Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Take Talk Ep. 7

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) and Steven O'Rourke (@callmesteveo7) are joined by Chris Wecht (@ChrisWechtFF) to preview Week 3 NFL action. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. It's time for the Fantasy Points podcast, brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room, with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome into the Take Talk podcast. I'm your host, Brett Whitefield, with my usual co-host, Stephen O'Rourke. And today, as we are going to do on most Fridays, we have a very special guest. but today is a really, really, really, really special guest because he is one of our own.

His name is Chris Wecht. He's kind of the data mastermind here at the Fantasy Points Data Research. Chris and Steve, how are you guys doing? I'm doing good. I'm excited to be here. Finally get a chance to be on the pod out of the charting and data dungeon that you guys have been keeping me in. But yeah, excited. Excited to talk some football.

Yes, we tried to have them last Friday. and it just didn't work out because of scheduling. We were fortunate enough to get John the last minute, but now we have Chris. For those you who don't know, too, Chris is kind of like, at one point in time, I would say Chris was kind of my protege,

but his skill set has so far developed past anything I do that it's like, it's not even really that. We're more like partners at this point, and he's like the ying to my yang. So, yeah, Chris is a very special component to what we're doing here at Fantasy Points. Steve, how are you?

I'm doing well. Better now that that game last night is over and that we don't have to watch that match up. But yeah, super excited to have Chris here. On the flip side, I feel like I've become the protege under you two now. You two are the two-headed monster. And I just try and jockey between you two of getting as much advice information. and knowledge I can from you both. Heck yeah, man.

I mean, you've obviously been a tremendous addition to what we do. And it is kind of funny because you spend a lot of your time learning from me, especially in the charting and football world. And then you're also spending a lot of time learning from Chris and getting more in the back end type stuff, the real nerdy, nitty-gritty, nerdy stuff that you have to go to college for. Or at least you used to have to go to college for. So, yeah, it's really cool to see your development as well as far as that goes.

But yeah, that game last night was, it was awful. We'll get into that in a second. But when I was watching that game, I couldn't stomach it. And so what I ended up doing was kind of putting it on mute and turning on the TV and watching TV. And I went to my old faithful, which is friends. and I watched a few episodes of Friends while I had the game on in the background. I figured, you know what?

I'm going to have to chart every play in this game five different ways tomorrow. I'd rather not have to watch this game voluntarily right now. So this got me to thinking, guys, what is your go-to TV show? If you need a moment, if you're trying to fall asleep, or you're trying to kill time,

or you're just like, you know what? I'm really in the mood to watch TV. What are you guys putting on? Because Friends is number one all-time for me, bar none. But I'm really curious what you guys do. So I think Brett, we've talked about this for. I'm also a big sitcom guy.

For me, the show that usually puts me to sleep pretty much every night, I just throw it on, you know, after whether I've just spent all night charting and I just need something to, you know, erase all the thoughts going into my head and I just fall asleep. Turn your brain off. Yeah, exactly. King of Queens is that show for me. I think it's one of the most underrated sitcoms out there. I think it got overshadowed by friends.

and Seinfeld and and then and everyone loves Raymond was yeah yeah yeah there was there was you know the peak sitcom days of those early to late 90s early 2000s into the early 2000s that was that I think Kevin James is one of the funniest guys out there his comedy is great um but yeah I've always loved that show that's a great call King of Queens was like I mean I watched a ton of that as a kid and it's even it's on like TBS I think like every after afternoon at like two, three o'clock or something, right after Friends is done. And then there's definitely moments where I'll pop that on and enjoy it. It is pretty hysterical.

I think the later seasons is kind of what gave it a bad rap. It kind of wasn't as funny as the early seasons. It's probably got one of the worst endings to a TV show that I've seen out there. But those middle seasons are like pure, pure gold in my mind. Absolutely. Man, that's a show I haven't heard of in a long time. because I like still can remember the TBS lineup post my dad getting home from work because that was always his ritual getting home was he'd sit and watch TV before dinner and it was always like everybody loves Raymond friends king of queens I think Seinfeld was before everybody loves Raymond or somewhere mixed in there so that's that's actually pretty funny um mine is mine kind of depends on if my wife is there with me or not um if my wife is sitting there will kind of cycle between new girl um the office gets thrown in there

parks and rec will get thrown in there and then um lately it's been a how i met your mother kick if it's just me though i i usually just throw on family guy just because it's just such a cheap easy laugh and it is just like it's just so easy it's so easy to just completely wipe my brain clean of any thoughts and so that's where that's general like i'll usually for my like for my own i'll usually go to just some cheap uh animation show just because i'll like all the sitcom all the sitcom stuff i get i watch it with my wife but yeah Family guys usually my go to where I'll just throw on a couple episodes of that. Shut it off for an hour and then I'm good.

Well, worth noting there, none of us pick the show like, you know, Sopranos. You know, we're not trying to calm down to the Sopranos or something or Game of Thrones. It's all, it was all sitcoms or something funny for us. If you're turning your brain off to a show to like a drama, thriller show like that, I mean, I don't know if it's, like, good for you or I'm worried for you because that's, like, so much more cerebral than I could ever even, like, handle. Yeah, when I put on those type of shows before bed, I say, oh, just watch, you know, one episode. Next thing I know, I'm up for hours because I've either continued watching the show or now I'm wide awake and I need to watch something else to put me to sleep again. Yes.

It's tough, too, because, like, we're in the TV era. where like there's so many good TV shows out there. I mean, just in the last month, you've had Game of Thrones come out, Lord of the Rings, this new Star Wars show Andor, which I quickly watched the first three episodes as soon as I could. It's just constant, constant release of just crazy good TV content. So in this football season, too, we don't get a lot of opportunities to watch TV, obviously. So sometimes, you know, in those moments where you're feeling sleepy, you do try to, like get through it but it is it is very difficult because it doesn't exactly help you on the

relaxation front that's why the fall is the best season bar none because you get football you get this like end of baseball start of other sports and then like generally it feels like every tv network and all that are releasing a lot of their like blockbuster shows like i think I think I was watching Game of Thrones the other night and they're coming out with like a new season of White Lotus. Handmaid's Tale just got released. Like it's just all the best shows come out at the same time. It's like honestly almost overwhelming to the point where like a lot of times I like in my free time. If it's not me winding down, I'm like I want to catch up on one of these shows.

But then there's so many shows that I need to watch that I just completely panic. And then I end up watching Family Guy because I'm like, well, I can't focus on this right now. And I just completely shut down decision making goes out the window and I just go back to back to the well. That is hilarious. So things that, you know, last night there was a game that was played. We already mentioned it. It was not as good as family guy. It was not as good as friends.

And it was definitely not as good as King of Queens. And that game was the Pittsburgh Steelers. taking on the Cleveland Browns. The Browns defeated the Steelers, 29 to 17 in a game that was just really, really meh. Which you knew, right? No, I don't think anyone went into Thursday night excited about the way that game would look.

You had Mitchell Tribisky taking on Jacoby Brissette, a QB matchup of the decade right there. It looked like for a minute there, we were going to get a little bit of a, a little bit of a shootout possibly, and then it all, yeah, Trubisky, traviskeyed and basically did nothing in the entire second half. Yeah, Pittsburgh, what?

They score three points a second half, or was it even less? Yeah, three points in a second half. I think they did get a field goal in the second half, yeah. Yeah, bizarre. I mean, even, it did look like maybe it would be a closer game too, and then it kind of just got away from the Steelers. Just to sum up this game perfectly, too, the last drive where the Browns, you know,

took the commanding lead. They went up 23, 14. Did you guys actually watch that drive? This is so perfect of a crappy Thursday night game. I'm going to go play by play on this drive real quick. So they get the ball with the minute left in the third quarter. And this is how the drive goes. Nick Chubb carry for five yards.

Nick Chubb carry for four yards. And then Jacoby Brissette, play action, deep pass. So Mari Cooper for 32 yards. Great play. Cooper was wide open. And then Nick Chubb for 16 yards. Kareem Hunt for eight yards. Kareem Hunt for one yard. Jacoby Brissette, QB Power, six yards.

Kareem Hunt, five yards. Kareem Hunt, two yards. Kareem Hunt, no gain. Nick Chubb, one yard touchdown. Freaking 12 runs. 12 runs and one pass. Perfect epitome of what this game was going to be, and they nailed it all in one drive.

Steelers couldn't recover. Browns take home the victory. Yeah, just a mass man. Nick Chub looks good, though. as he always does as he always does it's the best pure runner in football it's not never exciting

but it's just it's just like a known fact every year yeah you can see the difference between him and kareem hunt when they get in the game cream hunt is still good but like

there were a couple runs where kareem hunt got stopped short and I'm like ah chub would have probably gotten four yards chub would have gotten back to the line of scrimmage but yeah it was just

like I think It was probably one of the lower passing play games so far this season. I want to say there was maybe like 64, 65. I think 71 total dropbacks, I think, including sacks and scrambles. Yeah, it's on the lower side then. Still a lot of plays, though, somehow. It always is. It's always those games that end up with more plays.

I don't know how, but it always happens. but there was one exciting moment that George Pickens sketch was. Yeah. Something else. Yeah, we probably don't see another, a better catch this season. Probably not. No. I mean, probably not a better catch this decade.

I don't know. Like, that's ridiculous. That was every bit as good as OBJ. I was going to say, how long ago was that now? That was, what, 2014? Yeah, yeah. Every eight years or so? Yeah, every eight years.

So, I mean, honestly, it might not be another decade. until we see something like that. It was such a good catch, too. I mean, it basically was the OBJ catch, except this time, instead of jumping kind of straight up and back, Pickens was fully Superman parallel to the ground, flying through the air, to snag that with one hand. It was pretty ridiculous. We knew he could do this stuff, too.

This is what he did in Georgia. This is, I mean, just that catch alone showing his athleticism just shows that Trubisky is not the answer in that offense. He never was. I don't think I'd be hard pressed to believe that anybody believed that he was going to be, but it's very evident after three games that he just isn't it. I just won. It seems like now everybody is going to be hammering Tomlin for when Pickett is going to play. Because right now this team is belining toward a top 10 draft pick for the first time it i think in tomlin's career yeah he's he like always finishes above 500 he's got that crazy stat i forget the exact number so if i if i set the over under at

remaining games that tribisky starts at three and a half you're taking the over or the under i'm taking the over really yeah this is yeah this is tough for me chris because i didn't think Pickett was a very good prospect. Right. And my gut tells me if Pickett looked different in practice than he did his entire college career, he'd already be starting. And Tomlin wouldn't be so defensive after the game about not making a quarterback change.

Yeah. They've got a pretty rough upcoming schedule too. I think it's like they play the Bucks, the Eagles, the Saints. Miami, I think is in there as well. so not exactly games you would want to throw your rookie QB into. Right. And it's kind of interesting because, like, I'm not really sure Pickett even does anything better than Trubisky, even though they're both bad.

Like, Trubisky is not good. But, like, we're talking about, was I talking about with you, Chris, where it's like, George Pickens is basically running the Chase Claypool route tree from last year, where it's like, everything is deep. and they don't have a quarterback to get him the ball consistently out there. So even if Pickens looks great and he's playing good and I'm not even saying he has. I know we do separation charting and he hasn't been awesome and he's, I think Chris you said,

he's kind of jogging some of his routes. But if you're running 30 deep routes a game and not getting the ball, you're probably not going to take it very seriously either. Right. But point being, I don't know that Pickett really helps with that. I don't picket like pushing the ball downfield outside the numbers is not a thing he does well. Right. No, I'm not.

I definitely don't think that Pickett is necessarily a better option, but I do think there is something, because they have plenty of weapons for him to grow with. And at some point, I think whether he's good or bad, just getting the experience, getting the reps with these guys in a real game environment is going to be better for your team long term than him sitting on the sideline just because he's not ready. Yeah, I 100% agree with that. They do need to find out what they have, especially because like you mentioned, they're probably going to be picking pretty high. And you want to know if you're sitting on the clock and you're looking

at a, I mean, we don't really know who will be the cream of the crop at this point. But if you're looking at a Bryce Young or a CJ Stroud or a Will Levis, like you got, you need to know if I need to take that guy right now. Right. And so they got to find out. And I'd rather find, I'd rather get as much data in film as possible on the guy. The thing, the concerning part is like, Tomlin's never been in the situation where he's staring down the barrel of a bad, bad season. Right. And they for sure are. So does he have the wherewithal to realize that this season isn't going to go well

and we need to find out what we have? Or is he going to keep trying to win and, you know, sneak? Maybe they could sneak to seven and nine or whatever it is now. Yeah, they can make the playoffs. They did it last year with basically the same situation. Like, they can, if they can keep, you know, stay around 500 and T.J. walk comes back at some point then you know they could be a fc's tough man i don't think i don't think they have a shot to make the playoffs personally but well we would have said that last year though too

well the afc just got a lot tougher as all i guess so i don't know though there's and i think i think i'm probably going to talk about it there's a lot of teams in the afc that kind of are underperforming as well that's true one of them in their division for sure yeah um yeah that's good point i mean Oh, it's tough because I'd love to see this array of weapons get used properly, you know? Like, even dropping a guy like Ryan Tannahill on this team right now makes them how good. And Tanahill's just mid, you know? I mean, it makes a team. Right.

I mean, just a guy who's competent getting the ball to all these weapons. There's really no reason this offense should be struggling. Yeah, they could probably be 3 and 0 with Tana Hill right now, or at least two and one. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Anything else on this game? I mean, we don't need to spend a ton of time here. I just wanted to, really just wanted to touch on that going forward because it's inevitably going to be a talking point starting probably today and for sure next week.

Yeah, for sure. All right, let's move on. So we're going to kind of do the week three preview a little different this week. what we're going to do is we are going to talk about through two weeks guys who have performed better than we thought they would and guys or teams or players or situations that have underperformed and we'll use that to kind of segue into what they're looking at this week. So I know there's been a plethora of players that have stood out from an overperforming standpoint. I shouldn't say overperforming, but performing at a higher level than maybe we assumed they would, especially because of some of the scrutiny, some of them have gone under.

And then there's been, for sure, a few teams that have way underperformed. But with that said, throw a couple guys that we should talk about that have overperformed so far. Chris, I know you have a couple. Steve, you have a couple. Go ahead, throw one up. Yeah, I'll kick things off. So when you said this is what you wanted to talk about and I started looking around, I didn't really expect this to jump out to me.

but I was looking through some receiving numbers and whatnot. And I noticed, and the film kind of matches this, the Washington commanders receivers all have massively outperformed what I thought they would be at this point in the season, or really just ever during the season. Curtis Samuel, Terry McLaren, and Jahan Dotson all playing very well. Dotson, you could make a case, looks like maybe not the best rookie, but certainly in the top three with Garrett Will's.

and Drake London at this point. He looks awesome. Yeah, he looks great. Curtis Samuel is their, shockingly, somehow their wide receiver won. He's got a 23.5% target share, the same number for first reshare. Those are both like top 10 numbers in the league. McLaren's leading the NFL in mistackles per reception at 0.5. Samuel is not far behind him at 0.33, also top 6 in the league.

These guys are making plays for this offense. And so naturally, then, when I was looking at them being his overpower, I thought, oh, well, Wents must be playing much better than they thought. But he's not. He's his accuracy, his throne ball accuracy percentage is 43.7. That's 27th in the league. His off-target throw percentage is 23.8. That's eighth in the league.

So these guys are, these guys are making Wence into very, very, functional quarterback, which is kind of always been Wenz's M.O. He kind of, even when he was with the Eagles, like that MVP year, that's when the Eagles brought in Alshan Jeffrey, Tori Smith was a pretty good deep threat in the NFL still at that point. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of people joked on the commanders for bringing in Wence, but they, while I still think it's probably going to blow up at some point because that's just kind of what Wince does, but they've certainly put him, given him options that he needs to be the best he can be. And these guys are kind of a force to be reckoned with in terms of receiving talent right now in the NFL.

Yeah, they're balling. And these guys are going to end up possibly making me look really bad because I don't know if you remember a few pods ago. I talked about Coach Mucci's take that Carson Wentz would have over 48 hundred passing guards. Carson Wentz is currently on pace for 5,500 passing yards, guys. And a lot of it has to do with these receivers. I meant to mention that last week of like, Mooch's take check-in. And Wentz's had over 300 yards of both games so far. And not only that, like, we've talked a great detail about how we would like to see Lamar Jackson

supported in Baltimore versus how Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts have been supported in Buffalo in Philadelphia. It's like Washington is doing it. They're doing, they're, you know, implementing the model, getting guys who can separate, make that inaccurate quarterback more accurate by proxy just because the margin of error is so, so much reduced when you have guys open. So, I mean, I dig it, man. These guys are definitely balling out. I think the craziest part to me, too, is if you would have told me, Chris, like, hey, Curtis Samuel and Johan Dodson are going to be very productive to start the season, you would think it comes at the expense of Terry McCorn, right? Or you would think if, you know, pretty much I would assume that not,

maybe only one of them could sustain production in a Carson-Wensled offense, and all three of them are kind of producing. And you know what, Gibson and Thomas haven't been bad either. They've chipped in. I think they both had 40 yards in each game. I mean, it's kind of nuts what they're doing. Yeah, it seems, I mean, they're the definition of overperformers. Like, I can't see this keeping up.

I mean, Samuel could, you know, pull a hammy any day because that's just what he does. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, like, I said, like those, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, these guys are making plays for him and eventually that's probably going to catch up with them. But, yes, they're, in terms of putting up numbers, they're, they're, they're definitely massively overperforming and, and, and, and, you know, I know, I know, I wasn't, drafting many commanders in my fantasy leagues and whatnot. So that's not been great so far. But yeah, they've been impressive. At least whether it's Wentz in the future or not, they've definitely got a core group of guys there that a quarterback can thrive with.

For sure. Yeah, absolutely. To be fair, too, on the fantasy front, realistically, these guys have all put up touchdowns. It's like that's not going to sustain. Like, Wenz isn't going to throw four touchdowns in every game. Right. So I do think, like, yardage-wise. they haven't really done a ton.

So there's a chance that kind of levels out and maybe one of these guys rises to like, you know, super fantasy relevant while the other guys are more, you know, flex plays or, or bi-week replacement type guys. But yeah, looking forward, I mean, they got the Eagles this week, huge divisional matchup. We've talked, Steve and I have talked a ton about Jalen Hertz

in this Eagles offense. We don't want to go crazy into detail about that again. But it is a big game because this is, another big test for Hertz. Wentz's first game versus the Eagles since he's left. Oh, geez, it is, isn't it? Oh, wow. That's right.

Unfortunately not in Philly. I'm sure that would have, that, that games later in the season. I'm sure that will be a very interesting environment to be in. Carson Wentz revenge game. That's huge. Man. That's a really big deal. It's his first real big test as far as playing a defense and especially a secondary

this year. True. Hall of Famer or future Hall of Famer Darius Slay. Yeah, things could go off the wagons quick. We know Wentz is not a guy that when things are not going great, that he suddenly starts performing even better than what he was doing. And it was teetering last week. There were, I mean, he threw one pick.

He could have thrown three. Oh, yeah. Like, he could have thrown three to four. there it was just that like Tracy Walker dropped the perfect pass to him down the middle of the field deep um you would have never even known that it was intended for a Washington receiver and then like he did he had one of his classic like in the grasp of the arms of a defender oh crap I'm gonna get it out quick I see a guy and almost threw it right to Malcolm Rodriguez so like you can feet like it's still like it felt a lot more unstable last week compared to the week before so it just

feels like the progression of cars and wents is just it's it's coming it's just a matter of when not if didn't he throw a bunch of picks week one or am i tripping uh that was jackson hill right yeah i think he threw two yeah okay he did throw two okay yeah yeah you know what on the flip side too. Harts, this is really his first, I would say, good defense outing. You know, I think the Washington, while they've probably disappointed compared to what everyone thought they would be, you know, this probably the best defense hurts has played so far. So between Detroit, Detroit doesn't have a great defense in Minnesota, certainly doesn't have a great defense either. So this is really going to be Hertz's first test as well.

So kind of, it's kind of a sneaky, cool game from that standpoint. A lot of fantasy implications, too, if you're into that. I mean, shoot, there's a lot at stake here. The Washington secondary has not been good, but they do have a ton of talent on that D-line. Yes. So which so far we've seen Hertz escaping from the pocket and whatnot has not been an issue for him whatsoever. So could be another game where you see Hertz scrambling and running around. It'd be interesting to see if they try to counter that anyway because the first,

the Lions and Vikings really didn't seem to have an answer for that. ever really seemed to implement anything that would try to prevent that in a big way. So for sure. Washington does try something different. Yep. So get back to our overperformers and underperformers. Steve, why don't you go ahead and throw out a name? First one for me is Trevor Lawrence.

Trevor Lawrence has, I wouldn't, it's more so, I would, it's more so of it happening faster than I thought. I thought he was going to I thought it was going to develop this year. I thought it was for sure coming this year with Peterson at the helm. Much more stability. The weapons are not that much better, but, I mean, he has Christian Kirk,

who has also been a beneficiary of Trevor Lawrence playing well. But, I mean, Trevor Lawrence stands out in, like, the top 10 to 13 of every stat. I mean, he's top six in adjusted completion percentage. He's top 13 in yards per attempt. He's top 13 in average depth of target. He looks so, he's made some great throws. He just looks way more comfortable this year.

And I think Christian Kirk helps that. I think having an actual weapon who can. catch passes and can win and separate helps that. But even then, like, he's targeting, he's still targeting a guy like Marvin Jones, who has to be near the twilight of his career here. Like, it's coming soon for him. And, but still, Trevor Lawrence is helping him to separate by putting balls in positions that Marvin Jones wins.

and that's like contested catches, you know, high point balls. It's been impressive for Trevor Lawrence. And he's played two. I mean, we talked about the Washington defense. He played decently well, week one, I think left a little bit to be desired, picked it up last week against Indy and looked a lot more, like even more so in command of the indie game. And I think that that's without him really developing a huge chemistry that we thought

with ETN right out of the bat. I think ETN has underperformed, unfortunately, so far from what we expected as far as, like, receiving talent, running the ball. And I think that obviously, you know, taking a year offer and injury will do that to you. But if he starts to come into play where they're utilizing him more in the passing game and in more nuanced route packages that I think that they want to get him into. I mean, I think Trevor Lawrence can keep climbing. And I think that this is just a beginning for him this year.

And they're in a really like a bad division. Indies played like, Indies played terrible. Tennessee looks. They look dead. Tennessee looks dead. Houston's an absolute non-factor. I mean,

he has the opportunity to lead Jacksonville through a division title and potentially a playoff berth. Yeah, that's great. So things that stick out to me about Lawrence. Well, first of all, full disclosure, Christian Kirk was one of my overperformers or I would say surprises, early season surprises this year. So they go hand in hand. But Trevor Lawrence, top seven and adjusted completion percentage, 81.5. He's taking, I would say he's taking less risk, but he's still pushing the ball downfield.

Yeah. He's taking really good care of the ball. And he hasn't sacrificed a ton of A-DOT. Right. And he's still being efficient despite not sacrificing that ATA. Which is really, that's a really good sign to his progression is that like he's, he's still throwing the ball downfield, but he's still being accurate, taking care of the football. I know, I think he ranks third in completion percentage over expected.

That's really a testament to how much more accurate he's throwing the football this year. So I definitely think it's sustainable. And the way they're using Christian Kirk, too. So Lawrence has a passer rating when he's targeting Christian Curr, of almost 130. That's really, really good efficiency. And they're using Kirk a variety of ways. I know he lines up mostly in the slot, but they're doing some really cool things with him in the slot to kind of get him a lot of uncovered looks. He's already a good route runner. But, you know, when they're getting those heavy man looks, they kind of break it up with, you know, with some

bunches and some type formations to kind of get them those free releases. And it's worked out really, really well for them. I think both these guys are on the rise. I know in the fantasy community, a lot of people have been calling Christian Kirk a league winner. I've kind of bought in. I know it's only two weeks, but he looks the part and maybe that contract is like going to look

so crazy in a couple years. Shocking that Cliff Kingsbury couldn't figure out that Christian Kirk could be more than just a deep threat running deep vertical routes every single play and actually not just put him in the slot and let him do what he's been doing in Jacksonville. Well, Chris, anything

time you can throw a five-yard contested catch out to DeAndre Hopkins, you have to. Yes. From left-wide receiver. Someone has to pull the coverage away and run deep down the field from that throw. Otherwise, it would never work. Right, because you could, like, if you pull coverage away and it's still contested, it doesn't matter, you know, it's DeAndre Hopkins. We'll just force it in there.

It is going to be funny to see that offense when he comes back. But, yeah, I mean, it is, like, it is. is an indictment on Cliff, to your point. Like, Christian Kirk is a weapon. I mean, he was a really good college player, too. We kind of knew what his skill set was, and Arizona never really got the most out of that. They tried to force him into being a deep threat in a lot of ways. And he can do some of those things, but what we're seeing Jacksonville do is like, hey,

we'll use the other guys as deep threats, and you're going to be everything else. You're going to be the short and intermediate over the middle of the field. You're going to run that speed out against soft coverage. Like, you're going to sit down in zones and take advantage of that. We're going to manufacture touches to you. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I love all of it.

It's a great way to use the guy. Doug Peterson deserves a lot of credit as well. I mean, this is what he thrives in. Young QB, he's good at getting scheming stuff open for guys. His time in Philly ended probably shorter than everybody thought it would, but it probably needed a change of scenery in the end. But yeah, he seems to be. On the right track of giving Jacksonville probably some of the most hope we've seen since

that miracle Blake Bortle's year all those years ago. I love that team. But yeah, like it's a testament to, like you said, Peterson, it's a testament to Christian Kirk and Trevor Lawrence because that was the question coming in this year was, how are they paying this guy that much money when all he does is run deep routes? like Christian, like, how are you, like, how are you going to make him worth that contract? And they're showing that they, they know how to do that. And they had a plan for it.

And there's a reason. I mean, again, that's the community. They had a plan for it. It might be the best value contract of the entire offseason right now. And that is probably, I mean, is there, I think about it in terms of what, I know he's still got paid a lot, but in terms of on-field production. And I can't think of. of another one off the top of my head that this off season.

AJ, I mean, AJ Brown has been great for the Eagles, but he also got, Mike Williams was my favorite deal of the off season, but. But I'd say Kirk's outperforming that, you know, like,

on field performance per dollar. He's, he's beating Mike Williams. He's beating A.J. Brown. He's beating. Tyreek didn't, did Tyree get a new contract from Miami?

Yes. Yes. So Tyreek might be still better so far. but Tyreek also was supposed to be better. Yes. And I mean, honestly, hopefully, or I really, it's a better deal than Devante Adams right now. Yeah. As much as cars.

I don't know if that's crazy. It's only two weeks. Right. It is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I do see your point though, Chris. When the contract happened, we scrutinized it heavy.

Like, it's been a running joke, honestly, ever since they signed the contract. And now after the Adams contract, after the Hill. contract. We saw AJ Brown got. We know what Debo got. We're going to about to see what Jefferson's going to get. I mean, yeah, to your point, yeah. Maybe, maybe this ends up looking like a value when it's all sudden done. And maybe the Mike Williams and the Christian Kirk deal were actually pretty smart in hindsight. I mean, shoot, Christian Kurt's making less than Kenny Gallauda, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken. So I think he's beating that value of that contract. Yeah. It can't be that bad. I mean, geez.

I think there are going to be a lot of free agent and, like, re-signing receivers that are going to have to go and thank Christian Kirk for performing the way he performs this year. Because we were, because we legitimately, like we said, we went from in the off season saying, oh, my gosh, Christian Kirk just screwed the receiver market. Everybody's screwed now. Only the big guys will get contracts. Everybody's looking at that contract. And then there's the potential that we walk away from it. at the end of this year and say, well, no, actually, that was a good deal. And they probably could have paid him more.

Yep. Well, cool. I'm going to throw out one now. I'm going to throw out a guy. He kind of plays similarly to Christian Kirk. And that's Amon Rae St. Brown, the sun god from Detroit. Now, is he overperforming based on expectations? I think he actually is because especially in the fantasy community, but I also saw this in the NFL circle as well, NFL Twitter circle.

there were a lot of people really questioning his production down the stretch last year and calling it fraudulent because Hawkinson wasn't in the lineup. DeAndre Swift wasn't in the lineup. They had relatively low talent at wide receiver. There were a lot of people who didn't think he would sustain the production he is and he's going on NFL record games in a row with eight catches or more. Jared Goff, who, you know, no secret. He's not a world beating quarterback. He's a mid-tier guy at best, maybe lower mid-tier at that. His quarterback rating when targeting St. Brown this year is over 130.

Wow. It's insane. And the way they're using it, he is the passing offense. Every pass concept they call, everything they scheme, it goes through St. Brown. It doesn't go through Hawkinson. It doesn't go through Josh Reynolds or DJ Chark. Like St. Brown is the guy.

He is the number one weapon. And they are treating him like that. He's getting screenpacks. He's getting deep ball scheme to him. He's getting middle of the field shots. He's really tearing up the intermediate part of the field this year, which I think is a progression from what we saw last year. Last year he did most of his damage in the short parts of the field and then caught an

occasional deep ball. This year, he's really, really doing well in the intermediate part of the field. I mean, he caught like an 18-yard touchdown Sunday. He had another dig route that, you know, got open mostly because of scheme, but it was still you know, they were running the play to him and golf found him over the middle. He looks awesome. He looks like the guy. I'm excited to see what he looks like when James and Williams is in the lineup because that's, you know, that puts Reynolds down to wider receiver four.

And they have tons of speed on the edge with Chark and, you know, Jameson Williams. It's going to give St. Brown even more space. And I'm really saying there isn't anything right now St. St. Brown can't do. He's beating man coverage. He's beating zone. He's winning at the catch point when asked to. as we saw on Sunday in the one touchdown.

He's running the screen game. I love what I see so far. If you swapped Amunrah St. Brown and Cooper Cup on the teams that the Rams and the Lions, would we be talking about Cooper Cup, or I mean, Amund Ra St. Brown, the same way we talk about Cooper Cup as like the best wide receiver in the NFL right now. I know the offenses aren't run the same, but in terms of being the focal point of an offense, I think Scott Barrett tweeted a few days.

ago that if you take like the last nine games going back to 2021 for st brown he he's like only behind cooper cup and fantasy points per game yeah they're they're one and two and they have they're they are this year too right like or yeah it's the last nine games that's what it was yeah yeah i mean i do see that i mean they're very similar players in the in the way they're used their skill sets cooper cups got a little bit more length and heights to him than st brown st brown's a little more compact but I mean shoot they're deployed similarly. I really do wonder if the usage would be almost identical

if St. Brown was in L.A. right now. Yeah, it's crazy to think about that he and still even with him doing this I know a lot of people have hopped on the bandwagon at this point but there's like like if you were starting a fantasy draft today where does he go? He still probably goes behind Cup Adams Diggs

probably a j brown tyriek Tyree kill AJ Brown I mean yeah but he probably should go right after Cup and that's it it is crazy

how low the fantasy community was on him despite the way he ended last year like I think fantasy points we were the highest Scott Barrett specifically was the highest on St. Brown and anyone I can recall

in the industry at least top companies and I think Scott had him as wide receiver 19 maybe. I know it was like that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and we were the highest. And I don't understand it.

When you see the way he ended the season, like it, he should have been, he should have been much higher than that. Well, when Jared Gough's your QB, that'll pull you down a little bit. Even though Goff has proven he can very easily support this type of production. Yeah, I mean, he, what is MVP here, he had, um, Cooks and Woods were both, you know, I think Cooks is a wide receiver. one that year Woods was a high-end wide receiver two cup was young and when cup played he was very relevant as well he only had five or six hundred yards that season but yeah very relevant so yeah i mean

his tar like his target share is top three he's only behind cup and uh j brown his like he's right he's ahead of cup and as far as targets per route run like he's a baller like he's a baller and i think that it was overblown the whole like how is he going to get the ball there's too many like now there's these guys who are better than him which i mean i'm not going to get it i'm not going he was not a player i'm going to talk about and i don't want to like talk about it because it's been just truly bad is like hockinson is like hockinson is completely underperformed compared to how he was supposed to perform this year. But even if Hockinson was performing at a level that we wanted him to,

I still think that Amin Rost St. Brown is ahead of him in the focal point of the offense because of how many things are at, like how many ways they can deploy him. I mean, they're like, they are doing the whole thing where they, they, Ben Johnson puts him in motion all the time. Yep. And it like, they use it. They used it last game. That was how they broke the run. Like, it's a combination of smart scheming and a player that can just win routes and win, like, any type of routes.

Like, he's, I mean, he's winning against nickelbacks. He's winning against number one, number two cornerbacks. Like, he's doing it against everyone. It's not, it's no longer a fluke, that's for sure. And it doesn't matter who's available to that offense. He's still going to get his because he's, he's that type of player. And they haven't even got into the packages with him where he's in the backfield playing running back. Right.

So a lot of the stuff Miami does with Tyreek back there, they do with Amon Ra too. We saw this at the end of last year. Amon Ra had a bunch of snaps at running back, a couple of catches. I think he had a rushing touchdown even in a game. Against Seattle. We saw it in training camp, Steve. You and I were there. They had those packages for St. Brown then.

Campbell alluded to it this week actually like, man, he's playing great. And we haven't even got to all the fun stuff yet that we're going to do it. with him, which is super cool to hear. Yeah. So that's coming. When they need it, that will come. Not that I necessarily want, you know, St. Brown taking on like a Debo role where he's running the ball a lot, but it is fun to get him

involved in that way and get some different looks and hopefully generate some mismatches for other players on the team because of what he brings to the table. So absolutely. Looking ahead this week to get Minnesota on the road, their first road game, the line team has looked pretty good so far, especially offensively. Minnesota's defense has been kind of meh. They played good against Packers and then got trucked by the Eagles. So I'm kind of expecting more of the same from St. Brown and this lion's offense this week. I think the big question in that game is can the Detroit Lions defense stop Minnesota enough times to get away

with a dub? This could be another high scoring game for Detroit. For sure. Jefferson and Thielen have both historically nuked Detroit. So. And their pass rush has historically broken Detroit's offense. Yeah, that was before they brought in lame duck Zedaria Smith, though. So subtraction. Subtraction by addition. Yeah, exactly.

I can't see him beating Taylor Decker many times one-on-one. We'll see, though. Did he'll hunter, though, phenomenal player. I mean, him in Penae is as good of a trench matchup as you'll get this week. Yeah. Chris, any thoughts on St. Brown or this Lions team? No, I think you pretty much covered everything else. I do.

I'll be interested to see what the Lions do with Jeff Akuta, and if they have him shadow at all with Jefferson. I know they haven't done it a ton this year. They did it a little bit last week with McLaurin. I think Akuta's looked very good. I know in week one he stood out to me because he seemed to end up across from Devonta Smith a lot. And DeVant Smith's seen as a very good route runner. and could not get any separation.

Like so bad to the point where when I was watching it, I was concerned that Smith might have taken a step back in his trajectory. And he had a good week two against Minnesota, so I don't think of that. I really think Okuda could end up being one of those corners that actually can really limit, if not totally take away teams, tops, wide receivers one day. For sure.

And he really excels with that archetype too, the Jefferson, Devante Smith, those really fast-twitch route runners. Like, that's what they drafted him to do, was a takeaway of those guys. At the line of scrimmage, he's not the most physical corner. That's why you saw the lines opt to go with Amane or Rarii against A.J. Brown. Amane is not necessarily that physical either, but he's at least big. But Akuta, man, his feet are pretty. His feet are really, really pretty. I haven't seen feet from a corner like that since the line.

had Slay actually. So this is a good, another good test for him. I do, I am curious to see if they, you know, how much they shadow if at all. Week one, he did follow Devante a little bit when he went from side to side, but he didn't follow him into the slot. Same last week with McLaurin. Okuda would travel once in a while with him to the other side of the formation, but never in the slot. That would be very interesting. If they do do that with Akuta at all, it shows. It shows, you the level of confidence this staff has in him, which his, his comeback from the Achilles is honestly, it's incredible so far. It's been really cool to watch. All right. Let's see, we're 48 minutes deep. Let's get to some underperformers, guys. Like who, I mean, there's been a lot, but yeah, throw an

underperformer out. Somebody you think has really not done much. And give us your take on that. Chris, go ahead. So my underperformer is, unfortunately, Derek Carr so far. Was that yours, too? I knew that was, like, as you were starting up, I'm like, he's going to go Derek Carr, and that's where I went. That's where I thought, too, but that's all right. Well, good.

So then we're on the same page. Yes. And you guys have talked about the Raiders in Carr a little bit already, but I just wanted to point out some of these numbers for him because it is, I was high on car coming into this year. he's got the best supporting cast he's ever had but man it is just not working right now he's got a minus 5.4 completion percentage over expectations the list of qbs behind them are kirk cousins kylmerry jerry goff davis mills cooper rush and justin fields and that's it that's that's his

kind of his best number is adjusted completion percentage is 68% only trabisky and fields are behind him there. His catchable ball rate is 71%. Behind fields and only fields and rush again are behind him. It is not good. And his offensive line really isn't helping him out. They're fourth worst with a time to pressure of two seconds in the league. So I was really hoping we would see Carr take that step forward.

Maybe he's not, you know, your superstar Patrick Mahomes or Justin Herbert or Josh Allen. but kind of like what Joe Burrow was last year or what, you know, kind of what Tom Brady is today in terms of just being able to feed multiple mouths that because he's got Darren Waller, Devante Adams, Hunter, and it's just, I don't know, right now it's not clicking for them. Maybe it's the new head coach and they're just kind of still getting in the groove of things. But so far, man, I was expecting more from this Raiders offense and Carr in particular. Let me ask you this, Chris, who is the new head coach in Las Vegas? Josh McDaniels.

And let me ask you this. How do New England coaches fair once they live in New England? Not well. Not well. We've already seen McDaniels do it before, actually. Right. And I don't want to absolve Carr of his issues, but it's not a coincidence to me that McDaniels comes over, takes over this offense, and things go sideways.

I mentioned it in the season preview show that that was a concern of mine. And this is super painful for me because I'm the biggest Derek Carr-truther I think I know. I love the guy. I think he's awesome. And they just need him to be what he was last year even. They don't even need the step forward. The step forward was getting Devante Adams, right? That's the addition to the offense.

They just need Carr to be who he was last year. If they can get that guy back, this team can turn it around quickly. But it's looking grim right now. One other crazy data point is his wow throw rate. So wow throws are the top level of throws. We chart them. It's like basically throws at beat coverage. is kind of the main definition or throws that maximize the output of a play.

High difficult throws or high degree of difficulty of throws, those such a thing. So his wild throw percentage is only 1.3%. He's darn near the bottom of quarterbacks. Of guys who have started every game this season, only Jacobi percent, Joe Burrow, and Davis Mills are below him. And those guys, they're not the bastion for arm talent there. Oh, Joe Burrow.

Did I say Joe Burrow? Yeah. He's on that list, too, and we'll get to him in a minute. Yeah, not good. Not good. They need more high-level throws from him. They need him to distribute the ball better. And this might be his last shot, really.

Like, does he get another starting job once McDaniel. If assuming McDaniels, you know, things don't go well. McDaniel's probably, he's not going away like the end of this year or anything. Well, they just signed him to a massive extension. Right. Exactly. So, like, he, he's probably. If McDaniel doesn't work out as a head coach for them and, you know, one day they move on,

Carr is probably not getting another head coach to work with one day. He'll be, I know he's not, he's not old, but he's definitely not young anymore either. Yeah, I can't see him surviving another regime change. Right. So this is it for him. And yes, a lot of it is definitely probably on the head coach. But, um, and honestly, probably most of it is. But that's what he has to work with.

and it's probably the, like I said, it's probably the last shot he's going to get. So hopefully they figure something out. I mean, Mac Jones even looks decent, pretty good even, in terms of the, really good in terms of the rookie QBs last year with McDaniel as an OC. Yeah, that's true. Things are looking up for the Raiders a little bit

because they get lame duck. Actually, it's a battle of the lame ducks. and Raiders versus Titans, but the Titans just got annihilated by the Bills. They gave up a ton of yards and offense to the Giants. They give up like 238 rushing yards to the Giants, which is crazy. Yeah.

So this defense has been awful. They've given up over 400 yards of offense in both games. I really do think that maybe this is the bounce back for the Raiders. I'm hoping it is. So my Derek Carr shares don't get spoiled. My defiant the Adams shares, but. There has to be 100 yards. receiver this week from the Raiders. I don't care who it is, but somebody better go over 100 yards.

Yeah, I agree with that. They have to do it. They got to produce. And it just feels like, I mean, we all were, or yeah, I think we all, everybody was pretty excited about Derek Carr coming back with Devante Adams, but like it's completely stunted his other options. I think he's keying in on Adam so much. Like Darren Waller's target, percentage last year was 25.5%. This year it's 18.9%. That's kind of a huge drop. Redfro was at 24.5% last year. He's down to 21.5% this year. I understand that and Devante Adams, his target percentage is about stayed the same. He's at about 32.5 from last year with Aaron Rogers to this year with Las Vegas. But I think that Aaron Rogers,

didn't have the weapons next to, I mean, I know he didn't have the weapons next to Devante Adams that Carr has next to him this year. Yeah. And it's too bad. And it's too bad because the Raiders don't get a super strong Patriots game early in the year. Like I said, because that was like always the calling card of Belichick coaches leaving. is that I think Belichick coaches playing against former Belichick coaches playing against Belichick

have a winning record and they're not a super strong team this year so it doesn't matter as much so Josh McDaniels can't hang his hat on that one and they mean they play him in I think it's December 18th but by that at that point we'll know what they are it's just he just in we I mean Brett we talked about it

in the season preview of this offensive line is going to be a concern, and Derek Carr has to be able to utilize his weapons outside of just Devante Adams. He can't focus in on that. And both of those things are exactly what's happening. Yes. Yes. Man, it's really cool, or not even cool, because I knew this would happen, but McDaniel's breaking the run game.

Like, I don't even know what their approach is. The first game, they hardly ran the ball at all, and they were doing it with efficiency. And then the second game, it's like they just ran into a brick wall 100 times for what. So I don't even, I don't know what the game plan is. I can't figure it out. When the run game was working, they decided not to go with it. And then when the run game's not working, it's like, hey, let's just continue to do this. Like, I felt like I was watching Zach Taylor coach a game.

It was crazy. Speaking of Zach Taylor, let's get into my underperformer, which is not any one player, but it's the entire team of the Cincinnati Bengals, specifically their offense. it's been a travesty. They, I mean, they just lost a game to Cooper Rush, guys. Cooper Rush. Like, he didn't even make the final 53 of the Dallas Cowboys, technically speaking. They technically lost it to Micah Parsons, but yes, Cooper, Cooper Rush wasn't involved.

Cooper Rush led the drive that he needed to lead for them to win that game. So he gets credit, but yes, Micah Parsons annihilated. Burrow got sacked and hit, I mean, almost 10 times total in that game. It was pretty wild. But Bengals are 0-2. They've looked really bad in both games offensively. I have five data points that I want to go through really quick that are mind-blowing to me. Like, actually mind-blowing.

Okay, first, what's going on with Jamar Chase? It's definitely a burrow and an offensive line problem, but Jamar Chase's A-Dat is under eight yards. his ad at last season the crazy season he had was almost 14 so we're talking about an average depth of target that is almost half of what it was a year ago you drafted jamar chase to be the freak of nature on the sideline catching deep balls mossing people pulling off the crazy the supernatural that's what jimar chase does and he's not getting that opportunity this year his ad is almost half of what it was last year. Now, he's making the most of it, like his production hasn't been bad, but they got to get that number higher. It doesn't stop there, though. Burroughs AdD as a whole is down to roughly

six and a half, a little bit higher than six and a half this year. It was almost nine last year. Yikes. That's over two yards difference. So average depth of target, per dropback, he's throwing the ball two yards shorter on every single pass on average than he did last year. That's going to nerve your efficiency. We start to wonder why, why is that happening? Well, maybe it's because Burroughs got the fifth fastest time to throw in the NFL with a mark of 2.3. That number is down from 2.7 from last year.

So Burroughs getting the ball out a half second faster, roughly, almost a half second faster than he did last year. his offensive line has been a mess and all the talk about how they rebuilt this thing in the offseason and they invested into it. They actually didn't. Okay, bringing second and just mid-tier offensive line guys from other teams is not the way to do it. I know we want to get back to average or so to speak or not have any holes. But you have to consider the fact that maybe Alex Kappa isn't the strong point of the Bucks offensive line the last year. Maybe he was the weak spot getting helped by that strong offensive line.

It's just, it's not working. Continuing. When Burrow is throwing the ball, only Jared Goff, Mitch Trubisky, and Derek Carr have thrown more uncatchable passes than Joe Burrow. Burroughs calling card, the reason he was drafted number one overall, is because of his freaky accuracy, because he doesn't miss throws, because he makes all the right throws. That's not happening this year.

He is, I don't know, his accuracy has fallen off a cliff. And what's even crazier about that guys is the A-DOT has come down so far. It doesn't make sense. If you're going to tell me I'm pulling your A-DOT down by almost or over two yards per throw, I would assume your accuracy rate's going to go up and you're going to throw more touchable passes. But instead, it's plummeting. It's legitimately plummeting. Despite the fast time to throw, despite the low A-dot.

And then the other crazy stat, the last one, the fifth one, is that he has zero wild throws this season. So those crazy highlight throws, those amazing moments that were so used to seeing from Borough back to when he was at LSU, he hasn't done that one single time this year. Something is wrong in Cincinnati. I sounded the alarm in the preview show,

season preview show. I didn't like the smell. We see this all the time with teams that lose in the Super Bowl. They have this big hangover. But man, it's ugly. It is ugly. I have two points on this. The first one,

do you think the low A dot and fast time to throw is because they know they didn't fix their offensive line and they're just trying to protect Burrow? I don't know if you saw the clip of this week. There's an audio bite of you can hear Burrow telling Zach Taylor, no more empty because they were going empty set and not having Mix-in or whoever back there to help with pass protection. Do you think this is a designed thing because they are trying to get by with,

you know, we didn't fix our offensive line. We can't put Borough. It may be Burrow himself. He may be saying, I'm not going to stand in that pocket and just keep getting hit because you won't fix the offensive line properly. Yeah, I for sure think that. I mean, that's the reason to throw, I mean, when the, oh, the one said I didn't give in there is their time to pressure this year.

Like, it's 2.1-ish. Oh. So that's insanely fast. So that means when Burroughs getting pressured, it's not just coming. It's coming freaking quick. And so they're intentionally speeding up that time to throw to try to, you know,

reduce the amount of times Burroughs getting hit, reduce the amount of times he's having to drop back under pressure. So, yeah, and it's because they know the offensive line is bad. Yeah, I mean, Lel Collins is, underperform so far he was supposed to come in and help that offensive line he's looked pretty rough so far and i mean it's it's a it's one of the only units that they invested any type of money in and i think that this is i mean this has been a talking point about the about the bangles

for years and it's continuing to rear its ugly head the refusal of them to in to really invest in free agency when they have a good team and a good quarterback. They, I mean, they did it when Carson Paul, like pre Carson Palmer ACL tear and stuff. They refuse to invest in the team in free agency. And like they seem so invested in like committing to, hey, last year we made this run. We're committing to the, you know, the continuity, the unit that we have, the team that we have. We're going to, we're just going to build through the draft. things like that.

And that's, that's fine. But, like, that's also not acknowledging that this was a team that was not supposed to make a Super Bowl run last year. They caught quite a few breaks that obviously you need to catch when you make a Super Bowl run. It's inevitable. But, like,

I mean, he was, what, sacked nine times against the Titans? Like, he was one of them, like, he,

I think he has, he's top three for most sacks to start your career. as a quarterback, like all of those numbers are just are damning. That stuff's catching up with him. Absolutely. And you can like you can see it. I mean, only there's only so many. I don't actually, I don't even know if there are so many quarterbacks.

There might be no quarterbacks that can continue to stand in there, take the beating that he takes, and make the throws that he can make. I mean, last year, just on go balls, he was 50% 30 for 60. with a 12.6 completion percentage over expectation. and 17.4 yards per attempt on that 14 touchdowns. Average depth of target was 27.7 on just go balls. Like that's, he was elite. It was, I mean, we saw it.

It was one of the best parts of their game, but they can't even get to it. Yeah. They don't even have the opportunity. And that's with like Jemar Chase being who he is. That's with T. Higgins having taken a step. forward in the second half of last year and was, I mean, he was a fantasy darling in the sense that I think he was pretty consistently a top 12, 11 to 13 wide receiver over consensus. And they, I mean, they haven't been able to utilize those guys because, I mean, Joe Burrow,

I did the, I was watching the receivers for separation for the Pittsburgh game. the receivers were winning. They were open, like quite a bit on deep routes. But every time it's like T. Higgins and Jamar Chase would be open, I'd scan to the backfield to see where Joe Burrow was. And he's either sacked or running past the line of scrimmage because he's escaping pressure. Yeah. Let's look at their decision making with quote-unquote rebuilding this offensive line.

So they have four new starters this year. Yeah. They brought in Lyle Collins, as you mentioned, for the Dallas. Cowboys. So Collins, in theory, is an upgrade, but he's been dealing with injuries the last couple of years, and his play hasn't been what it was when he first came under the league. In his passing, his pass blocking was always a step behind his run blocking. Right. So they bring in Alex Kappa from the Bucks. As I already mentioned, Kappa was probably the fifth best offensive lineman on that Bucks team. I'm not saying Kappa is a terrible player,

but there's a chance most of his deficiencies were masked by the fact that he was playing next to Ali Marpet, Ryan Jensen, Tristan Worfson, Donovan Smith. Arguably the best offensive line in the league last year. Yeah. They bring in Ted Carrison, the Patriots, who's almost a career backup.

Now, Caris has started his Ferris Air Games, but it's been because of injuries. Okay, replacement-level player, you're expecting him to start. And then they bring in Cordell Volson. They drafted in the fourth round this year. And somehow he wins a starting job over Jackson Carman, who was a second round pick a year ago.

So not only are they identifying poorly the free agents to bring in on the offensive line, they're not drafting them well either. Volson hasn't looked good. I'm not sure. It's pretty rare. A fourth round pick at offensive line is ready to start and protect one of the league's best quarterbacks. So I kind of sounded the alarm before the season started on this O line,

and it's coming to fruition. These guys haven't looked good. and it's killing this offense. This offense has so much talent that they're just not getting anywhere else. The other red flag, other than the offensive line, is Zach Taylor as a play caller. Do you think there's a chance he ever gives up play calling? Because I know I've seen enough of first and 10 runs from Joe Mixen that don't do anything. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. I mean, it will never change. Chris, what's crazy about that is I think their pass rate over expectation, which is a stat, we have here is actually pretty high. It's like ninth in the league or something. But the reason is because they run into a brick wall on first down and then have second and ten and third in ten. So their pass rates pretty high because they're they're, you know, not doing much on

first downs. I mean, we touched on it, I think like two weeks ago or maybe it was a week ago that like as much as we tout some of that McVeigh tree. for their play calling, Zach Taylor not as much. Like, he's been criticized quite a bit. But, like, that tree has that reliance on that first down run. And second downs for a lot of them. And that's, like, nobody notices it when, you know,

Joe Burroughs completing 50% of his go balls. And, you know, Jamar Chase is getting yards after the catch. And they're pushing the ball down the field. But now that you're seeing that deficiency. like more deficiency in the passing game, those early down runs become a lot more noticeable. And they become a lot more painful to watch because there isn't that, there isn't the like, well, it's okay.

Like, you know, get to second and long. Joe Burroughs are going to find someone. They'll keep the ball moving. Now it's like, oh, good. You just wasted a play running, running the ball on first down. And now, and now you're probably going to get sacked or it's going to be a throw. away on second down and now boom we're into third and long and we're going to be punting the ball away like yeah it just becomes like those those decision-making processes

get masked when you have an offense that is moving the ball really well but when when you start to see things start to see things sputter those deficiencies those decisions that aren't as great start to become a lot more noticeable And I, like, I don't know, like, maybe you guys agree, but I feel like Zach Taylor. I don't know how he's viewed within the Bengals organization, but for sure in the football community, he's been running on thin ice where a lot of, like, a lot of people are, have been kind of coming for him a little bit. And if they keep up this pace, I don't know how long, how much longer you can justify keeping him in position there. in my mind he's more easily replaceable than cordel vulsson and you know how i feel about that

so moving looking forward with them too it gets it gets kind of weird because coming into the podcast before we did show prep i was like oh the bengals get the jets this week this is the chance for them to turn it around but then chris had to plant this little seed in my head and he says to me, dude, is there any chance that Jets beat the Bengals this week? And then I started thinking about it. And I was saying like, yes, there actually is. And this actually leads me into my last over performer. He plays on the Jets.

So we'll get to him in a second. But talk Bengals Jets for me because this is crazy. Like the Jets are not a great football team, but I don't think this is the blowout. People probably penciled in at the beginning of the year. Yeah. So I just checked the spread for that game, and Bengals are favored by five points. Oh, my gosh. Is probably a lot closer than we would have thought in the beginning of the season,

but also seems like too much, given how they've played. It's kind of weird. I don't really know how I feel about it. But, yeah, I mean, there is no reason to believe that any of these Jets pass catchers. can perform against the Bengals defense. And the Jets definitely don't have the, you know, the best in terms of a pass rush, but I don't think it's terrible.

I forget what their exact pressure. They're deep. They're deep. Yeah. Yeah, I forget what their pressure rate number is and whatnot. But, yeah, there's like a, I don't know what exact percentage I put it at, but it's pretty high compared to what, if you had asked me two weeks ago,

what I thought, chances would be. And the Jets are passing a ton, which maybe if Flacco throws picks, obviously that's going to be a huge help to the Bengals, but he's been like somewhat decent so far. We haven't even touched on the Bengals defense, which I don't think is very good. Right. It's not, it's nothing to write home about for sure. I want to see what the Jets. Yeah, that leads me, while you're looking that up, that leads me to my last overperformer, who plays for the Jets. And while everyone's been praising Garrett Wilson,

it's not him. I'm going with Corey Davis. Ah, okay. Corey Davis has settled into this role as like this, the number three receiver there. He's the bona fide deep threat. Yep. And he actually looks pretty good doing it.

He looked pretty good doing it last year, too, in more of a number two role. But now that he's got Wilson and Elijah Moore. I mean, shoot, this guy, he's perfect for, for what they're looking to do with him as a number three receiver. he's got through two weeks, granted, small sample size, his average depth of target is almost 18 yards, which is awesome. And when Zach Wilson comes back, that's probably going to stay up there because we know Zach Wilson likes to fling it. Corey Davis, through two weeks as a third receiver on that team, has five explosive plays already.

So they're getting a lot out of him. And it's going to help Garrett Wilson's development, too, I'm telling you, because it's going to take pressure off of him. When you got a guy who can stretch the field and win at the catch point, Garrett Wilson, will be able to do what Garrett Wilson does, which is shred the short and intermediate parts of the field and occasionally get loose on a goal ball. I kind of like these these weapons, man. Wilson, Davis, and Elijah Moore is honestly a low-key, really, really disgusting trio of wide receivers. Yeah, I mean, Davis, like, he, because of where he was drafted, there were always higher expectations. And I think that finally we've started to temper those because we've realized he's not that guy.

but like you said as a third wide receiver you know and I mean I noticed I actually noticed that too I was looking up some stuff and I was like oh look at Corey Davis huh but um it also like like we said this week I just really quick wanted to touch on this the Bengals defense has not caught as much flack it also like think of who they've played so far they played Mitchell Trubisky and they played Cooper Rush and their secondary has not looked that good like this could be like we could really see a big step back or like we could be shifting our focus to where

that team needs even more help and start talking about the secondary too because i genuinely am concerned about them matching up with the jets i like i think that you know like Pittsburgh with trubisky i don't think they they didn't really cover them well Pittsburgh was separating it's just Trubisky's your quarterback. And last week, same type of thing. Like, except Dallas doesn't have a lot of, like, great receivers. C.D. Lamb is like. Do Noah Brown was shredding them.

Right. I mean, he went for over 100 yards. And C.D. Lamb hasn't looked that great. But, like, still, you're matching up against Cooper Rush as a quarterback. Like, they have not faced stiff competition. And I really think that it could be a genuine concern. when they go up against a unit that, albeit not like insanely better,

but Joe, like we said, Joe Flackos played pretty good. You know, I think if they continue to have Flacko throw, you know, 40 plus times a game, then that secondary could be in trouble. And Corey Davis could be a beneficiary of it, for sure. I'm almost talking to myself into this. I've never once in my life bet on the Jets or even played a prop bet involving the Jets because I hate them.

I don't hate them. They're just, you know, they're just having been good for very long. They're the Jets. So wait, are you, did you suddenly drop a super hot take and say that Elijah Moore is the third best receiver on the Jets right now? No, I didn't say that. I said Davis is the, is the wide receiver three. I don't know.

You're talking about Davis a lot. I think, listen, Elijah Moore has been underwhelming so far. and I think a lot of that is the overlap between him and Wilson's game. They do a lot of the same things. That's why I thought the Wilson pick, albeit a good one because he was a top 10 player on my board. They got him at 10th overall. That's great.

But they do a lot of the same things. It was kind of confusing, man. I thought like James and Williams would have fit that offense a lot better in my opinion. Even trying to think of who went right after. You know, they might have thought they were trying to win this year. They couldn't wait for him to come back. Yeah, right. I mean, seriously.

almost it had been almost perfect for them to take him because they they wouldn't have needed to you know rush him but anyways so no i don't think eliza more is the third best receiver on the team i just think he's getting neutered a little bit because what him and wilson do is similar and they're going to have to figure out how to use both them at the same time um and i think davis is perfect for that he's kind of playing like the zay jones role from the raiders offense last year and he's doing it really he's doing it really really well so yeah wilson wilson wilson's taking a lot of elizabeth or more slot snaps that he had last year. Yes.

And as we know, slot receivers tend to have a little bit of an advantage if they are good. So, yeah, Chris, we were just going over this before the pod, but like you look at all the top producers in the league this year at receiver, they're all spending significant amount of time in the slot. It's like, this has been a trend. It's been slowly trending this way for a while, but it's like NFL teams have finally realized if we want to get mismatches and force the ball to our guy, putting them in the slot as to do it, whether it's Tyreek.

I think he's close to 40% in the slot. Jalen Waddle's around 30%, but Cooper Cup is way up there, AJ Brown's way up there, Justin Jefferson's way up there, Amon-Ros St. Brown, Christian Kirk. Really, of the top guys, the only ones you don't spend any time

inside are, what, Stefan Diggs? Diante Johnson. Amari Cooper? Yeah, Deante Johnson, Amari Cooper, Stefan Diggs, but a lot of these guys are spending a significant amount of time in the slot, which I think it's a really good way to do it.

Well, it's just the realization that that's like the one place that most top corners won't go. Like if you move them into the slot, you're going to get a nickel back. Nine times out of ten, you're not going to get the like super elite guy like a Darius slay, things like that. You can like, or even sometimes if you're Justin Jefferson playing against the Packers, sometimes you get to line up over Preston Smith. Right. You know, like this. If you're going to play zone, I'm putting my best player in the slot all day.

You know, I tried to force those linebackers in coverage. Yeah. And then also like you can just protect guys from press. You can disguise, you know, route concepts with bunch formations and tight formations and stuff like that. So it is just really smart, smart scheming and game planning. I'm curious to see how NFL defense is eventually adjust because you know they will. But cool. So let's start wrapping this up.

I think we covered a lot of games, but maybe a couple more. Maybe Green Bay, Tampa Bay. Should we talk about that? Because this is, you know, when the preseason schedule comes out or the season comes out before the schedule comes out before the season. Sorry, trip it over my words. The Green Bay, Tampa Bay, Week 3 game, circled as one that was that's the game of the week right rogers versus brady two two super bowl candidates and they've both just been meh um tape of bay's two and oh green bay is one and one

but this is really like a battle of really good defenses secondary specifically and then offenses that are completely frustrated right now yeah it's actually become like not a super interesting game in a lot of ways uh between the the the packers not really knowing what they're doing with their receiver rotation right now and the and the Bucks injuries at receiver and suspensions at receiver right now. To me, really, there's, I think, I think this game's super quick.

There's really only one interesting thing to me. So the Tampa Bay O line was a big concern when they lost Ryan Jensen before the season started. Donovan Smith missed last week with an injury. I think he's questionable this week, so we'll see if he plays. A lot of people were concerned if this O line could work with Brady because we know how Brady is, particularly with interior pressure, does not go well.

So I looked up their numbers. They rank second in pressure allowed at only 15%. Their middle of the packet in the run game and yards before contact per attempt. But they also are the best in the league at protecting Brady on blitzes. Only 5.9% of blitzes result in the pressure on Brady. despite them being blitzed, the 10th most in the lead. So, yeah, go ahead. Do you, Chris saw me raising my hand right there.

Do you have, do you know the time to throw on those blitzes? Is that a function of the offensive line being good? Or is Brady just getting the ball out ridiculously fast? If you don't have it, that's fine. I'm just, I'm just curious myself. I don't know, yeah, I don't know if I know it specifically on blitzes. But, yeah, I'm sure, I mean, we know how Brady is probably the smartest guy to play football he probably is pretty good at identifying blitzes and whatnot. So it would not shock me if he

knows I got to get this ball out quick. Historically he has. When the blitz comes, he gets the ball out fast. He's read that well. Yeah. So the so the so the buck's O line's been playing super well despite everyone kind of being worried about it heading into this year. And then the Packers on the other hand, their their defense is they're leading league with 40 a 49% pressure rate right now. And they're also blitzing the third least amount. So that. that number of Brady knowing when a blitz is coming and possibly getting the ball quick isn't really going to help him here. So this is going to be a very, very good test of the trenches and what side's going to win.

And it probably is just going to decide the game because I don't think any other, there's really no other major playmakers on either side of the ball otherwise. That's a great call. One I didn't actually think about. And I wonder, too, is Tampa's O-line stats, are they inflated? because Dan Quinn decided to waste 23 snaps in week one and play Micah Parsons off the fall. All right, I'm not going there again.

I'm sorry, anyways. Kenny Clark's probably the biggest test they've had on the interior so far this year. So that's going to be a true test for those interior offensive linemen. Kenny Clark has looked pretty solid so far this year and traditionally is a very good pass rushing defensive tackles. so that'll be a really good test, especially for a nose, right? Right, yeah, exactly. For a, yeah.

25-pound guys moving like that. Yeah, and so that'll be a good test for that interior offensive line because it's, I mean, he's ahead above anybody else that they've played so far. Yeah, yeah. We would get shot if we didn't talk about Buffalo, Miami. Yeah, yeah. We kind of have to. And I want to because this is this is probably actually game of the week, right? Yeah, it has to be.

At least, least exciting-wise, most offensive firepower. Yeah. I'm super excited to watch this. I mean, Buffalo is the most well-rounded team altogether, and their defense has been honestly absurd. They've blitzed at a 3.8% rate so far this year, which is comically low, but they're still second in in QB pressure rate at 40%.

They're second behind Green Bay. Their secondary has been good. I know they did just have an injury last week, which was super unfortunate. It's good to hear that Dane Jackson seems to be recovering well. But I don't know, like, too under- It's the Miami receivers.

It doesn't matter how good your secondary is. That's true. But it is going to come down to how Tua handles the pressure, I think. Sure, yeah. But Tyreek and Waddle will be open because there's literally no way to defend them right now. And the bills play like almost no man coverage too. So like McDaniel's going to be able to scheme them to pieces, I think. And just destroy it.

Not that you want to play man coverage against Waddle and Hill. I mean, you're going to see a ton of brackets on them like we have so far. and I just, I don't think it's going to matter. I think Miami's going to be able to score. I just, I, I just worried. The Buffalo offense shouldn't have a ton of trouble either. Oh, no. No, I don't think so.

Dolphins do, on the other hand, play a good bit of man. Not as much as they did in the Flores regime, but they still play a lot of man. They've got good man corners. Could make for a tough day for digs, but man, when Josh Allen sees backs running down the field by backs, I mean like the back of a defensive back, he's, he's going to take off and he's going to pick up first downs with his legs, and he's going to make life really hard on the dolphins. So I wouldn't be shocked if they kind of change their game playing a little bit

and decide not to play as much, man, go a little more zone heavy. I will say I'm pretty sure Dave Davis is fine now. I'm pretty sure he's going to play and everything. But I would be a little concerned if I was the bills, if you did lose either Diggs or Davis. Because I haven't really been impressed with the rest of their offensive weapons. I'm Isaiah McKenzie, I don't think, has really shown much. Crowder barely played last game, and that was with Dave.

I know he's a sloc guy, and Davis mostly plays on the outside, but he was still He was also being up to be right. You might be right. Yeah, I think he did miss some practice. Dawson Knox is a very solid tight end. I like Dawson Knox, but again, not really, you know, a premier offensive weapon. They're very dependent on, I think, Diggs and, and Davis. when they play these good the Titans don't count.

They didn't need both of them. But yeah, I would be a little nervous if I was them about some of their skill position depth. The running backs all basically, I mean, Zach Moss is playing a lot again. And we've seen, we know what Zach Moss is at this point. Yeah, that's true. One thing the dolphins you like to do is they like to flood the line of scrimmage. They'll put a lot of bodies down there, make things confusing for Josh.

And I know when he's been got in the past, it's been in those moments. moments where he has to think a little bit longer about stuff, whether it's a safety rotation or a bunch of guys lined up on the line of scrimmage, that does make things difficult on them. And if Xavier Howard and Byron Jones can hold up in man-to-man coverage, that actually, to your point, Chris, that actually could work out in the Dolphins favor. At the same time, man, I just feel like Josh, if you're going to play man coverage against him, he's going to exploit you with his legs pretty quickly. Yeah. And forcing your play zone. he's the third best skill player and he also plays quarterback. Right.

Well, and what's crazy too is back to the bill's skill players, like they looked good against the Rams, but the Rams play that ridiculous, like super drop heavy zone scheme where they're just like so far off the line of scrimmage, all of them, corners, linebackers. They just give you so much room underneath the work. And that's where Crowder looked good. That's where McKenzie had a moment or two that looked nice.

That's where the running backs get involved. Miami's not going to give you that look at all. I mean, they're flooding line of scrimmages, bodies. You know, they're going to have snaps where they're putting nine guys up in the box and they're, you know, dropping them out and you don't know who's coming. You don't know who's dropping. It should make for an interesting matchup against Josh. It's either going to go really, really badly for the dolphins or really well.

I'm not really sure how Josh will react to that, but it should be a fascinating game nonetheless. Yeah, and I mean, like you said, the best. their bottom 10 in the league in yards before contact per attempt in the rushing game. I mean, they've been, it's been completely non-existent. It hasn't had, they haven't had to do anything with it at all because they've just been humming in the past game. But like we said, it could be, it could get bad. It could get ugly if they're able to confuse Josh Allen at the line.

Now, granted, nobody's been able to stop Josh. Allen in the last, you know, 10, 12 games he's played. And it'll be interesting to see how much. I think Josh Allen will go for over 75 yards rushing. I think that's a safe call for sure. Chris, what's your dog's name? Charlie. Charlie, I think Charlie, because he's the first dog to interrupt the podcast.

He's sounding the alarm. He's got to be a. the alarm because we just hit an hour and 30 and I said the goal for this podcast was to be done before an hour and 30 so we got to wrap it up but also he's going to be the mascot of the podcast I'm going to have a new logo made from the graphics team at fantasy points with Charlie in it I think that's that's the way this has to be now I like it maybe we maybe we get Steve's cat in there too since although we haven't she hasn't interrupted the podcast surprise like been surprisingly good I cannot believe it because

work call we do, it's inevitable that Steve's cat is going to interrupt us multiple times. So, but anyways, I think we're going to call it there. We got into pretty much all the interesting games and a lot of interesting players. Thank you so much of the listeners for listening. We have a blast doing this and we love the feedback we've been getting. And it's honestly been awesome. So thank you so much. Thanks to Chris for joining us.

Yeah, it was exciting. Yeah, it was exciting. And it's honestly just like a normal, like, so Steve, Chris, I have to do work calls every day together. And this is usually how they go. We end up just talking football, talking scheme, talking data points. We honestly could just record those calls and just put them out as a podcast, and it would work. But here we are doing it officially official.

So anyways, thanks to Chris. I am your host, Brett Whitefield. My co-host, Steve. We are out. Thanks for tuning into 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.