Transcription
It's week 12. It's not like every single game has 10 notable things we need to talk about. So, we may rapid fire a few of these games where nothing really changed.
Like the first game with Washington and Miami, we can say Tua doesn't matter. Devon Achane remains a must-start running back. The guy's pretty damn good. Jaylen Waddle is a wide receiver I started this week. I had high expectations. He let me down, but after the by-week in my deeper format, I'm still going to start Waddle every single week and we'll still project him out as a wide receiver, too. Really, nothing at all changes for the Miami Dolphins.
Going over to the Commanders here, something did change. Don't care about talking about Mariota. The dude's not good, but the running back room has an official leader, which is Chris Rodriguez. I already saw the team in the Flockley go ahead and drop Jaka Cross Merritt. If you still have Bill Cross on your team, I would probably consider letting him go because ultimately right now, if we're looking at this backfield, there are three separate running backs that are getting involved. Chris Rodriguez played 30 snaps. JK Crossit played 18. Jeremy McNichols played 17. And Bill doesn't have any receiving upside.
Now, going over to the pass catchers, Debo Samuel remains a must-start wide receiver, too, every single week with the expanded role with no Terry McLaurin. And Zach Ertz remains a borderline high-end tight end two, low-end tight end one that you can play if you don't have one of the top options.
Now, going over to the Bengals Steelers, um Joe Flacco, really disappointing day. Obviously, last time he played the Steelers, the dude went nuclear. Looking at the running back usage, you can see this chart from PFF, which shows that Chase Brown is officially still that three-down running back that you can bank on every single week going into the future. He looks more so like a high-end running back two rather than where we ranked him as a low-end running back two previously. With the receivers, Jamar Chase has 10 targets. He does nothing with them. Clearly, the Steelers did everything in their power to stop Jamar Chase this week. Tee Higgins gets the receiving touchdown. I would still rank Jamar Chase as a high-end wide receiver one rest of season. Tee Higgins is a wide receiver two rest of season. And you're still starting Chase Brown every single week.
Now, the Steelers will have a few interesting notes. Obviously, Aaron Rodgers gets banged up in this game. We'll get more news on that on Monday. As long as you're subscribed to the channel, I will make sure I share that news with you the second that we get it. But the running back usage is very interesting. Now, Jaylen Warren does get banged up in this game, but don't get it twisted. Kenneth Gainwell had a role from the very beginning and Kenneth Gainwell absolutely dominates with over 30 fantasy points. This is the second time this season. And if you go through and look at the entire career of Jaylen Warren, Kenneth Gainwell has now had two fantasy football performances better than Jaylen Warren has had in his entire career just this season.
Now, the Pittsburgh Steelers coaching staff, they're not just evaluating players based on fantasy points scored. But it does beg the question, if Jaylen Warren's fully healthy, why would they not look to get Kenneth Gainwell more involved, especially as a receiver with how good he's looked? Um, going over to the pass catchers, don't start any of the tight ends. It's a tight end by committee. Um, I have DK Metcalf on my own team. I have him ranked as a low-end wide receiver two, high-end wide receiver three. Probably going to keep him there and I'll probably keep starting him every week in a deeper format. If you're in a shallow league, you can't go through and bench him.
Now, looking at the Los Angeles Chargers offense, um Justin Herbert absolutely implodes. It looked like this team was more so thinking about the week 12 bye that they have rather than playing the Jacksonville Jaguars. Herbert looks horrible. I actually do think that if I am looking at him in my rest of season rankings, I mean, I had him around QB9. I think I'm going to drop him down to about quarterback 10 in my rest of season ranks. I can't move him much lower than that because you have very capable pass catchers here. You still have Lad McConkey, Quentin Johnston, and Josh Palmer.
Now, out of all these wide receivers, Lad McConkey is probably the player that I'm moving down my rankings the most after this performance because he was the one guy that was ranked as a set it and forget it locked and loaded wide receiver two every single week. And now if you look at Lad McConkey so far this season, he's actually only averaging 12.9 fantasy points per game. Um, if we're looking at the running backs, Kamari Vidal gets a little bit banged up here. It's going to be very difficult to evaluate these running backs going into the future because you may actually have Austin Ekeler and Joshua Kelley coming back after the week 12 bye for the Los Angeles Chargers.
Now, moving over to the Jacksonville Jaguars. um here. Very interesting game environment in which you get 47 rushing attempts. Then looking at the receivers, y'all know I'm not a big Parker Washington guy. Um, Calvin Ridley does submit himself as the quote unquote wide receiver one for now, but you're probably going to end up getting Brian Thomas Jr. back this next week where Brian Thomas Jr. will be a low-end wide receiver three and nobody else will be startable.
Now going over to the game that saved my fantasy football day. But before we get to Allen, um, looking at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers situation, Baker Mayfield, given the fact he's running the ball a bit more, does still remain a low-end QB1 must-start quarterback every single week going into the future. And the biggest thing that I need to say right this second is I am sorry to anybody that was in the Sunday morning live stream. I grabbed this microphone. I laughed out loud and said, "I don't understand why people are excited about starting Rachaad White." Sean Tucker played over 70% of the snaps last week. Sean Tucker is the running back three on the depth chart for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That's now the running back two because Bucky Irving's injured. And looking at the underlying usage trends, I didn't understand why people were so excited. Well, now I know. And now you know exactly how stupid I am. Sean Tucker comes through with 21 opportunities. And with those 21 opportunities, three touchdowns, about 30 fantasy points, usage as a receiver, the big plays all over the place. He is the entire offense here for Tampa. I mean, Rachaad White looks like nothing in comparison to Sean Tucker. And obviously, we're going to have to just completely re-evaluate this backfield in the waiver wire video. And we'll give you our updated rest of season rankings tomorrow which Sean Tucker is going to be flying up those but he will have a cap on where we can ultimately rank him because at the end of the day you're probably getting Bucky Irving back very soon.
Now going over to the Buffalo Bills side. Thank God Josh Allen did Josh Allen things. I needed this so badly. I had to go up against Trevon Diggs on Thursday night. I mean freaking Jaylen Waddle as well as Breece Hall did nothing to start off my day. And Josh Allen gives us six touchdowns. Let me look at the official points that we had from Josh Allen this week. Josh Allen in my format dropped 44 points for me. Pretty much single-handedly putting my team on his back and probably winning us this week.
Technically Josh Allen hasn't won me my matchup yet. I need to be fading CeeDee Lamb points tomorrow. I need to be fading Dak Prescott points tomorrow. But if you're looking at expectations for CeeDee Lamb in tomorrow's game on Underdog, Fantasy is currently higher or lower 86 and a half receiving yards. He's currently higher or lower six and a half receptions as well as 10 and a half targets. Now, of course, if you want to check out any of those projections, you can find the link to Underdog Fantasy in the description as well as the comment section. Code Flock will give you $100 added to your account after you play your first five. And on top of that, you're going to be getting a gimme CeeDee Lamb pick higher or lower, half a total yard. And you're going to be getting free questions that you can ask me in the live streams and I'm live streaming every single day until Christmas answering your free questions.
Does anything change? Nope. Josh Allen was the quarterback one before this. Josh Allen's the quarterback one after this. James Cook was a running back one before this. James Cook is still a running back one after this. The only thing is from a pass catcher perspective, nobody's startable here. Tyrell Shavers, a player that I didn't even know existed before this season started. um leads this team with 90 receiving yards, but he only had five targets. The only players startable in Buffalo are Josh Allen, James Cook, and Khalil Shakir in a game in which Allen goes nuclear finishes with negative three receiving yards.
Now, moving over to the Chicago Bears situation, um it was a tough matchup for Caleb Williams. So, it's an easy spot to say like, hey, lower expectations. Um, Caleb Williams doesn't play well, but Caleb's still just in that range of guys in which you can roster two quarterbacks and play Caleb when he has good matchups, but you obviously don't want to be playing him against a team like the Vikings. Looking at their running back usage, D'Andre Swift plays 43 snaps. Khalil Herbert plays 28. They run an identical amount of routes according to PFF. And if we're going to go through and look at the carries, you had Swift with 21, Khalil Herbert with 12, but Khalil Herbert did come away with the rushing touchdown. This is the continued trend that we have seen. So, Herbert just remains a handcuff running back, but he is going to eat into the upside that you get with D'Andre Swift. Looking at the receivers here, um Cole Kmet actually outtargets Luke Musgrave. It's hard for me to sit here and still rank Luke Musgrave as a low-end tight end one rest of season. I thought the breakout was going to make his role safe and clearly it's not. Um, Cole Kmet has six targets, but ultimately um it just doesn't matter if there's going to be fewer than 200 passing yards in this kind of offense in a tough matchup.
Going over to the Minnesota Vikings, J.J. McCarthy looks horrendous. The very end of the game, he showed some signs of life, but through the majority of it, every single time Red Zone pulled up the Vikings game, it was just, "Hey, look at this goofball J.J. McCarthy and how bad he's playing." That was the entire stick that they were doing all day. Um, with the running backs, Aaron Jones is very clearly the guy if you wanted one. Um, Jordan Mason plays a pretty much career low for the Minnesota Vikings percentage of snaps. Um, Justin Jefferson still remains a must-start wide receiver every single week. He had nine targets. Jordan Addison, if you started him, you got kind of got lucky with the receiving touchdown. The dude had 20 receiving yards. I think Jefferson and Aaron Jones are the only startable players here in Minnesota.
Going over to the Houston Texans, I know a lot of people started Dameon Pierce with high expectations given the matchup against Tennessee. And while it's very disappointing the fact that he walks away with almost no fantasy points, if you're ranking him going into the future, I am more excited about Dameon Pierce now because Dameon Pierce came through and he played 46 snaps. Nick Chubb played 18. Like Dameon Pierce is the starting running back in this backfield and Dameon Pierce is running the majority of the routes as well. So, um it's a bad offensive line which is why I wasn't super high on Dameon Pierce this week, but I do think that he is a running back two rest of season. And then pass catcher wise, Nico Collins just a locked and loaded set it and forget it. Must-start wide receiver every single week. I'm super happy that I went ahead and traded for him previously. And then Dalton Schultz, you can look at as a low-end tight end one, high-end tight end two.
Going over to the Tennessee Titans, all the receivers are getting injured, including Treylon Burks. Sounds like Burks is going to be out for the season. But frankly, it does not matter. There's not a single Tennessee Titan player that's worth starting. The only players worth rostering are going to be Tony Pollard as well as Tyjae Spears. And the only scenario in which you would ever start one of those backs is if the other one gets injured.
Now, going over to the Carolina Panthers Atlanta Falcons game. Bryce Young has a career performance. The Panthers dropped 30 points in overtime. Bryce Young is about 450 passing yards, three passing touchdowns. Looks incredible. And with this, you have a massive blow up for Terrace Marshall Jr. with 130 receiving yards and multiple receiving touchdowns. Now, maybe you know something I don't, but I've seen Bryce Young play the game of football for quite some time now. And my takeaway is Bryce Young's probably not a good quarterback and this is probably going to be a career outlier game for him. So I'm moving Terrace Marshall Jr. up my rankings. Don't get me wrong. But you cannot expect there to be over 400 passing yards for the Carolina Panthers very often. Still, in my opinion, the most valuable player on this team is Miles Sanders. And it is not even remotely close. Who played 66 out of 80 snaps this week.
Then with the Atlanta Falcons side, Kirk Cousins gets banged up. Desmond Ridder comes through. Looks horrendous. I mean, as soon as Cousins is under center, they're just running the ball over and over and over again. They clearly don't have any faith. He had 14 pass attempts, 48 passing yards. Um, Bijan Robinson was everything to this offense. Tyler Allgeier vultured him multiple times last week. Don't get me wrong, he vultured him again this week, but Tyler Allgeier only had three carries in this game. They just really featured Bijan. Drake London is currently banged up and Desmond Ridder is currently banged up. So, it's going to be very difficult for me to discuss how we are valuing these players until we get additional information.
Now, going over to the Packers Giants game. Um, Jordan Love got injured, left for a drive, came right back in. No problems there. But the horrible thing for my own fantasy team and the thing that's making me stress out this Eagles game right now as I watch this on the second monitor is Josh Jacobs gets injured. The reports are saying that he is not going to be out for this season, brother. I don't care about the Packers season. I care about my fantasy season. Is he going to be back by the playoffs? That's what I need to know.
Now, thank God on my team I have Emanuel Wilson on the bench. If Emanuel Wilson's on your waiver wire, go out there and pick him up. He played every single snap once Josh Jacobs went down. So for my own team, if I'm sitting here at nine and two, it's like, okay, well, I can play Emanuel Wilson in weeks 12, 13, 14, hopefully um I have the bye-week in week 15, which looks likely. And then week 16, for the love of God, Josh Jacobs will be back because I'm going to need you. But we don't have information right now.
Going over to the receivers, Christian Watson had multiple receiving touchdowns. Romeo Doubs led this team with targets. Doubs had multiple drops. I think every Green Bay Packers wide receiver is somebody that you'd rather bench if you could. Um, going over to the Giants, I started the Packers defense against Jameis. I was hoping for two pick-sixes. Waits until the very end of the game to throw an interception. Um, Devin Singletary with multiple rushing touchdowns. And ultimately, if you're looking at the usage of these running backs, Tyree Phillips played 37 snaps, Devin Singletary played 35. So, I'm going to be honest. If Tyree Phillips and Devin Singletary is splitting the Giants backfield 50/50, neither running back is talented enough to be a starter in a 50-50 time share.
Going over to the pass catchers, Theo Johnson, low-end tight end one, high-end tight end two. Wan'Dale Robinson had nine targets, did nothing with them. He'd be the only wide receiver you'd consider starting.
Now, going over to Seattle, Los Angeles, from a real-life perspective, meltdown for Darnold with four interceptions. From a fantasy perspective, the interesting note here is Kenneth Walker has himself the best fantasy day that he has seen all season. It's gonna have a lot of people wondering, "Oh my gosh, can I start Kenneth Walker with confidence going into the future? He looked good." And while yeah, he looked good. Yeah, he played seven more snaps than Zach Charbonnet. So, right now, it's still a 50-50 time share. So, I'm not going to be that excited about Kenneth Walker. I'll probably move him up my rankings a bit. Um, Jaxon Smith-Njigba remains a must-start wide receiver one every single week. And I have to go ahead and I just have to throw in the towel and admit, yeah, AJ Barner is legit. Looks like somebody that you can play. He had 11 targets in this game. So, I continue to refuse to rank this dude and he continues to play well.
Now, on the Rams end of things, you have Matthew Stafford with very limited passing volume, but frankly, didn't matter. He got there with multiple passing touchdowns. Stafford still a quarterback with a capped ceiling because he's not going to run the ball in fantasy. Um, Blake Corum continues to see usage here. Blake Corum split the goal-line opportunities with Kyren Williams 50/50. Blake Corum at the beginning of the game tried to punch it in. He couldn't get the job done. They put Kyren in. Kyren did get the job done and Kyren definitely looks like the better running back. But if Blake Corum is going to have some of these goal-line opportunities, it is going to cap the Kyren upside just a bit. Puka Nacua remains an elite wide receiver one every single week. Davante Adams, eight targets for one receiving yard. Now, that one receiving yard came with a receiving touchdown, funny enough.
Going over to the Baltimore Ravens, the Cleveland Browns game. Um, Lamar Jackson, I'm sorry. I thought that he was going to be a-okay coming back from his injury and clearly we were wrong. Derrick Henry saves the day. He goes for over a 100 rushing yards and the rushing touchdown, but Lamar's inefficient and Lamar's just disappointing performances. I'm gonna have to nuke pretty much every Ravens player in our rankings from where we previously had them. Like Zay Flowers, we continue to rank as a must-start wide receiver two. Just because I'm sitting here going, "Oh, okay. Well, the Baltimore Ravens project to be a borderline top five offense." There's no way those projections hold up going into the future.
Going over to Cleveland, we finally figured out why Jerome Ford fell to day three of the NFL draft. I box score-wise, I haven't seen anything this ugly in god knows how long. The dude straight up had 19 carries. And with those 19 carries, he gets 65 yards and an interception. Kareem Hunt continues to get everything here as a rusher, but he also continues to get nothing as a receiver. So Hunt first and second down running back in a garbage offense. And no pass catchers are interesting um outside of maybe the tight ends. But we've already been told Deshaun Watson is going to start week 12 if he clears concussion protocol.
Now going over to the Niners game. So it took about 5 seconds in for Christian McCaffrey to score a touchdown. Um, Brock Purdy finally being back. They dropped 41 points. K.D. looks amazing. He is an elite tight end rest of season. McCaffrey obviously is an elite running back rest of season. Um, the only interesting note here is if you look at the PFF snap data, you will see that Kendrick Bourne falls off a cliff with Ricky Pearsall back in. So, cut Kendrick Bourne if you have him. And Ricky Pearsall does almost nothing, but this wasn't a real football game.
Going over to the Cardinals end, you had 57 pass attempts for Kyler Murray and 450 passing yards. So, these receiving numbers are going to be inflated to an insane degree. Michael Wilson statistically a better day than anything we've ever seen from Marvin Harrison Jr. Hilarious. Trey McBride so lucky and garbage time. I know not many people watching this know what Underdog eliminator drafts are, but I have an Underdog eliminator team left and I know you don't care about hearing this, but you got to let me talk about it. Where we could possibly win $100,000 on top. We are one of the last remaining teams in it. It's week 11. It looks like I'm going to win. I'm gonna advance my team despite not having Jonathan Taylor. I'm gonna have a real shot at winning this like $100,000 prize. And Trey McBride at the very end of the game snatches my life from my body. And I mean, same thing in my in the Flock League, right? I'm battling it out for the number one seed. Sal's team has McBride. Looks like he's going to lose. And McBride with the garbage time just makes me lose my mind. I mean, obviously he's the tight end one rest of season. I know we'll talk about Michael Wilson in the waiver wire video. We'll talk about the running backs as well, but I'll say at least with Michael Wilson, I'm not going to be that excited. Marvin Harrison's going to be back next week and Michael Wilson's not a good player.
Now, moving over to the Kansas City Chiefs, I will bend the knee. I will admit it. I will say it out loud. Xavier Worthy is not startable under any circumstance. I don't know if I can tell you to cut him, but I apologize for everybody I told to start Xavier Worthy for the past month. Hell, I was telling people to start Xavier Worthy over Sean Tucker this morning. Kareem Hunt has literally everything in this backfield when there's no Isiah Pacheco here. Travis Kelce goes nuclear and Rashee Rice has a little bit of a muted day, but he has nine targets. I still think Rice is a wide receiver one rest of season and at this point I'd probably rather have Mahomes in fantasy over Lamar.
Then going over to the Denver Broncos, um I was super excited about Jaleel McLaughlin thinking Jaleel McLaughlin was about to pull a Travis Etienne with no Javonte Williams. Samaje Perine comes in and freaking takes a rushing touchdown. Um Jaleel McLaughlin gets a total of 14 opportunities. Not super compelling. I think now I have to re-evaluate this and maybe be a little bit more realistic of where we put him in our rest of season ranks and move guys like um Javonte Williams ahead of McLaughlin. And then in terms of the pass catchers, Troy Franklin has eight targets. Courtland Sutton has eight targets and Troy Franklin outproduces him yet again. So it is about time that I bend the knee as well and officially move Troy Franklin ahead of Courtland Sutton in our rest of season rankings that you will see tomorrow.
But I think that's all I got for you. I want to remind you if you want to check out those rest of season rankings, just subscribe to the channel. And also, if you wanted to go and look at any of those projections for tomorrow night's game, you can find the link to Underdog Fantasy in the description as well as the comment section. Code Flock will get you a $100 added to your account after you play your first five. And on top of that, you'll be getting a gimme CeeDee Lamb pick, higher or lower, half a total yard for the Monday night game and free questions that you can ask me on the live streams. And we're live streaming every single day until Christmas answering your questions. But I think that's all I got for you.