Good evening Draco. Glad to have you back with me
again. Another show on a Wednesday.
Been been switched up the schedule a little bit the last
two weeks. We just had some conflicts on
Tuesday nights, but next week we will be back to our usual time
slot on Tuesday. So don't worry everyone, We
won't be messing with your weekly viewing and content
consumption routine. This is AI mean, I say it every
week, another kind of wild week. I mean, Justin Fields, Anthony
Richardson is officially done for the season Now.
Justin Fields dislocates his thumb, and you know, that's
because he's a Russian quarterback.
It's it's more likely, actually, that you dislocate your thumb if
you're a Russian quarterback all those miles you put on the
thumb. He he'll never be able to hold a
football again. No, no, yeah, probably.
Probably his career is over. I I kid.
But I mean another week, another shake up of the fantasy football
landscape. I feel like with a season with
this much chaos and I I think that we can officially say at
this point there's been a little.
I mean every season is chaotic. That's the nature of the game
that we play. That's the nature of football,
the sport in general. But I I feel like we dialed the
chaos up to 11 for this season, just with all the injuries that
we've had. I mean, Mikko Hardman is back to
the Chiefs now. How?
I mean, shit, we've had two trades this season where a team
had gotten rid of a player and then traded for them back.
Afterwards, we had JC Jackson going from the Chargers back to
the Patriots in a trade, and then we had Miko Hartman going
from The Jets back to the Chiefs.
I feel that just seems so wild to me.
I I don't know the last. I have a hard time understanding
it as well, just because why didn't they just pay him the
money in the 1st place? And now I know he got a signing
bonus that they won't have to pay, but it's still structured
to hit. It's still structured to spread
out over. I think like five years or
something like so they're they're still assuming that the
cap hit. Unless they're really stingy
about actual cash payouts, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
And one day I just while you're talking about like the maximum
chaos it did, it does feel like we've gotten very chaotic
scenarios in lots of different ways where you've you've got the
injuries, yes, but then we've also had these late round
breakouts. At what seems like a much higher
frequency or rate than before, where you've had Kyron, you had
Puka and Nakua, even Rashid, Shahid has been a pretty good
hit. Like, it feels like you're
getting a couple of different ways of chaos and.
And and definitely has been hard to, hard to keep up.
Yeah, absolutely. I think at this point in the
fantasy season, what we can do to best take advantage of these
situations is just really try and parse through the data,
think critically about what it's telling us and just try to try
to have that, you know, leg up on our opponents and just maybe
get to the correct conclusions one beat quicker than they can.
And there's a couple really interesting things that I saw
when I was putting together the charts this week that I think
are going to lead to some actionable advantages for people
so excited to get into the charts here.
All right. Not going to get a better segue
than that. So let's let's jump right into
it was so before before I ask you what were there any
quarterback related takes there just to explain this chart on
the vertical axis you've got touched down, right, pretty
straightforward. And then on a horizontal axis,
you've got adjusted yards per attempt, which is pretty similar
to yards per attempt, but it rewards touchdowns and punishes
interceptions. So it it has that adjustment
just to just to be a holistic measure of these quarterbacks,
Efficiency per attempt. And then the size of the bubble
corresponds to rushing yards per game.
Good, good breakdown of the chart there.
My, my first thing that I saw when I was putting together this
chart is that for the most part, there's not a difference at the
quarterback position, right? And that was, I want to say like
a core thesis or premise that I was drafting a lot of my best
ball teams surrounding this offseason, that the difference
at quarterback was being overblown and and the market was
pricing them like there were. These and what you're referring
to here is we've just got this BLOB in the middle.
Yeah, look at look at the middle and and really when I'm looking
at it like the TD rate stuff, like yes, there's some guys that
are separating a TD rate. For most of those I don't care
too terribly much. I I think a lot of the TD rate
stuff is either going to be noisy or it could just be
systemic in that the offense is just so much more likely to be
rushing touchdowns and then throwing them depending on how
that specific offense for the specific quarterback decides to
run, especially when they get into the Green Zone.
But when you look at the adjusted yards per attempt,
everyone is clustered there basically between like 6.5 and
7.5. And then you've got your couple
outliers like your Tuas, your Brock Purdy, your Jared Goff,
your Josh Allen and and everyone else is basically the same.
And then you've got your outliers on on the downside too,
where Mack Jones, standard own Zack Wilson, Joe Burrow, et
cetera. Just a question for you here CJ
Strad was somebody where we noted highly efficient your
adjusted yardage, yardage for attempt but.
Not necessarily getting up there in the touchdown rate, not bad
on the touchdown rate, but not in line with his yards.
His touchdown rate is not in is not as good as his yardage rate.
Do you think that's a case where it's sort of like the offensive
scheme is keeping him out of the end zone or do you think that
that that that still feels like to me potential further upside?
Yeah. And.
And we we started to see it a little bit you know #1, his
yardage did come down this week but he did have a couple passing
touchdowns. What what I think that it is, is
it's indicative of the fact that it gets a lot harder to have
successful plays when the field shrinks.
And he's he's a rookie quarterback.
He's doing phenomenal. I mean CJ Stroud is you know
favorite for Offensive Rookie of the Year as he should be.
He's he's crushing. I'm very excited to watch him,
you know, and and see how his career plays out.
But I just think that as a rookie you're asking so much to
say like, OK and now I need you to go be successful and convert
at a high rate in the red zone. That's just a difficult, it's a
big ask, you know. And so I I think it's something
where we could see him improve as he continues to grow as a
quarterback. And I also think it's something
where even without any improvement, he probably had a
little room for positive regression and we did start to
see that we we see him moving up a little bit on the chart.
He was lower. I want to segue that into my big
take away for this week and a a part of this is just the way
that the main slate shakes out this week.
You don't have Tua or the 49ers on the main slate you know so
you're you're ending up with you know Texans are on by a lot of
lot of good teams on by here in this week 7 by but you've got
these quarterbacks of Josh Allen Jared Goff Lamar Jackson Justin
Herbert kind of you know and Russell Wilson really in the
good area of the chart that we're looking at is OK these
might be the guys that are are leading the charge Pat Mahomes
obviously leading the charge this week at quarterback and the
one that I'm most interested in is Lamar Jackson.
You see again the size of his data point here, representing
his rushing yards per game. And I I really love the spot for
him because he's playing against a competent offense in Detroit
where when they're pushed, Detroit's willing to throw the
ball. When when they're beaten the
pants off teams, they'll they'll turn and and run it and just
grind the game out with their lead happily.
But I think that if you get a couple explosive plays and both
of these teams are capable of delivering them, you could end
up in a really fun spot where Lamar's got the absolute slate
breaking up side. And when you have these smaller
slates with fewer guys, basically fewer darts to try and
hit those absolute nuclear weeks, I really like the guys
who have a slightly higher probability of of achieving
those outcomes. So really like Lamar for this
week, he was popping in the other chart.
And so Lamar is something, is it probably a good example of where
we are looking for positive regression in a big way just
because in a very obvious way you had, you had all these
touchdown passes that he threw that were just dropped horribly
dropped and that is obviously inefficient and and and.
Some of it must be because of mistakes by the players and
whatever, but it's that's also a huge, very insane, like, his
pass catchers just aren't going to drop every touchdown pass
every week. So if if we get it like that
feels like an area where it's really not hard to see a big
like, correction. Yeah, absolutely.
So that's that's one reason why I'm so excited about Lamar.
A guy on the chart who this is going to be his Viking funeral
week. Anthony Richardson mentioned it
earlier but officially done for the season having season ending
surgery. But he was right there with
Lamar in that, you know, rushing quarterback with the upside to
truly break fantasy football. Really bummed.
Feel like I just feel like this happens every year with these
guys. You know Trey Lance first train
Lancer didn't even get to see games.
Anthony Richardson, we at least got to see like OK this guy's
legit. But to to keep going on the
chart for stuff that's actual that we can actually use to gain
an advantage over our opponents going forward.
The the Jordan love spot is interesting because we had
talked about, you know the Broncos as a a salve and his his
chart partner or his his neighbor there, Justin Fields.
We saw get right against the Broncos a couple weeks ago and
throw for almost 350 yards, a couple touchdowns.
I think it it it almost feels too easy sometimes when we're
like, oh Broncos easy match up. You know, the quarterback on the
other side is a smash spot for them.
But I think there are times where we just overthink stuff as
fantasy football players and we we try to make it trickier than
it is. And it's like, sure, there's
going to be times where Jordan Love doesn't succeed in this
match up against the Broncos, but there's also a good chunk of
times where he just goes out and smashes because his defense has
proven that they're not great, right?
And so. And and one thing.
One thing that may make people forget.
Is that the the Broncos defense actually had a relatively good
week against the Chiefs, so that that that probably puts the
weeks where they're just getting absolutely hammered and in the
rearview mirror a bit. But like those are still like
extremely valid data points. Yeah, I mean the recency bias
of, oh, they did well against the Chiefs.
So now they are good. I think is, you know, we, we
want to take that data into consideration and say, OK, they
showed that they're at least able to stop some stuff.
But you know, the Chiefs, the Chiefs aren't rolling out some
plethora of excellent weapons against them either.
You know, it's it's just pretty much like, OK, can Mahomes put
the team on his back? You know, can Kelsey put the
team on his back? And defenses don't have to be
horrible every week either. Like they can be a bad defense
and then have occasional weeks where they're OK.
Just like for the Giants for example.
Like you're you're telling me that the Giants with what they
did to the Bills, that's going to be at all sticky going
forward. I I don't buy that.
We've seen the Giants get absolutely dog walked every week
and out outside of what they did against the Bills.
I think that may have been, you know, not to get too down the
the narrative rabbit hole, but it may have just been, you know,
Brian Dayball against his former team, known a little bit of the
secret sauce and the the weak spots in the armor for Josh
Allen. But I mean.
So let me just just to go back to Jordan Love because I just
had to talk in terms of being actionable and with this being a
week with a lot of buys and. And not everybody has an elite
quarterback in their sort of home league or or redraft
leagues. Do you think Jordan Love is is a
good starting option in the off the waivers.
Oh yeah, you could absolutely do worse.
You know that that would certainly be a a streamer.
I'd be happy to roll out there another one that it just looking
at early projections out of the industry for for quarterback and
receiver numbers spot that's going I think under looked right
now. By the time that we get to
Sunday it'll be corrected. But right now people are really
undervaluing Tampa Bay just in general.
The entire offense is being undervalued And yes, they're
playing Atlanta and if Atlanta has their way, they slow the
game down. They run lots of plays.
They have extended drives with a lot of runs.
But the last couple weeks, Atlanta's been throwing a lot.
So they they've shown that they're willing to throw.
And so I think that there are outs to this game maybe not
being, you know, not the highest scoring game on the slate, but
definitely a viable game for fantasy.
And you know, Baker Mayfield is certainly on your waiver wire.
And so if you're in a pinch, you probably could do worse than
Baker as well. And I I think that, you know,
with the way that that passing game is concentrated on, it's
pretty much Evans and Godwin and.
And that's it. I really like that.
I've actually haven't been drafting the dog bowl at all.
The, you know, the qualifier to go to the live draft in Miami
for underdog, I haven't drafted that at all.
Up until this week, they had a decent promo that kind of
softened the really steep rake that they charge on that
contest. And so I've been ripping off a
bunch of dog bowls today and yesterday, and I might have a
lot of Baker Mayfield. Interesting.
Yeah just because the especially because it's half PPR and you
can just you can more or less just pick $1.00 to stack with
them and probably think that you're going if if he goes off
it has to go through one of them in a big big substantial way.
And the the price is just wrong. Like you're getting you're
getting Chris Godwin in like the late it's a 12 man draft in the
dog bowl unlike the six man battle royales.
And so you're getting Chris Godwin in like the 4th like late
fourth round sometimes sometimes as late as the 5th and so it's
just not the price is is very incorrect.
Like, I know that Zay Flowers is sexy, and that it's really fun
to take Zay Flowers and stack them with Lamar Jackson like
you're not Chris Godwin in half PPR projects better than Zay
Flowers straight up by by. Not like a small amount either
by a couple points. And people take Flowers 2-3
rounds earlier than Godwin. So there's there's some really
big inefficiencies this week I've noticed.
Right. And then the other thing as as
well, especially in a 12 teamer and then with the bye weeks and
stuff like that, it is much easier for a quarterback like
Baker Mayfield to hit the ceiling they need in that
situation than it is on a big, huge slate with like all the
heavy hitters on it. Like that, that sort of say that
it's a lot easier to to take something like someone like
Baker Mayfield and if he scores three points, like maybe it's
not the highest scoring quarterback of the week.
But it it it, it may be and it may like be within very, very
close touching distance of the the highest scoring quarterback.
Absolutely. It's just about like how much
separation does another quarterback get from him?
And it's kind of funny. I've actually been looking at
this on reduced slate sizes specifically for playoff best
ball. I'm working on a a pretty
comprehensive playoff best ball piece right now that I'll have
out in a couple weeks. So for anyone that is as sick as
I am about playoff best ball, I I think you'll be really
interested in it. But one of the things I'm
looking at is on reduced slate sizes.
So for example, you know week, week one, you know you only got
a handful of quarterbacks playing.
It's only 12 quarterbacks playing.
It's six games, right? And so when we're looking at
those kinds of slates, what what do the position distributions
really look like from a scoring perspective?
And really what it comes down to is when there's only one, maybe
2 elite quarterback options on the week.
Sometimes instead of paying up for that quarterback, like for
example Lamar Jackson, I I would say that a great way to attack
this slate might be I'm either going to get Lamar or Mahomes or
Allen, or I'm just gonna take the very last quarterback in the
draft, 'cause there's no, there's no point, I'm basically.
Saying there's no point in paying off for the mid range
when the separation is likely to be quite small.
Yep, I I'm just saying that hey, if I don't get one of those
three guys, they failed to separate anyway.
And so then I'm taking a guy that's a random dart throw to to
score enough to not get separated from.
And all of those guys are basically the same.
You know, like Russell Wilson goes undrafted in a lot of those
drafts, and there's no actual difference between Russell
Wilson and Jordan Love, really. You know, especially if you look
at projection, they're the same. They're like, right?
I mean, just by the numbers, Russell Wilson has played really
well. Just yeah, just by the numbers.
And I know I brought it up on this, this chart before that
this is a chart that favors Russell Wilson.
What I was looking at at some numbers where you you factor in
the drop back instead of the attempt.
So that includes sacks, scrambles, blah blah blah.
And he's still he's still having a pretty good year even even if
you make, if you look at it on adjusted yards for drop back
instead of attempt. Yeah, I I certainly think that
we could we could get a stretch where Russ gets hot and the
Denver offense kind of gets their stuff together with Sean
Payton. For right now there's still a
lot going through the running backs.
But yeah, it's it's well within Russ's range of outcomes to
have, you know, one of those top scoring weeks at quarterback.
And so this is, this is the kind of week where, hey, if I don't
get one of those top guys, let me just roll Russell Wilson or
Baker Mayfield or you know, some someone out there that Matt
Stafford shoot, they all, they're all basically the same,
you know, it's just statue pocket passers.
Right. Well, I think he he has.
Russell Wilson has been rushing a little bit.
Not, not enough to like. Truly put him up there, but he
has added points. Yeah, he he's added, you know
20-30 yards a game sometimes a little bit more.
But yeah, that's a that's a good point.
So no other major takeaways on this chart.
I mean we've got likely Trevor Lawrence is going to miss the
Thursday game, it sounds like. I haven't seen anything that
suggests he's going to actually be able to play.
So yeah, it's it's just probably going to be a relatively low
scoring week. At quarterback, unless we get
one of those elite guys to to actually go off.
So interesting week for quarterback.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. I'm I'm happy to move on as
well. And then I have to like every
week shrink the chart a little bit so we can fit it in in our
screen. And so this is, this is our one
of our our main running back charts, one of our two running
back charts. And we look as the title says
snaps and usage. So we look at all of their rush
attempts, all of their routes, all of their pass blocking, run
blocking and and put that in a scale of that as a percentage of
the team's overall place. And so you can see Kyron
Williams who unfortunately is is dealing with an injury that
means he's going to be out for a little while.
He is coming in just just around 80% of the team snaps.
He's on the field and I guess you you want you you want rush
attempts, you also want them to be running roots so that they
can get those targets. And then this is sort of like
the starters like anybody with above roots or rush attempts
above 40% that they're on this chart and we also look at
rolling four weeks because we want to, we want to diagnose the
trend rather than a seasonal average and then so.
So that's the way this sort of chart is set up.
Good breakdown there. I think we do need to start at
the top here with Kyron because his injury leaves the most
desirable role. For running back in the NFL wide
open and it's very ambiguous. So you know right now you've got
rookie Zach Evans who was the only running back left on the
active roster on Sunday after you lost Kyron and Ronnie
Rivers. And so Zach Evans got, I want to
say it was like, was it 4 carries or something on Sunday?
He looks to be right now. The reports that I've seen are
that. He's probably the favorite to
get the majority of the work, but I think it's very fragile.
I I wouldn't. You know I wouldn't the the the
Rams head coach was asked today. Hey is do you think Zach Evans
is the favorite to to to carry the load here and the coach said
I wouldn't say that I wouldn't say that he's got he's got a
shot I'm really looking forward to see how how far along he's
come this week and what he can handle so so sounds like it's
still very much in flux he could I I mean it's it's there is the
still the case of who else could it be like how how how can they
who can they put on the field to keep him off of it but like you
said definitely feels like something where it could it
could go either way. Yeah, I mean it's Miles Gaskin
or Daryl Henderson or you know it's right.
It's going to be interesting to see what they end up rolling out
there. I I Miles Gaskin is.
He's a bit interesting in that when he played, especially his
rookie year as a Dolphin and then the year after he played
relatively well like he was a he was a fine player and and and
can perform, but he he he also hasn't been able to get on the
field in in a good while now. Yeah, that's a that's a good
call out though, 'cause I could definitely see Gaskin being the
one that you know is able to do the job that it really seems
like he values a running back that's going to do the things
that are expected of him and Gaskin kind of see he he comes
from the Miami system, I think that.
I think he could be the kind of archetype that MC Vey is
interested in. So really, really an all
rounder. He's an all rounder and he does
sort of like he does suit the sort of like 1 Cut jump running
style. Oh, go ahead.
I I was gonna say, is there anybody else up here who who
sticks? At Yeah I was I was gonna keep
We've got a couple guys at the top of the chart that are
interesting to me. So Joe Mixon's role remains
really good. Joe Mixon's production remains
really bad. You've got the Bengals on by
this week. I I start to wonder if during
the by they're able to take a look at some of the other guys
that they've got on the roster. And we see Joe Mixon, because
they've already told us we don't like using Joe Mixon in the
passing game if there's a better option, right, which Semaj P
Ryan they determined was a better option than Mixon last
season in the passing game. And so they even even when P
Ryan was getting the passing game work, Mixon was still
getting carries. I mean in the the penultimate
playoff game, he he lost a lot of carries to P Ryan.
But I do think that you're not going to see mixing go away.
But you could see one of these other guys emerge.
My favorite for that is Trayvion, just because he's
managed to stick on the roster the whole time.
I think that the Bengals value a player like that, a player that
they're comfortable with, familiar with, knows the system.
So if I had to bet, it would be Trayvion comes out of the bye
and maybe sees a little bit of extra work.
I don't know. It's not going to be.
With that said, we shouldn't drop him in the main event
tonight. Well he he is on Bai and and we
we're in desperate need of you know running back.
So I'm. I'm not opposed to churning if
we have. Yeah, no, that makes sense.
Good, good point. He is on Bai.
You can probably pick him up for a dollar next week as well.
Right, right. But beyond mixing the other one
up here, I mean I I just have to talk about Etienne and Jacobs
really quickly. I don't think we need to dive
too deep into it. But man, both of those guys have
incredible roles. We'll we'll see as well on the
expected fantasy points charts coming up.
But those are the kind of backs that you want to have.
Even though Jacobs hasn't been terribly efficient with his, it
doesn't matter. You just want that opportunity
and you're just going to trust that a couple game like he's
still good enough that he'll have a couple games where he is
efficient with that volume and is able to deliver a huge
performance for you and in those other performances where he's
not efficient. It doesn't matter.
His floor is so high because of the role.
Etienne is is being efficient and getting a huge amount of
work. He's consolidating the snaps.
So those are both running backs that are really exciting to see.
But Saquan Barkley got a lot of work coming back off the injury.
I'm pretty concerned. I I want to say that Saquan is
closer to Joe Mixon in. What he is for you in fantasy
now that's a little bit of hyperbole.
Like he's still more valuable than Mixon, obviously, but he's
closer to Mixon than he is to Josh Jacobs, for example is is
my opinion, I mean certainly closer to Mixon than he is to
Travis Etn. I'd say those are that's like a
a large tier break between ETN and Barkley.
So the the hard part with Barkley is there's not really
anything too actionable you can do here.
It's not like you can go and pick up.
You know Matt Britta and say that he's going to get some work
or like oh if Saquan gets reinjured then Britta is going
to have this great role. It's just the offense stinks and
there's not a lot of production coming there.
So that that's all I I had there kind of similar for Rashad White
you know great role, just can't can't produce anything with it.
So we saw. We saw Sean Tucker get a little
bit of opportunity early in the season.
We saw them do a little bit with Keyshawn Vaughn.
Maybe by the end of the season, one of those guys emerges as the
better option than Rashad White. But I think the most likely
outcome is the Bucks backfield is just one where it's not
terribly exciting. There will be a week where the
Bucks put up a lot of points and he falls into the end zone twice
and is good just from the having the role, but.
There's a lot of guys up here with these great roles, like
this. Rashad White, Joe Mixon, Saquon
Barkley are all like fake to me. Like the role, the role looks
more valuable than it actually is, right?
They they command a high percentage of their team's
usage, but the offense isn't strong enough to make them must
elite targets. Whereas like they probably
project for a mediocre amount of points just because they've
consolidated all the offense within them.
But you were paying high, definitely.
Saquan, you're you paid a high price to get that bell cow usage
and and but you're not being paid off in fancy points.
So 111 thing that I had noticed and then taught worth calling
out is that Reese Hall, while he's I'm not sure if he's even
on this chart, if he's on the next chart.
He is. He's right below Montgomery and
Ford. OK, OK, so I I looked at just
this week and he was on the field for 68% of the team snaps
this just this week. And he was.
He had so 20% rush of Hems. He'd already been getting the
rush of Hems, but he was also on.
He had 41% of the the jet snaps he was running a route on, so
definitely feels like Bruce Hall.
Balcao usage is like firmly back.
And we, and we talked about this before too.
When when you're competing for touches from Dalvin Cooked and
Michael Farter, like there's, there's no real competition.
It's just the only thing keeping him off the field is the team
wanting to make sure. That they're they're doing right
by him they're not putting him at at severe risk of re injury
and you know when you I want to say was it week after week three
he tweeted something like 4 only four touches he was pissed about
his lack of work and I I think that the guy probably knows his
body and and he's a competitor he wants to be on the field so
the team's trying to keep him safe from himself but I think he
probably knows you know dude I I don't you don't need to limit me
to 4 touches and. It's becoming pretty clear too.
I I actually was watching The Jets play the Eagles this week.
I said going into the half, when they come out of the half, it is
going to be all briefs all the time because they want to win
this game. And they know what, like we we
have one path to win and it's not Zach Wilson throwing more,
right. Like it is.
Yeah, it's feed Breece the rock. And that's that is what they
did. And then they did drop back
some, but it was all it was like we're dropping back.
And Zach, you only have eyes for Garrett Wilson.
Don't fuck this up. Throw it to Garrett or no one
and just keep the ball safe so that we can hand it to Breece
more. And that's that's what they did
and it was successful. And so I think what you're going
to see is any time where you might lose Breeze Hall
opportunities would be if The Jets were like blowing someone
out. If The Jets are blowing someone
out, they will gladly bring in Dalvin and Michael Carter for
clean up duty and try and save Breece from putting too many
miles on him. But in close games where The
Jets want to win and. Boy, do The Jets want to win.
And do they need to win to stay alive in the AFC for the playoff
hunt. Because the AFC is brutal and
Aaron Rodgers is rumored to be able to come back for the
playoffs which is just wild to me that that's what he's sort of
suggested he the timeline he's been given.
And so just and I guess in terms of usability for Bruce Hall now
for rest of season, so week seven through the end of the
year where where would you slot Breeze Hall among the other
backs? Yeah, into my starting lineup is
where I would slot him every week.
But yeah, right among the other backs, I would say I let's see
like I like him better than the only right now at this point in
time, the only backs I'm happier to start over.
Breeze Hall would be like a. Travis ETNCMC when healthy
Kenneth Walker I want to start Breece over DeAndre Swift cause
Breece is getting more work in the passing.
Swift is involved in the passing game, but Breece is getting more
opportunity there. I I want Breece over Saquan.
I want him, I want him over Kyron.
I I'm pretty sure I want him over Ekler.
That's a that's actually a curious one for me.
How do you feel about Ekler going forward?
And then how do you feel about him compared to Breece?
So Eckler himself, he's coming off an injury, he's coming off
the high ankle sprain and he did, he did have a nice run but
didn't look fully healthy yet. So I think that you'll have this
sort of ramp up back up to him getting it is normal snap amount
that I'm not sure how many weeks that takes it'll take a couple
of weeks but then by the end not an injury expert but would think
that like hey they they they really like Ekler.
Ekler is a superstar. So in a month let's say would be
hope at least hoping that you're getting what you drafted Ekler
in the first round to do so how how do how do I.
There's not really a rest of season draft available today how
would I use that I guess I would be I'm pretty I'd be pretty
alert to as he ramps up as he starts to look good and and and
maybe trying to play him a week early once once I've got some
more good signs in Eclair would maybe would maybe try to see if
I can trade for him if he has a bad week as this week as he gets
through injury and then just to go back to Bruce Hall.
I think I would have him in line with Kenneth Walker or perhaps a
bit higher just because I'm looking at this trajectory of
hey they they've been ramping Bruce up from injury and
obviously he looks fantastic and he sort of crossed over the
point into like now he's in he now he once once we get four
weeks that look like week 6. He'll be much closer to the to
the top of this chart and and I say it and it kind of in the
workhorse range and the things that you've talked about with
this competition. Ben Dalman, Cook and Michael
Carter. Like they're still going to be
true. So if anything, I'm sort of like
still expecting more usage for Breeze than even Week 6.
So I think he's getting pretty close to the sort of like elite
running back range rest of the year.
Yep. Yeah.
Couldn't couldn't have said it better myself in in four weeks
time, I guess. I guess five weeks time because
they're on buy this week. But in five weeks time he's
going to be right between Bijon and Josh Jacobs on the chart.
You can take that to the bank for how many snaps he's getting.
Snaps and usage right here. And then, you know, Riddle me
this, you're the Austin Eckler manager in a, you know, redraft
league and a trade offer. Comes into your DMS here and
it's Bruce Hall for Austin Eckler.
Straight up, What do you do? Bruce Hall?
Yeah, I guess I thought about that for 1.2 seconds.
Yeah, you just you just took a beat.
But that that's what I would do too.
Like the only the only guy I'm not moving for Bruce Hall is
like Christian McCaffrey and like I I think I'm moving ETN
for him too. I'm probably if I'm the guy
selling etn I'm trying to get like.
A little breeze plus, you know, get a get a little yeah.
Squeeze squeeze some more juice out of how good Etns been.
But like as a breeze Bowl, I'm trying to acquire all of the
breeze. It's it's literally just CSD.
And I mean shoot, let's just let's Fast forward and say Aaron
Rodgers is back for the playoffs and his Achilles is is magically
good. He's fine.
He looks like Aaron Rodgers, right?
It's playoff best ball, and let's just say hypothetically,
that the odds of the 49ers making the Super Bowl and the
odds of The Jets making the Super Bowl are exactly equal.
OK? And everyone's healthy.
Mccaffrey's healthy. Rodgers is healthy.
Brice is healthy. Who are you taking earlier in
playoff best ball then you taking healthy CMC or healthy
Brice with equal odds of either making the Super Bowl?
So obviously it's not. It's not going to be equal,
right, just just to just to make sure that we're we're coming.
Up with hypothetical scenario of all else equal between the 49ers
and The Jets, would you prefer CMC or Breeze?
I'm I think it would still be CMC, but it wouldn't it it it
wouldn't be as far apart as it wouldn't be that far apart.
Yeah, I I agree with you. If you're We're probably a
little bit too early to be thinking about playoff best ball
but he would definitely be somebody where you take them in
the in the last round and and you're you're really happy about
Reese in the last round, yeah. I I I agree with you and I'm I'm
very glad that the 49ers will be such large favorites over The
Jets to make it to the Super Bowl so I I don't have to Galaxy
brain myself I think brace all over CMC so so who else I I I
had another note about Devon Singletary and and just to try
and I'm just trying to supplement obviously we're
looking at four week averages but I try to look at like hey
what what did the last week look like just because that can be
you can you can spot quick changes there just by looking at
at one week and and he was on the field for half the snaps for
the Texans last week which. Is pretty I, I we talked about
Devon Singulary quite a bit last week but that's that's
interesting like that's a legitimate like 1A1B sort of
committee and if we're excited about the Texas offense then I'm
pretty excited about I I'm somewhat excited about cheap
Devon Singletary. Devon Singletary and not not
sure what what the different ways there's probably not gonna
be a rest another rest of the season draft but definitely sort
of like a sneaky waiver pick up where you can you can play them.
Get you through your bye weeks. We'll get you, we'll we'll get
you some points with upside for a decent week.
And yeah, you you called that last week too, that he was he
was under Price in in the resurrection drafts.
Damien Pierce is supposedly dealing with a little bit of a
knee injury and so they are kind of taking it easy with him.
But that's hey it doesn't, it doesn't matter how Devin
Singletary is getting on the field.
He's still he's getting on the field and he's getting snaps and
work. So yeah, I certainly view him as
a. You know, if you're in a pinch
and you need an NFL running back that gets snaps in an NFL
offense, he checks those boxes. He, I mean, he does this.
He does this every year where it's like going into the season.
The coach says there's no way I'm going to play Devon Singer
this year. I can't rely on Devon Singer
this year. And then towards the end of the
regular season, God damn it, I got to play Devon Singer this
week and I don't. He must be one of those backs
where he does enough, like NFL professional level things that
they struggle to keep him off the field.
Yeah, I I would say that's probably a pretty good
assessment. I mean you you just see it with
some guys where they're, hey, they are able to stick on a
roster or stick around in the league for way longer and
they're way, way more resilient than their talent level
suggests. You know, then their raw
athletic measure will suggest that they should be and they
beat out guys who are, you know, twice the athlete they are,
doesn't matter. They're they just have, you
know? Whether it's their football IQ
or their work ethic or whatever, you know they for Devin Sangre
it's tackle a vision rate is is historically his broken tackle
rate has been like really good and that that does seem to be
something that. Coaches like as well on the on
this chart before we move on to the next one, the only other
note I had was Taje Spears. You know he he didn't do much in
the game against Baltimore. He did flash one big play after
Tannehill was out of the game. He took like a little dump off
pass and you know made made a big play with it got the Titans
down into the Green Zone off of a big yards after catch.
So he he looks interesting. He's definitely still worth a
stash he's on by right now. I I know I I've seen a couple
people say he got dropped in their leagues.
That's a guy that's that's worth adding.
It's it's not, you know, not going to be a world beater or
anything. I mean, shoot, even if Derrick
Henry went down, you'd have a a middling running back.
Probably like with 10 expected fantasy points, 11 expected
fantasy points a week or something in that range.
Maybe I'm underselling it, but I, I, I, I suspect.
Who knows, obviously. But they must.
I think the Titans really like Taiji Spears.
They do, for sure. And that was the drum beat
coming out of camp this offseason.
And it's something where I've told myself this in the past and
been like, I gotta remember that, like when teams say they
really like a guy like. Just trust them.
They're not gonna, they're not gonna really like a guy and get
out there and say it for, you know, like teams say positive
stuff about guys. But every once in a while you do
get the We really like this Guy report and it's like K, right?
For whatever reason, there there is a little bit of sound
reporter report. Yes, there's there's a little
signal. This is our starter and week one
at training camp, we fucking love this guy.
Yeah, oops. Sorry, children.
But anyway, just had to have that note on Taje.
Oh, and and Chuba. I mean also a guy on by if he's
getting dropped anywhere that'd be a great pick up down down to
Foreman. All all these guys at the bottom
of the chart are actually kind of interesting down to Foreman.
It's looking so Roshan didn't practice again.
He's still not cleared through concussion protocol and there is
some data that I've seen historically on.
Running back, specifically coming back from concussion,
have a little bit of a larger dip in their production on
average than other positions do. And so it could be interesting,
you know, especially since it's taken this long for Roshan to
get out of concussion protocol, maybe you do see Deontay take
the majority of the work this week.
And it's a week where they don't have.
I mean, not that Justin Fields was lighten it up in the passing
game, but you might see the Bears lean even more run heavy.
So maybe it's nothing terribly efficient with the offense.
But if you need a spot start, you could definitely do worse
than Donta Foreman this week. I think he could be in line for
a lot of work, yeah, yeah, I agree.
Especially if Roshan, hopefully Roshan, his concussion, that
clears up. Not sure if that's the right way
to say it, but if not, then yeah, definitely feel good about
starting Don de Foreman. So should we move on?
Yeah, let's go to the backups chart and on these on the
backups chart, there weren't a ton of guys that I I thought had
huge actionable takeaways. I mean, we see Craig Reynolds
pop up here with the David Montgomery injury.
Really not a not a ton. Else Latavius Murray we might
see move up. A little bit with the Damien
Harris next brain. Apparently the next brain was
not too severe or anything that should really be limiting to
Damien Harris going forward. But I I would anticipate maybe,
you know, this one week removed from his ambulance trip off the
field we might see Damien Harris either, you know, I I don't, I
don't know if he'll be active or inactive but maybe Latavius
Murray gets a little bit more run.
This week but nothing nothing too terribly interesting here on
the backup so I I do know that if I'm demercado so we we sort
of like I don't think we we definitely weren't the only
people saying it that the idea that he was going to be the back
to own after the the the Conner injury and and just I saw a
tweet from from Gretch that sort of lines of what we're seeing
here where he actually did play a decent amount of snaps he was
running routes a lot he was pass blocking but he didn't get that
many touches and so he does seem to be the passing down back
especially in sort of like clearer passing situations and
that's definitely something where you're not going to get
it's not something where you can just start that guy every week
and feel good about it but it it it is a spot where you will get
you'll occasionally get points there.
Yeah, I I wonder. You know, with Kyler returning
and the whole rushing, quarterbacks throw less to
running backs narrative. If that devalues de Mercado a
little further or if the boost that the offense gets
inefficiency, I mean, maybe there is no boost, maybe Josh
Dobbs is Kyler Murray, you know? But we'll, we'll have to see
what that looks like. I mean, yeah, de Mercado's not
looking so terribly exciting in in a redraft format where you're
having to, like, make an active decision to start him.
So it just it kind of looks like the Arizona backfield might not
be valuable unless it's James Conner.
So little little bit of a bummer there and a bit of it I I
realized about 20 minutes before the show started that I messed
up in accidentally excluding and Jonathan Taylor from this chart.
Excel error. My my bad.
And if he if he was in this chart, he'd be right between Zac
Chabanet and taller Algiers. However, I do know if I just
look at last week alone, he did play half the snaps.
He did have 16 expected fantasy points.
So the the the trajectory of one week back to Week 2 back is
definitely it's it's moving strongly in Jonathan Taylor's
favour and would look for obviously look for that to
continue and definitely would have 0 hesitation about starting
John and Taylor going forward and would be would be pretty
interested in pretty interested in John and Taylor if if
somebody was like is a bit worried about Zach Moss.
The other thing about Jonathan Taylor, you mentioned he had 16
expected fantasy points. A lot of that came in the
passing game, which that's beautiful.
You really like to see that for your running backs because that
helps make them more game script proof.
And so like, like we're seeing with Alvin Kamara, he, he's not
efficient, he kind of sucks in the running game, but he's
getting insane work, getting such a great passing role and it
doesn't matter. You don't, you don't even have
to be good. And so Jonathan Taylor is good.
And could be getting this incredible role.
I think he'll eat into more of the work from Zach Moss.
Zach Moss might stick around a little longer than anyone wants
and and he'll be annoying to Jonathan Taylor.
Managers might, you know, take away some of the Russian game
work but it does look like Jonathan Taylor's the guy they
want to use in the passing game which is super valuable and I
think the talent is ultimately just going to to edge Zach Moss
out. But I I I expect Moss has done
enough to. Earn himself some staying power
in a role each week. Right as they're not going to,
they're not going to drop him immediately.
No. However, it's Janet and Taylor,
and they did pay him a shit ton of money.
And so I I do think my my my expectation would be anyway that
by the by the time playoffs come you're seeing Janet and Taylor
in his normal sort of like workhorse role where Zach Moss
still plays and then still get some some work some touches.
But you're you're getting you're getting starter level usage from
Jonathan Taylor and like you said about the the passing game
on it it it truly is unfortunately about Anthony
Richardson's injury. But playing with a quarterback
like Minshew, it does add a lot of expected points to the
backfield there, which is is definitely a really nice outcome
for Dunn and Taylor. Yep.
Yeah. I mean, a really easy way to
think of it is all of that value that Anthony Richardson added
for fantasy with his legs that's now distributed to the rest of
the offense. You're seeing it with Michael
Pittman and Josh Downs and Jonathan Taylor.
All those guys are getting a boost in their production.
So huge bummer to lose Anthony Richardson.
But for the rest of the pieces on this offense, all of a sudden
they they did get a little bump up because Minshew is capable
enough. To generate you know fantasy
production for these guys so yeah agree agree.
So I'm if you're happy I'm going to move on Yep keep us rolling
here and and so I did I did we might have to we might have to
move the the 20 XP so that does this bubble does say Christian
McCaffrey that is Christian the Christian McCaffrey above 20
expected fantasy points per week and and pretty efficient with it
too but just to I guess re explain this chart on the
horizontal axis you've got rushing expected points and then
on the vertical axis you've got receiving expected points and
the size of the bubble it corresponds to their to their
efficiency their fantasy points over expected and you can see
here this reference tells you at this size they're at 0 fantasy
points over expected per game. Is there anybody here standing
out to you that we haven't touched on, or even if you just
want to recap some of the points we've made already just in the
context of this chart? Kind of like James Cook is a buy
low. If you look at the size of his
bubble, he's not been like super efficient or inefficient.
He's just kind of gotten what's been made available to him.
Not that Damien Harris was taking a ton away, but just that
little bit of snaps being able to potentially be consolidated
between him and Latavius Murray. It's just a a tiny little bit of
a boost to Cook. And then also you get the
Patriots this week who have been bad historically.
The Patriots have had a good defense, you know, and that's
been something where you can always say, oh, it's the Bill
Belichick defense. They're always so good.
The Patriots look undisciplined on.
In in every phase of the game like offense, defense, special
teams, they're getting uncharacteristic penalties.
You know from what they would have historically, they just,
they don't look good. They're Matt Jude on tore his
bicep a couple weeks ago like they're they kind of look like
they're a big mess and so I like this as a spot for.
Cook to kind of surge forward a little bit here.
Last week we talked the the theme was guys in that 5 to 10
expected fantasy point range. There are still some interesting
guys there but we've we've kind of covered most of them and I
don't think too many situations change there.
This week when I was putting the charts together I really liked
these 10 to 15 range guys. I I like James Cook a lot this
week. I think he's interesting.
I I think you could see this be a good.
You know by this is a goodbye low window for James Cook right
here. I like Deonta Foreman as a
little spot start this week. Gibbs is also very interesting
because you got Montgomery out, you've got a game against a
potentially high scoring opponent in the Ravens.
I'm hoping that turns into a high scoring game.
That one kind of feels like it could go either way and it could
be pretty polar right? You can end up with a, you know,
13 to 10 just. Each team decides to run the
football at each other and there's a lot of punting and the
offenses don't get a bunch going and it's just a gross game
because both teams are willing to run the ball.
But I I think if you get a couple explosive plays, that's a
really interesting one. And the last time that, you know
Gibbs, Montgomery was out, Gibbs got a lot of work.
I think he got 18 opportunities that game and so.
With Craig Reynolds not practicing today, he's got a
couple injuries. He's banged up.
I'm pretty sure him not practicing is an abundance of
caution by the Lions because they're like, oh, we are real
thin at running back. And they like Craig.
They've they've made it really clear they like Craig Reynolds
like they gave him work over DeAndre Swift last year.
He is not a ultra talented NFL running back, but he is.
Just in the same vein as Devin Singletary, right?
That dude does what he is assigned to do and the coaches
love that about him. And so I think they're trying to
be super safe with Reynolds because they feel thin at
running back. They're holding him out of
practice. But I mean just that, that
little red flag of injury for Reynolds.
Even though Gibbs is coming off injury, I could see this be a
spot where Gibbs gets a lot of work and just the little bit
that he's flashed when he has done some really efficient stuff
and. I just I think back to Week 1 or
he's bouncing off all those tackles and he just looked so
electric. I think that if you you run well
and Gibbs just breaks a couple plays that could be he, he could
easily be the RB one on the week.
So that's an interesting one to me.
You're you're right he did get 18 touches in week 3.
But other than week one he has gotten where week one he got 9
touches. He has gotten the double digit
touches every week apart from week 1.
So obviously they took they took Gibbs in the first round they
they they they still really like Gibbs it seems and but do think
that's interesting where like maybe maybe he gets up there
that again and if he can add the efficiency in a positive game
script and that that could be useful.
So just in terms of it sounds like you're happy to start Gibbs
this week unless you have like clear elite elite running backs
over him. But I see he's so I see he's at
6300 on draftings and I'm just trying to think of it in terms
of usability is do you think he's a million maker play or is
he somebody that where he he's he's firmly in the range for
this sort of smaller tournament stuff.
I have to forget about ownership for a second, 'cause I I know we
don't have that, but just like is, is he a relatively a good
play? Yeah, yeah, I think at that
price, he's a good play. He's got the ceiling necessary
to to really pay off a 6300 tag. I, you know, just just at the
start of every week, I'll like to.
Get my own thoughts about the slate through and and try to not
you know let other people's information and the all the
touts influenced me. I'll just I'll construct a line
up look at you know some of the the data that we have and and go
through my thoughts on on who I like at certain price points.
And I ended up with a very large Baltimore Detroit stack in the
the line up that I built, I believe it was Lamar Gibbs and
and Jameson Williams. With, I believe Zay Flowers.
So it was, it was a lot of pieces all from that one game.
So that game goes off. I'm expecting you to win the the
Thunderdome, basically. Yeah, I I think, I think I'm
gonna need to get a little bit of a bigger bankroll to play.
But you know, if that game does go off, you can expect me to
ship the dog bowl. I might.
I might have three tickets to Miami.
If that game goes off, I yeah, I I'd love to see that anybody
else and we've talked about a bunch of these guys tonight and
and and previous weeks as well. So happy to move.
On yeah, I think we can move on everyone else's like trend
holding or we've already discussed them.
OK, sounds good. So same chart except this, this
one one chart we have odds and then the other one we have evens
and it's just to help help us declutter the chart.
So we're showing two charts with.
More distinct bubbles where you can easily discern who the
players are. Yeah, and and when Draco says
odds and evens, he just means all all these players we have
ranked by expected fantasy points in our sheet and so we
just go down the list, odd, even, odd, even and split them
up that way. Otherwise in that 5 to 10
expected fantasy point range, it'd be entirely unreadable.
But same same thing that I talked about last week.
That or not, last week, the last chart, it's it's that not the
five to 10 expected fantasy point range like we were excited
about last week. Now it's the 10 to 15 expected
fantasy point range. You see Jerome Ford, who I I
really like him in a spot where the the Deshaun Watson
situation's really interesting. They're saying he's got that,
you know, deep shoulder contusion and that's what's been
holding him out. And so even though he's
medically cleared to throw, he's he's just really not, you know?
He he's deciding he's not capable of playing, and so I
like Ford. The Browns are always happy to
lean on their run game. He did fine last week.
I think he's probably like a little undervalued in public
perception right now because he didn't score a touchdown.
It was mostly it was like the classic Nick Chubb game, right?
Runs for a bunch of yards, doesn't score a touchdown, so it
doesn't really show up as exciting in the fantasy scores.
But. I I like Ford this week against
a a somewhat weak Colts defense. We mentioned last week the
Dolphins backfield. I think you asked me how I would
play it whether it be Ahmed or some of the other options of
Brooks. Thank you.
And I just said I would play it and it's you know it.
Last week it turned out to be Auckland.
And you see he's he's already sitting there.
That 10 to 15 expected fantasy point range is just like this
Dolphins backfield. All they know how to do is
produce fantasy points. So you just you play the
starters in that you play anyone on the Dolphins offense.
Basically, you can't go wrong. Yeah.
So I guess in the context of the Dolphins we did, we got news
that Jeff Wilson wouldn't be able to make it last week and I
think that that's part of what why Savannah Ahmed was the the
next man up. And with Jeff Wilson back this
week, do you do you think we can still look to Ahmed for points
or is he? Do you think oh oh, Ahmed, no, I
think it's probably well, it it really depends on what they.
I think the Dolphins are going to let us know at least with
enough certainty that we'll have an idea of is it Jeff Wilson, is
it Ahmed? But right now if I if I had to
call it today, I would say that it's Jeff Wilson.
I think they do prefer him. That's that's what they would
want to roll out. If you know, everyone is
healthy, everyone is, you know, feeling good.
So I I think it would be Jeff Wilson for me, but it's it.
Listen, Listen to what they say. Pay attention to injury reports
and practice reports and see what seems the most likely by
Sunday. And feel good.
Who even even if it's the It's going to be the second running
back, right? Most of it is.
Is the clear RB one there? You can feel good playing the
second one. There's just enough points there
that you're you're good, you know?
Got a good chance of lucking into a touchdown.
Just someone, someone falls in the end zone, they're going to
score. You know a lot of points, so
just take take your shots there. If if those are guys that you
need to be playing and you like, obviously you know, start your
studs over those guys. But if if that's a running back
you need to be playing, you definitely could do worse.
Yeah, for sure. And I do see is Isaiah Pacheco.
We had a discussion about him a couple weeks ago and I, after
disagreeing with you, I I capitulated and said you were
right and I feel good that I capitulated because you were
definitely right. I I think that's what's great
about both of our thought processes where we think about
the game in a really similar way and so whenever you tell me
something that you're on that is is different than my current
assessment of the situation, I always take a long hard think
about it like OK if Draco thinks this is there's probably
something to it and and I. Would say vice versa 'cause I
was able to get Honda, Pacheco and I I think I I do like our
our dynamic duo effect there. It helps the the couple blind
spots that each of us are you know in in playing fantasy
football you're gonna run into a couple player evaluations where
you're just wrong. You have a blind spot or bias or
whatever maybe maybe you just missed some news or information,
but I think between the two of us we we managed to patch up the
holes in the in the other ones analysis pretty well and so
definitely. Definitely glad to have you
there to get my back on some spot.
Good good good podcast partnership for sure and then on
on Pacheco. So obviously since then he had
23 expected points in week 315-1419.
So he's definitely he's definitely the running back to
to to play in KC that that one feels like.
I I don't I haven't honestly seen that much buzz about him
because he hasn't scored that many points either.
But like and like the Chiefs backfield is normally pretty
valuable. And so definitely, yeah,
definitely interested in Pacheco as like the the KC favored
running back. I I think he's a great play this
week against the Chargers on. You know, a short week I think
that you could see him. Maybe he finds the end zone a
couple times and delivers on his expected fantasy points.
And we see his his little bubble size increase a little bit as he
gets some fantasy points over expectation.
If he converts a couple touchdowns here yeah he he
actually in week four he had 10 points over expected.
So he he's he, he, he has had some weeks where he's delivered
and hopefully we can get a couple more.
Anybody else here you wanted to touch on?
You'll notice Derek Henry is sliding on down.
He's he's moved down into the five to 10 expected fantasy
point range and that is just the nature of.
Derrick Henry, you know you you're the when Derrick Henry is
delivering good fantasy weeks for you, it's by having huge
fantasy points over expected, he's breaking long breakaway
runs that are not expected points, right.
And so he's not going to look great on a chart like this.
He doesn't look, you know, super wash or anything.
He's still breaking a big run here and there and.
You know, apparently the Titans love him in their passing game.
He's thrown a couple passes a like scheming for for the
Derrick Henry jump pass or even even not the Derrick Henry jump
pass. Just like a, you know, 3030 yard
strike down field. So as far as Henry goes, he's
not someone where you could ever, I don't think he can ever
really acquire him in season long for anything.
That would be fair, right? The name carries too much value,
so. On on the flip side of that you
possibly could sell him off of a good game.
What I would what I would want to do because what I'm what I'm
seeing. You know I think a lot of people
the the best person to sell Derrick Henry to is probably
someone that is thinks they're smarter than they are at fantasy
and is paying attention to playoff matchups and stuff like
that. They're like, oh, hey, did you
know Derrick Henry plays the Texans twice in the fantasy
football playoffs? Because what I think we could
get is we get a nice Derrick Henry explosion game.
You go and ship them off to someone who's Galaxy braining
their fantasy playoff matchups. And by the time the fantasy
football playoffs roll around I'm pretty sure we're going to
see this Texans defense you know look a little stronger.
I I I think the way that this team is trending, I wouldn't be
surprised at all to see their run D.
Be stronger. Right now the Run D is not good
but I I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that be stronger by
season end just based on who they've faced so far this
season. And just you know, I I think
they they may be able to get it together a little bit.
And I think that if you're able to sell Derrick Henry off of a
big game you might miss out on a lot of these more disappointing
Derrick Henry floor games and be able to get a good haul soft
name value. So that was I think that's the
only actionable Derrick Henry stuff I had.
Yeah he he's mostly his expected points has mostly really truly
been in the five to 10 range. And so you you need the the
Derrick Henry monster runs to score points with him and with I
I I guess that that still seems to be part of his game, but for
the price you paid that that doesn't feel very good at all.
How do you think that part of his game is gonna look with
Tannehill out? Do you think that teams will be
able to commit more to preventing those explosive run
plays from Henry? Will it matter if they commit
more to preventing those plays or what?
How does that look? I think he's actually been
relatively productive with Malik Willis in the line up and
obviously when he's the quarterback you will get more
defenders in the box. But where Malik can help in in
terms of like the efficiency stuff because he's Malik is such
a threat as a runner himself and offenses can use that.
They can scheme with that to where to where effectively they
have to assign a defender to the quarterback who who the offense
doesn't have to block now. And so I think that part of it
might actually be a wash how I guess in in the running game.
But obviously his his receiving stuff is not going to be in in
play so much with Malik Willis at quarterback.
So you really need the breakaway runs because you're not getting,
you're not getting much receiving.
But do think the breakaway runs will still be in play.
And and not that this was a terribly efficient offense to
begin with, but I I don't really think that Malik Willis is going
to be better for the offense as a whole.
No Than Ryan Tannehill. Not that Tannehill's been good
by any stretch, but. I think you're probably going to
see the offense get a little bit worse.
And so just in general, that's going to be worse for Henry.
Just basically has to do it all himself, which he can.
He absolutely can. But I'd be looking for an out on
him. I'd be looking for a big game to
get out, but yeah, agree with that for sure.
Agree with that for sure. Anybody else that you want to
touch on, just very move on to. Yeah, very briefly.
Elijah Mitchell, Jordan Mason conversation.
If I don't, it doesn't sound like CM CS injury is super
serious. Sounds like he could go this
week, but if he does miss, I do think it's more likely to
actually be Mitchell ahead of Mason.
But I think you're going to get both backs, so that'll be
interesting to watch. I don't think there's a ton of
value. And either of them for the short
term your your contingent value is obviously good on both of
those guys. You know in the event that CMC
misses more time or even in the event that they are lighter with
his workload when he comes back, which I always thought the the
way they deployed him last season they they were a little
lighter with his workload than they have been to start this
season. So I I really thought that this
season we would see CM CS workload be.
Relatively light in the early parts of the season, you know,
still getting 60 plus percent, 70% of snaps, but not like the
8090%. Ridiculous CMC style workloads.
Just in the interest of preservation.
But anyway, that just Elijah Mitchell.
He's another guy where the coaches in previous years have
said we really like this guy. Yeah, he just he hasn't been
able to stay healthy. But yeah, I don't think the
team, the team's not looking at this guy when he's healthy
saying, well, we can't play you cuz you can't stay healthy,
right? Like if the dude is healthy,
they want they're gonna put him on the field.
So just when he's available, just know that he's probably a
decent asset for fantasy and. You just have to know that maybe
there's a slightly elevated injury risk for him just based
on his past. But I don't.
I I try not to read too much into that stuff.
I think a lot of it's pretty noisy.
I don't, I don't think that hardly anyone.
It's hard to call. Yeah.
I don't think anyone's good at predicting that or good enough
to actually gain an advantage from it.
So for all the injuries you predict you're gonna miss him, I
do think Elijah Mitchell's a pretty strong spot start.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you you also could roll Mason as well, I think.
Think they'll both get work. So OK and so moving on, oh, flew
through that. This is our tight end
utilization and efficiency chart.
So these are our starting tight ends and what we've got here is
we've got routes and pass blocking as a percentage of team
drop backs. And obviously what we want is
tight ends who are on the field for the the vast majority of the
teams passing place. And even more than that we want
tight ends running routes on the vast majority of the teams
passing place and like the running back charts because we
want the trend over the full season average.
This is a rolling four week average rather than the full
season. One thing that sort of struck me
was we see George Kittle really climbing up this chart in terms
of his actual routes. And I believe a big part of that
is that when another skill player gets injured, they they
start to rely on George Kittle as a pass catcher much more and
and that's where you get those weeks where Kittle just scorches
the air. Yep, Hundred 100%.
And even there, there are some weeks where there's an injured
weapon on the 49ers offense, and it's still game plan dependent
'cause you'll see games where they've decided we can just run
the piss out of the ball. We we're going to run the ball
50 times this week. And then George Kittle doesn't
run any routes. He's just out there mowing dudes
down, blocking 15 yards down field and so.
His usage is going to be really volatile for for the top tight
ends. I would say Kittle is the one he
he is like the the chameleon of these top tight ends where he
can be whatever the team needs him to be.
Or like you know, a lot of these guys up here can can do it all.
They can block, they can run routes, they're, you know,
weapons of the passing game. But Kittle.
You know the most can can really blend in and do what the team
needs him to do to win a specific game And so he'll have
a lot of volatility in his utilization.
And so that's why we can see him bounce up and down the chart
there. And so in in these last couple
weeks especially we we get rid of a couple of the the early
weeks of the season now since we're doing the rolling 4 weeks
and we have the Cowboys game in there where Kittle was
specifically used to exploit a match up.
Against the Cowboys safeties who are not as as good in past
coverage and they got absolutely worked for three receptions for
three touchdowns. So that that was a good game
plan, right? A little little bit of
disappointment in your voice there and I I sort of do notice
that he's Kettle's been above since week one he's been above
85% routes or higher just what's been volatile as whether he's
actually targeted it or not And so that that's that's the the
George Kittle experience I suppose another player that
struck me was your boy and Jake Ferguson where if I look at the
last two weeks Jake Ferguson is now at in the last two weeks at
80% of routes run and that's pretty that's like firmly in the
San Laporta Dallas Gotter and TJ Hawkinson range.
So that that seems like a pretty strong development there for
Jake Ferguson. Unless I'm missing something.
No. Yeah.
The the only like color or context I would add to the Jake
Ferguson stuff is now we have more signal that the Cowboys
offense is shit. So it's.
It's less exciting than initially when we thought, you
know, when we were getting the early signal that wow, Jake
Ferguson could consolidate, you know, more of these snaps.
He could get more routes and he's already getting he was
getting elite targets for route run numbers.
He was up at like 27% for a while.
His targets dropped down this last week and his his A dot's
actually still really low. So he's just that safety valve,
safety blanket. The reason I was excited for
Jake Ferguson was I anticipated this offense maybe taking a step
back from last season. But not only did they take a
step back, they took a step backwards and they actually were
at the top of a staircase and they fell and smacked their head
on every single stair on the way down.
They're all the way at the bottom of the league now.
I'm just trying. I'm I'm just trying to use this
section to suddenly make you talk bad about the Cowboys.
I got I got all I'm trying to do here a.
Lot to say about it, but anyway to to not, you know, hate on my
my Cowboys and cause myself too much misery here.
What I would say is my thesis for why I was so excited about
Jake Ferguson was I really liked the potential touchdown upside I
thought I saw on the offense. I think that has fundamentally
changed. I don't think he could get.
I thought double digit touchdowns were squarely in the
range of outcomes for him. I don't think that's the case
anymore. I think if you travel back in
time to the Cowboys offense with Callen Moore as the offensive
coordinator. That was in the range of
outcomes and it's it's not any longer so he'll be a low in
tight in one to end the season because tight end is a wasteland
and when you get this many routes and this many targets per
route run you will be a low in tight in one but his upside
that's a good echo though yeah I mean you're for.
Sure. You, your dreams of him being
like maybe like top four or something like that maybe.
Probably not as as live as it was at the start of the year but
still still a pretty strong outcome.
And another player that stuck struck out to me is we've got
Evan Ingram who he's pretty high up here.
He's getting targeted quite a bit.
A dot is not quite there, but definitely like.
Interesting usage for sure, where I think you're definitely
getting the. Elidish at usage that you were
hoping for where you drafted Ingram.
My caveat on the Ingram stuff is that this is while we're missing
Zay Jones and Zay Jones is I believe missing again this week.
So while Zay Jones is out I'm I'm happy to play Ingram.
Think he's probably a a pretty good play.
The thing I I really like about Ingram, even though his 8 odd is
really low, is Ingram is cut from the same cloth as like this
is going to sound like a knock against him but it's not.
It's Gerald Everett where he's the kind of guy where the
offense they want to get him the ball and let him make something
happen after the catch. And so that's part of why is a
dot so low. You know they're just they're
trying to get the ball in his hands and let him let him create
something and he's he's athletic he's a good receiver.
So I'm I definitely am excited about Ingram.
But I would caution and say that when Zay Jones comes back I
would expect that targets per route run number to decrease.
And so maybe it's something where in a season long league if
you're able to get a couple good performances from Ingram before
Zay Jones comes back you could move him to someone who's not as
plugged in and understanding the dynamics of that offense and and
why he's seeing so much more work right now.
But he he's still going to get work, even with Zay Jones back.
I just think that, you know, the best version of Evan Ingram's
fantasy production happens with one fewer mouths to feed on that
offense, whether it's Sage Jones or Cushion Kirk or Calvin Ridley
being out. That that does make sense and I
guess slight pushback would be that Ingram still had 16%
targets per out run on 21% targets per out run and week one
and two and. Before, which I believe were
before, and Zay Jones's injury and that that still seems fairly
strong. Unless I'm missing something
there, no, no, absolutely. I think Zay Jones did leave part
way through. Was it?
Was it week two that he left part way through the game?
I can't remember. I I might be misremembering but
yeah I I don't I certainly don't think Ingram is like a must sell
but if you if you're able to move him for something good but
yeah he he's certainly interesting this week with no
Trevor Lawrence it'll be interesting to see how that
shakes out. Yeah.
But yeah, he he's, I mean, he's squarely at a tight end.
One rest to see, you know? Right.
You you got the. I think you got the road that
you paid for. Yeah, yeah.
Which is, you know, for for those tight ends that go in the
middle of drafts, it's kind of rare that you get an outcome
where it's actually what you paid for, right?
Like, I feel like everyone else around, like in Joku and
Fryermuth, like those, those are both really painful picks.
Like you go a little bit later and it's like, you know, Dalton
Kincaid, like that's one you you'd like to have those ones
back, you know? And then a little bit before
that, like Darren Waller, Dallas Scottert, like you'd love to
love to right those ones out of your portfolio.
So it's like it's a little weird.
A high bust position. So the the rate of failure when
you when you're picking tight ends is high and and ideally
because of that you want your hits to be really big and
probably not getting that from Ingram, but you're still get
you're you're getting a solid hit.
Let's talk about a guy who could be a big hit.
And for whatever reason, the fantasy community is just
anchored to the fact that this guy is not a hit and that's Kyle
Pitts. And so Pitts has had a couple
good weeks in a row now and a big part of that is coming from
now. If you look at his peripherals,
his targets per route run have been high, right?
It's not this 19% is not new, it's been high.
His A dot has been high. In fact, I think this might be a
lower a dot than he's had in the last few weeks.
You can check me on that. But what we're actually seeing
his he's his snaps are decreasing you you've seen him
come down the chart a little bit.
But we're seeing them throw so many more passes.
Their, their attempts are up substantially, you know, like
more than double some weeks. And so you're going to have
weeks where the Falcons do Arthur Smith things and they
just run the ball and they refuse to play football in the
21st century, you know, But you're also going, they've now
shown us like, yes, we know sometimes we have to throw the
ball and they begrudgingly do it.
But those, I mean, shit, you don't even need a lot of those.
You need like 6-7 of those games in a season.
And like if you get one of those in the playoff weeks where the
Falcons drop back and throw 40 plus passes and Kyle Pitts is
out there with, you know 20% targets per route run at 8 out
of 12 lookout because you ABS like God, it it it just feels
like Kyle Pitts needs to be the guy you need in the like.
Doesn't that feel like that it's setting right in the universe?
A big, massive spike week and in one of the playoff weeks.
And here's a fun game. Or at least I think it's fun.
How? What do you think?
For the Falcons, what do you think their average drop back
per week is so far this year? Like their average number of
drop backs so far this year. Gosh, I'm gonna say it's so low
the first couple weeks. Let's go 33. 39 OK, OK.
Like you you've we treat it had 47.
Week 543639 and then last week 52.
So like I I I feel like the the team stuff is relatively OK.
You just you've had some weeks where he wasn't heavily targeted
and and maybe we can put that down to his recovery from the
knee injury or lack of hopefully not lack of chemistry with
Ritter but. The team stuff feels like
relatively OK and the the talent is certainly there.
So they're like, especially at the price, like I remember Pitts
was going like in the in the tenth round and later in
resurrection at that price. Like you've got the potential
for some really nice outcomes there.
Yeah and yeah. Firmly in play in DFS as well as
I would say yeah and his his price was like bargain basement
last week. I I think the the Ritter double
S ended up taking down the Millie.
They took down a lot of stuff last week.
So exciting exciting signs from that offense.
You're gonna have frustrating weeks from that off.
That is the nature of an Arthur Smith team right.
But there's there's signs of life and the cost that you were
paying for Pitts this season was low and you know, like he wasn't
going that much before Ingram, really, you know, like a round,
a round and a half, two rounds before Ingram.
And at that point in the draft there wasn't a ton of
opportunity cost difference between all the all the players
you'd select between them. Where I think that's that's
shaping up to be a pick that you're happy that you made
especially if it got you to stack them with Ritter as a Joe
cheap last round quarterback and you played it with one you you
managed to get one of the other quarterbacks that's a big hit
this season and then you've got Ritter who's deaf Ritter's major
starting lineup. If you drafted Ritter you know
he he's had a couple weeks where he's done enough to hit your
starting lineup. So it's definitely, I I think
you can already chalk it up as you know very, very promising
for the Falcons pass catching stacks.
Now I'm really excited about the prospect that we can get one of
these podcasts in under 2 hours. I think.
I think we can do it this week. Let's let's hit this backup
tight end chart and then motor through these wide receivers.
Yeah, so same chart, except as, as Zach said, these are the
backups and this is, this was originally Sam Sherman's like he
has this perverse sense of humor.
For making me talk about backup tight ends.
And he's still he's still making me do it.
I I've got there's oh sorry there.
There's three on this chart actually that are worth talking
about I. Go ahead.
Go right ahead, one of them. I want you to look up some data
for for me. Can you tell me Michael Mayer,
you know, percent of team drop backs and targets per route run
just for the last two weeks 'cause his Rolling 4 is gonna
look really bad, but his last two is where we are starting to
see this Michael Mayer breakout. Last week he was 67% route run
and 27% targets per route run. So essentially you can, if
that's maintains you can, you can.
That's what we were seeing from Jake Ferguson to start the
season. Basically, it's it's Jake
Ferguson exactly to start the season right 27% targets per
route run, just under 70%. So yeah, that's that's good.
Like 3.4 yards per route run. So like if if you are stuck at
tight end, I think you can, I can think you have a there's a
shot where you can start Michael Mera now, which given how bad it
looked at the start of the year, that's.
I'm pretty. I'm pretty pumped about that.
I got AI, got an interesting spot.
I've got Jake Ferguson on my my keeper home league.
Jake Ferguson's my only tight end on my roster.
I got a million guys on by this week don't don't really have
room to hold Jake Ferguson. I mean I I could cut some dart
throw running back but I'm debating cutting Ferguson to add
Mayer. The problem is I can keep
Ferguson for $2.00 next year. Probably won't got a bunch of
good keepers but I could sell them.
I can't keep Mayer because he didn't get drafted.
But OK, but is is it worth hanging on to Ferguson through
the buy? I really don't think I want to
roster both of them, but I I do really want to pick up Mayer.
I think, 'cause my my upside case for Ferguson I just talked
about, it kind of evaporated, right?
The the true huge ceiling I was excited for, and I think that's
live for May. Here.
Here's the thing, Michael Mayer is good.
He's really good. Like he's a good.
He was Notre Dame's best player for, for, for.
Every year he played there, I I believe, I believe, to quote
Evan Silva, I think he's a motherfucking Mackie Award
winner. Is that is that right?
So I I he he used the embodiment of the the Wonder Fucking Mackie
Award. Yeah.
So I I'm interested in Mayer not to spend too much time on the
back of tight end chart though so I'm gonna I'm gonna speed
through these next guys. Luke Musgrave also super
interesting 19% targets per route run.
Decent enough A dot and I I think what we might end up
seeing with Luke Musgrave is as the offense becomes more
efficient, even though he might end up getting a little bit
squeezed in his targets per route run, he could benefit from
getting some more touchdowns. The offense we saw when this
offense is efficient. Jordan loves chucking 3T DS a
week, right? So you're just asking for a
little bit of that touchdown variance to go Luke Musgrave's
way and they targeted the piss out of him in their last game
like they were they were feeding him the ball.
I I think if this offense gets a little better and maybe that you
know they needed the Aaron Jones boost to do that.
I'm interested in Luke Musgrave. So just another point to kind of
back that up is that in the first three weeks?
His routes run were 8081 and 86 and then he had the the
concussion that he pushed him down to 20% for a week and then
he was just coming off the concussion which pushed him to
68%. So I actually think there's a
pretty good chance that for the, for the full season, he's going
to be in the starting tight end section of the chart where he's
going to be around 80. Yeah, I I definitely like Luke
Musgrave as a guy going forward. I would, I would say actually
not sure how I feel about Mayer versus Musgrave rest of season.
Do you have a preference one over the other?
I I have a It's one of those things.
I'm just biased. I just think Michael Mayer is
like so good that he he's who I want to bet on.
But and and then. Luke Musgrave didn't really have
that strong a college profile, so I'm still holding.
I'm still hanging on to my priors with Michael Mayer, but
that's it. Maybe that maybe that's a bias
for me but I think I'm justified actually you know one of one of
the greatest DFS players Utica on on lalls said that he just
plays the best players plays the most talented players Pete Pete
managed to drag that out of him for his process and so I think
he would back up your Michael Mayer is is the guy there the
last backup tight end I will make anyone listen to me talk
about is Trey McBride and Trey McBride is we're catching the
signal one week early compared to where Michael Mayer is at
where now we've seen Michael Mayer string together these two
weeks where it's like OK like you have my attention Trey
McBride we're we're just one week prior in that breakout for
him and we saw him get more snaps we saw him get more
opportunities and he looks good A lot of his production did come
on the last play of the game total absolute the most garbagey
garbage time. But it was a long pass down the
field from Josh Dobbs. Hit him down the seam.
It was a nice little strike and he he.
Was that the one last time was expiring?
Yes, and they they were. They time expired after the
catch, so it was completely worthless in real life.
Yeah, I'm sure. I I believe I've got enough Trey
McBride that that had to help some best ball team of mine
somewhere, so. But he he hit a flex for me for
sure. McBride is good though.
It is the thing. He just like Michael Mayer.
He's good. He's very athletic.
And the other thing, this is kind of in the same vein as a
team telling you we really like this guy.
This this felt weird to me to see a team do this.
But they went out and they they, they, like, made a big deal
about this, too. They explicitly moved Zach Ertz
down on the depth chart to #2 and moved Trey McBride up to #1.
And it's like that just feels it feels like they're trying so
hard to send a message like that was like very much about the
messaging. And to me, I'm, I'm happy to buy
into that signal. I always thought Trey McBride
was really talented. I drafted a lot of him.
It was very frustrated to see Zach Ertz getting all this work
and and keeping Trey McBride bottled up.
I'm happy to to try and get on the Trey McBride train before it
leaves the station here. Not sure it's it's like for a
redraft league it's not terribly actionable but like keep them on
your watch list keep a light on you know maybe an FFPC you know
2020 man roster that's definitely I mean he's probably
owned but you know maybe maybe worth a pick up if he's somehow
out there on your waivers and tight end premium.
But anyway, that was that was the last backup tight end I had
anything to. Say about.
All right, all right, let's, let's keep him moving then.
So here we have the wide receiver chart and on the
horizontal axis, you've got fantasy point.
No, sorry. On the horizontal axis, you've
got weighted targets per outrun. Which is like normal targets per
out run, but it weighs down the field targets more.
And then on the vertical axis you've got fantasy points per
day. And what I normally find in this
chart is that after a couple of games in it tends to get very
stable. Like we we sort of figure out
who guys are pretty quickly and it can be good to sort of recap
that, but just sort of. But that's what I found with
this chart. Yeah, definitely.
I couldn't couldn't agree more. Once we've got a large enough
sample, most of the guys kind of are who they are there.
There can be certain situations where we want to read a little
bit more into the situation and the nuance surrounding it for
why a guy might move from 1 quadrant to another.
But like for example guys that I I don't think will be moving
from their quadrant would be like this dude that Steve Smith
senior agreed with me on for my player evaluation.
That's Jerry Judy because that's that's Jerry Hoody to to you
because that guy is absolute dust he's he's going to live in
the melt carton zone down here with Johann Dodson Alec Pierce
and Allen Robinson. They're they're all dust balls.
I I just had to shit on, had to shit on Jerry Judy take, take
one more victory lap on that take after Steve Smith backed me
up. It's always always nice to get
that support a guy that's actually something actionable.
There's two guys, they're right next to each other.
They're both in the proper, not proper, but our preferred
quadrant of the chart that we like and they are at points on
the chart where I think that we could see them trend in positive
directions both up and to the right.
And I don't think this is going to be like my CD lamb call where
I said he's moving up and to the right and then he did the exact
opposite. I I truly think there's some
pretty good signal here for why both of these guys might have
some positive movement. And that's Michael Pittman and
Amari Cooper. You can see they're both kind of
near that bottom left corner of the top right quadrant near the
middle of the chart. Both of these guys are running
lots of routes. They're both, you know, 95 to
100% routeshare, and they both happen to benefit from
quarterback changes. It's kind of funny, but we saw
this last season too, that Amari Cooper was better when Jacoby
Brissette was in at quarterback. And now that Deshaun Watson has
been out a couple weeks, it actually looks like Amari Cooper
might be a little bit better. Not that he was terrible with,
you know, Deshaun Watson, but I I don't think Deshaun Watson is
good. And so it doesn't matter that
he's your your brain plays a trick on you.
When you're like, oh, the starting quarterback's out, So I
can't play Amari Cooper. Any Amari Cooper's bad now.
He's dead, right? Or he's not not as good as he
was. But in in actuality, that's not
the case. Amari Cooper is just as good,
potentially better, because Deshaun Watson sucks.
And so I I think that that's one that's interesting to me.
I don't know how much more time Deshaun Watson is going to miss.
Who knows though. He's sitting on, you know, 200
mil guaranteed. Doesn't have to work.
Doesn't have to do anything and he's got a little little ouchie
in his shoulder. He doesn't want to play.
But Michael Pittman also benefiting from quarterback
change. This one we know is sticking.
We should, you know see Gardner, Minshew, I would assume finished
out the season for them. He would have to look really
bad. I I would guess to get benched
because I think the Colts kind of feel like they've got their
quarterback of the future and Anthony Richardson just with
what he's flashed. Not that he was such a prolific
passer or anything but you know he he was Cam Newton all over
again and when you got that you're you're going to ride it.
But to Michael Pittman's benefit, I mean he got what was
it was it 1011 targets last week and he's he's earning alpha work
like Alec Pierce is just out of the picture.
The his his competition for targets is, you know it's a
rookie slot receiver and Josh Downs who I I think is good at
football. But I just think Michael Pittman
is going to be able to command a pretty high percentage of the
targets and I think this offense is going to benefit from more
accurate passes more passing volume.
And we did talk about the effect earlier that removing that
quarterback rushing from the offense distributes some of
those fantasy points to other weapons.
So both of those guys, Amari Cooper, Michael Pittman, I
thought were really interesting on the chart.
Yeah. So Michael Pittman looks like
he's been in around the 25% target threat run range.
So that's like you're probably it's not truly elite but it's
it's wide receiver one usage. Yeah he's definitely definitely
paying off his tag he he went pretty cheap in basketball
drafts for his role he's he's kind of I don't want to call him
the the Tyler Walken and DK Metcalf of you know of 2023
where where they were so under valued in 2022 because people
thought that Seattle was going to be terrible but it he's he's
kind of in that in that range. I mean the the truest right
where he's. So cheap that just being hit,
hit solid is like a big win. Yeah, yeah.
Anyone else on this chart for you?
I mean Cooper Cup is doing Cooper Cup things.
Are we surprised Puka Nekua is still good?
Puka Nekua still got 33% target share.
I think the Rams threw really little this last week, right?
And they have only like let's see, 2021 attempts or something.
It was something crazy low for them.
Give me a second and but they they true. 2828 Dropbox in Week
6. So that that is tiny.
Yeah. Is very yeah, very little.
But puka Puka's still, you know out there doing puka things.
It it just looks like a great it it's man, just it's Gretch's
right about a lot of stuff but his call of there's gonna be the
haves and have nots is just looking so prescient.
The way the season is playing out, it's like, it's the Rams,
it's the Lions, it's the 49ers, it's the Dolphins.
And those are the competent offenses, right?
And and there's other offenses that are producing for fantasy,
like you got A.J. Brown and Stefan Diggs up there.
And I would argue that they're producing in spite of the way
their offenses are designed rather than they're they're not.
They're not being boosted by their offensive design.
They are the talent of the player and and obviously they
have incredible quarterback situations as well.
It's enough that the fact that their offense isn't you know the
the coordinator isn't among the very, very best in the league
like those four offenses I listed.
It doesn't matter. They're good enough and and the
players are so good but and I I would say like the same thing
with Keenan Allen, like you know good very good player very good
offense in general. I think Callan Moore in general
is is going to be closer to those sharper offensive
coordinators and he's he's in the the correct direction of the
trends. But there's there's still some
things that I think that he's lacking that those those best
four offensive coordinators are just doing way better than the
rest of the league. Agree for sure.
And so you mentioned CD, lime, and.
One thing I sort of noticed here is that he really is he's in the
like starter or or not starter. He's in the like wide receiver
one targets per out range like Ish he's he's hovering around
20% targets per out run and that honestly that really is
disappointing for taking him at the 1-2 turn like that is not
great and and. I was, I I was mindful that the
Cowboys could run a lot more this year than they did last
year but did expect him to be a very good target earner.
And so I've been a little bit disappointed with his his target
rate and still sort of leaving a candle on that.
It could improve as as the year goes on, but that that has been
a disappointment. Yeah, it's just I I was talking
about this in a Discord channel today, but in the offseason I
mentioned so frequently we overblow the impact that coaches
have on players production. And and like I, you know there's
these four offensive coordinators that are great and
they're having these huge positive impacts on their
players production and for the rest of the league it's not it's
like take it or leave it like the you you could you could lose
the offensive coordinator and never even know it.
You know for for a lot of them it wouldn't majorly impact the
production. But there's a couple guys out
there in the league that are just LED fucking weights to
their offenses and that is what Mike McCarthy and Schottenheimer
have been to the Cowboys like you.
You clearly you saw this offense was able to produce at an elite,
elite level for the last couple seasons and they they took that
offense out behind the barn and shot it and they buried it 6
feet deep. So something very significant
has to change for the Cowboys for their offense to produce at
the cost that they were being drafted at this season, which as
a Cowboys fan is very disappointing to say.
But I I really try not to let my fandom bias me and I had try to
be objective about this stuff and yeah, it just looks looks
ugly for Cowboys weapons man. Yeah, very unfortunate.
And I definitely have a lot of CD line.
So I I think, I think we've sort of covered the main points in
this chart. I'm happy to move on if you are.
Yeah, my last you can you can move to the next one because I
don't need the chart up for this one.
But George Pickens, I'm I'm really interested to see what
happens for Pickens because he's had a lot of injury.
You know you had Deontay miss all this time.
Fryermuth missed some time during that same window.
And so I'm very interested to see this.
I I think these next couple weeks are going to be pretty
defining for the Steelers as a team and and also for Pickens as
a player. I I think that you could if
Pickens is able to continue to command his target share that
he's been getting and he's able to keep producing as like a true
alpha this might be the very beginning of the Pickens
ascension. But if Deontay comes back and is
his usual target hog self and Matt Canada has, you know,
George Pickens running wind sprints again, you might you
might be in for a lot of disappointment.
So that was one one thing to watch that I wanted to know.
I think if if when Deontay comes back, Pickens gets kind of like
nerfed. If that happens, it seems like
pretty certain that Matt Canada just gets fired.
That's what I'm I I didn't want to to get 2 down the the
coaching is getting fired rabbit hole there.
But yeah I when I when I was saying it's a pivotal time for
the Steelers as a team. I definitely think that's
squarely in the range of outcomes.
So very interesting to, to watch how that unfolds.
So don't have a lot of new takeaways here and obviously
Josh Reynolds being in this section of the chart.
Is interesting. But I know you you have a you've
got some takes about a Detroit Lions receiver who may be coming
for his job. Yeah, so I I think Josh Reynolds
is gonna have sticking power on this offense just because I
think him and Goff have like a legit Goff is why Josh Reynolds
is in Detroit. They played together in LA.
Goff really pounded the table to get Josh Reynolds, that he'd be
helpful for the team. And he's he's good.
He's like a serviceable NFL wide receiver.
You know, he's not a world beater by any means, but like,
he's the kind of guy he seems to fit the Lions, their, their
preference for, like how they like their players to be and
behave. You know, that Josh Reynolds is
that kind of dude he's got. He's got that dog in him.
He takes US1. Failed to work, yes.
But for for all the good about Josh Reynolds, I think that
between gosh, what's the khalif? Raymond and Marvin Jones.
I think those guys are just, you know, placeholders out there.
They're literally they're there because you know someone has to
run the routes. And I think that Jamison
Williams is. I mean in in this last game I I
watched a little bit of the game film back and Jamison Williams
is like good, good Not not just like oh, he had some splash
plays. Like dude is just embarrassing
DBS out there like guys are not capable of covering him there.
There are lots of plays where he is like holy shit this dude's
open Like he's he's big boy open in the NFL you know and like
making great plays too. Like there were a couple balls
that were really not well thrown to him.
There was one where he he was on the left sideline.
Gets like 5 yards of separation on a deep comeback and Goff is
like getting pressured and like about to be hit as he throws it
and he just like lame ducks it and totally under throws Jameson
Williams if the if the timing is correct and he actually delivers
that ball like at the break. Jameson Williams is like one guy
to beat with a safety screaming over trying to help.
But it's like can he make a guy miss in space and then house
call it for another. Like Jameson Williams could have
had three long touchdowns last week.
He had the one, you know, he could have had three and.
On the only Rod 9 routes. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm
saying. Like go go back and watch him.
Nine ain't that much to watch guys like literally go back and
watch him and you'll see. I I promise.
You don't have to know. Ball like you'll see it.
He's wide ass open like it's easy to see.
I'm super excited about him. I, you know, I haven't been like
a huge Jaymo Stan. I like the player as a prospect
coming out. He got a slow start, got unlucky
with the gambling suspension. No, no pun intended with the
unlucky there. But the way I I think I see him
progressing for the Lions is similar to how we've we've seen
them progress with other players in the PAT, like we are seeing
them progress with Gibbs. They're kind of taking it a
little slow and it's it's different for running back and
wide receiver. But I would anticipate that we
want to see more of him. We're not seeing as much as we'd
like. But the Lions are rational
enough. They they make rational enough
coaching decisions in games where I think that in the event
where they're getting pushed and they they need some explosives
to win a game. Jamison Williams is getting more
opportunity, 'cause that guy like, he's the best receiver on
the Lions and you get like he. He he unlocks the offense.
So yeah he's he's the best receiver.
Ahmad Raw is a good receiver. Jamison Williams is the best
receiver on the Lions and that's like you can take that all the
way to the bank. I promise you like next year at
this time it won't be a hot take like it's he's he's very good so
definitely excited for him. But I think it it's going to be
a, you know, come along a little slowly type of thing, but very
excited for him. Everybody else here that's
interesting. I I feel like we've talked about
like pretty in depth. One guy reminded me of one that
it's it's gonna be like a team level thing.
So his other counterpart will be on the next chart too.
But Nico Collins reminded me we've got Tank Dell coming back.
They're they're on by this week. But Tank Dell will come back
from injury and be back in the lineup.
While Tankedo was out, we saw signs of life from Dalton
Schultz. Dalton Schultz actually had a
couple couple usable games, got a touchdown, saw his his routes
go up, saw his snaps go up like previously.
He looked pretty left for dead, like looked entirely fantasy
irrelevant. And so that's one where I'm
going to watch that really closely.
I to me, I'm pretty sure that he was out there and and getting
increased opportunity out of necessity because it's like
well, we really like Tank Dell. He's not here.
So I guess Schultz can get some more work now.
But I I think what you're looking at in this offense is
Nico Collins is the clear number one.
Tank Dell is the #2 and then you've got Robert Woods and
Dalton Schultz is kind of like the safety blanket type targets
in the offense. So that I just as a whole for
the offense, I thought that was important to look at.
Makes makes sense for sure. And so I'm, I'm going to move on
to the next chart and this is this is our sort of like more
true backup chart and you can see this is players who play
anywhere from 40 to 70% of of routes.
And what we're looking for is we're looking for guys who have
been really productive on on small routes.
And we can say this guy has earned more playing time.
That's what we're looking for here and Jameson Williams is
probably one of those kind of classic examples of like yes
he's coming back from the suspension but he's he's been, I
I think he, I'm not sure if he where is James.
He's not. He's not getting enough routes.
OK, he doesn't. He.
He doesn't. Yeah, you're right.
He only got 9 routes, but if he did fit on the chart he he's
pretty classy Example of somebody earning more playing
time, yeah. Absolutely 1 Dale, who earned
more playing time and then I saw that he basically just took
Paris Campbell's job. Yep.
Yeah. And that was man.
Every once in a while the fantasy community and and
analysts just get something so right.
It's like, holy shit, sometimes we're really good at this.
And I heard so many people say this, I want to know who the
originator was. But a lot of people in the
offseason were saying, oh, you only are drafting Paris Campbell
for the first couple weeks until Wandale comes back and takes
that job. But Paris Campbell is just a
score of points in weeks one through 4.
Do you really want Paris Campbell?
And my goodness is that turning out to be like who?
Who had the crystal ball to see that one 'cause that is like as
bang on as you can be with analysis.
So bravo to to people making that call.
I drafted a lot of Wandale in the offseason and then I I
pulled back through like the entire middle of the summer,
'cause there was just like crickets.
There was no noise. And then at the end of the
summer we. Didn't get on the I, dude, if
man, I just needed like a just a shred of reason to be optimistic
in Wandale and I probably would have had like 4050% 'cause I
loved the player and I thought the whole receiving core was
absolute just waste and man it it would have been would have
been correct. But yeah, I didn't didn't get
the signal I needed to feel confident enough in his
recovery. But not to not to linger too
long on Wandale, He's definitely an interesting one for me.
Did pop up on the injury report this week.
Think it's more just being careful with his surgically
repaired knee than anything, but definitely worth watching this
one. I mean, if you're drafting
basketball teams this summer, Taekwon Thornton maybe has a
special place in your heart, but he does show up on the chart
here. He did get, I believe, 2 targets
this last week, not producing anything with them.
But here's the thing. The Patriots offense is
horrific. They're not necessarily horrific
because of Mack Jones. Now Mack Jones looks bad.
All the all the Mack Jones stuff looks bad right now, but I don't
think you can fairly evaluate a quarterback with the weapons
that are running out there for Mack Jones.
So this week, if you haven't seen Hunter Henry looks like he
might miss this week. And so the Patriots are down to
Kendrick. Bourne is like the only true NFL
player that catches passes for them other than Mike Gassicki.
So it's like Kendrick Bourne, Mike Gassicki and Taekwon.
So like, I kind of think that you might end up with a better
performance than expected from the Patriots this week because
the coaching staff making decisions of who to put on the
field can finally get the fuck out of their way and play their
best players. And play Kendrick Bourne and
tycoon Thornton and Mike Kissicki who I would say are
three of their four best pass catchers with the 4th best being
Hunter Henry. Because all the rest of these
guys are just like, I mean like maybe Demario Douglas or or you
know Keyshawn Booty can work in there.
I mean I I think we don't have enough sample to know for sure
how those guys stack up. But like there's one thing I
know for sure. It's not due to shit Poopster
and it's not the dusty ghost of Devante Parker, who like, I
would love it if Devante Parker was like 4 years younger.
He'd be the best receiver on this team.
You know, not that that's saying a ton, but like, dude, there's
just nothing out there. And so I'm optimistic that we
might get a shake up in the Patriots offense where it's like
we put different guys on the field and it turns out the other
guys who had been playing were so bad that these guys who also
are not good are good enough that it's like we're kind of
productive as an offense. So that's.
Like one. He did get 50% run, 50% of the
roots last week so obviously as he works his way back from
injury would would like to see that come up.
Definitely excited to see what he can do with some more
opportunity. Another guy that I think is
worth talking about is that Jackson Smith and and Jigba who
came out of the bye week and his his route his route rate is now
above 80%. He didn't he didn't do any 81%
was his Rep share didn't do anything with it and but very
encouraged by that and and given his his quality his resume in
college draft capital and all all all that sort of stuff would
look for him to hopefully start He he he now has the opportunity
to produce more in line with what we were hoping for in in
during draft season. Yeah, absolutely.
And I'm sure everyone's seen this clip on Twitter that's
circulating now of the play where JSN torches his man.
He is like literally nothing but green grass and he's he's wide
open and Gino just doesn't see him.
Gino scrambles for a first down instead of hitting JSN for a
nice 30 yard touchdown. So.
And Pete Carroll acknowledged that in the post game press
conference. So yeah, definitely bullish
signs for JSNI mean quite. Quite possibly like one of the
Best Buy Low candidates you'll ever get.
Not from like a oh, this guy is already produced and we know
he's good. But we have a pretty good idea
just based on his college resume that this this is a potentially
elite receiver in the NFL. And he's done nothing so far
that would would get on the radar of anyone except.
People that are sick and drafting lots of best ball teams
and paying close attention to this stuff.
So if you're in a home league and JSN is out, like there's a
strong chance he's on waivers. You know a lot of people dropped
him over the bye week. He hasn't done anything.
I mean you could probably if if you have a manager in your
league that doesn't know what they have in JSN.
The way I would try and get it is you don't trade for JSN, you
trade for a different piece and you add JSN as like a you do a 2
for two. And JSN is just like the random
throw in. You know, like you you say
nothing about him. You just you negotiate the trade
for the the first guy and then you throw in JSN and you you try
and pick up AW that way. But yeah, definitely interesting
my one of my highest drafted receivers across all platforms.
So my JSN bags are very optimistic and I I try, I try
really hard not to let my own biases and like what would
benefit me. Impact my analysis on this
stuff. And so I was you know I was like
pessimistic ish about JSN like still leaving a light on for him
going into this week. But we like this is the kind of
sick this is what you're looking for.
Like when you're looking for signs to become more optimistic
about a guy or try and get ahead of a breakout like these are the
things you look for. And so that's that's why we feel
the way we feel about JSN. It's not just because.
Draco and I both have fat bags of JSN 'cause we do but right
that's that's certainly a factor but it's not if it if it if it
weren't real signs we'll just would would be working to make
sure that if we weren't getting anything.
OK, we we we got a we got a or IP.
Yeah, First and foremost we're we're trying to deliver you good
actionable analysis. We're not just out here trying
to bag defend, but. You know when when the actual
analysis does align with defending our bags?
It's very sweet. OK, I am.
Is there anybody else that you'd like to talk with?
Anybody else that you'd like to talk talk about?
I I think we're good, Andrew, in the chat, said.
Kendrick Bourne has been pretty good and yeah, he has.
Bourne's Bourne's been great. That's one guy that I wish I had
drafted more of in basketball season.
I got on to him and and hammered him a good bit after I stopped
drafting Taekwon and I'm really. Really pleased with how the
thesis played out there and how I was able to get on to the
correct guy. Just wish that I had done it a
little earlier. But anyway, yeah, no, no one
else on this chart. But for those of you that made
it through, we almost hit our sub two hour mark this week.
I'm sure next week feels like the week Draco.
I think think we might be able to get a sub two hours here next
week, a type 120. Yes, yes.
But thank you guys for joining us.
We'll be back with you next Tuesday at our regularly
scheduled time and until then, good luck this week.
And may your JSN bags and your Jamison Williams bags flourish
this week. Thanks for joining us this week
everyone and and like Zach said, see you next Tuesday.