We are now officially halfway through the regular season of
the NFL, and on tonight's special election night edition
of Stat Chasing, we breakdown how the race is going to shake
out over the rest of the season. It's going to come down to turn
out whoever scores the most points in the swing weeks.
I've heard that Week 17 is all that matters.
This is stat chasing. Pat Fryer, Helmo.
This is Anita Handjob. Fix your sight, Jamar.
Alpha. Play Chase.
You can't handle the heat. It looks like we're finally at
this point. You're right.
I like how when I have a a somewhat questionable cold open,
you just kind of let me sit and marinate in it for a little bit
before. You oh, So what happened there
is the the Internet, it was spotty coming in and out and I
didn't want to quit you short. And so there was a point at the
end where you were like at where it was like you were mid
sentence, but I hadn't heard the rest.
So I'm guessing there was like two or three seconds where you
finished and then you're like, come on.
I just, I just thought you were more.
Making it awkward. On purpose.
I didn't make it awkward. But not on purpose, not this
time. Man, it, it feels like it's
flown by. We're, we're officially over
halfway through the NFL season. I mean, this this season really
feels like it's coming down to did you draft Saquon Barkley or
Derrick Henry or Alvin Kamara? And that's that's about it.
You know, to Darnell Mooney, one of the other extremely high
advance rate players. But yeah, those those are really
the defining players. I mean, really, I think it's the
story of those running backs more than anything.
Right. And yeah, I and I think there's
a lot of noise on Twitter or or commentary on Twitter that
essentially like advance rate is just condensed around those
guys. And so you either have them or
you don't. And I think it would be like
it's an unusual season. It has been an unusual season.
They're all unusual, but this particularly unusual.
And it's still like it. There's something itching at me
that like it's we're not just going to go quietly into the
night of like from week one through 17.
Did you have Derrick Henry yes or no as like that decides if
you win or not. Like I I'm oversimplifying, but
I don't know it it. It usually just doesn't work
like that. Well, yeah, with the especially
with the mechanics of the playoff weeks where it's not
just, hey, are you performing really well on average?
You know, and you can have a a miss here and there and it
doesn't really matter. It's over a 14 week regular
season. If you're crushing, you can take
a week off here and there and just kind of rest on your
laurels if you're really lapping the field as hard as these guys
are. But when it comes down to the
money weeks, if you do have one of those down weeks, there's no
second chances, you know, right? And.
They all have a lot of fragility in their in their points, in the
way they score points. Yeah, it is.
I don't know if you saw the the running back expected touchdowns
chart that Hayden Winks put out, but you know, all of those
running backs are running so hot.
I mean, Derrick Henry is running like, yeah, leagues and leagues
above expectation and expect a touchdown.
So and we've seen down weeks for those guys this season.
I mean, Derrick, one of Derrick Henry's worst weeks, almost
almost worst weeks. He then salvages, you know, late
in the second-half with a big breakaway run.
So it's right. You definitely can see the path
for these guys to have a, a quiet week and and that could be
curtains for these teams because like if you look at some of the
teams that have these running backs on them, there's a lot of
them that really aren't much else.
Like, I've seen screenshots of teams where it's like, oh, I
have Derek Henry and I have Saquon Barkley, and my wide
receivers scored a total between all three of my wide receivers
starting spots of 22 points this week, right?
And I have Lamar as well. Yeah, and I'm ahead by 200 by
the way, you know I. Have Lamar Saquon and and Derek
Henry and and I just win. And, and I, I think like what's
interesting, like you, you, you think about that in context of
like historical things where I'm trying to think of like the just
a pure monster season, 2021 Cooper Cup of just monster
evisceration season. But the thing about that season
was all of his like usage metrics were like off the charts
all year. And and and and that's an
example of one where it actually just continued all the way
through the playoffs and and and beyond.
But then some other players like I'm I'm trying to think of I'm
sorry, that was his. I think another player was
Dalvin Cook 2020. Like I want to see say he had
like just this monster, monster advance rate and then completely
credited in the playoffs. You, you what?
I'm just, I'm just trying to like come up with historical
parallels where I, I, I think to, to, to consistently project
it all the way true. You, you do need stronger and,
and I think we can go further into that, into that as part of
our conversation. But I, I, I think that's
important. Yeah.
And and I don't really want to, I want to make sure that we're
not like framing this as copium for people that didn't draft
those running backs because, you know, neither certainly neither.
Of us, right, right. None of this is actionable and
all of it is like, but it it it's just commentary I guess.
Yeah, I think it's it's more like for, I know a lot of the
people that are listening, you know, if you're plugged into
week 9 of stat chasing on election night, like you're
probably not the people that need to hear this of like, hey,
this is a game where we need to think probabilistically and
things have a range of outcomes and the way that events occur
are not the only way they possibly ever could have
occurred. And so.
I mean, everyone needs that reminder.
I need that reminder. Yeah, I, I don't know, but you,
I definitely do. So it it it can be helpful to
say it. Yeah, but viewing things through
that lens, it it definitely makes it, it, it it it gives you
a better approach to the game and helps you to have more
useful and actionable analysis rather than just, you know, I I
the the thing that. Yeah, maybe the way to use it,
sorry, I, I, I know I'm interrupting, but maybe the way
to use it is like maybe top full fades of those guys when they
get really high ownership weeks kind of like understand the the
fragility and some of the projection and and and maybe
that maybe that's the way to to use this analysis.
Yeah, the, the other thing that I would would point out, 'cause
I was just, I've seen a bunch of people talking about like, oh,
the, the big take away from this season is that when you get
these running backs priced in the dead zone, especially guys
who you know, they, you know, they, they went on, they moved
to good teams, their older running backs, but they switched
to good teams. Then you just have to attack
them. And I really like if you truly
were to sit down and come up with a reasonable projection for
a range of outcomes for I think Derrick Henry's, Derrick Henry
and Saquon Barkley both are are pretty, I think comparable in
this exercise. But neither of these guys you're
going to be able to project very much passing volume forward
Derrick Henry just because that's never been his bad for
his entire career. Saquon he's had he has a season
where he had the really good pass catching chops, but that
was his rookie season. Then after that, he never has
put up a good by, you know, the statistics and peripherals pass
catching season. And so you've got two guys where
it's pretty unlikely they're going to be super, super
effective in the passing game. They're both going to teams that
do not use their running backs very much in the passing game.
So then you're really looking at the the path to these guys
absolutely crushing and, and being the guys you need is they
have extreme efficiency on the ground and they're both older
players. And that's something that we
want to be cautious of leaning into relying on extreme
efficiency from older players, especially ones who have taken a
step back in their peripherals like Saquon had he really had
not put up a a season with really good efficiency for quite
a while. Derrick Henry, I think he
definitely could have made the argument of, well, we hadn't
seen the guy fall off and he's going to a better situation.
So that one I I think is probably closer to like a
process miss. But even then, even if Derrick
Henry got 1800 rushing yards and eight touchdowns, which you
know, would you would say that's an incredible season, He's still
not going to bury you. 1800 yards and eight touchdowns still
doesn't bury you. You really need like the high
double digit touchdowns to actually bury you.
And damn it, that's what he's doing.
You know he's he's going to go for 2020 is what it looks like
so. Yeah, Derek Henry is the one
where it's like, what's he gonna do, break off a long touchdown
just every single week? And it's like, yes, that's what
he's gonna do. But but when you were, if you
were to assign a probability of that happening and like a way to
kind of sanity check your probability for these events is
you certainly can use pre season Vegas lines to give you like an
approximation of what a median outcome would be.
Just so you kind of know that your projections are at least
sane. And and I don't think that
putting a single number on a projection is the way to do it.
I really think that you need to think probabilistically and, and
have like a, a range of outcomes that you can assign to these
guys. But even then, like, what do you
think the probability is of Derrick Henry going for?
Let's just, let's give him an even more reasonable line over
1700 yards and 15 touchdowns. I'd say like that's, that's
pretty easily less than a 20% outcome, you know, And so like
when you think through stuff like that, it's really like,
man, it, it probably is not as big a process miss as it looks
like, like we probably under in, you know, in doing our rankings
this offseason, like we probably underestimated the frequency at
which those ceilings occur. But underestimated this tail
outcome I think is the way. We put it yeah, we.
We. Might have been.
And we might have had it as you know, his his tail outcome where
he's above 1700 and and 15 touchdowns is only happening 8%
of the time. It really happens 12% of the
time, which that's a big deal. But when it happens, when you
get that outcome in real life and it gets shoved down your
throat, it feels like this massive process miss when like
probably north of 7580% of the time you're feeling great at
this point, having faded those guys, because that's just the
most like the most likely outcome is they don't shove it
down your throat. And so it's just that it's
trying to hold all of those things in your head, even in the
face of like Yep. But this in this specific
outcome, you look really wrong. But I'm, I'm really hopeful that
the market like overcorrects to that.
I think it's gonna be hard to really overcorrect too hard
'cause I I think the wide receiver prices are kind of here
to stay. But those are just some some
musings I I've been thinking of. So I, I, I, I, I think I one,
one thing in the way I'd characterize what happened to
Derrick Henry. When I think the learning is I
think what we got wrong is in understanding in the outcomes
where Derrick Henry is having a good year for the Titans.
I'm sorry for the for the Ravens, I should say in in those
outcomes, the tail outcomes are much further right along the
points distribution than what we taught.
And so like hit his chances of hitting those 20 to 25 point a
game seasons is much higher because his tail goes much
further. And I think maybe like Derek
Henry's like a legendary player, like legendary.
And so maybe maybe being too quick to write off a legendary
player is, is a fair comment. But I, I, I, I think maybe like
like you're saying he he's the one where like just true
legendary, a legend, whereas the other ones were just very good,
very, very, very good, but not legendary like Derrick Henry.
Derrick Henry is like one in one in like 101 in a million.
Yeah, well, I think that's enough musings off a.
Preview Yes. But let's let's go ahead and get
into quarterbacks. I did have a small improvement
that I made on this chart this week, Draco, it looks fantastic.
I fixed a bug with the quarterback rushing and the, the
size of their bubbles. So previously we, we caught it
when Lamar's bubble just kept getting larger and larger.
And I I was able to find and squash said bug, and now the
bubble should be much more reflective of the average
rushing yards per game that these quarterbacks.
Have that's like, that's like a Jim Halpin like prank where he
just makes a bubble a little bit bigger every week.
But. Actually it was like a bug that
was. By Week 14, Lamar, literally.
Takes up the entire no, there's nothing wrong with this chart.
What do you guys mean? We kind of live perfectly.
Well, so this this week is really interesting.
You've got we we finally got a decent number of byes.
These are these are some of my favorite weeks for fantasy.
You're far enough into the season where there's some
injuries that are making you kind of get down a little deeper
in the player pool. You've got byes finally hitting.
And so you know, again, that's that's thinning out the player
pool. You're having to go to more
fringe players. And so this is where the real
grinders can actually realize some of their where you just
know more about a player's profile that some people don't
even know the name of who are going to be playing contest
against you this week. So I'm pretty excited for this
week. Unfortunately, one of the games
that I am the most excited for is not on the main slate.
I mean, this one sets up to be potentially game of the season
and that is the Ravens versus the Bengals to get Lamar
Jackson, MVP favorite going against Joe Burrow, who is one
of our most efficient pocket passers here.
And the first game already shot out.
The first game already shot out and and it feels like the Ravens
have been. I don't regressing is not the
right word, but it feels like they've been getting softer and
softer in past defense with each passing week.
So it's a. Progressively worst quarterback,
just as like carving them up. Yes, yes, yeah.
So I'm, I'm pretty interested in this one.
I don't really think there's a ton of actionable takeaways for
this game. I just wanted to mention it
because it's such an exciting game, but it's going to be on
the showdown slate. And I I wish I had like actual
stuff to give you for showdown. But to be perfectly blunt, like
my showdown process involves pushing the buttons for the
programs that I've spent a lot of time working on.
So it's really not, you know, I'm I'm trusting projections and
then for the most part, just clicking button and and
hopefully printing money. Hasn't been that way so far this
season. But I I guess the one little
take away I have for this game, if you want like a little bit of
alpha if you're trying to grind the showdown slate is if T
Higgins is out, my Kasiki looks like a really incredible play.
He just looks like he assumes that role and the offense as the
secondary target if Higgins isn't there.
And he did quite well with it this week.
But we'll, we'll talk more about him when we get to the tight end
section of the chart. Yeah, I, I and I just had taught
maybe I, I think maybe with our with our longer open with some,
some of the kind of less actionable stuff, I think we
should just kind of like hit it and and then then move on.
That's a That's a great call. All right, here's here's an
actionable match up. So we've got the commanders and
the Steelers playing. So you've got Russell Wilson
currently, the quarterback said, if you've if you've watched us
for the last season and and all this season so far, you'll know
that when a guy lives in this spot on the chart, this is like
a Primo regression spot. You know, you you quite simply
cannot run this hot forever. Unless they're very, very good.
This is like the Peyton Manning zone.
Yeah, I was going to say there's there's two guys that would have
finished a season season here. It's Peyton Manning and Patrick
Mahomes when they each had over 50 touchdowns in the season.
Those are the only two people that live here.
So if you think Russell Wilson is on his way to a season where
he's pacing for 50 touchdowns and 5000 passing yards, then
yes, he absolutely can live here.
I don't think that's a very reasonable take.
Also, the Commanders pass defense.
I know to start the season, we were targeting the commanders
like no tomorrow. They were just this super soft
defense. Everyone was going to score a
million points on them. They've actually gotten a lot
better. And then also they just made a
trade today at the deadline and got Marshawn Lattimore.
I I mean the Commanders pass defense was already looking
strong. They're they're a mega run
funnel. They're minus 8% pass rate over
expected. And then they're like, if you
look at their ESPN pass rush stuff, they're 4IN win rate.
So I, I, I think the Steelers, they're especially with Arthur
Schmidt, like they're going to run the ball.
And I actually, so I, I, this weekend I was in a cabin in the
woods and I didn't have red zone.
So I had to like watch one game at a time And I actually watched
the the Commanders Giants game and they like the, the Giants
were just run in the first half anyway.
They just ran, ran, ran like at a certain point, the start line
for Daniel Jones was 4 completions of five attempts, 0
yards, 1 touchdown. And like they were just running
the piss out of the ball first down, second down and they were
getting their first downage. They were getting chewed up.
And so I I can't imagine a world where Arthur Smith's these are
tape and and just doesn't establish the shit out of run.
So I, I I think, I think Russell Wilson can't even be a
consideration this weekend in in like any format like you, you
can't start the guy in in redraft.
You can't play him anywhere. Like he he he's completely
unsertable. Yeah, definitely agree with
that. I I pretty much lockstep with
you on all of that analysis. I didn't know you also were were
off grid this past weekend. I I too, was off grid and had to
figure out a creative way to watch the games and then get
caught up once I got back to civilization.
But one take away or one one kind of insight that I had for
this matchup is I think that it might also be kind of a trap
matchup for Jayden Daniels. You know, Pittsburgh has a
pretty good defense. And I really just think that the
pace of this game might end up, you know, reducing the total
play volume for Washington enough.
That you just get kind of a ho hum game for Daniels.
I don't want to say that he can't go out there and still
have a really good performance, but something like, you know,
200 passing yards, 2 touchdowns and 40 or 50 rushing yards seems
like it'd probably be a pretty good outcome for him here.
And I just think that it's likely that his cost is just
going to be too high to justify playing him in what might just
be a match stuck in the mud because of the the Steelers
propensity to want to run anyway.
And then you've got Washington, who is a really good match up
for the run. Yeah, yeah, I, I agree.
I I think he's he's gonna score a fine with his rushing floor
and all that kind of stuff. But like, outlaws happen, but
really hard to project. Like a smash week for Rad.
Jayden Daniels here. The one where I do want to
project a smash week and I I want to just kind of lean into
outliers happen and this is a good spot and I would like to
just take my chances on when the positive outlier game in this
spot comes. It's for a million points and
that's Brock Purdy. You get the 49ers coming off a
buy against quite possibly the best defensive matchup for a
quarterback. You know, coming going against
the Buccaneers, you're very likely getting CMC back.
And I I just think that's an overall massive improvement to
the offense. It doesn't even need, you know,
to be that CMC is getting a full workload or anything like that.
Just having him out there on the field is such a threat to a
defense. It's, you know, it's so much for
the defense to account for and I, I really think that this is a
smash spot. It's the highest total game on
the main slate. And I, I had to check Purdy's
price because as I was going through and writing up the show
notes, I was like, man, if he's at all reasonably priced on
DraftKings, I'm, I'm probably just going to end up with like a
stupid amount of Brock Purdy this week.
And he's only 6500 on DraftKings.
That is cheaper than Patrick Mahomes versus Denver, which
just seems egregious to me. So I'll, I'll probably, if I had
to guess right now, I mean, unless the ownership on Purdy is
absurd, I'll probably end up with something like north of 30%
on Purdy, which is I'm usually pretty flat at quarterback, so.
Yeah, that makes sense. I I don't have much to add.
I think Tampa Bay are a decent defense and they're, they're not
a thicker pass funnel, but I, I, I think that the, the reasons to
bet on San Francisco off the by Brock Purdy with CMC back are
pretty clear and, and, and that all makes sense to me.
The the next spot that I thought was a pretty good one for this
week is Josh Allen. So he is getting the Colts and
the Colts have definitely been a pass funnel.
You've also seen the Bills a little bit more.
I mean, they're not they're not past heavy by any means, but
Josh Allen is getting enough now to where he can certainly put up
very viable fantasy games. You probably get Amari Cooper
back this week, I would think, which should be a benefit to
them. But I just this Colts defense
looks like a really good spot to attack.
Well, I, I so just looking at some of that, the cold stuff, if
you look at their, if you look at their pass rate over expected
against their negative, their negative at 8%.
And, and I think some, some of that is because you have you had
the Green Bay game, you have stuff like that.
And I do wonder if it's if they're just one of those like
paper mache defenses where you just get to do, you get to run
whatever play you want successfully like they can't
stop it. Yeah, I mean, I think I think
that is probably the most likely thing I'm looking here in let's
let me find this. There's a really good.
So this is. If the if the Bills are rolling,
which they showed against a really weak defense like that
kind of does operate true. Josh Allen, I don't know if I
would like stock them with anybody else other than like a
running back, but it's a pretty, it's a pretty good matchup.
Yeah, that that actually is one thing that I want to point out
for the draft style format. Like Dog Bowl on Underdog, Josh
Allen gets paired at, I believe too high a frequency with his
pass catchers. Part of it is because of how
cheap his pass catchers have been these past couple slates,
but he's one of the quarterbacks that gets, you know, the highest
stacking frequency from all the stuff that I've been tracking.
Now I'm dealing with an incomplete data set.
I'm just going off of the drafts that I'm in.
But from the rooms that I'm in, Josh Allen gets stacked at a
really, really high frequency. And so last week I was attacking
that by playing a lot of Josh Allen, Keyon Coleman 'cause he,
Keyon Coleman and Josh Allen were not being drafted together
hardly at all, like less than 25% of the rate that he was
being drafted together with other weapons on the Bills this
week, I think the way that I'm going to do it is I'm just going
to play a lot of naked Josh Allen.
And I'm, I'm going to rely on the vast majority of the other
Josh Allen teams just willfully drafting a dud on their team
and, and throwing in, you know, Khalil Shakur, who has had a
solid role, but he's going to get like 7 targets for -6 area
yards and maybe have like, you know, 10 fantasy points unless
he finds a way to fall into the end zone or something.
And so I think I really do like just playing it through naked
Josh Allen. I did find the stat that I
wanted to to cite about the Colts being a run funnel here or
a excuse me, where is I I? Mean I, I, I can help you.
I'm if I'm if you exclude the if you exclude the the Dolphins and
the Titans. OK, so I've got it here.
It's it's pass funnel defenses by EPA per drop back versus EPA
per rush. So the Colts are the third
highest only behind the Jaguars and the Ravens as far as pass
funnels go. And they're they're pretty high
up there relative to other defenses.
So yeah, they they definitely are giving up more by EPA
through the air. But yeah, I do, I think really
you're, you're correct in that you can do whatever you want
against the Colts. So it, it might just be a
situation where the Bills do want to run and they go back to
that tendency. And again, you still probably
can get there with Josh Allen, but I don't think it's a spot
where you really need to have a bring back or a stacking partner
with them. Right, right.
That that, that. That's kind of my sense as well.
And then your your next guy was Sam Darnold.
Yeah, I think this is AI mean we, we just talked about pass
funnels. The the Jaguars are the pass
funnel to end all pass funnels number one in EPA per drop back
versus EPA per rush. So and I mean, we just we saw
the the Jaguars are just so, so putrid at defending the pass.
I mean, the the Eagles didn't really need to pass on them, but
it still felt like they kind of did for fun.
You know, like the Devonta Smith touchdown was just like, yeah,
and we'll throw this one in, too.
And then the game ended up being much closer in final score than
it was the entire game. Like, that game was a beat down
through and through. And then the Eagles ended up
with a mistake late that led the Jaguars back in the game.
The game was not particularly close, but the Jags have had a
relatively strong rush defense and I I do think that this is a
pretty interesting spot for Darnold the one.
Thing and Sam Darnold has been good this year.
Like you can see on our chart that he's played well.
Yeah, he's been trending a little bit worse these last few
weeks. Like if you if you go back and
look at our charts over the last couple weeks, he's been moving
away from the direction that you'd want him to move in.
But I mean, overall he he has been good.
So you're. You're not.
And he has been good even recently.
So if you look at, you look at week eight against the Rams, so
that's excluding the Colts game. Like I, I don't think you can
just throw out the Colts game because we just said they're,
they're terrible and he had a, a bad game against them.
He had 9.7 adjusted yards per attempt against, in week eight
against the Rams. So I, I to me, this feels like
more of like an, an, an inconsistency where he's been
inconsistent and rather than like a trend downwards.
OK, yeah, that's, that's reasonable.
And, and yeah, I'm actually, I'm looking back in week six, he
really, I, I was just trying to go back a number of weeks.
He really hadn't moved all that much on the chart.
I know he got a pretty hot start.
Yeah. So in this is what I'm thinking
of. So in week four he was much
higher. He's almost a full yard higher
in in adjusted yards per attempt.
So he's cooled down a little bit from that really hot start, but
he's still been been pretty good.
So that was that was really the thing I was worried about.
But it sounds like you're not worried at all.
You'd you'd be firing about this.
Spot Yeah, I mean, I I just like it.
It feels wrong to me to like ignore like, hey, he was great
in, in week 8, but we just saw him in prime time looking bad.
Like I, I, I, I feel like that's just being, that's what makes
him a good GPP play where people saw him fail last week.
We'll be more hesitant to play him and but we know he, he, he
definitely 100% has those like better outcomes in his range.
And I, I, I, I think that's a good GPP play.
OK. Yeah, that that makes sense to
me. Last quarterback that I wanted
to talk about here was CJ Stroud, who has definitely been
underwhelming based on, I would say like the expectations of the
the fantasy community at large heading into the season.
I mean, I, I certainly think part of it is on Stroud and he
has, he hasn't been bad. You know, he if you look at he's
in the top right quadrant of the chart.
He he's doing fine. His volume has been much less
than I think we would have desired.
But I'm, I'm wondering if you think that this match up against
the Lions could be enough to push the Texans here or the
other thing is, I I'm just concerned that it's two teams
that really want to run the ball and they might just run the ball
into each other's faces over and over and over.
And then maybe by the time the Lions get out to a big enough
lead to really dictate the pass to the Texans, we're just too
far into the game And it, you know, we're not able to really
get a lot out of strap. What do you what do you think
about this spot? I think you, you definitely need
Nico back. It can't just be tanked out.
So I think that I think that's pretty critical.
And then I think it was, I forget who tweeted this ad, but
somebody said that essentially the, the Houston Texans online,
they've been credited with the most amount of socks that were
unblocked. So they're like, or it was
either socks or pressures. So they, I think it was
pressures. So their old line has, or their
past protection has been really, really bad, really, really bad.
And I think I, I think he can see Joe Stroud is like good
enough to overcome that in, in a given game.
But I I think it it really depends on if you get any go
back. Yeah, I haven't seen an update
on what his status is going to be for this weekend.
It was a perfectly like middling.
It was like, hey, we're going to evaluate really, really hard all
week and then we'll make a call. I wonder.
So yeah, they're evaluating, unfortunately.
Now is this where, where is this game on this slate?
I'm it, it, it must not be on the main slate.
I he was trying to find it here. Game so oh, it's a it's a Sunday
night. Thank you.
OK, that makes sense. All right, Well, nothing,
nothing terribly actionable then, cuz I mean, you're
probably not starting golf or Stroud in a managed league.
So yeah, nothing. Nothing really all that actual
there. My, my bad for not realizing
that wasn't on the main slate. And then we we should move on to
the the running. Yeah, let's let's get to running
backs here. So yeah, we've got our running
back snaps and usage chart and and your kind of first note here
was about something you had some concern that the the mix and
snap count went down quite a bit in in the kind of like wonky
game script with the with The Jets a negative at some points.
Yeah, you got you got a lot more dare.
I mean in the in the pure past situations he, he is coming off
the field. So that's a little bit
concerned. And that's his entire career.
And even with the Bengals and then the RA, he's kind of
consistently been there passing them back.
So if you get a week, I mean, I think this is like a very clear
example of a game script like risky back who's relying on
touchdowns, who's relying on on rushing or even even like first
and 2nd down receptions. Those work too, but very game
script dependence and and you need the touchdowns to really
get there. Yeah.
And so it, you know, against the Lions, we did talk about this
matchup. It's it could be a little
concerning here, you know? Right, that'd be a good run
defense and their and their their offense is awesome.
Yeah, the other guy that I had a note here on is Remandre.
His his role looks pretty solid. I mean.
It looks wrong. the IT looks wrong.
He's he's our, he's our primary pass blocker.
So he's they're passing their own guy and he's our main goal
line back sometimes. I mean, sometimes being the
Patriots main goal and back doesn't mean shit because you
have to, you have to guess a goal line for that to matter.
But in in weeks where the Patriots are rolling, he's going
to look really good. Yeah.
And, and having Drake May as quarterback certainly is
improving the upside case for Mandre because they're actually
capable of scoring some touchdowns now, which is
fantastic for him. So I think it could be, you
know, that he's a he's a little underrated for his role and
especially so when you get a really good matchup for the
Patriots. So the the ones that I kind of
circled on the Patriots schedule are you get the Rams in week 11
and then you get the Dolphins in week 12.
Both of those are pretty good matchups.
So definitely, definitely interested in romandre there.
I think those are those are pretty good chances for us to
get. You know, one of the really
exciting like true Drake may break out games or he he
actually puts up just a a monster week like has a
legitimate chance for overall QB one on the week type
performance. So definitely interested there.
But but this match up this next week, not super enticing for the
Patriots again, right? Right.
And then your next note here was about a Chan and and it was kind
of like a request for me to pull up some, some splits.
And so the thing about a Chan, you want to think, if you want
to think about wit and without Chua.
So his kind of snap rate, his useful snap rate has been pretty
consistent. And you're, I mean, you're
looking at something like 5060% and in that range game to game,
I think he, he, he had a high watermark in this last game,
which is definitely encouraging. But the big thing, the big
difference that Chua makes for a Chan is that when Chua in, in,
in Chua's full game, fully healthy games, he has a 30%
targets per run, whereas when Chua hasn't played, it's been
16%. And so I think that that's the
big difference that you're seeing where Chua just seems to
be very, very good at setting this guy up in the in the
receiving game when they're both on the field together.
Yeah. And would you, would you mind
going to the efficiency chart here?
Because that's that's the thing that I think I really want to
illustrate. And here it is.
Yeah, if you look at how much expected fancy points he has
from receiving, I mean, the only guy with more is Alvin Kamara,
who who's just, you know, the check down king.
The the reason I'm so excited for a Chan here getting all of
these high value touches is because he also is going to be
efficient with them where Kamara has been good.
You know, guy put up like what, 200 scrimmage yards this last
week. So you can't can't really shit
on him all that much there. But with a Chan you have that,
that upside of, Oh yeah, he could break this for an 80 yard
touchdown on every single play. And so right, you get these high
value touches mixed in, you know, you're, you're going to
get these outcomes like he gets us last week where he scored
like 28 fantasy points. And then the way that you end up
with those absolute slate breaking performances is he has
a game like he had this week, which if you watch the game, it
wasn't like, you know, he had some good plays, but it's not
like, oh, it all came on one play.
You know, he he went ahead and compiled a really solid game
with a monster workload. And then the fact that any of
those touches can then just all of a sudden add an additional 15
fantasy points. That's how you get the 40
burger. That's how you get the 50 burger
from a Chan. Like that's that's how you get
the Noah Chan no money type of weeks.
Those are the players that I just want to chase those guys
because we just saw even even when he doesn't have that huge,
you know, efficiency spike from a single play, he's still
putting up like the second performance on the week.
He's one of their best, he's one of their best players, so they
like they're they. He has to be important, He has
to be a big part of them scoring points.
Yeah, and I, I mean it, it almost feels like, and I think
this is probably more of a small sample than anything, but I
mean, he's at the very least contending with Tyreek for like
the true #1 focal point on this offense.
I, I, I would not be surprised at all if we get like a true
Tyree kill nuclear game soon. Here it.
Just yeah, yeah. But I mean, you certainly
certainly could see that it's it's more of like A1A1B
situation. And I just kind of thinking of
this Dolphins offense as like it is, it's almost positionless
between a Chan and and he'll like, of course, like a Chan is
doing the more traditional running back stuff too, but he's
getting a lot of these, you know, like he's getting like
legitimate wide receiver snaps as well.
So it, it, it's more like a weapon.
It's weapon 1 weapon two. It's it's a little bit more
positionless. But I just pulled up this
efficiency chart from week 6 just to have some context where
I've got the two games that two have played removed.
And so I just have the backup quarterback games in here.
And a Chan's expected receiving points in those games was all
the way down at six and his efficiency was piss poor.
It was like the worst on the chart.
Oh, yeah, People were asking like, oh, is A Chan actually one
of the worst running backs in the NFL?
Like it's like, no, it it just turns out that when you know,
the defenses can totally key in on this guy and not have to pay
any mind to the passing game, it's really easy to take that
threat away. So the the fact that you're
getting not only like 4 additional expected fantasy
points from receiving. And by the way, this is a this
chart has a rolling four week input for the data.
So we've still got two weeks in here with the the lower, you
know, expected fantasy points in there by by the time we get to
week 12, week 13, like a Chan is going to be above 20 expected
fantasy points and he's going to be above 12 expected receiving
points If if this trend continues.
So he's he's the guy with it. If you maybe bet money right
now, he would be my odds on favorite for from now through
the end of the season, putting up the profile that we need to
see for a legitimate legendary season.
And that's, that's, you know, has to hit all those very
specific parameters where you've got the path to four receptions
per game, you have the path to multiple 2 Green Zone touches
per game, 23 full PPR fantasy points per game.
And it it's just, it's pretty incredible that he's doing it at
his size. But he would be my odds on
favorite too finish the back half of the season as a true
legendary running back. Makes makes sense for sure.
The, the point, the comparison I I, I was drawn before the season
was kind of like Chris Johnson. He's only 10 lbs lighter than
Chris Johnson. Yeah.
And like, it's kind of a decade later when the NFL is smaller.
So to me, that's like like 10 lbs.
Like feels like the average NFL player is 10 lbs lighter.
Damn I that that's probably not like the most correct way to
think about it, but that that's that's what makes it makes sense
to me. No, I I certainly think that's a
really good comparison. I have another guy here that I
think is kind of an interesting a Chan comparison.
He, he still lives on this chart and he's actually directly below
a Chan. If you just go down, you know,
about four expected receiving fantasy points, you'll find the
other extremely efficient bubble here, and that's Jameer Gibbs,
who's doing a champ things this season when he touches the ball,
breaking off 73 yard touchdown runs like looking like one of
the most explosive backs of the league.
The the thing that is interesting is I think that our
before the season, you know, perception of Gibbs was more
like he's this receiving back, like he's the, you know, he'll
probably get less volume than Montgomery.
But also the hope was his talent, his raw talent is just
going to win out during the season.
And and the Lions won't be able to help themselves.
They'll have to give him more touches than Montgomery and
he'll be the true 1A then. And also he's the guy that gets
the passing work. Right.
And it's not even close if that's not even close to what's
happening, right. Like he's been.
Sorry, I'm, I'm interrupting you.
Go ahead. No, that's OK.
The the way it shook out this season is he is the passing
back. But the Lions aren't involving
him as much in the passing game as we would have liked.
You know, he's if you see him, he's in the in the same range
like Austin Eckler, Tyrone Tracy, DeAndre Swift, less
involved than Romandre Stevenson, Kenneth Walker, you
know, like substantially less involved than a Chan and Kamara.
So I mean, speaking for myself, I definitely thought he would be
right up there and possibly more receiving work than a Chan,
probably less than Kamara, but again, thought he'd be more
efficient. And so I think I for me, what
I'm gonna do is reframe the way I look at Jamir Gibbs and just
kind of see him as as like in a Chan type profile from last
season where he's this electric can hit a home run from anywhere
on the field type of runner. He he's he's just very good.
He's a he's a complete player. He just happens to have a
running back that the coaching staff really likes ahead of him.
And I I don't, I don't think that you can say anything
negative even about David Montgomery.
He's been very good. So it's just you're gonna have
to deal with lower workload but really high efficiency type
player. Yeah.
And I mean, the thing about that is he hasn't even in terms of
passing work, he hasn't he, he's like been ahead of Monty, but
over the last four games, you, you're looking at a 21% root
rate for Gibbs versus A 14% root rate.
And that's a of a percentage of total plays, not dropbacks, But
I, I say, and it's 14% for Monty.
So like he's he's a little bit ahead in the passing stuff, but
not that much. He's at 22% of total team
players or rush attempts to Gibbs, 21% for Monty.
And I think what we're seeing like games where that ping pongs
back, back and forth. It was a low game for Gibbs last
week and but he's had games where he's higher as well.
Yeah, but I, I guess if you look at it in terms of like expected
points and stuff like that, you you can see it right here.
He's 4 points lower than than than a Chan in expected points.
So he really has to run hot on efficiency.
So you're you are just not getting first round value there.
You you. That needs to be a 2-3 turn pick
for you to feel good about it. Yeah, well, we'll put there.
There's a guy I didn't have a note on, but I feel like we have
to touch on him. He also was the in the thumbnail
for for this video, that's Chase Brown.
He's living kind of right on the borderline of that 10 to 15 and
15 to 20 expected fantasy points band.
But you know, based on the workload that he saw this last
week where he was an absolute bell cow, I believe he was over
80% of the snaps, if I'm if I'm not mistaken, Just absolute
elite workload and you get a great match up.
You know, you're going against the Raiders where the Bengals
are huge favourites. You know, fully expected them to
take it to them. But I mean, that's the thing
that you want to see though, when you get a player like Chase
Brown and they get thrust into this opportunity where they get
a bellcat workload, like, all right, can this guy do it?
Like when he gets the workload, can he actually deliver and and
Chase Brown smashed. And this isn't, it's not
something where like, oh, well, Chase Brown's such a small back.
He's never going to be able to sustain this workload.
Like this is what he he's done this in college.
Like he has a track record of being a bell cow type back.
Now the Bengals did trade for Khalil Herbert today, but I I
really wouldn't anticipate Khalil Herbert getting any more
snaps than Zac Moss. So I think you're kind of your
bottom end outcome for Chase Brown, you know, rest of season
is just back to where he was with, with Zach Moss in the mix.
I, I truly think that is like your, your lowest end of the
range of outcomes and then your high end range of outcomes.
I don't think you can expect him to get the the total number of
touches that he got this last week and sustain that through
the whole season. Right, he got 27 Russia times.
Yeah. I think if you if you told me
Chase Brown averages 20 opportunities though from here
through the rest of the season, that seems pretty squarely in
the range of outcomes like that that.
Yeah, that's been pretty reasonable.
Seems like probably slightly above a a median outcome, but
like, I don't even think you're getting to like upper quartile.
Like I think you're probably somewhere between the 50th and
75th percentile outcome to get 20 touches a game.
And and this is at a good offense.
And yeah, I think it's wheels all the way up for Chase Brown.
I don't. Are you at all concerned about
the Khalil Herbert stuff or how do you read this situation?
I mean, it's it that that part is hard.
They didn't have to give up a lot for Herbert.
But then the the and the thing about it is, is like there's no
way the Bengals could have like could have said, OK, our plan is
our young running back, we're just going to load them up with
30 touch the game every game. What's the problem?
Like that? That can't be the plan.
And then he gets injured and you're fucked.
So I think there's a there's some chance that he's kind of
like they use what's his name Herbert as the kind of spell
Chase Brown. I think that that's like that's
a potential outcome. Or it could be that they, they,
they are splitting, let's say 80% of snaps between them and,
and you're at somewhere between, you're at like 40% snap rate for
each like that. That's probably your, your low
end. But I, I, I certain, I think
that's like a really true, like Khalil Herbert has to come in
and look really good for that to happen.
Yeah. I think you're, you're probably,
you're probably looking at somewhere between 15 and 20
touches a game for for Chase Brown and maybe 10 to 15 for the
for Herbert. Yeah.
And I, I wouldn't be surprised if they, they take a couple
weeks to kind of work Herbert up to that eventual, right.
They're mixing in some of their other guys, you know?
They they don't trust either of these guys.
I don't think they'll trust either of these guys as pass
blockers. So it'll be rush attempts and
and and true routes, which it that that doesn't limit the Pi
to those guys a little bit, but they I mean, it would be nuts to
me if they didn't favor Chase Brown coming into at week 10
like they have. To actually, I wanted to ask you
about this because I, I felt the same way where it's not likely
they, they're going to want to ask Chase Brown to do all of
this pass blocking, you know, and him and him and Khalil
Herbert both are not known for being pass blockers.
Now Chase Brown, I just saw some stuff today where he doesn't
actually grayed out as quite as terrible a a pass blocker as his
reputation. They just never asked him to do
it. Right.
So I'm wondering, do you think that he sees more pass blocking
reps or do the Bengals find an alternative solution to having
their backs pass block? Are they they're?
Gonna you know, they've had Trabeon in there and then
they've been putting their tight ends in the backfield.
Yeah, That, that that's what they did last week.
And and now you got a little. A little wetter.
Oh, I no, no problem. Hope you are are feeling better
soon. But yeah, I I think you get the
air call ACL tear and Kasiki isn't much of A blocker.
So I mean, yeah, you'll probably end up with some random like
Drew sample pass locking snaps and and things like that, but
wouldn't wouldn't expect the what they ask of the backs to,
you know, be a ton more pass blocking.
It certainly will increase because someone's got to do it.
But I don't think that's plan A is to have Chase Brown pass
block a ton. Yeah, they, yeah, it it's
definitely not plan A. It's it's not Plan B.
It's not fun. See, they had like two other
running backs that that were basically just pass blocking and
and they had they gave, I think it was Drew Sample, they gave
him a couple of snaps back there too.
The the next guy I had a note on on this chart was JK Dobbins had
his best game that he's had in a while.
I think really the secret to getting JK Dobbins a good
fantasy game was actually just pass the ball more.
The Chargers have trended up in pass rate over the last few
weeks and so all of a sudden you see JK Dobbins have a, a good
and much more efficient day. And I, I think that was kind of
the secret like just have the have the offense do better and
it will be better for JK Dobbins.
So definitely was encouraging to him.
I, I really think that the, the Chargers trend towards the pass
is a pretty positive thing for Dobbins and, and really like
you're not actually seeing much of A threat at all from Vidal.
And, and I don't really know if we can expect Edwards back this
season. I haven't seen anything on him.
So it's, it looks like it's JK Dobbins show and it, it looks
like the Chargers have finally discovered the forward pass,
which I think is an overall pretty, pretty good positive for
him. Do you have do you have any
insight to this JK Dobbins and Chargers situation?
Yeah, the the only, I, I think you pretty much hit the nail on
the head. The only thing I'd add is that
he's also the primary pass protector.
So them passing more is actually helpful for him because if if
he's a primary pass protector then that that's his show.
Yeah, that's a that's a good shout as well.
OK, last note on this chart. So James Conner puts up a pretty
good game on the ground. He's over 100 rushing yards,
think he was 17 or 18 attempts, something like that.
So really solid workload. However, the guy I mean, like if
you were relying on James Conner to put up a big week in AGPP for
you this week, I'm really sorry with how it ran out.
The guy gets like flipped upside down and lands on his head at
like the one yard line. And so he doesn't doesn't end up
with a touchdown, loses some work to Trey Benson.
And it wasn't just the IT wasn't just and I don't even believe
that he got designated with like an injury or anything like that
in this game. He just, you know, dude landed
on his head. He got got a little banged up.
But the Benson work came before that.
Benson was was getting touches early in the game and he he
looked much better than he had. Like Benson has looked not great
up to this point in the season. And this was the first game I I
thought that he looked serviceable.
And then of course, you also get the explosive play from Amari D
Mercado where that that takes a touchdown away as well.
So I'm wondering, are you at all concerned about James Connor's
work heading down the stretch here?
So I think that's interesting. So I hadn't realized that Trey
Benson had been getting touches prior to the injury because I'm
looking at the splits here and kind of a lot of their, a lot of
those kind of like secondary guys them working in it did seem
related to the injury we have. I don't think we've gotten any
news back from the injury. So I, I guess assuming he's
fine, you have to expect that it's still the James Conner
show. Yeah, I, I think that's kind of
what you have to expect. Obviously concerning that they
they put, they're playing Trey Benson early.
He's looking good. They just saw James Conner get
banged up, so maybe they want to protect him a little bit more.
And I, I, I, I, I think your, your base case has to still be
James Conner the rest of the way, but you've got a lot more
risk in there like you, you, that's pretty substantial risk,
I think. Yeah, so it looks like so the he
did get checked for a concussion, but he came back
into the game after halftime. Nothing doesn't look like
anything on the injury report. And Gretsch actually wrote in
stealing Signals this week that the the Trey Benson touches were
deliberate and came early. And he got like, he, he
basically he started a drive and got the majority of a drive and
it was after he, he got the first touches on a drive.
So it's not like he was spelling Connor.
It's not like Connor had like. Just it was a Trey Benson drive.
Yeah, that's very different. Yeah.
Now I don't believe that Benson finished that entire drive.
I think Connor did come in after a few plays of Benson, but
again, it wasn't, hey, I'm just spelling James Conner because
he's gassed after a few plays. It was to start the drive out
here. We're giving Trey Benson a crack
at it and he looked good. So definitely a spot to watch.
It's it's one where I'm I'm at least a little bit concerned.
Yeah, you have to be like that. I, I, I kind of miss some of
this context and, and, and written it off as as injury
related, but clearly it's not like if you look at a Trey
Benson, so he was at a 25% useful snap rate and Emory, then
Mccardo, he was at 19% and then James Conner at 46%.
And so if you're telling me that even without the injury and and
James Conner checking out for a few plays, he's still kind of
capped at let's say, yeah, 60 and 65% snap rate like that,
that's definitely a material like decline for him.
And like he's at 46% useful snap rate versus 676867 in the last
couple of weeks. So 20% useful snapshared
decline, if you're telling me that's what we project should
project going forward or something close to that, Yeah,
that is a big concern. That is a big, big concern.
Yeah, I, I don't know if I'm fully too like this is how it's
going to be going forward. It's just, I think it's
something to watch, certainly. Right, right.
But I I the framing almost seems like more than something to
watch though. Like, yeah, that all of those
kind of contextual things kind of feels like.
Oh. This looks like a material like
this improvement or or worsening of his of his of his role.
Yeah, we are. We're somewhere between
something to watch and Aren't You Worried, right.
We might already be to Aren't You Worried, but we're we're
trending in that direction. Right, right.
I think I think that's a good way to put it.
Let's let's move to the next chart.
I've got a couple notes here on some of these running backs.
So the first one, man, OK, so I think we let's talk about the,
the Bucks backfield in general. So the the Bucks with their
receiver injuries do look to still have a pretty functional
offense, even even against the Chiefs.
Like man, they were, they were toe to toe with the Chiefs.
Like they definitely could have won that game.
I, I really, I wanted to see him take it, but they, they just
couldn't, couldn't close it out at the end.
Rashad White, it just seems like he is running so absurdly hot on
touchdowns. It feels like every game for at
least the last three games that I remember, there is just a lane
so wide you could drive a truck through it.
When they get Rashad White a touch in the Green Zone and, and
he just gets to waltz into the end zone.
So I think a lot of the Rashad White production is being buoyed
by just absurd efficiency. And, and I don't think it's
necessarily efficiency that Rashad White is generating.
And you can kind of see that by the size of his bubble reflected
here. He's really not getting a lot of
expected fantasy points on the ground.
Most of it is coming through the air in the passing game.
And then he's got really good efficiency, but that's mostly on
the back of just converting touchdowns and getting
opportunities for touchdowns. But if you go back and watch the
Rashad White touchdowns, if you gave me a chance at all of them
now, you'd have to make me invulnerable.
Like I, I can't like get taken out due to injury after the
first NFL tackle, which is what would happen in real life.
But if you said that I'm invincible to injury and I got a
chance at all of these Rashad White touchdowns, I just the
ball is magically in my hands and I have the same lane to run
through. I think I convert 1 of them.
You know, like there, there are a couple where he's just got
nothing but green grass in front of him.
So he he's, you know, producing the most for fantasy, but I'm
definitely not feeling confident about him being an asset I can
rely on going forward. And so then that that takes me
to Bucky Irving. And man, Bucky is like the king
of making guys miss. Like my favorite part of a Bucky
run is the third missed tackle that he forces every it feels
like every run, like you need to have at least four guys that are
going to get to Bucky because the first three are going to
miss. The problem is it's very David
Montgomery esque in the way that he makes guys miss.
Like I I pointed this out while watching the game, it's watching
with my wife and I go, man, watch how many missed tackles he
forces here, but then just nothing happens afterwards.
He's got all this space and he does start to run it up field,
but he's just not that explosive and not that fast.
Now I don't want to poo poo on Bucky.
He's a super fun player to watch and I I want to be excited about
him. It might be the toe injury
that's hampering him a little bit, but to me he he does not
look fast or explosive or anything like that.
Super impressive at juking guys out of their socks.
It's just not a ton comes from it so.
I think he he might have seen one of his worst games for that
of the year. Yeah, like.
Like he, he does have a lot of games where he has a lot more
yardage than expected. So he and and and he's had big
runs. Maybe I, I, I, I don't know,
maybe he just didn't have them in this game.
I think the bigger point though is that the the Tampa Bay box is
a full blown at least in Week 9 was a full blown three-way
committee. And with with all of these guys
as snap counts like pretty, pretty limited, like useful snap
count for Rashad White, 36 percent, 31% for Bucky, 13% Sean
Tucker. And like Sean Tucker's snap rate
is 13%, but he doesn't none of that is blocking.
So him taking like 15% out of the pie and then the other guys
happen to split that up between them and that, that does make it
pretty tough. And I, I think that's the bigger
kind of issue where like last game, Rashad White had just 6.4
expected points. Now he, he scored the touchdown.
So he ended up with 1212 1/2. So like that's a usable week.
And but I, I agree. I, I, I, I, I'm concerned about
the backfield because like, I do think that it's just cut too
many ways. Like you can have weeks where
one of those guys get there and but it's it's definitely not an
enticing spot. Yeah, the, the guys I'm most
excited about. I I was really excited about
Bucky until Todd Bowles came out and said the toe injury is
something he's going to deal with for the whole season.
Now I might be, I might just be over fitting here and and you
know what I saw against Kansas City, I might be reading too
much into and attributing it to the toe sapping some
explosiveness or speed when in reality it was just, dude, this
is a really good run defense. Like he of course he's going to
look worse here than he has in the past.
So maybe, maybe I'm just being overly cautious about the toe.
He's had that a couple of weeks as well.
Yeah. The other thing though, is I'm
pretty interested in Sean Tucker at like, I think you really like
in a home league, you're not really holding Sean Tucker, you
know? But in FFPC, Sean Tucker is the
kind of guy that like I can, I can very much see the path where
you get, OK, Bucky Irving's going to have to miss this game
because of the toe. And then they they do the hot
hand thing. And it just so happens that Sean
Tucker is so much the superior runner to Rashad White that he
just basically ices him out for a game and and Rashad gets some
of the passing work that he's always going to have.
But you just get Sean Tucker with all the carries.
And I mean, he, he looks like with the reported athleticism
that we had from Sean Tucker, we never got like official numbers
on him because of the health stuff around him, around the
combine for him. But I mean, he's allegedly a sub
4, three guy And, and he's a big boy too.
It's not like he's one of these like sub 200 pounders that's sub
4/3. He he's, he's quite large.
So I, I don't know, he's interesting to me.
And he definitely seems like one of those guys where we look back
on this season and it, it's like the Rashad Penny playoff run of
a few seasons ago, right? Where it's just like, man,
remember when Rashad Petty came out of nowhere and that was just
the guy you had to have to win any money that season?
So if if I had to pick an early, like really thin bet to be the
guy you need in the playoffs, Sean Tucker's a fun one.
That's that's all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, he's definitely like
with with the with the value and the overall play.
If one of those guys got down, goes down and then it's a 5050
split that that that becomes very interesting.
And he's, he's definitely worth stash.
I had two more notes here. One of them I'm just going to
say very quickly just so we can move on to the next chart.
Cam Akers is now officially the RV 2 in Minnesota.
He entirely iced out Tracer, not Tracer and Ty Chandler.
Ty Chandler literally did not play an offensive snap, only
played on special teams. It is all the way Jover for Ty
Chandler, unfortunately. So that's you know, that's the
breaks. All your Ty Chandler basketball
shares are very dead barring. Right, and Tam Akers isn't
usable either. It's more about.
Aaron Jones. Aaron Jones is just a great
pick. And yeah, and Ty Chandler is
dead. The last note I had was Kareem
Hunt and Kareem Hunt. I mean he's all the way in the
bottom right hand corner over 20 expected fantasy points a game
and it's all on the ground, baby.
Kareem Hunt. Let me hang on.
Let me make sure I I do this right.
I've got the the two way player comparisons here.
He is the Ezekiel Elliott of Kyron Williams.
They they do that right. Yeah, yeah, it's gross, but he's
certainly getting certainly getting the volume.
It is what it is. It's disgusting, but the the
efficiency fine enough on that kind of volume.
Yeah, he he does. He falls forward too, like he's
he's doing exactly what the Chiefs need.
Like for real life football. Kareem Hutt is awesome for the
Chiefs and and for fantasy. Like the raw, nasty volume is
perfectly fine. Like, yeah, it doesn't.
It doesn't have to be sexy. He's going to get there.
Yeah, agreed, agreed. And so here we have our kind of
tight end chart and, and then I, I guess the, the, the snap rate
kind of, or the, the rat rate kind of lines up almost
perfectly with, with fantasy points this year or projected or
how we projected the fantasy points going forward.
I know you had a note that that grant that, that that's a, yeah,
a product of Dallas Goddard and missing time.
As soon as Dallas Goddard is back, he is back-to-back to the
bench, back to riding point. And then your your I.
I guess your first note was about Hunter Henry.
Yeah, so I think Connor Henry is in a you know, he's got a pretty
interesting role. He's I, I had a note just about,
you know, the the cream is rising to the top here on this
tight end chart. Like all these guys at the top
are, are pretty much like the the best guys in the position.
And then you got Hunter Henry in here kind of sneaking his way in
above guys that I would I'd have ranked above him, you know, week
to week of Evan Ingram and Jake Ferguson.
But Hunter Henry's is starting to be pretty interesting it to
me. The way I'm reading this
Patriots offense is Hunter Henry and Demario Douglas are probably
the two primary receivers for Drake May.
Now granted the Patriots matchups have been their
schedule has been pretty, pretty rough.
And so this week again, not a great matchup.
But next week, week 11 and week 12 both, both matchups I'm
pretty interested in and with the way that this week is where
it's, you know, it's a pretty thin week with the byes and some
injuries, I definitely think you could do worse than a Hunter
Henry dart throw. He's probably a guy that I'll
end up with a decent amount of in dog bowl drafts just 'cause
he'll he'll probably be free and and I think he's perfectly fine
for that price. The next guy I had a note on was
Theo Johnson, who is flashing a little bit, you know, climbing
up the chart here. 8.6 A .15% targets per route run.
You know, it's going to be hard prying volume away from Malik
neighbors and also it's going to be hard to put up really
relevant fantasy weeks when your team is -13% PROE like the
Giants were this last week. But Theo Johnson had a really
nice athletic catch for a touchdown.
Like he, he's at the very least like flashing the things that we
were excited about. Hey 27% target Sprite run 81 at
air yards on 6 targets. Pretty good.
He's definitely interesting. And then did you have anything
else to say about Theo or should I move on to I?
I think you'd like this other rookie tight end even more than
Theo. Yeah, I think they're, I think
they're both interesting. Yeah.
The the next guy is Jetavion Sanders, Jetavion Sanders.
So he, he is. So he's at 25% target threat run
last game and that's a that compares to 17% on the full
year. And his his routes have
definitely been ticking up. I mean, I guess as as the the
Panthers seem to be coalescing around these kind of young
rookies. He's interesting.
Like, I don't, I think the way I put your Tavian is like, if
you're, if you need someone to start a tight end, like he's
playable in a tight end spot. I don't think I'd flex him even
on FFPC unless like you have to be really, really desperate to
play Jose Von Sanders in your flex spot.
But I think if you like, let's say George Kittle is your tight
end, you don't really have a backup and his bye week is
coming up, you can play Jose Von Sanders.
I think he's I I don't he's probably not min priced and but
on the DraftKings. But as one of those low low
price tight ends, I think he can work too.
Yeah, he's definitely fun to watch.
And yeah, pretty much agree with everything you said there.
The last guy I had a note on on this chart is Jonnu Smith and
he's he's definitely been trending up lately.
I kind of thought that his increase in usage might stop
with Tua got back because the offense would be more capable of
attacking further down the field and not have to rely on, you
know, as much like scheme stuff to Janu.
Turns out they just like utilizing Janu.
He's had a a pretty strong targets per route run recently
these last few weeks. They love check down Sir Johnny
Smith it it doesn't seem to reduce that much real football
wise, but it's it's been usable for fantasy.
Yeah, he he isn't on the field as much as you'd want to, you
know, to be like a really strong play.
But I, I do think that, you know, they they're gonna keep
looks like they're gonna keep getting him pretty consistent
targets when he is on the field. And you know, this offense is
well designed enough that there's going to be touchdowns
to go around. So I like him as like a a
touchdown upside guy where you can rely on him getting schemed
a couple targets in a game. So he he's definitely he's on
the radar as you know, like a dart throw tight end, right,
right. Yeah, agreed.
And checking the notes. So I, I think that that that,
that that wraps us up. For the the backup.
Chart now so backup tight ends so I I mean your your note was
that Hawk is kind of slowly been worked back in it's it's funny
that they said no pitch count full reps right away and you
know being on the field for 60% of drop backs coming off in ACL
surgery is actually pretty good. But it's just funny how much
they like just miss that us. Yeah, yeah.
I I think to me I'm not particularly interested in
playing it before I see it in a a spot like this.
No, no. Because it's different than it's
different than like the rookies where you're playing it before
you see it, where the range of outcomes is so wide and there's
just so much unknown where this feels like it's going to be more
of kind of a gradual ramp up. He's going to, you know, week
over week get more and more snaps.
I think it's going to be hard for them to go, hey, or 60%
snaps TJ Hawkinson this last week.
Now it's 100% snaps TJ Hawkinson and he's the focal point of the
offense. Double digit targets, like I
think it's the kind of thing where we'll probably have a a
pretty clear ramp up for him. And so it's it's not something
where I feel like I need to play it before I see it, you know,
for for fear of missing out on the big explosion game.
The other guy that I had a note on here was Mike Kasiki.
We talked about it briefly earlier.
You got a couple factors here. Number one, you get the air call
ACL tear. So the great Eric all battle of
who is more in on Eric all ends with a whimper here.
And and so now you have Gesicki, who is very clearly going to be
their primary receiving tight end.
They're still going to mix in Tanner Hudson and I, I forget
the name of their third tight end, but he he'll mix in too.
That's that's kind of what the Bengals do.
But Gesicki looks very much like the next man up when T Higgins
is inactive. And yeah.
What's what's interesting is that he only had a 61% route
rate in week 9, which like that's very surprising given his
production, but he still got 6 targets for 90 area yards.
So he that's, I guess 24% targets per hour run 50 and A
dot. And so I think it feels like
he's kind of like a he's he's got this like specialty niche
role in the offence. Like they're only asking him to
do exactly the things that Mike Kasiki is good at or reasonable.
That and and Joe Burrow is good enough for that to actually work
out decently for fantasy. Yeah, he, I mean, if you look at
his chart, he, he has zero pass blocking steps on here.
They're only having him run routes.
He's and and he's deeper down the field.
You know, he's not, he's not just getting like these little
rinky dink targets. They're, they're further down
the field. But yeah, he's, he's not going
to be a full time player, but at least they are, they're getting
him targets and they're getting him down the field.
They're not making him block or anything like that.
I'm pulling up. I want to look at his, his snap
side position. And yeah, Kasiki lines up in the
slot far more than he lines up in line.
And he, in fact, he lines up out wide just as much or more than
he lines up in line. So Mike Kasiki is a tight end in
name only. He's, he's not actually a tight
end. He's, he's a big slot receiver
for them. And so that's, that's really the
way that you should treat him and view him.
He he's a wide receiver that's not going to run all the routes,
but he does have a a pretty good A dot and a pretty solid targets
per route. Run.
You remember to note that they were going to make Jermaine
Burton, like, a focal point on the offense.
Yeah. And then they had to completely
change at the last minute. I wonder if they were, like,
just looking around the room. Mike Gesicki do.
You. Yeah, yeah, I definitely,
definitely could be. But yeah, I'm.
I'm into the idea of attacking Gesicki again if.
You don't have any T Higgins for this Thursday night game.
Now the interesting thing is like on a on a showdown slate,
you've got this Mike Kasiki was the he was the chalk tied in
this last Sunday too. So it's not like the performance
went under the radar. Everyone is aware of the Mike
Kasiki chalk eruption. And so if you end up with T out
again, I, I almost wonder if Kasiki is just going to be so
chalky that it's hard to even play him.
Like I wonder if he'll get to the point where it's bad chalk
and you end up just fading that and you're relying on.
Right. That's a volatile kind of like
usage profile where you hit that top end and if it's gonna be
very popular then you bet the other end of the the volatility
spectrum. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm literally
just saying this for my benefit right now, but this is just to
help me remember when I'm doing my showdown process on Thursday.
I don't really want to mess with the Gasiki projection too much,
provided it it's a reasonable projection.
Really what I want to do is I just want to make sure that my
fields that I'm using to send against have a reasonable amount
of Kasiki in them. And I think that's reasonable
ownership. And then I just want to trust
what my Sims say on that. And if I end up with a bunch of
Kasiki still, because the projection is good enough into
the ownership, I'll roll with it.
And if I end up fading a sickie, I I want to roll with that too.
It it's something where I don't want to let my dumb human brain
try to be like, oh, it's bad chalk try to get off it.
Like I just want to make sure that my inputs are correct on it
and then I need. To trust the process from there,
but makes sense all right. We're we're in the home stretch.
We're we're down to down to the swing states wide receiver
charts here. So yeah, you're.
Yeah, looking at wide receiver charts, your first note was kind
of a question. Does Cooper Cup have his old
world back or was this game just a product of the puka or puka
ejection? So the biggest thing that every
time I look at a Cooper Cup stats and his A dot just gets
lower and lower and lower. And I, I am I don't want to like
get too carried away, but I get AI get a tough time coming away
with the idea like that. This is just a player who's at
the end of their career and who's kind of like buoyed by
playing with Matt Stafford, who's like a really good
quarterback. And we'll have high volume
counts. And so he did get 35% target
spread run in week 9, but that's on 14 targets with a 5.4 A dot.
And like this just keeps getting lower and lower.
It's tough for me to escape the conclusion that he just much
more limited than he was in the prime of his career.
That's still scoring fantasy points.
But I I think that puka has to be like the the, the predominant
predominant main driver of this offense, passing production.
Yeah, prior to the puka ejection cup was still leading in
targets. So I, I, we, we talked about
this last week where we said, you know, the, the puka outcome
from that first week back for both of them, that wasn't
necessarily like this is always the way it's going to be going
forward. And there's probably some
volatility there. And, and, you know, I wish that
we had gotten the full game here from puka so he could have seen
it play out. But I, I'm pretty sure, you
know, with the, the 1/2 that we did get and he played most of
the first half before he got ejected.
So, so with that, we did see it, you know, trending to be a, a
pretty strong cup game. I don't think it would have
changed a ton in the second-half, like maybe a little
bit. But I I think my take away here
is I don't want to be overly confident that it is puka over
cup or cup over puka. How many?
Just how many 14 target 5.6 A dot games can like he get like
Cooper? Cooper Cup, a lot of them like
any any other receiver like well, like Malik neighbors also
a lot of them, you know, like so in in these certain
circumstances where like either you're the only show in town,
like Malik neighbors or you're Cooper Cup and Matthew Stafford
is your quarterback. Like those those can happen.
I mean, like even Jamar Chase, like Jamar Chase had what like
11 targets, 27 area yards this week.
Is that something like that? So.
I don't, yeah. But Chase has had games where,
like, they've targeted him deep down the field, right?
Right. That just hasn't happened for
Cooper Cook this year. No, I I, I agree.
I'm, I'm just saying like, I think that this type of target
volume and, and these types of targets are sustainable for
Cooper Cup. And, and yes, like when you're
getting stuff like that, it's just going to be a lower ceiling
than the guys that are like, it's just while he's still
sitting here in the same neighborhood as Justin Jefferson
Malik neighbors. You know, it's, it's not the
same type of ceiling outcome as those guys.
Like a Cooper Cup ceiling is probably like a 30 pointer where
he gets 2 touchdowns, 12 catches, you know, and 80 yards
or what, what have you, you know, so I don't know.
I I'm like, I don't want to, to look a a fantasy point gift
horse in the mouth with Cooper Cup and be like, I can't play
you because you're you're low A dot.
You're you're just a bunch of targets low A dot PPR scam.
It's like, yeah, but that can like what if what if we just
kind of think of Cooper Cup as much better, less washed Adam
Thielen from the first half of last season where just like,
yeah, they like he's just going to get a bunch of targets and
like he'll score a touchdown here and there and he'll he'll
accumulate and like. Yeah, I I mean, I guess that
that that's going to happen in games.
We're going to get games like this where that just happens.
It just is is is that going to is like is that going to be
good? Is that going to be good enough
for the Rams over like a 5-6 like how many we've got 7 game.
We've got eight games left. So two months left to week 17.
I, I think, I think it's fine like to pay to play at a cheap
price, but it, it does, it does seem clear to me that we've had
like a clear like worsening of, of, of his, of his play.
Yeah, I, I think that's reasonable.
The next guy I had a note on was Darnell Moody and he's one where
I really feel like I've had trouble kind of pegging him down
this season and, and getting a a good understanding of the
profile and like what is a a reasonable range of outcomes for
him week over week coming into the season.
I think most of the people that, you know, consume the same
content that we consume and and think about the game Similarly,
we're pretty out on Darnell Moody where, you know, guy had
one good season a couple years ago, just kind of left him for
dead moving to the Falcons where sure, he might be the wide
receiver too, but he might end up being the third option behind
Pitts at London. It turns out that's not the
case. Like he's very clearly the
second option in this passing attack now early in the season
where Drake London was having just a little bit of a slow
start just due to the, the volatility of the, the passing
volume going between all the different options.
And, and I think also kind of a little bit of a weird start for
Kirk Cousins or he's just getting acclimated and coming
off the injury. I, I had been pegged Darnell
Mooney and Drake London kind of as like A1A1B in this offense.
I don't really think that's accurate either.
I think it's, it's pretty clear that Drake London is like, you
know, the, the clear one in the offense.
But I think Darnell Mooney is a very competent too.
And you know, if we, if we kind of think back and just use Kirk
Cousins, you know, with the Vikings as kind of a framework
to put this in, like he supported 2 very fantasy viable
wide receivers, you know, very, very different profile than Adam
Thielen as the previous Kirk Cousins wide receiver 2.
But I I think that the the accurate way to look at Darnell
Mooney the rest of the season is very viable kind of lower end
wide receiver 2. Do you do you?
So yeah, I guess is his place on this chart like is he a
reasonable comparison to like a Devonta Smith or a Devonta
Adams? Like is, is that is that
reasonable or or is he like a tier below those guys?
I mean, definitely in terms of pedigree, but it's it's hard to.
So you got a guy here, 21% Tigers per run, 1.9 yards per
route, run 12.3 A dot. He's running routes at a like
95. He's in the 95 to 100%.
So 97% route share. I think low end wide receiver 2
is pretty good way to put that. I guess when you compare him to
somebody like Devonta Smith, Devonta Smith is somebody where
you can just get a game where he takes over in a way that I
don't. I don't think that's really
there for Darnell Mooney. He's more of a guy where he can
get there by having a couple big plays, but he's not going to
dominate a defense so thoroughly that like it's it's no way.
It's really hard to see a week. No Mooney, no money.
But I think low end wider Super 2 is pretty good
characterization. We were well on our way to no
Mooney, no money this past week. Honestly, I mean, if if the
Cowboys had been able to be a little bit more competitive and
and forced the issue for the Falcons or they had to keep
passing like we, we may well have gotten no Mooney, no money.
Now granted. Right, if you got a defense that
can't stop anything. And and off of a Drake London
injury. But but yes.
Right. And, and and they will just
simply allow them to throw deep to Darnell Mooney every time
then. Yeah, I guess that that, that's
that that'll happen. So So what you're saying is do
they play the Jags at any point in this season?
OK, the the last guy I had a note on for this chart.
I mean, we have to talk about JSN finally, finally the
long-awaited JSN breakout game. Yeah, and and what's what's most
interesting about this game is is the actual if you look at the
red chart, it's like he's getting and if you look at the A
dot, like he had like a 20 yard A dot.
And then oh, I forget on a lot of targets.
And so so just I guess to characterize he's gone from like
they're only targeting him short to intermediate to like just
dominating. No.
And believe the Rams defense dominating them deep.
That's interesting. And I think some of that has to
be that they were like, OK, we need to we need to do this even
though DK Mac Metcalf isn't playing, we need somebody to do
that. And so we just have to try this
and it worked really, really well.
So I think I think it's, it's probably harder to project that
kind of usage when DK Metcalf comes back.
But like I, I would, I would hope that they kind of open up
these kind of roots routes to him in future where he he is
running more deeper and like that that kind of like probably
makes him harder to cover to where it it's you can't just
like say, OK, I I'm never going to have to turn and run with
this guy. I can break on everything where
that's that's not really true. If if he's a true trap to catch
his deep. Yeah, I, I mean, you certainly
hope this is a genie out of the bottle moment for Seattle where
they realize that they, they should just be deploying this
guy at all depths now. I mean, I, I want to believe
that the, the breakout is here and he's just going to be, you
know, incredible going forward. I, I think like expecting him to
just be that level of dominant going forward is probably a
little bit overly optimistic. And I do want to, you know, I I
just want to rein us in a tiny bit in that it didn't happen
against the Rams. Like the Rams are pretty poor
pass defense. Like, so now the the one thing
that does bug me when people try to diminish a performance
because it came against a bad defense is, well, what, what did
you want the player to do? You know what, what else did you
want him to do other than utterly dominate?
Like he like if if another receiver where we thought they
were, you know, just this elite receipt.
If Justin Jefferson had the JSN performance against the Rams, we
wouldn't, you know, belittle it because, Oh well, it's the Ram.
So it wasn't even that great by Justin Jefferson.
Or, you know, if if CD Lamb or Jamar chase go out there and
nuke the Rams like we're not taking anything away from them,
right? I do, I do want that context of
like, hey, it was against a pretty easy defense, but at the
same time, I I think you've got to you got to take.
Note of it well, well, I mean people were worried that this
guy was just like a slot short A dot merchant that was like a
legitimate like people were were like not just worried putting
him into that box and and and that's not true.
Like he's proven that to be not true.
So it's like it's it has to change the perception.
Yeah, it'll it's going to be really fun to to see how it
shakes out here. I I would assume that we're
going to get DK Metcalf back before too long, but here, so
you get they they've got the buy here.
So you probably get DK back for this 49ers game coming out of
the buy. But man, you've got got a couple
really fun matchups. Then you've got the Cardinals
after that 49ers matchup. That's a really, really fun one.
Cardinals love to give up explosive plays.
Then you get The Jets. That's a tough one.
Followed by the Cardinals again, see the Cardinals twice in three
weeks. And then unfortunately it's it's
three pretty 3 tougher matchups to end the season with Packers,
Vikings, Bears. But you do get that really fun
stretch with the Cardinals in there twice.
So it'll it'll be fun. Definitely one to watch.
But let's move on to the next chart here.
A couple guys that I've got notes on here.
We we mentioned this briefly when we were talking about the
dolphins, But I mean Tyree kill like his his weighted targets
per route run are still fantastic.
You know, he's he's over here in the quadrant of the chart that
we want. He's all the way over here with
these guys that can put up these big explosive games like Mike
Evans, George Pickens, you know, CD Lamb, Nico Collins.
We just haven't seen the fantasy points come for Tyreke yet this
season. Now, granted, he's he's had 3
1/2 games with Tua. So it when you frame it like
that, if if we were heading into week 4, you know, and it's like,
Oh, no, Tyree kill hasn't dropped a 50 burger yet.
Like no one would be panicking. He'd be like, yeah, he had like
80 yards here and 90 yards here and whatever.
But so I'm not, I'm not all that concerned.
I'm just, I'm hoping that people, you know, forget how
incredible the Tyree kill true ceiling outcome is.
And I I think it's just a keep slamming Tyree kill until it
pays off type of situation. Right.
I mean, the usage is definitely lower than it has been in years
past. Like even with Chua, it's it's
been a little lower. Like against the bills, just 17%
target spread run and now the other games are 25 and 33%, but
it's been a little bit lower. I'm, I'm still with you where
the the sample size is so small and which you that can't get too
carried away and still should have a heavy, heavy prior to
like our prior expectation and or heavy lean to our prior
expectation. But I, I I think there's like
some cause for concern, but agree with you that you, you,
you you keep playing this. Yeah.
OK, I, I have to talk about Quinton Johnston, who put up yet
another pretty impressive fantasy week.
I, I saw a stat that's been circulating out there that
Quinton Johnston is the player that has gotten the most fantasy
points on plays coming from broken coverage this season by a
pretty wide margin. And if you watch the game
against the Browns, I mean the play where he has like the long
touchdown, there's there's no one in the zip code, you know,
like now to to give Quintin Johnson his flowers 2023 Quintin
Johnson puts that ball. Yeah, he's he's looking at a,
you know, 60 yard touchdown and it it goes to the turf.
So his hands, I mean, he hasn't had the the drop problems as bad
as he had last year. Like you definitely can can give
him that credit. But I do not think that this is
I'd be surprised if this is a good player, you know, is all
I'm saying. Really.
The reason I wanted to talk about Quentin Johnston is to
talk about Ladd Mcconkey, because Ladd Mcconkey is the guy
that actually is like the true one in the offense.
I mean, they look like they're in similar parts on the chart.
But man, like so much of the Quentin Johnston production has
just been like fraudulent broken plays and lad Lad Mcconkey looks
like he's the real deal here. And and with the pass William
going up for the Chargers, like it really does feel like they've
discovered that they can be successful passing the ball.
I'm Lad Mcconkey might be one of those players where he closes
the season and is is just that. Classic rookie.
Explosion in the second-half of the year?
Like, would would you be at all surprised if we end up seeing
something like Lad Mcconkey averages 10 targets a game to
close the season out? Yeah, yeah, I'd be pretty
surprised. I mean, what's, what's his,
what's his targets for route run been these last four weeks?
Last so it's been around 2022 percent 2122% OK so even with
the elevated past attempts he's been getting 76 and seven
targets where's last week, Quinton.
So Quinton Johnson, he's missed some weeks.
So last week he was at five. Yeah, I, I, I mean, like I, I, I
have the same priority that you do that Lad Mcgonkie is a lot
better than QJ, but I'm not, I'm not seeing this here in the in
the Matrix. Like his, like I, I guess what's
interesting here is if you look at the first four games for Lad
Mcconkey, his target spread run was like 28%.
And then when he's been actually producing a little bit more,
he's averaged at 20%. So it's it's hard to know how to
read that. I mean, to me it it seems like
that's just a function of they were such low pass volume early
that it's easy to get some kind of wonky targets for route run
numbers, right? Like if you're only throwing, if
you're only throwing 20 passes like one, the difference of one
target is a 5% swing you. Know targets for route, right?
Yeah. And then as they scale up with
44 drop backs, he's at 17 percent, 38 drop backs, he's at
20%. Twenty percent, 34 drop backs at
22%, where it's like every week he's getting 6%, six to seven
targets. Yeah, OK.
So I was I was mistaken in thinking that his targets for
route run or scaling, but it sounds like it's not scaling as
much with the volume increasing, it's getting spread out a little
more. Yeah, I think that's what's
happening. I I might just be stubborn here,
but I just, I want to bet on the fact that this guy's the best
receiver on the team and that he earns more volume going forward.
Yeah, I think that's pretty reasonable.
I, I, I think it's probably a spot where I'd probably go
against the Herod a little bit. Like if, if everybody's just
ignoring this kind of like middling usage stats, I, I, I'd
probably not play them. Like that doesn't make, that
wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Where if, if everybody panicked a little bit too much about it,
about a four-game sample in, in a rookie season, I, I, I, I, I'd
probably play into it. Especially when we know when
we've seen the ceiling that he can put up.
Yeah, let me I'm I'm pulling up my early rankings for the Dog
Bowl and I want to just give you a couple quick one V1 straight
up. So this week, lad Mcconkey or
George Pickens? And oh, I'm on the spot and I'd
probably Pickens. Probably.
OK, that's how I have it too, lad.
Mcconkey or Josh? Downs.
That's pretty close, but probably slight edge to Josh
Downs. Lad Mcconkey or Cortland Sutton.
Let me I don't want to fly completely blind on Sutton, I
don't want to just make it up. He's been.
He's been getting pretty good targets for route.
So yeah, he he's like important for their offense, but his QB is
like ass, which is not Rand breaking analysis.
So he had a he had 10 targets, 122 yards against the Ravens.
So, and then 11 targets for 101 yards in the prior game.
And I think that was the Panther Panthers.
And so, yeah, I I think that's close as well.
But you would do something. I think you'd Sutton over over
Mcconkey. OK, I have Mcconkey over Sutton
and then the next, the last guy I'll ask you about, Terry
Mclaurin. Oh, Terry Mclaurin.
Easy. OK, even even in that pit
matchup where you might get the slow down.
Yeah, I think so. I think so.
I think, I think McLaren is kind of like hitting that kind of
star territory where, yeah, I think, I think, I think that's
how I'd have it. OK.
All right, the next guy had a note on all right, this is this
is my early, early kind of flag plant for this week.
Like Scroll down guy. It's probably probably more like
dog bowl. I I haven't looked at the DFS
pricing for this guy, but I do I do really like his quarterback
this week. That's Ricky Pearsall.
You got the rookie coming off the buy now.
I, I reserve the right to change this opinion.
If you get, you know, Jawan Jennings fully, fully back.
It sounds like he'll probably be back.
But I, I wouldn't be surprised, you know, if you get Jawan
Jennings with some questionable tags in practice this week, if
it's just Ricky Pearsall, that's going to be the guy that is, is
getting more opportunities here. But I, I just I like this spot a
lot here against the Tampa defense and the 49ers.
You just have volatility naturally among their guys and
like certainly Ricky Pearsall is the least likely to get there
out of George Kittle or Debo Samuel or Christian McCaffrey.
But it it wouldn't surprise me if if you told me that Ricky
Pearsall got there on, you know, 2 random touchdowns like I, I
wouldn't be so surprised. Yeah.
And I think that's might, might be how it would have to happen.
His routes aren't great like in, in his last week, this was week
eight, he had a 7% right run, 771% not 771% right run and then
just 17% targets per out run, 1.6 yards per out run.
I know you have to give a, you have to give heavy deference to
the first round draft capital and, and, and the opportunity
set here. That's pretty good.
All of that is pretty good. But every new week we get off
sort of middling peripherals from this guy.
The more I'm I'm starting to lean towards the average college
production rather than draft capital.
I mean, we've only, we've only had two weeks since the guy,
yeah. Only two weeks, that's true.
That's a huge shot through the chest, like I.
He got shot but now, now he now we're having week 3 after
getting shot in the chest. But you so you're week 3 off of
a bye. And I think, I mean, even from
the first week to the second week, like there's pretty
substantial improvement for him. Like the first week he looked
like he was not like he was fucking up the timing on some of
his routes. Like he, he ended up like
causing one of the the interceptions for Purdy 'cause
he was just like late getting to the spot and Purdy had to throw
it and, and. Then low pace for Purdue.
I'm saying from from the first game that he played in the
second game, there's a lot of improvement and they didn't
didn't go away from him. They didn't say like, oh, you
went out there and and totally screwed the pooch the first
opportunity we gave you Rook like the next.
They actually they did decrease his his right share from 84 to
71 like he, he, he got, he went from 5 targets to four targets.
He did go from 21 yards to 38 yards and and from 16% targets
per everyone to 17% targets per everyone.
That's improvement. It's it's.
Better, but you can kind of see what I'm getting at where like
I'm I'm not totally Pooh poohing it because you're getting game
tree of a rookie first round receiver.
I I'm, but some of that is kind of like.
I don't think you can ignore it. Yeah, I mean, this this week,
though, you're just you're having to go pretty far in the
dumpster to to play some of these guys.
Like for example, I mean, I think for some of these, I know,
I know what you're going to say. Demario Douglas or Ricky
Pearsall. Oh, I mean that.
That would be Papa Douglas. OK, Roma, Duze or Ricky?
Piersall And that's pretty close.
I think that's pretty close, but it's totally from the hip.
Yeah, here. Here's a gross one.
Xavier Worthy or Ricky Piersall again?
Close, but like that that that that to me, I, I, I actually
consider them to be very similar where first round draft capital
good situation, but they they've been bad.
Yeah, I think, I think that's pretty reasonable.
All right, let's move on to the last chart.
We might be able to get out of here in under 2 hours.
Trico clock is running. We got 10 minutes.
The the first note I had here, I want to ask you about DeAndre
Hopkins. So obviously his route rate is
going to improve here over these next couple weeks.
He's getting acclimated with the Chiefs.
But do you think that this this game that he had yesterday was
an anomaly? Should we expect the KC pass
catchers to rotate week over week with who's getting there?
Or are Kelsey and DeAndre Hopkins going to just be the two
guys that the passing? Off.
I mean, his domination was out of the necessity, right?
Like they have some warm bodies out there other than those two
guys. So yeah, I think his red chair
is going to increase and then I think he's going to dominate in
targets. Yeah, I feel pretty good about
Nuke. I I tend to agree He's he's in a
pretty good spot. All right, the next note I had
here was Cedric Tillman. Man, if you watch this game, you
weren't super happy if you had played Cedric Tillman in DFS for
the vast majority of the game. But then in typical Jameis
Winston fashion, absolute pure garbage time bailout on Cedric
Tillman. But I mean, the garbage time
stats, they do still count those fantasy points.
They do spend Draco. So I don't know, like I kind of
kind of feel like that is Jameis's MO anyway.
Like if you are in a really crappy game, like he still gives
you a shot to get there in garbage time.
So are are we discounting the Cedric Tillman performance or is
this just like it doesn't matter how you get there?
Like he still put points in the box.
So if you're looking at this here, he ran a 98% route rate
and then he got 18% targets per run.
And because they had 56 drop backs that 18% on on and he he
ran almost every route. That 18% translated to 10
targets for 75 yards and a 1.36 yards per run.
And I'm, I mean, you're, you're happy you got the touchdown.
Now I think he's playable, but this is a pretty clear case of
just really high volume and, and, and, and gross efficiency.
But I maybe that's just part of the Jimmy's experience.
And the next week, like you need Jimenez to play well for Cedric
Tillman to play well, you, you have to be happy with the, with
the route rate. I don't, I think you have to be
a little bit concerned that or not concerned.
But it's hard to play a guy when he's at 18% target spread run
and you combine that with 1823% the last week, So 20%.
And I mean that Cedric Tillman is the type of guy where the
boomers salivate like, oh, why would I take early receivers?
I'm going to be able to get a, a guy like Cedric Tillman on
waivers and play him and, and he'll get me my 10 points a
week. I, I kind of think that's,
that's who he is. He'll get, he'll probably score
touchdowns. It he's a big Buddy Guy.
So like that makes sense. And but I'm, I'm not over like
and, and, and just for like a transparency and, and, and being
a good podcast. We, we were pretty excited about
these guys last week. And I think, I think when you
get a game like that, you have to, when you have short data,
you have to evolve pretty quickly.
And I I'm evolving to to being a lot less interested in it.
Yeah, I'm, I think I'm a little more interested than you are in
Cedric Tillman specifically. Just I, I really liked him as a
rookie. I drafted a lot of him last
year. I like the profile.
I just, I thought that he got kind of lost in in the draft
process just because of the injury.
Maybe you have a Jamez bounce back game and and he's a big
part of it like that. That seems reasonable.
Yeah, I, I, I'm still, I'm holding out hope for Senator
Tillman. The one where I'm, I'm with you
on like, all right, let's move quick.
Is, is Elijah Moore where we have more, we have more data on
this guy where he just he hasn't done very much.
Like there were reasons to be excited about the profile when
he first came out, but nothing happened.
Nothing happened. Nothing happened.
You get a bunch of targets last week, OK, you know, yardage then
again, like you get the targets this week, but he he doesn't do
anything with it. And so it's just like that's,
that's one where I'm willing to move on a little quicker.
Senator Tillman, though I I still want to leave the light
on. For he Should somebody be
playing Tillman over Judy? I think you do I, I think the
ceiling for Tillman is, is higher, right?
You just have like, you kind of know what Judy is like.
You're a little bit more uncertain, dude.
Yeah, and also like, if you just want to be aligned with with my
brand and just, you know, stand on business, that Jerry Judy
fucking stinks. Like that, in and of itself, is
reason to play Cedric Tillman. But if these guys, if, if one,
if everybody was playing Cedric Tillman, nobody's playing Jerry
Judy. I'm playing Jerry Judy.
Yeah, yeah, if, if. It's a good way round.
I'm playing Cedric Tillman. Yeah, if you told me for certain
that no one was going to play Jerry Judy and everyone's
jamming Cedric Tillman, I'd probably have a little Jerry
Judy. I I still do have to stare at I
I've got a A555 team that's pretty good and and has a chance
of advancing with CMC on it, which would be one of the few,
you know, team. There's got to only be a handful
of those teams that can advance in a tournament that's that's
that small of a field. But I believe it has Jerry Judy
on it. And so anytime that I check that
team to see how many points back it is, I have to stare at stupid
Jerry Judy on that roster. I should have should have stuck
with my gut on it. But anyway, yeah, no, I, I mean,
if you maybe handicap it and say like who averages more fantasy
points from here on out, I still think I'd give it to Tillman,
but it's close. It's way closer than you would
than I'm implying. You know, it's, it's much closer
than I'm letting on, but I think I'd still need Tillman.
OK, last guy, then we're done. Can we get this board done in
under 2 minutes? Trico Khalil Shakur.
So Khalil Shakur, you can kind of see him here.
He's he's near the he's the second highest guy as far as
fantasy points per game, only below Jawan Jennings.
He's been getting a lot of targets lately.
Let's see last three weeks, 7 targets, 9 targets, 7 targets.
The snaps have been pretty consistent.
Like the number of snaps he's getting is not really all that
different. He's just been getting targeted
more lately. The the flight.
Yeah. The fly in the ointment is he's
getting like negative A dot. Like it's all at the line of
scrimmage. It's the stuff they thought was
going to be the Dalton Kincaid stuff.
And then they realized, like, oh, this guy is not that
exciting with the ball in his hands.
Like, let's, I guess let's give it to Kool Shakur instead.
So I I don't know is give me give me your insight on Khalil
Shakur here. I think I mean he's what's
interesting here is that he's getting low A dots, but his yard
perception is actually solid. Like in week in week 7 you've
got a 0.7 A dot, but 9.3 yards per reception.
At week 81.9 A dot, 11.9 yards per reception and then week nine
negative .7 and then 8.3. And so I yeah, like not not that
this is a great comparison, but one person, one player that like
was like shoehorned as like a bad player or a limited player
early in his career because of this was Devo Samuel, where he
had this really low A dot, but he was actually turning, he was
actually turning those layoff a dot trows into good yardage.
And I if if that I think that's what we're seeing here with
secure. And I think you have to be, you
get a lot more concerned about that kind of gimmicky usage when
you're not actually get getting the production, when you're
getting the production like play away.
Like last three weeks you're getting an average of like 8
targets a game or 7 1/2 targets a game.
Like you're not like you're not jamming that guy.
And but I I, I wouldn't shy away because of the ADA when he's
still producing anyway. Yeah, yeah, definitely agree.
He is like in this week particularly he's a very
reasonable play because of how fit it is.
I would pending pending the Amari Cooper status.
If Cooper is out, I would bet you see just an absolutely
absurd rate of Josh Allen being stacked with Khalil Shakur this
week. Right.
And then, then you don't play him.
Yeah, you just probably don't play him if he if he's going
unplayed, which I highly, highly doubt given how thin the player
pool is right then sure. I'm, I'm very excited to take
my, you know, 7 to 9 targets of 0.
Right. I mean, if you can get, if you,
if you can find somebody else, you are you going to be able to
find somebody else with a target projection and in a similar
range as him where he's going? Let me let me pull up a couple
guys that are going back-to-back with him.
I would, I would say very likely not.
But again, it is a pretty thin week.
So he might be just kind of. Kind of, yeah.
Then, then, then that's a sorry, I know I'm going back and forth.
But if that's the case, that's a that's a fair who, even though
he's getting drafted a lot, would be underpriced.
Khalil Shakur or Jordan? Addison, you do, You do Addison
there, I think. OK, Khalil Shakur or Calvin
Ridley. And Calvin Ridley, you do.
Calvin Ridley? No, no, no question.
OK, Khalil Shakira, Brian Thomas.
And again, Brian Thomas. Khalil Shakira.
Marvin Harrison. Marvin Harrison.
OK, here's here's one this this got to be a harder one.
You've answered these way too easy, Khalil.
Yeah, I mean, these are all good players.
OK, Khalil Shakira, DJ Moore. That that that one is a little
bit harder and where he he actually he is a good player
too. And but the vibes have been like
putrid. And who do the Bears play this
week? The Bears play the Patriots.
And yeah, I, I, I think, I think that probably is DJ Murr.
And now are these these are all guys I'm assuming that are all
are all also 100% drafted? Yeah, I mean, in the in the dog
bowl, yes. Just like, dude, if you're
getting down to guys that aren't 100% dropped in the Dog Bowl,
you're talking like Rakeem Jarrett, Noah Brown, Cedric
Wilson, Kendrick Bourne. It's not a scroll of the F down
week. In the Michael Pittman, No, I
mean the that's the thing. Like you're scrolling the F down
to even find a draftable player in the sixth round like Demario
Douglas or Khalil Shakur. No, that one's, that one's a
little bit more interesting. Let me look up what he's been
doing. I think that's pretty close.
I think that's a true toss up.
OK. All right.
Those were all the notes that I had.
We did end up a little bit over two hours, but thank you for
sticking with us this evening. We hope that we were able to
provide you with a little bit of entertainment and distraction
from the election coverage that is going on.
I have no idea what's been happening in the last two hours.
And you know what? I feel great about that, Draco.
Yeah, I'd rather not. All right.
We will see you guys next week. Good luck everybody.
See you everybody. Hey, I'm sorry.
I kept. I kept having to leave.
I kept feeling my throat.