Daniel Dopp and Liz Loza talk life, fantasy football, pop culture and everything in between in the weekly "Fantasy Improv" column, which runs every Friday throughout the NFL season. Joe Kaiser serves as the moderator and attempts to keep things on track.
Joe: Tough news about Cooper Kupp. Between that and how little Deebo Samuel has been used since Christian McCaffrey arrived in San Francisco, this position isn't as strong as it was earlier in the season.
Liz: This season has been a lesson in quality over quantity, right? Scarcity has hit every single position -- including QB and WR -- which has kept managers on their toes. It's also forced us to pay more attention to matchups. Can't just "start your stars" if they're all either hurt of fading.
Joe: It feels like this season has forced fantasy managers -- and experts -- to evolve and change their way of thinking more than any season in recent memory. As the game is changing, so too is our game of fantasy football.
Daniel: It very much feels like more teams are going for it on 4th-and-5 from the 45 rather than settling for a 62-yarder or gaining only 25 yards of field position with a punt. I've loved the extra aggressiveness as a fan. Those moments make football waaaay more fun.
Joe: So true Daniel. You see it every week in every game. The game has changed. Speaking of the game changing, how about CMC in San Francisco. It's a whole new world with him on the 49ers, isn't it?
Liz: CMC is a player who we're used to seeing touch the ball 25 times a game. It's obviously tilting, then, to watch him out-carried by a sixth-round talent fresh off the IR. Shanahan-igans are part of the 49ers experience, but Kyle running McCaffrey up the middle on eight of 14 carries (even against the Chargers) is a head-scratcher.
And then there's load management, which has been largely ignored by previous coaches and is key to McCaffrey's long-term success. So that's fine to see. It was mostly the deployment that had me confused. Obviously, creating room for CMC's trademark agility and explosiveness is what will elevate his efficiency and subsequent production (and make up for a potential/theoretical reduction in volume).
I have to imagine there's an according tweak in his usage at Arizona on Monday night. Consequently, the Cardinals have allowed the seventh-most yards per carry to RBs on runs not up the middle this season. I'm expecting a 70-plus yard rushing effort and another four grabs to clear 100 scrimmage yards.
Joe: And then there's the Browns-Bills game, which was at the risk of being played in Buffalo with 3-6 feet of snow in the forecast before the NFL announced Thursday that the game would be moved to Detroit.
I think this is a game where we see Josh Allen use his legs a lot. He's due for a big game, having failed to reach 25 fantasy points in standard ESPN leagues during each of his past three games. I know fantasy managers are getting a tad impatient, too, as I was able to trade for him in both of my keepers leagues this week.
Daniel: Can you imagine getting impatient on Josh Allen? Ridiculous. It's crazy how emotional fantasy football can be, even with the biggest names in the game. Did you walk away feeling like you won both trades?
Joe: I did. I traded Justin Fields for him in one league and in the other I traded Joe Burrow and Elijah Mitchell. Some salary and number of years I can keep him involved, but at the end of the day it feels good to find a way to move forward with Josh Allen at QB. This feels like it was my window to pull it off.
Can you imagine if this game would have been played in the elements, though? Wow.
Liz: Thundersnow?
Joe: Come on, Liz, don't you have some Chicago roots or something? Thundersnow is just another Thursday in November in those parts.
Daniel: As a kid, I remember sledding off the roof of my grandparents garage (they lived in the upper peninsula) and the feet of snow piled up that high was the most fun thing ever.
That made me think of this: Are cold snowy games the best or worst kind of game to go to as a fan? It sounds like it'd be super memorable, but it could also be super awful and cold and miserable. I don't think I'd look back fondly on the memories of four hours sitting still in the freezing cold snow.
Joe: Love this question!
Being from the West Coast, I can't say I've had to weather the elements a whole lot. I'd wear about seven layers and hope it's a fun game because you're right -- the games played in the elements are the type of memories you don't forget. Like little Daniel sledding off his grandparents' garage in true Yooper fashion.
Liz: The Cali weather has definitely thinned my blood. I do, however, remember going to a freezing cold Bears game with my best friend in high school. Her dad had season tickets, but couldn't go that particular Sunday so he gave them to us. We were two 15-year-old girls chugging overpriced Swiss Miss in the middle of these middle-aged dads, who had beer and beef to keep them warm. It was the best time ever.
The Bears beat the Chargers... obviously because the visiting team couldn't handle the cold.
From a tundra to the desert... what do you all make of Marquise Brown's potential return this Sunday? Obviously, a lot hinges on Kyler Murray's health, but in a week with so many elite WRs either on bye, hurt or playing in a blizzard Brown presents top-20 upside, no?
Joe: I'd like to see it for a week before trusting anything that has to do with that Cardinals' offense. That's where I'm at. It will be interesting to see how DeAndre Hopkins and Hollywood Brown coexist since it's been one or the other up till this point.
Liz: That's fair. It's worth remembering that Zach Ertz is out so volume won't be as much of an issue as we initially believed.
Follow Liz Loza (@LizLoza_FF), Daniel Dopp (@DanielDopp) and Joe Kaiser (@joekaisersports) on Twitter. Liz Loza and Daniel Dopp's fantasy football rankings appear every week during the season.