Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Week 8 Waiver Wire and Injuries

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) and Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley) discuss popular waiver wire adds for Week 8, with Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc) talking injuries and return to play. --- 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. Injury and WaiverWire podcast here at FantasyPoint.com, the Fantasy Points podcast. My name is Joe Dolan. As I am joined every Tuesday morning, a little bit earlier than typical for me, which makes me feel like a piece of crap because Edwin's on the West Coast and he's got me up early, but Edwin's up before 6 a.m. and getting me out of bed before 8.30 is like a nightmare.

But Edwin, we're going to do this. We're going to do it early because you're the star of the show and I have to accommodate to you. How are you doing today, my friend? Well, I'm doing fine, Joe. Now the tables, how the tables have turned or how the turn of tables, my friend. Who's a piece of crap now, huh? Yeah, exactly. You were the piece of crap for the first six weeks of the season and I was able to really enjoy myself for quite some time. But it's good to be with you, my friend. And fortunately, you know, we had 13 games in the NFL slate this past week. Six teams were off.

There was a lot of bad football played this past weekend. But fortunately, a lot of bad football didn't necessarily coincide with a lot of bad injuries. No, not a ton of injuries, which is great. However, week eight, for whatever he's intent is around the, time frame where we do have a few players we can talk about. But yeah, there are a few we're going to get into today that are a little bit, most of them are minor. And most of them aren't going to require, you know, long term, long term stays in the IR or anything like that. But some guys

are banged up as we're getting into the middle and the meat of the season. But Joe, I don't know about you, but I'm ready to say bye bye to week seven. Yeah, I am too. I'm ready to say bye to week seven as well. The thing that was nice about it was having to do a little less analysis. But the problem with doing that analysis was the fact that, you know, there was a lot of teams that were affecting fantasy performances. So anyway, let's get into week number eight here. My dogs are going nuts. My wife just left for the day. So they're all unsettled. But let's get into week here. And let's get into some of the problems that we're going to have. And, you know, let's start with Devante Adams. And Devante Adams got put on the COVID list. And this is

very similar, Edwin, to Dallas Goddard being put on the COVID list a couple of weeks. ago gets put on the COVID list at the beginning of the week, but before a Thursday night game. Yikes. And now all the indications, I think, Devante Adams posted something on his social media this past July that would indicate that he is vaccinated. And the protocols are easier to clear if somebody is vaccinated. The problem is getting those two negative tests, which I believe that's what it is, getting those two negative tests on a short week, really a precarious situation here for

Devonte Adams. Yeah, and that's essentially what you have. You can't really skirt the rules. The reason it's so difficult is because from a functional perspective, even if he doesn't have symptoms, which would be a whole different story, but since he did test positive, even if he had symptoms, you've got to clear the two negative tests within 48 hours. It gets really boring and really detailed.

But basically, if you don't have a false positive, it's really hard for your body to clear that hurdle in 48 hours. and test next turn around and test negative if it's a true positive. So that's essentially the function of it. It's just really hard to do. So, yeah, plan to be without Devante Adams. And man, these things just get these just like gut punches every week because they just happen and you don't see them coming. And there's nothing you can really do about it.

So yeah, you just got to brace yourself. And hopefully you survive week seven and don't need Adams in week eight. And honestly, there's a legitimate chance Devonthe Adams didn't even know he had the thing. Like you just test positive. Yeah. Um, from that same Thursday night game, though, DeAndre Hopkins, uh, hamstring injury. Now, he wouldn't have practiced Monday, I guess was the estimation. DeAndre Hopkins never practices, which honestly, it's one of those things where you wonder if he just walks around in pain all the time.

He's just learned to live with it. He's one of those guys who just doesn't practice, but hamstring injury, I believe is new, Edwin. Yeah, so usually it's NIR or it's been RIDS or it's been, um, uh, really those are the only things. It's been NIR rest or ribs. It is a little different now because it's a hamstring strain. So it's something that you really do want to actually monitor, sort of like the rib situation when it first popped up. It was something that you wanted to pay attention to. But since it is hamstring,

it's not like you're ever going to sit the Andre Hopkins, but leading up to Thursday night, you're really going to want to pay attention to how much he's practiced, what's coming out of Arizona, and exactly how much exposure you're going to want specifically in DFS. But these calf, especially in hamstring strains, Joe, I hypothesized at the beginning of season, they were going to be an issue similar to what they were last year. They've actually been, at least anecdotally, before I run the data, they've been worse.

So, I mean, keep bracing yourself and patting yourself with skill players because these soft tissue injuries aren't going away. Yeah, so let's go to another soft tissue injury, by the way. That's Dak Prescott. Everything indicates he's going to play through a calf injury. Now, the Cowboys were probably pretty lucky. Like, they went on by in week seven, and that gave Prescott a full week to kind of heal. up here. Now, he hasn't really been very mobile this year, or at the very least hasn't been running all that much this year, which is probably better news than it would be for, say,

Lamar Jackson. But Dak Prescott is going to be playing through pain and keep in mind, you know, this is somebody coming off of a serious injury. Do you have any concerns here with Dak Prescott? You know, obviously you can't be super confident in the fact that he'll play. Of course, we can look and read the tea leaves and say it seems like he's going to, he has, two weeks to prep for this and he had a week of rest. And we don't think it's very serious. I do sort of view this as a Nick Chub type severity where it kept Nick Chub out for, what was, it was about a week, wasn't it? It wasn't quite two weeks for Nick Chubb. So that's, I think, what we're looking at, especially at the quarterback position, it's not as difficult to make a

comeback from a soft tissue strain. And you can sort of hide it. And sort of like you said, he's not rushing a whole bunch this year, which is probably by design. So, yeah, I wouldn't be too concerned for Dak Prescott simply because even if he's limited, the dude's going to throw like 45 times. He's going to throw for like 430 yards and be fine. So I'm not too concerned yet if there is more concerned than make sure you're following the injury tracker, Joe. Go to fantasy points.com.

Use promo code 21, porous 10 and get yourself a 3% off subscription. Yeah, and the subscription continues. be discounted, by the way, because, well, we're running out of season. So that price keeps coming down, but hey, you can still get yourself over the finish line here with a lot of help from the site. A couple of running back injuries, both came from the same game. Miles Sanders with an ankle sprain, Josh Jacobs with a chest injury. Did you see these injuries? And what's your view on the injuries? Yeah, so starting with the Sanders injury, it looked like the classic inversion sprain, the low angle sprain that you see. This is not automatically a four to six week injury. And

Even with Sequin Barkley, I think they're taking it pretty slow, which I understand he's coming off the ACL, so they want to take it slow. But coming back from these rolled ankles, depending on how chronic they are, can be, they can come back, players come back pretty quickly. So I would anticipate, depending on the severity and depending on his practice statuses, that this is going to be something that Miles Sanders is going to take maybe a week, maybe two weeks at this point. you really can't gauge the severity as easily as you can for like a high ankle sprain. So I would plan on conservatively one to two weeks of missed time for Miles Sanders. If you really want to go ultra conservative, then it's a two to three week injury. But that's all, of course, without knowing the severity, without knowing if there are fractures. And just based on the observation, in terms of Josh Jacobs, he had the chest contusion.

The teams come out and said that it's not a big deal. He took a big blow to the chest and the ribs, happens quite often for running backs, but they're going into the buy. So this is something that doesn't sound like it's going to keep Josh Jacobs out long. What about Darren Waller, though, who, you know, I was out of pocket on Saturday. We all need to take a little mental health break every now and again. And I went up to a concert and I was out of pocket. And this kind of popped up on Saturday that, ooh, he was sore. And what was this? He got stepped on by a teammate. What now obviously in practice, and there's no video of this, I would presume. So you can only really

really speculate. Like, what do you think it was that kept Darren Waller out of action here against the Eagles? Yeah, and I owe the subscribers and some people on Twitter a bit of an apology because when I initially saw it, I said, oh, it's not a big deal. This is NIR slash knee slash ankle. The NIR, they didn't take away, which is, I would say misleading. Maybe I should pay more attention. But when I looked at the official practice report, it just said NIR slash knee slash ankle. The ankle was new than he was limited on Friday. So I don't know if you saw Joe, the injury that Vaughn Miller sustained on Thursday night that kept him out. But that is what I essentially think happened to Darren Waller.

He got stepped on from the outside portion of his leg and the inside portion of his ankle was strained. That is a high ankle-ish mechanism, more of an eversion type mechanism, which you don't love to hear. You don't love to hear that, but we don't know the severity. He obviously didn't play. This could be a Dalvin Cook type of severity. This could be a Jerry Judy type of severity.

We're going to assume since he was at least limited, it isn't as severe as Jerry Judy's. But given that they're coming up right on a buy, this is great news. I think that you're going to have a pretty good idea leading up to the game in week 9, or I'm sorry, week 10, whether he's going to be ready or not.

But I think so. And if he's active, you've got to roll with him. But I think this is one of those types of injuries. Let's get to a couple of wide receivers, is a giant, Odell Beckham Jr. was playing through a lot of pain, and he hasn't been very productive. And Baker Mayfield, when he plays, is playing through pain. And it's Case Keenum. And, I mean, just an ugly, ugly slate of injuries for the Cleveland Browns here. What's up with Odell Beckham? Yeah. So here's what I think, the reports from Odell Beckham are that he has a

grade three AC spring. If it were a true grade three, which I'm not necessarily doubting the reports, he would be done this that's like a like a courtland sutton from 2020 type injury like that's going to be a few weeks but he's playing through it the other injury we also know about odell is that he talked about how he has a torn labor in which a lot of those a lot of NFL players do a lot of athletes do in general and so he's got two of these shoulder injuries one of them that would require surgery and just came out yesterday i wish i could remember who reported it that he specifically said he wanted to wait until the end of season for surgery. So, I mean, here we go again with Odell.

He's a guy that is injured. And just like you saw on Thursday night when he landed on the tip of his shoulder and it looked like he was going to be out and done the rest of the night, that's sort of what you have to expect from him at this point. You just have to expect that an exacerbation is coming. That has to be on your radar. So for the rest of the season, until he can clear even just a practice reports, like he's not a dude.

I'm necessarily looking to roll out in Cal. and he's a guy that I'm trying to offload on my season-long rosters. Sterling Shepherd, it's always something with this guy. When he plays, he gets double-digit targets, but there's always the chance that he pops up with the soft tissue injury. The hamstring injury, obviously he aggravated it. And he's missed now, I believe, the last two games after getting back on the field. That's not good news for Sterling Shepherd.

He was listed as questionable for this past game, but still wasn't able to get back out there. Yeah, so he's questionable and obviously had a setback with, these injuries. You really hate to see these setbacks. It's not fun, obviously, and typically they keep players out for a longer period of time. Hopefully this turns into like a Julio Jones. It was just tightness, just tweaked it and then came back. But you really can't tell like this is just a nitpicky guy. Obviously, the amount of targets that he gets, I would, I would feel confident rolling him out, you know, in like a GPP lineup. He's the type of guy that, that very similar to Odell is if you need guaranteed points,

if you're like desperate, then yeah, you start him. Otherwise, you're offloading him. If you know that he's on a roster that you're pretty stacked and loaded, as soon as he comes back and gets his, you know,

what, like 69 targets per game, then you can try to offload him for something else. Because yeah, unless they rest him and shut him down for a couple of weeks, this is going to follow him the rest of the season. Come prop up on Thrive Fantasy this football season. Thrive Fantasy is a daily fantasy sports and e-sports app for player props.

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That's $100 and then 100%, which is $200. An extra $100 on top of the $100. Seems like a pretty good deal to me. Download ThriveF Fantasy on the App Store or the Google Play Store or by visiting thrivefantasy.com. tune into 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. This week, Ewan, is one of the things here that you mentioned was it's a potentially big week for guys returning from injury. Now let's start with a couple of New York Giants wide receivers because we just talked about

Sterling Shepard. Kenny Golodei, Cadarious Tony. Goladay's got the knee injury. Tony's got the ankle injury. Oh, and Sequan Barkley as well, what do you think about those three and their chances to play this coming week against Kansas City, which is obviously a great matchup. Yeah, so for Cadarius, Tony, he's the one that's a little bit more vague. He's a guy who came, tried to play through an inversion ankle sprain, and then he did, he re, sorry, he exacerbated it by taking the ankle and forcing it into planar flexion, which is essentially when the top of your foot starts to bend the ankle backwards. And so that's a little bit more of a vague mechanism. He's more hurt than he has injured. So he's really a week-to-week type player right now. If they're going to be conservative with him,

then I don't necessarily anticipate him playing. On the other hand, you have Kenny Goliday, who I think is the most likely to play of these three players right now based on everything we know. We know that he had a hyper-extended knee. Those are usually no longer than two to three weeks. they can turn into a month-long injury depending on the situation. But, you know, the Giants have been kind of holding their injury cards close to the chest, as we would expect from somebody that coaches its team. You could probably guess why. And we don't, they haven't used the IR for Barclay.

They haven't used the IR for Goliday. You know, it's been a, it's been a tenuous situation because that short-term IR really helps us guess a little bit about where these players are. in terms of Barclay, sort of like I mentioned earlier with Miles Sanders, these typically aren't super multi-week long absences when you just roll your ankle, but they are taking it slow with him.

My initial thought was that he would be back by this week. And now I know Ian Rapporte is saying that he's got a quote, outside chance. I mean, you really just got to watch it. Then maybe week nine is more likely if they're taking it super, super ultra slow with Sequan Barkley. So I say, oh, that to basically say, Kenny Gawaday is the most likely to play, followed by Sequin and then Cadarious Tony.

A couple other wide receivers here. Michael Gallup has a chance to return. Remember Michael Gallup? He's got a chance to come back this week. As does Jerry Judy. Jerry Judy practiced last week. Now, the Broncos played on Thursday night. So there was that short week.

And, you know, Vic Fangio said he had an outside chance to play. But when it comes to Jerry Judy, I think he's got a good shot to go this week. Yeah, Jerry Judy is going to be ready to be ready to. to roll. He's been ready to roll. I think, like you said, the last 10 days or so, they're taking it slow with him. I don't think that there's anything, you know, any injury management in bad faith coming out at Denver. They took their time with him. And, you know, you have to be ready for a, probably maybe a decreased snap count. You have to be ready for a little bit of get your sea legs under you with Jerry Judy. It's probably not going to be a ceiling game. But if you want to go for

somebody in the GPP, that's probably going to be a little bit under own until, you know, the, the wait and see crowd gets their feet under them, then I would definitely utilize Jerry Judy and then Michael Gallup, who had this apparently very severe calf strain, has had plenty of time to rehab. I don't necessarily anticipate it following him around. And I'll be curious to see how they integrate him back into the office now that they got the fight in Dalton Schultz on the field.

Yeah, so another calf strain is Nick Chubb. What do you see from him? Nick Chub, looking great, was back out at practice. We knew that the severity wasn't as high when they did. didn't put him on the short term IR. He actually probably would have played in week seven if they didn't have a quick turnaround. So I would anticipate that, you know, he's got a little bit of soreness still in that calf.

You do worry a little bit for re-injury, re-aggravation. So that's something you have to deal with when you're in week eight with Nick Chubb. But you just got to roll with them. All right. So we're not going to cover just everybody. Edwin, at FB injury doc on Twitter. But there is one more that I got to ask you about because it involves kind of not around about way, but in a semi-direct way, a trade that went down in football last night. And that was

Joe Flacco being traded to the New York Jets. And that's because Zach Wilson has a PCL injury. Yes. I would think, obviously less common than ACL and MCL, the PCL, which is the posterior cruciate ligament. Uh-huh. And the LCL, which is the lateral collateral ligament, those are the two CLs that are less commonly injured. What is a PCL injury? What is the mechanism? Why is the PCL and the LCL? Why are the PCL and the LCL less commonly injured than the ACL and the MCL?

Yeah. So the PCL injury, Joe, is something that isn't as commonly talked about, but it is relatively common. When you have a hyper extension like Kenny Gallaudet, he probably strained or sprained, I'm sorry, his PCL. The Greek freak, right, Yonisata Takumpo, when he hurt his knee in the summer, he probably sprained his PCL. All of these dudes who you hear have hyper-extended knees, they probably sprained their PCL.

It's not as talked about because it takes different forces and different sort of situations and prerequisites for that to be totally damaged. For example, when your knees run into the dashboard in a car accident, that would implicate PCL. Nick Chubb has had a complete rupture of the PCL. It's very similar to any type of sort of hyper-extended mechanism where the structures are just overstretched, and they just need to sort of be, you know, take a little time and heal and recover. It's not something that should follow him long-term. It's not something that's going to be anything to be concerned about from a long-term perspective. Dude just got sort of hit and the ligaments were sprained and overstretched,

and now he's just going to take some time to rest. and let blood flow and healing and active rest do their thing. Yeah, and I just curious, just because I'm curious, LCL. Now, you very rarely hear of an LCL injury. What is that and why is that not exactly a common injury that you hear of? Yeah, so the other issues, the LCL, which is, if you think of the Jarvis Landry injury, which was MCL, this is the opposite, the LCL, the lateral collateral ligament like you mentioned. And it's just the way that forces are distributed.

Usually you don't get that type of hit that overstretches that part of the, the capsule and that part of the of the knee joint in general. We don't talk about the LCL as much, but it does have its own blood supply that can that can eventually heal just like the PCL. So it's just the way that these guys are hit. It's not, it's not as common. And the structures are just in a different position, just anatomically not as common to see that. All right, everyone, thanks for joining us here. I know you've got to go actually see patients now. So thank you for joining us for this discussion. You can follow him on Twitter at FB InjuryDoc. And as he said, if you want to subscribe to FantasyPoint.com, use the code 21 porous 10. That's the number 21, porous, and then

the number 10. And you'll get 10% off an already discounted price because, well, we're about 40% of the way through the NFL season. Edwin, thank you so much, my friend. You'll be updating people on Twitter and on the Injury Insights at FantasyPoint.com. So, well, if they are just so upset that you're going away and seeing patients today. There's ways for them to get in touch with you as well. That's right. Absolutely, Joe. Go back to back. Thanks a lot, Edwin. And we'll talk to Tom Brawley and the Waverwire right after Ben Kukainis and a word from our sponsors. Thank you very much, Ben, and welcome Tom here as we break down now the Waver Wire on the Week 8 injury and Waver Wire podcast. And there's only two teams on by this week, Tom, Baltimore and the Raiders. Both are good

fantasy teams, though. So we're going to have to have some options here. And Tom, there's only really, going to be one, I think, guy who's like a serious ad across the board, but it's only going to be for a couple of weeks. And we'll talk about that when we get to the running backs. But let's start, Tom, with the quarterback position where you might need a fill in this week. And Trevor Lawrence and Daniel Jones, I think, are going to be two of the more discussed options in that regard. Yeah, we have, you know, Lamar Jackson, clearly, you know, a top five option at the position now. And Derek Carr has worked his way in that QB1. conversation this season. So, you know, two big guys that are out of the line up here.

So Trevor Lawrence, you know, buy him again, hit everybody pretty hard last week. He was a pretty popular drop candidate. You know, he was probably about, you know, I do this article every week. I think he was sitting around 60 to 70 percent ownership before last week. Now he's sitting around 40 percent in Yahoo League. So he was heavily dropped. But I, you know, this is a guy that, you know, every time John asked Greg Kose, sell, you know, the last like week or two, you know, last couple of weeks on, you know, the matchup pod or, uh, or live stream. He, he gets so excited, uh, you know, this, this is a guy that's really starting to come into his own. Uh, these rookie quarterbacks have struggled here,

you know, in the early part of the year, but it seems like Lawrence is starting to turn a corner here. So he could be someone that, you know, obviously helps you out this week against Seattle, but, uh, is a guy that's, you know, could be, you know, a difference maker in the second half of the year. Maybe he sneaks into that low-end QB-1 conversation. He's starting to run a little bit, you know, scoring some touchdowns with his feet. So, you know, definitely a guy that should be rostered across the board entering the second half of the year here. So Daniel Jones obviously gets Kansas City, which is a great matchup. Edwin thinks there's a better shot that Kenny Goladay plays than Sterling Sheparder Cadarious Tony. And, you know, that's just early we

informed speculation. We're going to have to see with those guys. But it is the matchup with Kansas City, which, I mean, is just a disastrous team right now. Yeah. And, you know, Daniel Jones, you know, he was rolling along pretty good there to start the season. And then he took that, you know, big hit at the goal line against the Cowboys and obviously left early with the concussion in that game. And it didn't look quite right against the Rams the following week and that blowout. But he got back at it this week, even with a pretty thin, you know, a crew at receiver here was just basically Darius Slayton and Dante Pettis at receiver. So good news that, you know, at least it sounds like we might be getting one guy back. Maybe if we're lucky enough, you know, maybe he gets two or three of them back.

And he's got his full complemented receivers at his disposal here. So as he said, this is the chief. So this is one of the top five matchups we target every week here. And his performance is ticking back up after that, you know, that tough hit against the Cowboys here. So, you know, definitely somebody that you could pick up to fill in for you if you've been using Lamar Jackson. The last, you know, through the early part of the season here. At running back, Tom, Miles Sanders suffered what Edwin thinks is a relatively minor ankle sprain. Similar to the Sequin Barkley one, maybe a little less severe.

but Philly doesn't have a buy until week 14. So Kenny Gainwell and Boston Scott are probably going to be the top running backs. They could get Jordan Howard in there. Gainwell is probably going to play the majority of the snaps Tom. But Boston Scott, when the Eagles were inside the 10-yard line, was pretty much their exclusive running back against the Raiders last week. Yeah, that's good to hear that Sanders' injury might not be too long-term, but I can't help to think back to last year.

They really, you know, coddled him a bit. I remember real early in the season with injuries. You know, this is a different coaching staff, though. So, you know, hopefully this is just maybe a two-week absence here. But Gainwell was a guy that was, you know, kind of encroaching on his playing time there in the first month of the season. And, you know, they kind of pulled back a little bit in the two weeks leading up to last week's game against the Raiders. But he scored the touchdown early in that game. And then as soon as he went out, played 50% of the snaps.

You know, Boston Scott's another guy. You know, we'll touch on here. And, you know, if you miss. I would prioritize Gainwell. But I think it's going to be a pretty split backfield here. I think Gainville will probably be, you know, probably sitting in that 60%, you know, 55, 60%. And Boston Scott, more in the 40 to 45%. I think Scott's going to be more of the runner in this backfield,

probably playing more in the early down situations with Gadewell, mixing in there, but he's probably going to, you know, probably stick mostly to his receiving down rule, which is, you know, a higher priority rule. You know, the catches were worth a little bit more here if you're playing a PPR format. So Gainwell is definitely the priority here. He was heavily drawn. I mean, yeah, his snaps and, you know, his, you know, playing time had been snapped leading into week seven. So he was a guy that was sitting around 40% ownership, you know, during like week six, and it got basically cut in half leading into week seven with the bymageddon setting in. So he's, he's widely available out there. He's the top priority, but I would put in a smaller

claim, you know, if you're putting in a couple bucks a fab on Boston Scott, if I miss out on game well. Yeah. Let's go to a couple of wide receivers who could be maybe a one week fill in or just are rostered in very few leagues. Let's start with two Green Bay Packers. Alan Lazard and Marquez Valdez Scantling. Now, Lazard scored in back-to-back games. Nobody's really emerged as a number two there, though, on a consistent basis, which interests me in Valdes Scantling.

But when it comes to Lazard, Devonte Adams tested positive for COVID. And it's highly unlikely he clears the protocol by Thursday. And they're playing a Cardinals team that hemorrhages fantasy points to wide receivers. Yeah. And he's been, he was a guy that was kind of emerging at the beginning of last year. And then he needed the sporeternia surgery. And he never was quite right the rest of the year. He had a couple spots.

But, you know, he's starting to string together, you know, a couple decent performances here in a row, you know, up over 11 fantasy points in the last two games. And, you know, he had a big drive. It was like kind of the critical drive for the Packers. in that week seven game against the football team. It was kind of a tight game, and I think Rogers hit him for about, like, three or four consecutive passes on a drive late in the first half, and kind of gave the Packers a more comfortable lead going into half of that game. So, you know, he's starting to pick back up to where he was in the early part of

last season before his injury. So, you know, it's probably going to be, you know, a one. one week fill in here. He's probably going to have to be the top option here. MBS is, you know, he's been on the IR here. Didn't seem like he got particularly close to playing last week. There's, you know, there's hope, you know, out there, you know, they're talking about, they're hoping he can come back. You know, I would prioritize Lizard here. You know, definitely, you know, they might limit MBS as snaps to this, you know, even if he does come back. But, you know, maybe I put in a smaller claim for him.

And maybe Lizarre, maybe this is the start of something. Maybe his play is picking up here. And, you know, I don't think he's going to be a slam dunk starter for you the rest of the season because DeVante Adams, you know, he's hogging 35% of the targets in this offense. But maybe he can work his way into that, you know, flex area there with his play starting to pick up here a bit. Oh, Tom.

Let's go to Russell Gage. I mean, Calvin Ridley, has been up and down and he had to take a mental health break, which is fine. I mean, a lot of us do too, but Calvin Ridley hasn't exactly been as productive as we'd want.

Russell Gage comes back and plays quite a bit. Yeah, he stepped right into a big role here. And the thing was, like, at the beginning of the year, you know, it seemed like, you know, they were going to be more committed to the run here with Arthur Smith than, you know, you know, committing to Mike Davis. and, you know, Mike Davis has played like crap, you know.

If you want another waiver, guy, go pick up White Gawman. I mean, there's a chance that they might, you know, go stash him. There's a chance they might, you know, just cut him out altogether. But anyway, Matt Ryan is, you know, back to throwing the ball a lot here. You know, averaging up over 40 attempts per contest in recent weeks here. So there's a lot of volume once again here in this Falcons passing game. You know, Kyle Pitts, he's. He's, you know, encroaching on Calvin Ridley's territory as the number one receiver here.

But, you know, there's still, you know, there's still plenty of targets to go around behind those top two guys here. And Russell Gage, you know, it's pretty thin behind those guys. I mean, Zekees was, you know, kind of a factor while he was gone. But, you know, it's not guys that you're, like, just clamoring to go pick up off the waiver wire here. So, Gage, you know, he's not going to, you know, while you with big. plays or, you know, a lot of touchdowns. But, you know, hopefully he can get, you know, five to seven targets moving forward. You know, he's going to catch most of them.

So, you know, maybe he's a five catch for 50 yards type of guy, PPR, you know, filling type of player here over the next couple. You know, we still have a lot of, as you said, the Eagles aren't on by until week 14 here. So we got a lot of weeks with buys coming up here over the next two months. So maybe he's a guy that can step up. and fill in for you and provide you a little bit of PPR relief. Monkey Knight Fight, the fastest growing daily fantasy sports site on the planet is a daily

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matchup, you pick your fantasy contest, and then you choose your buying. That simple. New users can use the code fantasy PTS to claim a 100% instant deposit match up to $100. New users also receive a free $5 just for signing up. Head to Monkeyknife Fight.com. download the app on the App Store or Google Play Store. You can also find out more information on the fantasy points homepage. Tom, tight end is a position where, I mean, there are so few, so few every week options now. And even Darren Waller's gotten dinged up. John Smith is dinged. I just asked Edwin about it. He said, without like a specific video, he says a common pass catching injury is an AC joint, which could range from OBJ.

to Cortland Sutton 2020 or 2019, which is not very serious. But that game was a blowout. There was no reason to bring him back. But he's somebody else who got hurt. And there's a couple of guys here who are under 20% rostered who could make an impact for you for fantasy. And I'm talking about CJ Usoma, the Bengals and Moe Alley Cox of the Colts. Yeah.

On the John of real quick, Kendrick Bourne will be an interesting guy. 6% of, you know, we're looking, you know, I like to give out some, like, really low-owned guys. So if John Hussmith is out of the lineup, Kendrick Boren's been making plays the last couple of weeks, and that means they would play, you know, more three-wide receiver sets. So Borenwood might be an interesting guy to pick up and start while John who's out of the lineup. But, uh, Yuzoma, I mean, geez, all this guy does is make big plays and score touchdowns. You know, he had the big one on Marlon Humphrey, the, the 55-yard touchdown, beating one of the best cornerbacks in the league for the touchdown there.

And he scores another one. So, you know, he's got up to five touchdowns in the last four games. Of course, he had the Thursday night game. We remember against the Jaguars where he scored two touchdowns in that game as well. So, I mean, the problem is there hasn't been a ton of volume to go around here. You know, we're struggling with Tyler Boyd here. You know, T. Higgins is underwhelmed here. but most of the targets are going to chase Higgins and Boyd.

But, you know, they have been, you know, trending more pass-heavy here in recent weeks. So, you know, that's a positive for Zoma. He's also a guy that's at least out there for a lot of snaps. He's, you know, I don't have the numbers in front of me. But he, you know, I think he's like an 80 to 90% type of player. You know, he's out there for that many kind of snaps per game. So, you know, the Bengals are trending. more towards the past. So maybe that, just an extra target or two. If he could, you know,

start seeing four to six targets per game, it's a number that he really hasn't got too much this season. He's, you know, he's doing most of his production on three targets per game here over the last, like, months. So it's been a bit of smoke and mirrors, but there's a chance that it could pick up here. And he's making play. So why wouldn't you feature a guy that's making plays in your offense? And Moe Alley Cox is another one, you know, They don't feature them for some ongoing reason. That's the problem with Moe Alley Cox. They don't really get them on the field until they get close to the 20-yard line.

And then he's out there and he's kind of become, you know, Carson Wentz's guy down there inside the 20-yard line. He's scored four touchdowns and three touchdowns in his last four games. I screwed that on it. He scored in three games, three of his last four games with four touchdowns altogether here. There you go. There you go. That was a little bit of a mouthful.

But, you know, so he's been a guy. You know, we got Mark Andrews on by here, Darren Waller. So we need some help at the tight end position this week. So Uzoma and Moe Alley Cox, on the lower end, too, Pat Friarmouth. You know, the Steelers lost Juju Smith-Shooster. We had really been touch on them much last week because they were going on by.

But, you know, he was featured a little bit more, played more snaps than Eric Ebron for just a second. second time of year and season high, 60% of the snaps. And we know Ben isn't, you know, completing many passes, 20 plus yards downfield. You know, it's a lot of intermediate stuff. So there's a chance that Friamuth, you know, starts to get, you know, maybe gets two to three of those targets that were going to Juju Smith-Schuster here. So, you know, a couple guys, you know, three guys there that are owned under 20%.

Tough week for tight ends here with two of the top five guys at the position out. So, you know, those guys should be picked up and played this week. All right, Tom, we have, I mean, there's 50 plus players listed on the Waverwire article at FantasyPoints.com. We can't talk about them all here. And then John Hansen ranks his top 15 options on Tuesdays after the Monday night game. He's going to do that today. But you got to go to Fantasy Points.com and you got to subscribe to read it. Use the code 21 Brawley 10, get you 10% off on already discounted price because, well, we're 40% of

way done with the season. Week number eight is here. Week number nine is in the future. Your fantasy championships, I mean, Tom, with the waiver wire, I mean, it's, we're not halfway through the season yet, but we're more than halfway through the fantasy regular season. And, you know, that fab money, it doesn't spend itself. It doesn't spend itself. And I always say it, like, you know, there's going to be a point, I don't think we're there yet, but there's going to be a point where we're saying essentially what are you waiting for when it comes to your fat budget. Yeah. And this week, I think it's the Eaglebacks here. If you're, you know, they're both like, you know, widely available here. So if you're dying at the position,

you're sitting at three and four through seven weeks and you need to make a move. Maybe those are the guys that you go after. You're hard this week. All right, guys, thank you for joining us here on the Fantasy Points podcast. My name's Joe Dolan at FG underscore Dolan on Twitter. He's Tom Brawley at Tom Brawley on Twitter and Edwin Porras is at FB Injury Doc on Twitter and follow the site at Fantasy PTS. For Tom, for Edwin. For Ben Cucanus, I'm Joe. Thanks everybody and we'll talk to you next week. 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 FantasyPoint.com.