about to say, didn't
he
filled up
everything! And those negative points didn't even matter,
you still get 40 fantasy points, despite turning the ball over in two different ways.
I'd take it every week. I mean, that's awesome. Who cares? Throw as many interceptions and fumbles as you want if you're
As long as you give me 40 points every week, I'll put you in there, wide receiver, tight end flex spot.
Looking at the past four game stretch, it's been very usable. I You could call them an every week starter from that. Of course, he's got his bye coming up, but some middling floor games of 4. 22 points and 5 points in there, but against Carolina he scored 12 with a touchdown. So yeah, it's time to let Hill eat.
Other matchups of note. Just the fact that SimpleJack came out with, win against the Meg in what was a, pretty strong performance for her team overall. But SimpleJack took care of business managed his lineup well, made sure to get all the starters in there so that there were no zeros to drag his team down. And that got him the win over the Meg.
He had struggled with that earlier this year.
Yeah, for sure. Any other matchups you want to talk about. or we can run through the standings? Mm
uh,
With how close this is.
Yeah Wu Tang Financial is our new leader at eight and three. But as I mentioned, a little shorter on the points four with 1, 163. No hard theelins at number two, sitting at seven and four, along with crunchy leaves at seven and four for the third rank, mixing it pretty good has fallen to number four in the league with a record of six and five.
Still top of the standings in points four with 1, 371. You follow also at six and five. For 5th place, I have climbed my way up to 6th and 5th and a 6th place finish currently. Our 5 and 6 teams at number 7 are Mitchy Mitch and number 8, Worst Eater Around. And then, Closing the Gap is Under the Radar, also at 5 and 6, just outside the playoffs in the number 9 spot.
Mint Berry Crunch, also 5 and 6, that's at number 10. And, trailing the league by a little less. This week is simple, Jack at four and seven in 11th, and the meg languishing in 12th with a record of two wins and nine losses. And the points for her are still bottom of the league 1046. As for the NFL games this week, what ones were you able to catch?
I watched the Packers Bears game, obviously that one was just up and down. I was surprised with Jordan Love looking pretty mediocre throwing an interception early and mid part of the game. Didn't really feel like he was making a reasonable contribution. The Packers didn't really have much on offense.
The defense did okay, but they gave up so many yards where that game felt like it was out of touch And then he ends up. Getting a go ahead running touchdown.
And then it's just like you see the bears and the defense just give up a bunch of yards, but we're only gonna give up three points.
The score is one, like there's a differential of one, and then they see this blocked field goal. And really, that's hilarious. Bears just find new ways. Although watching it live, I did pick up on what I thought was a penalty on Green Bay on that block with hitting the long snapper, who's a protective player. And then no one mentioned it, I believe in the live broadcast.
And then like a day or two after I was watching I think Pat McCaffey talking about how there probably should have been a flag on that play because the long snapper was definitely moved around a bit in the protected area.
So
I
didn't catch that. I'm not great at catching penalties anyway, but I did see a good portion of that game. And the block was great. That was an exciting
ending. But tell me if this is your perception since I did watch highlights on and off. It felt to me that the bears controlled the game.
For the most part. Even though it was closed most of the time, It just felt to me like the Bears were controlling the game more than the Packers, and it came down to the fact that the Bears, just were trading some touchdowns for field goals.
Yeah, I would, for the most part, agree with that. The
that they like, dominated or anything, it just felt like they were in
the driver's seat more than the Packers.
they had better drives.
getting field goals a couple times in there.
Yeah. When you have time of possession, more plays, more. I'm pretty sure there was more yards in there, too. I don't remember the exact stats. From watching the game. That's what it felt like. Uh,
I didn't look
at stats to say that either,
but.
First downs for Chicago. You had 68 plays for Chicago, only 43 for Green Bay 391 for Chicago, 366 for Green Bay. There was only one turnover in the whole game. It was Jordan Love after marching all the way down the field and throwing the interception.
After going 60 something, 70 yards. So like the total yards, it's basically two 90 because they didn't get anything out of it on a big drive like that.
Did you say time of possession?
now, but I did
say the
was a big one. Yeah. the big
one. 36 minutes Yeah, that was a big difference, and I think that's why it felt that way to me too. Along with the fact that the bears were leading the rushing game. When you're just pounding on the ground and moving down the field, that makes your team feel a little more in control, I feel like.
But they didn't get the touchdowns a couple times and left the door open for Green Bay. Man, Christian Watson, though. That was huge for the Packers. May not have the touchdowns to show for it this game, but 150 yards there. That's more of what I was hoping to see from Watson earlier in the season.
including what would end up being the game winning drive. Basically the bears defensive back slipped and Christian Watson had a diving catch, but since the defender had slipped, he was able to get back up and actually continue down the field for another 20, 25 yards. Just really the big part of setting up that touchdown. The only bad thing about that play was that Green Bay ended up scoring with probably too much time on the clock, but same time you take points when you can get them. I would definitely think that play was really the only big standout play for Green Bay the Bears had several really solid plays but just didn't put the whole thing together,
Yeah.
which was great.
From all the games I watched, the most surprising to me, and that was really my game of the week was one I would not have expected. The Charger's Bengals. That was exciting. And man, poor Bengals. They're on the wrong side of the playoff race right now.
That was such a great game. I think, Justin Herbert has been stepping it up lately. Becoming startable again for fantasy purposes. Early in the year, he had really been below my expectations. I've
Same with Joe Burrow,
in the past, yeah. The Bengals were thoroughly outplayed in the first half and half of the third quarter even. Very one sided. But then they made this epic comeback. They were down 27 6 midway through the third quarter, early to mid third quarter. And came all the way back to tie it at 27. And then yeah. Yeah, of course Dovan sealed it with an amazing touchdown at the very end of the game to stave off that comeback. Another big factor in late in the game was Evan McPherson missed two field goals they weren't chip shots by any means. They were longer ones, but still to miss 'em back to back was problematic for them.
absolutely.
I don't have the stats here, but Will Disley had a pretty big game. I marked him down as a potential popular Waver Wire pickup this week, and I'm trying to see what he actually did in the game in retrospect.
80 yards and a touchdown.
That's pretty good
solid for where he's, ranked and the fact that he's a free agent. comeback is what made that game so exciting. Even though it fell just short, but that was a good one. I talked a little bit about the Texans Cowboys and the fact that I started their defense because it's against a Cowboys team that is Not very protective of the ball in general.
And then potentially worse with a backup quarterback in there. Man, as many points as the Texans scored it should have been like five interceptions errant throw after errant throw bouncing off the hands of the defensive guy. Just narrowly missed interceptions. I'm like, Oh my God, they should have over 50 points for me right now.
Do you feel like there were more drops there than there were by the team on offense?
I don't know. But Cooper Rush was 32 at 55, so there is a lot of opportunity for drops in there. Man, he aired it out. I guess maybe that, as a result of airing it out 55 throws, that's why I saw so many defensive opportunities for interceptions.
I didn't realize when I was watching it just how much passing was going on there.
when you're behind that much early, you got to do something.
Yeah.
Otherwise Jerry Jones is going to be really Upset.
yeah.
Man,
Let's
I don't feel sorry for him.
Any other games? I saw some of the Colts vs. the Jets. Anthony Richardson showing some life in there. First time he's had a great fantasy performance since week one.
The Colts. Have a good chance to win against the Jets. The Jets are a mess, too. Doesn't make me feel great about the Colts, but hey, they're hanging in on the playoff race. Richardson's still having trouble taking care of the ball, though. He has 8 fumbles and 7 interceptions through 7 games.
A Fumbles is really
The 8 fumbles is the big thing, yeah. And he added another fumble in this game to that. When he has performances that give you a couple rushing touchdowns to go with his passing touchdown, you feel better and you can overlook that for fantasy purposes. But just in general he's fumbling a lot.
Then the last game I saw was the Chiefs Bills one. As we mentioned at the beginning the Bills did win.
It felt like Mahomes was harassed regularly throughout this game. He didn't have a lot of turnovers or anything. I think it was one interception, if I remember correctly. But he was hurried a lot. And the Bills defense took care of business there. Amari Cooper started out hot and then disappeared completely by the early to mid second quarter.
I thought it was going to be another big game for him based off that first quarter, but yeah, he really faded. Did nothing
He only had two catches. Three targets.
Yeah, and that was all in that first quarter and a half. One funny thing, just random thing in there is the Bills tight end, Dawson, Knox pulled off a camera fatality.
fell into the cameraman and the camera launches up in the air, somersaults into the ground,
this huge telescope lens, big camera. Yeah, that was just a kind of funny moment. Funny if you're not the cameraman. I don't think the guy got hurt at all. It was mostly the camera that took the damage.
Man. Yep, that guy is I think they make those things a little bit more durable, I would hope so. And then I guess the next thing we want to talk about is the upcoming week
Yeah, sure.
Starting with the brown Steelers. Oh, I guess I should say, first of all for the record Andrew and I are pretty close. going head to head this week
Yes.
and I'm not projected to win. I have several key players that are on by.
I have Kyle Pitts on by Travis CTN on by Jamar Chase on by Tank Digsby on by. And so I'm just starting who I can. So I'm not projected to win this week and I'm okay with losing this week. This is just one of those. Well, We'll see what
let me ask you, are you dropping someone? Or are you rolling with no kicker?
I gotta mess with that. I haven't figured out who I want to pick up
yeah. I was wondering, I didn't know if you'd just bite the bullet on it because you didn't have anyone you wanted to drop or what the deal was.
I don't want to say too much yet.
Okay, yeah.
I will make a decision. I am just watching some stuff,
Okay. Yeah, with that, um, Pittsburgh Cleveland game, I think I'll make my hot take this week that at halftime the score will be 3 10 with Cleveland leading. Do you think that's a good hot take, Will?
man. That's pretty bold because Steelers have been playing really well, but at the same time, this Russell Wilson, is he going to be able to actually keep up playing really well? And Nick Chubb is back, so he might score a touchdown or something. I can see it. I can
Yeah, I can see it. Alright, yeah. Yeah, so that's when we're recording. It's halftime. For the Thursday night game there,
And Nick Chubb does
have a touchdown.
I'm about to resort to cheating to try to get a good hot take in here soon. What other games I
going to be uh, 49ers beat the Packers and Christian McCaffrey has the night of his life, maybe not night of his life, but he's going to do exceptionally
game. Yeah.
But historically the Packers have not done well against San Francisco and playoffs especially. So I'm just picking the 49ers to win.
Okay.
But I think that game's actually going to be a lot closer. The Packers though, their defenses did not look good against Chicago and Chicago hadn't scored a touchdown in over a month on offense,
Oh, wow.
So when you give up. Two touchdowns you're not doing very good. I think the bears are playing better than their current record. But I don't think that's really enough to beat the Vikings this week. I feel like the lines are going to just I don't mean, I don't mean Dallas versus the Lions game stomp.
I'm talking more of like a reserve stomp. Like I can see them scoring 35 to 14 or 17 not 49 to seven or whatever else it was.
Yeah. I think the cults will score some more, but I do think that's a very tough game for the Colts, and I'd expect the lions to have a very high score against them. Maybe I'll come back to it and make some sort of prediction about the point totals ballpark. But yeah, I could see them having a very high score against the Colts for sure.
Yeah. Patriots Dolphins is it's going to be interesting to see exactly what we're going to see out of the Dauphins. I
I would pick the Dolphins
to win that one.
At what point are they out of contention for playoffs or do they want to just say, you know what, the season's over. We're gonna play Tua safe, we're gonna let Tyree Hill be safe and just focus on the next year because if something happens, like Tua gets another concussion, he might retire. If Tyree Hill gets like a torn ACL or something like that, then he's out for the beginning of the next year. Not exactly sure. I don't think the Dolphins are going to give up yet. They've played 10 games. So this is going to be their 11th game out of 17 and they're sitting four and six. If they rattle off four straight wins they're back in playoff consideration. The giants, they're switching their quarterback right now. Daniel
Oh, are they?
I did not hear that yet.
Who's starting? QB then? Do you even know? I don't
I don't remember his name. Tommy
Oh, okay.
And Daniel Jones, for the record, did get dropped. Not second string, but
Yeah, I was just looking at that and I'm like, what's the significance of that?
Yeah. I think his time in New York is over.
Yeah, I didn't know if 2nd or 3rd string placement was just not a big deal. Like maybe it was just our meaningless roster designation as opposed to a real ranking. But that's significant if he really does fall behind Drewlock to become the 3rd string QB on the team.
Usually you see a QB just move up or down 1 and not
2.
here's the other significant part too, is that they changed the rule to you get to have an inactive QB. Be your emergency quarterback. So we don't have a situation like San Francisco had a couple of years ago. So I don't know if that means that him being 13 QB means he's considered inactive unless Tommy and Drew get injured.
Okay,
Or are they running him as a third dressed player and then they're running a fourth inactive quarterback as an emergency quarterback, although running for quarterbacks to me seems weird and unlikely, but every team gets an inactive QB to be able to keep on their sidelines for.
a situation like that as an emergency quarterback. So I don't know exactly where that falls, but I want to probably say he's the inactive quarterback,
which is pretty significant in terms of his future in New York,
Yeah.
Cowboys commanders, man, before the season, I was pretty down the commanders and pretty reasonable on the Cowboys.
But I think the commanders win this one pretty easily
Yeah, gives Jaden Daniels a chance to
get his swagger back too.
Yeah,
get some of this confidence back. Oh yeah, this should
be
him, I hope.
I think he'll dominate the air and on the ground.
Yeah.
know. I don't think he's going to have a problem. And you have your chiefs Panthers
Panthers, let the Chiefs get their swagger back too. Good bounce back opportunity for them there. We are getting close to Isaiah Pacheco coming back into the lineup, right? Designated to return. He's limited at practice. Don't know yet if he's going to be held out week 12 or if he's going to return, but he's coming back soon I think it's too late to Make much of a difference for the megs team, but that'll be interesting to just follow the chiefs having him back in the starting lineup
He's still technically on injured reserve,
Yeah, but what is that designated for return that gives them a window right to
Yeah. I think it's four weeks where you can practice or be involved with the team before you are, either done or are off IR. I don't remember exactly how many weeks he's been in that designation, but it looks like he's not necessarily slated to return this week.
Yeah, probably not this week it's looking like after reading through his notes. But getting closer. He's trending in the right direction. He's logged a few limited practices in a row. So that's good that there's been no setbacks there. You'll want to see him get a couple full practices in for sure.
And maybe as soon as week 13 we can see him on the field again. Then talk about Titans Texans.
I don't think there's really much to talk about. I think Texans are going to walk all over that game.
Yeah, me too.
Broncos Raiders is somewhat interesting. I'm still not a Bo Nix fan. I don't necessarily believe in him, but he's been playing well enough to be in a position to destroy the Raiders and the Raiders have their own problems at either quarterback and basically all over the board, especially with getting rid of Devante Adams, they got nothing. So I think it's a pretty easy Broncos win.
Cardinal Seahawks has got some playoff implications because that NFC West is very close. You have the Cardinal six and four Seahawks five and five Rams five and five and 49ers at five and five.
So it is a big time game for both those teams. Both teams have had their surprises for better or for worse. I don't want to say the Cardinals. I just don't, but at the same time, I can't say the Seahawks. What are your thoughts?
I don't know the Cardinals well enough, but I haven't been impressed with the Seahawks this year, so I'd go Cardinals, I think. The Cardinals is their team. I just don't follow as much, I think. I nothing them, I have no positive or negative feelings about them.
Uh, more
of an opinion on Kyler Murray, I guess,
uh,
Yeah, I don't,
spoken about him before.
It was released that his bonus was contingent on him studying film
Oh, yes.
oh my goodness you've got to be kidding me.
This guy doesn't want to study film. That should not be part of a bonus. Like if a team is really trying to be that stingy or Kyler Murray is just not it. And when Cliff Kingsbury was before he got I mean, he, he's just not there. I want to say that he just doesn't want to study film.
That was my takeaway. I have a lot less respect for him and with the quarterback, obviously being one of the Bigger positions in football. You can't really support that. Anyway, moving on, we've got the Eagles Rams,
Eagles should win that one. They're one of the better birds in the NFL. Probably them and the Ravens. I've liked what I've seen from them this year and they could be a contender.
I can see Saquon Barkley being the difference in that game. I, although I do foresee. Either Cooper Cup or some Rams Wide Receiver, just lighting it up,
And then Monday night we'll close it out with the Ravens and Chargers.
which Chargers really have looked strong as of late, and the Ravens have stumbled a little bit, but I still like that Ravens team overall. so I'd give them the slight edge.
maybe we can just split on that. I think the Stumble of the Ravens is more significant and therefore I think the Chargers are gonna end up winning that one.
Alright, one vote Ravens, one vote Chargers. That is all the games. While we were reading through I was looking at The spreads and trying to figure out what I wanted to do a take on. I'm gonna go with the Colts Lions, cause they're my Colts team. I think they lose it, but I think it's gonna be a very high scoring game.
I'm gonna say at least 50 points total scored.
I
think that's almost guaranteed.
and Anthony Richardson has a big fantasy performance with at least 30 fantasy points. The Lions are gonna run it up and the Colts are gonna have to look for that dynamic facet we've seen to Anthony Richardson to try to claw their way back, which is gonna mean Some big scores, rushing and passing, and probably some turnovers, but that I don't care so much about from a fantasy perspective.
So I think just the fact that the Lions are so good, it's going to force the Colts to do more and run up the point total, which is going to help Anthony Richardson as well. That's my hot take for the week. 50 points between the teams, that seems like the easier bet, and then Anthony Richardson scores 30 fantasy points.
I'll go ahead and make my hot take the Derek Henry under 10 fantasy points with Lamar Jackson putting up zero touchdowns.
That's
I don't know how that's a tough one. Yeah, for the Lamar like, well
that means I'm basically saying that Justin Tucker's gonna score all the points for Baltimore
they can always run it too.
But then Derrick Henry would get more fantasy points.
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a pretty hot
So for some reason, when you said Derrick Henry, I was thinking I heard Derrick Carr.
Oh,
And I was like, Oh, okay, sure. And then I was confused why you paired both of those quarterbacks up in the same prediction. obviously I hadn't checked it. It's his buy week anyway, so he 10 fantasy points. He will put up none on his buy.
Can I change it to Derek Carr gets
That would be much easier, yeah. No, the Derrick Henry one I mean it makes more sense why you paired it together now.
But man, that seems like a hard bet.
I'm not expecting to be victorious on this one, but I'm going to run with it because they play terrible against Pittsburgh. So maybe they continue the trend, especially on the road.
I think you'll just go ahead and win the season of Hot Takes if that does come to pass. Because that seems very challenging.
You wanna talk waiver wire pickups and bench blunders from the
Yeah.
I'm looking through right now. The waiver wire. Pickups for this week before the set of games. I think picking up Justin Herbert over Allen is a pretty good pickup.
Matthew Stafford and dropping New York Giants defense is, an easy win. I'm surprised where Cedar round dropped Justin Herbert to begin with,
it was before the game, right?
I believe so.
It could have changed your answer if you saw how well he played this week. But, really, he's been startable for the past month. He's had some good games after a disappointing first five games.
Yeah,
even first six games.
yeah, it's just hard to know. You don't want to only see a couple. 20 plus point games and just say, oh, this is the new normal. It's a little hard to draw that conclusion for sure with a quarterback. So I get him not being picked up after a couple 20 plus point games having looked at the rest of the season.
As for the wafer pickups from the previous week that we were able to see. I think No Heart Thelans was quietly on fire this week with the pickups. She picked up the Detroit defense kicker Jake Bates, and wide receiver Nick Westbrook Ekine.
All three of these scored double digit fancy points for her. She started the defense and the kicker. So yeah, that's just bi week selections and everything filling in. No real long term moves necessarily
or at least not intentionally.
Not intentionally at least but heck she called him right and that's great to pick up That many points off the waiver wire just to fill in Wu tang financial picked up a marquez valdez scantling He was traded to the saints just a couple weeks ago,
Yes.
I forget. But yeah, I had two monster weeks now, back to back for his new team. So maybe Wu Tang Financials found something in him moving forward.
That was a good pickup. And then I picked up the Houston defense, which normally wouldn't be too notable. I've had them earlier in the season for a bit and dropped them, but that single handedly won the week for me. Because the Pittsburgh defense would have got around that projection, but the Houston made up the real point deficit I had elsewhere on my team.
was a big one.
Are there any others that you saw that you thought were noteworthy? Because the rest, I didn't think there was any huge single moves
I didn't notice anything.
Okay, yeah, so my personal Waver Wire Wizard award for this week, I'm gonna give it to No Hard Thielens. Not because of any one move, but just kind of the culmination of making three good moves to fill in for you that week.
So it's body of work as opposed to any one. genius move .
As for the bench blunders this one is not a blunder at all, but I just wanted to talk about Crunchyleaf started Ricky Pearsall after a big previous week only to get zero points from him. I don't think you could have made a case to start someone else over him.
It's just a funny fluke. No blunder, but just unfortunate.
Oh, no. Something to note, especially when the game wasn't close. Still won by 35 points.
I noted that Under the Radar ended up leaving a lot of the points on the bench this week. Having Christian Watson with around 17 fantasy points on the bench and then Kevante Turpin. Turpin had 20. 4. But I think I would have made those same choices. I had anticipated Watson being a bigger deal through the season, but it hadn't worked out that way, so I don't think I would have started Watson or Turpin so can't really fault him there.
And it was still a blowout thanks to Taysom Hill's epic performance. The only other one I really even thought was worth mentioning is Mitchie Mitch started TJ Hawkinson. for 1. 3 fancy points over Jordan Addison, 15. 1 points. And, I don't think that's just a hands down certain call one way or the other.
So, it wasn't bad for me either. You could make an argument either way.
So,
that means there's no bench
yeah, exactly, no blunders, really.
Everyone did a pretty good job, and you could justify all the moves, I think.
Good job guys!
No blunders. Cool and that's all I got. We're already technically well underway for week 12 with the game going on.
I'll check out a little bit of that after we sign off. And looking forward to some matchups this week, especially the matchup between you and me, Will.
I'm not looking forward to You're not looking forward to that one?
No.
We'll see what happens. I mean, I got a win in there last week so, It's not disastrous if I lose this week, but, want to stay solidly in playoff contention.
Yeah. And I need to win next week. I think that's really going to be my defining moment. If I don't win next week, I think I might miss the playoffs because of just how close we are.
it's kind of sad how quickly it changes how we feel about our teams. One week I'm like, oh yeah, I'm a lock for the playoffs. And then the next week after another loss, I'm like, oh, it's real shaky ground now. And now I won. So I'm like on cloud nine again. Oh yeah, I'm going to make the playoffs.
It's such recency bias, but I can't help it. I feel like however I was the previous week.
Part of it too, is just riding momentum and seeing what your players do and you expect, Oh, they're going to continue this trend. And then they don't. So I was like, Oh yeah, I got to play Andrew and it'll probably be a really close game. And then I looked at my roster and, several key players are on by. I have very little
Yeah. J'Marche is on bye hurts, but, I think Etienne and Bigsby are just saving you from the pain of choosing what one to start by being on bye, so that might be a net positive. Alright, good luck to everyone this week except for Will, and we'll see you next time on Smashville Fantasy Football.
That's it for this episode of the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast! As always, we have aspirations of adequacy, so come back and we'll try to do a bit better next time.
Who knows? We may even reveal that one sneaky trick guaranteed to win your fantasy league,
See you next week!
