We are only three weeks away from the fantasy football play
offs and it has now become crystal clear that the answer to
the 4-5 turn in drafts was just to take Ted McMillan and George
Pickens. This is stat chasing Pat fryer
Helmo this. Is what?
This is what I'm Pat. Anita hand job, fix your sight.
Jamar Alpha play Chase. You can't handle the heat.
It looks like we're finally at this point, You're right.
You know, what's funny is I think just a week ago in the leg
up rankings chat, we were talking about, you know,
drafting Ted McMillan over George Pickens and I was I was
just kind of victory lapping how much George Pickens I have and
saying imagine taking Ted McMillan over George Pickens and
in you know. Everybody said I was taking Ted
McMillan over over George Pickens.
Interest of Full disclosure, I had a ton.
I have a ton of both, but I I do have more George Pickens than
Ted. I just wish I had more.
Of both of. You actually, yeah.
I mean, the part of the reason why you do have more George
Pickens than Ted is, I believe, reluctantly.
Every single time that we were in a draft, I was twisting your
arm to draft George Pickens many, many rounds ahead of where
we needed to take him. And you would ultimately
capitulate and say, OK, we can take him here.
Yeah, I think, I think, I think we where we end up like 30%, I
think I would have had like 18%. No, you you were still, you were
definitely on board. It was not like I was making you
eat your vegetables. It was just larger help.
It wasn't one of those like knife fights over a pick that we
have where? We're going now.
Where we're like start questioning our friendship after
like a few rounds. But on that, on that note, we
should get to the charts. And so we had a, we had a Bryce
Young spike week where it was, it almost reminded me of how
Bryce Young ended 2024 where he's just hitting on everything.
He's dropping back a lot. He's hitting Dimes.
I and I, I don't have a lot of confidence in my own football
takes, but one of my few football takes is that he's very
good at finding the seams in zones.
It's when it's when he's against man coverage and he has the kind
of like fit it into a tight window that he he falls down.
And I I do wonder if the Falcons just played a lot of his own and
and he was able to pick them apart.
That was interesting. Yeah, I haven't I haven't looked
into that. I was, I was kind of curious as
to what happened. I think that, I mean, in
general, it just seems like the wheels are starting to fall off
for the Falcons. I mean, gosh, certainly on the
offensive side of the ball. But that's, yeah, conversation
for another chart. I'm curious what you think of
the Bryce Young spike week. I agree with you that it was
reminiscent of of how we finished down the stretch from
last year. I have AI have a funny
comparison and I I honestly can't even make it in good faith
but I'm going to do it anyway. So Bryce Young pretty close on
the chart to Caleb Williams. What is the real difference
between Bryce Young and Caleb Williams for fantasy?
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, probably, probably the
big difference is that Caleb Williams is able to do Doc level
of mediocre play over a pretty large I was I was going to say
he has he has more drop backs, but is the chart going to prove
me wrong that? He does he, Caleb does, ever so
slightly. You know, like less than one
more drop back per game. Yeah, I don't know.
So there's Caleb. So Caleb is more efficient and
and bit more yardage and more drop backs.
So I guess other not they're the same.
And he run he runs more. I mean, honestly, so many how
where I've gotten torched by my Caleb is bad takes and like when
I've been fading him in DFS or things like that is he will be
bad. He'll be terrible for the whole
game and then he run, he scrambles for 1/3.
He finally decides I'm allowed to go beyond the line of
scrimmage on this scramble. I've done enough of this spin
out and run for 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage and throw
a completely off target pass 25 yards down the field and miss my
targeted receiver by 5 yards. This one I'm going to run and
then he runs for 20 yards. It's like, that was pretty good.
That's half a touchdown right there or, or he, you know, runs
it in the end zone and, you know, scores 10 points in a
single fantasy play from, you know, 40 yards out or something
ridiculous like he did a couple weeks ago.
So I, I, I even me as like the card carrying member of the
Caleb Williams hater fan club couldn't make that argument in
good faith that that Bryce Young and Caleb Williams are are not
any different. I I think really the like take
away from this is Bryce Young does have access to a ceiling.
It's just going to be kind of few and far between for him
because normally the Panthers really, really are just happy,
you know, turtling up and running the ball a ton Here.
They had to pass a bunch and and all it's not even a a sure thing
that when Caleb or when Bryce drops back to pass, it's going
to go this well. So you know, you have access to
the ceiling. It's definitely thinner than
Caleb though. Yeah, yeah, it, it is.
It is interesting though. Where I would, I would make kind
of make the case that like on a game to game basis, all these
guys have a ceiling like it don't like, I guess all with an
asterisk like Tim Boyle doesn't have a ceiling, but we've seen
games where he was, he was the backup for the for the giants
who who had them. He had like a massive, massive
game late last year against the WAS.
It was against the Colts, right? Who DeVito or?
It was the IT was the Giants backup quarterback who was
playing in relief and he had like a map like Denucci.
Denucci, I think his name is. It was one of the like Italian
American quarterbacks, I think. Yeah, I think, I think Tommy
DeVito. Tommy DeVito.
Yes, yes, Denucci DeVito. Danucci is my my XFL superstar
that's won won a lot of money slamming Danucci in XFL.
But I guess it, I guess probably the the most realistic take
away. It's just that within reason,
any of these guys can get there on a on a given week.
Yeah, The next note I had on the chart was a guy who seems to get
there every single week since he's taken over as the starter,
and that's Jacoby Brissett, who's basically Jacoby Brissett
and Joe Flacco are. I mean, lately Flacco's been.
You know, I cop them too. Like he's like Jim, Jim.
Jim is last year. Yeah, he he's very James coded.
He's just saying it sets sets the record for single game
completions in this game. Honestly, I, I went back and
looked at some of the Seahawks stuff because I on the on our
show last week, I, you know, said something to the effect of,
you know, Brissette was finally exposed and he was bad.
And it actually, he really wasn't that bad.
It was just like, yeah, you have a guy in your face in the
backfield and you are, you know, like there, there just really
wasn't a ton for him to do. It was like almost inevitable
that you know the bad plays were were going to be bad for him or
like you could swap out any number.
Of quarterbacks attempts, 57 attempts average time to throw
2.58 and then he completed 4747 of of the 50 of 57 passes for an
82 1/2% completion rate on a 2.62.58 time to throw.
I, I, I'm just backing up your point here where it's like,
that's pretty good. Like I, I, I get where you're
coming from, where I get your Joe Flacco take as well, where
it's like a backup who can just handle an insane amount of
volume and, and, and do OK with it.
It's kind of crazy how bad Kyler is.
Like, you got to be percent. Jacoby reset was so bad last
year for the Patriots, like, you know, absolutely terrible, like
unwatchable levels of bad. You know, thought he might that
might be curtains for him. And he's out here playing
substantially better than Kyler. I mean, there's no way they go
back to Kyler now. I think they have to figure out
a way to move Kyler in the offseason.
You can't. Yeah, that's what the noise has
been. Well, like, think, walk me
through. Like, how does it go any other
way in the offseason? You can't go into 2026 saying,
hey, Kyler, remember when we benched you for Jacoby were set?
Well, you're going to be the guy now.
We couldn't figure out anything better.
Like you're going to get a like the team is going to mute me.
The the team can't, you know, have have been part of this
season watching how horrible Kyler failed.
I mean, shit, Trey McBride's going to mute me like that.
Like, no, absolutely no way are you going to tank, you know, my
ability to get a massive contract by having Kyler Murray
be my quarterback again. So I, I mean, I have to think
that Kyler is, you know, the vet.
There's got to be a. Suitor as well.
The contract is tough. The Cardinals are going to have
to give eat some of their salary, but there's got to be a
suitor there. And I mean, yeah, like team.
Desperate at quarterback. Yeah, jets are are desperate
enough they they probably could be in the market.
Jets like notoriously stupid when it comes to quarterback
contracts. Yeah, they're they're they're a
great fit. I'm trying to think who else is?
I mean, God, you know what could actually work like a team that
has the room for, I mean, not a ton of room, but like they don't
have a quarterback contract on the books right now.
That is, would you know, prevent them is the Vikings.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I, I, I when you said not a ton
of room, but they don't have a contract cubic on the books.
Yeah, Vikings would be a great fit.
That would be 1 where they'd have to send a King's ransom to
to the Cardinals though, just for the salary relief.
Basically like you're, you're buying, you know, calf space
with your draft picks, which I mean, man, for, for where they
are at as a franchise. Like I don't hate it for the
Vikings. I mean, other than the fact that
it's it's Kyler. Like I do hate that aspect of it
for the Vikings. That's.
Bad other than sorry, I just I want to cut into and there we
had a comment here. Ravens are playing that slow.
So I actually while we were talking, I looked this up.
So the Ravens this year in neutral situation.
So that's excluding the last two minutes of 1/2.
It's, it's only when the, when the game is within seven points
either way and the Ravens are dead last in second for snap at
31.4. They are dead last in no huddle
rate at 1% and they are not dead last in pass rate, but they're
at 49% versus. So that's that's third last.
So yes, the volume is pretty low for the Ravens.
Obviously we love Lamar. He's so efficient.
He is a God. And but yeah, the the pace and
and volume in in for Lamar is pretty low in here.
Yeah, we, we did actually go in. We were working on playoff
basketball stuff. We did adjust Lamar's range of
outcomes in our sins just for how the how the Ravens have been
playing lately and we, you know, moved him just a touchdown.
But yeah, I mean, still still love Lamar.
We've we've seen the Ravens in the past have times like this
where then they figure it out like they Ravens seasons often
can be like a tale of two teams where Oh my God, they haven't
figured it out and then they figure it out or it's going very
well at the start of the season and then something happens where
the wheels fall off. So if you're a Ravens fan,
you're hoping this is 1 where one of the seasons where they
figure it out as as they approach the playoffs here
because they they are, you know, the favorite to to make it from
the NFC North because none of those teams are particularly
interested in in winning football games currently.
So the Ravens kind of by default or or seeming to get there, but.
Oh baby. Here's the Ravens next four
games. They get The Jets, they get the
Bengals, they get the Steelers. And then the Bengals again.
Like holy moly. Yeah, the no go.
Ahead they finish with the the the Patriots and the Packers.
So that's not as a as a juicy as a week 17 and 16 and but the
lead up to the to the playoffs true where week 15.
Oh man, that that's pretty spicy.
That's pretty nice. So the Ravens and the Chiefs are
both five and five. I want you to guess what do our
Sims have the probability of the Ravens making the playoffs
versus the Chiefs making the playoffs?
Same. Both of them, same record right
now, Obviously different visions, different schedules,
but. And they're and they're playing
for the wild card, obviously Chiefs.
Are wild card, yeah. I would say that Ravens are are
higher because they have the they they have they're against
the Steelers, who are probably more live to shit the bad on an
on the division, whereas Broncos less likely with that defense.
And I want to say, I want to say it's like Ravens 60, KC 40.
OK. You're a little, little bearish
on both Ravens. We've got at 80% KC, we have a
65%. OK, Yeah, it's still I, Casey.
We That's probably heavily ELO right?
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.
A lot of it is just, hey, these teams are good, they should win.
They're going to win. Many of their games, All right,
but back to to the quarterback chart.
I won one point of housekeeping here.
A commenter pointed out last week that we didn't have Jackson
Dart on the chart, and I went back and looked and realized
that he was correct. And I was like, there's no way.
That's right, He's in the. Code that feels like a Mendoza
affecting. I know I was like Jackson Dart's
in my code. Like I'm looking through the
stuff we used to generate the charts every week.
I'm like there he is Jackson Dart, how is he not showing up?
I. Feel like we've talked about
him. Yeah, yeah.
I, I realized that I had a typo in the spelling of Jackson
Dart's name. I had him JAXON instead of
JAXSON. And so that's on me.
Mia culpa Jackson Dart. I mean, we we probably would
have, we would have gassed this boy up, you know, multiple weeks
ago and and now the poor guy is concussed and you know, Jameis
is on the chart. So I feel bad we did Jackson
dart dirty, but he is a perfectly cromulent quarterback
from a passing standpoint. He is right about, you know,
league average as far as drop backs and and efficiency.
But if you look at the size of his bubble, that's a big old
bubble. So he is a.
He's like a baby Drake. Drake May.
I think that's what we call them in first couple of games.
Yeah, baby Drake May is is definitely he if he can follow
the same development curve that Drake May did from year one to
year 2. It like I hope Jackson Dart goes
really cheap next year. He could be absolute like best
ball skeleton key. If if we're getting Jackson dart
in like the 13th round or something, it's I'm going to
have a disgusting amount of Jackson dart, like an
irresponsible amount. I, I, I, I really don't think
he's going to be that cheap. I think it's going to be like, I
think you, it's going to be like the the Bonex.
Break the Bonex. Yeah, I think you're right.
You're probably right. I I just wonder if like the
stink from the Giants kind of hangs on him and you get a new
coaching staff. I I don't know, I think you're
you're most likely right. We probably get like, maybe a
little bit of like, but. It, it depends.
It depends. Like you're saying, there could
be some new very defensive minded head coach who says we're
going to run the damn ball and, and everyone's like, oh, what
about the volume? What about the volume?
And it's like. The Giants stink.
He runs a lot. There's going to be volume.
Don't worry about it. That that that's when you're
you're getting interested from the contrarian standpoint.
Yeah, I think maybe he takes more of like a Kyler Price
rather than a Bonex Price where the pendulum swings back a tiny
bit because I feel like this this happens with the pendulum
where like we had the CJ Stroud price right where Oh my gosh,
you know, rookie quarterback, so incredible.
Got to draft him to the fifth round, you know, pocket passer.
Then the year after that, we kind of chill out a little bit.
We cool down and then so it swings back and forth every
year. I wonder if if here we get dart
closer to like a eighth round price instead of like a.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I thought that that's
what I had in mind as well, like a a small discount to to bone
Nicks given what you said. Yeah, Last note I had on the
quarterback chart, I didn't really feel like a ton like
changed meaningfully here to where we needed to talk about
it. But one thing that did change
was Brock Purdy, we get his debut back from injury.
I was a little worried that, you know, just with how long the
injury lingered, like there might be, you know, some risk
that he he just wasn't fully himself and they just rushed him
back. But he looks good.
Looks totally, you know, same old Brock Purdy to me.
Everyone out there was eating other than Ricky Pierce, all you
have a decent game from Jennings.
Kittle explodes. You know, CMC gets a million
fantasy points. Did you have anything to add on
Brock Purdy? No, Nope, not.
And that all seems pretty, pretty fair.
And when when when does Justin Herbert get his alignment back?
Never. They're never.
They're just fucked. I assume you've seen the the the
the video where they they give the PFF rankings of various
alignment and it's like his left tackle 34 out of 36, left guard
35 out of 37, centre 40 out of 40.
And it's like every single one of his O line is like one of the
worst in the league. Yeah.
I mean, that's that is in fact what happens when you lose both
of your starting tackle. I mean, they they lost Slater
before the season even starts and then you lose all you know,
you lose them, you get it back and you lose them again.
That's just there. There's only so much depth you
can have on O line and we've we've found the limits of the
charter's depth here. You know what is a really fun
stash for for your home leagues? I mean, there's no way this
defense is unowned because they've been a juggernaut.
But if by some miracle they're unowned or someone drops them or
something along the way, the Texans are a really, really nice
fantasy playoffs defense schedule.
They get the chargers in week 17 and you know they're the
chargers are not getting back. You know, anything that's going
to matter there. I know their Week 15 and 16
schedules are pretty good for opponents are pretty good as
well, yeah. So they I think they have the
buy week 12. They get, they got the Raiders,
which is probably a pretty favorable matchup for the
Chargers. That's one where the offense
will look pretty functional. Then after that they get the
Eagles and I was like, oh, baby Eagles.
And then they get the Chiefs, then they get the Cowboys.
So that's probably 1 where maybe maybe the revamp and all all the
all the cards, all the money on the table Cowboys defence will
actually give them a bit of double down, but maybe not.
And then, like you said, we'd seven days.
It's the. Yeah, yeah.
Texans playoff schedule is Cardinals, Raiders, Chargers.
That's a pretty juicy stretch there at yeah, feels pretty
good. All right, I think that's
everything on the quarterback chart.
Let's let's move on to running backs.
Here, let me zoom out. There we are zoomed out.
And so your first note here was that was just how how how do we
look at Treyvion Henderson after 2 monster fantasy games when
Romandre comes back And like you note here, they get the Bengals
this week. Big cupcake matchup.
Have you heard anything Isrim Andri expected to play this
week? I haven't seen anything I I
thought he would be back because he was practicing as a limited
participant last week. So I would think that he is back
this week. But that's something we
definitely are going to want to check later in the week as we
get the more meaningful practice reports.
So yeah, reminder he's expected to practice tomorrow and it
sounds, it sounds like he's going to start off on an LP and
it's about, I guess it's about kind of kind of getting in a
full, a full participation. But yeah, that makes it there's
a pretty there's a pretty good chance he's back this week.
Is is is my take away. And then the question is does.
So obviously, I think the start at at least at least the start
Romandre is going to have something at a little bit close
to his old role where he's the trusted veteran.
They're like, we're really excited about trading on
Henderson development. We're so happy to see him make
plays. But obviously they they the way
they're talking about him, they still see him as like somebody
who's he's on the development curve.
He's he's not made it yet, which is is bizarre.
I am I I I I do think they're they're doing him dirty and I
really do on on his rookie year where he he deserves a lot
better. And but I think to start with
room Andre, it's probably going to be 1A Henderson, the 1B.
And but my opinion then would be that we're only one reminder, a
fumble, devastating fumble away before they're like, OK, like
you, you fumbled enough times, buddy.
Like it has to be or or or mega Henderson run.
And then they're like, OK, like that, that we, we can't, we, we,
we have to go with Henderson. Like I, I, I, I think initially
the start, like I said, it's going to be room Andre one, but
then Henderson takes over as we go forward.
Yeah, I think I'm pretty much in lockstep with you there.
So I'll, I'll ask you a question that I, I think is 1.
You know, that a good, good number of people might face
something similar. So last week I, I was in the
luxurious position of being able to choose between starting
Trayvon Henderson of Reese Hall on that Thursday night game.
I, you know, didn't didn't have enough spots to play both of
them. And I fortunately picked
Henderson over Breece there. This next week here, you know,
we get the great match up against the Bengals for
Henderson, you know, for The Jets.
Who really knows what's going to happen with Tyrod Taylor.
Do you still start Henderson over Breece, or are you
concerned enough about the romandre?
You know, eating into the workload that Breeze probably
projects. It probably depends on on on the
reminder news. Like in a scenario where we're
like, hey, reminder is good to go.
Yeah, he's full. Let's just say he's full go
every. It was LP and then full
participation. Full participation.
And they're like, he looks great.
He, he, he. He's back, baby.
Healthiest I. I I think you'd probably start
briefing that situation yeah, where Bruce is going to be the
the offense for The Jets. You obviously have the floor
being not great with with the offense, the systemic offensive
issues, but Bruce is so good and he's probably their only real
real chance of score that you. I think you still have it like
you still have a pretty good floor with a solid ceiling
where's I don't know, I I don't know if I I don't think I would
bet on on Henderson to to keep that the lead will remind you of
back. Well, I agree with your answer
and I also hate it. I was really hoping that as the
foremost Trayvon Henderson Bowl that I know that you would talk
me into doing the fun thing, but you talked me into doing the
responsible thing. But we'll we'll see how the.
Yeah, I mean, I am I, I I'm what it's funny, what makes me a bull
is that like, hey, I think this good player is good.
Like I don't want to overreact to like some of the like game to
game noise. I think I still think he's good.
But like you said, you don't want, like you don't want to
lose sight of that, the mentality of the coaching staff.
Yeah. I mean, we got to, we got to
give credit where credit is due. I mean, I am, I consider myself,
you know, pretty, I, I feel like I, I don't overreact to stuff
too much. I'm, I'm willing to adjust my
priors based on new information. And, and I think, you know, lots
of the, lots of the people that were still in on Trayvon
Henderson were starting to lose faith.
You know, my, myself included. I, I definitely thought the
probability that he was bad was a lot higher now prior to his
two breakout games. But you were, you were
steadfast. You're the the true believer in
Trayvon. Henderson yeah, I just, I just,
I watched the carries where everywhere the game where he had
like 10 carries for what, 35 yards or something like that.
I watched them and I'm like, I think this guy is good.
I think these are good carries. And he's just not he hasn't
broken into the open fields. And so, like I said, I, I, I, I
don't think my football takes are, are great And, but I, I, I
only have a couple of them and I, I, I, I, I do, I, I like to
think I get one or two right. You, you know enough to be
dangerous. That's I mean, that's how I feel
as well, where I'm never going to be like, oh, the only thing
that matters is what I see when I watch the game.
It's like so much of it is driven by the underlying
metrics, but it's really, really shocking how far just a little
bit of context goes. I mean like the JJ McCarthy
stuff. I.
Think we're we're. It's most probably most helpful
is in the low sample size stuff. Yep.
Like in in the low samples and and the JJ McCarthy is another
one where it's low sample size and it's like, OK, we don't
have, we don't have the sample size to be confident in data and
what other other information do we have at our disposal?
The nice thing is that's the easiest stuff too, because like
the amount of work you're actually asking yourself to do,
like go, go watch every JJ McCarthy snaps.
Like, all right, cool, I'm going to take 15 minutes, 3 minutes.
I'm done. I, I watched every single play.
I digested it, this guy's cheeks.
And you know what? That saved me a bunch of money
by not playing JJ McCarthy for two weeks in DFS while other
people were like, oh, well, you know, he projects for like 1719
points this week. Like, Nope, that's not that is
not a thing. I promise.
I watched this guy. That's not a thing.
And yeah, same can be said for, you know, you being able to
maintain the faith in Trayvon Henderson through, you know,
very small sample size. The the next RB that I had a
note on here, Aaron Jones. I just wanted to make a comment
on his role here. I I think it was a little
unclear when he came back, like is it going to be more of a a
split between him and Mason or how is it going to shake out?
It really, really looks like they strongly prefer Jones to
take the majority of the work and then use something like
north of 80% of the the snaps. Mason gets a little bit and he
actually had a pretty good run it it looked like if you
remember from the beginning of the season, Mason had some like
pretty electric's the wrong word.
But like he had some very strong runs.
You know, where he's breaking tackles and like getting
downhill and looks like exactly why the Vikings were very
exciting to acquire him and he looked like that in his limited
work here. But Aaron Jones is like
strongly, strongly the 1A right now.
I do think this is the kind of backfield where that can shift
quickly, Not necessarily because, oh, they're going to
decide that Mason is better than Jones or anything like that, but
just because of who Aaron Jones is as a player.
He's been pretty fragile from an injury standpoint for a couple
seasons now. You know, he missed a bunch of
time with injury this season. It, you know, wouldn't surprise
me at all for it to switch back to more of 5050 or something
like that. But for right now, Aaron Jones
is like clearly the guy getting the vast majority of the work.
He has a good role. The fly in the ointment here is
that JJ McCarthy is just taking a shit on any kind of efficiency
that that he's going to be able to get with his touches just
because the offense itself is is very stunted.
Yeah. Yeah, what's kind of interesting
is that Aaron Jones, even even though he had the clear lead
over Jordan Mason, he had 16 rush attempts to Jordan Mason,
617 routes to Jordan Mason's two, and then was the trusted to
do pass blocking while Mason was not.
He they still they I guess they didn't they, they ran, they must
have run a lot of plays where they didn't have a back play
because he's only like a 60. Maybe, maybe JJ Yeah, they they,
he so 17 routes and and what is it?
22 pass blocks on 32 attempts and then they must still be
using another. Maybe they're using another back
primary? I think I saw, I want to say it
was CJ Ham, but I did see I can pull it up.
I did see a full back or somewhat of that ilk.
I'll take a look at it here real quick.
Yeah, CJ Ham played 12 backfield snaps.
Tree in the stock. 15 total. Yeah.
So even though he didn't he didn't register any stats, he he
did take a big chunk. So I guess that that's the other
fly where I'd still classify Aaron Jones as like A1A rather
than like clear starter. And but Jordan Mason is crushed,
absolutely crushed in value, right?
Now. Unless you get an Aaron Jones
injury or something like that. Yep, yeah, I think that is the
the most valuable take away. Like you can't if you're
starting Jordan Mason something terrible has happened right now
still about and we. Are actually starting at at
Mason Taylor, unfortunately. Maybe maybe you can get Bucky
back and or something like that and not have to to do that.
Yeah, we can. We can do this whole segment
through the lens of our our main event team because Sean Tucker
is the next running back that I have a note on.
And he is also filling in for us on our main event team while we
just scratch and claw hoping to make it to the Sprint with Bucky
Irving and Amari and Hampton hopefully coming back.
But so, so Sean Tucker, this isn't, this is just Groundhog
Day for Sean Tucker because he did this exact same thing last
season where he doesn't really get a ton of work.
And then there's finally a game where they give him a bunch of
work and he just explodes. You know, I, I think last year
he went for something ridiculous like 144 yards, multiple
touchdowns. This year, you know, similar
thing, huge racks up, huge yards total, you know, looks
incredible. He's very, very fast.
He also has a great bit that he did back in college that he has
continued now. He just hasn't had a ton of
opportunity to continue it now. But when he finishes after a
game, he'll go and tweet like his stat line and say like,
very, very proper, like, I am pleased with the performance
that I put on the field today all like with punctuation and
shit like it's, it's a, it's a great bit, you know.
So after the game against the Bills, he says, I am pleased
with my performance today. So he, I, I do.
I should hope so. I do hope, Sean.
Tucker gets to send more. I am pleased with my performance
today. Tweets but I'm I'm kind of
worried Draco, because this flash in the pan stuff happened
last year and they didn't change anything.
They were just like, you know, great, great job filling in
champ, you know, back, back to the bench with you.
So. Right.
Do you think have have the Bucks learned their lesson like Sean
Tucker is better than Rashad White and and we'll see more of
them going forward or do you think this is going to be more
ethereal like it was last year? So yeah, I think, and I mean, I
think they're going to lean on Sean Tucker when, but while
Bookie's out and we'll see when Bookie comes back, they're going
to lean on him to, for, for actual touches for the most
part. And like carries and, and, and,
and probably enough targets to get the touch count up like you
had, he had 21 touches versus 12 for White.
And that spread probably grows if, if, if Bucky's out next
week. And but they, they just really
trust Rashad White as the, as the long down the distance back.
They really, really do. And, but I guess they, they
didn't trust them so much. I'm going to contract.
I'm going to contradict myself there.
They didn't trust them so much where they were still, they were
actually using Bucky a lot for that.
So I, I guess the, the fact that they were using bookie is kind
of a more about bell cow early in the year and why as the
change of pace guy. I I really, I actually, I
honestly think that they'll use Sean Tucker to, to spell bookie
on that on 2 down stuff. That's what they should that's I
100% agree with you, that's what they should do and that's what a
logical coaching staff, the conclusion you would come to
because when you swap out a. Piece how dumb are?
They right when you swap out a piece like Rashad White for Sean
Tucker, where Sean Tucker is a threat to score the ball from
anywhere on the field, Rashad White straight up is not, you
know, like that. And so that's just a a whole
different element that you get to add to your offense then,
where just because Bucky is not on the field, like doesn't make
the threat of a run any less dangerous to the defense.
But when Rashad White is on the field, the threat of a run is
very much unserious, undangerous.
They they're like, oh, please run, please, please, please run
the ball with Rashad White on the right.
And so you just have to hope that the Bucks are are savvy
enough to realize. I mean, you have to be blind to
not realize it, but man, maybe Rashad is just such a good hang
and he says all the right stuff in the meeting rooms and he
doesn't make a lot of mistakes in practice and that that kind
of stuff goes a long way, you know, with coaches.
So. But Sean Tucker definitely going
to be an interesting one to watch.
The last running back I had a note on here was RJ Harvey.
I think it's actually pretty important to dive into this one.
He's on the backups chart. We can actually go to the
backups here so. Actually, before I before I I'm
looking at, I'm looking at the trend on on Tucker and and and
white. And so the first, at least the
far as I make it, the first game that they were trust into the
spotlight would Bucky out was week 5 and it was 18 touches for
White, 6 for Tucker. Then 20 touches 614 two and then
week 8 it was 15 versus 1215 versus 10 and then we get 21
versus 12. I do wonder if that's like kind
of a more of a, a slow burn of like he's, he's been taking over
from White and if that's enough for them to be like if if the I
guess that being more of a sustained trend makes it more
likely that they're going to lean on Tucker over White.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me.
I'm, I'm certainly more optimistic, you know, now that
we've got a a little bit of a trend of that happening, but
right, I'm I'm just scarred. I'm scarred from last season.
Draco, I really like Sean Tucker as a prospect.
He was fun. I jammed the one who's a rookie.
Yeah, I, I had a lot of them. I, yeah, I remember when he, you
know, didn't run at the combine because of the health stuff.
And I, I wish we got combine numbers from Sean Tucker because
allegedly he ran in the four twos on, you know, private
workouts. He kind of looks like it when
he's on the field. Yeah, that, that boy Nice.
And he he was a track star, you know, so he's he's got all the
he's got all the fun stuff going for him.
OK. But but the RJ Harvey rule, I do
think it's pretty important because for fantasy, it was very
frustrating, right? If you were watching this game,
there really was not a ton of success on the ground from him.
You know, he doesn't have any runs over 10 yards.
And that's, you know, one of the things that is exciting about
him to see. He is explosive and can break
those big plays. He gets vulture budget.
Leo McLaughlin. So you're just like, if you're
only watching red zone, you see Julio McLaughlin get the
touchdown, You've been looking at the box score, you've seen a
handful of bad runs from RJ Harvey that don't really do
anything. But if you actually look at the
underlying usage, he gets the vast majority of the touches and
it's just Julio McLaughlin and Tyler Bidet just mixing it a
little bit. I think Bidet and McLaughlin
both got like the same amount of snaps and Harvey was up up at
like season high I believe. So it was.
It was. 14 touches for Harvey versus 7 for McLaughlin.
So Harvey decidedly ahead. And I think and, and then the
problem for I think McLaughlin is he's not very good.
So it's like 7 is probably among the most he'll ever get.
Like it's not going to 12. It's more likely that we get 5
this week than 12, I think. And, and, and those additional
touches probably do go to Harvey.
But I, I, I agree with you, Harvey clearly ahead and clearly
should be projected for what, 12 to 16 touches a week now?
And he's not going to play the Chiefs every week.
We'll break those explosive plays.
Yeah, after their buy, they do get Washington coming out of the
buy, I believe, if I'm remembering correctly.
I'll pull that up real quick. Yeah, they have Washington
coming out of the buy, so that that could be a good spot for
Harvey to break out. Then they get the Raiders after
that as well. I think the dynamic with Harvey
could also be, you know, kind of similar to Trayvion where he
just hasn't gotten a ton of opportunity yet.
He now he's shown more explosion than we had from Trayvion prior
to the breakout games, right? He's, you know, he's gotten in
the end zone. He's had some explosive plays,
none quite as like dynamic or electric as the the huge
Trayvion plays that kind of, you know, put the genie out of the
bottle. But I think you're.
And he is getting, he is getting 20.
He got 20 routes and four pass blocks.
So that's versus 2 routes, no pass blocking for McLaughlin.
And I see, I see 2 pass blocks, but I don't think and then one
target for the day. So like the underlying usage is
probably for for more targets for Harvey less like McLaughlin
and Bidet are not going to have like an insane like 5040%
targets for run every week. Yeah, going to be down to 15%
every week. Yeah, Harvey, Harvey, even prior
to the Dobbins injury, was getting some of the.
So Sean Payton is pretty predictable in the things that
he's wanting to do in his offense.
It's not always predictable what personnel he's deploying to do
them. But like the Marvin Mims stuff
from last year where it's like I need a guy who can catch swing
passes out of the backfield and, and, you know, run in space and
catch passes up the line of scrimmage.
Basically. RJ Harvey's been doing a bunch
of that this year where the day was taking a little bit, but the
day's more of like a hey, I'm I'm here to pass block and then
I'll release as well. Where Harvey's are more designed
like, hey, you're you're going to run a little, you know,
you're going to run a route in the flat or you're going to run
a little swing route out of the backfield type things.
The exact stuff that Marvin Ninja was doing last season.
And you know, that is part of why Marvin Mims has not really
seen an expanded role this season where he's lost a lot of
that and is is, you know, just in this little part time
receiver role where he doesn't have that role in the backfield
anymore. So I think with Harvey, there's
still room to consolidate more work where you just, there's not
really a, a great reason to give Julie McLaughlin touches, you
know, like the occasional one to, to spell a guy, sure, but
like, you don't need to give him 7 touches, you know, like it's
just not a thing that's necessary.
And I think if you get Harvey, Harvey just needs to give them a
reason to be like, hey, just let's be this guy a little bit
more. And I think he's capable of
doing that. It it just, you know, Sean
Payton's still making him earn it.
So I'd be I'm overall like the sentiment for Harvey.
Going up, It's not going down, it's going up.
Yep, and I just I wanted to highlight that given the
disappointing box score from the fantasy game for for this past
week against a tough opponent, I do think that, you know, it's
still trending up for Harvey so. Yeah, agreed.
Agreed. So think so we're I I I didn't
actually I don't see I don't see anyone we need to talk about
here. Don't see anybody we need to
talk about. And I guess I've one note where
the this is one that I find myself playing in main event and
more than I want to, which is like the Bam night, Bam night
and Michael Carter stuff. I did see, I saw a tweet where
basically after the Mccardo went out, Michael Carter had the
lion's share of snaps and usage. And I probably a lot of that was
just because the Cardinals were chasing the game once again.
And rather than actually, I don't, I don't know, I would
have liked if M Knight had have gotten that instead of Michael
Carter. And but that that's one where
I'm, I'm, I'm actually I'm, I'm I'm struggling to figure out how
to play it. And I wondered if Dan Knight
also had Dan Knight also had the ankle too.
So, OK, so I do think I, I'm, I agree with you that it was more,
you know, it was just, hey, we're in a major trailing game
script. Dan Knight's banged out that we
don't even like him as a pass catcher.
Anyway. Let's just you know, Michael
Carter, you can get out there in this meaningless game.
I I would think that they are going to prefer Bam Knight, you
know, provided that he's healthy.
But that's one where you probably do care a lot about the
injury reports. If he's like full participant, I
think you lean Bam Knight if he is still banged up.
Who do the Cardinals play this week?
Good. Question.
I mean, no one really cares because the Cardinals just
haven't mattered for so long. The Jags, they play the Jags,
so. That's a tough matchup.
Yeah, that's a game where they're not inherently
guaranteed to be in a trailing script, but I I would expect
them to be trailing. The Jags do seem to to really
want to, you know, pound the rock right now.
Liam Cohen seems to be not enthralled with the Trevor
Lawrence experience. So it could be a thing where,
you know, the Jaguars are just able to run all over them and,
you know, you you end up with a really good game script for
Michael Carter again. But I don't think it's like a,
you know, for example, the Cardinals play the Rams in a
couple weeks that that would be 1 where I'm like, that's a
Michael Carter script. So the Rams are about to go hang
40 on them. Michael Carter should feast
here. But Jags, I think are close
enough that you know, if, if Van Knight's healthy, I think he's
it could. Be pretty competitive.
Yeah. Yeah, makes sense.
Appreciate you humoring me on that one.
And and so moving on to the tight ends, I think your first
note was about George Kittle. No, it wasn't.
It was AJ Barner. Equal players, you know, similar
caliber guys. Yeah, I just, I wanted your
opinion on the AJ Barner role. He had a absolute gang of
targets Pat and I were actually looking at this tight end split
as we were working on playoff best ball ranges of outcomes for
these guys for Sims. And I believe that, you know, it
looks like Arroyo is is more of just like a part timer with
Barner being the one that gets the majority of of the work.
Yeah, where the and that's. How the trending as well?
There was a one game blip where Barner got less and Arroyo got
more, but I think that would that coincided with the same
week where Barner had an ankle injury and then this week, you
know, you get the big, big Barner usage.
So but I wanted your opinion on it.
How you? Yeah.
So since week 8 and and and I think that's what we pulled
through on the chart. And since week 8, Barner has
been at 80% routes. He's gotten a 25% targets per
outrun and out of 3 1/2 A dot. It's giving.
It's giving Jake Ferguson. It's giving.
Yeah, Jake Ferguson is probably the best comp I can think of
where I don't think he's he's not getting a ton of area yards.
Like he only has 49 area yards in the last, what, four games?
So like 12 area yards a game, but that's comes with 14
targets. So he's getting 4 targets a
game. And I guess particularly notable
in the, in the, in the last game where he's, he's getting fed.
I am I, I, I mean, he's running 80% of the routes, which is
pretty good for a tight end. The Cooper Cup getting a lot of
routes probably means that even though JSN is feasting and that
probably frees up a lot of tight end targets for your tight end
in that you have the Cooper Cup kind of black hole there and
it's AJ Berner far ahead of that Arroyo.
Arroyo is getting down the field targets more often.
His A dot is what, 10.4 the last month, 8.2 on the season.
Whereas a much shallower A dot for Berner.
But Barner's a guy. I, I, I I.
It certainly doesn't seem to me that that that's changing.
Yeah, I'm, I'm with you there. Barner is getting, you know,
double the snaps on passing plays that Arroyo is, you know,
and he's Arroyo. Like, let's see, overall snaps.
Barner's out there for 73 of the snaps, you know, just basically
an every down player and then, I don't know, snaps.
Yeah. And then Arroyo out there for 31
snaps and then only 17 passing snaps to Age of Art is 38
passing snaps. But yeah, I do think Arroyo is
viable and like in showdowns in particular, he's pretty fun just
because his the way he's more likely to score points, like you
said, is downfield. And so if you're looking for a
cheap guy, which he usually is, who can deliver a big play and
like potentially break a touchdown, which is kind of
slave breaking on showdown for the price that he usually is.
Arroyo is an interesting one, but you're never really like on
a main slate, you're never going to play Arroyo.
You know, in a in a league where you're having to set your line
up, you're never playing Arroyo. You would you could play Barner
in a pinch. You're not, you know, over the
moon about it, but he he's someone you could technically
play like a like a worse than Dalton Schultz level play right
now, You know, but but in a pinch, you you could do.
Worse, right? Yeah, People are gonna start
worse players than AJ Berner in in their main event team this
week for sure. OK there.
Are gonna be people who who are wishing they got to start AJ
Berner. Yes, yeah.
Now we can talk about George Kittle.
I mean, this was a spot that felt really obvious to me
because Kittle and Purdy just kind of have the mind meld
connection. He he just scores the touchdowns
when Brock Purdy is in the game and Purdy's first game back,
Kittle gets in the end zone twice.
I mean, it, it really does feel like he is Purdy's preferred
target in the passing game. You know, outside of CMCI.
Think it's not unreasonable to say George Kittle, you know, has
a good chance to lead the 49ers in receiving again outside of
CMCCMC is just like an aberration where, you know, we
don't even count him. It's like, yeah, CMC is going to
lead in targets and everything, but other than him, who's the
next guy? And I think George Kittle's very
live to do that with. Pretty healthy.
I mean, you know, you get a respectable game out of Jawan
Jennings. Pearsall's pretty quiet, but he
runs 85% of the routes or something like that.
But yeah, Kittle. Kittle looks great in the first
game back with Purdy. Do you have anything to add on
George Kittle here? Yeah, I mean, he's not gonna
score 2 touchdowns every week and but he is, he is, he is
pretty live to score a touchdown every game.
It it, it reminds me of kind of like when we've gotten injuries
to when Debo was on the team and when Ayuk was healthy, when
those guys were injured, Kettle would feast because he's
honestly very, very, very, he's like elite as as a receiver.
But and, and lots of games they don't have to use them for that.
So they use them for the blocking whereas now they have
no choice but to use them really because and they don't have a
lot of lot else at receiving. And so looking to looking for a
really strong down the stretch season from Kittle for sure.
Yeah, I think that's a really good note.
And I, I want to piggyback on that, that he often times when
he's not producing, it's because he's there.
He's so involved as a blocker. But there's a couple things that
I think are are playing in his favor as being utilized heavier
as a pass catcher down the stretch #1 the 49ers defense is,
is just, you know, decimated. Like they've been absolutely
ravaged by injury. And so you're much more likely
to get the 49ers in these back and forth game scripts where
they just have to be scoring points and they're not going to
be able to run as much #2 their run game hasn't been as
effective as it has been historically just because CMC
has not been as efficient. You know what's funny is Brian
Robinson actually looks pretty efficient when they give him the
ball. It's like the 49ers run game can
still work. They're just running it with the
wrong player. And I know that sounds
blasphemous, like not to take anything away from CMC, who's
one of the greatest to ever do it, but he he's starting to be
in his early stage Alvin Camara era, right where he's still the
elite, elite receiver. But we're starting to see that
he does not have the juice in the run game anymore.
And so I think that the 40, it's just a confluence of factors
where all of this stuff should push the 49ers more to the past
and then add on to the fact that now you have Purdy back where
before it was Mac Jones and they're, you know, they're just
trying to kind of like scrape by with whatever they can do.
I I think Christian Mccaffrey's very much in dissolving Camara
era and like if you look at his rush yards over expected per
attempt, he's -.67. That's Fort worst in the NFL and
that's next Gen. stats. Where's that Camara is -.84?
So like not a not much better. And yeah, so I, I think they
could, they really could lean heavier into the pass.
And, and George Kittle is just that kind of like that piece
where he he can do either thing, but just for whatever reason,
the way that they deploy him often times can remove him from
the passing game if they go really run heavy.
But I, I do think that they might be incentivized to pass a
little bit more here, especially with Purdy back.
So he's pretty fun down the stretch.
George Kittle is 1 where it's like, can you not just see in
your mind's eye that in the fantasy playoffs, George Kittle
is the guy that you have to have?
Where it's like, oh, this guy who was super hard to advance,
but all of a sudden George Kittle goes for three touchdowns
and eight receptions for 138 yards or some crazy George
Kittle line. You know that.
That that is how the playoffs work, right?
Where it's like during the regular season and all these
like weak one through 14 is like so, so important.
But then once you actually get in the playoffs, it's like
literally what do you project for now?
And George Kill is going to project very, very well.
Yeah, he's he's a fun one down the stretch for sure.
OK, last guy that I had a note on here, Mark Andrews.
Mark Andrews, I don't know if you did.
You saw the play where he he does the fake.
Yeah. Yeah, I saw it.
Of course I saw it. And now how could I not see it?
But you have some. Fun stats I want I want to let
you get to, but I also need to add another just little little
flavor morsel, just a little color to this play.
So shady advice is is sweating a team in the Mega Millie this
Sunday and he says maybe 30 seconds before this Ravens fake
tush push, he says Mark Andrews touchdown would be cool.
And then they line up for the tush push and Mark Andrews
houses in on a fake tush push. Just insane.
That team ultimately binks the Millie for Shady.
I don't think I've ever seen someone do that.
Just that level of wizardry or you call for what you need and
then it comes in like if you were, if you were, you know,
writing The Sims for, you know, to model probabilistically, what
are the odds of a Mark Andrews rushing play for 40 yards or
whatever it is out of that formation When they call the
tush push there, you know, that situation down in distance,
you've got to have that at like 0 or .001% or something.
You know, like 0 like the, you know, the distribution of like
the length of the Mark Andrews rush there.
I don't think 40 is in the distribution.
You know, just like such absurd stuff.
So shout out to shady. Congratulations to him.
That was a very fun play to get to watch right after he
performed his. Week.
I didn't know that that. That's very cool.
Yeah, but now the floor is yours.
Regale us with all the fun Mark Andrews stats.
So this was obviously the the in in this year 2025.
This is Mark Andrews fastest ever recorded speed, unfilled
speed where you hit 20.09 mph. Now you compare that to the
Jameson Williams touchdown, the 40 yard touchdown.
So Mark Andrews 35 yard touchdown.
Jameson Williams had a 40 yard receiving touchdown.
His was 20.19. So like 110th of a a mile per
hour faster than Andrews. So like very, very little Sean
Tucker, who he said at one at what was a track star, he was
only he was 21 point O 9. So just to put in perspective,
like you remember, you remembered it remembered a big
long run that JK Dobbins had last year.
And we were like, yeah, but it was only 16 mph.
Eric Andrews, 20. Like, I'm kind of blown away.
I thought he'd lost his his fastball, but clearly he is just
as fast as ever. Oh yeah, the big, big fella can
move. I mean, there's probably
something about a fake tush push that really gets you up.
You know, you got to score that. Like when they call your number
on that. That's one order.
You do the swing around you got you got the the swing block and
and pulling guard in front of you and Charlie Kohler and it's
like nothing but green grass. Like he's he, like like you
said, you got to get a first situation like that.
Yeah, happy to see it for Mark Andrews.
Definitely makes me happier to draft him in playoff basketball
knowing that there's still a little juice left there.
Still a little tread left on the tires.
Maybe maybe he can make it right for me this year because he sure
cost me a whole lot of money last year.
You know, Ravens players and either dropping what look to be,
you know, sure catches or fumbling the ball at the goal
line has cost me quite a bit of money in back-to-back playoff
basketball years. I'm starting to think that maybe
it's just something with the Ravens Driko.
Maybe I learn my lesson, or maybe I don't and I just triple
down this year and continue to martingale the Ravens in playoff
basketball. Yeah, it's gotta work
eventually, right? All right, I think those are all
the tight ends. Let's head to the receiver
charts here. Man, it's so sad seeing and
Drake Drake London up here when he has the what is it the PCL?
Yeah, I left him on the chart for now.
I just out of, you know, optimism.
I I'm hoping that he comes back because he's he's been really
good man with not great quarterback play.
Like I, I mean, he he really does.
You get you get the TET performance, you know, in the
same game TET really does. I wouldn't be surprised if it's
next season. We're saying that Tet is the,
you know, Charizard to Drake London's Charmeleon.
Like they do seem like they are similar archetypes, but I I do
think TET is a little bit more complete or T Mac rather he he
does not enjoy TET. But yeah, we have we have Drake
London, who, if you made me bet on it, I I would assume that he
he might get shut down for the season if it's serious, because
you don't want to risk a a player like that.
And you know, your quarterback's already done and dusted in
pennex. But again, he he probably is not
the answer. The the first note I did have on
the wide receiver chart, though, is George Pickens.
Pretty sure Pickens is a top five real life wide receiver in
the league. I think it's probably like Chase
Lamb, Jefferson, Luca Pickens, like JS, NS in there too, but I
mean. You didn't even mention Cdr.
No, I didn't, I put, I put Lamb in there.
But I mean, you could make a case that Pickens is better than
Lamb, like he's been out producing him since, you know,
since Lamb has been back and healthy.
So I I think there is it's it's at the very least a conversation
that George Pickens is a top five real life NFL receiver.
He's absolutely a top ten real life NFL wide receiver.
If you didn't get a chance to watch that entire Raiders game,
I know the Raiders aren't world beaters.
George Pickens does stuff out there.
You know the the JSN catch where you know, he just he reaches out
his hand and just so casual, just like nothing to it.
Another day at the office. George Pickens every play looks
like that. He had one where he's out of
bounds in the end zone this game and it was an absurd catch.
It's not a touchdown, but he just one hands it so easily,
effortlessly like the strongest hands in the league.
I don't think that's an exaggeration at all.
Like that's one where I I would, you know, George Pickens bar for
bar against anybody that you know, as far as strongest hands.
That guy is insane. My, my dream, my prayer is that
the Cowboys do not franchise tag George Pickens and they let him
hit the open market and he becomes a New England Patriot.
I just need, I need to see George Pickens getting the ball
thrown to him by Drake. May that.
That that's probably the most likely.
That's probably the the the favorite versus not, not versus
the field, but the most likely outcome.
I think franchise tag is the most likely outcome.
That's. What, you think they will tag
him? That's already the rumblings
from Cowboy's camp. Yeah, I.
Mean that's the smart thing to do.
It is it's it's fucked up to the play.
I mean this guy literally just took a bet on himself.
Deal to come play for you and and took a one year and then the
franchise tagging just seems yeah the franchise tag's fucked
up man I don't like it I. Don't know it's it's anti
American. It should, I mean, if really
what it should be is that if you do franchise tag a player, the
team is the one that bears the risk of injury.
Then where if you're saying like, hey, we can't give you
this big deal. You at least need to be the ones
carrying the cost of risk. Where either the team is forking
out the premium for an insurance policy for the player.
You know, where you know, they, they can insure against lost
future earnings. Or the team has something where,
hey, if this player is to get injured, you know, there's if
you franchise tag in, then you're on the hook for market
rate, you know, some, some amount, you know, near the
franchise tag for three years. If this player gets injured
during this season and doesn't get a contract commensurate with
that rate, something, something needs to be done to where teams
can't basically hold a guy hostage like this.
Who what what else is George Pickens supposed to do?
Like all he did was the right that he he knew that he wasn't
going to get paid what he's worth this year.
He goes and bets on himself on a new team.
He's bawling out. He's playing out of his mind and
and now he is probably going to get held hostage here and not
paid. I mean, the Cowboys wouldn't pay
Micah Parsons like I it would surprise me.
Here's here's what's wild, Here's what's wild to me is that
the Cowboys could franchise tag Biggins twice.
Yep. And then when he when he finally
hits the open market as a free agent after his rookie year or
his rookie contract 2 franchise tags, he'll still only be 26.
Jeez, I mean George Pickens God if he hits the open market.
But yeah, but like, so I just looked up the, the, yeah, the
franchise tag it's 25,000,000. Like that's that's below that's
actually cheating the player. Like most of the time if you
franchise like something that's more than they would get per
year in a deal. But he I think he gets 30
million easily. Yeah, the wide with the wide
receiver market as it is, right? Like, yeah, he, he's a 30. 9 for
somebody that young, too. Yeah, yeah, I mean, bring it,
bring it back to, you know, how is this applicable for fantasy?
Are we just going to, you know, circle jerk about how good
George Pickens is? I mean, how it's applicable for
fantasy is you just play this guy every single week.
Like boost the George Pickens projection.
The the ceiling is never accounted for in the George
Pickens projection. Just know like, because this guy
can just go out and and dominate there.
There's not a defender in the league where he doesn't have
just absolutely dominating them and making them look like they
don't belong in the NFL in the range of outcomes.
And he's been projected pretty low for like the last few weeks.
He's been projected relatively low.
I I think it's more appropriate to have him and Lam pretty close
going forward. I I know that that might sound a
little reactionary. You know, George Pickens just
had one big game. You you wouldn't be saying the
same thing if Lamb caught that, you know, touchdown.
He should have caught on 4th down there in the game.
Like I just I think this is an offense with two alphas.
They do different things. Lamb is going to be the one that
that should earn more target volume over the course of a, you
know, a season a larger sample, but Pickens is getting stuff
deeper down the field. He, I mean, even the after the
catch stuff, like I would have given that to Lamb in the past,
but my God, like if you watched George Pickens last night after
the catch, he looked like a man possessed.
He's just untacklable. He he's awesome.
He's one of my favorite players to watch.
Definitely a guy where I wish the Cowboys had a chance to make
the playoffs. I'm I'm getting a Dez Bryant
feel. Yeah, you said that last night
too. That's a great.
Ball in the air. That's a great comparison, yeah.
And then in the open field, he's so dynamic.
Yeah. So fast.
Yeah. I mean, if you think back to
what we saw for Steelers, George Pickens, a lot of the Pickens
big games, the Pickens big games with the Steelers were one of
two things. It was either George Pickens
caught a slant in the middle of the field and then he just ran
through everybody. He just like, oh, they were
defenders. They were, they were in
position, they had an angle. It didn't matter.
This guy was just electric in open space and it you know,
you're not going to catch him or he catches, you know, this big
deep ball down the sideline and you know, makes it incredible
acrobatic catch. And that's how you get big
Pickens games or you used to. Now it's volcano as dose like
he'll he'll just do it all and the Cowboys throw the ball
enough and and DAC is a good enough quarterback that he can
feed Pickens all over the field. So you just you have two do it
all receivers in Pickens and Lamb, where George will more you
know, he'll he'll more so be the downfield threat guy, but he can
operate underneath as well. And Lamb will more be the
underneath an intermediate guy, but he can operate deep as well.
It's just it is such a dynamic duo.
It just makes me really bummed that I'm not going to draft
either of these guys in playoff basketball because the Cowboys
are basically dead to make the playoffs.
But man, talk about advance rate pieces.
Like even even if the Cowboys were making the playoffs, we
know they're dead to to make a run.
But man, you want like a one and done.
Like get my team through the first round type of player.
Like George Pickens is pretty fun there.
But all right, that's enough waxing poetic on George Pickens.
We talked about Ricky Pearsall a little bit already.
I had a note on him that he was pretty quiet in his first game
back. He was out there, he just didn't
earn any targets. Not 9% Tiger Sprat run which is
is is pretty low, pretty low. You had, you had 25% for Kittle,
you had 25% for Jennings, you had 25% for CMC.
Not, not a lot left for the other guys.
Do you think that's how it's going to go going forward, or do
you anticipate Pearsall being able to crack into that a little
more? And not really, no.
I'm. I'm.
With you, maybe he trades the odd game with Jennings where you
get a pearsall 25% game and Jennings is quiet and but not.
Not as a matter of course, I don't think.
Not as a regular thing. Yeah, and I mean, you know,
maybe at some point Brandon Iuke will come back.
Probably not. But like, if Brandon Iuke comes
back, I think it's curtains for for old Ricky here, at least in
the short term, long, long term. This guy sure could, you know,
the the 49ers have a lot of aging stars that they'll need
someone to to step up. I think he's, he'll probably be
very strong in, you know, 2027. Yeah, I he, he, he strikes me as
just like a kind of a journeyman type.
He's going to stick in the NFL. He's going to play games like
his teammate DeMarcus Robinson. Oh, oh, Oh no.
Oh, poor Ricky. Why'd you have to?
Maybe I'm being too harsh but. Jesus Christ.
Like just there's a guy who plays in the NFL, plays in the
NFL a long time, but maybe not fantasy relevant.
Wow. Well, that's dark I.
Maybe I'm a bit too harsh, too premature.
I apologize to the listeners if you have Ricky Pearsall bags
trick up chest set them with the shadow around.
The last note I had on this chart was just about Vikings
past catchers. We we talked about it last week.
This is not AI was going to say this is not a victory lap.
It's definitely a victory lap. It's not it's not soulless and
it's not solely a victory lap. It is just a process thing.
It is a keep your eye on this. Now.
Do I think the JJ McCarthy projection should be closer to
correct, you know, in in future weeks going forward than they
compared to how they were the last two weeks?
Probably like they probably should be more correct, right?
But it's just a keep an eye on it kind of thing.
If you're still seeing Vikings projecting really well, that is
probably a spot where you can just go in there.
And we talked about it before, like, hey, it's small sample
stuff. It you know, it can be hard to
trust the data there. That's OK.
We've we've watched every JJ McCarthy Rep.
I've watched every JJ McCarthy pass.
I, I know what I need to know. And I, I know that I don't need
to spend American dollars betting that JJ McCarthy is
going to provide ceiling outcomes for his pass catchers.
That's just not a thing that I need to be doing because the
rate not saying it's not possible, right.
We saw Jalen Naylor have a massive game with them like it
just Justin Jefferson could have good games with them.
The it's not to say that those things aren't possible.
It's just the rate that they occur is very likely going to be
over represented. If you see good projections for
these guys like that's that's all that's all we're saying.
So just keep an eye on on Vikings projections going
forward. It's an easy one to add some add
some value for yourself. Yeah, he he's an easy 1 to get
off of. Like I'm looking there.
So he's $5000 in DraftKings Trevor Lawrence, 5100 Bryce
Young, 5200 Jacoby Percent 5300. So Jacoby percent all day and
and you know twice on Sundays over JJ McCarthy my God like the
the. Price difference between Young
is is Monday, he's Monday. So OK, yeah.
But yeah, it it, it's $300 more more to go from Trisha McCarthy
to Jacoby Percent. One of the another one.
I didn't have a note on this one, but here's one where you
can go ahead and save yourself from the projection industrial
complex. Darnell Mooney is going to have
a monster projection with Kyle Pitts out.
You can just whatever it is divided by two.
I I promise you, whatever it is divided by two, you're going to
do OK. Like don't, don't do it to
yourself. I'm trying to save you dollars.
So Darnell Mooney, 4800. Meanwhile, Juan Jennings, 4900.
You I bet you you can divide the Darnell Mooney projection by
two. Run your Sims.
You'll still get some Darnell Mooney in there.
You'll just get a much more reasonable amount of Darnell
Mooney. He's going to, he's going to
project for so much. There's no one there, you know,
and he was getting targets. He just can't catch them.
So that's, that is the hard part.
You know that if you don't catch the targets, they actually don't
count for any fantasy points. Xavier Wordy, 4700.
Not. Interested Josh Downs, 4500.
We'll we'll talk about Xavier Worthy on a future chart.
There's a reason he's not on the 85 to 100% routes run guy.
Got it. Ready to move on.
Yeah, let's go to the next one. Next chart and so your first
note was at was was our quiver boy, which is Team Mac.
We're finally, finally big game for team Mac.
And what's crazy is for as much as we were complaining and I was
complaining, you were complaining very upset about the
team Mac production. He's actually wide receiver 9 in
after after week 11. So like I'm I'm pretty sure he
was drafted lower than wide receiver 9.
So even with the the garbage no good rice young games like he's
still doing pretty good. He just had so many targets and
so much volume that he's been able to produce like a very
consistent floor. And so and yes, he's been very
good for how it like works for us and best of all, and how many
points he's adding, he's adding. He's he's not quite as good as
his like total raw counting stat accumulation looks.
But he's also someone where I'm very excited down the stretch
where if you can get a if you can just get Bryce young to
piece it together for a few games, just like last season and
they were moving, they're moving T Mac around more.
They're having to play more in the slot and outside, which I
think is how you should use a player like he's you know, he's
like a Drake London plus like he he can do more than Drake
London. Drake London is not much of A
downfield threat where T Mac is more of like a he's like a more
complete Drake London with like a little bit of Mike Evans
rolled into him. Like he's a he can do it all.
So he is the exact type of player that you want to move
around like a, a queen chess piece, you know, like like they
do with JSN or CD Lamb, like Puga, those types of guys.
I mean, Puga doesn't really do a ton of stuff outside.
I, I think the ceiling is so, so high on guys like this though,
where they can just become so much of an offense because they
can basically they can be two different types of players for
that offense. They they can just occupy
multiple roles as one person. So pretty exciting for him.
I mean, my, my prayer is that you get a new quarterback before
next season. It's not Bryce Young going into
next year and ideally not Kyler Murray because I I think that
Kyler Murray would probably be the absolute nut worse thing you
could get for T Mac. Yeah, you're right.
Talk, talk about another team that that can probably take on
the Keller Murray contract. It probably is the Panthers
which. Yeah.
I don't know why you go from Bryce Young to Keller Murray.
It's like, you know that guy who we're replacing that's bringing
in the same that a very similar type of player.
Just an older model, right? Yeah, I mean, probably still
faster, but you're not. You're not really playing Kotler
for his rushing anymore. Yeah, yeah, just, I mean, I
don't really know who you're hoping for, but you want some
journeyman QB? I mean, you want Jacoby.
Percent. Yeah, I don't I don't know that
Jacoby percent is I mean, maybe maybe he's on the market.
Yeah. That that whole situation is
going to be interesting. There's no way a team goes
within his plan A though. I mean, God, can we can we get
Jameis? Can we get Jameis?
That'd be so fun that. 'D be pretty good.
No NFL team will ever do that for us.
So they hate fun. They hate they.
Hate fun interceptions? Yeah, that that part as well.
The other note I had on this chart, Christian Watson is
starting to become pretty interesting.
He looks like he might be taking over the Packers receiver room
as the alpha here. He's, you know, continuing to
see his role grow. He's getting, you know, as you
would expect for Christian Watson, he's getting targets
downfield. Romeo, Dobbs and Watson are like
the clear 2 leaders in the clubhouse right now as far as
opportunity for the Packers, but they really don't have anyone.
I mean, Luke Mustrick, yeah. Watson actually led the team in
in routes this week. Led the team.
In routes and Luke Mustrick gets benched on TV on Wix doesn't do
anything like. Dallas was ahead in targets and
but Watson he gots down the field so he he led the team in
our yards routes at 80% and that looks pretty.
Good. I think when you couple that
with the Josh Jacobs injury where you know, he he's, you
know, probably day-to-day right now, you just might end up with
the Packers having to learn more into the passing game, which
like, you know, Lafleur is probably going to have a heart
attack. Just he's like having cold
sweats at night, not sleeping well, thinking about like, Oh my
God, I might have to pass above expectation.
Like this is really scary for me, but I think if they do,
Christian Watson would stand to benefit because he seems like
the best guy in the in the receiver.
Room Prairie yards flair, though, where his A dot in the
four games he's been back is 1820830217.
So it, it, it's probably one of those things where he's going to
hit for a massive week, but I, I guess he had two touchdowns.
So last week was was that massive week And oh, but maybe
I'm So what I'm saying is going to hit for massive yardage, but
he's going to be pretty volatile week to week given that he's
like he's got that kind of a dot.
Yeah. But that that Matthew Golden
like, absolutely cooked. Yeah, it's, it's curtains.
With the with EU and the O spelling of that of that phrase.
Yeah, Matthew Golden it it is curtains.
We were we were doing playoff basketball rankings and talking
through Matthew Golden and you know, the normal like
development curve and opportunity for rookies is that
down the stretch you'd expect them to get more opportunity,
you know, see their snaps arise. Matthew Golden is going other.
Way more trust from the coaching staff, right?
And they're like, yeah, we're we're giving this guy a good
role because we drafted him, we like him.
And then the more they save him, the less opportunity he gets.
Yeah, that, yeah, Matthew Golden is doing the exact opposite
where he got opportunity out of the gate because of the draft
capital and then he is playing his way into less opportunity.
No, no way to see this coming, unfortunately.
How? How could anyone have seen that
Matthew Golden might not have been as as good as the the
Packers thought that he was? I mean, who?
Who? I think the other thing, no.
Longer getting all the routes. Yeah, I think the other thing to
piggyback off of the Christian Watson thing is it does make
Jane Reed kind of interesting for playoff basketball where the
Packers are just this is kind of a vacuum.
Like someone can step forward and and claim lots of
opportunity here. I think it's it's always going
to be a spread out room, but it has been consolidating more
because the guys they've been spreading it out to stink.
And so just by by nature of, you know, these players not
developing in the way that the Packers, you know, thought they
might, I think that you've got a little bit of a talent vacuum
here. And so if someone were to step
up and really, you know, have a big breakout game, like if
Christian Watson continues this trajectory and starts converting
these area yards into more consistent games, or Jayden Reid
comes back and, and looks like I would expect Jayden Reid to
because I, I think he's clearly the most talented.
I think Jayden Reid is the best player on offense on the
Packers. Like I, I think, you know, he,
if he was on a different team, we would, we would think totally
different about Jayden Reid. Jayden Reid on the Chiefs would
be like Rashi Rice. He yeah, he might be coming back
soon. Too.
Yeah, no, he's his. His window is supposed to be
active. At the floor, yeah, Lefleur was
asked, Hey, are, are you guys planning to activate him
yesterday? And he said, I, I I really hope
so. We'll know more in the next two
days. And then yesterday at Jayden.
Sorry, not yesterday. Today at 4:34, Jayden Reed
posted a picture of himself on Instagram.
Like he, he's putting on it where he's putting on his
helmet. He's about to walk onto the
field is what it looks like to me.
And so we, we, we could be getting Jayden Reed down the
stretch. I, I need it.
That would be very good. I need it so badly, Draco.
I I just just to, you know, have the validation to know that we
were right about Jayden Reed. All right.
Oh, OK. I had a couple of good notes on
this one, actually. So Troy Franklin, just we
talked. Sorry, go ahead.
No, you have importance of. I haven't known her for anything
to say and Garrett Wilson just tweeted out any good in Madden
leagues these days. So we know.
Where his head is at. Yeah, he is not.
He's not playing another snap this season.
Troy Franklin, the flipping is, is complete.
We talked about this I think a little bit last week where
between Franklin and Sutton, like there's a flipping
happening. The flipping has happened.
Troy Franklin and Sutton are basically, I would say they're,
you know, they're equal parts that it's not even 1A1B, it's
just one A1A and what calling either of them 1A is probably
overselling it a little bit. They're both one BS or even 2,
as you know, as far as how many fantasy points they're actually
going to score. But Troy Franklin, it really
does appear like the the connection with Bonex, the
shower narrative means a lot. Sean Payton also seems to like
him. But yeah, Troy Franklin and
Courtland Sutton are the same thing.
Now, I think that's a pretty important thing to know for
playoff basketball, because I would.
I haven't. I can't remember off the top of
my head what the ADP is. I actually can pull this up
here. But you know, the Broncos 97% to
make the playoffs and 25% to get the by strong, strong
probability of making it to the conference championship as well.
So they're definitely A-Team. That's squarely on the menu.
Troy Franklin, ADP. Sorry.
Before, before you start that, MI just want everyone to know
that those are proprietary playoff probabilities from the
Lego model that you're getting. Yeah, a sneak peek on you.
You don't know how lucky you are to be getting that kind of
insight. Thank you, Draco.
Draco is is out here plugging for me.
I'm just, I'm just out here in the, you know, the back end
reading off of the SIM results and just sharing that with the
world. But so yeah, I think the
Cortland Sutton, Troy Franklin ADP is super inefficient right
now. Sutton ADP of 40.
Troy Franklin, ADP of 58, the whole the Broncos AD PS in
general are just bad. I mean, the for the day one AD
PS are just atrocious. Like they they have nothing to
do with how you actually should be drafting these players.
Like there's some correlation with the order in which these
players should go, but it's not strong.
It's it's quite poor. So if you are drafting playoff
basketball already and you know what you're doing, you're
probably getting getting it in pretty good right here.
But yeah, Troy Franklin, Cortland Sutton, that is a spot
where the market is super off. Very easy to take advantage of
that. OK, the last player note I had
on this chart, Jameson Williams, he remains involved.
Jamo, he's over here. His weighted targets per route
run for the year is just above 40%, but it's trending upwards.
You know, ever since Dan Campbell took over the play
calling, Jamo just continues to get fed.
I've got to think that continues with the laporta to IRI mean the
we're just adding data points to the trend and and it is
continuing. So the Jamo Faders might might
be in for a world of hurt come the fantasy playoffs here.
But yeah, so here's here's the other side of it.
And he was only at a 16% targets per outrun in week 11.
It just the way that they got him targets made sense in the
context of Jameson Williams. It's like it's like, I think his
his use, like his number of targets and and that was
probably it was similar his area yards and not too far off other
games. But they're just with Dan
Campbell calling the plays, they're plays that makes sense.
And obviously that's that's an emphasis of like, OK, this is a
guy we just paid a lot of money to because we think he's really
good. Let's let's get let's when we
when we get the ball to Jameson and let's make sure that that
makes sense. And that's, I think that's
what's happening. One one note I'd have on the the
target share for the week 11 game.
There's a lot of targets that are in that data that aren't
aren't targets. Not not just to Jameson, just in
general. There's Jared Goff pass attempts
that I, if you were like, hey sack, I want you to make me the
proprietary sack data set where I get the absolute maximum
signal out of every. You're gonna chart every game
and tell me I would straight remove like 15 of the pass
attempts from this game because they're not even real.
They're not. Jared Goff was throwing it and
in his mind he thought there was 0.0% chance this was ever going
to be a completion. It was I got to show up near
this guy, so I don't draw intentional grounding.
Yep, exactly. And so the way you would chart
that if you were like trying to derive maximum signal from this
and the, you know, the statistics that we look at for a
lot of these things like targets per route run and things like
that, you would just say that's not even a target, it's not even
an attempt. You know, it's a drop back that
that ended in something. Throw away.
Yeah, I, I mean, yeah, yeah, results in a throw away doesn't
even go into the, the overall like attempts volume.
So just a, a thing worth noting. I mean, if you look at the the
box score for that game, Amaral has 12 targets in the real like
real honest to God targets. He had a chance to catch 5.
You know, there's, there's like 7 of them that aren't just not,
not even a prayer. You know, like I, I would have
let you bet me, you know, 10,000 to one that that target is not
getting caught on, you know, seven of those and, and I would
have taken all your money. But all right, I think that's
the last guy on this chart. And and we do have a couple on
the the very lowest routes run chart here.
Yeah. So moving at, moving on.
Oh man, a lot of guys on here, a lot of guys.
You know one thing that I notice here is I almost want wonder if
we should push the 65 to 70% guys onto this chart.
Yeah, yeah, because. Like I'm like, why, why?
And I know, I know I'm speaking at at a turn here, but why do we
have the 65% to 70% guys right next to the 40 to 50% guys?
Yeah, as I'm looking at all these guys, I'm trying to even
think like do we just nuke the, do we get rid of the 40 to 50%
guys too? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It's just not relevant.
I mean, I, I, I like that for the rookies, but at this stage
of the game, like. And the start.
Part of the season, we we, we take that out for sure, yeah.
Yeah, it might be something we're at the start of next year.
We still keep the 40 to 50s, but after we get through week, you
know, 910, we just cut, cut out those bottom guys and and make
this chart a little more readable.
I think that's a good call. So I've got 4 four players I
wanted to talk about here. Three are like positive vibes
ish 1 is like, you know, barely could be considered positive
vibes. The other one's a negative vibes
which you want to start with. OK, let's let's get our our, our
tough medicine, our our tough to hear medicine out of the way.
Sorry man that that went up the good vibes.
Here it goes. We're going to RIP the Band-Aid
off. All offseason I said Xavier
Worthy was fancy Rasheed Shaheed, and I was pretty
staunchly opposed to where his price was.
Thought it was a little silly. Thought there was a fundamental
difference between how his rookie season went and how Rashi
Rice's rookie season went, and it was not appropriate to
attribute the same trajectory to Xavier Worthy as Rashi Rice.
It turns out fancy Rashid Shaheed is far too bad for
Xavier Worthy. You wish Xavier Worthy, wish
Rashid Shaheed. That would be phenomenal if
Xavier Worthy got the outcome of Rashid Shaheed.
It turns out that Xavier Worthy is in the same category as
Taekwon Thornton. In fact, Xavier Worthy basically
just is Taekwon Thornton. He is Taekwon Thornton in the
same offense, he just happens to start over Taekwon Thornton.
But yeah, if you just one for one replace him, it's really not
all that different. It just is what it is for Xavier
Worthy, probably a guy that gets massively overdrafted in playoff
basketball. If I look at the Xavier Worthy
ADP right now, he's actually OK. Currently his ADP is 60.
But I almost guarantee after a day of people drafting that he
does get get steamed up a little bit.
And, you know, if the Chiefs start winning games, he'll,
he'll just go. Yeah, very, very, very secondary
receiver here and don't ever see, don't very often see his
speed connecting in the way that we thought it would.
Don't see the the kind of yak that we'd want to see and very
disappointing for sure. For I think part of it's on my.
I don't think he actually belongs on this chart the only.
Thing. I think, I think it's being
skewed a little bit because he was 2% in week one with the big
injury. So I think that's why he's like
every other game he's been above 70%.
And so maybe maybe I need to code that differently so that he
he takes him out of this this chart.
You're you're wanting to promote Xavier worthy.
I do to to like give a little bit of, you know.
Well, just to make it accurate. Like he, he, he, he runs.
He no, no. Yeah, I agree.
With some of these other guys. I, I do want to say, I do think
part of Xavier Worthy's lack of, of appeal is partially on
Mahomes. Mahomes has not been good with
the deep ball. I mean, for, for the whole two
seasons Worthy has had with them.
Like it's, it's just been missed connection after missed
connection. Like you want to talk about why
Drake May is the best quarterback in the league right
now? Drake May has hit Xavier Worthy
for 10 touchdowns at this point. You know, Patrick Mahomes just
misses him. Drake May puts it.
You know, on an absolute dot, it's basically a hand off down
the field if he's throwing the ball to Xavier worthy like that
is just the difference between the guy who is the very best and
the guy who is the second best or the third best quarterback in
the league. But it is cool to watch someone
separate like that. And I I do think that part of
Xavier Worthy's woes are not he's not solely to blame.
You know, he he could he could be doing Rashid Shaheed things
in a different offense. He would be an awesome receiver
for the patriots to have where Drake may just gets to Chuck it
downfield while he burns guys. All right, that's that's all the
the unfun stuff. We'll we'll go in order of like
gross and barely fun to. Yeah, I I looked at ESPN open
score just to see if I could make some kind of case that like
he's getting open downfield, but no, he's like wide receiver 70
and open score. Yeah, that's not fun.
Or or or receiver 17 because this includes tight ends.
Yuck and so. OK, on on to more positive
things. Gabe Davis is back.
We Gabe Davis is back. Oh, OK.
I told you this one was barely, barely positive.
But you know what? If you were just feeling
nostalgic, you wanted to have Gabe Davis in playoff basketball
to, you know, put up a massive, you know, 4 touchdown game or
something to, to really make it feel like, you know, Bills of
old where he's the, the guy you got to have to advance to the
rounds. He's now back on the menu.
He's pretty involved in his first game, first game back with
the team. They tried to try to defeat him
in the in the end zone. No, heavily targeted.
So he only had a 40%, right? Right.
He drops the touchdown. 45% route rate, but he gets 27%
target sprout run. So on, on how many?
He had four targets. He caught three of them.
I guess the one was the touchdown that he dropped.
And so I guess part of the part of the Keon Coleman benching was
getting Gabe Davis out there. I guess Gabe Davis is just that.
Imagine if Keon Coleman was an NFL quality receiver.
Yeah, it's every time a Keon Coleman is benched and Gabe
Davis gets his wings. OK, now now on to actual, actual
fun. These ones are fun.
Yeah. So the reason the honestly the
main reason we have this chart is to track the rookies.
If if it weren't for the rookies, I would not care about
this chart at at all. And where at Luther Burden, he,
he gets up to a 61% route share and finally takes over of
immediate Zacchaeus. I think that the route share
probably would have been higher if at Cole Command and Loveland
didn't get so many snaps. And they, it looks like they
played a lot of two tight end sets so that the, the, yeah, the
slot receiver didn't play as much, but he did see 23% targets
per run and he got 5 targets. He only, it was only tree
reception for 27 yards. So it's like it's for, for a
game where we, we got a lot of what we've been looking for.
It's kind of tepid. And but this is 1 where I, I
don't know if I'm quite ready to stardom and, and managed, but
we're right there. We're right on the cusp of that
Luther Burden being a very, very stiritable managed player.
I. Think, boy, boy, do I have some
basketball teams that would kill for some Luther.
If if you could, if you could give me just two Luther burden,
like legitimate spike weeks, I'm talking, you know, 20 plus
fantasy points, I would. I would be such a happy man.
That'd be so good for me. It feels like I have a chance.
The the other guy that is also pretty fun.
It's Jayden Higgins, who finally for the first time this season
ran more routes than the very formidable Xavier Hutchinson.
I believe Hutchinson is still sub one yards per route run.
Is that correct? He might have, he might have
cracked one yards per route run now.
But you know, with competition that stiff, you know, you
understand why Jayden Higgins can't run more routes than that
guy. Like, how do you take that off
the field? No, the Texans continue to be
extraordinarily frustrating, but Jayden Higgins is looking good.
.9494 yeah, for a run, but yeah. Did Jayden Higgins take off is
here? Yeah, where he's he's fine.
So he wait, he's still only had, I guess he's still only had a
57% route share. Correct.
Yeah. So when he had an 81% ride
share, I think based on some injuries, but he he got he he's
had two games in a row now tree out of the last four with 7
targets and, and he is producing with those targets.
So the and, and then the, the Mika Ryan is like, hey, we're
taking the rookie Tiger off. We don't have any more rookies
now. These are these are our guys.
You I guess this this is another one where it's like he's like
right there in terms of being startable.
He's right there. Not not not quite there yet, but
the the it's coming. Yeah, I call bullshit on the
we're we're taking the rookie tag off because if you were,
Jalen Knoll would be playing every there's.
Christian Kirk would not see the field.
Christian Kirk would be a game day inactive if you were taking
the rookie tag off. Jalen Knoll looks sick anytime
he's on the field. Like he's just nice.
I mean, he looks better than Higgins.
Clear. Like clearly, clearly I, I don't
think it's that, you know, I think it's pretty hard to debate
otherwise. They're different.
They're very different in what they can do and offer for the
offense. But like those aren't the two
that are competing for snaps. So you're not having Higgins and
Noel compete with each other. You're having Christian Kirk
keep Jalen Noel off the field, which makes exactly 0 sense.
I mean, just please play your best player, man, please,
please, but I don't know they they continue to be very
frustrating, but it does look like Higgins is going to get
there before Noel. God, I I this feels like the
prototypical spot, though, where these guys both should come on
down the stretch man like they're they're good.
The competition is for snaps. Is Hutchinson and Christian Kerr
like, you've got to, you have to be seeing more of these guys
like. I can't wait to draft them next
year. I don't know, man, I'm I'm a
little worried about drafting Texans passing and they get they
better be real cheap again. I'm gonna.
I think these guys will be cheap.
Yeah, no, you're not wrong. I mean, shit, it's like you, me
probably like the 120 slappies that even know who Jalen Knoll
is, you know, like there's not a broad audience that are in the
market for Jalen Knoll, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That that's a contrarian play for sure.
And but I think that covers this this week, right?
Yeah, that is everybody. We as a show note, programming
note, we'll be taking next week off for the Thanksgiving
holiday. Sorry everybody, you're going to
have to survive a week without stat chasing, but we'll be
picking it up the very next week.
So we will not be seeing you on Tuesday the 25th.
We will be back on December the 2nd for stat chasing and that
will be Week 13, the penultimate week before the final regular
season week for fantasy football.
Yeah. And yeah, that'll be one of the
last, last one. So looking forward to it.
And thanks for joining us again, everyone.