Transcription
Good morning friends and enemies. In today's video, as always, we will be going through every single game of the week eight slate for this fantasy football recap. Talking injuries, talking snap counts, talking routes, run, talking everything that you need to know for the second half of your fantasy seasons.
All right, we do this every single Monday. So, if you are new here, subscribe to the channel. Turn on the notification button so you know when we go live. We're doing it at noon Eastern time today. Sometimes it's 1:00, sometimes it's 2, sometimes it's 10:00 a.m. Really just depends on how I slept the evening before. But welcome in everybody.
We will start with Thursday Night Football's game where the Los Angeles Chargers beat the [ __ ] out of the Minnesota Vikings. I will say I'm I'm I'm curious to know how this game would have went if uh that pick at the beginning of the game counted and Minnesota had the touchdown to start, but it didn't and thus that would be an alternative universe and it didn't matter because the Vikings could not get anything going on the offensive side of the ball. Two biggest takeaways for the Vikings are that Carson Wentz will not be their quarterback going forward. Minnesota plays next week against the Detroit Lions in Detroit and JJ McCarthy will be back under center for that one. So, uh I don't know that I love that for the pass catchers. I don't think it's like a huge hit by any stretch. I do think Wentz probably gives them more ceiling games right now for the pass catchers where he'll randomly, you know, throw for 270 300 or whatever and it's great for Jefferson and Addison, but obviously the consistency of the passing game is terrible with Wentz under center. So hopefully some good things for JJ McCarthy.
We also had the big return of Aaron Jones in this one and he actually out carry Jordan Mason 5 to4. I didn't expect to see as much Aaron Jones as I did in this one as he was coming back from the hamstring train, but he's clearly going to be a very, very big part of the offense going forward. As we could see if we head over to the Minnesota Vikings on fantasylife.com, the snap counts were as follows. 53% in favor of Aaron Jones, 34% for Jordan Mason, and 13% for Xavier Scott. He ran the most routes, he had the most carries, saw the most targets, split the short down and distance, got most of the long down and distance plus the two and four minute drills. So, if you had to ask me based on this game which back I'd rather have going forward, I think we could just rewind it to around draft day when Aaron Jones was, you know, a seventh, eighth round pick and Jordan Mason was a ninth, 10th round pick, right? Like I think that's probably the split that we're going to be looking at going forward. I do expect both backs to be involved. But like at the beginning of the season, Aaron Jones will probably be the pass catcher. He'll make some big plays. I think Mason will likely be on the goal line when they are down there. But it makes the backfield just a completely messy situation for the time being.
On the flip side, the backfield is not messy here until Omar Hampton comes back cuz Kamani Vidal had another huge game. 23 for 117 on the ground and a touchdown. Catches a pass for 10 yards. But yeah, I mean until Omarian Hampton comes back, Kamani Vidal is very well trusted in this Chargers backfield and he will be a rock solid RB2 because they just they love him, they trust him, they keep giving him the ball. So don't need to overthink that one. Herbert, another huge game, 227 and three through the air, 62 on the ground. The big takeaway here is just the complete flipping here of Aronda Gatson's role with Quinton Johnston. Gatson's obviously a tight end, but he has become a pure pass catching weapon here. Looking so good doing it. Turned his five targets into five catches, 77 yards, and a touchdown. Probably could have been worse if they were throwing the ball at all in the second half. But, uh, yeah, he was like our our top, you know, waiverwire pickup last week, two weeks ago, whatever, because he's a legitimate pass catcher in an offense that's throwing the ball a ton. Herbert's clicking on all cylinders right now. He's awesome, and it's clearly come at the expense of Quinton Johnson. I don't know if he's just recovering from that hamstring strain or he is just morphing back into Quinton Johnson. I think Johnson's a much better player than he was in the first couple of years obviously and I think he'll have better days ahead. But right now, I guess just based on what we've seen the last couple weeks, I think it would be wise to put him as number, you know, three in the wide receiver pecking order, number four in the pass catching pecking order. Gatson to me feels like an every week starter at this point going forward in your tight end slot. When we look at the routes run at the tight end position for the Chargers, I mean, he's he's a near every down player, 91% of the routes. 91. That's higher than Lad, higher than Keenan, higher than QJ. He's running more routes than the receivers at this point. Maybe he is the maybe he is the number one weapon there. Lads look great, but but Gadson looks super [ __ ] legit. So, you know, pass catching tight end out of Syracuse. People loved him coming out of the draft because of the the passcatching ability he had as a playmaker. Um, and it's coming to fruition here.
So, let's move on to game number two. Just like I can't say I'm surprised as a Falcons fan, to be honest with you. Yeah. Dolphins, Falcons, Dolphins beat the [ __ ] out of us despite it seeming like the Dolphins were going to be the worst team in the NFL. 34 to10. From the Miami side, listen, I can't say I'm overly surprised. I think like the the demise of Tua and the fact that people thought he was going to get benched and McDaniel was going to get fired, I always thought that was a little bit overhyped. Obviously, they were coming off the worst game ever, but it was against Cleveland and it was in just terrible weather. Like, we know Tua just simply cannot operate when it's in that weather. When it's in that type of environment, you go to a dome in Atlanta, it's much more Miami speed. So, we saw Tua have a huge game. Devon Chan, uh, 23 touches in this one. He got home. Jaylen Wadd bounce back. I can't believe how many, uh, how many, um, Jaylen Wadd sits star questions I I had like Jaylen Wadd or some [ __ ] schlub at receiver like based off the Cleveland game which is crazy to me. Waddle just had a bad game and I think in normal environments he's you know a high-end wide receiver uh too and and more likely like a top 10 fantasy wide receiver going forward.
On the flip side they just couldn't get anything going for Atlanta. I mean they were they were without Michael Penn. We were without Drake London because of the hip injury. From what I'm hear like a real uh report on Drake London. Like all we know is that there was a hip injury on Friday's practice which made him limited which means he didn't finish the practice like he started the practice got hurt and then didn't finish and then was ruled out. If it's like a basic hip pointer injury he should be back next week but again we don't have like a clear uh injury report on what happened. So I don't know. Michael Pennix from what I'm hearing I think there's a good chance that he is back. It's it's not an overly serious injury. He was limited throughout the entire week. Just couldn't get a full practice in. So, I think there's a 5149 chance that we do see Michael Pennix back on the field. Kirk Cousins didn't really do himself any favor. I'm sorry to everyone who I told to start Darnell Mooney. Just a bad read. I guess it was Miami's terrible secondary. Darn Darnell Mooney had a good game last week. Him and Kirk had great chemistry last year. That was when Darnell almost had a thousand yard season and Kirk was the quarterback for the majority of it. So, um yeah, just a shitty game for the for the Falcons, man. They just they just sold out the Miami Dolphins defense did to stop Bejon because it was like they don't have any pass catchers that can separate with Drake London out and that worked to perfection. We also had a lot of our key defenders out in this one too. So again, not not a huge surprise that uh that we flopped. We are just the most inconsistent team in the NFL. It is disgusting.
Jets and the Bengals. Jets get their first win of the season. I can't believe they they pulled this [ __ ] win out, but I mean nothing major to take away. Justin Fields had a you're playing against the Cincinnati Bengals who are the worst team in the NFL and they lost Trey Hendrickson in this one who was likely going to be sidelined for some time reinjuring the hip that kept him out the week prior. Um so now it's probably going to be a more elongated absence for him. Bree Hall had a really good game against the worst defense in the NFL. So again there there's nothing really to take away from here. There was some pass catchers that got home on the back of literally Garrett Wilson, Josh, like no one playing here. So, um, the Jets have their buy in week nine. Likely going to get Garrett Wilson back after that in week 10. I continue to say just hold on to Isaiah Davis. You know, I mean, if you flexed him this week, he obviously actually had a good game for you. Five catches, ended up with over 100 total yards from scrimmage because of that breakaway 50-yard play. Um, but again, listen, the Jets are 1 and seven. Trade deadline is November 9th, I believe. Something November 6th or some something like that around that time. um week 10ish. So if if they move Bruce Hall, Isaiah Davis is going to be a near every down player. So I would just keep him stash on your roster if I could.
On the flip side, Flaco left the game for a minute with what appeared to be an AC sprain. Probably got an injection. Uh from what I'm hearing, it's not overly concerning. They play Chicago next week who has an absolutely like decimated secondary. He could take another shot even though it isn't a throwing shoulder and should be able to play through it. The backfield Chase Brown has seen some life injected back into him. uh with Flacco back under center here. So that's big for the entire offense. Obviously Jamar Chase 19 more [ __ ] I didn't even realize he had 19 targets in this one. Holy [ __ ] Uh 19 targets. The only problem, you know, you can't complain at all about Jamar Chase, you know, in my in my biggest league full PPR, I have Jamar Chase. So like he's like almost doing nothing but doing everything for you. Like for him to have a bad game and get you 21 points is miraculous. They're not targeting him at all downfield. and he does continue to like bobble balls and like just drop passes for some reason. I guess you know when you have 20 targets a game you're going to [ __ ] up a few of them. I do wish we saw a few more downfield shots to Jamar Chase. But Jamar T. Higgins, Chase Brown are all viable again thanks to Joe Flacco. They did play the New York Jets, so you know, we don't got we don't want to get over our skis, but Chicago is another team that you could start a lot of players against. They get a buy, then they're against Pittsburgh, New England, Baltimore, Buffalo, Baltimore, Miami. So, a lot of easy uh teams that they're playing against on the schedule going forward. Chase Browns to me right now like he's not getting enough work that I feel him being like a a top 15 guy by any stretch if they're not playing a great matchup. He gets into the end zone twice in this one over 100 yards from scrimmage. Tougher matchups. I do think he'll be more of like a a flex option again, but of course like if if you if you started Chase Bryan the last couple weeks, you feel a lot better about him. Saja P. Ryan is for show. He's playing more. Listen, I I I don't want to take that away from him. And he looked good yesterday, but again, 17 times in a row, they're playing the Jets. Terrible [ __ ] defense. Uh 43% of the snaps. I mean, that's the one thing if you are watching this game, you could you could see clearly that Sama Pyan has carved out a real role in this offense. Uh he's not going to be startable though unless Chase Brown gets hurt.
Patriots Browns. Um from the Brown side, couple injuries to watch out for. Quinnshaw Judkins looks like it's probably an AC sprain and they do have their buy in week nine. So from what I'm hearing the rumblings, we should not be overly concerned about it. There's a very good chance that he could play after the buy in week 10. So, good news there. If he does miss, it does look like Dylan Samson will largely be the guy in that backfield. Kind of similar to the beginning of the season when he was catching a thousand passes, not really running very successfully, but very, very usable in PPR. If that does happen, Harold Fannon, very good game. Injoku gets in national tight end day. Expect nothing less. Jerry Judy, another miserable game. I think there's a chance that we see Shidor Sanders under center soon. He was not active in this game. he was uh sidelined with an injury and Bailey Zappy was the backup. But I do think if Gabriel keeps playing like this and just not giving his team a chance to compete and win, um we might see Shidor Sanders soon. So if you're in the Superflex league, you got some room, you know, 14th team, whatever, and he's available, I might think about dropping a couple dollars fab on him and just kind of seeing what happens with that situation.
On the flip side, Drake May just continues to play [ __ ] lights out. 282, three touchdowns, 50 more on the ground. In the MVP conversation, P show in terms of the pass catchers. I mean, it's just it's almost like um it's almost like Josh Allen where you just like can't really you can like rely on all of them, but you can't really rely on any of them on a week- to-eek basis. Like this week was the Matt Collins week and the Kan Bud week. Stefon Diggs finally gets into the end zone, but only has 14 yards. So, the way I'm looking at them, I think Diggs is like a low-end wide receiver two, high-end wide receiver three. Bouty is more of like a low-end wide receiver three flex play. Both of them very much playable. Um, but hard to to know what to expect on a weekly basis. Backfield's a little interesting. Trayvon Henderson got a lot of run early, was breaking off a lot of big plays, 10 for 75 on the ground. Did lose a fumble um towards the end of the game though. And I don't know, this coaching staff hard to understand what they care about, what they don't care about. For Raandre and Antonio Gibson, they don't care about fumbles. For Trayvon Henderson, because he's a rookie, maybe they do, but it's clear that the explosiveness for Trayvon Henderson was there. While Raandre Stevenson doesn't really have it snap counts, though, I mean, it it's more just par for the course here. They are splitting the snaps as they were um for most of the season here. Even in a good game for Trayvon Henderson, he just happened to get a lot of carries on the snaps that he was playing, but it was still 72% to Raandre, 22% to Trayvon Henderson. So, until we see a more clear role for Trayvon Henderson here, you know, I'm not I'm not about to chase a nine carry sample size right now and throw him into my lineup.
Eagles versus the Giants. Well, sorry on the Giant side of things because it was a decimating decimating day for them as they lose the lifeblood, the heart, and the soul of their team. Camp Scatabo suffers a a fractured ankle. It's the same injury that Aiden Hutchinson suffered last year. It's the same injury that Alex Smith suffered, the really severe injury a few years back. Chris Godwin suffered this. Um, basically what happens with an injury like this from what I understand is, uh, the reason something like that can happen to an Alex Smith is if the bone gets exposed through the skin, it can get infected which leads to a really, really bad injury obviously and that's what happened with Alex Smith. However, if it doesn't and it's just a typical ankle fracture, you can recover in real time. As we can see, Aiden Hutchinson was it was like week four, five, six, whatever last year and he's back at full strength right now. So there's very much a timeline in which Cam Scatabo is fine and ready to roll for next year. He'll obviously be out for the remainder of the season, which opens up a ton of opportunity for Tyrone Tracy. And I imagine that's what this backfield is going to be going forward. So Tracy to me is going to be I think on a week- toeek basis probably going to be ranked inside that like RB 18 to 24 range depending on the matchup. But I expect him to be a 65 to 70% snap guy. Deon Singleary taking some short yardage and just some like breather back carries. But we have all of last year's sample size where Tracy took over as a starter. Um, you know, once Devin Singleary got hurt a little bit, he came back, he kind of lost his job. But on Sunday, we saw Tracy 64% of the snaps, Singleary only 16% and it was mostly Tracy's job uh to lose at that point. If we look back at last year, it was much of the same. It was Tracy 67% for the season. it was uh singleary 28% of the season from week eight onward and I think that's just what we're going to get. So I think Tracy's now like a really solid RB2. He's he's easily the number one waiverwire pickup on the week if he's available. I also think D uh Darius Sllayton first came back from the hamstring pull. Another very good waiverwire target for you. Only two for 26 on the box score in this one, but he did lead the team in targets with five of them. He also had a 67yard touchdown called back on a questionable offensive pass interference penalty, but that's the type of upside he brings any given day. The Giants 24 pass attempts, 21 rushes, that's 45 total plays to get sacked five times. So 45 to 50 total plays for offense is an extremely low number that you should not expect going forward. So with the state of the Giants, you know, they're going to have to throw the ball a lot. I think Darius Sllayton's actually a really sneaky good pickup if someone dropped him following the hamstring strain a couple weeks ago.
On the flip side, Herz four more touchdowns through the air. Devonte Smith 6 for 84. Dallas got two more touchdowns. They were without AJ Brown, of course, the hamstring strain. They have their buy next week, week nine. So, uh, from everything I'm hearing, AJ Brown should be back for that game against Green Bay. They didn't need him for this game. Obviously, Saquon now Saquon 14 for 150 breaks away that 65 yard touchdown very early in the game and you're like, "Okay, Saquon's back." Ended up getting another one through the air. So, a massive fantasy day for Saquon. Now, he does he does leave with what looked like a hamstring strain originally, but then it was reported that it was a groin strain. He also came out after the game showing very little concern for it, saying that it's not serious, saying that he'll be fine after the buy, saying as far as um, you know, if this was a competitive game or a very serious game or whatever, that he would have probably tried to return. But everything that I'm hearing from the different doctors that I follow and whatnot is this is not something to be overly concerned about and there's a very very a good chance that he doesn't miss any time. So, the Tank Bsby hype was fun for a second. This was like his first good game. He looked awesome. Nine for 104 on the ground. What we do know now is he's the clear handcuff to Saquon. Does if Saquon misses uh a game following the buy, which again most people are not expecting that. I think Tank could be a streaming option. Obviously, it's a very good run offense as a whole. He doesn't really have that breakaway ability like Saquon does. And they do play, I believe, what is it at the Packer? Yeah, they're at Green Bay, which is not an easy matchup. And this is not going to be a long-term injury for Saquon, even if he splits snaps in the week back from the buy or he does end up missing a game. Tank's not someone I would go crazy on rostering, but if you're a Saquon owner and you want to be safe and grab Tank and just hold on to the handcuff for the playoffs, I don't really have a problem with that. But again, just not overly serious for Mr. Saquon.
Bills Panthers, uh, not much to take away here from the Bills side of things. Josh Allen doesn't need to do much cuz James Cook just took over this game. 19 for 216 and two touchdowns on the ground. Clear does break off a big play of 54 yards for a touchdown. So he gets home six for 88. Otherwise, Keon Coleman continues to be really disappointing. Bad game for Dton Concaid, but again when Josh Allen competes 12 passes and James Cook just dominates. You're just not going to get much from the Buffalo side.
On the flip side, Andy Dalton played horrendously. Took seven sacks, uh, interception, lost two fumbles. Like you you just couldn't have played a worse game. That being said, like everyone predicted, didn't think it would go this way. But T McMillan, 10 targets, seven catches, seven 99 yards, has a very strong fantasy day. No one else behind him does. The backfield, I mean, here's the problem. It's like every week Rico Dattle just continues to average six, seven, eight yards per carry. And every week the Panthers coaching staff just doesn't care. It's very clear that Rico is a much better fit. He's a much better runner right now than Shouba Huard, but they're just they're still just completely splitting serieses. There's no, you know, down or distance. There's no third down, short down and distance goal line opportunities. It is just Rico Travis or Rico uh Chuba. Rico Chuba. Rico Chuba. There was a play there was a a series where I think Rico had a really nice play and then Andy Dalton turned the ball over the next play and then the next series was just Chuba. They didn't even let him ride it back. So, I would love to say, "Yeah, I like Rico more, but we just we don't we don't know who's going to be in when they get to the goal line." And it happened to be Chuba at the end of the game in this one. So, it's just, you know, right now they're both like they're both like kind of shitty RB3 flex streamers that I don't feel confident in putting into my lineup. They play at Green Bay next week. They do get New Orleans after that, but yeah. I mean, like I'm I'm not going to feel great about having Rico or Chuba in my lineup at Green Bay next week, unfortunately. So, we need a [ __ ] injury to one of them for the other one to open up.
Ravens and the Bears. The Ravens get it done. And uh if I heard correctly on a podcast this morning, the Ravens at two and five are now the favorites to win the AFC North. Honestly, not surprising at all. The Steelers finally have a tough uh slate of games on their schedule, and we saw last night they lost to the Packers, and they'll probably continue to lose. and the rest of the teams in that division are terrible, especially after the Bengals lost to the Jets. Snoop Punley fills in, gets it done, mainly thanks to Derrick Henry, 2171 and two touchdowns on the ground. Don't really need to talk about the rest of this game. Lamar Jackson will be back for Thursday Night Football. Lamar Jackson plays at Miami Thursday Night Football. He'll be back. He'll be ready to go. This offense will be back at full strength and they will dominate the Miami Dolphins.
Chicago Bears side of things. Uh, not a great game for Caleb Williams. 285 and an interception. Had some crazy good plays. Had some crazy dumb plays. Roma Dunce does get home 7 for 114. So, good to see a bounce back there. Four for 73 to DJ Moore. Most of it on the back of an insanely bad decision by Caleb Williams to throw the ball to him, but a crazy one-headed catch by DJ Moore. Um, yeah. I mean, I don't even know what I'm talking about. Nothing to take away here. Does not make me trust DJ Moore at all. is like you don't really want to trust anybody in this passing game except for Roma Dunay. Kind of a disappointing day for Coulson Lovelin despite the game script and despite Kmet being out for this one. Backfield very much a split again between DeAndre Swift and Kyle Manungai. Swift does perform better 11 for 45 gets the touchdown on the ground. Manungai seven for 24. Swift also bests him in the receiving game catching two for 26. He continues to make big play week after week after week after week. But it's also very clear that they want to split the snaps in this [ __ ] backfield, man. And I got to say, as a Swift owner, I'm enjoying the fantasy points he's putting up, but it makes me queasy watching this backfield rotation. And if you can sell DeAndre Swift high, I would do it in a second. They're past their by-week, which is like a good thing for them obviously. However, if you've got Swift and you can move him for like a high-end wide receiver or something, I I would try to package something and get Swift off your lineup. Not because I don't think he's going to have good days ahead or I I don't think Kyle Manungai is going to jump Swift. Like Swift clearly looks like the better player, but Ben Johnson's offense just wants to run through multiple backs, unfortunately. And again, their their games over the next couple weeks are nice matchups. Like maybe you want to wait. They get Cincinnati next week, the Giants after that. So, those are two matchups you could absolutely, you know, perform really well against. But starting in week uh I mean right after that, they're at Minnesota, Pittsburgh, at Philly, at Green Bay, Baltimore, Buffalo, Baltimore, Miami. So, mostly really tough matchups leading into the playoffs, which is another reason to, you know, not only try to move off Swift because of the backfield situation here, but because of the schedule down the stretch. So, just my two to seven cents. Um, I actually need to go get water because my throat hurts a little bit. All right, so forgive me. And while I'm going to get water, do me a favor. Uh, and just hit the the thumbs up button. Thank you. Love you. Yeah. Yeah.
Moving over to the Niners and the Texans. Uh just just an unraveling of the 49ers. The injuries are finally starting to catch up to them. They are down to some really really bad players on defense. More injuries they sustained in this game. Two defensive linemen. I think the guy that was backing up Fred Warner is now hurt as well. So they are really really down to the nuts and bolts here. But but they should get a lot of reinforcements back next week against the Giants. I do believe Brock Pery will be back. I think there's a good chance Ricky Pieraw is back. Um actually don't want to guarantee that at all because he hasn't been practicing, but I also think there's a chance that they opened up Brandon Iayuk's 21-day practice window. So I think reinforcements are coming. Just a really bad day from their offense overall. None of the pass catchers really got home. George KD did score a touchdown. Jawan Jennings four for 45 dropped a [ __ ] beautiful seam ball by M. Jones that would have been like a 40 50 yard catch. So he could have had a much bigger day. Still holding out hope for him especially when Brock Perie comes back because they have a great chemistry but just a really bad game for the 49ers mainly because they're banged up on the defensive side of the ball.
On the flip side this is a tough one to figure out here. Shroud obviously rips it 318 two touchdowns through the air despite being without Nico and Christian Kirk. Now, not having Christian Kirk, he's a very replaceable player by these younger dudes that they have, but it's impressive him doing this without Nico Collins. The running back group, we had Woody Mars 11 for 62 on the ground. Nick Chub 17 for 56. Neither of them get into the end zone. Woody Marx does go 4 for 49 through the air thanks to a 50-ard catch. Uh Nick Chub catches two for 13. When we look at the snaps between the backfield, I think these games are just going to keep coming and going. Like everyone wants to anoint something new or have a new take on this every single week, but this is just what the backfield is. It's a split. Some games are going to be towards Woody Marks. Some games are going to be towards Nick Chub. I'd rather have Woody Marks because he's a pass catcher and he's proven that over and over again, but there's going to be floor games. There's going to be down games going forward. And that's like when you pick a player, when you have a player on your team, it's almost like you shouldn't look at a guy's rankings on a weekly basis. It's like think of that on a four-week time horizon. Like if I say Woody Marx is a nice low-end RB2, if he performs at an RB1 level the following week, that does not make him an RB1. I still think over the when I say he's going to be a low-end RB2, I basically mean that that's my outlook for him over, you know, the next four weeks, over the next month, over the next six weeks. So, there's going to be a mix and match of games where he's an RB1, he's an RB3, he's an RB4, he's a high-end RB2. Like, it's going to mix and match and go all over the place. So, that's the type of backfield we're looking at here. So when we look at week eight, we had the snap counts in particular, 31 for Woody Marks, 32 for Nick Chub. As we already said, Nick Chub got more carries, but Woody Marks ran 17 routes to Nick Chubb's nine. Um, and that's it. Darian Gumal a little bit involved here. 12 snaps, British Brooks 11, but probably a little bit game script uh involved there for sure. Texans were kind of beating up on the ners most of the game. And as always, this website here with the snaps, the snap counts, all this kind of stuff. Really useful information for you is on fantasylife.com. That is available. This utilization report with a fantasy life plus subscription. Um, really, really good deal for you guys. If you use code BDGE, when you get a Fantasy Life subscription, you are going to get 20% off and you'll have it for a full year. So, you'll have it for the remainder of the season, you'll have it for draft season, you'll have it for the summer, and then you'll have it for the first eight weeks of next year as well. So, if you go to fantasylife.com, get a fantasylife plus subscription. Again, use code BDGE when you check out. 20% off your subscription. Best resource in all fantasy football right now.
The receivers in Houston, no Nico Collins because of the concussion protocol. uh he had it Monday night so it was very unlikely for him to clear before this game but does make him very likely to clear before their week nine game against Denver. They're home against Denver. Patrick Certan suffered a shoulder uh possibly pec injury and good chance that he might not suit up for Denver which is a big blow to their defense. What do we make of this receiver group here without those two? We had all three Iowa State receivers kind of get home. Xavier Hutchinson five for 69 and a touchdown on six targets. Jaylen Nowell five for 63 on six targets. Jaden Higgins led the team with eight targets, four for 34. He does get into the end zone. When we look at the snap counts, however, Jaylen Noel still not [ __ ] playing enough, man. It was 34 routes for Jaden Higgins, 33 routes for Xavier Hutchinson, and only 19 for Jaylen Nowell because Braxton Barios was still playing on 16% of the um or ran 16 routes on the 34 drop backs by CJ Strad. Now, Braxton Baros also got banged up in this one. Hurt his chest, I believe. I don't know the severity of the injury. Um, if he's out, that's going to be a big uptick in snaps to Jaylen Nowell, who should already be [ __ ] playing far more than Braxton Barios here. If Nico Collins comes back, which I do expect him back for week nine, it makes this whole situation really messy and really difficult to project going forward. I think the other outside wide receiver is likely just going to be split snaps between Hutchinson and Jaden Higgins, which means both of them are going to be really hard to trust. If Christian Kirk is out again with the hamstring strain, he has not practiced yet. So, I think there's a a 5149 chance he does not play again in week um nine against Denver and Braxton Bars are both out. Then I kind of like Jaylen Noel. Then I I do think his snap counts rise up to, you know, 60 65% and then you have an explosive player who's getting separation over the middle of the field. Ultimately, very hard to trust right now. very hard to dictate where we're going with these receivers at this time because we don't know the status of Christian Kirk and Braxton Barios and Nico Collins and all these guys. But I do think Noel and Higgins, their day two picks, round two for Higgins, round three for Jaylen Noel, need to be owned in 12 team leagues because this is that, you know, that prime second half of the year breakout for rookies. Xavier Hutchinson, I want to give him some credit, too. He's played really, really well in the absence of guys over the last couple years when they've needed him to. I am less likely to uh to to roster him in a 12 team league compared to Higgins or Noel because I think the other two just have more upside. But I do think in deeper leagues, maybe 14 teamers, you can you can roster Xavier Hutchinson. But because Nico Collins is only dealing with a concussion, he should be back soon.
Bucks and the Saints. Uh the story of this game was just the Bucks defense. They just put the Saints through hell. Didn't really need much on offense. Baker only throws for a buck 52 which really pulls down all the receivers for the Bucks. They have their buy in week nine. Um so I think there's a good chance you get Bucky Irving back. Uh we'll have to see on Chris Godwin. I think there's a decent chance that they open up the practice window for Jaylen McMillan somewhat soon. Wouldn't take my word for it, but yeah, Bucky being back will be will be big for the offense. Uh on the flip side, the Saints ended up benching Spencer Rattler and putting in Tyler Shuck, their second round pick this year, 40th overall. I mean, their numbers are damn near identical. So, I can't say for sure. I can't say for certain that we're going to see um that we're going to see Shucks starting next week. New Orleans plays at LA, the Rams, uh, and then at Carolina before they're buy. So, maybe they give Rattler two more starts. I think Rattler up to this point, like I know every there's so many people on Twitter that are like trying to be really sharp and be like, "Yeah, Rattler's actually been like super good this year." It's like, "No, he hasn't really. He's leading a team that's one and seven." It's not like the supporting cast is like there are way worse supporting casts in the NFL than what Spencer Rattler has. Shahed, Al, Jawan Johnson, Alvin Kamara. um their offensive line, they're not great, but I'd say they're they're probably somewhere between like 16 and 20 in the offensive line range. So, like they're a far worse supporting cast for guys that are not 1 and seven right now. So, I think people try to outsharp themselves with with takes like that about Spencer Rattler. I think 5149 I would lean that he's been better than he's been worse. Um but they're clearly just not winning games. And they did use the [ __ ] 40th overall pick on Tyler Shuck. Do I have confidence in Shuck? No, not really. But um we'll see going forward. I mean, this team attempted 51 pass attempts in this game, which led to 12 targets for Shahed, 12 more targets for Alve. Jawan Johnson has a decent game, but just hard to trust anybody in this offense. I mean, Alvin Kamar, first game without Kendra Miller, Devin Neil doesn't get a single carry. Kamar only has six carries for 21 yards, catches two passes for 21 yards, so or 24 yards. So, Kamar has just been wildly disappointing uh this year. He did get banged up towards the end of the game, but I don't think it's overly serious. We'll keep an eye on practice reports for that one. U but yeah, Deon Neil was just not really involved at all either way. So just just terrible.
Broncos and the Cowboys here. Uh the Broncos kind of just beat the [ __ ] out of the Cowboys in this one. The Cowboys still have a terrible, terrible defense. since they were without Trayvon Diggs once again which led to four passing touchdowns for Bo Knicks and um I think they either said on the was it on I don't remember if it was on the game the game call or if it was afterwards or if I saw it on Twitter or something but someone had spoken to the Dallas coaching staff and they basically said throughout the week that their number one priority was um bracketing Courtland Sutton and taking him out of the game and you saw that really come to fruition where he did almost nothing through three quarters of the game and then fourth quarter, he he finally got home. He also dropped like a 25 yard touchdown pass that hit him blatantly right in the chest. So, he ended up like having a decent day given what the defense tried to do and that ended up allowing Troy Franklin to have a big game. Six for 89, two touchdowns, ironically almost uh an identical box score to what he did back in week two when everybody in fantasy went nuts when he went eight for 89 against uh who' they do it against uh against Indy's secondary. Um and then everyone crazy and then Troy Franklin had like five terrible unusable games in a row. So yeah, I mean it was a great matchup against a terrible Dallas Cowboys secondary Courtland Sutton was completely focused in on. So, I'm not Troy Felen. I think he should be owned and I think that was the case after week two, but like he's nothing more than a wide receiver for flex during byweeks. Um, that you could put him in for good matchups. He could always pop, but he could also always just go one for 15. This game in particular does not change the way I look at Troy Franklin whatsoever. Um, the backfield, JK Dobbins continues to be a [ __ ] beast. 15 for 111 uh on the ground, 10 yards through the air. He's just not scoring a lot of touchdowns right now. R.J. Harvey was the one who who who basically uh had a career day here. Seven for 46 on the ground, two touchdowns, also caught a five-yard pass. Um so Harvey, this one's going to be one where like again, if you just look at the box score, the fantasy points, you're going to be like, "Yay, R.J. Harvey." He had a beautiful run on the 40-yard touchdown. That was awesome. It was a sweep to the left and uh you know, a lot of huge holes. The blocking was great. But that's the kind of speed you get that home run hitting ability with R.J. Harvey. the other two touchdowns. Uh I I think 95% of uh running backs in the NFL score those. They just happen to be uh a great part of the field that RJ Harvey happen to get the carry or the target within the 5 yard line. So that one I'm not like overemphasizing about. And RJ Harvey to me still it's the it's the Cowboys defense does not uh make me a ton more bullish on him for the remainder of the season whatsoever cuz he's had good games and then he becomes like a nothing burger. Again, when we look at the percentage of snaps in this one, even with them beating up the Dallas Cowboys and giving, you know, Harvey uh Beday carries and touches into the second half, like Dobbins 54, Harvey 28%. Like, you can't start a guy that's getting 28% of the snaps at the end of the day. The end of the day. Um, Dallas, yeah, not much to take away here. Javvante gets in twice. No one really gets in through the passing game, but the Jake Ferguson donut game was honestly it it it was coming with CD returning. That was like the biggest um that that was like some uh the biggest uh kind of takeaway here is like when Sidi's there, we are going to have some bad games from Jake Ferguson. You know, he'll have some good games, but even last week when he scored a couple touchdowns, he only had 30-ish yards. But Pickkins looked great. Sidi looked great. Like I said, Patrick Zertan did get hurt in this game. Um, so that opened up the passing offense a bit for Dallas to move it, but something to look forward to if you have guys going against Denver in the next few weeks.
Colts beat the [ __ ] out of the Titans. And speaking of the Colts, we officially booked our flights to Berlin. We are going, myself, JMO, and Saxi are going to Germany for the Falcons versus Colts game in week 10. So, if we've got any German homies out there, um, please slide in my DMs. It's just Nick Erkolano on Instagram or Twitter. We've got our flights. We're looking at Airbnbs in different locations that you guys have sent me uh information on, but we're trying to do a fan meetup either Saturday or Sunday before the game if we have enough people around. We'll probably just like pick a bar and be like, "Hey, we're going to go here regardless of if anyone meets us there." Um, it would be sick to get like 10 of our German fans together if we have that many Ger I I got to imagine between like all of our platforms, between the YouTube channels, Tik Tok and Twitter and everything. We've we've got almost like a million people that follow us. Like we there has to be people in Germany that [ __ ] watch BDG, right? We can get we can get people for the German game for the Berlin game. It's actually going to be my first time in Europe ever. I've never been to Europe before. Um, so yeah, again, DM me if you're if you're going to that game. If you're going to be in Berlin, you're going to be in Germany. Even if you're not going to the game, if you're just there and want to hang, let a brother know.
What can we take away from the Titans side? Literally nothing. Shamir Decay, another good game, seven for 93, but like I don't trust anybody in this Titans passing offense. Calvin Ridley has been out for the last two weeks. Probably sits out in week nine because they have their buy in week 10. Um, but like any given week any of these guys can have floor games. Decay is running as many routes as Ali Maynor running as many routes as Van Jefferson. So it's like, you know, sure he he's produced well the last two weeks, but there's just no way he's getting into my lineup. And as soon as Ridley's back, I got to imagine Ridley's 100% snap guy once again. So I will say the one take away maybe is Taj Spears playing a shitload of snaps. We never get real game score for for Tennessee. Like they get the [ __ ] beat out of them. So it always feels like they're
Playing from behind and playing in garbage time. But it did feel like a little bit of the changing of the guard here. Taj Spears out snapped Tony Pard 51% to 48%. 34 snaps to 32. Pard 11 carries to nine carries for Taj Spears. But Spears had 18 routes to Pard's 17. Got targeted a little bit more, but as you could see, long down distance and then the two and four-minute drill snaps went to Taj Spears. He also got the only carry inside the five-yard line.
So, um, again, it's tough to to to trust Haj Spears, but he did have a good fantasy day in this one. It's more like Tony Pard is starting to become unstartable at this point. Uh, on the flip side, Daniel Jones continues to play out of his mind. Jonathan Taylor is just like so clearly in the MVP race. It's really going to come down to what the quarterbacks do. Like if if uh if the Chiefs end up going 13-4, 14-3, if the Bills end up going, which is almost impossible this they'd have to win out, but it's really going to come down to whether or not like Mahomes, um Josh Allen, like the really high-profile quarterbacks, Drake May. If any of these guys lead their teams to like 14 and three, 13-4 records, they're probably going to get the nod at quarterback for MVP over running back who they'll just give the offensive player of the year award to. But Jonathan Taylor is damn close. There are so many records that this man is smashing. I played against Jack and your idiot league mates and I was rejected to get killed because I had so many players on by the 1:00 games happened. He had Bejian and CMAC and both of them had they combined for like 15 PPR points and I was like, "Holy [ __ ] I might have a chance." And then JT just dropped a 40 [ __ ] burger on my face hole. I was like, "Yeah, that was fun while it lasted." Michael Pitman continues to be one of the best value picks in all of fantasy football. Eight for 95 and a touchdown. Him and Warren you keep rolling out every single week. The rest of them are just like kind of shaky flex plays.
And then we had Sunday Night Football. The Packers 35-25. Jordan Love has one of his best uh throwing days of his career. 360 and three touchdowns, mostly in part to Tucker Craft, who is like very quickly becoming a top three if not like arguably the number one tight end in fantasy football right now or or in football right now. He feels like feels a little bit like Trey McBride just in a better situation. Like if Trey McBride was on the Packers and they ran their offense through him like they do with Craft, he'd probably be putting up very very similar numbers, but he ain't. So we're not in that alternate [ __ ] universe. Tucker Craft just continues to go nuts here. Nine targets, seven catches, 143 yards, two touchdowns. He was one of the players on our must draft list this summer because of how [ __ ] well he moves with the ball in his hands. You just don't see tight ends do the [ __ ] that he does. He is so good, man. Every week he's making plays where he's just stiff arming dudes into their core into the earth. It's crazy. Um the backfield clearly Jacobs is a little bit hindered from the calf still 13 for 33 does get home with a touchdown does catch three passes but Emanuel Wilson 11 carries 61 yards uh also catches three passes but the story of the Packers fantasy day is the wide receiver position. Christian Watson comes back. It is his first time playing since he tore his ACL in week 18 of last season. He ends up running around 70ish% of the routes here. Catches all four targets for 85 yards. Romeo Dobs, three catches, 44 yards. Could have had a bigger day with a drop. Matthew Golden kind of um banished into nothingness here. So, it's clear to me that Watson is retaining his role. Like, they they drafted Matthew Golden to kind of be the air apparent to Christian Watson and be the guy that stretches the field while Watson is outs and now that's not the case anymore. The most telling numbers here, right, like Watson comes back and he's immediately running 65% of the routes. As he gets healthier over the next month, over the next six weeks, that number is going to skyrocket. Obviously, he saw an A dot of 18 yards downfield, 37% of the air yards. Romeo Dobs, 18.2 with 56% of the air yards. I actually think Romeo Dobs is a really good bo candidate if you can get him right now. But Matthew Golden 76% of the routes. He's open often because he's a good route runner, but his A dot is 1.3 yards. He had 2% of the team's air yards. It's not great. It's not great for Goldie. And on top of that, Jaden Reed is going to return this year. Maybe it's um week 10, maybe it's week 11, but it will be within the next month or so. And uh and Jaden Reed's going to have a [ __ ] role here. They're all going to have a role, but I wouldn't be surprised if Christian Watson ends up being the number two in terms of snaps behind Romeo Dobs. It's going to be Dobs is going to continue to run the most routes here. Jordan Love loves him, trusts him. I think Dobs has earned that to be honest with you. And then I think it's going to be a [ __ ] show behind him in terms of uh targets and routes and stuff outside of Tucker Craft who is an every week starter. So not great.
On the flip side, Rogers 219, two touchdowns through the air. Roman Wilson catches uh I believe it's his first touchdown. Does have like a decent day box score-wise, but most of it came on like a 45-yard broken play. DK Mechaf gets home. Jaylen Warren continues to dominate the backfield there. 13 carries to Kenneth Gainwell's five who also lost a fumble here. Um yeah, overall again like Pittsburgh I think is going to come back down to earth because they now play a schedule that is uh legitimate. They get Indie next week. They're at LA Chargers the week after that. So we will see what this team is made of uh over the next month, but I expect it to be a decent amount of performances like this. Um yeah, I believe that's it. I believe that is it for the week eight recap. Tomorrow's video we will jump into the waiver wire of course it'll be a lot more in-depth. My waiver wire rankings as always will be live on bdgeg.co for the big dog members. All right, it's where you can sign up. It is our monthly membership. You get access to the waiver wire rankings. You get access to our sit start rankings every week and you get access to our private Q&A every Sunday morning where I help you set your lineups. And of course, again, if you want access to these beautiful utilization charts, you can find them on fantasylife.com. Sign up for a fantasy life plus subscription with code bdge. You will get 20% off for the next calendar year. All right, I love y'all. Thank you for hanging out today. If you are one of my German friends, DM me. All right. Guten towel. Yeah.