Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Week 2 Waiver Wire and Injuries

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) and Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley) break down the top Waiver Wire options ahead of Week 2, while Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc) discusses recent injuries. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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from numbers to the film room, with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome to the first of the season. There's going to be, I think, 17 more of these. Here at the Fantasy Points podcast, it is the Injury and WaiverWire podcast at Fantasy Points. and FantasyPoints.com. My name is Joe Dolan, and if you'll remember last year, we had a great time. Well, not necessarily a great time, because talking about injuries isn't great, but if you're going to do it, you might as well do it well. So we're doing it with Dr. Edwin Ports, Dr. Physical Therapy, our injury expert at FantasyPoint.com, in my opinion,

I think this is a fact. Edwin, I think you're the best in the space at like explaining things and showing actual research to prove this stuff. I mean, I mean, you're honestly invaluable to our team. You're always available to me with a text. I was hosting the Game Day show, and I wanted you to sing me sweet lullabies about Jerry Judy, and we will talk about Jerry Judy this week. But how are you doing, my friend?

Unfortunately, there is a relatively lengthy list of injuries here that we need to talk about in week one. However, fortunately, it doesn't look like any of them are season-ending. Right, absolutely. Well, first of all, Joe, I appreciate the kind words. I think you fluffing my ego a little bit because I definitely whiff often. So I appreciate that. But yeah, we definitely try to provide as much context to the injuries as possible.

And always go with the process, the process, the process. But I'm ready to talk about these. Yeah, none of them look to be seen season ending. A few of them are season altering. So we can definitely get into that. Joe, we are vaxed. We are waxed. We are ready to fantasy football transact.

Yes, we are. You can follow him on Twitter at FB Injury Doc. Edwin, all right, let's talk about the big one. And unfortunately, I mean, this is one that a lot of our subscribers at FantasyPoints.com have, feel the effects because Jerry Judy was one of our favorite players to draft this offseason. That is so far down on the list of concerns for Jerry Judy. But I did see him tweet. I don't know if you saw this tweet, Edwin. He says, I appreciate all the ankle donate. L-O-L.

I didn't see that, no. Because, like, fantasy players, like, you know, and Bronco fans, sure, are like, take my ankle. By the way, if you yell at a player for getting hurt, you are a jackass. True. And I don't want you listening to this podcast, but we will talk about players getting hurt. And when you saw the injury, this is what I was literally, I saw it on television when I was doing the Game Day show for Series X-M. I texted you right away, and I said, please, please tell me something good about Jerry Judy. and I was maybe a tiny bit optimistic because I saw him actually kind of walk to the cart.

To me, just as a heathen, that indicated there wasn't like a serious break here. And it turns out they did the x-rays. The x-rays were negative. He got rolled up on, but it is a high ankle sprain for Jerry Judy. What does this mean? What did you see on the film? When should we expect Jerry Judy to come back? And moreover, when he does come back, what is he going to play like?

No, these are all good questions. So I was actually in the middle of running some errands when this injury happened and I was on the fly looking at what happened. It did look bad, Joe. It looked bad. His foot, his ankle turned inward. He had an inversion, sort of high ankle sprain that, or eversion, I'm sorry, high ankle sprain that you hate to see. I was not so certain that his deltoid ligament would be intact after the fact. But that's why observation is one of the.

lowest sensitivity, lowest value type of analysis you can give right off the bat because it doesn't, what it appears to be is not always what it ends up being. But the fact that you watch them walk to the cart does actually give a little bit of insight. There's there. Oh, see. Okay. Yeah, you're not wrong. So there, there are some rules, sort of like an algorithm that have about 99% sensitivity in terms of if you need to get an x-ray or not. One of the rules that you follow is can they place weight on the ankle, immediately after the injury. And if they can place weight on the ankle, then there's a pretty good chance

that they aren't going to have some major fracture. So you were right. You were spot on. For a heathen, you were doing great. So now we're looking at a confirmed Schefter four to six weeks. If we do look at the evidence that I sent everybody yesterday, you do notice that the meat, I'm sorry, the mode, so the most weeks that most skill players will miss for a high ankle sprain is three.

So I'm not sure when the Broncos buy week is. I'd have to take a look at what that is. I don't know if you know that up to top of your head. So we're looking at this injury for Jerry Judy. Shepter confirmed, like I said, four to six weeks. There is a mode of three. So there's a chance he could be back a little sooner than that. What they're going to take their time with him.

They need to let the swelling be controlled. They need to let the pain response diminish. They need to get his range of motion back. But it ends up being, here's the data that I'm talking about. 14% of cases miss zero weeks. That's probably not going to be the case for Judy. 22% miss one week. 12% miss two weeks.

A whopping 27% missed three weeks. And then it's about 10% that missed four. So we're looking at that range that lines up with what Shepty says. And we usually trust Shepter. Now, it's going to be tricky. We don't know when they're going to bring Judy back in terms of if he's actually ready. I've mentioned this study dozens of times. There was a 2013 NFL study.

The last time that they talked about these high ankle sprains, all 32 team docs in the NFL said, yeah, these are pretty nasty gruesome injuries, but players can't come back on an average around 15 days. However, they don't look to be themselves for four to six weeks. That's where that four to six also comes into play. The first game back, and this is based on my own research from 2016 to 2020, the first game back for NFL players coming off a high ankle sprain, there is about a 20% production dip in that first week. You saw it with Terry McLaren. you saw it with Sequin Barclay and Alvin Camara. You see it with all these players. They come back and their production just isn't the same.

That's because they're trying to get back on the field. And this is a very slow injury to heal. So moral of the story, what does all that mean? I feel like I'm just talking for no reason. You just got a whole Jerry Judy. I'm not actively acquiring Jerry Judy. I'm not trading for Jerry Judy because the Michael Thomas situation, which is worst case scenario, it's not common.

But it's also, I wouldn't say it's rare. It is possible for players to be playing on a bumming. the rest of the year after this and then something like the Michael Thomas situation, like I said, is not super common, but it does happen. So I'm not actively acquiring these players. This is a very volatile injury. But I'm just holding on to Jerry Judy, and I'm just going to hope that when he comes back, he takes him a couple of weeks, but he'll get a sea legs back under him.

Yeah, fortunately, it's not the worst case scenario for Jerry Judy. He was going to, he was absolutely eating in that game. By the way, he had six for 71 less than midway through the third quarter, which is when he got hurt. So, I mean, he was going to catch 10 passes back in that game. Didn't he drop one? He had seven targets. I don't know if the one was a drop.

I didn't see it, but he caught six to seven targets. So hands were not an issue for Jerry Judy in week one. Let's go to the other one that occurred in week one. Ryan Fitzpatrick suffered a hip injury. Six to eight weeks, it looks like he's going to miss. He has already been placed on IR, and it is worth noting that, unless I'm mistaken, Jerry Judy has not been placed on IR yet. And the Broncos by week, by the way, is 11.

So you would hope he's back before then. But Ryan Fitzpatrick has been placed on IR. Is this similar to Tuatunga Viloa? Is this similar to Bo Jackson? What happened to Ryan Fitzpatrick? So they keep reporting it's a subluxation, subluxation. So if we're going by the traditional definitions, what it means is that the hip came out of socket and then went back in on its own.

So they didn't, it didn't require any type of sort of traction. It didn't require the athletic trainer. or the dock to put it back in, which is a good thing. Because the longer that hip is out of socket, the more likely there is to be blood vessel damage and necrosis, so basically dying of the bone. And that wasn't the case here. However, he did dislocate his hip. It's very similar to what happened to Tua, much less severe, very similar to what happened

to Bo Jackson, but again, much less severe because it went back in on its own. That's not common. The hip is a very stable joint naturally, so it's not very common for it to come out. of socket. So we're looking at six to eight weeks. I would say that's, that's probably the minimum for Ryan Fitzpatrick that we're not going to see him probably come back to full form even through this year, even when he does come back. He probably won't be as mobile. He probably won't be as confident on the hip if he does come back. We might not see Ryan Fitzpatrick for a long time. And if Washington isn't competitive, which is pretty easy to be

competitive in that division, I don't know how soon they're actually going to bring him back or if they'll rush him back. But yeah, this was a pretty significant injury. Yeah, it's a shame for Fitz because he finally gets a starting job, like, to himself. And then, you know, he gets hurt right away in week one. That offensive line was crap, by the way. Yeah, they are. Just like, oh, man, that was a bad performance by that, by the team's offensive line. Another major injury that occurred in week one. And I know, Edwin, you, you, you, you say injury prone is a lie. It's a, it's a catchphrase. That requires a lot more nuance to what you, mean. And you've written about that. And I encourage you to check that out on fantasy points.com.

However, I'm sure one of the guys who challenges you the most in asserting that is Rahim Moster, who has yet another injury. It's a knee cartilage. It looks like he's going to have to get surgery. The knee injury is reportedly going to cost him eight weeks. At this point, I mean, for fantasy, unless you have multiple IR spots, I don't see why the hell you would keep Rahimoster on a roster. What's the deal with Rahim Moster? What kind of insight can you get? Yeah, so the original report,

and I wish I can remember off the top of my head, was that he had, quote, chipped cartilage. That sounds fun. That's not really a diagnosis. I mean, if anything, it means that he might have bone chips floating around along with cartilage damage to the meniscus, which lines up with the eight weeks. if he had like a true what's called like a chondral defect, that would be pretty severe and pretty

significant. So I think it might be the on the minor version of what this cartilage and and bone issue might be. So he's going to undergo surgery, get it cleaned up. Like, yeah, this is going to be an eight week issue. Okay, Joe. So here's the thing about Rahim Moster. He is a guy who hasn't been able to stay on the field. He constantly has connective tissue injuries. And I, for one, thought, before this happened, and I put this in the chat, I think he might have a little bit of the Todd Gurley syndrome. And I wasn't totally off. This was likely something that was already bothering and pestering him.

And we did see there were some reports in camp that he was out during camp. This is probably something that the game action just pushed him over the edge from. It's not something that is a great injury to deal with. Even when he comes back, there could be complications from this injury. I think the guy's like 29 years old. I just unfortunately, I don't see him coming back and, and really flourishing, which will say a lot for my, uh, Tray Serman teams. I don't know about you.

Yeah. Uh, well, well, Tom, let's let's, let's put it this way. Tom Raleigh is going to join me on the second half of this podcast, Edwin, and we will be analyzing that situation. So I hope you tune in. And I hope you guys out there, I hope you play monkey knife fight. Monkey knife fight is the fastest growing daily fantasy sports site on the planet. It is a daily fantasy sports operator offering a unique style of player props.

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Number four, you choose your buying. New users can use code fantasy PTS. That's all capitals, fantasy PTS, to claim an instant 100% deposit match up to $100. New users also receive a free $5 just for signing up. Head to www.munkinifequite.com and download the app on the app store or play store. You can also find out more information on the fantasy points homepage. Edwin, you wrote a big article this offseason. You thought Sequin Barclay's rehab, based on everything that was reported,

you're not in the building, was going just fine. We were, the giants were being cautious with him. the reports are, oh, I don't know if he's going to be ready week one. Turns out everything progresses. He plays in week one. The usage suggests the Giants are being cautious. He played just 48% of the snaps. That is well below what we're used to seeing Seyquan Barkley play.

And the Giants got freaking boat raced. All right. That team stinks. But observation is part of the equation when you're looking at injuries. What did you see from Seekwon Barkley a year removed from tearing his ACL? Yeah, week one, 10 and a half months. after the surgery, he looked good to me. He looked spry. He didn't look like Sequin Barclay of old, and that's not necessarily to be expected. And I said most of the offseason, we can say everything

we want and look at all the research we want. When it comes to the giants, we don't know what they're going to do. And this is what they obviously decided to do. I think a lot of the complication and confusion came from, is he going to be active week one? Is he not? Is he going to take his role week one? Is he not? And I don't think he was ever going to be inactive. That was never really in the cards unless he had a massive setback. But yeah, he was active. Like you said, he played 48% of the snaps. The upside is that Devante Booker and Gary Brightwell, they, I think, made up the rest of the of the targets. And I think they only had like, like, two total targets or one total target. I think Sequin had like three or four. So moral of the story here, Sequin looked like he was a guy

coming off in ACL and meniscus issue. I do think that the Broncos were part of the reason he was bottled up as much as he was. And he just didn't have room to run. I did go back and watch that game. I mean, it was pretty ridiculous how quick. I should, I should screenshot at least like one of his runs where I swear there were like four or five Broncos surrounding him. And there was like no offensive linemen around Seekwon whatsoever. So I should screenshot that. I'll tweet out because like I think, I think it's so lazy to come out and say like, oh my God, he's not ready. I was like, dude, that team sticks.

Yeah, they're so bad. Honestly, that for me as a fantasy player, that's the bigger issue right now. that it's not the injury for Seiquant. It's, it's, the team being so bad around him is the biggest, the biggest issue, in my opinion. Now, it was a tough defense, you know, Denver week one. Denver looks pretty spry, too, by the way. I know we talked about Jerry Judy, but yeah, Denver week one, I'm, you know, I'm, the good news is Sequin is healthy, bad news, everything else. Monday night football, another guy who I actually thought looked good on his runs, but he didn't play a whole lot, was John.

Josh Jacobs, who has a toe injury, what did you see from him? He was clearly that, like, Sequin, I didn't see any obvious discomfort from Seekwon. Josh Jacobs, Ed, when you watched that Monday night game, which was really entertaining. He was clearly in pain in that game, but I thought when he was out there, he looked pretty good. Yeah, no, he was, he was clearly playing through some pain, which isn't unexpected. He down-talked, downplayed the injury. I think it was on Saturday, Friday or Saturday. He was saying, oh, you know, it's not the big of deal.

I'm just taking a rest day. then he had to be hobbled off to the sideline. They had to retape his toe. I mean, this dude's going to be playing through pain probably for the next few weeks. He was volatile. And he did look good. When he got the ball, he looked spry. He looked like he hit the holes hard.

He obviously had the two touchdowns. And I know you can't do it like this, Joe. I really hate this type of analysis. But, I mean, take away the two touchdowns, even take away one of the touchdowns. It wasn't the greatest. And I think that does have a lot to do with what the toe injury was bringing at the table. On top of the fact that he was also sick, apparently. just yesterday.

So this was a really interesting performance by Josh Jacobs. I don't really know what you're going to get from him next week now because this toe injury isn't going away necessarily, but it might be something that he can play through with the footplate. So I would say that Josh Jacobs continues to be, for me, from a health perspective, a volatile play. But, I mean, you probably don't have a lot better options, a lot of better options than Josh Jacobs.

O'Dell Beckham was inactive on Sunday in his recovery from ACL injury. What differentiates Odell Beckham from, say, Juan Barclay. Yeah, so Odell hadn't taken contact and practice. So what we know about that is that he obviously isn't confident on the knee yet. He might have had some complications post-operatively. He's older than Saquan Barclay. You know, he's not necessarily, you know, going to go to the nursing home.

But in terms of NFL age, I mean, he's 29 years old. So it takes a little bit longer of a time. There's a big, big gap between 23, 24, and 2930. So that was probably part of what played into his recovery. I don't necessarily anticipate him to come. in and have this full workload either. As a receiver, it actually tells you a lot because receivers have an easier time coming back from these injuries, but there was probably more meniscus involved for Odell Beckham Jr. than we initially thought. So that means that he might be active next week.

We're not 100% certain. He's two weeks behind in terms of full recovery compared to Sequan Barclay. He had his surgery two weeks after Seyquan Barclay did. So it's one of those things that you have to sort of take it for what it's worth. I probably wouldn't use a lot of OBJ in. my DFS lineups. He's probably not going to run as many routes. And to be honest, I don't know how he's going to look coming off of that. He's the one guy that I was concerned coming off the ACL because of his age, because of his history, because of everything that we know about him, he, I was a little bit concerned and I'm still concerned in terms of soft tissue injuries if they ramp him up too quickly. Odo Beckham Jr. is a super volatile player right now and I'm not acquiring

him or trading for him. Austin Echler is the final one we're going to talk about. This one is bizarre. Like, I mean, we're talking about Austin Echler all season. He's a first round and all this. And then all of a sudden he just doesn't practice on Wednesday and Thursday heading into the Sunday game. He's active on Sunday, but he doesn't get a target. He did run routes on about half of Justin Herbert's dropbacks. Did you see anything? This is somebody who has a history of hamstring problems.

Austin Eckler is open about his history of hamstring problems. He's a real one. He's a good dude. What should we be concerned here? I would be cautious. I know he had that goal line carry. I know he had that touchdown. Other than that, the dude didn't see a target.

And I'm wondering, I'm wondering if that has to do with how they were managing his load. I have to go back and look at how many snaps that he played to. But he, yeah, I definitely think they were managing how much he's doing. You alluded to it. He admitted in an interview just a couple weeks ago. Like, yeah, my left hamstring still isn't as strong as my right one. And I don't know if it ever will be. So that's something that we have to take into consideration when it,

when it comes to Echler. And what muddies of water is more is this new coaching staff. We don't know how they're going to use him, how they're going to handle the situation. Week one is still a small sample. But the fact that he was two do not practices, two DMPs last week, Wednesday, Thursday, and then was limited again. This sort of capped volume could have been predicted. But again, you probably didn't have a lot of better options than Austin Echler.

Take away that touchdown again. I've done it twice now and I say I hate it. But he wasn't necessarily a great asset to your to your rosters this week. And it's going to be telling. it's going to say a lot what his practice statuses are this week, and it's going to tell us a lot about where he is from a health perspective. But yeah, man, this guy is moderately volatile, at least moving forward because you, the week one is when everybody should be healthy, right?

Week one is when everybody should be practicing. That's what I said about most. That's what I said about most of our live stream. I'm like, if you drafted or he moistered, he's never going to be healthier than he is now. And then, oh, I mean, injuries are a part of the game. They're just part of the game. And that's why you're part of the game. Follow him on Twitter at FB injury doc.

make sure you check out his injury insights at fantasy points.com. Now, I strongly encourage you to subscribe to fantasypoints.com using the code 21 porous. 10, by the way, it's 10% off. But if you go to FantasyPoint.com, you click on research and news. On the right-hand side, there's injury insights. It is a free feed of all of Edwin's injury. Just quick little blurbs, Edwin. You can go down here, and it's going to be your expertise.

and analyzing the injury impact. And, you know, Tom and I, this is something that is so important to us. Tom and I, we'll talk Waverwire here. But Edwin, you just do all the injury insights on that page. Make sure you check it out. It is been fantastic talking to you, my man. Hopefully we don't have to talk for 20 minutes next week. But it is always good talking to you.

Absolutely, man. I appreciate it. I'll try to cut down on the fluff, okay? I'll try to cut down a fluff. No, it's not fluff. It's very, very useful information. and we're going to come back with a little bit more useful information. Tom Broley will join me to talk WaverWire after the break,

but first we're going to have a word from our sponsors. We are back. Thanks for hanging around after a wonderful little segment with Edwin Porras. Unfortunately, when I get to talk to Edwin for 20 plus minutes, it means there's injuries to talk about. We don't like that very much. But now we're talking about how to deal with those injuries here, and we're with Tom Brawley of FantasyPoints.com,

Tom does the waiver wire. Tom, you literally are working on the waiver wire article in real time watching the games on Sunday. So like you are, I mean, you're like, you're like on the ground floor of this. You're doing it as it happens. And then, then you can update it with insight. But talk about your process a little bit because we're going to, that's what we're going to do. We're going to, I mean, you are the waiver wire guy. You are updating this damn thing during the games on Sundays. Yeah, week one is always the worst week for the article for me, because anybody that's read the article over the years at Fantasy Guru and now Fantasy Points, it's kind of like a living article. We kind of write it initially and we keep updating it throughout all 17, 18 weeks now.

So the first week is always a brutal one. The one o'clock games end at four. I start writing it. I didn't get done until about, you know, 1215 this week. You know, it was, I did the, I do the Thursday night, 1 o'clock, 4 o'clock. Then I can't kind of hand it over to John. He puts the finishing touches on it. So that's kind of the process for it. So between Sunday and Monday, I was like working for like 22 of 30 hours and the, well, probably like more like 23 of 30 hours. And the other seven were spent sleeping. So I'm running on fumes a little bit here today. but, you know, got a little bit of rest last night.

Got to watch a good game there. Yeah. You know, they were trying to blow it as much as they could there, the Raiders, but they ended up pulling out at the end. So, you know, it's fun to have football back. You know, the waiver wire is going to be a little bit busy this week. Not nothing too crazy, but we had some shenanigans coming from Kyle Shanahan this week. So, you know, it's an interesting waiver wire here right off.

back. Yeah, by the way, Tom, I want to remind everybody that at fantasypoints.com, if you're a premium subscriber to fantasy points.com, and you can use the code 21 Broly 10 to get that. This podcast is being released on Tuesday early afternoon. On Tuesday nights, we have a new live stream for premium subscribers. It's our projection show where our staff is literally going to, we're going to pull back the curtain, and we're literally going to have a discussion. John, this guy's too high. John, this guy's too low. With reasoning. West. or Scott Barrett, Grand Barfield, obviously me and you, Tom. We're going to be on there, and it's just going to be a little bit of a peek behind the curtain

and give you an early look at some of the lineup decisions you should be making. I think it's a really unique show in the fantasy space, so I hope everybody checks that out. And Tom, you and I will be in Discord or for our premium subscribers today, answering waiver wire questions, you know, fab budgets, stuff like that. What would you do in this situation? Would you drop this guy? Our favorite questions, the fab questions. Oh, I hate them.

Because like Tom, I don't know how to handle fab budget. Like I just like, I just throw a number out there and I'm like, you know, I hope that gets a gone. You know, every league is completely different. You know, I'm playing some like super competitive leagues where everybody shoots their wad, you know, the first couple of weeks. And then, you know, there's more, you know, maybe a sharper league where, you know, people are kind of trying to spend their money throughout the season. And, you know, they're a little more conservative. So every league is completely different when it comes up. Yeah. And like, I mean, I always feel.

bad when people ask, but like, I'm like, ah, that's a 25% situation, you know, that's a, and I mean, there are going to be people who blow 100% of their budget on Elijah Mitchell. I don't know how, uh, how defensible that is, but Tom, let's talk about the Waverwire star. I, effing hate you for picking him up. I was in the, I was literally in the shower, getting prepared for the game day show when you picked them up in our long-term league. Literally 10 minutes before pickoff for the one o'clock. I was out walking my dog, uh, in our 14 team leg. I'm kicking myself that I didn't do it in more legs, but I figured the 14 team leg was the most defensible to do it. Yeah. Now he's the guy here. Elijah Mitchell from San Francisco.

What did you see? What kind of fab budget would you use on them? Is there a potential landmine here? Was Kyle Shanahan being really disciplinary for Trace Serman and Brandon Ayuk? I mean, it was a bizarre situation, there was no indication from anybody before the game, at least Sermon was inactive. I mean, the Iyuk thing was bizarre, but there was no indications over the past couple weeks from any reporter connected with that team that any of this was even within the realm of possibility. Yeah, I saw some reporters on the beat saying, oh, this was in the, yeah, you've then report it. Like nobody had any of this out there. It was completely blindsided everybody. So, you know, Mitchell's kind of the guy for now.

You know, he played well in the rule. Mostert, it looks like he's going to be out about eight weeks. I'm sure you guys got into that a little bit. It was a perfect storm, by the way, because Tray Sermon was inactive, but Moster ripped off 20 yards on his first two carries, and then as Mosterd his want to do, ended up on the sidelines. I mean, so it was a perfect storm. This is, this was just, don't kick yourself if you weren't like Tom.

We're in a 14-team deep league. So Elijah Mitchell was actually one of the most appealing options. on the waiver wire. I mean, this is, everybody loaded up on most certain DFS. I mean, Tom, it was a perfect storm here. Yeah, absolutely. And it was a perfect matchup as well. The lines were, you know, one of the worst in the league and, you know, he took advantage of it and, you know, broke off the long touchdown run got up over 100 yards. So, you know, he's going to lead this backfield for now. But Shanahan, you know, he's prone to, you know, make changes and, you know, use, you know, you kind of use the hot hand in his backfield here.

You know, if Trace Sermon gets dropped in any of your leagues this week, which is probably a great possibility and, you know, some of the, you know, the lesser, you know, not as sharp legs, maybe your hometown leagues. You know, he's probably going to be, he could be dropped in some of those. So I would go out and pick him up. I think to Michael Hasty, Hasty is even in the mix here. But Mitchell is the guy for now, as long, you know, as long as he keeps playing well. So he kind of played in that. They played in a very similar system at Louisiana. It was a six-round pick, kind of went under the radar.

But, you know, he's extremely athletic and is kind of a good fit for this running scheme, this outside zone running scheme. So, you know, he's the guy for now. And, you know, I would be, he's definitely the top guy out of all the positions here to be looking to add here. Because, you know, anybody that's leading this San Francisco backfield has a a great route to fantasy relevance. Yeah, and so let's just put it this way, Tom. You're not, you're not closing the coffin on Trey Sermon. Oh, God, no. No. I mean, would you be surprised in the next three weeks that he's the lead back here? No. I mean, I feel like Shanahan is, you know,

using a heavy hand here with Ayuk and Sermon. I, you know, Sermon played a lot with the starters during the preseason as well. So, you know, would you be completely shocked if Sermon is the lead back after week two. No. You know, he comes out and he's the guy. Like, I wouldn't be totally shocked. So I think Mitchell's the guy for now. But this is going to be a week-to-week process with the San Francisco back to him.

This is going to be different, Tom, than Iyuk. I think Iyuk, San Francisco probably needs Iuke, you know, like Trent Sherfield, you know, ain't going to cut it. No. But for Sermon, I mean, now he had, Elijah Mitchell had a great game. And I have a couple of little tid-biz. from Greg Cosell on Mitchell. And in his breakdown of Mitchell for our NFL draft guide up at FantasyPoints.com,

which you could still buy for $25. The more I watched Mitchell, the more I liked him. And here is the kicker. Mitchell would project best in a foundational zone scheme. And I got a question on our Discord channel. And they said, does San Francisco run a foundational zone scheme? And I responded to the gentleman. and I said, San Francisco runs the foundational zones,

Tom. Everybody is copying it. You know, it's trickled down. I think Louisiana, basically, from stuff I was reading that their coach, you know, was picking Shanahan's brains like watching video. And, you know, they were kind of emulating his offense a bit whenever Elijah Mitchell was running in it. So, yeah, he is the zone running game right now. So, yeah, he's the big guy on the Waver Wire, Tom.

Just another couple names out there. Check Corderole Patterson's position of eligibility. I got to be honest, watching that game, and it was, I mean, Atlanta got dominated. It was, but they did run the ball well in the first half. Tom, I thought Cordial Patterson looked better than Mike Davis. Yeah, and Galman was a healthy scratch. I mean, that wasn't totally surprised. Yeah, since he's just new to the offense.

But, yeah, he could carve out a little bit bigger role here. I want to get on your guy here from the Eagles game. Oh, Gainwell. He's a guy, if I miss out on some of the top guys here, he's definitely in the mix. And that was even a terrible game script for him. And he was excellent. I mean, they were leading that entire game. And, you know, we're thinking the Eagles are going to be a 500 team, maybe worse. So, you know, better game scripts are likely coming his way in the future. Yeah. So by the way, he was exclusively the hurry up back. Boston Scott didn't play a snap. Yeah. Gainwell was in the two-minute drill. He was out there. Miles Sanders looked great, by the way. But Gainwell, he was excellent Tom in pass protection.

And that's a rookie running back in his first game. I mean, he's out there. He's somebody who's very interesting. James White, 33% rostered on Yahoo. Yeah, that better be up over 50% after this week. I mean, he just did exactly, especially since Stevenson and Harris both fumbled. He did exactly what you would want to see. One more I just want to ask you, Tom.

What did you think of the Baltimore backfield last night in the game? Oh, I want Tyson. I mean, Latavius Murray looks absolutely cooked. I mean, I know he was playing the pivotal snaps down the end. You know, I don't think they have complete trust in Williams right now. But as the season goes on, I mean, Williams had, you know, he looked way more explosive. I think he's the ascending player. Murray is the descending player.

I mean, it might take, you know, some time. And now he's going to have a role. No, yeah, it's going to be a 50-50. It's going to be, they're going to use, you know, it's just going to be kind of a 50-50 split. But I want the more explosive player, the guy that's ascending, not the descending player here. A guy couldn't even make the roster for the Saints. So, you know, I think they're both going to be kind of that, you know, RB2, RB3 fringe. But, you know, Tyson Williams has more upside here going forward, in my opinion.

If you need to replace Jerry Judy, who we talked about with Edwin, who we expect We're not even going to talk about the Texans backfield. I mean, Mark Ingram is going to get 30 areas of game going forward. Guys, guys, here's this. You and I were talking about this when we were going through our market report. The sucker bet of all sucker bets is using Fab to pick up Mark Ingram. Get on our Discord, you know, after, you know, your Fab runs. We want to hear the most outrageous Mark Ingram bid out there this week.

I'll be very curious. I'll be curious if anybody blows like over 50% of the budget. I would rather pick up Cordarral Patterson than Mark Ingram. I'm dead serious about that. Larry Roundtree, by the way, looks like the backup to Austin Echler if you're interested in that. He was pretty much, I think that's going to make Hanson happy because he called that all offseason. All right, Tom, let's go to the receivers. If you're looking to replace Jerry Judy, let's just start easily with Denver.

The guy consistently gets disrespected. I mean, Tom, every time he plays, Tim Patrick puts up numbers. Every time. Every time. And that was among, if not the single best game I saw Teddy Bridgewater play in the NFL. Oh, he's going to get the ball to his receivers, too. I mean, we saw in Carolina last year, he, you know, he supported three wide receivers last year.

You know, we're talking about Tim Patrick here. I mean, KJ. Hamler, he might have the, he has the bigger upside out of, you know, I think Tim Patrick week to week, he's going to be your reliable, wide receiver three. You don't have to really sweat it too much, just plug him in there. And, you know, he's not going to kill you. Hamler's going to be, you know, he's going to have the wild ebbs and flows. But, you know, it was interesting at least that Judy was kind of the guy in the slot, you know, in week one here. think, you know, and it was a great spot for him. I mean, Bridgewater was feeding him the ball there.

I would think that Hamler kind of slides into that spot. So maybe, maybe KJ gets a little bit more consistency, but, you know, he's always kind of been the shot play guy. He, you know, he missed that long 50-yard touchdown pass. We're Penn State guys. We're texting her, yeah, there's KJ. He was wide ass open. Oh, yeah. I mean, it wasn't the easiest catch. It was kind of, he kind of had to turn his shoulders to adjust to it, but there was literally no defenders around him, and he couldn't haul it in. But, you know, bigger days are ahead for both of these guys. You know, how long did Edwin say we could be looking at a Judy absence? Well, Edwin actually leans to the shorter end, like three weeks. But, you know, there's a chance

he's not 100% when he gets back. So maybe they wait to get him 100%. Who knows? Tom, another guy, if you're not looking just at the Broncos, go back and look at the, Sterling Shepard's game lungs. I mean, he is the only guy who did anything for that giant offense on Sunday in that absolute crap fest against Denver. Yeah, it's six, I have it in the article, six catches in nine of his last 13 games. So, you know, he actually scored a touchdown this week, too, and made a big play, racked up some yards after the catch, which usually isn't his, you know, his MO.

But, you know, he's a 40% known guy. You know, we were talking about James White. If he's not owned up over 50% of leagues, I don't know what's going on here. Devante Parker is in the same deal here. He kind of got disrespected all summer. He led them in targets, yeah. And he led them in target. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case going forward.

He's kind of the Mr. Reliable in that offense. You know, when it gets, they're both kind of, they're very much different players, but they're kind of the same. Like, when the going gets tough, it's third down. I'm going to go to my most reliable guy, Devante Parker. I think they're both kind of similar in that way. So they should both be picked up and owned in over 50% of the leagues after this week. Yeah, by the way, Tom, we can't talk about everybody on the podcast.

We're not going to give the whole article away. But if you subscribe to FantasyPoint.com, the week two waiver wire, it is one of our premier. It is the premier article on the site, quite frankly, during the season. There's more guys to talk about, you know, Nelson Aguilar, the Cardinal guys. We hit two real, you know, guys that didn't do anything in week. week one, but, you know, all the peripherals kind of say big things might be coming for them. I mean, MBS, Marquez, Valdez, Gantling. He kind of got pulled at the end of the game with the

starters. I mean, it was Lazard and Cobb. I mean, at the end of that game playing with Jordan Love, he saw eight targets, you know, it looks like he's kind of firmly the number two receiver here. We're always trying to get pieces of that Packers passing game. We're not going to be this terrible all year. Hopefully that was just a one-off against the Saints. And the other guy, playing Thursday night, I'm going to guess he might be the Thursday night special for John Hanson and myself on the program is Diami Brown. Diami Brown. He was the starter. He played across from Terry McLauran. It was an ugly, you know, Fitzpatrick gets hurt in the second quarter there. It just kind of threw the entire offense out of whack. But, you know, the numbers look like, you know,

he could be something here in the next couple of weeks here. So, you know, two guys that, probably are going to go under the radar on your Waverwire pickups, but would be good stashes for you going forward here. For sure. And then Jalen Rager, by the way, six catches. Talk about, you know, like the Eagles come out and Ques, and I loved Quez Watkins, the scripted plays at the beginning of the game. Tom, Ques Watkins caught three passes on the first three plays of the game.

Doesn't see a target. Meel, Julian Rager ends up catching six passes and scoring a touchdown there against Atlanta. Yeah, he looked pretty good. I mean, the entire passing game looked pretty strong. You know, maybe it's going against the Falcons defense. But, you know, we'll see this week. I mean, that 49ers secondary looked awfully shaky. And they just lost Jason Barrett.

So, you know, could be a good spot. I want to drop a little more because, I mean, we're in the charitable mood here. You know, it is week one. You know, we'll save a lot of this stuff for the article going forward. But Cedric Wilson's another guy. Michael Gallup goes down. He's probably going to be out three to five weeks. They didn't use any other receivers,

besides Cooper, you know, Michael Gallup, C.D. Lamb, and Cedric Wilson. So he's going to be kind of locked into that big rule. And we're, you know, they threw it 58 times. You know, this is going to be an offense that throws it a lot. So if you're looking for just like a plug and play for a couple of weeks, you're not too satisfied. Or maybe you just lost Gallup. You know, Wilson is certainly a guy. You know, he's not going to kill it. But, you know, he should be good for four or five catches for 50, 60 yards. Time, you need to come prop up on Thrive Fantasy, this football. ball season. Thrive Fantasy is a daily fantasy sports and e-sports app for player props. With Thrive, you can eliminate countless hours of research and focus on only the top-tier athletes that have the

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to find out some of our favorite Thrive Fantasy props for the day. Sign up and prop up today. Tom, a popular tight end on the waiver wire. Let's talk about the Saints tight ends because look, everybody's going to be like, oh my God, Marquez Calais. James Winston through 20 passes, Tom. I mean, like, somebody is going to, 20 passes and five touchdowns. Somebody is going to lose out on a target share when your quarterback those 20 passes. But I got a lot of a lot of texts, a lot of a discord chat, even before the game. I know you guys are high on Joanne Johnson. Should I stash him?

And I said he is the stash of stashes. But Adam Troutman, Johnson scored two touchdowns. Troutman saw more targets. What's your read on this situation? Yeah, it's going to be an interesting one here. I think I leaned towards Troutman, you know, as being the more consistent overall piece here. You know, he was on the field for, you know, 80, percent of the snaps last week and, you know,

Joanne Johnson's kind of a situational player, but he got, he has that Jared Cook type of situational player. So, you know, John Johnson's going to be, you know, kind of like an all or nothing kind of player here going forward. But I do think, you know, all the guy has done done has made plays since the preseason.

You know, he's come on the field and he was making plays in their first couple preseason games. And then, you know, he makes too spectacular. I mean, I don't know. you remember those catches, Joe. I mean, one, he, like, laid out parallel to the ground, and the other, he, like, you know, skied in the back of the end zone and got both of his feet down. So, I mean, they were both impressive plays.

And, you know, I don't, you know, we're talking about the Saints receiving core. I mean, Marquez Calways, you know, had a nice run of it here since August. But, you know, he's an undrafted free agent. You know, he doesn't have a, you know, a long track record of success in the NFL. and, you know, try naming, like, three of their receivers behind them. So, you know, it's a really thin group right now behind Alvin Kamara. So I would be taking my shots on either one of these guys to see if, you know, they're not going to throw the ball 20 times a game going forward here.

So there's going to be more volume in the passing game. And maybe both of these guys can carve out, you know, at least some tight end two type of value here. Tom, we're just going to hit one quarterback. And it's going to be Taylor Heineke. Hopefully you're not streaming quarterbacks at this point, but you might be in the Super Flex League. You might be in a Super Flex League. He runs around. He makes plays.

I can see why they like him. To me, he is like the quintessential backup quarterback because, you know, you saw that downfield throw to Terry McClaren. Tom, it looked like it had healing him in it. I mean, the guy just doesn't have arm strength. But he is a quintessential kind of backup quarterback who can run around. He's going to make play. He had 17 yards rushing. in that game. I mean, if you're in a super flex league, I think you could do worse than Hineken.

Yeah, he's got some like Case Keenum type of vibes. You know, he's got a, you know, a second reaction type of player, you know, he'll run around, you know, he's not going to be like a 50, you know, rushing yards per game type of quarterback. But, you know, he should kind of live in that 20 to 30 yards and maybe I'll get you a rushing score. Right, the score is what I was saying. Like, you know, you know, he can get in there on at the goal line for you. Yeah, yeah. And he, you know, they're going to, you know, this week's kind of a tough spot. You know, they're going against the Giants. That's going to be a very low-scoring affair,

and it's one they should kind of dominate. It's, you know, we're our first Thursday night game of the year here. So it might be a little bit low-scoring. Might not want to necessarily play them this week. But, you know, it's looking like a six-to-eight-eight-week injury for Fitzpatrick there with his hip dislocation. So, you know, he's going to be the guy here. So he's going to be, you know, fringe QB, too, you know,

high-end QB-3, you know, so super flex type of guy, but, you know, he's going to do some things with his feet, which are, you know, certainly a nice little bonus here. Yeah, so Tom, how about the NFL crapping on us already with the Thursday night game week, week, too? Oh, I know. I mean, the whole, have you seen the whole prime time slate? We got the Lions on Monday night. Well, you know, I'm actually a lot more excited to watch that game because the Packers were

so freaking bad last week. Like that has serious meltdown potential. So I'm going to be tuning into that. Chiefs Ravens is a really good one on Sunday. Yeah, I think that's what they were going for. Or we'll put like the game of the AFC here and prime time here. And, you know, we'll get some of our, you know, we've got to appease all the, you know, fan bases here.

So we'll get some crappy prime time games out of the way earlier. Did you see, did you see week three's Thursday night game? No, I haven't looked that far ahead yet. I think, go ahead. Panthers and the Texans. Okay, I was going to say, I thought the Texans were pretty early in the season. Yeah, so, yeah, unfortunately, yeah, but next Sunday night's going to be. It sounds like the NFL is backloading the Thursday night schedule this year.

Yeah, next Thursday night, next Sunday night's going to be a real rip snorter, but, yeah. The primetime schedule, unfortunately for us, Tom, because those are the chances we actually get to sit down and really watch games. Yeah, like, you know, so anyway. I hope you guys respect what we do. You know, we have to suffer these terrible primetime games, the games that, you know, we actually want to sit down and watch because on Sundays, we're busy. We're working through it and we're discussing it today.

I want to remind everybody, check out the Tuesday night live stream for premium subscribers at fantasy points.com. And if you're a premium subscriber, you get all of our DFS content, you get into our Discord channel, you get all of Tom's betting content. We have an expanded betting package this year. It's just really fantastic stuff. You get access to all of our live streams as well. Tonight's show is the projection show where we are breaking down our rankings and projections live for you.

I think this is a meeting. John requested this meeting last year and we were all like burnt out. We were like, oh my God, we don't want to do it. And then it turns out, I mean, John knows best. It was a good idea and we just didn't do it. And it's going to- I have no idea how this is going to go, Joe. You know, it should be pretty fun, though.

I'm looking forward. It's going to be more informal. You know, we're not going to, you know, host it. Yeah, yeah. It's not going to be, it's going to be just a discussion, basically. So it should be pretty fun. Do we have any promo codes that throw out there? Oh, yeah, 21 Broly 10. There we go. You want to get in it. Look, you might be 1 and 0. Here's the deal. This is the way I look at it. I don't want to, if you're 0 and 1, you definitely need help. But if you're 1 and 0, you want to pull away, man.

Like, you know, you don't want to cede that leave. You want to, you want to max for stab in this thing. You want to win by a lot. Go to FantasyPoints.com and we'll help you out. For Tom Brawley at Tom Brawley on Twitter, I'm Joe Dolan at FG underscore Dolan on Twitter, and for Edwin Porras as well at FB Injury Doc on Twitter. This has been the week number two injuries and waiver wire podcast. I hope you all enjoyed.

I hope you subscribe, rate, and review to make sure you're back with us next week. And we will talk to you then. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points Podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com.