Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Week 4 Waiver Wire and Injuries

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) and Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley) talk Week 4 Waiver Wire pickups, with Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc) recapping notable injuries. --- 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 FantasyPoints.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. Welcome to the Fantasy Points podcast on Tuesday, as we always do, going down the injuries and the waiver wire. I am Joe Dolan. He is Dr. Edwin Pores, Dr. Physical Therapy. you can follow him on Twitter at FB Injury Doc. I am not just blowing smoke up his ass. That's the technical term for it.

I think he is the best in the space at what he does with injuries. Rational explanations, everything backed up by a study. I think following Edwin on Twitter is just one of the best things you can do if you want to learn more about the human body. I have a terrible body. I'm trying to get it better. And I'm working through it, Edwin. I'm working through getting my body better. but I could not go out there against 280 pound men and survive.

And sometimes it's a wonder that any of these guys can do that. But we're going to be talking here, injuries, Mr. Dr. Porras, don't forgive me. You put a lot of time into being called doctor. So I'm Mr. Your Doctor. It's good to be with you, my friend. How are you doing? It's going well.

I really appreciate those intros, Joe. But I really think that one of my hidden talents that you fail to mention is my skill for puns. And I think the best, the best thing we're going to do is talk about injuries. That's the most valuable thing we'll do. And if anything, I think some of these injuries really proved that running backs don't Matterson. You are.

That is awful. That is just awful. Ben can edit it out if you really want. I think Delvin Cook is one of the ones who I think does matter. Right. That's true. Derek Henry matters, obviously. Christian McCaffrey matters.

And we got to talk about those guys. But let's kick off this rather long list. Now, we've got a lot of injuries. I'm not sure many of them are serious, but they affect fantasy all the same. Let's start with the one that I think is serious. And this one sucks because I think he's a completely underrated player, both for fantasy and reality, James White. And he has a hip injury.

And from what I was reading on your Twitter feed, you seem to think this is similar to what happened to Ryan Fitzpatrick in one. Yeah. So essentially the mechanism of injury was he landed, with his knee and his hip bent and it was a forceful posterior translation which means just the hip went backwards

and jammed into the back of the capsule. The worst case scenario, what you get with that type of injury is like a two injury from when he was in college. That's not what I think happened. That's not what anybody thinks. But that's the mechanism of injury. The severity is probably a lot less, but that can still cause the hip to come out of place

and go back in or just partially come out of place and go back in on its own, that can cause damage to a lot of the structures that hold the hip in place. So that and the problem with that is the hip is obviously a super, super high weight bearing joint. And a running back needs to be able to bear weight through those structures without pain, discomfort, stiffness. And so this is not looking good. For James White, we'll probably see some IR movement at some point. I'd be surprised if they didn't.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if they didn't move them to IR. but I expect this to be a lengthy stand on the IR for him. So six to eight weeks time frame, you think at least. Yeah, I think there any difference? I mean, I think I know the answer, but is there any difference between a quarterback having to get over this injury and a running back in a high contact position? There is.

There's a slight difference. The functional demands are a little different. You would expect a quarterback to be able to come back a little sooner, although, you know, sort of what's the phrase, Joe? I'm so bad at these phrases. six seven of one a half dozen another six of one half a dozen of the other yeah it's like it's it's like yeah the quarterback might be able to come back a little sooner but are they going to be you know mobile at all so you know it's overall to crap injury it really sucks to see it happen i hope that i'm wrong

and that the severity is less than what it appeared to be but i i don't expect this to be to go well for him for those who um go back and remember hip injuries for running backs how similar is this to the injury that ended bow jackson's career yeah i know a little lot of people talk about the injury and it gets it gets discussed a lot the difference between bow jackson's injury and and you know even james white and ryan fitzpatrick's injury is that if if i read this correctly because it's been a while since i've read about it i'm relatively certain bow jackson's came hip came out and did not did not go back on its own so it actually dislocated the problem with that is that during that time period when the hip is out there's a lot of blood flow that doesn't get there so

you get blood flow that gets cut off it turns into a whole deal because it basically can become you know it's a very serious injury not necessarily fatal but it can be cut it puts the the limb at risk in general and that's that integrity of the joint is never the same because it's just cutting off blood to a joint that shouldn't ever ever have blood cut off from that area so it's a lot more difficult of a rehab the fracture is is obviously going to be there at that point if the hip totally comes out of place. So it's a lot more serious, Bo Jackson's was. And we're also, you know, however many years removed from that. So our science is a little bit better. We're a little bit quicker at identifying these things. So this is not anywhere near that severity. And from what I understand, like,

just, just reading what like doctors said about Bo Jackson, it was essentially superhuman that he was able to walk off the field. Yes, it was. Absolutely. Bo Jackson was a freak of nature. Like, if there were ever freaks of nature, Bo Jackson's in the top five freak of nature. Yeah. All right. So let's talk about some of those. You mentioned running backs don't Matterson. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Let's talk about somebody who matters a lot to fantasy teams. That's Dalvin Cook. He sat out week three with the ankle injury and Madison came in and was fantastic, just utterly fantastic. What's your read on Dalvin Cook situation? Because it correct me if I'm wrong. But he injured the ankle in week two and actually played snaps after injuring the ankle and then had to miss with three. Yeah, he was looking not great once he came back in week two when he when he had that high ankle sprain and it's it's a high ankle sprain they have such a wide variety of severities you can have a high ankle sprain not miss any time at all you can have a high ankle sprain that's like a michael thomas situation this obviously probably isn't worst case scenario but if you look at the studies that i've that i conducted on my own

2016 to 2020 the skill players who miss time because of a high ankle sprain the the mean so they average amount of time that they missed was two weeks. The mode, so the most frequently amount of missed time was three. And then if you break it down on a case-by-case basis, only 14% of skill players didn't miss any time at all, 22% missed one game, 12% missed two games. And then obviously we just mentioned the mode, which is 27% of players missed three games. So basically you have this wide range. He's already missed one game.

So there's a good chance that he misses this next. game and is backed by the third game. It just depends on the severity. So we're going to really going to have to watch the injury report on this because I can't get a good feel. Mike Zimmer is terrible at telling him being honest with us. So he might hype him up again and hype him up again. If Zimmer hypes him up all week and he still doesn't practice again, then I'm not

believing him this week. Yeah. Okay. Well, keep Alexander Madison on your rosters for sure. Let's get to the other guy who was a top two fantasy pick. That's Christian McCaffrey. We had Matt Rule come out yesterday. Edwin and essentially say yesterday being Monday of the 27th and essentially say no he's not going on

IR that seems to indicate they think he's got a really good shot to play um by week six so um sorry he looked okay to me walking um he obviously had a hitch in his giddy up when he got hurt what did you see from this injury from christian mcalfrey the fact that he was walking okay doesn't make me think this is anything like the austin eckler situation from last year no no and when you see that it's a non-contact issue. It doesn't mean that it's, it doesn't automatically mean it's not severe. But if it's non-contact, that means there's less external force out there, less force going through the joint and the muscle itself. So it typically means that it's a little bit, a little bit easier on the muscle itself. So essentially what you get is this non-contact injury.

And if we go through the same types of numbers, the mean, the amount of time, average miss time for hamstring strain and skill players, 2016 through 2019 was 1.4. So basically you have to bump it up to two. It's about two weeks. The median was 1.6, so that's also about two. And when you look down the breakdown again of the numbers, you see about 73 players of this. So it is 33% of the players missed no time at all. 33% missed one game. And then it sort of goes on a downturn. Only 15, missed two games and so forth. So really, he's either going to miss no time at all or he's going to miss more than likely one game just based on what the the panthers are saying. I think maximum, maximum you'll see Christian McCaffrey miss two games.

I'm really hoping, and it sounds like, and it feels like based on the data and everything coming out of Carolina, it really seems like it's just going to be a one game absence for Christian McCaffrey. So fingers crossed for that. Let's talk about some of the other hamstring injuries, kind of grouping them together here. I don't know, I don't know the potential severity. I don't know if you've done more research than me. AJ Brown, Marquez Valdez Scantling, Sterling Shepard, Darius Slayton, all have hamstring injuries.

Yeah, that's so annoying. These injuries are so annoying, Joe. They just pop up, they come out of nowhere, they're workload related, and they're not predictable. And then you have to look at the idea that I think AJ Brown, they already said, is week to week. So specifically for AJ Brown, and the way that they've been, the way Tennessee has been managing Julio Jones specifically, I think has been interesting and a good indicator of how they might handle. A.J. Brown. You know, Julio Jones didn't play the entire, what, like the entire few possessions, I think, in Tennessee, which is an interesting decision, but if it's for his health, then I'm all for it. But I think that tells you how conservative they are. And these injuries, these hamstring injuries,

these soft tissue injuries, do have about a 26% yearly overall recurrence. There's about a 26% chance that they'll recur in the same season. And so I taking all of that into consideration, AJ Brown's one guy that I would be surprised if he's active. MBS, a little bit of a different story. I think he might be out there depending on how severe it is again. But these guys are both going to be super volatile in their first week back, regardless of when they come back. If they both come back this week, they're both volatile.

So same thing with Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton. All of these guys. So Adam Thielen is in 2019 is the one guy that I think of, who is a poster child for came back way too early. I don't know if you remember, Joe. He had the hamstring strain one week, missed a week, tried to come back, the following week, re-injured it. The dude was trying to come back too soon.

And that is always in the cards for players who are trying to come back too soon. From a hamstring injury, I'd rather they slow play it the way Tennessee and Carolina seem to be doing, than try to bring guys back fast. A couple of shoulder injuries here. T. Higgins and Elijah Mitchell. Now, we know they called Elijah Mitchell's a stinger. I don't think Elijah Mitchell was missing last week if he had a stinger. He basically played out of necessity at the end of that game in week two.

T. Higgins missed the game. I think that kind of popped up. I might have missed it. I think that kind of popped up out of nowhere. What are you seeing with these injuries to the shoulders? Yeah. So if we start with Elijah Mitchell, his specific situation was kind of interesting. When you look at his history, he actually had a 2018 neck injury. And by the way, I wouldn't have been able to find that without another physical therapist help, Ethan Turner. He does a great job of digging through every rookie prospect's history. That way I don't have to because I'm lazy Joe. But he does. And he creates I know you're lazy. You don't have a job right now. That's exactly right. I'm just chilling, man. So, anyway, moral of the story. In 2018, Elijah Mitchell had a neck injury. And I think I discussed this last time. Essentially, what a stinger is is compression of the nerves that come out of the neck and lead to the shoulder. That's really what a stinger is. So it also relates to the neck.

85% of the time, those resolve within one hour. Obviously, that wasn't the case with Elijah Mitchell. And that makes sense given his history. So that burning numbness, weakness, tingling that he might have in that hand probably wasn't gone by Saturday. of last week. He did finally practice impartial on Friday. And I think that that bodes pretty well for his for his week four availability. Obviously, things aren't predictable, but I would expect him to be out there. So that's what I would expect for Elijah Mitchell. And then on the other hand, you have T. Higgins, a guy that he, I did go back and watch the film on this. He was tackled and he had his arm outstretched. Typically, that implicates either the AC joint or, or the labrum, which is the inside joint of the shoulder joint, the inside structures of the shoulder joint.

This can be, these can be super painful, super annoying to lift your arm overhead, super annoying to push anybody in block, push anybody away. Even though the Bengals would have had an estimated, you know, partial walkthrough yesterday, he still was estimated to have been a do not play. I think given the quick turnaround,

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I don't think anybody got in a knife fight here, Edwin. That would be bad. I don't know if you've come into stab wounds, at least since Tyrod Taylor for injuries. But let's talk about a couple of guys who, well, one guy who had surgery and another guy you think should have had surgery, that's Rashad Bateman of the Baltimore Ravens and Curtis Samuel of the team and they have similar injuries.

Yes, Curtis Samuel. These are two guys who I think do a very good job of reflecting what happens with these groin injuries, depending on the management choices that are made. I'm not saying that one management choice was superior to the other. I'm simply saying that these groin injuries and soft tissue injuries can be really tricky to deal with. You saw Rashad Bateman August 25th, I believe it was, underwent a repair of his groin. week four, being active in week four, would be roughly 50, I think 52 to 54 days.

And we know that the return to sport for NFL players after these groin surgeries is about 58 days. If you think about Alan Lazard last year, that was about a 60 day absence. So for Bateman specifically, I would be surprised if he's out there in week four. I think week five is a little bit more realistic, but he will start to practice this week, I believe. And then you also look at Curtis Samuel a little bit. you know, more of a loose cannon in terms of what to expect. He's had this groin issue since June.

And Washington sat down and they decided, no, I think we can rehab this. I think this is something we can do conservatively. You don't need to have surgery. So he had a recurrence. And then he had another recurrence. And now Ronnever is saying that he's going to try to run a little bit more this week. They're going to try to get him into practice and they're excited about that.

Curtis Samuel is obviously at this point, I don't know how what percentage of, leagues he's rostered in, but he's somebody you can take a bit of a flyer on. Just understand that since this has been a chronic thing, and since he's had a couple of recurrences, he's a lot more risky than somebody like Rashad Bateman is, and hopefully you actually stash Rashad Bateman. The surgeries for the groin issues are very, very effective. You saw OBJ in 2019 before, yeah, it was 2019, had the groin surgery, and he was going to do

really well. The data shows that those groin surgeries do very well. Unfortunately, OBJ ended up tearing his ACL. But I would be, I would trust a lot more confidently, Rashad Bateman in week five and six than I would Curtis Samuel the rest of the way. Okay. Good good advice there. Deontay Brown, excuse me, Deontay Johnson. Um, like, I know people are just sick and tired of him, um, always acting like he's hurt like five times a game. Uh, this one seems like it was an actual injury though he had to miss week three edwin you saw the play it was the final play of the steelers week two game yeah there's just nothing there that i really i mean the only thing that i could anticipate that this being is either a bone bruise or an mcel sprain but i mean that would be even

reckless speculation that angles work great we no longer have coaches film i don't know where to petition for that uh to say that to bring coaches film back um so it's really a difficult thing and so i'm just taking it a week by week if we think of this as a bow bone bruise, then you can consider it, you know, a two to four week injury. If it's an MCL issue and it's just a grade one, then it's also going to be probably between a one to two week absence. I don't think this is a big deal. If it was, the Steelers likely would have put him on IR already. Of course, you saw Deontay Johnson himself post on Instagram that he's setting up for a massive comeback, Joe, so you would think that the dude's knee exploded. Yeah, a massive comeback.

It's ridiculous. At this point, it was. him it's just ridiculous. Dude, I should post that to Instagram every time I drink too much watching a football game and I get up in the morning. Max have come back, baby. Here comes, here comes Dolan. A couple more just to clean up some loose ends. Elijah Moore, concussion, Antonio Brown, COVID list. These are protocol situations, Edwin. I mean, you can't really analyze these. These are protocol situations. Right. For Elijah Moore, I don't believe he's had a concussion in the past, Joe. And I can try to find that out here in just a minute. But I do think that there's a little bit of analysis that goes into this. Typically, it's about a 50-50 coin toss for players who have

their first-time concussion. So you'll either have Elijah Moore in your lineup or you won't, although I think he's been a bit of a letdown. At least he has for me in a couple of leagues anyway. So I don't know how many people are actually depending on him. And then, yeah, Antonio Brown is hopefully symptom-free. We know that the bucks are 100% vaccinated. So we know he's vaccinated and hopefully can clear a couple of COVID tests here in the next couple of days. Okay, a couple more. Josh Jacobs, any update you have on him. Josh Jacobs is, there's no update there, but we know that he finally was practicing in a non-contact jersey on Friday. So I think that you might see him in limited capacity in

practice this week. And I would expect him to be active, although you never really know. This was a super weird situation in the first place. But typically that first week when players come back with these types of just bumps of bruises and they start practicing, they're able to be active on game day. So that's what I would expect from him. And there's another slew of injuries here. None of which you think are serious. Justin Fields, George Kittle, Juju and Grunk. Justin Fields, I think, has a hand or a finger. Kittle is a calf and Juju and Gronk are ribs. Yes. So that's none of those seem to be a big deal. Fields's X-ray came back negative. Juju's x-rays were negative. So you can sort of,

operate under the sort of a Mari Cooper umbrella with Juju Smith-Schuster. None of those, you know, issues seem to be anything serious as of now, which is why you should follow the injury tracker, go to FantasyPoint.com at the new, what is it? I don't even know the tabs, Joe, the news and research. So here's what you do. You go to Fantasypoints.com. Even if you don't subscribe, which you should, by the way, 21, porous 10 gets you 10% off. And, you know, the prices keep going down here.

If you go to the middle on the, on the toolbar and you just click on research and news. They have a nice little nifty drop-down menu. Over on the right, it says injury insights under news and reports. That is Edwin chiming in on things we didn't even talk about here. So fantastic from Edwin. Obviously, another one to throw out. KJ Hamler has a tort at ACL.

I hate to say pretty cut and dry. Yep, yep, pretty cut and dry. And they said, I think Vic Fanju said there's some other stuff there too. No, that's never good, to be honest. When the coaches are saying, oh, you know, it's something else that reminds me of when Pete Carroll, gosh, this still gives me, you know, some flashbacks, some negative flashbacks. Pete Carroll said with Rashad Penny, it's a little bit more than an ACL and he has not been the same sense. So you hate to hear that. That's probably some meniscus.

It's probably some MCL. You just hate to hear that, maybe some capsule. So, yeah, for dynasty players, it might be a long road. It might be a long road. We'll see. All right. Dr. Edwin, Porth, follow him on Twitter at FB injury doc. Thank you, Edwin, for your time today.

Thank you for working around my crazy schedule, my stupid schedule, because I completely forgot. Joe got a new haircut. Joe got a new haircut. He's going to send pictures to everybody. He's going to tweet them out, aren't you? Absolutely not. There's one more, Joe. There's one more player.

Sorry. We totally missed, and I just thought of it. Giovanni Bernard, according to Tom Pelliserro, considered day to day with a minor MCL sprain. It doesn't sound like a big thing whatsoever. monitor his practice reports, he'll probably be a go. But that's sort of early in the week. But I did miss him. But yes,

a tweet, right? Yes. Is that lower than a grade one? Can you have a grade zero? You, some research will identify, you know, injuries that don't show up on imaging or anything like that as a grade zero.

So you technically can. All right. So there. I thought I made something up, but I didn't. Oh, you didn't. You're smart. Somebody thought of that already.

at FB Injury Doc on Twitter. Thank you, Edwin. We'll be back with Tom Brawley to talk Waverwire. But first, Ben Kucanis, with a word from our sponsors. Thank you, Ben, and welcome back to the Fantasy Points podcast, as we do every week here. We break down the injuries. And then we break down the fantasy football implications of the injuries with Tom Brawley of FantasyPoint. Follow him on Twitter at Tom Brawley.

He is working on the WaverWire live on Sundays. Tom, it's a couple of. collaboration between you and John Hanson and, you know, you do the most of the slate, and then John kind of comes in and adds the stragglers. And, you know, I think, I think our articles is good as ever this year up at fantasypoints.com, obviously our most popular article of fantasy points.com. Yeah, because everybody does waver wire on Tuesday. We're always looking to enhance our lineups. And no different this week. Of course, we get the, the major bummer news. I mean, and everybody got to see it on Thursday night football there.

The number one overall pick, Christian McCaffrey goes down with a hamstring injury. Crush me. Yeah, I give him a rushing prop for him that night. It looked like he was going to cruise to it. But we're right back kind of, you know, it's a different type of injury, hamstring injury, soft tissue injury. But we're kind of right back to where we were last year with McCaffrey and trying to find his handcuff this week.

Yeah. So the good news is, Tom, Edwin said he doesn't expect he's going to miss more than two games. It appears the Panthers don't think he's going to miss more than two games. There's a chance he doesn't even miss one. I think that's on the lower end range of outcomes. But it looks like one's one to two games seems to be the most likely outcome. But let's talk about the Carolina Panthers in general because there are multiple players on Carolina

who are worth consideration depending on the size of your league, depending on your needs, who might be able to break down for you. And obviously, we don't really need to break this down aggressively. It starts with Chuba Hubbard. Yeah, he's the number one guy this week. He'll be, you know, everybody's main target. Even if it's just for a game or two, you know, a lot of McCaffrey owners already, you know, have him. He was about 23% owned in Yahoo.

So, you know, some owners did the prudent move. But even if you didn't and, you know, you're a McCaffrey owner, now it might be the time to, you know, use your fab. there. Make sure you get them. Might be only a game or two, but, you know, these hamstring issues, these can linger. They can linger. And that's, you know, that's what we're worried about as McAfrey owners. You know, we don't want to see this, you know, last all season, but we've seen it happen at times with other players. So now's the time to pick him up. And he's going to, he should stay on your bench for

the rest of the year if you're a McCaffrey owner. Even if not, you might want to keep him. So he kind of came in. He kind of was the guy. He did have a drop at the one yard line. He was going to go in for an easy touchdown, got pulled from the game. Royce Freeman did come in. He got absolutely stoned at the one yard line. Couldn't get in. But, you know, we're going to see free. You know, this isn't going to be a McCaffrey situation where he's out there for 90% of the snaps. Royce Freeman will be mixed in. But, you know, I think we can expect like, you know, 65 to 75% of the snap. And maps and, you know, the touches in this backfield for as long as McCaffrey's out of lineup. And, you know, he gets a decent match up here against Dallas.

You know, the Eagles decided not to run the ball last night. Which was bizarre. Which was the stoop, one of the dumbest things I've seen in the season so far. But I think the Panthers will, you know, give Hubbard some chances. So he's going to be like, probably like a, you know, a high-end RB2, I would say this week. You know, somewhere in that range. So he should get plenty of touches. and we'll see how McCaffrey, you know,

I don't think he'll play this week. Yeah, I would put that percent chance, you know, less than five. You know, even if he is ready, I could see them kind of played on the safe side here. You know, he is their big money guy. He kind of is the catalyst for the entire offense. So, you know, I think they'll be cautious with him. But Hubbard is the guy.

He's the, you know, we haven't had too many big time waiver guys to start the season. This is, Hubbard will be the top of this week's class. Yeah. And by the way, Edwin said, be warned if a guy can, you can come back too early. And I think the nightmare scenario was Adam Thielan a couple years ago, where he was essentially just a shell of himself. And they had to shut him down eventually. So I think they'll be cautious with McCaffrey.

He'll miss at least the game. But, no, I are. We should say that. So that's a very positive sign. As long as he doesn't have a setback in practice, you would think that he's back within three weeks here. Oh, and by the way, I mean, it also looked like he was walking, okay? Like, this wasn't like the Echler thing from last year when Echler could barely move.

Yeah, it looked like a sniper had gotten him on the back of the leg there. Yeah. So, but this could affect how the Panthers play. Like, Chupahubbard is going to be on the RB2 radar. Anybody who expects him to be McAfrey, I think you're being foolish. Yes. They could throw it more here, Sam Darnold, Terris Marshall, and a guy who, I, I, I mean, in Dynasty, should be slurped up immediately, Tom.

One Tommy Trembal, the tight end, break down this Caroline offense. Yeah, we'll probably see them, you know, probably skew a little bit more pass-heavy here, you know, while McCaffrey's kind of out of the lineup. You know, Hubbard's not exactly a special runner. And Donald's played, you know, fairly well here. It's a, you know, it's been a relatively easy schedule. They did have the Saints in week two, but, you know, Jets in week one and Texans in three. So, but, you know, for the most part, you know, he's, he's held onto the ball a little too long

at times, you know, watching that Thursday night game. Still has that issue a bit, but, you know, he has some big time playmakers. And, you know, DJ Moore has, he looks like, you know, a top 10 type of wide receiver in the league right now. He's kind of been his go-to guy here and it's kind of helped him. You know, he's just under, you know, 20 fantasy points in that week to match up against the Saints, but up over 20 fantasy points and his other two games here. So, you know, he's been trending in the right direction is, you know, everything is looking very good here, very promising. But yeah, this is the Dallas match up here this week.

You know, the schedule isn't too difficult overall. He's got Philadelphia in week five, Minnesota, and the Giants. So, you know, a schedule that he could keep the momentum going against. Let's talk now We've got the Patriots backfield Tom Oh you want to do a little tremble and you know Oh yeah tremble Tremble, Tremble and Marshall

Yeah let's do that Tremble Yeah you go ahead You read Greg Cocell's Oh he's a Greg Cocell Oh yeah Didn't he isn't there like something like he melts Face Max face masks off of him He says he looks to melt the face mask

Of everybody he's blocking now That doesn't necessarily get you fantasy points But it does get him on the field they traded Dan Arnold specifically to get this guy on the field. Tom, you saw he had a 30-yard reception on Thursday night football and a seven-yard touchdown run. You call that play for a guy who you trust at the goal line. Tommy Trembles is a great athlete. There's a lot of untapped potential here.

Really interesting player. Dynasty for sure. Maybe you're tight and needy in redraft and deeper league. You can probably consider picking him up. He's almost certainly available. Yeah. I don't think he's going to be. cracking like 10 team lineups and, you know, 12 team leagues.

And but definitely a dynasty guy, definitely a deeper, deeper guy to look at. You know, the position isn't too great anyway. So, you know, they traded away Dan Arnold. He was kind of that move tight end for them. Ian Thomas has kind of been the inline blocker for them. So, you know, he kind of steps into a pretty nice role here. You know, he's going to probably be playing about 40 to 50% of the snaps if he stays in that move tight-end role. And, you know, Dan Arnold has, you know, gotten some chances in the early going.

So, you know, some, you know, and like you said, they designed some plays for him in that week three game against the Texans. So they clearly are, you know, very pleased with him in the early going year that they would trade away a guy like Dan Arnold that they went out and signed at free agency. They clearly liked Joe Brady worked with him in New Orleans. So, you know, they, you know, to do that kind of move, they must think very highly of Tommy Trembles. So I would think that his role is going to grow significantly here going forward. Before we get to the Patriots backfield, Tom, where I'm not sure there is a good option, the Buffalo receivers. Emmanuel Sanders, two touchdowns. Dawson Knox, a touchdown, and he is playing a ton of routes,

running a ton of routes. It looks like they've expanded the past game beyond Diggs and Beasley. Yeah, and, you know, Dawson Knox is a really intriguing. guy for me just because, you know, the tight end position is just an abomination right now. You know, I know people are trying to move on from Johnny Smith and, you know, people, you know, hate playing Mike Gisicki because he's how consistent, inconsistent he is. So, you know, Dawson Knox is a guy that's a little farther down the, you know, the ranks, but he's a guy that's very talented. He was a third round pick out of Mississippi a couple years ago, you know, had issues, you know, lots of issues with drops in his first two seasons. But,

That catch rate is trending upward here. He, you know, went to a specialist to work on his eye hand coordination. And, you know, I think they've been very pleased with him in the early going. His routes, you know, his routes run per dropback for Josh Allen have grown in each the last three weeks. He was running with, you know, Stefan Diggs and Cole Beasley. And they've kind of reduced Gabriel Davis's role here, getting, getting Dawson Knox out into the field a little bit more here. So a guy that's owned in less than 10% of leagues, and we know a lot of people are dying at the tight end position.

So, you know, he's kind of my priority ad. You know, Evan Ingram's a little more heavily owned. They're having issues at receiver right now. You know, he's 40% owned. So, you know, he's more picked up in most leagues. But Dawson Knox in terms of a player that is widely available in most leagues is a guy I would look at. And manual seniors is, you know,

played very well. And it finally happened for him in week three. He's he's in that John Brown role, you know, a very, a very good role in this offense. Brown just couldn't stay on the field and healthy last year. Sanders has done a much better job of that in the early going here. And it finally paid off with two touchdown catches. And he's kind of like the, the down, you know, he's, he's an old guy. He's, you know, 33, 34 years old. But he's kind of the downfield specialist in this offense. He's getting a lot of deep targets. And, you know, a very healthy role in this offense. So he's a guy that's out there in 75% of leagues in Yahoo.

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Our staff at Fantasy Points will be posting their favorite Thrive Fantasy picks each week on the site. New users can use promo code Fantasy Points when you sign up and will receive a 100% instant first deposit match up to $100. Download Thrive Fantasy on the App Store or Play Store by visiting ThriveFantasy.com. tune in to the extra points live stream every Sunday morning to find out some of our favorite Thrive Fantasy props for the day, sign up and prop up today. Tom, a piece of news that came out during the podcast as we record. See, we got something here that we can actually provide because we recorded later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're about two later than we usually are. The Colts and Marlon Mack have mutually agreed to pursue a trade. Now, he hasn't been traded yet.

but there are teams that could need a running back here. The 49ers come to mind. Could Marlon Mack be kind of a sneaky pickup here if you're running back needy in a deeper league? I mean, it's certainly worth an ad here. I mean, you know, he's coming off in the Keely's injury. You know, it hasn't really gotten a chance to show too much. But, I mean, if he's out there on the market

and teams are, you know, looking at him, you know, we're always looking to stash running backs away to see if they can. get bigger roles. So, you know, we'll see. I have a tough time believing that he's going to get traded and be a, you know, go somewhere and be a number one running back right away unless it's, you know, unless it is the 49ers. So, yeah, but maybe that's why you go out and pick him up. Maybe it is that chance that the 49ers are looking for that type of player. And yeah, he's, he's worth a look. Just don't expect too much. And, you know, I'm sure we're going to get questions

about Josh Gordon as well, Joe. I mean, that was another big question coming out. I mean, it's just because of the landing spot too with the chiefs. But I mean, if you're in deeper leagues, like a 14 or 16 team leg, you know, I wouldn't blame you if you pick them up and stash him for a couple of weeks. But if you're expecting anything from them, you know, this isn't 2013. This isn't back when he was leading the league and receiving. You know, he's been basically out of football for, you know, several years now. So if you're looking to catch lightning in a bottle, go for it.

But, you know, if you're in a shorter league, it's, you know, 8, 10, 12-team league. You know, he's going to be struggling to get on the field. I would expect him to be behind McColl Hardman and DeMarcus Robinson. I think that is best case scenario is that he's Hardman. Yes. Like, and I mean, everybody hates me, Cole Hardman. So, like, that's the best case scenario.

So, yeah, I'm not freaking out about that. The Patriots running backs, Tom. The problem here is pass pro. They don't trust. J.J. Taylor. Harris, Taylor, or I guess they don't trust Stevenson, who's a rookie. Maybe they do eventually, but that means Brandon Bolden's going to play. I mean, what a mess.

The last two years, it's been James White and the last few years, James White and Rex Burkhead, the only two guys they trust in Pass Pro. Maybe they're able to swing a trade for Burkhead. I don't know if there's a priority pickup here. I would look to Stevenson if he's out there, but it could be really annoying. Yeah, it's going to be annoying.

I can guarantee that. J.J. Taylor's like, he's the best receiver of the group, but they absolutely have no trust in him, as you said, in past protection. So I know people are kind of looking that way, but I just don't see it unless he all of a sudden becomes much better in past protected. I'm with you. I'd pick up Steven. You know, Stevenson has a chance to at least become a game day. You know, he's been inactive here the last two weeks because of a fumble in week one. now he might actually crack the lineup of the 53 man roster on game day and maybe that leads to you know more opportunities on the field and you know he's certainly talented and he's shown some things but if you're you know i you're right i wouldn't be surprised if the patriots you know

are kind of active here in the next week or two uh look at you know maybe it's rex burka maybe it's duke johnson you know whoever they can uh you know go out there and look for you know that specific role that James White has occupied, you know, in the last, you know, since he came into the league here from Wisconsin. So, you know, Brandon Bolden is not the, you know, not the answer for fantasy. He might be the answer for them in their past pro, though. That's, uh, it's going to be frustrating. That's annoying. Yeah. Because like, if somebody's going to be out there because they trust him in past pro, we'd at least like him to be a good football player. I mean, maybe someday we'll have fantasy leagues that you get points for a great pickup and pass protection, but we're not at that

point just yet. All right. So let's, uh, let's wrap it up here, Tom. This was the week four waiver wire podcast, week four injury podcast, Dr. Edwin Porris at FB injury doc on Twitter. Tom Brawley at Tom Broley on Twitter. If you want to read the full waiver wire article with like a hundred more guys than this, go to fantasy points.com and subscribe.

Hey, maybe you're three and oh. Maybe you're O and three. Three and O, you want to break away from the pack. O and three, you want to catch up. Go subscribe with 21 Broly 10. We are still. accepting subscriptions. You will be glad that you signed up. Thank you, everybody. My name's Joe Dolan at FG underscore Dolan on Twitter, and we will talk to y'all next week. Thanks for tuning in to this

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