We are through two weeks of the 2025 NFL season, and I'm
starting to think that maybe I should have been drafting
Jonathan Taylor over Ladd Mcconkey.
This is Pat Fryer, Helmo. This is what This is what I'm
Pat. Anita Hand job exercise.
Jamar. Alpha play Chase.
Are you kidding? You can't handle the heat?
It looks like we're finally at this point here, right?
I totally jumped the gun there. Had to cut the cold open short
there, I'm I'm sure you deemed it.
You were. You were just going too long.
You just thought it was inappropriate to suggest that I
should be drafting Jonathan Taylor.
Overlap the coffee. Yeah, I, I, I didn't, I didn't,
I didn't like that. Yeah, I was, I was checking my
exposures to, you know, I wanted to have a Jonathan Taylor cold
open since he's the cover boy for this week on the thumbnail.
And I, I was looking at my exposures and it's like, what
can I say about Jonathan Taylor? It's like I'm like basically
even with the field on it, I'm 7.9%.
So I can't be like, oh, I'm so underweight.
Just trying to think of something funny.
And then I looked, I was like, oh, yeah, I I should have
clicked this guy over. Lev Mcconkey.
Yeah. Anyway, let's get into it.
I think we have plenty of we, we, we've, we've a little bit
the, the talking points about the, the running backs,
particularly rookie running backs, but we'll, we'll save
that for the the next segment. Yeah, we're going to be
efficient tonight. I mean, last show we were like,
OK, we're going to be tight. We're going to come out of the
gate strong and we went over 2 hours per usual.
We're going to try and be a little tighter, get you all the
important Nuggets, but maybe in in just a shorter time frame
tonight. So here we go.
Yeah. So I'm, I'm sharing this, right?
Yes, I am. And so the way I'm, the way the,
my kind of biggest reaction on this was we actually, we have a
lot of guys who had a lot of dropbacks, but are not kind of
have, have not been efficient so far.
And, and normally inefficiency kind of goes hand in hand with a
lot of dropbacks because if your quarterback is playing badly,
you're, you're going to be losing the game and not scoring
points. So you have to throw it a lot.
And but it, it, it, it is still interesting in that we have a
lot of these guys with a lot of volume, creating volume for
their offense, but the, the, the efficiency just hasn't been
there so far. And, and so maybe there's kind
of like a, an efficiency regression play and, and some of
these guys can deliver breakouts at going forward.
Yeah, I, I, there's a bunch of guys here that I want to talk
about through the lens of, you know, they're getting a lot of
opportunity through the volume, through the drop backs per game.
And I want to add a little bit of color to some of them here
because I think it's, it's important to understand.
So for example, like Dak Prescott, Cowboys go into
overtime. I believe they run 81 plays
against the Giants total. So that's inflating his drop
backs per game. I would expect the Cowboys to be
pretty pass heavy, but I think that number is going to be
inflated. I I think that's one where we'll
see it trend down over the course of this season just
because it's such a high number right now.
Spencer Rattler, I think that is explained by the fact that the
Saints will probably be bad and that Kellen Moore really seems
to be emphasizing pace and he does seem to be leaning into the
past. So I think Rattlers is going to
be reasonably sticky that that's one where I wouldn't really
expect it to regress as much as I would DAC Gino's one where I
this is a tricky one. There's a lot to parse here.
The first one is the Raiders offensive line looked atrocious
last night, like one of the worst in the league.
Just getting absolutely manhandled by the Chargers.
I mean even after Khalil Mack leaves the game with absolutely
gruesome elbow injury. I don't know if you saw that
Trico, but his arm was going in a direction that arms don't go.
Yeah, I, I, I got to confess, I did not say for the 10:00 PM
Yeah, it. Was a It was a late East Coast
game, but yeah, I I mean, all that you missed was the Raiders
offensive line stinking out loud.
So I could see this going a couple ways.
Some teams when the offensive line is that bad, they just run
because it's easier for a bad offensive line to not get your
quarterback killed. If you're just running the ball
all game and you're like, whatever, we're just going to
run. Other times they go into the
more like Dolphins direction where it's like, well, we still
have to pass, but we're just going to focus on getting the
ball out really quickly. And the Raiders do seem to be
doing a lot of deeper concepts and it makes sense with their
receivers too. You know, they've got Trey
Tucker, they've got Deonte Thornton, both of those guys
running deeper routes down the field.
Even Brock Bowers, A dot believe is north of 10.
So you've got a lot of guys operating pretty deep down the
field. So it's these longer concepts.
So I'm wondering if the Raiders have to change something
philosophically and stick with this heavier pass rate or these
higher number of drop backs per game rather or if they end up
shifting into a more run heavy philosophy.
I would say Gino has a good amount of volatility there.
Where DAC, I think I know directionally where he's going.
Rattler, I think he's generally gonna stay in the same space in
Gino. It's volatile.
It could stay really high, it could decrease.
The other one that I wanted to add context to is Drake May.
Really, really interesting one because week one it was a ton of
drop backs. Week 2, not a ton of attempts
come out of the drop backs and and he doesn't rush as much
either. So it's just a lower number of
drop backs overall. Also, a lot of the targets go to
the running backs. The receivers and tight ends get
fewer targets in Week 2 and the commentary from the coaching
staff out of Week 1 was that we want to do something different
in the running game. We want to have different
utilization in the running game and those that are slappy minded
like myself thought this means it's Trayvon Henderson wheels up
in week two baby. It's happening already.
And that is not what they meant. They they meant we want to run
the ball more and they actually meant that we want Antonio
Gibson more involved. Of the running backs, Antonio
Gibson is the one that saw his snaps increase and both from
Andre and Henderson saw their relative share decrease compared
to Gibson. So May is going to be an
interesting one. But those are the ones that I
think were pretty important context of guys that have that
room to to see improvement in their fantasy production from
adding efficiency to this high volume.
But I'm curious to to get your thoughts on those guys, Dritco.
Yeah, So one thing that that kind of stood out to me right
away as I as I as I kind of parched through the Raiders and
if they're going to pass more, if they're going to run more.
One thing that's kind of interesting is that per ESPN and
PFF, their pass blocking, their pass blocking win rate, their
pass blocking PFF grades are actually pretty solid and their
their run block win grade is dog shit.
It's 32 last in the week and it's more mid table on the PFF
stuff. So I I guess that the one thing
I can be, I feel like there's a consensus there is that their
path blocking has actually been solid overall.
And which is probably, it's probably how they have been able
to, to do these kind of long A dot and trows.
I guess that that's what makes sense to me.
And, and in the context of their offensive line not being very
good, then I kind of think that the, the way that this resolves
is, is them actually continuing to pass it the way they are.
And, and I, I, I do think that there's, I do think that the way
this kind of resolves is, is more RAM is how do I say it?
It, it is still continued strong volume, both in terms of the,
the, the drop box and, and probably the A dot, but we're
probably seeing some, we're probably seeing some negative,
negative variance there. I don't want to say too much
because outside of Brock Bowers and Jacoby Myers, their passing
options aren't, aren't fantastic.
Brock Bowers, those seem to be hurt.
Who, who, who knows how much, but I, I, I, I do I, I think I
do expect that to, to get better, to be maybe more like
Week 1 than than what we saw in Week 2.
Yeah, that's, that's a good note just from from watching the
game. I mean, it was the Chargers were
in Gino's lap like almost immediately on what felt like
the majority of drop back attempts.
So I, I wonder if they just had a really good pass, walking
great in week 1 and Week 2 is really poor or something.
Or maybe I'm, I'm just, you know, biased and, and watching
Week 2 and it's, it's vivid to me because I just watched it and
it was so bad by my perception. We'll, we'll talk more about
Bowers and his role in the offense because I do think he is
the straw that stirs the drink and I think the injury matters
there. And there was some other
defensive scheme things that I noticed while watching the game
that I want to talk about, but I think we see.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll go into more of the
receivers. I'm just trying to understand.
And because like what I'm saying here is that his, his time to
throw is pretty close to 3 seconds, which is up there.
Like that's a decent time to throw.
And, and it might be that like they, they kick so much ass in
Week 1 and they got destroyed in Week 2 and that the average is
kind of coming out as, as middle of the pack.
That might be kind of what I'm looking at when with two weeks
of data. And but I, I, I I I still, I
still think like the signal is that their pass block is a lot
better than their run blocking. And that's that's definitely a
good note in the same vein of all those guys that we
discussed, we had kind of talked about before the show, guys that
we identified on this chart that have room to benefit in their
fantasy point scoring just from adding efficiency because
they're already seeing these high drop backs.
But maybe they're not as efficient as either their talent
would suggest or or they're, you know, just running bad
currently. And so a lot of these are names
we already mentioned, but Dak Prescott, Geno Smith, Baker is 1
where we we didn't really talk about yet.
But I do think we've seen Baker be very efficient, you know,
just last season. And it wouldn't surprise me to
see him, you know, have that efficiency come back or, or
improve a little bit from here. Even if it's not a sustained
thing, just having efficiency spikes would make sense to me.
And obviously Mahomes as well. Now I think for Mahomes, it's
pretty easy to say you might need a catalyst for that where
hey, he needs, if you're worthy back, you need Rashi Rice or
something to help him out in the past.
That's probably similar. Some probably similar with Baker
that you probably he probably does need Godwin back.
Yeah, Godwin back certainly could be a big help and a
catalyst there. The the last one is another one
that we mentioned already is Drake May, who Week 1 didn't
look quite as good as a passer as I was hoping right.
And then, but last week we too looked better, but it was on
lower volume and a lot of it was to the running backs and not the
not the receivers and tight ends.
The thing that I'm seeing from the Patriots, though, is they
really do not have a a weapon on offense.
Like they're it's not even like, oh, they only have one guy.
It's like there is no one that is able to consistently win.
So I, I see this as like a vacuum for opportunity.
So one of the players that I, I kind of gave Pat grief on
consistently over the summer was Kyle Williams too high on Kyle
Williams. How could I ever take Kyle
Williams over Demario Douglas? Demario's getting all this camp
hype. He's he's clearly the second
best, you know, pass catcher on the Patriots according to all
these beats, all this, these glowing reviews, right?
And all it took was watching two games of the Patriots to be
like, OK, I see we should have been drafting Kyle Williams
higher because there's just an absolute void of talent here.
And Pop Douglas being the number 2 receiver is actually it's bad
for the Patriots, not good for Pop Douglas.
Correct. Yeah, it's, it's just a void of
talent. And so you get anyone with any
modicum of talent here, be that Trayvon Henderson or Kyle
Williams, someone with a a large error bar from where we could
project how good they are. Right.
And this is the exact kind of situation where players like
that can smash. So I'm really excited about
Trayvon Henderson going forward just because there's so much
room in this offense. Like someone could come take
such a huge portion of the pie because just like in, you know,
if you think through like a a wide receiver room or a
backfield where there's just no competition and one guy really
dominates everything just through virtue of like, well,
everyone else sucks. So I guess we just give it all
to this guy. That could happen here on the
Patriots. We just don't know who that is
yet. But I would say that the number
one candidate for most likely to just have an enormous pie or
enormous share of the pie in the offense is Trayvion Henderson.
And then my second favorite would be a guy who's barely
seeing the field right now and Kyle Williams.
And that's because everyone else that is seeing the field isn't,
isn't earning that volume. And so that to me is a strong
signal that, hey, there's opportunity to be had here.
Someone just needs to go out and win it.
And since none of these guys are currently winning it, it it
means that all you have to do is, is be good and you can beat
out all these other guys. So anyway, that's.
Yeah, so I just, I backed want to circle back on my Geno Smith
take. So Geno Smith's average time to
throw last night was 3.2 seconds.
And so to me that that is suggestive that he had time.
Maybe the Charger secondary were just putting the clamps on the
receivers. That's why it kind of wasn't
working out. And we, I, I, I, I, I guess we,
we, we've covered Gino, we're on to, we're on to the Patriots.
So I, I, I kind of want to save some of this for, for the
receiver chart. But this is a natural point for
I see digs down to a 58% right rate and last week, which I, I
find kind of bizarre. And, and then I see what's his
name? I see Pop Douglas, he's down to
35%. Bootay, he actually led the team
in rounds at 74%. Then you got Matt Collins at 58%
and Hunter Henry at 68%, Austin Hooper 45%.
They I, I, I think it's like you're saying where the Patriots
are just crying out, please, somebody, somebody be good at
receiver here. And I, I, I agree with you
where, where Henderson is, is a is a good candidate to help
them. He's a running back.
So he's not going to be you can't really build up the plane
of your your receiving game on him.
But he's a good candidate. And I, and I agree with you that
Kyle Williams breaking out would that that would hit like crack
for the the New England offense. Yeah, I mean, they just, they
need it. The other angle that I wanted to
cover with the Patriots guys that have room to see their
rushing share grow as a quarterback, like see their
bubble size increase. You'll notice, you know, Lamar
Jackson pretty big bubble, Justin Fields big bubble, right?
These guys that are are rushing for a decent number of yards per
game. Drake Mace bubble is, you know,
smaller than Josh Allen, smaller than Jane Daniels.
You know, he he hasn't actually been rushing as much to start
the season as we saw last year. I think it a lot of it could
just be, you know, getting comfortable with this new
offensive system with Josh McDaniels.
And it wouldn't surprise me at all to see as the season
develops, you know, Josh McDaniels decides to to try and
use that strength of Drake Mays where last year so much of it
was out of structure stuff. It was it was his scramble rate.
He had a really high scramble rate and really high yards per
scramble. I do think that that's something
where we could see that get incorporated in more as the
season goes on. So just the fact that he has
room to grow from an efficiency standpoint and room to add with
his legs, I think makes him one of the most exciting
quarterbacks to to target is like, hey, this is a guy with a
lot of room for the upside going forward in the season and.
And just to just to agree with you to underline that and he did
have 10 rush attempts in Week 2 and he only saw like 31 yards
that that's got to be a statistical aberration where I,
I, I, I we do not expect Drake May to average and three yards
per attempt. You probably see that like 5 or
5 or 6 by the end of the year. Is it would be would be my kind
of maybe optimistic case, but he he is he is rushing.
It's just like it, I guess one of the few things the Dolphins
said well, was contained and Drake may rushing and so I but I
don't, I would not expect I, I, I would have expect his
efficiency on those scrambles to be much higher.
Yeah, that's a, that's a good point.
The other group of quarterbacks I wanted to talk about here,
because the way I'm looking at how we can break down this chart
and, and add value to you guys is where are the guys where we
could see them improve from beyond where they are already at
on this chart? Like I don't want you to just
look at the chart and be like, all right, I'm going to play the
guys that look good on the chart.
Easy game. Like I'm trying to find the
emerging trends where, hey, this player could improve even
further from where they're at. And so this cohort is guys that
are already efficient. And could just explode if put
into the right game script where they're forced to pass a little
bit more. And those three are the ones
with the highest adjusted yards per attempt.
That's Lamar Jackson Guy throws for four touchdowns last week.
Basically all goes to nobodies. You know, you get 2 to Devonta
as a Walker. You get one to Thailand Wallace
and then one to DeAndre Hopkins. Almost a a second one to
Hopkins, but just, you know, very few attempts and only 225
yards or something because they just didn't need to do anything
more than that. And then you get Jordan Love,
who's been ultra, ultra efficient and again, just never
hasn't been pushed yet this season.
You know, no, no need. He he's a really exciting one.
The Packers offense has just been really good.
You just need them to run into a team that could actually put up
some serious points against their very formidable defense
and love could be an absolute smash.
And then the last one, I mean, I already I already talked about
this guy last week and I'm just going to bang the table for him.
It it kind of feels like the year where I was saying, hey, CJ
Stroud and the Texans pass catchers are going to win
someone a Millie maker, just, you know, stack them every
single week until it works. And then a couple weeks after
that, Uticao ends up with CJ Stroud triple stack and wins the
Millie. And and so the one I'm calling
out here is Justin Herbert. We talked about it last week
where this is going to be a really good season as far as the
Russian profile for Justin Herbert, saw it again last
night. He's very involved in the
Russian game. And then their pass rate over
expectation was high again. It was above 14% again.
That's two weeks in a row. Their total number?
And, and, and what's interesting to me about that is even with
such a high PROE, their Dropbox is like pretty in check.
Like that's like what 36 dropbacks a game on a 14% PROE.
So these are games that in traditional chargers at harbor
will probably be looking at like 10 points, but their game plan
is just so different now that even in in games where they're
not really pushed that much, they're still trying to win.
Where's in a game where if their defense gives up points and then
obviously they they're like their their their pass rate
would probably go up a Todd. So would their things like their
pace like and and and and things like that.
And, and if you're able to keep that efficiency where the reason
they have to increase the drop back is because the other teams
scoring points, not because Herbert is being inefficient.
Like you could see some monster monster weeks.
Yeah, he was still on the Showdown slate last night.
I went in and manually adjusted Herbert's projection up.
He was like my highest projected player on the slate by a good
ways. He's my highest owned captain
player. I slam him.
I'm like, I'm so smart. I'm following my own advice.
The game plays out, it looks great.
Herbert's the highest scoring player on the slate and it was
my worst showdown slate for ROI on the season so far.
So that's just the way it goes. You can be totally right about
something and you can still lose all your money, but boy, it
feels great to be right. I didn't have any other
quarterback notes. Did you have anyone else you
wanted to talk about before we get into running?
Notes No, I, I think we kind of covered the, the, the, the basic
trends here. I, I mean, we've got it.
I, I, I think we made this note last week where you have a bunch
of like bad teams with a bunch of drop backs.
So, so their teams are still useful for fantasy.
You're talking Saints, even the Panthers are kind of
interesting, Browns interesting not as good last week, but
you're still seeing that crazy attempts and which is helpful,
but I I don't want to spend too much more more time on it.
So let's say let's move on. Actually, I'm going to zoom out.
So let's move on. So we taught and given kind of
the the freak out, the panic that I told you so around them
rookie running backs, we thought it would be pretty useful to
look at pre admitting pretty quickly where the the rookies in
23 and 24 we're looking around Week 2.
And and my kind of comps that the comps that I came out with
where you look at kind of Bijan, Bijan Robinson, who I think he
was kind of the floor case for Ashton Genti where he had the
Arthur Schmidt usage and he was like the RB one, but not not
getting the dominant bell cow usage that we wanted.
And so I think that floor kind of floor case is playing out for
Genti, especially seeing bizarre things like lobby and taking it
clear like got a habit snaps for the Raiders.
And then we'll see he's in a pretty similar spot to Hampton
as well. We'll get on to Hampton.
The other one that was interesting and from 23 was at,
or at least for me was Gibbs. Gibbs here at this point, he was
in the same part of the chart that the Henderson and and
what's the other guy, RJ Harvey were in.
And obviously Gibbs was a frustrating start to the year,
but then and ended that year would it would it as a pretty
nice piece And what am I forgetting that 1 from 23.
From 23, I think Tajay Spears also shows up here and it's so
just like to give you an idea of hey, here's a couple different
types of outcomes you can get from rookies like obviously
Tajay Spears nowhere close to how exciting an end to the
season Jameer Gibbs has where Gibbs is going on to, you know,
the end of the season. Gibbs was literally having a
legendary running back stretch. He he was scoring.
I want to say there's a four-game stretch where he
scored over 21 points per game. And I think in three of those
games, he was over 26 like he was he was going crazy.
And so. Yeah, yeah, I remember that now.
He he he he had a monster Ant where you had the, you had the
Montgomery injury. So he took over for a while,
then Montgomery came back and then they're like, yeah, well,
Gibbs is still really good. So.
But you see how I, I, I try to manipulate you there until I was
talking about the good ones and then I was making you the, the
rookie bad guy. But I think it's important too
to to talk about, you know, hey, like you can get some, not all
these guys are going to be Jameer Gibbs.
Obviously, you know, Gibbs is right, right, Right.
Of course. Hey, don't panic yet.
Your guy could still turn into a Jameer Gibbs level smash, but
also like Tajae, Spears is in the range of outcomes too.
But let's move on to 2024. So last year and we'll take a
look at where the rookies land here.
So actually I am neuter when I thought I wanted to mention for
23 years. You'll notice A Chan isn't even
on the chart here. Yeah, that's a good call.
Yeah, he doesn't even show up in Week 2.
He's not even really seeing the field yet.
And so then 20/24/2024, I think I'm glad we talked about 23
first, because that, that seems like a more normal rookie year.
24 is a little bit of a weird one where that was kind of seen
as like that and, and not a very good class.
And, but the, the ones that the ones that are kind of
interesting here is, is you have the Bucky Irving where he turns
into like absolute dominant league winner.
And then you're, you're at what, 25%, 30% snap rate.
Now, obviously he's priced quite differently to a lot of the
rookies this year. But it just goes to show you
that, that somebody who kind of like he took over that backfield
by the end of the year to start the year, he, he was the backup.
And, and, and that's kind of like that's the, that, that's a
lot how a lot of these guys start just because they're,
well, just because they're backup now.
Like it's so a long season. And then I think some of the
other ones that we had last year was like Tyrone Tracy and he's
not on this chart, but ends up being important.
And but then some of the other the kind of like the the less
encouraging comps are like like Quorum.
Is there anyone else? Can't take Bigsby's on here.
Actually, this was does Bigsby's second year.
Yeah, yeah, sophomore year. And then he's not.
He's not on the 23 chart. Yeah, and then you have Braylon
Allen as well. It's like, hey, this is what the
bad. Braylon Allen got the
opportunity early. But then what?
This he, Braylon Allen's what it looks like when your guy stinks,
right? Like oops.
Yeah. He stinks.
Oh. Oh, well, you know that that
does happen. Yeah.
Just for me, it's it's a little frustrating to hear people like
so quickly dismiss all these like the just how polarized it
is or everyone talks. I feel like there's two sides
where the one side is, Oh, oh, my rookies are going to smash
down the I can't believe all these normies don't get that
rookies come on down the road. And then the other side is, oh,
the rookies aren't doing anything yet.
They're all dead. The the truth is in the middle
of that where hey, dude, a lot of the rookies are going to
stink. Like there's a whole bunch of
Braylon Allen's and and Taji Spears and it's it's a spectrum,
right? Like Braylon Allen total stinker
like not useful at all for fantasy last year.
Tajay Spears like somewhat useful as a rookie.
And then you like get levelled up to the Bucky Irving that
Jameer Gibbs level success those hits right.
But it's it's a spectrum. Not.
Not everyone's going to be these binary outputs a.
Bigger percentage of them to be hits this year based on the kind
of like the talent of the class, but there's still going to be
guys who who just miss. Yeah, absolutely.
Let's get into the the charts for this year.
I actually, yeah, go go to this year's charts and then can you
go to the backup chart first 'cause there's a guy that I want
to talk about while I'm thinking.
Yeah, Yeah. Go ahead.
OK, yeah, he doesn't even make the backup chart yet.
So this is, God, this is such a great one to talk about 'cause
he's following like the Devana Chan archetype, like the Bucky
Irving where, you know, a Chan not even on the chart in Week 2.
And then Bucky Irving like, oh, he's just a backup, you know.
But what Bucky had going for him was he looked really good every
time he touched the ball. Right now, the one knock that I
had on Bucky last year was like those big runs that Bucky would
get. The chunk plays weren't
touchdowns. He he doesn't turn them into
like these big Saquon Barkley level or Jonathan Taylor level.
Ha ha. I, I got through the defense.
Now it's a 80 yard touchdown lol.
Like enjoy trying to catch me. But Bucky didn't really do that
'cause he doesn't have that Top Gear that like Elite.
Finish. He doesn't have the long speed.
Right. But he's still so good that it
doesn't really matter. He's just going to be so
efficient. And it's like, you know, there's
some guys where it's death by 1000 cuts.
They're going to get you through a bunch of five yard carries
over and over. Bucky's going to just slice you
like with three or four big cuts.
It's like, here's a 20 yard gash, here's a 25 yard gash.
And it doesn't matter that he's not finishing the runs because
Buck like with a touchdown because don't worry, he'll he'll
get there eventually. But the player that reminds me
of that Bucky archetype where he's ultra efficient.
He's also a tough tackle. He's not just this like speed
freak where oh, he's only breaking long plays because he's
so fast like he's also breaking tackles.
He's useful in the passing game. He's useful in the rushing game
between the tackles and also outside is Basil Tootin.
Tootin is the one to me that has the Jameer Gibbs, Bucky Irving
level end of season upside like he is the at all costs my
strongest bet to be a league winner by the end of the season
of all of the rookie running backs.
Like this is going to sound crazy, but if you just told me
straight up like you are allowed to have one of these guys on
your roster for the rest of season, who do you want it to
be? Genti, Hampton Scataboo, Harvey
Henderson, Tooten. I will just take tooten over all
of them. And and that's that's what the
caveat of like you're telling me that this player has to be the
league winner, got to be the guy that smashes.
I think he is the highest ceiling because he has all of
the stuff that made Bucky fantastic in the scheme with the
coach that made Bucky fantastic, and he looks like Bucky.
Plus as far as his skill set, he's Bucky.
But he can finish those runs with touchdowns.
So I am extremely encouraged by Tooten.
I think it's wheels all the way up on him.
If you're in a A league with trades, trade what you need to
trade for two right now. I don't care if it seems like an
overpay like trade what you need to trade to go get him.
That's my my stance. Yeah, what's interesting is he
was he only had 16% of the snaps or no, sorry, that was that was
not correct. He only had 25% of the snaps
last week, but on and what on what is it?
8 rush, 8 rush attempts, 6 routes that he converted into
two targets. He scored 15 points and I think
it's it's it's safe to say that he's earned more, more playing
time going forward. Yeah.
What's funny is that when you were started that I, I was, I
thought you were going to angle it into Judkins and I was like,
wow, that's really strong to say Goodkins.
But Toot makes a lot, a lot more sense.
I mean, Judkins is a great, great Segway partner because I
think Judkins is also a really strong.
Here's the problem with Judkins though.
The offense may be so bad that he gets a little capped from his
touchdown equity. And I think that having the door
opened to Dylan Sampson is really harmful to him because
there's a universe where Judkins never has the the stuff that
keeps him out of training camp in the summer and he's just so
entrenched as the number one that he's like a three down
workhorse. He's he's very capable in the
passing game. He wasn't like a do nothing back
in the passing game in college. He could have easily been, you
know, 3 down, stay on the field for every snap, you know, play 2
minute drill type of guy. But I think they got to see
enough of Samson to be like, Oh yeah, this guy's pretty cool.
We like him a lot. And then the fact that Ford like
the only useful thing that they like him for is pass catching
also is like Judkins has just left enough of a window open now
that those guys will will hurt him a little bit and not they're
going to steal some of those high value touches in the
receiving game, which is a bit of a bummer.
Yeah. So I think what I think about
Judkins is that he's so dominant as a rusher.
Like I, I guess there's a there's a different question, a
different conversation about the receiving stuff, which is what
you're leaning at. I think he's going to
consolidate almost all the, all the major rushing stuff.
And he when you, when you combine how like how, how
dominant his rushing profile was in college, it was a very like
he was like immediately as a freshman, like dominant rusher,
which is a very strong sign. And then obviously he was part
of like arguably one of the best college rosters of all time and
a focal point for that. So you, you kind of, you add in
what Gretsch calls the Longview stuff, which is very, very
strong for him in my opinion. And then you kind of add in
where he was extremely efficient on them against the Ravens,
which is I, I, yeah, the, the Browns struggled overall.
So him, him being good and him, I think he had a, if I'm looking
at the next chance that stuff, he had 2.2 yards over expected
per attempt on 10 attempts. So what does he had like 6.1
yards per attempt. And then obviously you're,
you're going to put up good tape when you do that.
But him doing that and then the other guys all struggling in the
running game is, is, is probably a good sign that he's going to
wed. I, I, I don't know, I guess I
have to caveat this with the pending suspension stuff, but I
do think that the way this goes is he strangleholds the running
game. And then my other take is that
Samson is such a good receiver that I, I, I, I do think he, he
grabs the receiving stuff too. And it's, it's like I, I don't
think that's as as strong an upside case as as you're making
for Tootin, but I, I do think, think that's pretty interesting.
Yeah, I mean Judkin still he gets, you know, 3 targets, 3
receptions on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The here's a couple caveats of Judkins and you know, before I
pour any cold water on this, I'm mega Judkins bowl like we're
we're very aligned. I just want to, you know,
provide additional color to this.
So Judkins didn't have a ton of running room early when he was
getting work. He he wasn't racking up a ton of
yards. His long on the day of 31 yards
came in the fourth quarter after the game was like, I think it's
4110 at that point. So it's pretty over.
You know, Dylan Gabriel's in the game like it it was well and
truly done. So maybe there's like a little
bit of lack of effort on the Ravens side from tackling or
maybe some backups were in there, but.
Let me push back a little bit on that.
So on the next Gen. set, so 50% of his runs were above expected,
which I guess 50% doesn't doesn't sound like that much,
but that's one of that's one of the, the highest.
Like let me so the highest is so far is like 58%.
So him being at Tooting is at 54 1/2%.
So him being at 50% like it's kind of suggestive that it did
not come from one run. He he had like a good day.
He also the charting seems wrong to me on his missed tackles
force because I watched enough of this game.
Do they have are they charting broken tackles differently than
missed tackles forced? No, they're.
I don't think so. Yeah, the charting, the
charting's wrong here because he broke like 3 tackles on that
long run. So but they, they have him down
for two missed tackles forced. He had more than that so that's
interesting. I'm kind of surprised that would
be wrong cuz like on one play. It's objective.
It should be objective. Yeah, on one play you can count
more of a sacks force. So seems a little funny, but
whatever. Anyway, I do we're we're kind of
in lock step on Judkins. I think it's wheels up also.
I mean. At at cost.
At cost. Yeah.
I mean, I think you can probably get him relatively cheap in most
places where you could like trade for him.
Like in a in a home league, think you're going to be able to
get him pretty cheap. Still.
It's not as aggressive as I would be pursuing Tooten in a
home league. Like Tooten just, you know, go
nuts. Like if you if you have a
veteran running back, like if you have enough running back
depth that you're not hurting if you trade away someone good,
like you still have someone to play like trade away someone
that's scoring right now that looks good.
Like straight away Tony Pollard who's getting 20 carries a game
for Mitchell, like so many of your normie opponents would just
snap, except that like Tony Pollard for Mitchell Tooten.
Like, so, you know, not that you have to go trade something like
that to get it done, but just to give a A-frame of reference for
like what I'm willing to go go out and do, you know, definitely
would be willing to trade guys that I are scoring good points
right now for the upside that is facial too.
Yeah, agree, agree. And and then the other, the
other thing that's kind of like a split backfield that I wanted
to talk about is, is the Seattle stuff where you, you asked me
last week how I felt about it. And I didn't want to say I I
didn't, I actually honestly got, I didn't have an answer just
because I was like, I think Kenneth Walker's way better, but
they played Charbonnay way more at this point.
I think, I think I've seen enough where this is the third
season in a row or say the last two years, they've gone into the
season wanting to use Charbonnay.
And then as the season goes on, when Walker's healthy, they're
like, no, what it's it's Walker like he's better than you.
And and I think the the last game where like he only had what
he had let me let me get the number.
Who's? Sharpening Kenneth Walker was
only on on the field for like 36% of snaps, but he was so good
that like he had like 100 yards and and the the next Gen. stats
stuff on on Charbonnet like was that he just stunk out loud.
Yeah, it was. It was bad.
It was not good, 15 carries for 10 yards. 15 carries for 10
yards and like some of the stuff on on this next Gen. stat stuff
is that like he's supposed to be like a success rate guy where
like he's not the most explosive, but you know what he
doesn't he doesn't screw around. He gets the yards that are he'll
get the yards that are blocked. He's not going to set you back,
whereas he's got like a 23 percent or run rate over run
over expected percentage. He's on the metric that kind of
measures like how much he's dilly Dalian around the line of
scrimmage. He's one of the highest of any
running back. So basically he's he's dilly
Dalian. He's Dilly Dalian more than any
running back in the NFL. And and that's supposed to be
the thing that people said Kenneth Walker was bad for.
So I, I, I, I think to me it's pretty clear that he's, he's
kind of played himself out of out of a job.
He's lost a job for the third year in a row.
And and I it's kind of like it's not, it's certainly not what you
paid for. This is what called divorce
check. You weren't paying for Kenneth
Walker to happen to outplay Charbonnay to Aaron's job back.
But it it does seem clear to me that that's what's happened.
Yeah, that's a good call. Another guy I wanted to talk
about who's kind of in the this is what would happen if Zach
Charbonnay was really good archetype is Cam Scataboo, who
is just taking the lunch of Tyrone Tracy.
I mean, if you watch the Giants Cowboys game, it really Brian
Dayball's in love with Cam Scataboo.
Like they you know, he's gonna be sending him a Valentine's Day
card. Like he, he's definitely he's.
Gonna be camps buying the Arizona State turf.
Oh, he's what do you mean he's gonna be buying?
It's already installed, baby. His whole backyard is scat turf.
But but yeah, like you can just tell the way he's deploying him.
Also, this is like a a zoom out on the chart and like the longer
view stuff, not just scataboost's profile where hey,
this guy really profiles like he could be a three down back.
He's a strong tackle breaker. The strongest part of his
profile was in the receiving game, right?
So I mean, that's that's like the big barrier to a lot of guys
like him where they're these like between the tackles
grinders, like, you know, not super explosive.
It's like, oh, well, you know, if this guy could catch, maybe
we can keep him on the field for three downs like scataboo.
Like his best part of his game is that he he's great.
He's an asset in the receiving game and so I feel like Tracy
has almost no Moat to this guy. The only thing that Tracy has
over him is Tracy's probably like a little bit more explosive
or I guess a lot of it more explosive than Scataboo.
But Scataboo seems like he's he's kind of an identity back,
like he's going to take over the offense.
The split was close to 5050 this last game.
I'd expect it to go more and more in Scataboo's direction,
where Tracy is coming in as kind of the change of pace guy, like
the the lightning to Scataboo's Thunder.
But the nice thing about? 50% snap rate in in Week 2 is
like nuts. Well, and, and then here's the
other thing that I I got off topic on for myself.
Think back to camp when they were talking about how much they
liked Scataboo. And then he gets set back with
the hammy, right? And he misses multiple weeks of
training camp, right? And then when he gets back, they
basically immediately try to work him back in.
It's not like, oh, we're going to really take it slow with you.
It's as soon as Scataboo's available, the Giants made it a
priority to make sure that he was getting involved.
Like to me the. Right after, after he missed the
time, they were like, no, it's going to be important for this
guy to get familiarity. Let's make sure we get that for
him now. Yeah, yeah.
And and so the signal was really strong that like he was a part
of the plan out of the gate. It wasn't like a, we'll see what
this guy has, we'll see what he can contribute.
Like plan A was Cam Scataboo takes over the backfield and
that little hamstring tweak is the only thing that is standing
between Cam Scataboo and you know, 70% of the snaps already.
So I think we see that trend up. He's a really fun one.
The the downside stuff with scataboo is I'm worried about
this giants offense. I know they just had a a game
where they put up a ton of points against the shitty
Cowboys defense. But Russ Wilson is not going to,
you know, look, look as good as he did.
And by the way, like not to I'm, I'm sure that people will be
like, what are you talking about when I say this?
But if you actually watch the game, like the first half of
that Cowboys giants game, rust looked outright bad.
There were just a couple of the moon.
Russ did the rust thing again where it's like, well, I'm going
to look really bad for a lot of this, but I'm going to connect
on some moon balls and that's just everything else won't
really matter then. And that's basically what
happened. And so it looks so much better
in the box score than it was to actually watch.
Like, I dare you to go back and watch it.
I like, I, I double dog dare you to sit through those throws.
The moon balls are cool. Like they're sick big plays, but
there's a lot of bad throws out there.
Like to the extent where they were getting Jackson Dart in the
game, like they were swapping Russ out for Dart, like they had
packages for Dart. They're already trying to see if
they can get Dart on the field, right?
So that's my concern. The only thing about Russ is
with the moon balls and and they keep.
It's like he can't keep getting away with this.
And he does. He does in.
Fact. He kind of does.
I I think he's probably like,
it's like a worsen league average starter.
And he's definitely, he's definitely a worsen league
average starter, but. I'm probably terrible at the
other stuff, but then the moon balls are so good.
He's still like that. That's like the last thing in
his arsenal that just like stays there.
It probably it probably means that we get more games like
this. But if defenses just decide to
take that away, those games, he'll just stink.
Yeah, So my, my concern with the Scataboo upside is, you know,
what, if the offense is much worse than what we saw this last
week, like you have poor touchdown equity, you know, they
can't sustain drives, things like that.
But I, I feel good about Scataboo's high value touches in
the offense. Like you should get a lot of
receiving. He's very clear with the goal
line back. So he's exciting.
How how would you compare him and Judkins going forward?
Because I think they have similar warts that they're that
are offensive like environment related warts.
But what are your thoughts on on that one comparison?
So the for Scataboo his, his competition being Tyrone Tracy
is helpful in that even though the team likes Tyrone Tracy.
I, I, I, I don't, I don't think he has quite the same talent.
A Tyrone Tayshree has quite the same talent as Samson and or, or
upside. And I think he's, he's got the
explosiveness. He the, the the chain trusts him
with pass blocking. So that does represent some kind
of an obstacle to, to scataboo. But I, I, I, I agree with you
that like, it's just, it's so compelling that they're
splitting a 5050 already. Like it's an, even if, if
they're even he's leaving a scenario.
So I, I probably feel a a bit better about Scataboo's kind of
ability to consolidate the opportunity and the, the, I, I
don't know, I, I think I, I'm biased on the Browns.
I think the offensive environment stuff is kind of
awash. And then for the Browns, it's
like so they they have a, they're going to have a really
high attempt rate every week, but it's Joe Flacco or Dylan
Gabriel. So the efficiency is not going
to be great. But on the other hand, if you're
comparing the Longview stuff between Judkins and Scataboo,
it's it's not it's I don't think it's that close where Judkins
obviously get the strong, strong draft capital ahead of him.
Like he dominated the freshman in the SEC, then he became a
focal point on most island, the roster, blah, blah, blah.
I think if you're kind of comparing talent level, you give
that to Judkins. I think you pretty handily give
that to Judkins. But then I do think Samson, the
mixture of Samson and Ford that that that's enough of the check
that even with that stronger talent, he's still it's not
still kind of obstacle consolidating.
I, I, I think they're, they're pretty close.
I I probably at this point, I probably am, if not for the
suspension, I'd lean Judkins. But then when you mix in the
suspension, like taking that risk off the table for a for
what's his name, scataboo like that, that pushes him ahead is
what I'd say. I I think suspension risk is
pretty close to it's not 0, but it's pretty close to 0.
For Oh, you think? So I read, yeah, NFL is just
trying. It's it's a let it die quietly
kind of thing. So you don't you don't come out
and outright say, you know, in his first game, like, and by the
way, we won't be suspending him. It's a, they recognize that the
correct thing to do is not suspend the guy who, you know,
his ex-girlfriend tried to frame him for domestic violence like
he was innocent, you know, and so it's it's a not, it's a, hey,
let's not suspend this guy kind of situation.
It's also a situation where anything that's even
tangentially related to domestic violence is, is something that
the NFL wants to handle with extreme caution just from APR
standpoint. And so this is a let it, let it
die quietly type of situation. I, I, I could see that being the
case. I, I still, I still think that
it's not AI, don't I, I don't think it's off the table and I
think it's still like a risk that's out there that we don't
understand that well, we don't have that much access to the in
NFL's inner workings. But I, I, I, I'm OK, It's a
stock chasing thing. I, I think I'm I'm OK for for us
to move on and and disagree. Yeah, I want to hit.
There's a couple guys on the backup chart.
I basically want to give one sentence blurbs on and then I
want to go to the starters charts.
There's a couple guys. Yeah, yeah.
It's wild that we've been on this so long we haven't hit the
starters. But I think there were important
guys that were that didn't even quite make the backups chart
that we needed to talk about. So I think that was good.
Quick one sentence. I'm going to say my thing and
then if you have anything to add, go ahead.
If not, I'll go to the next guy, Trey Benson, like legitimate.
He's he's in the like Tyler Algier category.
He's a Tyler Algier plus level backup now where he's got that
right contingent value and he's actually getting work and and
seeing points. He's he's in like the Dylan
Sampson category for me to anything that.
He's good, that's the thing. He's good.
The team likes him and he's got
he's got the backup stuff and and the fact that he's already
playing or he is playing, that's like the best sign of contingent
upside where he's playing even with James Conner out there.
So if James Conner gets hurt, it's it or, or something
happened to him, it would be wheels up for Petra Benson.
Yeah, getting getting a lot of passing game work as well.
If you look at his his snap breakdown here, a lot of routes,
right, other guy Kyle Manungai, the Kyle Manungai Roshan Johnson
wars have been decided. Kyle Manungai is the victor
Roshan Johnson fully active this last week only played special
teams. It is Jover with a capital J for
Rochon Johnson bad news. It's also Jover with a capital J
for common guy because he stinks.
Now there's an out because DeAndre Swift also stinks.
But swift is going to be like the lead back here.
He he's their best back operating in space and in the
passing game. But man, they just this, this is
a team that please please trade for Travis ETN Bears.
Please trade for Travis ETN fully fully unleashed shooting
for the Jags because you need help desperately here.
Anything to add on the non guy? Though, no, I but I have a
further thing to add on Trey Benson.
So Trey Benson actually ran more routes down at James Conner last
week, had some more pass blocking snaps.
No, it was, it was 16 routes to 12 and two pass blocks to 1.
But still to me, that's super interesting.
Yeah. And and you got 5 targets versus
1. So, and it's only one game, but
he was he was their their main pass catching back in that game,
which I'm glad you made that note that that is interesting.
Yeah, that that is important. Spells trouble for James Conner
for sure. The other guy, we don't really
have to talk about this guy, but Aaron Jones on IR.
So let's go to the starters chart and we can talk about
Jordan Mason, who I would expect him to absorb an enormous amount
of the work. I I think that we'll just
probably see the Vikings go with Jordan Mason and then they're
going to have someone else come in, you know, be it a Cam makers
or be it a you know who whoever else takes over for them.
It we're going to learn a name, most likely, you know.
It's got makers TM Makers is the is the backup or he's the guy
that they elevated part and they brought their practice squad.
Yeah, it's just like, how long does that last, you know?
Yeah, no, true, true. And I think what's also
interesting about Mason is that even before Aaron, he was
already running routes. They're already trusting him to
pass luck. So the, the beat on him going
into the year was that he was just going to be a rushing only
guy and, and Aaron Jones was going to be the primary
receiver. And, and, and that's not
necessarily so that it, that was pretty true, but they were still
trusting the guy with passing down work.
So it it I, I think I agree with you in, in, in that like, Hey,
they're going to trust this guy with a lot.
Like it's they're not going to limit him to rushing stuff.
He's going to be running rats. He's going to be catching passes
too. Like this is the next four games
are going to be pretty, pretty good for Jordan Mason.
Yeah, I definitely agree there. I just want to like kind of
quickly hit on some guys with thoughts that I had from the
games this weekend. Nick Chubb looked atrocious.
Basically, Nick Chubb needs good blocking to look somewhat
decent. He looked decent enough in Week
1, looked really bad in week two.
He saves his fantasy day with a long touchdown run, but that was
the Bucks letting him score so the Bucks could get the ball
back. Otherwise the Texans run the
clock out and win the game there without the Bucks ever getting a
possession. Nick Chubb runs the ball in for
the touchdown, gives the ball back to the Bucks.
Texans lose the game because of it and Chubb, you know, gets
rewarded with nine extra fantasy points, give or take, you know,
whatever it was like a 25 yard or 30 yard run or something like
that. But yeah, Nick Chubb should have
had basically stoned nothing. He had one really nice screen
pass early that he took for a little bit of a chunk, but other
than that and that was well blocked.
So that's basically Nick Chubb can get what's blocked, but he
has like basically 0 juice. He's he's toast.
If at any point Nixon is healthy, Nick Chubb turns into
exactly 0. And then also if at any point
the Texans get fed up and they're like, God, we need
something else. Like there, there are guys on
the street right now that would do better, which I hate to say
about Nick Chubb. I really would love to root for
Nick Chubb. And like, I think Nick Chubb,
the human is awesome. Nick Chubb, the fantasy football
asset is not super awesome anymore.
He's just the poor guy's been through way too much, you know,
3 catastrophic knee injuries and and then a broken foot.
We'll do that to a person. Yeah, I, I'd love to disagree
with you, but there's nothing here in the in the data that I
think the data kind of backs you up where he had, he had five
missed tackles in week 10 last night.
And like you're saying, he he had the the breakaway touchdown
where it does seem like they they probably did let him score.
It was, it was the Make a Wish touchdown.
You and I both would have also scored the touchdown, you know,
if they wanted more than nothing.
There was nothing there when I saw.
It live I was like, wow, the safety rear, you had the angle
there and he wasn't. I don't.
Yeah, no. Exactly the crowd they could
have caught. Him, man.
OK, you wanna? This is gonna be like the
stupidest chalk of all time, but it's gonna work.
You ready for the like lock button?
Make sure this guy's in 100% of your line UPS.
If you're playing Showdown come Thursday, just lock James Cook.
They're going, you know, Bills play the Dolphins.
The Dolphins are absolute dog shit, like just terrible.
I mean, Ramondre Stevenson, you know, just put up a really good
game against the Dolphins. You know, Jonathan Taylor smoked
him in Week 1 and the Bills just showed us what the plan is when
they get out to a crazy lead like they were beating the
brakes off The Jets and what was the plan?
It was Hey James, do you do you want to just like rack up a
bunch of really cool stats dude, like they're they're happy to
let him do it. So James Cook ultra super mega
lock for the Thursday night showdown game here.
You know, there will be games where it doesn't have to flow
through him, but the the game sets up to be like that.
And I it would not surprise me at all if the Bills just decide
to lean on him in a, you know, a positive game script for them.
Yeah, no, when no argument here. The other note I had was like,
and I think this is kind of like widely seen, but a Chan actually
leading running backs in combined rush attempts and
routes. It's kind of kind of surprising,
but then he's also getting heavily targeted, like heavily
heavily targeted. I think he has like 3 yards per
out run as well and for like 20-5 something like 2530%
targets per out run and on the year.
And so like it honestly insane usage for a Chan, like mostly as
a receiver where he's kind of the only thing that works in in
their offense right now, kind of.
I I believe in week two, he had greater yards after catch then
he did total receiving yards because everything came behind
the line of scrimmage for him. If you watch them play, it's
it's the same thing that we've seen in the past for him.
It's just the extension of the run game.
They're the Dolphins want to be able to run the ball from
outside the hashes basically, and that's what he's doing in a
lot of this. It's just these little like
swing passes, these dump offs or screens where he's getting the
ball behind the line of scrimmage.
It's basically just like conceptually think of the play
where the Dolphins are allowed to line their center up over
outside the hashes and but the defense is not allowed.
They have to pretend like they don't see it and then it's just
direct snap to a Chan. That's that's basically what
they're doing functionally. It's like, yeah, this guy's just
going to get the ball and be over here on the outside with
fewer guys to have to beat. So the the benefit to that is
like this is all running game basically.
But he's also just getting a point for the reception too, so.
So I I was I was wrong. It's 25% target Sprint run, 2
yard, 8 yards per out run. Still still insane.
Still insane and but very strong.
The the other guys at the top, like I think all of these, I
just want to like kind of go through these really quick.
So a Chan super strong, like start every week kind of smash
should be very valuable in DFS. Every week I'm skipping Kamara
and Pollard. I'm going to come back to that
promise. CMC, Jonathan Taylor, Bucky,
Josh Jacobs, Bijan. That's like that top tier for me
of like you start these guys every week.
They're going to be smashes like pretty much every week.
Don't don't really worry about it.
They all either are ultra efficient or get such insane.
I mean they all get incredible usage, but they're all just
going to be very, very strong. Josh Jacobs like less efficient
than these other guys and not as involved in the passing game is
like any of those other guys I mentioned in the same breath
like Bijan Bucky, JT and Jacobs are like similarly involved in
the passing game, but JT is just efficient in a way that Josh
Jacobs is not. But Josh Jacobs happens to play
on an offense. It's just going to score a shit
ton of touchdowns. And so he's he's marked safe
from the from the trap back profile where it's like, Hey, it
actually doesn't matter because it's a really good offense going
to Kamara and Pollard, though, I think these are the ones where
like you as a fantasy player can add the most value here because
the roles are insane. The problem is both these teams
suck ass. So where these guys can become
ultra valuable is if they find themselves in a game where their
team is not only in it, but they also happen to be playing a
defense that like you don't want them to be in it because it's a
low scoring game. That's it's not going to work
out well for these backs in that type of environment.
It's got to be that they are in it and that the opposing team is
going to score points on offense but not do very much on defense.
And so early kind of like teams that fit that archetype so far,
like you're looking for when they play teams like the Cowboys
or the Bengals or the Dolphins, like those are the teams that
kind of fit that mold. Or it's like these guys suck on
defense. They're competent enough on
offense. So that's what you're looking
for with Alan Kamara, Tony Pollard, basically in other
matchups, like if they're playing a a stronger defense or
a team that's like doesn't have as high-powered of an offense.
So they might just, you know, play a boring, low scoring game.
I think these guys are really easy fades from a volume
standpoint. They'll they'll project really
well most weeks because of the role.
And it's just like, if they beat me, they beat me kind of thing,
like whatever. Like it's just like it's a
volume play. The efficiency is probably not
going to be there, but you can really lean into it in those
matchups where they're they're set up to smash.
So anyway, that was the the thoughts I had on those top
guys. Yeah, yeah, makes makes sense
make I'm sorry. Yeah, I was just looking at the
schedules. I don't see anything coming up
for the Saints on that. They do have the Dolphins on
their schedule, not sure what week like November 30th, so
towards the end of the year, but I don't think there's anything
too current. But that's let's move on to to
the tight ends, I guess. We're not we're not surprised
that the the usage is so fantastic for for Trey McBride.
I, I, I wish the points were a little bit better.
I do think those days are coming.
But you, you. But to me it's it's still like
we've got further confirmation that Juan Johnson is there like
is is the Saints ride or die like where he's just playing an
insane amount of snaps like he's their guy.
He's getting heavily targeted like 7.2 A dot is pretty solid
for tight ends and true the first two weeks like he like
Jawan Johnson league winner. Yeah, Jawan Johnson's a tight
end in name only. He's a receiver.
He's the he's the wide receiver, too.
Effectively on the Saints, it's Chris Olave and then Jawan
Johnson, then Rashid Sheed. But yeah, I, I capitulated on
Jawan Johnson last week and I was, I was bummed I didn't draft
as much of him this year because he was one of my highest owned
tight ends last year. And I, I was like, all right, if
it wasn't going to work last year, it's it's over this year.
And that was just super duper wrong.
So this is again, I have in the notes Omega Juwan Johnson
capitulation, self flagellation segment.
So that's what this is, but we can move on.
He's a great, you know, rest of the season you're super happy to
have him on your basketball teams.
If you need a tight end, he's on waivers.
He's a smash pick up. He's really, really strong
going. Forward, yeah, yeah.
And and he's he's available on the surprising amount of waivers
as well. And so definitely get him.
Here, here's a here's a question for you.
Let's say hypothetically, I've got Harold Fannin on a team and
Jawan Johnson's also out there on waivers.
Now, I think that, you know, holding both those guys feels a
little weird to me, like I probably could get more upside
from a skill position player from that roster spot.
So are you cutting Harold Fannon to pick up Jalon Johnson?
And it depends right, where it depends on who your other tight
ends are. Like if, if, if you're talking
most of my teams, I would have drafted like Trey McBride or
Bowers or so many like that. And on those teams, and it's
very clearly you want famine. And on teams where I didn't get
an elite tight ends and I'm probably those are teams.
It depends on how short the bench is, I suppose.
Those are teams where you probably can rust your boat
because you're using a small a small enough draft capital on
tight end in total. And but if if, if you want tight
end points straight away, it's you on Johnson all day.
Like Harold Fanning is is a nice early season play.
He's not bad, but the strength of of his kind of rest of season
rank comes from there's like some percentage chance.
We can debate how big that is, but there is some percentage
chance that by the end of the year he's got the Harold Finance
talent combined with the Juan Johnson at usage and and in
those games, he's just absolutely crushing Juan Johnson
in my opinion. Yeah, that's a good, good point.
I guess let me frame it in a slightly different way.
That's that's going to be even more actionable for many of the
slappies listening at home. Let's say that I'm fine holding
2 tight ends on my roster. I want Jawan Johnson right now
to help me win a couple games. I don't want to drop Harold
Fanning because I want the upside, but I've got some skill
position players I could cut. So these are guys that I'd be
cutting to add Jawan Johnson to my team because I already have
Harold Fanning. Of course, because I'm a slappy.
You just hit me with a yes or no Luther burden.
Yes or no, you're dropping in for Jawan Johnson.
Yeah, Joanne dropping. Oh man.
And probably honestly, probably not.
Probably not the points you get from Joanne Johnson over the
long term, they're probably not over fan and probably not enough
to give up that upside in my opinion.
OK, OK, A couple guys that we can talk about quickly.
I wanna get some quick ones out of the way.
Travis Kelsey, super duper toast.
Don't start him at a home league.
He's. We said it last week.
We called him Jover last week. Mark Andrews was the guy where
I'm like, let's see another week.
It's absolutely jover. Like it's also Jover for him.
Yeah, the the old guard is done. The future is now.
Old man Mark, Mark Andrews, Travis Kelsey, you're out of
here. Kind of unceremonious end to.
Yeah, yeah. It's kind of sad that those guys
kind of headlines Elite tied in for so long and and yeah,
honestly, I wish Travis Kelsey were tired.
I know he could have gone out on top, man.
Yeah, last year it would have been such a great.
I mean, other than losing the Super Bowl, you know, but,
right, Right. OK, two rookies that I think are
are quick hitters, Mason Taylor, empty routes, worthless loser.
Correct. He's not a He's not.
A yeah, yeah, not, not when you have Garrett Wilson like
absolutely consolidating targets as he should and then not that
many drop backs for for fields, but when they don't.
But when when you do drop back, he's he's rushing for a bunch of
them or he's trolling it to Garrett Wilson.
Like not not a not a worthwhile and fantasy asset,
unfortunately. Another another one that is not
a worthwhile fantasy asset, unfortunately, is Colson
Loveland. We're going to have the early
season funeral for him. He is.
He is allowed to rise from the dead, but only after three days
and we are not even through the proverbial day one of the post
rookie tight end crucifixion timeline currently.
So unfortunate cuz we've got a lot of Coulson Loveland on our
our shared FFPC teams. It's not.
I thought the price was right, but it's looking pretty, it's
looking pretty bad where he he's he's a dog to he's he's cold.
Command is leading pretty handily in the tight end snaps,
but then even that even Co Comet isn't having a great role.
So it it it does like tight end is a lot of it is about how the
coach wants to use you. And it does not appear that Ben
Johnson wants to use these tight ends.
Maybe, maybe maybe that's like too premature read given that
they did like Hawkinson, not Hawkinson.
LaPorte. Well, Hawkinson and then
LaPorte, yeah. So maybe that's premature,
especially given how that season went for them last year where
they didn't use them and then they used them a lot.
And so I guess still room for him to rise from the dead like
you said, but you can cook close in Loveland if, if, if you
haven't already, you should. Yeah, in a home league, you're
cutting him, obviously, like an FFPC.
There's no way you're cutting him, you know?
No, no, no. Yeah, correct.
Correct, cuz the the ceiling there in the tight end premium
format is also just so high where right he gets in and he's
he's the number 2 target on the bears offense.
Like that's just such a tremendous ceiling that you're
just you're sad that it's not helpful right now, but you're
not, you know, saying it could never happen, but it's certainly
not happening yet. Someone who it is happening
right now for is Tucker Craft. You get he has a really good
game off the back of the Jordan Reed injury where things begin
to consolidate a little bit more for the Packers pass catchers.
He has a ton of yards after catch.
I'm not I haven't been the biggest Tucker Craft believer
where in the past I thought his production was a lot of like,
hey, he's the little outlet guy like on on these little dump
offs and then he ends up getting a lot of yards after catch.
It's like you you like that yards after catch are good.
But to me, it wasn't like he wasn't.
Going to be his games were built on on a short yardage passes and
then he fucking houses it. It's like a, It's like an
evident. Very any targets, but when he
did, he'd house a couple of them.
Yeah, it was like evident, of course.
But you can't build a plane on that.
But now you add like pretty strong and like routes pretty
strong targets wit he's also going to house short and target
and short targets. So it's looking pretty strong
for Tucker Croft. I agree.
Yeah, I'm pretty bullish on him going forward.
He's a guy where like for best ball, his price was much lower
on DraftKings than it was on underdog.
And so I, I have a bunch of him on DraftKings.
I'm overweight and I'm super underweight on underdog.
Feels bad on the underdog teams, but it's also like, well, it's
just here's a price difference. And that was, you know, I, I
played it, you know, that way. And so I'm I'm not I'm still not
to the point where I'm like fully sold that like all my
DraftKings Tucker craft teams are going to win everything
because he's such a smash. Kind of like a little has.
Yeah, yeah, at the one, you know, and really it's like this,
you know, this second game was the the really big one for him.
But I I would say I'm trending with, you know, in the much more
bullish direction for Craft than I previously was.
So it definitely it's setting up to be strong for him right now.
The other guy, I think this will be the one that we'll probably
talk about the longest here is Brock Bowers.
So Bowers still strong targets for route run and decreases from
week 1 where he played fewer snaps.
He actually plays more snaps in Week 2, higher percentage of the
snaps in Week 2 with the knee brace on.
He did look a little Hanford to start the game.
Some notes that I had from watching every snap of this
game, and I was I was watching Bowers specifically basically
every play because I have quite a bit of financial interest in
Brock Bowers. So here's what I saw.
The Chargers were very much focusing on taking away Brock
Bowers. He was bracketed on an extremely
high number of plays where they were committing a lot of
defenders to Brock Bowers. There were still some plays
where it didn't matter that Brock Bowers was double covered,
they just threw to him anyway. But there were a lot of plays
where he's double covered at the beginning of the game.
If you go back to Week 1 when Brock Bowers was on the field,
the first place Gino looked in almost every play was to Brock
Bowers. It was like just every time
Gino's looking at Brock Bowers in week one, in Week 2, that was
not the case. At the start of the game, like
the whole first half, basically he wasn't looking.
His head was in on the opposite side of the field then Bowers.
And to me, that is maybe indicative of like, hey, they
didn't think Bowers was totally 100%, so they didn't want to
pepper him with targets. They're happy to use him as AD
coin, just take all this double coverage.
So that was near the start of the game.
As the game progressed, they started to just be like, OK, we
need to, we need to do more Brock Bauer stuff.
He got more targets as the game went on.
Gino also misses him badly for a touchdown near the end of the
game. Bauer's is open, he's in the end
zone and Gino just sails him. Unfortunately it it also was a
catch where I've seen Brock Bowers elevate enough to get
that in the past. So I do wonder how much the knee
affected him. I would say since he played even
more snaps than he is probably a minor deal where it's just like,
hey, it's it's not a big time injury, he'll probably be back.
I'm yeah, I'm gonna say like sometimes even with the very,
very, very best players, the defense just says you're not
winning through this guy. And they don't have the monster
games. Like that happened for Brock
Bears last year towards the end of the year, I think it was the
Falcons they played where Gretchen and I had a we we had a
big root and interest in Bowers and like, we needed a big game
and a big game would have put us over.
But they just decided no, no, no, no Brock Bowers.
And like you, you, you had that with A.J.
Brown, with the Chiefs in Week 1.
Like I remember there was like Julio Jones games where.
No, no, Julio Jones, sometimes they're CDM games and still
getting. What was it like?
I think it was like 5 targets. Yeah, so like I think he gets,
he gets 8 targets in the Game, 5 receptions, 5 catches.
Yeah, so still like still solid, honestly still solid.
And from like you, you you watch the game.
I didn't stay up for it. I didn't watch it in the
morning. So you have like the kind of
more watch the game take from a statistical standpoint, it just
feels like you're not gonna hit, you're not gonna get a Smash
game every game. That's just not how this works.
And so if you're gonna get a four-game and you're still
getting 5 catches, and that still seems pretty good.
Yeah, it did. The the frustrating thing with
watching the Raiders last night was it really seemed like they
were allergic to using their best players.
Like they're taking Genti off the field for Dylan Loudy and
getting Zamir White in there. And, you know, Bowers is is not
getting targeted. They're targeting, you know,
Deonte Thornton and Kobe Meyer and Trey Tucker and.
I mean, I, I kind of get it in the start of the game where
like, hey, he's a little banged up.
They're putting all of their attention on taking this guy
away. We kind of like these other
guys. Let's see what they can do.
And then we're like, OK, well, like actually we need Brock,
Brock. We need Brock Bears to do Brock
Bears things. Yeah.
And so that's kind of my my take away is I'm thinking that
they'll learn the lesson of like, it's just it's just got to
go through this guy like that's he's our dude.
Like this is how it has to be. That's probably going to come
across as copium given how how much of A Brock Bowers bowl I
am. But I just I feel like that's
the most likely outcome is they've just got to learn the
Brock Bowers lesson where it's like just like, you know, the
Rams know where. Yeah, the Rams know where their
bread is buttered. The Rams.
The Rams spam Puka Nakua over and over and over.
And and they make it work. You know, like it doesn't matter
that defenses know that it's going to go to puka Nakua.
They they find a way because he's your best player.
And I think the same will be true for Brock Bowers.
Hopefully he can get over the knee injury doesn't need the
brace next week. I mean, you know what the
Raiders actually needed? They really needed some stuff to
slow down that Chargers pass rush like, But Brock Bauer's end
around where all of a sudden, like all these guys in the pass
rush are, are committed and just flying by him and he ends up
taking a hand off. And now he's, you know,
one-on-one with a linebacker. And then he gets by that and
it's like, OK. And now Brock Bauer just has
safeties to be like, that could have been the kind of thing that
they needed in the arsenal to really slow the Chargers down
because the Chargers were just pinning their ears back and
getting them like it was it was ugly.
It was rough to watch. Yeah.
If you're a Raiders fan, I and you missed the game,
congratulations. Like don't go back and watch it.
It was not. You didn't want to, you didn't
want to see that as a Raiders fan.
So I got to hope they learned the lessons from that game.
But we can move on from Bowers, a guy that I wanted to talk
about who got a good number of targets agitating on Sanders.
Now the Panthers had a huge, huge number of plays.
You know, the the Cardinals end up with a terrible fumble near
the end of the game to open the door for the Panthers to try and
come back. Cardinals just I think the
Cardinals really, really stink, man.
They they may be very bad. I'm trying to leave pull up.
So let, let me, let me go on what I think under Tavion.
So he's at 65% routes. The other guys are 33% and 5%.
So he's what he's what you see on the chart here where he's
kind of like a in tiers of starter.
He's kind of like a lower top tier reality starter where he's
get like he's not it's this is not a committee.
This is not a tight end committee.
This is like he's a he's a starter and then the other guys
will get some run too. And and if you, if you can, if
you see that continued and he's continuing to get the targets
and they're continuing to drop back as much as they have to
like Jutavion Sanders is is especially a cost like tight end
premium is, is I think is pretty good.
He was he was great for tight end premium.
He's just, you know, getting the PPR scam stuff.
So I pulled up what I wanted to pull up and it felt like this
from watching the game, but I'm glad to to confirm it with the
PFF stats. Basically all of the jetavion
Sanders targets are just right in front of Bryce Young middle
of the field, you know, less than 10 yards from the line of
scrimmage. It's all these little rinky
dink, emergency panic, get the ball out type shit where it's
these quick hitters. I think it's a symptom of the
offense as a whole being dysfunctional where Bryce is
just not being successful at operating within structure a lot
of the time. And he's he's really struggling
to, you know, to actually push the ball down the field.
You know, there'll be spurts where it's going OK with with
Pet. But yeah, I think this is the
symptom of of the offense being broken where it's like he's just
taking these little check downs and they're they're just not
really doing anything. It's it's not a.
It's just like how we check. Downs.
I mean, they're not check downs he's getting.
He's got like 9.4 A dot. Yeah, no, they're not.
They're not check downs. That's not fair.
But they're all just from watching them.
They're all these little quick like.
Right, I get you. Quick release routes like it's
it's very. My take away from watching
Bryce, so I actually did watch a good few of the drop backs, is
that when the defense was in zone, he was actually pretty
good at identifying the seams in those zones and hitting those.
And so that probably does suit Jatavion a little more.
And I think that lines up a little bit more with him getting
decent yardage on on the trolls too.
But when, when they're against man and he has to fit it in
there, he he, he's not a home with that.
That's a that's, I think that's a good read there.
OK, that's, that's enough. Jatavion Sanders, the other guy
that I think we have to talk about, we mentioned him last
week as well, but Tyler Warren, Tyler Warren is just taking, you
know how the last year the Colts, you know, it was Pittman
and and Downs both getting a ton of that first read stuff last
year. Tyler Warren is that this year
they're really, really bears. Take notes.
You know, you draft a tight end really high, maybe get him
involved, make him a focal point.
But yeah, Tyler Warren getting super, super involved.
He had a ton of yards after catch as well.
I think he was second only to Tucker Craft this week.
So he's he's looking like a smash at cost.
Yeah, just the trend from Week 1 seems to be confirmed with him.
Right, Yeah, yeah, where I I think I I saw that Gretch was
saying that, hey, he's the primary and a lot of these
orpos, which makes a lot of sense, a lot of sense.
So like kind of like it, it does seem like kind of like a perfect
fit for the offense. Great player and and his style
is a perfect fit for the offense.
With that, they've kind of like actually they correctly
identified who would work for them and and how to get them
involved. So that, that does seem pretty
fantastic. Yeah, OK, 2 two more guys on the
tight end chart and then we can move on to wide receivers.
Sam Laporta Are are you worried about Sam Laporta?
Is there better stuff to come in the future?
What are your what are your Laporta thoughts?
So give me one second. I'm just pulling up.
I'm just one. I'm pulling up at the the
general LaPorte stuff. So Week 2 they had 29 dropbacks,
which is obviously down because they were beating the brakes off
of off of the bears. So 72% route rate after an 88%
right, right in week 1 and 4 targets after 8 targets in week
1. I don't know, like that's not
ideal obviously. And I think he's like a good
tertiary target for for the Lions, obviously not encouraging
that. They like they beat the brakes
off somebody and, and he's not having a great game.
And but he had what, 88 targets for 79 yards in Week 1 and
followed by a down game. And are you worried you're
probably, you're probably worried about that at the FFPC
cost where you went in round four and that that doesn't feel
great, especially when when you're talking about kind of
like these mid round smashes and and late round smashes.
I don't. I don't think you're worried
like he's still going to have his days, but you're probably a
tad disappointed so far is what I'd say.
Yeah, I think he's definitely, you know, you're not happy with
the cost that you paid there. Let me ask you about a couple
guys just straight up you can magically swap Laporta for this
guy on your basketball teams. You want Sam Laporta or you want
Tyler Warren? At this point, you want Tyler
Warren, don't you? Yeah.
Sam Laporta or Tucker Craft, I think that's pretty close.
I think I'd probably give Laporta the edge there.
OK, Sam Laporta or Kyle Pitts. That's so funny cuz Kyle Pitts
is obviously he's emerge from the dead where he's, he's, he's
saying what 80% routes, then a 21% target spread run 5.2 A dot
like we, we would have killed for this, this usage last year,
like we were, we were on our on our hands and knees like begging
for this usage. And I, I think that's again
pretty close, but probably, probably dueling at La Porta.
But, but pretty close. Pretty close.
OK, this is a great outcome for for Pitts.
Yeah, all right. And just two more Sam Laporta,
Jatavian Sanders. Laporta, Laporta.
Yeah, they agree. I got the sense the next one's
gonna be easy too. I don't know.
It depends on your your persuasion, Sam Laporta or
Harold Fannon. And it's it's, it's Laporta.
It's still Laporta, but you know the the slappy inside Dream
wants to say that it's Harold Fannon.
Yeah, I actually, I have a home league where I've got Laporta on
my bench and I see a fan in there and I'm like, oh, should I
do it? Should I do it?
But no, you got to do Laporta. Yeah.
All right. I think those are all the tight
ends. The only other one I had notes
on was Pits, but we talked enough about him.
Yeah, yeah. And I don't feel the need to
torture us ourselves with any more backup tight end
discussion. Yeah, Evan Ingram, super toast,
by the way, we talked about him possibly being toast last week,
but he had the ankle injury. He he left twice with an ankle
injury. So it's like maybe it wasn't
actually rotational Evan Ingram. Maybe it was just no, he think
he played 51% of snaps this week.
You might say that. Oh, he was still Hanford Hanford
by the ankle injury. He's off the injury report,
though. But you know, guy guy still
could have a little bit. It doesn't really matter.
Like you tell yourself whatever makes you sleep at night, but
I'm just telling you to help you.
Evan Ingram doesn't belong on your fantasy roster anymore.
He's he's not a thing. Yeah, yeah, like the the Joker
is is whoever dropped at him, unfortunately, which it it's me
as well. I drafted him too and but.
Yeah, yeah, I haven't been to Dynasty League where I could
have flipped him this offseason on the on the Joker roll signing
news. And yeah, I'm, I'm putting the
clown makeup on right now. And so I guess on the receiver
chart here, I don't want to spend too much time on Jamar
Chase just because, yeah, he, I, I think he's just doing the
things that he was kind of expected to do that they're sort
of surprising stuff. And that's, and let's start off
with Zay Flowers and JSN where I think I know them, Jacob had
kind of like a thing like comparing them like, hey, why
wasn't Jay Flowers being talked alongside JSN?
And I think he's right, yeah. Where they're like kind of like
low drop back offenses, but these are these both these
receivers are just the guys and they have really, really high
usage rates. Like we're looking at them
around 100% way to target spread run.
Like that's like a target kill from 2023 when he was on a snap,
snap limitation and rate. So, so obviously pretty
unsustainable, but love to see absolute, absolute focal point
and they are smashing and so that I think that's pretty
fantastic. Yeah this is this is what the
Zay Flowers breakout looks like. This is what the JSN breakout
looks like. Man, I wish I had more JSN cuz I
really felt like he was a player that I was more bullish on, but
I didn't I didn't really IKB to him enough that that's the one
where I wish I had that, that opportunity back.
So I would have, should have slammed him.
The other. I mean, I got to, I got to take
an L on a guy here, Roma Dunsay. I mean, he's, he's running super
hot on touchdowns right now. Like I don't think does he have,
does he have 3 touchdowns so far?
Am I correct? I actually, I don't know, give
me a second, Sorry that that sounds like something that we
should have on hand for a statue show.
No, no, it's, it's OK. I, I sprung it upon you.
I believe he does. Yeah.
He's got 3 touchdowns. So listen everybody, Roma Dunze
will not score 25 touchdowns this season.
It's just what he's currently on pace for.
So we're gonna see a little regression here.
His price was really hot where he basically had to do this to
pay the price off. Unfortunately for me, he is
doing this, so it's not great right now.
I'm and I I really don't think the process was that bad to fade
him is like, I'm still not even getting buried by him.
He's he's having, you know, crazy games already and I'm not
getting buried yet just because the price is so high.
Yeah, if he keeps doing this, I'm I'm dead and buried by him.
But. Like if like that, to me, that's
the main take away. Romo Dunze is good.
Yep. He's, he's good.
Yeah, Yeah. Like maybe maybe.
The offense is failing, but he individually is smashing and and
he's so far he's taken DJ Muir's at lunch money.
Yeah. It's it's kind of interesting
that what they install DJ Muir as the ex this year, put Dunze
in the flanker row and then and that kind of seems to mean that
they're prioritizing it, getting a doomsday the ball more, which
is what they're doing. And so yeah, he's he's a strong
player and you're obviously starting a doomsday at wherever
you have them. Yeah.
One, one guy I wanted to mention kind of in there's a through
line with JSN and O Doonese and Brian Thomas Junior and that is
that we have seen Shane Waldron touch the lives of all of these
men. And when Shane Waldron was
involved with JSNJSN did not perform to his expectations,
still have a fine rookie year, you know, but underperformed
relative to expectation. Waldron leaves town, JSN
immediately supplants DK Metcalf as the wide receiver 1, so much
so that they go and trade DK Metcalf in the offseason.
And now JSN looks like, you know, he's in the tier of like
power slot receiver, like CD Lamb.
Like he he is. He's operating at that level
like the almond raw, the CD Lamb of the NFL, where this is this
is the guy where the offense flows through him and he can
operate it at all depths of the field and win everywhere.
And then you get Roma Doonsay where Shane Waldron touches his
life. He has a terrible rookie season
just, you know, looks like an abject bust.
And Shane Waldron leaves and all of a sudden, Roma Doonsay is out
here just rubbing my nose in it. And then you have Brian Thomas,
who's Shane Waldron has come into his life and he goes from
electric rookie season. You know it's getting drafted at
the end of the first round to now you know he's getting cucked
by Diani Brown out there on the field.
So one has to ask, is the Shane Waldron trend so strong that
when Shane Waldron's inevitably fired from the Jags passing game
coordinator job next year, do we buy the Brian Thomas bounce
back? And more importantly, if Shane
Waldron somehow weasels his way into another NFL organization,
do you just fade those pass catchers at all costs?
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like that's the story at this point,
and I'm still not ready to bury Brian Thomas.
No, no, I I was being a little melody.
Yeah, yeah. But it's a yeah, it's a good,
it's a good like segue to Brian. So we just talked about guys
having great success this year. So Brian Thomas, obviously not
and his his usage fantastic, his results terrible.
And I think I saw the, the ETR, they, they did their expected
fantasy charts and, and he's like one of the most under
expected guys on that chart of any kind of skill position.
And I know the vibes are bad where people are like, hey, he's
like, he's not ready to take the shots over the middle.
And he's kind of alligator in arms, alligator arming stuff
that he should be kind of stronger on the catch point.
And it's hard, it's hard for me to like, it's hard for me to
kind of predict how that goes because like, like the, the tape
watchers are like this dude is playing bad and, and, and, and
it's hard for me to like, how do we just oppose that with we know
he's good. Do we think that he just
continued? Like, has he just like have the
Monstars or Shane Waldron stolen his talent and he will be bad
forevermore? And I, I, I, I think you, you
have to react to per play, like you've got to adjust your
expectations for Brian Thomas on that.
But you also keep in mind that he's got a lot of talent and and
you very well could see a return form.
So I guess it's kind of feels like a high variance play where
at the high anything, anything near to the old cost, like you
don't play that. But if you see if the vibes
continue to like deteriorate over this week, and let's say
I'm trying to think of examples, let's say it has another bad
week and then he ends up being like 4K or 5K on DraftKings and
nobody still nobody wants to play them.
And that's kind of a scenario where you can play into it.
And if like obviously if somebody cuts them, you pick
them up right away, but you still you still want to play
that upside, but you kind of do want to make sure that your your
cost is right is what I'm guessing, guessing I'm saying.
Yeah, let's talk about some other guys.
Am I like, am I being too cold on him there like?
I mean, I, I don't think you're being particularly cold.
You're, you're, I mean, you said you're not out on him by any
means. You're just, you're not ready
to, to call him dead and buried. And I, I think that'd be a bit
of an overreaction to, to do that.
So he's he's someone where he's off to a slow start, but he
showed us so much as a rookie that I'm not overwhelmingly
concerned about it. It's it's more of an annoyance
than a concern to me right now, is how I would frame it.
OK, OK. Sounds like you're a little a
little more optimistic than I am.
Yeah, I'm just, I just want to zoom out on the chart with a guy
that was as talented as he was in his.
Room. Right.
Right, right, right, right. Yeah.
So some other some other guys that are in this same quadrant
of the chart that I I want to just kind of like quickly go
through Mike Evans. I think another guy who's a
strong candidate for like a a big eruption game, getting a lot
of opportunity in the weighted targets per route run, but he's
below that median red dotted line there.
So probably underperforming relative to his opportunity.
And just from watching the game, like looks good right now, like
had a had a big play called back due to a pass interference
penalty. Like there's you could easily
spin me a yarn where Mike Evans has a three touchdown game on
the near horizon. You know, he just he can still
do Mike Evans things. I right.
He didn't surprise me at all, the other one.
For Drake, London, probably. I was, I was about to go to
Drake London. Yeah.
The, the thing that's like a little worrying with Drake
London for me is I do think that he is like a step down in talent
where he's very good. But he's you know, he's not the
same as like a Nico Collins or Brian Thomas level talent.
I think he's closer, like even lab, I'd say lab Mcconkey's much
more talented than Drake London from like a actual football
player. Like who who is the best at
playing wide receiver standpoint?
Like I think lab Mcconkey clears in there.
I I don't think Drake London is bad by any means.
I but like Drake London's a worst football player than JSN.
He's like probably a worse football player than Zay
Flowers. He's he's like a Michael Pittman
plus plus to me, like he's of that archetype where he's this
bigger possession receiver where he's going to get this crazy
volume. I mean, you've seen him get
crazy, crazy target volume. He just hasn't done a ton with
it yet this season. I think you still can benefit a
ton from just being willing to buy the any negative perception
on him with with the poor start to the season he's had, because
anyone that's getting the kind of targets that he he's earning
can put up a monster game. You know, he, he could just do
Michael Pittman things and catch, you know, week 1 he has
15 targets, catches 11 of those and you know, goes for 10 yards
of pop. Like that's a huge game in PPR,
you know, throw a touchdown in there and you got a Stew going.
So he's not someone that I'm out on by any means, but he is
someone where I I want to like and, and I'm, I'm ready for
this, you know, take to to age like milk.
But he's one where I, I think collectively as a fantasy
community, you probably need to recalibrate our talent
assessment of him. Like I think he's better than
Michael Pittman, but I think like in that category is closer
to where he is. You know, like a Jacoby Myers
plus Michael Pitman plus type type of guy.
You're saying he's in the tier in between those, in between
those guys and and let's say Negro Collins.
Yeah, he's he's like ahead of Michael Pitman, ahead of Jacoby
Myers, but he's he's clearly a a full tier down from like Nico
Collins, Ladd Mcconkey, like would you would you how would
you categorize Chris a lot Alave fantastic.
You know like better better talent wise than Drake London,
right? Like has earned targets and to
me those guys come out as as pretty close.
OK. I think they're they're pretty
close prospect wise. They've shown pretty similar
ability to earn targets and like, they're not like you're
not in that kind of Justin Jefferson tier where it's just
like nobody can cover this guy. He's just going to torch you Am.
But still, like, they're, they're still very, very good
Am's like strong target earners and, and, and producers probably
maybe not quite able to ascend am to elite level out of like
weird, weird situations. I, I guess this is the best
situation Drake London's ever been in his career.
And but he's not, he's obviously not been able to ascend out of
like bad situations to like a, a, a fantastic degree.
Yeah, and, and it's probably similar with a lobby where I, I
think a lobby is great, but I, I do think London is similar.
Is there anyone else on this chart that you wanted to spend
time on or should we move on? Yeah, and we can do some quick
hitters where George Pickens, I think clear Batman, actually
clear Robin to CD lamps Batman not, not a great surprise or
anything like that, but it's been pretty clear through two
weeks. Same with DJ Moore, which is
surprising, but that's what that's what the case has been.
Same with Marvin Harrison to Trey McBride.
Then what else? I think I think that covers it.
I think I think we've I think I don't think I have anything to
say to anybody would be surprised to hear on that on
this chart. I guess I do know that Mecca
Buka still kind of in this weird, not like OK ish and
opportunity per rat run metric. You still OK ish.
They're not great at well want to keep an eye on that and.
Yeah, he, he was banged up, Bruce, he was banged up at the
end of the game yesterday. They were wrapping I I think it
was a wrap for his hamstring. They're wrapping like his, his
upper leg, like hamstring area. I believe it was probably a
hammy that they were wrapping him for, but during the game
they're actually commenting on like how tight that rap was and
that it looked like it was hindering him a little bit.
He gets a target, you know, down the middle could could be a
touchdown, but just looks like he's not.
It was a it was a tough throw as well, like it was, it was would
have been a hard is. That the one where you have to
kind of like go over the shoulder?
Yep. Like, yeah, that, that one I
remember people are like, you dropped it and I'm like, that's
a pretty tough catch to make. It was a tough catch and he's,
you know, he just got wrapped up on the sideline like the guy is
probably not moving at his very, very best right there.
So not super concerning to me. The one the ones that I I'll
very quickly just say my piece and we can go to the next chart.
Rashid Shaheed very much like the third fiddle on that offense
behind Joan Johnson, Crystal Wabe, Jameson Williams.
The Jamo Fish get bailed out again by the long touchdown and
and you can say that's the thesis all you want, but man
like Jameson Williams is not. Is not a paper.
No he's not. I mean the the weighted targets
per route run are are nothing like.
I mean, he was well on his way to.
Enjoy your prayer yards. Yeah, yeah, DK Metcalf also just
like a you're hoping, you're hoping and praying you got 0% DK
Metcalf at this point that is not a not a player you want to
see on your fantasy rosters. Cedric Tillman, I think more of
a mirage than anything. He catches like a deflected
touchdown this week. He's he's probably going to be
an annoyance to the the Jerry Judy drafters who think, you
know, Jerry Judy is, is the clear alpha there.
Cedric Tillman is just an annoying thorn in your side,
reminding you that Jerry Judy is not actually that good because
he cannot beat Cedric Tillman for like a strong command of the
targets in the offense. And then Ricky Pearsall getting
put in the cut chair by much slower, much less athletic Jawan
Jennings. Yeah, the Ricky Pearsall thing
is not happening. Ricky Pearsall is like a
complimentary player that that they can use to do occasional
Debo things and then also occasional Ayuk things.
He's like Timu Debu, Timu Debo and Timo Ayuk, Timu Ayuk all in
one player where he is, you know, not not going to be able
to do what either of them could at their their peaks.
But he is like he's athletic enough and and can do some of
that stuff where he's a valuable piece in their offense.
But I would I would be ready for the Ricky Pearsall role to
decrease as the season progresses.
When you get healthy George Kittle and healthy Brandon IU
back in the lineup because already we're seeing, hey, CMC
is the number one pass catching option.
Then it's Jalon Jennings and then.
Ricky Pearsall is here. Tertiary NFL player.
Yep, Yep. And and that's without, you
know, 2 better players competing for target.
So Ricky Pearsall down the stretch, you're, you're like, if
you're in a league where you could trade Ricky Pearsall now,
get rid of them because you will not want to have them on your
team come fantasy playoffs. You know, in a, in a league
where you're having to choose start set, you will never be
able to start Ricky Pearsall when it's like week 15/16/17
without some injury to these other guys.
Ted Mcmillan's awesome, by the way, I'm praying for an Andy
Dalton start. Give me Andy Dalton so my Ted
McMillan shares can flourish. All right, that's all for this
chart. Yeah.
And so moving on to where these aren't the backups, what they're
the, no, sorry, not the backups. They're not the, they're not the
the 85% plus route run receivers.
They're not the part timers either.
They're kind of in between where they're like clear starters, but
not not kind of full every down route guys.
I know you you were pretty pleased.
I have a bit of Wandell as well. Gretsch was pretty pleased that
we got we got some air yards. We finally saw the the college
air yard earning Wandelle materialize in the NFL and he
had a he had a great week and I'm off strong opportunity.
Yeah, you, you love to see the thesis play out there.
He, I mean, Gretch talked about him in Stealing signals this
week and described him along the lines of like, he's probably a
guy that's just like a really good floor play that will
occasionally have these spikes and you love to see it.
I mean, I for best ball purposes, Wandale is like AI
calling him a league winner is too much, but he is like league
winner adjacent. He's an advanced rate monster
like Wandale. If you have a team with Wandale
on it, if this continues, which I I expect the trend to continue
or he's able to earn targets and they're not all confined to the
short area stuff that he was confined to last year when he
had 140 targets. He he's going to be a tough out
If you're going against Wandale teams in your pods, you're like,
ah, damn, someone else has Wandale here.
Like it's going to be harder for me to advance.
Like the price on him was just so, so cheap for what you're
getting. And I, you can say the same
thing about Keenan Allen. Keenan Allen's one that I, I was
totally out on and wrong on. You know, I think I probably
just assigned, I, we talked about this last week, so we
don't need to rehash it again. But I think I just assigned too
high of a chance that he was totally washed and didn't
attribute enough of that to the Bears and Caleb Williams
thinking last year. But yeah, we're.
Getting late career king of the island, aging gracefully.
Yeah, where he's not an every route guy by any means, but when
he is that their boy, do they look wrong to him?
He must get open a lot. He, he's just an awesome guy to
have on your baseball teams. You know, the I, the spikes
probably won't be quite as high, but like, he's good, good to
score a touchdown and good to get, you know, 5-6 catches.
And so when you get those touchdown weeks, it's just going
to be enough where you're like, Yep, getting Keenan Allen the
14th looks really, really good. So, yeah, capitulating on Keenan
Allen and then kind of this this triumvirate of like late round
wide receivers that look like they're not quite good enough to
be league winners, but they are they're advance rate monsters is
what I'm going to call them, is Troy Franklin.
I mean, now Troy Franklin, I have less confidence in Wandale
and Keenan. I'm ready to like, I'll write
that in ink for this season. Like the story of how the season
goes for them, barring injury or something terrible is those guys
are going to propel teams to weigh above average advance
rates just because how bad they were priced.
Troy Franklin, we only get the, we just get this one sample for
this week of like he is the primary receiver, right?
They built the plane out of Troy Franklin.
It's Troy Franklin. The plane he was the he was like
their top. Of all their skill position
players, he got the most snaps on the week.
And it's Troy Franklin, Short, intermediate and deep.
It's Troy Franklin in all quadrants of the field.
You know, they, they absolutely built the plane around Troy
Franklin. Like he got the most routes,
like they used them. They used them in the slot, yes,
but then a bunch of wide too. So in and 12 personnel.
He must have still been on the field as I guess definitely what
90% route rate and he got them by far the most targets.
He rewarded the team on those targets by by turning them into
yardage and and he scored as well, right?
Yes, he did. So it's kind of like a you've
got that one piece in the back of your mind is is this did Sean
Payton just decide, hey, this this defense has this weakness
that Troy Franklin is going to exploit this week, but then next
week it's back to the court and Sutton show you've got that
little bit is is is it was this just a temporary thing for him?
But the fact that he, like they, they built the plane on them and
it worked. And I, I guess at least
offensively is, is pretty strong in, in his favor.
Like I, I feel pretty good about it.
But there is still that. Like you never know.
Yeah, there's more of a chance that this was a mirage than
something real. You're you're hoping to see it
again next week. The the last guy that kind of
fell into this archetype as far as like where he was priced in
basketball drafts that doesn't look to be as strong of an
advance rate monsters these other guys.
But it's still someone I'm really happy to see on my teams
is Romeo Dobbs, who, as you know, the Packers deal with the
Jaden Reed injury. We see the targets condense
more. You know Dobbs is is running
lots of routes. He's out there.
He he's, you know, someone you're happy to have right now.
Not really going to be startable in a a managed format, you know,
more than likely, but he's someone where you're pretty
happy to have him on your best ball rosters.
We kind of had, you know, the Sidekick had like its favorite
late round receivers and it almost did become a bit where
it's like collecting the Infinity stones of these late
mispriced receivers or it really wanted to smash, you know,
Lawndale and Romeo Dobbs and Pop Douglas.
And so see, Lawndale and Dobbs seem pretty good and it's at the
cost of having Pop Douglas on your team.
So, you know, yeah, I think, I think with.
Dobbs, you've gotten kind of confirmation that the floor is
there, like you've gotten a floor of routes, you've got some
ceiling that is in that he can score touchdowns.
I I like you're saying, I do feel less encouraged by him than
the other guys. And even with the Jayden Reid
injury, I think that the primary beneficiary of the Jayden Reid
injury is probably Wicks, who actually got more targets than
Dobbs and yeah, last week. And but like Wicks, needed that
injury. January just probably going to
come back and and and he'll be back on the bench and, and and
most snaps again. And but Dobbs that you, you, you
love to see the touchdown. You love to see the the targets
you you've got a nice kind of floor play there as the ballast,
as a ballast for the end of your roster on the on on in
basketball. Yeah, I think an interesting
note here is the two Bills guys that show up, you get Keon
Coleman and Joshua Palmer where Keon Coleman higher route share
than Palmer, but they have similar weighted targets for
route run. The variance so far to scoring
fantasy points has gone Keon's way with the big weak one.
But I I think this really illustrates why like the Josh
Palmer as a Keon Coleman arbitrage was a pretty solid
strategy. It's just the Bills are going to
spread it around and no one guy is going to going to get it
every week. I mean, you were just.
Crazy. So Keon Coleman went from a 94%
route rate guy in week 1 and then Week 2 he's at 63% and
actually Josh Palmer ran more routes in in Week 2.
I do wonder how much of that was like the game is over for a long
stretch. That definitely could be part of
it. I think in general though, my
take away is you were paying way too much of A premium for the
Keyon Coleman what if talent scenario over Josh Palmer, given
that this is what we've seen through two weeks.
I think there's something to what you're saying, though, like
I'd expect Keyon Coleman probably to have the stronger
route share to Palmer as we progress through the season, but
I just don't think that it's going to be enough to justify
the price. But it's it's interesting.
Like I'm not, I don't want to like bury Key on Coleman right
now and say, oh, what we saw in Week 1 is just a mirage.
The breakout's not happening. Like he very well still could
break out and that's why you were paying the premium.
I just think that the premium was probably a little steep
given the probability of the breakout and relative to what
you can get later in that same offense.
So that's that's all. Yeah, it.
Makes sense. Makes sense?
Last guy I wanted to hit on here real quick is I mean and Khalil
shakur we also see way lower weighted targets for outrun.
Would not shock me at all to see the other two guys that we just
talked about move towards Shakur and Shakur to move towards them
and they all kind of converge near the middle because I think
Shakur is probably the most talented of the three, but he's
still recovering from that high ankle sprain and we've seen that
SAP players, you know, athletic ability for you know, weeks or
months at a time. So it wouldn't surprise me if
Shakur is a bit of a slow starter this season.
You know, by October, November, we see him more more taking over
here. But the guy I did really want to
mention briefly here is Alec Aymanor.
Very interesting. You know, he's basically he's
the way that I would want to bet on Cam ward.
I don't really want to bet on Cam Ward directly.
But if I think we literally said this exactly last week, but we
just get another week of data kind of confirming that where
Diomanor is the one that's that's exciting if it goes well,
right? Yeah, yeah.
Again, I'm a little perplexed. Next time you went from 82%
routes and 1 to 68% in Week 2. Honestly very perplexed by that.
You also see Gunner Helms routes tick up from 18% to 34%.
So maybe that was game game plan specific.
So you probably have a little bit of volatility in terms of
Iron Manure's snap rate as, as it, it looks like he's kind of a
primary slot guy. And let me let me confirm that.
But I, I agree with you that like even like let's take the
let's take the routes and the snaps aside, he's still earning
targets at a good rate. He's still producing with them.
Obviously, what's his name? Ward is showing strong trust in
him by like, being willing to throw the ball, like all the way
across the field and risk that football to get to get him a
touchdown. Yeah, Ironman or is basically
never playing in the slot. He only had two slot snaps last
week, 46 out wide. So it's all it's all X receiver
stuff for him. OK, that's so then why I'm, I'm,
I was, I was kind of coming up with that as an explanation for
why. Who else played more?
So Tyler Lockett, his snaps went down.
Van Jefferson, he played more, yeah.
So did he lose snaps to Van Jefferson?
Looks like let's see DK played more.
DK played mostly in the slot, but he did also play additional
snaps out wide as well. Yeah, OK.
It's just it's. You can see why I'm a little bit
like. Yeah.
No, no, no Will. Jackson played more, DK played
more. Why do they why do they take
this guy off? Was there an injury?
Anyway, I guess right for now there's a little bit of
volatility in his in his week to week.
It's not great, but the targets they're being there and him
earning targets, encouraging him producing with those targets is
encouraging. Hopefully he he he spends more
weeks as the 80% guy and like you're saying, have another week
of it of of the target airing is great to see.
Yeah, we'll, we'll definitely monitor the the situation with
IM and ore going forward here. But let's move on to the final
chart of the evening. We did just Crest the two hour
mark. So it's getting to be that kind
of time. A couple guys here that I I'm
just going to shout out is like, hey, don't worry about them.
Like it's not going to be a thing.
Most likely Tyler Wallace, don't worry about it.
Just like a one off touchdown. He's not going to be someone
you're ever going to like have to pick up and start or anything
like that. Tori Horton.
So like seems interesting, but I got to be honest, I'm like, I'm
worried with the overall passing volume from Seattle that he's
just probably not going to be thing.
Maybe like in a deep league you can go ahead and stash him, but
you know, just just because he looks really good and weighted
targets for route run and fantasy points per game on this
chart relative to these other guys.
Don't don't like get out of your skis on Tori Horton.
The the one, the other one that's like a little bit of a
bummer is Jayden Higgins. And I don't, I don't even think
Jaylen Knoll makes this chart, but man, they're using Jaylen
Knoll is a punt returner, is a great punt return, almost breaks
one for a touchdown. And they just they refuse to let
this guy actually play receiver, which is frustrating.
You know, they're playing Xavier Hutchinson over him, they're
playing Justin Watson. Like not, not the kind of stuff
that you want to see. But yeah, Jaden Higgins, Jalen
Knoll both look like it's going to be that classic rookie
timeline where it probably takes a really long time for him.
Yeah, well, it's like, it's like they're already rotational and
now Christian Kirk's comes back so that they're even more
rotational. You you leave the light on them
because of the the Longview and the talents.
But like, if, if you're holding these guys like, you're going to
have to hold them for a while. Yeah, do you, do you cut Jayden
Higgins in a like in a FFPC? And I, I I don't it depends on
what's there right? Like do I?
Do I? Probably depends on roster.
Yeah. It depends on how good your
receivers are, right? If, if, if I can get iron
manure, I I put Higgins for iron manure and, and you're right,
you could have a bunch of other bombs that you you put first.
Well, so like hypothetically say that someone had a roster that
was Malik Neighbors, Nico Collins, Tet Zayflowers, George
Pickens, Luther Burden, Jayden Higgins.
You cutting Higgins then? No, and and no, you don't.
You hold on to them. OK, but like it, like it.
Like I said, it depends on on what you can get.
Like you're not cutting Jayden Higgins from Malik Washington.
No, no, all the media is a Keyus because they're playing right
now, right. And it's like if you can get
like a yeah, I'm minor if he's there or if, let's say Troy
Franklin is there and you you you definitely make that
upgrade. You don't let Jaden Higgins hold
you back from them. But you're you're not cutting
him for some losers. Yeah, but he he's cut.
He is nevertheless cuttable is is what I would say.
OK, so we hit on you hit on another guy there with Alamide
Zacchaeus or he's he's kind of just he's keeping the spot warm
for Luther Burden right here where it it also sounded like
from Ben Johnson that they might want Burden to take snaps away
from DJ Moore, which seems crazy to me.
I don't know that that's how that actually shakes out in real
life, but. Well, DJ Murr is the X right
now, so are they going to play Luter Burden in the X?
Like, I don't know that it was confusing to me, but that's
what. Right.
That's the invitation of like, yeah, yeah.
We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see why.
We'll, we'll have to watch there.
Yeah. My, what I would anticipate is
that Olamide Zacchaeus is the one that begins losing snaps to
burden. But you know, we'll have to see
there. The other guy that I wanted to
talk about on here, we talked about Wix already being a big
beneficiary. Yeah.
Matthew Golden, man. Matthew Golden kind of seems to
be in the Christian Watson role where he's not earning a ton of
targets. He's just earning like these
deep shots now. The perception, yeah, the
perception could totally have flipped on him because there's
two big missed plays for him in this last game.
One would have been like a 93 yard touchdown or something
crazy. If he actually gets him, he's
open. Jordan Love just barely misses
him. So I don't want to, I don't want
to say like, oh, it's looking real bad for Matthew Golden, but
I I don't think the role is what you paid.
For yeah, I, I mean, you, you weren't paying for the MVS role.
No, no, but there's also, there's room for the upside here
with Reed, you know, Yeah, leaving more room for for
someone to emerge and and take more work.
So he's not dead, but he's also. He's it's not a great start.
Yeah, Travis Hunter also in the Not dead, but it's disappointing
right now. Now Hunter's been earning a lot
of volume. He's got a lot of targets
through two weeks. Just all this, you know, most of
it rinky dink and then some of the deeper stuff that he had
just missed. There's different universes
where he catches that that deep touchdown pass.
And the perception is better. It's still like what you're what
you're looking at is a Prairie yards like high variance usage
where like some weeks on on the current usage, some weeks he's
going to score 15 and then some weeks he's going to score 4.
The other hard part is he he got more snaps on defense last week
and it was at the expense of his snaps on offense.
It wasn't the, IT wasn't the dream scenario of.
Oh, you're talking like, are we talking about Travis Hunter now?
Sorry, yeah, I'm on the hunter now.
Sorry, I, I, I, I, yeah, that was pretty tough.
And that was pretty tough where it's like, like you may have
said, it's the opposite of like he's getting screens and stuff.
It's like that's, that's certainly not what you drafted
Travis Hunter for. So certainly very, very
concerned with Travis Hunter. It's it's kind of weird the way
that they're using them. Like why did you use that?
Why did you spend all that draft capital if you're going to use
them like a weird kind of like, I forgot the term I'm looking
for, but kind of like damn short rinky dink stuff.
Yeah, Gadget he yeah. He's gadget, Yeah, Why?
Why he's why did he use all that draft capital for a gadget play
and then and not very good cornerback too?
So right now he's got ten of his ten of his 13 targets are either
short or behind the line of scrimmage.
He's got three that are medium. And then he had the 1 deep ball
that could have could have connected and been a touchdown
does not I? They just need to put Chain
Woldron off from the they they need to take the PlayStation
controller out of his hands. Yeah, that's my life.
The it's also the the deeper stuff seems like it might be
getting force to him because on his he has four targets that are
either medium, so 10 to 19 yards down the field or deep.
He's got one that's 20 yards down the field.
Of those 4 targets, 2 of them have turned into interceptions.
So I don't know, man. It's.
Well, we saw that one of them was like he was open, but the
IT. Was a vibe pro and the major
under throw Yep. So there's the vibes aren't
fantastic and you're now you're actually the worry that we
thought we thought that we didn't need to be worried about
the usage. We thought, oh, we're getting
the dream deployment. He's gonna be running 80% of the
route. It's like, yeah, maybe not
actually maybe we do need to be worried about the deployment and
the usage. So I think the take away for me
on Travis Hunter more is like, not that we're ever really gonna
have to handle a situation like this again, but just in general,
I want to keep situations like this really ambiguous in in my
mind when I'm, you know, when we're projecting stuff like this
out for for future seasons And and obviously we're not going to
have a two way player that we're doing right.
But just like learning the lesson of like, hey, even when
even when you're getting the news that makes you feel more
bullish about the guy, like, oh, they said it's going to be 80%
on offense. It's going to be exactly what we
want. Like just remembering that like
coaches lie and and also they might not even be trying to lie.
Like stuff just changes. And so just being comfortable
applying a lot more ambiguity and uncertainty to situations
like this, I think is good from like a, hey, how do we?
You were certainly getting the discount for the ambiguity.
I'm not. I'm not sure I would play it all
that differently to how I did. I think his, I think the price
with the ambiguity properly factored in was probably closer
to like a, you know, a sixth round rather than like he was
going like in the in the 4th and the 5th for a lot of it on
underdog and. Yeah, I guess I'm an FFPC
perspective. Where?
Yeah, FFPC, he was going later that the price was a lot more
palatable to me given the tight end premium format where you
know, the the ADP is the wide receiver should get pushed down
just a smidge because you're having more tight ends go
earlier. And then also you've got the
running back heavy format there where people just draft more
running backs. He's probably like a early 7th
is like the fair, fair price, maybe mid 7th like if you're
properly pricing the risk and the ambiguity.
But on underdog, the price seemed a little crazy and he
actually was more expensive on DraftKings, believe it or not.
So it's like, I think the market just got it a little wrong in
that they did a poor job assessing the risk there.
So that's one where I just wanted to like file that a way
as like a, a broader lessons for future and and for going
forward. It's like, don't panic.
He's getting lots. He's got a lot of targets
through two weeks. You know, like it.
It could definitely break his way still, but I.
Mean it does break his way. To me the price is still like
you're getting like at least a full round to round and a half
discount on like TET and maybe more of a discount.
So if if it hits in the way that you want it to, like it still
hits pretty hard at the price you got I think.
Yeah, yeah, the, I mean, the whole Jags offense just seems a
little dysfunctional right now, at least in the passing game.
So maybe they get that figured out and and we're not even
sweating Travis Hunter in the coming weeks, but.
It's been disappointing so far. Yeah, those were all the guys I
wanted to talk about. Was there anyone else that you
had you wanted to mention before we finish up here?
No, no, I think we're good. All right, well, I, I guess
that's Week 2 in the books. Another, another showdown.
We'll, we'll be back here next Tuesday for Week 3.
Yeah, Thanks for thanks for joining us, everyone.
Bye bye.