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11/11/14, Trending! Julio Jones, Le'Veon Bell, DeAndre Hopkins and more..

Tonight on the show, we were joined by our rookie expert Shawn Foss. Shawn has joined us on and off this year, and his input is always valued. We enjoyed a bomber of the Abita Select Imperator Black IPA, Revolution Fistmas and Continuum IPA from Saugatuck Brewing Company, all of them excellent.

We continued to track trends and drank for last week's misses while assigning Shawn to drink for the audience. This week we have Cam Newton scoring over 13.34 points and continuing his upward trend. Julio Jones will easily score 12 or more against the Panthers. DeAndre Hopkins we split on, Dave and Jason saying he'll go less than 10, Shawn says he'll be over 10. Le'Veon Bell has been trending down - Dave and Shawn say that he'll go over 12 points (Shawn says he'll get that with yardage alone), I say he'll stay under 12 points. Finally, Ahmad Bradshaw has been trending down, to everyone's surprise - but everyone also agrees that he will reverse the trend and score over 12 points this week.

Make sure to join us next week, live at 9pm CST on blogtalk radio (blogtalkradio.com/drinkfive). Feel free to send us your questions and we'll answer them on the podcast! Ask us on our Facebook page, follow us on twitter (@drinkfive), or send us an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can also grab the podcast on iTunes.

At drinkfive, we like to think that trends of at least three games or more are something that should be a reliable indicator of future performance. That’s all fine and good, but how about we actually predict if the trends will continue or not and put our money (or beer in this case) where our mouth is.

Here are the predictions we made on last week’s show:

Russell Wilson: Wk 7 @ STL - 37.12 pts, Wk 8 @ CAR - 14.46 pts, Wk 9 vs Oak - 10.26 pts

Wilson has been up and down all year, which way does he go?

Last week, Dave and I both stated that Wilson would resume his proper fantasy output and score over 18 points. He did just that, putting up 21.58 points in a rout of the Giants last week. His passing performance left much to be desired, but 107 yards rushing and a late score on the ground saved his fantasy day in a big way.

Emmanuel Sanders: Wk 7 vs SF - 10.10 pts, Wk 8 vs SD - 30.60 pts, Wk 9 @ NE - 15.10 pts

Sanders averaged 9.8 pts per game first 5 games, 18.6 per game in the last 3. Which one do we see going forward?

Dave and I both said he will continue to do well, scoring 15 points or more. In Week 10, Sanders had 8 rec for 67 yards and 2 TD, adding in a 5 yd rush, good for 19.20 points. Sanders now has 6 TD on the year and is clearly a perfect replacement for Eric Decker in the Denver offense. Sanders is officially a stud!

Kelvin Benjamin: Wk 7 @ GB - 12.10 pts, Wk 8 vs SEA - 9.40 pts, Wk 9 vs NO - 1.80 pts

Benjamin has the 16th most fantasy points this season, but will he rebound from this slump?

We also agreed that Benjamin would stay relevant and put up 8 or more points. Benjamin was having another terrible performance on Monday night football, with 1 catch for 13 yards going into the 4^th quarter, but then scored twice and put up a 3 for 70 with 2 TD line, good for 19.00 points. Is this comforting as a fantasy owner? No, but then again, why do you care how they score the points, as long as it’s before the clock hits 0:00.

Alfred Morris: Wk 7 vs TEN - 5.40 pts, Wk 8 @ DAL - 14.50 pts, Wk 9 @ MIN - 22.90

Morris averaged 10.1 pts per game, first 6 games, and 14.3 pts per game last 3. He had a really rough stretch against SEA, ARI and TEN in there.

Morris was on bye Week 10, so we will follow up on this next week, but we both say he will score a solid 14 points or more.

Branden Oliver: Wk 7 vs KC - 7.80 pts, Wk 8 @ DEN - 6.30 pts, Wk 9 @ MIA - 2.60 pts

Oliver scored just 16.7 pts in the last 3 weeks after putting up 48.6 points in the previous two weeks. With Mathews coming back off the bye, is Oliver relevant anymore?

Oliver was also on bye Week 10 and both Dave and I see him continuing to fall into obscurity, especially with Ryan Mathews expected to return to the lineup against Oakland on Sunday.

Zach Ertz: Wk 6 vs NYG - 10.70 pts, Wk 8 @ ARI - 4.80 pts, Wk 9 @ HOU - 0.40 pts

Ertz is a great red zone target that isn't utilized. Will this change with Sanchez in?

This was the one prediction that we split on last week. Dave said Ertz will stay under 5 points, and I said he’d go higher. Looks like I’m drinking for this one – Ertz finished the game with 1 catch for only 17 yards. Clearly, no, Sanchez doesn’t change anything as it appears that Celek is his preferred TE.

Now let’s change gears and look at some trends that we can see after week 10 and make some more predictions. Remember, for all the ones we get wrong, we will drink five on the podcast. For all the ones we get right, you guys drink!

Cam Newton: Wk 8 vs Sea – 6.24 pts, Wk 9 vs NO – 13.34 pts, Wk 10 @ PHI – 15.84 pts

Newton is really a test of this trend theory. Everyone sees his play as being awful, but he’s actually trending up from his season low of 6.24 against the Seahawks. Newton also gets a bye coming up in Week 12, so is he going to stumble, or put it together for the rest of the season?

Julio Jones: Wk 7 @ BAL – 5.60 pts, Wk 8 vs DET – 5.80 pts, Wk 10 @ TB – 11.90 pts

Jones has really struggled this year compared to where his draft position was, making him a top 5 WR (preseason). Jones is still serviceable this season, but has just as many single digit games as he does double digit, which means he’s probably not as reliable as you’d like. Is this a product of Matt Ryan or Julio, and will he return to greatness or be cursed to NFC South obscurity?

DeAndre Hopkins: Wk 7 @ PIT – 8.80 pts, Wk 8 @ TEN – 9.50 pts, Wk 9 vs PHI – 17.50 pts

Hopkins is stepping up (trying to anyway) as the number one guy in Houston. He’s trending up and has 3 100+ yard games under his belt this year and is averaging about 10 targets per game over the last 3 games. Will Hopkins continue his upward trend, or will the new QB in Houston ruin his party?

Le’Veon Bell: Wk 8 vs IND – 14.80 pts, Wk 9 vs Bal – 11.80 pts, Wk 10 @ NYJ – 6.90 pts

Bell has scored double digit points in every single week except for Week 10 now as the Steelers appear to have all but abandoned the run game. Now, these numbers aren’t disastrous, but he’s moved out of RB1 territory. Bell has only 21 carries over the last two weeks, after 24 the week before, two of those games being blowouts for the Steelers. With the passing game working so well lately, will Bell continue to be the odd man out on the Steelers?

Ahmad Bradshaw: Wk 7 vs CIN – 18.80 pts, Wk 8 @ PIT – 14.70 pts, Wk 9 @ NYG – 7.90 pts

Bradshaw is trending down, which was a surprise to me. He has 8 total TD’s this year, so he’s been putting up points and is clearly worth a start the rest of the year, right? With matchups against NE, Jax, Was, Cle, Hou and Dal to finish the year, it’s a mixture of good and bad run defenses. Bradshaw seems a bit too TD dependent, but can you really sit the top back on one of the best teams in the league?

Make sure to listen to our podcast to get our predictions and discussion of the trends into week 11 and we will recap the results next week.

Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day full of family, friends and delicious food. Due to the Thanksgiving games the pool of players to choose from for the Sunday Million is thin. This week we are going with a QB/WR stack going up against a team with an abysmal defense but an offense that can put up points, taking value picks at RB and grabbing a TE on a team that is depleted on receivers. Good luck this week!

QB  - Brian Hoyer, HOU - $7,100 vs. NO:  Hoyer returns from a concussion and gets a cake match up against the worst defense in the NFL. This should be a high scoring game so look for fantasy points to be flying around in this one.

RB - Doug Martin, TB - $7,500 at IND:  Indianapolis has been torched by opposing running backs many times this season which makes Martin an extremely high upside play. It also helps that Martin has only had less than 20 touches in a game once in the past 7 weeks.

RB - T.J. Yeldon, JAC - $6,500 vs. SD:  The Chargers run defense is awful and they have also given up the most fantasy points to opposing running backs this season which makes Yeldon a great value play.

WR - DeAndre Hopkins, HOU - $9,400 vs. NO:  Stacking up the red hot Hopkins with Hoyer this week in a game that should see plenty of touchdowns coming through the air.

WR - Brandin Cooks, NO - $7,300 at HOU:  Cooks started the season off slow but he has been putting up double digit fantasy points 4 weeks in a row. Pairing him with the Hoyer/Hopkins stack to increase point upside.

WR - DeSean Jackson, WAS - $6,300 vs. NYG:  Amazing match up for the Redskins burner this week going up against a Giants team giving of the most receiving yards in the league.

TE - Antonio Gates, SD - $5,700 at JAC:  Gates looks to be fully healthy and the Chargers are running thin on receivers which should mean a heavy workload for him against a sub par Jaguars defense.

K - Cairo Santos, KC - $4,900 vs. BUF:  Santos is the only kicker to have at least 6 field goal attempts in a game this year and he's been in that range twice notching games with 6 and 7 attempts.

DEF - Cardinals, ARI - $5,300 at SF:  Easily the best match up for any defense this week, well worth spending top dollar on.

Week 9 has arrived and we're still square in the middle of bye-week hell. I hope that you can utilize these rankings to bolster your bench and make some smart decisions about fill-in players during these tough times toward the end of the fantasy season. Remember, we're going for the championship here! Fight through the tough stuff.

Pay attention to these rankings throughout the week, as they will continue to evolve based on the latest injury updates, news, and player/matchup analysis. Good luck this season and remember, you can tweet us @drinkfive with any of your lineup questions!