The Fantasy Footballers’ Starts of the Week for Week 16
The Ballers were back on Thursday (minus Jason) bringing their Starts of the Week for Week 16. Andy and Mike gave their selections and the logic behind their choices.
If you didn’t get to listen to the show, you can find it here: Starts of the Week + Week 16 Breakdown, Touchdowns or Revolt!. I’ve provided a quick summary of those players and added Jason’s award-winning Boom Boom Kicker of the Week segment. Make sure to check out JoinTheFoot.com for exclusive content available only for #FootClan members.
Andy’s Starts of the Week
QB – Matthew Stafford
Matty Snapback is catching fire at the perfect time. Since Week 11 bye, he’s been a top-12 QB for four straight weeks. Minnesota’s secondary is like a Generic Brand of Poopy Diapers: ready to break/explode. Over the last six weeks, they rank 30th versus fantasy QBs and dead last versus fantasy WRs. Cooper Kupp is unbelievable but Matthew Stafford has helped the metamorphosis. This game has the HIGHEST TOTAL (49.0) of the week.
RB – Cordarelle Patterson
ATL hasn’t won at home this season (the London game doesn’t count). I think they right the ship as 5.5 pt home favs & Patterson is a top-15 RB this week. Detroit is allowing 137 rush yards per game on the ROAD this season- 5th MOST in the NFL. At home, CPee is averaging 93 yards from scrimmage per game. He’s too important to this offense and their best chance at converting in the Red Zone.
WR – DK Metcalf
If you’ve held on this long, might as well go all-in. It’s been bad. Things going well for DK: On the field. Running routes. He’s huge. We’ve seen him be elite. The Bears are allowing the 9th MOST fantasy points to WRs, tied for 5th MOST Yards per Reception, and the 3rd most passing TDs on the year. Chicago is down to their 3rd string guys in the secondary. DK gets in the end-zone this week or Andy’s body might fail.
TE – Rob Gronkowski
Last week, Gronk saw a season-high 11 targets… only caught two of them. But he will be incredibly necessary for Tom Brady this week @ CAR with a depleted corps of WRs. He’s averaging more than 8 targets in FULL games played. Rare at TE position. He leads ALL TEs in aDOT (10.5)
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Jason’s Boom-Boom Kicker of the Week
Jason is tending to his family down with the flu. He still sent in his all-important Boom-Boom Kicker of the Week:
Powered with sugar, I became even surer, that early on-set diabetes would ruin my belly but,
I morphed into muscle, ready for an epic tussle, with a final boss kicker named Jake Elliott.
Mikes’s Starts of the Week
QB – Joe Burrow
When the Ravens played the Bengals in Week 7, Burrow dominated as the QB2, and Cincinnati put up 41 points. In the last eight games, everyone not named Baker Mayfield had great fantasy games versus Baltimore, who is allowing the most passing yards in the NFL. Burrow is tied with Brady for 3rd highest TD Rate (6.0%) and the 2nd highest Yards per Attempt in NFL. Baltimore is still allowing most 20+ yard pass plays in NFL
RB – Miles Sanders
Sanders looks to be the man in the Philly backfield and this is a team bent on running the football. They rank #1 in offensive rush DVOA on the season according to Football Outsiders. Over the last two months, only Miami failed to have big RB production against the Giants who rank 24th in DvP versus fantasy RBs on the year. They’ve allowed the 7th MOST rushing yards & nearly six RB receptions per game.
WR – Van Jefferson
The Vikings are the premier WR matchup as I discussed with Cooper Kupp. Before a bad Week 15, Jefferson had a string of three solid fantasy games. He has the same exact end-zone target share as Kupp and is seeing 90+ percent of the snaps. Other WR2s had some solid performances versus this secondary: Claypool, Aiyuk, MVS, Bateman, Cedrick Wilson. If you are an underdog this week, he provides some solid nitro.
TE – Cole Kmet
He’s averaging eight targets a game over the last month– a 22% target share including three top-10 finishes. Over the last month, Seattle is also allowing the most TE fantasy points in the NFL. He’s also caught as many TDs this year as Brooks (zero). Which means he’s due. Kmet. Not Brooks. That dude is loaded.