Week 11 is in the books and the Lions are winning the Super
Bowl. This is that chasing Pat Fryer
Helmo this. Is why This is why I'm hot,
Anita Hand. Job.
Fix your sight. Jamar Alpha play Chase.
You can't handle the heat. It looks like we're finding piss
boys. You're right.
Well, Draco, were you playing lions this last week?
And was I playing Lions? I actually did.
I didn't play any of the the weekly stuff.
I, I had a decent amount of lions.
Unfortunately I Galaxy brained myself off of Alman Raw and
said, oh, it's gonna be a low passing volume day so Alman Raw
won't get there. So I was heavy on Jamo and heavy
on the running backs and I had some Goff.
I had actually a ton of Goff and Gibbs together in the dog bowl.
Unfortunately I had 0 Alman Raw in the dog bowl.
So that was painful. I did have a team that would
have shipped a dog bowl seat except I flipped a coin between
Geno and Goff 'cause I had JSN on there and I had done a bunch
of Goff and Gibbs already. So yet again, close but no
cigar. Another another top 1% finish
that does not result the dog bowl seat for me.
Yeah, those are tough. That's, that's a, yeah, that's a
tough run. I know I you'll have a string
where you'll just like connect, connect, connect.
And if you were like, wow, this guy, like, he's really lucky.
Yeah, no one, no one pays attention though to when you are
just finishing in the top 1% and not actually winning because
that doesn't really do anything. So.
Right, right. Yeah.
But I know, I know your, your true radical EV is really high.
It's just not a. It's not hitting right now.
Oh yeah, my, my Sklanskys are are through the roof.
So but that's, that's enough about my Sklansky's.
Let's go ahead and get into the charts here.
Got a fun quarterback chart this week?
Yeah. And so this is our quarterback
volume efficiency and rushing chart.
We have a volume, our kind of measure for volume is expected
points from passing that's on the horizontal axis.
Adjusted yards per attempt is our throwing, our passing
efficiency metric. And then the size of the bubble
corresponds to rushing. And I, I guess that that the
thing that stands out to me is that especially in terms of
passing, Burrow has just been like the the king this year.
Yeah, he is. He's certainly the volume king
and he's being efficient with that volume to.
So that is, that's super exciting, I think.
I mean. That's your elite pocket passer
season. Yeah, Burrow obviously getting a
lot more passing volume than Purdy just because the 49ers are
pretty run heavy. But they're both roughly the
same efficiency where you you are getting a little bit more
similar, similar passing efficiency.
Excuse me, you are getting a little bit of rushing with
Purdy. But yeah, though if if I had to
pick a pocket passer this year where I'm going to play in in
like a weekly contest or something, it's Burrow or Purdy.
They also coincidentally are looking like two of the best,
best ball quarterbacks. Both of them were going, you
know, kind of in the seventh, eighth round there.
And they both are smashing their AD.
PS You know, if I can go back in time and draft more Joe Burrow
double sacks. I mean, really just Bengals
onslaughts. Like if you drafted Bengals
onslaughts, you're pretty happy. I mean, even even though Gasiki
looks to be a little toast with, with Higgins being back, those
early spike weeks that you got from Kasiki more than paid off
his late ADP. But this is the quarterback
chart. We'll we'll get into all those
other guys later. The other guy that I think is
interesting just because he's he's the one who's changed the
most since the start of the season, I would say is Justin
Herbert, where at the very start of the season his volume was
super low. He wasn't rushing as much, he
was less efficient. And all three of those things
have improved since the start of the season.
Now the charges have kind of shown us that they still can be
run heavy. So the bottom can sort of drop
out on Herbert in a single week, but his ceiling is up there with
just about, you know, anyone else outside of the really elite
guys like Lamar and Josh Allen, I think can have a have a higher
single week ceiling and the ability to access that ceiling a
little easier than Herbert. But Herbert's running a lot.
I mean, if you look at the size of his bubble, like, yes, he's
smaller than, you know, Kyler and Josh Allen and Lamar.
But over the past few weeks, I mean, he he's been, he's got
some design runs. He's scrambling a lot more and
he looks. Good.
I, I, I will say, I will say just if, if some gentle
pushback, we did just see his high as expected points season.
Our, our game of the season in prime time, like we did
essentially in, in his, in his ten games or so.
We saw the, the, the, the, the highest game that he's put up in
terms of expected points. His week 9 was his.
So he was he total expected points was 19.9 and, and, and,
and week 11. He had 19.1 in week 9 or, or
week 10, I should say. Then he had 18.1 a couple weeks
ago week 8. And and then I guess the last
couple of weeks have have been really high.
It just seems like more of a question of is that like a long
term trend with Herbaugh just gushing over the quarterback or
like, I don't want to overreact like some kind of like recency
bias where they were playing the Bengals, he was slicing and
dicing and that that that's the high watermark for him for the
season. No, I I think that's a good
point. And and prior to the Bengals
game, you know, they did have a a week of lower passing volume
where they kind of went back to what we had expected from them
prior to the season and to start the season.
But those those three games prior to that, they were
positive pass rate over expected, which was a huge
deviation for the Chargers, right.
I I think it's. We didn't think that was in the
range of outcomes going into the season.
So the fact that it's there is is is positive.
Yeah, it, it's a little bit of a trend, but I also, I don't think
that it's like, Oh yeah, this is the new normal.
I think it's just, hey, like this is the ceiling that the guy
has access to and he can cook like this.
So I'm, I'm pretty excited. Like if you got Herbert on a
basketball team you're really excited about, you know, getting
him pick 1:20 to 1:40 or something like that, that was a
smash that the Herbert pick is looking pretty good.
And then really like the actionable thing for this cause
like, not like you can do anything about your basketball
stuff is in weekly formats. Like I'm certainly into playing
Herbert. Really like I'd, I'd want to do
it in games where I think the Chargers are more likely to be
pushed. Because that's kind of what had
to happen here. The the Bengals, you know, he
started strong and then the Bengals fired back and, and push
him to be able to access that ceiling.
The other thing is as far as playoff best ball is concerned,
the chargers look pretty interesting to me now.
And the fact that Herbert, you know, just looks like he has a
much better ceiling. I, I think the floor is still
low with Herbert 'cause you can just get those really run heavy
games. But the fact that he has that
ceiling makes me pretty excited about him and and Charger stacks
in general in playoff best ball. Yeah, yeah.
Makes sense. Makes sense.
And so it looks like I don't, I don't have am I'm just looking
at playoffstatus.com. I don't know if that's how
reputable that is, but it I'm kind of getting the sense that
they're really high probability to make the playoffs.
Yeah. And then the bookies aren't
giving them a lot of probability to to advance far from there
where like the Matt is the Matt. They're probably going to the
playoffs with that 7 entry record and you're kind of
you're, but you're getting the Platon is kind of like early
upsets in probably again, I don't know what kind of seeding
they're looking at, but it's it's not going to be, it's not
going to be a wild card seed. And and you, you, you're
getting, you're getting access to a ceiling here that is at a
good price. Wait, the Chargers are almost
guaranteed a wild card seed, right?
Because the Chiefs are are going.
Oh, you're right. You're right.
Sorry.
I. Was like you you do you get the
wild card seed for the? Chargers OK, OK.
And so that's that's why you're getting the low, the low Super
Bowl probability because they're they're kind of locked into
having a tough round one matchup and a tough Round 2 matchup.
Yeah, Yeah, I think in our stuff, we've got him as like
around a 10% chance of making it to the conference championship,
right, Which I mean for where you can get him in playoff best
of all, it's still pretty intriguing to me, right?
The other quarterback that I had a note on that I, I think we
have to touch on and he is, I mean, he's the bell of the ball
in playoff. Best ball is Jared Goff.
So the Lions have shown us that the ceiling for a Lions game
actually doesn't have to come from a game where they're
pushed. It can just come from a game
where they are by far the superior team.
Because Dan Campbell does not give a fuck about your feelings.
He's gonna hang 50 on you if he can.
And what a what a fun game to watch.
I mean, that was the the Lions just like it, it was an absolute
clinic. It felt like every single time
they touched the ball, it was inevitable that they were going
to drive the field like it. It never looked like there is
any question that, Yep, the Lions have the ball and they're
going to score that. That did make it pretty fun for
DFS stuff if you had any Lions going.
Also Jameson Williams with the Marshawn Lynch hold my Dick
celebration into the end zone was an all timer, so shout out
to Jamo for that one. I I think the actual take away
here though is that you get the golf ceiling through absurd
efficiency when the Lions just roll a team.
And I mean, when you get to playoff best ball, the Lions
just look like a near mortal lock for the BI and then, you
know, as strong a favorite to make the conference championship
as you can really have in the NFL.
Yeah, they look, yeah, they look really likely to make the make
the conference championship, really likely to make the Super
Bowl and, and a very potent offense.
So I, I, I I have to assume the the lines are just very
expensive across the board. Yeah, they are.
The funny thing is they're still too cheap in playoff basketball.
They'll they'll get there. Like it's just the way really
contest right now and people seem to really not know what
they're doing in those. So the Lions are still far too
cheap. You can occasionally get some
really insane Lions combinations.
Basically the if you're able to get Goth, one of the running
backs in Almond raw, that's like the stone cold nuts right now.
It's pretty hard to do that, but if you can get it, that's
really, really good. Right, right.
Makes makes sense for sure. The the last quarterback I had a
note on here was Anthony Richardson, who had a a pretty
good game here in his, you know, comeback appearance.
What what do you think about Anthony Richardson is?
So I will, if you recall, I was cost cautiously kind of
optimistic about him going into last week.
And I think that what we saw is, hey, this is a young quarterback
who was rushing upside who chose it deep and his weekly ceiling
is, is really, really high. And then you saw a week where it
looks as if they game planned a little bit better, like they,
they rushed them more, much more often than they had before.
It looked like he was very accurate.
And then the put, the receivers were actually catching the
accurate passes. And I, I, I, I think that it's
more likely than not. I, I, I don't know if it's
guaranteed, but it's more likely than not.
Then we saw that, that we just saw a stretch of games that were
just kind of like, how do I say it was hit?
It was a bad run for him where he he, he he had a series of
very, very low scores. And that we should be a lot
closer to the start of the season when we project Anthony
Richardson is what I think. Yeah, he, he had his best
completion percentage of the season, you know, outside that
Steelers game where he only threw 4 passes, completed three
of them. But yeah, his best, best
completion percent of the season, almost 300 yards, 272
yards like his. I, I think it's pretty clearly
his best passing performance, certainly his best pass grade
that PFF has given him. So it was, it was very
promising. The other take away that I had
just from watching the game was Josh Downs is so good.
If Anthony Richardson can, he doesn't have to play this good
every week 'cause I think this is this is a high watermark for
the caliber of his passing. Well, the, it, the PFF, they,
they charted them with an 89% accurate pass.
So like if you, if you I guess you're that's his completion
percentage plus drops. Yeah. 89% that, that is really
high. No, that kind of yards per
attempt. Yeah, he was he was cooking.
And I don't I don't think that this is the new normal for him.
But what I'm saying is if he can just be, you know, in this
direction compared to how he was to start the season, if he's if
he's more in this direction of what we saw this last week
against a pretty good Jets defense, you know, now the the
wheels are seeming to fall off for The Jets.
But I do want to give Anthony Richardson his flowers and I, I
just think Josh Downs is so good that as long as Anthony
Richardson can play OK, I think it, it might just be the Josh
Downs, Anthony Richardson show the the way that I plan on
playing this offense next season in baseball.
I would assume that Richardson probably gets a lot cheaper than
he was this year. So he'll he'll probably be a
little more palatable. Josh Downs is like the only guy
that I am really all that interested in.
If any of the other guys have any kind of price tag on him,
like if you'll get me AD Mitchell or Alec Pierce for
free, I'll take him as like an 18th round guy to pair with
Anthony Richardson. But Josh Downs looks like so far
and away the best receiver on this team.
I mean, did you see that diving full extension catch that he had
where it was a it was a pretty good ball from Richardson.
I think it was a little out in front of him, but Josh Downs
just made it look like that was exactly how they drew it up.
It was beautiful. And I, I didn't actually, I
didn't catch that one. And but no, no surprise.
He he's been bawling all year. Yeah, he he's great.
One of one of my favorite receivers in the league right
now. He's a treat to watch.
All right, those were all the quarterback notes I had.
Did you have anyone else you wanted to talk about?
And well, I do remember you saying that you had wanted to
touch briefly on on Russell Wilson.
Just kind of note some someone coming back down to air in a
pretty plus match up too. Yeah, it turns out that when he
doesn't connect for like 3 touchdowns in a game on moon
balls that are basically 5050, he's he's much less efficient.
Yeah, he I believe he took three sacks in this game, had another
turnover worthy play, which PFF actually charted him for this
time. I've I've griped about that
they've not been charting him with turnover worthy plays when
he certainly had them. They definitely gave him one
this time. He had a a pretty high number of
attempts, his highest all season and yeah, just did not look
good. His his worst yards per.
Well, he yeah, he had 4.4 adjusted yards per attempt on 41
on 36 attempts. And then you mentioned the
sacks, see of the interception. Yeah, 44 sacks, which does not
get factored in to adjusted yards per attempt.
But I'm thinking, thinking we should figure out something to
do with sacks next season, Draco.
Well, well, we can fit. We can factor that into adjusted
yards per drop back, which is adjusted yards per drop back was
3.9 and and and that is is very, very poor.
So he he had he had a bad game against the Ravens.
Bad, bad game. The literal nut spot he he could
not show up. Right, He he fumble the nuts.
Yeah, it'll, it'll be interesting to see.
I mean, I expected him to regress.
I didn't expect it to be like poop your pants like this level.
The The funny thing is, Steelers still win the game because
Ravens also happened to fumble the bag here.
Right. Well, I mean, that wasn't enough
to save Justin Fields. Like a good record was not good
enough to save him. And so if, if, if we continue to
see performances like this from Russ, then I, I, I, I do think
we're on, on, on bench watch. Yeah, I think for Russ.
I I he's certainly got a longer leash than just the one game
right? But I.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm saying like, hey,
let's, let's keep an eye out on this to see if he continued
playing like this. Yeah, if he strings 3 stinkers
together, I I would, I would think it's squarely in the range
of outcomes for Fields to right back in just in time for the
playoffs, right? The playoffs.
Yeah, and and perhaps the the Steelers are likely to make the
real playoffs, too, weren't they?
They're locked to make the playoffs, basically, yeah.
So, Justin Fields in playoff basketball, You heard of your
risks? Oh baby.
Honestly it's a really weird spot because the Steelers and
Chargers are two of the better or the the most mispriced teams
for playoff basketball given they're probably actually making
the playoffs and like ability to maybe win a game or two.
So they're pretty mispriced, but.
You're gonna go with the Chargers over, over.
I'm going, I'm, I'm definitely Chargers over Steelers 'cause
if, if you, you know, told me like which of these teams
actually could have a chance of making it to the Super Bowl,
there's an outcome where this, the Chargers can make it.
I don't really feel that way about the Steelers, but man, it
would be really interesting. I I mean, even if there's any
kind of ambiguity about the quarterback situation, it gets
to be really weird to draft the Steelers in playoff basketball.
Like if we get 2 bad games from Russ in a row and they haven't
benched him yet, but it's like the, you know, the rumor mill is
out. Like, oh, the Fields could be
back. Like, that's a really
interesting spot for playoff basketball.
Yeah, yeah, because nobody fields will be undrafted, but
with a very good ceiling. Yeah.
All right, let's move on to the running backs.
Am I on the right? Did did you OK, this is this is
the chart we actually. Want to say I apologize, I put I
maybe put the charts together in the wrong order.
No, no, no worries at all. And so I think and and we can go
move over these ones pretty quickly.
I think our, our, our general sort of take away on on the
snaps and usage chart was kind of that the we're just seeing a
continuation of sort of established trends where we
already we touched on last week CMC straight to the top.
We've been talking all year about Truba Hubbard and I guess
it's it's worth asking, like, do we think Truba Hubbard is at
risk here at the top with Jonathan Brooks back next week?
I mean, I certainly expect Brooks to get some touches.
I would if you made me set a line for it.
I'd say that Brooks probably gets like less than 20% of snaps
in the first. Yeah.
They've just been so slow to bring him along that I to me it.
Like, do they really value him more than sorry, not value?
Are they really gonna play him that much more than Moss Sanders
was playing? Right.
I I think that if they do it's I, I number one, I don't think
that's likely in the first game. If they do him more than that as
the season progresses, it's because they they need to get a
better sense of like what he is or they they want it.
They really want to see him in action to know because again,
it's it's a lost season for them.
It doesn't mean anything, right? So I would think they want to be
pretty cautious with right he. Needs to blow the barn doors off
to play I think. Yeah.
If he's just fine, it's going to be the Chuba show and they be
like, OK, Brooks, this is this is kind of getting you ready for
next year. Even if he blows the barn doors
off, I don't think just like put yourself in in their shoes real
quick, like he blows the barn doors off.
And so then you know, you know that like this is the guy and
and like we we've got something we can build around next year.
Chuba and him this incredible 1-2 punch on the ground.
We're all set there. We can address other positions.
Do you even like? Well, I, I I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm
thinking 1st about it. True.
The lens of Chuba Hubbard, who right now is, is an incredible
running back start, or not incredible, but a strong running
back start. And I, I what I'm saying is
Brooks has to blow the barn doors off to knock him off that
spot, which would, I think turned it into a 5050.
Yeah, but not, not, not put Brooks as a clear 111A.
Yeah, I, I agree. I think 5050 is probably his his
best case scenario. And really the the thing that's
hard to parse is how much would they value like protecting Chuba
from not getting him too many carries versus protecting Brooks
and not getting him too high a workload coming off the injury.
I think if, if I had to guess, they're gonna prioritize
protecting Brooks, even though they very clearly like Chuba.
They just gave him the extension.
If I had to guess, the lean is going to be to protect Brooks,
and that's gonna be Chuba's probably the favorite.
The only thing is, so I know, I know it's Canalis's first kind
of like damn year, so he has some Trudy, but I have to
believe he's like under pressure to get some wins too.
Yeah, I mean, I, I don't really know with Tepper how to like
you, you would think that they should be really happy just
tanking it, you know? But right, Who knows, maybe,
maybe there is some internal pressure to get a win.
Right. I mean, there certainly has
been. Yeah.
But yeah, that was kind of all and the the the totality of our
notes on this chart that we haven't like we talked about all
season quickly. Touch on Kareem Hunt, who's had
a pretty solid. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I had that
note, didn't I? Yeah, but I mean, we get Pacheco
coming back now. Do you think that Kareem Hunt is
totally useless going forward? What is his outlook like?
So the Kareem hunting was always kind of like a volume play and
where his his expected points was so good that it doesn't
matter that he's old, that he's like in prior years he's been
bad. So but I think and like we're
what going into week 12 now, I do think by playoff weeks and
he's going to be pretty marginal like in in like a month's time.
And if Pacheco's in in line to play next week, in a month's
time like I, I think you're probably going to get Pacheco
back as old at his old role. Yeah, I I agree Kareem Hunt at
this point just looks like slightly better Ezekiel Elliott
on right a better offense than the Cowboys.
Also, he's he's dealing his knee got banged up a couple weeks ago
and I, I do think, I mean, he, he wasn't efficient before, but
he's looked even less efficient these last.
And and that that's kind of the that's kind of the point up with
older backs that they get banged up more often, that they take
longer to heal. And that's just part of the,
that's just part of the the calculus for don't think.
Don't tell that to Saquon Barkley, Joe Mixon, Derrick
Henry and Alpha Kamara this season.
Well, it is is. Maybe am I am I just AM?
No, no, you're right. I'm just giving.
I'm giving you. Giving us a hard time, Yeah.
Will Kareem Hunt? I guess he's only 29.
Yeah. He's 29.
Those other guys are like 28/30/29.
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, no, don't you know,
pay no attention to the man behind the curtain who's bawling
his eyes out because he's running as bad as you possibly
could imagine with these, you know, ageless wonders at running
back. Yeah, I, I, I, I salute them.
The only other note I had here was the Javonte Williams versus
Andrick estimate, but I think they are on the next chart.
OK. Yeah, see Javonte Williams
andrick Estimate. Kind of seems like at this point
it's a it's a coin flip. Who knows who's gonna be the guy
to actually, you know, lead the the Broncos game?
It it, it kind of reminds me of when I got so excited about
Troy, the Troy Franklin game where he like was high in
routes. He had the really high target
per run and then they just didn't play him the next week.
Yeah, the the classic Sean Payton run pole.
So start, start any Broncos player at your own risk.
It's basically the take away. Yeah.
OK, let's go backwards to the running back efficiency charts
now. Let's go backwards, not
forwards. So on these ones, man, the first
guy I got to point out, you know what this reminds me of?
So talking about Ken Walker here, you can see him.
He's the smallest bubble in the 15 to 20 expected fancy point
band. Do you know who this reminds me
of? Draco.
It's like eerily similar to the Travis Etienne season of last
year, where I feel like by week four, week five, I think on this
show we talked about like, Oh yeah, Travis Etienne.
We would we would take him at the 2-3 turn if we knew that
this was, you know, how the season was going to play.
He's crushing, you know, one of one of the best facts in
fantasy. And then as the season went on,
he just couldn't maintain that efficiency.
And he had he had the passing game role just like Walker did.
And so I'm, you know, not to not to pattern match here, but were
we just were we two out over our skis on Ken Walker to start the
season? Because this is the archetype of
the like, this is what Ken Walker is.
He can deliver these hyper efficient performances on these
breakaway runs. And like he can, he can do that.
The the big difference, I guess this year is that he's been so
involved in the receiving game. So you do have that added
wrinkle to really bolster his profile.
But I feel like from a rushing perspective, like this is just
Ken Walker is who he thought he was.
But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.
Yeah. So I think that I think that in
terms of like the efficiency in term as a rusher, I think he's
been fine the last couple of games, like not not fantastic,
but he's been fine. The piece that's kind of tailed
off here is the his receiving role has kind of tapered down.
Like he had a really strong couple of weeks in a row.
His week and five through 8, he averaged 9 1/2 expected
receiving points per game, and then that didn't, I guess that
that doesn't seem to have sustained.
And then as, yeah, like I said, I think his yardage has been
fine and the big knock has been the touchdowns.
Like for example, week eight he was 9.2 touchdowns
underexpected. And no, no, sorry, not 9.2
touchdowns underexpected. So that would that would one and
a half, 9.2 points. So 1 1/2 touchdowns
underexpected and then -3.4 in, in week 9.
And I think those are the big kind of pieces driving this.
So I, I would kind of lean that this kind of efficiency stuff is
driven mostly by week to week touchdown variance.
Like you're, you don't, you don't typically see the games
that he's having from like elite, elite running backs like
they, they they'd normally play a little bit better than he has.
I think he's played fine, but just it is kind of like the
maybe you worry that his that his play style does does come
with those down efficiency weeks on rushing.
And but I would, I'm not freaking out about kind of kind
of Walker at all is what I would say.
Yeah, that, that makes sense. I really didn't have any other
notes on this specific chart. I mean, we can briefly touch on
Austin Eckler. I guess he he saw a lot of work
in that game against the Eagles where he was just a check down
monster. Gretch actually had a note in
stealing signals that Daniels has not been passing deep as
well after the rib injury and he hasn't been running as much
either. And so I think, you know, when
you combine those two things, it, it does seem like a recipe
for Austin Eckler to get a lot more work there.
And he's just kind of assuming the role of underneath pass
catcher kind of taking away from ertz as well.
So he's he's at the very least interesting.
He's more of like a floor play type guy.
I think the ceiling is a little hard for him to access.
But with Brian Robinson in, just because Brian Robinson's going
to, you know, at the very least take away a little bit of the
touchdown equity from Eckler. But Eckler's interesting to say
the least. Like if you were drafting a
playoff basketball team, Draco, and you're in the last round and
you've got a commander's, you know, piece, you've got Jaden
Daniels, Terry Mclaurin and Brian Robinson's been taken, but
you're in the 10th round. You got all that you need for
the Super Bowl matchup already. And this is just to help you
advance out of round one. Like would you take Austin
Eckler Or let's say that you've got let's say you're doing it
with the Bills, who you think are getting the buy.
So you want Austin Eckler or do you want like a a random chief
dart throw who's likely to go further in the playoffs but
probably project less than Ekler?
Like a Juju? You take an Ekler or Juju there.
So in, in, yeah, you know, I actually have kind of a problem.
So what we're saying is the commander's piece here is to
help you advance out of Week 1. And we want to take Austin
Ekler. Like I, I, I, you're, you're the
playoff expert and definitely relative to me.
But in that spot, I, I, I'd almost prefer like a one off
that and maybe from like the NFC or the AFC side where they at
least have like a strong like week 1 projection.
If I'm going to go that route, it it would be because and, and
the reason I say that is it's not that he hasn't had any good
games, Austin Ecker. But I, I do think when you have
somebody who's like such a huge dog to make the conference
championship, when, when you take when you take them on on a
playoff basketball team, you do want them to score good points
in that ten outcome where you're right, you, you, you do want,
you do want that player to project well when you hit.
So you're you're not super interested in Ecler going
forward, thinking maybe that increase in usage was maybe just
an aberration from the Eagles game, not something where he's
going to see this increased passing volume coming.
Yeah, I mean, so in in week 9, which I believe Brian Robinson
missed, that's the only other week where you see strong,
strong receiving workload for us.
And after like week 10 is 1.4 expected receiving points week
85.7, week 73.1, week 65.9. Like yeah, I am.
I I think the the statistics kind of lean that way more than
more than not. OK, let's let's go to the other
running back efficiency chart here, 'cause there were a couple
notes I had on this other one. The first one is that the
Christian McCaffrey role and the Devana Chan role appear to be
quite similar there. There's Spider Man meme here.
Now, the Christian McCaffrey has not been quite as efficient as
Devana Chan in his first couple games back, so the larger bubble
Devana Chan is simply eating the smaller bubble Christian
McCaffrey on this chart. But they're both seeing
fantastic expected fantasy points in the receiving game and
getting very solid workloads on the ground as well.
I mean, Devana Chan, Christian McCaffrey, you have to be super
excited about both going forward.
However, they're both a little dicey for playoff basketball.
Christian McCaffrey is extremely overpriced right now.
I would assume that corrects as we when we get like the the real
playoff basketball contest out like the Gauntlet and the
Mitten. I would assume that McCaffrey
comes down a good chunk there. Unless the 49ers are just going
on a tear but a Chan. I mean, all the Dolphins are
free, but again, it's pretty unlikely that they make the
playoffs. They're technically still alive
though. Right.
And if I remember right, you said last year that with these
super long shots that you, you don't really have to, you don't
really have to go that route, that you're, you're better off
if you, if you want to play the wild card team, you're better
off waiting for the last couple weeks because they're still
going to be cheap because their conference championship odds are
going to be low. But at least you know that
they're playing Week 1. Right.
The the way to think about it is that if you kind of think of
like the probability that the Dolphins make the conference
championship right now, it might be, you know, 1% or something.
If they make the playoffs, what's it going to be 610?
You know, like right Still. 10 for sure.
Yeah, it's still such a small probability that it's like,
great, you went from the the relative value of them increased
substantially, but you know, to what it was.
But then when you compare it to the other players in the pool,
it's like, yeah, now he's just a viable pick.
Before he was, he's really thin. Now he's just moved to viability
and so those players, right, you banked viability.
Yeah, you banked viability and and those players typically do
not see a significant enough price increase for it to justify
accepting that level of risk early on.
Them there are certain circumstances where you'll see a
really large price increase on players like that.
The 49ers would be an example just because now #1 they will
see a decent conference championship probability if they
do make the playoffs. So that that drives part of it.
But the market will kind of overcount stuff like that for
teams like the 49ers where it's like, oh, but this is a good
team. So that's one where when they're
cheap, I'm like a little bit more into the idea of taking
49ers as a risky play. Just all, all of their fantasy
assets are very good as well. It's kind of the thing that you
saw with the Bills last year where the Bills were very cheap
when their probability of making the playoffs was only 13%.
And so you could be really risky and and accept that risk and
take the Bills there. But at least you're getting
extreme closing line value if that scenario hits.
Right. And then once, once the Bills
had a decent probability of making the playoffs, they got
absurdly overpriced like overnight.
And so then you really you really didn't want to draft any
Bills. So that's.
Versus like the Green Bay Packers.
Right. They they actually did make it
and then they were still free. Yep, exactly.
So that's a spot where you can kind of you can add a little
value in playoff basketball. I think you need to understand
the risk that you're accepting drafting teams like that early
that that that team has a very high probability of just going
to 0 before the playoffs even start.
But understanding that it's going to be something you're
just not going to be able to get exposure to later in a smart way
there, there's some value to knowing that and and being
willing to accept that risk. So it's kind of an interesting
dynamic there. The the other back I had a note
on here was Chase Brown and we we talked about him last week.
Just that, you know, the, the bell cow role is absurd.
I mean, when you see it with the expected fantasy points, like,
it's truly a crazy workload. At this point, the only thing
I'm worried about is can he keep up that workload through the end
of, you know, the regular season here and through the fantasy
playoffs? What are your thoughts on that,
Draco? And I mean, of course he can.
Like it's only a couple games and he didn't even play that
much at the start of the year. So, sorry, are you talking about
like if his body can hold up to that workload?
I guess that's part of the question.
And then it's like, do you have some kind of like bench risk
where they work in Khalil Herbert more?
Right. Will will the Bengals, do they
want to keep giving him this amount of work or are they
looking at this? It seems like it.
We need to get someone else in there so we're not just throwing
this guy on the field for 80% of snaps.
I mean, I think they love Chase Brown.
Like there's been nothing but Chase Brown enthusiasm from the
Bengals for like the last year. And then interestingly, if
you're if you were looking for for Nuggets on on why he might
play less and you're not going to find them on this podcast.
Because. And the, the, the, the, the
thing that's interesting, in the last game, they actually ramped
up his pass blocking. So he had 11 pass blocking snaps
in the last game. And so to me that that speaks to
them trusting him. Now let's see how I'm going to
look it up. How, how did he actually grayed
out on, on those pass blocking snaps?
But that's that to me that that is significant that they're
actually not, they're not right. They're not pushing them down.
They're actually ramping them up.
They're expanding to different ways that they use them.
Yeah, I think they just got a little tired of doing the let's
put Tanner Hudson in the backfield and have him get a
pass blocking Rep. They're like, this is stupid.
Chase Brown, you're you're good enough to pass blocking.
We just rather have you out there.
Allows us to do more stuff. So I think it's a sharp
personnel move by the Bengals. It really is just like can you
provide minimum viable pass blocking here man?
I guess he only he's only he only on those 11 pass blocks.
He led 11 pressure and unfortunately that pressure did
turn into a sack. But one one pressure on on 11
pass blocks like that's, that's not bad.
Yeah, Khalil Herbert also had. I don't know exactly how how
they'd grade this 'cause there was there was a free rusher on
the play where Khalil Herbert, the one that I'm thinking of.
So Khalil Herbert's on the field, he's in pass pro, There's
a blitzer, Khalil Herbert picks up the rusher that he's
assigned, but there's an additional free rusher.
Now, part of the problem was the free rusher.
The other part of the problem was Khalil Herbert did also get
beat in pass protection there. So he got him.
He's charted with one pass block and one pressure.
OK, yeah, it's it's like borderline a not fair pressure
to give him cuz like there was gonna be pressure regardless of
if he failed or not. It did make the play a whole lot
worse, though, that he gave up another rusher to the
quarterback. Yeah, they they, they called
that one a hurry. So I guess that that it did it
impacted the play. Yeah, I mean, it did like if you
watch that one, it like very clearly impacted the play.
You probably get Burrow able to navigate the one free rusher,
but when there were two, it was not not something that the
quarterback could overcome. So it wasn't a great look for
Khalil Herbert, although not not the greatest situation for him
to get a past block win and. He's he, he, he, He hasn't been
trusted as a rash blocker. So like he's, he only had, he
only had 30 pass blocks last year, 30 pass blocks the year
before. They like I, I think, I think
that that passing down role is safe from Killer Harbor.
Yeah, I I agree. All right, let's let's hit the
tight end charts now. Man, we are just motoring to
these. I know we're making good time
tonight. So tight end utilization and
efficiency, and this is our starter chart and we're looking
at what percentage of team drop backs did they run a route and
then what percentage were they path blocking?
And then you can kind of see who's on the field for 100% of
drop backs. And I should say that for the
running back and tight end charts, it's the rolling four
week average. So bear that in mind.
It's not that Zach Eerts has played every drop back of the
season. He's played every drop back in
the last four games. Yeah, the the first guy that we
need to talk about is Will Disley, who I mean, he looks to
have fully taken over the tight end one role for the Chargers.
Now the Chargers use a bunch of tight ends.
They they got all these like Lurch looking mother fuckers out
there on the field. God, what is the name of some,
some guy with his number in the 40s and he is just as wide as a
house, but he was he was out there.
Anyway, the the long and short of what I'm getting at is the
Chargers use a lot of tight ends.
Will Disley is the one that's catching passes.
The other guys are out there blocking and Disley you can see
has some pass blocking in there as well.
But Disley is, is the guy that they're using to catch passes
and he's looked good doing it. Like he he looked pretty good.
I'm I'm into Will Disley. I'm like he's a very viable
weekly format like DFS and you know, underdog battle Royale
type tight end. He's he's very viable in my
book. Right.
And yeah, I mean, he he started the year in kind of a part time
role and now he's kind of emerged as the full time route
runner. He's he's running all the
routes. He's he's getting lots of
targets. It's kind of, I think you're
kind of looking at the Dalton Schultz the the kind of like
running off the routes, getting targets.
It's not very deep down the field role and but you know,
that's very playable and fantasy that's very playable, especially
with how late he went. Like he's a strong, he's a
strong pickup. If you have a yeah, if you have
a need a tight end and you need to play somebody, I think you
can plug and play in there every week.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The other guy that I had a note
on is Evan Ingram. I mean, he the upside seems like
totally gone out of this Jaguars offense with Mac Jones, but he's
back on his PPR scam bullshit, right, Gabe?
Gabe Davis is out for the season now as well.
So it's really it's just Evan Ingram and Brian Thomas junior
out there catching poorly thrown balls from Mac Jones.
But the the floor for Evan Ingram.
I mean, while still it's not a rock solid floor because you can
just have the full Mac Jones implosion weeks where it doesn't
matter and there's not going to be anything.
But he's like a solid guy if you got to start him in a pinch.
By the way, I did find the name of the other Chargers tight end
I was thinking of. I believe it was Tanner Fisk,
Tucker Fisk. Tucker Fisk.
Thank you. But yes, Tucker Fisk.
I did play a little bit of him in on the Showdown slate,
believe it or not. And then as soon as I saw him on
the field, I knew that it was a mistake to have played him even
at $200. So I, I, I wanna, I want to note
here I made a mistake on on will Disney or not a mistake.
There was a typo in in one of the formulas.
I should say that if you look at his, he's actually his route
percentage is closer to 65%. So he would that me a culpa and
there was AI don't know what happened, but there was
something wrong in the formula. And and so he's on the field
about 70%. So he's still on their starter
shirt, but he's somewhere between Noah and and and chick.
And so maybe, maybe maybe my my my comment there about him being
playable every week. Probably probably not quite
correct. Yeah, he is.
He is getting lots of targets, but that is a good, good point
that he's not actually out there for all of the drop backs.
Good job we are not spreading fake news.
So that's. Yeah, I was like, I spotted it
and I was like, I could just move on.
But I don't want. I don't want anyone to get the
wrong impression. Yep.
OK, the next Titan I had a note on.
I mean, we have to talk about Jonnu, one of one of the three
monster performances. We're not even, we're not even
mentioning Brock Bauer's monster performance because that's just
like what we've come to expect from him.
He's the Titan one next year. Like full stop I I don't care if
if the market is taking anyone other than Brock Bowers this
tight in one next year I'll have 100% Brock Bowers, I don't give
a shit. But for Jonnu, he had a pretty
incredible ceiling game as well. And I mean, Pat had brought this
up to me a couple weeks ago when we were talking about Dolphin
stuff on our preview pod. But Jonnu really looks like he
is kind of just he, he stole Jaylen Waddle's lunch.
It looks like as as you know, where he's at on the for the
offense, like in the offensive hierarchy for the Dolphins right
now, it really feels like it's Divana Chan one, Tyree kill 2,
Jonnu Smith 3 and Jaylen Waddle 4.
And I mean, really the, The thing is when you're talking
about Dolphins players, like when the offense is humming,
there can be a lot of touchdowns to go around.
And now they're not going to play the, the Raiders every
single week. But Jonnu getting the two
touchdowns like you, you can very easily see that he's got
access to this monster ceiling. So he's, he's certainly
interesting in that regard, Definitely a, a viable guy in
weekly DFS formats. Yeah.
And I mean the thing, but he's he's running like what something
75% of routes he's getting the he's getting the good.
And what is it the 21% target sprout run That's that's pretty,
pretty good. Yeah.
OK. Moving on to the next tight end
I mentioned, I mentioned this earlier, but Mike Kasicki seems
like he's probably dead with with T Higgins back.
I mean, I'm sure there will be games where he gets a couple
targets here and there, but that role where Kasiki seemed like
the legitimate #2 pass catcher on the Bengals very logically
has has gone away with Tiggins back.
The other guy that I had a note on here is.
I I guess the only thing that's interesting about Kasiki here is
that and he didn't run 77% of routes now like he was he was
not targeted. He got 2 targets and on those on
56 on actually I can't see how many routes, so 77% of 56 drop
backs, so probably around 40 yeah, he had around 40 routes, 2
targets. I I don't know if I want to call
that dead. Like it'd be different if like
they were like, oh, no, step aside.
Kasiki T Higgins is back. You don't even get the play.
I still think somebody who's in the 75% of routes range is like
is interesting, but the the the number if he's the number 3 or 4
target behind two receivers that dominate targets, it is a lot
less interesting. Yeah, I, I more so when I called
him dead, I more so meant like the, the ceiling that we saw
from him earlier where he's getting 7 targets and he's live
for two touchdowns. Like that's just not really
going to happen with T Higgins and Chase active again, which
makes sense. And like I said, he might have
some games where he gets a few receptions here and there, but
that the ceiling is different with T Higgins in the line up
right? The the next guy who's stealing
is also affected by another player being active in the
lineup is Mark Andrews. And with Isaiah likely back and
then playing a very important division game against the
Steelers at a very close game, they went to likely a lot.
So it was, it was pretty concerning for Mark Andrews, in
my opinion. But how do you parse this Ravens
tight end situation, Greco? So Mark Andrews, he had only 58%
of routes run 14% targets per outrun.
So that works out that he got 3 targets.
And then if I look at likely, so likely 53% routes run 26%
targets per outrun 5 targets. Now he did corralled those
targets into 75 yards. So he had that good game.
I don't that that feels like a true tight end committee to me.
Like both of these guys are around around 50% Rep run.
I, I, I guess I'm, I'm happy that like I'm happy for likely
that he still had the good game, but neither of those usages look
strong. It kind of does look like
they're just cannibalizing each other.
I I agree 100% it it does make it pretty tough for playoff
basketball as well. The the way I'm reading this for
playoff basketball is if I'm playing Ravens to the Super
Bowl, I'm definitely interested in both because when you get all
the way down to the Super Bowl, it it doesn't really matter.
You know, like a a very small amount of points can be
extremely important in that format.
But if you're just grabbing like a random Ravens one off and
you're not even playing them as a Super Bowl team, I have
virtually no interest in any of these kind of tertiary Ravens
pass catchers. And that includes Likely and
Andrews, right? Right.
Yeah, makes makes sense for sure.
Makes sense for sure. OK, we.
Go ahead. We do have to talk about Tayson
Hill, who put up maybe one of the greatest tight end in quotes
games of all time. Just I mean, in the first
quarter of the game, I just thought Taysom was going to bury
everyone from APR scam. He he had something like 8
targets and five receptions in the first quarter of the game or
something. Or maybe it was just five.
I think he ended with eight targets, but he ended with 10.
Targets. OK, yeah, so so he has like 5
receptions in the first quarter and I'm thinking, oh God, I
didn't play enough Taysom Hill. I I had AI was more than double
the field of the dog bowl. Still not enough.
And of course, he just, he, he buried you in every conceivable
way Tayson Hill could bury you. He caught passes, he threw
passes, he rushed the ball. He had breakaway place like it
was incredible. So he's had a couple now big
spike weeks and in DraftKings he was going in the somewhere
between one 40s and one 20s for most of the summer.
I I would argue that he's like the best tight end pick on
DraftKings by cost. Just the fact that you can drop
a 40 at the tight end position. You know, if this if this
happens in a playoff week, in one of the the best ball playoff
weeks, like taste of hill ends up being an absolute league
where like have to have him type of guy.
So, and this, it seems, set up very well for taste of Hill the
rest of the way. Like the Saints depth chart is
just decimated at wide receiver. They're extremely thin at
running back, too. And he's also their best tight
end. So it's like he's just gonna get
there by being the Jack of all trades.
And I think it could be a really fun season to have some taste of
Hill in basketball. Yeah, Yeah, very, very strong.
Yeah, DraftKings pick. Like good.
Honestly, you were happy with his score at quarterback in FFPC
Underdog last week. But yeah, very, very strong.
And the other one here that's kind of stunt.
I know we had a Luke's shooting Macker in prime time.
He he had like something ridiculous.
Like what was it 10 targets? And what's kind of interesting
there is he only ran a route on 50% of of dropbacks.
He just, he had a really high, he had a 32% targets per run and
50% of routes. Well, they had 62 drop backs.
So he had 31 routes. And I guess the question, the
the question or the conclusion that comes to my mind is that
that's kind of a product have 62 drop backs, But is that just
something that we could see a lot from the Cowboys going
forward? And, and, and, and you're going
to get these just random dudes who get 10 targets in a game.
Yeah, I mean, Schumacher specifically I think is viable
if you're going to get Ferguson missing time.
But I mean, Cooper Rush did not look good and it just looked
like Luke Schumacher was a nice safety blanket, right?
And so I don't know how bad the Ferguson injury is going to be.
You know, maybe just a week, but.
Yeah, I heard. I thought I'd saw a quote that
he, McCarty was asked about it and he's like, it's not looking
likely for next week. Right, right.
I would anticipate at least one week of Schumacher and so, but
really the only actual stuff I can give you on Schumacher is
it's it's probably like a it's an OK plug and play one time
like tight end streamer type thing.
I'd assume he's probably like Min Price on DraftKings as well
so. Maybe I mean the the question
that that comes to me is, so I accept that in the 62 drop back
games somebody other than CD Lam has to get targets.
That makes sense to me. But the question is it always
going to be Schumacher? I don't.
I don't think we can say just because we don't.
Have right? I don't think so either.
But but what I'm saying is say Schumacher's 2500 on DraftKings
and say say you think the Cowboys are only going to have
30 drop backs if he gets 4 targets, even like 4.
If I'm if I'm getting 4 targets at 2500, I'm pretty happy with
it, right? I mean at 30 drop backs like and
then let's say he doesn't have the 32% targets per run, he has
an 18% targets per run. Then you're like.
Then you're looking at 2 targets.
Right, Yeah, I mean, yeah, he's he's probably pretty fringy, but
it's it's someone that's worth having on your.
Radar, I would say, yeah, yeah, for sure we're having on your on
your radar for sure. It just, I guess those are the
types of targets that we're going to be looking at here on
the Cowboys and I guess thinking about it.
And so Rico Dowdle, he did get 5 targets.
He didn't do a lot with them. And but if that's going to be
the type of target that the offense relies on, somebody like
Kim could could be stronger because you never it.
It could be Rico Dado next week who gets 10 targets.
Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a good point.
I was just, I was looking at the Cowboys schedule here.
You will have a couple showdown slates coming up for them
because you get them on Thanksgiving and then I believe
that the game they have against the Bengals, which is a few
weeks away now. What's dryer, the Turkey or the
Cowboys offense? Yeah, Cowboys offense not
particularly inspiring, but yeah, if if Ferguson misses time
long term, look for Luke Schumacher on a Showdown slate
near you. Yeah, makes makes sense.
Probably time for us to kick this over to wide receivers.
Yep, let's do wide receivers here.
And so our wide receivers chart, we've got weighted targets for
our run, which is kind of our metric for how often not only
are they targeted on the routes, but how often are they targeted
downfield. It weighs those down the field
targets more heavily. And then we plot that against
fantasy points per game, because that's ultimately what it's all
about. Yeah, so the notes that I had
the first one I had was we finally get the Almond rod nuke
game. You know, he he's had a pretty
quiet season, definitely like lower target volume for him this
year than in years past. I don't think prior to this
game, I think he only had the one game over.
I want to say 8 targets. I'm going to Fact Check myself
on that. But he finally gets the big game
here and and it reminds you that he does have access to that
absolutely incredible ceiling. Yeah.
So he had he had the 18 target game in week two.
Other than that, no games over 8 targets and he only had three,
eight target games, the other ones being 7246 and six.
So really, really low target volume for him this year
compared to what he's had in the past outside of those two
monster games. But the fact that he has those
games in his bag still certainly encouraging.
I, I was a little concerned that this was just going to be like
the new normal for Detroit and it was going to be really hard
for him to have these ceiling outcomes like that.
He's got a couple good games coming up on the schedule as
well till you get the Colts next week where, you know, they're
not as, not quite as terrible as the Jaguars.
But I I could certainly see that being another big game for the
Lions before they end up against some pretty strong defenses
where they get Chicago twice in four games, they get Buffalo,
they get Green Bay. But yeah, really for me, the the
biggest take away was because I was starting to get concerned
about like, God, I want to draft Almond raw for playoff baseball,
but do I just take Gibbs over him instead?
But I think after this game, just reminding me like, hey,
this ceiling is still very much in the range of outcomes.
I'm, I'm very comfy having almond raw is, you know, one of
the best clicks in playoff basketball.
Makes makes sense for sure makes sense.
Then you you you also kind of like notes here that Chase and T
Higgins boats smashing and and and and and it does seem like
they're just both consolidating those targets so heavily.
Burroughs playing so well their like their defense sucks so
their volume is good and and and it is making for a pretty nice
season for the both of them. Yeah.
I mean they're, they are both over 55% weighted targets per
route run or I think Chase might be just a lick under that's kind
of where the median or the midpoint line is right there.
But yeah, Chase and and Higgins are absolutely consolidating
everything on the offense and they're smashing with it.
I mean, the the Bengals onslaughts really do look like
what you need. The Bengals are just this the
most consolidated offense in all the best ways.
You get Chase Brown doing everything on the ground and
Jamar, Chase and T Higgins consolidating everything through
the air. If you've got a Joe Burrow, T
Higgins, Jamar Chase, Chase Brown stack in best ball, that
team's probably advancing and you're probably feeling pretty
good about it heading into the fantasy playoffs.
The other dynamic duo of receivers that I think we have
to talk about is Cooper Cup and then his his teammate Kuka
Takua, who actually is still languishing down on the the 40
to 70% routes run chart just because of some weird he's had
some flu. He got ejected, he got injured.
Got ejected, got injured, you know, missed some the first game
that. He and he's only played in five
games. Yeah, first game he's back from
injury. They, they were really light
with his snap, so you got those things holding him back down
there. Didn't stop his performance this
week though. Both Puka and cup exploded this
week. Shout out to Pat for I mean
Pat's walkthrough is always very good, but this week he was just
so on it. Like pretty much every take away
that I had from reading the walkthrough and adjustments that
I made to my process for playing in the draft games and playing
DFS this week. Like Pat literally knocked it
out of the park for everything. He had Puka Deku as the cover
boy. Puka just absolutely explodes in
the first half. Like if you were playing a lot
of puka, you were resting easy after that first half.
He also mentioned that Stafford was in a phenomenal spot for
regression. For positive regression,
Stafford ends up with the four touchdowns in the Super
efficient game. Just had to had to give some
flowers to pat there for a job well done on the walkthrough per
usual. But this week was really a very
nice one. But the the Higgins and Chase
and Kath and Puka thing just to me highlights another point that
I feel like we need to make because every year I feel like
we have to have this discussion when people are drafting
basketball teams where people are like, oh, you can't take
both. If you take Puka Nakua and
Cooper Cup, they're just too expensive to take together.
It's like, no, no, no, like these guys are correlated.
They can have good games together, like trust me, like it
is good to have them. And even in the games where one
of them gets there at the cost of the other one getting there,
that's still not a bad thing for you in basketball.
Like you're just you're helping to raise your floor and you're
raising your ceiling in the same like with the same pick.
So it is it's not a bad thing to be taking players from the same
offense. And you can see it with T
Higgins and Jamar Chase as well. Now you can look at the, you
know, the examples of when it goes bad is Tyree kill Jalen
Waddle. But again, like those outcomes
are are correlated together. Like you're getting worse
outcomes for Tyreke and worse outcomes for Waddle because you
have the quarterback injury that affects them both.
You have the Dolphins involving their running backs much more in
the passing game, involving Jonnu Smith in the passing game.
Like so they're correlated outcomes.
And yes, when it goes bad, it feels really bad because it's
going badly together. But when it goes well, like if
you have the Bengals onslaught here, you're laughing straight
to the bank. Like these teams look
incredible. And same thing with the Rams.
Now the Rams, you got the puka injury and the the cup injury
early in the season. But man, if you've got like a a
Stafford double that somehow makes it into the best ball
playoffs, like I'm pretty excited about that.
So I just I had to get on my soapbox there for just remember
this next year when you're drafting basketball teams and
people are telling you like, oh, you really don't want to take
the two guys that are expensive together on the same offense.
Like just not wave it because when it when it works out, it's
really good. And then your next, your next
question here was, are we aren't you worried about Malik
neighbors with the veto starting?
And, and I, I, I'm having a, a tough time being worried about
neighbors after going through the, the Danny Dimes story.
Now, I guess Dimes is, is not I, I guess he's not the absolute
worst, but he was pretty bad. And I do think that neighbors is
so important for the offense. He's going to get so many
targets that I think you're probably looking at outcomes
pretty close to the start of the season where he's just going to
dominate targets. And you just have to hope that
Neighbors plays like neighbors, and he dominates with the ball
on receptions as well as with targets.
Yeah, that, that makes sense and I agree with you on that one
there. But I do think that it was
important to talk about. Yeah, I think a lot of people
are probably worried about Malik Neighbors going forward.
I had AI had a question that a friend of mine reached out with
just normal home League. He's got CD Lamb, Malik
Neighbors and someone sent in the trade offer of Nico Collins
for Lamb plus Neighbors. Which side of that do you
prefer? And I think, I think I want to
keep neighbors on them. That's what I said, But I don't
think it's egregious if you want to go get Nico.
But yeah, I think you just hold neighbors.
I think his value is still pretty high, but.
Yeah. I did want to get the sanity
check from you because he he. Yeah, I mean going both ways is
the gap between the league neighbors and Nico ACD Lam gap
and is the gap between CD and Nico a Malik neighbors gap?
No, it just like. Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, moving on. The next guy had a note on Oh
man, Draco, I think it might be finally happening.
Is the JSN breakout upon us? I think, yeah, I think we're in
the, the JSN breakout now. It is a what are we looking at
here? We're looking at 684 yards
through 10 games breakout, so 7 yards a game.
But I, I, I, I think we're in it.
I think, I think it's kind of turned the corner here where
where he's not going to establish part of the offense or
not establish it where like he's a driver of the offense.
Yeah. Now, now bear with me here.
Did you know that if you take his three best games and we just
cherry pick those and say those are actually the real games for
JS? You know the ones where he got
16 targets, 12 targets and 11 targets if you.
Throw out the one where he had 9 yards 31 yard.
No, no, we're listen, throw out all the bad stuff.
We're only looking at the three very best games from production.
We're actually not even counting the 12 target, 51 yard game
either because that one doesn't feed our narrative here.
But if you look at these three specific games, he's got a
little over 400 yards in three games.
So if you extrapolate that out to a full season, you're looking
at 2500 receiving yards in a season from JSN, so.
It's pretty wild that NFL teams had a backup running backs
playing cornerback in four different games.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't believe it.
I I thought that that was just, you know, the kind of
shenanigans that went on when people were covering Ohio State
receivers in college, but apparently it happens in the
NFL, too. So I I just hope that he keeps
getting to run against, you know, backup running backs
playing corner, but who knows. I do think there's something to
when DK Metcalf went out and then they like expanded his
round tree and like it exploded to OK his, his, his role is kind
of different now. His role is is something where
they trust him to push the ball down the field and make that
work. Yeah, and they, I mean, in, in
this game against San Francisco too, he was the, he was the, we
got to get it. We need, you know, we need this
conversion, we need this third down.
Like he was their trusted guy on a lot of those big high leverage
spots. So that's, it's pretty
encouraging to see 'cause I feel like in the past they would try
to use DK Metcalf like that, but he, he really isn't that.
Like that's not what DK Metcalf it really does.
And so it didn't really work that way for for this stuff.
So the other the other thing that I want to point out is it's
not like I saw a lot of people saying like, Oh yeah, he he like
he lined up out wide so much more after DK Metcalf was there.
Like, no, he didn't. It was still it was like almost
all slot snaps in the game against the Rams, 91 1/2 percent
slot snap rate, lower, lower slot rate, but like still in
line with what he's getting this season on average this last week
against San Francisco, 83% in the slot.
So he's still operating out of the slot.
And and to me, like when you get a guy that's doing what he's
done now over these past couple games where he can very clearly
operate at all depths, but you know, he's operating primarily
out of the slot. Like that is the same archetype
as like, you know, the prime Cooper Cup, the Almond raw St.
Brown, the CD lamb, like that's what those guys do.
And so I I don't want to get out over my skis, but in in
basketball next year. If JSN has a late second round
tag, are you taking him there? A late second round tag.
I don't think so. I think I'm looking I mean, and
maybe I have PFF brain actually FFPC brain right, right.
But I I I'm that. Where?
Where would you think on FFPC and I can translate?
It, yeah, it's going to translate pretty well, I think.
I I think I'm thinking like somewhere like turn round free
for turn. Yeah, yeah, 3-4.
So 3-4 turn, he probably would not get up into the second
round. He'd be close.
It depends on the tight end. So yeah, you're, you're, you're
saying maybe early 3rd is where you think would be appropriate
next. Year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I think that I think that's right.
I I kind of think it's inevitable.
He now granted, a lot of this, it's, it's funny, but this is
true. A lot of the way that guys get
price is how they finish the season, right?
Like it's the what have you done for me lately and and the
vividness bias and the recency bias.
So if he stinks to close the season out, I think that you'll
get another year where he'll be majorly discounted and you can
just load up on him, which I would.
But if he keeps delivering on these performances, which I I
think is the more likely outcome.
And and again, wide receiver is very volatile.
I'm not saying he's never gonna have a down game again.
Like he almost certainly will have a couple down games to
close out the season. But if he keeps putting up these
performances at least a couple more times to finish the season
out, he's gonna. I don't see him going any later
than the third round, right? Right.
I, I mean, if, if he just keeps having 100 yard games every week
from here on out, then yeah, my, my price is going to be too
cheap. He'll be a lot closer to your
price. Seahawks kind of interesting in
playoff basketball as well. The whole, the whole NFC West is
basically up for grabs right now with all those teams being
within one game of each other. So that's a that's kind of an
interesting one to note. No one's drafting Seahawks right
now. They're they're kind of risky.
They're one of those that I'd wait and see on.
But yeah, yeah. All right.
We can go to the next chart here.
And I mean, we got to talk about this guy.
He is the, you know, he's on the thumbnail for this week.
He's the league winner. I think I talked about him on
like every single podcast that I did last week.
And that's Jawan Jennings, like absolute league winner.
You know what's funny? If you go and look back, I'm
going to I'm going to pull this up.
I've already I've already looked at it, but I'm pulling it up
just to to verify for myself. If you look at the our charts
last year for Brandon Nyuk, who was just having a hell of a
season, right? Like, you know, absolutely
incredible season. Brandon Nyuk is actually
basically in the exact same spot on the chart as Jawan Jennings.
Brandon Nyuk average just about 17 fantasy points per game over
the whole season. Jawan Jennings, right, about 15.
So a little lower than what he's actually realized, but you do
have, you know, some, some games or he just hasn't had the same
role to start the season. Brandon Nyuk right, about 60%
weighted targets per route run. Jawan Jennings a little north of
60% weighted targets per route run.
I mean, listen, Jawan Jennings is in the Brandon Iuke role
right now, and I'm starting to think that Brandon Iuke might
just be a system wide receiver, because Jawan Jennings looks
pretty damn good to me, yeah. I'm going to try and frame it
more as like a Jawan Jennings and coming on developing as a
player like it's rare that we see these late break breakouts,
but that I think that's what we're getting here.
And when he's played this year, he's very consistently been at a
high targets per run. And now last two games in a row,
he's been 95% route run, 94% route run and then 28% targets
per run, 29% targets per run. So just very consistently
earning high target volume. I guess one thing that's kind of
interesting is that since the injury, his A dot has come right
down. Like he was pretty much always
and above 12 in the first six weeks of the season and now the
week, week 10 and 11, he's been an 8.2 and 7:00.
So that A dot is coming down. So you're seeing heavy targets
lower A dot. And I guess it's interesting
that he's shown that versatility that he's succeeded both ways.
And so yeah, that that I do think very, very interesting
player and I'm kind of buying this late career breakout.
Yeah, if you're doing a 49ers stuff for playoff basketball,
Jawan Jennings like a must have on those teams for me.
I mean, this is this is going to sound stupid, but I don't think
Jawan Jennings is that different than Devo Samuel from a week to
week projection at this point. Like sorry, that's that's it is
what it is. And he's just he's always going
to be cheaper just cause the name value of Devo.
So, but we can, we can move on to the next guy before my, my
love for Joan Jennings just runneth over.
Josh Downs, another one of my my favorite receivers this season.
He's just so fun to watch. Like he just looks so good Every
time I see Josh Downs, he's like getting open at will.
He's operating in in different quadrants of the field too.
He's not just this little pop gun slot guy that like gets open
really quick and you know, does the Deonte Johnson stuff.
Deonte Johnson not a not a slot guy, but you know what I mean?
Like just to get open really quick and catch the ball type
guy like Josh downs can do it all and he's he's like very,
very clearly the Colts best receiver.
I mean, I, I think it's the only thing that could hold Josh Downs
back is if Anthony Richardson looks like he did for the first
few weeks of the season. But if Anthony Richardson even
plays OK like Josh Downs is is incredible.
And yeah, yeah, he's having a, he's having a very, yeah, very
strong sophomore year after the injury early.
Another guy who this this rookie is having a pretty strong year
is Ladd Mcconkey. He's actually, he's right near
Brian Thomas on the chart, who to be fair to Brian Thomas, we
would be gushing over him too if his quarterback situation
weren't so dire going forward. So he's just a little less
exciting. But Ladd Mcconkey looks
incredible. I mean.
He does. I, I, I do think this is one
where his, like his role has just been so sporadic week to
week. I, I think it's coming on.
I think it's developing more and more and he's becoming more of a
mainstay and a staple in the. Well, he he had one of his best
games of the year in the last game, in the last kind of prime
time game. But Week 10, he saw just two
targets. And that was that was the week
where they really like came back down to earth though, and didn't
pass very much. So when they're passing.
Yeah. But that's that's like a 9%
targets per run, right? I agree with you.
He's having a good year and he's very playable, like he's
playable in dailies, all that kind of stuff.
But I do think his kind of week to week outlook is pretty
volatile. Yeah, I, I think, I think that
volatility is part and parcel with an offense that is willing
to, at the drop of a hat, go, you know -15% PROE like that's
just right. And and and and, you know,
there's, there's there, there has been weeks.
It wouldn't surprise me if there's weeks where Ram, what's
his name, Quinton Johnson is get gets more targets than you can.
Absolutely, although recently it definitely like it's to me it's
pretty clear that Mcconkey is the guy they prefer to be
throwing the ball to. Like Quinton Johnston is out
there as a capable receiver, which honestly I never saw
myself saying he to. To Quinton Johnson's credit, the
thing that he was the worst at last year of literally not being
able to catch the ball. He actually seems to have
cleaned up pretty well this year.
Like the drops are are not really anywhere close to the the
issue that they were his rookie season, which, you know, kudos
to him. Like that's that's a great
development for him and his career.
I still think Mcconkey is like the the strongest receiver here
and will. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
The the, the thing that I'm interested in is where do you
think Mcconkey goes next year in best of all?
I want to guess like Fort round. Yeah, 4th or 5th feels about
right to me. It's gonna like we talked about
with JSN, it's gonna depend on how he closes the season out,
right? Like I'm, I'm, I'm.
Kind of thinking like the the Drake London is the comp, Drake
London as a sophomore is is the ADP comp.
That that tracks for me. I I think that makes a lot of
sense. All right, let's let's move on
to the last chart, unless there's anyone that you wanted
to talk about on this one. No, no, a lot of these guys,
we've spilled plenty of van or not spilled ink we've used
oxygen on. That's it.
Let's move on. Oh man, this is a messy chart.
It's it is a messy chart and don't worry, you don't even
really need to get lost in this. On the dots.
Yeah, in this rat's nest of dots down here, because none of these
guys are really relevant. I mean, you get to right we're.
Past the point where a guy is just gonna like, impress.
Or maybe not past the point, but it's a lot less likely now.
Yeah, you get DeAndre Hopkins down here purely because he is
just not running a full complement of Rouse and that's
what he's been doing the entire season dealing with the knee
injury. He's he's at the very least like
interesting on the Chiefs now, but he's not a not a crusher by
any means. Certainly a good piece in
playoff basketball, though, with how likely the Chiefs are to
make the conference championship in the Super Bowl and the fact
that he's like pretty clearly the number two behind Kelsey
now. So he, he's very much
interesting as a pass catcher. Also the fact that all the
Chiefs like tertiary pass catchers seem pretty gross this
year. So it really feels like it's
Kelsey and and Hopkins and then, you know, no one else.
So the we talked about Puka already on the 1st chart in the
context of cup and we kind of explained why he's down here on
this chart just with some of the weird fluky stuff limiting his
routes. The only other guy that I I
think is worth talking about here.
I guess there's two I I should have made a note on on this guy,
which we'll touch on briefly. Christian Watson did have a
pretty good game. Looks like he is.
He's firmly like icing out Dontavie on Wix.
So sorry to all the Wix truthers it it does appear that Christian
Watson is winning that third wide receiver role here.
I'm I'm interested, would would you ever draft Dantavia on
what's the playoff basketball Draco?
Or is he just you you'd rather have like Tucker craft or
something? Yeah, you, you, you wouldn't do
it, would you? Like, I don't think so.
So you're you've got of the Packers that you would draft
after Jordan Love, You've got Aaron Jones, you've got Jayden
Reed, you've got Christian Watson.
And then yeah, Dobbs, like I, I just don't think there's ever a
point like he was at just 30% right to run at last week with
Christian Watson at 75%, like as, as you kind of noted, Watson
just icing him out. Yeah, when you, when in in
playoff basketball, when you're diving that deep, like when
you're dumpster diving on a team, it has to be a team that
you think is making the Super. Bowl.
Because that's where those dumpster diver picks can be the
most valuable. It turns into like a showdown
slate style of game where anyone who can, you know, score a
touchdown all of a sudden could be extremely valuable.
So they're really the only. Factory's kind of just missing
the cut off almost for that. Yeah.
And really the thing that I'm I'm thinking is like if you are
playing Packers to the Super Bowl, like you can get five
really good Packer, like you can go Jaden Reed, Josh Jacobs,
Jordan Love, Romeo Dobbs. Chris So I said Aaron Jones
instead of Josh Jacobs, didn't I?
That's OK. I didn't I, I knew what you
meant. But that's 5, like you got 5
Packers right there. You're gonna have some Super
Bowl opponent against them most likely.
And so to me, it's like and, and hypothetically say you show up
in the Super Bowl, it is the Packers.
You are right. How many people are you even
competing with that have that have a 5 stack of Packers in the
Super Bowl? Like it just feels unnecessary.
Like I'd rather have other other guys.
But anyway, the the guy who I actually had a note on that we
still haven't talked about is Deonte Johnson, who slowly seems
like he's. Yeah, up to a whopping 17% right
to run. I mean, it's, it's more more
than he previously was getting. He's up from 8% to 17% and two
targets, both games good on. Him, yeah.
And and who who said that he's a low A dot merchant?
His his A dot was 32. So it's 64 air yards.
That's that's quite odd. Yeah, the he he did have a
couple deep passes in this game, but so.
To me that that's honestly like that's speaking to.
They're like, OK, yes, you're Deonte Johnson.
Yes, your main skill is getting open shallow.
That's not the offense. Yeah, that's not just that we
run to. US.
And and if that's where he's competing with these other guys,
I don't like why if if that's no matter what the name of the guy
out there is, what their skill set is, you're just going to
have them run deep anyway. I don't know why you would play
Deonte Johnson. Yeah, so in playoff basketball,
you're drafting today, you're taking your 10th pick in a
Ravens. It's just not Deonte.
Deonte or Nelson Aguilar. And I mean, I bet Nelson.
Let me check Nelson Aguilar's there right run.
So he's at 42% and seeing a very similar amount of targets like
am I allowed to take what's what's the number two guy's name
again? Am I that like?
Is Bateman still there? No, Bateman.
Somebody. Does he get literally every?
Yeah, in literally every playoff basketball draft.
Here's how the Ravens go. It's Derrick Henry in the first
round, Lamar Jackson in the second round, Zay Flowers in
either the second or the third round.
And then people wait and wait and wait.
And then like Mark Andrews will usually go in like the 5th.
And then inexplicably, someone's like Rashad Bateman.
And this takes Rashad Bateman way too early.
But yes, that is he, he, he definitely goes and he goes.
So so likely so you can get luckily instead of them and
Deonte. Likely goes before Deonte's
undrafted. Likely gets drafted, but yes you
could very. Very reasonably, yeah.
I, I mean, I don't, I, I, I think I don't like, I don't see
like a compelling reason for Deonte's route to, to, to
increase a lot. And so I would need to see that
happen before I consider him draftable.
Deonte Johnson or Tylen Wallace. Oh Jesus.
I mean, I'm probably not dropping either of those guys.
Right, Yeah, I I would not either, but yeah, did I?
I felt like we we should talk about it, though, just on the on
the Deonte watch, seeing as he gets integrated into the Ravens
offense. But all right, those are all the
notes I had. Did you have anyone else you
wanted to talk about on this chart?
Draco. Oh, Draco.
Draco already out. He's out of here already.
Well, I guess I will. I'll close this up.
I I would assume Draco's gonna be back here to say goodbye to
you lovely people in just a second.
But thank you for sticking with us here and making it all the
way through our Week 11 episode of Stat Chasing.
I believe this is a record setting episode for our shortest
one of the season, but I hope that you still found some useful
analysis and Nuggets to take away here as you head into Week
12 and get ready. So with that, I will go ahead
and wrap us up and we will see you here next week.
Maybe Draco's power went out or something.