Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Week 4 DFS Recap Podcast

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) and Jordan Tohline (@JMToWin) of One Week Season (@oneweekseason) review their Week 4 DFS lineups and action. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room, with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. What is going on, one week season fan, Fantasy Points fam, JM to win here from One Weekseason.com, hanging out with the great Scott Barrett. from fantasy points.com. Scott, my man, how are you doing? I'm doing good.

Did my hot yoga again? Just got back like 10 minutes ago. Excited to talk to you, excited to break down the slate. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm a little disappointed by the fact that you sent me a dangerous link today for our podcast. if my audio quality for any listeners sounds less optimal than normal, it is because the computer I usually record on that has good sound,

would not open the link that Scott was sending. It kept saying that it was like a dangerous page. But from my other computer, the link was open just fine. So maybe you get like 80% sound quality for me this week. I apologize for that. We'll just let Scott talk a lot more than me, and you won't even notice. but yeah, I'm doing well.

I only, I played one roster on Fandul that I put in at like 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, I was very close to not playing this last week. What's funny is if I had played on Draft Kings, I probably would have been profitable. I had one roster built on Friday night that I was like, am I going to put this in play or not, and decided not to, but because of the differences in pricing on Fandual and Draft Kings, I ended up on a slightly different build in the game changer on Fandual and finished middle of the pack.

And I think I would have cashed on draft kings, but, you know, nothing big. So, but there's some interesting stuff from this last weekend to get to. How about you? How was your DFS weekend? Yeah, so this was a tricky DFS slate. I had some bad calls. I mean, C.D. Lamb, yeah, I wasn't all in or anything, but I have no idea why he did absolutely nothing and he used Dalton Schultz as the wide receiver won, like things like that.

But I had a lot of good calls. a lot of contrarian plays. I liked a lot at low ownership, ended up hitting and hitting in a big way. But really, to me, what it looked like was this slate came down to either you had DJ Moore and Tyreek Hill or you didn't. And like that's basically the entirety of whether or not you were extremely profitable

or not at all profitable. And so in my content, you know, I talked about. Tyreek Hill. I'm like, listen, Philadelphia sells out to stop the deep ball. They've been excellent at stopping the deep ball. Greg Cassell and Adam Kaplan were both asked whether he thought it was a Tyree game or a Travis Kelsey game. They both said bet on Travis Kelsey. That's basically what I said in my analysis, but at the same time I said, really, I don't think match must matter at all for Tyreek Hill. Either he gets bracket coverage and it'll score 13 fantasy points or he'll

get single coverage and I'll score, I don't know, 45 fantasy points. And I don't know whether or not that was the case this week, but I did say, you know, you always want some exposure to Tyree Hill because he has a way of absolutely destroying a slate, 50.6 fantasy points. And then DJ Moore was kind of the same thing. expected to get shadow coverage against Diggs, who was excellent. He was PFF's highest-graded cornerback. He had two interceptions. But he wasn't really a shutdown shadow and, you know, DJ Moore, 34.9 fantasy points, 17% owned. I was a lot lower than that.

But, you know, I did line it out in my article like, hey, I would be all in if, you know, Diggs wasn't likely to shadow. And I still want to play him anyway because, you know, Carolina hasn't been. forced to keep their foot on the gas at all. DJ Moore is leading all receivers in targets in the first half by like 10, you know, a ton of receiving yards, like basically all of his receiving yards in the first half. I think it's going to be a high scoring competitive game. And so I just, I just didn't have a lot or really any exposure to those two guys.

And yeah, that's pretty much what the slate came down to, I thought. I will say, so I was flipping through the standings in the game changer, the Fandul Game Changer, on Sunday. And one of the things that stood out to me was Petty Thet, who's an excellent tournament player. He finished third in the Game Changer on Sunday and had no Tyree Kill and no DJ Moore. In fact, he had Travis Kelsey instead of Tyree Kill. And the top three finishers in that tournament, none of them had DJ Moore. And that's a smaller field tournament, obviously. But there were other players, you know, Tyree Kill obviously sort of broke the slate, but there were other players. So on this roster that Petty Therapeut had, he had Debo Samuel, he had Terry McLaurin.

He had Jalen Hertz. He had Sequin Barclay. And so all those guys put up 30 plus points on draft kings. All those guys put 27 plus points on Fan duel. And so there were certainly ways to get around that. Like this was one of the first weeks where we had enough good scores outside the top scores that like if somebody had Tyree Kill but didn't have the other top scores, you can actually still gain ground.

We've had a lot of weeks to start the season where there haven't really been that many 30-point scores. And so if you missed out on the one or two 30-point scores, you were pretty much sunk. This week we had the 40-pointer from, or what did Hill put up on draft kings? 50. 50.

So we have 50 from Hill on draft kings, but we still had enough like 30-point scores that if you missed out on that, you could still kind of keep pace, probably not get a first-place finish, especially in larger field. tournament. And I think that kind of points to the fragility of some of the stuff that we can get more focused on, which is, so you brought up, well, let's say like this, like you said,

the Eagles sell out to stop the deep passing. Most of our competition just sees, oh, Eagles have a bad defense. Like, that's what everybody says, right? Oh, Eagles is a smash matchup. You read Roto World blurbs. And so he's like in this great spot against the Eagles. And so there is a tangible edge over time and saying, well, if the field thinks that this is a bad spot, this is a bad defense, and we know that this defense goes out of their way to prevent downfield passing, there is an edge there. And I think that that's probably, even with Tyree Kill putting up 50 points, that's probably a profitable edge over time. One of the things that we saw in this game with the Eagles is they didn't over adjust to specifically take out Tyree Kill. So it was

wasn't like he was just getting all these huge plays. It was more like they weren't selling out to bracket him and stop Tyree Kill specifically. They're just like, oh yeah, we'll take away the deep passing however we can. And recognizing like Tyree Kill is still going to hit in tough matchups. And so recognizing both sides of that, right? Like you've said, play Tyree Kill every week. If you're playing more than one roster, that's the type of player that you still get exposure to. And I think that there was a strong case to be made that understanding the totality. of the Eagles defense and how they're designed and what they're trying to do, and avoiding Tyree Kill, you know, or going underweight Tyree Kill because of that

probably pays out over time, but you also want exposure to these players who can break through in any matchup, whether it's DeMonte Adams, whether it's Tyree Kill, whether it's Derek Henry. And I think the biggest key, too, is what does breaking through mean for these guys? I see a lot of times people go to the type of player who can break through a bad matchup and get 30 points. Well, why do you want to put your roster in worse position by taking a guy who's less likely to hit? And if he breaks his match, it gets 30 points, right? Like, the guy we want to go to is the Tyree Kill, is the Travis Kelsey, is the Devante Adams, is the Derek Kennedy, the kind of guy who can just blow away everybody else. So yeah, I was never going to win this week first place

because I didn't have Tyree Kill and I was just building one roster. But, and I was going to, I was going to prioritize Travis Kelsey. So if I built eight to ten rosters, I might have had things a little bit different this week. Yeah. So again, just with Hill specifically, I don't think there's anything you could really analyze with the matchup outside of, is he going to get double teamed? Or is he going to get single coverage? Because if he is, he's going to go off and just, there's no really way to know and just get exposure every single week, like some level of exposure. But let's talk about some of my bad lineups, because that's pretty much all of this. them and I'm looking through them.

And so D'Andre Swift absolutely tanking a bunch of my lineups. He had phenomenal usage. It was just like a lot of empty snaps, but he saw a massive uptick and snap share, route share, which is what the head coach, Dan Campbell, promised us. But I think he was outcarried like 16 to 5 or something. But outside of that, yeah, that was big. But the usage was pretty good. Outside of that, had a bunch of OBJ, 33%,

exposure. He did nothing. Volume was pretty good. So a lot of unrealized air yards and things of that nature. But what I did this week to get unique was I had a bunch of lineups that had the three main chalk plates where it had Derek Henry, Devante Adams, and Travis Kelsey. And I didn't think there were going to be a lot of lineups that went that route. And to make up some ground, I played Cadarius Tony at near minimum price. By the way, he looked freaking amazing. Oh, my God. There's like two great clips you can watch where he breaks on two catches.

He breaks like nine tackles. Awesome. Definitely check that out. Watch that. Excited about him. He had a 77% route share the week before. Two wide receivers were out. So I expected some usage.

Terris Marshall, too. He was our top value per projections. And you can make a case for it where you know, Dan Arnold got traded. DJ Moore was in that tough matchup. Christian McCaffrey is out, so he should see an uptake and usage. That was not the case at all that did not happen. He was a bust for my lineups.

And then I also went cheap on the running backs. I had some Mike Davis. And I was like, oh, I definitely need at least some Corolla Patterson, who West Huber was writing up as a must play. And when he was smashing, I was like, oh, yes. This is great for him. for whatever those lineups are, where maybe he's on my David Montgomery lineup

or my whatever lineup. And then I checked again and apparently had zero percent exposure. So that stinks. But I got cute with some stacks. And like almost every single one of those stacks hit. I had a bunch of Jalen Hertz, Devontas Smith stacks.

He went over 100 yards. Jalen Hertz had 31 fantasy points. And I think he had like four touchdowns called back an absolutely absurd game. I had a Kyler Murray and AJ Green stack. I had a Zach Wilson and Corey Davis stack. I had a bunch of Russell Wilson, D.K. Metcalf stacks. I was betting on Tyler Lockett not being totally healthy. Gerald Everett not playing. D. Eskridge not playing. And yeah, those weren't the money stacks, but I definitely felt like I was close on those. and I felt like despite, you know, having exposure to the three highest-owned players of the slate,

I was unique in the sense that I was one of the only lineups to have all three, and I still kind of liked my build. David Montgomery on some of those. Terry McLaurent somehow fit onto some of those, Corey Davis. And it just didn't work out. Adams flopped. Kelsey majorly flopped. And, yeah, so maybe the key takeaway is I got to stop being a chalk donkey.

and start getting a little more contrarian, which is what we urge our listeners to do every week on the show. Yeah, but being contrarian, so a lot of times chalk is chalk for a reason, right? I mean, like, chalk is chalk because Levitan's talking about that play, you're talking about that play, Silva's talking about that play. It's because it's a good play, right? And so it's just that people tend to overrate how good of the play,

a good play is, but realistically, like, the chalkiest plays are typically going to be the best plays on the slate. DJ Moore was one of the highest projected wide receivers. Tyree Kill was one of the highest projected wide receivers, Travis Kelsey, Devante Adams. So there is some level of needing to take on chalk. And I think what you did was really sharp because you can be contrarian while still having really chalky plays if you have a really unique roster construction with them. I can't imagine that the cumulative ownership of Derek Henry plus Devonti Adams plus Travis Kelsey on the same roster was particularly high. Like if that hit, if all three of those guys hit, now they're not correlated. So it's not like

you're placing one bet and you can get all three of them right. But they're all in good spots. They're all chalk for a reason. And if they hit, you're, let's say you're in a 5,000 entry tournament. You're one of what, like 15 or 20 entries now that has all three of them. You're competing against you know, 15 to 20 other rosters for first place if all three of these guys hit. So I think that's an interesting way to go. And I mean, I think that the value you were on was super sharp. I was interested to hear you mention Cordero Patterson. Yeah, there were three guys who I kept coming back to and couldn't get comfortable playing them.

One of them would have been a bad play. And the other two were high variants, but good plays. The bad play would have been Darnel Mooney. And I kept coming back to Darnel Mooney and then being like, they're literally not going to design this offense to throw the ball. So you would be banking on fields like what, either banking on the Lions taking a lead, which I didn't want to bet on,

or Fields throwing the ball 20 times and Mooney having a big game there. So it was fun that Mooney had a big game and I had been thinking about him, but it wouldn't have been a sharp play to play him, at least not in smaller field, single entry stuff. The other two were Van Jefferson, which was just this guy's on the field as much as any of the other wide receivers, 50 out of 65 snaps in week three. We've seen this wide receiver three role in this offense be a featured piece.

We've seen Brandon Cooks put up consistently big games when he was doing well in this offense. And the 3,900, right, it's just a way to get a piece of this game at lower ownership than Robert Woods with probably about the same projection over time, right? So Van Jefferson is going to have like a wider range. It's going to be like he misses hard or he hits big, whereas Woods can have more middle ground. But over time, you play out this game like 100 times. They probably come out with about the same score.

Van Jefferson scores a little bit more. I couldn't pull the trigger on him, which if I had been able to, I would have ended up playing on draft kings. I'll get to that a little bit later because I do want to talk about what my build looked like on draft kings, the one that I ended up throwing away. And then the other one was Corderole Patterson. And it was just like, well, there's nobody, so he's listed at running back on Draft Kings, wide receiver on Fandul.

So on Draft Kings, there's just no cheaper running backs. If you up below David Montgomery, there was nobody you felt good about. But I kept looking at Corderole Patterson being like, he's going to get like 14 to 16 opportunities. And the upside is there. So there's no way you're betting on a three touchdown game. But it's just like the upside's a lot higher than people are giving it credit for. And he's only 4,500. hundred. So yeah, I was a little disappointed in myself for not being able to pull the trigger on

Jefferson or Cordero Patterson. Like I just, Jefferson, I was closed. Cordero Patterson, I just kept being like, no, I can't do that. And then Debo Samuel, you know, that's a little riskier because you go up higher price. But I was just trying to look at, there was so much shock at the higher price wide receivers digs and Devante Adams and Cooper Cup and all these guys who outside of Tyree Kill, you're really betting on them getting 30 points. And it was like, who in this range could get 30 plus points that nobody's going to be on so that if some of these other guys fail, you go past, me. I kept coming back to Debo there, but then being like, you know, coming into this year, he had, I think, four games in his career of double digit targets in this offense, like with this coach. And so it was hard to say, yeah, he's going to keep getting all these looks.

But he kept getting all these looks again. And so those were kind of my disappointments. Do you have anything like that that you were considering and just couldn't get, down to pulling the trigger on for your rosters? Yeah, so I'll just say, uh, West was all aboard the Debo train this week. He had a bunch of really good calls. And I'm a Brandon Iuke truther. Just the way Kyle Shanahan hyped him up after he drafted him, like the night, he was just like, no, no, no, this guy's way better the Debo. This is like an alpha wide receiver one at the NFL level. The second he steps on the field. This guy is a

freak he's a baller and then last year what we saw uh i mean he ranked what third in fantasy points per game from like week a week 10 on he was just a monster and so i was like all right he saw an increase in usage last week he's out of the dog house so i couldn't get on board deba i was i was just wrong there and uh the other play cordarelle patterson he is absolutely capped at 25 snaps he played 24, 24, 26, and 23, six carries six targets. And how often does a six carry six target running back who is capped at 33% of the snaps? How often does that hit? So I'm just going to be like such a regression donkey for the first four weeks of the season. Like I said, you know, week five and up. That's that's we the first month. I'm, I'm absorbing and gathering data. And then I turn on the jets week five, run all my various models. And I reconsider things. But yeah, of course, you know, week four, I'm like six calories, six targets, 33% snap share. I'm not playing Corderole Patterson. And then, of course, now week five, it's like, well, I should have played him.

You know, it's not six targets like a running back is like Jerry McNichols is seeing. It's six targets like a wide receiver in this offense. And like he's right now the best player on the team ahead of Kyle Pitts, It's ahead of Calvin Ridley. And yeah, so I just need to own up and take those Ls on Cordarell and Debo. But I think that the, I think, like, I do the same thing. A player like Corderole Patterson, you come up with all the reasons why he's a bad play. But like Van Jefferson, Cadarious, Tony, you come up with the reasons why they're a good play, right?

Like Tony had seven targets, is that right? And that was about the range we could have projected him. It was like five to seven targets, schemed looks, probably one or two, downfield throws, but a lot of them you'd have to expect because we're talking about a first round pick who's super raw and the giants have not wanted to play him because they feel he's not ready. So putting him out there, they're going to give him primarily short area target. So it's not like you're getting this great a dot from him that you couldn't be getting from Corderole Patterson. And I think that it's interesting when a player, when we want a player to do well,

a player like Tony who's, you know, a first round pick and it's sexy because he's coming out there. it's easier to be like, okay, here's the way this guy's going to do well, whereas Cordero Patterson, we're going to be like, we've seen this show before. Like, here's the reasons he's going to do poorly. And I think that's the hardest thing on these cheaper guys is clicking over to the flip side of that and being willing to be wrong, even when we want to see the reasons why they'll be wrong instead of wanting to see the reasons why they'll be right. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. I also wanted to bring up something else. So one of our Discord user is Teddy Ruxon. He passed along this stat last week, and I'm updating it here. But the combined ownership on the winning Millie Maker lineup, the first four weeks of the season, 78%, 88%, 72%, 89%. What a start to the season for contrarium players. That's pretty low. Yeah.

Yeah. Chalk has been off to start the season. of that has been teams are being very willing to spread the ball around and play Saints style Red Zone football, right? Where it's like, okay, you guys got us down to the Red Zone and now you guys score the touchdowns for us. So whether that's very directly, very direct situations like the Cardinals backfield where it's like, okay, Chase Edmonds, you got us down here, you come off the field. James Connor gets the scores or these teams that are, you know, designing plays to where, okay, the Patriots, when they got down to the goal line last night, and they threw that touchdown

to Jonu Smith, well, the entire defense is thinking, we got a rookie quarterback, it's first in goal at the one, first play they're going to run the ball. And so the offense leverages that to say, let's not run the ball, and let's just have a guy wide open. And so we're seeing a lot of teams do that like Sean Payton-style thinking close to the end zone where it's like whatever the defense is focused on. The first second and third thing the defense is focused on, we won't do that. And then we'll do the fourth thing that they're not even thinking about, which is this player who's not going to have any fantasy relevance for us. And so we're seeing a lot of that as well. And then I think the other thing we're seeing is something I wanted to talk about today is just

slow adjustment to who these offenses are. So look at how the cowboys are calling plays when they have a lead. They're not trying to get into shootouts. And so we had this small sample size before Dak got injured last year where he was in a bunch of shootouts against really good offenses that were doing really well against the Cowboys defense. And then week one against Tampa, who you can't run against, and you have to throw and they're going to score points. And so everybody just kind of kept thinking like, okay, the Cowboys, Fast-paced games, high-scoring, lots of passing. And now Dak is like 27 pass attempts, 27 pass attempts, 22 pass attempts. Not to say he's not going to throw for 40-past-taste attempts again, but adjusting our thinking quickly enough to be like, okay, this is another one

that I kept eyeballing was Dalton Schultz. And then it's like, well, there's no way this is really his role. Because I kept thinking if you don't go to Kelsey, I really didn't want to go to the 5K tight ends because, you know, you're taking on extra risk and you're only like getting half the savings. So it was like, if I want to go down, I probably want to go down. And I eyeballed Gaseki. I eyeballed Schultz. I was eyeballing, obviously some guys who failed as well. But with Schultz, it was just like, okay, like, this can't really be his role. And it's like, no, this really is his role. Not to say he's not going to have some misses as well, but just being able to adjust and identify how different players are being used and how different offenses are calling plays to try

to win games, I think that's a big thing. And honestly, I think we should probably go through some of the teams today and just like talk about what we see them doing that's a little bit different because being able to adjust at this point in the season is super valuable. You know, in guys like Antonio Gibson, you get the offseason hype. They want to use them in this Christian McCaffrey role. We have to adjust and be like, okay, that's literally not what they're doing. Jonathan Taylor, same thing. Maybe Jonathan Taylor will have his 25 carry games, but same thing this week.

They had a lead. Naim Hines was on the sideline most of the game until Marlon Mack gets 10 carries. Maybe Marlon Mack gets traded and Jonathan Taylor pops up for big usage again. but yeah being willing to adjust on these things Dawson Knox right like over Gabriel Davis Dawson Knox out there getting schemed looks in the red zone Gabriel Davis had a touchdown drop on you know it was a there was a hand kind of in in his face

but the ball had both his hand so he had his opportunity as well but yeah I think that being able to adjust to these things is pretty important or have you spotted anything else outside of what I was just mentioning there that's like oh this is different from what everybody thought coming into the season Yeah, I have a Microsoft Word document. I'll pull up in a second. Yeah, Marlon Mack, 10 carries, two targets last week. Why? Just why? Two point two yards for carry. Why? Why? Russell Wilson, this isn't something that we didn't expect necessarily, but something we did expect. In two losses, he's averaging 31.5 pass attempts per game and two wins. He's averaging 23 pass attempts per game. Leads the league in pass a rating, but no, he is under lock and key and will not be cooking at any point, it looks like. But what I really wanted to hit on was the absolute wasteland at the running back position.

I'm team bell cower bust, and it's just like the proven strategy. There's going to be one or two outlier years every 12 seasons. last year was an outlier year. I thought this would be an outlier season, and that does not appear to be the case. It's just an absolute wasteland. Alvin Kamara is seeing the sixth best usage of any running back in fantasy by weighted opportunity points per game. And guess what?

Derek Henry has more targets and 35 more carries. Najee Harris, Uber Belkout. Dorel Henderson, when healthy, Belkow. Christian McCaffrey, when healthy, belcout. Outside of that, it's kind of, a mess. I mean, Dalvin Cook went healthy too. DeAndre Swift ranks fourth in weighted opportunity points per game stuck in a 60-40 committee, although last week outside of the calories, it did heavily hint at that being a lot better. But yeah, fourth and weighted opportunity points for game

for a guy in a 60-40 committee. That's crazy to me. Saquan Barkley back to the Belkow usage, but, I mean, is he, what is he, 80% typical Saquon right now? something like that. He scored some points last week. That's great. Chase Edmonds continually getting cut at the goal line. So by either Kyler or James Connor, he had 120 rushing yards, 10.0 yards per carry. I think Connors was like 2.2, but basically fairly even usage with Connor getting the goal line work. Yeah, Mike Davis is seeing great usage. With love of that just all went to Cordrell Patterson, something like that. Like give me some Uber Belkin. house. There's just none of that. It's just like a lot of committee backs and a lot of

unsexy guys. You have to feel like every week it's going to be like maybe you pay up for one, maybe. Or you just go cheap. You just go cheap because like Leonard Furnett and Joe Mixon are seeing comparable usage because Mixon's not getting any targets. Fournette's getting at least some. James Robinson saw a good usage last week. Cream Hunt and Nick Chubber basically neck and I can just go on and on. It's just, man, the running back position sucks as you. Yeah. And people take the price tags and assume that they're correct, right? Like, I can't tell you how often people are like, yeah, but I'll pay a little bit less for Nick Chubb who nobody's going to be on and he has just as high of a ceiling as this guy. And it's like, we want him to because his talent is at

that level. But if you're getting 16 to 20 carries and zero to one target, you're really relying on some heavy efficiency in terms of touchdown scoring and big plays. Camara, it stood out to me last week that Camara was expected to be one of the more popular plays. And I'm looking at this from like a matchup standpoint. And I'm thinking, do I want to play Camara? Do I not? And then I think Mike Johnson wrote up that game for us in the NFL Edge. He was basically laying out like, how are the Saints going to try to win this game in terms of hiding Jamas and expecting them to be in control of this game. And it was like, how often is Camara going to top four or five, six targets this year when they're hiding James the way they're hiding, when they're trying to win games, the way they're trying to win games.

And recognizing like what we paid these price tags for in the past isn't necessarily what these roles are this year. And recognizing that and adjusting to it quickly, it cracks me up every time that the Browns put Nick Chubb out wide. which they do relatively often just to catch the defensive personnel in like a heavier look and then spread them out. And it's like, yeah, but you're literally never throwing the ball to Nick Chubb out there. So you're just playing 10 on 10 football. Like, what's the difference? They could throw a linebacker out there to cover Chub, but it doesn't make a difference.

And so, yeah, it's the, you went through these backfields. So many backfields are split backfields. And then the ones that are not, like, Camara is going to get most of the work, but they're more run heavy. Speaking of adjusting our expectations, Zach Taylor was one of the past heaviest coaches in the NFL, regardless of game script. Like that was how the Bengals played was pass, pass, pass, everything built off the pass.

And this year it shifted. It's run, run, run, everything built off the run. And so Mixin's out there all the time, but they're not passing as much. And so his opportunity for these eight, nine target games are lower. And so, yeah, I think that one of the things to recognize is, and that was why I almost went down to Cordial Patterson was, it was like I didn't feel great about Antonio Gibson. I liked him. I didn't feel great about Chubba Hubbard. I liked him. And it was like on draft kings, I wanted to play Montgomery because he was underpriced. And then I didn't know who I wanted to get up to Derek Henry, but if I did that, then I'm throwing off what I can do at wide receiver. And so I kept looking at these other high 5K, low 6K running backs and just saying, who else do I even feel comfortable with, which is why I kept looking at Cordero-Patterson and being like,

I just save some salary here. And just who cares about the usage, right? Like, let's say, no matter what, if you're paying under 5K for a player, you're taking on more risk. So at least target the guy who can get you 25 to 30 points if everything goes well. But yeah, I agree with you, man. Running back is if you're looking for bell cows, it's a wasteland. You've got to either pay up for them. And even if you're paying up, you have to understand that some of these payup guys are not in the role that everybody thinks they're in.

or you're paying down and just saying who can get me a huge game based on upside or based on usage or based on whatever else. So yeah, I'm guessing you had a decent amount of Montgomery this last week, right? Yeah. He was, he was like priced up near the top priced running backs on Fanduel, so I didn't end up with him on my one roster. But my Draft King's roster was going to be a Zach Wilson, Corey Davis, James. and Crowder stack. I wanted to fit in Derek Henry, but I couldn't and still do the other things.

And so I basically figured, look, these guys can hit for 60 plus points, even without Derek Henry having a slate winner. If I didn't use Zach Wilson, it was going to be Jalen Hertz. So I was on the right track there. And then I had, obviously, I had Kelsey. I had David Montgomery. I had Deontay Johnson. So I had a really good core setup on that roster.

but because I couldn't figure out running back and then these last two wide receiver spots. So I had Hubbard and Robert Woods and Christian Kirk, which would have been disappointing. And then I almost went down to Van Jefferson from Woods to free up some salary and get me more certainty at wide receiver. And then that was where once I made that decision, it was like, whatever, I'm just not going to play on draft Kings this week and kind of left it apart. So I would have been interested to see what I could have ended up with. I would have had about 7,500 wide receiver because I was going Cowboys defense and could have done something interesting there and maybe finished top 10% in tournaments. But yeah, I just couldn't get comfortable with the lack of value and rather than embracing the uncertainty and just taking on some upside there. I ended up just backing down and not playing on draft kings.

And plus, I mean, realistically, you and I are aware of this more so than listeners are. obviously like for you and me well your work year is year round on NFL stuff but as far as like ramping up for the season in terms of stuff for the site like site work um for me and I'm sure it's similar for you like mid-June through mid-October is pretty non-stop and so it's not like football season just started three or four weeks ago for me like the super busy nonstop work season started mid-June and so I was just worn out this last week and it was like you know what I'm going to kind of take it easy this week and maybe not play and I ended up putting that one roster on Fanduil on Sunday morning, which felt good.

I'm re-energized to kind of come back at it again this week. But yeah, I was a little disappointed in my inability to pull the trigger on these plays on draft kings that I was eyeing and just couldn't get comfortable with them. And I talk all the time about pulling the trigger on these plays you can't get comfortable with because those are the plays other people can't get comfortable with, which means that when they do hit, they're going to be low-owned and you're getting that upside. But yeah, I just couldn't get there this last week. Anything else from this last week that you want to talk about before we kind of look ahead?

Because I want to look ahead to this next week, but use this next week as kind of an opportunity to talk about some of these individual teams and things that we might be seeing. Yeah, I just had one question. I wanted to quote you for my article, but I forgot the specific quote. You always say you're not trying to score the most points. You're trying to, what, score the most points relative to everyone else? Yeah, it's not about getting the most points. It's about paths to first place is basically what I would say. Right.

And so sometimes the 190 point score is going to be the first place finish because it's the one that plays against what everybody else is betting on happening. So yeah, looking not just for maximizing points, but maximizing paths to a first place finish. Okay, so there's some teams that have been, that have varied the way that they have approached games. And I want to talk about some of them because they're interesting setups for this next week. And obviously, you and I will both be digging into this more deeply on our respective sites throughout the week. But just to kind of get some overview early week thoughts here. Patriots super pass heavy the last two weeks.

My thought is they're playing the Saints and Bucks, neither of whom you can run against. So why even try? This week they play the Texans. Damien Harris ran like more than twice. Damian Harris ran like more than twice as many pass routes as Brandon Bolden this last week. I'm not sure what his actual snap rate was. But my thought would be that the Patriots attack much more heavily on the ground this week against the Texans. Would you agree with that? Or do you think that the Patriots keep going pass heavy?

Yeah, I think that's a great take. And I think it's going to be an especially great take once we get ownership projections. Because people are going to look at Damien Harris. They're just going to see his 10 carries four targets over the last two games combined. and those were worse possible matchups, and now he has a best possible matchups. So that makes sense to me. Okay. Packers and bingles. So we know that Mixon might miss this game,

and we know that the packers are likely to take a lead. So if the packers are playing from in front, do you think that the bingles shift over to a more pass-heavy attack here? or, I mean, the Packers are easier to attack on the ground anyway, or do you think if they stay on the ground either with Mixon or even if it's P. Ryan, back there, do you think that if they're down like seven points, ten points, they just try to keep running a balanced offense until the game gets away from them? Or do you think that we see them open up and start attacking more heavily in this spot?

Yeah, I definitely think that's the case. I expect to see a more pass-heavy offense because, well, one, Joe Mixon is seriously banged up. two, they'll get T. Higgins back, ideally. And then three, yeah. I mean, who expected the Bengals to go three and one? And then their loss against Chicago was the only loss by three. So, yeah, you know, Aaron Rogers gets, gets up two scores on three drives, which is very easy for me to imagine.

Joe Burrow just slings it like he did last year. I like that. And I think, you know, if we get Burrow up to like, 35, 38 pass attempts in this spot. And if T. Higgins comes back this week, they have enough weapons that they could certainly put up one or two really nice fantasy scores in this spot. And if Mixon plays, if Mixon's healthy and plays, it could even come through the running back position through the air. That's a good way to attack this Packers defense is running backs on the ground and through the air. Another one that's interesting to me, there was a lot of

media talk like Beat writer talk last week around the Vikings about Clint Kubiak's offense, being a lot more past-based than past Vikings' offenses. I don't necessarily see that as being a function of what the Vikings want to do, right? Like, we know that Zimmer is still the man in charge, so much is just a function of the way things were going in those games. So Vikings against the Lions this week, is it lazy to just think that the Vikings are going to, like we've seen in the past, Kirk Cousins throw, 12 passes, 15 passes, 18 passes in games Vikings control.

Is that what we are likely to see here, or do you think that the Vikings throw the ball 30 times in this spot against the lions and play like a normal offense where, sure, we're going to run the ball more, but we're still going to pass the ball plenty. What would be the likeliest way you see that one playing out? Yeah, that narrative doesn't make a ton of sense to me just because, I mean, Gary Kubiak retired and they're like, okay, we'll hire yourself. son and just hope you're the same person. So they're probably going to be,

they probably want to be as run heavy as they've wanted to be for a number of seasons. The only, the only game Minnesota won, Cousins still threw 38 times, but it was against Seattle, you know, them in Kansas City and Buffalo are like the teams that can, you know, even if we're down two scores, we could get right back into this thing. And we saw last week, week, Dalvin Cook and Alexander Madison had the same carry totals. I wonder if that means they're trying to keep them fresh. I don't know. Maybe that's nothing. But yeah, I could see Dalvin Cook absolutely going nuclear this week. And in a game, no matter what, I mean, Minnesota shouldn't have to pass against the Lions, but we'll see. I feel like people are going to be terrified of playing

Dalvin Cook, too, after he basically split carries with Madison this last week. You know, you can look at it two ways. You could say, well, Madison played really well the week before, and so that's why they gave him extra work. But Madison has played well before in the past, and they get to see him in practice every day. I don't think that him having one good game changes everything. I would think it's likelier that Dalvin Cook wasn't fully back, and they figured,

well, let's just lighten the load on him. So it would be interesting if we don't get news this week about. about Delvin Cook's health or workload. And we have to go into the weekend guessing. I would think that most people will just avoid that guesswork. And if it were a middling matchup, then you could say, yeah, like, let's all just avoid the guesswork. What's the point?

But it's against the Lions, right? Like if Dalvin Cook gets 25 plus touches against the Lions, he could end up being the top scoring running back on the slate. Going away from just purely how teams are handling play calling, but sticking with guys who could be the highest scoring running back on the slate. Derek Henry against the Jaguars this week. I think like three of Derek Henry's last seven absolute smash games came against the Jaguars.

So Derek Henry against the Jaguars, any initial thoughts on that one? Yeah. So looking at Tennessee's last four victories against Jacksonville, first first. first game, 238 rushing yards, four touchdowns, 159 rushing yards, two touchdowns, 84 rushing yards, no touchdowns. And then 215 rushing yards, two touchdowns. Yeah, I mean, you also have to factor in. It's a new team.

It's a new defense. Jacksonville, although their record isn't any better, has to be at least a little bit better than last season. I mean, right? I don't know. But yeah, it's kind of like the same thing we saw last week. I will say teams are going to absolutely sell out to stop the run and not worry too much about the past,

especially if A.J. Brown and Julio Jones remained banged up. It was interesting to see Jeremy McNichols, his backup, lead the team in targets last week. So not quite a full-on, you know, Chris McCaffrey workload. He was spelled in passing situations. And I said last week, you know, world's biggest Zach Wilson, truth. I was like, well, I'll finally have time in the pocket. So like, what if he scores on the first play, scores on the second drive? And then Tennessee

screwed because they could just stack the box. They don't have anyone to throw to. And it's a pass-heavy script. And the Jets, they won that game, right? Yeah. He surprisingly won that game in overtime. And you could see something similar this week. You know, Trevor, Trevor Lawrence gets off to a hot start and the wide receivers are still banged up. But that's just who Derek Henry is. I mean, like, if Tennessee wins, if Tennessee wins and dominates, like there's no one that should have a higher projection. But, you know, if they're going to lose or they're in danger of losing, that's definitely a problem. I was impressed that you played a Zach Wilson roster this last week.

I love that Zach Wilson plus Corey Davis plus James and Crowder cost under 15K this last week and scored over 60 points, average over 20 points per player. And I'd had that thought. You know, DJ Shark is out. So that narrows up the target distribution for Jacksonville against this Tennessee pass defense that is not good. Tennessee is able to take a lead in particular. And even without taking a lead, Urban Meyer has been pass heavy this season, right? You could, like, people want to look at Mac Jones and what the Patriots are doing and like basically asking him to do what he's capable of doing and saying, well, that's the best way to handle one of these rookie quarterbacks. But there's some case to be made that just throwing one of these guys into the fire and being like, hey, sling the ball all over the field, make some mistakes.

That has some positive elements to it too, right? It's not like Trevor Lawrence isn't learning anything right now because he's making lots of like college level, rookie level mistakes against these NFL defenses. But I think that this will be a good spot for the Jaguars against the Titans, and we know that they're going to be aggressive through the air in this spot. So, yeah, I like you mentioning Trevor Lawrence just in terms of, like, the way that game could play out, but I think that with salary tightening up so much at this point in the season and fewer clear value plays, and us having to consider guys like Cordero Patterson and Van Jefferson and Cadarius Tony

as our solid value plays. With all of that, there is a case to be made for finding, these places where you can say, well, especially this last week. So I haven't dug into this week enough, but like this last week, one of the reasons I liked Zach Wilson was, Kyler Murray had, now he put up over 40 rushing yards against the Rams, but he had 46 rushing yards in four career games against the Rams. Lamar Jackson was taking on Denver in Denver. Patrick Mahomes doesn't run the ball that much. Russell Wilson doesn't run the ball that much. Dak Prescott doesn't run the ball that much. Josh Allen probably wasn't going to be flushed

out of the pocket against the Texas. and be forced to run that much. And so it was like, you know, you've talked about these Konami cheat code quarterbacks who can get you 40 points because of what they do with their legs. And it was like, well, really, this last week, Jalen Hertz was the favorite to lead the NFL in rushing yards. And he's probably not passing for three plus touchdowns in a game where he's rushing a bunch just because he doesn't have that elite skill set all the way around.

All that to say, it actually made more sense than normal this last week to pay down at quarterback. So just because Zach Wilson was attracted this last week, doesn't mean Trevor Lawrence will be attractive this week, even if he has the same projection, because maybe some of these rushing quarterbacks will be great separators this week, and that's where you want to go. Interesting to keep in mind at the front end of the week, at least, this Trevor Lawrence setup. Okay, another offense, Dallas Cowboys.

So you were bringing up the Konami Code, and you brought out Trevor Lawrence, who has been rushing more of late week two two carries 21 rushing yards a good efficiency not great volume then six for 27 and then last week eight for 36 and a score so that's something to keep in mind also jacksonville's undefeated since the urban mire lap dance so that's that's something also we need to keep in mind eager to see how those splits shake out i missed this story what is the urban mire lack of god uh so yeah he was at a bar and There were pictures of like some girl was like, who is this? This guy keeps hitting on me.

And it's a picture of her in Urban Meyer. And then there was a video where he's basically getting a lap dance from some like college age girl. And it made like national rounds. There are a ton of amazing memes. And so he had an issue and apology today. And you got to check that out. I am shaking my head. I mean, it's huge.

It's a huge development because, you know, he's showed his players. He's, he can have fun. He could let loose. He's a man of the people. And, yeah, they're going to buy it. It's like Tom Coughlin, you know, he was a hard ass. Everyone hated him. And then eventually they came around and they became boys.

And, you know, that's Shrayhan's guy. And that might be what we're seeing post-lout dance. We'll have to wait and see. This is quite the narrative we have going this week. Everybody put all your money on the Jaguars. Tennessee's only favored by four points in that one, which is kind of funny. What I saw was weird. was the Rams are only one-point favorites against Seattle.

And it just seemed like just last week, everyone was like, the Rams are going to win the Super Bowl after beating Tampa Bay. And it seems to be a comeback all the way around in that. I don't know. How many two-score losses does Russell Wilson have in his career, though? Like, zero. You know what I mean? Like, they always keep games close and then they're only favored by one,

that's what I'm saying. Right, but what I'm saying is it's hard to put Seattle as like, even if you expect them to lose, it's hard to call them more than four or five point underdogs just because Russ will always keep his team close. I'm excited for that game. It's one of the things with like Thursday night football not so much because everybody gets their Thursday night football game, but so many good games are going on to Sunday night and Monday night now that the main slate kind of misses out. Like, bills and chiefs, that's such a great game. Rams and Seahawks have such a great game. It's a shame to not have these ones on the main slate this week. Oh, I wanted to hear your thoughts about the Patriots Buccaneers game last night.

Oh, my gosh. Here is my take. Here's my take. It's like, you know the first time, like, let's say you play one v.1 basketball with your dad all the time. At a certain point, he starts actually trying, maybe not all the way, but a little bit. And then there's a game, you know, you've never beaten him. you're 0 for 97. And then there's a game where you're both trying your hardest and like you're actually

winning and you can win this game. But it's like, do you want to? It's fairly traumatic. Like do I actually want to, you know, defeat my hero? Like does the entire dynamic change after? And so you're like a little hesitant and a little scared to put the dagger in. And that's what that game reminded me of. And I had a buddy text me when it looked like New England was going to win.

He texted me. me, Brady is goat, Belichick is daddy. And that's definitely how it felt. And like, they could have won. They shouldn't have went for that field goal. They should have went for it on fourth down. And I think they could have pulled that out. Mack Jones playing out of his mind.

You have like 17 completions in a row. And that was like the first time we've seen him actually, you know, take the training wheels off and he looked damn good. Super quick release. Super quick. With no weapons. They've surrounded him with second tier talent across. the board. Well, how dare you besmirch Jacoby Myers like that? But I'll want for everyone else on the

team. I texted my dad in the first quarter and I said, if the Patriots cover the spread, it will be one of the greatest coaching accomplishments of Bill Belichick's career. Yeah, I thought that, I mean, it was fantastic. It was a great, it was a great game. That was one of the, you know, I don't, I'm obviously not like super immersed in the media hype. I didn't know about the Urban Meyer thing, right? So that's kind of, see, I'm generally separated from things. But I understood that there was just like a vomitous amount of lead up and hype to that game, Brady returning home and all that.

But if there was a custom made Adele montage for it. Oh, my God. I saw the Adele montage. I'm like, is this really the appropriate song for this? But yeah, it was an excellent football game just all the way. around. Yeah, I was, I was surprised. I actually thought about this this morning. I was surprised that they didn't go for that fourth down. And I almost wondered, I wondered how far ahead Belichick was thinking in terms of like, if, if Mac Jones gets that fourth down, then that makes him feel great, right? But if he

doesn't, then what does that do to his confidence moving forward? And look, we're not winning a Super Bowl anyway this year. So let's say, he was, he was thinking even like three steps ahead. He was like the hype would be out of control, all of the Brady comparisons, you know, he, he, this is the new Tom Brady. He's established his, he's like defeated and it would just all go to his head, so he needs to lose this game, but keep it close. And then he told, he told Fulk to go bounce it off of the upright. So it's that close, yeah. I look like, you almost got it. I love this, I love this NFL fan fiction we're doing. Okay, so there's two more teams I wanted to touch on. One is the Cowboys, who as I mentioned earlier, DAC, three straight games with 27 or

fewer pass attempts are playing the Giants this week. At home, seven point favorites. The Giants have basically kind of a mediocre defense all the way around, high effort, middling talent, you know, nothing that really scares you one way or the other. Do you think that the Cowboys come out and pass the ball more, or do we just see a bunch more Zeke plus Tony Pollard, you know, 25 to 30 carries between the two guys, and that's how the Cowboys try to win this. Because, I mean, I was, like, my heaviest exposure in bestball is Jack Prescott and Amari Cooper. And I got as much seedy lamb as I could as well, of course.

And I think a lot of people expected a pass heavy offense. But, again, that's not the way it's been so far when they've had opportunities to be, you know, neutrally pass heavy. So what are your thoughts in that game from, you know, this point in the week? Yeah. So an interesting stat to me. So the Giants came into last week ranking second worst in yards per carry allowed. And then a better stat, yards before contact allowed per rushing attempt.

They were dead last. They gave up 120 rushing yards to Kamara on 26 carries. So maybe they're not worse in the league anymore. But this definitely seems like a matchup to me where Dallas can be able to go run heavy. and I think that's what they want to be. I think that's what they want to do ideally. Maybe the offensive coordinator is smart enough not to, but every time DAC loses, you see the stat where it's like in games,

ZKAD 15 plus calories. He's basically undefeated. In games he didn't, he's basically never won. So, yeah, McCarthy, probably a donkey. The OC is sharp. I don't know. Competing allegiances, I think they probably go run heavy and probably should go run heavy in this contest.

there's a lot of teams right now that are building their offense off the run and then doing it with a split back field. That's what's been so weird about this year, right? From like fantasy scoring perspective and what chalk is doing perspective and just a lot of teams that are that are A, building things off the run and then be doing it with a split back field. Okay, one last spot that I think the peoples will be interested in getting your take on. 49ers at Cardinals, and it looks like Jimmy Garoppolo is. going to miss a few weeks. So Trey Lance against the Cardinals this week. We know that the Cardinals are not a pushover on defense, but they're also not terrifying. So any thoughts on that spot, how the 49ers might look to use Trey Lans? My guess would be with a week to prepare, they're going to

build the offense around him and what he's uniquely good at, unlike the Bears with Justin Fields. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah. So I think that's exactly right. Trey Lans. I mean, he scored 21 fantasy points in just a half of football. So, yeah, per four quarters, he's averaging 42 fantasy points per game. So, you know, why not playing this week? But, yeah, I'm definitely going to have massive exposure. I haven't looked at the price. But, yeah, Shanahan said this.

The game plan wasn't built for him on how he did in week two. He said they didn't know Garapolo wasn't ready into the last minute, which made it an even larger challenge. And yeah, he talked all offseason about having a specific Trey Lance package game plan and a Jimmy G game plan. We saw in the preseason. He didn't really run at all. And that was by design. Shanahan didn't want him running.

He wanted him in the pocket. But in real NFL regular season games, he would have him run. And I think he ran seven times for 40 rushing yards, something like that. So, oh, yeah, I'm excited. Let's go. I'm going to have a ton of it. Yeah. I'm excited to go back and walk.

that. I was actually watching that Rams Cardinals game. Let me know your thoughts, please. I was like one drive or one drive from each team in when we started this pause. So I'm going to finish that game after this and then probably watch that 49ers and Seahawks game from week four after that. The, this NFC West is fun, man. It's a fun division to watch from a book, from a coaching standpoint, from a team standpoint, from a point scored standpoint, fantasy standpoint. But yeah, that'll be a good one this week. And I'll loop back to you with anything I see after watching these games. Anything else you want to touch on before we get out of here today? I don't think so. That's probably it for me. All right. As always, it was a blast to hang out

with you, my man. As always, listeners, thanks for hanging out with us. Check out one weekseason.com. check out the one week season podcast feed. You are listening to this on the Fantasy Points podcast feed. Check out FantasyPoint.com. Check out Scott Barrett on Twitter at Scott Barrett DFB. Is that right? There we go. I am at JM to win.

We will see you on all those places throughout the week. We will see you back here next week. And we will see you at the top of the leaderboards this weekend. 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.