We are now through seven weeks of the NFL season and I've got
good news and I've got bad news. The bad news is Chris Godwin is
dead. The good news is there are lots
of really exciting wide receivers on the waiver wire
this week. This is stat chasing.
Jalen McMillan is my official guest from the University of
Washington. Con a touchdown for McMillan go
dogs. We had to had to roll the
McMillan clip. Draco I I'm sure that he's going
to go for a pretty penny in in fab leagues.
Yeah, Yeah, it is. It is wide receiver week on, on
the FOB waiver wire. So thought that would be a good,
a good maybe change up to talk about and and and maybe focus
more on this week. Yeah, I mean lots of our, our
favorite exciting rookie prospects are are now the key
pieces to target on the waiver wire this week.
We've got Jalen Mcmillian's, We have Rizzi Pearsall.
So very fun nicknames and and potentially good fantasy
production there, although I'm not.
Troy Franklin, too. Troy Franklin.
Man, I, I know you really want Troy Franklin to happen, but
I'm, I'm pretty worried after, man, the worst thing that the
NFL could have done for our Bonex hope was to put the
Broncos on an island game. Because I got to watch every
single one of Bonex's past attempts.
And let me tell you that that whole pre season narrative, you
know, when we were talking about like, oh, how Bodex actually was
a pretty good deep passer. His numbers just got skewed.
His, you know, average yards per attempt got skewed because he
did all this like rinky dink check down stuff.
And if you filter that out, he's actually an insane deep ball
passer. Yeah, I think I'm done with the
If you filter out the majority of this guy's attempts, then he
actually looks like this type of analysis.
I don't think I'm buying that anymore.
The Well, if I really skew the data to make it look like what I
want to show, then he's actually good because I got to watch
Bonex and he's not actually good.
I mean the the my my counter. And I know we're not into charts
here, but Troy Franklin in particular, so they, they, they
kept his, his, his scaled up route percentage.
So he's at 67% and then he had a 27% targets per hour run, so.
No, yeah. Yeah, that's a good, that's a
good, that's a good rookie. That's a great rookie wide
receiver story. Right.
Yeah, I to to be clear, none of none of what I'm saying is
negative about Troy Franklin, although he doesn't look super
great to me. I think a lot of the, you know,
the bullish metrics that we're seeing, I think is really just
coming down to the chemistry he has with Nix already.
But really I'm just I'm pretty concerned that Bonex stinks at
passing the ball. He seems like perfectly comulent
for what the Broncos need to do, which is like, hey, go out there
and like, when you miss on your throws, just make sure you're
missing into an area of the field where no one is not, not
your receivers, no defenders. Like throw it somewhere where
people who are watching the game will be like, how did you
possibly throw it to that area of the field?
You didn't even see anyone there.
It's like you're only throwing to the places with green grass.
So that's fine, 'cause his mistakes aren't costly, they're
just comical. But yeah, that's that's the
thing I'm pretty worried about with Bonex, but it's not going
to stop me from playing him this week against the Carolina
Panthers. They've got the Panthers and
they've got the Ravens. So that's like a, that's I, I
mean, if you're looking for a spot start at at receiver, I
think that's pretty interesting. Like, I, I, I at least I think
it's at least as interesting as the Yoder as the Yoder kind of
guys. Yeah, let's let's get into the
QB chart here so we have some context.
We're talking about Bonex. Right.
Yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll go back to the after our segue, we'll go
back to our normal kind of content schedule.
So we've got our QB volume and efficiency.
We've got a volume on the horizontal axis from expected
points from passing, then adjusted yards per 10th with the
vertical axis, and then the size of the bubble corresponds to
rushing yards per game. So I, I guess we can, we can
talk a little bit more about Bonex here, 'cause I do think
the matchup is interesting. You get the Carolina Panthers,
who have just looked absolutely dreadful on defense.
I mean, you, you pretty much can do whatever you want against the
Panthers. So if I was gonna throw any cold
water on that, hey, this is a good matchup for Bonex.
The first piece of cold water would be, well, the Broncos can
do whatever they want and be successful.
And I think they'll probably just want to run the ball.
And then #2 is even if the defense is bad, the defense
being bad does not help Bonex put the ball on his target.
The defense was bad on Thursday night and he couldn't put the
ball on the target. And not even like on the target.
Like if we were, if we were talking like Bonex in a shooting
range and trying to hit, you know, the, the cut out of the
person, the silhouette, right? Like, you know, sometimes you,
you, you know, you're off target, you hit the arm or
something, or oh, you weren't center mass.
You're like kind of kind of on the fringe.
Bonex is like hitting someone else's target halfway across the
shooting range like. You know who he didn't miss?
Who? Troy Franklin for seven.
He got 6 targets and oh shit, how many?
I, I actually, I shit, I fucked that up. 6 targets, 5
receptions. I knew, I knew it was a number
like that. So that's a pretty good
completion, right? What was what was the average
depth of target on those? Average depth of target was
about 8.8. OK.
So. Not, not.
Pushing real passes. But they, yeah, they, they're
not like these little tiny, you know, at the line of scrimmage
or behind the line. Right, right, right.
They're wearing all bubble, bubble screens or stuff like
that. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, like I, I don't want to be too negative on Bonex
'cause like I, I'll definitely, I'm, I'm interested in, it's
kind of hard to play Bonex this week, I think unless you're
playing like salary cap DFS, like if you're doing DraftKings.
I haven't looked at the slate at all on, on DraftKings yet.
So I don't know what Nyx's price is.
I would assume it's pretty low, but he would really only be
someone that I'm going to for salary relief.
I think it's pretty hard to to play that game right bring back
too so. You're you're you're bringing me
right back on there on on track to the the bow next play, which
is perfectly reasonable. Yeah, He he's a he's a tough
play. He's a tough play.
The offense is is is not great. Overall, it does seem like they
trust him with the ball. So he he gets volume.
He does have rushing upside, which helps.
Like I think he's kind of like he's just your kind of classic
cheap rushing upside quarterback who can at A at a cheap price
tag can definitely get there. Yeah, I mean, maybe the more you
talk about it, if he's super cheap and Franklin is super
cheap, maybe he could talk me into like Nick's and Franklin.
You know, skinny Stack is just like major salary relief.
But I think I think we've probably spent plenty of time
discussing Bonex. But yeah, the the upside does
help another guy who's rushing upside helps.
We don't have to spend really any time on this guy, but I just
have to give him his flowers. Lamar Jackson is like so far and
away the MVP in the league. And I don't think it's
particularly close. Like Jaden Daniels had a really
fun stretch and honestly, like we can't take anything away from
Daniels because he gets injured and knocked out early.
You know what should have been a game where he could go hang some
absolutely video game type numbers against the Panthers.
But I mean, Lamar is just so, so insane.
He's like far and away the QB one in my mind.
Real, real life in fantasy. Yeah, yeah, he's easily QB one
at Bonex 5600, by the way. OK, yeah, so cheap, but like,
probably not not cheap enough to make me super excited about it.
A guy that I am kind of interested in and I I haven't
like really let this one marinate all the way.
So I'm really interested in your opinion on this one.
But Joe Burrow, you know, kind of kind of like a ho hum day
against the Browns. I mean like he has a.
This is a tough matchup. This is a really tough matchup.
That you think the Eagle, The Eagles are a tough defense.
I mean, PFF thinks they'd be great pass the pass coverage
thinks they've got a big great pass rush and their pass rate
over expected is negative. So they run a lot and they're
they're playing against a defense that is weak to the run.
And so you, you do have like, if I'm just looking at the numbers,
their past defense is good and they, they and, and they are
kind of a run funnel on on defense too.
So they're a run funnel and then they're a run heavy team.
Bengals a run funnel. You're, you're talking about
Burrow with Chase and T Higgins like that.
That's pretty like strongly talented set.
They're like, I, I, I never want to like be batting like against
those guys, but I think a lot of the contextual stuff is pretty
rough this week for the Bengals. Yeah, the the thing that I, that
the, you know, biggest fly in the ointment for me in this
matchup is that the Eagles are run heavy and that the Bengals
can be run on. And that's that's the part that
concerns me the most is just that you lose the play volume
here. I actually think the Eagles past
defense might not be as good as PFF thinks because let me let me
tell you who they played so far right.
They play the Packers in their opening game.
Packers hanging 29 on them there.
Then they play the Falcons in Week 2.
This is all Kirk Cousins was still like you know they they
were baby kid gloves on Kirk Cousins.
Then they play the Saints in week 3.
Not a not a passing juggernaut there.
Then they play the Bucks and the Bucks just smoke them.
The Bucks absolutely dog walk them, put up 33 on them.
Then they play the Browns worst quarterback in the league and
then they play the Giants, you know, also one of the worst
quarterbacks in the league. So if we look at the people that
they've actually played, I see Daniel Jones, who's a bottom
left quadrant quarterback. I see Deshaun Watson.
You don't think PFF are, are kind of like adjusting 'cause I
think that that's, to me, that's the big differentiator over
using PFF over some of the kind of like just overall metric,
like actual metrics. Like they're that, that that's
kind of like the, the differentiary, like 49ers were
strong on the, on the kind of like actual metrics, but then
more mediocre on the PFF grade. And, and the way I was able to
explain that to myself was, well, they've actually had a
pretty soft schedule. You don't.
You're basically saying they're not adjusting to the quality of
opponent enough. I mean, the the way that they're
grading things or they're, you know, they're reviewing each
play, they're watching the film and they're assigning a grade to
every player and then to the team on each play.
And so the context definitely matters.
They're like, you know, you certainly can be adjusting for
the opponent, but like, if you're looking at like was was
this team, were the Eagles successful on this down at
defending the pass? And like, you're just you're
going to have a higher success rate at defending the pass
against Daniel Jones and Deshaun Watson and Derek Carr when the
Saints refused to pass the ball. You know, and then the the thing
for me is like, when you've played the one, there's one
quarterback here that they've played really, I guess 22
quarterbacks they've played that have been like competent to good
so far this season, and that was Jordan Love and Baker Mayfield.
And in those games, the Eagles are giving up an average of over
30 points. So I just think they might be a
little bit more mortal than the PFF numbers say.
But I think the game script stuff and them willing to just
keep the ball on the ground is enough to kind of, you know,
make me a little hesitant to to really attack this game.
That that makes sense. The only a lot of these other
teams are also going pretty run heavy against the Eagles.
So they are a run funnel too like so to me that's a little
bit more evidence apart from the PFF grade that they're passing
defenses is good. Yeah, I mean, some of these
teams like the Saints, don't. The Saints kind of seem like
they're closing their eyes and saying no, no, no, no, no, no,
you can't tell me not to run the ball and they're just running
the ball, right. And then Falcons again.
That was the Kirk Cousins kid gloves game.
The Bucks. I I I'd be interested to see the
Bucks. What was that?
Week 6? That was week.
Let's see, Week 4 was Bucks. Week 40, the week.
Oh, OK, well, that that was the one team that actually did pass
a lot against. Cause 'cause then the other ones
are the Browns. OK, yeah, like, and then the
Giants and then the Giants were getting the shit kicked out of
them so bad that the fourth quarter was entirely all garbage
time. So but yeah, I, I really think
that the Eagles run game is the thing that that really sours me
on this one. Not, not that it's a unplayable
game, but just, you know, I, I wanted to be excited about
Burrow. But yeah, I I think that's
helpful context. Yeah, that's fair.
It's, it's their, their, their opponents have been, have been
weak and they they, they did get torn up by yeah, by the Bucks as
well. So that that that's pretty fair.
So I mean, if, if the Bucks can do it, then and so can the
Bengals. Yeah, yeah.
So I I think it's it's reasonable.
It's probably not a all systems go spot like I was initially
thinking, right, just cause of the running stuff.
But I mean, you're really what it comes down to is like, can
the Bengals get out to an early enough lead to where the Eagles
really feel like they've got to keep their foot on the gas and
pass? And if they do, I think my
favorite way to play this game then is through A.J.
Brown, because A.J. Brown, if he were getting more
volume would be incredible. I mean, when we get to the wide
receiver charts, I think you'll you'll see what I'm talking
about. But so yeah, I think I guess if
I'm, if I'm taking. AJ yeah, I mean in Eagles lead
kills this game. Yeah, Eagles lead kills the
game. So yeah, getting getting to play
it through like A.J. Brown with like a Bengals stack
kind of seems interesting to me. Yeah, Yeah, that makes sense for
sure. That is, is that doable in the
dog bowl just for I? I'm pretty sure it's it's tough
to do. Yeah, Yeah, it's very doable.
A.J. Brown, you got to take in the
first round, but then you can pretty easily get T Higgins in
the, you know, second or third there.
And then a lot of the quarterbacks are going really
late, so you can get burned there.
Yeah, can't, can't get Chase in there, but we'll we'll talk
about talk about Chase versus Higgins later, too.
There's some interesting stuff there.
We talked about the Bucks and how they really took it to the
Eagles. We do need to talk about Baker
Mayfield, who's looking like one of the better quarterbacks in
the league and popping on our chart, man, major downgrade for
him. So Godwin, I would assume
Godwin's probably done for the season.
I haven't seen anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's done. He's done.
Yeah, they're, they're saying indefinitely, but like, yeah,
I'm assuming that's done for the season.
Mike Evans, The most recent news I've seen is that he's gone
through Week 11, which is not good.
The but I mean he's an older, he's an older receiver who had
an aggravation of an existing hamstring strain that that's bad
context. That is bad.
Odd context for recovery there. And who who who knows?
And not to read too much into, you know, his reaction on the
field, but the hamstring, the pain from the injury was bad
enough that it made him drop a touchdown he had already caught.
And then also he writhed on the ground afterwards.
So it didn't look like a fun injury, definitely.
Not a grade one, it's a grade 2 at least.
Yeah, feel bad for Mike Evans. I mean, the fact that he was out
there playing through, I'm sure that if you or I had that
hamstring injury, we'd be unable to get out of bed, you know,
can't, can't tie our shoes. And Mike Evans is out there
running routes and cooking DBS, scoring touchdowns right up
until the thing just explodes on him.
So, all right, that's, that's enough for the Baker downgrade.
Just needed to to mention that, OK, this is an interesting spot
this week that I, I think another quarterback that has
already played the Eagles and and coincidentally is right next
to Baker on the chart, that's Jordan Love.
I mean, this is this is kind of the area of the chart, like guys
with high expected fantasy points from passing, but aren't
like super high up there in adjusted yards per attempt, you
know, right around like the average.
This is where I really think we can target players for like a
big positive regression spot because they they're under the
radar enough. They haven't been like
exploding, but they're also have like the usage required to put
up good weeks. And Jordan Love is, you know, a
downfield passer. He's aggressive.
The problem with the Packers is how do you know who to stack him
with? That's the difficult part.
Yeah. The other thing is they are with
Jordan Love and they are a kind of like PRE pass rate over
expected neutral team. And so if they get a big lead
then if they follow that trend then then the game a game strip
work that asks them to run the ball, they will run the ball.
So you need either him to get there before that happens or the
question is can the can the Jaguars push the the Packers?
Yeah. And the the total is pretty
high. I mean it's the highest total on
the slate and it's got a a good bit of.
Margin So Vegas thinks thinks the Jaguars can push the
Packers. Is that that's what that means.
But but having watched the Jaguars, I don't know that I
believe that, right? Yeah.
It's, I mean, really here. Here's the crazy thing, this
game is just going to be extremely volatile because both
of these passers have deep A dots.
I kind of, I kind of like the Trevor Lawrence side of it too,
because I feel like you're a little bit more insulated in
that the Jaguars are probably going to have to pass because I
I don't really see them getting a, a big lead over the Packers
and being able to control the ball or control the game through
the run game. So I kind of like Lawrence.
I think he's a little interesting here and he's just
going to be super volatile, right?
It's if he's connecting on these deep shots, then it's going to
be. Good.
And if not, then whatever you're going to lose anyway.
So what are what are your thoughts on on boards here?
So just that I'm going to look up his, I'm going to look up
his, his draftking salary. So it's dropping salary 5600.
We like that. And if you look at the spread of
that game, it's only 4 1/2. So Vegas is saying that, hey,
this isn't going to be some kind of blowout.
So they're going to have to keep pace.
And so hang on, Lawrence is 5600 and I think you said Bo Nix is
50. Six.
Yeah, yeah, they're the same price.
Oh my God. I mean wow, seems seems like a a
punt QB kind of week then. So I think those are both viable
options. Drake May is 5500.
Yeah, the I, I would be really excited for Drake May just
'cause I, I want to hammer this before, you know, before
everyone catches on. I think maybe you get a little
bit of Drake May flying under the radar just because, number
one, he's on the patriots #2 his second game was the the island
game in London. And so it's early, you know,
maybe not everyone's watching that game.
So I, I think you, there's still a little bit of time left before
everyone's on to Drake May. But I mean, he's been very
friendly for fantasy. The problem is it's against The
Jets and The Jets just play so painfully slow.
I I'm just and also I'm concerned that they might not
even be able to put up points against the Patriots.
So you might might end up with the Patriots and Jess just
willing to run the ball back and forth into each other as they
settle for a bunch of. Goals or something.
I, I, I, I, I Honestly, I think there's going to be risk just to
to playing Drake May every week. Yeah, just because the the team
stinks as as as good as he has played or for fantasy the team
stinks. So that's always going to be
tough and it but it is interesting that you have you
have all of these kind of punt options that are looking pretty
playable. And I I guess that kind of sets
it, that probably sets it up for a true and punt week in in the
in the dog bowl as well. If you have a lot of these
players that are kind of like Bow, Nix is probably undrafted.
Oh, yeah, there's Trevor. Trevor Lawrence is undrafted.
Tua is mostly undrafted.
You know, you, you get a lot of a lot of guys.
I mean are are there, there's no buys this week, correct?
I think last week was the week with the no buy.
No, no no, last week had a bunch of buys last.
Oh, you're right, you're right, you're right.
You're right. This week is a week with no.
Buys yeah, so it's a so I think this is so so there's a couple
dynamics with the draft style weekly and daily games that are
very different than salary cap games.
When you get the bye weeks, the the heavy bye weeks, especially
a A big part of the edge comes from knowing of all of these
gross options that you end up having to fill out the the back
of your lineups with, you know who are the best gross options.
The the scrolling down stuff becomes less potent in those by
weeks, not because like, you know, you still want to find
guys that are going on, you know, undrafted in every draft
like that's still valuable. It's just that you wind up with
everyone has bad players as their their last player, you
know, you just end up. Right.
Like think you're thinking about it.
If you have, let's say you have a week with six teams on by, you
have the the Thursday night game, the Sunday night game, and
sometimes there's two Monday night games.
So that's what that's 1/2 and. The London game too, so like you
get. 11 yeah so that's 17 teams out of 32 out of the pool so
you're down to 15 at potential quarterbacks.
So only tree go actually undrafted every draft.
And so you're actually having to like prioritize which, which
last QB do you want, whereas this there's no, there's no so
it's probably closer to 20 actual quarterbacks.
And so you, you, you really have kind of options galore there.
The, the, so the tricky thing is basically that it's kind of like
a, it's like a barbell type situation where some of the
elite QBs, the ones that'll project extremely well will be
in the optimal lineup at a rate that you, that they cannot be
drafted at 'cause it'll be higher than now.
This is in the, in the 12 man's, not the six man's where you can
get up to, you know, 16% of a player that the, the six man's
don't have this dynamic quite as much.
But the 12 man's like you can end up with a quarterback who's
going to be optimal so frequently that you should just
slam them even if they're expensive because they are
optimal 12% of the time and they can't be drafted more than 8
1/3% of the time, right? And then when you get to the
other end of the spectrum, you're going to end up with a
bunch of quarterbacks that are optimal, like 4%, five percent,
3% of the time, right? But then you end up with some of
those only being drafted 1% of the time or 2% of the time
compared to the people that are drafted, you know, five, six, 8%
of the time. And so these, these slates with
a lot of teams on them, the scrolling down I think is, I
mean, there are lots of really good flex options and tight end
punt options as well. But I just I do like getting the
quarterback. Scroll down options there,
especially if you're, if you're pairing a low drafted
quarterback, like here's a here's a disgusting one.
Say that you take Trevor Lawrence and Christian Kirk.
That combination might exist 50 times in the dog bowl, maybe 50
times, you know, less than 1% it like for for certain Christian
Kirk and Trevor Lawrence will exist less than 1% in the dog
bowl this week, even after I'm talking about it right here
because you have to scroll so far for Christian Kirk and
Trevor Lawrence is going undrafted.
So like, I don't, I don't love that one 'cause I I would rather
play it through Brian Thomas. But like if you can find one
like that where you're getting a quarterback that goes undrafted
with a flex option that goes relatively undrafted and you're
not giving up too much, that's probably one of the better ways
to get a big edge this week. Yeah, that, that, that's great,
great helpful information. Here's another guy that I'm I'm
interested in just because we finally saw a change for him.
And so this was a quarterback that everyone is super excited
about heading into the season because he's been elite for his
his entire career. He's been one of the best
fantasy quarterbacks. That's Josh Allen.
But this season, I mean, prior, prior to last week, he had never
had over 30 attempts. This season, like the, the
attempts are just so, so low that it was really, really
hurting his overall fantasy production.
You're just getting floor outcomes much lower than what
we've seen even be possible historically for Josh Allen.
And that really changes the profile.
You know, so much of Josh Allen's appeal was his floor was
so high and so safe. Like you really you you had such
a consistently high floor, but. This week was different, right?
This week was different and they passed a lot they had.
I believe it was obviously their season high attempts.
I believe they got up to 33 this week.
And it was and it was plus 10% over expected.
So it wasn't I, I initially wondered if it was because
they're down against the Titans, but that is not the case.
It they actually passed above their expectation.
And to me, such a drastic change.
And and it's not like that that's such a drastic change.
And it's not like the Titans are pass funnel.
Like it's not like that's a game fund that you go in for this
specific opponent. That that does make me wonder
that after a couple of rough outings, if they've actually
gone back and said, no, we're we're not, we're not doing the
run thing anymore. We're trading for a Murray
Cooper and we're opening things up.
I actually, I obviously we need more than a week, but in, in the
kind of short sample stuff, I think that's a pretty and like
in, in, in the idea where you need to play it before you see
it. I I think that's kind of
compelling, actually. Yeah, the as I think through it,
you know, the Titans have a pretty strong run defense.
And you know, James Cook was active in this game, you know,
allegedly fully healthy off the toe.
He didn't miss the previous week.
So he's probably not 100%, but, you know, he was good to go.
So maybe that was enough for them to to go away from the run
a little bit. And then you factor in the Amari
Cooper stuff that they wanna you.
Know Drake Davis was great though in his absence.
Yeah, Ray, Ray Davis was good, but then Ray Davis was also
banged up this week too. So you have Ray Davis question
true, questionable. He was he was like potentially
going to miss. And then you have cook off of
the injury. I'm wondering if their running
backs weren't full strength. And that's part of the reason.
The other the other reason why I'm like hesitant to say, Oh
yeah, the Bills like figured it out.
The Bills are paying attention and self scouting and realizing
like we cannot keep doing this if we want to be a competitive
NFL team. The reason I'm hesitant to do
that is you have to be so fucking stupid to get to this
point and run the way that they're running that I think
they might be too stupid to do that and realize like we
probably should pass a little more.
Now the Amari Cooper trade is decent evidence that like they
maybe they did want to pass a little more.
I'm just like, how did you get here?
But how did how did it take this long?
You know, so I'm I'm worried that I might be, you know, wish
casting here and being like, oh, finally I can play the bills
again. The Bills are gonna pass.
Josh Allen is is back for fantasy.
Right. It's it's not, it's not the
biggest you need to see. With just the one week you can
explain in the way with it just being one week, you can explain
it away, but I think it's something to pay attention to.
It's, it's definitely something to pay attention to.
The the thing that's hard for me is like if I was getting a big
discount on Josh Allen, I'd be willing to do the play it before
you see it thing. OK, OK.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. That, that makes sense where
you're still, you're actually in the context of still paying old
Josh Allen price then the chance of getting old Josh Allen.
It doesn't make sense to pay full price for just a chance.
Yeah, let me let me look at where he's been going.
Let's see here. And you're still paying old Josh
Allen price on on DraftKings as well.
Yeah. So let's see that's.
And so maybe honestly, maybe this isn't just isn't actionable
information. So yeah, he goes.
He went at pick 17 and this dog bowl.
What about this one when it pick 4?
And where? Where does?
Where's that relative to lemur? Let's see Mar Lamar went pick 15
and. OK.
So, so yeah, maybe we don't need to focus too much on on, on this
for, for, for the quarterback part, because I don't think this
is actionable. Like if you have them on your
team and redraw if you're starting them, right.
But and the but the I and I guess the, the, the more
important context of what I was saying of like playing it before
you see it, you still have to pay the old price.
You should not pay the old price to get the chance of it.
But we're we're willing to adjust our priors here if we, if
I see it again, if I see the bills come out and they're
passing, you know, they've got a positive PROE again.
I'm like, I'm ready to adjust quickly right 'cause?
Right, two right it's it's interesting signal.
Yeah, 2 events that are like drastically different than what
we've seen so far in the season to me is like a big enough
deviation to where it's like, OK, this is probably serious.
Now. The reason I was so interested
in it too is they get the Seahawks who are just like, oh,
they're a dream fantasy matchup because they're they're going to
play fast, they're going to pass the ball.
Their defense hasn't been spectacular.
So I mean, I know they they got a lot of turnover.
They generated some turnovers this week, but yeah, I, I
wanted, I really wanted to be able to play Josh Allen this
week. I'm just, I'm worried that I
don't think the market's going to let me in draft style formats
and I I assume it's expensive in salary cap as well, but we
think. Unless you get like if you got
like 2% ownership Josh Allen. Yeah, yeah.
Then then that's the situation. But it it's Tuesday, we we don't
have that. Yeah.
OK. Moving on, all right, I, I, we
need to talk about Russell Wilson.
He's he's on the chart. He's here in the upper right
hand quadrant of the chart. And I've seen a lot of discourse
about how Russ was so much better for the offense than
Justin Fields. And he's like clearly the better
quarterback and the better passer.
And I mean, I, I've intentionally not engaged with
it because I feel like if you actually watch that game and
that's how you feel, you're probably not like a very logical
or, or reasonable observer. But it's been a really, I, I'm
viewing it as a huge positive because it's allowing me to make
mental notes on people as unserious analysts.
So like, if someone is out here telling me like Russell Wilson
was a good quarterback, he looked so good.
Like I immediately know that I never have to listen to anything
you say again because you're not being you're just not being
genuine with your analysis or like you're not watching a game.
There's something, there's something wrong in your process
to where you're telling me something that's just so clearly
inaccurate that I can immediately be marked safe from
all of your future shitty and Elsa's.
That was my my Russell Wilson rant.
Curious on your thoughts on his performance.
So I mean, the way he got there this week was kind of choking at
the two Pickens and Pickens made those plays.
I think that's kind of been the Pickens role for most of the
year that it it they've kind of phased them in and out like
that, that they had that weird game where they only played them
on 65% of routes. And but it's kind of been his
role where he's he's like the person that they that they throw
deep to his targets for a run has actually been pretty strong
and and and his A dot has been good.
So that like, I guess that's Pickens role and to me it's that
that's more about the spikiness of of that kind of role where
when you connect on the deep shots, you look fantastic.
And then the the Steelers, they had, they had the lead and so
it's not like they have to pass it on.
They did have 31 drop backs and but nothing crazy.
And then but the, the, yeah, the QB is going to be in, in control
there when you have that lead. And, but I know that I, I, I do
remember when, when we talked about it, that there was 2
passes that were pretty close to interceptions or, or 5050 be
interceptions. And so you, when you're looking
at this kind of sample size of like a 3030 thirty drop backs, I
think it's like 28 attempts or something like that.
You, you can like, it's stuff like that that makes you have to
think, OK, there, this is a very small sample size.
So you can't get too carried away with the, with the insane
efficiency. It is pretty insane efficiency
and I I didn't watch the game as closely as you did.
And so maybe mark me as as somebody who not a non ball nor
a non ball watcher. And but I, I, I think that a lot
of it is the spikiness of of Pickens and that connected and
you, you also, you had a you had the team in control for a lot of
the game. And then were games were were
those miss and then the Steelers are behind.
I think that's a much tougher context and much tougher
environment for that to work. Is that that's kind of what I
think. And I guess it's more helpful
for it's a little bit more helpful for for the the weapons
that slightly more attempts will will turn into drop backs.
Actually don't think that the difference is going to be that
meaningful. Like now Fields is attempts to
drop back rate was has actually been high enough this year.
And then Russell Wilson is also somebody who who struggled with
Sax's entire career. So and yeah, that that that's,
that's kind of my overall take away on this stuff.
Yeah, I I think that's pretty well put.
I mean, George Pickens looked like one of the very best
receivers in the NFL during that game.
I mean, he was. Go ahead, Sorry.
He he was absolutely mossing defenders like and so the two
plays that I'm thinking of where they're absolute prayer balls,
like they're poorly thrown, they're under thrown by a good
bit. George Pickens is coming back
and leaping over a defender making acrobatic catches to get
these. Let's just, let's just call them
5050 balls 'cause that's, I mean, that's what they were.
I would not be surprised if the defender had a higher
probability of catching the ball then Pickens on at least one of
those. But let's just take those two,
which I believe were like roughly 40 yard completions for
each of those. So you get those if those go the
other way. You're looking at an 80 yard
swing just on losing the completions.
And then if we're adjusting this adjusted yards per attempt
formula and saying like, oh, actually in another just as
plausible outcome, he throws 2 interceptions instead of those
two completions. Well, interceptions are worth
-45 yards in the adjusted yards per attempt formula.
So we're talking about Russell Wilson losing 170 yards, and
when you've got what, how, how many attempts did he have?
Just under 30, right? 2029 attempts.
So, so you're talking about Russell Wilson losing
approximately 6 yards in adjusted yards per attempt.
So he'd be down at right about four, AKA the very worst
quarterback in the league if George Picket, if George Pickens
is not George Pickens, if that was Van Jefferson down there
instead. Russell Wilson is below Will
Levis by like a country mile right now.
So. But I guess the other way to
look at it is those wouldn't be picks 100% of the time, right?
Eater. But that that's just more kind
of the, the, the spikiness of this range showing this low
stuff. And my, my, my actual first
reaction, like I was trying to play devil's reaction, devil's
advocate with myself was, well, these are just Russell Wilson
moon balls. Maybe they're not as accurate as
as we'd like, but what if Pickens just catches?
What if Pickens makes the acrobatic catches on the moon
balls? And like, that's kind of what
happens for the next couple of games.
Like, we hate it. It's it looks bad for us, but he
just gets that bailout from Pickens.
Yeah, I don't think that's outside the realm of
possibilities. I just, I, I also don't think
that it's very different than having fields in there throwing
moon balls to, you know, like. Right, right, right.
No, I don't, I don't, I don't think this game is a sign that
Russ is good. And it's just more, you know, he
he could put up, he could put up another big day.
But I think the point is this is the higher end if if you're
looking at volatile outcomes, this is the higher end of it.
And you you're looking at the high end right now, there's
probable heavy regression coming.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. Speaking of a guy with some
heavy regression coming, Brock Purdy, just his weapons are
dropping like flies. Brandon Iuke, terrible ACL
injury. Devo Samuel, bad case of
pneumonia, hospitalized George Kittle has a foot injury he's
dealing with and he's been peppered on the injury report
pretty much every week that so far through the season he's he's
gutting it out because that guy's a Viking warrior.
But man, now here's The funny thing, Purdy, while he was bad
for real life football to actually put up a reasonable
fantasy day without all his guys.
So I, I don't know what are your, what are your thoughts on
Purdy here going forward in the depleted 49ers?
Yeah, obviously losing, losing the good receivers hurts a lot.
And I do think that, and I remember saying this last week
that the the Chiefs was a bad match up for him because their
pass rush is so good. The the 49ers still do have a
they have a strong like a good to strong offensive line
overmatched by the Chiefs, but won't be in most, most games.
And so I can see, I can see the time that they buy him meaning
and combined with the Shannon Shannon scam and scheme meaning
that you still get pretty good production.
It won't be the top ends that that we've been kind of used to
with all those weapons and but I can still see it being pretty
good. Yeah, I would.
And I would still expect. I don't think his expected
fantasy points are going to change all that much.
I don't see the, you know, when, when Christian McCaffrey comes
back, maybe they're willing to run the ball a little more
heavily and you see his expected fantasy points go down a tiny
bit. But the 49ers always want to run
the ball. So I I just expect his adjusted
yards per attempt to go down a little bit.
But I, I still think he's he's fine for fantasy.
He's just, yeah. You're you're not going to get
the Debo well until Debo comes back, you're not going to get
the Debo catches a slant like Paris, true, true guys and then
houses it right. But he gets they give him so
much time that he probably will find a way to to make it work
with these other guys. Yeah.
All right. I've got one last question on
the quarterback chart here before we move on.
Pat Mahomes has had a really, really poor start to this
fantasy season, crushing in the QB wins statistic, but we
unfortunately do not get fantasy points for that.
So I want to just rapid fire ask you some quarterback.
Yeah, I, I have a more kind of general, I, I, I'm sorry to my
more general point about Mahomes is I think the way you have to
look at them is a low efficiency pocket passer.
And you do get some rushing, you do get a little bit of rushing.
So maybe that's a bit unfair, but it's not a huge amount.
And I know you had the rushing touchdown and this week, but
that that's not kind of the typical, Yeah.
And so. Alpha plays.
Mahomes is is also crushing because that rushing touchdown
this week was so sick where he just absolutely trucks a 49ers
defender and stands over him. Man, that was a big, big, big
alpha energy. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
But I think that's the way you kind of have to look at him
where he's not. I, I, I haven't looked at
projections actually at all this year.
But I, I don't think, I don't think, I don't see how he can
project Mahomes for a good amount of points.
No, yeah, he's I would I'd consider him basically
unplayable like on a on a dog bowl slate here.
Here's some quarterbacks. I want to know if you would
start these guys over Mahomes in Week 8 and just we'll just quit.
Yes, no em Geno Smith. I think so.
Joe Burrow. Yeah.
Dak Prescott. That one's closer to 5050.
Bonex. And another one where it pretty
close to 5050. Drake May.
I I think, I think I'd probably start May Russell Wilson.
Yeah. I, I you, you, you have to start
Mahomes over shoot. Me.
I would start Russell Wilson over Mahomes.
Man, but oh how the mighty have fallen.
I I personally will be starting Drake May over Pat Mahomes on a
an FFPC Fantasy Pros league for the second week in a row.
I I did it this last week as well and felt felt great about
it. All right.
We can move on to the running back charts now, unless you have
anyone else on the quarterback chart you wanted to talk about?
No, no. So we've got the running back
snaps and usage chart here. We've got we've got everything
here is at a percentage of the team's total plays.
So of those plays which were rush attempts, which were routes
for that receivers, which were pass blocking, because we do
want to see who's trusted with the pass blocking.
And then just to round it out. So you see their full snapshare
is that is run blocking. And I see you're, you're just to
keep us rolling here. Your first note on the usage
chart was Breeze all the way back.
And what one one thing I kind of knows noticed about Breece is
that his his snap share was pretty high this week.
And I mean, I mean, look up the I I should have been ready with
the exact number, but it was much higher than previous weeks.
And I do wonder if that's because The Jets were chasing
the game and he's their kind of like primary passing down back.
But he also played great, right? Yeah, I mean, it was high the
last two weeks. It's really just been since the
the head coaching change, the offensive coordinator change.
But yeah, I mean, really, the here's the problem with Bruce is
their offensive line stinks. And so you're.
Right. You're right.
It's high the last two weeks since the the offensive coach
change, which that's a big difference.
You're, you're losing a ton of the value that he could be
giving you in the running game just because of how how poor
their offensive line is. So that's troubling.
The good news is he's such an incredible pass catcher number
#1 he is, he is very legitimately great at actually
catching the ball, running routes like operating as a
receiver. I think probably McCaffrey is,
is like a better route run. Like if, if these guys had to
line up at receiver the entire game, McCaffrey probably edges
all out. But like the fact that that's a
conversation I think is pretty telling as to how incredibly
talented Breece is as a pass catcher.
The the real thing though, is just Breece in space.
Like if you have Breece in space, it's a big problem for
the defense. Like every time that he got the
ball in space this last game, it was pretty much like 10 yards
guaranteed. Like he gets the ball on a
little check down and there's no one within 5 yards of him.
Well, it doesn't matter if the first guy is going to close on
him and meet him, you know, 5 yards after the catch because
he's going to Juke that guy who's going to break his tackle.
I mean, he looks, he looks so good.
He, he's, he is incredible there.
There have been a couple plays now it's these last two weeks
too, where it's like, Oh my God, he's going to break a big
touchdown run and like twice he hasn't converted on them.
And I'm like, I'm hesitant to to say like, oh, he lost a little
of his top end speed. Like, I don't really think
that's it. The one.
He's too young for that to be the case.
Yeah, there there was the one play two weeks ago now where it
did just look a little weird. I, I, I mean, I don't want to
overly zoom in on the result of one specific play, what it
looked like like was he, he like gives up at the end, like he
can't beat the safety. What I what I want to tell
myself, the copium is I think he thought he was setting the guy
up to for like a a Juke where he's like, I'm gonna.
I think he probably didn't see the guy until it was too late.
Yeah, that that could be it as well, but I don't want to reach
much. Into that, yeah.
Yeah. One thing just to keep us
rolling that so Breece Hall. Incredible.
The other thing though, with his increased role last week,
Braylon Allen saw only 5 snaps. Yeah, Braylon Allen is just.
He went from a very startable player to just pure contingent
upside like you said. Huge, huge contingent upside.
He's still worth a stat. Like if you're in a RE draft
league, you know FFPC, you know main event.
Like Braylon Allen's an awesome guy to have on the back end of
your roster because if anything happens to Breece, he's probably
a league winner. But that's we're we're done
waxing poetic on Bruce Hall. I've got a guy who he actually
he didn't play this week. So you know, nothing really
changing with his snaps and usage.
Although we are using the four week rolling data on these
charts just to try and pick up on trends as they're happening.
So we're not using the entire season.
So we are dropping off a less favorable game for this player
in exchange for, you know, his his last three games because he
can play in week 7. We're all pretty favorable.
That's DeAndre Swift. He's up here near the top of the
chart as far as usage. I'm curious, do you think that
Swift is going to maintain this level of a role here going
forward? And I.
Think, I think what he's at risk of losing is the goal line
stuff. If you're if you're considering
the kind of narrative that going into the bye week, they self
scout and then they look at the tape and they're like, OK, this
is where we're going to change where you would do that for the
bears on Swift is OK, this guy is great between the 20s kind of
has been his is or has been like very at least serviceable
between the 20s entire career, but pretty rough on the goal
line. And I think that's where you
could see Rojo become the goal line back.
I think that's your big concerned there and for the
Andre Swift, but I I think other than that kind of that's and
that's more of a risk than like a base case.
I think he's looking. I I don't see a reason why they
would they would go away from him like he went into the body
playing strong like well. Yeah, no, I I think that's a
good thing to look out for, though.
If he does start losing the goal line role, it's definitely
something to be wary of. They do get the commanders this
week. I'm kind of wondering how
exciting the commanders will be if Jane Daniels misses against a
good Bears defense. This this game is 1 where I am
kind of excited about it. But at the same time, I can
really see how it fails where the bears decide to go run heavy
and keep keep the ball in swift hands.
And the commanders are, you know, really don't want to open
it up with Mariota and they just run the ball a ton with Brian
Robinson against a pretty. Oh, it's going to be the Cliff
Kingsbury show where it's running the ball in short
passes. Yeah, I, I.
That's what it's going to be. I tend to agree.
Another guy. They had, they had a -, 7% PROE
last week, which kind of bears that out.
Yeah, another guy whose role I think is, is this guy's role I
think might be in even more jeopardy than Swift, but it's
definitely one that's ambiguous still as well.
Is James Cook. I mean, really, the the Ray
Davis questionable was the best thing to happen to James Cook.
Because I think if James Cook strong, or excuse me, if Ray
Davis strung together another game as strong as the first one
where he really got the workload, I think you were going
to see James Cook's role begin to dwindle.
Not not that he would lose the primary job, but just that
they'd be more willing to work. He had he only had 50% of the
snaps in in week 7. So I think could you think part
of? That that's your only cope?
Like, that's a potential reason. It's a potential reason that
James Cook was banged up with a toe injury, that he only played
50% of snaps and that next week he's going to be perfectly fine.
It's also potential that he actually was close to go.
He was close to going on Monday and then by the time Sunday came
around, he was kind of fine. And like we, that's one of those
things, we actually don't know what the explanation is.
We just know that a snap count went down dramatically.
We it might have been the injury, but it's not count was
down a lot. And, and I think the other thing
to remember with the Bills is the running backs only have true
value if they're running a lot. Like if they go through a lot of
a high drop back count again like and and and you get this
kind of committee backfield, which seems very much in play.
Like I don't think any of these guys are startable unless you
get a spot start from contingent upside.
So are you saying that Josh Allen and James Cook are real
Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort scenario where one must die for
the other to live? Yeah, pretty much.
OK, next running back I had a note on man Kareem Hunt.
I mean, people, people thought, you know, oh, maybe they're
going to really split up this Isaiah Pacheco work.
Nope. Kareem Hunt's getting it all.
It is the Kareem Hunt show. I mean, stop me if this is is
too hyperbolic, Tricko, But does Kareem Hunt have the safest
floor in fantasy? Because the Chiefs are are a run
for his team at this point. Week to week, I think that's
right. Week to week.
Like, yeah. He's older, we've seen him like
kind of fade. And so I, I, I have personally,
I have questions as to how long he can maintain a workload at
like a high like quality. And but week to week, I think
that's right. I think he has great projectable
volume. He's playing just fine.
He's not like he's not shooting the bed or anything like that.
So no risk of getting benched and seems unlikely that he's
just going to shit the bed on unless you get some kind of like
because like he's older, so he could pick up some kind of knock
more easily than other players that could linger more.
And but I think that's I have that concern just because he's
somebody who went from it. But I think you're right, that
is a very safe projectable volume rule.
Yeah, I mean, Gretch, Gretch wrote about it in signals and
and just said, you know, Cream Hunt just keeps falling forward
that he does. Like that's the the runs aren't
like particularly impressive or anything.
You know what it reminds me of is it's like almost washed but
not quite washed yet. Ezekiel Elliott like when he was
just like had the really good success rate, but like no more
explosive plays and he was like still getting double digit
touchdowns, you know, getting right Cowboys.
That's this. This is Kareem Hunt is in his
almost washed Ezekiel Elliott era right now.
And but the thing about that era for Zeke is that by the end of
the season, he wasn't playable for fantasy.
Right, right. He he opened the gate playable,
very playable and put up decent weeks.
But by the end it was like, oh, this guy is so hurt that like
we're going to see keep playing him.
He's a team player, but he he wasn't getting there for
fantasy. The, the thing I that I think
that's really good analysis, 'cause I, I think you're right
that he, it's more likely than not that Kareem Hunt wanes as
the season goes on, right? The thing that makes that
interesting is that the Chiefs are a good enough team and a a,
you know, a team that is well run to where they'll figure if,
if that's happening, they will. Figure out alternative.
And so I'm really excited as to like, maybe the Chiefs actually
have to start scheming some stuff to Xavier Worthy by the
end of the season to, you know, maybe the offense has to get a
little bit more gadgety or maybe they're having to open it up.
I know, I know, we're not on the receiver chart, but they did
actually scheme stuff to to wordy.
Yeah. And then they did have the the
Mikkel. They had some Mikkel Hardman
stuff as well. So yeah, I do I think we could
see that part of the offense expand as the season goes on.
But OK, here's another running back that I I definitely think
we need to talk about. Javonte Williams finally has his
first big game, right? I mean, the role is
extraordinarily consistent. It it's just another week of,
hey, Javonte is going to be the lead back.
We're going to use him up to a certain like a count of raw
snaps. That's really how they divide
the work. It's not a percentage thing.
So if you're looking week over week, that's going to fluctuate
just due to the overall play volume.
But in weeks where they have really low play volume,
Javonte's going to have a huge percentage of the workload.
In weeks where they have really high play volume, we'll have a
slightly lower percentage of the workload.
But he looks like, I mean, he's the running back one on the team
right now. Yeah, so he they played 68
offensive snaps last week and he was on the field for 59 percent
or and 40 of those snaps. So he's looking pretty solid.
And I think he hasn't played the best.
But then every time they try to like, give somebody else a look,
that other player just like shits the bad.
Yeah. So like that, that's probably
still an ongoing risk of like they give somebody else a look
and they actually look good. And they're like, oh, but that's
not happening. And, and, and, and, well, that's
not happening. I think you're you're, you're
getting a good role for Javonte. Yeah, the, the talent mode is
not particularly deep or wide. However, the people trying to
swim across the talent mode cannot swim.
They're drowning in talent mode. I mean, estimate puts the ball
on the ground again. You gotta think that they're
they're the object estimate experiment might end before it
even starts if he if he fumbles again.
Just right, right, right. And then Julio McLaughlin is
like, he's fun, but I just he's not he's never gonna get enough
snaps. The The thing is, the Broncos
would have to run so many plays for Julio McLaughlin to have the
snaps. But like they.
Run nearly 70 plays and he only got 11 snaps.
Right, right. But here's let me let me read
you the Jovante snap count week over week, just so you can see
what I'm talking about. And and this is a shout out to
Gretsch for initially pointing this out, but it's something
that I paid attention to after he called it out.
But here's the Jovante snaps, just raw snaps, not percentage
week over week, 36403535383841. It like Sean Payton has a number
of snaps that he thinks is like the the limit where he wants to
begin tapering off the workload on a guy.
And that's what he's going by. And so knowing, knowing that we
kind of know a couple things #1 Javonte's role is going like
he's got a floor even in these low play volume games because
he'll just be the guy that gets it all then.
And then #2 ceiling's a little capped in these highest play
volume games because he'll start losing some of those snaps.
So he's, he's kind of like a a ho hum.
You know, like if he's, if you're getting him at a good
value, he's great to play, but he's never someone that I really
want to pay up a ton for. So this week is super
interesting against the Panthers.
What I think's going to happen to him in like dog bowl ADP is
he'll climb a bunch because projections are going to project
pretty well with good projectable volume and a really
strong match up. And after he climbs, I think
he'll be an absolute dog shit pick because I I think the
ceiling is, is capped. You're you're going to take a
player that is screaming up and then going next to players with
ceilings that are less capped. And also the talent has not been
great this season. But I'm, I'm loving him right
now. But I bet you by Thursday I
probably will have drafted my last Jovante Williams share for
the week. So let me tell you why Jovante
Williams is isn't going anywhere.
Of the of the 49 pass blocking snaps for Broncos running backs,
he has 44 of those. Yeah, so he's the only guy they
trust there. So that is a pretty secure game
script proof role. Yeah, I'm pulling up Jaleel
McLaughlin here now. There were some some of these
games where they had more snaps. He did more play volume.
He did play a little bit more. But yeah, like the highest,
highest number of snaps he's had all season was back in Week 1
where he got 24. He's never had more snaps than
that. So yeah, it's just it's tough to
see Jaleel get there. Like the the spot for Jaleel is
full PPR best ball formats only because you're never going to
play this guy and you really need the additional little PPR
scam that you get from him. And he'll he'll you know, he'll
sneak a touchdown in there with a cool play here and there, but
it's not it's never going to be anything.
You'll know when to start. So all right, the there's two
more guys or situations really that I want to talk about on
this chart before you go to the backups.
But we can see these Zac Moss and Chase Brown flipping
happening in real time here. Man, Zac Moss was really bad on
the ground this week. I, I need you to confirm this
'cause I'm just going off memory right here, but did he not have
6 carries for seven yards this week?
I believe that is the Zac on the line.
I know he had 6 attempts and I don't have this.
I don't have let me pull. I can pull up his his rushing.
Yeah, he looks, I mean, he looks bad as a rusher.
There were a couple. There was one play where he gets
a little dump off from Burrow and I didn't see his number and
he he like looked halfway decent at the like he had a, his first
step was like, the guy has a little bit of burst, OK.
And then like, he went nowhere. Like the first step looked fast.
I was like, Oh yes, Chase Brown. And then after that first step,
I realized it was Zach Moss, 'cause he started moving like he
was in mud. Yeah, 7 yards.
Yeah. So the the problem I think
though, is as much as I want to be the full-fledged chase.
Anecdotes after the contact. Oh man, I, I, I want to be the
full-fledged Chase Brown slappy because he's clearly the better
player and I, the team is acknowledging that as well.
The problem is they're still using Zac Moss and I think Chase
Brown is like the poor man's Devana Chan where he's like,
you're relying on the explosive play.
He's not getting enough of the volume to really be like super
consistent week to week. I mean really the spots where I
want to play Chase Brown are probably more spots where I just
want to like onslaught the Bengals.
And I'm saying the Bengals are scoring 4 touchdowns today and
so Chase Brown can get one of them, but he's not super
appealing to me as like a. No, no, he's not just yet.
So anyway, that's the cold water on Chase Brown.
But. He's got 45% of like fantasy
useful snaps, so combining Russia attempts and routes
versus 32% for for Moss. So I think you've had the flip
innings happened. It's occurred.
But what keeps Zach Moss on the field as bad as he looks is the
past blocking. Like they think Chase Brown is a
better rusher and 28% versus 11% for Zach Moss last week.
But they trust Zach Moss in the past, blocking more.
So I think that's what keeps him like kind of hanging around,
hanging around. Yeah.
And I unfortunately do not think that's going to go away.
No, it's not. That's the problem really what
you need for Chase Brown and this is this is so weird that
you're like, oh, you need a you need a Zac Moss injury so he can
stop pass blocking. But really the reason you need
that is just so chase Brown can be on the field more.
And like I, I bet you that if they did not have Zac Moss, they
simply would would choose to have a different player block.
They'd be like, well, we did want to have the back stay in
and block. Instead, we're just going to
have an extra tight end out here now.
Right, Erika, you're blocking instead of that 2 yard, instead
of that 2 yard screenplay, you're blocking now.
Yep, I 100% think that is the way that it would go if Zack
Moss were unavailable. All right.
Last guy or situation on the starters chart, but man, Tyrone
Tracy retains a really strong role with Singletary back.
I wanted to ask you, do you think that's simply because
Singletary wasn't at 100% or has Tracy earned this large of a
role going forward? You know, it's, it's hard for me
to to consider like Singletary just being iced out.
Like Singletary is the ICER. He's not the iced E and like we
we have to pay attention if we if we get another week like
that, then like it almost doesn't matter if he if it's
just because he's still injured, like they're still playing a
more. Right.
And it's a, it's a legitimate, it's a hard call.
I, I, I don't have a way to, to like tell.
And I'm a little suspicious of that being the case.
Like they're like, Oh yeah, great stuff.
Devon Singletary, we gave you the the free agent contract.
You're a favorite player, but we don't want to play you anymore.
Like, that seems a little far fetched to me.
But that that other than that kind of gut feeling and I don't
have a lot to to to base it on. Yeah, for, for reference, 12
snaps for Devon Singletary to 39 for Tyrone Tracy.
This here's a fun stat here. Here's a interesting, you know,
you can you can show how in the weeds you are looking at Giants
running back snaps by position. Tyrone Tracy lined up as a
receiver on the same number of snaps that Devon Singletary was
on the field at all. 12 snaps either in the slot or out wide
for Tyrone Tracy. 12 total snaps for Devon Singletary.
Wow, that is pretty interesting. Yeah.
So I wonder how much overlap that was where like we're
bringing Devon Singletary on, but we're not taking Tyrone
Tracy off. No, you stay on, but you still
want you to play receiver, right?
That is pretty interesting. Yeah, I, I think, I mean, I
don't have a ton of Tracy. I definitely was drafting Tracy,
but like I don't have like 20% or anything.
And so I the reason I'm telling you this context is I don't want
you to think that I'm some like Tyrone Tracy bag defending
Slappy. I think Tyrone Tracy is just
good like. He is like, even when Singletary
is back, back, they still have to find a way to get Tracy
involved. But yeah, I, I don't know if if
like it's, it's just, it's so hard for me to think of like
that's such a like an alien thing.
All right, let's go to the backups chart.
One of the running backs we're about to talk about is actually
at the very bottom of the starters chart, and that's for
Shaun White. But we need to talk about him in
the context of Bucky Irving and Sean Tucker.
Now I'm I'm trying to remember because I watched this entire
game last night. I'm trying to remember.
I'm pretty confident both of the white touchdowns came after the
game was pretty out of hand. Am I?
Am I right about that? I know the the there was a the
really late 1. The really late 1 was just like
pure garbage time. Like no one was playing defense.
It was a blown coverage. He gets to walk.
In I think, I think the I think the first one, the game was like
even not I think it was still like a competitive.
Like I'm, I'm being generous by competitive.
Like there was still some chance that the Bucks could win.
I think that's right. So the way I'm kind of looking
at it is if you look, if you just look at the rush attempts,
so White did lead in rush attempts.
He had 12% versus 11% for Bucky Irving, 6% for Sean Tucker.
And then actually I like 10 rush attempts, 9 rush attempts, 5
rush attempts for Tucker. And and then he had 22 routes
versus 18 for Bucky, 8 for Sean Tucker.
So like that is that that's a true like committee.
And then even even being the lead, White is only on the field
for 46%. His snap rate is 46%.
So I think, I think at least in that game, he still had a pretty
important role. But I do I do wonder if if in
games that where where they're where the game script is not so
against them where they are actually running the ball, if
they involve Bookie and Sean Tucker more because he does have
that 6% pass blocking kind of Moat where he's able to that
that's his calling card to stay on the field.
But I guess if if this is, I think this is the upside.
This is the the best case scenario for Shad White snaps is
is close to 50%. And then it's like what 3515 for
the other guys. Like as early as he drafted
white. Like that's pretty rough.
I don't know if any of these guys are startable now.
Yeah, it's going to be. So there's two things.
Number one, it's it was pretty encouraging to me to see the
Bucks be willing to adjust how they viewed their backfield
after getting that information that.
Right, right. So quickly.
And they didn't just like, yeah. And great stuff, Tucker, but
you're back on the bench now. Yeah, yeah.
And they do the same with Bookie, where after he played,
well, they're like, OK, we have to play this guy more.
It, it just seems so criminal to me.
Remember last year when they're trotting out like Chase Edmonds
and shit and just like not giving Sean Tucker a chance?
Like how incompetent was that coaching staff last year to to
not I mean, like, I know it's largely the same people, you
know, different offensive coordinator with Canales going
over to Carolina, but what the fuck are you guys doing?
Like you just you had this guy here and you're like trying to
figure out what to do and he's like probably your best pure
runner, you know, right. Also, Bucky looked like he could
give looks like he'd give White a run for his money in the
passing game. Bucky looks really elusive man
like. He's yeah, yeah, He's a great
pass catcher and he got a lot of routes, too.
He got 22% of rents versus 27 for for White.
So he, I mean White is getting squeezed all over.
But I, I, so in a game where they had 82 plays, you had, you
had 38 total snaps. So about half for White and then
28 for Bucky, 16 for Tucker. So I, I, I'm, I'm maybe I'm just
repeating myself here. I do I like, I think that I
think that they like all of these guys now, but in a game
where that's closer to 50 plays, I think it's very hard to get
like good points from any any of these guys reliably.
Yeah, I think that sums it up. Pretty If you're in a pinch you
can start white, but that certainly isn't what you
drafted. I mean, I'd be willing to bet
that White never scores more fantasy points than his last
game for the rest of this season.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Now, I, I, I'd be willing to,
you know, put that bet out to the chat if anyone wants to
actually give me action on it, but anyone that would actually
place that bet already had their feelings hurt too bad by my
Russell Wilson rant and they've stopped listening.
Or if you're listening into the podcast, feel free to DM and
suck in in discord afterwards. Yeah.
All right. I had just a couple quick notes.
We can kind of fly through these ones.
Yeah. Jerome Ford is dead with Nick
Chubb back. Nick Chubb getting like a lot of
work in his first game. Yeah, Ford, Ford not not fantasy
relevant anymore. Just pure, pure handcuff.
OK, Dolphins running backs. I think this is you got to do
that. Wrong Was it Or be one?
Yeah. So I think, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
to cut you off, but I think if they are going to be passing a
lot, I think Pierre strong is still kind of interesting there
because on unless, unless they decide to to ramp up and Chubb
as a as a pass catcher as well. And maybe they could maybe like
he dominated the rush attempts. They gave him a couple targets.
Let me find him here. He had 11 routes and so it's not
like they they just didn't use them.
And but yeah, it it it'll be interesting to see how that
evolves. But I I did think that was
interesting that and Pierre strong actually played a decent
amount like it. Obviously the Jerome Ford just
iced just surplus to requirements, but he he he he
still played a bit. So Ford had two targets versus
tree for Chubb. So maybe actually maybe maybe
that that that probably those routes probably are in danger
and that's probably where an increase not camp will come for
Chubb. Yeah, All right, Dolphins
running backs, I think you gotta like this is the spot where you
buy the dip. Is there is there anything left
with Mostert? I kind of I liked him as a
really sneaky dart throw last week against the Colts.
The offense just just putrid. They they tried to run, they
just couldn't really get anything going.
And then Monster has the really costly fumble for them.
So is there any point to playing Monster any more?
Like can he still have the big weeks?
I guess for me it's if he does, it's just simply on the back of
scoring a million touchdowns like he did last year.
Like Dolphins are a productive offense again and he gets some
goal line carries. But we already saw them willing
to give goal line touches to a Chan.
So can you play monster or or not And and are you?
No, I don't think you can. Like they played they they
played tree running backs here at Chan was the lead and but so
they had 72 plays overall, which certainly a decent amount.
And of those Moser was on the field for 22 of them.
So that's not honestly, that's not bad.
I think. I think that's like in a pinch
you can start that for sure in in redraft, but in terms of like
DFSI think that's completely unplayable.
I've got a got a couple questions for you on a Chan
here. So here's some guys going after
a Chan this week. He gets they get the Cardinals.
I want to know, are you taking a Chan over these guys or or is
this a signal that his price might be a little too frothy?
DeAndre Swift A Chan or Swift? And I think, I think you do want
a Chan over Swift, like especially if you're telling me
she was back. I, I, I think you do want that
Josh Jacobs and that, that that seems close to 5050 to me,
Javante Williams and you, you want you want a Chan over
Javante, I think agree. JK.
Dobbins. JK Dobbins.
Yeah, I think you. I think you also want a Chan
over Dobbins. That one's close for me just
because you get the New Orleans match up and they're they're
just feeding Dobbins 17 opportunities last game, 27
opportunities the game before 17 opportunities the game prior to
that that that one's close for me, but OK.
It sounds like you think that a Chan is is reasonably priced
though. Yeah.
Well, I mean, obviously we
haven't seen it this year, but he does have like that that 6th
gear upside of like he gets in space and he breaks some huge
plays. And I think, I think that
element is is worth paying a little more for than the guys
mentioned. Yeah, that that makes a ton of
sense. All right, the let's see here.
I think we can. We can just go to the efficiency
charts now here. So I'll, I'll let you explain
what we're looking at. Here, Oh yeah, sorry.
And we've got receiving expected points on the vertical axis,
we've got rushing expected points on the horizontal and
size of the bubble corresponds to fantasy points over expected.
So bigger bubble means more positive efficiency.
And then I know your, your first kind of note was that was a
couple of 2V twos, Josh Jacobs versus Giovante and.
They're right next to each other in the middle of the chart in
that 10 to 15 expected fantasy point band.
Similar. Similar efficiency too.
That is interesting. And I think I think you want
Jacobs because of the better offense I but it's it's it's
it's that's not a conviction play.
I I, I think I think you can make the case for Javonte.
Yeah, I, I do think it's helpful to frame some of these running
backs like that because everyone thinks Javonte is so gross.
And I know a lot of people in our, you know, that kind of
think of the game similarly to us would also think Jacobs is
gross. But I, I just see so much stuff
about how good Josh Jacobs is and how he's on such a good
offense. And it's like, I mean, really,
when you like, yeah, all that is being factored in here.
When you look at his expected fantasy points, his efficiency,
it comes out right around Javonte Williams, who's also
right next to our our next guy, Dijon Robinson, who's also
similar to them in expected fantasy points and efficiency.
But I, I compared him to the other Bea Robinson.
In this little 1V1 of Brian Robinson, who do you prefer this
week? And of course, I think we got to
take cost into consideration here 'cause Bijon's, you know,
going to be like a first round pick and Brian Robinson goes
much later than that. Who do you prefer this week,
Bijon or Brian Robinson? And who?
I think you told me who did The Who did the commanders play?
The commanders get, oh, I just had that, sorry, my brain is,
oh, the bears, the bears. The Bears, so tough offense and
you're maybe without your starting quarterback and I mean,
obviously you strongly prefer Bijan and without Price.
And then what round does Brian Robinson go in?
I've seen him go as late as like the late 5th, early sixth round.
OK, So he's basically free is what you're telling me.
And so Austin Eckler is back. He he runs the passing routes
whereas Brian Robinson so Brian Robinson is there something I
don't know here that Brian Robinson 18% Russia.
Sorry, I'll use just use numbers.
Brian Robinson 12 rush attempts. You think the Jeremy Nichols
Mcnichols is just a game script? I think it's coming off the
knee, coming off the knee injury and it was a game where they
didn't need to use him because you know, he's he's been, he
missed a game with a knee injury.
He was limited the game before and they barely, barely the game
that he played with the knee injury was like, I feel like
halfway through the game. They just must have been like,
we shouldn't have made you active, but you're you're going
to hurt yourself more because he got, I can't remember how many
touches he got, but it was a very small number that came that
he's active with a knee injury, that he misses, that he's active
here against the just. Absolutely.
OK. But the, the, the kind of
context to his cheap price is that he's kind of injured.
Yeah, he, he was injured. We don't now he's, you know, 3-4
weeks removed from the injury. It really there's, there's a lot
of question on how healthy he is right now.
And then I think for me, the bigger driver is they're going
to play a real game. They're not going to play the
Panthers this week. And I do think the Commanders
are pretty interested in in winning here.
And if they don't have Jaden Daniels like I, I could really
see them having to lean heavily on Brian Robinson if he's
healthy enough for them to do that.
So I think there's quite a bit of volatility on Brian Robinson
this week. You could end up with he's still
not 100%. They play a strong defense.
They don't have their quarterback that is making
everything hum. He's just a terrible bust or you
could end up with they have to run.
The whole plane is built out of Brian Robinson and he's healthy
and he's able to get there at a pretty cheap cost.
So here's one that was interesting to me.
I did. I, I wanted to kind of get your
feeling on it though, because I'm not 100% confident on him.
Yeah. I mean, you obviously have risk
there and I'm going to, I'm, I'm using the the road of his
Screener here to try and I'm going to filter down to to just
the first 3/4. I don't think that's like
perfect, but it'll get it gives a better sense of what happened
if you just exclude the fourth quarter.
Exclude. Exclude the 3rd as well.
The game was over, is super over.
OK, OK, I can do that. So I'm excluding the 3rd and
search the database. I'm, I'll also just look at our
running backs. Sorry, looking up data here in
real time. So, so you had eight rush
attempts for Brian Robinson, 2 for Eckler, one for Jeremy
Mcnichols. OK, so that, that kind of
indicates that he was, he was the primary, he's the primary
player in the, in the first half.
And then when the game was over and they, yeah, that that's when
Mcnichols started playing. So, so that's when Mcnichols got
6 attempts, Eckler got 2 and Brian Robinson still got 4.
So yeah, I, I, I think it's fair to say that he's, he's very much
the lead and, and, and, and will be in a competitive game.
So I, I, I, I, I think you've got the, I think you've got a
pretty good case for the, the upside there, the upside
scenario that you've played out. All enjoyed drafting him for the
next one day before he gets steamed up.
OK, the oh, I think we talked about Dobbins very briefly.
He I believe he lives on the next chart.
So let's let's flip to the next chart real quick.
Or no, sorry, he's on the previous one.
I lied. I just couldn't find him.
Where is he at? He's right here, right here,
right on the 15th. Hiding.
Hiding right by Chuba Hubbard. Yeah.
I mean he's got a really good spot against this Saints run
defense and Saints Saints rendy has looked absolutely atrocious.
And that's The thing is that's all the chargers want to do.
I this could be just one of those disgusting games where
there's literally no offense outside of JK Dobbins.
You know, like I I wouldn't be surprised if you get sub 100
passing yards from the chargers this game because I don't think
the Saints can stop them on the ground.
Honestly, if you want to, if you want a really interesting.
Is there any I want to I want to see?
Are there any reduced slates where like small slates where
let's see I want the small. Are you saying the primary way
to play Dobbins would be in a small slate?
What I actually want is I want to play both Dobbins and Vidal
in the same line up and they are an afternoon game.
So if you're a sicko that plays like afternoon only slates, I
don't hate doing a Dobbins Vidal, just this is how the
Chargers move the ball. The Saints cannot stop it and
the game gets so out of hand, which I also think is very
reasonable that Vidal is is getting to eat as well in
garbage time. I wish this was a showdown.
I mean, they'll have a small showdown slate for it, but like,
man, if this was a a prime time showdown slate, I'd be jamming
so much Dobbins and Vidal together.
But yeah, I think it's an interesting spot.
Yeah, and makes makes sense for sure.
OK, now we can actually move to the next chart.
There's two individual running backs I want to talk about
before we do our legendary running back midway through the
season. Abouts check in the first one.
His bubble is kind of obscuring some other bubbles here, but
it's smack dab in the middle. The big green bubble of Jameer
Gibbs. Guy's pretty efficient.
Maybe the Lions should give this guy more touches.
What do you think? Yeah.
And obviously they, they, they established Jameer Gibbs.
Yeah, this week worked out pretty well for them.
And. He he looks.
Like a good pick? Yeah.
He's just, he's the, he delivers the explosive plays.
And I know that Montgomery, it has delivered explosive plays
into his own right. I don't want to take anything
away from Montgomery, but man, just like the no.
Please take something away from Montgomery.
The the danger, the threat that Gibbs poses to a defense, like
if you fuck up against this guy, like it could be a house call at
any, you know, that is really tantalizing.
So, yeah, that's that's really all I had to say.
Jamir Gibbs is really good. We had a good question from Nick
in the chat. So yeah, 5.7 yards per 10th
seems good. Yeah, we had a good.
Connections price in the dog bowls, Nick.
It is reflective of where he's living on this chart right now.
He is a a mid first rounder. So yeah, he he's going early.
I've seen him go pick six, pick eight.
Yeah, you're going to have to pay up if you want Joe Mixon
this week. The other guy I wanted to
comment on here is a guy that's getting really good usage.
He's living in this 15 to 20 expected fantasy points band.
That's Tony Pollard. The problem And and he looks
efficient here 'cause he had a couple efficient games.
Really want a lot of this efficiency.
Like if you fixed one play here. And by fixed, I mean like have
any kind of effort to to tackle him.
But it was that play against the Colts two weeks ago where it's
like third in Infinity and they're like, I don't know, a
little under 30 yards out from the from the end zone.
And they just run a draw play 'cause there's like no hope of
actually getting a first down. They're just trying to get in
closer for a field goal. So they run a draw play.
And the only guy who like really gets a real chance at tackling
Tony Pollard, like closes his eyes, bends over 90° and just
like Rams him with his shoulder. No attempt to wrap up at all.
And Pollard just like bounces off like, what are we doing?
And just run straight into the IT was like the least not to
take anything away from Tony Pollard.
He did everything correct on the play, but it was like the play
that least should have been a touchdown in the history of
touchdowns. And it just happened to be a
touchdown. I I have to imagine that his
expected fantasy points on that play were like under one and he
ended up getting like 9. So that's doing a lot of heavy
lifting there on the efficiency for him.
But this offense is so bad. I just I wonder like can I even
play Pollard with a really good role or is this offense too
shitty to realize his expected fantasy points?
Yeah. So he he he's been under
expectation on the yardage and so he's got 54 yards under
expected per FF, not FFPC at PFF and then that translate to 4.3
yards per attempt. So I guess his, his, his
efficiency overall, I guess has been fine.
It's been OK and had a really bad day week seven really bad
day and just completely they they the the defense just was
all over him because he had 43 yards under expected this week.
And then you can you can kind of see his overall efficiency on
the season is is is pretty is actually kind of neutral.
So you you do have a good role there, but you're not at you're
not seeing a lot of efficiency there.
So I think that's pretty worthwhile for where he went in
in basketball season. But I don't know if this is like
a this. You need this guy cheap to make
him work in AGPP type scoring format or or tournament.
Yeah. OK.
Couple, couple questions from the chat that I do want to
answer. We've got, we've had two
questions about Steelers running backs, Warren, Warren with 14.3
expected fantasy points last week with Russ.
Do either the Steelers RV's benefit from Russ starting over
the over fields? I mean I think you get a very,
very small benefit to Warren where you're going to have less
of the drop back attempts turn into quarterback rushes and more
of those will turn into check downs to Warren.
So that's like a very small positive for him.
I really, I don't think the offense is better with Russ than
with Fields. One, one thing I did see that
was pretty interesting was the stacked box rate was
substantially lower with Russ. It's kind of interesting where
they really, really the defenses were really, really giving
Fields a lot of attention in the rushing game and stacking the
box heavily when he was playing. So I I guess it also is probably
a slight positive for both running backs if defenses
continue to play the Steelers in that way where they don't stack
the box against them and give them really light.
Fronts, right? And it's hard.
It's hard to know how much that is like Jeff's kind of
defensive. Loss, that's what I was going to
say as well. It might just be a one game
thing and so I I want to watch it.
I'm not saying like this is the truth going forward, but it's
something where I want to pay attention to it.
Right, right. If we see it again, it's a
trend. And then Bobby Boom coming with
the all caps energy in the chat. So I will answer with some all
caps energy. He wants to know two legendary
locks this weekend please. The man needs his legendary
locks. I'll give you the first one.
He's right here on the chart and he's going to segue into the
conversation about running backs with legitimate legendary upside
this season, and that's Kenneth Locker.
Go ahead and lock Kenneth Walker in.
He is an absolute smash this week and every week.
His role's incredible. Insane expected fantasy points
in the receiving game, which I love.
The guy is game script proof, making incredible catches as
well. His receiving touchdown this
week while he was absolutely burping up bourbon in the end
zone from his birthday hangover. Yeah, Kenneth Walker is awesome.
Super fun back. Happy to see him finally getting
his day in the sun this season because I know he was a guy that
a lot of people are excited about as a prospect.
He's my first legendary lock of this week.
And Bobby, boom, I'm going to make you stay tuned if you want
the second one because it's not a running back.
But let's let's transition to the last thing I want to talk
about on this chart. I want to just do our check in.
We've done this a couple times before, but I want to check in
and see which of these running backs you think a legendary
season is still on the table for.
I think we've talked about all these guys enough that we don't
need to spend a ton of time on them.
I just just hit me with the yes or no on it.
So #1 Ken Walker. Yeah.
Breece Hall. The rest of way, yes.
DeAndre Swift. No.
Joe Mixon. I mean, by the numbers it's a
yes, but I don't. Damn, I don't believe it.
I don't believe that that this he he looks, he doesn't look bad
either. But I, I, I have a hard time
seeing this, that this be a thing.
It could be a bias but I have a hard time with it.
No, I think it's I think so much of it is on the back of volume.
And then he had a couple really efficient plays against the
Patriots that I don't I just think are not something that's
going to be terribly replicable, at least not at the rate that
they're currently showing up in the stats.
So makes sense. All right, last one, Derrick
Henry. I I think that you get enough
games for the Ravens this year where it's not just establishing
it where where he he's probably not a legendary season like we
almost it could happen, but how do they just dominate every
game? I.
We almost had it. We almost had it this last game,
right? He had 4 touches at the half.
They're using Justice Hill a ton.
What I really liked to see from the Ravens in this game was we
had talked about this extensively before the season
drafting basketball teams, about how we really thought the Ravens
pass rate was going to go up this year because their defense
was going to get worse, which it has and Todd Munkin is willing
to pass the ball, but they just didn't need to last year.
So they just, they were beating the brakes off team.
So they ran it a bunch. And then it it really felt like
we were wrong. And the Ravens wanted to run it.
And I mean, it kind of meshed with their behavior this
offseason. You go get Derrick Henry.
But this first half of this game, to me really showed like,
OK, yeah, all you need is the Ravens to be in a very
competitive game where the other team looks capable of scoring
points and they feel threatened. And they are not like they they
were putting Henry on ice in the first half because they're like,
yeah. Oh yeah, the commentators were
complaining about it. Why don't they play Derrick
Henry more? It's the two-minute drill.
He doesn't play in two. Minutes.
Yeah. And it so to me, it was like
signs of hope that you can get these huge, huge games from the
Ravens passing like the side of the the Ravens passing game can
actually produce extremely well, which makes me feel like I
wasn't crazy about my thesis this offseason.
It's just they just also happen to be so freaking good that it's
it's gonna be hard for them to not be in circumstances for
Derrick Henry to put the game away.
So that is that's the tough part.
But I, I agree with you. It's it's hard for him to have a
a legendary season just because it really it's predicated on
them beating the shit out of a bunch of teams which.
Every team. Every team.
Now, now, hang on though. Let me give you their upcoming
schedule here. And you, you just let me.
Know I looked at it. When I get to a team, they're
not going to kick the shit out of them because it's the Browns,
it's the Broncos, it's the Bengals.
The Bengals should be the Bengals should be an electric
game. I mean, we already saw a
fireworks game earlier. The Steelers, the Chargers, the
Eagles could be interesting, but then the giant Steelers, Texans
could be interesting and then the Browns to close the season.
I I kinda, I mean. You know, it doesn't take a lot
to go wrong for a game to be pretty competitive, even against
the worst team. That's it.
Couldn't take that much to go wrong for the game to be
competitive. Yeah, or at least competitive
for for 1/2, but even right this game.
Or 3/4 of the game. Or like, yeah, and enough where
they're not just like salting the game the whole game with
Henry. Yeah.
All right, let's move on to the tight end charts.
Yeah, I'll let you go ahead and explain what we're looking at
here. And so tight end utilization and
efficiency here we are looking at their, their route percentage
as a percentage of team drop backs, what percentage of those
routes are earning a target and then how far down the field they
are earning a target. And I, I don't, I don't think
there's too many surprises on here, at least for me anyway.
So I, I feel like we can be pretty quick here.
I mean, for me, the biggest kind of note is that the Porter has
been pretty damn disappointing. It's hard to know how to parse
that, but it's hard. It's even harder.
It's to like not react like at this point it I think we're
we're at panic buttons for Laporta.
Yeah, the for for Laporta, the one thing that I'll say is you
do get the Jamo suspension and maybe that two games is enough
for him to re establish a foothold in the offense and do a
little something. But I I think you gotta if you
don't get anything in these next two games from Laporta, it's I
mean, it's already super concerning.
Like I'm, I've got him in on some FFPC, like I have him on my
FFPC fantasy pros team. Like I don't know why I'm
starting. Him anymore, right?
You need a touchdown. He's just like a mid range tight
end where you hope he catches a touchdown now.
Yeah, like when it's low even. Doesn't seem great, right?
No, no, that, that it's, it's, it's almost like confirmed bad,
bad basketball pick now. Yeah, not great.
The one that I thought was really interesting, and I mean
we're going to talk about this when we get to the receivers as
well, but Kate Auten really stepped up in, you know, when
the the bucks had the big target void there with Evans and Godwin
going out. I mean, Godwin was actually in
pretty much the whole game and autumn was still drawing lots of
volume. And and this is the thing we
talked about this. We mentioned it during the
offseason 2. I I know that I I brought this
up a number of times with the leg up guys when we were doing
our rankings for best ball. I said, you know, K Dotton
didn't look terribly special, You know, to start his career
here, he just looks like a guy that is on the field 100% of the
time and runs all the routes. But we also need to remember
he's a young player. I believe this is his third year
now, young player that has managed to get on the field 100%
of the time. Like, that's pretty good for a
tight end. Tight end is like a notoriously
slow developing position. He's on the field 100% of the
time. And now you get this target
vacuum here where I think Kate on is going to be one of the
major beneficiaries. I mean, if you're hurting for a
tight end, Kate on is is one of my favorite ads this week on
waivers. I just and he looked good too.
It's not like like, I don't know if you were watching all of the
the Ravens bucks game last night, but he looked good.
He was making athletic catches. The guy survived a couple.
Just absolute widowmaker hits too.
Like I thought he was out of the game on multiple occasions,
right? He's kind of a stud.
He got kind of indicate office. Baker, Mayfield, Truman to some
Headaches. Some major hospital balls, but
yeah, so indicate. Yeah, the other yeah, I mean
20%. So like, here's the thing.
And his he had 22% targets per run in the last game, which like
actually isn't like that amazing.
And the reason it worked out so well is because they had 52
dropbacks. And so that that actually ended
up being 10 targets. But it's not the first time that
he's done that. If you look at week 4 where they
had 51 dropbacks, he had a 19% targets per Rep per out run, 8
targets, 7 targets in week three and six targets in week 6.
So I think I think we've got enough here to say he is very
like you. You should be actually happy to
start K dot like and and and that comes from somebody who who
didn't want to drop them much at all.
And like I think this is, this is a very viable starting tight
end. Yeah, definitely agree.
This has been I think we're seeing a couple viable starting
tight ends emerge here. Hunter Henry, another one that I
had a note on, looked pretty good as Drake May's primary
weapon with Demario Douglas leaving due to illness early in
the game, he he looked pretty solid.
I would not be surprised if he it gives us some strong weeks
here now that you have Drake May running the offense.
The other one that this is a huge upgrade is David and Joku
because David and Joku finally has someone throwing him the
ball who's a competent NFL quarterback.
You know, now that Deshaun Watson is is done for hopefully
the rest of his life. But yeah, David and Joku, huge
upgrade, earning lots of targets because there's no, there's no.
Target I, I, I do think, sorry, just to go back, I think do
think Henry profiles is kind of spiky.
Like you had the 26% targets per run last week, then you did have
the 36% in Week 2, but week one it was 13%, week 317, six
percent, 13 percent, 13%. So I, I, I don't, I don't want
to like get too carried away like you want spike weeks from
your tight end, especially when you get them as cheap as, as
Hunter Henry was. But I don't I, I, I don't want
to get too carried away with the Hunter Henry stuff.
Yeah, I don't want to rely on Patriots with Jacoby percent
data like hardly at all. I don't think it's going to be
terribly pretty. Well, so he started two games
now and the first one he was at 13% target Sprite run.
Right, right. So even if you're trying out the
Jacoby percent data, the trend is continued, it's the same
trend. Yeah, that's, that's reasonable.
Yeah. It's something, it's something I
want to watch. But yeah, he definitely could
just be spiky. So yeah, in Joku, Henry Otten
all really strong, you know, emerging tight ends here,
another another one that I mean, he had a really big spike week.
You you might say he's emerging and his quarterback is coming
back now. But I want to know, do you think
this Jonny Smith stuff is just an aberration or or is he
actually going to emerge as a valuable fantasy tight end?
I think the Jonny Smith stuff is like a function of incompetent
quarterback play. Where you have to, you have to
decide to throw the ball down the field to Tyreke or Waddle to
actually make the offense go and instead you throw the ball to
Janu. I I don't, I don't think that's
I don't, I don't think that's how this offense should work.
Like, I guess it's it's good that he was actually so
productive with those targets. It is good and maybe that he can
be the third option for the team with Chua back, but in my
opinion, if the Dolphins are gonna successfully operate they
it, it shouldn't be true. Johnny Smith.
Yeah, I I agree with that. I think it's.
More how did how did the game went the last two games, which
is that's why they were so bad. Yeah, let's see here the other
note that I had Oh, I think we we want to go on to the backups
chart here for these next. Oh, sure, yeah, Jatavion Sanders
looks pretty good, kind of a good.
I don't I don't I want to like pump the brakes a little bit on
him on the Jatavion Sanders exuberance because the you can
basically throw out this entire game against the commanders.
It was it was over before it started.
Deante Johnston not fully healthy and it seemed like the
Panthers waved the white flag quite early in this one.
I'm also not sure about the health of Tommy Tremble coming
off the really large concussion. I do believe he was active this
last week. I didn't see.
I mean if he was active after a concussion then he has to be
fine. Like they can't, they can't play
the guy unless he's active. Looks looks like he didn't end
up getting any snaps so he he might have been inactive.
I know he was. He was.
Inactive. He was inactive.
They didn't play him. Yeah.
So that's that's something to watch, but Jetavion Sanders
looks like he might be earning more of the of the work there.
So definitely want to keep an eye on Mark Andrews back from
the dead. Getting pretty good targets per
route run now and a strong A dot.
The problem is the snaps are still not great.
I mean, I think he's. And so he was just on, on, on.
I got some more on Tramble. He was out of the concussion
protocol, but he had a back injury.
Got it. OK, yeah.
So this this last week likely ended up with 37 snaps, Andrews
with 34. So they're right about 5050.
It's just it's hard. I think a lot of the Andrew's
stuff really was because of the flowers injury too.
And it just necessitated, you know, someone else needed to
step up in the passing game. Matt, you know, Bateman did a a
big job there and and Andrew stepped up and got his two
touchdowns. So as much as I want to be on
the mark, Andrews is all the way back train.
I don't really think he's all the way back.
His his role is just drastically different than what we've seen
in the past and it. But the more he plays well, the
more that like cuz he started to see his week 1 role was actually
like pretty good in terms of snaps.
He just wasn't earning targets because there was something
wrong. But I do think the more he plays
well, the I think that's like a positive for increasing a snap
bat rate. It just he's actually played
fairly decent the last two or three games.
It hasn't led to the snap increase, so it might take more
time. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's
reasonable. I just, I think that the Ravens
feel like the cat is all the way out of the bag for Isaiah Likely
and that they can't keep him on the sideline.
And so I think that between that and like maybe a little bit of
load management for Mark Andrews, like, it kind of kind
of seems like they are happy with how they're splitting it.
I mean, I wouldn't be sad if we saw Mark Andrews get a snap
increase. But yeah, I, I don't know, be
interesting to see how the Zay Flowers injury shapes up.
Seems like it'll probably be fine.
He's able to come back into the game and everything after the
ankle injury, but I think that's the the largest driving force
behind Andrew's Sailor targets so.
Well, so he had a 25% Tiger threat run in week seven.
He had 22 in week 6 and 23% in week 5.
So I think actually the underlying usage has picked up
quite a bit there, like even on a on a longer sort of time
horizon. Yeah, it's just the the targets
for route runner are increasing, but like the snaps are just not
and so the. The snaps have not corresponded,
you're right. Yeah, you need you need the
snaps for him to return anywhere close to his former glory.
But all right, I just had a funny note for the last one, the
great Eric All debates about who was the real Eric All Bowl.
It seemed to be all for nothing because this average step of
target is .7. You had Mike Gesicki dealing
with a hamstring injury this past week as well.
And yeah, it just, it really, really did not amount to much of
anything. Eric.
All 34 snaps this past week didn't really do anything with
it. Gesicki only 18.
Yeah. You had week three and four with
a, a quote UN quote, 40% targets for that run on, on 24 and 30%
stock rate. But then often what you see,
you'll often see those kind of like players that as their
roots, as their roots ramp up, they don't actually earn any
more targets, which I think is kind of what you're seeing
there. Yeah.
Actually as his roots went up, his targets went down.
So he he he like uttered on those kind of like tight end
screens. He's he's not a target.
Enter. And and and this game against
the Browns, who have a very competent pass rush, right, like
this, this would be the situation where you might expect
this ultra low A dot, you know, chip and release type tight end
to be able to get a lot of volume, right?
Just that, hey, let's beat the pass rush.
Let's punish him here. The guy gets one target.
And you know, Gesicki is is mostly out of the game, only
plays 18 snaps. So yeah, the Eric all stuff.
I mean, maybe maybe he becomes something by the end of the
season. I think your most likely outcome
is that Eric all never hits the lineup of a winning team.
If you your line up in best fall, that team is already dead,
right. All right, let's move on to wide
receivers and close it out here, Draco.
Yeah. And I kind of want to focus on
effort for wide receivers unless you object, I kind of want to
focus on these kind of waiver pick up guys like, yeah.
I mean, maybe we can touch. Is there anybody you want to
touch on briefly here for like smash GPP type plays that might
be under the radar? Or I.
Think even not. Yeah, I think Amon Raw gets a
legitimate bump with Jameson Williams being out and his yeah
adjusted. So I'm kind of kind of into Amon
Raw this week. They get the Titans, so it's not
like the world's most exciting game, but it definitely just
feels like one where, you know, he he could definitely benefit
from the reduced target competition.
They're kind of going back to the old way.
OK, here, here you go. You're trying to talk me into
plain Bonex earlier. Here's how you do it the
ultimate Cortland Sutton regression spot.
I mean he's he's up here above 60% weighted targets per route
run in the same neighborhood as Garrett Wilson, DK Metcalf,
Drake London Aman raw like he's a little shy of T Higgins, but
like these are all guys that you know we we.
Just to be clear, I was trying to get you to play Troy
Franklin. Well, I, I do think Cortland
Sutton is probably a pretty interesting play this week
against the really bad Panthers defense.
Yeah, I, I, I might sprinkle in a, a little Courtland Sutton
here and then I'll, I'm just, I'm fast forwarding through
these so we can get to the waiver guys.
OK T Higgins to me does not look like the wide receiver 2 on the
Bengals. It to me it looks more like
A1A1B situation. I really expected this weighted
targets per route run to kind of normalize between T Higgins and
Jamar. Where is he on this chart?
Oh, oh, he's right here. He's.
Right ahead of a Mon raw As far as weighted targets per route
run, here's the only receivers in the league running the same
number or more routes than T Higgins that have a better
weighted targets per route run. A.J.
Brown, Malik Neighbors. Justin Jefferson.
That's the list. Right, Yeah, he like he the the
contracts year Naruto for T Higgins is hitting in a big, big
way. Yeah, I mean here, here's the
other thing. Like all the the T Higgins
haters and doubters out there. Like so?
Much of it which there is one. So much of it just comes from
the fact that like T missed some games with injury or T suited up
for games while injured and didn't play or played and was
not 100%. So he was more of a decoy.
And it's like, sure, yeah, you can I guess you can be mad that
he he was out there. He's available.
But like as far as being a good wide receiver in the NFL and
being a a strong fantasy producer, like T Higgins is both
of those things. And so whatever whatever way you
want to feel about T Higgins, like he's a he's a very strong
NFL wide receiver playing with one of the most efficient
passing quarterbacks this season.
So do with that what you will. But all right, we can.
Are there any of these waiver pickups on this chart, Trico or
or were you wanting to go to later?
Charts I'm just looking true and it doesn't look like it.
It does not appear. I mean, Bateman obviously is a
strong if he's on the waivers there, you pick him up and
probably not on a lot of waivers, but.
Hard. It's hard to know when it
started though in a in a redraft.
But yeah, worth a worth a stash. And a lot of these guys, it's
going to be hard to know when to start them.
Yeah, that's, that's fair. I, I just had a couple notes on
this one. First, George Pickens, we talked
about how good he was. I mean, I don't think it can be
overstated how good George Pickens was like.
And he's this dot here, the one that's all the way out here on
the right. Yeah, yeah, the one with, you
know, greater than 70% weighted targets per route run.
You know the guy who looks like Nico Collins on the chart, He
just hasn't realized the fantasy points yet because he has
Russell Wilson and Justin Fields throwing him the ball.
Man, if George Pickens, do you want to know my like my dirty
fantasy secret fantasy? It's that.
Oh. Sure, tell me your dirty.
Tell me your dirtiest fantasy. It's next year.
George Pickens just throws such a large fit that the Steelers
have to move on for him. They trade him to the New
England Patriots, where I get to watch Drake May throw beautiful
deep ball after beautiful deep ball to George Pickens, where he
finishes as the overall wide receiver in fantasy next season.
I mean, stranger things have happened.
I think it's yeah, stranger things have happened.
So moving on from that, yeah, I guess the other guy we want to
talk about here is Xavier Wordy, who after he's actually had a
pretty disappointing kind of like he was on Xavier Wordy has
been and maybe it is kind of on bus watch here where his target
Sprout run has been really disappointing.
But then it gets, it gets up to 31% in this last game and on the
same route share and he gets 8 targets with a, an A dot of 16,
124 air yards. But it just, it doesn't hit, it
doesn't convert. And I you have to be encouraged
by the increase in targets, but it's it's hard not to be a
little bit worried about a rookie that's playing so much
and then producing so little. Yeah, the, the one thing about
Worthy that I want to keep in context is Mahomes did miss him
badly on a deep ball where he was, you know, all, all you have
to do is put the ball on him. It's a touchdown, you know, And
so I wonder. I miss a lot of those.
He's actually missed a lot of those targets.
Yeah, how, how would we be feeling if Worthy, you know,
converts on that? Like if Worthy catches that, you
know, whatever it was 60 yard touchdown this last week, like
are we worried at all? That's that's the thing, 'cause
'cause he could it's I don't think it's unreasonable to say
Patrick Mahomes, who prior to this season was in, you know,
contention for the greatest quarterback of all time, you
know, only, only in, you know, argument with Tom Brady.
Like, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Patrick
Mahomes is able to hit that deep ball, right.
So like, I think that there still could be some hope left
for worthy. I'm not willing to write it off
just yet. And that's not I don't think
that's scope. I think it's just like, hey, I
watched the game and like this could have gone a very, very
different way. And like, I think there's
shortcomings in the profile for sure, but I also, I don't know,
I'm willing to believe that Andy Reid is a good enough coach that
if savior were. Right, they they get it figured
out. Yeah, if he's, if he is actually
a very good player, like they'll, they'll get him
involved and his usage will increase.
So then is is there ways that you can play this increased
usage? Do do you start them in fantasy?
Do you take them in a dog bowl? It's pretty hard to start them
in fantasy. I mean in GPP, yeah, in GPP.
Like this guy just got a 31% target for a run.
He got 8 targets with 124 area yards.
And we're like, I don't know, he's gonna start him.
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think in
GPPS, it's probably OK to sprinkle it in just because, you
know, the upside is very clear. It's pretty clear what the
upside is. He's extremely cheap like the
the upside on Xavier worthy is like, hello, you now have a 20
point fantasy game in one play basically right and so.
So he he cost 6200 in in DraftKings.
So I think. Probably not a DraftKings fight.
You have to take them. You have to take them in the dog
bowl. Yeah, if you want Xavier worthy
exposure, it's got to be an underdog.
So all right, the the guy I had on this chart I had actually
it's a matchup on this chart. It's the Jags versus the
Packers. You get Brian Thomas junior and
Jaden Reed, who are going next to each other in underdog drafts
right now. Who do you prefer in this
matchup? You like Jaden Reed or you like
Brian Thomas Junior? Those are both just like,
fantastic plays. Like, I feel like it'd be
reductive to say I like this one more.
They both just look pretty fantastic.
And I think I prefer actually, I'm gonna contradict myself.
I think I, I think I prefer Jayden Reid.
And just because that offense and that defense stinks and
Jayden Reid is so good and so established.
I I, I think go ahead. Oh, I, I was just saying I
agree. They're they're both good plays
though. The the one.
So last week I, I mentioned, I don't know if it was on stat
chasing or if it was just on the weekly preview show that I do
over on the legendary upside channel with Pat and Sam
Sherman. But we talked about the Packers
wide receivers. And last week I said, I, I
really was not super interested in Jane Reed because he has a
history of playing through injuries and really being
substantially less involved when he's doing that.
And I, I was trying hard not to like overly pattern match, but
I, I really, you know, I feel like we've got a, a decent
enough sample of, of that happening.
And it did come to fruition this last week.
But he, he played, he didn't have a, A tag, an injury tag
going into the game. So I've got to think that it was
a relatively minor injury ankle that was hampering him, But he
looked, he didn't look like himself out there too.
If you watch this game, he had a, he had a drop that was
uncharacteristic of him on a really challenging catch, to be
fair. But so I'm, I'm willing to, you
know, hope that the market is discounting him, certainly
discounting his ceiling outcome. And I want to play into the fact
that he's he's healthy this week, but to to kind of throw
some cold water on my Packers crystal ball on the wide
receiver room. While I was right on Jaden Reed
last week, I was certainly wrong about playing it through
Christian Watson. Probably.
I mean, I sprinkled in some Romeo Dobbs as well.
So I wasn't totally a goose there.
But man, Dobbs ended up being the one.
And we'll, we'll talk more about the Packers wide receiver
rotation on the next charts. 2 most important guys in that
rotation as far as their impact on each other or on the next
chart. All right, last one before we go
to the final chart. Are you worried about Marvin
Harrison Junior? And are we worried about Marvin
Harrison Junior? I think you're what you're seem
to be getting. Is this more profile of a boom
busts and Prairie yards guy? You you you have to love the
rapper. So he's a first round pick.
So you can't you don't have to love the the right percentage.
The right percentage is there. The targets are solid.
Looks like last week, last week there was only 30 drop backs and
so the A dot what actually, to be honest, the the average that
the target the last couple weeks has been 9.59 point 8.
So maybe, yeah, maybe maybe I I was just kind of thrown off by
like some of the Twitter stuff. So the the stats are suggesting
a player that is important to the offense because his his
targets for a run. If you, if you throw out week 1,
his targets for a run and look to be around 27%.
So like that's, that's pretty good on on a pretty high route
percentage. So like that's good underlying
usage. They're just, they're not
connecting on the on the passes. So, and how do you, how, how do
you deal with our first round pick where he's getting good
usage, but he's not, he's not converting.
I think that I think that's a buy low, right?
I think that's a buy low where where the usage is strong or at
least a lot stronger than the production, then then you're
probably looking at at least a good chunk of variance and then
that will that that that should regress quite a bit.
Yeah, I'm. I just fucked myself all the way
around them. Sorry about the journey we went
on there. No, that's that's OK.
I think that was good context. I just think you're going to end
up with a guy that's going to be a lot more volatile than
everyone wanted based on where they were drafting him in
fantasy this year. Just, and it's, it's more by
design and the Cardinals offense than anything to do with him.
The Cardinals just don't throw the ball to the middle of the
field simply because Kyler cannot see the middle of the
field. Like that's look, look at where
the Cardinals are passing the ball and it's almost all to the
boundary. Like they're not attacking the
splash zone, which is how you deliver these big explosive
plays consistently is hitting the splash zone.
And the Cardinals are not capable of doing that, which is
really unfortunate. So you're just getting these
higher variants outcomes where, hey, that the passes, they're
going to come outside the numbers and those are harder to
complete. And so you're just going to end
up with larger variants there. So I did have another little
tangent on Marvin Harrison that I wanted to touch on real quick,
but I I need I need you to play along with me real quick so I
can make this point. If we were redrafting right now
and you knew Malik Neighbors was fully healthy and let's just say
that the Giants didn't lose, you know, their their offensive
tackle. So they they still had a
somewhat intact offensive line. Where would you draft Malik
Neighbors in basketball if you're redrafting right now?
And it it it just assuming health and all that kind of
stuff. Yeah, yeah, You draft Malik
Neighbors and in the first round.
Yeah, like clearly, right. Like easily ahead of Wilson,
like probably ahead of Almond raw.
Like, yeah, pretty, pretty strongly in the first round,
right. And would you say that it's a
reasonable assumption to say that the Cardinals offense
definitely could be better than the Giants offense, both now
given what we already know and also before the season, given
what we knew about? Right, the Cardinals offense is
better. OK.
And so seeing this outcome for Malik Neighbors where he is very
clear, not just like maybe a fringe first rounder, but like
clearly, clearly, clearly a first round pick.
He's the situation. Yeah, knowing that Malik
Neighbors and Marvin Harrison Junior were similar talent
profiles, like by all metrics that you can measure them by
coming out of college, like they both were elite wide receiver
prospects And even people that were Malik Neighbors over Marvin
Harrison Junior, of which there were some, I still think would
say that the range of outcomes for both players was similar.
Like, it's not like only Malik Neighbors had this absolute
ceiling outcome. So this is all to say that for
anyone who's saying like, I can't believe these idiots who
were drafting Marvin Harrison Junior at the 1-2 turn, that's
that's like some of the stupidest shit I've ever heard.
Like you, you just don't know what the fuck you're talking
about or you don't really understand what game you're
playing, which like, it's fine to be stupid.
It's also fine to not understand a game.
But like, now that I'm telling you this, I'm asking you to be
better. So like, if you're one of these
people that's out here saying, Oh my God, Marvin Harrison
Junior, such a dumb pick at the 1-2 turn, like if you're doing
it for engagement, I get it. Like I know that's that's a
thing that people like to do, but like, I need you to be
honest and do some legitimate analysis and and realize like
the range of outcomes for these players is very similar.
One of them is hitting the outcome where he's very clearly
a win. Even if you take him at the 1-2
turn. He just happened to be the guy
that was going later. And their their range of
outcomes was very, very reasonable to be similar.
In fact, you could say Marvin Harrison Junior's was probably a
better range of outcomes given the overall offensive
environment. So it just, I'm just, I'm tired.
And the, the Marvin Harrison, the outcome or sorry, the usage
here is not that bad. Like if you, if you, if you, if
you try out week one just because, and then week 6,
because that's the one where you laugh with the concussion,
you're looking at about 14 expected points in PPR a game,
which, so that's about it within that filter.
That is about wide receiver 18, which I, I, I get being this
that you have to be disappointed with that in, in the first round
and even at the end of the first round, but it's still like it's
pretty workable. It's pretty workable.
And just because the, the, the, the points haven't been there
actually, no, the points of the points have kind of been there,
but they, they just all happened in Week 2.
So outside of Week 2 and they've been weak.
And you're I think you're still going to get you're still going
to get the week two outcomes where he scores, he scores some
deep touchdowns or he gets a lot of big plays.
It's not going to happen at the rate that you need at the pick.
He went and but it's still it's still fine.
It's it's it's, it's not great, but it's still fine.
Yeah, I just, I I really wanted to make a point to for anyone
that was struggling with like understanding why he was going
there, like simply look at Malik neighbors and like I'm just
asking people who are who are saying like, oh, what a silly
pic. Like, I just I need you to do
some earnest analysis and like, if it's just for clicks, like
that's OK. But like I'm telling you, like
do better put put some legitimate analysis out there.
Like it's it is foolishness to say that it was bad process to
draft Marvin Harrison at the 1-2 turn.
Like, and if you disagree with that, like I'll see you in the
streets next year and I hope you up your volume.
You know, that's that's all I have to say about that.
All right, we can go to the last chart.
Hell. OK, so now we can talk about the
the show headliners. So I'm going to let you.
Why don't you guys here Draco? OK, so I think I've talked about
Troy Franklin enough. I think the I think, I actually
think he's probably got the strongest usage of any of the
rookies and you have the problem that his quarterback sucks.
We we kind of discussed that, but really like that usage.
The next guy is the the 49ers guy, Ricky Purcell.
And I think you have if you're taking pure cell or you're
you're you're unloading the clip on pure cell.
You need to squint a lot because a lot of his underlying metrics
were actually not am. Now you only have you only have
last week. And he was probably maybe trust
into the game quicker than they intended given his recovery and
all that kind of stuff. But on an 84% Reds run, he had
just 16% targets per out run and, and seven yards per
reception and an 8 out of 8. So I think you have to squint
when you when you, when you take them and say, oh, and they're
still ramping them back up. He was kind of trusting the
limelight. And but to me that, that's
actually kind of a concern, the one that I would actually kind
of like the other 40 Niner that I could consider on, on, on
waivers would be maybe Joanne Jennings, even though his, his
routes actually his routes still stayed at 55% last week.
His his targets for our run has been good.
And so I could see that him being like a $1.00 or cheap
pickup that goes more under the radar.
And what, what, what are you, I know I just talked a lot there.
What are your thoughts? Yeah.
So you're not interested at all in Jacob Cowing?
Oh, yeah, sorry. You're right.
Here's the other guy.
He slipped my mind and let me let me dig him into him for a
second. And so Jacob Cowing.
And so he played for the first time last week and he had a 22%
route rate. So yeah, he's pretty clear the,
the pretty clear tree. He did have a 25% target spread
run, so on a little more. And then his average depth of
target was 17. So he he didn't have that many
routes, but he got some deep shots.
He actually got 50 yards. So, and he played, he arguably
played a lot better than than. What's his name?
Yeah, Ricky Purcell. Yeah.
Rizzy P And so he could be a more under the radar guy.
I think he's like maybe a stash another guy where it's like
maybe a $1.00 and if you have room on your bench, you can like
watch it play out and but not not at not playable right now.
And yeah, but that could change. That could change very rapidly.
Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely, I'm interested in in all the 49ers
receivers. I think they're all good
stashes. Ricky Pearsall obviously coming
off, you know, being shot. So I I'm not not wanting to bury
him after just one game. And and I think that, you know,
the the rolls are up for grabs here with the 49ers injuries.
I I think that cowing is probably more of just like a
deep shot burner. He's a pretty small guy.
He's really fast. I was wondering how the Niners
would deploy him, if they'd use him as more of like a, you know,
quick hitter, quick slant type of guy or if he was going to
just be like the take the top off the defense.
Kind of like they've done in the past with, you know, some of
their guys like like Ray, Ray McLeod and you know, whatever.
Gray, I can't remember the first name of that other player.
But anyway, like they've done in the past with some of those
guys. But I think Cowling's probably
like the deep guy there. I've got another.
So I, I guess let's, let's talk about the other really clear
waiver guys, the Sterling Shepherd, Jalen McMillan bunch.
How are you playing those? Do you have a preference between
one or the other on waivers? So I think you, I think you do
have to do go with Jalen McMillan and I think you have to
prefer him. So if you're looking at the
routes and just in, in week 7 and McMillan had a 60% and a 26%
targets per hour run and his average depth of target was
14.4. So, and so a lot of those did
end up being prayer yards. So I guess you, you do have to,
you have to take that with a grain of salt.
But and, and, and, and maybe maybe he doesn't, they, they
don't add the underneath stuff to him.
They just continue with being the Rashad White and then K
Dots. But I I have to think that given
they already liked him, they're already targeting heavily that
maybe they figure out a way to get him more involved in
intermediate and short stuff. Then after that you've got
shirling stepper at Sterling Shepherd.
So his target threat run was just 4% in week 7.
And hold on while I got AI want to look up his full season and
so Sterling Shepherd. So he he played at a similar
rate to to McMillan last night, but they they did, they didn't
they hardly targeted them. And so his his target for a run
on the full season is just 9%. So I, I, I don't, I don't think,
I don't think that's like a viable.
And then the other guy is somebody who plays a lot, but
it's, it's, it's, it's wins Prince, and that's Trey Palmer.
Yeah. So I think, yeah, I think Jill
and McMillan is your only real clear shot here.
Yeah, I agree. You just you have to you got to
take the swing for the upside with McMillan.
I wouldn't be terribly surprised if we see Shepard end up getting
a bunch of like, you know, little dink and dunk type
targets. But I mean, if you really want
my prediction for what happens on this offense, it's that the
running backs all see more usage.
They're running, you know, they just lean into the running game
more. Kate Auten gets a lot of the
work. And then if someone else can
emerge in the receiving game, the Bucks will take it.
And I think your best bet for that is is McMillan.
But all right, the other guy on this chart that I wanted to note
Demario Douglas, OK, if, if Demario Douglas is on your
waivers right now, this is probably like a home link thing
at Dowdy's on waivers and you know any FFPC high stakes type
stuff. But if Demario Douglas is on
waivers right now, you've been given an enormous gift because
he was absolutely cooking to start the game and then left
really early with illness. He's just too sick to keep
playing. Guy has that dog in him.
He went out there, probably was pooping his pants on the field.
Didn't matter to him. He was just racking up catches.
He's very clearly Drake Mays favorite target.
I spent way more time than I'd like to admit watching Drake May
clips and highlights this offseason trying to understand
why Pat was so enthused with him and I I definitely I drank all
the kool-aid after watching because he seems like a
fantastic fantasy quarterback. If you watched a bunch of Drake
May highlights, you'll notice that man did that guy like Josh
Downs and Demario Douglas is getting used just how he used
Josh Downs when they played together in college.
And it just like I've just seen it before from watching this guy
and it, it seems like Demario Douglas is gonna be his first
read and 2nd read. Like he I, I think Demaro is
going to eat. And and also we've seen him be
good in a dysfunctional offense before.
Like last season, the Patriots were putrid and Demaro Douglas
still found a way to be like somewhat useful.
He wasn't a world beater by any means, but he was the only
productive guy they had. So I think that speaks a little
bit to the players skill. So Demario Douglas, I think is a
really, really strong add and he's also someone I want to
aggressively target in DFS formats prior to, you know, the
the cat getting out of the bag. Don't love it this week against
The Jets, but man I I hope that the Patriots get a match up
against a really good offense and hopefully a questionable
defense soon so I can jam. Some Demario Douglas, Yeah,
Makes sense. Makes sense for sure.
I think, I think that about
covers this right pretty substantial show.
I I had one last one, but I'll be quick because I know we've
gone long Christian Watson and Dantavi on Wix.
I know there there's lots of, you know, conversation about how
is this, you know, how is the wide receiver room in Green Bay
going to work out who's who's taking from who?
How does the rotation work? The rotation looks relatively
clear to me right now because there have been injuries and the
weird suspension. I still want to watch stuff, but
what it looks like to me is Dontavion, Wix and Christian
Watson are the two that rotate. If you look at the snap share
stuff, looks like Dobbs and Reed are on the field pretty much all
that. Like they're not losing snaps
because of other players. It's Wix and Watson who see
their snaps decrease because of the other.
So those are the two that cannibalize each other.
It's not to say they both can't get there in a game either.
That's the tricky part. It's just they're the ones that
are harmed and that benefit the most from changes in this wide
receiver. So you get an injury to anybody.
It doesn't just have to be Wicks or Watson getting injured.
You get readout, you get Dobbs out.
Wicks and Watson are the two that benefit the most because
they'll see the largest increase in routes.
So that's I, I just wanted to point that out.
I think this week figuring out how to play the Packers wide
receivers is really important because it's a really good match
up at the highest total on the slate.
For me personally, I I want to play it through Jaden Reed.
And then I think that with Wix and Watson, I really only want
to play those guys stacked with Jordan Love because I think that
if they're going off, it's, it's likely that they're getting
there through like a big touchdown or or a lot of
efficiency, which is going to benefit love more.
And then I think with Reed and Dobbs, you potentially can have
those guys get there as one offs.
So I'm OK to play them in one offs in a really good game
environment. But Wicks and Watson, I really
want to pair with their quarterback.
All right, I think I think that's everything Draco.
We we did it. OK, Thanks everyone for joining
us for for Week 7 going on to Week 8 of a star chasing and
we'll see you again next week.