Fake Teams fantasy football mailbag: Start Jared Goff against the Vikings?

Welcome to the Fake Teams’ fantasy football mailbag. It’s a quick mailbag today but still plenty of good questions.

If you want to send in your questions for next week’s mailbag, here are the ways to join:

• tweet @petemrogers or @Faketeams using #FTFFmailbag
• email at ftffmailbag@gmail.com
• leave your question in the comments!

Onto the mailbag:

Q: Getting swamped by offers for Julio. Need opinion from someone not in my league. Trade or not? Was offered 3-1 package of Rudolph, Abdullah and Cooper from Raiders.
— Glen M.

If you get the right trade, I’m all for trading Julio. I talked all about that in last week’s mailbag and stand by it. He’s still great but just hasn’t been producing at the consistent rate I’d want out of my WR1.

That being said, let’s be honest with ourselves for a second here, what receiver HAS been producing at a consistent rate this season? Am I the only one who feels like this season has had a lull in wide receiver production? Now, quick research will of course prove that I’m kinda wrong, not entirely wrong, but kinda wrong in my claim that this is a bad year for receivers. I guess it’s just that most of the big name receivers are either injured (Odell Beckham), in less than fantastic situations (Jordy Nelson, T.Y.Hilton) or have just straight sucked it up (Dez Bryant, the aforementioned Julio). If you rank by average fantasy points per game, Julio is freaking 24th in the league right now. Yikes. Gross. Vom.

Back to your trade Glen.

I’m all for getting a package for Julio but this package I think is lacking slightly. I’d keep Amari on the list because I think he’s going to catch fire the rest of the season, but I think you could get one better player instead of getting both Rudolph and Abdullah. Both have been underwhelming this season and so you’re basically trading Julio for three underwhelming players. I’d rather trade Julio for a player who’s consistently putting up mid-tier points—like a DeMarco Murray or Christian McCaffrey—and have a flier in there like Amari. All depends on what you need.

Q: How do you feel about Jared Goff against the Vikings this weekend?
— Meredith D.

Well, I kinda have to like him as it’s between starting him or Marcus Mariota in the league I care about. Mariota has yet to show me anything and facing the second best pass defense in the NFL (per ROPE) sooooooo yea, I guess I’m up for it.

The Vikings defense has been good this season but they aren’t the Jaguars. Teams have been able to move the ball and score on them this season. As someone who as their defense, I can say I wasn’t thrilled at the performance they put on last week against the team from Washington so here’s to hoping Goff can have similar success. At the very least, I’d expect him to get you a touchdown and 200 yards. I think that’s fair. Maybe even a touchdown on the ground. That’d be nice.

Plus, remember when I was all skeptical about Carson Wentz facing off against the Broncos defense and then he just annihilated them? Maybe we get get the same result out of Goff this week. It’s a big test Rams, show me something.

But actually, Mariota, show me something.

Q: I should win this right? I need this win to stay in the playoff hunt. By the way, I’m the team on the left
— Wyatt M.

Let us examine position vs position, shall we?

QB: Carson Wentz is not only the hottest quarterback in fantasy football but also playing really well (see what I did there? He’s not actually the hottest quarterback in fantasy football, obviously that’s Jimmy Garoppolo). However, Alex Smith isn’t far behind in fantasy scoring AND is playing the Giants defense with is just god awful against the pass. Like straight horrid. Might if the edge to your opponent. 0/1

RB1: Cleveland actually has a pretty strong run defense while the Steelers’ run D is average. That being said, until last week, Fournette has scored a touchdown in every game he’s played in. Sooooo yea, I’ll give you the edge there. 1/1

RB2: THE BATTLE OF THE SAINTS’ RUNNING BACKS! Giving the edge to Kamara because regardless of how the run game goes, he has plenty of value as a pass catcher. 2/1

WR1: Michael Thomas is facing off against Josh Norman which is a tough test buuuuut Davante Adams doesn’t have Aaron Rodgers throwing him the football and the Ravens have a better pass defense than the team outta Washington. 3/1

WR2: You must be playing a Packers fan, no other reason for starting both Adams and Jordy Nelson. Julio with the obvious edge as the Seahawks are playing for the first time possibly ever without Richard Sherman and I really think that’s going to mess with their mojo. That being said, I just spent the opening of this mailbag hating on Julio. Well, I have him in the league I care about so we can both hope together he takes advantage of a banged up Seahawks’ secondary. 4/1

TE: Literally who else is Eli Manning suppose to throw to? 5/1

FLEX: You never know with the Patriots’ running backs but Dion Lewis has been a favorite in New England recently. You just have to hope big bad Latavius Murray doesn’t come in and steal some touchdowns. But it’s a nice matchup as the Rams have allowed second most PPR points to opposing running backs on the road. 6/1

D/ST: I don’t trust Chargers defense at all despite the fact they’re playing a rookie quarterback. Gotta give the edge to your opponent. 6/2

K: Gost. 6/3

Yea, you should win. Just hope the Fantasy Gods don’t hate you.