Everything You NEED to Know BEFORE Week 2 Fantasy Football (Rookie Report)

What's going on, man? Welcome back to the basement. I'm Ron, and this is my favorite video we do during the NFL season. Every Monday, I hop on here and recap what just happened in the fantasy football world, so you don't have to scroll through box scores and read articles to figure out what happened and what is actually actionable in the fantasy football space.

So today we're going to talk through the rookie receiver report, the data, the usage trends, everything you need to know from week one to get you prepared for week two of the fantasy football season. As always, if you enjoy, leave a like, subscribe if you're new, and let's get right into it. My favorite segment in my favorite video we do during the season, the world famous rookie receiver report.

Now, before we even get into this, this is sponsored by Underdog. The entire video, the entire channel sponsored by Underdog. Make sure you check them out. They have a gimme pick for all new customers. When you use promo code Ron, you get the gimme pick and then you also get $50 in bonus funds when you play $5. Links in the description and the comment section down below. Use promo code Ron. I have all the info there for you guys.

Now, let's talk about what the rookie receiver report is. And the idea is is that we take the tight ends and the wide receivers and we chart them per route. We have their route percentage. So how many routes are they running in a given passing environment, right? So Tyler Warren here, he ran 73% of the routes, meaning on 73% of the passing plays for the Colts, he was running a route. That's not great, but for a tight end, that's absolutely fine. And then also, it was a blowout. Then you have targets per out run. How much volume are you gaining per route? Yards per out run. Are you efficient per route? First downs per out run. Are you moving the chains per route? And then PFF grade, how do you look on film? Giving us a composite view of how these rookie receivers look so far.

Now, all of these rookies have only ran 10 or more routes. It's a very, very small sample, so do not take massive assumptions from what we're looking at here. But let's go player by player, sorted by PFF grade. And first up, we have Tyler Warren, who looks to be or actually no, let's not get my face up here uh just yet. But with Tyler Warren, he is somebody that is on the Brock Bowers, Sam LaPorta trajectory. I didn't think it was possible in this environment, right? Sam LaPorta was with a great ecosystem with Jared Goff and Ben Johnson. Brock Bowers is just an alien. Tyler Warren seems to be right up there. He sets an NFL record with seven receptions in his debut as a rookie tight end. These are Bowers, LaPorta level numbers. 37% targets per out run, three plus yards per out run, 16% first downs per out run, 79 PFF grade, leads all rookie receivers in every category as a tight end. That is as good as it gets for Tyler Warren. If you have Tyler Warren, he is at worst a top five tight end moving forward and somebody that you should just be holding on to for dear life.

Now, after that, we'll talk about Tedaroa McMillan, who looks really strong across the board, 88% of the routes. So, he is very much a starting wide receiver in the NFL. And for a stud, rookie wide receiver, this is as good as you could ask for from a usage standpoint. He didn't have a two plus yards per out run, but he was attached to Bryce Young in a game where they didn't really score a lot of points or move the ball well, and he still put up very good numbers. Second best PFF grade by a a wide margin. 10% plus first downs run is very good. 20% plus target per out run is really good. He just didn't come through on efficiency, but it wasn't his fault. Nine targets, five catches, 68 yards, is about as good as that gets in your debut when the offense isn't clicking. So, Tedo McMillan locked and loaded wide receiver 2 for me.

Now, I will say as well, just giving context, I know some of you guys are new to the rookie receiver report, we are looking for honestly like 85% to 90% plus of the routes is really what we're aiming for. 20% plus targets per out run, two plus yards per out run, 10% plus first downs per out run, and like an 80 plus PFF grade. Those are kind of the elite marks that we are hunting for.

After that, we have A. Mecha Egbuka who runs by far on this list so far the most routes at 97%. Now, with Egbuka, this looks a little underwhelming, his per out metrics. And I say that to say he scores two touchdowns. He puts up 20 plus PPR points. He looks amazing. And I honestly wouldn't go I wouldn't get too high or too low with Egbuka. I I wouldn't run and say that he is the second coming of Justin Jefferson, right? Two touchdowns, but he only had about 60 receiving yards. But I also wouldn't look at these per out metrics and be like, oh, well, he only had a 16.7% targets per out run, so he's not very good. It's somewhere in between. But let's see the production. We want a little bit better per route efficiency and volume earning, but I think across the board, I feel really good about A. Mecha Egbuka as a fine fringe wide receiver 2 moving forward. Again, I'm not trying to underell it. I just don't want to run with him scoring two touchdowns because at the core of wide receiver, what you're really going to build sustainable production from is your receptions and your yards. I think that's coming for Egbuka. I think him running the most routes on the team is a really positive sign. Him making plays is a positive sign. Tampa Bay looking like a good offense is a positive sign. So, I think that these per out numbers are going to tick up as the season gets going.

Then we will jump down the list for Travis Hunter across the bottom. And this is the true glass half full, glass half empty style debut. The good. He leads the Jaguars in receptions and targets. He has a 30% targets per out run, which is absolutely insane. He runs 82% of the routes, which is as good as you could ask for given all of the preseason. Is he going to play corner? How much wide receiver will he actually play? 80% plus of the routes in week one is as good as it gets. But on the flip side, he gives you just six catches for 33 yards. Doesn't register a single first down. And that is Jalen Robinson style usage. Six for 33, 1.22 yards per out run and kind of a gadgety role, but it's only one week. I think he will find efficiency. It was a weird game versus the Panthers where there was a rain delay for a while. On top of that, they just kind of killed the Panthers and it was never a competitive game script. And then also, he did have a big play down the field just kind of one hand snagged by JC Horn. That could have been a huge explosive play. So, I still feel fine about Travis Hunter. The route percentage and the target earning are really huge for him. Getting that those screen looks are great. We just need him to play true wide receiver a little more often, but I think that we're going to see that more with this offense moving forward. They're going to get comfortable with Liam Cohen. Brian Thomas had similar issues where he only had like one catch and his big play was on like an end zone which was also kind of gadgety style usage. So, I'm not really panicking on Travis Hunter. It's just a bummer he's not next to Tedo McMillan as somebody who already has across the board really strong per route metrics.

Then we will talk about Dante Thornton just below Egbuka there. Really solid. He's ahead of Jack Bash on the depth chart. Solid player. I think he gave you like two catches for 45 yards. It's weird. You have to kind of talk through these rookie receivers with different expectations, right? Dante Thornton, day three pick, dart throw in drafts, Travis Hunter second overall pick, and somebody that was going in like the fifth round of drafts. So with Thornton, him getting like two catches, running 60% plus of the routes and a 1.8 yards per out run, 8% first downs per run, that's fine. That's a huge win for a day three wide receiver. But in terms of like redraft fantasy football, I don't know that I ever feel great about starting Dante Thornton. He kind of seems as a uh kind of like a Marquez Valdes-Scantling type role of just like a field stretcher for now, but we'll see if he can sort of develop into a full-fledged receiver.

Then we'll talk about the Iowa State duo of Jaden Higgins and Jaylen Null. Now for Jaylen Null, we got to get down below Travis Hunter over here. And this is when I will show my face cam now uh over in this area. So with Jaden Higgins, here's the issue honestly with Jaden Higgins and Jaylen Null. It's just very clear that the Texans don't trust them fully just yet. And what I mean by that is with Christian Kirk out, Jaden Higgins only runs 41% of the routes, Jaylen Null 38% of the routes. So that tells us that they're kind of evenish on the depth chart. With Christian Kirk out, the Texans don't feel confident enough to make either of them full-time wide receivers. But the one pulling ahead for now would be Jaden Higgins, who gave you 2.29 yards per out run, 20% plus targets per out run. That's all really, really good production in your debut. 60 plus PFF grade. That is as good as you could ask for in his debut. Two catches, 32 yards, looked solid. On the other side of that, Jaylen Null, not so much. No first downs, really no efficiency at 0.54 yards per out run. And then also in this same game, I think he only had one catch on the day. So if I was to kind of give you an updated depth chart of what's going on in this wide receiver room for the Texans, I would put Jaden Higgins ahead. I'm just pulling up right now. Jaylen Null gave you one catch for seven yards. Yeah. So not great. Uh, but I would come away feeling very encouraged about Jaden Higgins as somebody you're stashing right now. You're not putting him in your lineup until that route percentage comes up. But when that route percentage comes up, his per route metrics across the board signal that there's something there. Again, we're dealing with a very small sample in week one, but he's at least looking the part.

Then we have Matthew Golden. This one is tough. He downgrades as somebody that is purely just a stash for right now. You can't play a wide receiver running only 57% of the routes. Also, across the board, 15% targets per out run, 1.23 yards per out run, 7.7% first downs per run, just kind of like very average across the board and then not running enough routes. We'll see on a bigger sample. Can Golden run more routes? Can he be more of a difference maker when he's on the field? It was also kind of a blowout as well. So, Golden, you're stashing him. He's not going in your lineup until further notice.

Uh, then we have Harold Fannon. And I had high hopes for Harold Fannon, but not in my wildest dreams did I think he was going to come out here in week one, run 65% of the routes, which for a tight end isn't amazing. Like, we probably want that to be 75% plus, but it's such a good role as outlined here by Dwayne McFarland. This was Harold Fannon's role this week. 13.6 PPR points, 72% of the snaps, 67% of the routes, 21% target share, 29% targets per out run, 1.97 yards per out run, 29% of his routes were in the slot, 6% were in the backfield. He got a screen target, a rush attempt, which is just so great. Like that is that is all amazing because he's almost getting like Jauan Jennings style production where it's not coming at the expense of David Njoku which we're not going to mention later because I don't have I just figured I would talk about it now but Njoku didn't lose his role. Dwayne McFarland points it out here and Njoku still ran 85% of the routes so it didn't come at the expense of Njoku. Fannon is actually just kind of playing literal slot wide receiver slash H-back second tight end in 12 personnel, some running back usage. This is amazing. Like that is as good as it could get for Harold Fannon. That is amazing where they are fully utilizing him. They believe in him and he's somebody that I think even in non-tight end premium leagues he's going to be somebody we talk about on the waiver wire show as a streamable tight end moving forward. And that's really exciting when we look at the rookie receiver report as well. 29% targets per out run. That's only next to Tyler Warren and Travis Hunter. Two plus yards per out run on the day. He joins only Jaden Higgins and Tyler Warren. The really, if you want to know the story of the rookie receiver report this week, it's that it was dominated by the tight ends Tyler Warren and Harold Fannon. 9.7% first downs per out run. Better than every receiver not named Tyler Warren and McMillan. Essentially across the board, Fannon was better than every receiver in the rookie receiver report than Warren or McMillan. His PFF grade was low, but you're just you're just going to have to miss me with that in a one-game sample uh where he looked really good. 13.6 PPR points.

Then we'll talk about another tight end. Mason Taylor is directly below him. This one's a bummer. Like Mason Taylor is just not going to be somebody you can start if this is what we're looking at here where he had 84% of the routes, but he didn't really do anything outside of that, which is another one of these glass half full half empty kind of things because getting on the field is actually the hard part or there's actually kind of two hurdles here to be a productive player as a rookie is getting on the field and then being good when you're on the field. 80% plus of the routes is more routes than Tyler Warren ran, which is amazing. But Mason Taylor only gave you one catch for 20 yards. So, we'll see how that progresses moving forward. But in a run-heavy Jets offense that's dominated in the passing game by Garrett Wilson, I don't know if there's going to be anything left over for Mason Taylor, but it's at least a strong development that he's on the field.

Then we'll also talk about Alec I Manor. He is towards the bottom of this list. And now we'll just go full screen on the rookie receiver report. Alec I Manor is right above me here. And I think that I actually came away really impressed with I Manor. I I know that the receiver report is pretty unkind to him. 46 yards per out run is awful. 3.6% first downs per out run. Not good. 53.9 PFF grade. Not good. But let's zoom out for a second. Cam Ward rookie debut versus the Broncos defense. There's no efficiency in that passing game. So, when we're talking about a day three wide receiver who you took as a dart throw in fantasy football drafts, 80% plus of the routes with a 25% target per out run, that is best-case scenario for a day three rookie. He is on the field and he's earning volume. Now, we stash him. He's going to be somebody like a spoiler alert we're going to talk about in the waiver wire video either tonight or tomorrow. Alec I Manor, you grab, you stash, and the minute that he shows anything in terms of efficiency on these targets, he becomes a really interesting wide receiver moving forward on what is a desert of a receiver room.

And then we'll talk about the leftovers here. Across the bottom, you have Jaylen Lane, who is running routes and commanding targets and converting first downs in a good offense. He's somebody to keep an eye on. I'm not I don't know that I'm stashing him in a normal 12-man league, but he's certainly somebody to keep an eye on. Uh, Elijah A. O. Any tight end under 60% of the routes just isn't startable. Uh, and then Isaiah Bond, he is their slot receiver, but so is Harold Fannon. And the Harold Fannon routes and snaps coming at the expense of Isaiah Bond. So, he's not really anybody to worry about at this point.

Now, let's get into the rest of the video. That was the rookie receiver report up top, which I've debated making its own video, but I think it would just get stale. Like every every week I just talk about the same thing. Uh, and we'll just kind of keep this all together. This is this is essentially everything you need to know moving forward. We talked about the rookie receiver report, and now we're going to talk about takeaways from every game.

Now, I will say usually this is 10 takeaways, but in week one, I want to talk about every game. So, this is going to be damn near 20 takeaways. This is we got 13 pages of notes. So, lock in here. Now, the first takeaway and it's not even a takeaway. It's more of a note and a disclaimer is breathe. All right? I cannot like please just breathe. All right? It is only one week. I'm going to show you a series of tweets here that if you lost in week one, I know that the whole fantasy community is going to be preying on your fear. They're going to put things and look, I do it too where they're going to put things in titles like "Time to Panic" or like "Everything is is Brand New." It's really not. There is like the sky is not falling. You do not need to feel like because you went 0 and 1 that your fantasy season is over and it's all it's all over. It all sucks. I'll see you in 2026. It is so so early.

This is a great tweet I always reference from Adam Harstad, to me, one of the godfathers of fantasy football from the Footballguys uh section of fantasy where he said he did a study on this in 2013, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and found the same thing essentially that preseason ADP is a stronger correlation to production than weeks one through three data. So until we get to week until we get to after week four, we have a four-game sample, that becomes a stronger signal than the preseason ADP, which means what's an example? Uh, Malik Neighbors having like really or Brian Thomas having like no production despite being a one-two turn pick. We shouldn't just be like, "Oh my god, this guy is falling on Brian Thomas." We should just say he was a one-two turn pick. He'll probably figure it out. So until we get past week four, everything we thought in the preseason is a stronger signal than what is happening right now.

Then we'll also talk we'll talk about some other stuff too. This is just this is just if any of you guys are freaking out. We had zero skill players. I think this changed after the Sunday night game, but we had zero skill players hit 25 plus full PPR points. Offensive scoring was down across the league. We look here uh from we have a Rich Rebar tweet or no a Pat Thorman tweet saying even after last night's 81 point barn burner, we're still five points per game behind last year's underwhelming scoring pace. So, we are at 40.7 points per game through the Sunday night slate. Last year, the full season average was 45.8. So, we are five points per game below what we are used to. Scoring was just simply down in week one. It's week one. Offenses should get better. And then on top of that, things change over a an entire season of fantasy football. This is Liam Murphy, friend of the channel. It's fun to overreact, but Jamar Chase had less than 10 fantasy points in his first two games before being the best player in fantasy football last year. Just breathe.

And then I'll give you one more. We have from Dynasty's Olton here. Of the top 15 running backs from week one, only six finished top 15 in points per game. For wide receivers, that was four. And for tight ends, that was one in terms of the top seven. By and large, week one is just one week. It is one data point on an entire sheet that's going to have 15 plus data points. Breathe. You don't have to turn your team inside out. I know everyone's going to tell you to trade your whole team away. Everyone's going to say it's time to panic. It's just one week is all I'm trying to say.

Now, let's actually get into the games. First up, and this is going to be more game by game. In future weeks, it'll be like a true top 10 takeaways where I just give you the 10 things that stood out to me. But something stood out to me in pretty much every game here. So, let's talk about the Sunday Night Football game. This was an amazing game. I think this is going to go down as like a true classic in terms of prime time game. Something else that comes to mind was I think that was was it Rams Chiefs on Thursday night where it was just like score into the 50s. Amazing game. We get Zay Flowers 100 plus receiving yards, scores a touchdown. I'll take a small little W for that one. Everybody told me in the streams that Zay Flowers, he's tapped out at his four touchdowns from last year. If they're going to be a good offense or going to score points, Zay Flowers should have opportunities to score touchdowns. So Z Flowers I would feel good about as a wide receiver two moving forward.

Derrick Henry's inevitable. I wasn't necessarily out on Derrick Henry, but if you were drafting Drake London, Brian Thomas, Puka Nacua, Nico Collins, that tier of receivers ahead of him, one, you don't feel great about it, and two, you didn't end up with much Derrick Henry at all. Uh, James Cook looked good. 18 of 24 running back opportunities. He should have scored a second touchdown as well. James Cook to me is a very locked and loaded, high-end RB2 in a good offense at this point. Uh, I think the biggest takeaway from this game though was Keon Coleman. I mean, if we just zoom out, which is kind of what we did with Zay Flowers, right? Zoom out. Year three breakout candidate on a good offense attached to Lamar Jackson. Keon Coleman, if you just zoom out, year two breakout candidate attached to Josh Allen in a good offense. And last night, 94% of the routes, 24% target share. He looked amazing. And JJ Zach has a stat here saying that over his last three regular season games, we've seen him with 25.9%, 32.3%, and a 23.9% target share, which is amazing for Keon Coleman. He looks like a true target earner in like a high-leverage spot of this game, too. It's a two-point conversion, which drives me nuts to see a goal-line fade in this situation, but two-point conversion, game on the line. They're tossing it up to Keon Coleman. They have a ton of belief in this guy. Eight catches, 112 yards, a touchdown. This could be the breakout because the biggest issue with Khalil Shakir is him and Curtis Samuel uh kind of switch on and off the field in that sometimes Samuel is going to play some slot receiver and then Shakir is going to come off. Like that's Shakir's biggest downfall is that he's hovers around like 75 to 85% of the routes. Keon Coleman is a legitimate perimeter receiver and if he's going to run all the routes and he's going to produce like this, then he was an absolute steal where he was going and probably somebody that we overthought over the offseason. I can't say that I I have none of Keon Coleman, but he was not a target for me whatsoever. And then my last note on this game is that Mark Andrews had a pretty rough day. Only 68% of the routes, we would have wanted 80% plus and only a 5.3% target share. So really not good at all. I will say he did have an 82% snap rate in the first half. I do wonder how much of the game script played into it of like maybe wanting more of a run blocker for the second half, but still just not great for Mark Andrews in a game that he should have gone off in. There was plenty of points. There was no Isaiah Likely. Uh, so Mark Andrews is somebody that I now probably feel shaky about moving forward.

Now let's get over to the Seattle San Francisco game where you guys uh I I pulled my Discord. Everyone that's in the Patreon, what do you guys want to hear me talk about? By and large, the biggest takeaway was talk about Kenneth Walker. And here's what I'll say. The the takeaway here is, is it time to panic on Kenneth Walker? I lean yes, sadly. And here's the thing, you'll never catch me. I was somebody drafting a lot of Kenneth Walker this offseason, but you'll never see me like I'm not going to hop on here and start like defending my bags, right? I've already those teams are already drafted. I know I have to live with Kenneth Walker, but I'm not going to hop on here be like, uh, it's fine. It's fine. It's not fine. All right, we look at the game logs here. Uh, Zach Charbonnet 12 for 47 and a touchdown. Kenneth Walker 10 for 20 and then he gives you three catches for four yards. It was an ugly day altogether for this offense. And it's tough to really pinpoint what this looks like moving forward because I think Ryan Heath has a good blur here where they were rotating by drives, which isn't great. Uh, it was a Walker drive that was a first down and three and out. Then you had a Charbonnet drive, long touchdown drive, then back-to-back Walker drives that were both three and outs and then a Charbonnet drive. So it's not so much situational and it might just be a Walker gets two drives, Charbonnet gets one drive. And if that's sometimes even of okay, Walker gets a drive, then Charbonnet gets a drive. Things get really muddy here where we had Kenneth Walker out targeting Charbonnet. We had Charbonnet out carrying Walker out producing Walker. 13 opportunities for Walker, 12 for Charbonnet, 25 running back opportunities total. And this now puts both guys in sketchy fringe RB2 territory where now they are in that range probably of your Jaylen Warren and Tyjae Spears and Isiah Pacheco's of guys you're starting in your RB2 spot without really much confidence in fantasy football. We'll see how this moves going forward just in terms of the split in terms of can Kenneth Walker find any efficiency because if he's going to give you 10 for 20 on the ground, he doesn't deserve the 20 plus bell cow usage frankly at all.

And then I'll also mention I'll take an L with the Seahawks as well. Well, look, I have my back on for the W's with guys like Zay Flowers. I'll I'll be very transparent here. Uh, the JSN stuff was tough. I was under the impression this is going to be a run-heavy team that didn't have a lot of passing yards, which I was correct about. But if Sam Darnold is going to go throw for 150 yards and JSN is going to give you nine catches for 124 yards regardless, then he might just be an undeniable talent. He won a lot from the outside. Like it wasn't even a ton of slot usage. He kind of showed in this game that he can play on the perimeter, high ADOT, and win catch balls even in a really low passing environment. So JSN I would say stock all the way up as a back-end wide receiver one moving forward.

On the other side of this game, Christian McCaffrey is just straight up the Terminator. He led all running backs this week with 22 carries. He tied Bijan Robinson for the most targets with 10. That's 30 plus opportunities despite a tight calf and popping up on the injury report. As long as McCaffrey is healthy, he is the RB1 overall in fantasy football moving forward. It all just comes down to health. If he plays a full 17 games, it is going to get scary. McCaffrey versus all other running backs because that usage is just undeniable.

Uh, our next takeaway is the slow start Cincinnati Bengals, which I keep flashing here. I thought that I had a different graphic up, but uh, this is just what the Bengals do. And I'm just not going to get too over my skis on panicking about Burrow or Chase or Tee Higgins. This is what they do. If they play a game versus Cleveland early on in the season, they just don't play well. Uh, this is from Rich Rebar. Fewest yards per play for the Bengals with Joe Burrow on the field since he was drafted. Week one versus Cleveland 2023. Week one versus Cleveland 2025. Week two versus Cleveland in 2020. These divisional games early, they struggle. They struggle early regardless. I hope at least like winning this game kind of gets the monkey off their back and they can start fast after that. But with the Bengals, I I'm not sounding any panic alarms until week four, five, six. And even then, we just I I've seen this movie too many times. I know how this ends. This ends with Joe Burrow passing for 40 passing touchdowns and 4,000 plus yards. You just got to wait for it. Uh, and I will also say too, I saw some concern about Chase Brown because of the offensive line. Again, I think the I think the offense will click and when it does, Chase Brown just had 21 carries and three targets. He's going to be absolutely fine. That is that's amazing usage for Chase Brown.

On the other side of this game, we can talk about the Browns backfield, which was really tricky, where we had D'Onta Foreman kind of take over the role already from Jerome Ford. This is from the utilization report over on my fantasylife.com. D'Onta Foreman crushes him in utilization. 17.3 PPR points. He gets out-snapped by Ford here, but he has more rush attempts than him on less routes. He still gives you 20% of the targets. He had 38% of the snaps in short down and distance scenarios. If D'Onta Foreman can parlay this into a passing down role when Nick Chubb gets here, that's huge for him. He had eight catches for 64 yards, he kind of PPR scammed his way into like 17 plus PPR points on the weekend. If you had the balls to start him, Foreman was a stud for you to be honest because it was probably like him or like Olamide Zaccheaus. Uh, so if you actually chose correctly, Foreman gave you a massive day. Now it would be victory laps Foreman all around but Nick Chubb is on the horizon. He has now signed his deal. There's reports he could play as soon as week two and that muddies things further. But I will say Jerome Ford, you can drop him. I think he is firmly the odd man out and it's going to be how does this backfield shake up between Foreman and Chubb. I will say shout out Raheem Mostert. I think he might have gotten like a goal-line carry. Uh, he might have even scored a touchdown. Raheem Mostert, he's somebody I loved for Dynasty. Uh, but he's not really anybody you have to think about.

Now, moving on, let's go to the Dolphins game. And just the takeaway I had here is that just the Dolphins stink. The Dolphins stink. Bottom three in yards, bottom three in points this week. And what was supposed to be a a favorable matchup versus the Colts, right? The Colts aren't amazing on defense. Like, they they're a fine defense, but this was bad. Like, this was just not good at all. Mike McDaniel seems very likely to get fired at this point across the board. You just have to you have to downgrade everything. Like Tua is not startable in fantasy. Tyreek Hill goes from a top 12 option to a high-end wide receiver three. And Jaylen Waddle is probably somebody you're not going to want to flex until you see it. So all those guys get nuked. Uh, the only one that's going to be fine is Raheem Mostert. But the issue is is that this is the bummer side of Raheem Mostert is that he's going to get the volume, he's going to be fine. But I think he now projects more as a mid to backend RB1 than somebody who once had RB1 overall upside because the case for him to hit 23, 24, 25 plus points per game as the RB1 in fantasy football was to marry a really good role and usage with a functioning offense. And now if we are just purely volume, it's just not going it's going to be fine, right? If he can give you 17, 18, 19 points per game, you're not going to cry about it. But that crushing fantasy new age Alvin Kamara style 99th percentile outcome is no longer there. But we do have the usage from Dwayne McFarland here who's by the way a great follow on Twitter. 16.5 PPR points, 70% plus of the snaps, 70% plus of the attempts, 60% plus of the routes, 13% of the targets. And it's a damn shame because he was efficient. He was efficient. He actually turned uh in a good yards per carry which was really rare for him last year. Like last year he was not very efficient at all. In this game he gives you seven carries, 55 yards for a 7.9 yards per carry. That's rookie year De'Von Achane. So we're just hoping as a as an Achane crew that the Dolphins offense figures it out because if they don't, Raheem Mostert is going to be fine. And I do want to kind of make that clear is that I'm I'm fully panicked on Tyreek, fully panicked on Jaylen Waddle. De'Von Achane I am chilling with like he is absolutely fine. He's going to be an RB1 for you. Uh, but if this was a functional offense, the Achane rocket ship RB1 overall situation would be fully ready to go right now. Uh, if this Miami defense was better than league bottom.

Uh, then we can talk about the other side, the Josh Downs usage. Namely, this is the tough part and something that I wish I spent more time thinking about is that the Colts being a run-heavy team that invested in Tyler Warren who's going to take some slot snaps away. If Josh Downs, who is like 5'9, can't play in two wide receiver sets and be trusted to block on the perimeter, which shockingly 6'4 Alec Pierce is trusted to block on the perimeter, which makes a lot of sense to be honest with you. Josh Downs is going to get squeezed in the same way that Jalin Reed gets squeezed where if you're not out there in two wide receiver sets, all of a sudden you're running 70% to 80% of the routes. And that's a really tough volume floor to be a weekly producer with. Now, he is not going to be at 50% of the routes every week. It's because this was a run-heavy game script. They didn't need to lean on the pass. They could just go heavy with two tight ends and run the ball pretty much the entire second half. So Josh Downs is not somebody that is unstartable and droppable at this point, but he is somebody where you need competitive game scripts, which I think they're going to get. I don't think the Colts are going to blow out every team by 25 uh this season. But in this kind of game script, really tough for Josh Downs to get there.

And speaking of Jalin Reed, let's talk about Jalin Reed and the Packers here. This passing game is so tricky, man. Because the Packers passing game, and this is what I had as the takeaway, is that the passing game is good yet bad. And here's what I mean by that. It's bad in that it's so spread out. Like we've been talking about all video for wide receivers. We want like 90% plus of the routes to be a full-time wide receiver you can start every week. Instead, we get 74% for Dontayvion Wicks, which isn't even like a trustable number to start in your lineup. 57% for Golden. He's now purely a stash. 52% for Jalin Reed, making him a boom-bust play. Because yes, does he score a touchdown in this game? Does he look good? But on 50% of the routes, you just you can't put that in your lineup with any kind of confidence because the floor is one PPR point. But the ceiling is he gives you three catches, 45 yards, and a touchdown. Because he's an explosive player, he's a good player. But for now, he is a the the the boom-bust of bust flex possible. Jalin Reed. We get 40% of the routes for Dontayvion Wicks, which is shocking. 17% for Malik Heath. Samori Williams gets in the mix. But I say that this is a good yet bad Packers passing offense because this was a team that was the run-heaviest offense in the league last year. And I was under the belief that I thought a lot of that was due to the Jordan Love injury in the Brazil game, which I think it was. It's only one week, but in terms of the pass-heaviest offenses here from Pat Thorman, the Packers were one of only two teams with the Raiders at a 70% plus pass rate in neutral situations. And that's not going to stick. But if they stay inside the top 10 in neutral pass rate, that's a massive development for a team that was 32nd last year. So now we're going to see a lot more pass attempts. That's going to be great for Jordan Love. I would love to say it's going to be good for these receivers, but it's not really the biggest winner here is Jordan Love and Tucker Kraft. Tucker Kraft led all of these receivers in routes run. Tucker Kraft ran over 80% of the routes. So, he ran even more routes than Romeo Doubs. So, if we're going to see more pass attempts and then Tucker Kraft is going to be at the center of this passing offense, he is all of a sudden a I don't want to say every tight end's a top six tight end rest of the season, but he's in that conversation right after the elite one, especially with Kyle Pitts down after Bowers, McBride. Tucker Kraft is in there. He's right in there as a guy that is pretty much a must-start every week. I know that he was more touchdown dependent this week, but again, if we're going to see pass stems from this team, which we didn't see a ton because they killed the Lions, but in more competitive game scripts, they're tipping their hand that they want to pass the ball this year, this is huge. If Tucker Kraft is going to run over 80% of the routes in this passing offense, he's going to crush this year.

Uh, and then on the other side of this game, is this guy falling in Detroit? And here's what I'll say. I think a lot of these teams that have new OCs, new coordinators, I would just chill out just a little bit, right? We have Detroit, we have Houston, we have the Jets, who actually the Jets looked amazing, but there's a couple of situations around the league where if there's a new coordinator, I would just give it a minute. I'm not going to say Detroit that they're just going to be bad this year. I still do believe in Dan Campbell. I think losing both of your coordinators in that first game is going to be really tough. That's a really tough test versus the Packers at their place. So, I would just relax. I think it's going to take some time to get used to the new coach. They got a new offensive lineman. What I can say is give Amon-Ra St. Brown, Drake London, Jameson Williams, etc. Um, but I think something that was notable, and this isn't really a victory lap, because I have got I got a question in the Discord of like, are you still super high on Bijan Robinson? And I would say, yeah, I'd still have Bijan Robinson as a top five running back rest of season. I still feel fine about him in a game where the Lions sucked and pretty much scored six points before a fluky Sam LaPorta touchdown, which I will say we didn't cover Sam LaPorta in the uh rookie receiver report because he didn't run enough routes. I'm not scoring one touchdown on like three routes. There's not much I can give you there, but scoring a touchdown in garbage time is good news for Sam LaPorta. It was a really cool catch. That's great. Uh, I don't know how in a redraft sense he finds his way in a room of Robinson, Montgomery, LaPorta, St. Brown, Jameson Williams, but uh, he looks fine. But I just thought it was interesting that the entire offseason I have ran with I think the the split between Robinson and Montgomery will be the widest uh in Robinson's career. Robinson gives you a 65% snap share. Last year in week one was at 51%. So if this is going to be a 65/35 split, that's absolutely massive. Now, I will say I'm not victory lapping totally yet because one, Bijan Robinson didn't look great, and two, in terms of uh target share and rush attempt share, it wasn't that crazy. Uh, so, he didn't really get the touches. He was just on the field more, which could also have been a game script situation. So, just something to monitor in terms of the snap rates and touch distribution in this Detroit backfield. But for now, it's not a clean 50/50, which is what we were hoping for with Detroit.

Now, I will say I will hold my L on another backfield. But the Kyren Williams thing, all honesty, you guys were in my comments saying you're wrong on Kyren Williams. You're wrong. I thought that after drafting Jaren Hall and another year of Blake Corum that we would see Kyren Williams still be like 65% of the snaps, but we would see a lot more Hall, a lot more Corum, maybe even two drives for Kyren, one drive for Corum or Hall. That is not what we got. It's still a long season and those guys can play themselves into a role. But for now, you have to feel pretty good. He's one of three running backs. It's Chase Brown, Kyren Williams, and Tony Pollard at 90% plus of the backfield touches pending Monday Night Football. That's as good as a as you could possibly dream of at the running back position. Now, I will say it only turned into the RB18 on the week with a 3.7 yards per carry. And it still boggles my mind how Sean McVay is okay with that. But that's going to play for fantasy football. He's going to be a high-end RB2 and I was taking James Cook over him, Kenneth Walker, Trevon Henderson. I feel good about all of them besides Kenneth Walker obviously, but we'll see.

Now, I will say as well, Davante Adams had an amazing game, but him and Puka Nacua both combined for 19 of 28 total targets. If it's going to consolidate like that, which it's going to around these two receivers, they're both going to be studs for fantasy. Puka Nacua with wide receiver one overall aspirations and Davante Adams as somebody that could be a backend wide receiver one in fantasy. Davante Adams looked good too. Like he looked like he still uh had it, I guess you could say.

Then we could talk about the other side of this game. Again, I would give Stroud, Nico Collins, all these guys. I would just give him some time to breathe with a new coordinator trying to figure out new things. But I think the biggest takeaway and storyline of this game is the backfield. We talked about the rookie receivers up top with Jaden Higgins and Jaylen Null. Here we have Nick Chubb. Nick Chubb looked good. He was fifth in rushing yards over expected per attempt this week, which is really strong. He was a good runner. Uh, really the issue is that's just not enough volume and usage. If you're going to confidently start Nick Chubb every week, you need more than 14 opportunities and you need more than 49% of the snaps. We saw Chubb, Jerome Ford, Kareem Hunt, and D'Onta Foreman all enter this game. I have to believe that over an entire season, you're not going to carry three running backs on game day. I want to say that they were just trying to see if something sparked and if they can kind of trust Chubb moving forward. If we can see that Chubb number go from 49% to like 65%, then we're really cooking with a fringy RB2 and like zero RB and hero RB builds. But he gave you 13 carries for 60 yards, like 4.6 yards per carry for a seemingly washed Nick Chubb. That's good. That that's that's going to play for Nick Chubb and his talents at this point in his career.

Uh, now, I will say our next takeaway going to our next game. I wish I had a clean segue for it, but what I wrote down is is Arthur Smith is back on his man. He's he's fully back.

on it, dude. Uh, and it's almost like at this point, you just have to tip your cap. He, he. I mean, it's just funny. He 29 snaps for Kenneth Gainwell to 27 snaps total for Jaylen Warren and Caleb Johnson. Kenneth Gainwell led this backfield in snaps. You also had a Ben Scourne neck touchdown. You had a John Smith endaround touchdown. You have uh John Smith, Pat Frymouth, and Darnell Washington all in the mix of 25 plus snaps. It's just perfectly Arthur Smith. They're using a ton of tight ends. They had even a cuz as a Jets fan, I was watching this like every single play where uh Arthur Smith is a a he's a good he's when you're when you don't care about the fantasy football pieces on his team, he runs a good offense. They of course Aaron Rogers goes for four touchdowns. They look really good, but he's doing a lot of fun things with these tight ends, right? They came out in like a really heavy formation where it's only metav split out. You have three down tight ends in Frier, uh Washington, and Janu. And then from there he can go from like under center back into shotgun and feel pretty good with John Smith and Fry working as like flanker slot receivers with Washington inside. And now all of a sudden the defense came out something really heavy. They have linebackers out there. And now all of a sudden you have one-on-one matchups with like Jonnu and Frimute versus safety and linebackers which you'll take all day especially when they can get those matchups standing up on the perimeter. So, that's kind of like my nerdy uh take on what Arthur Smith, you just have to tip your cap to the guy.

Uh, I I will say like Kenneth Gainwell is not somebody that I'm like really picking up or excited about. He he reminds me a lot of what Justice Hill is with the Baltimore Ravens where maybe Gainwell will give you like a cool seven to nine PPR points in a pinch, but that's about all you can really get there. Jaylen Warren's the guy to start. He's going to get more most of the carries. He's going to get the red zone work, but it's going to be similar today where he's touchdown dependent. before the touchdown, Jaylen Warren was an eyesore in your lineup. Uh, and then Caleb Johnson's purely a stash. He gets downgraded all the way from that uh round seven eight area with like Charbanet and Tyrone Tracy and all of them. He's fully downgraded to your Scatabo Tutin uh bench rookie stash area. If he's going to get two snaps in his first game, he is purely a stash that you're waiting to see what he can do down the line. And I did want to put it out there, and I hate to say this as a Jets fan, uh, this Rogers season gives me a lot of Brett Favre in Minnesota vibes. If you guys remember, Brett Favre plays for the Jets. He sucks. I think he sends I think he like sends a nude to somebody, gets kicked out. Uh, he goes to Minnesota, and has legitimately his most efficient year as a pro. He threw like 33 touchdowns, seven picks, which for Brett Favre, that kind of touchdown interception ratio and in like his age 40 season is nuts. Literally outside of the Saints interception in the championship game, he was electric. It would hurt me so bad. But I I I do see visions of this being that that for Aaron Rogers where he throws 30 touchdowns, like five picks, they win, they they get like, you know, they go like 12 and five or something. Uh, we'll see. We'll see. But really strong start because this Jets's defense should be good, right? Aaron Glenn is there. They have dogs in terms of S Gardner and Quinnon Williams. And I think as well Arthur Smith to give Arthur Smith more flowers is what I was pretty much reading is that when Sauce Gardner was shadowing uh DK Mechaf, DK Metaf didn't really do much, but Arthur Smith was actually being pretty creative and getting Metaf looks against non Saucegardner uh cornerbacks. So, credit to Arthur Smith again.

Uh, and then we'll talk about my Jets team. I don't I don't want to talk too long about them, but the New York Jets are the greatest show on turf. Who would have thought? The lowest overunder of the slate. We talked about it in the running back matchups video this week. The Jets Steelers had a 37.5 overunder and the final score was 3432, which is insane. Um, I cannot believe it. Uh, it's complete loser talk to think this way. Like, yes, does it suck that the Jets lost the game and I'm bummed about it? Sure. But in year one with Aaron Glenn, I'm just happy the team like showed fight and scored points. This is all new territory for me. This is some good uh graphics here just kind of showing what this new offense looks like under Tanner Enstrand. God, that's a brutal uh name to pronounce. But like considering what we saw from the Texans and the Lions and uh all these teams with new coordinators to come out against the Steelers defense with TJ Watt and look this good was amazing. I will say as well, I'll pump up this offensive line. Armen Meu let up not a single pressure or sack uh in the right tackle spot. Seeing a lot of TJ Watt, that's our first round pick. rookie game. Olu Fosano on the other side looked really good. Did they lose Elijah Vera Tucker uh in the preseason? Yes. Which really sucks, but these tackles are something else. You still got Titman in the interior. You still got Simpson in the interior. It's a damn good offensive line. And what that allows this to be a functioning offense. Fields has time to throw. They have running lanes when they hand the ball off to a guy like Bree Hall. Bree Hall rushes for 100 plus rushing yards. Looks amazing on the day. And here, this is foreign territory. We look at EPA, so offensive efficiency per play. The Jets are in the top right quadrant with all the best offenses on the day, right? The Packers are up there, the Colts are up there, the Ravens are up there, the Eagles, the Chiefs. The Jets are right in the mix. And you get down to Jacob Gibbs where we want to see play action and pre- snap motion. Jacob Gibbs has done a lot of research saying that those things lead to offensive efficiency. And we also have the Jets in the top right here where he's the Jets are next to the Jaguars, right? like Liam Cohen, they're in this area with even uh your Shawn McVey up there. You have your uh Colts all the way up there, too, with uh Shane Syen. Like proven good play callers. The Jets are now around, right? Cliff Kingsbury is in there. You have uh Zack Robinson in there. You have uh the Ravens in there with Monin. So, they're now in the top right quadrant of offensive efficiency, of pre- snap motion, of play action. It's a modern offense. They had, I think, 10 designed rushes for Justin Fields. That's another takeaway is Justin Fields is now a locked and loaded, I keep saying this, top six to eight quarterback rest of season where regardless of matchup, you're probably just going to want to put Justin Fields in there. He's like doubling as their goal line back. He is scrambling. He got 10 design rushes in this game. They're scoring points. The offensive line is good. If he's going to be competent, then he's going to be somebody that you can play every week. He he scored like almost 30 points in fantasy football formats here.

Now, let's talk about the backfield. I think this is probably the most compelling point. Something to note is that the Jets are at a 65% rush rate in neutral situations. So the Jets are the runheaviest team in football. Something to note. So yes, did Bree Hall get squeezed by Brilland Allen and Isaiah Davis with only 58% of the snap? Sure. But he still gave you 23 opportunities in a really runheavy offense. And as long as there's efficiency and there's volume, I think he's going to be fine. And really the only issue is and we saw it. Brilland Allen does get subbed in on the goal line. We see some Justin Fields vulturing. So Bree is going to have to get there purely on receptions and efficiency and that's what he did in this game. So it's not that much to ask to uh ask for. I would have Bree Hall probably in that same Kiran James Cook conversation of high-end RB2 moving forward. And I think for where you drafted him and kind of what the sentiment was on him after the preseason, that's about as good as it gets. Again, it's actually funny because we were correct in, okay, the snap share is going to be rough. There's going to be a lot of uh like even the two-minute drill, I think, to end the half, uh Isaiah Davis was out there, which is really frustrating. But also, part of the the hope is is that this 58% gets worked up to 75% as the coaching staff starts to realize like, oh, Bree Hall is our second best receiving weapon after Garrett Wilson. He should be out there in two-minute drill. It's actually very reminiscent of, I believe it was 2022 where Michael Carter on the Jets was the two-minute drill back until he eventually got cut and then got picked up by the Arizona Cardinals. So, something to also remember, like a a side tangent to the side tangent in this lessons video is depth charts and everything in usage, it's all fluid. Remember, at this point last year, Chase Brown was getting shut out to Zack Moss. It's all fluid. Efficiency production is what is going to fuel your future volume. game. So, Bree Hall is going to rush for 19 carries, 107 yards, give you two catches for 38 yards in the passing game. He is going to earn more volume. He's going to earn a higher snap share, and he's going to start to ice out guys like Brilen Allen and Isaiah Davis where maybe they kind of think like, oh, maybe we should give our best player the ball inside the five. Maybe we should give him the be the ball in the two-minute drill when we're trying to pass the ball. So, that is the upside with Bruce Hall is that there's more volume to be carved out if he's going to play this way.

Uh, then we can talk about a new coach as well, Pete Carol. Pete Carol's with the times. This is from uh the same little stat here from Pat Thorman is that on the other side, the pass heaviest offense in week one was the Raiders with 71% pass rate in neutral situations. People thought, okay, Chip Kelly's going to come here, Pete Carol, it's going to be a run first, slow offense. That's not it at all. It's this is an uptempo pass first offense. And that's really exciting moving forward for all these pass catchers, namely Brock Bowers here. Of course, with Brock Bowers, it sucks because he gives you only 65% of the routes. Again, we want 75% plus minimum for a tight end. And then he also leaves this game with an injury. It seems like the injury is going to be fine, which also is going to take his route percentage down because he left early. But if he's going to give you five catches for 103 yards, he had a 30% plus target per run rate. If on weird usage where he's not out there for all the snaps or routes that we like, if he's still going to get to a 25% plus target share and give you like he was the tight end two on the week despite leaving early and having bad usage, that's fine. the way that he gets to Travis Kelce break the position is if Chip Kelly and Pete Carol I think that they're going to if Brock Bowers like it just sucks that Brock Bowers gets banged up there because it almost reaffirms like oh maybe we should not drive our Ferrari in the pouring rain or you know put all the miles on this Ferrari sort of deal. But if we can just see over an entire season, again, the same idea of these depth charts are fluid, at a certain point, they're just going to see Brock Bowers making all of these plays. And then also, they don't want to telegraph to the defense where, okay, Bowowers on the field, the pass is going to go to Bowowers. I think they're going to start to come to their senses on just making Brock Bowers a full-time slot receiver in this offense. Kind of honestly similar to the Harold Fannon and Jooku dynamic with Michael Mayer and Bowers. And it's a bummer because Mayer's a damn good tight end. I loved him as a prospect. I wrongfully had him as somebody in the same tier as a Sam Laaporta. Uh which, you know, we'll see. We'll see how everything shakes out. But I think that Bowers is so undeniable that he's still going to be like the tight end one overall. It might just be a little bit frustrating in terms of his route percentage or snap percentage at least early on. We'll see how this goes because I think if he did play the full game, he'd go from like 65% of the routes to maybe more like 75% and it would be fine. But you certainly do want like that Leora number of 88% that is the hope for Bowowers. And if Bowowers could ever get there, then all of a sudden you are talking about 17 plus points per game in your Jimmy Graham, Travis Kelce prime differencemaker type of area.

On the other side of this game though, we do have the Patriots. I think the biggest takeaway is just the Trevon Henderson usage uh where he only had a 35% snap share, but again, these dev charts are fluid. I think he's going to earn himself more touches as we go. Raandre gets 46 snaps. Antonio Gibson gets five. But Trevian Rend Henderson ran a route on 18 of his 25 snaps and he caught all six targets. So getting six catches and the passing down role already is huge. Now he just needs to beat out Raandre for more carries. He had five carries, but Raandre only averaged 2.1 yards per carry on a lot more volume than Henderson. And I think that that is just going to be the perfect way that okay, the Patriots lose this game. They got nothing on the run game where sooner than later they're going to just fully unleash Travon Henderson and give him 12 to 15 carries a game on top of really good passing game usage and then all of the sudden he is a stud in fantasy football. So the Patriots losing I think is actually a good thing for Trevon Henderson. This is a quote from Rabbel. The bottom line is we have to run the ball better and more efficiently. Henderson had five for 27. Reandre had seven for 15. I think we're going to see things tilt towards Henderson more. he already has the really good like six catches in your debut as a rookie running back is really good. And if we marry those two things together, then he is going to be a really strong pick for fantasy football. I'll also say Drake May didn't look great, but it was a weird game. Another I guess a little bit different with Josh McDaniels where he's been a coordinator before, but he hasn't been with Drake May before. I do think we see Drake May's rushing output change. He had his worst rushing output with only I think 11 rushing yards in this game. It was his worst rushing output in any game that he started and played the entire game. His cheat code last year was his legs. I have to believe that Josh McDaniels changes this moving forward. They lose this game. May doesn't look great. Unleash him on the ground. Give us some design rush attempts. Give us some scrambles. I think he only had one carry for like 11 yards in this game. That's just not going to cut it with the type of player that Drake May is.

Then we can talk about the Bucks where we had a full backfield takeover. Bellcow Bucky Irving from Dwayne McFarland here. 14.5 PPR points doesn't seem great, but 77% of the snaps, 74% of the attempts, 62% of the routes, 13% of the targets, 63% in the two-minute drill is absolutely amazing. Like he says, tough efficiency day and only 2.6 yards per carry. But he has now fully beat out Rashad White as the passing down back. And that is massive because that was the hope with Bucky Irving is that his previous year's efficiency earned him a new role and that has come to fruition. Now, I will say on the other side of this game, no real main takeaways for the Falcons. All I'll say is that don't panic on Drake London. He had 15 targets. As long as he is healthy, he is going to be absolutely fine. He had like two or three opportunities to catch a touchdown and just didn't. I think better days are ahead for Drake London.

Then we have the new look Kell Moore offense in that Saints versus Cardinals game. And Kell Moore is fun. Uh from Pat Thorman, the Saints had a 34.3% no huddle rate today with three more no huddle plays blown dead by penalty. 34% would have been second highest no huddle rate last season behind only the commander. So we're going to see a high uptempo no huddle offense with Kell Moore. And really the other big takeaway from Kell Moore is that he's kind of notorious for not targeting his running back. Uh and we saw that today with Alvin Kamar. JJ Zach Reason points out that he ran 37 routes and only saw two targets against the Cardinals, resulting in a 4.9% target share. The last time Kamar saw a sub 5% target share was week 17 of the 2022 season. His lowest single game share in 2024 was 13%. Now, I don't think a 4.9% target share will ever stick for Kamara, but the PPR scam floor that you sort of drafted him for is no longer there. He probably goes from someone that's like a 15% plus target share guy to more of like a 8% 9% guy. We'll see how this holds in this offense. But they found passing efficiency from elsewhere. Jawan Jennings was the tight end one on the week with eight catches for 76 yards. He's going to be the number one wafer wire tight end pickup. Then you had Olve's good 7 for 54. He was used on a lot of pre-nap motion as well, which is really exciting. Rasheed Shahed 6 for 33. Spencer Rattler being the quarterback. This offense looked good is a strong word, but this offense looked competent. Uh, it looked like an NFL offense. It wasn't, "Holy these guys are going to get the first overall pick and it's going to be a stinkfest all the way." This was at least a respectable product, which I can appreciate. Uh, then on the other side of this, uh, Trey Benson will not go away quietly. Uh, we have kind of we're starting to see a little bit of a shift. I wouldn't say that James Connor is someone you have to like downgrade through the rankings, but Trey Benson also had a big play in this game where he actually looked really good. So, we'll see how the split goes moving forward. It is going to be a runtilted offense. James Connor should still be that guy, but certainly he's going to have to be efficient on less volume than he has been in the past, but he still did look fine. Uh, I will say the Marvin Harrison to Kyler Murray connection looked okay as well where Marvin Harrison Jr. ends up in the end zone. So, that's something to feel good about.

Then our next takeaway is Bill. Bill Bill science rules. Bill Nye the Science Guy. Uh Bill Crosky Merritt. I can't believe it. Brian Robinson gets traded. Then everyone's like, "Oh, what if it's Chris Rodriguez? What if it's Ekler? What if it's Jeremy McNichols?" Then we get Chris Rodriguez inactive. So all roads re lead through Bill Crosky Merritt and there's still a lot of meat left on this bone. He only played 33% of the snaps by Adam Levitan here and only got half of the RB carries and only ran 19% of the rounds but he looked really good. Chris Rodriguez was a healthy scratch and Bill ends up with 10 carries, 82 yards, and a touchdown. I think that his role in his snaps and his opportunities are only going to go up from here as pretty much what you were drafting Brian Robinson to be earlier in this offseason. And I think that's what Bill will be where he's going to be the between the tackles grinder and a good offense that can score touchdowns as well. And then I'll also talk about this offense with Debo and McLaren. I think McLaren gets a small downgrade. I'm not going to panic all the way. This was a game script where they were going to kill the Giants. That's not really going to be something that works in McLaren's favor. He's going to be a deep threat in competitive game style play. But Debo got, I think, 10 targets in this game. Seven catches, 77 yards. He had one carry for 19 yards and a touchdown. Debo is no longer fat. Uh he looks fine. I I I don't want to get too crazy. It's only one game with Debo, but the washed allegations, at least for me, I think are kind of set to the side. And this could be a fine wide receiver 3 flex play for the entire season. And I think McLaren goes from a high-end wide receiver 2 to probably a backend boom bust wide receiver 2. But I think I think he's still fine. I wouldn't fully panic on McLaren just yet. On the other side of this game, I don't have any firm takeaways. Tracy did have 50 of 68 snaps. So Tyron Tracy's firmly the lead back. Scatterbo mixed in, Singleary mixed in. Just keep an eye on that moving forward. But if this offense is going to suck, especially without Andrew Thomas, none of these guys are going to be all that juice to play. I think Jackson Dart is going to start sooner rather than later. But I will say you did get 12 targets from Malik Neighbors. Other days he gives you a better output than he did in this one. The volume is there, but like what you're signing up for with Neighbors is just that a lot has to happen from snapping the ball, not getting sacked, and then throwing an accurate pass to Malik Neighbors before Malik Neighbors can make a play and look electric like he is.

Uh, we'll talk about the Jaguars game, ETN RB1 season. I didn't see this coming. This is a really good visualization uh chart from Hayden Winks where if you just look at the first half, so this is the running back rotation by snaps. Tank Bsby doesn't get on the field until about the third quarter. Here I have it circled in red. Before that, it's ETN. Then you have Laquent Allen on passing downs, then ETN, then ETN, and then you have two in a little bit before the half, and then ETN. ETN is the bellcow here. 62% of the snaps in a blowout game, by the way. So, I think some of this could have been better if it was more competitive, right? I think this game just kind of got away from the Panthers and then all of a sudden, okay, let's just give Tank Baseby some touches here. But 19 opportunities, 143 rushing yards. He was the RB6 on the week. Travis ETN, he gets upgraded now to I would now nudge him ahead of your uh Charbanet, Tyrone Tracy, Jaylen Warren style tier as a mid to backend RB2 until further notice. I will say as well, do not panic on Brian Thomas Jr. He had seven targets, only converted into a catch for 11 yards. He did have a really fun endound touchdown. It was a really weird game script. I also think that we're going to see better days ahead for this Jaguars passing offense. I have no real Panthers takeaways. We talked about Terrell McMillan at the top. Chuba Hubard was their main guy. We just need this offense to be better. It's just kind of the bottom line. I I was definitely bought into Bryce Young looking better this year. He was not that this weekend, but we will see if that changes moving forward.

And then our final takeaway is Shawn Payeyton in a similar fashion to Arthur Smith just whatever he wants. Here is the snap counts from PFF after Courtland Sutton who Courtland Sutton great 43 of 43 routes run nine targets. Beautiful. Then we have 28 routes for Franklin, 27 for Mim, 17 for Trent Sherfield, and two for Pat Bryant. That's not going to cut it. Evan Ingram gets banged up in this game. So Sutton's a locked in wide receiver too at this point. Then you have the running back distribution. JK Dobbins is the RB1 in this backfield. He was the RB 13 on the weekend PPR. He gives you two targets and 16 carries. 18 opportunities is amazing for Dobbins and he's going to be an early season hammer where he's going to be absolutely startable every week as a really nice RB2. But I think RJ Harvey is going to earn a role here where he had only six carries, but he did give you a really really nice like 70 yards on those six carries. I do want to double check here, but he had a 50 yard run. It didn't end up in a touchdown, but he just looked super explosive, really good. We had uh Tyler Batty taking some of that work early on, right? Tyler Batty ends up with 14 snaps, 11 routes run, six targets. The hope is that R.J. Harvey giving you six carries for 70 yards is going to earn that volume and take it away from Tyler Batty because if the Tyler Batty usage just went to Harvey. So that's going to be seven targets and six carries that would be amazing for Harvey. I do think like we've talked about with the Shawn Payeyton scheme is that two running backs can absolutely coexist uh just given how much volume and how many targets and carries he likes to give to running backs and I think Harvey and Dobbins could be a really nice one-two punch. So, with Harvey, I'm not trying to really start him right now. I think he's probably a fringe RB2 until further notice, but the minute we start to see the tides turn, and if he can edge out Batty and then maybe even edge out JK Dobbins later in the season, he's going to become a mustar as this home run hitter, explosive playmaker in a really solid offense.

Now, that is going to do it for us today. That is my emptying of my brain on every game that happened this Sunday. We're not going to talk about the Friday game or the Thursday game. I feel like those are just kind of like too out of sight, out of mind. This next week, we'll just kind of dive into that. But I just want to talk about what happened on Sunday. What I think is actionable moving forward. I think we're probably going to stick to the 10 takeaways format. But it's week one. I got to talk about every game. I got to talk about everything that I thought matters. And that is what this show was. As always, the top 10 takeaways, the everything you need to know video, the rookie receiver report, whatever you want to call this, all wrapped in one is sponsored by Underdog. Use promo code Ron, and they will give you $50 in bonus funds when you use $5 along with a gimme pick in the pick them lobby when you use promo code Ron. I'll have links to that in the description and the comment section down below to join and hop in on the fun over at Underdog with me. Now, as always, if you enjoy, leave a like, subscribe if you're new, and I will see you all in the next one. [Music] stones like this froze ice cold ice.