12 Players Skyrocketing Up Our ROS Rankings

Week five is in the books, and right now we're giving you guys 12 players skyrocketing up our rest of season rankings. Lots of backup running backs went off, and zero RB truthers are absolutely alive on this Monday morning. Let's get it kicked off with Bill, the starting running back, uh, of the Washington Commanders. Running back 33 in my rankings prior to this week, rest of season. He is now my RB20. And after 16 touches, 150 total yards, two touchdowns, Bill has been very efficient this year, highest graded running back in the league per PFF coming into the week. And he leads the position in yards after contact per attempt. But we finally, Danny, saw the workload. 50% of the snaps, 61% of the carries, 38% route participation. And we really saw why he's taken a step in this backfield because Chris Rodriguez, Jeremy McNichols, it was it was time that Bill was getting the starting running back job here. And it was time. Shout out Arthur, cuz I'm sure he's going to be in the comments saying, "Hey, look, Cory finally not take Lock." But I, I mean, all jokes aside, um, it was just an inconsistent workload like you said, like he never cleared 40% of the snaps. We recognize, or at least I recognize, mostly that Bill's an efficient player, upside in an offense that we believe in with Washington. I'm sure that it's going to be fine, especially when Jaden Daniels comes back. Sure enough, they play against, uh, that game against the Chargers on Sunday. And I mean, Washington did look back. Jaden Daniels looks healthy. Bill looks like the clear starting running back on this team moving forward. And if he's going to be able to get 50% of the work for an offense and a quarterback that we believe in, I mean, you have him at RB20, and I think he could very well vault up into the top 15 if he keeps playing well.

Yeah. No, exactly. Like I'm I'm willing to to eat my L on on Bill because I just I didn't really think he was ever going to get the workload. I thought they were going to continue using a three-way timeshare. I thought if he was going to get the workload, it would have been immediately after Austin Ekeler went down. So that's why I was kind of doubting it a little bit. But I'm ready to say here that Bill, you have to treat him as a top 20 to 24 running back rest of season. Like I think there's arguments to be had about like which running backs you'd put over him and that kind of thing. But like I think it's inarguable he's at least in a tier with guys like Chuba Hubbard, assuming he comes back healthy, uh, Chase Brown, Alvin Kamara with the way Kendra Miller's think he's back. Well, I have Chuba Hubbard, Corey Crosky Merritt over Chase Brown and Alvin Kamara. The only guy I'm holding out hope for is that if Chuba Hubbard's not out long, he would be ahead of him still for me. But I think right now, like rookie to rookie, like there's no way you can conceivably take Trevian Henderson over this guy. They're back to back for me, and I think that's very reasonable if you want to just go with go with Bill. I think with Trevian Henderson, like Bill coming into this week, we haven't seen the workload, but the minute he does, he's going to be on this sky-rocketing Bill, uh, video as well. I mean, he is. But if Mike Vrabel doesn't give him the work soon, we should probably give up the dream. You're you're not wrong, but also like if Stephenson's just going to keep fumbling every week, if Antonio Gibson's going to be crying on the sideline after getting hurt, like I I think it's going to happen, but maybe. But, uh, it should have happened already. That's that's my thought with Henderson. That's why I would take Bill over him at this point in time.

Um, pretty straightforward riser, obviously. Monster game, huge fantasy performance. Another straightforward riser, I believe the guy who finished as the RB one overall on the week is Rico Dowdle, who we kind of I just made reference to. I don't think Chuba Hubbard will be out long. But in the meantime, man, you got a dude in Rico Dowdle who is one of the better handcuffs in fantasy. You and I were both a lot higher on Dowdle, the handcuff potential of him. I doubt it's going to matter much when it comes to Chuba Hubbard getting back on the field, but it does give them a reason to let Chuba Hubbard rest up.

Yeah. And he's not specifically a riser because we think, oh my god, he scored 31 points. He's going to be the starter over Chuba Hubbard moving forward. No, no, that's not what we're saying. What we are saying though is there was pessimism on his role as the handcuff because I know especially in the best ball off season when we were drafting Rico Dowdle, even early in the season, people are like, well, if Chuba were to miss time, this is going to be a split backfield. We're going to see a lot more Trevor Etienne. We're going to see him and Rico Dowdle split the touches, and it's going to be a gross backfield that we don't want to target. I think Sunday was the validation we needed that if Chuba Hubbard is out, this is Rico Dowdle's backfield. And on top of that, Rico Dowdle may have very well played himself into a standalone role moving forward.

Yeah. No, absolutely. You can you can argue for sure that Rico Dowdle, like if we nuked every starting running back around the league, um, Rico Dowdle would be a top five, top seven running back in all of fantasy. Like obviously the Kyler of the world would probably be better. But, um, there's a very good chance that Rico Dowdle a has a tiny standalone role that makes him a desperation flex going forward, and b, if Chuba Hubbard's injury continues to linger and all that kind of stuff, you could feel really good about starting him. So, for now, I mean, you can't really feel great about him as anything more than like a one to two week patchwork solution. But, yeah, as long as he's going to be the starter, he's an every week top 20 running back. And I'm very glad we were on the right side of that, cuz I had him ranked like a top 16 running back coming into the week. If Chuba Hubbard is out again this week, you know what we have, right? What? We have a revenge game from Rico Dowdle against the Cowboys. Oh, yeah. True. Yeah. That's a good, uh, good setup for for Rico Dowdle to have another good performance because the Panthers generally more of a run funnel defense, and Rico Dowdle part of the draw of him was, yeah, this dude can handle a workload, man. And he's an efficient ground game back between the tackles. So, um, definitely a riser. Again, I wouldn't get too crazy thinking you now have a top 24 rest of the season running back on your hands. But, you know, a good option in, uh, if you're, you know, a one and three fantasy operation about to get your second win or whatever. Just keep using them. Maybe use him in a package deal. Try and sell high if people think he's going to take over the backfield.

Yeah. And I think at very minimum, if you wanted to keep Rico Dowdle, like you're going to know exactly when he's going to be entering your lineup. As long as Chuba Hubbard is out of the out of the game, Rico Dowdle is going to be a top 20 level running back option. So like I always value guys like that. You know exactly when they go in your lineup and you can trust them to perform, and Rico Dowdle represents exactly that.

Yeah, it's per it's why we loved him in baseball. It's like he's only going to hit your lineup if he's starting for the Panthers, and it's why you like him in redraft. It's like he's on your bench unless he's starting for the Panthers. Otherwise, you're in pretty good shape there. My number two riser here is DeVonta Smith, who of course I've been notoriously quite high on this entire offseason and then into the beginning part of the season. DeVonta Smith has been inconsistent so far this year. We've seen a couple of duds from him, 4.6, 9.3, and 4.9 fantasy points. But we have seen two really big games from him, 20 fantasy points in week three and then 19.4 fantasy points, goes over a 100 receiving yards. But the reason he's a riser, cuz it's not just like, oh, I'm rising him because he had a good week or whatever. The reason he's a riser is because we did actually see the Philadelphia Eagles in neutral pass rate situations here, pass at the second highest rate of any of the teams that have played so far in week five. So part of why I think I'm I'm optimistic about the Eagles passing offense going forward and Smith specifically is the guy that had the big game and I feel confident in. And AJ Brown, you could maybe even loop into this as well, is that the Eagles were winning a majority of that game. They could have very easily done the thing where they just kind of clamp down, run the football, and don't really worry about throwing the ball too much. But it's very clear that some of this noise behind the scenes as it relates to like AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, it's maybe leeched into the play calling a little bit. And I think tendency wise, we should see more than 25, 22 pass attempts going forward. So for me, I think more of these games are coming from Smith.

I will counter one thing. I I agree in the premise that the Eagles almost like by force this week kind of wanted to show everyone like, no, no, we can actually call play calls in the passing game because I mean, we saw Hurts 38 times that he threw the football. It's happened three times since week six of last year. So it was clear this week with the AJ Brown noise, with the DeVonta Smith noise, the Eagles basically said like, no, no, we got to get these guys the football in space and we got to throw the football a little bit more. The problem that I have with the second half of what you said though is they were up 17 to three and they kept throwing the football, but they lost the game. So maybe going forward they start to run the football in those situations a lot more because they don't want to risk what happened on Sunday.

Yeah. What did Barkley have six carries on the game or something like that? Six carries in a game they were up 17 to three. Yeah. Again, all I'm saying is this Kevin Patullo guy may not really know what he's doing. Um, he doesn't. But at the same time, if DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown can make a fuss and then all of a sudden the play calling tendencies change, it makes me feel confident going forward that the the Eagles will pass the ball more than like 19 times for the rest of the, you know, 15 weeks of the season or whatever. Like, I don't think we're getting, um, you know, DeVonta Smith having these four-point duds every single week. He's going to be inconsistent. He's going to be hard to trust. But I called it this week, Danny. I remember. Do you remember what I said? DeVonta Smith. This is a DeVonta Smith game. Uh, Patrick Surtain going to be on AJ Brown. I feel like Smith is kind of like the David Montgomery of wide receivers where you can kind of see it coming when he's going to have the, uh, when he's going to have the big performance. So I feel confident DeVonta Smith every week backend wide receiver two, high-end wide receiver three flex play. Um, and he's a guy that I I rely on going forward. It's not a guy that I think is going to be an every week 15 plus point per game receiver. But by the end of the season, we're going to look back and he's going to have finished as a top 20 receiver with like 15 points per game or be like, yeah, it was a little inconsistent how we got there. But I think you ultimately feel good that DeVonta Smith is on your fantasy roster.

Well, and then part of it too, the target discrepancy right now between him and AJ Brown on the season, 36 AJ Brown targets, 30 DeVonta Smith targets. DeVonta Smith actually has more receiving yards than AJ Brown. You could very realistically make the case that DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown in redraft, like weekly rankings for the time being, need to be treated as the same tier type of asset. And if that's the case, we need to be raising DeVonta Smith of our upper rankings and we need to be closing the gap between him and AJ Brown.

Well, yeah, they're only four spots apart in my rest of season rankings. I think both of them profile as backend wide receiver twos given the low pass volume generally of the offense. But both of them are such good receivers, it's hard to rank them much lower than that.

Yeah. And again, Smith has been more volatile in terms of his weekly targets, but with Devon or with AJ Brown specifically, he just hasn't made good use of his targets.

Yeah. He hasn't been efficient on his targets, and that's not really a recipe to get you more targets.

So, uh, staying in the NFC East, a guy that has been a fixture of this video a couple of different times, uh, Javonte Williams. Um, finally gets himself out of mid RB2 purgatory, cuz that's kind of the furthest we were willing to put him before was like, "Yeah, this is a guy you can rely on in that Kenneth Walker territory." I think we got to have a conversation about Javonte Williams and what we actually think of this guy going forward. Not just a conversation. We need to tell the truth on Javonte Williams because the only thing stopping the community at large from raising Javonte Williams into an RB1 in their rankings was, well, Javonte Williams has been banged up before. He looked awful in Denver these last couple of years. Like, how real is Javonte Williams? If Javonte Williams keeps playing like this, he will be the first team All-Pro running back. Like that is how well he is playing. 5.7 yards per carry from Javonte. We've also seen the impact on the Cardinals run game, having Clayton Tune last year, not having Clayton Tune this year. The Cowboys offensive line has been playing well. The Cowboys overall right now are the number one offense in the NFL both in scoring and yardage. And Dak Prescott's playing at an MVP level, but Javonte Williams himself is why I have him as my RB9 rest of season. Gun in my head, I need to take a player from the waiver pool moving forward, a guy that I would rather roster. I would take Javonte Williams over Josh Jacobs and I would sleep like a baby doing so because Javonte Williams, you have three separate weeks as a top six running back in fantasy. His worst week scoring was 12.2 points as the RB20 in fantasy. You look at the utilization score, an 87 utilization score, 73% of the snaps, 68% of the rushing attempts, 59% of the routes. He's a workhorse running back on an offense that's going to be one of the best in the league.

Yeah. And a good stash. I just want to shout out because, um, Javonte Williams is third in the NFL right now at 5.7 yards per carry. Second in the NFL is his teammate Miles Sanders at 5.9 yards per carry. So, you know, Javonte Williams' history of injuries, like you said, the run scheme is kind of what's causing this. Javonte's playing well, of course, but I think if Miles Sanders were to get in there as the starter, he would probably be, you know, Rico Dowdle-esque in what he could do with a big workload. So, if you are looking for a running back stash, kind of handcuff, Javonte does have a lengthy injury history. So, Miles Sanders to me is a decent stash. But yeah, I personally, I'm I'm not going quite as far as he with Javonte Williams. I have him as my RB12 rest of season, but I think that's still a far cry from where I had him before. Um, but I would take him over like Kyren Williams, Breece Hall, Travis Etienne, like Bucky Irving right now dealing with the injury. Like there's legitimate, uh, smoke on what Javonte Williams is doing. I wouldn't go as far as like Josh Jacobs, James Cook. We'll see what happens with Aaron Jones' health, Derrick Henry. I think once Lamar is back, we'll be a lot better. But, um, yeah, Javonte Williams has got to be treated as a backend RB1 at the very least.

So, let me ask you this question. What else does Javonte have to do to be ranked above those guys?

Um, well, so Aaron Jones, if he's dealing with something significant, he would move ahead of him. So that would make him RB1. Derrick Henry, depending on Lamar Jackson's health, he would potentially move ahead of him. And, you know, Derrick Henry's play has also not been great. Um, James Cook and Jacobs, I just don't I don't really see Javonte getting ahead. He just continues to smash out 20-point weeks. Like, one more of these, and, yeah, I'll be I'll be willing to put him as a top eight to nine dynasty fantasy running back this year. He plays the Carolina Panthers this week. Like, we should be doing it preemptively. I I to me, I think putting him at 12 is kind of doing it preemptively. He's in a tier with De'Von Achane and Josh Jacobs. Like that's that's me putting a lot of respect on his name. He's just at the end of that tier for me. All I'm going to say is once you do your weekly running back rankings, I better see Javonte Williams as a top three to five running back this week going up against Carolina.

Well, the Panthers are actually really good against the run so far this year. They're run though, but they are. But Derrick Brown's been a lot better because he was on the he was out last year and the the Panthers were giving it up to fantasy running backs. But yeah, Javonte, I mean, somebody I remember in my running back tier list, I had him like RB13 coming into the week, and people were like, that is disrespectfully low for Javonte Williams. I'm like, RB13 disrespectfully low. Turns out it was. Yeah. I mean, I just don't see this guy slowing down. When you watch this guy on a play-by-play basis, the consistency, the overall, uh, the the the thing about Javonte specifically, number one in success rate as a rusher. Every single run you see, this guy is getting positive yardage, and maybe those two, three-yard runs, he's breaking tackles and he's getting five, six, seven yards, and that consistency along with, I mean, we saw before the half in the game against the Jets, that big play gets them down inside the two-yard line. The Cowboys were at what, their own 43-yard line? Get that big chunk play from Javonte, they end up scoring a touchdown on that drive, 10 seconds left in the half, they were able to punch it in. As much as I like Rico Dowdle, he was not doing that for the Cowboys offense last year.

Yeah, no, I think, uh, Javonte is like super Zack Charbonnet where it's like every every, um, down, you know what you're getting. And like we've seen when Charbonnet's gotten the workload in Seattle, it looks kind of like what Javonte is doing right now. So, uh, yeah, you got to feel great about him. Again, my only hesitance is the the lengthy injury history Javonte Williams has. The second he's on an injury report dealing with an ankle issue or something like that, he doesn't, we saw he doesn't really have a lot of juice. Like you saw that 60-yard run, most running backs house that thing. Um, my one worry is that if he starts to get banged up, that's really the only thing that's keeping me from putting him honestly as like a top eight to 10 dynasty fantasy running back. Keep saying dynasty fantasy running back. I'm ready to do it in principle, but that's my one thing holding me back is does the efficiency taper off if he starts to deal with any kind of nagging injuries, which is true of any running back, but Javonte's got such a a lengthy injury history that it worries me. At very minimum, put him over the big dog and don't worry about it. Again, I want to see Lamar back on the field before I say that because the big dog Derrick Henry has just like one of the easiest schedules I've ever seen week eight onward after the Ravens' bye. So, enough on my Cowboy Cory. Who is your third player skyrocketing up your rankings this week?

I mean, I think he's skyrocketing up my rankings a lot less than he is for most people around the industry because I saw some absolutely ridiculous stuff about Ja'Marr Chase throughout last week where people were talking about they'd rather have Michael Pittman rest of season and all this kind of stuff. Listen, guys, Ja'Marr Chase, even with Joe Burrow, is going to have down weeks. You can look at Ja'Marr Chase's best seasons and he's had seven-point games in it. Like, that's just who Ja'Marr Chase is. But you know what you get when you put Ja'Marr Chase into your freaking lineup every single week? You get the 29 bomb he dropped this week. You get the 36 bomb he dropped in week two. You're going to look up and Ja'Marr Chase, even without Joe Burrow, is going to have scored somewhere between 17 and 20 points per game. So, for me, yes, he's inconsistent. He's not a Keenan Allen, St. Brown from the regard that he's going to score 15 every single week and he's never going to have a down performance. That's St. Brown's pretty much one of the only guys that does that. Jefferson, Puka, those type of guys are going to do it as well. But Ja'Marr Chase, you got to live with the the downs to get the ups. Honestly, that's just how you are with Ja'Marr Chase. If he has a bad week, don't suddenly start ranking him wide receiver 18 rest of season like a lot of people around the industry were doing. Now, I'm not calling out anybody specifically, but I know you are. There's some people that I actually very much respect their opinion and think they do an exceptional job covering fantasy that were very panicked on this guy. And again, what I I kept saying, Ja'Marr Chase and Jake Browning eventually are going to connect for some big plays. Jake Browning is not this bad. I know he hasn't looked good, but he's not as bad as he showed in his first two starts.

Yeah, which is a very fair take to have. Um, I was cautiously optimistic that this would be the week. Like when I talked about in the wide receiver rankings video, I said like this is very bad. I had to rank him low obviously based on what he did the two previous weeks, but I said he's my wide receiver 13 this week, but this is the get-right spot because he plays Detroit. You're not going up against a number one and number seven ranked defense in terms of pass defense EPA like you were with Minnesota and Denver. Detroit was the get-back spot and obviously ended up getting it back. I'm not quite where you are. Like I don't have him at five. I do have him as my wide receiver nine, but that's specifically because I have Puka ranked higher than you do, which is funny because obviously you're the Bucks fan. Uh, Nico Collins, Drake London, Romeo Doubs, but Ja'Marr Chase is very easily in that tier. The one guy that I do disagree with pretty heavily though, I don't think you can rank Ja'Marr Chase above JSN. JSN has been way too good.

Yeah, and I he's one spot behind Ja'Marr Chase for me, and they're in the same tier. So, I would hear arguments for that. I just I think that Ja'Marr Chase is just a completely different animal as a player than JSN is as great as JSN has been this year.

Yeah. I I just think you're getting near 20 points per game. Like to me, JSN is just when you take his efficiency metrics and you if you plugged him into like a Rams offense, he'd be doing what Puka is right now. Yeah. Based off efficiency. If again, I do my rankings based on if somebody offered me these players for Ja'Marr Chase, would I accept? And the only players that I would accept at wide receiver one for one for Ja'Marr Chase are CD Lamb, Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Puka Nacua. Just I as great as JSN is, I would rather have Ja'Marr Chase because I would rather have those monster week-winning games than I would the consistency that JSN is is going to provide, probably much more so than what Ja'Marr Chase is going to provide. So for me again, I'm just I was buying low on the elite talent. I put up a TikTok about it later earlier last week where I talked about like he's the biggest buy low in all of fantasy right now. He also was playing me in the Flock League this week. So you guys should have all seen that coming that Avery was going to have a monster game out of Ja'Marr Chase.

Um, but let's talk about Jaylen Waddle who, um, definitely on the rise after what we saw. Number one, the Tyreek injury we saw two weeks ago on Monday Night Football, and then this week pops out a 26% target share, an 89 utilization score, and a top eight scoring week with 23 points.

Yeah, and part of it too, for reference, he's my wide receiver 39 last week when we made this video. Obviously, they played on Monday night. Tyreek has that injury. That was already going to bake him up my rankings. But based off what we saw this week, I also raised him a little bit before, a little bit even more, sorry. Um, I had him as, you know, a fringe backend wide receiver 20 type of guy. I moved him up to wide receiver 22 because the utilization, like you said, was absolutely there. 85% of these, 26% targets per run, 26% of the targets, 45% of the air yards, and as we see, he was the wide receiver eight in scoring with 23 PPR points this weekend. And really what it comes down to for me was when I'm looking at this Miami passing offense, without Tyreek in the fold, it's very simple to me in terms of the progressions. It's sorry, Tyreek Hill. It's Jaylen Waddle. It's Darren Waller. It's Devon Achane. When the Miami Dolphins are going to be dropping back to pass, those are the main threats. And obviously, we saw Malik Washington have four catches in this game. He ended up having four catches for zero receiving yards. I actually saw cuz I started him in the league, I'm like, wait, he's got four PPR points, but he has four catches. And then I see there's zero receiving yards next to his name. Like Jaylen Waddle, Darren Waller, and Devon Achane are the guys that I want in this offense. Malik Washington, if you're absolutely desperate, maybe you can plug him into some good spots. But realistically, it was very clear that Jaylen Waddle, is he an alpha level, you know, clear-cut number one wide receiver talent? No. But he's got the type of speed, the type of big play upside that can suffice. Imagine Jameson Williams if he was plugged into a wide receiver one role. That's kind of what I see with Jaylen Waddle.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good comparison. I have him ranked kind of among those other receivers like the DeVonta Smiths, the Chris Olaves, the BTJs, the Xavier Worthys of the world. I think that's exactly where he belongs. Um, whether you take him over certain guys in that territory is kind of whatever. It's kind of a a pointless argument to have. Like I do have DeVonta Smith and Chris one spot ahead of him, but if you wanted to take him over those guys, I think that's definitely fair. So yeah, I don't really disagree. Jaylen Waddle has to be on the rise given the Tyreek injury from Monday night and also, um, what we saw him do immediately that Tyreek is out. He's he's the number one receiver on this team, and we actually, we haven't seen Jaylen Waddle in a number one receiver role since his rookie season, really, where he was a top 15 receiver in points per game and I think what, had 145 targets on the year as a rookie. So yeah, you could probably expect maybe even high-end wide receiver 2, low-end wide receiver one type of value if he continues to play as well as he played in this game.

Yeah, and I guess I'm baking in a little bit of a risk because with Miami, you know, you have a quarterback making a lot of money, you have a coach on the hot seat, hot seat, sorry. Like maybe they get involved into some wide receiver sweepstakes if Malik Washington and Nick Westbrook-Ihenacho don't suffice. So I bake that in a little bit because if I had the guarantee that they wouldn't add a single wide receiver to Miami, you could even make the argument Jaylen Waddle should be like 17 or 18.

Yeah. Yeah, no, exactly. You definitely can. Um, my next guy is Rachaad White. And, um, again, similar to Rico Dowdle, we know that Rachaad White's one of the best handcuffs in fantasy. That was one of the things that, um, you and I were both on before the season is that I don't need to see what the workload looks like to know that this is one of the best handcuffs in fantasy. Like, before this week, I was ranking him top 18 running back in fantasy because I'm like, dude, this guy's an RB1 season under his belt, plays for one of the best offenses in football. And if Bucky Irving misses time, he's going to legitimately be an every week top 20 play at running back, maybe even a top 12 play. He finishes with 23 PPR points, RB7 on the week, had an 81% snap share, 72% of the carries, and 64% of the routes. And that's also the draw with Rachaad White is that he is an exceptional receiver. And we saw that at play. He had what, 35 receiving yards or whatever on a couple of catches against the Seahawks. I'm worried about Bucky Irving's injury, man. It's not just that Rachaad White's a good short-term play. like between the two of them, like Dowdle and Rachaad White, I think Rachaad White has far more long-term appeal than what Rico Dowdle has because first off, Bucky Irving, it's already been basically reported he's going to miss this week too, um, against the 49ers, and he has two injuries. He's in a walking boot and has like a salvation of his shoulder. And on Instagram a couple days ago, Bucky Irving put out like a pretty cryptic, like almost like I'm headed to IR type of post where he's like, uh, you know, God gives his, uh, soldiers the strongest battle and all this kind of stuff. I'm like, this doesn't sound to me like somebody who's dealing with something minor who's going to miss a game or two. Like, I think it's very possible that we get Bucky Irving put on IR in the next couple days. Like, I'm I'm not saying it's guaranteed to happen, but it could happen. And that means that Rachaad White, like if Bucky Irving is on IR, Rachaad White is a top 15 running back for the duration that he is out.

Yeah. I mean, it's pretty simple as that with Rachaad White, he was a guy that we were targeting a lot in draft season. We said, "Hey, listen, third highest drafted running back up there with me as well." Him and Rico Dowdle, funny enough, both guys that I was smashing in those, you know, late round portions. But, um, with Rachaad White, it's pretty simple. We know that Tampa Bay trusts him. We know that he's good in all three downs. And we know that he's got touchdown equity on a really good offense. And that's all you really need to be a top 15 level running back in standalone value until Bucky Irving comes back. For the time being, like until Bucky gets back, he's going to be very, very hot. Possibly even an RB1 in your rankings.

Yeah, dude. Rachaad White, I think people are kind of scarred from 2023 Rachaad White where he averaged 3.7 yards per carry. He was like 68.8 PFF rushing grade. Not a great missed tackles forced number. Yards after contact per attempt. Dude, Rachaad White's 3.7 yards after contact per attempt right now, averaging 4.7 a tote. Needs like a top 15 graded running back on PFF because the scheme that we run now and the offensive line, even despite the injuries we've had, are so much better at run blocking. Like we don't even have a right tackle or starting right guard out there at the moment. And Rachaad White looks like he's way better than he was in his 2023 season, a season in which he was the RB10 in fantasy points per game.

Yeah. No, he looks a lot better. Um, the other thing too, I'm sure you have you haven't mentioned yet, but is the big difference between that and 2023 is just how good of a coach that Kevin Carberry is. Like I think that's the number one, our O line, like we have backups playing at like a super high level. Baker Mayfield's lowest pressure rate of the season came against Seattle, who coming into the week was the best defense in football in points per game allowed. Like to to me, with what I talked about with Clayton Tune, and I'm sure you've seen like in our group chat stuff, what I've said to you, like that's probably how you feel about Kevin Carberry, dude. Right, dude? Think about Liam Cohen tried to steal this guy, and we didn't let him. Like that was the one coach that he tried to poach from us, and we didn't let him. Our offensive line coach for those of you guys that are unsure of what Kevin Carberry does. He's the Buccaneers offensive line coach. And despite losing Pro Bowl caliber right guard Cody Mauch for the rest of the season, Luke Goedeke, who is out and for another two weeks or so, our right tackle is a Pro Bowl caliber player as well. Graham Barton was playing left tackle for half these games. Tristan Wirfs only came back last week against the Eagles. And, um, our left guard Ben Bredeson is kind of like our weakest link on the offensive line. He's really the only one that's been healthy the whole year.

Yeah. No, exactly. I mean, the fact that you're getting the production that you will, like having good coaching, I think is one of the more underrated parts of a running back because if you have a good scheme, you have a well-coached offensive line, like you're going to have injuries happen to a lot of offensive lines this year. Like, for example, the Cowboys as well were without 80% of their offensive line. But if you have a good coach that teaches good fundamentals, you can get by. And then we've seen that with Tampa Bay.

Yeah. And we've seen it for years with like the Rams and the 49ers and the Packers and some of those teams that have really good run schemes. But yeah, Rachaad White, top 31 running back for me rest of the season because there is an outside shot that Bucky Irving lingers all year, whether it's the foot, the shoulder, reaggravations, all that kind of stuff. At the very least, he's going to be a top 15 running back the next week or two. Um, but even still, like once Bucky Irving is back, he's going to be one of the highest priority handcuffs in fantasy because he plays for one of the best offenses in the league and he is one of the most qualified handcuffs because he has a three-down skill set and has been an RB1 before and he's playing really well.

Yeah. And the thing too, once you guys get inside the five, inside the three, inside the two-yard line, like sure, we've seen Baker Mayfield sneak it a couple times, but there's no Mike Evans on the field. I think that's a number one thing too. Rachaad White, once you're inside the three, inside the five, there's no fade ball to Mike Evans in the in the play call right now.

Yeah. And he catches like he catches passes out of the backfield in the red zone as well too. So, um, yeah, lots of great love for Rachaad White. If you guys picked him up off of waivers, I'm sure you feel very happy about that. I feel sick about not trading for him before, um, Avery. I offered him Xavier Worthy and Mark Andrews, who I literally cut after this week for Rachaad White and DeVonta Smith. And my hangup on the thing was actually that I just thought Xavier Worthy and DeVonta Smith was a wider gap than maybe it looks like now. Um, we'll see what Worthy does tonight. But, um, regardless, I think I wish I would have made that trade because that was before the Bucky Irving walking boot and shoulder injury. I thought he, I was getting like a really solid handcuff. Bucky was a little bit banged up, but I didn't know if he was going to miss significant time.

Yeah, I should have made that deal. So, I do have London over Chase rest of season. I know you don't agree, but like I still do. Like they're in the same tier, but the deal that I had on the line and Avery was hesitant and kind of backed out at the last second, but like I don't know if we were actually going to get it done, but we were talking intensively and we were on the line because he was sick of Ja'Marr Chase. I almost got Chase and Rachaad White for Drake London going into this week.

Yeah, that's tough. That's tough. Um, let's move into Deebo Samuel here. Let's keep it moving with a guy that you have wide receiver 18 rest of season. I'm like a little bit behind where you have him. I think I'm at like 20 or something like that. Um, obviously Terry McLaurin has been out and banged up for the last couple of weeks. Even before that, I mean, we didn't see a great connection between Jalen Daniels and Terry McLaurin. Of course, Marcus Mariota was starting a couple games. The bottom line is here though that Deebo Samuel in what, how many of the games this season? Four of the five games this season has been a top 17 fantasy receiver on the week. Dude, he's just a target magnet for this offense. I you you see like a day three pick be dealt to Deebo this offseason. You're like, okay, like it gives Jalen some help. Like it's a good ancillary option in this offense, but we know Terry's the one and we know Zach is going to get some volume. No, no, no. Like they've reshaped their offense around Deebo Samuel because a 28% yearly target share doesn't seem indicative for a guy that you spent what, a fifth-round pick, I think is what they paid to get him.

Yeah. Yeah. And a guy that I'm sure if you guys drafted him in like the seventh round or whatever of your redraft, you were probably like, "Oh, okay." Um, whatever. I'll just. Now you feel great. Like I mean, thankfully in the trade that I dealt him away in our listener redraft league, I ended up dealing you Hunter Renfrow after it to get Igbuka on my team. So I feel really good about that. You're kind of kind of in a tough spot. Um, but I I kind of wish I would have just held Deebo Samuel, man, because he's been absolutely great. Uh, thankfully for me, I did get Rashee Rice in that deal and I'm projected to win this week. So hopefully if Rashee Rice comes back and he balls, he's the guy that I think he can be, that's my one saving grace. But he gave me Jefferson and Igbuka to know. Oh, for for sure. Part of it too. I need Travis Hunter. Hey, the poking meme. Like, are you are you there? Are you up? Hey, Travis, I'm poking you. Are you up? Yeah. So, the full deal, for those of you guys wondering, was Drake London, Rashee Rice, and, uh, Travis Hunter. Danny gave me Igbuka, Jefferson, and Chris. As of now, it's not looking like a great deal for Danny, but if Hunter turns it around and Rashee Rice is what you think he can be, it could definitely, um, be a great deal for you. Was it after week one or after week two? It was after, I think it was after the second week because Deebo had two really good games at the beginning of the season and I was kind of buying low on Hunter and whatnot at the time. Um, but yeah, anything else on on Deebo? Like it's pretty straightforward. He's just getting the targets and and Jalen's back healthy. Yeah, Terry banged up. Jalen looked good. Uh, Washington puts up 27 points in a tough matchup against the Chargers this week. Um, realistically, what it comes down to is I think Jalen Daniels, we're going to start to see the glimmers that we saw in year one. And Deebo Samuel is the clear target alpha in this team right now.

Yeah. No, absolutely. I can, um, I'll group my last two together to save us some time here because Michael Carter is very straightforward. He was unranked for us coming into the week. Obviously was not relevant at all. Trey Benson gets put on IR, is going to miss at minimum four games, if not six to eight probably, given some of the timelines we've seen on Trey Benson. And Amari Demarcado just played himself away to the bench by fumbling on the goal line and costing me my home league matchup. So we absolutely hate to see that. But the bright side is that Michael Carter for the next four or five games, maybe more if Trey Benson is going to be out, um, Michael Carter is going to be where in our running back rankings on a weekly basis? Top, he'll be in the Chase Brown kind of territory, De'Andre Swift territory, like backend RB2 kind of usage, especially if the Cardinals have some decent matchups. So, you got to feel great about Michael Carter if you picked him up for nothing. Like in the listener redraft, get the usage. Um, 19% of the targets, scores a touchdown, um, had a kick return or a punt return called back where he kind of looked like the Lad McConkey we were promised coming into the season. So, um, Lad McConkey, I did move him back ahead of Quentin Johnston. So he is actually my highest ranked Chargers wide receiver for the rest of the season. They are very close. Like I have Lad McConkey 23 and I have Quentin Johnston at 26. So they're within a couple spots of each other and Keenan Allen is shortly behind them at like 31. So they're all very good options. I I do think without potentially Amari and Aaron Jones for the next couple of weeks, the pass volume is really going to go up for the, uh, for the Chargers, who are already throwing at a super high rate. They're already number one in EPA, and obviously we have Amari Hampton walking out of the game with a walking boot. Are we going to give Kamani Vidal 18 plus touches a week? Because if not, then we're going to see Herbert pass the ball 40 to 45 times a week.

Yeah, I think we'll talk about it in tomorrow's waiver video. Obviously, I think between Haskins probably getting the early down stuff and Kamani Vidal probably being like the the third down back, like, um, you got to feel comfortable that that Justin Herbert's just going to drop back and and uncork the piss out of the ball. The only problem for the Chargers is that they lost yet another offensive lineman in that game with Mike Beckton going down. So, no Slater, no Alt, no Beckton. Those were their three best offensive linemen. So, them not having those guys and dealing with a couple of, you know, mean pass rushes in their division and that kind of thing, uh, not great for the Chargers offense overall. But signs of life from Lad McConkey, which was positive to see. Also big pain because, uh, you mentioned the Carter on the waiver wire. I think he beat me by like two seconds to the app. Yeah, that sometimes those free ads on Saturdays and Sundays hit different because if you're just like the first one who sees the report or whatever, you can just you can get ahead of your league. I remember last year, like obviously this aged poorly because I traded him to Zack in the Brandon Aiyuk trade, but I picked up Kareem Hunt like while I was grocery shopping. I remember when, uh, when Pacheco got ruled out for the season with the tibia injury or whatever, I was like, "Hey," and they signed Kareem Hunt like later that week and I like picked him up immediately. So sometimes those hit different. I think, um, I'm pissed because Nathan beat me out on Carter for like $3 or something like that, and I really could have used him, which I'm sure people will come back, oh, well, Danny, you don't have any where to.

Say you spent 93. That is why like if I want something on the waiver wire, I'm not worried about you know, being frugal, being efficient with my spending. Realistically, if I see something I like, I'm bidding whatever I can. And like, cuz ultimately, what it comes down to for me, cuz now you're like feeling that thing in your gut like, I really couldn't put a few bucks more on Michael Carter. I never now that Bejan doesn't have a buy for the rest of the season and I don't have to worry about this as much. You know what I mean though, where it's like I would rather worry about, oh, I spent too much than, oh, I spent too little and missed out on the guy that I want. I might I might have like I'm only down 30 points right now to Avery if Michael Carter was in my lineup instead of Blake Cor. I have an extra 17 points on my team right now. Like I would be within striking distance of actually beating Avery despite his whole team going off. Yeah.

Which a little context for you guys, we're not going to unveil the exact score, but you guys will see that in the next Flock League video. Um, my next guy, and uh, I could also group these guys together, I guess, cuz they play in the same division. Uh, Stefon Diggs, very simple, wide receiver 43 to wide receiver 27. The last two weeks for Stefan Diggs have been exactly what we wanted coming into the season. Funny enough, I remember I was trying to scramble when we were doing our best picks by round. And in the seventh round, he was like the only pick I like. So, I talked about in that video going into the year, he didn't get his full work that we wanted. We saw the ramp up weeks one to three. He wasn't really playing consistently, but in the last two weeks, he's gotten over a 40% target share. No, no, not a 20% target share. Not a 25% target share, 30%. No, no, a 40% target share. 41 and 44 in back-to-back weeks. And he's been a top 18 wide receiver in back-to-back weeks. Really, what it comes down to with Stefan Digs is this was always the thesis is when he's fully healthy, he's got the money to show for it. This team needs an alpha in their wide receiver core. And he is the alpha to what I think is probably about one of the top seven to eight quarterbacks on Earth right now.

Dude, Drake May is a top 10 quarterback on PFF passing grade. This is before before last night's game was graded, by the way. Even coming into the week, he was a top 10 quarterback in PFF passing grade. He's also averaging 8.0 yards per attempt. I'll give you a list of players that are averaging more than him who have dropped back at least 100 times. Josh Allen, Matthew Stafford, Jordan Love, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, and Lamar Jackson. Those are the guys that are averaging more yards per attempt in Drake May right now. By the way, with his running backs fumbling at any possibility that they possibly can and not a single other receiver on this team worth a it's Hunter Henry and Stefon Diggs. Yeah, I mean, it's really that simple. It's Hunter Henry, Stefon Diggs, like you said. And if Stefon Diggs is going to keep playing the way he did against the Bills, 27's where I have him right now, he's got legitimate top 15 upside. And I don't say that lightly. I am I I was surprised. I looked at my underdog exposure. I have him 11% of the time. I actually felt like I drafted him more than that. I I thought I was drafting him quite a bit at certain points, but yeah, um, very very positive news for Stefon Diggs. He's still like kind of not quite getting like 95 plus% of the routes or whatever. He only had 64% in week five, but like you said, when he's on the field, he's so clearly the best receiver on the team. And Drake May and him so clearly have a rapport. Like all the scrambles that Drake May had against the Bills, and if you look at the the uh Patriots schedule the next couple of weeks, they could legitimately be like a seven and two football team five weeks from now. Dude, I think it's almost a foregone conclusion with how bad the AFC looks. Like, the Patriots will make the playoffs. I hope people know that by now. Yeah. And they might be like the five seed and like give the Bills a legitimate run for their money in the AFC East as well. So, yeah, you got to feel very good if you drafted Stefon Diggs and held him and like people were probably dropping him after like week two, week three because he had like no fantasy points and that kind of thing. Maybe people bought low on him for like super super low. But got to feel great if you just been stashing Stefon Digs on your bench waiting to see kind of what happens. This was kind of this should have been the thesis. I mean, we didn't really hammer I wish we would have talked about him more as a buy low. Um, but that came in the thesis. He was older. He's coming off an ACL tear. There was going to be a bit of a ramp up period. Yeah. And I like you, I wish we talked about him more as a buy low. And I wish I drafted him more in the early parts of the offseason cuz once we got the clear, okay, he's practicing, he sounds healthy. I started drafting him a lot in August, but specifically in the early months when it was kind of the ramp up, he barely even rose in ADP once people got positive reports on him, which I don't understand. So once he rose and I or once he got those reports and I noticed his ADP didn't rise, that's when I started smashing. So Stefon Diggs, we absolutely liked staying in the AFC East and we're talking about big apple Leaporta next because Mason Taylor is my tight end 10 rest of the season and guess what? He may end up even going higher because with Mason Taylor inherently with the rookie, we expect him to exponentially get better as the season goes along. But with Mason Taylor, he already has a full role because he's played 70 plus% of the routes each game this year and specifically in the last two weeks has garnered over a 25 plus% target share in a position that we have a lack of good options for. Take the talented second round rookie tight end who is the clear number two weapon in his offense. Tight end 10, like I said, feels even low for Roy. I think he'll end up I think we're in store for potentially a 2023 Leaporta season.

Yeah, I think the one thing that's keeping me from raising him quite as high as you do, I think he's like my tight end 12 or something rest of the season. I feel great about him like as far as if you picked him up, if you got, you know, a nice discount on him or whatever and you just got him for like a couple of fab dollars or whatever. Um, feel good about that. Definitely probably an every week streamer at the very least. The one thing I would say like I don't know if he's going to have like a huge huge ceiling much beyond like maybe he produces backend tight end one kind of numbers for the rest of the year like 10 to 12 points per game is that a the Jets offense is generally pretty runheavy and b Mason Taylor himself is not like overly efficient on his targets because he's just getting a lot of dump off type of stuff but tight end premium formats PPR formats he's definitely viable for that. I just don't know if like cuz like Leaporta's rookie season it was like big plays and touchdowns and stuff like that. I don't think we're going to see a whole lot of that. I think he's going to be kind of like young Zack Izzy where it's like, yeah, if he gets there, he has like 70 receptions on the year and like 750 receiving yards and four touchdowns and is like the tight end eight in points per game or something like that. But nonetheless, I mean, definitely a nice start to his career and um a guy that in good matchups going forward where the Jets are going to have decent point production, point output, I I feel pretty confident that yeah, he's definitely the number two receiver on this team. So, he's currently at 28 targets on the season. Let me play a game with you. Do you think he finishes finishes with over under 88 targets? I think he would probably have about that. Yeah, probably 90ish targets on the season. It's funny that we said that because the comp that kind of reminds me of is uh 2020 Dalton Schultz um where he had, you know, 63 catches, 615 yards, four touchdowns, top 12 tight end in fantasy that season. A little bit more competitive, I would say, at the top at tight end compared to what we've kind of seen this year. Um, this year the tight end position is just a complete mess because the guys we drafted to be advantages haven't been and the guys that have been super cheap like your Dalton Cage or Mason Taylor are actually the ones producing. So, uh, maybe if you spent I'll tell you right now, like I did in my home league, a third round pick on Trey McBride, you're not feeling too great. Yeah, I feel um I feel I feel pretty vindicated about late round tight end kind of crushing this year because I was beating the drum for tight ends being ass and uh Arthur and myself who faded the oblivion of tight end in our listener league. He's got Jake Ferguson and I got Dallas Godder who's producing at a high level and we barely drafted tight ends early. Similar with me. I got Craft and Waller and I didn't pick a tight end till like tight to around 11 or 12. Yeah. No, it feels pretty good, man. If you drafted Brock Bowers, you feel like you're in hot water right about now. And I mean once KD comes back, we'll probably see somebody produce high high level numbers. It wouldn't shock me if KD's like the tight end won easily by the time he comes back. But uh yeah, feel good about Mason Taylor, man. You got to feel great if you picked him up on waiverss last week or the week before that and kind of stash him or whatever. If you've been using like Mark Andrews or if you've been using like some kind of fringe option that doesn't really suit you at this point in time, um yeah, you could probably start Mason Taylor every every week if you needed to because he is getting the targets and the Jets are 0 and five and they're probably going to be losing a lot of games and probably playing from behind in a lot of second half. So, um those were 12 players skyrocketing up our rest of season rankings. If you guys want our up updated rest of season rankings, head on down to the link uh in the description here. You guys can see it on the screen. Use code FSE for 30% off a Flock Fantasy subscription and a free team review. If you sign up annually, you can still get our season pass from now until the rest of the season. You'd be covered. It's cheaper than getting it monthly for the rest of the season. And of course um we have our Dynasty rankings up to date, Dynasty trade value chart up to date. And um you can use our trade calculator, our trade finder tools, tons of things to help you win your fantasy football leagues. This is the crunch time, man. Some people can get by in in September with, you know, a couple good draft picks, a couple early um, you know, wins or whatever, but this is the time that separates the lucky fantasy players from the good fantasy players. So, this is the time you need to be active making trades, kind of determining what players you have that you want to keep, what players you have that you want to sell high on, and that kind of thing. And our trade calculator and my teams tools are legitimately the best things out there. Like, you and I both use them pretty much on like a daily basis or borderline daily basis. is in our trade calculator. Fully customizable to your league settings. So, if you're in an eight team, start seven, it's not going to give you the same answer as a league that you and I might be in, like a start 9, uh, 12 team, tight end, premium, or something like that. It adjusts to your specific league settings. It is the single best trade calculator out there. And the my teams feature, same thing. You get to see the needs of your league mates and who might be at the top of your specific league. So, check that out. That'll be linked down below in the description in the pin comment. Like, subscribe if you enjoyed this video. Comment any of your thoughts down below. Who do we miss? Who's skyrocketing for you? But with that being said, peace out. We'll talk to you soon.