Fantasy Football Daily - Anthony Richardson Is Back + Week 11 Essential Fantasy Football Insights | School of Scott

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Welcome to School of Scott, the ultimate fantasy football masterclass hosted by Scott Barrett of FantasyPoints.com. In this episode, Scott and Theo Gremminger break down key takeaways from "The Everything Report." Week 11 Everything Report - https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/the-everything-report-week-11 Where to find us: http://twitter.com/ScottbarrettDFB http://twitter.com/TheOGFantasy Find Our Podcasts Here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/podcasts#/ https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/the-everything-report-week-4#/ Use promo code SCOREMORE for 10% off your subscription. Subscribe to FantasyPoints for FREE - https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/ FantasyPoints Website - https://www.fantasypoints.com NEW! Data Suite - https://data.fantasypoints.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/FantasyPts Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FantasyPts Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/FantasyPts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Indianapolis Colts make another change at quarterback. Welcome to School of Scott. I'm Theo Greminger. Every week, Scott Barrett and I take a deeper dive into the box scores and help you become a better fantasy football manager. We had a very clean show sheet, a very well-planned out show. And then about half an hour before we started to record, we get the news out of Indianapolis. It's a train wreck of an organization, in my opinion. Just a back and forth, back and forth.

Coach speak gets thrown out the window. We're back to Anthony Richardson. It's got your take on the situation and the fantasy impact. Yeah, I'm a little annoyed by it because I was, I was excited about Joe Flacco and what that meant for Josh Downs and the Ascot, Adonai Mitchell. And yeah, I know I know Flacco hasn't been great the last two weeks, but those were some brutal matchups. Vikings rang top three and EPA per play. Bill's have a really good defense where they intentionally shut down the deep ball, which is one of the strengths to Joe Flacco's game. And so, yeah, we get Anthony Richardson back.

I think he is who he is, which is, you know, by fantasy points per game average, a fringe QB1. But those spike weeks are going to be incredible. And there's going to be games that are really gross, downgrade to Josh Downs. He did have that one. His most productive game in the season came with. Anthony Richardson, but I don't think we have much consistency with that. And you look at the splits with without flaco, really incredible last week, you know, slightly underwhelming. He did drop that nine-yard touchdown, like easy, easy nine-yard touchdown catch, which he

dropped. Slight ding to Adonai Mitchell. Maybe Alec Pierce benefits, because like the one thing Richardson does well is the deep ball and he's he's really like bottom five and everything or at least he has been this year. You look at the the charts. It's it's really incredible like impossibly bad accurate throw rate on horizontal throws on vertical throws. He's a he's about average. So that's not good for downs. You look at completion percentage over expectation on throws behind the line of scrimmage zero to 10 yards, 10 to 20 yards. it's bottom five. You look at it 30 plus yards, he's great.

I think, I think, yeah, I think this just kind of downgrade to everyone, but you never know. Maybe he really learned something after his short stint away. I kind of speculated you don't make this move unless, you know, there's lack of effort. He's not putting the effort in. Shane Stuyken said attention to deep.

detail and you really didn't see any growth from year one to year two. But it also could just be the case that as evident by what happened today and over the past few weeks, the Colts just kind of have no idea what they're doing and they're the owners sort of a train wreck. Yeah, what are your thoughts, Theo? Yeah. I think that like pretty much everything you said was correct, but the most correct thing you said is that everything's sort of a train wreck in Indianapolis. It's a mess. I mean, I don't understand for the life of me just making this switch and then going back to it. Maybe this is like a light of fire under Anthony Richardson. Things that we don't see behind the scenes, Scott, that you sort of mention. Maybe those sort of things clean up with this

new opportunity. Certainly Jonathan Taylor benefits. Jonathan Taylor, the splits are there where it's 50 carries for 220 yards and zero rushing touchdowns in games with Joe Flacco. Last week, he did go over 100 yards. So the split like looks a little bit better this week than it did before. But in games with Richardson, 76 carries, 396 yards, and five rushing touchdowns. The threat of the mobile quarterback sort of open things up for Taylor. And I expect Jonathan Taylor to benefit from it. Probably goes from like a low end or RB1 to somewhere in the mid-RB-1 range, like maybe RB6-ish.

So I think Taylor, if you have Taylor, you're feeling great. If you have any pass catcher, you're feeling bad. And the Ask King Adonai Mitchell, this is one that I was really excited about sort of on the waiver wire this week. Last week we saw him sort of have his breakout game. Alec Pierce got the late touchdown. But Adonai was the one that really shined. He had six catches on six targets.

I think there's a chance Adonai. They still try to see what they can get out of him for the rest of the year. You have alluded to Michael Pittman being shut down several times. I think that could happen. So I don't know. It's hard to find silver linings in the past game. But Adonai Mitchell, with his ability to separate, he can also get deep.

So maybe we see him sort of see some of those Pierce balls, those Yolo balls from earlier in the season, go Adonai Mitchell's way. And if you want access to ask separation score, any of the stats that Scott references, and pretty much everything Scott is going to reference today, comes from fantasy points data, as well as his everything report.

If you want access to either of those things, use the code School 25, and you can sign up for anything that Scott has access to that I have access to over at fantasy points. Scott, anything else with Indianapolis, or can we move on to more like level-headed organizations? Yeah, I just want to say a few quick things. One, yeah, I looked into the splits with without flacco for Jonathan Taylor. You want to be careful with a small sample size. So I'm not going too far with it, but I would give them a very slight efficiency boost. You see 5.2 yards per carry with Richardson

versus 4.5 without. And I think that's real. You see that a lot with hyper-mobile quarterbacks. They don't target their running backs as much as we like. They'll tend to vulture touchdowns on the ground. But it is a potent cheat code for running backs on the ground. You do see this big uptick in yards per carry average. I want to say it's not totally over for Anthony Richardson.

It wouldn't shock me if he's a mid-range QB-1 from here as bad as he is, has been through the air really comes down to how much he's running. It seems stupid how little he's run. He's a freak athlete. And so if that just, you know, the design run rate, the scramble rate climbs, he can be a really powerful fantasy asset. It's just we haven't seen that this year. And then in terms of like them being a clown organization,

I think that really just starts and ends at the top. Like I'm a big believer in Shane Steichen. Even more so Chris Ballard, you know me. I watch all those press conferences, post-draft press conferences. And he might be my favorite GM in football. I really think it's the owner. And it's just like, how many times do you think Chris Ballard has answered the phone from a drunk out of his mind, Jim Ursay at like four in the morning?

Like, bro, I love you, bro. You know, I love you. But you know you're on the hot seat, right? Or it's like, we got to bench Anthony. We're going back to Anthony Richardson, Chris. And like, is that not the toughest job in football? Yeah, no. And they don't spend money either.

Erse is a, or say is a train wreck. And you're right, Ballard is this guy who continually identifies these like, Uber athletic players. Josh Downs was a hit. There's been multiple guys over the years that he's just hit on. But yeah, Ursa is, Erse is a train wreck. I mean, the guy's comical.

I'm sure when. That's the thing. So you just said he's comical. I love Jerry Jones and I love Jim Erse, because they're like hilarious characters to me. I'm not a fan of either team. So that's easy for me. And it's just like appreciate these guys while you got them because like Roger Goodell,

all the other owners, it's like sterilized and boring. Like I'm a big UFC fan and like Dana White's hilarious. Dana White's a lot of fun. So just to appreciate these because more and more it's like the NFL as a corporation and it's going to get boring. So kind of enjoy these characters while you got them. No, 100% agree with you. It's sort of like a bygone era where the, the, the Al Davis era over the years.

Right. Now you're getting into like these guys that are basically running like trying to, you know, run Google the way they run an NFL franchise. So one NFL franchise that we think does things the right way is the San Francisco 49ers. And they got back one of the best players to ever play fantasy football last week. We're going to talk to Scott and get his reactions on Christian McCaffrey and just how excited Christian McCaffrey managers. should be for the rest of the season after a quick break. Ontario, the wait is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived. Golden Nugget Online Casino is live.

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Scott, last week we talked about the return of Christian McCaffrey, and this is sort of a Mount Rushmore player. Like if you were coming up with the best players to ever play fantasy football, he'd be in like your top five, top six, something like that. I mean, the guy's just remarkable. He has two of the highest running back PPR scores over like the last eight years. They both belong to him. Unbelievable player.

But last week, I was a little bit nervous, a little more nervous, I would say, than you were about them slowly building him up, maybe conceding additional touches to Jordan Mason or Isaac Arendo or both. Because both those guys had looked fairly competent heading into their by week. But it was anything but CMC not only returned and looked good athletically, but it was pretty much every. you wanted to see in terms of usage. Your reaction to what you saw and where should we rank Christian McCaffrey moving forward? Like where does he rank in like this, the pantheon of running backs in sort of the year of the running back? Yeah. So 87% snap share, 68% route share, 93% of the backfield XFP. And this really wasn't that surprising to me. The 49ers don't have the luxury of, of, you know, taking it easy on him in his first game back, they have five and four record.

The offense was like basically built around them. And you've heard all month, Kyle Shanahan say basically that. And just like what just his mere presence on the field changes how defenses play him. He's their man-beater. Since the, the Super Bowl teams have going, been playing insane rates of man coverage against them. And Pertia's struggle with it. And so I'm believing that this sticks. I'm believing that this is real. I think we can be nitpicky here about, you know, a 3.0 yards per carry average. And it's like, well, you know, maybe this, this Achilles tendonitis and he's he's lost a step or he's lost a hat. And it's just like, I don't think we need to even go that far because this is just insane, insane unreal usage,

best possible use it would lead all running backs, snapshot. carry share, XFP share based on what we saw, heavily utilized as a receiver. And yeah, and so I think, I think what we're looking at is assume he's back to last year's efficiency. What's his upside? It's league wrecking potential, most valuable player in fantasy, outscored last year's RB2 by over 100 PPR fantasy points. And then if he's, you know, let's say, you know, lost a step or a half step or whatever it is, it's just he's either the RB1 or the RB2 moving forward. I think probably the overall RB1, Ryan thinks Devon A-chan. And so, you know, we had a little debate or we talked it out. I think it's, you know, sort of a coin flip,

but it's just you have to be feeling, assuming full health, you have to be feeling really good about McCaffrey, just a little worried about, you know, what if he re-aggravate something? But outside of that, Yeah, I think we're back to the Christian McCaffrey of old for the most part. Yeah, and it's very interesting because it's sort of like the dichotomy of the season where the Christian McCaffrey teams, if they were able to tread water in their leagues and they're able to make the fantasy playoffs, you might have a number of teams who are like five and six seeds that are able to go on and win their league championship provided McCaffrey can hold up.

And I think that's a really interesting one, sort of where you would rank these running backs, but McCaffrey's got to be very, very close to the top. I want to also talk about Joanne Jennings, because the other sort of takeaway when we left the 49ers by week was where are the wide receiver targets, where are the wide receiver routes run going to go between Ricky Purcell and Joanne Jennings? And you've been sort of a big Jennings believer for multiple weeks now ever since Brandon Ayuk was lost with an injury. So, Purcell gets a long touchdown in the first quarter, also gets an end zone target. If you walk away looking at the box score for Ricky Purcell, you're feeling pretty good.

But at the end of the day, Joanne Jennings, just terrific usage, really almost identical to Brandon Ayyuk. Your thoughts on Jennings, how we should be valuing him for the rest of the season. Yeah, he stepped rather seamlessly into the Brandon Ayuk role. And Kyle Shannon confirmed he's going to stick in that X role throughout the remainder of the year. You look at all of the advanced metrics as yards per route run. Like even if you remove that gigantic 50 fantasy point game, it's all really good, really strong. We should be buying into it. And then why would you exclude that 50 fantasy point game? Like that's just insane. Do you know how many elite wide receivers have never come close

to that number in a single game? And so yeah, I believe firmly in Juan Jennings as an easy top 24 wide receiver rest of season with like upside upside upside upside like high end wide receiver two upside i i think that's there um ricky piercel this is brett's guy brett like best film ball knower film watcher prospect evaluator i know jumping on a table uh pounding his chest for ricky pierceau so i believe he's a really strong talent in a in a really good offense i do think he's a bit behind the eight ball relative to a Juan Jennings just in the sense that, you know, he came, he was drafted, had this injury, missed a bunch of time, came back, had this other injury, cost him some time, got shot in the chest, missed a bunch of times. So it's just, you know,

it's a steep learning curve in the NFL. So I would have him behind the other names. And then Debo Samuel, you know, we kept talking about those width without Brandon Ayuk splits and how, you know, without or George Kittle, without, he turns into a high end wide receiver one from. for fantasy. I think I need to come down a little bit on that just because Joanne Jennings has stepped so seamlessly into this brand and Iuke role, but I don't know, low end wide receiver one, high end wide receiver two. And don't forget, he's, he's dealing with multiple injuries. George Kittle just probably the most valuable tie down in fantasy right now. He's dealing with injuries as well, but that's been the case throughout his entire career. This might be my favorite

player in the NFL. And so it's like, yeah, there's so many weapons here, but it's just such a powerful, hyper-efficient offense when all these weapons are available to Kyle Shanahan. And so, yeah, I'm just kind of really bullish on everyone, really bullish on this 49ers offense, bullish on Brock Purdy to be, I don't know, top 10 fantasy QB moving forward. And yeah, there's just a lot of upside here and a lot of excitement for me. No, I agree with you. And I think that one thing about Ricky Purcell is, we never know who the fantasy playoff heroes are going to be. But I think Purcell, you alluded to Brett loving the talent. I remember how excited Brett was last offseason about Purcell. And Brett was on Purcell, you know, from like senior bowl time before the senior ball time. Purcell like eventually became a first round pick. But Brett was way ahead of him. I had he was getting trashed. Yeah. Brett. And I give Brett props on this one. Brett was way ahead of J.J. McCarthy's ascent into like the upper half of the first round. And Brett was all over Ricky Purcell as this like elite player.

And Purcell ends up being a first round pick. So Brett ended up looking very, very good on that. Big shout out to Brett. I had people coming up to me at the Fantasy Football Expo being like we loved hearing Brett Whitefield on your podcast and his takes. You should have that guy on again. Like I should have that guy on again. And I will have that guy on again.

But Brett runs pure on prospect evaluation. for sure. But with Purcell, I do think he has a lot of contingent upside because you alluded to Debo's always playing hurt and Kittles always playing hurt. And with this team, they're not going to get the number one seed, but they could lock up a playoff berth. And you could end up getting a week or so out of Purcell, like where one of those guys sits and they give him a maintenance week. You could also, God forbid, one of those guys goes down. There's not like a second tight end that would command the similar usage to Kittle. I think it would be working more with the wide receivers, more targets and touches for McCaffrey. So Purcell showed us last week his explosiveness. They gave him the end zone

target. I do think he's got value if you have room for him on your bench. And Jennings, this is a guy, Scott, in a couple of Dynasty leagues, I've gone out and traded for him. I think the market doesn't fully realize what they have in Jennings. And if your league still has open trading, go make an offer for Jennings. This is the kind of guy that might be in your lineup just for the rest of the season. and give you like wide receiver two value and you're not having to pay wide receiver two prices for him. One player this past week who put up a Joanne Jennings-esque spike week score was Jamar Chase. But in all seriousness, I have to say, was this the best performance you've ever seen from a wide receiver on Thursday night football? I mean, it was just remarkable. And of course, we all have

recency bias. But in terms of just complete domination and big, plays and also the moment where it was obviously a primetime game and it was back and forth, high scoring. Just how impressive was Jamar Chase? Yeah, it was incredible. I caught 11 of 17 targets for 264 yards and three touchdowns. Unbelievably, none of those numbers were career highs. Was it the most dominant Thursday night performance I can remember? I don't know, just because Calvin Johnson had like four insane Thanksgiving performances, but it's, it's up there. One caveat being, it was like a perfect matchup for him. He had three separate 65 plus yard touchdown catches. It's more than any offense has had all year. So absolutely insane. I wrote, I spent quite a bit of time digging

into Jamar Chase, and I wrote a number of words on Jamar Chase just about how weird this season has been for him and how nothing really made sense to me. And so I came away with like, I mean, the, the, the TLDR is just like he's, he's maybe the overall wide receiver one in fantasy, or at least that's how I'd rank it this week. And, you know, he's awesome. But it's just like the usage and volume has been so bizarre. You know, without T. Higgins, you know, Mike Jaseki is almost out targeting it, is out producing him. And then when T. Higgins is on the field, field. Chase is taking a clear backseat in terms of targets. And so like my hypothesis was that he's sort of back in his rookie season role as like the explosive playmaker, but volume isn't as good.

And like maybe that's a good thing because in both this season and his rookie season, he put up more fantasy points was far more efficient than over the previous two seasons in ways. which, you know, he ranked top five in targets per game. And, yeah, this year by fantasy points per target is the fourth best season since targets became a stat in 1992. It was kind of a similar thing in his rookie season. It's either this or that like Zach Taylor is just dumb and he like came to his senses last week.

That's actually what Brett thinks it is. But in any case, it doesn't really matter. Dude has the potential to single handedly win you, you're weak in a way that no other player has. And, you know, even even before last week, Spike Week, he's still ranked fifth in fantasy points per game, despite ranking like, I don't know, 20th and XFP per game, which is so crazy. But, yeah, just, just absolute stud. Yeah. And Zach Taylor might just be an idiot, like a very, a very fortunate idiot because he has Joe Burrow, he has Jamar Chase. He's had like elite offensive talent in Cincinnati. But you think back to the decisions and the usage of Samaj

JP Ryan versus Joe Mixen in certain seasons. Then you think back to, I mean, we only have to go back a couple weeks where Chase Brown has just been unbelievable. And I actually told you when we were planning out this show that we can't spend another 10 minutes on Chase Brown because every single week we're talking about Chase Brown because it's been so obvious. But Zach Taylor chose to use Zach Moss a whole lot more than him. Now the usage with Chase Brown has just been incredible.

So, yeah, Cincinnati, I think, has figured things out. and they're going to get back T. Higgins. So this is really going to be one of the most fun teams to watch for the rest of the season. And they all have this like every game goes down to the wire and they have all these super, super exciting games as well. So we love that for fantasy football. We're going to take a quick break and we come back. We're going to talk about another day three rookie running back who might be in your lineup this week. So Scott, we've seen the rise of Tyrone Tracy.

Now it looks like we're going to have another. running back drafted on day three in Audrick Estime, at least a lineup consideration for people this week. Estime seemingly took over the backfield. This has been a slow drip where the beat reporters, Sean Payton, everyone sort of alluded to increased usage for Audrake Estime, and then we finally saw it. They were a blocked field goal away from getting a big win against Kansas City. But of course, Kansas City gets the block, the Broncos lose, just sort of part for the course with the Chiefs games this year. But your take on Estimate, this is a player that I know you were very high on in the draft process and just sort of a brief history on Estimate.

This is a very young back. This is one of the youngest running backs in football, age-wise, comparable to like a Braille and Allen. And he's also comparable to a Braylin Allen in terms of his size and in terms of his college pedigree. Estimate is the all-time leader in rushing yards in a single season at Notre Dame. He had 18 of them last year. They've been playing football a long time there at Notre Dame. So your take on Estimate the player and your take on your confidence level and estimate moving forward. Yeah. So firm believer in the player, Belcow pedigree, crushed in all the advanced efficiency metrics. I kind of predicted this would happen heading into the season, but I'm still not that excited because, you know, no matter what he's going to be

stuck in a committee alongside Jaliel McLaughlin, it's not a great offense, not a great team. I think you could you could slide them into your flex spot in any game. Denver is going to be heavily favored. there might not be too many of those games. But yeah, you know, like probably low-end Derby, too. I think the biggest takeaway is like it's totally over for Giovante. At least I hope that's the case. But I don't see Estimate being a league winner. You never know with Sean Payton.

We've seen a lot of production from his backfields. I just think in this current state of the offense, that's going to be unlikely. Yeah, I think I think people searching for a league winner here are going to be disappointed. But I do think he can give you a ton of running back utility, especially with the buy weeks. And I think people would be happy with getting RB2 production out of him. I mean, Javante Williams has been, has failed to crack like 45 rushing yards in all but one game in his last five. So I think Peyton knows he has a very, very good defense. He's got a mobile quarterback.

And now they have a running back who I think can handle the volume. So I think that RB2 production for Estime, people would be very happy about that, especially in a year where there hasn't been that many hits off of the waiver wire, especially at the running back position. So I'm bullish with you on Estimay, and I agree. I think that's a reasonable expectation that I think he can meet. And I think this is a player that if you play Dynasty, don't underestimate Estimate taking this job and being the starting running back going into next year. I know people always have sort of the mental gymnastics about the way to handle day three backs, but I think that this would be a situation where he's young, he has size, and if he can handle the volume, he's at least a major part of a committee backbuild next season, if not more.

So a lot of eyes on estimate. The Everything Report, I usually agree with almost everything you write. It's very sharp. It's really appointment reading. If you're not reading the Everything Report, every single week. week for your fantasy football prep, you're really, really missing out because Scott brings stuff that even if you are very much in the know, you're going to learn something new every single week reading it. But I had one thing where I send you a DM and I'm like, I disagree with this one.

Isaiah Pacheco is set to return potentially very soon. It seems like the Kansas City beat reporters are very optimistic for him returning and returning healthy. And you seem to think that this is going to be a situation where Kareem Hunt, correct me if I'm wrong, loses a ton of value and it really becomes like Pacheco with Kareem Hunt as like a change of paceback. I sort of disagree. I think that this is one where Kareem Hunt has played so well and the production has been so strong that I think this could actually turn into be like an annoying backfield for us in fantasy where we have two backs where both of them are like RB3 level production instead of one giving us like borderline. an RB1 production. Tell me I'm wrong, Scott. Yeah, I don't know that he's played so well by the

advanced efficiency metrics. He really hasn't. Like I, you know he's been very productive for fantasy. I just think Pacheco, a healthy Pacheco is just such a clear upgrade that he just slides back in, fully takes over the backfield and dominates it and is a league winner throughout the fantasy playoffs. It's possible they don't because like, you know, So my one nitpick on Pacheco heading into this season was like, if you're the chiefs and you know you're a lock to make the playoffs or right now they're undefeated, why would you give him so much work, right? Wouldn't you want to try and preserve him for the playoffs? And lo and behold, he gets injured. So maybe they do that.

But it's also like, I don't know, you just figured out like you're fine without him, right? So, and there's there's something to be said about having a bell cow back where you're, he's on the field just about every snap. You're not tipping your hand in terms of play calling. That's my lean. Ultimately, we don't really know. It's possible. It's more of a committee.

But I don't know. I just think Pacheco is significantly better. Yeah. Let us know in the comments if you're watching this on YouTube. Who is correct here? Is it Pacheco season or is it going to be an annoying committee with Hunt and Pacheco both mixing in? Any way you cut it, it's good for the Kansas City offense for them to get another live body. This has been an offense sort of hanging on by the skin of their necks in certain games this year.

So we've got to talk about some of the running back values that are shifting. Tony Pollard and J.K. Dobbins have been lock starters for fantasy managers for pretty much the entire season. And that's going to remain the case. But both of these players, we might have to adjust. We saw the return of Tijey Spears. and we saw the return of Gus Edwards. What effect are Spears and Edwards going to have on the values of Dobbins and Pollard moving forward?

Are these guys you can still trust, or is it like kind of trust? Where are you out on this one, Scott? Yeah, I'm sorry. Did you ask about Stevenson or did you skip Stevenson? No, I skipped it. I was going to do that. Will we do it one more time?

Cool. I'll do those ones and then I'm going to ask you about Stevenson. Or do you want to do Stevenson? Vincent first. You want to do whatever you want to do. Okay, cool. All right. No, no, we're all good.

Tom, we're going to do one more time. Okay. In like five seconds. So one thing that we saw last week was the return of running backs and their effect on the starters in their backfield. Tai J. Spears returned to Tennessee. And we saw Gus Edwards returning to the LA Chargers. Tony Pollard and J.K. Dobbins have been players that fantasy managers have been excited to start for seemingly the entire season. And both of these players saw usage increases

when the backs behind them miss time. What do Tai J. Spears and Gus Edwards do to the values of J.K. Dobbins and Tony Pollard moving forward, Scott. Yeah. One interesting note about Dobbins, like obviously, you know, Gus Edwards came in, took almost 40% of the carries. But Dobbins, a season high in route share, still got the bulk of the high value touches. I'd still be treating him as like a high-end derby too, even with Gus Edwards back. Pollard, it's sort of a different story. And it, you know, Taji Spears getting more work. That could honestly be a function of Pollard picking up an injury.

He came off the field. It looked like he was in pain at the start of the 7th. second half and then Spears got a lot of work. But like in either case, it doesn't really matter. I think the bigger storyline is just like this offense is terrible. So yeah, he gets a big downgrade in my ranking. So although that's only partially Spears, it's more so just the Will Levis experience. So one player that we are starting to get really excited about for the rest of the season is Ramondre Stevenson. We've alluded to sort of the increasing usage a few times, but let's dive into it. How should fantasy manager

be valuing Mondre. And Scott, I think this is a player that you can actually trade for in Dynasty right now or in redraft if your trade window is not shut down. Your thoughts on Mondrae. Yeah, he was a Belkow weeks one and two.

He was dealing with some fumbling issues. Then it was more of a committee. And then Gibson fubbled like week seven or week eight. And it was also like pretty inefficient. And, yeah, Stevenson back to Belkow status, this week's eight through 10. This is like fringe RB1 volume and usage. A really bad offensive line, though, not the best offense. So I'd be valuing as like a mid-RB2, maybe even a little bit better than that. But yeah, you know, usage volume great and is great. And it's just how much

Drake may can continue to elevate this offense. Yeah. And with Mondre, we also have the fact that He was extended before the season started. So next year, you're going to have weapons in New England. I imagine they're going to sign a free agent. I imagine they're going to draft a wide receiver as well. And you're going to have Mondre in a sort of elevating offense alongside a quarterback we're really excited about. So I think Mondra offers you short-term utility. But I think next year could actually be a really fun one for him because that offense is going to be trending upwards.

Also, the offensive line can only get better next year as well. Speaking of Dynasty, does Caleb Williams just stink? Is Caleb Williams just bad? Because I think at this point, we don't really need to beat around the bush. We've seen a couple of solid games here and there. The guys had an over 300 passing yard game. So it's not like we haven't seen it. But we've seen also some remarkably bad football. New England beats Chicago this past week.

Your thoughts on Caleb Williams and this just train wreck of a Chicago offense. Yeah, he hasn't thrown a touchdown pass in over a month. If you look at it, two of the best stats, really predictive metrics, by accurate throw, by, sorry, catchable throw rate, this is the worst quarterback season in fantasy points data history, so 2021 to present, by pressure to sack ratio, worst quarterback season in fantasy points data history. So by these advanced metrics,

Caleb Williams this year is worse than any season from Zach Wilson, Bryce Young, Justin Fields. It is so, so bad. I will say that Shane Waldron is a very deserving scapegoat. But it's also, let's reflect back on Brett's analysis of him this past off season where Caleb Williams wasn't his QB1. And he did basically, you know, write up that he's going to be an OC killer one day, right? So I think they both deserve some blame, the offensive. line as well. But yeah, it's rough. I would much rather have a Drake May than Caleb Williams and Dynasty. Like Jacob Sanderson had this great rant where it's just like, look at what Drake May is doing with the bottom five supporting cast. And like everyone was saying this is the best

supporting cast for a 101 quarterback ever. And look at what he's doing. I think the supporting cast isn't great. The offensive lines of mess, like I said, I don't like Shane Waldron. But yeah, I'd much rather have a Drake May in Dynasty. He runs. He looks great. And that offense is only going to continue to get better. Yeah, it's really a train wreck in Chicago and it's affecting everyone's value. You can't really use any of the receivers. Your thoughts on D'Andre Swift rest of season? Yeah, I like Swift. He's just very game script sensitive. He's not really being targeted in the passing game. And you look at his production. It's in wins, 19.1 fantasy points per game, 17 XFP per game, top seven numbers and losses,

11 fantasy points per game, 12.7 XFP per game. Those are like high-end RB3 numbers. But, you know, still on average, it's pretty good. He's been efficient with his volume. I would just keep in mind that, you know, well, I don't expect Chicago to be favored in too many more games. So, you know, he's probably a mid-range RB2. I'd say, what do you think? Yeah, I think mid-range RB2, which is sort of unfortunate because when Caleb was playing well

or had that like two-game stretch, we were super excited about Swift heading into like Chicago's by week. that's also the other thing about Chicago is just the inept coaching where they've been playing worse coming out of their by week than they did going into it. And usually we see with good teams, things improve. But this has been like quite the opposite. So very depressing if you have Caleb Williams right now or if you, I mean, gosh, I mean, a lot of people sitting out there with Chicago stacks, Chicago secondary stacks that are just dead in the water in baseball as well. Let's stay on a depressing note. Got to talk about C.D. Lamb.

It's actually a miracle that C.D. Lamb had, I believe it was 8.1 PPR points this past week because there was 49 passing yards total from Dallas. Dallas was about as bad as it gets. They get woodshed by Philadelphia. Cooper Rush was the quarterback. We saw a little bit of Trey Lance. There will not be a quarterback change, at least to start the game this week. It'll be Cooper Rush once again.

So we're stuck with CD Lamb, who was pretty much everyone's wide receiver one overall this year, and was the 101 in a lot of drafts. Where do we have to adjust to C.D. Lamb? Are we talking about a player that is now a low-end wide receiver one, a mid-wide receiver two? Or is there a chance that it's even worse, Scott? How worried are you about Lamb right now? I'm pretty worried. I would put him as, I don't know, a fringe. wide receiver one, maybe low end wide receiver one, high end wide receiver two. Cooper Rush was awful last week. It was the second worst performance of any quarterback since Ronald Reagan left office, 1.96 yards per pass attempt.

The good news is in just about every game we've ever seen from Cooper Rush, he's targeted CDLAM on at least 31% of his passes. And you see a lot of people mention that, you know, in 2022, in those five games, games with Cooper Rush, Lamb average 16.5 fantasy points per game, which is still really strong. And this is also sort of prior to the 23 breakout. Obviously, Rush is a big downgrade on Dak Prescott, but it's also like an entirely different offense. It's a really struggling offense. Dak Prescott led all quarterbacks and catchable throw rate in each of the last two seasons. This year he's been bottom seven. And, you know, if, if Dak Prescott,

and CD Lamb couldn't get it done, what makes you think Cooper Rush is going to be able to. So yeah, it's pretty gross right now. Yeah, and I write a dynasty article that drops every week at fantasy points. And one of the things that I'm covering is dynasty managers with CD Lamb, the mental gymnastics of having to roster a player that is like a blue chip dynasty asset and having to consider trading him. because if you're going for a league title, you go from having a very stable player to one that could be incredibly volatile, and you're going to potentially see more weeks like you did this past week, Scott,

where he's struggling to even put up wide receiver three numbers if it just goes to zero. And then if Trey Lance comes in, it could be even choppier for the past catcher. So I don't know, the whole thing is a complete mess. Pour one out for the Cowboys, and this is a Cowboys fan base that has not, seeing this sort of futility in quite a long time. So this could be a very rough next few weeks.

And you know, it's going to create great drama for the offseason because Dallas is going to get into a very high draft pick. And that'll be a fun thing to monitor as well. I wanted to get a head to head here to see kind of where you're at on Lamb, Ceeley Lamb or George Pickens the rest of the season. Oh, man, that's tough. Just say Pickens. You know you want to. Yeah, I do want to. I do. And certainly Pickens this week, he's going to go crazy against Baltimore. Yeah, I think I'm on Pickens as well. And that was one where like Pittsburgh coming out of the buy week gets a big win over Washington. We love what we saw out of Pickens.

We also saw a touchdown catch for Mike Williams. And Russell Wilson has three touchdown passes. So like we feel so much better about the quarterback situation in Pittsburgh right now than we do Dallas. And Pickens is going to see that weekly high target share. and we know that this is a guy that has the immense talent. So I think I'm actually on Pickens' rest of the season over CD Lamb, as crazy as that is to say. Want to also get your opinion on Tyree Kill.

This is a, we saw Miami get the big win over L.A. This was sort of a fantasy letdown. There was a lot of people with Monday Night Sweets who lost. We did see Tyree Kill get a touchdown catch, but this was sort of a weird game plan where Miami had a very very very. very low a dot where there's all these short little quick hitters. Hill's touchdown catch was inside of the red zone like near the goal line. So is this something that's sort of here to stay, Scott, like out of necessity?

This seems like a Mike McDaniel adjustment or was it specific for the Rams? Your thoughts? Yeah, I don't know. Everything about Tyreeks season has been really disappointing, really weird is dealing with a torn ligament in his wrist, but I don't know, he just doesn't look the same with his route running, with his speed. And I don't see why that would affect that. I'm big into sports psychology. I talk about it a lot of my UFC podcast. Shout out go go potta. But I don't really talk about it much with football, but I or in my work or in my analysis, but I think it's real. And I

think it matters. And I just remember this past off season, I was thinking about, you know, is his head in the game? He got like nine different women pregnant, right? So, you know, maybe, maybe it depleted his stores of zinc or something. But it's just like, heads not in the game. And then he also, he also like multiple, multiple times kept hyping up Jalen waddle saying, you know, oh, he might be even better than I am. And it's like, that's not the same Tyreek from a season ago who the year before was saying, I'm going to hit 2,000 yards, right? And so I don't know. Just getting some bad vibes on Tyreek. His usage doesn't make any sense. But who knows? Hopefully he'll have that Jamar Chase game

and we'll be singing a different tune in a few weeks. Yeah, I think you sort of nailed it with the psychology aspect of it because this is a player that continually was, motivated by the 2000 yards, this has also been a player that has never been in a situation where the team is sort of dead this time of year. And I know technically, you know, they're still, they're still playing. I mean, they obviously got the win the other night and they're still going for it. But he, this is a player that was in Kansas City on some tremendous teams. And then ever since he's been in Miami, they've been a playoff team. And then this year happens where there's a ton of adversity. So maybe the season is just really weighing on him. Very interesting to

think about with Ty where you got you got to sack up if if two is out there tackling dudes head first like 100 percent 100 percent yeah you got to play for it and uh hill's the guy where you know at least they could get some momentum hitting into next year but anyway you cut it this is uh this is an interesting team right now i mean we're very very confident overly confident in devon a chan i agree with you and ryan that he's going to challenge for rb one overall rest of the season jill and wattle we actually saw uh play better this past week but it still wasn't a fantasy impact week. So we'll keep an eye on that. We're going to talk about a few other wide receivers after we take a quick break. Welcome back to school of Scott. Scott, two wide receivers who we need to talk about

because I think people are sort of excited about them to varying degrees are John Mechie and Noah Brown. Your thoughts on Mechie, he sort of had his breakout performance. This is a player who obviously had a ton of health issues off the field. He's a guy that we're really, really rooting for. And then Noah Brown has been a guy that we've talked about on School of Scott several times as sort of a player who's gaining trust, gaining usage. Noah Brown over the last three weeks has had similar target share to Terry McLaren, to Zach Ertz.

Both of these guys seem like they could be flex considerations for many. Who would you trust out of these two? Yeah, actually over the last three weeks, Noah Brown has run three more routes, earn one more target than Terry McLaurin. Use very similarly, only one fewer deep target, just not as much work near the end zone. Not super bullish on him, even though I like, I'd love the player. He made me a ton of money in DFS last year. I really just thought last week would be the week for him with McLaren on getting shadowed

by Joey Porter Jr. And the fact that it didn't happen is like, I don't know. I don't see him being maybe he's like a bi-week fill-in that you don't feel great about. And then matchy, I don't think there's anything there. I just think this offense is entirely Joe Mixing on the ground, Nico Collins through the air. So not super excited about him. Yeah, and McLaurin really, really played well this past week. So that was like a, you know, in a tough cornerback matchup.

So McLaren's sort of the one you're leaning on in this offense. McLaurin, I think at the end of the year, we'll look back and say, what a year he had. It's sort of been somewhat quiet for his best season ever, because there's been obviously so much attention earned by Jaden Daniels. But yeah, I'm with you on that. I think that this time of year, it's easy to get tricked by sort of a one-game sample size when it comes to wide receivers. Noah Brown is really just a bi-week fill-in. And METI, we'll see what happens when Nico Collins is fully back. I want to talk to you about, we love talking about target consolidation on teams.

I know the two of us will talk about that routinely. And one team that had incredible wide receiver target consolidation this past week was the Atlanta Falcons, noteworthy. We saw Mooney and Drake London both combined for an obscene target share relative to the rest of the team. Do you think that this is a trend or do you think this was just a result of the opponent they played and sort of the matchup? no i mean we've seen this for quite a bit of time now um really the offense concentrated on these two but it was also a product of the matchup the saints were down there are two starting perimeter cornerbacks and then his direct backup they moved their starting slot to the out wide but then on the opposite side it was still you know some some guy who you know you've never heard of uh and then

Kyle Pitts dealing with a hamstring injury. But yeah, you look at since week two, Darnell Mooney ranks top 12 in yards per game, XFP per game. Since week two, London ranks eighth in yards per game, sixth in XFP per game in his full games. And so yeah, you have two very valuable fantasy assets between these two wide receivers. Yeah. And I think that like for me, it's just the trust factor for Mooney. Every week, it's like you trust him more and more. And it's one of these things where, like, you're like, oh, you know, Darno Mooney, this guy, when we get to the end of the season,

or two weeks from now, he'll be lower in the wide receiver scoring column. Then we'll like, oh, you know, it'll tail off. It'll tail off. It'll tail off. But it's just been so consistent. He's such a big part of this offense. Yeah. And if you look at it by EPA, like only Justin Jefferson, probably Jamar Chase now, too.

ranks ahead of Mooney in total EPA gained on his targets. And London ranks like 16. Like Mooney has earned this volume and it's working. Yeah, I think that Mooney, if you're a dynasty manager, this is a guy that I've been able to acquire in a few places. People don't know how to value him, Scott. And it's sort of like, why would things change in year two after signing as a free agent next year in Atlanta?

Like the coaching staff loves him. The coaching staff is using him. Kirk Cousins loves him. And he's he's thriving. even in games where everybody's fully healthy, he's thriving. And the target share between Pitts and Mooney, like our preseason narrative was Pitts would be the number two target on the team. Mooney's dominated him in that regard.

So I think Mooney's another one to sort of kick the tires on, try to acquire because people do not know how to value Darnell Mooney. It's almost like they're punishing him for having a few bad years in Chicago. But he had some productivity there as well. So this is almost the perfect fit for Mooney. I got to talk to you about the Trey Benson ascension. Because this time of year, we try to circle guys that we think could be maybe playoff league winners. Guys who could go on a three-week run where they could just break fantasy.

And we don't always know, like we recall the Devon Singletary season, there was the Rashad Penny season, where a running back can just kind of take over and go with it. We're starting to see Trey Benson worked in. James Connor's been terrific this season, but James Connor is also a guy who never plays the entire season, and he's 29 years old. Your thoughts on Trey Benson, sort of his contingent upside,

if Connor were to miss time, and sort of just the way the offense is going with Benson starting to be mixed in on a weekly basis. Yeah, team seems really high on him. The coach beak has been incredible. This is a player I really liked coming out of college, especially on the ground. I think if Connor stays healthy, the best Benson can do is get like 40% of the carries

while Connor gets the past catching work, which is interesting. Like last three weeks, RoutShare really came up before that. Connor was an afterthought in the passing game. Yeah. And then then if, if Connor goes down, he possesses, I don't know, about as much upside as Connor possessed, maybe a little bit more. But yeah, how valuable is that? Just another handcuff to potentially add and wait throughout the playoffs in case there's an injury.

Yeah, I think that this time of year, though, it's still kind of like is the strategy where this, like in previous seasons, you've seen way more running back injuries. Maybe the running back injuries are on the back end here, Scott. maybe this is like the contingent upside guys hit in the fantasy playoffs. It's been sort of a wild year for injuries, but they've been affecting the wide receivers exponentially more. This was awesome today. Let everybody know what you have coming up. And I'll say once again, if you want access to any of the statistical information that Scott referenced here,

it's all available to you at Fantasy Points data. Use the code School 25 and you're going to get 25% off of anything available to you at Fantasy Points. Yeah, I segue into DFS. So if you want to check out my DFS content, outside the box, Sunday update, two shows, and an article Slate Breakdown. Yeah, your DFS stuff is very, very good. I'll pop in once in a while, check it out.

It's funny, I'm actually in the basketball DFS streets these days because my son, not like the high-end ones, because my son wants to do these little like $5 and $1 NBA lineups. And let me tell you, he's the chalkiest DFS player you've ever picked. You cannot talk him off the chalk. And he's like, how did we not do well? I had five best players in the NBA available to me. I'm like, that's kind of not how this thing works.

But hey, he's pretty sharp for a seven-year-old in NBA. And this was, again, a blast. We're going to start doing a few things getting you prepared for your fantasy playoffs. You want to talk about things like strength the schedule, those last-minute moves to help you win your league. We've got you covered right here at School of Scott. Stick with us. We'll be back next. We'll see you so.