Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Week 1 Injury Roundup

Episode Date: September 10, 2022

2022 Week 1 Injury Roundup with Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) and Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc). --- 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. Yo, welcome back to the Fantasy Points podcast. I'm Graham Barfield. I'm one of the co-owners here at FantasyPoint.com. And I'm really excited for this new weekly podcast. I'm doing with my good friend and physical therapist over at the twins.

Man, I'm doing it big with the Minnesota twins. Evan Porras. Every week we're going to go through basically just kind of run through the slate, talk through all of the biggest injury concerns that we have. And yeah, kind of just give fantasy gambling advice from there. This is going to be super quick hitting guys. We're going to do about 25, 30, 35 minutes every week. And Edwin, luckily this week is pretty straightforward.

We've had some late week injury news that we've got to get through. but we'll get to that first and foremost, my friend. How are you doing? I'm doing well, Graham, and I'm super excited about doing this podcast with you. I told you when we decided to do this together that it was a power move that you basically said, I'm going to start a company just so that I can do DGN shit with my friends. And that's what we get to do, man. We're literally talking to fantasy football and betting podcasts together.

And we're good friends. And it's going to be fun, man. I think that the first thing, the first order of business, however, is we have to get on record the nausea bet that we made through text. I mean, it would have been like a couple months ago at this point. So what, do you remember what it was? I don't even remember what it was. We had a bet that I think it was Sequin Barclay will finish. I think you said inside the top 10 in fantasy points for game.

And I think I said that Najee would finish inside top 10. And I think you said he wouldn't. I think that's what it was. But I can go back through the tracks. I'll look through the receipts here. Let's let's let's get that on the board. I'm willing to go out on, I'm willing to go on a limb here, Graham.

I'm going to tell you right now, this is based on absolutely zero analysis because I just read your shit when it comes to the actual fantasy football stuff. So I'm totally going on a limb here. I'm going to say Sequin Barkley finishes as a top five fantasy running back in points per game. Okay.

Higher than Noggy Harris in the top five. That makes it really hard. for me to win the bet, but I don't care. You can't see me right now, but I am writing this down on my note. All right. Let's see it. Edwin says top five. It is September the 9th, 9-9.

Yep. Points per game. Points per game. PPR points per game. All right. I'm going to say no and we'll do a beer bag. You had just been some beer last year. And I look forward to getting.

What did I, wait, what did I lose? I do remember that. What was the bet? Oh, we were playing in the, we were playing in your league. Oh, that's right. That's right. You were talking shit, and I was like, dude, you want to come, you got to come correct. Let's make this interesting.

I do talk shit. I talk shit frequently in that group. I'm just trying to poke the bear. Nobody else really, really barks back here. Other than a few jokes that will remain unsaid. But they're pretty good jokes. I'll say that. Yeah.

All right. Let's talk some injuries. Like I said, really light week. This is like the calm before the storm, I have a feeling. We got really lucky this preseason man with like no. major injuries. So fingers crossed, we get through week one, but that likely won't happen. We'll get started here with Drake London, Falcon's wide receiver. He's been limited in practice all week. Seems like legitimately questionable. Arthur Smith came out and said, like,

we're going to see how he does tonight and make a decision tomorrow. Edwin, he had a knee injury that really I didn't see too much detail on. I know he heard it in that first preseason game against the Lions, but I haven't really seen too much on it. Um, Drake London is going to be very limited this week if he does go, right? Yeah, it kind of seems like Drake London is dealing with, based on the video, some sort of contusion. I think, you know, even worst case scenario, some sort of like MCL issue. I don't want to call it necessarily a sprain or anything like that.

He's been limited this week. He was limited on Wednesday and Thursday. Of course, they came out and said, like you mentioned already, that he's going to be sort of they're going to make the call on him tomorrow. Yeah, I mean, this injury was. like you mentioned, it was about three weeks ago at this point. Is that correct? Yeah, I actually would have been about a month ago now.

About a month ago. So, yeah, I would say that if we're dealing with some sort of contusion, because based on the video, that's sort of what it looked like it was headed towards, or that's what it was, then he is going to be cutting it pretty close. It's good that he's been limited in practice. I would assume that he's going to be limited in the game, right? You don't love when a rookie comes in, gets injured,

and then they're limited in practice. So I wouldn't necessarily expect firewere. works in Drake London. Do you have any idea what is receiving Yards prop is off the top of your head? They haven't released one. But that's what the books do all the time is like when there's situations like this, they'll just hold back on props. But I actually bet Corderel Patterson's over at 18 and a half.

It's up to like 24, I think I looked last. I bet that on Wednesday just because, I mean, they don't have anything, man. Like outside of London, it's CPAT and Pitts. So I like Patterson quite a bit actually this week as a flex play. Don't say that I have him playing them in a couple of weeks. You actually hate him. I actually ended up with CPAT in quite a few leagues. And I'm playing them this week too.

So all right, that's London. We'll keep it moving here. The big news this week is George Kittle, injured his groin in practice on Monday. Edwin, you know better than I do. Do you know if this is, do we have any information of like what level of strain this is? And if so, how long should we expect Kittle to be sidelined here? That's the tough part, right? We don't ever really know what the severity is just because we're reading based off of the reports.

It was obviously enough for him to be not limited. He didn't practice two days in a row at this point. It's something that came up just a couple of days ago. And without knowing the severity, without knowing anything else, we have to sort of project based on what the averages are based on the data that we have available. And there's a study done by a handful of PTs led by CERN. And what they found was that there's essentially, it could be legitimately anywhere between eight and 20 days.

There's a 95% chance is it going to take between eight and 20 days. The average, the mean amount of mistimes, about 14 days. So he has a decent shot of being back in week two as long as this progresses, you know, correctly and progresses like you'd expect it. He's had this issue dating back to 2019. He had his first growing issue. You don't love to see it, although it is normal for guys to have these types of injuries early in the season.

And as long as it doesn't progress and as long as he rehabs well, then he'll come out on the other side of it. But these things are super, super fickle. These soft tissue injuries can be nasty. And if you tend to push yourself too much like Kittle sometimes has a tendency of doing, then they can end up, you know, in a worst case scenario position. We won't mention that right now. But yeah, he is highly volatile over the next couple of weeks, George Kittle is.

Yeah, man. It's unfortunate. That's, it's been like the story of Kittal's career at this point, you know, such a freak talent, but he's, you know, Edwin, I know I'm going to drive you up a wall here, but like, these little things just always seemingly pop up with him. And it's just, it's, it's unfortunate. I was going to say, Debo Samuel's receiving prop opened at around 50 and a half, 48 and a half in most books. It's already up to 58 and a half, 59 and a half. If you've been in our, uh, Discord channel, uh, Fantasy Points Discord channel, I gave out Debo's over 50 and a half on Wednesday night or

Tuesday night, all these days are running together. But it was when George Kettle's injury was announced. We were hammering that. So if you got on that, you got about nine and a half, eight and a half yards worth of value. And Devo's set up obviously brilliantly well here against this bear's bottom five secondary here. We'll keep it moving here. We'll keep it moving. I want to talk to you about Deonti Johnson.

There was a report that came out this morning that he's good to go. He had a shoulder injury that he kind of landed pretty hard on it and a really nice catch from Mitch Trubesky in preseason. Edwin, mechanism wise, I think you said it didn't look much worse than an AC joint sprain, but with Deontay, he's kind of like Kittle. He's always dealing with something minor. That's just nagging him. Should we expect any limitations for Deonté here? Is it just like a pain tolerance thing? So that's the problem here is if you remember, ironically, another Steeler by the name of James Connor in the year 2019. He came back too soon.

He came back roughly three weeks, if I remember correctly, after the AC joint injury that he was having and he re-agravated it. That's really what we're facing with Deontay Johnson right now. He himself has said that he is battling through some pain. I don't know if he's yucking it up and making it seem like it's worse than it is, but just two weeks after a sprain is a pretty quick turnaround. And so, you know, I don't necessarily know if anybody's even recommending this per se, but if you're thinking about playing Deonti Johnson and Cash, probably not a great idea.

I don't know what is what is receiving line is or when you would have gone in on the floor for that, but that's something that's also a little volatile. He's just volatile because this injury in particular is really nasty if you come back too soon because it's not so much like a pain tolerance thing. It's like you could actually, you know, damage some of the tissue that's holding that joint together. And then we're probably not going to see him for a long time if he were to re-injure. So all of that is a long way of saying Deonti Johnson's highly volatile this week. Yeah, and the books are, you know, noting that too. Deontes over under right now is 48 and a half. It's up at 55 and a half I'm seeing on Fanduil. I'm not touching that. If anything, I'd go towards the under, but again, I'm not touching it. The real play here, I think is George Pickens. I saw 35 and a half out there somewhere. I haven't bet it yet. I was waiting for some more information on Deontze, but I might, Edwin, get off our horn here. Hold on, Graham. You made a mistake.

stake. Maybe we might have Ben edited it. I think you meant to say Hall of Fame or George Pickens. Oh, yes. All right. He has already got his gold jacket. Him and Damien Pierce. Him and, no, dude. Him and Gabe Davis. Yes. Yes. I was screaming at my television when Davis scored that television. I heard that touchdown. I have Davis everywhere this year. So I'm fully prepared for George Pickens. Hall of Fame bus ceremony and Gabe Davis as well.

All right, man. Actually, two big things I want to talk to you about the dolphins. And this is like, I've said at the top, like, we've got really lucky with like no injuries this offseason, no major injuries besides Tim Patrick, really. But the injury reporting has been really, really bad with some teams. And the dolphins are definitely up there. Jalen Waddle missed like three weeks with an air quotes undisclosed injury. And we finally found out what it was on their Wednesday practice report. He seemingly is full go, right?

Like no limitations for him. They were just playing it safe, right? I don't ever want to guarantee anything because obviously we're always doing this from afar. We don't have any insider sources. I just do this based on the old eyeball test and, you know, my crippling student loan debt that I learned all this, you know, information from. So I never want to guarantee anything, but quad injuries do seem to do better than hamstrings and calves simply because they're, you know, a bigger muscle group and they can help compensate for each other. So it's not so much like an issue so much with Jalen Waddle that we're worrying about right now. Obviously, I can't guarantee anything.

But yeah, I think that he should be good to go. He was upgraded from limited practice LP to a full practice just yesterday. So I wouldn't be too concerned with this yet. I think that we're that he's going to be just fine. Okay. great yeah i ended up getting a bunch of waddle because you know as people do their drafts they always you know are super you know mindful of the questionable tag or that little injury icon in draft rooms and waddle was starting to fall quite a bit so um wanted to ask you about chase edmunds too he popped

up with a groin on the um a groin injury on the first injury report on wednesday for the dolphins he was upgraded to full practice. On Thursday, Edwin, this is a great spot for Edmonds in this Dolphins run game here. I mean, the Patriots got rinsed by the run late last year. I think the dolphins have a pretty significant advantage in the trenches. This is a good spot for Edmonds, a good spot for Mostare. Really good spot just in general for the dolphins. Edmonds should be good to go as well here, right?

Yeah, I think so. You never want, again, with these soft tissue injuries, they do tend to crop up. up and they're not nothing. They could always get worse, but similar to his teammate, he went LPFP yesterday. So I think that he's going to be, he's going to be fine. And Edmunds, at least to my knowledge, he hasn't had really a big history with soft tissue things. So I think that he's going to be fine this week. All right. We'll keep a moving here. Let's talk through two backfields that are murky at best. The murkiest one of all is Baltimore. J.K. Dobbins, man, you've been all over it with him and his injury rehab.

And this is why you provide such a massive edge for anybody who's, you know, playing fantasy or, you know, betting on games in general, you know, J.K. Dobbins has been behind. I think you probably won't like that word, but he is not close seemingly to be ready to resume a full workload here. You know, obviously they brought in Mike Davis this offseason. They signed Kenyon Drake after he was. cut by the Raiders. This backfield's a total, total shit show. But J.K. Dobbins, man, like,

where are we out? Where do we go from here? And, you know, I think you mentioned this on a podcast. You and I did earlier this summer, but you've been saying all along that it's like October, November, maybe at best for Dobbins to get back to 100%. So where are we out with Dobbins entering week one and where do we go from here? Yes. First, I'd like to make a very clear preface to Mr. Dobbins and his family that I in no means want any of the smoke. And I am simply trying to give analysis for the company that pays me money. Sir, I am trying to make a living and pay my bills. I'm a wee, I'm a wee little scared little lad. So please don't come after me on Twitter. But I will say, no, I don't think that J.K. Dobbins is any position to play this week, at least not effectively.

A big reason for that is he had massive damage to the knee. I think based on reports is that he had a Joe Burrow type injury where his knee basically exploded, only the worst version. of it and he's a running back. So that explains some of the delayed rehab that he really needed to undergo. I think he had a pretty massive meniscus issue. We know that he had the LCL postural lateral corner is what it's called. Those things are, they just take longer to, not to heal, but the rehab takes longer because you do need to immobilize it and stay inactive for a long time. Listen, JK Dobbins is a freak athlete. I know that I always preach that the research shows young guys, freak athletes, high draft capital, you know, opportunity.

Those things are ways to identify outliers post-op ACL. But this injury is just so massive. And he is just so behind the eight ball. Like to no fault of his own, I just don't see a big year, a big week for J.K. Dobbins. And of course, we know not that Lamar Jackson is a spokesperson for the team by any means, but, you know, he did let slip. You know, hopefully he's back in a couple weeks, as what Lamar Jackson said,

I would not be shocked if that's actually the case, if he's not active. in week one. And yeah, man, this is not, this is just not a good situation. I stashed Dobbins in the injury-prone and rotational, just because I had to stash a bunch of RB2s because I didn't, I sort of went anchor and then just had to stash a bunch of them. He's one of the guys that I'm hoping down the stretch starts to show something,

but it probably won't be until, you know, the week six, seven, eight mark that we start seeing much of anything from JK Dobbins. Right. Yeah, it's just super unfortunate. And for what it's worth, man, you know, I always give credit where it's due. like Harbaugh has been like pretty I won't say he's been like negative about Dobbins

he's just been like straight up like we really don't know and I appreciate that that he's not trying to blow smoke up up our asses like our good friend Pete Carroll does so I do appreciate that from him and JK please don't give my buddy Edwin any of the smoke because yeah he really is the absolute best we'll keep it moving here

I want to talk to you about J-Rob, James Robinson. There was a report that came out this morning from ESPN's Michael Dorocco saying that, listen, James Robinson might not be limited, which I kind of find very optimistic. Considering he's, you know, eight and a half, basically nine months removed from ripping his Achilles. Edwin, we saw it last night, man, K-makers didn't play basically at all. I think that was more to do with the hamstring injury he had in this preseason. and we really don't know the severity of it. But I think that's more so to do with that.

But really, in general, I mean, you've been right about these guys coming off Achilles tears every single time. I still think James Robinson is, like, at best, at best, going to get like 9 to 10 carries here. Yeah, I think that one of the things with the Achilles injuries that people need to keep in mind is that it's so different from an ACL. It's not the same thing. And I know people like to say, oh, you know, sports science, sports medicine,

we've come such a long way yada yada yada the bottom line is we really aren't that far removed not that much far further removed as we were five years ago seven eight years ago and i'm not i don't say that pessimistically i say that we've made a lot of great progress but the general public likes to think we are so far ahead where we actually are when in reality this is this shit is still hard for guys to come back from man like achilles are hard to come back from there's a big there's a ton of like physiology related reasons if you want more on that go to the injury prone podcast and listen to where when i talk about about it, but the moral story is this is, this is a, it's not a career killer per se, but it is a career abuser, if you want to call it that. And yeah, we are going to see, especially with guys who are

less athletic, who have less opportunity, who are less talented, have an even harder time to navigate, you know, life after this injury. You're looking at Marlon Mack, somebody like Deonti Foreman, those guys, they, you know, Michael Lechorn, I think was his name. He kind of burnt out early in the league or earlier um during this this uh this i guess phase of of achilles rehab that we have now so yeah i don't think that necessarily james robinson's going to come back and look great i wouldn't necessarily anticipate that but in terms of its timeline the timeline makes sense the average return is anywhere between eight and nine months uh i don't really know where the i guess the average timeline really was i don't really know what the general public believed when it came to

Achilles. But yeah, I think that eight to nine months is very reasonable, but it doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to come back and look good. So I think that's another thing to keep in mind. And then the last thing is that, you know, I asked Joe this in the Discord, how much do you think that Doug Peterson will just feed him even if he does look bad? Yeah, that's the thing, man, is like, yeah, I think Peterson in general is a pretty sharp coach. And he was quoted in that Doraco article I was talking about as saying like, you know, ETN and Robinson skill sets are totally different. We're going to use. them totally different. So I still think, man, the same, it's funny, you know, we kind of come full

circle here, but really the same situation and the same analysis that we were talking with ETN, you know, back in like May this year still applies. Like, he's still, you know, most likely going to get the high value touches. The big concern for me with ETN would be if, if Jay Robb comes in and takes goal line work. Like that would really zap ETN's upside. So that's kind of, I mean, still where we're at, man, with his job. Jaguar's backfield. One big injury situation, we've got to talk through, really two, but the maiden one is Alan Lazard.

He hasn't practiced all week with like an ankle calf injury. Evan, what's the situation here, man? Do you think this is a high ankle spring? Because we heard that he got stepped on, but we, I haven't seen much else. The Packers are calling it an ankle injury, and that's always a little concerning, especially if it's the high ankle variety. Yeah, there's really no telling, unfortunately. just because obviously we haven't been there.

It happened in practice. What I was mentioning is if you consider, for example, I don't know if people out there remember, I think it was 2019 as well, Matt Ryan was stepped on. And essentially, when he got stepped on, it created this eVirgin, high ankle sprain mechanism. That's a plausible thing that happened to Alan Lazard,

but there's literally no way to prove that. I hope that's not what happened. But yeah, Lazard hasn't been at practice the last two days. And you just don't really love to see that. And I can't really give much analysis outside of the fact that it's like it's unlikely. I don't know if you said or if it's been confirmed that he's not going to play this week, but it seems very unlikely at this point. And I don't really know, I don't even really have a gauge as to whether he's close or not.

It doesn't seem like it, you know, given the fact he hasn't practiced. So I wouldn't put all my eggs in any Al-Lazar baskets anytime soon. Yeah, it's super unfortunate, man, because Lizar was set up so well out of the gates. man, my guy Aaron Jones, though, he has like the RB1 upside this week. There's a lot of really good running back plays this week, Egoin, but, man, Aaron Jones set up so well. I mean, he's got massive splits, obviously, without Devonce Adams in his career as a past catcher.

And now you add in the fact that Lazard is going to be out. I hammered Aaron Jones over 36 and a half. Receiving yards, definitely, definitely one of the strongest plays this week. All right, we got to talk through Robert Tunyon. Robert Tunyan Funyan here. He is limited in practice this week coming off the ACL. He's 10 weeks or 10 months removed, right? Yes, he's roughly 10 months removed.

Okay. Seems like there's a chance he's going to play. I mean, Tunian has always kind of been a part-time-ish player. Like he's not going to run a route on 80% of the team's dropbacks like Kelsey and Waller and those guys do. But obviously, you know, in this Packers' receiver room that is now even more thin with Lazzard hurt, the Packers definitely have incentive to try and get Tunian on the field. You've been pretty optimistic with Tunian. It seemed like a pretty simple injury for him.

If he does suit up this week, what level of effectiveness should we expect? Yeah, I'm kind of backed off my Tunin take a little bit just because it's been really vague. He should have been ready by now as a reality. He had the injury was, I think, like Halloween-ish with around Halloween. And like you said, at this point, you would have anticipated that he'd been a full participant in practice and done everything. But, you know, the last time I checked, he hadn't even quite taken contact. So I don't entirely know for certain that Tunyan's going to be active. And I don't necessarily, even if he is, I wouldn't trust him to be productive.

There's, you know, something to look at or something to consider with guys that are, I don't know how, you know, talented you'd consider Tunian. But especially guys who are, you know, relatively speaking, less athletic and don't have as much athletic, you know, physical reserve aren't as talented to have a harder time coming back from these injuries and just mentally getting back into the swing of things so as of now i wouldn't necessarily plan on on robert tunion i think that he could be active based on this timeline but again things just seemed like they were moving a little more slowly than i i had originally anticipated which by the way graham this is a different conversation for a different day like we mentioned the people who are like oh medical sciences came come along so far none of the guys that had ACL tears are coming

back more quickly than we thought they would. And so I don't really know where that narrative came from. But that's, I'm like, that's why I'm like back talk, like as I'm talking and sort of walking back my tongue and tick, that's what I'm thinking about. None of these guys are coming back early. Like Godwin is the only one that gave us any type of hope and he's probably not going to be active either. So ACL tears are still an issue.

Dude, it's, there's a narrative for everything on Twitter now, man. Like, that's the reality of where we're at. Like, people will talk themselves into pretzels over the. faintest of narratives, you know, like, you know, K-makers came back for in, you know, whatever it was, seven months from Apop's Achilles. Everybody's fine. James Robinson is going to be fine. It's like, no, man, they're still like. Yeah, Michael Gallup's going to be active at seven months. That's what we were told. Like ridiculous. I mean, it's, it's, this is, and this is what I'm saying, man. This is why, you know, people need to listen to you and

actually listen to somebody who has, like, experience projecting out injury timelines and, and such and not just some random. on Twitter who's hoping Michael Gallup ends up being okay. Speaking of hoping, the Cardinals are hoping that they can get some of their guys healthy because they are out of, you know, all 32, man, they are really rough in the receiver room. Right now, Zach Hertz most likely won't play. We'll start with him. He's been dealing with this calf injury for four, five weeks now.

We first learned about it in training camp. And it kind of just seemed like, oh, they're just playing at six. If Earth's is a veteran, you know, he's been here for now a year. We don't really need to rush him. But now it's week one and he's still still not looking good to go. What's the deal with Earth's? Do you have any idea like if he had a setback? Like what are we looking at here with him?

Yeah, it's really hard to know exactly what's going on with Earths. But he did go on Wednesday from LP to DMP on Thursday. And not great. You don't love to hear that. You don't love to see that, especially for a guy who's 30 plus years old. dealing with soft tissue injuries. He's dealt with soft tissue injuries, hamstrings, specifically most of his career. And now you consider the fact that he tried to go. The way that I look at these practice reports, Graham, as a physical therapist is, oh, okay, let's try him out on Wednesday,

because that's, you know, how it works. Like, let's try it out on Wednesday. Let's see how it goes. And then you turn around and then it didn't go well. And on Thursday, he didn't practice, right? Like, we'll see how it goes. Like, that's the classic line that ATs and PTs use. Like, let's, well, you know, maybe we can push him a little. You know, he agrees. let's see how it goes. And then when it doesn't go well, he doesn't practice the next day. So you don't love to see that. I don't know if he'll be active. And this has been about five weeks at this point. So what you're looking for or what you're hoping for is that it's not a Michael Gallup type situation from last year. I don't know if you remember he had a calf injury and he was

out seven or eight weeks. So you don't love that. That's the floor in the situation that we don't see Zach Erds until week two or three. But again, things can change on a dime. I don't have anything in stone. I don't have any confirmation of this. But when I see this, a 30 plus year old, old guy with a soft tissue injury that was limited and then didn't practice. I don't love to see that. So he's definitely volatile if he's active and reaggravation is always an issue. Yeah, it's totally less than ideal. I mean, Marquise Brown, man, Hollywood. Our guy in a diesel fuel, man, he's set up. He's set up so well. Let's give that, hold on, hold on. Let's give the audience some context here. Graham drinks, you know, it's banquet beer. It's a banquet, Coors

banquet. I, I, it's about 400 calories per hour. It is, it is, it is, I think that it, yeah, it might be more than that. I think that they literally inject nitrogen into it. It's like a cold brew coffee, but it's beer. It's literally an entire meal. There are actually stories and legend has it that the first ever person to climb Mount Everest only carried Coors diesel, Coors Banquets up the mountain as, you know, a form of food and survived. And that's what he drinks. And so I call it diesel fuel. And he, he was like, oh, I'd never heard call it diesel fuel. So now we lovingly call it diesel fuel. I also love to tell the story, Graham, and I know we got to rush this, but this is an important story. My wife and I went to meet Graham and his lovely wife, and we were all having drinks and having a good time. And my wife and my wife and my wife and different options. We didn't know what Graham and his wife would like to drink. So we brought my wife and I brought a lot of options. And we had a ton of different IPAs, sours. You know, we didn't bring any diesel, unfortunately. Right. But as the evening

went along, I saw Graham with all this variety dip into his little mini fridge and out comes of Coors Diesel. And I could not have been more tilted in my entire life. He just defaulted to the Coors Diesel. He couldn't help himself. That's why we have a team together now that is called diesel fuel. That is the background. Well, it's the best damn team in the NFFCs. It really is. It really is. I mean, it is. I'm already counting my money. But secondly, listen, man, you guys brought like IPAs and stuff. And I know I'm crazy for the Coors Diesel take, but a man can only have like five, six IPAs until that. But you could have more cool. I just don't understand it. Anyway, Marquise Brown to the moon, I think. Right. Yes. That's that's the whole point. Marquis Brown of the moon. Rondale Moore, I got to ask you real quick about Rondale because he missed a couple weeks. I can't remember. Do we know what his injury was? It's listed as a hamstring. And that's really the bottom line is that we're probably not going to see Rondell Moore this week, especially since they're sending him for an MRI.

Typically, you don't love to see, yeah, you don't love to see that guys are going down and then getting MRIs. If we're even a little confident that, you know, it's not necessarily ripped off the bone. We don't send people for MRIs for a hamstring strain. But, you know, the Cardinals are doing that. And yeah, he was considered limited already yesterday. So it might have been fighting through some tightness and might have locked up on him even more. I don't anticipate seeing Rondo more at least for this week. Well, shit, man.

I mean, if they're sending him in for an MRI, man, he might miss like three, four weeks here. This could be a- I'm hoping not. Yeah, I'm hoping not, but that's not. You don't love seeing guys get sent to. And maybe, you know, every team is different. Every sport is different. Every organization handles things differently.

But sending a guide for an MRI is, that's a flag. I won't call it what color a flag, but it's a flag. It's definitely a red flag to me. Well, we will wrap it up here with one guy. You and I have both been drafting a ton and Chris Godwin. I think you were pretty much spot on here that, you know, he's, week one was never the target for him. It's where he'll be in October.

And right now, Godwin is like, like you said at the top, man, he's like the only one coming off in ACL that's given us any semblance of hope that he's like somewhat ready to go. Godwin is questionable this week. I highly, highly doubt we're going to see him. And if we do, it'll be on like a snap count situation, really just to get him some live game routes. To my knowledge, I still don't think he shed the non-contactures.

He would have to do that today to play. But Godwin is set up like vis-a-vis Michael Gallup and relative to Robert Tunyon. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Godwin is set up better at least a return to play and return to form a little quicker than kind of some of these other guys coming off ACLs, right? Yes, 100%. And I'll try to keep it as a sync. You know, I can get long-winded cram. So let's put our thinking caps on. The number one reason or the number one rule that we follow as it doesn't matter, because I've seen this also on Twitter, it doesn't matter if you're a 17-year-old high school basketball player or you're an NFL wide receiver. The rule of thumb for an ACL tear is

you don't come back until at least nine months prior to the injury or nine months after the injury. That is because the rates for re-tare go down by like 7x. There's a 7x increase risk of injury of re-tearing the ligament if you come back before nine months. It's not because of readiness, although sometimes they're associated. It's not because of any vendetta or any random plan that somebody threw together. The nine-month mark is a rule of thumb for, like I said, from everybody from grade school up to professional athletes. Some of them come back when they're professional athletes a little faster. The only guy we've seen in the modern era return to four.

full NFL action prior to nine months was Rob Grownkowski, who did it in 2014. He came back at exactly eight months for that, you know, from that eight month mark until the nine month marks, the first four weeks of the season, he averaged less than 50% of the snaps. He averaged 11 ppr points per game. And then obviously he took off around week five once he hit that once he hit that nine month mark. So that is where Godwin is right now as of week one. He didn't practice yesterday. That wasn't a coincidence to me. That wasn't a vet rest day. That was a part of the plan. He probably was inside doing stuff with the athletic trainers or the PTs. Godwin is set up nicely for week four, five, and beyond. He's not a guy that you're going to rely on this week.

He's not a guy that you're going to even bet any props on. Like, he's just not a guy you're going to rely on. And that's okay. We drafted him for the back half of the season for the back three quarters of the season. He's going to absolutely smash because he has been progressing well, but he's not progressing at a rate that's, you know, faster than we'd anticipate, you know, at any exponential amount. So again, don't expect much from Godwin this week. But as soon as he gets to week three, four, you might want to start putting out some feelers for Godwin if teams are starting to flail and they have them on their bench because he's going to absolutely smash in the second half of the season.

Yeah, it's wheels up, man. And ironically, Julio Jones is like the second healthiest guy on this team behind Mike Evans now because Russell Gage has been dealing with this hamstring injury, this like nagging hamstring injury. He's been limited in practice all week. but at this point, man, ironically, Julio has the most experience with Brady because Brady missed a couple weeks when Gage was healthy.

Now Brady's been back and Gage has been out. So ironically, Julio has the second most experience out of all of these guys. Russ Gage should play this week. They desperately need them, obviously, for their three-wide receiver stuff. But are you expecting any limitations here for Gage? Yeah, you really worry for Russell Gage.

He's got two limited practices in a row. unless we come out and see that he was a full participant today, there is some volatility for guys coming off in their first week of injury, their first week off of a hamstring strain. So, I mean, don't necessarily go overboard in DFS, for example, with Russell Gage, I think, unless you're like in a tournament style. But he's a guy that you can probably rely on, at least to a certain extent here. They've progressed him along slowly.

It's been about three, four weeks since the injury initially happened. So I think he's had plenty of time. And a few more guys that sort of hamstring, soft tissue. related things, Graham, before we move on. Michael Thomas, kind of the same thing. He's had enough time. We know that he's been limited. We know the reports out of New Orleans or that he's been doing relatively well. He's the other guy that I wanted to mention. I know we didn't plan or mention him, but I think that the people, hashtag the people would want to know to. Yeah. So Thomas is good to go. I wanted to mention too for bucks. If you're playing showdown on Sunday night,

I think this is, you know, this will be the healthiest Julio will be all. year, man. And like I said, in terms of ramp up, he's, you know, got to be pretty comfortable with Brady at this point. So, Julio, Showdown, Sunday night, Edwin, on Fridays, every day, man. This is a great podcast. I'm really, really looking forward to it every week. You brought the goods this week as expected. Any other final closing thoughts about week one? You wanted to tell the hashtag people before we get out of here? No, I think that you tune in to tune in to the games and tune into the podcast every Friday here. Every Friday, just for clarity, every Tuesday, I will be on my own, the injury promo podcast doing the solo pod, updating

injuries there. But every Friday will be here on the mothership. And as he points to mothership with Graham Barfield, we'll put, we'll place bets as frequently as we possibly can just because Graham and I both love placing bets with each other because we're basically degenerates and we'll bet anything. Graham, this is going to be fun, man. I'm, I'm legitimately excited for this. Yes, sir. I want to thank everybody that that listened. them. We're going to be back every Friday, mid to late afternoon. We'll get it posted for your earballs to listen to all weekend for Edwin. Thank you for his time and efforts. As always, I'm Graham. Guys, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week.

Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com. I'm