It's week 1 and it is so good to be back as zero RB Bros freak
the fuck out that their running back 2 scored 3.5 fantasy
points. This is stat chasing Pat fryer
Helmo. This is what This is what I'm
Pat Anita Handjob. Fix your sight, Jamar.
Alpha play Chase. Are you kidding me today, Tony?
You. Can't handle the heat.
It looks like we're finally at this point here, right?
All right. Week 1.
It feels so good to be back. Draco, I am super excited to go
through all of these charts with you.
Yeah, Yeah. Really excited and I think we
made some improvements as well. Big overhead to the quarterback
chart that we talked about making last year, we made for
this year. Yeah, we we were in the lab,
hard at work on the quarterback chart, took us the entire
offseason. We are slaving away at it.
We definitely didn't leave it to the absolute very last man, no.
No, no, no, no. I mean, we were, we were
messaging I, I think it was two days after the Super Bowl, you
messaged me and you're like, dude, we got to get to work on
this quarterback chart. It's going to take us months.
I, you know, I think actually, I think I did actually message you
at that time frame and then we didn't actually do.
It we did. We did very much talk about
improvements to the back then, but we did absolutely nothing
until like the final hour. But we got it all done.
So getting into it here, I'm going to that doesn't work.
The biggest improvement we made was we made them all much
smaller and harder to. Goddamn it no.
Well, while, while Draco gets the the chart up there, I'll,
I'll describe a little bit of the changes, but I'm, I'm going
to leave the heavy lifting on describing the charts to Draco.
But the chart, one of the things that we didn't like about it
last year was it showed some stats that we thought were
important for quarterback, but it was less intuitive for
fantasy friendliness. So I'll go ahead and let Draco
explain what we're looking at here.
Right. So our chart like Slack alluded
to there, our chart last year, it focused a lot on efficiency
and efficiency very, very important.
We like efficiency because particularly when passing the
ball touchdowns, yardage efficiency is is what drives a
lot of pocket passers points and then and then you then we have
rushing. But what's also important is
volume and we do want that. We don't want like small or we
don't necessarily want small volume, high efficiency when it
doesn't get us that many points. But there is an exception to
that rule of small volume, high efficiency.
And that brings me to Anthony Richardson, who completed 9
passes on the week, but he did it for 212 yards.
So he's a really good example of, I mean, these guys that are
going to be in this upper left quadrant here, the really good
adjusted yards per attempt, but low expected fantasy points from
passing. The way that I read them is they
just probably come with a good amount of volatility like, and
obviously we've only got one week of data in here right now.
So you know, this this chart is going to normalize as we get
more weeks in here and the guys, you know, get to more, more
along the lines of where their true place on the chart is going
to be. But if a guy lives in this upper
left quadrant, I would just say they're, they're likely a more
volatile profile. Do you think that's a fair
assessment to make Rico? Yeah.
So I, I think if, if like specifically Josh Allen, Anthony
Richardson, so those guys added somewhere between 18 and 20 and
points from from passing. And, and so when you add that on
top of their rushing score, then yeah, that that that's going to
be a great week that, that, that you're going to get a great
score from your quarterback that week.
But I think it's kind of like those guys are kind of unicorns
in, in that regard. Whereas if you had that profile
without the rushing, then yeah, it's like, oh, you had had a
great week and you got 25 points put down some weeks it's going
to be 15. Like Brock Purdy's a great
example of that without the rushing.
Like he is going to be freakishly efficient, but he
he's not rushing very much. And so the weeks where Brock
Purdy is chucking a bunch of touchdowns, you're going to be
really happy you played him. But the weeks where the
touchdowns come on the ground instead, you're going to be a
little less happy. See, he's he's got 15 expected
fantasy points there just from his passing volume, but he's not
really adding anything in the way of rushing.
And he already is very efficient at 8 adjusted yards per attempt.
And these numbers for Josh Allen and Anthony Richardson, like
they will not stay at, you know, above 10 adjusted yards per
attempt throughout the season. Those are going to come down.
Other guys that we see with crazy efficiency in week one are
Baker Mayfield and Derek Carr. And while I certainly expect
their efficiency to come down as well, they did have decent
volume for both of them in spite of the Saints just absolutely
beating the brakes off of the Panthers.
So I think Carr and Baker are good guys to talk about for do
you think that their performance was driven more by the core
defenses they each played or for Carr, is it, you know, the new
offensive coordinator there? What?
What are we looking at for each of them?
So Derek Carr, as you can, as you can kind of see from the
chart, they did actually they they took the ball a decent
amount. So he had about 18 expected
points from from passing and then good efficiency as well to
get them to around 26. And, and I, I guess one thing
that's a little bit interesting is that when you look at their
path, when you look at the Saints pass rate over expected,
it was 8 1/2 or say -8 1/2. So that that's, that's, that's
kind of interesting. So that kind of suggests that he
he had a lot of red zone stuff. Well, he did have the really he
had the he had a couple red zone touchdowns right to the tight
ends and then he also had the really deep ball to Shaheed and
he almost. Right.
That and and that will come with a high expected fantasy points.
Yeah, and they almost had the 42 1/2 times.
Yeah, he he almost had the hat trick there with touchdowns to
Saints tight ends, depending on how you classify Taysom Hill,
because Taysom almost came down with a tight end or with a
touchdown on a wheel route. It was, it was a pretty
incredible, I was surprised that Taysom Hill was the guy they
were drawing that up for. But I mean, it was it was darn
near a very impressive catch there.
But Carl will have to settle for just two touchdowns to two
different Saints tight ends. Maybe he can hit the hat trick a
different week. Other guys that live in this are
our favorite quadrant, this top right quadrant where you are
passing with a lot of volume and you're also doing so
efficiently. These are the guys that are are
going to be really ideal for fantasy.
And certainly if you happen to be a Russian quarterback as well
and you can somehow find yourself here, that is That's
the cheat code. Josh Allen, you know, in years
past would live here. I'm a little concerned that the
Bills told us exactly who they were last season and a large
chunk of the fantasy industry just plugged their ears and did
the La La, la, la I'm not listening thing.
They're like, yeah, well, when we do our projection model,
we're not actually going to use the Bills pass rate from the
second-half of the season. We're going to use something
closer to the historical average because they they really didn't
pass very much in the second-half.
It's like, Nope, that's just what they want to do now.
At least that's how it looks Week 1.
I mean, Josh Allen looks like the entire offense and they they
did not throw very many times. I think he had just 30 total
drop backs and only 23 of them turned into pass attempts.
So the Bills seem like they might be a low passing volume
offense, which is going to be a bit of a departure for for Josh
Allen. But I don't really think it
matters for his fantasy value and kind of the the two ships in
the night for rushing quarterbacks as far.
Stop on Josh Allen. So I think it's important for
Josh Allen that his team is going to live and die by what he
does. And so if if the the Bills are
having a bad day, he probably will have more, more attempts.
But having having kind of like lost Stefan digs and then going
to this more rush heavy attack, I guess it does make me a little
bit more concerned for his stability than it would have
been in years past. I do think there is some of that
possibility that it's the floor is going to be lower this year.
Yeah, good. Great shout there.
I agree with that 100%. I think Yeah, where he's really
hurt the most is at his floor. You you can always get the
insane ceiling games from Josh Allen because he might just
score every touchdown for his team in any given week.
But the the guy who I I wanted to compare to him is Lamar
Jackson, who we saw past at an absurd rate.
He had, I believe his second most attempts in his entire
career. Now, granted, they were trailing
in that game to something they did not do very often last year.
And I'm I'm wondering, I certainly think there's a lot of
it that came down to the fact that, you know, they were just
in an absolute battle with the Chiefs and really needed to
throw to stay in it. And it's not like Lamar did not
run in that game either. He was spectacular on the
ground, you know, leading the league for quarterback rushing
yards. He's he's very good in week one
on the ground. I think we'll see his expected
fantasy points from passing come down a bit as they play
opponents. That or not the Chiefs.
But what are your thoughts on what we saw from the Ravens?
And so obviously this is going to be the maybe not, I don't
know if it's going to be the highest passing game or or or
attempt game of the year for them, but it's it this is the
upper echelon for them passing heavy.
And then one one thing that's kind of interesting a little bit
is that so they actually their pass rate was 2.7 underexpected.
So I think that's a little bit interesting like in that like it
wasn't them. They're they're still pretty
close and neutral there. And it'll be interesting to see
in in game scripts that 10 more to them being winning if they're
still couldn't pretty close to that pass rate over expected.
But that that to say it, it was game strip driven.
And also think the efficiency here being relatively low for
Lamar. They're playing the chiefs
defense. So what expect and we expect
kind of lower volume and what more more efficient outings in
the future. But I think you're you're pretty
likely to get the, you're still alive to get the kind of games
that we did last year where if the the Ravens go up enough,
they they, they stopped throwing the ball.
You you snuck a little likely punt in there.
I don't know if that was on purpose, but I I appreciated it.
Yeah. I mean, I would I just say that
when you get to a situation where your expected pass rate is
so high, like I think what if they have like 70% pass plays
even, you know, it's hard to be over expected in that like even
the most, you know, unless you're Andy Reid, you're not
really getting over your expected pass right there.
He's the only guy that is just like, yeah, why, why do we run
the ball at all? We should throw a replay moving.
Are are there any other guys in this really good quadrant that
you want to talk about here? And yeah, I, I guess that
Detroit are, are interesting as well in that they did have a
really high, yeah, they had a really high expected points from
passing. And but I think a lot of that
was driven by their total number of plays.
They, they did go to overtime and but when you look at their
pass rate over expected that was -8.3%.
So I think seeing that low number, it is a little bit
concerning, especially where I'm in raw was going, where the
Porter was going. I'm not quite alarmed there.
But I think that's something where it's something to monitor.
It's definitely something to monitor because I don't think
the, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think the Rams, they I
don't think they've been like this kind of like run funnel
team. No, I I don't think so.
I mean, I just think that's what Detroit wants to.
Detroit really would like to run the ball a lot.
That's right, right. And, and with how highly drafted
those guys were that that, that that's a little bit concerning,
I think. Yeah, I I think that's a good
shout. You know, with them getting so
much of their passing volume just coming from the really high
play volume from going into overtime and being in a
competitive game with the Rams, you might you might see lower
pass volume there. So I I would expect Gough to
trend more towards the middle of this chart here.
I would expect his efficiency to stay pretty good though.
It's a well designed offense. They have a bunch of really good
weapons. You know, same same for CJ
Stroud. If anything, CJ Stroud having 20
expected fantasy points from passing with Joe Mixon getting
30 carries. I mean, I I think that the
ceiling is pretty astronomical for CJ Stroud.
It just remains to be seen how much the Texans want to actually
cut him loose. A big part of that it.
Has to be pushed they really. It's going to come down to how
good they are and how good their opponents are, right?
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like if, if they get behind in
the game strip, that's that's when you're going to see
fireworks from CJ Stroud. And obviously you do have 20
expected points from passing here.
So you do have good volume, but that's another one where their
pass rate over expected was negative.
And so, and some of that is just play volume count.
And so if they if they get up big and not not sure how often
that happens this year. And that that would be something
where where you're concerned about Stroud's counting stats in
those games. Yeah, I don't want to just blow
by these other guys that were in our good quadrant, but for for
Tua, I I don't really have a a ton he that looks like the
Dolphins offense from last year, except with more a Chan in the
receiving game. We'll we'll talk about running
backs. We didn't learn, I don't think
we we didn't learn anything new about Tua.
I don't think, right. And and it's going to be
efficient. Yeah, the the offense is going
to revolve around him trying to tyreek and waddle.
Yeah. And for Mahomes, I mean, the
only thing that we learned there was really about the quality of
their receivers this year relative to last year.
It's substantially better for all the people that you know,
we're predicting that this might be a Mahomes scorched earth
season where you know, he he gets back to his over 5000 yards
and 40 touchdowns type of type of seasons Week 1 as you're
feeling pretty bullish about that.
I think the Chiefs are going to be really fun.
I believe that they play the Bengals next week.
And man, if the Bengals play like they did against the
Patriots, it could get really, really ugly.
They might get dog walked there a couple other guys that were
kind of on the fringe of our favorite quadrant.
Darnold just looks like he's a a quarterback operating in a
really well designed offense. I mean, it it was this way last
year as well after they lost Cousins.
Whoever was going to play quarterback for the Minnesota
Vikings was going to do well. Like it's just a very much San
Francisco system. Like it is a good system, like a
quarterbacks are set up for success there, so.
I think 11 bit of caution on like getting too excited about
Arnold is they did play the Panthers and they that feels
like one where we just have the one week data point and that's
not just like assume that Darnold is going to be just
really good. Now we still a little bit of
that caution warranted there, but I don't think that's
anything controversial. Yeah, they play play the Giants,
not the Panthers. But yeah, yeah, you're right.
Giants also not very good. I I would assume, if you made me
guess which defense is going to be the better defense over the
course of the year, I would assume the Giants are better
than the Panthers, but I think they're probably both bad.
So the other guy I wanted to mention was Hertz.
He did really poorly as a passer.
He had one of the worst PFF passing grades on the week.
Are you at all concerned about Hertz?
And I am not really I don't think so.
And those, those PFF grades, I, I think I saw something that
those PFF grades, they tend to correlate pretty highly with
your, with the quarterbacks average have to target.
And so if they're not at, they're not showing it down the
field much and they're not going to get those, they're not,
they're not going to get a high PFF grade.
I'm that, that I think that's mainly over, over single game
samples. He didn't play great and you see
just 6.7 and adjusted yards per attempt that, and that is a good
bit below where he, he sort of started off last year.
So I guess you, you could be a little bit concerned with that,
but I, I think there's, there's two things.
It's a long season. You're you're going to see games
from, from guys where it's not, it's not quite at their, at
their expectation. And I still think Hertz is
really good. He's got some really good
receivers. I saw some kind of encouraging
stuff about the Devonta Smith in the slot and being smart about
that. And then the other thing that
I'm not sure how much this matters, but he is a mobile
quarterback. His mobility is important.
And they definitely struggled with the with the surface there.
So that, that, that that was a game where I kind of watched
start to finish. And there was a lot of moments
where, you know, nobody's open. He goes to make a move and he's
he's like Bambi on the ice and. And I, I, I, I think that that's
something where I'm not moving. I'm not changing my opinion on
Hertz yet. Yeah, I, I am in lockstep with
you. Don't think there's any reason
to panic there. The tush push stuff.
I mean, again, how much of that is just, you know, it's week 1.
They're they're kind of getting their feet under them or they
quite literally couldn't get their feet under them.
They're on a new field, so they're on the bad field there.
So I I'm not not concerned about Hertz at all really here, but
let's transition to guys that we are concerned about.
So moving to the bottom 2 quadrants.
If you end up really low in either of these quadrants, even
the high volume 1, sometimes like these guys in the high
volume quadrant like Bryce Young, Deshaun Watson, Daniel
Jones, Bo Knicks, they're how you know.
They're high volume because they're playing so bad their
team. Yeah, it's high volume because
they're losing really badly and there's nothing to do but throw
the ball. Man, I want to.
I mean, none of the rookies really look, none of the rookie
quarterbacks that started looked great this week.
But I got to start with Bonex, man, I I almost was buying into
the the kind of data slicing of, you know, if you remove all of
Bo Nix's short passing, he actually was quite a good deep
passer and he did not look like a great deep passer here in week
one. That being said, I'm I'm glad
that they, you know, Sean Payton wasn't like just running the
ball a million times with no no success.
He was willing to throw the ball.
So I'm not like full panicking on Bo Nix.
He actually, you know, did some stuff with his legs and and
looked pretty interesting there. So I think that if you can get
to a functional offense, he definitely could develop into
something that might be useful for fantasy.
But I do think we're a bit of a ways off there.
And I, I don't know, I mean, there were definitely some
really bad throws that he made out there, but I think another
big part of it is they're they're out there playing
receivers that have no business being like not even on the
field, but on a starting 53 man roster.
Like what are they? What's I don't know, I don't
really get what Sean Payton is doing with.
The the personnel plan has been, has been pro and it is I guess.
I guess one thing that is interesting for both Nix is that
so his pass rate over expected was -1 1/2.
So kind of neutral. So they, they were willing, and
I think Sean Siegel made this point, they are willing to, to
let him throw. Whereas Bryce Young on the other
hand, he, he was -8 and so they were really trying to hide that
guy. And so like they're, they're,
they're letting Bonex figure it out.
And so it is, it is at least a little bit hopeful that his is
expected. The fantasy points is high.
He's getting some rushing and that if like he is a rookie, so
maybe he can have some kind of turn around and there's a little
bit of hope there. I think that's somebody who you
could probably play in in DFS and stuff like that with like a
he's going to be low priced. He can be a vomit stack that you
can like maybe work something out.
It's very gross, but like, compared to someone like Bryce
Young, Deshaun Watson, Daniel Jones, where they've been
playing for a long time and, and we kind of know who they are
and, and they're still this bad. I, I, I think it's a, what I'm
trying to say is it's, it's incrementally better than those
guys. Yeah, so we're we're in
agreement. We're leaving a light on for
Bonex as far as playing him in DFS.
I'm definitely not doing it this next week against the Steelers,
but maybe let's let's look like what's their week 4 matchup
looking like? Give him a little time to to
marinate. You know, what's what's he
looking like in week 4? Where do we get the Broncos week
4? The Jets also not great.
Maybe week five, maybe week 5. Actually the Raiders.
There you go, Broncos, Raiders week 5.
Go ahead and reserve your Millie maker lineups for week 5 right
now and you can go ahead and pencil Bonex in there.
Play it before you see it for for a guy that were I mean, at
least I am less optimistic on you mentioned the Panthers
Canalis or they're trying to hide Bryce Young.
We saw a absolutely putrid rookie season for him.
And then just more of the same here, even after adding Deontay
Johnson like trying, trying to help Bryce Young.
Are we can we just call it over for him?
Is it too hasty to say that it's over for Bryce Young?
I think we can. The body is floating out on the
wooden casket, on the water. We can let go of the Flamiaros.
Yeah, I I have an offer to anyone in the chat if you'd like
to buy my Bryce Young basketball teams.
They are currently for sale at $0.90 on the dollar.
Slide into my DMS. That's the most expensive
they'll be all season. Yeah, I know.
I'm trying to move them now, man.
Other, other guys that looked absolutely atrocious.
Deshaun Watson does not look good.
Did not. OK, you want to I guess.
One thing I think a little bit interesting to talk about is I
feel like Joe Burrow has started every year, the last, this would
be 3 years running now and he's in the, he's in the middle but
bottom left quadrant of this chart.
And it's like, Oh no, we expect Burrow to be to improve and he's
just hanging around in the middle of the chart.
So I'm, I'm, I'm actually a little bit now concerned about
Burrow. And, and, and you have the
contextual stuff like apparently his wrist is hurting and Chase
held out. So it's going to take them time
to get back. T Higgins had the like the, the,
the, the 17th hamstring strain, it feels like.
And then he's like, oh, yeah. Then there's the tape analysis
where, Oh yeah, he just gave up on the deep route and dropped
his eyes. I maybe he can figure that out,
but I'm I'm definitely starting to lose some patience in in
borough like a. Lot yeah, the I mean the Bengals
are just doing poverty franchise stuff like just not not getting
a deal done with Chase where I really I just don't understand
the teams that kind of drag this stuff out.
It just feels like a lose lose for everyone.
You're you're not going to end up saving any money by dragging
it out. Like if anything, you you wanted
to try and get the deal done before the other big guys reset
the market. It really.
When when inflation is 8%, do it now.
Yeah. It just it kind of baffles me
that they are they're they're making the organizational
decisions that they are. But yeah, slightly concerned
about Burrow. The risk stuff is, is the most
concerning thing to me. I think as far as, you know,
like these guys are professional athletes.
They're competitors. Like Jamar Chase wants to get
out there and win football games.
T Higgins wants to get out there and win football games.
Joe Burrow wants to win football games like.
Right. I'm not, I'm not trying to say
that they're gonna, they're gonna quit it just it's, it's
stuff that isn't great. No, no, the the vibes, the vibes
are definitely bad. I think I'm, I'm gonna, I'm
willing to, I'm willing to, you know, think that they can still
get it together, but it, it may be a bit of a slower start than
people were hoping for. Right, you're definitely looking
at a slow start. Yeah, other other guys that were
concerning or slow start candidates, man Caleb Williams,
that was a a pretty poor looking store.
He just, I mean, he looked like the classic, you know, guy who's
the better athlete than everyone that he plays against in
college. And then he gets to the NFL and
all of a sudden all the same old tricks don't work anymore.
Like he's trying to extend plays and get out.
I don't know if you saw the play where he's, you know, getting
pressure or something. Yeah.
Tries to do the double turn. And it's just like, yeah, no,
this this defensive lineman who's running you down is
actually faster than you now. So it's not going to work.
And I mean, I'm not I'm not going to say that Caleb is a
bust after one game, but I will say is, you know, it might it
might take a little development. And I I think there were a lot
of people that were ready to just put the stamp of like, oh,
he's going to come into the league and light it on fire.
And I think he's got a decent amount of headwind.
That's going to make that a little challenging for him.
When you think about, I mean, the Bears play calling looked
just as bad as the Seahawks play calling looked last year with
Shane Waldron. And so, you know, a leopard does
not change his spots and right, I think we're I'm unfortunately
think that we are in for more of the same.
I I'm maybe a little bit more hopeful on Caleb than than some
of the other guys just because like he, he was, he was this
like game number one overall pick.
They do hopefully O Dunze comes back soon, but he is on a
priority. They still do have some pretty
strong receivers there that the play calling is is that
concerning? The the bad play is concerning.
But of all of all these situations where something could
turn around by mid season, I think that's something where you
could get something closer to average by the end.
Yeah, absolutely agree with that.
I just, I think that the and absolute ceiling outcomes where
Caleb comes out and he's, you know, right breaking the rookie
passing record. I don't want to say that they
are entirely off the table after one game.
I think that's a little hasty and and kind of silly.
Yeah, I think they're substantially less likely after
what we saw from one game. And and again, I don't want to
put it all on him like. It's going to be a rookie
season. It I I think the bears might
just be the bears still. So that's that's all.
Another another sophomore quarterback that looked pretty
bad is Will Levis here, man, Will Levis.
I mean, I, I don't really know. I don't know what to do here
with like say, say you have will Levis like on a dynasty team,
but what do you do? Like you just you have to hold
him, right? There's nothing you can.
You can't trade him for anything really, right?
Yeah, I mean, you, you have to wait for a better stretch of
games for sure. And I mean, it's helpful that he
he has a lot of leash as a starter, like until or unless he
gets injured. Like who are they going to play
instead? And but when you when you have
the head coach saying, oh, I wish we'd just plundered every
drive instead. Yeah, it's not great.
And that is, yeah, that's pretty rough.
And and then you have stuff like DeAndre Hopkins has the knee
injury, like Calvin Ridley's the other guy.
And it's it's I think that that's not looking or feeling
great. You have a little bit of rushing
yards there. You got 36 rushing yards and but
yeah, that's not, not not a great air.
And then but then you have like 1.8 yards adjusted for attempt.
Like that's just catastrophically bad.
Yeah, it's, it's not good. And yeah, the the rushing to me
at least what I saw looked more like the walls are crumbling in,
you know, everything, everything is not working and it's just
pure desperation. The other guy where everything
was not working was Kirk Cousins.
I, I'm sure you know, you've seen the clip of him like not
wanting to like plant off that that foot recovering from the
Achilles injury on and throw like that was super concerning.
Like and and then when you piece that.
I, I mean, you, you can't play this guy.
And, and I, I, I, I was going to, I was going to, I was going
to bring it up on the, on the kind of skill position sections.
But like everything about his play suggests a guy who can't
run and who can't throw where it's just, it's just dump off
passes to Ray, Ray McLeod. I was like, there there's no way
a new coaching staff is going to be like, yeah, well, we tried
to, I, I don't believe a new coaching staff yet.
We hitched our wagon to this guy like we're just going to have 17
games in a row. I've done pass passes to Ray
McLeod. I, I, I really do think that
we're going to see that the younger guy, yeah, panics sooner
rather than later, which it is very necessary for, for those
other guys, for those other the past catchers and to some extent
Bijan. Yeah, I mean, and that's that's
kind of what I was saying when you when you now see it on the
field and and when you kind of piece the timeline together,
like the Falcons signed Kirk Cousins without being able to
watch him play, right? He was still recovering from the
Achilles. He wasn't out there and throwing
and and working out for them. They were just signing him with
the hope that he would be good. And so when you kind of think of
chronologically how things happen, it's like, OK, we signed
Kirk Cousins prior to seeing him fully recovered.
Kirk Cousins is going through rehab with the team.
He's he's finally getting out there.
He's practicing. And the team is is thinking
like, oh, OK, well, maybe maybe we do need to start this rookie
quarterback that we drafted high.
And maybe that was part of the decision making process behind
drafting Pennix. At all and then resting him in
pre season. Right.
So there's those were. Some weird decisions that we
were like, why are these guys thinking?
That and and if you have. People read into, but NFL teams
do weird things on such a regular basis.
That was hard to read too much into and but they're reading of
that almost being like the most obvious 1 looks to be correct.
Yeah, so there the the bread crumbs there are concerning.
They're leading us down a dark and winding path in the forest.
And I I do not want to follow the Kirk Cousins bread crumbs
here. You know, if you got him in a
redraft league, you're just you're outright cutting him,
right? There's no need to clog your
roster with it, right? No, no, you, you, you put him
immediately. Yeah.
Yeah, immediately. There, there.
There's there's no world where you can start Kirk Cousins.
Yeah, and it's it's one of those things where it's to me, I
pretend that next week comes and miraculously he looks back to
his full self 100%. Week one, it was just the just
the jitters, you know, whatever, but I don't care.
I'm not like I, I didn't lose all that much by cutting Kirk
Cousins. You know, whoever I picked up
off waivers is probably replace, you know, close enough to
replacing him. And if he really looks that
good, I can go back and get him, you know, maybe a cost.
When we did our main event draft, he went undrafted right,
So and and single quarterback leads he's he's the most
replaceable commodity. Yeah, a couple guys I wanted to
really quickly touch on before we move to the next chart
because we are almost 3/4 of an hour in here and we are on the
1st chart. Jayden Daniels looks really fun
for fantasy, but not from a passing standpoint, probably not
supporting any type of weapon. There it It's Jayden Daniel.
Yeah, he's the only fantasy asset on the Commanders.
It's like Josh Allen on reverse steroids.
Yes, wow, that is a really apartment comparison.
Speaking of Justin, Fields kind of falls into that category as
well. I guess for Fields, you just
hope, I mean the volume is going to be absolutely in the gutter
low. He he graded OK as a passer in
PFF grade. I guess you're just hoping that
the team. Needs Justin Fields rushing to
move the ball like that that that has to be an important part
of their offense. And so I, I, I, I think you do,
you do have that kind of like prototypical floor and, and and
ceiling combo from like a cheap, this is, this is old school
cheap rushing quarterback. Yeah, Yep, absolutely.
So if you have, let's do a quick, quick little waiver wire
thing here. I had Kirk Cousins on my redraft
team. I cut him.
My options are Justin Fields, Geno Smith, and let's see who
who else would be out there so. Streaming type options.
Yeah. Yeah, and and the answer is
basically while Justin Fields is is starting, he's your streamer.
You you would do him over Geno Smith.
Yeah, 100%. What about Justin Herbert,
Justin Fields or Justin Herbert? And I probably I probably do
Justin Fields still. OK.
So Justin Herbert, you do you do like you're kind of cooked from
both ways here. So like as a, as a low volume
pocket passer, he needs to be really efficient.
And then his top amongst his top receiving options are like Josh
Palmer, Like you've got, you do have Vlad Mcconkey and we've
high hopes for him. But then you've got like players
like QJ, like it's really hard to to to get there squeezed on
both sides. We had a good question in the
chat before we go to the next chart.
Darnold Carr or Justin Fields. Arnold Car or Justin Fields?
That's a pretty good question. That's a pretty fun one.
And I mean, I'm tempted to say car and the Roman, the Roman
this is in me once it's like, yeah, he's just going to turn
his career around and not be. And the offense is so good now
because I saw that they that they're using a lot more emotion
now. They're using a lot more play
action and the the realist in me says it's probably Justin Fields
and but to be fair, you have a much higher chance of their car
starting the full year and I prep like I guess it depends on
how much that matters to you and but Justin Justin fields will
should project to me after that car in in any weekly starting.
But you also have that chance where they're like, they just
hug them. Yeah, I think the other the last
bit on Carr is you could there could just be a run out where
Carr is like a diet Matt Stafford type of quarter, but
you know not not quite as talented as Stafford, but going
going to play in an efficient offense finally for the first
time in a long time and he's actually a pretty capable deep
passer and he has been for his career.
So you could end up with that outcome where, you know, like
Matt Stafford was good for, you know, 3 or so big games a year
and puts up serviceable weeks for the most part in the other
weeks with a few duds sprinkled in.
I I definitely could see that being kind of what we get for
Derek Carr here. And even last year, Carr and
Stafford were not all that different in their production.
And Starr? 'S an efficient player.
Yeah. See are are are like even even
in his his bad years he's reasonably efficient.
So I would get toilet bowl efficiency from car.
And yeah, fields is more stuck where?
Like his volume is good despite a 42% passer rate.
And like, maybe that becomes a trend this year where like they
don't actually throw him that much, but are so they don't
troll him and they don't throw that much.
But when they do, it's in a really advantageous way.
So maybe you're getting like a discount.
Ryan Tannehill Yeah. And I, I can see that I, I, I
think that's pretty reasonable. See, I think, I think if you're
out there deciding between car and Fields as a streaming option
this week, I think both are pretty reasonable.
Car yeah, me car probably has like the higher probability
outcome of being good and fields has the outcomes where it's like
Oh my gosh, this guy's just running like you you unlock the
rushing Justin Fields and they they start letting him run more
and you're just getting an insane like a guy that should
have been I mean I think. He had double digits carried
carries this week. It was like 12 or somewhere
between 12 and 15 carries. And like, if you have a
quarterback that's rushing like double digit times a game who
starts all year like that, that's like that's very, that's
very fantasy friendly. Yeah, you get, you get the high
floor. But if his passing, if the
passing volume is not there, the passing efficiency isn't there.
The ceiling isn't really there. But you could.
He could have a weird like he could have a weird game where he
just chose. Right, you can get the the
occasional spike weeks. So anyway, I let's let's move on
to the running back charts cuz we're we're on pace for like a 5
hour show right now. We love those.
Oh no. Oh, now I remember how I figured
this out. I eventually figured this out
last year. Took me a little bit longer this
year. Yeah, we're just just like a lot
of the teams, you know, we're, we're knocking the knocking the
rest off. I, I, I was, I was holding out
on SAC all of this year, all of this offseason.
We we finally got the deal done though.
And so just just a reintroduction.
So this is this is our running back snaps and usage chart.
And so we've got in the green bar, this is the percentage of
team plays that resulted in a rush to this player.
So you can see at the top here, you've got Jon and Taylor near
40%, Bijon near 40%, Jordan Mason near 40%, Joe Mixon near
40%. And then the yellow bar is what
percentage of their team plays was a drop back that this player
ran a route on. And so you can see that
something pretty close to 80% of the cults plays where Jon and
Taylor was either getting the ball or running or sorry, yeah,
running the ball or running a route.
And so we do want we want the players up there.
And some of the reason that's important is because with very
few exceptions, when a running back gets the ball, it's because
it's a check down. It's because a play didn't work.
The plan, plan A was not like a swing route to Bijan or
whatever. It was them.
Well, and maybe Bijan is the exception.
It was, it's not a swing route to Chiron or Pacheco, but the
play they wanted to do wasn't there.
And so that they're going to that.
And the way they can take advantage of that is just by
being out there. And so that's that's kind of
like what we like to track here. Yeah, and we also have pass
blocking and run blocking snaps shown there.
For the run blocking, you really don't.
You're not all that interested in your guy being out there for
run blocking snaps. Pass blocking snaps, though, are
adjacent to good because that means they're out.
Show that they trust it shows they trust this guy to protect
their their quarterback yeah where it's like Josh Jacobs
maybe he only was maybe he only 60%, which was like bell cow
adjacent what we're at rush or a route.
But they really trust this guy the pass block for their QB and
so that that that make that that honestly makes it a little bit
worrying on them on Marshawn Lloyd that they trust this guy
that much to pass Jordan look to protect Jordan Love that maybe
he's hard of the crack than than we might have expected.
Yeah, the, my, my initial takeaways on this stuff was a
lot of these dead zone running backs, you know, like the Isaiah
Pacheco's, the Joe Mixon's, the Josh Jacobs, the Rashad White's,
Kenneth Walker's, James Cook's, They all got the volume that we
were expecting, right? Like they say, hey, they're up
here at the top of the chart. Like that's what people were
paying for. The bigger question is one that
will answer when we get to the efficiency charts of well, it
was paying for that volume worth it?
At at first glance, the guys to me that were a little surprising
with how much work they actually got.
I mean, I expected the Patriots to run the ball a lot, but I for
Romandre, they just absolutely were feeding him.
I'll be curious to see if he is able to hang on to this amount
of work over the whole season or if Gibson Nicks in for a little
bit more. But if Romandre hangs on to this
work the whole season, even if the Patriots are bad, you know
he he probably was going a little too late in drafts.
Right, right there there is a a quote UN quote dead zone running
back that AM performed relatively well.
I know we kind of want some of the fear was that Zeke was
getting work over him last year. So how good can he be?
And but he got a lot of usage and he played relatively well
with it and he he was kind of neutral on yardage over expected
and then 1.1 touchdowns over points.
So 1/6 on the touchdown over expected, so relatively in in
line with expectations there and so that that I I felt that an
encouraging start. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Another guy who, you know, 0 RB drafters down extremely bad,
seeing Saquon Barkley just go absolutely nuclear with some
pretty incredible efficiency and a pretty substantial bell Cal
roll. Like I know that, you know,
people were were concerned that Saquon might lose some snaps to
Gainwell or Shipley. And that's certainly something
that could still happen over, you know, it's a long season,
but he was out there for a damn near 80% of snaps.
Saquon was only off the field 22% of the time.
So I mean, the the role looks good.
Again, it was the Brazil game. So the field was, you know, left
a lot to to question of OK, how, how good was he actually?
Was it just defenders were falling down?
But he to my eyes, he looked pretty good.
You know, that's coming from a guy with like sub 1% Saquon.
So how are you feeling about Saquon for this season?
Is this, is this what it's going to be for the whole year or?
So I thought, I thought he kind of looked like a savvy veteran
running back who has receiving skills SO1II.
And I think the receiving skills is probably maybe potentially a
big differentiator between him and kind of a, a typical older
guy where you know, like he had that he had that touchdown on
the wheel route where he was good at getting in bounds.
Like he was finding he was finding gaps where they were
there and exploding through it. And however, I think, I do not
think this is anywhere close to the sake one of old where when
he had to meet somebody in the hole.
And I think this makes a big difference.
This is a big difference between like the young explosive guys
and the older guys when they have to, when they have to meet
somebody at the hole and beat them.
And the younger guy, like nobody wins all the time there, but
they, they make a go of it and sometimes they win and they get
through that guy, they make a miss and make an explosive play
where that happened a couple of times for sake. 1.
And it was just very clear that one-on-one he would, he was just
not going to beat somebody. And there was like even some
when he had a long run and the safety was there, like the say
quantum old probably would have ate that guy, ate that guy for
dinner, but he tried this little stiff arm and he got tackled.
And so the Eagles will certainly take that for as long as it
lasts. It is week 1.
So I think that that's something where you're still I I I still,
I think that the watch is still out there.
For how long that can last. I think I think it can last.
It can certainly last a while. I, I, I'm still I'm, I'm, I'm
skeptical as to how long that lasts.
I think that's the sooner rather than later thing.
You're you're hoping that. When not if.
You're, you're hoping he's following the DeAndre Swift
pattern of last year where he he comes out of the gate looking
really strong. You know it's lighting the world
on. Fire.
I think that's kind of like the the most likely.
Yeah, Speaking of DeAndre Swift, it got the most work by far on
the bears. You know, was out there 65% of
snaps. But man, did he not do anything
with it. It it was not good.
He was, you know, well below his fantasy fantasy points.
He was not efficient. I mean, part of that, I think is
the bears and their online, but man, for for all the work that
he got like this is This is why we don't pay for and he wasn't
going, you know, that early. He was he was in that, you know,
Remandre Stevenson range. So you even have to spend an arm
and a leg on him. But this is This is why these
running back profiles got pushed down this year 'cause you know,
in years past or DeAndre Soff would have been like a fifth,
sixth round pick. Like that sinks your team right
there. If you if you get, you know, 65%
snapshare, terribly inefficient guy on what's probably not a
very good offense. Like that's it's curtains for
that pick. That's not a good one.
Right. And you and you certainly need
the offense to be a lot better because despite him getting this
really high snapshare, not high snapshare equated to like 6
expected points and he scored, he scored three.
So certainly it's always hard to figure out like how much of that
was like this offense was just dog shit and him not being up to
the end up to the task. But it's it's it's not looking
good because like kind of you need one of them to you need him
to play a lot better, which as an older running back it and
starting zone week 1 is is is is per or or you need a dramatic
improvement in the offense. Yeah, other other roles that I
thought were worth highlighting. Rumors of Kyron's demise were
greatly exaggerated. Sky still has one of the best
roles in the league. He he still looks exactly like
he did last year. Right.
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's interesting a little bit that
even after the game and Sean McVay was like, I did not mean
to use them that much. And like he is like he somehow
did. And it felt like all of last
year they were like, we did not mean to use them that much.
But when it gets into the game, they're trying to win like it's
do we put Tyron in? Do we put Ronnie Rivers in like
Blake Quorum not even in in in consideration there right now?
And it does seem like that tendence, that coaching tendency
of to rely on one guy that he trusts is holding pretty strong
right there. Yeah, I mean, just like he did
not mean to use Chiron that much.
Every night I don't mean to eat as much dessert as I do.
And every night I say the same thing.
And so. I'm going on a diet tomorrow.
Yeah, exactly. So I'll, I'll believe it when I
see it. So what I'm saying Kyron is not
a guy that I want to like, try and get out ahead of the market
and sell him at his peak or something in a redraft league
right now. Like I I think you just ride it
till the wheels fall off. If you're going to get this
role, you, you just you play it, you know, right.
Other other roles that I thought were worth mentioning.
James Cook, Really solid role. It would have been incredible if
Josh Allen didn't eat all the touchdowns for himself.
Travis ETN, you know. Still made, do you think?
Do you think and Josh, Josh Allen getting all the touchdowns
is kind of like that's kind of a feature though, where yeah, yes.
Or touchdowns for Dome? Yeah, no, it is.
It's the the James Cook usage and the way that the game played
out for the Bills. It was both encouraging in that
James Cook looked really good. He got a lot of the work.
And it was also very concerning where it's like, am I really
about to watch this guy who I mean, if he just got a normal,
if he had any quarterback other than Josh Allen and pretend that
magically didn't negatively impact the offense, he'd be a
top, you know, you know, probably top six top 7 running
back in the league, you know, if he's getting the touchdowns for
fantasy. But I'm I'm definitely worried
that, like you said, it's a feature, not a bug.
So just looking at looking at the data here, I took another
look and so he he had 4.4 expected touchdown or sorry 4.4
expected points from touchdown. So like 2/3 of an expected
touchdown and and he didn't get it.
And so I think that that that's at least when you're when you're
considering it as like a small, small statistic, small number
statistic where like at least at least you're getting some
touchdown equity there. It's not like last year where it
was like they'd so been Damien Harris or they so being.
With Tavius Murray, yeah. Yeah.
So at least he's getting usage there.
And I mean, if he continues to not convert, then you're then
you're highly concerned. But Adam, I guess 16 1/2
expected points, a game that's like that feels that feels
solid, especially for where he was going.
Yeah, to me that I kind of am reading this as a spot that I
might want to attack before other people see it because he
was able to stay relatively under the radar in fantasy and
have a huge game, right? People don't, you know, you're
not going to see it in the box score that he put up some
monster fantasy week. His match up next week is the
Texans, which they've got a pretty good rush defense, so I
don't know if that's the greatest spot to attack.
I also don't know if it matters all that much for James Cook
'cause he can, you know, he's he's gonna be active in all
phases of the game. He can beat you in the passing
game and in the rushing game. And I, I think the Bills should
be able to hang with the Texans and, and score some points.
So, oh, no, I'm sorry, that's week five.
I was, I was all the way down where we're playing Bonex.
I lied. It's the Dolphins.
So, yeah, I mean, that could that could certainly be a fun,
fun shoot out here on this Thursday night.
Maybe, maybe I'll be looking at trying to play a little more
James Cook and Showdown. Here, yeah, I'm just looking at
is if you're talking about he's not terribly expensive for a
slate where there's only there's only four starting running backs
and he is the third running back.
He goes after Joe Mixon after a Chan who might not even play and
then in between Nico and Steph Diggs.
So like that that that's something where you could you
could certainly get something where he he completely ad
scores, mixing a Chan and swift. That feels like something where
you could you could get something, you could get a big
hit. Yeah, other other roles I wanted
to touch on before you go to the next chart.
JK Dobbins look like the far superior running back man Gus
Edwards. We're gonna we're gonna rebrand
to Dust Edwards. It's I mean, I already thought
it was over for that guy last year and then he just managed
to, you know, by last man standing rules.
He he ate up a bunch of points on a really good Ravens offense
through just 1,000,001 touchdowns, but he looks not
good. And JK Dobbins for a man with
only one leg looked pretty good. The long speed was definitely
not there. He got caught from behind twice.
I I think I made a joke in our. Our stat chasing chat that JK
Dobbins almost hit 15 miles an hour on his run.
I did sell him short though. I saw the GPS data had him over
19 miles an hour. Pretty good for a guy with.
Only one and I, I think that the, the contextual thing there
was like 19 is actually kind of slow for a full Sprint chase in
the end zone. That's that's still like slower
than you'd want on long speed and but him like on like what
could be a pretty effective chargers rushing attack and he
can like especially at his price and where he was going, you can
certainly get some effective days like this.
Yeah, you may not need the home run plays when the dude just
keeps hitting double s and triples right?
So I think Dobbins is a pretty clear buy.
You know, he was definitely a guy that I tried to adjust on in
best ball after we after we knew he was making the team, I
attacked him pretty heavily and stopped taking dust.
Edwards very much so. I'm glad I did that.
I wish I had been willing to buy JK Dobbins earlier in the
offseason, but I don't think that was a big process mistake
given that he was coming off the Achilles.
And they're playing the Panthers this week.
Oh my gosh, yeah. That wow.
I mean, it's it's a little unfortunate that he nukes so
hard in Week 1 because I feel like people are just going to,
you know, you're going to look at the box score and then you're
going to see the Panthers match up.
I mean, he's a he's an early candidate for a huge steam,
right? Like he's got to come in super
chalky this week. Right, right.
He he, he'll, he'll be popular and just looking at a dog bowl
stuff there, he's ADP of 29.6, which looks like a, a decent
amount of cheaper running backs, but that, that, that certainly
looks interesting. OK, you want the the really way
too early DFS slate alpha here. So the Chargers are a 10:00
game. I'm assuming Dobbins is going to
get Steam to high heavens. I haven't looked at salaries at
all yet, but I I assume he's going to come in with some
decent ownership. You play the Chargers budding
wide receiver, one Lad Mcconkey and get the leverage off of JK
Dobbins and you do it in the morning game so you have the
information to know if you can just jam the chalk after Lad
goes. You know. 13 receptions for 112
yards and a touchdown for you in a vintage Keenan Allen esque
performance. That I, I just just to be clear,
we you're assuming the high ownership based on based on the
usage, based on the matchup. Yeah, based on the usage, box
score and the matchup this week, yeah.
But that that it is, it's contingent on high, on very
chunky high ownership. Yes, yeah.
Any other role. Oh, David Montgomery, Jameer
Gibbs, they just. So the slightly annoying thing
for Gibbs is Montgomery's still going to be super involved.
It looks like just like last year, a big part of the bet on
Shabir Gibbs was that you hoped that he would take more of the
work for Montgomery as the season goes.
He's just, you know, it's undeniable that he's the more
explosive back they got to get him on the field.
I, I think that if you ask Detroit right now, like how they
envision the running back workload being in Week 17, they
would tell you just like we had it, like that was what we want
to do, like we've got the lighting.
Well, I mean. It looks like you're what you're
getting here is you're getting a close to and and and the the
expected points of on rushing might be skewed here because
Montgomery did get a lot more carries.
Gibbs had pretty close in in terms of expected rushing
points, but then he ran a ton more routes like he is he is
going to get all of the, he is probably going to get all of the
receiving stuff and then maybe 40% of the rushing.
Yeah, he, I mean, there's a reason Gibbs went much earlier
in drafts, right? It's because he's going to
monopolize a lot of those high value touches.
But David Montgomery is definitely not going to be
without high value touches. So I think Montgomery was man,
the, the more I think about it, Montgomery was such a good click
because the contingent value is so incredible.
If Jameer Gibbs is down, pretend that we knew Jameer Gibbs is
missing the rest of the season. Where?
Where would you draft David Montgomery then?
You were asking the wrong guy. I want to say.
I want to say he, he, he's still in the the Josh Jacobs.
I'm like he's probably, probably Josh Jacobs ish like for fifth
round. I'm I'm like 2-3 turn because
that the lions will give the running back 30 carries in a
game like they don't care and they'll use him in the passing
game. When Gibbs was out last year, he
was pretty involved as a receiver.
Like he's he's a very capable do it all back and he's a high
success rate guy running behind the best offensive line in
football. Like I I think that the market
majorly mispriced Montgomery. I mean, I guess is the lot not
true for Josh Jacobs. I don't think that Josh Jacobs
is as good as Steven Montgomery and I don't think the line he's
running behind is anywhere near as good as the Lions.
Like the the Lions offensive line is like elite elite.
They're like two years ago or three years ago Browns when Nick
Chubb was just like absolutely melting faces or like 3 years
ago Titans when Derrick Henry was just absolutely stomping a
mud hole through teams like the Lions offensive line is insane.
They're they look really good like that, that overtime drive
when they were just like, by the way, we'd like to win the game
now we're going to run down your throat was pretty.
I mean, that was pretty convincing to me.
It's like, Oh yeah, we can just exert our will on you if we'd
like to do that and we would we choose to do so right now.
Thank you very much. I still, I still think I'm like
I prefaced with I'm a David Montgomery hater.
And but how would I guess the question would be knowing what
we know today, what, what is there a way to play that?
Or is it just like if we get a week where we know Gibbs is out,
even if Montgomery is chalky and you think he's he's likely on
their own still? I think the easiest way to play
it in like the format that I could think of where it would be
the easiest is in like dog bowl drafts.
If you end up where Gibbs is drafted 100% of the time and
Montgomery is not drafted, I I think that there will be way
more weeks this year where Montgomery and Gibbs score
within a few points of each other.
Then there will be where one gaps the other substantially.
And so I think that you. You need you.
You need to get the week where Montgomery just gaps.
Right, You need, you need the you're you're praying for the
touchdown variance where Montgomery ends up being the guy
that gets the goal line carries, whether it's because Gibbs.
Breaks off a random goal like. Gibbs.
Gibbs runs a 60 yard run, gets taken down at the two and he's
gassed and Montgomery taps in and steals the touchdown.
You know which I you know, the Lions sure do like their David
Montgomery runs from from short yardage now they did they didn't
take Gibbs off the field in short yardage stuff.
So like it's it's very the market wasn't wrong in that
Gibbs should be going early. He definitely should have gone
where he was going. I just think that we might have
been not fully factoring in how incredible a contingent value
was for David Montgomery because he he's going to pay off his tag
with no contingency needed. You know, like he's going to be
just fine for where he was going in drafts without anything bad
happening to Gibbs. And then you get the absolute
league winning upside if Gibbs goes down.
So that's that. That was really all I I wanted
to. OK, sounds like, sounds like I I
got us talking more on that David Montgomery.
Anyone else that you wanted to touch on on this?
The other piece here that's worth noting and I don't think
this is a surprise anyone who watched the game, Pacheco still
very much up here in the in in the bell cow section of the
chart. And then we see that P Ryan
didn't actually even make the chart.
And so that that that's one where you have a bias to like,
well, he did just join the team a week before.
And, and it's interesting that he like, he still had, I think
he still had like 8 routes. P Ryan still had eight routes
where when he has actually a chance to learn the playbook,
then then he will he should cut into Kyron's stuff more.
And but it's still something that's interesting that they
were still perfectly happy to give what get Pacheco something
along the lines of 80% of snaps in like a pretty crucial game
for them. Yeah, I mean, Pacheco to me
reads like one of the he's the classic dead zone back where
he's gonna get a lot of the work.
I think we see his role shrink a little bit as you get P Ryan
more integrated with the team. To me watching, watching that
Chiefs game and not having a ton of Pacheco, I felt fantastic
about that. Because I'm, I'm sitting there
thinking like, there's just no way that this guy buries me.
Like he could be a neutral advance rate pick, which is
fine. I just, I don't see a way where
he's like doubling up on expected advance rate or
anything like that, right? Yeah, especially at the two tree
turn. Yeah, it's so that that was a
you know, the Pacheco faders can breathe a sigh of relief because
I I think that we saw his role at its absolute peak and it it's
yeah, only going to diminish a little not and I'm not saying
like he's going to lose 40% of snaps to P Ryan, but like.
The risk is to the downside there.
Yeah, and if P Ryan just does what he did last year on the
Broncos, like right he was. It's not like P Ryan was a a
world beater for fantasy, but he sure sucked a lot of the life
out of the backfield. Like you were really upset that
P Ryan was taking those three to eight points a week.
You know that was you would love those to go to the running back
that you're. I think I think that's a pretty
fairway to put it where Pacheco, a lot of the a lot of what we're
seeing on this chart here was priced in this offseason.
It looks like it's still priced in in dog bowl stuff.
And when you we're pretty confident.
We don't know how much P Ryan puts in, but we're pretty
confident he does cut in. And so you know, there's
downside there. You just like, you don't know
how much and that's like, that's kind of like the asymmetric
downside, like textbook asymmetric downside.
Yep. Yeah, very well put.
Anyone else or should we move on to the backups running back
chart? And yeah, I think I, I, I think
we can, we can move on here. Man, there were a couple guys
that showed up on this chart that were a little surprising to
me. I mean, Jovante was one that was
almost the most surprising to me.
I mean, I, I fully expected Sean Payton to use a split backfield.
I just really thought that Javante would get more I, I, I
really thought he would be closer to like a 60% guy.
So that was that was surprising to me.
I mean, Jaleel was really, he's like already nipping at his
heels for for snaps and they involved estimate in the first
game. Now, granted estimate put the
ball on the ground like he, he definitely looked like he was
trying to get into the doghouse. But I I mean I, I think.
He's only he's on the field less than half the snaps.
Yeah. He has a plurality on a on on
the snap share, but it's a he does not have a majority.
And so I think it's, it's a bit interesting and that normal
ordinarily it's high expected points for the Broncos
backfield. And you had a week where the
Broncos just were way under their expected points.
And it'll be just because they played bad.
And but if you look at some of the stuff like and Jaleel had
actually, despite, despite being on the field less, he had 11.6
expected points and because he had the passing yardage, the
passing stuff that am, I mean, maybe maybe it's one of those
things where it's like a backfield where they're going to
ping pong. Like if and who knows if you get
a week where the Broncos play well.
And like they did, they did even with Russell Wilson last year,
they had weeks where they were rolling.
So I think I don't want to overreact and say they're not
going to be in any positive game scripts.
You you should get more Devante there and unless Julio, but this
could this could really easily open up to be like something
like a 40404020 by the end of the year.
Yeah. So you need a really, really
high amount of expected points from, from running backs and
you're not at, you're not there. You.
Oh, you weren't there this week. Yeah.
And if you if you look at the snaps that are useful for
fantasy for these guys, Javonte had 38% useful snaps for fantasy
that's rush attempts and routes and Jaleel had 33.
So it's it's really just, you know, a couple plays difference
for these guys so. And like just 20 expected points
for the for the entire backfield.
Yeah, I think I. Think that isn't what we were
promised? Yeah, better, better days are
coming. Another guy who had decent
expected points here. This, this is like the
prototypical 0RB Band-Aid. This is like what you do when
you're running backroom is just not scoring any points and
you're panicking while you're waiting for Jonathan Brooks to
come back to the Panthers so he can score no points for that
putrid offense. But Justice Hill looks like he
is going to be very involved. He played more snaps than
Derrick Henry like and he's very, very involved as a pass
catcher for them is I I love his little bar here where he has
just one rushing attempt and then he's got all the routes.
So he's getting all the high value touches.
Now part of that is the game script that the Ravens were in
where they were behind. They had to throw a ton and 70%
pass plays. But I think and and the the nice
thing about Justice Hill is that we already saw last year, like
what does the nut nut outcome look like for Justice Hill?
We got that scenario wise, we got that scenario last year and
he never really turns into anything extraordinary for
fantasy. So you're kind of capped on the
ceiling. The Ravens will not and just so
cannot handle like a enormous workload.
That's just not going to happen for you.
But he can go out there and be just a, you know, he's an
innings eater for you. He can go out there and get you
6 to 8 fantasy points in a week so you're not just hemorrhaging
points at your RV two spot. So he's definitely an
interesting one if you're really down bad for running back.
By the way, so I I'm just now noticing I was, I was so I was
in the weed and all the stats and that we got a couple of
comments saying that I'm not loud.
Are you having any issues hearing me?
You you sound good now, but if anyone in the chat is still
having trouble hearing Draco, just let us know.
Yeah, I appreciate those comments and apologies I have.
I didn't see them sooner. But yeah, we just tell solid
innings eater Zeke Elliott was. OK, funny I I was, I was reading
those comments because Nick in the private chat said I should
read those comments and I missed who you're talking about.
And then I heard six to eight points every week, and I'm like,
he's talking about justice sales.
We, we had talked about this when doing basketball rankings
this summer of if there was a player that you knew was
guaranteed for eight and exactly eight points every week, where
would you draft him? And we joked about how just,
well, what are you talking about?
That's just Justice Hill. And sure enough, week 1 comes
and my God, that's Justice Hill. So the the ceiling is.
Just just to I think it's an important note, though, he's
like a disproportionate beneficiary of a negative game
script for the Ravens. Yeah, like, absolutely.
They're not. He's not going to get, he's not
going to get this type of snapshare in most weeks.
It's probably going to be in the 30% range.
But he is a trusted back for them and that is helpful like
having those like late round veterans who can fill in your at
your points while that your rookies are in healthy scratches
is valuable. Yeah, Zeke Elliott, another guy
that people were using to kind of be that innings eater early
on and in Week 1. I mean, it was going to be not
pretty, but it got salvage with a rushing touchdown.
Do you think that Zeke is the kind of back you can be using to
kind of plug a roster hole while you're waiting for something
better to happen or? Yeah, he is.
And if, if you've already drafted him, I'm sorry, but This
is why you drafted them early season points while while you're
waiting for your, your younger guys to come on.
Like I, I think it's, it's important that there's this big
price discount between Zeke and them and justice where like
you're kind of using them the same.
And then one cost you pay, you pay premium brand for Zeke.
Yeah, name, name brand, Innings either for Zeke.
Right. But yeah, I I think that's
pretty, pretty reasonable. OK, I've got I've got a fun one
for you. Talk to me about Derrick Henry
and why was he the worst click you could possibly have made
during draft season? Yeah, and that's a it's a pretty
it's a pretty bad outcome for him in in week 1 where they they
did have the the negative game script and then they just
clearly happy with Justice Hill on the passing downs a lot more.
And I think obviously week 1 is like that.
That's probably the low Candlestick mark for him for
Derrick Henry on the weeks where they do have the positive game
scripts. You're gonna you're you're gonna
get a very, very good goes Edwards Probably yes, yeah.
And but the second round, third round stuff like when you think
about what you need from the second and third round, you need
somebody that if they're not legendary season that they can
threaten it. You are I I think you are
getting the. Unfortunately, you're getting
the true sort of dead zone profile here.
You're Yeah, you're drawing down the.
Trip maybe not Profile You're getting the silent killer.
The silent killer profile. Yeah, he can't.
He's not going to be getting the four targets per game Like he he
that's just not, he's not gonna be that involved with the
passing game. And so then you're just, like
you said, you're getting good Gus Edwards.
Here's the problem with good Gus Edwards, though.
So much of the Gus Edwards value came from rushing touchdowns.
Like the extra yardage you're going to get from Henry because
he's better than Gus Edwards is like, cool, I'm happy that I'm
getting the extra yardage, but it's not worth the premium that
you're having to pay for it because the touchdowns are more
a function of the team than anything.
Like the touchdowns are happening because the Ravens
offense is good and and they're going to get you in scoring
position and Derrick Henry, Gus Edwards, they're probably both
punching in. Like if you maybe bet on one
over the other. Absolutely.
I'm taking Derrick Henry to punch in the the one yard
rushing touchdown over Gus Edwards every time.
But I. Let's put it.
Let's put it another way. So this week Dog Bowl stuff,
Kyron pick 14, Derrick Henry pick 15, Pacheco 15.7, Gibbs
18.7 and Josh Jacobs 28.6 and so and so on.
The the types of backs that he's going around like way you feel
way, way better about betting on a mega week from Chiron.
Now granted he's like .7 picks higher and probably that'll
probably diverge, but even Pacheco you'd rather you'd much
rather Pacheco than there Derrick Henry.
The the nice thing I can say about Henry this week is he's
playing against the Raiders. But like I think rest of season,
if you made me pick, I would probably take David Montgomery
over Derrick Henry straight up for the rest of the season.
Total points. I, I, I think honestly as it is,
I think that's pretty reasonable.
And but even even playing the Raiders like you're you're,
you're hoping that it's Derrick Henry who gets those points
right, Like. It can't be.
It can't be Lamar. Yeah.
And then they're up so much and they're like, Oh yeah, let's
play this other guy. Right.
Yeah, We now we don't. We don't need to put any load on
Derrick Henry. We're beating the brakes.
Up give him 30 carries a game. Right, exactly.
And so that's that's the concerning thing about Henry.
I mean, if you're in a redraft league and you have Henry, the
move is you wait till he's got to have a monster game.
That what, what we're not saying is we're not saying that Derrick
Henry's never going to score any fantasy points ever again.
But there, it's just going to be few and far between when he has
those absolutely nuclear games. And then what you're getting in
between is you're just getting stuff that you, you could have
gotten 6 rounds later, you know, And so it's just really not,
it's not worth it. And so you're waiting for a big
game and you're trying to trade him.
You're trying to, you know, get the vintage big dog game and
then move him off. That one other guy here that I I
wanted to talk about Brian Robinson.
You know, he he looked decent. Austin Eckler also looked pretty
good. I think really what you have
here is if there were going to be players that you wanted to
have on Washington outside of Jayden Daniels, it's probably
Brian Robinson. But he's just like he's the plus
version of the backs that are on this page.
You know, he he's he's definitely like I would if I had
to start anyone on this page, it's it's probably, you know,
Derrick Henry or Brian Robinson over the rest of the guys.
Like actually, that's a that's a good question.
Who do you want, Derrick Henry or Brian Robinson?
Rest the season? I mean, it's that that that is
Derek Henry. It is Henry I, I agree.
I. It's I, I I think you got a kick
out of asking that. But yeah, well, what's
interesting about and Brian Robinson is that despite and
despite the the low ish at committee style and splits our
snap share, he did get a lot of expected points and he's clearly
he's clearly their preferred rusher.
And then in terms of in terms of routes are expected receiving,
he was pretty close to Austin Eckler in in expected even
though he was the last in routes.
And I think he's pretty, pretty close in pass blocking less than
routes and then close in expected points.
So I think it will be interesting to see if, if yeah,
that that one's tricky where the expected points were actually
really good for Brian Robinson and people were like, wow, it's
just Brian Robinson. And but then you look at the
snap share it's and it's pretty close that maybe maybe the
points outcomes this week are not reflective of what we'll see
going forward and it'll be closer to a 5050 split.
Yeah, I, I definitely want to see how this plays out over the
season. I do.
I do think it's going to lean Robinson pretty, pretty
confidently over Eckler. He he really looks just like,
you know, the satellite pack and the offense.
But he he did not look bad, you know, in in the role that he was
used in. But I he's not really fantasy
relevant for me in any managed league.
Like you're never, if you're down to having to start Austin
Eckler, like something's gone, it's the same thing as like
having to start Justice Hill, like something's gone terribly
wrong. That's fair.
We've got two more running back charts to go through that I
think are a little bit more illuminating than just the snaps
in usage. Is there anyone else that you
wanted to touch on here before we get to the expected points?
Charts And I mean, I guess, I guess it's worth mentioning here
that Zach Charbonnay was a lot closer to to what we would have
expected in terms of snap share early in the summer before we
heard all of the Oh yeah, it's kind of Walker season.
Kent Walker did get injured in the fourth quarter.
So maybe maybe that's helping boost some of this.
And but this this still seems pretty, pretty positive in terms
of like he was in freefall. So that that is positive.
And then but Bucky Irving is is certainly on a on watch list
after he played much, much better than Rashad White.
He he looked, he looked a lot better too.
And like, yeah, I don't think you need to be.
A carries where he was running the daylight, he saw the whole
and he was just taking it. 0 Hesitation.
Yeah, you do not need to be a particularly sophisticated film
watcher to to go and side by side.
Compare a Rashad White carry to a Bucky Irving carry and tell me
which guy you want to give the ball all two more.
And, and, and I think I think that's an interesting one of
like, how would you play that? And like, are you like, are you
starting Brookie Irving this week if you have him on A0B
squad? It that heavily depends on like
how bad my MY0RB room is right? Like it's it's Bookie Irving or
Justice Hill where like it's eight points.
You tink maybe six points from Justice Hill, I think.
I, I think I, I want to roll the dice with Bucky and see if I can
catch. I want to, I want to see if I
can catch it before I have to see it with Bucky.
Because he looked, he looked good enough that like it's, it's
one of those players where he might just be good enough that
there's a week where it happens and then they can't look back.
The genie's out of the bottle, you know?
And Rashad White is now being relevant.
Yeah. So that's, yeah, Bucky Irving
is, is interesting. If you got a big bag of Bucky
Irving, you got to be feeling good right now.
I know that was one of Gretch's highest owned players overall.
And I, I had a good amount of Bucky Irving, not as much as
Gretch, but that one's looking like it's going to age pretty
well. Yeah, yeah, I, I, I agree and
but not starting, you're not starting him in like DF, you're
not playing him in DFS. No, no, no.
Underdog. Because you don't.
You don't need to go there. Yeah.
And so this is our running back expected fantasy points and
efficiency chart. And we have on the horizontal
axis and we have rushing expected points on the receiving
axis or say on the vertical axis, we have receiving.
And then we SAC has these like kind of like jotted lines that
go where to help you visualize where they are in terms of total
expected points. And you have the nice little
labels at that help you there. And then I guess one other no,
because we get questions on this all the time.
People are like, oh, so and so isn't on the chart.
And Zach, do you want to explain how you kind of like divvy up
this these two charts? Yeah, go go ahead and zoom us in
a little bit while I explain it. So there are so many running
backs that would be on this chart if it were just one chart
that it would get really difficult to read.
So we split the running backs into two charts here, and
they're not split by anything that would be super easy for you
to intuit who is on which chart. They are literally ordered from
top to bottom from expected fantasy points and then split
Odd even odd even. So the first guy and the third
guy and the fifth guy and the 7th guy all go on one chart.
The 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th guy all ranked by expected fantasy
points go on the other chart. And that's just to help spread
them out more evenly for where they would fall on the chart.
Soon it'll get a bunch of guys randomly clustered together.
Or try to avoid it as best as we can.
That that makes sense. And I just going back on the
comments here and we had a question here about Blake
quorum. Are we holding any hope?
I I agree with historical anomalies here that it's too you
can't you can't drop a day 2 running back after he didn't
play or he barely played in week one that we we we we could still
see something there. And but definitely yeah, given
the lack of strength in not running back chart and him not
playing at all, definitely concerning like.
Yeah. I mean, the vast, the vast
majority of the price you paid on Quorum, though was for the
contingent value. So dropping him after one week
kind of defeats. If you're going to do that, you
just should never have drafted them, right?
Right, right, right. We see we saw a bunch of rookie
running backs that were either healthy scratches like Jalen
Wright or or didn't really play that much.
Yeah, but it was concerning. Not definitely not like you
said, definitely not cutting him and but want to see him make
some kind of inroad. And this year can't can't hold
him the whole season. Yeah.
So, so for this chart, the expected fantasy points and
efficiency chart, the easy way to read it is you know, if
you're the higher up you are in the band of expected fantasy
points, that the more opportunity you're getting.
And then the larger your dot or your data point, the more
efficient you're being with what you're given.
And so you can see that pink dot over there in that last band the
the 20 plus expected fantasy points that is just a a
reference for size of that's zero fancy points over expected
per game. So running backs that are that
size are getting exactly what we expected them guys that are
larger than that are scoring above expectation and guys that
are smaller than that are scoring below expectation.
One note about fantasy points over expected is touchdowns can
do some wonky stuff to it. So if you got a goal line carry,
you punching in that that touchdown or that goal line
carry is probabilistic in nature.
It's not you know you're not going to score a touchdown 100%
of the time when you run from the one yard line.
So you have some expected fantasy points smaller than 6 as
your expectation there. And so when you score, you're
over expectation by whatever you know your probability was of
punching it in. Or if you got a touchdown from
15 yards out. Right, right.
Yeah, or if you get multiple carries from the one and fail to
punch a couple in, you're going to go under expectation on that
simply because you got stuffed. So just just wanted to explain
that. So we're not like, oh big dot
good, little dot bad. Sometimes there's a little more
nuance to it, but just, you know, if you're, if you're
wanting to get a quick glimpse of who is efficient, who is
inefficient, the size of the dots can help out there.
So one thing I don't they are both on the chart here where we
have we have Naji who had a pretty heavy healthy above 15
expected points this week and then Jill and Warren, who we
actually didn't mention because she didn't play enough snaps to
get on to the last chart. I think we are not, we're not
medical. People don't want to speculate
on the medical stuff. Do you think there's some chance
that they're winning them off the they're winning them back
from the the hamstring injury and go ahead?
Yeah, Tomlin said. You know, oh, when it, you know,
it comes to that, it's a slippery slope talking about
Jalen Warren's hamstring injury. So it seems like they're just
trying to be cautious with it. And you know, I, I don't know if
we can read too much into that with them being cautious with
Russell Wilson's injury too and not playing him if maybe their
medical staff. Are you saying he made some
comment that yes, being cautious?
Yeah, when when asked about Jalen Warren's hamstring, he
said something to the effect of hamstring injuries or a slippery
slope, implying that, you know, he didn't want to be risking
Warren's health out there. So, you know, I'm not, I'm not
panicking yet on Jalen Warren, although it is, you know, it's
week one. It's fantasy football, been
drafted all summer. It's a little fun to just just
panic for fun. You know, even even though I
know that there's nothing that I'm actually like, if I were
making decisions based on this, I'm not like, Oh my gosh.
Jalen Warren is substantially worse than he was just a couple
weeks ago from this one week of usage off of a hamstring injury
like. But it can be fun to pretend the
sky is falling for your most drafted player, so.
Doesn't sound like my idea of fun.
Well, I'm I'm a twisted individual.
And then some of the some of the stuff for for Naji was really
bad. Like he had so just 26% just
using the next Gen. start, just 26% of his there of his car of
his runs were above what was expected.
So he played bad and with the offense not playing the best
eater and then him being -4.2 points on them, expected points
below on touchdowns. So not converting on goal line
stuff and there's, there's definitely enough, there's
definitely room to leave a light on there.
Yeah, he he also, I mean, not converting on the touchdown
like, yeah, of course you, you would want to see like this huge
like bruiser back like that. That's the thing that you're
hoping that he does. But you know, I'm not like I'm
not so overly concerned about that.
Right, right, right, right. What's not?
It was a player we liked. We we was like, oh, just
variants, right. And so he was also bad.
He was also bad on just normal rushing.
Stuff that's that's what I was going to get to he he wasn't as
a rusher either. So, you know, I'm I want to wait
and see what's happening with the Steelers backfield.
Cordero Patterson stuff is frustrating too that like we're
giving Cordero Patterson carries in the year of our Lord 2024.
But I mean, that's just Arthur Smith is going to Arthur Smith,
so. Yeah.
And I guess if you look at it and 9% of the plays was either a
route or Ram or a rush attempt for quarter out Patterson.
And which to me, I get, I guess that's just a little bit of
above what you might expect from Norby Tree.
And but when, when, when it's a sluggish day for the offense and
Warren is not getting what we want and that that stuff, that
stuff does not help. It's very frustrating, right?
Going to the opposite end of the spectrum as far as efficiency,
Aaron Jones was pretty darn efficient.
He looked, he looked good. He looked like vintage Aaron
Jones. You know, he he was above
expectation on his yardage. He converted a touchdown, which
he was above expectation on that, but he also was above
expectation almost 4 yards over expected on his yardage or 4
fantasy points. Excuse me.
So almost 3 yards over expected. That's really good.
So yeah, Aaron, Aaron Jones looks great.
Definitely looking like a win where he was drafted with how
much opportunity he got and the efficiency still being there for
him. Other guys that are in this band
of 10 to 15 fantasy points, David Montgomery, like we talked
about, were David Montgomery doing the vast majority of his
through his expected rushing points.
You can see he's not high up on the Y axis at all there.
Aaron Jones with a little bit more balance.
Also, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention your favorite
player, Devin Singletary hanging out here also in this 10 to 15
expected fantasy point band. Singletary doing it less
efficiently than Aaron Jones. But Singletary just has the
role. He he is getting the work.
Tyrone Tracy did get on the field a little bit, but
Singletary just looks like he's doing what he's done in every
other backfield where he just absorbs all the work and he
doesn't have to be particularly efficient with it.
It's just coming from volume. Yeah, and I think you you have
to hope for better days for that offense.
You, you really do. And but getting getting
something like Singletary where he's getting he's getting that
kind of workhorse type what not quite workhorse, but close to
workhorse role and you're getting at the price that you
did. And is you talk about innings
either like that, that is a great innings either.
Yes, yeah, absolutely. Just on on, on on Aaron Jones
and you can kind of see what the bubble here and what he really
did play phenomenal, like 40 yards over expected like 65% of
his of his of his rushing went above his rushing plays.
He went above the expectation for.
So he really did have a phenomenal day.
And then I saw something that he never got that he never saw 8
defenders in the box, which that's Sam that to go above
expectation when there's no, when there's less than 80 or 8,
there's never 8 defenders in the boxes that, that, that's pretty,
pretty phenomenal day. Yeah, definitely.
You got to be feeling good if you got Aaron Jones on your team
and he, he seems like a very viable guy that you would be
happy to play in DFS or happy to play in Battle Royale.
You know, just if he's ever he's ever getting underpriced, you
know, due to a he's not like the the shiny hot young thing or
anything like he's definitely a guy that you could attack if if
he's not correctly priced man. But guys, guys that were really
excited about that are also very efficient.
Devana Chan getting nearly 12 expected receiving fantasy
points. That is pretty incredible.
I mean, he he looks like we probably should have been
drafting him at the 1-2 turn with the role that he has.
Like, yeah, yeah. A little bit of concern where
there's there's just I think there's speculation of like a a
mild high ankle sprain and, and, and it sounds questionable as if
he'll play on Thursday with the short week and a little bit of
concern there with the injury. But the role is is awesome.
Yeah, we, we definitely. And then I think the other thing
as well, they talked about using him as like the, the, the the
facto turd receiver. It it, it really felt like they
were. They did.
Yeah. It's yeah, They it was not just
talk. They were lining him up out wide
and like they they were just designing ways to get him the
ball in space like these little, you know, just all right, we're
just going to throw a quick little screen to HN.
He's lined up out wide and good luck.
You know, let's, let's see how it plays out.
Let's see how it works. We're going to get one of the
fastest guys in the league the ball and we'll just see how it
goes. Another guy with absolutely
elite receiving role, Jameer Gibbs.
You know, this is an area where last year we were a little
disappointed in the amount of receiving work he got where that
was really what he was highlighted for coming into the
league. You know, lots of people
projecting that he was going to be this incredible receiving
back. Getting a lot of expected
receiving fantasy points here. Just honestly just hoping to see
that trend continue. Thoughts on if this is going to
be sticky or will he get back a little closer to where he was
last season? And well, I mean, it's kind of
showing up in the routes where he is their primary, he's their
passing known back. And and and it is a valuable
offense to be that in. And with Goff, I'm trying to
find here because like 111 of the the knocks, OK, one of the
knocks on that Gibbs has kind of been that he's not really a
receiving back. He's a back that you can throw
the ball to and then he can turn that into a run play and and and
so it was like minus 1/2 a yard. So basically he was targeted at
the line of scrimmage. So that part has has kind of
held up. He's going to catch green
passes. He's not running routes down the
field and but his just just to go back to if you don't mind and
his if you can see where is he here?
He's down near the bottom, third from the bottom.
Yeah, him getting this huge route share it that that makes
me think that that it's it's pretty sticky.
OK. I guess the other the other
pieces though, and I'm sorry, the other pieces they did run a
lot of plays. And so even though his share is
good, his his, the total expected points from from
receiving probably will come down a bit just because they
won't run that many plays every week and.
Yeah, I think, and I think we can probably say the same thing
about Jerome Ford where his receiving expected points are
almost certainly going to come down.
I think a pretty big part of that was a function of them just
being very behind all day. And also they were not able to
stop the pass rush from Dallas. So they just needed to get the
ball out quickly. And then you get the David and
Joku injury and he was normally operating as their, you know,
short yardage check down type of guy and he gets injured.
And so Ford just, you know, kind of cleans up there and they they
didn't it was not a functional offense that they were running
in Cleveland. And so Ford, Ford was the
benefactor of that or it was like, well, go try and do
something, but we got to get it out so.
He had a he had a 64% rent share and but they also had 56 drop
backs. Yeah, so so he's certainly the
passing down back. He's very firmly the passing
down back. But it's like misleading in in
the high expected points thing where it's only shows up as high
because they were so bad. Whereas if they actually played
well and if they if, if, if this team was efficient, the volume
will be much lower. Right.
What do you what do you think about Alexander Madison here?
He you know relatively efficient day, you know above expected,
but not not too many expected points.
It what what is what is? Already a grade and and 0B pick
where you took him where writing to use his weak one score is
going to help you a lot. And then the question becomes, I
think the most interesting way to frame the question on Madison
is, are you starting him over and Justice Hill where Justice
Hills are bogey of like, are you, are you foregoing the
comfortability of six to eight points for what this guy can
give you? Because you're not playing him
in the FS, you're not playing him any of that stuff.
And, and to me and to me, that question is kind of like, well,
he's not. So I guess he's 47% of the
team's useful kind of like snaps.
So radshare and rush attempts. So 8 percent, 8% was Russia
attempt, 39% was radshare and then you have a six.
No, no, he was he is 10 expected points, 6 fancy points over
expected. And so can you can he can he be
a 12 point a week guy for his team?
And I think I think you can I think that sounds about right.
I think you probably do start somebody like Madison over at
Justice Hill because right now you do have that concern about
Justice Hill's floor where in the weeks where they boat race
somebody, he's not going to be on the field a lot.
And then they show their intentions with, hey, we
actually we see Madison has a better back.
We want him running most of the routes.
And with it being not the best team in the Raiders, that that
that seems like that seems helpful.
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think at this
point you're, you're probably just doing Madison over Justice
Hill because I think that. 39% of the of the plays were routes
with him to 16% for Samir White. So he is the passing them back
for the Raiders right now. So and then even though the the
rush attempts we're a little bit lower and I think, I think it's
the Raiders receiving back that you want, it's not the rushing
back. Right, let's see anyone else on
this. Yeah, so the Oh my God, I
forgot. I'm not for forgetting now.
Oh, the one the one thing that people I think the one
development of this week was Jacksonville.
So the ETN he had that he had the bad fumble tank Bixby.
He actually tank Bixby. He played this kind of like low
snap share, but when he when he played, he got the ball and then
when he got the ball, he was actually pretty efficient with
it. Like his next chance.
That stuff was good. His his finest points over
expected from rushing was good. And so that that that that's
something where, you know, you, you compare the profiles of a
back like ETN to to one of tanks Bigby, like Etns caliber is
much, much higher, but then you have this high profile mistake
and then the other guy plays well.
I think that that is something to to kind of watch out for of
like how comfortable that they feel giving a turning that into
a closer to a 5050 split. I still I still like my bias
would be that something like that can't really last that
long. And but, and, and I don't, I
don't know if I'm starting tanks big, big yet, but I, I, I
definitely think that's something to watch.
Yeah, the the Tank Bigsby was definitely an interesting one
because he was so clearly not ready last season like he was he
wasn't just bad last year like it was it was harmful when he
was he was the Cadarius Tony of running backs last year, You
know, like when Tank Bigsby was on the field, it made the team a
lot more likely to lose the game.
So that was bad. You know, most teams don't want
to play with players like that. And the Jaguars stopped doing
that after after they realized that was what it was, they
stopped. But then this offseason we got
all this talk about like, oh, they're really excited to feel
good about Tank Bigsby. I'm wondering if the low
snapshare stuff is more a factor or like a feature of he's not
really that complete a player. Like he's not able to do very
much well, but they never. Have any pass blocking snaps
right? All the pass blocking was ETN.
They they at least feel like he's not going to because last
year he was like just could not succeed on a run, you know, like
he so. But now they feel comfortable
enough that he's able to spell ETN and give him a breather.
So I mean, he certainly has some contingent value, right?
If ETN goes down like you would, you'd absolutely see him, right?
Probably taking the majority of the carries there.
But I don't think he's. Spelling ETN is a good way to
put it where he's coming in to take a carry or two carries and
then ETN is going back right. Like there's no, there's very
little mystery about what the based on the week 1 stuff,
there's very little mystery about what's happening when
thanks basically come out to the field and that that said, that's
not the best. Yeah.
So I would I mean me personally like when?
He's more of a like a dampener on Etns upside.
Yes, I'm not panicking on on ETN.
Then again, I wasn't drafting much ETN in the in the first
place, but I I also think that I probably played the tank bigsby
thing a little wrong just cuz I was like, I've already seen this
guy. He stinks and I don't need to
draft a running back that stinks like I'll I'll just draft the
guys that I think are are good instead.
But he cuz last year, like when they needed him, it turned they
they were like, you know what? We'd rather play D Ernest
Johnson over this dude. And to me that was like, all
right, it's probably curtains for this guy.
I don't I don't need to bother with him this year, but it looks
like he he probably would. He he actually does have the
contingent upside and I was operating under the assumption
that he really did not. So that's that's probably a a
slight misplay. I think drafting tank Bigsby
definitely more defensible than I previously thought that it
was. Right, that, that makes sense.
And but you're not an, I don't think you're starting them yet.
I don't think you're playing them.
And I think yeah. And but you're, you're you're
keeping an eye on it. Definitely, definitely regard to
ETN, right. So yeah, let's say let's move on
to the next chart. And damn, we are almost two
hours in. Oh yeah, we're we're gonna set a
record tonight. So on this one, there's a guy
that stood out for me is like the clear clear by candidate.
And I love that his teammate is right here with him because it's
just like it's such a stark contrast since JK Dobbins versus
Gus Edwards. They're both in that, you know,
5 to 10 expected fantasy point band with with Dobbins being
right on the cusp of 10 to 15 expected fantasy points and and
Edwards being more in the middle of that five to 10 range.
But man, if you're if you're the Chargers and yourself scouting,
there is no way that you keep splitting up the work evenly
between these guys. Like you have to just begin
viewing Gus Edwards. It's like Gus Edwards needs to
become the Tank Bixby of the Los Angeles Charters.
And I mean, JK Dobbins clearly, clearly should be getting more
of the work in that offense. I would I would expect him to be
moving right on this chart in future weeks.
Yeah. And yeah, that makes sense.
That makes sense for sure. He we, we thought he was bad.
He's playing bad. And we're excited about that.
We're excited about Vidal. And so maybe, maybe it's it's
Jacob. Jacob is moving up and then
Vidal getting on the field. Yeah, 1 another one that you
know, guy that I think will will likely be moving from where he's
at right now. Like I just don't think Joe
Mixon is going to have 20 expected rushing points every
game. Like they're just not going to
give him 30 carries a game. So good, good sell high window
on Joe Mixon in redraft if you have the ability to trade in if
someone's going to buy into the fact that he's just going to get
this monster workload. I mean, Speaking of guys with
monster workload loads. So like Kamara is just doing the
same stuff he did last year. This is this is basically
exactly where he was last year on charts, right?
Just like gets an absurd amount of work, has a ton of expected
receiving fantasy points. Like, do you do you think we
screwed the pooch if we were fading Kamara in basketball at
its price? And I'm I'm not feeling bad
about it yet. And some of that is just because
we saw we just saw an awesome week for the offense and, and,
and maybe the maybe the offense is just really good this year
and he's an important part of it.
But you see some of the peripherals where his his his
kind of advanced numbers are declining.
He's not he hasn't been playing well in a long time and the week
1 high expected point stuff it it doesn't faze me really.
And maybe it's just hard to see him getting off the field.
But it I guess I think you're getting you're probably if you
see this all year, you're probably hitting a double with
where he was going. And I think, but I think there's
like he's one of those players where given that he's older,
given that he's been declining, you do have that asymmetric
downside too. Yeah, very, very well put.
He to me. I'm I'm thinking that it might
be one of the things where you're I I think you're right
that he just the home run. He's not going to hit a home run
for you. He definitely could be hitting a
double or triple. And I, I think it like I'm, I'm
really trying to look at this in an unbiased way since I, I
really think he's not that great of a rusher anymore.
I think it just might not matter on the Saints because all the
work is going to go to him. So agree with you that the
ceiling is limited. But where he was going in
drafts, yeah, where he was going in drafts was late enough that
he could be a really good pick for bestball as long as he's
able to to hang on and. Because I mean, really your your
only real concern other than like injury and him breaking
down, you know, or, or just becoming so inefficient that
they have to do something else is that Henry Miller like comes
on or like, because as much as as much as I think they're going
to keep Tayson involved in this offense, I don't think that
Tayson's ever going to be a monster volume kind of guy.
He's going to get a lot of rushing volume for a tight end,
you know, But like Taysom's not getting 12 carries a week,
right? Like I don't think that's
happening. And so I just think there's all
this running back work to be had and there's really no one to
take it from him. So that's that's the way that I
see him being pretty good. That that even as the
potentially the clients as an older back right throughout the
drags on NFL season, that it it it it just doesn't matter.
Yeah, I think, I mean, if we were going to guess how his
chart looks 8 weeks from now, I would bet you his bubble's
smaller and I'd bet you it's a tiny bit to the left, but it's
probably not going below this 15 to 20 expected fantasy point
range, which that's to me, if you like, if you showed me the
future and we got to, you know, redo basketball drafts and
you're like, it's Week 8. Alvin Kamaro's in the 15 to 20
expected fantasy point range. I'd be like, damn it, all right,
I guess I'm clicking this guy like, I don't want to do it.
Got to do it right? Right.
No, that makes sense. That does make sense.
Another guy who as far as efficiency is concerned I could
see going in the opposite direction of Kamara.
But another guy just getting an absolute insane amount of work
is Breece Hall almost cresting this 20 expected fantasy points
threshold. Now, he wasn't terribly
inefficient. You can see he's you know, he's
right about that expectation. I think a big part of that too
was they were playing a really good 49ers defense.
Like I haven't I haven't seen the success rate stuff for him
yet. I don't know if you can pull
that up. But I mean, there are a lot of
runs where the 49ers are just blowing it up in the backfield.
They're at the line of scrimmage and they're, and I mean, as a
guy who who really enjoy I, I love watching Bruce Hall, like
he's one of my favorite players to root for.
I wish I had more of him. Like I got overweight, but like
he's going, you know, so high in drafts.
It's hard to get that overweight on a guy.
But man, he there were a couple plays where he was just
absolutely slamming himself into a defender like he was, he was
not dying easy. So he was really fun to watch.
I think that I think what you really are gonna want.
Yeah, just on your question, the advanced efficiency stuff, it
it, it was bad. But I, I, I think we're sort of
chalking that up to the, the team just getting dominated by
the. Yeah, I I'm not not surprised at
all to see that his efficiency and success rate stuff is is not
good after that. I mean, that was when I was
watching the game, I was, I was thinking like, oh, this isn't
going to look good for for his success rate.
And, and really, like, I mean, what we saw last year with a, a
worse version of The Jets offensive line, Like I certainly
think their line has improved this year.
He really struggled at success rate last year and he he really
turned into more of that home run hitting, you know, style of
back. His success rate was worse than
it was in his rookie season, but he just had that home run
potential. And so I think you know, you,
you just have that with Breece where a a big chunk of his value
is gonna come from those home run plays that he can deliver.
But he also has just such a high baseline in that he is getting
so much receiving work. And I I mean, from watching that
Jets game, I, I watched every snap on that game and to me it
looks pretty crystal clear. That is a hyper concentrated
offense. It is like sure, Alan Lazard
caught 2 touchdowns. I mean I would be
extraordinarily surprised if that is not a high watermark for
Alan Lazard. Fantasy points for the whole
season. Like it.
It just looked like the Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall show.
And I think that if you get a game where The Jets win or, or
are scoring a lot of points or just playing an inferior
opponent like it's, it's going to become very abundantly clear
that Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson are extremely desirable
fantasy assets. Like if you if you maybe guess
where both of them will go in fantasy drafts next year after
just seeing that one game against the 49ers, I would bet
that they were both top five picks next year.
Just so just one, we had a question here on the chat and
I've actually, I've been doing some research on it.
And was the Jamal Williams just garbage time or was he getting
early work as well? And so I, I went in, I went into
the Rotavist Screener and just been looking at that.
So Jamal Williams was actually playing the whole game.
Like none of it was actually not none of it.
It it it wasn't like you. He didn't play in the first two
quarters and then the four, four quarter comes around.
That's where he got all his touches.
He was getting kind of consistent usage to throughout
the game. And and So what one, I guess
just to dig a little deeper on the Camara stuff.
So the Saints run, they did run 63 plays and then Camara was on
the field for 32 of those plays. And so I guess 32 plays.
And in the context of every running back you played and then
him getting a high usage on those will show up highly on
expected usage stuff. But him only being on the on the
field for half the snaps. And then I think he got
something along the lines of so there was there was 30, there
was 31 expected points around 31 and then he got 22 of those.
And if they if if you get a if you get a bad Saints game and
he's going to be a lot lower on that expected points and gauge.
So even even adjusting for the before adjusting for any week 1
stuff and maybe maybe he has split of that declines and it is
right that does seem different two years past.
Well, that makes me feel better because I certainly do not want
this to be the year where Kamara's just, you know, hit
double the whole year. But I, you know, I, I think we
try, really. For two hours and 7 minutes in
the podcast to get that one off. We, we, we try really hard to
not, you know, be take locked and we, we want to be able to
adjust our priors with new information.
And, you know, a big part of the thesis on Kamara was like, Hey,
over the course of the season, this old inefficient back is not
going to be able to hang on to it.
But I, I want to like leave my, you know, leave myself open to
adjusting my priors. If just, hey, the offense is
better this year and he's getting lots of work.
But I, I think the the thesis of Hey, this might not be what we
get the whole year. Still seems reasonable to me.
So I'm glad to glad to hear that from you.
Yeah, yeah, top, top, top tier, some top tier coat there.
And but that was that was a great question from, from
historical anomalies. I'm I'm glad they asked it.
A guy who you know seemed to get more work than his backfield
mate. Kind of kind of starting to look
like the one A1B situation, but I'm curious on your opinion of
if this is trend that's going to continue or if it was just a
blip on the Week 1 radar and that's Tony Pollard versus Taj
Spears. What do you think about that
backfield? So they were pretty they were
actually a lot closer in in sort of snap share than than expected
points. And so the use the useful
actually they're pretty close all around.
So useful snaps for Tony Pollard, 48%, useful snaps for
Spears, 38%. And then 12 1/2 expected points
for Pollard, 8.1 for Spears. And then the coach Callahan
says, actually I wanted those guys to be a lot closer.
And that kind of suggests to me that, well, when you look at the
points for Pollard, he had, he had 5.5 expected point points
over expected from touchdowns. So it's basically sort of scored
a touchdown that he was not expected to score.
And and then some negative stuff that seems that's probably small
sample for Spears. So I think if you're just
looking at the points you're you're maybe and you're looking
at the carries you are you're maybe putting too much you're
maybe thinking that they're further apart than they are.
I still I to me that looks a lot closer to something that will be
a 6040 split throughout the year and now and some of the the
Spears hope for me was that he would eventually flip Pollard
and certainly didn't get see any sign of that or any inkling that
that might happen. And this season in week 1, but
in yeah, certainly not I'm I'm not panicking on Spears and as
well I'm I'm more I'm honestly, I'm more concerned about the
offense being bad for Spears and Pollard as well, frankly, than I
am. I am about am powered just like
boat racing him in the running back of the race.
And then in a similar vein, what do you think about the Chase
Brown, Zac Moss stuff? Or we just are we kind of
chalking up this Bengals Week 1 to the Bengals were disgustingly
bad Week one. We probably can't have too many
takeaways from it. And I don't know, I, I'm, I'm
more hesitant to do that for that situation.
And so there you have you have a useful snap split of 51 for Zac
Moss, 31% Chase Brown, 12 round numbers, 12 for expected points
for Zac Moss, 5 1/2 for Chase Brown.
And then it's not like Zac Moss played terribly.
He played fine and Chase Brown didn't have this amazing game
and. Zac Moss did have the goal line
carry too, which is doing a lot of work in those expected
points. So if you if you pull that out,
they're right about the same, but but Moss did get more of the
to work. Right, he got more routes, he
got more rush attempts he got he got three times that the the
rush attempts and he got more routes.
And so if you paid the cheap price for chase brand of like 10
through 12 rounds and I think I think you're you're still live.
Well, I'm not saying that you're not live if if if you paid much
more than that and but you're still alive to have a yeah,
maybe to have this season work out in your favor.
And but expect the expense of Chase Brown where he's going way
ahead of Zach Moss. Like just looks flat wrong to me
unfortunately. Yeah.
There's and if the Bengals play better, I'd much rather play
that Zach Moss, unfortunately, than that Chase Brown.
So here's a here's a fun one for you.
James Conner and Josh Jacobs are neck and neck in their expected
fantasy points and and in both how they did it too, in their
expected rushing and expected receiving points.
Which of these backs would you prefer for the rest of the
season? Price agnostic?
You can just pick one. And I mean, it feels a little
easier to to say and James Connor and just because I like
him better. And but some of that is just
because like I was I was clicking him more because he was
cheaper, right? And like that that that's that's
my preference. I mean, rest of season.
And can I cheat and say that with Jordan Love getting injured
and missing some games? That is, that's the easy.
That's the easy out. But yeah, I mean, I think.
It's it's probably slight preference Jacobs if you ignore
that stuff and but you're get you're getting much cheaper
prices on James Conner for most of that for pretty much all the
offseason. Oh, yeah, substantially cheaper.
The other thing is they both have, you know, rookie running
backs that might, might be nipping at their heels in the
future. You know, where you've got
Benson who who did get a drive. You know, there was now it's not
like Benson was the only other running back they had in the
game. They had Mari D Mercado as well.
And so, you know, you're not I I think we still got a long way to
go for James Conner, seating control of this backfield and
for Jacobs, you know, Marshawn Lloyd is still injured.
She had gosh, the name is escaping me of the the guy they
called up. But I mean, the fact that it is
a question though, for who do you want rest of season?
And we can pretend Jordan Love is not injured between James
Conner, Josh Jacobs just kind of illustrates like, hey, This is
why we don't draft the backs of the dead zone because there's a
guy that's going to do the exact same thing and he's going
multiple rounds later. So the Josh Jacobs, like fading
Josh Jacobs makes all the sense. Like Kenneth Walker or Josh
Jacobs, I don't know, but you paid a lot more for Josh Jacobs
than Kenneth Walker. You're like there.
I mean, there is a point in drafts where people were taking
Josh Jacobs like, you know, in the like 30s, like it's just
just absurd. So yeah, looking looking like a
reasonable fade there. I'm just purely cost based, you
know, not saying that Jacob's right, right?
Due to ever. Sport fan to play fantasy is
like if I can get if I can get the same profile way later, I
take the yeah, I take the way later 1 Yep.
Anyone else here or should we move on to tight?
Ends and no, I think I think we've we've we've probably
covered at least half the running backs in the player pool
so. Yeah, we we're being very
thorough. I mean, it is, it is week 1, so,
right. It's definitely going to be one
of our longer shows. Right, a lot more to talk about.
Yeah. So tight end and the big and the
big end debate this year is, is elite tight end dead?
This we believe this is a very helpful chart and sort of
helping to answer that question. And so on the, on the bar chart,
the, the, the dark green and no the, the green, that's the
percentage of dropbacks that the tight end was running a route.
It's pretty self-explanatory and targets per run.
And what percentage of those routes were they getting
targeted and and then how far down the field where they're
getting targeted with the A dot? SO receiving tight ends, we want
them to be on on running around for all the drop backs.
We want them to be getting lots of targets and we want those
targets to be down the field. So just for example, Tyler
Conklin, you do get all the routes with just a 7% targets
per run and two and a half a dot.
So like that, that's like somebody who's like starting, he
is starting tight end. He is the starter.
And but This is why he was much, much cheaper than the rest of
the guys around him in his chart.
And, and, and why frankly, I wasn't even drafting him.
And at that price, because like you, you don't, there's no
upside here. Yeah, like when you when you get
these guys as. You can.
Yeah, when you get these guys that are running all the routes
and have like 7 targets per route run and extremely low A
dot like, you know, your Tyler Conklin or your, your K dot and
or your, your Dalton Kincaid, like those are just guys that
don't really belong on a fantasy roster.
Sorry, I had to sneak the Dalton Kincaid dig in there.
But but really, I mean, yeah, they're, they're not exciting
tight ends. So it's very much upside.
I mean, I think that in basketball, those tight ends do
have a place like the the Conklins and Auten's are are
innings eaters, just like Zeke and Justice Hill are innings
eaters at the running back position, right?
That's what Tyler Conklin and Kate Auten are to tight end.
I think with Auten too, you can make the argument that, oh, he's
a young player and he's literally out there 100% of
snaps. Like, maybe there's a chance
that, you know, he continues to develop and does something
special. But yeah, we might.
Catch 35 yard passes passes. But the.
The the, the elite tight end thesis, just just just to make
the, the hammer to point home here is that some of these guys,
for example, Trey McBride is going to run a really high
percentage of routes and he's going to get targeted a lot on
those routes down the field. That to me, that kind of usage
week 1 is suggestive of like that.
That's very likely to be an elite tight end hit.
And even though you prayed a lot more from McBride than than
Tyler Conklin, that he has the potential to score so many more
points than McBride and, and, and, and probably actually not
McBride, Conklin and a lot of these other tight ends that that
that can get you the the win. And now people listen to this
podcast, understand that concept.
But just helpful to introduce the yeah, people in two hours
and 20 minutes definitely understand why, yeah, why
McBride doing that was good. And so, and then the other, the
other one that's kind of an enigma here is called Pitts and
who did run 100% of routes, but just 11% targets per run, which
that, that that's really low for him, kind of like in the context
of his career and the A dot. And then the A dot is it's a
bit, I'm beginning to think that the Falcons beat might not be
very good at her job because none of this is kind of jiving
with what they said, except for the Reds.
I'm, I'm, I'm concerned about the targets per run as long as
Kirk Cousins is the quarterback. Yeah, I.
Because I don't think I think he's going to do the the dump
off passes to Ray Ray McLeod offense as long as he's playing
as he's out there and you are you going to say that maybe the
the the Steelers just took pits away.
No, no, I was going to say that I think the targets per route
run is really a function of the Kirk Cousins, you know, like,
hey, this is a non functional password that we have back here.
Just because he's not healthy and he can't like he he was
clearly doing the stuff that he felt that he could do, which was
let me dump it down to Raven McLeod over and over and over
again. And so.
And so some people think that, oh, that the tight end is
supposed to be the the quarterback's friend, but he
really did have like a like. So it's a it's a 7A dot, which I
guess is, is is not terrible. And so, yeah, and but and with
with Pitts having that kind of 9A dot AM he he he probably is
not the type of player that is is going to take the the the two
yard hitch and then try and get yak like McLeod will.
Yeah, I'm, I'm not. I mean as far as Pitts, I think
the ceiling is still very available.
Like the 100% routes thing is extremely bullish to me.
Yeah. And I, I think that we know the
talent is there for him. So you've got a lot of outs with
Pitts. You've got the outs that Cousins
gets healthier and becomes functional.
And I, I mean even like an 80% Kirk Cousins, like he used 80%
of what he was last year when he was healthy like.
Right, if he can just learn to plan.
I think Kyle Pitts is like very live for Titan one overall with
that right, like hundred 100% routes, Kyle Pitts with like 80%
Kirk Cousins, like so the ceiling is still there.
I think that if you're in a redraft league and you want to
take a big cut, like granted, he did score a touchdown this last
week. So and Titan was so putrid that
maybe someone's not willing to move him.
But if you got someone that thinks they're they're being sly
and getting one over by by selling Kyle Pitts high quote,
UN quote, maybe you can go and and look for something.
So there's the issue, I guess particularly in redraft like in
in for example, FFPC redraft tight end premium, it's on even
in that format, it's hard to, it's hard to like that's a hard
decision to decide to start pits.
Right. It's hard to start them right
now. Yeah, I don't, I don't think
that you're, you're just you've got a lot of ways that it could
work for you. But it's probably too early to
panic, right? It's it's too early to.
Panic evidence that the Falcons have shown that like, we know,
we know Kirk Cousins is bad when they take the rookie early, when
they they, they sit them in preseason.
We've seen enough. And that, that does suggest to
me that there's like it's a, it's a higher bench likelihood
than you might think. Yeah, the so yeah, I'm I'm less
concerned about Kyle Pitts and more concerned about the Falcons
offense systemically as far as let's just we're gonna we're
gonna rapid fire through elite tight ends and you tell me if
you're worried or not worried. OK, so Kyle Pitts.
Worried. George Kibble.
Not worried. Trey McBride.
Not worried. Travis Kelsey.
Honestly not worried. Me neither.
Yeah, Dalton Kincaid. A little worried.
And I think, I think I've seen some stuff where Dalton Kincaid
was getting like using his own and he was getting his own
coverage and all these defenders were converging on them.
And like the prior for Dalton Kincaid being bad was already
kind of strong. And it being it being so easy
for an offense to double Kincaid and maybe maybe the defenses are
just successful at taking them away all year and definitely
think there's a concern there. Yeah, I'm, I mean, I, I
definitely drafted some Dalton Kincaid because I didn't want to
be too overconfident in my thesis that this guy stunk, but
got to got to say it does. I'm I'm feeling much more
confident in my assessment that this he's not a special player.
Right. You have the prior there and
then you have like it's a confirmation of the prior.
It's, it's, it's not a, it's not a short case yet, no, but it's
the more we see of that, the more concern.
And then I think you have you have a you have some interesting
guys here, for example, Hunter Henry and definitely looks
better than the the K dot and Tyler Conklin types and where
similar routes and similar like and then better, better target
rate, better a dot. And right now not the most
functional offense would hope that Drake May is somebody who
could unlock him. And but him getting this high,
yeah, high route share high target stuff is definitely
helpful. And then Kobe Parkinson's.
Sorry, go ahead. I don't know if you watched the
the Patriots game, but did you see the target that Jacoby threw
Hunter Henry in the end zone? It was a atrocious pass, but
Hunter Henry made a great defensive play to prevent it
from being an exception. And a better throwing ball is a
touchdown there. Like, I, I think Hunter Henry, I
mean, I, I really, I, I go back to like the Hunter Henry that we
got when he was a Charger. And like, there was legitimate
excitement that he might be the next elite tight end when he
came out. And like, we've got a much
larger sample now where he's like, he's probably not going to
be elite elite, but man, I could, if Drake May is good, I
could see Hunter Henry putting up more fantasy points than
Dalton Kincaid this season. Like, I wouldn't be all that
terribly surprised by that, Yeah.
That is, that is, that is pretty unfortunate, but definitely what
what we've seen. I, I mean, I don't, I don't want
to overreact to the poor per outing for Kincaid, but it, it,
it's, it's not feeling great. I guess if you're going to make
a positive case for Kincaid is that we were told he he wouldn't
have this 80% or close to 80% Reg share.
So you're definitely encouraged by the routes like it's not this
like gross split and that we feared might happen.
So you got 83% of the routes and but and then put the lack of
targets and is definitely concerning especially with how
bad the rest of the weapons are. I think it's something to
monitor cuz he could have a great week too.
Like we've seen him have good games, but definitely,
definitely concerned. Yeah, the, the passing down
snaps or the snaps that Dawson knocks and Dalton Kincaid saw
Kincaid 26 snaps, knocks, 18 snaps.
So not the yeah, route percent, Kincaid much higher route
percent. So like if you're if you're
looking for the silver lining, like the the cope that it, it
could actually be OK for Kincaid.
He's running lots of routes. He he's out there.
But yeah, I, I think Dawson Knox is very much more of a thing
than than people that were high on Kincaid wanted to believe.
And I just, I don't think that Dawson Kincaid is much more
special than Dawson Knox. And so that's that's a barrier
there. Right.
And and then looking at like some of these guys like Hayden
Hurst, it looks like, oh, should I play Hayden Hurst?
And he did get a 13% route run and 13.3 and A dot.
So that's that's three targets with a 448 air yards and playing
the Raiders. And I think, I think, I think
that's just gross tight end stuff.
Yeah, I'm not not super interested in Hayden Hurst to to
quickly round out our other elite tight ends that you may or
may not be worried about Sam La Porta.
Not worried. Mark.
Andrews And yeah, a little worried.
I mean, we saw, we saw, you should be worried, right?
We saw, we saw it at the the per game, we saw as ADP drop in, in,
in drops after that game. And there was the analysis that
they had, they had the cornerback on them, their best
cornerback on them. And then they double teamed them
a bunch. Like they, they made a
concentrated effort to like, not allow this amount to impact the
game. And, and, and I think you're,
you're worried from a standpoint of like if he was a star, if
this is Mark Andrews star, then like he should somehow find a
way to still impact the game when, when he's needed most.
And so there, there, there is a little bit concern there.
And but then he's he also is getting that kind of respect
and, and most teams are not going to be able to throw that
kind of firepower at stopping this guy.
So a little bit concerned, but still, still, still still kind
of hopeful that you've got some good games.
Yeah, I'm, I would say I'm less concerned about Mark Andrews
than I am Dalton Kincaid. Yeah, Mark Andrews comes from
for me that Isaiah likely looks very good.
He looks like he's probably the third best pass catcher on the
Ravens. And so I just think that's going
to, you know, they're going to run a lot of plays where there's
both Andrews and likely on the field.
And I don't know that, you know, likely only had what was it like
60 something percent of the snaps?
And I don't know, I honestly couldn't tell you if we're going
to see that number go up or down over the course of the season,
that one. The other thing, the other thing
what likely is that he was he was single covered by a
linebacker in the whole game. And so if Marc Andrews is going
to be double covered and one of those is Trent Mcduffie and then
likely is going to be single covered by a linebacker, then
that kind of is the perfect storm for likely.
And obviously he showed out he looked great in that spot.
But it's it's it's it that does feel like Thursday was a
perfect, perfect storm for likely.
And it's it's hard like maybe his right percentage does go up
just because he's their third best pass catcher.
And but I don't think he's going to get something such a sweet
situation again where they have to throw a lot and then the
defense is is effectively ignoring him.
They didn't ignore him. They did ask somebody to cover
him, but they didn't ask their best player to cover.
Him right? Yeah, that's that's well put.
OK, Last elite tight end and yeah, this guy now falls into
the elite tight end category. Brock Bowers, You you're
worried. We.
We we are fist pumping.
Yeah, I wish I didn't get enough Brock Bowers.
Man, Just watching that game, I was like, oh shit, I'm about 30%
Brock Bowers short of a good time.
I should have had this guy everywhere.
I mean it, what part of it is this is it?
It seems like such a silly thing when you frame it this way.
Like, why weren't we talking about it in this way during the
offseason? But it's it's part of the thesis
for why elite tight end is good. Is that the position as a whole
scores such a small amount of points that a player that can
score a high amount of points in any given week, or especially if
they can do so with a decent amount of frequency, is such an
incredible advantage at the position.
And so you don't need to score that many points to be good.
And so the the biggest concern I heard about Bowers this
offseason was he's on the Raiders.
The Raiders kind of stink and oh gosh, you're not going to score
very many points. And I mean, to pass version of
myself that that kind of bought into that FUD a little bit.
I would say to myself they don't need to score a lot of points
for him to be a really good tight end.
It's just it's going to be fine. They don't need many points for
him to be an incredible play at the tight end position, so.
Right. And they've got 70, so you've
got 7 targets there for 40 or 39 area yards.
First game of a of a rookie tight end career.
First game of a rookie tight end career.
And Michael, and it's not like Michael Bayer wasn't involved
either like they were. Did you see the drive or it went
Bowers mayor, Bowers mayor? They're just like, fuck
everything else. It's just tight end.
Maybe we throw to the tight end. Well, what, what kind of is
interesting. So Bowers had a 78% red share,
May Meyer had a 40% red share. And so I, I like Meyer was going
in the last round of tight end premium.
So like from that standpoint, I'm not worried.
And then he had a 19% target spread run.
So we he had four, he had three targets.
And so he was involved. He has a role and but like to
your point, first game of a rookie tight end season and he's
like just like utter good prospect, like second like
second round pick, like amazing player for Notre Dame just
completely crushes him. Yeah.
And so the, the talent like definitely you're, you're
definitely you're feeling very good about the potential that
this is like top five tight end prospect ever.
Like, Oh yeah, I, I feel very confident about that.
I mean, if you got Brock Bowers on a good offense, like like
think about the Sam Laporta landing spot last year on the
Lions, like one of the best offenses in the league.
Like, Oh my goodness, just imagine what Brock Bowers on a
good offense. Like, right, He, he, you.
Got good points from this week right and right and I I guess so
like I mentioned, they dropped back 40 times like that doesn't
seem like a an outlier stop for the Raiders like.
No, it's just not. Me at all if if that was their
average was 40 points a week and then some of those weeks you've
got touchdowns as well. Yeah, I just, I think getting to
the, getting to the. Double I get what you're saying
where he's so good that if you if you got a good offense, then
he would just like obliterate. But yeah, just for for this
season. It doesn't sound like we're
going to get that. And and I'm trying to make the
point that like that, that's that's more than OK.
Yes no, he, I if he finishes outside the top five tight ends
this year, I'll be pretty surprised, right.
It's just. If he I'd ask what injury did he
get? Right yeah, if he if he could
get double digit touchdowns like Sam LaPorte got in his rookie
season, like Brock Bowers is is very live to set not just like
the highest scoring rookie tight end season ever, but like the
highest scoring tight end season of all time.
And I, I don't think that's that wild.
Like I just, he's, he's very good, like 23% targets per route
run. I know it's one game but like,
Oh my God, right? Right.
And and like they're certainly going to play defenses that
aren't as motivated as the Chargers, right.
So a couple of other situations I think we want to touch on
here. And so took her craft, yeah,
like, played, played on 100% of snaps.
But this just like atrocious targets were wrong.
Like you get him in the last round of tight end premium,
you're very happy with that pick.
But Luke Musgrave, just like deader than dead.
Yeah, Luke. Unless there's an injury we
don't know about on Musgrave like and that's pure grasping
straws. Yeah, and I mean.
Crap play 25% of snaps. And Kraft was a late addition to
the injury report report this week too.
So like, he wasn't 100%, but they had him out there 100% of
snaps. So yeah, that Tucker Kraft
remains to be seen how involved he's going to be in the offense.
Also you as far as like actually getting targets.
Right. You know, he's out there.
He's he's running. Wind Springs, Yeah.
It's like congratulations, you binked the the starting tight
end. Yeah, you got you got the
starting tight end. You got the K dot and guy.
He's earning less targets than Johnny Munt.
Congratulations. I mean, I'm pretty like for, for
the teams where I got him in the last round, I'm I'm.
Oh, you're happy? Is it with that?
Yeah, for sure, but you have room to win is what you have
right now. Tucker Craft, right so.
And I don't I don't think the the Eagles were focused on
eliminating Tucker Craft. No.
And that you know on the on the flip side that the Luke
Musgrave, like you said deader than dead all the Luke Musgrave
teams you drafted, you could have just auto if if you auto
drafted those picks instead, that would be better.
Yeah. So that's unfortunate.
A guy that I was 22 guys that were late darts that both showed
stuff that is promising but didn't show up with a good box
score week 1 because almost no Titan did Theo Johnson out there
a lot out there quite a bit, but what was it 4 targets had a had
a bad drop, not great offense looks atrocious.
I think here what you're just hoping for with Theo Johnson is
that the offense improved slightly and he was a rookie
tight end that got a ton of snaps in his first game, so
you're just hoping for him to run.
Yeah, yeah. I mean 76% right run on week one
of a rookie season and like that, that's encouraging from
like a usage and kind of talent perspective.
And then he had it like his his target stuff 11% Tiger Sprout
run an 8.3 like that's that's far, far from elite, but it's
it's mid tier. So if you get a better offense,
then you're pretty happy. And I don't see how it could be
much worse than what we saw. But I won't.
I won't dare the Giants to show me that the.
Other you can you can cut like you can probably cut your your
bears, tight ends. You can, man.
Gerald Everett, negative 5A dot and then Cole Comet.
Like, I don't even think Cole Comet shows up on the backup
tight end chart. He just didn't.
Oh, he does. Barely right next to Noah Gray.
This is Shane Waldron. You suck.
You're the worst Shane Waldron. What's wrong with you, dude?
Like this is this is criminal negligence from Shane Waldron.
Like dude, do some self scouting.
Like you blow straight up just someone who knows Shane Waldron.
Send him the clip, tell him to like, check out his own players,
figure out who's good on his team.
And then I'm not sure how do we react to Juan Johnson being on
the backup? Yeah, a little, definitely a
little concerned there with all the, you know, Foster Moreau
being on the field more than him.
Foster Moreau was on the field to block a decent amount.
They were, they were pretty close in their their routes.
I think part of it, if you want the copium, you can like chalk
it up to, oh, he, you know, he's just coming back off the injury.
He missed a lot of camp and he, you know, he's a converted
receiver. So I think he's very, you know,
very much like live to be the tight end that gets more of the
receiving work. It's a it's a very interesting
situation to watch play out just because it's really murky with
Foster Murrow being there and getting snaps now and Taysom
Hill like technically having the tight end designation and and
taking inline snaps at tight end occasionally so.
Interesting one on 4 targets. Yeah.
So twice the targets, twice the area yards.
Well, Foster Moreau is Derek just for for people that are not
so so in the in the know about Moreau, he is Derek Carr's guy.
They they go back to the the Raiders together and they're
they're both like, I can't, I can't confirm or deny this, but
I wouldn't be surprised if Foster Moreau and Derek Carr are
in a Bible study together. Just saying based on their each
of their twitters and and I think they're he's definitely
Derek Carr's boy. Like he, he's this guy, so.
They're friends and Bible narrative, but this is a gross
committee now, right? It it, it definitely if, if I
get one more week of Jawaan Johnson's routes not increasing,
I'm immediately becoming I'm not, I'm actually not concerned
yet. Next week, if it's the same, I'm
concerned. I'm I'm a little, I'm, I'm
definitely more than a little concerned for Juwan 1 Johnson.
And I just think just coming right off the foot surgery is
enough to make me be like, let me let me just see how this like
it very much could be a ramp up thing.
The guy on the previous chart I wanted to to mention to was Noah
fan with a a good targets for route run.
Not a great A dot. Again, didn't show up in the box
score. Just, you know, guy to guy to
absolutely leave the light on for though.
Very clearly is the tight end one on his team though, which he
was not last year. So yeah, I, I think if, if
you're drafting, no offense, this is pretty much from a
player perspective on peripherals as as good as you
could have expected where it's borderline and tight end and
it's borderline, yeah, tight end, one usage.
That's the best way to put it in terms of like route share and
then very strong targets per out run.
And the A dot is kind of that's kind of in line with career.
But getting the getting the high target and per out run along
with an increase in route usage that that that's as good as as
you can kind of expect you. You just need that to come in
the context of a better performing offense.
Yeah, OK. We can go back to the backup
tight end chart now because there is another guy I wanted to
talk about here all the way up at the top.
Jake Ferguson, if he had not gotten injured, was on his way
to just absolutely smashing, looking like one of the guys
that you really wanted to be drafting because the Cowboys do
not have any other target earners outside CD Lamb.
And yes, they were dog walking the Browns.
You know, this probably isn't going to be terribly indicative.
He didn't get to even play a full game.
So we have a pretty small sample.
But man, it it just from watching the game, it looked
like it was going to be Jake Ferguson and CD Lamb.
And then occasionally the Cowboys will get the ball to
someone else, but they really would prefer not to, you know,
like it's like, do we have to throw it to Brandon Cook's?
Do we have to throw it to Jalen Tolbert or, or the other or
Jalen Guyton or not Jalen Guyton, the other Jalen the
Cowboys have multiple Jalen receivers.
Even they they tried the the Cavante Turpin catch a pass
challenge and they're like Nope, just get back to the return to.
MCL Spring, yeah. And so he will come back this
year. Yeah, I haven't seen.
Has he been placed on IR? And I haven't seen.
I don't think he was at least. Yeah.
So that's that's the hard thing about it, but it could be super.
Good. I thought that it was a sprain.
AMCL sprain. Yeah, so just a.
Week to probably. Got to got to keep an eye on as
a waiver wire ad if he makes his way, if he gets dropped, you
know? And and then I guess as as he
comes back, would you, would you play him week 1 on his return
or? I mean, like if, if necessary,
like if I don't have another good option, you know, like if
I'm staring down a like, oh, I mean, if I'm staring down like a
Chico Conquo. Absolutely.
Right. Well, you're not, you're not
going to play him on, on, on DFS his his first week back.
You're not going to take him on a drug.
No probably not. Maybe maybe in the dog bowl like
first week back if he's going undrafted.
People are scared it's first week back or something and
willing to do it. It's just it's situation and
price dependent. Right.
Well, I assume that he would be undrafted.
Yeah, his first week back. Yeah, I'd, I'd have a little.
I'd dabble, OK? And onto receivers.
Let's, let's do it. Let's bring it home with
receivers. OK, so and last year you heard
her first, that Jameson Williams is the best receiver on the
Detroit Lions. And we were not wrong.
We were just there. Yeah, I think the exact quote
was it's going to be this time next year and Jameson Williams
will be the wide receiver one for the Detroit Lions, and that
won't be a hot take. And I mean, the thesis is
playing out, I think. Right.
It's still a hot take. Let's.
If you, if you want my like legitimate analysis, I think
that what is likely to happen is that he's going to be taking
away opportunities from almond raw that people were overly
confident that almond raw was going to be.
We were we were just penciling in that almond Raw was going to
continue being this insane target dominator.
I think he's still going to be very good.
I would not panic if you have almond Raw.
I just think that the price got away from us a little bit on
almond Raw where it wasn't he he was just going a little too high
for what he is, which is a very good.
You know, possession receiver. You know, power power slot, like
diet Cooper cup type guy. You know, it's just that Jameson
Williams is actually good. And he had.
A rocket 94% Rd. share his he had a 27% targets per hour run
on a 14.6 A dot. And so then just an incredible
day where like that's like, I don't want to like I don't want
to jump the gun, but if we got that foot for a full year, like
that's wide receiver one on the season adjacent usage.
Yeah, no, I mean, there's a reason he's breaking the truck.
Almost 25 points a game. Yeah.
Would be wide receiver one but everything you wanted to see
happen happens and then you you've now you've now seen that
wide receiver one type usage I and then and then the question
would be now we've almost seen it are are you like where would
you where would like if we're I guess if we're dropping again
today like is he second round pick?
Is he third? I like we were.
We're working on some some rest of season rankings and we're
discussing where he should go. And I I said he's over DJ more
like comfortably for me, like it to me, not particularly close
like I would. Doug both stuff he's going
average pick 33.9. So in between Godwin Devante
Adams like and obviously this is early in the week stuff, right,
And but he's would you take them over?
Would you'd want Would you want Iuke over him?
Yeah, you probably want Iuke over him just because.
Well, I think it, I think it really depends because like
right, I think we've. Seen one, right?
We've seen what Iuke, we've seen what Iuke's ceiling is.
And like, I I it's hard for me to see a ceiling higher for Iuke
than what he got last year, right?
Like that, just with the current situation for the 49, like
something material has to change for IU ceiling to change.
Like you need a Devo season ending injury or something like
so. And I think the ceiling with
Jameson is just a lot more ambiguous.
We're like, what if this is? Because like, it's not like he
just caught a deep bomb and that's why he scored a bunch of
points. Like he was getting stuff
underneath and getting yards after cap.
Like he he was, he was good. Like he was very good.
He had a. 27% target spread run. Yeah.
So to me, if you're I mean, the thing that I have to keep
reminding myself is like the way that you win in fantasy football
is you you get these outlier got like you happen to get the
outlier before everyone else was Privy to it.
And it's like if this outlier season is happening for Jameson
Williams, kind of like how it happened for Puka and Akua last
year, The last stop on the train was week 1 waiver run when like,
hey, Puka's here, how much do you bid on him?
The correct answer was everything, you know, The
correct answer was trade your league mate for FAB before
waivers run just so you can guarantee have more FAB than
everyone else. And so I mean, if that's the
outcome, even if it's a really small probability of happening,
like that's a, that's A season winning kind of outcome.
And so I don't know that you're getting out over your ski.
Like if there's a league where Jameson is on waivers, do you
think it's do you think it's ridiculous to spend 70% of your
fav on him? No, no, you spend all of it.
You just, you blow it all right? Yeah, 100%.
Yeah. Yeah, I am.
I had somebody, yeah, I somebody asked me for a wavered for a
line of advice. I had the man cut and David
Montgomery for for Jameson. Today.
Wow. Wow, you.
You really are a David Montgomery hater.
David Montgomery is so useful for fantasy.
Man, you're such a hater. All right, we Jameson is super
fun to talk about and we definitely needed to talk about
him, but we have a lot of receivers to go through here,
man, You know who's pretty exciting here?
Jalen McMillan. I don't know how much of that
Bucks game you watched. And I say this, there's some
things that I say where I'm exaggerating a little bit just
because it's more fun. Like we are, we are playing a
game where we're trying to have fun.
I mean, of course we're trying to give good analysis here.
So I'm not just like out and out making shit up.
But like I say this with no exaggeration, Jalen McMillan
could have had four touchdowns that game.
Like there were he could have had 4 touchdowns.
What is like holy shit he he looks looks pretty good.
He's like consistently beating dudes just like.
So he led the team in rounds, which that's pretty interesting.
Yeah. And then on the other hand, his,
his targets per run was just 10% on A dot of 18.
And so obviously he, he, he, he was, he was a deep root guy and
he was getting targeted on those deep breaths.
He connected on one of them and but was not able to on the odor.
And you definitely just maybe I'm being cold water here, but
to like really get excited, you need that usage to evolve right
Where yes, expanding the red tree.
Absolutely. Yeah.
You're not. You're not gonna, you know, win
all the money with Jalen McMillan if he just keeps being
captain Winsprint. I mean, you're going to have a
couple exciting weeks here when he connects on like for for him
to have a legitimate opportunity for four touchdowns in his first
game as a rookie and run the most routes, like that's very
exciting. The upside is abundantly clear
now, but for him to truly be a league winner, the role needs to
evolve and it's hard with he's got quality target competition.
There is the toughest barrier. You know, you've got Mike Evans
who still look like him, like Mike Evans looked fantastic.
Chris Godwin looked a little rejuvenated, you know, running
more routes out of the slot. So it there.
There's barriers to overcome for McMillan, but the talent seems
clear. Right.
And that's pretty fair. And I'm just to put a contrast
on it or like a similarity and Xavier wordy, who were all
pumped about when he scored two touchdowns against the Ravens.
His target sprout run was just 13% and Reg share of 77%.
And so we definitely like that's Mahomes.
But with the fastest player in the league, like you're, you
definitely expect touchdowns there and and you don't want,
you definitely don't want to read too much into and limited
usage for a rookie in week 1 where like maybe there's a maybe
the reason they didn't put too much in their plate is because
it's their first NFL game and it's like you're fast, like you
can do this. But then as the season goes on,
they expand that red tree. Yeah, So that encouraging stuff
for McMillan, other guys on this chart that were less
encouraging. I'm going to hit you with some
rapid fire. Are you worried, Crystal Labi?
Are you worried? You, you, I, I mean you.
You have to be there, right? Really, I'm, I'm not I'm not
that worried about Crystal Labi. I think a big part of it was
they just beating the pants off of the Panthers and they're
there wasn't really a ton of need to like, of course you'd
like to get him more and see him more involved, but I mean, it's
not going to be every week that, you know, Foster Moreau is
getting 4 targets and a touchdown.
Like I'm I'm not worried on crystal lava yet.
If anything, I'm I'm encouraged by the fact that the offense
seemed functional, although I'm not like majorly boosting.
I just, I think it's net neutral for Olava because the Panthers
also could just be terrible on defense.
And so maybe it wasn't a sign of a fantastic offense, but a sign
of a terrible defense. Yeah, that's, that's fair.
And like it was just a 42% pass rate even though the volume was
there maybe maybe those those passes were kind of and I know
it's a high play action rate. So maybe it is just like
Panthers are awful and they're just the tight ends are just
hitting them down the seam on a play action and was like they
can't stop that. So why would we do anything
else, right? Yeah, That that's pretty fair.
That's pretty fair. I was like, yeah, that, that
that doesn't seem great. And but you're you're right
there. That and we should be taking a
longer view. Are you worried about Marvin
Harrison Junior? And I'm going to say yeah too.
And that doesn't seem great either.
Where like normally with rookies, when you expect them to
come on later in the year, it's because they don't, they don't
start with a full route share. They play well when they're in
there, but they don't play enough.
And then as the year goes on, they play more.
But you had a 95% that right share 8% target for a run 10A
dot, which I guess is, is perfectly fine.
And I, I guess he did have that wide open play where he got the
Rachel Green coverage. And but it that I guess that,
that it that's especially where you talk them like you don't
want to be making these kinds of excuses.
I was like. Oh, yeah.
I mean, it's, it's not what you wanted to see for him.
I'm not, I'm not panicking yet, I mean.
I guess the question is would you still if you draft him on a
team you still stardom in Week 2?
It depends on what else I. Have you are?
Yeah, it depends on what I have. Do you stardom over and I'm
going to show a name out here and you start, you probably
start them over Deonte or something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't.
I don't put a single Panthers player in my lineup unless I'm
in a dynasty league trying to get a better pick.
Do you start them over? Keon Coleman.
Probably, yeah. You start him over.
Brian Thomas. No.
So for for a lot of people, then I think a lot of people are
going to have like a player of Brian Thomas's caliber on their
bench. I just think Brian Thomas I've
got, I might have Brian Thomas pretty high.
He just, he looks like he might. Yeah, yeah, he looks great.
He might just be the alpha. You know, and he looks
fantastic. So maybe I'm picking a bad
example here, but I think like I'm what I'm trying to get at
here is if you if you drafted a kind of 0 RV team and you took
lots of receivers that they're like, I don't want to name every
receiver in that range. And but I think there will be
people listening who can start the bench receiver over Marvin
Harrison, Michael Pitman, not over jokester, but.
Yeah, Michael Pitman or Marvin? Harrison for the rest of the
year or or just this week. This, this week and also rest of
the season, I think. I think it's pretty easily at
Michael Pittman there. Oh.
Well, OK, so for. For, for this week, for, for.
Both I, I think both is pretty easily Marvin Harrison, and it's
because the weighted targets per route run for Michael Pittman
are the fakest weighted targets per route run you've ever seen.
Because 80% of 10 is a really small #80% of 10 is 8, and 20%
of 40 is also 8. So I that the Colts volume, the
Colts passing volume just is like Michael Pittman has to be
in the absolute nut worse situation for a player like
Michael Pittman. Like you're talking possession
receiver in an offense that's going to have next to the lowest
volume in the league. And the vast majority of the
stuff that they want to do is like take these big deep shots.
Like Shane Saiken was really smart in how he used Anthony
Richardson to his strengths. So it was like none of this
Dinka dunk shit. We know you can't hit the
broadside of a barn if it's 10 yards away from you, but we do
know that you can drop it in a bucket if it's 70 yards
downfield. And so that was what they did.
They were like, you want to just throw another 60 yard bomb, OK.
And so Michael Pittman is in the absolute nightmare scenario for
Michael Pittman. Like I would, I would rather
have Michael Pittman. Like if if Michael Pittman and
Jacoby Myers could trade places, I would rather have Michael
Pittman on the Raiders as the wider Seeker 2 than Michael
Pittman on the the Colts as the wider Seeker 1.
Yeah, I, I mean, I, I, I think that's fair that some of the,
some of the the situation stuff for Pitman is bad.
But to get them to get this many for just, it's tricky to get
this many to get 30. So 36 routes and and then then
targeted on just 8% of those. And what's that?
3 targets and he catches just one of them.
Like I, I, I think that's pretty panicky.
No, yeah, you're not. I mean, you're not you're not
happy to see it for Marvin Harrison Junior, certainly.
But I think I'm I'm willing to to give it a little time.
So let's let's try and mow through this the rest of this
chart quickly. Tank Dell running running a lot
of routes. A lot of people concerned that
he might not run the full complement of routes.
It turns out he is still going to be running a lot of the
routes. In fact, I believe Nico ran
fewer routes than Tank. Am I I correct on that?
And let me pull that up right now.
But yeah, I, I did see that like he was only, I think he was, he
was playing exclusively or mostly in, in tree wide receiver
sets. And but they, they ran a lot of
tree wide receiver sets was a lot of their formation when it
decided to pass it. And yeah, he was 87 to 84% and
for 87 for Tank, 84 for Nico, and then 89% for digs.
Yeah, I think I think the answer to Texas wide receiver was just
yes, this offseason, like the CJ Stroud looks really good.
You're just you're just hoping that Joe Mixon's not going to
get 30 touches a game. And if that's the bet that
you're making me make, you're like Joe Mixon needs to get
fewer than 30 carries a game. And all the Texans receivers are
going to be incredible picks and be like, where do I sign?
Like how, how, how much of these players will you allow me to
draft then looking looking very. Good it it was a definitely a
high volume day for the offense. I think they had a lot of they
had a lot of what you call it and plays right.
And so that's some of why Joe Mixon has so many carries.
But on those days where a, let's say the Texans need to win a
game, it's it's far more likely to come from the receivers
that's going to help them win the game.
And then if you get a low volume day, it's going to crush Mixon
probably a lot more. Than the guys agree.
Anyone else on this chart that you wanna hit on before we move
to the next one? And no, not really.
I think we kind of covered it. OK, man, this OK, so I would say
this was my favorite chart after we put all the charts together,
but the last one with Jameson Williams being the absolute
chart breaking monster was was probably my favorite.
But man, this one's a close second because the Jayden Reed
dude, can you, can you explain to me why the guy who was like,
what did he finish last year? He was like wide receiver 28.
He's getting drafted as wide receiver. 35A season where he
had over 200 fantasy points, last year where he was in time
with injury. Clearly, and miss Price all
offseason. Just.
The the kicker is that he actually had a 74% rent share.
Yeah. Which was tied with Christian
Watson. I'm just below or say below at
Romeo Dobbs at 89%, but to have somebody who's in has that
insane efficiency on for snap basis and now he's actually
going to be playing like on with the same route share where he's
in the same chart as Tyreek, Debo, Rashi, CD Lam, Mike Evans.
So starter level snaps is what I'm getting at that like he had
an awesome week 1 and not like certainly not expecting about 30
points every week, but set up to absolutely smash.
Yeah, Jaden Reed should probably be like a a second round pick
next year. Like I don't think that's I I
think that's, you know, I don't want to call it a lock, but like
he is very clearly one of the more talented receivers in the
league. I would you.
Still start him with Malik Willis as the quarterback.
If that's the that's. That's the tricky question.
It depends on what I have, but I I was talking to some people
about this and Jayden Reid as far as his profile is going to
be more quarterback proof than the other receivers on the
Packers right where he's gonna get they're.
Gonna run a lot of jet sweeps. He's gonna, he's gonna get
carries. He's gonna get short
manufactured stuff like when when it's the second quarter and
Malik Willis has two completed passes for 12 yards.
Like, you don't think that they're dialing up the Jaden
Reed bubble screens like that? That is like, absolutely.
The question is not when Jaden Reed bubble screen, it's how
many Jaden Reed bubble screens are going to happen in that
game. So yeah, I'm likely starting
him. I just, this was a, to me, like
a relatively clear situation where he was the most talented
receiver on his team, right? And I, I think that people got
blinded by the fact that the offense as a whole was efficient
last year. And so it kind of like for
people that weren't watching the games, it was a way to kind of
obscure the talent gap from Jaden Reed to the other
receivers. But like, if you watched them
play, like add a little bit of context to the data, it, it was
pretty clear that the guy was smashing.
That's why we were over on him the whole summer in our ranks.
Like he was the best receiver on the team and he was going too
late. Right then the other one that's
a little that's the most surprising.
That is despite all of the injury stuff and, and, and kind
of like less emphasis on Tyler Rocket and he we forgot about
him, but he did not forget about us.
He did not. No, Tyler Lockett stuffed it
down my throat week one. I was, I was making tons of
Tyler Lockett realtor jokes this offseason and he he closed on me
in Week 1. I mean, it wasn't a monster box
score or anything, but it was very clear that like, his role
has not disappeared. I am.
Right, his snap share is down, it is just 71% route share, but
then 13.4 A .35% Tigers bread run like still very, very
important to the offense. Yeah, I think if you were and I,
I didn't, I don't even think I ended up underweight.
Tyler Locket cut so much from early in drafts and he was going
so late, but then he he rose a lot and then he he ended up
falling a lot again later at the very end of the summer.
But I, I think really like, if you're light on Tyler Lockett,
what your, your thesis is or what you're hoping for is that
he does something kind of like Alvin Kamara, where starts the
season. Well, like is, is productive,
like good picket cost hitting double S for you, but that the
the absolute ceiling isn't there and he's going to taper off as
the season goes. But man, yeah, week week 1 looks
solid for his role in usage. And yeah, for sure, for sure.
And you're, and you're right as like he had a, he's a, he had a
fast start and which maybe we should have expected as a
veteran and not overreact to it, right?
But a little bit, a little bit of a humble pie.
And based on that, what we we thought was kind of for sure
slam dunk that he was going to right off into the sunset.
Man, this, this chart is so stacked with good receiver like
this top right quadrant is just like a murderer's row.
I mean, there's a couple guys in here that probably do not
belong, like Alec Pierce and Brandon Cooks, you know, but I,
I think that if you just said, hey, I'm going to give you, you
get to have this top right quadrant of receivers and that's
all your exposure for the whole season for fantasy.
I think I'm going to do just fine because like Brian Thomas
junior looks very good. He, he might just end up
dominating targets there, which that was the big, the, the big
concern was, oh, he might be just like a deep ball guy.
Him and Gabe Davis might be running wind sprints, clearing
stuff out for Christian Kirk and Evan Ingram.
I do think the the Jags were very game plan dependent last
year. Like there were games where
Christian Kirk and Evan Ingram just feast because it that was
the plan like attack underneath. And they they didn't really have
terribly functional deep stuff like because they were not all
that creative deploying Calvin Ridley.
And he's probably not as good a player as Brian Thomas is at
this point in his career. So I'm interested to see if
Brian Thomas can be like a like the true alpha there.
And I think what we saw Week 1 is like, you know, it's, it's
not, it's not what we saw from Jameson where it's like empty
the clip on him. But at the same time, it's like
it could be the last stop on the train for Brian Thomas, too.
So yeah, you got you have a 20% target spread run and on 77%
route share and so you're and then 2.4 yards per out run.
So that that's kind of like more of your typical rookie upside
profile where a lot of meat on the bone there to increase the
route share. And then but he's also playing
very well when he's in there. So easily could see him becoming
the alpha by the end of the year.
And the other guy, the other Speaking of rookies, the other
guy who wanted to talk about was Loud Mcconkey, who he actually
seems to come in pretty much close to what you what should
have been expected where he had a 32% target spread run on just
a 6A dot. SO just racking up those targets
from slot and and then just a 76% route share.
I think that's that one is a bit more interesting because like
the knock was always like, well, he doesn't actually, he never
actually runs that many routes. And but but I think I'm lad
Mcconkey was going ahead of Brian Thomas for a lot of the
offseason. And I think that's I think week
1 is pretty strong evidence that he shouldn't he should go after
Brian Thomas. He should be going after Brian
Thomas and it's a profile. It's honestly a profile that's
hard to start right now because you don't have the upside true
to your efficiency and then you, you, you, you're, then you're I
guess you're hoping for a big increase in it's not sure right
now anyway. Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean
Mcconkey and and Brian Thomas are going right next to each
other like you could you're able to get him, you know, like 6-7
turn on underdog and I think if you found yourself.
That was FFPC brand for me then I guess.
If you found yourself double tapping the Mcconkey, Brian
Thomas on the turn there, you got to feel extremely good about
that. You know, the the other guys
going around there like DeAndre Hopkins before the injury, JSN
Christian Watson, like all those guys.
I'm I'm very strongly prefer bro both Brian Thomas and
Lambaconkey to all of those players right now.
I just think the upside for both of them is clear and it's the
fact that you're getting like clear runway early for these
exciting rookie profiles is really, really bullish to me.
I just think these are guys that you you really want a piece of
and if you have the ability to get them, you know, if you're in
a redraft league and you can get these guys before they get big,
like that's that to me is a good opportunity.
The other one, this is this is probably like the best.
I mean it it's it's kind of hard for redraft because I don't know
how how you'd actually go about choosing when to start this
player, but maybe he just becomes so dominant that it
doesn't matter. But AD Mitchell just like
barely, barely missing on having a monster day like 2, you know,
2 potential huge touchdowns for him.
I mean, AD Mitchell could be really exciting and he just
gosh, I mean, if you just wanted Alec Pierce, but like he he
looks really good. So like, and and you know, in
his first game, he hasn't done anything really yet, but like
we've seen enough of Alec Pierce to know that he's probably not
it. But man, IF80 Mitchell is just
like the good version of Alec Pierce, that's going to be so
exciting for this team. Probably a little hard to know
when to start in fantasy, but if he does, if he hits his ceiling
where it's just like, couldn't you see?
You know, like when you got the like, prime Gabe Davis season
with Josh Allen, when it was just like, you don't know what?
He's in, he's in play every week in DFS until you get the the big
week where his his ownership goes up.
That's a that's a great call, yeah.
In in play every week. DFS play it play against the
Packers next week. Aren't you worried about Zahra
Alexander? Absolutely not.
Yeah, I, I don't know how exciting that game's going to
be. I'm like trying to find a fun
match up where. But it might, it just looks like
it might be a thing where you just need to start playing AD
Mitchell every week so that you're ahead of of when it
happens. Right, he's going to be.
I'm not. I'm not sure actually that's a
good question of like what his salary is.
He should be low. Should be really low.
Probably a in the four KS the George George Pickens looked
really good. You're just dealing with a low
volume passing offense, but at least it's Justin Fields
starting on the ball and not Russell Wilson.
I mean, yeah, like if you have George Pickens on a basketball
team right now, there's like, I think I'll just close my eyes
and like, hope to wake up in Week 17 with George Pickens here
and like, hope that I get get the big game.
Then I think you're going to get a bunch of frustrating games
where you're cursed Arthur Smith's name.
So volume low and what then? Hope that you get some some of
the big deep targets from Justin Fields where he houses.
It even it doesn't even have to be the deep targets either.
Like George Pickens is the type of guy who can just take a slant
to the house to like some of his biggest plays have just been
like the vintage Odell Beckham slant to the house like and so I
can you just need him. You need him to give George
Pickens some opportunities. I just, I would not want to bet
on Arthur Smith, you know, giving the good players the
opportunities. So.
So the other the other thing on one of the note here where's and
it's getting overshadowed a little bit by Kell Williams and
not playing well, but Keenan Allen absolutely beating the fat
Keenan allegations. Yeah, target, target dominator,
just. 31% target threat run at 11.68 on.
So like and, and then and then I think somebody saw that he
actually, they, they noted that his actual weight was like 211
lbs or something like that. Yeah, it was, it was a typo.
The in the in the article that was talking about he, oh, he's
up to 2:30. It was literally a typo.
They meant to type the one number and they typed the three
number. I'm not making that shit up.
Like that's that's what we spent all offseason worrying about.
Someone fat fingered a number and we.
In the in the notes app as well. I think it was.
Incredible. And so then the way we could
potentially use that, like, do we just keep we keep playing Ken
Allen and hope that the offense turns around?
Yeah, I mean, from what I saw, there was definitely one that
looked like Keenan's fault on the on the missed connections
there. And then there was another one
where it was like a very clearly poorly thrown ball that should
have been a touchdown, I think. Yeah, with the Roma doonsay
injury, I think Keenan just to me, this sets up as like if, if
things get better for the Bears and Caleb, it's because him and
Keenan get on the same page and he his you know, they they
brought Keenan in to be the best friend of their rookie
quarterback. You know, let's right, let's
give our rookie quarterback a guy who's going to be open for
him. Like like think Adam Thielen for
the Panthers last year. But if he was a good player and
so right. You know, he's in the meeting
rooms every day. He's like, oh man, don't worry
about it, we're going to get there.
It's like, let's look, let's look at this getter and all that
kind of stuff. Yeah, Keenan, that's a pretty
good one. Yeah, so the OK, the heel injury
stuff that I had seen was that it was literally a blister.
So I don't know be be curious to see, but I that was what I saw
initially that. But anyway, yeah, Keenan, Keenan
absolutely dominating targets. I think it's probably a good
idea to if you can get him, you know, if he's, I don't know
where he's going, like in a dog bowl this week, But if you could
get him, you know, very cheap. That's right.
Oh man. Right, he needs to be undrafted.
To be against the tech against the Texans too though, where you
could like what if the Texans just hang a bunch on the Bears
and they get. Pushed.
I don't think that's on the main now.
You're right, you're right. It's a it's a night sleep.
It's the Sunday night game. Well, so you're saying it's
Keenan Allen, captain for all the money?
Well, you also it there's, there's, there's primetime
Palooza. That's that's true.
And so those are ones where. He'll be dropped 100%.
Though, right? He'll be dropped 100%.
He's the 123-4567. He's the 7th receiver on A2 game
slate, so I mean, that's something where you could
certainly give a really nice hit on.
Yeah, that is, that's actually a really good.
That's a good call. Really quick, just kind of like
chewing through this chart. Luke McCaffrey getting on the
field a lot more than I think people thought he might.
The problem is it's an unplayable offense for fantasy,
so very cool to see Luke McCaffrey get a roll right away.
Unfortunate it will not matter at all this year.
At least that's that's a little hyperbolic, but.
You you can't it. It is an unplayable fantasy team
for fantasy, unfortunately. Yeah, Jalen Waddle.
Oh man, all the all the people who told me you can never draft
that Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle on the same team together
because how could two players score fantasy points in the same
week if they're both catching passes for the same team?
Simply can't be done. It turns out that people might
be overestimating the negative correlation.
It is a very very small amount of negative correlation between
the players. They can definitely score a lot
of points on the same week. Like Jalen Waddle going over 100
yards, Tyree Kill going nuclear. Like just silly silliness to me.
Like it turns out that Jalen Waddle, the wide receiver who is
a very good picket cost, you could also draft with his
teammate who is a very good picket cost.
So let's see other other guys here.
I think I think we covered most everyone.
Yeah, I think I think we can we can move on to the last chart
here, which is so these are the 40 to 70% rights run guys where
and they're not necessarily well.
So for example, Jordan Addison is here because he got injured
and they're not necessarily startable for fantasy.
But when we see them in the in the top right hand corner of the
chart and especially like, let's say a rookie like Xavier Leget
and oh, he's playing well on what, 50 to 60% route share?
That's the type of performance that could push him into into
starter territory. And for the Panthers, how much
does that matter? I I don't know.
But honestly, getting at just under eight points a game on
5050 to 60% route share that if he can deliver on that promise,
that could be pretty interesting.
You really you just need the Panthers to find a way to be
pseudo competent and he could be really interesting.
So that's a 30% targets per run and on A17A dot and 1 1/2 yards
per run now Jon and Mingo got 26%, Beyoncé Johnson got 22%.
So like that, that might be a true like in the Lamb of the
blind, the one eyed man catches target.
The whole Panthers offense. I just noticed this on this
chart. It's disgusting.
And none of them are over 8 fantasy points per game.
So so over. Oh my God.
Well, I mean, I I can see some life for like look at.
No, no, there's yeah. The it's you really you need,
you need the offense as a whole to improve.
It's not a it's not a player, it's not an individual player
type thing here. I mean, unless the individual
player you're talking about is Bryce Young.
Like you need, you need Bryce Young to take a step the
receivers. If he, if he goes from, if he
goes from 59% Reds to like 90% routes and, and and and continue
playing like that, he can get like what, 12 points a game?
Yeah, I think you're just. You're just hoping that Xavier
Legette eats Jonathan Mingo, right?
Why does the larger receiver simply not eat the smaller which
like that I'm? Sure.
That seems honestly like if you made me guess, that seems like
the most likely thing to happen, right?
Like Jonathan Mingo was atrocious last year.
I think this is this Jonathan Mingo running routes thing right
now is just like the bears doing the Bayless Jones cope.
Like please, please tell us we didn't waste this pick.
Please. It's got to work like so I
think. But like it it, it feels like a
pretty good bet for a Round 1 rookie to, yeah, increase our
right share as the season goes on.
That feels reasonable. So that's that's interesting.
And then I think we mentioned that Ray, Ray McLeod and his his
stuff is just like, that's just the offense being bad.
Yeah, that's just. Are you hoping for, you're
hoping for the Pop Double Douglas stuff from last year,
but I think Pop Douglas is probably a much better player
than Ray Ray McLeod. Yeah, Yeah, I would.
I would agree. I think the Ray Ray McLeod stuff
is, is not something that you want to chase.
That's just yeah, the one one that like if we're going to
leave a light on for Xavier Leget, we also probably need to
leave a light on for Devon Valet because it doesn't.
What matters in a Sean Payton offense is that Sean Payton
likes you and Sean Payton likes Devon Valet and he's a rookie
cronyism offense. Yes, yeah.
And, and so listen, the, the biggest, there's, there's two
really big factors that Devon Vilay has going for him.
One, Sean Payton has given him his stamp of approval, right?
He's a rookie that was on the field a lot week one, right?
He's out there running 60 to 65% of routes #2 his competition is
Courtland Sutton, who did not look good, and Lil Jordan
Humphrey. And who, who is the other?
Who's the other? Josh Reynolds said.
They were, yeah. Like so that.
I'm a little, I'm a little. So his A dot was just two.
And so you have somebody who's like 61% right share and then
they rack up these two 2 yard A dot throws.
That feels a little gimmicky. I mean that was but that was the
offense too. Like Bo Nicks is adjusted yards
per attempt was also like 2 so I don't know.
Courtland Sutton A .13 Josh Randalls a dot 8.4 Marvin.
Mayo's Turkey. That's scary little Jordan
Humphrey 5 so like that that that that screams like their the
Rondelle Jones, Sam Rondell Murr and yeah, rookie your usage.
We're like more if that's the. Thing freakishly tall and slow,
right? Why are they running that stuff
with this guy? Sean Payton doesn't have to make
a lot of sense. Yeah.
I mean right now no other real guys to like put on the watch
list yet from this chart. You know, somebody I'm a little
surprised to see on this chart is, is Poke where I guess 62%
red chair. So that kind of suggests it's a
little bit more of a committee and because the top is Douglas,
that's 76% and so definitely room to run there on the route
share and the the Patriots stuff is kind of a joke to be honest
because. Oh yeah.
Poke is is 6% target for a run and then KJ Osborne.
Target Dominator 43 to you. 43%. Yeah, no, the the Patriots, I
mean, so the Patriots are entirely, you know, they're just
a total hands off for, you know, for like a redraft.
You'd never have a Patriots player on your roster or start
them right now. Like even Polk is not worth a
stash right now. I would say if, as long as
there's someone better on the way.
You dropped in Polk in the main. Do you think somebody should
drop drop them? If, if there's anything on, like
if Samaj P Ryan is on waivers still, you know.
He it, it, it'll be stuff like, it'll be stuff like Jalen Naylor
or. No, like you're not dropping him
for Jalen Naylor, right? Maybe Greg Dorch.
You're only, you're only dropping him for Greg Dorch if
you need production right now, terribly so.
So no, you're not. You're not dropping him, but
he's cuttable should you need. Like if he's the worst player on
your roster and you and there's something good to pick up, he's
cuttable right now. And he's he's, he's kind of on
the watch list. Yeah, he's he's on the he's on
the watch list. Like I'm, I'm not saying it's,
it's Jover for Jalen Polk. It's just it's I bet.
No, I'm on. I'm saying he's on the watch
list to cut him. Oh, OK, OK.
Yeah, it's it's going to take a while for someone made to.
Start right that that's your hope is that at some point May
becomes the starter. Two things to happen.
Yeah, you need May to start and you need someone on the Patriots
offense to end up consolidating routes because because right now
none of none of the Patriots guys are running the full
complement of routes. Right.
Like nobody's 76 percent is the highest.
And that's that's Douglas. And Taekwon Thornton's right
behind him, right? At 72, yeah.
Yeah. So, So what you really need is
you need, again, the larger receiver of Jolin Polk to eat
the smaller receiver of Taekwon Thornton, and then he becomes
usable. I I think what we're going to
see with the Patriots is it's going to be one of those things
that takes a long time. Yeah, but there could you you
need made a play, you'd ideally prefer him to be good, which it
seems like he could be. And then you need one of these
guys to emerge. So it's going to be something
where it's a, it's a real down the stretch type thing, so.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's definitely, it's tough setting.
It's tough setting for sure. And I agree you probably don't
want to cut them for some like absolute dust ball.
But if there's something with real value, you don't hope you
don't say, oh, I need to hold on to jail and poke right.
I need I need to hold on to Demario Douglas.
And but OK, I think, I think we, we got we got true where we got
your week 1. Can we?
One last thing that's going to
make us really unpopular with the people.
What's going to make us unpopular?
I love. I love being unpopular with the
people. If you needed to and there was a
good player out there, could you cut Dantavion Wicks?
Yeah, easily he was got. He was in the fantasy pros after
Ram and after the Green Bay game.
He's gone in the last round. Yeah.
So like, he's like, it's the profile of, Oh yeah, this is a
young guy who I think is really good.
And unfortunately, he doesn't play enough for me to be able to
play on Allah Troy Franklin Allah like Marvin Mims.
Yeah, we got we got a list of guys a mile long with a shift
chasing clip. Right, right.
He's in that category, unfortunately.
And like, he feels a little bit more live to put up a score than
than those guys just because when when Love is back, maybe he
has something, but maybe maybe Marvin Mims has something or
maybe like, it's, it's that type of play, unfortunately.
Yeah. All right.
I think that does it. For week 1.
So thank you and thank you to the people surprised of multiple
people who held on to the end. Really appreciate you folks.
Appreciate everybody. Who's that?
Who's who's hung out with us for the last three plus hours?
It was a lot of fun doing this. Can't wait for next week.