Fantasy Football Daily - 2Barz - Cam Akers, Michael Thomas, and More

Episode Date: July 29, 2021

Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) and Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) talk with Dr. Edwin Porras (@fbinjurydoc) about Cam Akers, Michael Thomas, Joe Burrow, Amari Cooper, and more pertinent injury situations as NFL Training Camp begins. --- 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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Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. responsibly. One foot of money, two bars on the show. Yo, welcome back to the two bars podcast. I am the first bar, Grand Barfield, joined with the second bar, Scott Barrett, for a little midweek podcast. Train Campa started.

And I think this is like the perfect time to really dive into like all the layover, injury situations, all of the guys that are coming into training camp, nursing injuries. We just had two brutal injuries, obviously, before it can't even started. So who better to bring in for that cycle podcast? Then the great doctor, the great doctor, Edwin Porras, is with us tonight. Edwin, how you doing, man? Dude, I'm doing well. It's always sort of inceptiony when I listen to you guys and then I'm on with you guys.

So sometimes if you catch me like sleeping, just listening, it's because sometimes my brain just turns off and I think I'm listening, but really I should be participating. That's what's going on if you ever. I also had a question. Yeah. You had your list of top, the top, you know, white rappers, Graham. They were trash. Yeah, they were, they were so bad. Um, so I'm just wondering if you listen to rap me, if you've ever heard a rap song or Scott and I are in the, in the, uh, the biggie division in the, oh, Scott Fishball. So I'm just, are you more like a Mumford and Sons guy? Are you like, imagine dragons guy? I don't know. You, imagine dragons. You, imagine dragons. No, I listen to about everything, man.

I go through these phases. Like right now, I'm in, like, a deftones phase. So I've been, like, listen to, like, I don't know. The latest deftone's album is really good. But I don't know. I listen to pretty much everything except for, like, EDM. Like, that's kind of... Do you listen to any explosions in the sky?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Explosions in the sky was like... I started listening to them in college. That was, like, one of the first bands I listened to you for writing to get, like, focused and shit. Yeah. Exposions of Sky is good.

Scott, I was shocked to learn. that you were in the biggie division with me. Also, shocked to learn that Al's also in that division with us. So I was, I didn't take you as a biggie guy. That's you're like a big country guy. I thought you're like Luke Brian. I don't know, you gave me Luke Bryan. Blake Shelton. I don't know. You just kind of like Hunter, what's his name, Hunter Hayes? You sort of give me those vibes, Scott. Yeah, I legitimately hate country music. I can't listen to it. I didn't like, I thought I didn't like music until the first time I heard Biggie. And then I was like,

Oh, music's great. I love music. It's a standard. Biggie changed my life. I know I could do like almost any rap song word for word unless it's from like duets or one of those trash albums. Yeah. Story to tell is the greatest. Oh, it's the greatest.

It's the best. And it's a true story. I forget who it was, but I think Fat Joe or someone outed who the actual. Who the actual Nick was. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. now I'm going to Google this once we're done.

I've always wondered that. I'll pull that. What if it was Ewing? I'd be kind of that ass. No, no. It was Ewing in the 90s. It was about Anthony. The announced it on

Dan Lebitard show. I'll pull up. Do you guys listen to Dan Levitard show? No. I did. I did back when he was at ESPN. I haven't since he's moved. Anthony Mason.

Anthony Mason. I named him. a bell no neither anyway sorry guys i got us off the radio there no this is a we'll turn this into a music podcast who is who is the anthony mason of fantasy running backs is is who's who's about to get cucked what do you think scott i think we want your opinion is about to get cucked by james connor he's going to be the r borgie well melvin gordon's already been cucked so there you go he's the perfect example. Melvin Gordon's about

to be cut. The Anthony Mason of fantasy running backs. Well, we're definitely, we got to sneak that and do an article now, Scott.

Nobody will have any idea what it's about. Hashtag swamp rats. Exactly. Nobody will know what it's about, but it'll make you and our laugh. So that's all it meant. All right.

So speaking of the things that doesn't make us laugh is the camp makers entry, man. What a brutal, brutal thing. Like before before you can get to camp, Acres blows out as Achilles.

training for training camp. So first question off the Batman is like, is there any precedent for a running back this young coming back and getting back into form like, you know, off of a very early career Achilles tear? Yeah, there aren't any comps. There's no precedent. And precedents are important. And I know fantasy players love comps. That's like the number one thing.

I think every fantasy player can agree on is that comps are if you can get a comp because it helps our brain wrap around. like what we're looking at. But it's important to know that like at the end of the day when it comes like, if you look at it scientifically, it's just a case study. It's just what's like the lowest level of evidence. It's one, one time that it happened. But since we do like case studies and we do like sort of comps,

Mike, I don't know how to say his name, Michael. I think it's just Michael Ashore. I don't know if you remember. Yeah, McKell Ashore. Yeah. Yeah.

So Torres Achilles, explosiveness was zapped. He still came back and was productive. He was okay. But that's the closest comp we can think. for cammakers. So there's a systematic review that cited 15 other studies. The average age of the players, the NFL players in that study was about 28. So yeah, it's not great data. It doesn't really fit the category. But physiologically, when you when you sort of map it with the science, it makes

sense that their that their careers sort of were zapped because the tendon never remodels the same. I think that's important for people to understand. It's not just like an ACL. Like the ACL, the ligament becomes a part of your body eventually, but the tendon never remodels and is the same. So it's hard to press, press off. It's hard to jump, hard to cut. Some dudes, like, even feel like they're just stuck in their, like, trapped in their body because they know the cut they need to make. And they just can't make it quickly enough. So there's a lot that goes into the rehab.

The tendon's never the same. So moral of the story, it's not good form to just assume, oh, Camacres is going to be back. This is like an ACL tear. Yeah. I think the best, like, especially in Dynasty, the best option right now is just to hold him. because there's a chance he can come back and still contribute. But I think whatever you thought Cam Acres ceiling is, it's highly unlikely he's going to come back and hit that.

That doesn't mean he still can't be productive, though. Dan. Yeah, well, we started this podcast out on a great note. We started talking about music, and then we brought it immediately back down with this news. But yeah, man, I think I partially tore my Achilles in college playing basketball. I was going up for a rebound, just playing with some buddies. And I literally couldn't walk for, like, weeks.

and I'm washed. Like my athletic ability is not, not even remotely, it's not even like 1% of KMakers. And I like go golfing or whatever, and I still feel like the back, you know, backside of my right foot or like my, like planter fascia still get, you know, get tight.

So I can only imagine what it's like for, you know, for a back. And this isn't like an Eric Fisher situation where, you know, Eric Fisher's coming off in Achilles. He plays offensive line and he doesn't rely on that explosiveness. It's really, you know, quad and asses. strength and then upper body strength for alignment. So yeah, just brutal for acres, man. Scott and I did the Rams franchise focus podcast. So if you want to hear our thoughts on the whole

Dorell Henderson and Cam Acres debacle, so go go check that out. But yeah, I'm with you on Acres, man. Scott, what are you doing with Acres in Dynasty? Because I know you were pretty high on it, too. Yeah, despite my love for Acres, I don't think I ended up with a single Dynasty share. But yeah, I mean, the track record on this injury is not good. It's very scary. I probably would be looking to get out of it. But I mean, what are you even getting for Ken Akers these days? Like a round two. Yeah. You'd have to sell super, super low. I know you tried to trade. Yeah. You try to trade for Acres in our Fantasy Points Dynasty League with the staff. You sent me a little, I think it was like Keenan Allen and a pick. I declined it. And yeah, now I should have. You see me, Ross. Bating over my team a couple of days ago. That's all you do. That's all you do is roster bait.

I mean, I just have roster bait worthy rosters. That's what I do. Well, conversation we had earlier, you're not doing any other kind of that. Anyway, continuing on. I need to go on a no fat for roster dating. Yeah, that's the one you really need to do. No fat November for roster baiting when your team's 10 and 1 and you're about to go in the playoffs. There you go.

Get ready for zero dark 30 like one. on. We need to have Edwin on more often. He brings that the best of us. I agree. Or the worst? Probably the worst. No, it's always the best.

Every time we do a show, Edwin, it's always the best. We did a show. Remember that Sunday's live stream? I think it was Me, You and Tom. Yeah. It was like week 16, and we were all just like sick of it. And you were the only one like bringing energy. That was great.

We needed you that day. You were the MVP that day. You can always count on the fact that I give a shit way more. No offense to the subscribers. I try really hard. I promise. I always do my best and this is fun for me and I try hard. I give a shit way more about like my actual real patience getting better and like my craft than I do about like, oh man, I only was right about like three guys this week. So it's a lot easier for me to just like chill when I

talk about this stuff. Yeah, I think it shows. Yeah, it shows for sure, especially like when you're given your your analysis and stuff too. And that's why I appreciate like you because, you know, you come at this from like an injury perspective first, second, third and the fantasy perspective comes fourth. So I always appreciate like that unbiased analysis because some of the injury people, no offense to them. I mean, they play, they think of it from a fantasy lens first and then an injury perspective second. So I always appreciate that. But yeah, so not great for acres. Not great. Dynasty. If you drafted early in best ball, which I know a lot of our listeners did and had a lot of acres, just a brutal blow. There's really no ways, no two ways about it.

The other brutal blow we had was Michael Thomas. Scott and I've talked about this a bunch off air. Edwin, you and I've talked about this a bit off air too. The whole timeline is just bizarre. If you want, Edwin, man, just kind of like laid out from the beginning, starting with, you know, January, February this past year. Yeah, so the injury never changed. He had a deltoid rupture,

which essentially amounts to a high ankle sprain, plus the toughest, broadest, strongest ligament on the inside of the ankle was ruptured to the point where it needed surgery. There was really nothing else you could do. The high ankle, you can pair those, but really it's the deltoid that was the issue, the deltoid ligament. So what happened was, according to Nick Underhill, what happened is he went to a specialist in January.

The specialist said, hey, you can probably rehab this. Let's try that. Allegedly, and this is where we don't know any more of the details, he just didn't go back. and then he came he reported a minicamp and the team docs were like dude what the hell like this needs surgery now so nobody knows why nobody knows nobody understands what went into that decision none of us know but now he's on he's on the mend for at least the next like six to eight weeks there's a study done on professional soccer players done in the netherlands that had this exact specific issue that michael thomas had what they found was that after uh the surgery

they were able to get back to rehabbing, like sport-specific stuff in about five weeks, but the standard deviation was about 12 days. So it could be a little under four to six weeks or so. And then the return to training, so like practice, strength and conditioning and stuff, the average was 72 days with the standard deviation of 28. And then returning to games, the average was 103 days plus or minus 28 days. So really it lines up with that timeline that Nick reported. It's going to be probably somewhere between 12 to 16 weeks before we see him.

And that's obviously based from June, surgery in June, and then extending it out that way. So that would be roughly, if I remember correctly, that's like week four, five-ish that we're looking at for Michael Thomas. It could be earlier. It could be after. This is a super volatile decision. What I've been saying is that, like, if he's not a guy that you're going to take at this point for safety, but I do think that he could end up winning a lot of leagues for people that, like, especially in leagues that don't have an IR slot and he's like maybe floating on the waiver wire. people get tired of him because he's not going to have his sea legs under him until at least the middle of the season, especially after a big injury like this.

So I think that he could contribute, but it's going to be, he's not like a slam dunk. I would definitely not be taking Michael Thomas as like a quote unquote safe pick right now. Right. Yeah. So, you know, the timeline is at best week four and then probably like at worst week eight. You know, this is now, you know, the second year of this injury. You know, who's to say that he's just going to take it super. super slow and as he should. I mean, just to protect, you know, protect his longevity. I guess that

would be my concern is that, you know, let's say the Saints, you know, let's say the Saints start up like five and one and they just don't really need Thomas. You know, they could wait it out and just, you know, hope he's back close to 100% by the playoffs. So there's a lot of moving parts with this. Scott, I know you were really high on Thomas before the injury. I know he was like one of your, you know upside wins championship guys and um i was with you i just got really lucky where i ended up not drafting a bunch of michael thomas have a bunch of like keen allen and a rob um now obviously he's falling out of the you know he's falling completely out of that third fourth fifth six round tier where where would you take him right now if you're on the clock yeah no no no no i pulled him from

that article in time thankfully uh yeah i mean we got the news from adam schfter in february that he was going to get the surgery. And Edwin said this. All of the injury experts said this. It's like, it was a miracle at all he was on the field last year. And so if he gets this surgery in February, like everyone's expecting, he should be all systems go, in which case he's to me, you know, massive upside. There's no other viable receivers on that team. TASM targeted the heck out of him. James. We saw him support two top five wide receivers by fantasy points per game the last time he was a starter. But yeah, now I actually took him a couple days ago in an FFPC league. I didn't expect to go that route, but I got him at the 7-8 turn, which I thought was fine value for a top-heavy tournament-style

league where, you know, it really comes down to winning the bonus rounds in the weeks, you know, 15, 16, 17, where first place pays out 50 times what 10th place pays out. So, and you're competing against thousands of other teams. So I think that makes sense. But yeah, in a typical, you know, home league 12 team, I was talking to Scott Pianowski about this, like why people get this wrong all the time, you know, injury optimism. It always backfires. Like we saw with A.J. Green a few years ago, oh, he'll be back by week four. No, no, no, no, no, never mind.

Week eight. No, no, no, never mean. He's out the whole year or they'll come back. And you don't know if you could start them. the first week. You don't know if they're a decoy. They're on a pitch count. And so that tends to backfire a lot. Rather than just, oh, chase the upside, this guy's a stud if he's healthy and I'm getting him as a wide receiver three. I do think, you know, you have to factor all that in the specific format. He's a tricky one. And what does this mean for the rest of the New Orleans offense?

Like, is Trout God going to be a thing? The Trout God, Adam Troutman. What does this mean for Alvin Kamara last year, Alvin Kumar averaged over 30 fantasy points for game without Michael Thomas. And then does this mean New Orleans starts Taysom Hill week one? Because why not? If you have the crappy receiving core that New Orleans has, why wouldn't you start the, you know, mobile quarterback who can do more with his legs than through his arms? So just a really interesting situation overall. Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head.

If you're going to drive Michael Thomas, it's a format. and game specific question. Because like your, the FFPC is the football, football guys championship, right? Are you playing there? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So yeah, that makes a ton of sense because you also have access to the waiver wire. So you've got, you know, a top heavy payout plus waiver wire. I don't know.

I've gone back and forth on this too because like, you know, the thing with AJ Green a couple years ago is you weren't really getting a discount. If I remember correctly, he was like a fifth, six-round pick. Doug Baldwin, And also we went through the same thing with Baldwin where it was like, you know,

I think it was like the 2017 season. It was the end of his career. And yeah, I mean, you weren't in the discount there either, you know, for a fifth, six round. With Thomas, I think you're going to get that discount. I think people are going to wisen up and he's going to fall into like the seventh and eighth round. And even in like a homily, man, I think especially if it's not a sharp home league, you can just

stash Thomas on the bench. Oh, dude, yeah, I'm stashing him everywhere I can. And I love him in like high var- like you were saying, Scott, like high-variants tournaments and shit like that where you really need to, we really need to differentiate yourself and just have like high upside plays. I definitely think he's worth that. I think that's where I'm like would be the most comfortable taking it this year. This is also a really good, really good time to buy as a low as possible on Michael Thomas in dynasty. Yeah. You know, especially if a team's rebuilding.

I've got a couple Michael Thomas teams in Dynasty, one of which I got to rebuild. the other one's a competitor. I'm going to hold on. But yeah, I think I think if you're if you're in that mix top three, top four mix, this is a really good time to try and get some cheaper Michael Thomas. Right. Let's move on to some more positive news. Edwin, you have been like a fusive that Saquan Barkley is going to be close to 100% if not 100% by week one. There's a video that went out. I think it was on his Instagram page where he's like taking a swing with a, He was taking a golf swing with him, like a simulator. Yeah, it looked good.

It looked like he had no surgery. How many times did you watch that video and repeat? By myself or in public? I watched it several times. I watched it several. I'm just kidding. Now, yeah, so the deal on Saquan, man, the timelines on him, and I understand the community at large is like nervous.

Oh, ACLs don't perform well after the fact. Yes, there's some data to show that functional outcomes are better 18 months. compared to 12 months, we get that. The thing is, that doesn't account, just like the data, so the data works both ways when it comes to the medicine and the science. Just like the data doesn't account for Cam Acres' population, his demographic, when it comes to the Achilles tares, none of the data that we're pulling for ACLs in Saquan Barclay applies to Saquan Barcl.

He's more athletic than Adrian Peterson. He's like 22, 23 when he actually tore the ACL. He's got just incredible athleticism stamina. Now, the thing about it is he's going to be another, he's going to be 10 months and 12 days. He had a very minimal meniscus issue. They just were able to suture it up. He had prehab for a month before he even had surgery. He's like, he's obviously elite in terms of like his draft capital.

Everything about him screams to me anyway. Screams like this is, you're getting a discount. If he's falling to 1.07, like you're getting a discount. The flip side is that the giants are one of the least sharp organizations in the entire NFL. So here's from Ryan Dunneman. Lee, who tweeted this just today, or yesterday maybe. This is what he said. My understanding from sources last week is that Sequin Barkley considers himself ready to go.

Medical experts are telling him his recovery is on track or ahead of expectations, but giants will go slow, maybe not ramping him up until 10 days of camp to get week one ready. So what that tells me is that the giants are either just stupid because if you're medical experts, if your surgeons and your PTs and your athletic trainers are saying like, man, this guy looks good. He's hitting the minimum nine months that we would feel comfortable letting him go. He's that he's even ahead of expectations depending on what protocol you're doing. Like I think this guy is ready to go. And Joe Judge and Getty are looking at them and going, hmm, nah. Like the thing is I was going to ask, do you really think that's happening? But like there's a

possibility that's happening because they're just not sharp. So it doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what the science says. And it doesn't matter what I think about him as like an athlete and a player. if the giants are going to bring him along slowly, it doesn't matter. Like none of that matters. And the thing is that he just comes at a price that, I feel like that's sort of baked in. Like we don't know if he's going to get a full workload.

Do I think he could handle it? Absolutely. Like I think they could unleash him and he'll be fine. But, you know, you also have to remember Joe Judge comes from the Bill Belichick coaching tree who, you know, everybody on literally I did this study. I stopped at like seven or eight teams because I just didn't think it was worth a lot of, you know, more time.

Bill Belichick in his tenure between 2016 and 2019 had legitimately every year he he had players listed on the injury report like a hundred more times than any other coach that was like consistent in their tenure. So that's a long way of saying I think Sequin's going to be fine, but I don't think that the Giants are very sharp so we don't know what's going to happen. Right. Yeah, those days, man, he would put Brady on the injury report if Brady like stubbed his toe. Yeah, man, I think you nailed it, though. It's like you're getting that price baked in. Like, you know, right now in May and June, in basketball drafts I was doing, he was still consistently like fifth, six overall after like the big four.

So that's CMC, you know, Cook, Camara, and Henry. Now he's slipping past Kelsey, slipping past Jonathan Taylor. He's going to start slipping past, you know, Tyree Kill, DeBonte Adams. I'm going to league right now. I joined like, I think it was like a $50, best ball tennis. on the NFFC and he went at the 112, which was just mind-blowing. It's getting out of control. It's getting out of control.

I took Adams at 1-9 full disclosure just because I had bad. Yeah, I should be a top six pick, not a robbery suspect. But, yeah, man, I just, you know, people are really, really skittish. And I'm kind of with you. I don't really think they should be. I've taken Barclay quite a bit myself. But, yeah, man, I guess the flip side of this is like, Vante Booker is a fantastic pick for basketball right now.

No, I know it goes against your Barclay. I know it gets against your Barclay hating that or your Barclay thing, but Booker, you know, if they do bring Barclay on slowly for whatever reason, Booker's going to get, he's going to get touches. And if Barkley, you know, strains a hamstring, they're going to take it even slower with them. Yeah, I hear you. And there is that part of it, too, 20%.

This is, and the whole Saquan breakdown is over at FantasyPoints.com. I think it's free if you wanted to go check it out. It's free. But that is, since 2015, right? So this is when modern science has caught up to these ACLs, right? Since 2015, skill players specifically, there's been about a 20% chance of hamstring issue or like a knee complication, like a swelling where they've been on the injury report. It doesn't necessarily imply they miss games.

So basically what you're looking at is, you know, think of everybody that tore their ACL. We can move on to these guys too because I feel like we've hammered this enough. Sorry. Sequin, OBJ, Cortland Sutton, all those dudes who tore an ACL. theoretically 20% of them are going to have some sort of knee complication or hamstring issue. But we just don't know who it's going to be. Like there's no way to point that out. Bottom line for me is Saquan's going to be 10 months and 12 days since his surgery.

He's just, he checks all the boxes to be an outlier. That's not to predict that he's going to be an outlier. But if there was anybody in the whole universe that was going to be an outlier and just just basically throw the protocols out of the window, it would be Saquan Barclay. Yeah, I did a back when Barclay was. coming out of college. I did a podcast with Elliot Chris. He was doing a bunch of like player profiles on daily on his on his podcast. And I did one with Sequin Parkley. And he, he led in with Superman's theme song on, on Barkle by my show. That's appropriate. Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah. I mean, yeah, Barclay was Superman. He still is. And I think, I think you're right. I think he's going to be,

I think he's going to be just fine. And right now, man, he's a fantastic discount. Because if you were healthy, Scott, if, if Berkeley were healthy, he would be in that conversation. with like Henry and Zeke for four and five, right, among RBs? I think higher. I mean, he's the closest thing we have to Christian McCaffrey. Okay. Yeah, so he would be three then. He would be probably RB2 if he was full. Wow. Okay. Over Dalvin. Dalvin just has such six touchdown upside. And I love Dalvin, but yeah, I think you're

probably right. I think you're probably right. So OBJ, Cortland Sutton, both coming off ACL tears, kind of like you said. it's, you know, OBJ said he's fine. Sutton says he's fine today. Sutton had a quote where he's just like, I'm not going to feel 100% until I get hit, basically, until I get back on the field, which I love. So all things considered, I think Beckham and Sutton have just kind of stayed the same and ADP all summer. I really don't think we need to touch on them too much because you kind of know the situation. One guy I really do want to touch on. I've been texting you since like, I don't know, since like June since this situation came up as a Mario Cooper.

What is going on with Cooper? I know the Cowboys are playing it. You know, they're kind of playing it slow, and they're playing with their cards very close to their chest. But Cooper's coming off in ankle injury. And they put them on the PUP list today, or maybe it was yesterday. What is the deal with Cooper?

Do you think it's some sort of complication or is there, you know, are they really just playing it safe? I just want to say one thing about Amari before Edwin dives and deep. In 2019, remember last year we did that article together, Edwin. So in 2019, he was dealing with an intrinsic muscle strain in his foot that put him in jeopardy of almost missing week one. Week three, he had an ankle injury to the opposite foot that kept him limited in practice until week five. Week six, he played on just three snaps before he suffered a quad injury slash a bruised thigh that knocked him out of that game. The ankle and quad were both still

injuring, uh, bothering him in week seven, but he kept playing. He suffered a knee injury in practice heading into week nine, then re-agravated it during that game. He was diagnosed with a bruised knee and that alongside the ankle kept him limited in practice until week 12. And then he re-injured it again in week 13. That's an insane amount of injuries. And in spite of that fact, he was still a monster. He was still hyper, super productive. Uh, this guy's dealt with a ton of injuries throughout his career. I don't know why. Maybe Edwin can talk about why. But one point is he has played through it and he has played through it successfully. Yes. Those are, that's a great point. I sort of, can you hear me? Yep. Okay. So that's a great point to bring up. I sort of view Mari Cooper in the way that I view Julio Jones. He's

like Julio Jones light. Like, Julio always has all these nagging little things that are like at the hamstring or it's an ankle or it's a shoulder. And he just plays and performs anyway. Marty Cooper is the same way, but he also has higher variance. My theory is that the reason he's so prone to these sort of zero bust games, Mari Cooper, is because of these specific injuries that are nagging him and he just never says anything about them. That's my theory. Now, there is a little bit about, like, his style of play, too, in terms of, like, is he inside or is he outside?

Like, can he create separation, stuff like that? And I get that. But I do think that the injuries play something into it. You know, NFL players get hurt, but it is, it's difficult to look past the fact that he's had all these foot and ankle stuff, his foot and ankle injuries specifically. And now he's having, coming off a minor, what was considered a minor cleanup of scope in January.

There's no reason if this is progressing the way that it should be, that in June, he's having, quote, irritation for this scope that he had on his ankle. It could have been cartilage issue. It could have been a ligament issue. It could have been something that they wanted to clean up. But it's just not healing. It's not doing well.

This is a bad sign early in June. I that he's having this irritation from this specific. And we're assuming this is from the same ankle. Right. Um, so, you know, something, a steroid injection could be in his future. Another scope could be in his future. As of right now, it's not looking great. Um, I think you could still get him at like a discount and hope sort of cross your fingers, hope for the best. But the worst case scenario is that he needs to be cut open again. And they need to be more aggressive. And now I don't know what that would entail specifically because we don't know the specifics of the injury itself, but there's no reason that he should be sitting.

here in July with irritation on the pup from a surgery that happened in a minor surgery that happened in January. Dan. Yeah, well, now you're scaring to it because Cooper is one of the guys I was taken ahead of Michael Thomas, so I might catch that on the back end. But, yeah, Cooper sat out, I believe it was the 19 training camp, too, with a foot sprain. And then, like you mentioned, he played through a bunch of stuff last year and the year before.

What's interesting from a long-term perspective is the Cowboys can get out of Cooper's contract, I believe after this year, too. So I don't know, man. I don't know if, I don't know if they're going to be looking to do that, you know, with all these injuries piling up. But CD Lamb is already going ahead of Mario Cooper in a lot of drafts. I've seen a lot of sharp rooms take lamb over Cooper. And I think that trend's going to continue all the way through training camp until we

see Cooper put the pads on and get back on the field. Are you saying you're going CD Ham in your draft scrim? Oh, the Twitter feed already went CD Ham today with all the freaking in CD Lamb highlights that were all over the feed. CD goat. It was basically a massive circle jerk on Twitter. Honestly, it was glorious. I enjoyed it for a little, but then it got old.

No, but this also makes Michael Gallup even more appealing. I've been drafting a ton of time. Oh, you love Michael Gallup. I've been hearing you say that. You do love Michael Gallup. Yeah, I love me some Gallup. So if Cooper, I mean, if Cooper is less than 100%, this is some games.

Gallup is. Lamb and Gallup are going to be doing a lot of trials. out on the field this year for your team. Yeah, you like that one, huh? Well done. Name this podcast, dad puns. All right. Enough scaring about Mari Cooper.

Calvin Ridley, please tell me some good news. He had kind of a similar situation where he's coming off a kind of sneaky, you know, injury that required surgery wasn't a lot in the media about it. Ridley missed, I believe he missed minicamp. It's just like a precaution. Is there any cause for concern with Ridley and his injury? Yeah. So, yeah, that's the thing about the injury itself.

I don't, I had a tweet about it, and now I lost it because I don't know where it went. But I think it was just a scope, right? Yeah, they said it was a minor off-season foot surgery, which, by the way, I've been meaning to ask you this. Is there a such thing as a minor surgery? Like, anytime, anytime you. get cut open. It sounds like something major to me. Yeah. When it comes to like regular humans, yeah, there's not there's not really such a thing as a minor surgery. There are major risks, generally speaking, with getting put under anesthesia. Then you have blood clot issues potentially

that you're at risk for. For regular humans, no. I know that's become like we've become accustomed to saying, oh, you know, it's a minor surgery. There's no such thing as a minor surgery, regardless of how small it is. So yeah, that is something that sort of sports fans, I think, take for granted a little bit. But yeah, anytime you need to open somebody up, For the record, surgeons are the last people who want to cut you open if they don't need to. For one, there are inherent risks and ethically they have a responsibility to make sure they don't put you at those risks if they don't need it. For two, if you mess up their outcomes like a Mari Cooper, then that just looks bad on them. Regardless if it's their fault or not, so they don't want to be associated with that.

So even surgeons will be the first ones to say try PT first. And you should. Everybody out there. Plug for physical therapy out there. But here's the thing. This was a cleanup for Calvin Ridley. worst case scenario based on sort of deducting here he had some sort of like decompression i don't think that's actually what happened he probably just had a regular scope um at worst case from the day of the

surgery which would have been back in june it would have been like a four to eight week recovery um but i think that it was just like a cleanup i don't i don't have any concerns unless we get to october and you're hearing the same thing about ridley that you heard about umari cooper about you know irritation or whatever but no i'm not he's had some foot ankle stuff too so you do want to watch out for that. I've said before, tell me, Scott or Graham, either of you. Tell me who you think a player, a player who's in the same tier and the most comparable

to Calvin Ridley. Like strictly for fantasy production, man, probably Stefan Diggs. That's what, yeah, I've heard Stefan Diggs. So if you're looking, if you're on draft day and you're like, oh man, I could take Stefan Diggs right now

or I could take Calvin Ridley in a bubble, right? In a vacuum. Sure, you can use the surgery as like, all take Stefan Diggs. But other than that, I'm not like 10,000 foot view concerned about Calvin Ridley. Okay. Yeah, well, I remember he missed a game last year, excuse me, he missed a game last year midseason because of a foot sprain. And is there a, is that a link? Is that, was that the same injury? I honestly don't know. It was a midfoot sprain. And it very well could be something that they went back and explored. He maybe had like some sort of like cartilage fragment or some, you know, some even like bone fragment that was residually from. that injury itself, or it could be totally unrelated. We just don't know, but it could be something

related to that. But in the short term, it's not, like I said, it's not too big of a concern. Okay. Yeah, because there was a rap sheet tweet, June 9th. He said it was like, you know, he said it was a minor foot surgery, a little cleanup. And obviously he wasn't in many camps. So, yeah, we'll just, something to monitor. I'm with you. I'm not really adjusting too much for Ridley. Definitely adjusting a little bit for Cooper. I've been taking him like consistently in the mid third round. Ironically around that Michael Thomas range, like I said. But yeah, Cooper, I think, is like maybe a half a round discount until we see him because the upside. I mean, if you're getting to Mark Cooper in the fourth round, you know what the upside is. I mean, he has wide receiver

five, six, seven potential in that offense right now. So yeah, no discount on Ridley, slight one on Cooper. We added Joe Mixen to the list here that we wanted to talk to you about, Edwin, and last year. That was probably the most frustrating injury to just have in fantasy because like, you know, in week six, week seven, he, you know, left that Colts game, middle of the game. And then, you know, the bangles were like, oh, he'll be back in a couple weeks. And you're like, fine. All right, whatever. I'll just ask Joe Bernard. It'll be fine. And, you know, two weeks turns into four, four weeks turns into six. And then they shut him down late in the year. Do you have any intel on what that injury actually was? And do you think he should be back to

100% for training camp right now. It sounds like it was a midfoot sprain, and it sounds like he was fine. There was some buzz. At one point, they published a, the Bengals, like out of Cincinnati, published an injury report. And I was shocked that it said Joe, it was one, it was in the middle of that low when he wasn't doing anything. And it said Joe Mixen full practice.

They retracted it. They said he didn't practice. I think he might. of practice and they're like oh shoot we're not supposed to put that out there i think he's fine zach taylor has his history like scott mentioned earlier um he he sort of drug us along when it came to a j green um i never believed him for for a second when that was happening uh when it came to a j green he did it last year with nixon just like we're talking about so i don't believe anything that comes out of cincinnati i don't believe anything that comes out of zach taylor's mouth and i don't think that he had

that serious of an injury uh even if he did it was stable there are systematic reviews showing that the athletes that come back from a stable, this frank issue do just fine. Their outcomes are great and they can go back to their sport without any issues. I'm not worried about Joe Mixing at all. He's played like 93% of his games getting back to college before this year. He's fine. I think Joe Mixon is going to be fine.

Great. Yeah, you love to hear that because I know Scott's high on mixing. I'm high on mixing. And you're getting him now at a, you know, maybe six to 10 pick discount from where he usually goes and, like, the back guy for the first round. So you love to hear that. I'm dangerously high on mixing. You really are.

Honestly, I love to hear that. I do. You're getting, you're getting, you're getting, you're getting, he fits. He fits that bill cow archetype you love. That's right. That's right. You give him 50% of Giovanni Bernard's vacated work, which all the beat writers, the coaches are saying, he's going to be an 80% of the snap kind of guy, which is rare.

He's right there in the Dalvin Cook, Zeke Elliott discussion. it. Damn. So Joe Mixon is the RB one of Roe Caffrey. He's going to score 33 fantasy points per game. Oh, he's well above Jonathan Taylor. The question is, is Antonio Gibson above Jonathan Taylor. And that's another injury concern we need to be talking about. The toe injury. Stil. Antonio. Antonio. All right. Dad puns it is. It's not funny. It's this man's health, but I had to have thrown in there. Also, last thing before you get into Anthony Gibson, I see that Tom Brady fine off MCL question mark. I have a feeling Scott put that in there just because he loves to talk about Tom Brady. Was that you, Scott?

I don't think so. Oh, was that Graham? Wow, I'm shocked. Yeah, I mean, so right at Tom Brady put out that he basically played without any working ligaments in his knee. And then Dr. David Chow came out. You like, well, this is just a lie because that's, that's impossible. Well, Brady also put together a nice little fake clip of him throwing a ball in their joke. machine that was all that. He likes to build himself up to be something more than he is. And he doesn't

need to because he's already the greatest of all time. But I mean, plastic surgery. I mean, he's definitely had plastic surgery. Oh, absolutely. And he was also super late to the, to the Bitcoin game because he laser-eyed himself in like March of this year. It's like, get the hell out of here. Brady, what are you even doing? You're just doing this for Clower. He has the, he has the CGI video of him throwing it into the. The jugs. Yeah. Yeah. The jugs machine. He's basically like one of those Instagram thoughts. He's really not that hot is like sort of fat just taking great angled pictures with heavy filters on. That's who Tom Brady. And you don't need to. Just love yourself for who you are. Like you're the goat. You're the greatest football player

of all time. Why do you have to embrace your flaws? Tom Brady's about to start putting swipe up links in his Instagram for the thing. The thing he's doing is he's trying like if you think about it. He left New England. And what he's trying to do is, like, build a back half of his legacy. Because he, I don't, he knows he's not competing with anybody, literally other than Michael Jordan. Like, in terms of, like, sports figures, he knows he's not competing with anybody other than somebody like Michael Jordan. And so that's what he's doing. And Bill Belichick. I think it's like, working against him too. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you ever have a friend who's like dad was like, you know, senior vice president at J.P. Morgan? I'm actually talking about a little friend right now,

but who was like always in his shadow. And so he has to like, I have to make my own way. and, you know, come on, Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get you. Yeah, he definitely wanted to prove that he was the most of the influence of all their, all the race. Then he threw three picks in the NFC championship game, but we won't talk about that, will we? Moving on. I still can't believe he, I still can't believe he ended his Patriots curve that Titans pick.

Oh, I know. I know. Yeah. It's almost like he did it on purpose. I got a bunch of buddies that are big Jags fans, and they loved it. Jacks fans, no, no fan base. will never catch me on this. No fan base hates Tom Brady more than Jaguars fans. Did the Jaguars have them on the ropes that one? What year was that?

Oh, they should have won that game. Miles Jack forced that fumble, man. Go back and after you listen, everybody, after you're done, listen to the podcast, go to YouTube. Pull up Miles Jack's fumble. The referees totally botched that call in favor of the Patriots. The Jags were driving down. Let it go, Graham. Let it let it go. This is years ago. I'm a giant. Now we're talking Scott's sensitive spots. I'm a Giants fan. I'm a Giants fan, so obviously Tom Brady is my favorite player of all time. Right, right.

Yeah. The Giants fans are like, you only want to like don't hate Brady. Yeah. They got those two rings in there. Yeah. Every giant fan's like, Tom Brady's not that bad.

Yeah, which is weird. Yeah, which is weird. He's not the goat. He's not Eli Manning, but he's up there. Oh, boy. Is Eli Manning elite? That's like, do you want to hear my, oh, do you want to hear my argument for why Eli Manning should be in the Hall of Fame? Because it's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Great. And he's famous. So he's getting in.

Yeah. It'd be pretty, it would be pretty crazy if he didn't. I mean, two. You can't debate that. Two Super Bowl rings against the vintage Patriots. And if he doesn't get in. I'm with you, by the way. I mean, statistically, he's not even close to some of those. So the real argument is just that, like, what are people going to remember about? the 2000s to 2020s. It's just Tom Brady and the three teams that beat him in the Super Bowl. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's Eli. There was a funny, and we could, sorry, we were off the rails.

There's a, there's a meme I remember going around. I think it was like 2019. It was when the Giants were in a tight game. And Eli had Daniel Jones on the side. It was when he, when they'd pulled Eli for Daniel Jones. And there was a meme going around because they were looking at the iPad together. And the meme was like, like Eli talking to Daniel Jones and he and it was like yeah you just throw it up in the air then

somebody comes down with it and then it was that David Tyree catch with the where the football is on his head like the two split pictures of like Eli Manning saying you just throw it up there somebody's gonna catch it so that's that that's what I think of when I think of Eli Manning. Yeah that's great dude um that throw he had to um I believe it was Mario Manningham like up the sideline and that 2011 oh my god that one was sick that was a seed that was a truly elite it was That's like one of the best throw is. Maybe the best throw of all time. Yeah.

In the most clutch moment, too. As a fan, I am just forever chasing those two moments. The Manningham, nothing will ever come close to it. I could be sweating a million dollars and it's still not insane. Were you a big Jason Seahorn guy? Oh, absolutely. I own two jerseys. One is Jason Seahorn.

The other is Jeremy Shockey. I love it. I met. chasing Seahorn. He's the man. Also, one of the most underrated special teams returners of all time. I think he has two in his career. And they both went for touchdowns. And I think he both ended in an ACL injury. Was one of them against the Eagles? Or am I misremembering that? I don't know. No, he had that sick interception return for a touchdown where he bobbled it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was it. That was it. All right. We've gone completely off. I guess here. I think we were on Antonio Giff. Gibson and that actually kind of, that was a sneaky injury that kind of popped up. Yeah.

Late last year, Gibson still said, I think it was like May and June, reporter asked him like, you know, hey, are you back from your, you know, your turf toe? And he said, not really. I'm still kind of feeling it. What? What? Is that normal? No. Not for him to say that anyway.

So here's the thing. You have, when it comes to like most injuries, if you grade them from one to three, grade one, are you like, You turn your ankle playing pickup basketball, you know, five days later, you're playing again. You're fine. Grade three is, all right, you need surgery. This needs stabilized pretty quickly. Otherwise, you're just probably not going to have a functioning ankle. And then you have your grade two.

Your grade two is like huge. There's this huge gap between grade one and grade three. And grade twos fill that massive gap. It could be anything from like your ankles falling off close to a grade three. Or like, this is just a really severe grade one. What I'm trying to say is, like, there's a lot of gray area. Specifically with turf toe injuries, you don't always necessarily need surgery. And the literature isn't conclusive on whether you need it or not.

In a scenario like Patrick Mahomes, they probably were like, okay, yeah, this is probably to the point where we would serve. But with Antonio Gibson, they were probably like, yeah, you could probably rehab this. It'll probably be fine. And then it didn't get better. Six months later, it's not better. It's not going to get necessarily better. But it also doesn't make it mean that it's super severe. But we do know, like, if he's.

saying six months later it's still bothering me then it's going to bother him what i think is this is going to amount to is uh he is going to be on the injury report you know a lot of weeks he's going to miss some wednesday practices scott's going to be dming me thinking about what i think about a beat reporter's tweet um where everybody's going to panic then he's going to end up playing like most sundays what i would say is like he's another definite fade compared you know to another player that you think might be in his caliber i would put him at the end of that tier and i would compare him to the dude at your next tier and i would i consider taking the dude at the next year because you don't know what's going to happen with this i'm not going to as highly unlikely is that the whole thing's just going to

rupture that's super unlikely but when we have information that a dude is still carrying an injury into the season that's likely not going to get better without surgery at the end of the 2021 season like that's information we can use to our advantage like if you're looking for upside constantly and you're looking to just totally fade any type of like you know variance that you don't want on your team then this is information to use it's not to say that he's going to miss more than like one or two games maybe, but it's definitely information that's relevant to to when you're selecting players and that sort of, where's he going? Like second, like first half and second? It's like, it depends on what draft you're in. He's typically a second round pick. Like,

it can be the 201 to the 210. But yeah. Yeah, that's, that's where I would start considering. I don't know, it just depends on your roster construction and everything else, obviously, but I'm not fading him completely, but like I said, if you're, if you're like looking for somebody else, then I might lean that direction instead. Yeah. I just want to say that that injury was so especially frustrating because the team had said from the start, we're going to unleash Gibson in the second half or we're going to give him a full workload. And a few weeks after that, that started how we started to see that materialized. It all culminated in week 12 where I saw season highs and Snapshare, 65 percent carries 20 targets. He was finally used in the passing team seven targets.

he scored 36.6.6 fantasy points. I'm like, yes, here is my league winner. This is, this rookie season, David Johnson, crushing it in the playoffs. And then he missed what, the next five games. And he spent the last three on the injury report as questionable. And, you know, so, so if he's full health, and again, the comments were weird and vague, it was like, oh, you know, almost 100%. I'm, I'm feeling good, though.

and it's just like, could this be a thing where it caps his volume or if he's fully healthy, like, are they just going to unleash him and he's going to be, you know, the league winning 2016 David Johnson, you know, I want him to be. Yeah. Real quick, I do have the full quote pulled up. I was from June 2nd, so many camps. You know, he was getting close to practicing in OTAs. But he said it was something small, the turf toe injury was something small.

It was causing me to not able to run to a hundred. 100% I'm fine now. I've been cutting in practice and getting better each day. But it's definitely something to monitor. I definitely got to watch and make sure and stay up on my treatment. But it's definitely something I'm watching until 100%, which is kind of like a word jumble. Yeah. If you scramble all those words together, you might get something out of it. But yeah, it sounds like he's still, at least back in June, he was still feeling the effects of it. Well, Turf Toe from December shouldn't still be around in June if it resolved. That's what I'm saying. So like, but I think all things Scott said are possible.

Like it's possible that he can get to full. I think it's unlikely, but it's possible he can get to full health. They start feeding him. He becomes a, you know, a league winning sort of running back. And then he misses week 14 and 15 because the toe got worse. Like I think that all options are possible. And he's got really high volatility. He could be 100% healthy.

Like I said, the other side of the coin to look at is that he, I'm not a big believer in like running backs can't handle volume. But I do think sort of like exceptions exist. And we just don't know what kind of volume. Like he might have hit his tipping point when he started getting more volume last year to where his body couldn't hold up to it. We don't know. I'm not saying that's the case with him. But, and I'd have to look at his BMI because I think like if they have like a 28 BMI, it's fine. Like as long as they meet that threshold.

But maybe he, since he played receiver in college that he just can't handle an NFL running back workload. We don't know. Like I'm saying we don't know. And he's just of all the running backs, like the top running backs, he's got some of the highest volatility for 2021. one interesting yeah I mean he was at OTAs um but you know that quote did kind of stick out to me in the back of my head and I definitely wanted to ask you about it um by the way uh he's basically a jo mixing clone he's like 6 1 225 and he's a jonathan taylor clone he's like literally every single stat so that's then durability from like that perspective probably is not a not a factor

cool um god he's huge yeah he's massive man when i was watching him for yards created i mean he only had like 30 carries at memphis in his last year but i was like damn he literally looks just like Joe Nixon. But yeah, I mean, from a squatty perspective, he kind of doesn't like Taylor, too. I could see that. All right. Let's talk quickly about Joe Burrow. He got cleared today, which is fantastic. He's going to be cleared for 11 on 11. He's not going to play in the preseason, which isn't a surprise. So they're just going to, you know, keep him completely out of like live game contact, which is great. So Joe Burrow, on track for week one. Is there any concern for like lingering issues?

Is he ahead of schedule? Is he right on schedule? What's the you? I would say if we're if we're following what the Bengals are telling us and we follow the breadcrumb of trails, he's ahead of schedule. He had a massive knee injury. This was this was an ACL plus meniscus plus MCL. And there was some PCL involvement according to Shepty. This was a huge injury, guys, like huge late in the season too.

So the minimum, the bare minimum that a surgeon will let them. players return to sport or feel comfortable with them returning a sport if they pass all the functional criteria given by the PT is nine months. So week one is going to be nine months and 10 days. And I sent this to Scott too. So I'm not like it's looking good, especially since he didn't start on the pup. But I mean, there's nothing magical about like eight months and 29 days and nine months and 10 days. So I just wonder like, is it because, you know, what it might look like to the public? I don't know. It's strange that he's not going to do at least one preseason. game towards the end of the preseason because like I said, there's nothing magical in two weeks

once you're at the eight or nine month mark. Carson Wentz came back from his ACL and LCL in 20, I think it's like 2018 after nine months and 10 days too, ironically. So it's the bare minimum. I would just, I would say if you're all in on Borough, I have no problem with that. I just would not be taking Burrow as my only quarterback in any league or any format because it's not, it's not a slam dunk yet that he will be back for a week one. It's likely and it's trending that direction, but he's cutting it super close. So I wouldn't necessarily bank on it 100%. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see, you know, what they do. Do they just play him in shotgun a little bit more, maybe weeks one through three and just, you know, so he's not taking,

you know, big deep drops. So he's got, you can get the ball up quickly. So it'll be interesting to see what Zach Taylor and they do to get, you know, they kind of just get him back into a groove from. I can see a lot of three step drops, like quick slants, wheel routes to Nixon, hopefully. just to get his legs under him. I'm just, I'm wondering how much the mental side's going to impact. I talk about this a lot on Twitter. Like, just because we can't quantify

a player psychology and where they're at mentally doesn't mean that it doesn't impact their game. I mean, look at headcases like, gosh, what's the receiver who used to play for the Eagles? Deshawn Jackson? No, I would know him. I forgot his name. Aguilar.

Aguilar's like a head case. He's like a headcase. He's like talked to sports psychologists and stuff. Like this stuff matters. We just don't know to what extent. And so I don't know how comfortable he's going to be on the knee as a point I'm trying to make. Like that might cap his rushing upside in the first month of the season or so. Yeah. I need a sports psychologist for DFS swings.

Yeah. Those lows get real low, man. You always remember, you always feel like way worse. I don't know. It's something about the human brain where you like you feel three times worse with your losing streaks than you feel like when you hit a big win. Like it's still like that emotion. is three times worse. We're hardwired to remember negative because negative is what's protected us in terms of

evolution. So our brains are like you'll hear psychologists talk about. Our brains are literally hardwired to remember negative things. That's why when you have a bad day, you're just like want to bitch and complain about it. Because your brain's like hardwired to remember like what was negative about it. Why was it negative? What was the impacts? That way you try to avoid that again.

It's just like it's weird. It's an evolutionary thing. I love evolution. It feels like a Joe Rogan bit. Oh, dude. That's crazy. Yeah. Our ancestors, you know, saber-toothed tiger. Whatever.

Scott Joe Rogan thing. Have you tried DMT, man? It's a DMT. I'm on it, right? Have you ever had? Have you tried DMT and then eaten elk meat? It's fantastic. I think that like Joe Rogan as a guy is just a weird guy.

Like, he's a weird guy. I think he has conversations with really smart people, but I don't think he is like an intellectual. I think he's like a pseudo intellectual. He just says some off the stuff. Like he talks to smart people. I just I just question him and his intelligence like his some of the some of the things he says are like totally questionable he's out to get a comedian yeah yeah he's a comedian first yeah you got to remember

that true and a stoner second yeah that's for sure yeah he posted this weird ass video I follow him on Instagram he posted this weird video of him like this like ice tub and I don't know it's bizarre you just have to see it he loves he loves anything that's like even like physiologically plausible. He'll take an idea and a concept and a theory and he'll just extrapolate it out to like, this is fact and this is why I do this and it helps me. That's what bother me the most about him. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to trash Joe Rogan in case we have him on the show, but I'm a fan. I've reached out to his people and Scott. You're like a couple hours away from him in Austin now, so you can get down there. All right. Back to back to the show at hand.

Sorry, guys. That's right. Ben Rathusberger. Did he have Tommy John surgery or not? Because it was reported he did and he was like no it wasn't Tommy John surgery and so I'm just curious like he you know he was sort of noodle arms last year low A dot just tried to get the ball out quick could we see him you know make us take a step in terms of velocity and arm strength you could yeah you definitely could he had a flexor tendon rupture he had like he said he like he tore three flexor tendons so basically the motion that flexes your wrist and your fingers he that ruptured at the insertion at the elbow because they start way up at the elbow. So that's a recovery that typically can resolve within like six months,

depending on what literature you're looking at. But I think this is just like, this is just like an old guy injury. Like you saw it with breeze. He had a ligament rupture. And then you saw this like in the same week, Ben Rothsberger ruptured his elbow, his flexor tendons.

So those are just old guy injuries. Like they're literally like 40 years old. And that's not to like knock them, but they've been doing this thing repetitive. for 20 years at this point. More than that, 20 plus years. They've been doing the same motion, the same throwing motion.

They've thrown like hundreds of thousands of footballs. And this is just an overuse injury. So like even though he can bounce back from it, it's not to say that he's not susceptible to another overuse injury. So I don't know if he can come back necessarily. Like I think that his noodle arm might be here to stay. But I just don't, I just don't trust him at this point.

He's just like one of the just unhealthiest sort of players. that like when you I just consider he just always hurt it seems like and I don't blame the guy um yeah you know it's he plays in NFL but it always seems like there's something with ben rothusberger yeah there was a quote today from their GM Kevin Colbert um he basically said I did oh I didn't see any drop off in in his arm talent last year it's like okay come on you're just put on the rose color glasses at this point um but yeah you know I think last year it was obvious for anybody that that offense man they just couldn't stretch the field like they just It was Deontay Johnson drag routes.

It was dump-offs to Juju with like a four-yard A-Dot and like an occasional wobbly shot to chase Claypool. So we just have to hope that, you know, for all the receivers' sakes, because I mean, outside of like, you know, you're taking them as a QB2 or QB3 in basketball. Outside of that, you know, we're really just wanting Big Ben to be somewhat healthy for Deontay and Claypool. Yeah. And Juju, that's really the big thing. And now Naji Harris, too. He's got to have it. As long as he gets, as long as he has enough arm strength to dump off to Najee Harris 90 times this year, I think we'll be straight. We're already off the rails at this point. So I'll just give away one of Johnny's famous takes, which was when he linked together the elbow injury, Ben Rathesberger's home away splits and his porn addiction. He came out and admitted he had a porn addiction.

I had to meet myself while you're going into that because I knew I was going to start that's like the anti-scot trend right now though, right? That's like the opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of no fap, yes, fat. All right. So the next item on the agenda, I think this is interesting because a lot of people were drafting Evan Ingram last year. And I avoided him like the plague because Edwin had an article talking about how Liz Frank

injuries reduce an NFL offensive players on field production by an average of 21% in their first season following injury, but they're typically back to who they were prior to the injury the second year. And so last year we saw Evan Ingram, it's like about a 30% drop off in productivity. Didn't look good. Wasn't efficient. I don't know how drops factor into Liz Frank, but tons of drops. So Edwin, is this your take? Is your take? Now we're you go all in on Evan Ingram because he's back to full help. Well, I mean, Graham really took the wind out of my sales when I text him. Graham and I play this game where Graham tells me, I ask him, is this NFL player good?

And Graham will tell me yes or no. And like, I guess if you don't think Evan Ingram is good, like, no. But I do think that at least in part, his production was capped by the fact that he's coached by Jason Garrett and that he used one year after Liz Frank, a Liz Frank injury. a 30% drop-ups is huge. I went back and did the math, and I have it somewhere on my Twitter, where I talked about, like, his first couple of years

versus the 2020 season. There was a pretty stark difference. And he also had his peak games on the back half of the season. Makes you think, yeah, a little more rhythm, but also he's probably feeling a little bit better on that ankle. Overall, if you think Evan Ingram was totally just toast because of the injury, then, yeah, you should be in on him. But, like, also, if you don't think,

he's good and he's not going to have the targets because you have you basically would have what amounts to like three slot receivers with him and uh shepherd and and is it wait is this golden tate still there you leave no he's a free agent yeah okay so but then you have ingram in the mix too and then you add in kenned golliday and the fact that i don't think daniel jones is good at football you just have all these factors so i'll let you guys talk about that because i i think from an injury perspective it did it did sort of zap some of his upside yeah um i think just like watching um watching their games last year, you know, late in the year, you saw the explosiveness come back from him. And Garrett started using him more downfield. So I think there's definitely a link there that,

you know, early in the year, you know, Ingram was basically like Jason Witten to start the year from like a role perspective. You know, he was just getting like super low A dot targets. And then you saw that role start to expand. But yeah, you know, I wrote this up, but just not to go too deep Evan Ingram, but he had like one of the most unlucky seasons for tight end ever. Since 2000, only two tight ends have seen 100 or more targets in a season. The score just one touchdown. And that was Chris Cooley in 2008 and then Evan Ingram last year. And I pulled this too.

Tightens on average and they get 100 or more targets average 6.3 touchdowns per season. So I mean, Ingram was like at least, I mean by multiple factors below expectation of the touchdown department. But now, yeah, like you mentioned, Edwin, you know, he's got to deal with the hell. Vee Barclay, Kadiqa D'Aridi, Kedareas Tony. They brought in Kyle Rudolph, who I think is mainly just going to be a blocker. But, yeah, I think they've kind of told us what they think, what they thought about their offense last year.

And it's that they needed more weapons and they don't trust Evan Ingram to be a true, like, 15, 20, 25 percent target share player. I think they just want them to be a fun piece to the offense. All right. We will move on from Ingram. Let's talk Rahim Mosterich. Because last year, Mosterra, in previous years, I mean, every time he's on the field, he's freaking awesome.

But, you know, last year was obviously just a ton of injuries for him. Couldn't get back on the field. Came back, missed time, just on and off. Do you think, do you think Mosterate is close to 100%? Should it be 100% by week one? And do you think he'll be able to handle, you know, his usual, like, 12, 15, 16 touches per team? So it depends what you think of most. So at this point, he's 28 years old.

You know, I think he's a UDFA. He has a track record for sort of being like, I don't know, we have like a rich man's Kenyon Drake. Like he makes big plays. But it just, he, the best predictor for future availability is previous availability. Since 2017, he missed 11 games. I mean, missed. He played 11 games, 2017.

Then 9 in 2018. 2019 was an outlier. He played all 16. 2020, he played 8. this dude just doesn't tend to stay on the field. He has a knee injury. Not entirely sure what that's all about. Is it intraarticular inside the joint?

Is he having swelling in the knee? Is it still residual from the MCL issue? Then he had the high ankle sprain. He's just a guy that I don't necessarily trust to stay healthy. He's like, you know, he can make big plays, obviously, and he has some upside. But I'm not at this point, just considering all of the factors, like everything that the San Francisco 49ers, you know, taking Tracy. sermon the whole deal he's hard for me to trust because even if i do take him i feel like he's

going to be one of those dudes like is he even going to be available like should i even is this going to be a moster game just going to be a sermon game right jeff wilson if he ever comes back is this going to be a jeff wilson game uh is this going to be a scott barrett game because shanahan could probably sign scott off the street and like scott would rush for like 150 yards and catch three balls out of back bill for a touchdown like it's just an unpredictable situation he's hurt right now um from what like how you're not even on the field yet and like i'm try to have a pretty optimistic view on players, but Moster's just, he's a, he's, he's a hard one to pin down.

Yeah, so he had that, you know, the MCL sprain that he had, and I think it was like week one, it might have been week two last year. And then, you know, he sprained his ankle in the middle of the year. And then the report from June the second is that he missed an OTA because, an OTA session because he had a knee issue. And I did some digging. I couldn't really find what the knee issue was. But yeah, I just, I'm,

you, man. It's like, you know, we're talking about potentially three separate injuries to a player that relies on his speed to win. And all of the moves this offseason between drafting Trace Sermon, drafting, or not drafting, but bringing in Wayne Galman, who was fine for the Giants last year. I definitely think it was one, like their backfield just died last year. But I also think it's, it's, you know, probably a cause for concern on most dirt. Definitely. Cool. Well, this was great, man. Action-packed, tons of great info. Training camp is here, baby. I mean, football is back. We are into the full grind. Now, man, we will not be out of it until January. But Edwin, one of the- Wait, before we sign off, I just wanted to ask Edwin, I'll put you on the spot here. Last year, we did do that big injury discount article. And I don't know if there's a ton of time for it this year, but we did find some hidden gems. Tom Brady was one of them.

He had tennis elbow in his 10th game of the season. And, like, he, everyone missed that. Michael Giardy reported it. And if you look at the splits before and after that injury, it was really glaring. And, you know, Edelman was heard and injuries to the receivers as well. And so he was a hidden gem from that article series. And I was just wondering if you, if there are any other major potential injury discounts, we haven't yet hit on, whether that's like Trey Sermon, because, you know, you don't trust

Rahim must start to stay healthy, or if it's another player coming off an injury, you think people are undervaluing. Great question. I love this question. And I do want to get to that article this year. Will Fuller, I think there are too many confounders to say the reason he stayed healthy was because of the substance that he tested positive for. Too many confounders to say that if it doesn't happen this year, it's not going to happen.

He played all 13 games the whole time that he was at Notre Dame. I think he's being overlooked. Paris Campbell was really coming on at the end, had a PCL. He's had really bad luck with injuries growing a common foot fracture that receiver's his age get. And then the PCL, he's another dude that I'm really looking at. Mixen, I think, is getting a discount because of the injury itself. And then we already talked about it. Sequin Barclay, I think that the fact that he's slipping to the second round at this point is just absurd.

But off the top of my head, those are the dudes that I would consider. Yeah, Campbell's a really good one. You know, I mean, it's just like, you know, it's the problem with the Colts is they have three guys that could always. get like 18% of the targets and none of them are useful. And in bestball specifically, and I know the cop out is always like, well, I like him in best ball, but I like Chase Edmonds a lot. A lot of stuff that you guys have talked about when it comes to Edmonds, JJ Zacharisen talking about Chase Edmonds. I like him from a football perspective. Plus, James Connor can't stay on the field. And when he can't, when he is on the field,

he is not good. He's just, he's just burnt. He's toast. So I think that that Chase Edmonds, especially at his cost right now, offers like so much upside because I just don't straight up trust James Connor to stay healthy. And if he is, I just don't think he's going to have much juice left. And I think that this could be a huge year for Chase Edmund's newly slim thick. If you saw the headline today, he said, I've lost weight and I've gained weight. So he said he put on like muscle or he put on muscles at lost weight or something. The lost weight put on muscle, something like that. But I just want to start calling him Slim thick because I like that nickname. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that too. Zique looks slim thick right now, man. He's actually lost weight. He looks really good. He's like down to like 2.15. Zeke. Oh, I think Zheed is. Scott Zeeke is another one. He had COVID.

His offensive line was all injured. He had a calf strain from workload issues. Then he had, I think, a hamstring issue. Zeke's another one. I think Zinc's got a ton left in the tank. Yeah. Zeke, man. I've been enjoying the Zique discount because like if he, you know,

normal years, I mean, we were taking Zique like second, third overall. you know now we're blessed to have you know cook mcalfrey all those guys back healthy but i think seek is like right there in that conversation like behind camara and uh and derrick henry but last thing i promise i'll shut up after this the inverse of a discount um i think dalvin cook's injury risk is being ignored i don't think that it should be considered like super scary and dangerous but he is in my running back's tiers uh in the red light tier he's the only top running back in the red light tier. His shoulder dislocations, he's had three of them since high school.

He's had two surgeries to repair them. Those don't just go away. In fact, with more exposures, his risk continues to increase. That's something that you should consider. If you're going 10 out of 10 times, if you're going for Dolvin Cook, I highly recommend against that. I think if you're going 10 at 10 times, you should bump that to like 9 out of 10 times. Okay.

Yeah, you've been, I remember in your article last year, you're talking about Cook, too. And I remember one of the reasons I stayed away from Connor was because your article. So, yeah, everybody should go check out. Edwin's running back injury tears. I think he's going to have receiver injury tears up soon. Eventually. Yeah. Nah, man.

You got a legit, like a day job to do. So, yeah, it's all good. But Edwin, thank you so much for your time, man. This has been awesome. Yeah, I appreciate you guys. I like coming on and talking about Scott's current, his trends and, you know, Tom Brady and Joe Rogan. This is fun.

Yeah. Scott, we need to get work. working on Rogan man just go down to his warehouse and get him on don't break the streaks soon enough yeah all right guys um if you want to follow edwin and then check out he always has like super interesting um you know twitter threads and just great intel on injuries if you want to check out edwin follow him on twitter at fb injury doc um and uh you can see all this great threads on michael thomas uh he put a bunch of great data together i think he spilled most of it on the pot here today but yeah definitely go check

that out. Let's get out of here, guys. For Scott, for Edwin, I'm Graham. This has been two of ours. We'll see you next week. Welcome to Fantasy Points Radio. We bring to you Barfield and Perrin. All of these, all of these, all of these, all of these, all of these, all of these parents, they hell and embarrassed. Like, why did they air it? With all of these errors, and Bobfit and Barrett, you cannot compare with the kings of this era. There should be a tariff on all of this knowledge that fall out regardless. It's straight at a point like a crow. Popping in common is losing my oxygen takes that they got made me go. Whoa, so what's the swamp back gotta do? I'm chasing all of this cheese even if my competition grew. Deuces to the mean, your boy is never regressing off-season through the season. Three, six, five, two four seven, and there's one for the money, two bars on the show. Let's go. The money too far.

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