Week 9 Fantasy Football STATS vs FILM

Welcome to week nine. This is stats versus film, where we take a look at every single game that just happened in week eight. Watch the tape and then compare it to the underlying metrics, the spreadsheets, the most important stats out there, in the hopes of answering and helping you win your week nine fantasy football matchup.

Hayden, I think only one game had a point differential of less than 10 this past week.

It felt like it, that's for sure. Uh, there is less and less to talk about. I still think this will be an extended episode. You already can see the time codes. But with that said, I do believe it is more important now than ever to figure out the good players on the good teams and then also the usable pieces on the bad teams, of which there are many in the NFL right now.

As the season progresses, we chop off more names that we don't need to talk about, and then by the end of the season, we start chopping off entire teams. And, uh, unfortunately, we've already started to kind of do that. There's a couple teams that it's, it's hard to find any fantasy starters, but we'll try.

At the same time, we know based on our Sunday morning show that many of you are in a pickle when it comes to these by-weeks and these injuries, and you need someone off the waiver wire to immediately start your wide receiver spot or your tight end spot, or heck, even your running back two spot. So, we're basically going to talk about every single fantasy relevant player here today. And we kick things off with some prime time games that United did not get to discuss on Sunday Night Football. And that means Monday Night Football.

And the Kansas City Chiefs look absolutely amazing as they head into their by-week in a couple of weeks, in week 10. But right now, before then, we need to talk about this running room because Isaiah Pacheco is weak to an MCL sprain. You and I, I test wise, believe he has looked quite good over the last couple weeks, but that has not really turned itself into fantasy points because the short yardage stuff has gone to Kareem Hunt near the goal line, and then Pacheco has done all the flashy stuff. So then how do Hunt and Smith handle the workload without Pacheco?

We don't know exactly how long Pacheco is going to miss. MCL sprains could be like one week, they can be six plus weeks, they can be the whole season. Sounds like this one's probably going to be just a couple weeks here. Uh, what's interesting because there has not been a clear-cut fantasy starter. We don't envision the Chiefs as using their running backs a lot, but over the last month, they're actually number one in running back usage collectively. So when we go from three down to two, we can actually have some fantasy interest in both of the running backs. So in a full PPR league, obviously Pacheco becomes more of a power player, but last week it was a lot of Kareem Hunt always at the goal line. So Kareem Hunt's going to be the guy I'm going to be ranking ahead of Pacheco in the interim. Uh, but Pacheco is very intriguing. Um, I think the harder part for for both of these guys is Rasheed Rice and Travis Kelce are both getting a ton of touches near the goal line as well. Um, but as long as the Chiefs keep putting up the amount of points that they are, then I do think we should feel fairly comfortable with with both of these guys.

I'm more into Kareem Hunt than the Pacheco stuff. Uh, touchdowns matter the most. And when they are inside the 5-yard line, Kareem Hunt is getting all of those. Uh, that's his specialty at this moment. And I would still expect him to take on more of the workload that we got from Pacheco if Pacheco is sidelined. And then Pacheco late in games has seen true running back work, but then in kind of the flow, the true game plan of it when they're not up by 17 points or so, uh, his stuff has been more wide receiver into jet sweeps into motion into wide receiver screen things. Now, that's not to say he's not going to get, you know, true running back snaps, and I'm sure like Elijah Mitchell will be activated here on game days now on top of it. Uh, and so he should see a few more true running back carries, but you know, we like the touchdowns and that's what Kareem Hunt is doing.

You mentioned Rasheed Rice. Right now, just two games, he is the wide receiver one in points per game, uh, at around 20 and a half. That is more than Puka Nacua, who, yes, missed half of his last timeout because of injury. And then JSN, they've both been unbelievable, but it shows you just how unbelievable Rasheed Rice has been since. And we kind of predicted that he would. And on top of it, Hayden, he's like this close to a couple more touchdowns this season, too.

Yeah, it's crazy. So, last week on film, they were just getting after Bobby Wagner repeatedly. So, there was a couple of like his the one touchdown from about 25 yards out. That was Bobby Wagner versus Rasheed Rice. We know who wins that foot race, but there's some other times where even on some of the screens that didn't end up going anywhere, it was to get Bobby Wagner circled. So, Bobby Wagner every single week is just chasing players into the end zone. So that's going to be something that we always should think about against the Commanders. But even without that, you talk about it. There's they're getting the ball in so many different ways and he can kind of stretch the field a little bit more too. So you're going to have this like super high floor and the like crazy touchdown games are coming because like you said, he's been tackled at the one-yard line a million times as well.

On top of that, the Chiefs have been extremely lucky this season in this one stat. The Chiefs have now recovered all eight of their fumbles this season on offense. I mean, there is such a thing as fumble luck. It's an oblong-shaped leather rock that once it hits the floor, you don't know which direction it's bouncing. And right now, it's bouncing in the direction of every Kansas City Chiefs offensive player.

Yes, I will say they are just moving the ball relentlessly right now.

Correct. Uh, the ball breaks their way some, but they're just consistently moving the ball down the field. Um, did want to give a couple other, uh, shout outs here. Travis Kelce. Now that drop for an interception, like we got to clean that up. But I think that he still looks pretty fast, you know, just in general. They're getting him some space. There was one rep, um, where it was for Rasheed Rice earlier in the game. The all these teams are playing zone defense against Patrick Mahomes, and when Patrick Mahomes breaks the pocket, the linebackers have to decide, all right, time to go chase Patrick Mahomes or stay on my man. And they can never get it right. And Travis Kelce, a couple of those plays were, uh, very similar to that, including his big play where he was actually just blocking, sneaks out the backside there. But he is the tight end four on tight end 12 usage this month. So, there's some overlap with Rasheed Rice, but this team's better than most people thought going into the season. And I do think that Travis Kelce is going to be able to hold on for tight end one, uh, usage the rest of the way. Xavier Worthy is he's the one that's been taking more of the backseat the last couple weeks.

Yeah, I mean, Kelce's going to be top 12 in fantasy usage. I think pretty obvious here. It just to me matters if he's going to be a top five tight end the rest of the way or like six through 12. Um, he's on that fringe kind of at this point, and it might kind of be matchup dependent for him a little bit in that obviously we just talked about Bobby Wagner and Frankie Luvu against every opponent they're facing right now is just, uh, bottom of the barrel type stuff. They get the Buffalo Bills this week, then a bye-week, and then the Denver Broncos after that. Um, but then, you know, in a couple weeks, it's like the Dallas Cowboys, for example. So, we're I think we're going to really be able to pick our spots here with Travis Kelce.

Okay, next, let's talk about those Washington Commanders. Um, we mentioned it last week. They were what, three and four. They're staring in the face of maybe three and seven with this injury and this to Jaden Daniels and the schedule that they have coming up. Uh, we finally did get Terry McLaurin back on the field. Obviously, his link up with Marcus Mariota isn't quite to the degree as it is with Jaden Daniels, but we did see some outstanding diving and leaping and sideline grabs for T-Mac, which was very, very cool.

Yeah, just a reminder how good he is when he's healthy. We have not seen that for much of this season. And then late in the game did have, uh, a quad, uh, injury, which is the same one. So, I don't know the second feel.

Yeah, I mean, you never you never like to see it, but they're they're desperate right now for a win, so that's why they got him back out there. Um, it sounds like Jaden Daniels was probably going to play this next game and they just knew that they were probably not going to be able to beat the Chiefs. So, uh, there's some splits. Didn't want to note here. Debo Samuel with Marcus Mariota is only averaging 8.6 expected fantasy points. With Jaden Daniels, that's up at 11.8. I think that's just because they're moving the football, uh, cleaner. I think Marcus Mariota has been like totally fine. There's some drops in this one. Um, he's just not going to have the same explosiveness as Jaden Daniels. So they desperately need Jaden to be back to himself, but he's been dealing with multiple injuries, uh, throughout the year. I think that's really hit Jakobi Meyers the most recently.

Yeah. And look, if the Commanders are only going to score 10 or 17 points, then Breece Hall likely will not get there because while I think he is a talented runner and we see him with some explosive runs and how he kind of weaves between the tackles is really fun,

Uh,

you know, if you're not scoring touchdowns, you're not going to score fantasy points and they're just not getting the opportunities inside the red zone, uh, to give them to just him. And by the way, when they are trailing, then you know, the other running backs, including Jeremy McNichols, get tons of opportunities.

Yeah, McNichols finished with more touches in the second half than, uh, Breece. So, he's he's pretty much fantasy Brian Robinson. Uh, he's much better than Brian Robinson, but Brian Robinson was always game script dependent. He was a fantasy RB2 when the Commanders were rolling and when the Commanders weren't rolling, uh, he was barely a flex play, and that's how we should be viewing Breece Hall. So, he's just one of these guys. When the Commanders are projected for 26 points, love him. He'll be my RB 15. And when they're projected for 18 points, he's the RB 26. And like that's just there's nothing we can do about it. But that's just the state of the Commanders.

Yeah. And when they score seven, he bottoms out. That's just what's to be expected here. And they face the Seattle Seahawks next. Uh, and their defense isn't going to let up at all for this Commander offense.

Okay, Green Bay Packers are up next. Let's go back to Sunday Night Football. I think there's a number of areas we can attack this, but maybe most of all is the wide receiver position because Hayden, you and I do draft content from, I don't know, February through the last weekend of April. Uh, we know that Christian Watson was not a first-round NFL draft pick until the college football playoff. So, are we having to wait until he's a viable fantasy football asset until the fantasy football playoffs? Better in baseball only at this point. So, he finished second in routes ahead of Christian Watson, but was not a full-time player. And this is one of these offenses where I think Jordan Love, as good as he's been, and he's he's very, very, very talented. I do think that this playbook is more centered around like schematic touches and having a game plan. All right, this is a Tucker Kraft play intentionally. This is a Christian Watson shot play intentionally. This is a Christian Watson underneath yard after the catch attempt intentionally. So I think this is a team that's just going to spread the ball out evenly, and this is also a team that likes to run the ball, especially inside the 10-yard line. Christian Watson's not going to get there. So this month, post-bye rookie bump be damned, he's the RB or the wide receiver 76 in expected points only at 3.4. Last night, and I think Christian Watson was actually moving extremely well. Like that insane Jordan Love play where he was rolling to the right and threw it over the freaking post safety for no reason at all just to complete it. He was absolutely hauling ass. There's a good comeback route for Christian Watson. And this is all before Jayden Reed gets back, which I think he will be back by the fantasy playoff. So, really tough situation. Romeo Doubs' usage fell off. Christian Watson has always been a better end guy. Christian Watson and Jayden Reed also have been that. So, now we have four guys that are better end, not even just three.

Yeah, Romeo Doubs is the most predictable and most trustworthy from a usage standpoint for this team.

After that, it gets extremely unpredictable. As soon as you know Jayden Reed leaves, then you know you bring in Malik Heath, and now you bring in Christian Watson. So it's just continuing the rotation aspect.

Behind Doubs. Yeah, I mean, with Christian Watson after a multi-month injury, right, a year at this point, played nearly the exact same amount of snaps as Christian Watson did. Um, Christian Watson was a very difficult evaluation I felt coming out of Texas because again,

no sarcasm here. The first half of that season for Texas, Isaiah Bond was like the more productive kind of better player for that Texas passing offense, and then we get like the final four or five games of the year, and that's when Christian Watson goes crazy. And this was after I felt when I went back and watched his game at the University of Houston was not great.

Uh, I mean, it was drops everywhere. It was it was actually quite bad. And so he did take a leap, and I was hoping, and you know, we were both hoping that, oh, they finally spent a first-round pick on Christian Watson heading into, you know, this season. They had done this wide receiver rotation thing in the past. This was to hopefully expand the passing game. I could say technically it has improved the passing game, and I have some stats to back that up. But that does not mean that Christian Watson has been an every-down, every-style of wide receiver and quote unquote target earner out there, and he's more of just a role player, a first-round role player for this.

Yeah, he's super young. So I think long-term it'll kind of square itself out, and they won't have all these wide receivers. But what you said is all true. On a per-target basis, including some of the overthrows, like imagine if we got some of those overthrows, which were not his fault at all. He would be the most efficient player in the NFL, but just on a very, very low volume. So, there's some Jameson Williams kind of, uh, thing going on with Christian Watson. He gets some manufactured touches, and I do think that he looks pretty explosive on that. But, you are right. He's just not a full-time player. I was just looking at it this month. They're, uh, 22nd in wide receiver usage as a team. So, like the pie is already small because they're so balanced on offense, and now you start cutting that thing up three, four ways. There's no floor on a week-to-week basis. And next week, we can be talking about, look at how great this double move Christian Watson had on an 80-yard touchdown.

But that could also not happen until week 16.

You know me, I I like to cite the Ron Stewart stat that we had this summer of, you know, 14 wide receivers since whatever 2019 have gone on to average 12, 14 half PPR points in the back half of their rookie year. Right. Based on though what we know now about Christian Watson, and this isn't necessarily the case with round two, three, four, five, six, seven rookie picks. This was a first-round rookie pick. I don't know if it is in, you know, LaFleur's lexicon to say, oh, actually Christian Watson now is going to be an every-down wide receiver. I kind of think like this is the role that he is going to have. So, I'm not as optimistic about him being one of the back half of, uh, the fantasy season for rookies as I am with some other guys.

Completely fair. And I think long-term Christian Watson's going to be pretty dang good attached to to Jordan Love. I think the the two big reasons why he's not going to pan out this year is because Josh Jacobs and Tucker Kraft. So, quickly on Josh Jacobs, I know it's a weird week. He's dealing with an injury, but over the last 365 days, he's fantasy's RB5. Tucker Kraft has fully ascended. He's now the tight end one on tight end two usage this month. Stone cold baller. The yards after the catch stuff is incredible because he is so much bigger and he's still like just as fast as some of these DBs. It's He really reminds me of George Kittle. He He's bigger than George Kittle. Um, but I think we're like getting to the All-Pro status with Tucker Kraft. I think that's become the consensus, but for right reason.

We talked about it this summer. At some point in drafts, the tight ends were projected for the same amount of fantasy points as or more than the wide receivers or running backs that they were drafted around. Like I took Tucker Kraft in a league where I already drafted George Kittle, and now I'm playing both in my starting lineups.

Yep. Because Tucker Kraft can easily outscore a bunch of these,

Yep.

you know, random wide receivers that we're picking up on a week.

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think by round 10, it was clear that the tight ends just straight up out-projected the wide receivers. We're starting to see that like even guys like David Njoku and like that tier of tight ends are still outperforming the wide receivers in that tier. So, it's kind of a weird thing. We need to reset the, uh, the way we kind of look at wide receivers, uh, in in the offseason. I think.

Like here's an example I I have where Tucker Kraft finished in ADP this September. Uh, the two wide receivers and two picks directly after him were Rashod Bateman and Christian Kirk.

It's not even close. Yeah.

It's not even close.

It's not even close.

Marvin Mims was five picks after him, for example. Uh, final note on this, and to me, this is one of the reasons why they aren't changing, and why should they? You and I believe that the Packers are one of the best teams in the NFL, which by the way, they are projected to score, I think, a cool 28 and 3/4 points this weekend.

Uh, and this is from the great Retrie. The Packers have converted a league-high 48.5% of their third and long plays, needing seven-plus yards on third and long. The next closest team are the Rams converting 33%, and the league average is at 24%. So they double the league average in terms of getting into these third and seven equations, which I don't know how often they do that because you also have Josh Jacobs moving the pile and picking up, you know, successful runs on early downs too. I think it's all Jordan Love. Like the the big play, the Tucker Kraft yards after the catch play where he took a huge shot down the field. Like he understood the leverage as a man coverage down the field, back turned, throw it up, and then the out-of-structure stuff. He's just so aggressive. Him and Matthew Stafford play football similar. Obviously, Stafford just understands defenses a little bit better. But that aggressiveness pays off in those situations.

This is anecdotal. I do think how the Packers team looks on any given week, their passing offense is also determined on if Jordan Love hits those passes 10 to 19 yards because they don't throw a ton of those. You know, I think he's like 22nd or something like that across the league on percent of his passes that go 10 to 19 yards because we know they do the short stuff and then obviously he's super ambitious and throws the downfield things.

Um, I think on this week he hit like all five or all six of his passes in the 10 to 19-yard range, and there are other weeks he might hit one or two.

Yeah. And then, you know, these drives kind of fizzle out.

From there.

Okay. Uh, let's talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers, their opponents in that game. I have truly nothing to add here other than my eye is still on this backfield usage because it's not uber consistent in terms of the exact splits every single week. Like as you are showing here, uh, it wasn't just Jaylen Warren in the first half. Kenny Gainwell got about six or seven touches in that first half, and then when they were trailing in the second half, uh, basically they combined for about five or six touches.

Yep. They just if they don't have the lead, they're just going to have to pass the ball more, and I think we have to worry about how often this team's going to be leading because this defense is just getting, I mean, every single week they just get annihilated. So whether it's a good offense that they're facing or a bad one, there's guys wide open. Uh, Tucker Kraft, they're just throwing everybody. So, it's like kind of like a slow and kind of soft defense in general after the catch. Um, so yeah, I just think they're pretty poorly coached on top of that on defense. So, this team's going to have to get themselves into shootouts. Didn't want to credit DK Metcalf. Uh, he had that goal-line touchdown, which was cool. There's a couple like, you like checks from Aaron Rodgers, which is like nice to see. Uh, and he was nearly this close. He should have had that long touchdown where, uh, Rodgers started to the right, go back to Metcalf on the outside. So, Metcalf, he's the wide receiver 17 on wide receiver 23 usage. He's playing better football and scoring more fantasy points than I would have anticipated. Uh, and if this defense is going to start, you know, keep on averaging like 28 points allowed or whatever it is, uh, DK Metcalf is going to have to get going because they don't really trust anybody else in the wide receiver group.

I think their head coach and Mike Tomlin called the defense historic potentially prior to this season, and it might be on the opposite end of the spectrum versus what

he was suggesting.

And look, once we're through eight weeks of the NFL season, we kind of poke holes in, hey, which teams did this organization actually beat to get their winning record at four and three?

Uh, the Steelers beat the Jets in week one. We know that one was barely. They did beat the Patriots in week three, which is a good win. Then they beat the Carson Wentz-led Minnesota Vikings, and they beat the Dillon Gabriel-led Cleveland Browns, and those are their four wins this season.

Yep. They're all right. They're all right. And then somehow Mike Tomlin might get them in the playoffs. But maybe this is the year. I know what you're thinking, Josh, you give incredible fantasy football advice. Thank you. That's why I'm here. I also know that you're thinking, Josh, you have a horrific hairline. I do. So do many of you. So do many of men across the world. And if you're worried about yours or worried about it receding in the future, you should all be checking out HIMS, which by the way, is incredibly approachable. Everything is online. You get a very personalized treatment plans that take and set your goals first. There are no hidden fees. There are no surprise costs, just real personalized care on your schedule. It's very convenient, and they offer all sorts of different treatments. So, for a simple online access to personalized and affordable care for hair loss, ED, weight loss, and more, visit forhims.com/underdog. Yes, that's forhims.com/underdog for your online visit. forhims.com/underdog. Individual results may vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride. Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information.

Let's talk about those Minnesota Vikings. Because actually, let's rewind. Okay, 3, 2, 1. Now to some quarterback changes across the league. Let's go over to the New Orleans Saints because it finally happened. Too many turnovers for for Spencer Rattler. A really halftime benching, uh, this past week against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has now led to the 26-year-old, 40th overall pick in Tyler Shough being the new starting quarterback for the Saints. And I can interpret this in two different ways. One, I thought Spencer Rattler was a fun player this year and kept this team a bit more afloat in games than other quarterbacks would have because of his athleticism, because of his maneuverability, because of throwing on the run and picking up yards and scrambles. But I totally understand that at some point when you are one and seven and you have too many turnovers, then you're going to get benched. The other part of this is the Saints have to see what they have in once again, a 26-year-old, 40th overall pick. And this is why Tyler Shough, uh, is starting from here on out, probably.

Yeah, you have to see him. You spent too high of a draft pick to not see him. They're going to have one of the top three, four, five picks in the draft, and there's a couple quarterbacks that are going to be out there that are going to be in consideration. So, you have to go into this probably giving Rattler and Shough about half the season each. So, I think what I think you can make a decent argument that Spencer Rattler is a top 32 NFL quarterback in the league. Is that the goal of an organization to have one of those, or is the goal of the organization to have a top 10 quarterback? And I think that's the difference between Rattler is like I think he's a low-end NFL starter, but I struggle to see how he's going to be one of the top, uh, 10 guys in the league. And if you got one of the top five picks, you need to swing for the fences. Um, so I don't think Tyler Shough also has, you know, that high-end talent either. So he was my 56th overall player in the draft. He went just ahead of that. Um, we'll see. I I think the the big takeaway for fantasy is the the offense is still going to pass the ball a lot because they can't run the ball without McCoy their center. Um, and just who, who are they passing the ball to? And like that, we still have the trade conversation where like Sher once again said he thinks he is going to get traded here, and if that does happen, there's only so many guys you can even throw the ball to in this offense. So that in theory would make Chris Olave a little little bit more fun.

I did go back and watch the half that we got from Tyler Shough against this Bucks defense, which by the way, Todd Bowles can do some interesting things, and he's trying to play from behind, uh, in that scenario as well. We've always said it about Tyler Shough. He's a catch and shoot, uh, quarterback in that he just wants his back foot and and let it go. That means you're going to get quick outs, you're going to get hinge routes. Uh, to me, whenever he is moved off of his spot, some alarms go off. Uh, yes, we know there was that compilation of his time at Louisville that, uh, he just does not like contact. Let's put it that way. Um, and then also I just think his accuracy falls off there, and just like the downfield element falls off there. Yeah, he also missed Rashid Shaheed on what should have been a touchdown that kind of hit the white paint along the sideline and didn't even give his wide receiver a chance when it should have been honestly a better quarterback would have hit a walk-in score there. So, I'm not saying like this passing offense is going to fall off a cliff. They're still going to run a ton of plays, and you know, Kellen Moore is going to give his quarterback answers. I would just expect it to be a bit more confined to the pocket, and I do worry that that's going to result in maybe shorter drives because if the athleticism element isn't here, then, you know, they might not have as many sustained or scoring chances.

Yeah, I think we largely saw Shough about the same. Um, outside the pocket, just complete collapses. Inside the pocket, I do think that he can spin it, and he in a straight line, he can run and like pick up a first down. So, like I think you're hoping he turns into like Ryan Tannehill. I thought Ryan Tannehill was a little bit better of an all-around athlete. Um, and Ryan Tannehill became good about 10 years into his career. Um, and Ryan Tannehill earlier on, um, there's a reason why he had to switch teams. So, expectations are really low. That pocket that you're talking about is very worrisome. Their best player right now on the offensive line is a rookie left tackle. The rest of the offensive line is is pretty banged up right now. So, we're going to have some issues right there.

As you noted, season low 4.8 half PPR expected points in this game. Even with Kendre Miller out, he and Deon Neal split snaps 50/50. Um, that's not going to be a recipe for success for a running back in this operation. And now they go on the road to face the Los Angeles Rams.

I think other games will be better. Uh, they didn't even try to run the ball. That's what teams do against the Buccaneers. Like you got Vea and you got a backup center. It's just like, we're going to pass the ball. So it was the highest neutral pass rate of the season for the Saints. So you're going to get the running backs more involved. A lot of the Deon Neal stuff happened in the fourth quarter when the game was over, but it was not bell cow Alvin Kamara. Deon Neal got touches in the first half as well. So yeah, there's going to be really, really low and expected points. This, I think this is a perfect team to bring this up. I have a chart on expected touchdowns by team just to the running backs, and you can see all the good teams are up here on the right side, and then you got the Titans and the Saints by themselves way down here. So, these teams are never in the red area. They're always chasing points. You don't use your running backs in those situations. So, uh, that's how the Saints have two total touchdowns from their running backs this year. There it is.

Okay. The other team that changed quarterbacks, uh, Minnesota Vikings. Carson Wentz, after the Thursday night contest, uh, now is going to have season-ending surgery on his shoulder. It just sounds broken.

I'm no doctor.

There were a lot of reports of what it was. It sounds broken, and he played through it and seemed like he played through injury for multiple weeks. So now they go to J.J. McCarthy and was it Boyer as the backup quarterback. In that same clip that you cited with Rashid Shaheed from Adam Schefter, he also mentioned that they might be making a move for a veteran backup quarterback on top of this after trading away Sam Howell, who was terrible in the preseason.

I don't know. I mean, I've had the stance the entire time. People haven't liked it. Some people really like it. He had this injury, the shoulder injury, uh, overseas in that last game, and he played two and a half games with it, and he was medically JJ McCarthy was medically cleared for the last two games. That's that's why he was the emergency quarterback. The doctors cleared him. So, they chose to go with an injured Carson Wentz because they wanted to develop JJ McCarthy behind the scenes. It's it's go time now. No excuses. They're not going to play Boyer. So, we're going to see J.J. McCarthy, and then hopefully all that footwork that he's been working on, uh, gets cleaned up instantly. Uh, this team has like a sub 10% chance of making the playoffs. You look at the simulators, like 5%. So, this is strictly about making sure Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison get their fantasy points, and then making sure that there's at least some progression and growth from J.J. McCarthy. Um, because the record's going to probably be pretty bad. The defense is just they just don't have enough horses. is like I like the Brian Flores defense, but at some point you got to get your edge rushers and your corners a little bit better play than what they've gotten out of this. So, it's a very mediocre team in general. So, it's like all Justin Jefferson and Kevin O'Connell at this point.

Yeah, on defense, they're not causing as much chaos as they did last year. And like, you know, not having Andrew Van Ginkel is a a part of that. Yes, literally a dude that was picking off pick sixes on screen passes, like that is, you know, points in your favor to help win those games.

Uh, look, J.J. McCarthy is incredibly young, and he's played very little NFL football. He was a first-round pick, and I liked certain elements of his game coming out. Again, we always talk about like the third and seven-plus reel, uh, and stuff at Michigan was really good, and he was very good at attacking the middle of the field in in that stuff. But Hayden, I I don't think it's a crazy thing to say that this rest of the season will determine how much of an investment other than J.J. McCarthy the Vikings are going to make at quarterback this offseason. Again, we heard the flirtations that they had from Donnie Rousini with even Aaron Rodgers, who by the way, either could play next year, and he's only on a one-year deal right now with the Pittsburgh Steelers. So maybe they go back in for that. They also tried to resign Daniel Jones last season.

Could you imagine if they go all in on Daniel Jones after the Colts season?

Oh my gosh.

So again, these are just all possibilities. And this Vikings schedule is a buzzsaw right now. It's on the road at Detroit, then Baltimore, then Chicago, then Green Bay, and then Seattle over the next fiveish games. So look, I I really want J.J. to play well. I have certainly not ended his career at this point, but other than that really one quarter that he had in the first, I mean, he's only played about eight quarters in the NFL so far, but one of them he was good, and the other seven have been bad. So hopefully he has been able to kind of reset,

and figure it out, and we can see what moves on here because, uh, I would love to see him be good because I think Kevin O'Connell is a very good coach, and uh, Josh McDaniels is a good position coach on top of it.

They both are. J.J. McCarthy was also super inexperienced just in the total amount of dropbacks in college versus everybody else. He stands out. He's like a total outlier. And the more like study the game, the more appreciation I have of just experiencing the NFL. It's so complicated, and you can learn things each and every year, like even your 10th year and stuff. So look at all the breakout candidates at quarterback this year. They've been in the league for almost a decade at this point. So, uh, inexperienced quarterbacks, like you really have to grade on a curve. And I I do think we should be very patient with the J.J. McCarthy expectations coming out of this. And I do think how they've handled his injury and how long they chose to not play him, I think are signs that they know he's not ready to go fully, uh, like a normal starting NFL quarterback is. So luckily he's got Kevin O'Connell. Luckily he's got those two receivers and Hockenson and both running backs are healthy. So there's enough to work with here. But just wanted to mention like inexperience at quarterback. Like that's the number one recipe for an absolute disaster situation.

Right? And a lot of these guys have experience in bad situations, and then they can learn from that and turn it around and then turn around in better environments too, you know. Yeah. So, this is the environment he has, and for many other quarterbacks, it has been very good. And I'm not saying, you know, the 2025 team is exactly the same as the 2024, 2023, and all that type of stuff. Yeah.

Um, anyways, I do want to talk about the running backs here, too, because Aaron Jones returned for the Vikings, and then Jordan Mason immediately dropped down to 35% snaps. Now, part of that is obviously game script, but yeah, that's important to call out that Aaron Jones, who by the way started the first and third drives, and that mean Jordan Mason started the second and fourth drives, just cuts his opportunity basically in half when it's neutral or positive. And then when it's negative, he's just not going to be on the field.

Yep. And it got so negative last week that Xavier Scott was still getting some snaps late in the game. Now, it's going to be a pretty even split. I think we know that what Aaron Jones is good at versus Jordan Mason. Uh, but this team also has to be, uh, leading for Jordan Mason to have a chance. Reminder, when we were drafting in the offseason, the expectation was this team just won 14 games. Kevin O'Connell's the GOAT. This team is going to be top 10 in offensive numbers. It's going to be bottom 10 the rest of the way. That's that's what I think it's going to be. And or about league average. Uh, and they were what, like the RB 26 and RB 30 in drafts. So, I think like expectations here should be pretty low. And I will probably be ranking Aaron Jones ahead of Jordan Mason. Jordan Mason when I was at the game, I didn't I was listening to the broadcast. I don't know, but it was pretty evident that he was dealing with some injury early on. He was kind of like laying on the sideline when I was there. Um, and he's coming off a season low. But if this team, I don't know what their expected points are, uh, this next week, but I wouldn't be surprised if they kind of hover around 21 points, and we're chopping up the running back spot in two ways. It's it's not that pretty.

Okay, let's talk about another NFC North team here in the Chicago Bears. Uh, ever since that final drive circus fiasco, uh, there's been, I think, a tweet from every single Chicago sports radio show and a lot of the beat writers, too, that have been extremely negative just on the overall Bears right now, and specifically Caleb Williams. After you went back and watched the game, what was your conclusion?

There were mistakes everywhere. Obviously, the interception we talked about on the recap show with Caleb, you can't do that. He paused in the pocket. I thought there were other reps with his accuracy drops when he does that, like stand in the pocket, stop moving his feet, have no rhythm, and then the ball sprays there. There were other throws where it was in sensational. I thought the D.J. Moore throw, uh, was actually like a really nice throw, uh, uh, and decision there. The final sequence, though, like obviously go for a quarterback sneak at the one-yard line that scores a touchdown. No one thinks that was a bad idea. It does not. The last play, though, was I thought D.J. Moore's fault. So, Caleb Williams, uh, was looking to the right. D.J. Moore is wide open in the back of the end zone. He can choose to sit at the A of the Ravens or the E of the Ravens, uh, in the end zone. He he sits in the V. The problem is there's a linebacker sitting right in front of him. So, Caleb is just trying to lead the ball to this open space. D.J. Moore does the one thing you can't do in zone coverage is sit directly behind the linebacker. There's nobody else in the way. So, it's like another one of these things where D.J. Moore is an exciting athlete, but does not play the position of wide receiver as a full-time, like ready-to-go superstar wide receiver. And like we see some of these things. It's hard from the broadcast angle and say, "Oh, the the quarterback's at fault here." I don't know, man. That seemed like it was the wide receiver's fault.

I totally agree on that final play. Uh, again, they didn't show the replay from an end zone angle during the broadcast. When you go back and watch it, uh, he just sat behind Roquan Smith, and you just can't get the football there.

Uh, we can also see that the disconnect between D.J. Moore and Caleb Williams has now been evident for a season and a half. I mean, the stuff last year was not good. They were not on the same page, and then this year, they're just never really in sync. Um, I did want to bring up some quotes here from Ben Johnson, which I actually totally agree with with Caleb Williams. Quote, "He played better this game than I think he had the previous two." When you look at it all 60 minutes, and I'm not saying it's perfect. I actually came away from watching the tape this morning encouraged that we took a step in the right direction here this week. I know for some people, it's hard, maybe to rationalize because the result wasn't there, but yeah, I saw tangible growth from him.

I agree with that wholeheartedly. Um, so it's interesting to me that there's this like overwhelming sentiment that, oh, I don't know if Caleb has as strong of a future that many of us predicted from so many people out there. Maybe that's just because they lost this one, and they won the last two. I thought the last two were worse individual performances. Now again, speaking of disconnects,

here's another quote on again the brutal interception from Caleb Williams. You cannot throw that with what, nine minutes to go from your own end zone, only down by three points. That gives the other team a touchdown and gives them the game, right? But on that, Caleb said, quote, "It was a good read. Rome was in man-to-man with a guy that caught the pick." But then Ben Johnson, after reviewing the game, said, "I'd like to see him check the ball down there." So, I still don't think that Caleb Williams is like perfectly executing what Ben Johnson wants. And there was even another play that I thought the three levels that he threw to Devin Duvernay. Like, I've seen Jared Goff make that throw to Jameson Williams five times for long scores. And then Caleb Williams doesn't even put it in the area code for the guy to even have a chance and throws it out of the end zone. So, I'm sure that if I see that, Ben Johnson also sees that and says, "Okay, I just came from Jared, who has his own flaws." And when I dial that up, he makes that throw. And Caleb's not doing that for me right now, too.

Caleb's worst moments are just really bad, like inexperienced quarterback type of stuff, which we were hoping we were not going to get with the first overall pick, but there was like some intentional groundings where it's like, I'm not even sure if it was his fault or if the receiver was supposed to to run the hot route. I don't know. Ben Johnson would know that type of thing. There was also DeAndre Swift, uh, where like the the blitzer would be kind of like just hitting the center to allow the defensive tackle to kind of loop around, but the offensive line and DeAndre Swift multiple times were not were not able.

to pick up that exchange. There were some some running back pass protection moments that were bad. And then also like Caleb Williams in the two-minute drill when they missed the the field goal, he slides inbounds at the 40-yard line. He could have ran out of bounds and you just can't slide there. Like that was another thing where it's like, man, Caleb, like I'm I'm pointing out the good plays. You're actually playing decent quarterback. But some of those moments, it's like you're just not fully there mentally right now. So that's I think the inexperiencedness of it all.

Um, and that's what makes him very polarizing and frustrating because you can obviously point to 10 plays like look how terrible he is and then I can point to 10 plays how good he is where if you start averaging this out, what Ben Johnson's saying is like he's making some progress here. We got some things to work on, but it's not as bad as as some people are making it out to be. It's odd. Overall, I think it's actually been more of a positive season for Caleb Williams than a negative one. Whereas the national sentiment believes it's more of a negative one than a positive one. You can even look in individual games where I felt that, oh, there's actually a good Caleb Williams game, but they've lost.

And then when they've won, it hasn't been a good Caleb game, but then it's not until they lose that it's brought up that he had a bad performance. So, it's weird. He he has high highs and like you're saying and low lows on top of it. I am still a Caleb guy. I think he's still going to be quite good in the NFL, especially like you said, if he can find just like this middle ground, just Yeah.

Do the easy stuff really well, which again, I actually thought in this game he had some nice checkdowns and hots when he needed to. Uh, he just kind of loses his head in certain. He plays a little bit, not panicked, but stressed out, just like.

The other part of this, Ben Johnson isn't going to allow that. You know, Ben Johnson at some point, his entire goal is to iron out these stupid mistakes and these stupid moments. So, it's going to have to work between these two or else like, you know, I don't know what will happen. But Ben Johnson is the type that will make sure he kind of masters the simple stuff.

Um, I did want to bring up the running back things because you mentioned DeAndre Swift. Kamanka got a ton of grief in preseason and in the opening parts of this season for his pass protection rightfully so. He has had some awesome pass protection reps over this past week and including this week. And then we saw like early on in this game it was real 50/50 work. So Swift has been and we've talked about an excellent pick over these last three games. They figured out this edge run stuff. The same time Manungai has popped when it comes to between the tackles and even some elements where you're showing improvement to.

Yeah, that first drive was a really long drive from the Bears and DeAndre Swift got him down there and then Kyle Manungai had a chance to score a touchdown down there and then he was just always involved. Uh DeAndre Swift still leading in snaps, but it is close in terms of touches and just high value touches. It's still like remarkably DeAndre Swift, so he had like three goal line carries down there in a row.

Um, so yeah, it it was a weird game. DeAndre Swift still does some frustrating things and then at the same time he still creates some explosives. So they're like trying to figure out how much do they want to live with is like a boom bust running back. Uh, and Kyle Manungai I think is like holding the line. So I think Manungai was somebody I talked about on the Waverwire show like you got to get him just in case this flips but at the same time this month DeAndre Swift the RB5 and RB14 usage and I think is like.

I think he's going to be a guy that we're going to be able to you could nitpick him but I think the fantasy points are going to keep coming back to him. I am not suggesting that this is going to flip. What I'm suggesting is the Bears this week are projected for 27 points against this Bengals defense. I think you can be worse off if you are super struggling for a running back too or super struggling for your second flex spot than someone like Kamanga.

Yep. He's been RB35 this month and that includes some negative game script games. Um, so yeah, I I see the same thing.

And finally, Coulson Lovelin in his first game really without Cole KT played 81% of the snaps and started every drive. Anything you want to add on to that? Yeah, I thought he was fine. There was like a good play yards after the catchwise. One of the intentional groundings, he was running a choice route, which not every tight end gets those type of routes and that was like a clear like man coverage rep. So, um I think eventually it'll be there. The offense is not good enough right now where you can fully trust him. And there's a lot of tight end lowend tight end ones right now. So, I think he's still a a streamer tight end two type and we just don't know. Cole Kmet back trying to predict back injuries. I have no idea.

Okay, let's close out the headline teams with the Houston Texans because we've talked at length about wanting to see 2023 CJ Strad, Bobby Slowick pass protection plan stuff and we finally got it in week eight and it made its mark and we talked about this on Sunday night through six offensive lineman sets. So I think it was Blake Fischer, that's his name, uh came in as their sixth offensive lineman. In weeks one through seven they ran 30 total snaps of six O. In week eight, that skyrocketed up to just 26 snaps in just this week. Now, those 26 snaps included gains of 50, 44, 23, and 17 yards.

Hayden, sometimes that means no tight end in the field. Sometimes that means just two wide receivers on the field. But that also means that CJ Stra has plenty of room to hit his back foot and then climb and climb and climb and hit these two vertical route crisscross patterns down the field. And it really did feel like we got back in a time machine from two seasons ago.

Yeah, it was that big big cross route to Jaylen Null, which reminded me of the Tank Dell stuff uh during the rookie campaign. So like that was nice to see. They used it mostly to run the ball, but there was a couple play action under center attempts. I think that's where CJ Stroud was at his best. I thought CJ Strad just played much better football like him sliding up into the pocket and stuff. He's felt like a little bit uh crispier in that. And maybe some of it's just because he trusted the pass protection plan, but there was very obvious issues even the week before this that we brought up where you have like running backs chipping for tight ends slicing across wide receivers doing the same. It was like too complicated. This is like we have six guys that weigh 300 lbs. It's harder uh to get around those guys. And I I didn't hate it. And actually u Danloski said this. He said if you're not using some six uh offensive line um snaps per game, then you're kind of missing out on it. And I I'm here for it.

Right. And the Bills have done this plenty of times in previous years. They haven't done it this year because they're a third tight end and Jackson Halls is basically a six offensive lineman. So now that can be a new meta too is finding one of those guys. And yeah, even I think the 44-yard reception to Woody Marks that can be at play here because when you have two super vertical routes and then defensive backs chasing and linebackers pushing down the field, then one guy who is in pass protection can slip out and then has tons of room to run onto it.

Okay, Nico Collins we hope is returning soon from a concussion, but in his absence, we do need to talk about these three Iowa State wide receivers. Most notably, I think we should go to Jaylen Null first. On the negative side, he only ran 19 of 42 routes. On the positive end, Hayden, we saw an opening third and one, a full formation motion from him. Quick out, first down, a third and four, he ran into contact from the slot. He breaks it outside. Seven-yard gain. Another first down. Second and eight. Again, that two-man route like you talked about. 44-yard crossing route down the field. Another third and five conversion. And then they even tried to get him once again on a third and three screen that wasn't well blocked up front. So when he was on the field, he was basically getting the football and heavily targeted. I would love for those routes to double next week. And they should. They really should.

Unfortunately, they just view him as a slot wide receiver kind of. And like that's why the the the snaps are down. And when Nico Collins gets back, I don't think that Xavier Hutchinson's done enough bad things to remove him from the equation. And then you have.

Yeah, exactly. And then Jaden Higgins also had a couple plays as well. So that's where I want to have some hype. And like if you guys listen to the Waverwire show, I had them kind of buried down there just because I'm expecting Nico Collins to come back just because they had one good game. I don't trust the Texans offense like all of a sudden. like I I'm hopeful that they kind of turned the corner, but you can't trust them. And I don't think that they're going to remove Xavier Hutchinson from the equation. Uh, so now we're going to be slicing this thing a whole bunch of different ways. Um, especially when Nico Collins comes back. So So Jaden Higgins had 84% snaps, Xavier Hutchinson 72%. Some guy named Jared Wayne 43%. Jaylen Null 39%, and then Braxton Barios 29%. And the overarching point of this too is this was against the San Francisco 49ers who have played, you know, feisty defense this year despite missing everyone and now they're missing every pass rusher. So obviously when you have six offensive line versus a terrible pass rushing unit.

Yeah. Uh, you should have offensive success.

Yeah. Now we spin it forward to week eight. Hayden, they're at home against the Patrick Certan less Denver Broncos, but are only projected for 20 and a half points in this game. I think that goes to my point about I think we'll be able to point to some pauses from the rookie wide receivers. I do not think we have fantasy starters blooming and then Christian Kirk will come back eventually. And now that's another person we have to worry about. And Braxton, by the way, is still playing uh some snaps on top of it. So yeah, they're going to have to figure out Nick Bonito and that the rest of that defensive line, you know, so maybe another maybe they go a seventh offensive lineman. Who knows?

Rest of the way we go in alphabetical order. Before we get there, just want to say thank you to everyone who watches this episode for, I don't know, 30, 35, 40 minutes, if not the entire thing every single week. Uh, we're trying to get 170,000 subscribers by the end of the season. It gets more and more difficult as we get deeper and deeper into it. So, appreciate everyone who hits that subscribe button. And if you want to support us, the best way of doing that is to go play on the dog app on Underdog. We're in over 40 states at this point. So, if two, three years ago, you couldn't support us by playing on Underdog, now you can. Click the link in the description down below. Use promo code the show and if you play $5, we'll give you a 100 bucks. So now that like the World Series is going on. Uh, you get NBA stuff every single night and then obviously Thursday, Sunday, Monday with football along with college football uh go and play on underdog right now.

Let's kick things off with the Arizona Cardinals. They are one of the handful of teams coming out of a by-week. Hayden, we saw that they just cut Michael Carter who had started for them. He now has reverted back to their practice squad. Uh, but at least that leads me into thinking that Bam Knight is going to be the lead running back for this team for quite a few weeks moving forward.

At least one more game where Trey Benson's ineligible to play and we'll see if he's ready to go when he's when he is back. It's been. Bam Knight's MCL, didn't he? Like, I mean, it's really significant.

Yeah, I think that we're going to get Bam Knight for the next couple games here. So, he was actually pretty high on my waiver wireless. He was available in like 70% of Yahoo Leagues, for example. The last two games before the by-week, he had 11.1 and 14.8 expected half PPR points. Michael Carter took a a back seat to him. Michael Carter is going to be active for this one. But to me, like the pecking orders in play and I think that's extra important this week because they get the C the Cowboys.

Exactly. So I think he's going to be higher in my rankings than a lot of people would kind of anticipate. So I'm treating Bam Knight seriously for at least this week.

They're projected for nearly 26 points on Monday Night Football.

Uh, so yeah, I mean Bam Knight should flirt around what running back 15.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. Crazy. Because it's so different than when they're negative games script like they were with you know Jacob Brasad or in a few games and you know in that mold then maybe I de Marcato or whoever else and Michael Carter goes out there and gets those snaps uh and now it's just going to be Bam Knight hopefully rumbling in neutral situations.

When Kyler Murray comes back uh to me he needs to play as good as Jacobe Brassette did. I that might be a ridiculous statement for those of you out there, but this last game they converted seven of 14 third downs on third and seven plus situations. They were fantastic. Kyler Murray last season was historically bad in third and seven plus situations. And he was doing it to the same exact people and even fewer because Marvin Harrison Jr. missed with an injury a handful of quarters, too. So again, Kyler's got to play better.

Yeah. Uh Trey McBride is the guy that's going to be going absolutely crazy down the stretch. He is a complete outlier and sort of.

Again, I would also like Jacob Brassette to be his quarterback because we got three red zone touchdowns for him when he starts.

Yeah, I just think McBride just been so incredible this year that I. But even more incredible when Jacob Brassett's been in there.

I hear you. Let's see what McBride does against the Cowboys defense, which by the way, the linebackers and we saw this with the Broncos uh on that uh big RJ Harvey run. Uh, I mean, their linebackers are nowhere near the football on a lot of these plays, so that's obviously gonna help. Trey.

Atlanta Falcons are up next.

We all predicted a smash spot for Bejian Robinson against this Miami Dolphins defense. A Dolphins defense that's given up at least 100 yards in all seven games this year. We've also seen 200-yard performances. Uh, now people might say, well, it was just negative game script, it got out of hand, so that's why Bejon didn't get there. I went back and watched all nine of his carries that went for 25 yards and there were some themes to it. For one, this Dolphins defense did not respect at all whatever motion Zack Robinson threw out there. So, they would put wide receivers across, they would motion tight ends, they would do all of it and they would just barely adjust and post snap, they would not get nervous about wide receiver screens or anything going in the opposite direction. Second, Charlie Werner often leads you to the point of attack when it comes to Bejian Robinson runs and he was getting annihilated by these Miami Dolphins defenders. Again, Dolphins defenders have not annihilated anyone all season long. And this has happened now in multiple games. I mean, the Panthers run defense shut down Bejar Robinson to a certain degree and he said other games of around 40 to 50 rushing yards. now other ones he's been fantastic and then when Cal Pittz because of Drake London being out and so on and so forth plays 92% of snaps he's not known as a blocker he's playing it in line here too and he gets roughed up and allows backfield penetration on top of it so uh Bejon is still an incredible pick but there was nothing that the play caller or offensive coordinator did to get him going yeah.

To give him a chance or give this offense a chance in this and then he fumbled the ball and then all of a sudden the game script is like completely out of hand. So there was there were some clear issues here. Kurt Cousins missed Darnell Mooney who was like another big talking point um on like a big inbreaker just like completely sailed them and then Darnell Mooney did draw a defensive pass interference like a 39-yarder on a big post route. So there's some opportunities uh that he just did not come down with in terms of box score production. But when I was watching it, I thought Kurt Cousins was like not so horrific. There were so many drops. Uh Darnell Mooney had one. Uh what Casey and Cadarl had a couple. They kept checking the ball down to Kyle Pitts and this is one of those games where Kyle Pitts was not making anybody miss and the yards after the catch uh with Kyle Pitts was not really there and then the Bejon fumble cost them. So it was just one of those games where everything went sideways. But I do think the right tackle injury um mattered from multiple like months ago now at this point. Uh, and then yeah, the tight end blocking has just not been there either. So.

And the reason I want to bring up the Bejon stuff is this week they get the New England Patriots who have rubbed up opposing offensive linemen and tight ends. Again, I I mentioned that in this game he only ran for 25 yards. Against the Panthers, he ran for 72 yards, but on 13 carries, which at that point was fantastic. Tampa Bay, he only ran for 24 yards on 12 carries. And then against San Francisco, I guess two weeks ago, 40 yards on 14 carries. So like to me the script is out that if Charlie Warner who was much better at blocking last year than he is this year, if you can stuff him and get some backfield penetration, then the engine that leads this entire team both in the rushing game and receiving game has been Bejian Robinson and his big plays and you can at least make them, you know, narrow focused, which has not been great with Michael Penn's quarterback. And then while Kurt Cousins, you know, wasn't bottom of the barrel stuff, uh, also making them onedimensional with him is the way to go, too. I think it's a very average team everywhere. You know that they're still missing too many pieces uh overall. And then also this is another game like Drake London is a certified freaking baller out there and when you don't have him it gets a lot more difficult. So the the other guys that were replacing Drake London were horrific in this one and I think that explains a lot of the difference in the overall production too.

And obviously Bejian can still get there in the receiving game because he's outstanding. Mhm.

Just wanted to focus on why it might not have happened in this one when we all expected it to.

Let's talk about the Baltimore Ravens next. Uh Tyler Huntley comes in and wins the game and Derrick Henry has some nice plays and you know Z Flowers has a couple plays and overall I think Hayden what I took away from this is that the defense played uh considerably better in certain instances than they had in the past.

They're just way healthier at this point. like the secondary was like dealing with a bunch of injuries. Linebacker, same thing. Uh Vanoi, their edge rusher, wasn't out there for part of the season. Like they're mostly healthy on defense. So like we're back to where they should be a borderline top 10 defense the rest of the way. We'll see um there. But yeah, the big news obviously Lamar Jackson, Thursday Night Football will be out there ready to go. And that's obviously fantastic news for everybody. The team total is is rock solid again. So Derrick Henry got home uh last week and I think we're going to have big games from him. Just want to keep circling back to very small sample size, but early on in the year, Zay Flowers getting peppered on a per route basis with Lamar Jackson. If we can get that, again, we're starving for some breakout wide receivers right now. I do think that Zay Flowers is going to be one of these guys who has a potential to be a low-end wide receiver one the rest of the way. Um, it that does mean that Lamar Jackson has to play like at an MVP level. And early on in the year, Lamar's taking some sacks that he was like generally has not been taking previously. and then Ronnie Stanley is banged up right now. So, they have some things to kind of iron out, but largely we should go back to kind of the preseason expectations where a lot of people expected them to be in the Super Bowl.

And we'll see what, you know, true MVP Patrick Ricard can do as he gets healthier and healthier because true.

He actually didn't play that many snaps uh in in this game. Yeah, just 14 snaps for him in total. Uh, they do get this Miami Dolphins defense here like we talked about on Thursday Night Football. So that should be a fun one for Lamar to return to. We've all sent money to a friend or a group after dinner bowling, maybe a birthday party, an event that you forgot to bring a gift to. Uh, and it can be difficult with other ones, but not Cash App. With Cash App, you can spend, save, and live your life knowing that your money is right where you left it with advanced built-in security protections that you count on and help when you need it. Spend with peace of mind today and order a Cash App card in the app or at cash.app/card. For a limited time only, new Cash App customers can use our exclusive code to earn additional cash for real. Just download Cash App. Use our exclusive referral code secure10 in your profile. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days and you'll get $10 dropped right into your account. Terms apply. That's money. That is Cash App. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Prepaid debit card issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC. Instant discounts provided by Cash App. A Block Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/ app/legalodcast for full disclosures.

Let's discuss the Buffalo Bills next. Who called it? James Cook. Massive, massive game. Uh after two down weeks, he now has what, four or five unbelievable games so far this season. Uh most notably when I was just going through the snaps. Don Kade just 14 snaps in this game. Tied in three.

New injury. Yeah, new injury, knee injury, and then that was also coming off an injury prior to that, too.

Uh, and so the Doninc Kade stuff, he was running super hot to start the season while not seeing a massive increase in his snap share. And so I do wonder if we've already seen like the best parts of Doninc Kade this season.

Yeah, probably. But if the injuries don't happen, then then who knows what would happen. Uh, I do know this, Khalil Shakir looks all the way back. um that touchdown after the catch. He's so clearly their top receiver on film in every single capacity. So, I think if I'm picking one name to highlight, I do think there's a chance that Khalil Shakir can finish as the wide receiver 25 the rest of the way. Uh, they spread the ball around Josh Allen and Alien in the red area. So, you're you're living with a pretty low floor in general. But Khalil Shakir, we've dodged the Keon Coleman breakout season. Josh Palmer's been banged up. He hasn't done a whole lot. Dolin Kane's banged up now as well. So, Khalil Shakir has like dodged all the potential guys to come take his role. It's just going to go back to Khalil Shakir and like the yards after the catch ability from him. It's like I think at this point they got to spam the ball to Khalil Shakir a whole lot more than they did back in September when he was coming off that injury.

It looked like they did rework some of the rushing game too with James Cook. they did a whole bunch of, you know, toss plays and then he was cutting it back inside and then the offensive line were getting to the second level or, you know, it was just misdirection on linebackers and he was totally dominating that. Both those players because those are two of their creators, you know, on offense and Shakir and James Cook are going to have to be massive this weekend against the Chiefs. Both of those teams are projected for large totals. The Chiefs on the road are projected for nearly 27 and the Bills at home 25 points. So that's a high total fun offense and uh maybe a bit of a laser show which we haven't really seen downfield passing from Josh Allen this year. Uh, and so that's why you know Shakir and James Cook have been so valuable.

James Cook last 365 days RB6 and fantasy points like right behind Josh Jacobs. So the model's not going to account for it but he can have 50-yard touchdowns. We we know that.

All right let's talk about the team that they beat up on. This is the Carolina Panthers. There's a lot to discuss here from a running back room standpoint because I went on a tirade on Sunday night that hey totally understand if you are trying to keep your players happy and team leader in Chuba Hubard that you're going one series then the other one series then the other. Now an easy argument can be made that you are tying one hand behind your back because Rico Dado clearly I test every metric simply looks better and at the very least you should start him off in games rather than Chuba Hubber getting the first series because that's your first crack of putting points up on the board and you should get your best players out there. Dave Canales then on Monday and Tuesday was asked in press conferences, hey, you're going to continue this and he basically said no. He didn't tell us what is going to happen but just reading between the lines between from Canelis who has been quite honest about this stuff.

Yep. He's basically saying that okay we are now if beat writers are any indication like Joe person going to give the lion share here to Rico Data. That's probably not going to matter in week nine when they're projected for very very few points but it is notable because of how Rico Dat has played this year and how the Panthers want to be as an offense in terms of running the football.

I get it. Be a nice guy at Chuba Hubard. the locker room matters. Not having an injury be the reason why you get benched for a week or two makes sense. But like you said, this is I think this should be two series for Rico Dattle, one series for Chuba Hubard. Yes, play them on all situations. There's a reason why they signed Rico Daddles because he can do the Chuba Hubard play in all situations thing. Just Rico is just better at this point. So two for one drive rotation would not be that surprising with Rico starting. So, um I don't know if we should be buying low and trying to trade for him today or after this next week because you mentioned what they're projected for 16 points against the Packers, but I do think that Rico Dattle is now after being a sell high candidate. I do think we're back to him being a buy low candidate uh moving forward. Unfortunately, I think I wanted to ask you about the offensive line. We got Tory and stuff like how how bad is it?

Yeah, we don't really know. So, right guard Brady Christensen, who's played at a high level this year and was in line for I think a massive free agent contract to his Achilles and he's out. Center Cade Mays says he is going to play, but we have got no update on that. Right tackle Taylor Motton didn't play in the entire second half, but kind of seems okay and maybe they just play them didn't play them because they were getting blown out. Like you said, the time frame here for Rico is to buy after this weekend when he gets phased out and he can catch some passes, that's for sure. But again, they are 12-point underdogs on the road against the Green Bay Packers. It would be shocking if that game is close. After that though, they get the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons in back-to-back games. And those are true positive game script, neutral game script. We're going to play our type of football and that could be 17 20 touches for Rico D.

Yeah. Are we nervous that Bryce Young is coming off of an ankle sprain here? Returning in one week, by the way, just wanted to note that. Um, and uh that he he is mobile and he's tinier and if we're not getting the same juice out of his legs, is there like a potential for like a total bottoming out here?

I would I would rather watch him than what Andy D out there on the field.

It was not great. It was not great. I will say this. Well, it was it was maybe some of the worst quarterback this year.

It was terrible. There was there was some issues. Uh I think Andy Don's going to retire after this year. That's my prediction. Um, Tedella McMillan though,

It's great. Season high in usage because we're we're in comeback mode. Guess what's going to happen next week? They're going to have to pass the ball a lot because you're playing the Packers. And he's just he wins in every single way. Like there was like little yards after the catch stuff. They got him in the slot in that big out route where he had to actually like throw a guy off or for holding still comes down with it. Uh, they get him like a little like kind of like screenish type of plays too, dude. like he's already like top 25 in receiving yards this year in an offense that like does not want to pass the ball and like ball can kind of spray a little bit in this offense on tape. I mean, he looks like a guy that's going to be an absolute problem for for a very very very long time.

Again, I wouldn't call him necessarily the most sudden player versus press and like we saw S Gardner kind of lock him up on third down.

And then he's more of a late separator than mid separator in his downfield routes too. uh he's going to have to win, you know, with the body control and obviously going up against the acrobatic catches on the downfield passing when that's a possibility. But overall, they have to be totally thrilled with that pick in conversation with, oh, you have to take a defensive player or you have to take one of these pass rushers and Jaylen Walker. Have we heard us I mean, he's been injured, too, but have we heard a single word about Jaylen Walker?

Well, I have some Jaylen Walker takes because the freaking draft pick that's being sent to the Rams over that.

Well, but that was that was James Pierce.

That was James Pierce. Yeah, but but I I get your point. and then or like Michael Williams or Walter Nolan's been injured this entire like T-Mac and you know some other people might have ranked Matthew Golden ahead of him. I think we all know who the better player is right now between yeah Dere McMillan and Matthew Golden. So yeah, they have to be thrilled thrilled with that and there's still some wins on the table. You know again the Saints game and the Falcons game are two huge ones coming up after this massive defeat against the Packers.

Yep. He just looks really good. He's not as sudden and athletically gifted as Drake London, but they're they're in that kind of same ballpark. Um, just in general.

Final note, uh, after playing what, like 12 snaps or whatever it was, coming back from injury and IR, Jaylen Coker was out there for the vast majority of three wide receiver sets as the slot player. He actually should have had a touchdown if Andy Dalton kept his eyes up on the scramble that he fumbled. He was going to break open perfectly for a touchdown. So, uh, just for the coheads out there, wanted to get a shot out there.

Okay, 18 person leagues.

Let's talk about the Cincinnati Bengals here. I feel like Hayden, as much focus has been on the passing attack, the running back room and the running back efficiency and the running back success rate is a massive story here because I know I was taking a bunch of fourth round then third round Chase Brown this summer. Our buddy Joe Goodberry, the Bengals now are second in running game success rate across the league. Since week four, they are hitting at 54.7% success rate. And I went back and, you know, watched what they just did this past game and, you know, he's cutting back these runs. They're getting to the second level. Obviously, you have the real flea flicker that was super headsy play that he did not pitch back when everyone's passing and then runs it forward for an 11 plus yard gain. And so, while it felt beyond dead, beyond dead for Chase Brown, we have more than, I think, just a little bit of life left the rest of the season. The last couple games with Flacco incorporated 13 and 13.7 expected points. He's up to RB19 RB19 usage this month. Uh with the most recent games being the most effective. Like the bottom line is if this team's going to be projected for 25 plus points for a lot of their games, then he's totally rock solid as an RB2. Like it's just it's as simple as that. So Flaco has saved everybody because they're now no longer being projected for 17 points in a game.

Now, the other part of that is he's not getting the 92% backfield usage that he got last season. In this one, he actually dropped down to 54% with Sam Per playing 42%. Uh, and that's not just like pure passing situation stuff like Sami Perine is getting some work on top of there. So, again, I just wanted to note that, but at least Chase Brown in a game I think this week they're projected for 25 and a half points. He's a start.

Yeah, he is. Do you know what happened to Sami Pan last week?

Nope. Last week in our matchup, I picked up Sam Per because I was that bad and started him for that what, like 15-point game and narrowly beat you. Wow.

On the backs of Sam Perin of all people.

Love that. Absolutely love that. Uh, anything else we want to say about this team? I mean, just the wide receiver stuff that goes in Jamar Chase's direction is.

Obviously absurd. What? It's over the last few weeks he has 45 targets.

I think it's like 54. It's It's ridiculous. It's It's.

A moment of dyslexia there, my bad.

Yeah, I guess. Uh, yeah, this month they're second in neutral pass rate at 63%. It's like absurd. They're second in wide receiver usage. So don't discount T. Higgins, too, you know, Tiggins this month is the wide receiver, 20 on wide receiver, 22 usage. It's a miniature version of what we had going with the Joe Burrow offense.

Let's talk about the Cleveland Browns. They are headed into a by-week and their best offensive player hurts his shoulder. Quinn Sean Judkins I believe it was reported has an AC joint injury only plays about a quarter a quarter and a half in that game. Um, and then Jerry Judy a zero zero zero stat line on 83% snaps.

Yeah. So Quinton Jun was the only player to get a snap in the first half uh a touch in the first half. Jerome Ford always plays the two-minute drill and then it was all Dylan Samson in the Quinton Judkins role. I don't think we have to worry about this AC joint coming off the buy. They'll shoot him up or he'll play through it. Uh, I think we shouldn't be like totally spooked about the running back situation. We should be absolutely spooked about the quarterback and wide receiver situation. Um, they're gonna stick with Dylan Gabriel for a little bit longer, but it's there's no upside and there's no floor with him. So, I don't know what they're they're kind of waiting for. Uh, at the same time, Shador Sanders, he was also injured like going into the last couple weeks here, too. So, who knows? Like maybe we see like Bailey Zappy at some point. Um, do want to hit on Jerry Judy because that was a very bad ranking and you were fighting me on it and you were absolutely correct on that. This month, this is one of the biggest splits I've ever seen. He's the wide receiver 35 in expected points. He's the wide receiver 102. And that's wide receiver 102. 102.

Um, look man.

It's not it's not that surprising. I gotta say, I understand he's getting this volume and like the spreadsheets might love him and whatever that 15 target game when you go back and watch it. They're not real targets. So, it's him with his flaws and then the quarterback and his flaws with the offensive line and their flaws.

Yeah. Other than that.

Now the other part of this quarterback stuff is I don't know if you saw this. Kevin Zapansky was asked why wouldn't you play Shador Justice Z if it does anything to the offense? And Kevin Fancy answered obviously as my focus is where we are right now. That's not my focus.

Yeah. Yeah. He's going to play. They drafted him in the fifth round or whatever it was and I think the owner will push for it. But again, my entire stance on the Gabriel Shador stuff is it doesn't matter because there's going to be a new quarterback on this team next year and it's that simple. I will add though in this game Harold Fannon played more snaps than David and Jooku at tight end.

Yep. Coming off the injury, we got to take note of that. Um, but both of them are in the top 12 in expected points um at at tight end position. So you can do worse.

In my flex. I would rather start Harold Fannon than Jared Judy. I mean that is the most obvious statement of all time.

102 name 102 wide receivers. Go.

Tough. Next Dallas Cowboys. Um fun team. I covered them on Sunday so I watched this one live. Not sure if you had time to go back into it and what you saw from the George Pickkins and CD Lamb combo that we got once again since week one.

Yeah, I think it'll just all iron itself out. Just the Broncos defense is a total handful. I know that Certan only played about half the snaps and he's going to be out for it sounds like more than just a month. Yeah. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's out for a lot longer than that. Uh, there is a drop off in from Certan versus everybody else, but then like Jedi Baron can get in there and that's a firstrounder uh at the nickel spot. Um Riley Moss and they've got better safeties and linebackers than they did the previous year. So it's still a total handful here. I would not be um panicked about any of this stuff like this just you're in Denver stuff's going to happen. Um CD Lamb the four healthy games is at 15.1 expected points. Uh, and then George Pickkins. I would not like look into the splits between on and off splits with CD Lamb very much because in those games that Lamb was playing, those were against the top corners of the season, too. So, I think that both of them are absolute starts.

Yeah. And obviously this game, the entire starting offense didn't play with 1030 left.

So you're not going to get as many points when that happens. Yeah, pretty soon. Unless you play Joe Milton to uh Jaylen Tolbert. Joe Milan, by the way, like that's like mustwatch TV for the four plays. Holy smokes.

Is he elongated Russell Wilson in that he just dropped back and throws it between the numbers in the sideline every single time and can hit those passes. You know?

He certainly can. This might be your new guy. Jake Ferguson did have zero total points and that's notable for someone that with CD Lamb being out has morphed into this team's second best pass catcher. Obviously going total regression and the opposite end of that to a total flatout zero really sucks, but I would not expect him to go to a total flatout zero moving forward.

No, but I do think that he could be like the tight end 12 from this point moving forward.

Yeah. You know, so. Again, the tight end thing, there's the top six and then it gets weird and wonky after that. Like if if we want to even talk through the top six, that's Tucker Craft, Trey McBride, Tyler Warren, I'll throw Aronda Gadston there, who we'll talk about here in a moment.

Uh, and then you have Dallas Goddard to me because of red zone stuff, and Travis Kelce. And then after that, it's kind of up in the air.

Yeah. Then it's like KD, you get the Browns guys. Uh. Oh, sorry. I would I would definitely put KD in there. Sorry, he's just not up here because of.

The points previously. So, I would sub him in for ahead of Goddard and Kelsey.

Yeah, I think that's all fair. And then everybody else, it's just we're streaming him. Is Concade healthy? Is Dalton Schultzer Kate Uton ready to go? Like, yeah, it's.

And we'll see Bowers this week, too.

Yeah, Brock Bowers. I forgot he existed. Wow.

We'll see Bowers this week. Let's talk about those Denver Broncos when we just mentioned that Patrick Certan is out uh the next four to six weeks. Uh I have a crazy stat for you and it's you know always from my online pals Ben Finnel who's been on this program a lot. 11 personnel rushing this season. Everyone would assume you know the Indianapolis Colts are up there based on Tyler Warren and the three wide receivers that they have. They've been very good at 11 personnel running the football. 689 yards, 6.2 uh per carry and 11 touchdowns. Number one this season is the Denver Broncos. 722 yards, 6.2 yards per carry and seven touchdowns. And a big part of that this week was R.J. Harvey. And a big part of that this week, Hayden, was also our guy Pat Bryant's blocking on the edge, too.

It really was Pat Bryant starting to earn the trust there. We're not going to be there for fantasy because he's still very clearly like their fourth uh wide receiver, but uh, there's a vision and it's what we saw on tape. So, I'm excited um for Pat Bryant and Dynasty. Uh RJ Harvey was not touched on his three touchdowns like pretty much like he had the the Wildcat stuff which was fun. They motioned him across on that uh receiving touchdown and that was uh I think Harvey said um that Shawn Peyton told him on Saturday, you're going to score a touchdown on this play. Uh, and then the the big one was the highlight from the offensive line where I mean there was not a Dallas Cowboy within a mile of RJ Harvey as you sprinted down the field. So really cool.

That's not totally true. For a guy who has apparently questionable vision. He did weave between blocks quite nicely.

He did. He did. He definitely did on the perimeter run. I'm not discounting the RJ. Harvey stuff. What's fun about this is like we said, we're no longer in September. Bone Knicks is actually making plays. So, if you look at the October offenses, the Denver

Broncos have an above average one. And that just means more guys can get home. JK Dobbins had a very successful game out there. And then like the big winner I thought was like Troy I think Harvey is interesting but still like a upside handcuff play where Troy Franklin I do think we need to have conversations. Is he an every week wide receiver three at this point? Because this last month he's a wide receiver 17 on use in usage. He had two touchdowns in this one. Uh you talked about his red zone work and a couple of these were like red zone or just outside of the red zone. Um and then he's sometimes using the screen game and and whatnot too. So I think the to me the big question is is Troy Franklin how serious?

Yeah, obviously when a team scores 44 points a lot of people are going to score touchdowns. Uh unfortunately this week for the Broncos they're only projected for 19 points against the Houston Texans. So that one is more than cut in half. So we'll see what happens there. Yeah. I mean, Troy Franklin, he's this part of the fantasy football calendar. Easily startable. Easily startable. Um, a closing thought there on RG Harvey. When someone scores three touchdowns and, you know, he's a second round pick and people just, I think, see the final totals and think that he surpassed the older running back. That did not happen here, right? Yeah. JK Dobbins still dominated the workload and like you said, did quite well with 15 carries for 111 yards. It was though notable to me that both I believe of his short yardage scores were on third down and those were scripted towards RJ Harvey and like JK Dobbins I think had some touches in the red zone and red area prior to that and so Shawn Payeyton who loves to draw it up and loves to have certain role players uh in those moments went to RJ Harvey in that. So again, I think that he is one of these very interesting plays on a team that really can have big scores for for uh role players that I'm I'm intrigued. I mean, but I'm I'm an RJ Harvey guy.

So >> he's the most joker of all of the Broncos right now, so that's encouraging.

Uh and then yeah, just quickly on Pat Bryant, the no look interception that Bon Knicks tried was targeted to Pat Bryant. It was extremely weward but Pat Bryant was open there. They threw another very similar pattern that Pat Bryant caught. And then he was also asked to crash down on Donovan Ezaraku and these other edge rushers on these like pinpull plays. And then even he's the split flow kind of action of it where he works across the formation and then cuts an edge rusher or a linebacker and they run in the opposite direction. So Pat Bryant is definitely earning his keep when it comes to snaps and then he catches that fingertip beautiful, beautiful touchdown down the left side. So again, not saying he's going to be fantasy relevant, but uh I've also seen crazier things happen. And to me, he's talented.

I think he's going to be the Corland Sutton replacement in the next future years. I don't know what Corin Sutton's contract's looking like, but I think that's kind of what they're game planning for right now. I think Sutton just signed an extension, but obviously we don't know what like the guaranteed money and stuff is on top of it. So yeah, I mean Shawn Payeyton loves size. Troy Franklin's done a great job and there's no reason Troy Franklin can't be on that, but they do run a ton of 11 personal stuff and maybe less of the tight end things that they've done in previous years, especially when Evan Ingram is your tight end now, too. Um, so yeah, Pat Bryant doing some dirty work.

Next, Detroit Lions. They are coming out of the buy. What do you want to see from this Lions team where, you know, week seven was incredibly different than the week one performances when they're projected for 21 points versus now like 26, 27, 28 on a weekly basis.

I think for fantasy, it's like pretty much identical to last year. I think it's a little bit more Gibbs than Montgomery this year. I think in general, I trust this offense a little bit less than I did last year, but for the most part, it's like the same usual stuff. Ammonro's a surefire wide receiver one. Sam Leaport will have some good games, then some low games, um, and ultimately ends up as the tight end eight in fantasy. And then Jameson Williams, it's been a huge dry spell for him this season, but at any point he could be the guy that scores two touchdowns. So like, I don't know. Like, it's a team that we don't talk about in this show as often as they're scoring actual points, but it's kind of because it's the same just cast of cats and there's not that much to talk about, I guess.

Yeah. I mean, they're incredibly predictable. I even last year at one point they were true 50/50 split between Gibbs and Deont. They are a 50-50 split right now inside of the 10 yard line. Like Dave Montgomery has those 12 carries. Jir Gibbs has those 12 carries. Deont has six inside of the five. Jir Gibbs has five inside the five. But overall, Jir Gibbs is getting more of the work. He's a good short yardage rusher on top of it.

His former college position coach is now his NFL position coach. and Tashard Choice and Jamir Gibbs. Yeah. Uh is one of the I think top 12 13 fantasy assets the rest of the season. Yeah. And then again when you're getting in these pickles, David Montgomery when they're projected for 28 points like they are against the Minnesota Vikings this week, which by the way, this Vikings run defense is so much worse than it was last season is definitely worth the play because all he has to get is a touchdown in one of the 28 points that they score. And that seems kind of likely on a weekly basis.

Indianapolis Colts, they keep doing it. Uh, I I got a question from someone saying, "Is Daniel Jones really going to fleece the Indianapolis Colts out of a big contract this off season?" I don't know what your perspective is, Hayden, but if you could guarantee me that this offensive line stays healthy and these three wide receivers return and Tyler Warren stays healthy, too, and obviously Jonathan Taylor, there's no fleecing here. You know, this team is not fluky from a passing game standpoint. Daniel Jones knows pre- snap and postnap what his answers are. He gets great protection. He gets ridiculous explosive plays from his running back. And then the handful of times per game, like there was one this past week, I think on the third drop back of the game where a blitzing linebacker gets in front of Matt and Chavez, runs kind of off his edge and goes right in the face of Daniel Jones. And Jones doesn't freak out. He just pops it right over the top to Josh DS for like a 16-yard gain over the middle of the field and then the game just keeps going on over there. So like, yeah, maybe there's one or two plays each game that you would want back from DJ and he had some sacks in the first half that he certainly wasn't being sacked in the other six or seven games this season, but this is sustainable. It's not a fluky thing from what I've seen through eight weeks so far.

It's by far the best offense in the NFL this entire year. So, I mean, like what? You're going to let that go? Like what are your other options here? you're hoping to have the best offense in the league and and they have that. So, you you're obviously going to pay him a lot of money. So, I'll be curious to see where he lands on like the there's kind of that Baker Mayfield Sam Darnold level of of money and then there's like the Trevor Lawrence uh like more guaranteed longterm money. I'm curious between those two types of contracts where he's going to land. But, I mean, yeah, he's he's playing very good football, you know?

Correct. Like, >> I don't know what else to say. They're only number one or number two in every category. It's hard to find these guys.

Yeah, he needs to be paid more than Kyler Murray. 46.1 million per year. Uh that's a lot, you know. Uh but that like he he will get more than the Baker Sam Darnold Gino stuff.

Agree.

And that's you know 37 and a half. But what you're saying is the Jaylen Herz and this stuff changes every year. You know like some of these guys are going to get new money and so this stuff is going to change. But you have the Jaylen Herz, Kyler Murray stuff at 51 to 46 and then above that, like you said, Trevor just got his contract and that's at 55.

Yeah, I think Jaylen Herz would that would be an interesting contract to copy paste from.

And look, I I'm not saying that, you know, Daniel Jones on the Las Vegas Raiders would be awesome, right? We've talk about it every week. Yeah. environment trusting yours and his environment is playing unreal stuff right now. Alec Pierce on the first drop back of the game

always

isolated at the top of the screen. He attacks Jaylen Armor Davis's blind spot. literally spins him like a top, does an arm over swim to the outside, which then Jaylen Armor Davis falls down on and then yeah, eight yards of separation, 19 yard gain wide open

and then catch point stuff for him too later in the game. The Michael Pitman just body bag and Josh Downs does what he does. I mean, yeah, they got everything going. So, they're going to pay Alec Pierce and Daniel Jones and they're going to run it back,

right? Obviously,

and when it gets lucky and like the the pass hits your helmet and then it goes into the direction you're going in and you catch it. And then overall, I mean, we we've talked about it every single week,

Jonathan Taylor just being this perfect combination of fast and big is unreal. And you know, I went back and compared where he has it right now in terms of half PPR scoring at 25.5 points per game versus the running back won over the last few seasons, weeks 1 through 17 points per game. In 2024, Saquon was unbelievable last year, right? But that was at 21.2 points per contest. CMC the year before was at 22.4. Eckler 19.5 back in 2022. JT 2021 21.4. Dvin Cook in 2020 at 22.6. You have to go all the way back to Christian McCaffrey in 2019 with a 26.3 season to match what John Ted's doing right now

is insane. I I've watched that long touchdown run like so many times because I keep finding something new about it. The obviously the power and the speed, but he was tightropping for like 15 yards. I mean like what is this? I I don't think it's I love Bejon. I love Christian McCaffrey. You name the rest of them. Saquon.

I think Jonathan Taylor's by himself

right now. Him him and I would put him and Saquon as number one and number two best running backs in the NFL and then I would drop down to tier and you get your James Cooks and Bejians and Gibbs and all those types. He is everything right now. It's insane.

Am I allowed to say I mean a couple years ago he what set out the preseason trying to get this new deal. There were rumors that oh he's going to get traded to the Dolphins. He's going to get traded to all these teams.

Gets paid when people say hey don't pay him. I mean, in 2025, paying your running backs in comparison, like, okay, he's making $14 million per year right now. Okay, if we compare that to the $14 million wide receivers per year, right now, um, Cooper Cup is making $15 million. Jerry Judy is making $17.5 million.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The impact on the field is wildly different.

Yes. especially on a team that you have a plan for the running back. Uh, and you don't have to like go like four years in guaranteed money either. It's only like a couple years of guaranteed money. So, I think yeah, all I mean look at the the smartest teams in the league are paying their running backs. So, um, yeah, I would pay for proven production 100%. So, this it's a totally different ballgame when they you they used to be making $20 million uh like five years ago and that didn't make sense. But this equation, we're we're totally totally fine with someone like Jonathan Taylor.

Another stat from Reeves, the Colts have scored a touchdown on 19 of 22 red zone trips over the past five weeks of the NFL season.

Uh and then final thing, I've noticed this in the last few games that the Colts win the toss and then don't defer, that they want the football. Shane Syiken was asked about this and you obviously have the narrative of, well, their offense is so good that they just believe who can stop them. I like this from Syiken. He's like, "Hey, this is our opportunity to open this game with the ball probably at the very least at the 35 yard line versus if our defense gets a stop, maybe we get pinned inside the five or the 10 or the 15 yard line. Why not just have this offense have the platform to already start at the 35, then we can just go and try to score points from there." It's it's smart.

The second half that would be the case, though.

No, it would, but obviously >> you just want you just want dominating in the first three quarters. So in many games this year they're like not even having to put the pedal to the floor in fourth quarters.

I think if you like really put some truth serum on it, you'd be like Daniel Jones when things are going right like awesome. Like when you're in true dropback stuff and you actually have to be reading things out and stuff, that's where the Daniel Jones thing kind of get a little bit sideways. So I I do get it from like that perspective. Like you want the lead especially with a quarterback like right

Daniel Jones. I also think there's a difference in previous seasons when everyone just deferred when they get the toss and then that was at the 20 yard line and then you know if you get a stop then maybe you get the football at your own 35 yard line or the 40 yard line versus oh now you can already just start on your

ground. Yeah. Yeah, that that is interesting. They're they're really wellrun by the way. I love uh Ers's daughter. She's just awesome. She pulls off the best outfits every single week. But her dedication is awesome. It's like so refreshing to see that versus all the other owners out there who are in other countries just doing who knows what. She's just like totally on it. She's she seems awesome.

Yeah. She she talked about that the reason why she wears an earpiece is because hey, I'm paying these coaches millions of dollars and it kind of helps me figure out who's to blame. and she I thought made a great example of oh this wide receiver wasn't necessarily in the right play so we're gonna blame the wide receiver when in fact uh the right tag to the wide receiver in the huddle on the play call might have not been correct but that wasn't the quarterback's fault it was actually the play caller's fault who said it incorrectly into the microphone

just more information to make these multi multi multi-million dollar decisions and like again she's the owner like what happens they've turned it around okay let's talk about the Jacksonville Jaguars next because they are coming out of the buy. I'll leave this wide open to you because as always there are hundred things we can talk about with the Jaguars. What do you want to see when they touch the field this weekend?

Well, first like I just love the dismissal of Brian Thomas getting traded. They're like what the hell is that? Like that's insane. So we don't have to talk about that. Thankfully, it's just really just what is the snap rate for Travis Hunter on each side of the ball. Are we going to see him only as a slot wide receiver? That's what they said uh weeks ago that they only trained him in 11 personnel as a slot wide receiver. Are we going to see an expanded part of that game? And then uh obviously they swapped corners. Like is that going to be the thing that makes Travis Hunter a full-time player? Like I saw the reports that the they just believe that Travis Hunter is going to get more first read looks and stuff which would be exciting. Um but yeah, I think everything else just it's only about Travis Hunter right now.

Yeah, I know it doesn't feel like it, but Travis Hunter now leads the team in receptions and is second in receiving yards at nearly 300. Again, it doesn't feel like that at all. And a big part of that was the second half when they're down 31 to nothing. Um, I want to go to Michael Draco over at ESPN because I thought he put out based on what Liam Cohen said immediately after this past week and heading into the buy and trying to read between the lines, which by the way, yes, that's all an assumption, but that's all we're going to have right now.

Yes. I also wanted to say I want the beat reporters to also provide some level of analysis. I I get it that like the analysis part could be hit and miss, but there's so many times when I click on an article and it's like literally just the absolute fact. no other reading between you're there every single day. Give me some guesses. Give even just be like I think this is where it's going. Like to me that is still way more valuable than leaving it blank. So uh I'm encouraged about this.

So here it is. And again he leads it by saying reading between the lines it looks like Hunter is going to be a significant player in the offense going forward moving down. So don't be surprised if Hunter starts getting wide receiver one treatment from the Jaguars in the season second half. And that's partly due to his playmaking and run after the catch ability. That's also because of Brian Thomas Jr. hasn't played at that level all season long. Thomas is tied for the NFL lead with five drops with the other three players through week seven. Blah blah blah blah blah. How that impacts Hunter's role on defense isn't clear, but it's notable Travis Hunter played only 12 defensive snaps against the Rams. He had a pass break up against Cvante Adams after playing 25 and 22 on defense the previous two games. So again, people are still drastically split, which by the way is the reason why we should talk about every single week on what his best position is out there. Half of you believe it is corner. To me, he can make such an impact on this team as a wide receiver, but that needs to be in two wide receiver sets. Uh we've seen it downfield passing making people miss. They would not have beaten the San Francisco 49ers or the Kansas City Chiefs. Even if he only reached about 50 receiving yards in those games without big downfield patterns and completions. So I'm not saying in one single bye-week a guy that was splitting time during training camp is now just instantly going to be out there on 90% of snaps and in two wide receiver sets. I just don't know if the plan that they had in place in the preseason is now going to be the plan heading into week nine and it shouldn't be because to me that plan is limiting him and then overall your team success and the impact that he can make on the wins and losses.

I do the fantasy rankings every week. Who should I have ranked ahead for this next week? Travis Hunter or Brian Thomas?

I think you should still have Brian Thomas Jr. ahead. But I do believe that Travis Hunter

should be a top 36 option at wide receiver. Like some of you might think that that's ridiculous cuz I drafted a ton of Travis Hunter. We were marketing him as a a great player. Guess what? He has been a very good player when in the right position and being targeted down the field. just hopefully he is in the right position now and gets more of the opportunities in offense because if that's the case, he can be one of these second half of rookie season guys to be and tell the story of the 2025 fantasy football season.

Yeah, totally agree there. In college, he was so good down the field and at the catch point and early on there's a lot more choice routes in the offense which I think is kind of underselling his value as a wide receiver and then he just was not playing enough wide receiver snaps to to actually showcase his talent. So, I'm I'm very hopeful that they're going to get him spammed more downfield looks and I really hope that the outlier wasn't he had that one massive game because they were down 31 to zero. Like I I hope that's not what's going to be. But I think if we're saying these things, Jacksonville is also saying these things. I do think that Travis Hunter is going to be more fantasy relevant for the back half of the year.

You know, if if we look at their schedule, we know this week it is the Las Vegas Raiders, which is a perfect time for this to happen.

Oh, yeah. Then it's the Houston Texans on the road, which is tough. Then you get the Chargers, the Cardinals, and the Titans over the next week.

Oh, baby. I mean, there are environments for us

Yeah.

to have Travis Hunter,

again, we'll see what the usage is like coming out of the by-week

as an impact player because he has impact skills. The other part of this, Hayden, is what happened to the rushing success as a whole for this team. Travis ETN in September, those four games, 6.1 yards per carry. That has now dropped down in October when they played three games, including two losses, down to 3.8 yards per carry. Uh that should swing in a positive direction against this against this Las Vegas Raiders defense.

I'm not Yeah, I'm not worried about Travis Hunter or Travis ETN really at all. He's going to be an RB2. Um and the schedule opening up. I think just been depending on the game script, that's how much Travis ETN's role is going to increase. Uh, also I wanted to say, um, Brian Thomas have been dropping the football and he's completely underperformed. We all know that. Parker Washington and Da Brown are also dropping the football way too much. So, it's not like it's not just they're going to play Travis Hunter more because Brian Thomas is struggling. It's like, well, the other two guys that they're paying money to uh, are also not getting it done and their tight end's injured, too. It's like, it would make sense if they're like, all of those things. It's like A, B, C, D, and E are happening. That's why we have to pivot over to Travis Hunter being a near full-time player. Like I think it's not just one thing, it's all of those things in totality.

The other part too is I understand Travis Hunter's already been playing 82% of dropbacks over these last few weeks. That will likely change when Britain Strange comes back, right? The reason that they pivoted over to being the number one team in 11 personnel is because their stud tight end is on the bench and then you can't just run 12 personnel with multiple backups out there.

Yeah. Uh when Britain Strange was healthy, they were about 11th or 12th in 11 personnel stuff. And so again, your best wide receiver arguably right now needs to be out there on the field in two wide receiver sets. Okay, let's talk about their competition this week. That is the Las Vegas Raiders. Uh they are coming out of the by-week. It has been a beyond miserable season for this Raiders team. What do you want to see? Uh, I guess Brock Bowers fully healthy would be a start here. So, there's some life here. There was Jacobe Myers remains in the trade um discussions. I believe the Raiders are trying to ask too much for him and like that's why that Jordan Schulz report came out. But, I do still think that he's going to get traded away and that Brock Bowers will pretty much be the one for one replacement in the slot as a wide receiver. Um, I think that Trey Tucker has been so much better than the rookies. I I think there's some post by rookie bump candidates in this offense. I think Deontay Thornton and Jack Bess are so far behind the eightball right now that I'm really not expecting them to really matter here. So just I think it's just largely just how healthy is Brock Bowers like 0% to 100%. Please don't tell me we're still like the 75% range where it was earlier on.

I have no notes on top of that.

The only thing that is going to need to happen here is for Ash and Genty to continue to get receptions. It cannot go back and it probably will not to what was happening early in this season. But in many of these games coming up, he's going to have to get four or five receptions and create off of that. I mean, you have Jaguars and their defensive linemen. Then you have the Broncos and their defensive lineman over the next two weeks. Then you get the Cowboys, then you have the Browns and their defensive line. So like three difficult defense out of the next four and then one terrible, terrible defense.

Yep.

Yeah. and one of their young linemen, Jackson Powers Johnson, early round pick. Uh he was benched in the middle of the of the last game. Uh you can't be missing out on picks like this. Like if if you're going lineman bust running back in round one, uh it's going to be hard for him to live up to the expectations. And then your wide receivers that you're taking uh on day two and early day three, they look like they can't play either. It's like, all right, like how does a team get stuck uh with another top five, top 10 pick again? It's like because all those draft picks are not hitting.

Okay, let's talk about the LA Chargers. Quinton Johnson started the season on fire, then gets banged up. Then he comes back after the emergence of Aronda Gadston, and then QJ gets a big fat zero. So, I'm going to ask the question for the people out there that are either rostering Gadston or have relied on Quint Quint Johnson. Does the rookie tight end just eliminate what QJ is doing in this offense?

I'm actually more uh concerned about Keenan Allen because Keenan Allen's playing even fewer snaps. This team is is one of the teams that uses that big fullback. Uh they have a couple different options with that. This team will also use multiple tight end sets. Ronda Gatson has not left the fields like last week 89% of the routes easily led the team. Uh and then was also schemed up in a couple different ways. his yards up for the catch ability. He really does just remind me of Darren Waller. So, we'll leave that there. The three wide receiver snap snap rate is just going to be a lot lower now that they have Aronda Gatson. They're going to use these uh fullbacks and and whatnot. So, that's going to hurt Keenan Allen's route participation. He still looks like a good player. Uh and then I guess with Quinn Johnson just more target competition uh and they don't like run the exact same routes, but there's like some overlap in like how you would use Quinton Johnson and how Aronda Gatson's being used. So I think yes it does matter. Um and then also a reminder lad manki is really good you know like

Yep

for three weeks we had to pretend that like that wasn't the case. Well he's the wide receiver eight on wide receiver six usage this month.

Yeah, I mean the lad rebound was entirely

obvious. I mean my god so obvious.

I mean the dude was incredible last year. The team just continues to lean into passing the ball. Obviously Vlad Makoni was going to get there this season. So yeah, it sucks that it wasn't immediate, but sometimes that happens. Uh yeah, as you said, the Ronda Gasson snap count this week was incredible in the fact that they were winning and he stayed on the field.

Yeah,

they were winning and running the football and he was staying on the field. And then he runs, you know, patterns down the field with a big armed quarterback versus, you know, zero to six yard targets like other tight ends get. And so his targets are going to be even more valuable. And that's on top of like you said, Hayden Tucker Fisk played 42 snaps this past week.

And they got Matt Lock, the big the big dude who's even bigger than that. Like they have two different options depending on who's healthy and how they want to use these guys. So it's like that is a function of the offense. And it's the remember it's Greg Roman and the Ravens who use Patrick Ricard. Like those

frees up Gadston

100% 100%. Uh, and it's gonna also like save Gatsson from being the like the lead blocker. Uh, where he can actually kind of just like save himself. So, the Gatsson stuff is it could be like one of the storylines of fantasy football. I'm not predicting him to break fantasy, but is is there a chance that he can just be one of these guys who's an elite tight end one the rest of the way? I I do think we're at that point where it's like definitely possible.

He played more snaps, you kind of already said this, then Lad.

Yeah. Yeah,

Trey Harris, QJ, Anki. Now,

also Trey Harris, uh, when they get into one wide receiver, uh, sets, he's the guy that gets in there, too.

10 yard line, 20 yard line. Yep.

That that's where I'm a little bit nervous about Keenan Allen and then Quinton Johnson and also like Lad McConi, too. Uh, because Trey Harris is getting snaps, the fullback's getting snaps, the second tight ends are getting some snaps, too. So, it's one of these kind of it's a funky offense right now. It's a very fun one. Um, and by the way, Justin Herbert was so incredible. like the out of structure stuff from Justin Herbert is the refreshing part of his game right now. So, a lot more scrambles and finding Lad McConi six seconds after the ball is snapped. Like that's how you can get the Chargers to be like a real real contender.

Yeah. And they get the Tennessee Titans this week.

Oh my goodness. Oh, Kamani Vidal, by the way, averaging 17.4 expected points as the starter. His patience uh was awesome um in that game, too. 17.4 points is like clear RB1 usage. the team total is going to be huge. He's I've done my rankings yet. It would not surprise me if he's RB9.

Uh they are projected for 27 points.

Oh my gosh.

Could have expected it to be even higher, but 27 will do.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the LA Rams. They are coming out of the by-week. What do you want to see from Lar

Puka fully healthy? Um I think he's going to play. Sometimes he plays through some nasty injuries and it doesn't matter. still puts up crazy points, but that's like the big fantasy story line. I think the more interesting part would just be what are they going to do with the backfield because it's gone both ways like Kairen Bellcow then Ble Corm's like in an act like close to 5050 rotation now that we have the by-week like where are they going to actually settle? So the last two weeks before Kairen's at 10.2 and 12.5 expected points where he's typically is at like 17 18 fantas expected fantasy points. So, I think that's probably the more notable story line is, all right, is Kairen the RB10 the rest of the way or is he the RB19?

I continue to say it. I think this team is the best in football. I mean, it's also easy to say that when you know they just beat the Jaguars 35 to7 by week, but I think I said it before then, too.

Um,

they get the Saints and the 49ers over the next two weeks. Again, they still have to play the Seahawks twice, which is very important for the NFC West. the rest of the way. Uh, and we'll see what happens. Um, I I love how the Rams are operating at this moment.

They just made a big trade for a 25-year-old corner and corner the the weak spot.

I was going to bring this up when we get to the Titans. So, let's talk about those cornerback trades

when we get there.

Okay, let's keep it moving here with the Miami Dolphins who what put a 30 burger on the Atlanta Falcons this week. Um, the Jaylen Wadd stuff was awesome. Tua threw it directly over two linebackers on an early reception to him. Then you got another one where it was a catch and run through the heart of the defense that he gets to the sideline and runs it into the front pylon. Um again, and sometimes we give ourselves pats on the back and sometimes we talk for five minutes about topics that no one cares about. when last week Tua was like the quarterback 26 in consensus quarterback rings below all these other dudes and then it that never made sense to me and I think we had him closer like quarterback 19 or quarterback 20.

Yeah, they didn't do anything new which was I think the scary part of that Falcons defense >> in a dome.

Yeah, you get the Yeah, you get the Dolphins in the dome all of a sudden things are are clicking. Jaylen Wadd just yards after the catch-wise, everyone knows, is just so incredible. But he's really like starting to be a a good route runner on these like big out routes where Tuba throws the ball extremely early. There's a big defensive pass interference called on Jaylen Wadd. So I think like you said, the Browns game in the weather is going to be the outlier. I think at home and in domes they're going to be largely okay. There's going to be some tough moments of of course, but I think largely the offense is still what the Dolphins offense has been like the last couple years when they didn't have like peak Tyreek, but like the last like 20 games for the Dolphins, I think that's where we're going to kind of sit, which is good.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying like, oh, now this Dolphins team is back to being one of the five, 10 best offenses in the NFL. But against bad teams, they're still going to be able to beat up on them, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, we just have to probably pick our spots a little bit more because the offensive line is still a major concern and now no Tyreek Hill and the quarterback and play caller dynamic is yeah >> not lovely but you know this week could be one of those bad ones. It's Thursday night football. They're only projected for 21 and a half. They're at home but the Ravens here are projected for 29 points against this defense.

But I also think like the the new big thing is no Darren Waller for the next couple weeks too. So like the bar for a chain and and >> Oh, you're starting those guys no matter what. Yeah.

Yeah. But like I think like there's still a chance that Waddle can be the wide receiver 12, you know, where like for a second it probably felt like that was impossible. Uh I think there's a chance that he can still be in that mix and then Yeah. Last week was a season high in usage for for Devon Chain.

Yeah. And then it's like Bills defense, Commanders defense, Saints defense, Jets defense, Steelers defense, Bengals defense. Like those runoff games. Here we go with Han and Jaylen Wall to the moon.

Yep.

Okay, let's talk about the New England Patriots. Uh, where do you want to lead with this? Do you want to talk about Drake May and Kahan Booty or do you want to talk about their running game here?

I'll leave that up to you. Oh. Uh, let's talk about Drake May and Keshan Booty because we go through all these teams and it can be tough to like wrap your head around, oh, this guy has this stat line, but then what does he show on tape as an individual to Y say, oh yeah, locked in top 36 wide receiver based on what his stats are showing and then on tape.

Quan Buy's been one of those players to me that has been kind of difficult to do that. But what he is good at is what Drake May is literally the best in the NFL at right now in terms of 10 plus 15 plus 20 plus yard passes down the field. And that's his guy. And if he's playing more snaps than Stefon Diggs or these other players too, that's incredibly meaningful, too.

Yeah. Kan's like the reverse Jerry Judy where he's the wide receiver 75 in expected points this month, but he's the wide receiver nine in actual points. So this one there was a couple like double and triple moves. The touchdown was uh like a stutter and go, but a lot of times wide receivers on these stutters and goes, they don't like rotate their body in any way. It's just like to slow down the m momentum. He actually like rotates his body like he's going to run a dig route and then goes up. It's not it's not a like a a dig and up. It was just like kind of a little bit of a a body pivot and created separation. Then there's another one where he had a corner absolutely spinning like a top. So, his route running's good. You know, he's not like the the quickest player in the NFL, which makes him kind of unique, but his route running is good. and Drake May's throwing the ball up to him and the ball's been on the money. Drake May is number one in completion percentage over expected this year and largely that's on the deep passes to Quan Booty. So yeah, he he's difficult to rank because it's still like all right, you're getting five targets the entire game like you better hit on them. But during the by-weeks and stuff or if like all of a sudden he's not getting a sixth and seventh and eighth target like I do think that he's um the tape to me like it's pretty clear that he's he's a decent football player

and Drake May's just the man. So happy that. My gosh,

he's uh having the season because >> he he has a chance to win the MVP. I don't think it's the most likely scenario, but there's only another three quarterbacks that you'd even mention him.

Yeah.

I mean, this is always been a Drake May program. He has joined the program, broke down this game on this program. Uh just cool to see.

Very cool to see.

Okay, let's talk about the running game because this past week against the Cleveland Browns, uh Raandra Stevenson, 14 carries for 34 yards. again dominates the snaps. Trevian Henderson 10 carries 75 yards. So a major difference in just their overall success. What did you see when you went back and watched them?

So in terms of like the timeline, a lot more in the first half. The game was completely out of whack and more Trayvon uh later in the game. The cool wrinkle was just Trayvon to the perimeter and they did it like a million different ways. There were some like pitches, there were some misdirection, there were just like regular uh plays to the perimeter. And Trayvon Henderson, he wins a lot of foot races to the perimeter. And like that was kind of one thing that you could have nitpicked early on this season for the Patriots is they kept banging Trayvon Henderson between the tackles and he was probably the worst running back on them. He's just not big enough, strong enough to break tackles in there. And I thought his vision was a like a little bit, not impatient, but just a little bit delayed. Um where on the perimeter, you don't have those problems. So, I thought it was a good use of Tayvon Henderson. Um, and that fumble at the very last minute is like I think the one thing that's a little bit concerning because I just don't know if they're going to bench him after that. It was kind of a meaningless fumble in the end of the game, but that was when he cut back inside and there was some more traffic then puts the ball on the ground. So, largely a good game, a reminder how fast Ron Henderson is. Uh, but they got him kind of going on the same exact play over and over again.

I would also say it's a right of passage to fumble in the Patriots backfield. as as we have seen so far for Raandre and even Antonio Gibson earlier. To me, this was really smart usage. Uh I mean I understand that Triv hasn't been successful and far from it as an inside runner. Raandre Stevenson also has been terrible as an inside runner this season too. Like their tackleto tackle blocking on inside runs and also tight ends on top of it has just been flatout abysmal and that shows you know in their EPA per carry and right now they only have positive EPA on carries outside the tackles. Um, and so lean into this and it's even more lean into it against the Cleveland Browns which on tosses you can run away from Miles Garrett or you can pin him down and then run it around him too. So I thought his vision was really good on those outside runs. He didn't just drag it out to the sideline. He cut him up too. Uh, and yeah, I mean, again, I get some concerns on Trevian's profile, and those are highlighted when he's not getting a ton of work with the team right now in a Josh McDaniels offense. I would just overall say the Patriots have been abysmal running the football by anyone unless you're facing the Tennessee Titans and that's about it. So, if now they have found a way, which by the way, a lot of teams out there are running more and more toss plays to the outside. We've seen it with the Panthers and Rico Data. We saw it with James Cook last week, right? Um, they should lean into this more because they care about explosive plays and I mean, he had a number of explosive plays of 12, 15, 23, whatever plus yards.

Yep. That's how I would use him. I would start Roander Stevenson. He's more trusted and he's a better between the tackles rusher. And then I would mix in Trayvon Henderson and get him to the perimeter and see what happens. then eventually throw the football a little bit more. But it's hard to like I wouldn't even bother throwing the ball to the running backs right now if I have Drake May. I just keep throwing to the wide receivers down the field. So they got a lot of speed low key.

Yeah. The other part of this too is that Trevon early in the season was struggling with pass protection. Uh these last two, three games, every time he's been called upon has been very good at it. So again, just hopefully he's earning some trust here. uh because he does have skills to help this team uh on a rushing attack and you know after catch attack uh out of the backfield that I think has been struggling with that this season.

Okay, let's talk about the New York Giants. Big one here. Camciboo down for the season and at large for a team that has been projected for a few points on a weekly basis. This should actually lower it. Obviously, I mean, people say running back's replaceable, but he's a TD scorer. He's a chain mover to convert third and fourth downs. He's been a very good receiving back to not just create first downs, but take those into touchdowns on top of it, too. Uh, anything you want to say here about the Giants?

Yeah, just brutal. Uh, he was a fantasy running back, one uh wanted to just like where do we rank Tyrone Tracy? I agree that he's just not as good as Cam Scataboo, but he was the RB21 um last year from week five on and that was a team that did not have Andrew Thomas for a large part of that segment. And then from week five on that Giants team was 28th in EPA. The team with Jackson Dart is 17th in EPA. So I think that it's very likely that Tyrone Tracy is at least the

RB21 from this point moving forward. Um, so I'm gonna be blowing my entire fab budget whenever I'm in a league that he's available on. Uh, I wouldn't be surprised if he's the best waiver wire ad that you can make from this point moving forward.

The the Jackson Dart stuff, I think, is just like super impressive. There's so many throws out of structure. Um, and he could run, but there was so many throws that he made where either Darius Sllayton didn't come down with it, there was uh the offensive pass interference, Theo Johnson doesn't come down with it and stuff. And those plays are like actually in structure stuff. So I don't know. I I keep seeing a a very promising quarterback in Jackson Dar. Not like the he's kind of funny like headbutting Cam Scatabos stuff. Like I think that he's actually doing some like very promising like real life quarterback stuff.

>> We have an editorial call that I cite on the show nearly every given week now and there's three Giants fans on there and they all want Brian Dable like fired tomorrow which is very surprising to me. Um, I get you're losing a lot and he has lost a lot in recent seasons. I think it's also fair to say that uh the Brian Dball Jackson Dart marriage is more good than bad right now.

>> Yes. Yes. And that's without Malik Neighbors, you know, like we can have some grace that they're not winning games when they're maybe their best or second best player on the entire football team is not out there. I think part of this is because they just got shredded by the Houston Texans and literally do not have a single pass rusher.

>> Yeah.

>> But the Giants are projected to score 23 points on this 49ers defense.

>> That's week.

>> That's a lot higher than I mean when is the last time they've been projected for that? It's it's been a long time. So what Jackson Dart is doing.

>> It's it's already climbed two points since it's opened. So uh people are expecting points here.

>> Also Andrew Thomas stat like the onoff splits over like last three years with Andrew Thomas. My gosh. Aluminor on the right side like they have two

>> I mean Andrew Thomas is probably top three at his position but Aluminor has been playing you know top 12 top 15 on the right side too this season. So that like gives you an environment to win out of structure you know like a lot of these plays are three three and a half four and a half seconds and that is a skill but also that is easier to do when you have great edge protection on top of it.

Let's talk about the New York Jets because they're off a big fat W. Is this stuff repeatable? Is the Bree Hall stuff when he's weaving and running through tacklers and up the middle and the good blocking we've talked about

>> previously, but is this sustainable at all?

>> I'm not sure about the the rolling out and throwing the ball up to Mason Taylor for touchdowns as he's like heading by the cheerleaders. Um, I'm not sure if that part's repeatable, but it is something I I wanted to bring up with Breeze. We've talked about it the entire year. There's some weeks where I'm like, Josh, are you seeing the same thing? Like, he doesn't look like he's fully healthy. And then there's other weeks, like this last week where he was dominant, like physically dominant, uh, shaking guys like between the tackles, but also out in space, stopping, starting, showing explosiveness. So, I don't know. I never have a good feel for Bree Hall because sometimes I think that he's like running with like a little bit of a limp and maybe disinterested. Like this last week, he looked like a superstar. So, um, I I don't know. He looks healthy right now, so that's that's promising for him.

>> Connor Rogers brought this up. The transition tag for running backs is around $11 million. Couldn't you just spend the transition tag on Bree Hall instead of spending like a second or third round pick on a running back this off seasonason along with drafting a quarterback in round one and just have Bruce Hall for another? Again, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. He posts free 20 all the time and it seems like he wants to get out of there too. But he is talented

>> and like

>> you have to spend and by the way if you look at the round three, round four, whatever running backs, some hit and we only focus on the ones that hit. There's also

>> 70% that do not and turn into absolute zeros out there from your Trey Surmans to your Tai Davis Prices to your I don't know is he a Banana like there there are rough rough names out there. So it's not to me as simple as people make it out. Oh, you can just find a running back anywhere. Uh, I do agree. The franchise tag and transition tag for running backs is a lot easier because most running it's based off of the top five high speed paid players at each position, but all the teams use the franchise tag on the running backs and then like nobody wants to pay older running back. So, it's kind of like this like self-fulfilling situation where because there's fewer running backs getting paid a whole lot of money that the franchise tag becomes more appealing. So, I wouldn't be surprised if that's how this ends up. I do feel to answer my own question, it's very matchup dependent. I mean, they scored 39 points in this game. Their previous three games combined for 39 points on offense. Now, you face the Yeah, you face the Bengals defense, which sure, one of the worst units.

>> And then these next two weeks, it's the Browns and the Patriots run defenses.

>> You answered your question right there with a little research. How about that?

>> So, there we go. Uh, just to answer that one.

Okay, Philadelphia Eagles, they are headed into their by-week. Uh we talked about their four chunk gain drop back passes from under center last week. Uh those were less successful in this one, including I think like a 22 yard sack that Jaylen Herz

>> Yeah.

>> had in one of them this week. Just like the Houston Texans and the Miami Dolphins, it was sixth offensive lineman and the 65 yard touchdown on the second snap of the game to Saquon was out of that six line set. And the trade I think they made with the Jaguars for Fred Johnson if I'm not mistaken. He was their sixth O that came in.

>> Yeah, just big duo run. Landon Dickerson was out in space moving dudes. So that was not the case early in the season. So hopefully that that uh continues. Also didn't want to mention the Giants run defense is so bad right now and a lot of it's like Dexter Lawrence is like not the same player. He was a defensive player of the year candidate the previous season. He's just dealing with a big elbow injury and who knows what else is going on over there but he's just not been the same player. So that's something we should continue to lean into.

>> The other note that we brought up on Sunday is that it appears that Tank Bixby is clearly the running back too on this team which is massive. Uh they apparently traded for him to be a kick returner. He had never been a kick returner, was a terrible kick returner. He hasn't been returning kicks over the last two weeks. They've shifted Will Shipley into that role and he's done admirably there. And Tank Bsby looked freaking awesome. I mean, so explosive. A tackle breaker. I mean, he had runs of I mean, 18 yards, 12 yards, had another one of 29 yards. Uh again, he was to me making really nice reads of pressing the line than bouncing it or when getting to the second level. He was working between two defenders and bringing that tackle and creating more after it. Uh I'm not saying that, oh, he's going to be fantasy relevant every single week. But Saquon did leave with a groin injury, so we will see what happens moving forward.

>> Yeah, gets the by-week, so I think it's going to be Squar will be all right. But yeah, Tank Bsby on the handcuff rankings list. He's he's definitely viable there. So, in a in a deeper league, I would I would pick up Tank Pixby.

>> Anything else you want to say here about the Eagles? I mean, Dvonte Smith just awesome.

>> We've talked about him over the last

>> Yeah, he's awesome. Dallas continues to get red zone looks. Not in the same way this last week as previous, but also a very good football player.

San Francisco 49ers are next. Uh, it sounds like we will get Brock Pury back. I am not sure about Ricky Pierall.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, I would expect Pur to play before Pearson.

>> Yes, I I have it the same way. Uh, I'm hoping Brock Perie does come out and plays this one. The defense, I think, is the big story line for the San Francisco 49ers. Just they've lost too many pieces. So, this is a team that's just going to be in a lot of shootouts. Um, Ricky Pier just that PCL injury, same one that Brock Bowers has. It's just so hard to kind of figure out when he's going to be ready. And the same thing with Brandon Iuk. Um, so I think we're a couple weeks away from the wide receiver um returning. So, it's just going to be CMC, George KD, and then uh Jennings has not been good enough himself. He's just like super inefficient right now. And then Kendrick Borne has taken a huge step back. So, I don't know if there's a fantasy wide receiver that we'd want to start here. I think either one of those guys has a chance to have a breakout game, but it's hard to trust anybody right now.

>> I I really think it's that simple. There are a lot of inbreakers crossing routes that you can squint your eyes and in a couple weeks hopefully those are going to Ricky Pieraw and Bren Nauk because None of them uh have been kind of surefire week to week consistent players. I mean, I'm just looking at the snaps. Jawan Jennings, seven targets, four receptions, 45 yards. I think he had a like it's either this week or last week a interception go off his hands or another drive near the red zone.

>> Yeah.

>> And he's playing by far and away the most snaps out there. And then like Demarcus Robinson has not carried the magic that he had, let's say, with the LA Rams over to San Francisco here.

>> I mean, Sky Moore is getting legit snaps down the field. What are we doing? No, it's

>> you can't do this.

>> Okay, Seattle Seahawks are up next. Um, coming out of the by-week, what do you want to see with the Seahawks?

>> I mean, it seems so obvious like what this team is. So, like I don't really have like any strong notes there. Can JSN keep up the pace? I mean, he's like on a pace for like freaking 2,000 yards or some something crazy.

>> Where are they in neutral pass rate? because I think they're what one of the bottom

>> they're they've been kind of in the middle. They kind of take swings like they've been high and low. Um they've been really low at times, but

>> yeah.

>> Um yeah, they're hard teams that I think they're pretty game plan specific

>> um based off the defense and stuff. So I don't think there's like a exact blueprint, but I think a lot of people are starting to get worried that Sam Darnold's play when it's like the normal drop back game is not as efficient as like in the scripted under center stuff. But guess what? It's hard to be as efficient as he is in the under center stuff because he's the best quarterback in the NFL at it.

>> So, they are one of the better teams on edge runs and specifically one of their running backs, he who must not be named is much better on those edge runs, even if he is not at the top of their running back usage. Hayden, they faced the Washington Commanders this week. We have to get we have to get one certain running back 10 12 of these edge runs because one might pop off for a huge gain here.

>> It it could or Zack Charbanet could easily outpace him in fantasy usage.

>> Just saying if we're talking about matchups as we have seen with Frankie Louvu and Bobby Wagner not being able to run. Yeah,

>> this is the time I I do want to see this team be able to close out games easily

>> uh with their running game. When teams know that they are running the football towards the end against good defenses, they've uh they've really struggled as we talked about last week.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I mean, another week of not having Mike Evans and asking who the clear wide receiver 2 is behind me. Aiden, I think we have our answer. The answer is Tz Johnson. Yeah, TZ the last couple games 12.7 8.1 expected points. Um they have the by-week and then I think players are going to be returning from that. So I think we're get Bucky Irving back. I think we're going to get Chris Godwin back for that one. So it's just going to be harder to trust the AMCA stats like the actual box score like fantasy points have been down. Nothing has changed just the downfield shots. Like there's another post touchdown that he could have had here that just went incomplete. So when you run really really hot early in the season, sometimes you don't stay that hot, but over the course of the season, we know where this thing averages out. So like AMCA numbers like on the per like the the rate stats are the exact same. It's just he's not catching the touchdown where he caught literally every single one from weeks one through five.

>> Uh still waiting on the status of Bucky Irving. I haven't really seen anything reported on that. And just when we talked about Rashad White having incredible short yardage success as a ball carrier last week on this show, he then gets stuffed four or five times at the goal line.

>> Yeah. Yeah. That's what happens. Also regress the 90. Maybe the point of that chart should have been and he's not going to keep this up.

Okay, let's talk about the Tennessee Titans to close this thing out. Um there's two things I want to talk about and first let's talk positive for them. I want to talk about DK slot wide receiver out of Florida because this is one of those players again we have to figure out on bad teams who can we trust and who can be a legit fantasy asset for us and how he is being used. He should basically be ranked in the top 36 and he's scoring as a top 36 player. I mean, he is a role player on this team as a slot maven. But if we look at weeks one through six, he was getting like 4.3 receiving yards per game to week seven through eight, that has jumped up to 81 and a half. His targets per rout share is now over 20%. His overall target share is around 17%. So, I'm not saying that on every other team DK would be an outstanding asset, but I'm saying in what this version of this Titans team is where they're going to be losing, trailing, three wide receiver sets, Cam Ward throw the football, it is very clear he trusts DK as an option and it's throws he's very, very comfortable with.

>> I'm glad this is the player that you wanted to talk about because I see the same things on tape. He's infinitely faster than Elica Yumor and they give him these little shallow crossing routes. there's like a big post route. Um just in general he he's he flashes more on tape than Ela Yumor who's made some wow plays at the catch point but it's just a roller coaster ride otherwise. Elica Yumor had three huge brutal plays. Couple drops then also he just stopped running on this like big um corner route and there was no safety around him. If if he would have just kept running it would have been a 60-yard touchdown. He just stopped. So, I I don't know what the hell Ela Yumor is doing right now, but I have not liked this tape the entire season. And I agree that Chamir DK is flashing a little bit more, and it's to the point where I I think there's a chance he's going to be fantasy relevant. I'm not going to go top 36 this week because the team total is still so low, but he's on my radar. Somebody I talked about in the Waverwire show uh last night. He's I think he's going to end up being a better player than Elica Yumor. Um, moving forward,

>> let's talk about the trades this Titans team has made because so far this season, if we include the preseason when they traded Jarvis Brownley to the New York Jets and then now made a what was it? A fifth, sixth

>> pick swap, conditional pick swap here with Roger McCreary. Again, they've traded two corners aged 25 or younger on a team who has a terrible cornerback room and on a team who is to me struggling to find players to pay in the future. So,

>> McCreary is going to a true contender in LA on the final year of his contract. He either cashes in in free agency uh or the Rams just resign him. That's someone that, you know, the Titans could have been paying. And then Jarvis Brownley has played quite well for the Jets after they made that move and he has two more years on top of this season. So I understand trying to load up on picks, but we're not talking about, you know, maybe fetching a third round pick for an edge rusher here or a second round pick when you're trading a top wide receiver on the final year of his deal. We're talking about pick swaps or conditional picks in round five plus. And again, for a team that's searching for quality and depth that doesn't have any, it feels like both of these guys would have fit in that category.

>> You can't trade your young players that are worth paying. They have the most cap space in the NFL next year. Most. Who are they going to pay? Like the guys they need to be trading away, it's Tony Pard. It was Legarius Sneed. It's a defensive lineman. Ardan Key. Those type of guys. It's not these freaking NFL starting corners. It's insane. And I think the reason why they traded the Rams, it's because it it's the exact pick they're getting back from an Ernest Jones trade, which by the way is another young starter who they traded away uh to the Seahawks. Man, the Titans, I don't think they get put in the category enough of worst ownership group since what, like it was like 2015 or so is when ownership changed hands. Since that point, they had like one little stint with Rabel and Ryan Tananiel with AJ Brown, but then they got rid of all three of those guys. Uh AJ Brown's still very effective. Mike Rabel is still very effective. Um, couldn't believe that trade. It was so good for the Rams, but it's like who are who who are they going to be signing? you're going to save that money to pay players like their left tackle who's been struggling at top of the market money because you just have to spend the money on somebody and it's most likely not going to be spent on a player as good as Roger McCra is um who's 25.

>> It's uh I understand Boroni didn't select these guys and they might in some cases have been two general managers ago, but at the same time Lesn didn't draft him. You know, Darren Moo didn't draft him.

>> Thank you note. Thanks for drafting this guy. I don't have to find a a a starting corner now. Thank you. I'll sign you.

>> And you know, did he necessarily live up to a second round draft capital? Probably not. But at the same time, you're getting a conditional fifth round pick out of it. And so, yeah, get more picks, sure, but at the same time, you're going to have to find new starting corners next year.

>> I know.

>> Pay them or draft them or whatever. Uh I I just don't understand it from a team that again is just lacking so much depth uh to trade away 25 or younger cornerbacks. Cornerbacks.

>> Trade Calvin Ridley, Van Jefferson, Tony Paul. Like get anything for those guys so you can play your youngsters. You don't trade away the young players. It's

>> crazy.

>> All right. Anything you want to say about Taj Spears? I mean

>> I I should post a highlight every week of him. It's just the Titans are difficult to go through. Which by the way, Cam W is making some throws every single week and at the same time he's also dropping his eyes and running into pressure and having some bad habits on top of it.

>> Uh Taj Spears is a really fun runner still.

>> He is. It's a version of what the Panthers were doing where Tony Pard plays for a big chunk of the game, then it's Tai Spears and they kind of go back and forth. So Spears closed the game out and I think continues to look pretty solid. Um oh, also with the Titans, forgot about this. They had a decision in I think it was the third quarter. They were at about their 43 yard line. It was a fourth and three.

>> Fourth and four. Yeah.

>> They decided to punt the ball. Of course, the ball immediately lands in the end zone. Not only does land in the end zone, the ball even hits the back wall. It was nowhere close to being actually pinned down. So, poor execution. And then the next play is that Jonathan Taylor 80 yard touchdown. So for they saved 22 yards in field possession, which by the way, your Tennessee Titans defense not gonna stop anybody when you don't have Jeffrey Simmons. You're down points. And that was actually one of the drives where they're actually moving the football. So it's just like, okay, are we going to fire the interim head coach? Like we don't have an offensive line coach. Yeah. So I think the Jets get mentioned uh other teams get mentioned as like just worst teams organization from the top down. The Tennessee Titans because they don't they're not in New York City don't get mentioned in that same breath. absolutely deserves uh as much um pointing out as those other organizations.

>> Tap the sign. Bad teams stay bad because of ownership.

All right, we'll get out of here. Thank you to Weeds and Mosho behind the scenes, Hayden in front of the mic. Thank you all for watching. Again, as always, go play on the dog app on Underdog, promo code the show. Click the link in the description down below. If you play $5 your first time, we'll give you a hundred bucks in bonus cash. Especially if you like California, Texas, all these states that you previously couldn't do anything. We got prediction markets and more in a lot of places. So go and play on under up the villa. We'll talk to you all soon.