Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Preseason Injury Roundup

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc) goes around the league with notable updates to injured players, return timetables, and more. --- 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. Welcome back to the Fantasy Points Pod. I am your host today, Dr. Edomporous, Dr. Edomporas, Dr. Physical Therapy, Medical Anast FantasyPoint.com. today I am with the fantasy PT. There is no other fantasy PT. He's the only fantasy PT because he has a Twitter handle at the fantasy PT.

He's, of course, your second favorite injury analyst, the second best injury analyst on the planet. Like always a bridesmaid, never the bride. So he is, of course, Dr. Matthew Betts. He's a physical therapist. He is, of course, at your favorite second website, the fantasy footballers, you may have heard of them. Doc, how you doing today?

What an intro. That was so kind of when thanks to have been out. Is that one of the most, yeah, one of the most humble, humble intro as you could have ever stumbled through, right? I love it. I'm good, man. I'm excited for this show.

You know, every year we do this. It feels like this is what our third or maybe fourth. I don't even know at this point. But there's not many shows out there where we have two injury analysts on at the same time. So it's, I think, always helpful for people to kind of bounce their ideas off of each other. And I'm excited to get your take on these players

because I'm sure you've talked about them at length. I've talked about them at length. But I haven't talked about them at length with any other medical professionals. So this is a great pod. I'm very excited for it, man. And let's get to it. Yeah, man, I'm excited too. And, of course, it's all good fun.

We're our actual friends in real life. So we're messing with each other just so everybody's aware. You want to subscribe to the fantasy footballers. Make sure you get their draft kit. Of course, we'll actually unironically plug you guys whenever we need to. So Matthew and I are cool. We're not going to fight. We're not going to get in a dog.

I remember when, you know what all those times that like, it's at least two to three times in offseason, we get like, oh, doctor fight, right? They're like, PT, fight. Anytime we have any slight like difference in opinion. That's not actually how things go. We actually like to get each other's takes and sort of an iron sharpens iron type of mentality is what we're going for. And I'm, I'm with you on this. I mean, every time we have this conversation every year, I walk away with it with a slightly altered version or perspective on what my original take was. So I think the first guy that I really would like your opinion on, I mean, I don't know necessarily where to go with him.

And of course, it is Matthew Stafford. What are we doing with Matthew Stafford? What are we doing with the skill guys? What are we doing with the Rams? And, you know, what are the implications of this elbow pain he has in this thrown? Yeah, I mean, by now, I think most people have heard the general term thrown out of just it being tendonitis. And I think the general public, and when we see patients and stuff, like they're just like, It's just a little tendonitis.

Like you hear the word and you're like, it's no big deal. Well, we have to remember this is going back not only to this off season, but to last year. So this is now a lingering issue where not to get too nerdy on our audience, but the tendon quality is probably a little bit less than what it was years ago. There's a lot of wearing his hair on that elbow over the course of time that to the point, if it's been bothering him for a year plus, like this is not going away anytime soon. I think is what people need to know. Now, how does it affect him really is the question? And is it one of those situations where he's playing through some mild pain each week or it doesn't affect him that much? Yeah, no big deal.

Like, let's draft Cooper Cup at the top. Let's take all these guys. No big deal. But there's also a scenario that people need to realize, I think, when we talk about Matthew Stafford, that just like there's room for this to go south later in the year. I think the first four, five, six weeks of the season, we're not going to hear much about it. You'll see him on the practice report as a DNP on Wednesdays and Thursdays. He'll practice Friday. He'll play.

He'll be fine. But because of the fact that we know these kind of longstanding tend to, you know, and issues can really linger for quite a while. This is not something I've been telling folks that it's going to go away anytime soon. If you're drafting Matthew Stafford, just understand there's a little more volatility associated with him, especially as we get into November, December. Yeah, I think that's a really good perspective to have. And of course, Sean McVeigh came out and said that it's more of a baseball thing.

So, of course, me being in baseball, seeing baseball athletes, my immediate thought is worst case scenario with a potential tendon. you know, rupture, a flexor tendon rupture like Big Ben had in 2019 or, you know, the Tommy John ligament rupture. And that's not necessarily what has to happen. But I did want to point out that's the floor in this scenario. And I've been saying that since we sort of had the specific reports from Jordan Rodriguez and Sean McVay and the throwers, you know, the throwers elbow comment that Ian Rappaport put out sort of connecting the dots. He's got something chronic. I get this question a lot. You might, you might have gotten it to that's when does an injury become

chronic. Well, this is a specific scenario where the injury becomes chronic and you kind of mentioned that. And again, I want to point out, not that this is the specific most likely scenario, but a possibility that we need to consider because, you know, I think I see the argument a lot of, well, Matt Stafford plays through injuries. Of course, yes, Matt Stafford does play through injuries. Here's the problem. The floor, and again, not the most likely scenario, but the floor is that this becomes a full-blown rupture, right? I don't want to sound alarmist. And again, I'm not saying this is the most likely thing to happen. But if a scenario like Ben Rathlisberger happens to Matt Stafford, that's obviously going to end his season. And so for the

crowd that's totally ignoring this, saying that Matthew Stafford plays through injury, like this is just that that little ass detail that I think we should really consider with him. And so that's really tough. I mean, I think this is enough to push Justin Jefferson ahead of Cooper Cup, at least for me and my personal drafts, like, the way that I view it. I don't need to take Matthew Stafford, unless I'm in a two-quarterback league, right? I don't really need to invest a ton of high draft capital in him specifically. But, you know, in terms of a skill players, I think this gives them a slight, slight, slight downgrade, like a tiebreaker. Because again, it's not so much that this is going

to rupture and become a massive thing, but that isn't in the range of outcomes. I think the median outcome here is, you know, it ends up being an issue. Like you said, he's on the D&P, he's Wednesday, Thursday, DMP, you might notice in the second half of the season, their game scripts, you know, their first 10,

whatever 20 plays are a lot more run heavy. Whatever the case may be, the median outcome is probably he plays through a little bit of pain. At least we knock on wood. You have anything else on Stafford there? Any disagreements? No, I'm with you,

man. I mean, the floor is lower than I think people are willing to admit. It's not likely, like you said. But the reality is with these longstanding, you know, medial elbow injuries in any throwing athlete

is that it's very rarely just one tissue, right? like, ulnar nerve irritation can become a thing as time goes by, which can cause pain and tingling into your hand and wrist and pain in your elbow in addition to what's going on. There's also potential for kind of these micro-ucel tears, like the Tommy John type stuff on top of the tendonitis. So it's a very complex situation. And I think people just reading it as tendonitis and, oh, it's no big deal, are a little bit

misinformed. And I'm with you. I do think that if you are making tiebreaker, I've done this myself. Like, I'll take Justin Jefferson over Cooper Cup. I'm still taking Cooper Cup in the first five picks. don't get me wrong. But if you're looking for just little edges in your league, yeah, give me Justin Jefferson, I think, over Cooper Cup, just for the floor of what could happen.

Now, I don't have any other quarterbacks before we move on a running backs. Did you have any other quarterbacks that you wanted to talk about or anybody that you think was worth mentioning here? I don't think so, man. This is a nice year for quarterbacks. I feel like it's generally pretty clean. Like we got, of course, Winston, James Winston coming off the ACL, but as a pocket passer, like he should be pretty fine.

But, yeah, outside of that, I think Stafford is really the big one at the quarterback position. That's, that's, yeah, generally the takeaway that I get in my life is like, oh, yeah, they meet me and people are like, oh, he was pretty fine. Like, he was fine. That's, that's James Winston this year. He's fine. I agree. I agree with that. So let's get to the headliner, man. There is no denying this guy. I wouldn't even necessarily say that he's going at a discount. And this is, we could get into the weeds from a fantasy perspective about, you know, JT versus Christian McCaffrey. But, you know, we can get into that. But first I want to talk about Christian McCaffrey. What is his injury risk? And maybe you

even start from a big picture perspective and then zoom in. What does it mean to be at risk for injury? What does that lead to when it comes to thinking about Christian McCaffrey? And is he really that much bigger of a risk based on what we know about him? So the floor is yours. Yeah, CMC, I mean, he's the most important player in fantasy based off his ADP, based off his upside, based off what he's done historically and based off his injury profile, everyone's worried about him and they just want to know, like, if I have the 1.01 or the 1.02, should I draft him? And I don't know about you, Edwin, but I play this game to win. And if I want to win, I'm taking Christian McCaffrey, if I have a top two pick, just not even talking about his injury stuff. Like, the rates of injury in the NFL are so high as is

that, of course, any of these guys could go down with injury. Running back rates, we know are a little bit higher than others. So if I'm embracing volatility in this game, which there is a ton of, give me the upside with CMC. So that's where I'm at from a real life football perspective. When you talk about his injury profile, I mean, look, the dude honestly has missed a ton of time. We know that. But when you look back at his injury profile, which what I look at when I try to figure out how can we help people and where can we go with risk is what is the recurring theme? Is it always the same hamstring? Is it always the same ankle? Is it the second ACL tear on the same knee? Or is it just kind of a bunch of random injury is thrown together. And when you look at Christian McCaffrey, we've got the high ankle

sprain, the quad injury, the AC joint, stuff like that, where it's not always following the same pattern over and over again. That to me, I understand his risk is higher this year, probably for injury than it was two years ago or the year before because of what has happened to his body. That said, I'm not going to discount him in drafts personally because his upside is literally unmatched the position from any other player in this game. So if you want to win, I'm embracing the risk. I like him, Christian McCaffrey if I have a top two pick. I like it. It's not too spicy.

I think that all things considered, Christian McCaffrey is a guy who, again, his injury history is being overblown. And again, it's not to say that he's not at risk for injury, right? We don't love that he had the lateral ankle sprain last year. We don't love that he had the hamstring strain. But if Christian McCaffrey wouldn't have had that crazy rash of injuries that he had in 2020, we would be viewing him. We would still be viewing him.

as the 1.01, in my opinion. But of course, he had 2020 that I think really, you know, made things go off the rails a little bit. And again, I've said this before over and over again. The most common running back injuries are AC joint sprains, ankle sprains, and hamstring strains. And those are all the three primary injuries that have held Christian McCaffrey out of game times, right?

That's, I think, the first angle you need to consider. The second angle that I think most gamers might not be considering is that Christian McCaffrey, he missed one game. in four years, dating back to Stanford through 2019, he missed one game due to injury. Like the dude, his overall big picture profile is one of health. So even though he's been off, you know, with contact injuries, the AC joint contact, the high ankle was contact. And then when he was rehabbing in 2020, he actually pulled a quad because he was trying to do too much. And I don't tend to buy into a lot of narrative at all. That's like I try not to be the narrative guy. But you know

better than anybody that when guys talk about behavior change or they mention behavior change, then that's really something we should we should not take for granted. And I wanted to bring up these two stories that were one of them was in the athletic and the other one. I can put them in the show notes. I don't quite remember what the other link was. But I was looking at two very contrasting quotes from Christian McCaffrey himself. This is of course not even mentioning the interview with, no, it was mentioning. It wasn't the interview with Josina Anderson in 2021. But first I'll get to the quote for McCaffrey. So this is in right before the 2021 season.

This is what was written about him in the athletic. Having more, having had more time to reflect on 13 games, he missed the 24-year-old McCaffrey, whose dad Ed played 13 NFL seasons. He decided he doesn't need to go changing. Sometimes it happens. It happened with players that play, it happened with players that's played 25 years in the league. It happens with perennial all-pro, pro, holoping quarterbacks. Running backs have had torn ligaments and comeback and been the MVP.

in the league. So that's right before the 2021 season, him talking about, you know, how he's not going to necessarily change his behavior. And then, of course, we fast forward to 2022. This was just about a month ago when he was interviewed by Josina Anderson. You got to adapt or die, McCaffrey said. I've tried to adjust some things here and there that become a little bit more sustainable, a little bit better for me on my body. I flirted with a lot of stuff early in the year last year, what I think makes me feel best. But the thing about football, it is a constant adjustment. You're getting hit from all different angles all the time. So that's not necessarily telling the whole story per se, but it's a vast contrast between where he was last year and where he is

this year. And if he's willing to make a behavior change, we know that injury risk isn't static. And I think that's sort of the long-winded way of what I'm trying to say here. Just because a guy's injured and there's a recurrence rate doesn't mean that he doesn't have an entire medical team and a medical staff trying to mitigate that risk moving forward. So are we saying that McCaffrey is going to be healthy? No, absolutely. not. But we are saying that recurrence rates for hamstrings specifically and ankle specifically isn't necessarily static. So I'm willing to take them as my first overall. It sounds like Betts is willing to take them as your first overall. But we get it. It's your fantasy league. It's your fantasy

team. Maybe you only have one of these. If you're doing one fantasy football draft, then sure, take Jonathan Taylor. I think that that's probably a prudent decision, right? But sort of like Betts was saying, like if you're in higher stakes leagues or if you're in, you know, a lot more leagues and you really need that upside then I think Capri's the place the guy to go with anything else on McCaffrey no I think think that's great too to like to bring up the fact that we look at this stuff is so black and white but like you said it's so dynamic things change players change the way they train the way they eat like you remember two years ago and people are going to laugh because it's the Will Fuller thing and it always is Will Fuller because it's Will Fuller but had the hamstring issues so often right then the

accel tear then another hamstring issue maybe compensation, maybe recurrence rate, whatever. But then he has a full off season and he was actually talking about like, I'm changing my posture to how I run like this. He addressed the issue. He knew it was a problem. Of course, he gets popped for pets in the same year. So who knows what happened.

Maybe that's the one is way of addressing it. Maybe. But that was the year where just the discount was so, so, so good on Will Fuller that. Right. Like as a PT, even I was like, I know the risk is high, but he's falling to round eight, around nine. And he's trying to change his body in the off season. whereas we hadn't seen that before,

and it was, of course, the year he came out and had the good start of the year with DeShon Watson and Houston before the PEDs. But yeah, I think you have to look at this stuff the whole picture and the fact that McCaffrey knows it's an issue, I think should at least give us more confidence that he's trying to do everything he can

to make sure he's on the field. And just one last thing before we move on. Based on the research I've done from 2016 to 2019, the recurrence rate for a hamstring is about 5% in one calendar year and it's about 8% for a lateral ankle spring. So it's not Z.

but it's absolutely not as full-blown bad, I think, as some fantasy managers might be making it out to be. The next guy I want to talk about bets is near and dear to my heart for no other reason other than I think that he's being discounted. He's been discounted two years in a row. It's a really interesting dichotomy now because up until this point in his career, the dude has been highly sought after high school recruit. He was, you know, highly coveted in college and even heading into the NFL. He was one of the most athletic backs that we've seen since Adrian Peterson. He is a really fun player to watch until he was upended by an ACL starting in 2020.

I'm course I'm talking about the apple of my eye, Sequan Barkley. I've given my spiel and I'll give a little bit more, but I want you to sort of fill in the gaps or maybe convince me otherwise something I might not be considering when it comes to the injury risk for Sequan Barcl because I view him similarly to Christian McCaffrey in that, I mean, the dude's been super unlucky and the ACL isn't necessarily even something we should consider as a separate issue. I think it's all sort of coalesces into the same issue that he was having until he stepped on that on that defender's foot. But convince me otherwise.

I mean, I could be doing so. I could be, I could be missing something. Tell me what I'm missing here, Ben. I am not dare to come on your show and try to convince you against Sequin Barclay. I know better than that. Listen, man, I'm with you. And I remember we had this conversation last year about Sequin. And I think that at the time, you were still largely in on Berkeley based off the fact that we knew he would start a little.

little slow and then probably progress and get better as the year went on. And we saw that, right? Like, week one, slow. Week two, slow. Three, slowly starts to ramp up the workload. Week four, goes bananas. Week five, steps on a dude's foot. If people are holding that against Seekwan Barclay, like you're playing the game wrong, truthfully. That's not his fault. It happens. It's a fluke injury. And as you said, the recurrence rate, a calendar year out for those ankle sprains is pretty low. So his entire season got derailed. Who knows what he could have been based off the ACL, recovery, and how he could have gone last year, we could be talking about Sequin Barclay

as if there's no injury to consider this year, right? Like if he doesn't step on that guy's foot, who the heck knows what happens down the stretch? But I just always go back with injuries to the data and to relative costs. That's what it's all about. Last year, when you were taking Seekoine Barclay, you were taking him at the back of round one every single time.

And that was scary, right? Like it was still a really bad coaching staff, a horrible offensive line, a round one player in his first year off the A.C. which we know the data says generally doesn't work out. And then you flip the calendar year. You got Brian Dayball. They invest in the offensive line.

He's year two off the ACL. And these past catchers are going down left and right. Like Cadarius Tony's a mess. Kenny Golodey might not even be good. Sterling Shepard's coming off the Achilles. Like Sigel and Barclay is going to get every opportunity he can to prove he's back from his ACL. And the draft cost is less than it was last year. So you blindly bet on talent and the fact that year two, running backs are better than year one off the ACL.

with the offense environment compared to what it was with your boys Joe Judge and Jason Garrett there. And it's a no-brainer bet on a bounce back here. If it doesn't work out, that's okay. Like you take your L. But man, there's clear as day signs that point to Saquan Barclay having a bounce back year. Yeah, I mean,

I think you pretty much said it all. We don't know what would have been, right? I'm not going to necessarily predict that just because he finished the first four weeks of the season as the RB 9 and points per game on a PPR basis. Just because that happened doesn't mean that he, wouldn't have, you know, something wouldn't have happened or clicked. And we know that psychologically, something might have happened when he stepped on that defender's. He may have been, he may have been 100% completely physically healthy, but I mean, we do know that psychologically something can

really, a wire can trip and your wires can get crossed, even if you're 100% confident athlete. So we don't know exactly what would have happened without that ankle sprain last year. But we can say that, I mean, this is the first year that he's had, Sequan has said anything interesting. I mean, he's had legends. bash him. He's had people come at him. He's had a lot of people in the past coaches, you know, scouts talk about how he bounces too much. He dances too much. And he's never clapped back and said anything interesting, anything of interest pretty much at all. But I mean, he did a recent interview. And you bet your ass, I'm going to bring this interview up because

I thought it was absolutely glorious. I mean, we'll maybe we can bleep this out. I'll, I'll timestamp it for Ben and at 19, 20, we're right about the 20 mark. So I'm just going to read it word for word. Let me at least source the interview here that he did. And the interview that he did, I don't know, it was from at NG Range. I don't know who he did, who the interview is actually with. But he said, fuck everybody. I'm ready to go crazy.

I mean, if that's not a chip on your shoulder, right, like that's not nothing. I think that this dude coming in with this attitude is definitely, something and it's not necessarily just like he's not just going to show up right like he's probably had this chip on the shoulder for a while now so hopefully that you know you get a little bit of narrative street going i know i say i'm not a narrative guy but i'm totally if it's if it's in support of sake one barkley i'm definitely a narrative guy so that's where i'm out if it confirms my priors i'm that's right that's right that's right i mean literally anything that confirms my priors i'm i'm totally fine with that that's totally fine this next guy um i also think is not getting enough love

although given the situation and the circumstances, I understand it a little bit more. But I do want to get your take on Ezekiel Elliott because I think he's hashtag not washed. I think that he still has at least some left in the tank. We know that the Cowboys have one, exactly one wide receiver, you know, in the wide receiver room right now. His name C.D. Lam. I don't know who else other than that they really have. I want to preface with, you know, this Tony Pollard situation. And I just want to point out that, you know, average finishes in half PPR, when you remove one of the running back, right, when you, when either Zique was out or Pollard was out, if you remove those, the average finish for Zique in 2020 was RB20. The average finish for Pollard in 2020 was RB 46. And then in 2021, we swung through seven, Zieg finishes the RB 14, Pollard as the RB 30. And then after, so in weeks eight through 18, Zieg finished as the RB 26.

and Pollard finished as the RB 32. This is all in half PPR points per game. So it's kind of an interesting dichotomy, right? It's not, they finished a lot more close together than we would have liked them to last year. We know, we know Zik had the PCL issue and then Pollard obviously had the torn planter fascia. So is Zique washed? Do you think that he can contribute? Is this offensive in a situation that you want to invest in in terms of the running game?

Where are we at with Ezekiel Elliott in that Dallas backwood? Yeah, I mean, it got a lot. lot worse when they just lost their left tackle. Truthfully, that was kind of a bummer with the vulsion fracture with the hamstring issue for Tyrant Smith. So that does change the offense quite a bit. And if you asked me this question yesterday, I would have said, like, I'm pretty in on Dallas because it's so concentrated, right? It's DAC and these two guys and C.D. Lamb right now that you're pretty much excited for. But that's a big loss. And so I think the ceiling comes down a little bit for both players. That said, because of Zeke's profile of kind of, you know,

last year from weeks one to four before the PCL injury, his splits were day and night. You look at the yards per touch, yards per carry, his effectiveness and fantasy, it was clear when the injury happened and his performance suffered from that. And if you think about clinically, like, if we see someone come in with a PCL sprain, even mild, like you're shutting them down for what, three, four weeks at least. And Zieg decided to try to play through that. Now, of course, we're not there. We don't see what happens.

But there's a very, very high likelihood that that derailed his season. and I think the data shows that. But we know PCL injuries recover really well without surgery for the most part. And the explosiveness with the quad strength being the number one predictor of success after that PCL injury, you have a full offseason to train for that. I mean, I think Zeek's fine entering this year from a health perspective. So I'm with you. I don't think he's washed.

I just think in general the ceiling on the offense is a lot more volatile than it was a year or two ago. You lose Amari Cooper. The wide receiver room is a mess. And so, yeah, I think I'm okay with Zique. I'm less excited about him just in. general for fantasy than I was years ago. But I do think he's going to be fine. He's going to get a ton of volume.

I mean, they're paying him so much that I think he'll get there on volume. I just again, question what his ceiling is at this point. Yeah, I think that's super fair to mention in terms of like the offense and what that situation is even going to look like. I think another thing to consider, too, is how Mike McCarthy has said in the offseason how, and you know, this doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to take his word as gold. But they have said that they want more designed runs for DAC this year. Last year, it was like, by a country mile, the fewest.

runs, scrambles, altogether just runs that DAC has ever put together in a season. So that, you know, year two after a massive injury when he maybe is psychologically a little bit more invested in the run game himself, maybe that's going to go up too. So you have all these things swirling around. With that said, I think that, you know, if Zika is slipping into the fourth, the fifth, maybe, I know that's kind of opportunity cost for wide receiver, but if you really, really don't want any other running back. If you're not going zero RB or if you're, I guess if you're not going to zero B, that's, I don't know, that's sort of your decision there. But if you're going like

anchor RB, you don't need to think about this. If you're going to zero RB, you don't need to think about this. If you're one of those, I want to balance team guy or gal, then I think that Zeeke in the fourth or fifth makes some sense. And I don't think you're really taking on that much risk when it, when it comes to Zique. I think we're in an agreement there. We got to come up to, we're going to to come to a guy that we don't agree on here, bets. Let's see. Who do we got next? I'll try. Okay. Maybe we disagree on this guy. Dalvin Cook, not to be confused with Hall of Fame or James Cook. We want to know Dalvin Cook. What is his injury risk? Where are we at with him? Is he being sort of, is his injury risk being overlooked in your opinion? Is he appropriate at his first round, you know, top whatever 8 ADP? What are we doing with Dalvin Cook and that shoulder of his? Yeah, I mean, the bottom line is there's no really other way to put it except for it's a liability, in my opinion. And I think we've seen that year after year.

Like, you know at some point in the calendar year, Dalvin Cook's shoulder is going to pop up as something that is a concern, whether it's a full dislocation or whether it's a subluxation or whatever. Like, it just happens. And the fact that he had it a couple years ago, or maybe it might have been last year where it was the non-contact. Remember you like put his arm up to catch a pass or something? and it happened without contact. That tells you what is going on with the shoulder, and it's an issue. And we know this goes back to his high school days,

to his college days. We know that every time that it happens, there's more damage inside that joint. The bottom line is it's a liability. But he's so good for fantasy. This offense is one that we want to invest in with the Vikings. We know he's going to get volume. I think you just embrace that risk a little bit

and kind of understand what you're doing when you draft Delvin Cook. So when I take Cook on my teams, and I've taken him when he falls, to like pick 10, 11, 12, is maybe I'm not pairing him with another player who has injury risk associated with him like Camakers or someone like that. Like I'm trying to mitigate my overall volume of risk on my team. But because of how good he is for fantasy, I'm totally fine taking him with where he goes. What do you think about this?

And maybe this is, again, getting too granular. Maybe this is reading into it too much. you just mentioned how quickly that shoulder dislocated just, you know, a couple of years ago in, or was it last year? I don't even remember. One of the times that it came out. Was it last year? Yeah. Where it wasn't, it was very minimal contact, whatever the case may be. We know that he wears a harness. I know that that your boy's over at fantasy footballers. They've hashtag, you know, the device, right? So we know that he wears the hashtag device. Here's the thing. If he wears the device that's basically telling us, we don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. We don't want him to raise his arm above his head. We don't want his arm to go above shoulder height. What do you think about the idea that because they know that he's limited from that perspective, they know that at any point that shoulder could dislocate, they just don't throw him the ball that much. What if that, what if he doesn't get swing passes, right? Or as many as we think, what if he doesn't see screen passes, swing passes, Texas routes? What if he doesn't do any of that because the shoulder is

a bother? What if the volume's lower, right? I guess that's like one devil's advocate way of looking at this. Do you think that's a possibility? I mean, I certainly think it's possible to make that argument, like, entering the year. But, you know, when you're in the game and there are situations that happen, if it's a leverage, high leverage situation and he's on the field and he's open, they're not going to not throw him the football, right? So I think it's, it's interesting to talk about. I think when it comes down to it, though, I don't think they would change the way that they use him, though, necessarily. So you're saying that's more so mental masturbation, bets.

Yes, exactly. That's exactly how I would describe that. No, I mean, I do think that the only thing that I would add where I think goes back to a little bit of the Stafford conversation is understand that this shoulder issue, this shoulder dislocation, the absolute floor, maybe not the most likely outcome in 2021. Maybe it is. But the absolute floor is that his shoulder dislocates again. He's got no labrum left to hold that shoulder in place. And his shoulder is dislocating literally rolling out of bed or rolling around in bed. and they finally say, listen, man, we got a, we got to surgically repair this thing again,

and he's out for the rest of the season, right? Like, that's the floor, right? Or am I missing something there? No, definitely. That's absolutely the floor. Okay. So, again, not the most likely outcome, but it is something to consider when you're drafting these guys that are going in the first round.

The one thing, too, that I'll say just from like a general injury, this is an injury episode, like injury perspective. That really bothers me is when we ignore risk for one. one guy, but then we totally like pile on and double double dip on the risk for another. And I think this next guy is kind of an example for that, you know, and I think his ADP has been, has been slowly dropping anyway. But it's just wild to me that Cam Acres comes back from the Achilles. I mean, objectively looks, I would say, you know, average at best, right? Like if we're given the benefit of the doubt, he looked fine. Like, he looked like a dude who,

was five, six months post-op Achilles. But now we're getting all these post hoc excuses for him. And like, what if this is just something that he's going to get over? He's got had another offseason to train. You know, I don't think that we're looking as a general public enough at the idea of like, oh, well, maybe this is just Cam Acres now, right? Like this is maybe just who he is, but I'm still seeing him going as, you know, an anchor RB.

I've seen some screenshots of teams where he's an anchor. and that makes me super uncomfortable. So I don't know where you're at with Cam Acres. I don't know where you're, what you're thinking in terms of like, you know, his situation, given that it is sort of unique

when it comes to the Achilles tendon. We haven't really seen a case like his come up, but where are you at with Cam Acres and what are your thoughts on his risk? Yeah, I mean, the recovery was awesome, right? Like it just says PTs.

Like, it's so cool to see guys come back at that rate. It just doesn't happen. So he's an outlier in and of himself. But I think that recovery, maybe it was the worst thing for fantasy players to see because now we just think, oh, it's an Achilles, it'll be back in six months, like, you know, you're good to go. And there's a lot of data that says that's probably not the case.

Now, are the surgical techniques and rehab techniques getting better? Yeah, of course. And probably there will be some improvements in performance, but we're still, I think, a decent ways away from that, in my opinion. So I do think that if people are kind of willing to brush that to the side, that's probably the wrong take. And based off where he goes, you know, he's kind of going in that running back. dead zone. Like, I'm always taking a wide receiver over cam makers, not just for that fact that he

goes in that spot of the draft, but also, like, the entire situation around him isn't as good as people think, right? Like, McVeigh is coming out and saying this year, they think it's going to be more of a committee with Darrell Henderson, who knows what truth there is to that. Charles Robinson said on his podcast that that is what they are doing out in Rams camp. So if he's a committee back with major efficiency issues coming off this Achilles, who's also, Also, by the way, dealing with the soft tissue injury in training camp, I just, I don't know what the ceiling really is for Cammakers. This is a guy who's played 14 regular season games in his career. He's finished the top 10 back just once.

So I'm fine to be wrong on Cammakers. Like if he beats me, he beats me kind of thing. I hope just from a general football standpoint, I hope he gets back and he can do his thing. But the reality is we just haven't seen him be that successful in the NFL and there's a lot of projection happening right now. So he does feel like a generally easy fade at his ADP for me. Yeah, I think that I'm totally on board with that. And one of the things that I questions I get asked often, you probably get it asked too, is, oh, well, you know, procedures are so much better and rehab is so much better and

things are unprecedented. Well, not quite, right? Because if you consider Michael Crabtree, this was back in 2014, I mean, he tore his Achilles, he came back in six months and one week. So this procedure has been around, you know, since roughly 2010. there have been other NFL guys to get it. Now there haven't been anybody specifically like Cam Acres. There hasn't been anybody like him.

But we have seen this recovery before. We haven't seen, again, this exact situation. But it's not new. And there's data that came out as recently as 2021. That includes some of those, the new procedures and new techniques that we've seen. And, you know, the fact that Acres came back as quickly as he did, yes, that is definitely a positive. But the last thing that will also, you know, we usually hang our hat on. and especially with ACL is the fact that draft capital when it comes to ACL helps predict

bounces, you know, bouncebacks after an ACL tear. But that's not the case for Achilles, which is kind of discouraging to see. So we can not really use his draft capital. We really just have to take his incredible recovery and anecdotal observation and hope and pray that he's going to look great from a fantasy perspective. But, you know, that just remains to be seen. And like you said, that you're usually taking a wide receiver in that range anyway. I mean, I would hate to pass up any of the wider seekers going in that range specifically.

And I think the last point that I want to make is from a physiology perspective, I do think it's worth bringing up just so people understand. The reason in Achilles tear is different than a ligament tear than an ACL tear is because a ligament tear, if you think of an ACL connects a bone to a bone, you can change that, you know, you can give a new ligament, put a new ligament in. And it's not like new, but it definitely isn't the same thing as tearing attention. because a tendon specifically connects the muscle to the bone, and it's an extension of the muscle. And if you make that, if you sever that connection between the muscle and the bone, it makes it that much harder to cut, run, and jump,

even though you did repair it. It's just never the same, or at least it takes time to rebound. And again, back to Michael Crabtree. Again, this isn't the same position, and it's a totally different situation. But Michael Crabtree came back in six months, looked not great,

and then looked not great again in other season. So if there's any hope for Camacres, if I'm ever going to be in on Cammakers, like I'm, I think a lot of people are going to be out on him after this year, unfortunately. But I would be willing to reinvest or at least reconsider where Cam Acres is going next season. Of course, it depends on situation with Rams do, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that if there's a window for him,

his window isn't closed yet. I just don't expect it or anticipate it to happen this year. That's where I'm out with Cammakers. This next guy, Betz, kind of getting us in trouble here. I've gone back and forth. I've gone back and forth with him. I've given a couple takes, and I've taken the takes back,

and then I backed off. And then this last go-around, you know, we just saw a tweet today. I wish I could remember who it was from, specifically saying that, you know, J.K. Dobbins didn't practice today. Man, we're like three weeks from the opener. Not even.

Not even three weeks. He is still not practicing, although it's a weird situation because he's the de facto lead back in that backfield. I mean, at this point, the guy's 12 months post-op for context for the listeners out there. Sequin Barclay was 10 months and two weeks out by the time week one hit last year. J.K. Dobbins, still 12 months out and not practicing certain sessions. I kind of want to get your take on this.

Because I could, these are the situations where I feel like they end up giving some value, but the ultimate absolute value they give back in the back half of the season ends up being nominal or minimal. But that's where I'm at. You probably already know probably what my conclusion is, but I want to hear what you have to say on JK Dobbins. Yeah, I mean, Dobbins injury, like we can't sugarcoat was a big deal. I mean, not just the ACL, we had the meniscus, of course. And what's been thrown out there is there's this damage to the lateral side of the knee.

Is that an LCL tear with a repair? Is that the posterior lateral corner? Like, this stuff matters. His ACL recovery was more cumbersome than Sequel Barkley. And, you know, the reality is. he is he's a year out, but still not 100%. And it's not just that he's not 100%. Like, I don't think he's close to 100% because when you think about the headlines that

you read and you think about, okay, he's, you know, he's on Pup to start training camp, you know, rap sheet was right. You got dunked on, but he was right. And then he comes off Pup and it's like, okay, great. J.K. Dobbins is fine. His ADP sky rockets. And all of a sudden there's clips of him cutting at 50% speed, 75% speed, I don't know, off his left leg doesn't even look close to right. And I don't care, you know, how good of an athlete you are.

Like, if you're not cutting out at full speed weeks out from the start of regular season, there is a virtual 0% chance you're week one ready to go 100%. So is he active week one? I think so, probably. Is he getting a full workload week one, week two, week three, week four? I would be shocked if that is the case. That doesn't mean he can't return form, you know, late October, November, December when it really matters for fantasy. I think that's possible. But you just need to be realistic with what you're doing with J.K. Dobbins. Like if you're drafting him to be J.K. Dobbins in week one, I think people are going to be really disappointed with what they get. So largely he's been a fade for me where he goes, especially recently, like if you're doing best ball draft and stuff like that with the spike in ADP, I'm largely out on that.

I have taken him a couple of times when he falls to like round seven, round eight, round nine. Like that's a fine opportunity cost for me. But, you know, the data does show like these running backs in year one generally don't perform to the, the, the, the, pre-level injury performance, and year two is way better than year one. And so from where he's at, plus the data, like he has to fall past ADP for me to even be slightly interested. So largely it's a fade for me on J.K. Dobbins this year. Yeah, I think, I think that's sort of where I fall on Dobbins too. We know that this is probably, you know, if we look at this a year from now, I think we're going to say, yeah, that he was obviously a fade. I think the best case scenario for

jk daubbins is like you said we get to november we look up and like oh look at that jk daubbins finished his rb 15 this week right like i think that's sort of the the the bull case for for daubbins as he starts to look more like himself and finishes somewhere in that like rv 15 to 20 rule where range where you know it was nice to have him for some filling weeks but he didn't really necessarily change your season again him and jesus are working on some big things on the biggest stage so we never know that was his quote after uh you know while he dunked on on rap shit he said him and jesus are working on the biggest stage so you never know man things can can happen but you mentioned that data on on the first year back and we know that there's about a 17% dip in

running back fantasy football production in that first year back and daubbins is a freak athlete he does have high draft capital and we know that he obviously is going to get some volume but this situation just doesn't match with any of those other of that of that you know data that i just cited it just doesn't It doesn't add up. The math doesn't add up. So if you're taking J.K. Dobbins, don't, I just recommend blanket. Don't take him as your anchor. I would say don't even take him necessarily as your RB2. Take him with the idea that you want to hold on to him for November. And if you need something, then that's sort of where he's at. But again, like we don't, we play this. You sort of mentioned it before. We play this game to win. We don't play to come in second. We don't play to have a safe and balanced team. And I just don't think I don't see him Dobbins fitting in a lot of my rosters. So that that's, I think, I think, our takeaway so far. Yeah. Man, we've talked about a lot of guys so far. Let's reset, right?

So we got Stafford, Caffrey, Sequin, Zeke, Dalvin Acres. We're hitting on all these guys. The consensus so far on Stafford is maybe fade Stafford himself and give the tiebreaker to the not the Rams skill players. If you're looking at guys that are in similar range, Cooper Cup, right, give that to Justin Jefferson. If you're looking at, you know,

somebody like Mike Williams, Alan Robinson, obviously give a nod to Mike Williams, probably in most situations anyway. McCaffrey, there is some material risk, but I think it's being totally, totally overblown. Same thing with Sequin. Zeke isn't washed, but he probably isn't going to give you that much more upside. Dalvin, the floor is similar to Matthew Stafford's,

and Acres, we just don't see it happening for Acres or Dobbins this year, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their windows totally closed. We've got quarterbacks. We got a quarterback. We've got running backs. We're going to move on to receivers. So there actually aren't that many receivers that I necessarily want to talk about. I mean, I only listed two here.

We'll start with, I think, my guy who people are asking me in a lot of my drafts, why do you keep taking him? I'm being told that I'm being silenced by the mainstream media. Actually, that's like that. The mainstream media doesn't want me to talk about Chris Godwin. They don't want me to draft Chris Godwin, even though I'm drafting him as like my wide receiver four. You know, Big Pharma doesn't want me to mention that he's on probably 50% of my teams.

Tell me if I, are you going to continue to silence me about Chris? I have a bull case for Chris Godwin, but I want to get your takes first. Why am I being silenced on the biggest stages when it comes to Chris Godwin? Yes. So let's start out first by just kind of talking about where Chris Godwin is at right now. And he is not going to be 100% for week one. That is the reality. Is he going to be active?

Maybe. We're still got a couple weeks to figure that out. But from where he's at in his recovery, he is doing really, really well. Obviously, we're turning off PUP or avoiding PUP, I should say. but then not just out there, but out there starting to gradually ramp up his routes, not only the speed of which he's running, but also the severity of cutting and all those sort of things.

So he's progressing really well. It doesn't mean he's 100%, but for where he's at in his rehab, I think he's doing great. So you just need to understand if you're taking Chris Gobwin, again, kind of like most of these guys coming off the ACL, his best football is not going to be played in September, in my opinion. Doesn't mean he can't get there.

So if you're taking him as your RB or your wider receiver four, there's a really strong chance you have wide receiver two caliber play in November, December, and that could be a huge difference maker in fantasy. So I think it's just a matter of kind of how you look at what you want your early season outlook to be for your guys that you draft. If you can embrace some risk for the upside that is there late in the season, I love Chris Gobwin. He's attached to Tom Brady. They throw the crap out of the football.

You know, it's a great offense. Like there's a lot of reasons to be in. And I think, too, I just put out an article recently looking at, like, which archetype should we look at for wide receivers in year one off the ACL. And the data is showing if you're going to bet on any player coming off in ACL, it should be a wide receiver instead of running back blindly. Now, of course, we can be more nuanced than that. But the wide receiver data is more encouraging.

And specifically, the guys that are doing really well in year one are these players who can earn a high target share to mask some of their inefficiencies. Like, I'm not really in on the downfield threat type guys like Michael Gallup personally. If they can see a high target share to offset the volume or to offset the efficiency see concerns. And the other thing that kept popping up for my sample was guys that play a lot in the slot. And that probably just comes back to the volume, right? Like you play in the slot, you get a lot of layup targets, easy PPR points. Chris Godwin fits the bill on those fronts. So I think I'm pretty in on Chris Godwin at cost personally. But again, you just know that when you take him his best football

is not going to be played in September. Absolutely. And I think that's part of why we're being silenced when we discuss Chris Godwin is that people don't people don't want you to take a guy whose best football we played in November, December, because people don't play to win. People play to be average. And that is not something that they do on purpose. That's not them. We won't blame them. We will say, though, that if you get Chris Godwin, imagine this, right?

I'm going to read you off a roster that's, I want you to tell me what you think of this roster. We got Jalen Hurts the quarterback, Sequin a running back. We won't mention the RB2. It's not pretty. Okay. But then we have, we have A.J. Brown. And we have, let's see who, Mike Williams. right and now we're talking now we're talking that's right we got mike williams in that in that same

spot we gott um stephan digs and then down in the flex spot we got christ got if all of those dudes hit bets do you like that team or you not like that team in December oh man that sounds like a championship team to me it's a nuts team right so and that's the concept that i think that bets is sort of alluding to here is if you can manage to stay afloat not even stay afloat like if you can thrive without, you know, stay above a game, two games above 500, without Chris Godwin until October, mid-October, maybe November, then you've got a wide receiver one or two, a fringe wide receiver one in your freaking flex spot, guys.

Like, that's guys and girls, that's what we're looking for. That's why we play the game. So just some data here that you referred to before bets is since 2009, there have been seven wide receivers coming off of an ACL who achieved at least 95% of their pre-injury fantasy football production in their first year, The average NFL draft capital for them was 2.8.

The average age was 26. Their athleticism score, their spork score over at fantasy points.com, was a 56.5. If we're looking for outliers, right? And that's the point that I'm making. We're not looking for average when it comes to these breakouts. That's why it's intentionally a selection bias that we're making here to try to find characteristics that could potentially match what we're looking for when it comes to an outlier. When it comes to Chris Godwin, of course, his NFL draft. Capital round three. We know he probably should have been a little higher. His age, of course,

is 26. His sports score is 84.8. So he's an athletic freak taken in the high rounds of the NFL draft on an offense that is going to be probably firing on all cylinders. So again, if we're looking for outliers, if we're looking for guys that can provide us value in the later rounds of drafts, I think that Chris Godwin and your flex is just an absolute smash. So that's why I think the mainstream media continues to silence his bets, but we will not be compliant. Listen, we will continue to pump out the Chris Godwin propaganda, and we will have a championship team by the time. Look, if you're drafting this weekend,

like on Sleeper, for example, his ADP and half PPR is 6.04, same as PPR leagues. If you're getting Chris Godwin in the sixth round, that is, I'm in. You've taken him around four. The nuts. I'm probably out, right? So just be mindful of where you're taking him,

but if he falls to the late five, six, heck the seventh round like do not question it i'm drafting him absolutely that's definitely where i'm at this next guy man an anomaly an enigma any other synonym you can think of for strange odd peculiar nobody really knows what's like in all reality nobody really knows the specifics of what's gone on behind the scenes for the last two years with this guy even up until this last hamstring thing is it a hamstring thing is at a contract. We don't really know. Michael Thomas. I just, I'm just going to, I present to you Michael Thomas. You can set the stage however you'd like, because I, I don't know about this guy and I'm in and then I'm out, sort of like with Dobbins, I'm in and then I'm out.

But again, Michael Thomas, of course, hasn't played football in two years, has had two separate surgeries, allegedly one for a completely different injury that happened while he was rehabbing. We know that he's off the pup now, recently came up over the last week and now has some, quote, hamstring tightness. Where are we out with Michael Thomas? Are we drafting him? Where are we drafting him? What kind of upside can he even bring with this new offense that is sort of a mystery

to us as well now that he has a super talented teammate in Chris Olave and a good solid NFL wide receiver in his own right in Jarvis Landry? Where are we at with Michael Thomas? Yeah, he's the definition of an enigma because when he was on the field last time we saw him before injury, the dude was awesome. Like he was who you wanted in fantasy. He's who you wanted in round one. And so much has changed since then, right?

Like, not just the injury stuff, but you look at the overall offense. Like, Drew Breeze is gone. You have Chris Alave, who's, I think, one of the best rookie wide receivers in this class. Jarvis Landry is reliable. Alvin Kamara is going to get his out of the backfield. And, you know, Sean Payton is gone. So I think if you just talk about a player who missed a year and a half or whatever, just for, like, suspension.

And he came back to this offense based off what he was seeing before, I would still have major questions about that player. Now you throw in all the injury stuff associated with it. Not old, but 29 years old and the NFL isn't the youngest anymore. And there's more reasons, I think, to be questioning what his ceiling is than to be buying into the ceiling. It's kind of how I'm putting it. If he falls past ADP, I'm okay with taking Michael Thomas. I think from a health perspective, he's probably ramping up to a point where not considering the most hamstring issue,

but his ankle, like I think he's probably closely getting back to 100%. What is that anymore? Who the heck knows? That's the question. So I think I'm largely basing it off of the NFL, you know, football environment around him more than anything else. But again, just like if he finished his wide receiver 20 in PPR leagues, that would be great. I just don't think we're going to see the same Michael Thomas that we saw years ago just because of how much has changed over the last year and a half to two years. Yeah, and I think that's fair.

We're obviously not expecting him to have, you know, a wide receiver won overall finish anymore. And you mentioned his ADP, and this is a very similar conversation that we had with Godwin, except we are just expecting less upside, right? So depending on when Michael Thomas goes, and he's been slipping in drafts ever since this latest hamstring thing,

the same applies, though. If Chris Godwin is gone by the time you get to the sixth round, right, maybe the fifth sixth round, and you're thinking yourself, well, I mean, I want some upside. Like, maybe there's somebody that slipped, you know, who among these last receivers could potentially have a little bit of juice left that maybe could push me in the flex spot. And I think that is Michael Thomas.

Again, we're not expecting a top five finish, even a top 10 finish. Like if Michael Thomas, like you said, finishes is a top 20 wide receiver, then we're happy given his ADP. And I do think there's still some equity of athleticism there. Right. Again, you mentioned 29. 29, right? Deontair Hopkins is 30, right?

I mean, Julio Jones still out there. He's 32, 33. Adam Thielen, I think, is 32. So, I mean, he's got some. And Adam Thielen, by the way, coming off a very similar injury and similar surgery as Michael Thomas, I think, flying a little bit under the radar. and Michael Thomas is a few years younger. So I think there's still some juice left potentially. He obviously was looking great in camp based on all the reports. The steady drumbeat for him was that he was looking good before this hamstring thing. So I think he's got a little bit of juice left.

Again, I wouldn't reach for him. I would much prefer him as my wide receiver three flex with some potential for upside. But yeah, I'm not investing too heavily in Michael Thomas again unless he sort of falls to me at that specific position. Another guy that we're going to move on here to, and do you have any more wide receivers before I move on? Oh man. Dude, the list is like growing daily.

I feel like for injuries in training camp. But I think those are the two biggest ones. So when it comes to tight ends specifically, I try not to agonize over tight ends simply because you need a tight end, man. Like there's not a lot of guys at that. You know, it's a desolate wasteland. We know the landscape for tight ends is not great. So I try not to,

even this year, my injury tiers at fantasy point. com. I literally just did the seven tight ends and I said in the article, if one of these guys scares you, then you just, you just better punt at tight end, right? If you're in a spot where you can get one of these guys, but you don't want to, then just punt because this position, you can't be picky. We got Darren Waller. I tweeted this the other day that Darren Waller has been on the injury report over the last two years with a knee and or back issue 12 times. He's been on the report with that, right? That's a situation where I think we can safely assume this is a chronic issue the knee and or the back. And we know that he's had some form of strange situation,

hamstring, potentially again, contract related. So break down where you're at with Darren Waller. Like, is he a discount at any point? I mean, he's also getting up there in age. I think he's about 30 years old. He's got obviously obvious target competition in Devante Adams. And, you know, the old joke about Hunter Infro, but obviously Hunter Info is actually a solid wide receiver in his own right. You know, what is left for a guy like Darren Waller? And given in his specific profile, where are you at on him in terms of his ADP? Dude, Hunter Renfro, the goat. Okay, let's be real about that.

That guy's awesome. I think when you look at Darren Waller, you know, like, I'm getting more worried as each day passes. Like, the dude has practiced not hyperbole, literally once in training camp, one time. And I don't know if his contract. I don't know if he had the hamstring issue for two and a half weeks and then came back and retweeted it or what, but any player not practicing with their team, with the situation that's going on and you bring in someone who's going to command the targets

that Devante Adams will, not only in general, but around the goal line, you know, it's the tight end. You know, if you want upside, of course, Darren Waller has it more than who the heck, like who else, Colquamette or Orb Smith, obviously much higher upside. But he just goes in a range where I can't pull the trigger on him because of what has happened in camp and the addition of Devanta Adams. So, you know, he's a guy. that I think will be fine, but like, is he going to be a league winner for you at his ADP? I personally don't see that based off where he goes. Yeah, not at all.

It's not definitely not a league winner type of guy. If anything, again, this pushes him into the range of just like, well, you could definitely say to yourself, all tight ends are volatile, right? Once you get outside the top four, five guys, they're all volatile. You know, at least Waller could give you the occasional ceiling, but it's the change in mindset from he's going to be solid and I'll get some spike weeks to he's going to have some down weeks and maybe every now and then I'll get some spike weeks right that's just the difference in mentality of understanding a guy's range of outcomes and what the most likely median outcome is one

guy that we didn't talk about bets that I do want to touch on as we're rolling up on an hour here god I can't believe we talk so long one more guy I want to get your take on because I have a take on him I put it out on Twitter but I do want to know where you're at when it comes to the king Derek Henry, who I would never say this to his face because he would crush me like an absolute grape. I am not in on Derek Henry, although I understand, I understand, I understand the arguments for him and the bull case for him. Where are you at in terms of Hunter Henry? I'm not even going to, I'm not Hunter Henry. Jesus. Derek Henry, even more disrespectful. He's going to crush me like two grapes. So here's the deal. Where are you on Derek Henry? And I'm not even going to say from an injury

perspective. I'm going to say Derek Henry, performance, health, where are you at? Yeah, I mean, it's all relative, right? So when you think about him coming back from the drones fracture in the playoffs last year, clearly not close to 100%. But you have a full off season of training. And I do think from an overall, you know, week one perspective, I'm not going to change how I view Derek Henry for week one with the foot issue whatsoever. That does not factor in for me right now because we know three fracture rates start to dip as time goes by for sure.

Now, he does still have the hardware in his foot as far as I know, and there is a situation that can come up where as he gets more workload on it throughout the year, it gets aggravated and, you know, maybe has to have it removed. That's the absolute, I think, worst case scenario other than another fracture, of course. But that's kind of what could happen. That's more likely, in my opinion, to happen as the year goes on than week one. So if you're entering week one, you're playing DFS, like that kind of thing. I think Derek Henry still has weekly ceiling in his game.

That said, the archetype of Derek Henry scares the craft. out of me, not even because of his foot. Like, you just look at running backs who get to the age 27, age 28 cliff. And these are really talented running backs who don't just slowly decline, but literally fall off the face of the earth from a fantasy perspective if they don't have a skill set conducive to today's game. And Derek Henry is an outlier, yes, but he is not fit for today's PPR, throw the football to your running backs type of performance.

Largely I'm low on the Titans this year. You know, you lose AJ Brown. you bring in a rookie who's apparently struggling in Traylon Burks. And you have Derek Henry, who's now another year older as an earlier down grinder type of back. So I find myself passing on him, you know, like on sleep where he goes, I think a third pick overall in drafts. No question am I going to take him there on passing every time. So if you want him, you want to have fun with your season. You love Derek Henry.

I'm fine taking him. But there's just many more reasons to be out, I think, than in on Derek Henry at this stage of his career. I agree 100%. And here's the thing, right? Like I've not been a proponent of the too many miles, hashtag too many miles argument because a lot of times it's primarily narrative. And I'm not a big fan of it just because there's actually evidence to show that the more volume you see in a lifetime as a running back, the more durable you actually tend to be. Derek Henry is a guy that actually falls into that specific category. You know, seeing volume and being able to maintain it and handle it over a career is a plus.

It's not a minus, right? Like what you just mentioned in terms of the age cliff, that's more of a performance thing, right? it's typically not, oh, they all of a sudden snapped their humorous in half, right? Or they didn't, you know, all of a sudden just have an ankle amputated. Like that cliff is more so due to the aging process that it's unbelievable to say at 27, 28, 29, you know, young men are are just simply pushed to the bottom of the rung in terms of running back position because it's a young man's game, right? Like every split second, every inch counts. And so when you see those guys fall, it's not necessarily due to injury or miles or mileage or anything like that.

It is because of that aging process that you see that naturally happens. When it comes to Derek Henry in particular, the reason that I'm concerned is because he did have this specific foot fracture, this foot injury that, again, could be a problem in 2022, like you mentioned, could not be. But he does have hardware in his foot. But the root cause, right, if we look at this from an analytical perspective as clinicians, part of the reason, I think we can say confidently, at least part of the reason that that fracture happened was, especially if it was a stress reaction because of the pounding and the size of is just massive, the 6-3, 260-pound human, right? The volume that he's taken year after year after year, carry after carry, you know,

running dudes over, outrunning people, you know, planning, cutting, all that stress through that foot potentially led to a stress reaction. and eventually led to a fracture, right? So if there was ever a guy going back to the injury mileage thing or going back to the too many miles, hashtag too many miles argument, if there was ever a guy who will look back on in a year, two years, three years and say, yeah, by the time 2020 to hit, that guy had way too many miles on his body and he started breaking down. Like if there's ever a poster child that's going to exist, unfortunately because of the archetype that you mentioned with Derek Henry, I think it's going to be him, right?

He doesn't catch as many passes, although we did see him catch a few. more last year. His efficiency has been dropping for the last three years. And like you mentioned, that offense is just not good. This isn't me wishing poorly on Derek Henry. I hope he totally, you know, shoves it down my face hole and, you know, his RB1 overall again. But like, given the entire context of him as an individual, he's human, right? He showed that last year. And I would rather be a year too early out on him than I would be a year too late, especially if I'm investing big in him. I just can't get in on the big dog, man. So like, I just don't understand the sort of, the people who defend him as ardently as they have been.

I don't understand it. Like, if you were to say, all right, I'm going to take Derek Henry in my top, you know, the top five. And I know there's some risks there, but Yolo, right? Like, I understand that more than coming to his defense because I don't think there's really that much argument from an actual, you know, objective perspective. that he is a good bet and a safe bet. I would argue the opposite. And I think you're kind of, I think you kind of alluded to that too.

So that's where we're out there, Kennery. I forgot to bring him up earlier. Well, real quick, too, just to point that out, like along the same context of the NFL team, like his splits win loss.

When the Titans win, the dude averages 18.2 half ppr points per game. When they lose, it's 7.7. And it's because he's so game script dependent. So it's a terrifying investment for a team that the under on their 9 and a half, half wins is where the juice is in the market.

So people are telling us like they're probably not going to be that great. Maybe you get an eight win team, nine win team. And it just doesn't work out. So yeah, I'm pretty much out based off the fact that I don't think he'll see that many positive game scripts either. Yeah. That's that's not great. And great.

And another thing is, uh, I think we, we didn't mention Robert Woods. I think I'm generally just not. I don't think there's much upside there. Do you disagree? I think he'll be okay. Right. Yeah. It's just like, what are you going to get?

Like we know wider C. changing offenses, not even injured. Generally, we see a different performance. Another year older, ACL, changing teams. I think I'll be fine for like flex numbers this year, but I'm not super excited beyond that. Another guy that I'm sort of just, you know, hodgepodge throwing these names together now because I'm just now thinking of them. What do you make of the Michael Gallup situation? This can be the last guy. I know you got to get out of here. You're an actual dad and have to take care of real humans. What do you think of the Michael Gallup situation? He's, didn't start on pup although we know he's an entire month removed or i'm sorry he's an entire month

behind chris godwin at this point um which is interesting that he actually is is a whole month behind chris godwin did start on the pup his nine month mark which would be the safest time to bring him back would be in november so what do you make of that i think he is a player that they're ramping up and getting ready for to be out there i don't know week three you know that kind of scenario. Otherwise, you'd put him on PUP and miss the first four weeks. So that's at least encouraging. They're telling us that he probably is closer than not to getting on the field. But because of the fact that he's another month behind Godwin, and we already talked about like the archetype we generally want to be targeting, I think, for these

wider receivers in year one, is the high volume slot type of receivers, not these downfield playmakers. Generally, in my example, I looked at, they did not perform well. I have a tough time investing on Michael Gallup personally. Again, he could provide some weeks down the stretch where Dallas throws and he's out there on every play. Like, yeah, I could see it. But again, just, I think we're a long way away from that. Absolutely. All right, man, we covered a lot of ground on this one. I'm going to let you go, take care of your kids. I'm going to continue to be degenerate, do some research here. Where can people find you? What do you want to plug? Where are you at? How are you feeling and now is the second best injury analyst on the planet.

Yes, this was a tough pod for me. I wouldn't to hear that. But, you know, top two isn't bad. I'll take it. But, yeah, you can find me on Twitter at the Fantasy PT. All the stuff that I'm working on right now, for the most part, is in the ultimate draft kit, which you guys know where to find that.

And you can find me talking about injuries on the injury blitz pod, which is a Patreon show for the ballers. And then as well, I do the DFS podcast with Kyle for the brand. So it's almost DFS season, dude, and I'm freaking excited for that. that. DFS season. I check those prices out over at DK, by the way, and they're looking juicy, so I'm excited for that, too. It's DFS. Thanks again, Betz. I'm sorry to keep you long. This was a good episode. I think it's another banger. We'll see what the public has to say for

Matthew Betz, for me, your fantasy points. Thanks for tuning in. Let's know what you think. 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 fantasy points.com.