Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Week 2 Injury Roundup Podcast

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) and Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc) discuss practice reports, late week updates, and injury statuses ahead of Week 2 Sunday. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room, with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Yo, welcome back to the Fantasy Points podcast. I am Graham Barfield. I am a co-owner here at Fantasy Points, and I am the co-host of this podcast with my good friend, Edwin Forrest. Edwin, we're going to talk through some week two injury news, but first and foremost, how are you doing, now?

I'm doing well. I told Holly, my wife, that we can now safely acquire the $1 million mansion after putting down a ton of money on Saquan Barclay overs for week one. You know, the whole thing. We can discuss a little bit more later, but I think I'm still riding that high. I'm still riding that Saquan high. So I'm excited for his week one, or for the rest of the season after week one, Graham. I'm sad, though, because we placed a pretty big bet, the Naji-Saquin bet. It would not be fair to continue that bet. So we're going to officially call it off because Naji's got this foot issue. He's probably going to linger most of the season.

So we're going to have to call that bet off. But, man, that was really exciting. But we're going to have to make a new bet. Yeah, we'll find something, I'm sure, at some point. But you're a better man than I am because I would have definitely not given you that. If I had Noggi and Barclay got hurt, like, I would be like, oh, you're sorry. That was kind of a part of the deal. Cut throw, Graham.

Yep. No, I'm just, I'm just messing. I was going to, I had a follow up. By the way, great week for Barkley, too. This is like the nuts week again. So I think he's, dude, he could finish RB1 again this week. He probably won't, but he'll probably finish top five again. Oh, dude, I think I think that's definitely in the cards. I mean, and we'll talk about Cadarious Tony. We'll talk about Wondell, Wendell Robinson. We'll talk about the Ghost of County holiday. But like all roads lead back to Sequin. And I'm super excited about it. All my teams are. also excited about it. All roads lead back to Seyquan. That should be the name of this podcast. The slogan, yeah. It's a podcast slogan. Yeah. All right, before we get to like the more pressing kind of like questionable guys this week, we've got to talk through a few guys who've already been involved. George Kittle being one of them. He was not close last week to playing Edwin was not close this week to playing, unfortunately either. They're obviously taking it slow and slow playing it with this groin injury.

you have any insight on when he might be able to return off this injury? Yeah, I think that next week is more than reasonable for Kittle, simply because with these specific groin issues, these muscular issues, the average return is typically around two weeks. And I kind of thought that he had a chance of this week. And if I remember correctly, he did start practicing, but he didn't actually get a full go at it. But yeah, in terms of his return,

I'm relatively, obviously, you never want to be totally confident, but I'm relatively confident. He'll be back next week considering, like I said, the mean based on a study by Serner and colleagues is about 14 days. So typically those, these last between one and three weeks, like I said, with the mean of being 14 days. So I think that we'll see Kittle back in action in week three. Okay. Awesome. And one other guy I want to ask you about two is Michael Gallup. He's been getting ramped up.

Little surprised that Dallas has actually been sharp about this and not just pushed him back. because it seems like they're pushing all of their injury guys back. But Michael Gallup will be out this week. Realistically, week three, week four, is that a possibility? Now, Graham, you're giving Jerry Jones and the Cowboys much, much, much, too much credit. Say it right. Say it right. It's not Jerry Jones.

It's Gerra. Gerra Jones. Gerra Jones, you're giving him too much credit. Listen, Michael Gallup is still seven months post-off. He's about seven months in a week. At this point, it would be insane, although, I thought it was in saying Godwin was out there eight months. Well, that's why I brought it up.

Yeah. We at least have the Godwin thing in our back pocket saying, it kind of brought him back a little quick. It's not even, like usually Graham in my clinical life, like my professional life, I guess this is sort of my professional life too. My semi-professional life is an injury analyst. I typically always conceive to the fact that we never really know anything for certain, but we can know what was more likely than not,

what might have caused something. when you see that Chris Godwin, for example, and this isn't an indictment on the box. This isn't an indictment on Tampa Bay. This is just purely speaking from a perspective of like a rehab professional. If Godwin didn't see any contact before week one, like if we are just being told that he didn't, but he did see, we don't really know what happened.

We're told he didn't take any contact. We know that eight months is like the absolute razor. and soonest you could bring up somebody back and that's still not the safest. It's not necessarily surprising that his body, his nervous system, his tissues, whether you want to call it, compensation, whatever you want to call it. The dude hadn't taken any contact to our knowledge before week one. It's not necessarily surprising that this issue came up. Now, can we say for a fact that it was always going to happen? No, of course not. But the likelihood of it happening was much higher, considering how quickly they rushed him back. So, I mean, Michael Gallup in week four or five,

is going to be right around where Chris Godwin was in week one. We'll see what Dallas decides to do, but it is a possibility that they bring them back around week four or five. Yeah, I wonder now without DAC, and I mean, they're down God, man, they're down Tyron Smith, they're down Connor McGovern. Obviously, they lost Connor Williams this off season. Like, you know, I, you know, man, who knows with Dallas, who knows with Joe Ralph, but I got to think they're going to slow play this with Gallup.

And even if they do bring him back, I'm not even sure how relevant Gallup's going to be for fantasy with Cooper Rush back there. All right. Should we move on to some more pressing injury news? We actually have quite a bit to talk to you talk about this week. Or do you have anything else you want to bring up? Wow, man. Let's do it.

Let's get into it. All right. We'll get to start with Michael Pittman. He popped up with a quad injury in practice this week. The Colts said this morning, I still don't know when he picked up this injury, but quad injuries can be really tricky just reading some of your past research. we don't really have any other news on pitman at this point he's going to be questionable it's

friday around two o'clock we'll probably know more saturday you know saturday night probably but going into this weekend pitman looks legitimately questionable here no yeah pitman is definitely legitimately questionable you don't love that his you land on their practice report on wednesday as a limited participant that means that something came up you know after the fact then he on Thursday, he didn't practice at all. That means that it got worse. And then Frank Reich and the entire staff decided today, this is for, gosh, I wish I could remember his name.

Dang it off the top of my head. I put it in the Discord. I think it's Zach, who's a beat reporter. He's a really good beat report for the Colt. Zach Kiefer. He tweeted that the Colts just called practice today all around. They just totally called practice. They didn't have one at all.

So we don't even get a status necessarily on Pittman. And they might give like an estimated report of what he might have been. But this is not a good, a good. sign. You mentioned that data from earlier. And basically from 2017 and 2019, there were 46 players accounted for 90 instances of an isolated, quote, quad injury on the injury report. So 46 players, 90 instances, 54% of the time, they missed zero game. 67% of the time they missed zero or one game. Only 15% of players missed more than two games. I think Pittman plays just based on everything that we're seeing. But I honestly, after that tweet, I've walked that back a little

bit, even if he is active, which again, I think at this point is a legitimate toss-up, I don't trust him to stay healthy. Of course, you get like the old T.Y, the callback to T.Y. Hilton who had a quad issue. I think he went off and then he was re-injured. So that's not something you necessarily want to see in Pitman. It'll be interesting to see what the Colts do here, especially with Alec Pierce down as well in the concussion protocol. He has been ruled out already. I don't know for a fact that Pittman will go. But if you're in DFS, if you're in cash, if you're taking any of his, you know, like his receiving yards, receptions, like I would be nervous to take the overs on any of those.

Michael Pittman is definitely volatile this week. Yeah, and it's good news that it'll probably not be a like multi-week injury like you're kind of hinting at, but yeah, it definitely hurts a little bit. I've pitman on a ton of teams. One other note, too, the Colts are going to be down to Alec Pierce here too. Not only did he drop a really bad touchdown, he had a really bad drop for a touchdown in their loss. It should have been a loss. It's a tie to the Texans. Alec Pierce is out this week too, man. So, you know, I think Pittman will try everything to

play, but we're looking at a situation here where it's like Paris Campbell and basically Nahim Hines is like their top passing down guys here in the spot against Jacksonville. And granted, Jonathan Taylor could come out and run for 150 yards and make all this move. But Colts are looking pretty thin here with their receiver group. What's the deal with Pierce? Not the he's like a huge guy for fantasy at this point, but what are we looking at for him? Yeah, you don't love the fact that Pierce, the reason that he's probably already been rolled out is his symptoms appeared after the game. Sometime, you know, after the whistle blue, and I think it would have been a couple of days

Wednesday, Wednesday or Thursday, he started developing concussion symptoms, which is not unheard of. That does happen just because you leave the game doesn't mean that your symptoms won't come on at some point. So you usually see that those guys start in the protocol later than usual and their symptoms tend to linger. But you hope, you know, based on data that these guys will typically be back within a week. Chronologically, it's a week. Usually they don't miss time. But because this was in the middle of the week, that's something that probably contributed to him being out. But he should, based on the numbers, of course, especially concussions are super volatile. Based on the numbers,

he should be back next week. Okay. Well, Colts will probably have all their guys back next week, but it might be a little tough here against the Jags. Let's keep it moving. DeAndre Swift popped up with an ankle injury on Wednesday. He said he sustained it at the end of the game, but kept playing through it.

He's going to play. What does some of your research say about players coming off, like, you know, minor ankle injuries? What kind of re-injury risk do those guys hold typically for running backs? Yeah, man, that's a really tough question to answer because it's so hard to know when something is an ankle sprain, an ankle roll versus, you know, like a high ankle. So it's hard to separate that data and really look at it. What I can tell you is that it's not uncommon for dudes to come back from like a rolled ankle and perform just fine. I remember in 2019 that happened to mix.

And other times you get the Saquan Barclan instance from last year where he rolls it and he's out three weeks and then looks like crap the rest of the time. I don't think that latter one is the case for DeAndre Swift. I will say that, you know, again, sort of similar to Pitman, I'm writing in the injury report right now, I'm not really excited about Swift in something like cash or taking any of his rushing overs. He did roll it. He admitted that he did roll it. And he also says that he's going to play. So, you know, if he's active, which we assume at this point, it's just really hard to trust him in cash or even for his pairs overs.

Again, I'm not necessarily recommending against Swift. But if you're looking at a handful of dudes that you're looking to put some money, down on or anything like that, especially in DFS. Like Swift is definitely scary because when you roll the ankle the first time, you're much more like it to roll it again. And if he rolls it again, he's going to be hobbled for the next few weeks. Yeah. Yeah, that's the hope, man.

He gets through this week. Maybe we see a little bit more Jamal Williams. I actually think we'll actually see quite a bit more, Jamal Williams. I wrote him up as like a desperation flex play for starts at this week. Hopefully you don't have to go there with Jamal, but I do think he's going to get a couple. extra. And I think our audience is sharp enough, Graham, that I don't have to say this,

but I'll say it anyway. Yeah. In season long, don't sit Swift. Oh, yeah. This is not, no, no, yeah, Swiss plan. Yeah, Swiss plan. He's in my lineup. Yeah, exactly. 100%. Yeah. Yeah, let's keep him moving here. One other tricky situation is Alvin Camara. Typically in his career, Camara is not played through injury. He's, I guess he maybe cracked his rib. We don't really know. He, you know, he had a rib injury. All we know is he hit a rib injury in week one and did not practice at all on Thursday. He got downgraded from Limited on Wednesday. We have not seen the Saints practice report just yet.

It will probably come out in a couple hours. But Camara seems legitimately questionable here too this week. Yeah. So you don't love to see the fact that he was limited. And then he was totally out of practice. That tends to mean because Wednesdays are typically lighter days for these guys anyway. and if he couldn't make it through Wednesday and the next day had to sit out, that means he probably couldn't even necessarily run and do individual drills and jog

and stuff like that without either difficulties breathing or painful ribs. So that's not great. You don't love to see that. At this point, unless he practices today, he's unlikely to suit up. Then to me, Graham, and this is sort of where your expertise comes in, that just seems like a messy backfield. I mean, they have like Latavius Murray, I think was on the practice squad. Mark Ingram is on that roster.

Mark Ingram's on the injury report with an ankle issue. I mean, this is like 2013, you know, a backfield 2013 all over again if Camara is active. So what are we doing in this instance? Yeah, you know what they'll do, man, is they'll just give Tayson Hill like seven or eight carries. They'll give him around and work. Like, it'll be gross, man. Yeah, if Camara sits, like you're not picking up Ingram and playing them because Taseem will, like I said, he'll get some carries and also get some goal line stuff too. so there's just really not much to bank on for Ingram,

but maybe they'll just end up throwing a little bit more Willa Saints this week. I'll say that if Camarrett is active on the off chance, which I don't necessarily expect to happen, he's not, he's definitely not a dude that I'm interested in cash. He's not a dude. I'm interested in any of his props, anything like that, just because that injury is super difficult to play through.

And you could rerpture it, or not rerrupture it, I'm sorry, you could re-agravate it at any point. I think of Emmanuel Sanders. I think it was 2019 again, who played through this injury, and then he got hit. He was out the rest of the game. Like, this is just a nasty injury to deal with. These aren't fun. So I would not rely on Camara for any reasons whatsoever.

Yeah. And you know what? He's another guy like Swift, too, Edwin, where it's like, if he's a game time decision and they play him, I'm going to put him in my lineup just because, I mean, you're not going to have many other options at this point. But to play Camara, but yeah, I'm definitely limiting my expectations. And it's, you know, it's disappointing, man. I got Camara on a bunch of teams.

teams think he's really set up well for a big year. The Saints' offense in general was underrated, I think, in drafts, but not getting a good start out of the box here for Camara. Let's talk some receivers, Edwin, and we'll start with the box receiver room, which all of them are hurt. Mike Evans and Julio both did get back to practice. I think they're just really playing it safe with those two guys. But we need to talk through Russell Gage, Chris Godwin.

Godwin is not going to play here. he picked up that hamstring injury that you were talking about. You know, regardless, man, like, I'm not going to sit here and say that I know better than these coaches, and I know better than these training staffs. But the bottom line is the Bucks had all of their guys healthy in week one. They had Evans, they had Julio, they had Gage, they had Jalen Darden, they had Brashaderman. All those guys were healthy. There was no reason to put Chris Godwin out there, especially considering he had not taken contact at all.

He was still wearing one of those non-contact jerseys in practice on Thursday. of week one. So now we're looking at a multi-week issue with Godwin and maybe, and I said this on Twitter, but maybe this is like a good thing. Like that they just like finally let him get right and he'll be good to go by week four or five, which should have been the case all along here. Yeah, that's really tough to say, man. And you always have to remember, especially in professional sports,

there are a lot of people making decisions or contributing to your decision or influencing your decision as a medical provider and as a team that, you know, might sway what ultimately ends up happening. And that's fine. It is what it is. And Chris Godwin, his team, they obviously have an input to those situations as well. And if he was looking good and he felt good and he told the staff that he looked good and, you know, up top, the owners and management, they said, yeah, I mean, we want him to play. He looks good.

It doesn't matter if he hasn't taken contact and practice. Let's do it. Like, that was ultimately the decision they made. I think they, I know for a fact that they were given the, as much information as possible, provided by their medical staff. And, you know, it is what it is. He was injured. And again, maybe this could have happened in week eight. It could have happened in week 12. Maybe that's their rationale, their justification. Like, I don't know. I wasn't in the room like you were saying, but I definitely would have, you know, in that conversation would have contributed just the fact

that it didn't seem, it didn't seem like he was on the surface from a 10,000 foot view ready to roll. Now you're looking at the highest standard, excuse me, standard deviation of missing a missing time because of a hamstring strain, which is about three weeks. I would not be shocked if he missed three weeks that would actually put him right in line with that nine-month mark where I personally am projecting him to be close to the, you know, that 85-90-percent mark of his 100%. So if he is off and he's working hard until then and he comes back around week four or five, then that is really going to be the optimal time to jump on Chris Godwin, trades for Chris Godwin. Like his volatility is a little higher now that he had this hamstring strain in the early season. but to me, his price has only gone down from here. And it's only going to be easier to acquire him.

And at this point, you're not going to have to, you know, spend what you would have even a month ago to get Chris Godwin. And I'm still personally banking on him having big performances. Even if that's like five performances at the end of the year, Graham, like, I'll take them. Yeah. I mean, you and I were both drafting Godwin totally under the pretense of like, I'm not going to play in week two or three or four. Like, I want to play him in week 10. And, you know, we're all. Yeah.

I mean, we're already at point here with Evans being dinged up on the injury report and who's approaching 30. Julio is Julio. He's always going to miss a couple games. Julio looks fantastic. Approaching 40 and still looking fantastic. His hamstrings are approaching 75, apparently. Yeah, they might be. Yeah, they really are. Yeah, so one other thing, Russell Gage, I think it's important to talk through him too.

He's been on the injury report here for weeks now with this hamstring. He was really limited in week one. He was like the clear four behind Godwin even. I mean, I guess we're just looking at like a multi-week thing here with Gage. Yeah, man, like he's still struggling. I mean, on Wednesday he didn't practice. He was still limited yesterday. I hadn't seen what his reports are today, but it doesn't seem like he's gotten quite right,

which is unfortunately that means that the injury he had in camp was really significant. You did see him pull up in that video at camp. So I wouldn't necessarily put any stock into Russell Gage at this point. I want to see it before I trust him. Yeah. Yeah, it's looking like another week where we're just playing Mike Evans and Julio here. Among these bucks, receivers. Let's keep it moving on. We'll talk through some T. Higgins. He got cleared. He's good to go through concussion protocol. Really no concerns with him, right? No, yeah. I mean, that's not necessarily something that you worry about too much. I mean, there is some re-injury, some recurrence risk that you associate. in the first week back.

But again, in season long, that's not something that you're going to be concerned about. You plug them in playing. Higgins' prop opened up at 56.5. I have to imagine it would have been 63, 64 if DAC were playing. We were expecting this game to shoot out. But markets are lower on Higgins in general. And this game in general, just because, man, I mean, Dallas is just, I mean, they're just a total. Atrocious.

Mike McCarthy came out. Mike McCarthy came out this morning and said, Kellan Moore has to like change up his play calling. It's week one. Yeah. What was that about? Oh, man. Is that projecting?

Projecting much there? Yeah. Well, they're a disaster, man. And Mike McCarthy, but what exactly do you do? You don't call the offense. You don't call the defense. You don't manage the game. He's a blue guy.

He's a blue guy, Graham. Yeah, yeah. He's a glue guy. Right. I don't know about that. Glue. He's going to need some glue to glue all this back together and keep his job. I see what he did there.

He's on the way out, man. It's, uh, yeah, he's going to get fired here. I think Robert Salas going to get fired too, man. That's quick. You think so? Yeah, neck and neck between. Yeah. Yeah, Salas announced one.

All right. Cadar is Tony. We've got to talk through him. We're going to talk about Tony probably every single week. He popped up with a hamstring, I think, yesterday. day or maybe the designation came out today. He was doing individual drills, apparently according to a couple of Giants Beats this morning. Man, I mean, no Wondale, Sterling Shepard's coming off in Achilles, but looked fine last week.

Actually, it looks less dead than Colliday, which is actually saying something. I mean, to be honest with you, man, this is just setting up for another huge workload for your boy. But Tony, man, I mean, what do we do at this point? Yeah, man, that's a good question. Tony has obviously been on the injury report frequently, often, almost all the time. His hamstring has cropped up from the beginning of the season. He's been dealing with it. He had a knee scope, what I presume was a knee scope in March or so.

Now he's having another procedure. I'm sorry, he's not having a procedure now. He had a procedure in March and then had to have, you know, had this flare of the same knee in camp. You would not have expected that, you know, four or five months later. and then the hamstring came up in the off season, and now we're dealing with the hamstring again. I don't know what to make a Tony. He doesn't seem like a guy that you can necessarily trust even a roster.

Like at this point, he's up and down, high and low. Not even high, right? He's mostly low. It's just a matter of how low you're going to be on him throughout the season. I don't know what to do with him, man. I don't have him in any leagues, I think, that I avoided him for that reason and just took a flyer on Wondale instead. So I'm not a big fan of him.

I'm not a fan of holding on to him, but I don't really know what to do at this point. Who knows what his usage and his availability is going to be like this weekend. But at the very least, you know that this hamstring stuff is going to limit him, and he's at a high risk to re-injured. Such is the life with Cadarius Tony, man. This is going to be a common theme with him all year, getting him right. Let's keep him moving.

We'll talk a little bit about a happier situation. Alan Lazard looks like he's going to be back this week. Man, they desperately need him. Packers might be without both. tackles again and David Boktyar and Elegent Jenkins. We'll have to see on those two. I know it's been like a roller coaster ride for Packers fans with Boktiar at this point. He hasn't played since 2020, but Wazard looks good to go, right?

Yeah, absolutely. He's been limited all week in practice, but it's not as bad as it sounds. Most guys are active when they are limited most of the week on NFL injury reports. And I wouldn't necessarily expect like a massive ceiling game. Whatever you think on the Zard's ceiling is, I'm going to be you can get into that a little bit, Graham, but he definitely should be ready to roll. And God, do they need, did they just need guys with the pulse who can catch the football?

Yeah. I mean, Christian Watson got, you know, he was, got healthy. He was open that entire game and obviously dropped the first play from Rogers, which is like the Stomor's way to start your career with somebody like Aaron Rogers who varies guy, buries his receivers for. Berries his mother, his father. Well, hey, man, we don't know the full. situation there.

But yeah, that's her. Yeah. Listen, I mean, we know Aaron Rogers well enough to this point to know that he's, it's going to take some time for Watson to get back up there. I do like Watson quite a bit still as like a high upside stash. I just wrote it up in my article Weekend Advantage on the site. Watson's still like out there, way too many like soft leagues on Yahoo and Sleeper. So I still like him quite a bit as like a late season stash for just some upside because

the Packers, they got to get some downfield threats here. getting Lazard back this week will certainly help that out. We talked through Bucks receivers. I forgot to mention Leonard Forenett. That was a mistake on my part. We'll circle back on Lenny. He popped up with a hamstring, didn't practice. He should be just fine, I think, but they're just going to play a safe with him.

But Edwin, I mean, this is something that we've seen with Lenny in his entire career. These hamstrings popping up. This has been something I think he's dealt with since LSU, right? Yeah, the hamstring has. has come up only relatively recently. I think over the last two years, the ankle is what you want to watch for. Last year, he was on the injury report

with just the hamstring. And when the ankle was compiled on top of it, that's when he started to miss time. Don't, you know, you don't want to see that he has any ankle issues. This is why I said most of the offseason that Lenny was more volatile than I think the markets were viewing him. He's already on the injury report, you know, after week one, with the soft tissue thing.

I know he's good. Like, I know that he's good in that offense. I know that he's a great, great at Twitter. I really appreciate his tweets. They're really amazing. He's amazing at Twitter. He's really good at it. However, he's not the safest bet.

And if Lenny's like the only anchor you have, I would really try to pad that however you can. I'm not saying go get Rashad White. That's sort of suboptimal move. But I just, I'm cautiously optimistic that he'll, he'll stay healthy, but he hasn't been able to finish more than 14 games or play more than 14 games since he got into the league gram. So at some point, I think that just based on his specific trends, he might miss two or three

games. And there's no telling when that'll be. But I think we need to be ready for it. Yeah, I mentioned this on the projection show with Joe and John this week, but like, Rashad White is by far the most valuable handcuff and fantasy right now just because of those reasons. And, you know, White's already installed as the number two bad. here he's already earned the trust of the coaching staff and more more importantly i think he's already earned the trust of brady so if you know four net's their guy man like he's the bell cow when he's out there and he's healthy he's going to be the bell cow but rachatheh white has a ton of upside um a couple more things i want to talk to you about everyone before we get out of here naji harris's foot um we got

lied to we got duped by mike tomlin i love mike tomlin he's a real one but he uh he lied to our faces this uh this August about Najee Harris. He said he got stepped on. Apparently it's a Liss Frank injury and Naji didn't practice for like three weeks in August. And we all just thought, oh, they're just playing it safe. That's what the Steelers do. They typically play it safe.

No. He has a Liss Frank injury. I guess he aggravated it or just tweaked it or something in week one. He was limited on Wednesday. Got back to a full practice on Thursday because he's a grown-ass man, Edwin. But Naji, man, he is going to be dealing with this foot injury all year long. I don't want to say anything is ever for certain. But man, at this point, it's been going on since camp.

So it's been like six or seven weeks. He's been dealing with this. This is his third go-round since 2018 with a foot injury. Who knows if it's the same foot injury? We presume, we assume it is the same foot injury that he's been dealing with since 2018. It's just not something I want to be associated with as a fantasy football manager. He's a guy who, if you consider somebody like Derek Henry, Right, like the more force and the more sheer that goes through that foot, the less confident.

I am in him considering that he hasn't been able to put this behind him over the last four years. We're going on week seven of the third go-round. It hasn't gone away yet. That's not to say that he can't buck the trend and get rid of it and move on. The research shows that these respond very, very well to conservative rehab. So it's not to say that it's necessarily going to re-rpture. But then again, Graham, on the smaller scale or on a lesser extreme, I didn't think I was not in the camp that thought that this was going to become more of an issue until it was until it became an issue again, right?

And in week one. So who's to say this is just this is just not the most predictable situation that we want to put our our eggs into, the basket that we want to put our eggs into. I'm concerned about Naugie Harris and his efficiency. I'm concerned about the volume he'll see and I'm concerned about the offense in general, which maybe you can talk about a little bit. But man, I'm all the way out on Naugie. I've been out on Najee, and I just, I hope the best for the guy. I hope he proves me wrong, shoves it down my throat, but I just don't want to invest in any Najee Harris at this point.

Yeah, I know, I hear you on the offense, man. I was buying Steelers for Kenny Pickett. You know, I kind of was under the impression that they would start Trubisky for the first couple of weeks. And I'm telling you, man, after what we saw from Trubisky last week, like, it'll be a a matter of time with Pickett. Like, they won the game, but it was not because of Trubisky. He was so sky.

out of shot. According to our research team, our charting research team, Pickett or Turbisky had like one of the lowest catchable pass rates this past weekend. So I think we're going to see Pickett soon. I think it's going to help the offense. But at least for this week, man, the floor is really low for Najee. And without that touchdown that he had last weekend, he would have been like one of the biggest busts and fantasy last week. So, you know, fingers crossed and Najee continues to, you know, get all the goal line stuff and stay healthy. at least for the next couple of weeks,

like he's probably more of a touchdown dependent RB2 more than the RB1 we thought we were getting in terms of his workload. I do want to say Graham one more thing because I think I need to do a better job of saying these things. Like I don't think this was a year to go zero RV. I think a lot of us talked about that fact. But there are still people who did or maybe you went anchor. Like I went anchor in a lot of different leagues and I'm still trying to piecemeal together

running back, you know, an RB2, RB3, flex, whatever. There are, you know, reasons to reach for random running backs that we think might have a good workload if their starter goes down, right? Like Naheem Hines, they're like, you know, offer a little bit of flex appeal, even if their starter is still playing. Guys like him, Darrell Henderson and Cam Acres, right? That's another example. But like these other guys, like the Jalen Warrens of the world, the Eno Benjamin's of the world, those are the stashes you can probably still get on waivers for absolutely nothing. those are the guys that, you know, at the end of the week on Sunday morning, Saturday night, you have a bench spot available.

Like, you throw them on your bench for free. You leave them there. And then if something were to happen to their starter to the more volatile guys from an injury perspective, that's sort of the point that I was getting at with, you know, Naji Harris, with a guy, you know, who splits, split snaps, you know, Chase Adams is already available. So it's not necessarily an example of a handcuff. But guys that have their starters are attached to some sort of injury concern. Rashad White, who just talked about him, right?

Those are the guys that you want to take the leap on, the chance on. Throw whoever's hurt on your IR, pick up the running back to the handcuff to the guy associated with an injury and then you just see what happens. Yeah, no, that's such a good call, man. And, you know, this is something that you should do in ESPN and Yahoo Leagues is like, if you have a guy who is hurt, like let's say Michael Pittman is ruled out Sunday morning, throw them on your IR if you have IR spots and then do exactly what Edwin just said. It's like such like a minor little edge, but, you know, to Edwin's point, man, I mean, if, you know,

nausea pops up and this comes up to be like a multi-week injury, you know, you found yourself with, you know, usable running back and Jalen Warren. So I love that call. And mostly you want to be the guy that everybody's just pissed off that you took him off waivers that way. You know what I mean? Everybody knows that guy. By the way, in the league that we're in Graham, the injury prone invitationally, like, I get so annoyed picking through waivers of that league because everybody.

everybody's gone. It's literally everybody's gone. Yeah. It's such a sharp league and it's a deep bench league too. So yeah, you got to be smarter with with pickups. But yeah, you know, most, most leagues are shallow and, you know, I do that in quite a bit of my 10 team leagues where it's just, you know, you're kind of churning through those last couple of spots. A few injury notes I want to get to, we really don't need to spend too much time on these three, but I just want to bring them up for the context of the show. C.J. Yosama, Jets tied in, has a hamstring. injury. You know, you don't want to see a late week hamstring pop up. Rich Samini, Jets beat reporter, said that, you know, he's on as legit questionable.

So if he doesn't go, Tyler Conklin becomes like a pretty good desperation streamer play. Jets are going to have to throw a ton in that game. Kenny Walker, my guy is going to be backyards created phenom. We'll see what the Seahawks backfield looks like. We know. He has caught a pass. We know this. Yes.

Yeah. We've seen at least one, yeah, we've seen at least one camp video of Walker catching the past. It was impressive. Didn't think he could do it. Thought he had bricks for hands. No, we'll see Kenny Walker and Rashob Penny at some sort of rotation this week. By the way, it looks like it's going to be pretty rainy in San Francisco this weekend. 49ers are going to catch another rain game.

It won't be like a monsoon like it was in Chicago. But Edwin, back up in your old stomping grounds. Now, Northern California, there's a big rain system. It looks like it's going to dump on San Francisco. So I'm tempering expectations for all of those guys. The under over under has gone from like 42 and a half on Tuesday. It is down to like 40 and a half. And I think we'll see it clear through 40 this weekend as the weather reports continue to get bad.

And Edwin, I did want to talk to you about this. J.K. Dobbins, it looks like he should be back this weekend in some form, shape, or form. he said and i think you might have put this in the discord but he said he also tore his hamstring which just sounds absolutely miserable i mean have you heard of a knee injury like that man where you you explode your knee and tear your hamstring like i i can't remember an injury that serious yeah not an NFL guy but i'm relatively certain when that when that video came up of him tearing it, I think I said that hamstrings are implicated. Hamstrings, when they hyper extend like that, that knee gets get thrown away,

gets thrown way back like that. Hamstrings are implicated and it's wild that he tore it. So yeah, that's not something you want to see. It's a reason why it's taking him so long to get back. I'm still not super on, not really on J.K. Daven's too much. I think if you got him at the right price, which was very low, then he's fine. I don't think that this first week is going to be the week necessarily to start him. Again, I said all offseason that I think he's going to be a fine, I think, RB2, maybe high-end

RB2 down the stretch when you really need it potentially. But, I mean, this is still a super volatile situation. He can still have inflammation in the knee that crops up. He can still have a hamstring strain because he did obviously tear the hamstring. Like, DJ Daveins is extremely volatile for the rest of the season. I just, I don't love him, man. I don't love him. And I'm trying to dump him in the injury front league I mentioned before.

Yeah. It's just one of those things, man. Like we love the player, loved the talent. But, you know, God, man. I mean, you just mentioned it. You can't think of an NFL running back who's had this style of injury before plus a hamstring. He basically had the borough injury, right?

Like, now we know. It was worse. It sounds like it was worse. It was worse than the burrow injury because it was a, the hamstring was involved. And that's just not great. That's just the increase of the timeline. He had the LCL, which probably had some posterior lateral corner, which is another issue that you have to as a surgeon that you that you surgeons are concerned about like

it was a whole deal man and it's no it's no honestly it's not a surprise that it took him this long to get back yeah man poor guy i you know i i love the ravens and i love haribaw and i think they're just such a sharp sharp organization man but i don't know if i can ever forgive them for playing topins in that preseason game there's just no reason for that but here we are hopefully he can ball out man apparently he talked to your boy sayquan uh about trying to get back from obviously really serious in the injury. So maybe you got some good juju from Saquo. Yeah, magic.

Some magic. Sequin magic. Sequin magic, baby. All right, Edwin, thank you for your time, man. You're fantastic. Once again, we're going to get this up here. Thank you for everybody for listening. Everyone and I will be back every Friday,

late afternoons, walking through all the injury news to help you set your rosters, make some final prop bets. Staying on top of the markets is what we're here for. And I am in the middle of betting. Edwin. I'm in the middle of betting a Tyler Conklin over. Yeah, you are. Because I am a true sick-out.

Yeah, you are. And I am cashing a Tyler Conklin over two and a half catch. Prop bet this weekend with CJUZama out. Because, you know why? We're always on top of the injury news. Thanks to Edwin. Guys, thanks for listening. We will catch you next week.

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