Fantasy Football Daily - Arthur Smith, Mortal Enemy of Fantasy Football | Week 2 Fantasy Football Market Report

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan), Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley), and Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) recap all of the Week 1 fantasy football action with actionable news, nuggets, and stats to get you ready for Week 2 waivers and lineup preparation. READ DR. EDWIN PORRAS' INJURY [PRO]NE GUIDE WITH CODE INJURYPRONE25: https://injuryproneguide.myshopify.com/ Want to join a high-stakes dynasty league -- or any other high-stakes league? All new FFPC users get $25 off their first FFPC league of $35 or more, including dynasty orphans, using our affiliate link: ⁠https://myffpc.com/cms/public?affid=fantasypoints⁠ ⁠FANTASY POINTS PROJECTIONS ARE LIVE⁠ FOR ALL STANDARD AND PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS! Interested in playing Best Ball in 2023? There's no better place than Underdog Fantasy. ⁠Use our code FANTASYPTS⁠ to sign up for a new account at Underdog, and not only will you get a 100% deposit match up to $100... but you'll get a Fantasy Points Standard subscription for only $5! ⁠https://www.fantasypoints.com/underdog --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by Fantasy Points.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. A reminder to everyone that week one does not tell the tale of an entire season of fantasy football, nor does it tell the tale of an entire season of NFL football. But we're going to try to parse through it anyway. This is going to be the first edition of the Market Report podcast here at FantasyPoints.com. For the 2020-season, my name is Joe Dullen with me.

Tom Brawley and joining us on the Market Report podcast this year will be Mr. Graham Barfield. It's great to have this three-man booth of excellence and guys who have been beat up by a really rough week of fantasy football. a lot of unders out there this week, boys. And you know how I tell there's a lot of unders when I go to like Yahoo! Fantasy. And Yahoo Fantasy has the projected fantasy scores for the week, which you know, they're fun to look at, but they're not really all that predictive. But when 90% of the league is red for going under their projection,

that's the kind of week this was. Tom, let's start with you. How did you do this week, my friend? It was a rough one with the bets. My player props got absolutely slug. lottered. Every and of course like I had like four or five unders. I think I was the only person to like miss on all my unders. So my ATS stuff was pretty good. It was a three and one with that. And I got a chance to win our our friends or I don't even know a friend acquaintance.

Big Ed's poll here tonight. If Buffalo covers the spread and scores and the score is exactly 45 points. So I like my chances of that happening. But yeah, it was a it was. was a tough week overall. As we said in the points bread show, probably look at unders and look at underdogs. And it was definitely an under and underdogs weekend. Graham, what's up, man? How did you do? How'd your fantasy do?

How'd your props do? How'd your bets do? Week one, always a difficult one. It is. Yeah, it's good to do a three bros pod. This is going to be a lot of fun during this season. We will commiserate over hopefully our good FFPC teams this year, too. But I did okay.

Two and two on best bets. I did not go hard on props. I figured this is going to be a gross week, and it was. I was talking to Sky on Friday for our DFS stream. I'm like, dude, this is going to be a really low-scoring week. There's going to be one guy with like a score that you have to have in DFS. And we both agreed it was Tyreek. And I mean, that was really, yeah, there was there was that.

But yeah, it was basically like if you for seasonals, if you didn't have Tyreek or you didn't have like Cowboys defense, it was really, really tough to put a big score together. Oh, yeah. So I had Tyreek. So I'm going to win in one of my 14 team leagues where I had Tyreek and literally nobody else reached 10 fantasy points, including Lamar Jackson, including Lamar Jackson. It was a, you know, it was a rough week for even the quote unquote elite fantasy quarterbacks. You know, I think Jalen Hertz finished outside the top 12.

Lamar finished outside the top 20. You know, Patrick Mahomes was, I believe, QB4, but it was pulling teeth to get there. I'm going to get to 100 yards right now. Yeah, I mean, it's. Oh, it's kind of rough out there. We'll see what happens with Josh Allen and Aaron Rogers tonight. Hopefully there's a little bit more fireworks. But anyway, so here's what we're going to do.

We're going to go through each game, and this is going to be kind of a facsimile of the article that we put up at FantasyPoint.com where we basically say, this guy's up, this guy's down, and then we put a guy on the watch list. Like, all right, he's not really up or down, but there's something interesting going on here. And we write that up at FantasyPoints.com, and we're just going to talk about the games, and we're going to go game by game. we're going to start with Detroit at Kansas City, which was a fun one on Thursday night, guys.

And I think what the lesson learned here is, even the best of the best, need a big time weapon every now and again. Patrick Mahomes without Travis Kelsey. I don't want to say he played poorly because I don't think he did. I think he did what he could. But the receiving situation in Kansas City, if there is no Kelsey, is pretty dire out there. Yeah, I wrote this game up already. I tend to write up the Thursday night game on Fridays. And yeah, we're obviously keeping an eye on Travis Kelsey this week.

Him for a return either in week two or week three. And as we saw in that game, he's going to command a lot of targets because nobody really wanted the ball out of those receivers. Skymore couldn't get open. Cadarius Tony was targeted, but he was given away six points to Brian Branch and running into his teammates on routes. So, yeah, Skymore kind of stash them on benches and see how it progresses here,

but they can't be played right now. Also in this game, Pacheco, Isaiah Pacheco was played Edwards-Hillair was involved. So something to continue to watch here. I kind of thought that might happen with Pacheco coming back from a labor room and returned really late in, in August. So I'm not too surprising. I would expect his rule to probably grow over September

here. And on the Detroit side, we, I wrote up. We have a really strong showing with an 83% snapshot. We know Jared Goff loves to throw in the, you know, short to intermediate area. So this, this could be something here, you know, brewing here with Sam LaPorte of the rookie tight end. Yeah, Graham. Um, uh, obviously. I don't know how much deeper we have to go into Kansas City. Last year, the funny part with Kansas City is it was kind of Travis Kelsey or bust from a fantasy standpoint. And I think it's going to be the same thing. But for Detroit, Jemir Gibbs and David Montgomery, that breakdown.

What did you see? You know, I think a lot of people were freaking out about Gibbs and his usage. But I was actually kind of encouraged, to be honest. Like, I thought he looked really good. Montgomery with the game flow probably got a few more carries. you might expect against Kansas City. But I actually was pretty into what Jamir Gibbs and how he looked and how he was used. I agree.

Yeah, I thought he looked apart and the limited touches that he did get. He looked great. I mean, the contact balance, the agility, the quick start stop ability that we all saw at Alabama was all there. He might have scored a touchdown. He got turf monstered inside the red zone. I think he might have gotten caught re-looking at it at the All-22. I think one of the safeties would have caught him. but he could have had a touchdown chance there.

After the game, Dan Campbell came out and said, yeah, this was kind of just like we wanted to get his feet wet. His role was going to grow. And I believe him. I mean, it makes sense. David Montgomery's not going to play 75% of the snaps this whole season. Gibbs's role is going to grow. So if anybody's freaking out about Gibbs, they need to calm down.

And my comp for Jemir Gibbs is like he's got like, everybody gives him the Alvin Kamar comp. I'm going to go another way. He kind of reminds me of Chris Johnson. Like his explosiveness and his start stoppability, his speed, man. is like he's lightning quick. Like CJ2K had some elite elite deep speed. I don't think Gibbs is that fast in the open field.

But man, they run similarly very upright, but very quick, very agile. And Gibbs is going to be a playmaker in the NFL. It's going to happen. Let's move on to the next game, which is Carolina and Atlanta, Atlanta 24, Carolina 10. But the only thing, Graham, anybody is going to talk about from this game is Kyle Pitts and Drake London combining for two catches on four targets. And look, well, we'll talk about the backfield as well. I just cannot believe this is happening again.

I just can't believe it. Yeah. And in 2020, it's insane. It's, I mean, look, I know Desmond Ritter's limited. I know, you know, he's not the greatest quarterback of all time. I know he's not super accurate. But, I mean, just to not even involve these two guys in your in your game plan is,

is literal insanity. I, there's no other way to describe it. I mean, look, Falcons won the game. we're sitting here and we're just, you know, complaining because of fantasy at the end of the day. But, you know, I credit the Falcons defense for really stomping on the Panthers offense, I guess, and just kind of keeping this game gross. They didn't really have to throw if you want to, like, paint and, you know, rosier picture. But, I mean, we knew this was a possibility that, you know, the Falcons would not really involve these two guys.

But, I mean, I was, we were all figuring at least a 20% target share for both. And then just not even involved Drake London is just, it's, it's, it makes zero sense. I literally, I've been, you know, we try to make logic out of the illogical all the time. And I think that's really what it comes down to with Atlanta. And if you talk to Arthur Smith, Arthur Smith,

that he's going to be up there. Oh, we won the football game. Of course. Like, yeah, but, you know,

so like this is just going to help him dig his heels in further. The funny part for Kyle Pitts is in an awful week for tight ends. Two for 44 is actually like, oh, all right, I'll take it. Yeah, exactly.

Dallas Goddard didn't catch a pass. Kelsey and Andrews didn't play, you know? So like, well, Yeah, two for 44, yeah. Tom. My Pitzkaw's looking great. Yeah, this backfield, Tom.

I mean, look, this is where I can't really criticize Arthur Smith because Tyler Al Jir look great. And so did Bejan Robinson. And right now, do we have two fantasy starters? I think we probably do. I mean, we saw Al Jir get the two goal line opportunities. That's something to keep an eye on here moving forward, both the three-yard touchdown runs.

Bejohn scored the 11-yard touchdown pass on 11-yard-yard touchdown pass, and he saw the most targets in this offense. So, yeah, we're not targeting Pitts and Drake, but at least those targets are going towards Bejohn-Robinson with six targets. So he literally had a 33% target share in this game. So I think Algier usable. He's fringe waiver wire. I think he's like 55, 60%.

We don't rate up those guys for waiver wire, but I think he's usable as like a low end RB 2 and good matchups. On the flip side, not a ton to talk about, but Miles Sanders did get a Belcal workload Graham 18 carries six targets in this game. That was important. He did lose a fumble and he did go down often on first contact, but this is a guy who, in what was a pretty bad week for running backs, Miles Sanders was a guy you probably feel pretty good about starting going forward.

Yeah, Tom and I were talking on the, you know, the final point show on Sunday, you know, if we were concerned or not, if Miles Sanders is going to be a little limited. And he kind of was, you know, 58% snapshot. Chuber Hubbard was at 39%. But yeah, like you mentioned, six targets. Yeah, he saw no more than three in a game last year. And this was kind of like what you and are talking about, Joe. It's like, okay, maybe Miles Sanders is just like he's an average runner. But if they're being serious about using him in a three down roll and giving him a few extra targets, like that's enough to make him like a front end RB2. And man, he started going. in a sixth, seventh round of a lot of drafts. I think at worst right now, he's just a volume RB2, but based on XFP, I mean, he was like a front end RB1 this week based on usage. Like you mentioned, he ran cold because he fumbled, Panthers offense stunk.

It couldn't get in the red zone, but better days are ahead for Miles Sanders. Tom, is Haydenhurst the startable tight end right now? Oh, yeah, I guess, like the situation here, but I'm not banking on it. You know, he brings no juice, and this is going to be, an offense that's not going to score very many touchdowns.

So, nah, he's more I think about it, he's like a middle tight end too. He's a waiver wire guy anyway. I put him down pretty decently on the list, too. There's, I'd rather have Luke Musk grave. I'd rather have, uh, maybe even Zach Hertz. Oh my God. He had 10 targets from Josh. Oh, my.

But yeah, Hurst is, uh, yeah, he's like a 15% own guy. So somebody's got to catch the ball. This receiving core is so bad. I almost feel bad for Bryce Young in this offense right now. DJ Chark might end up being a thing here because he would. I'm feeling might be dead. Jonathan Mingo looks at, you know, he's swimming right now. So, yeah, this passing game is pretty rough right now.

Let's go to Baltimore hosting the Texans. This was a really just kind of bad game. And I think it's important to note that, you know, a lot of these, like, kind of elite quarterbacks who struggle out of new coordinators. And that includes Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson put up, I think, six fantasy points in this game. Led the Ravens in rushing. And Tom, we're going to start there.

J.K. Dobbins blew out his Achilles. And I just feel terrible for this guy. This is a guy who's put his body on the line. You know, he suffered his first major injury in a meaningless preseason game. And then he comes back and he lasts 10 touches in his, in the final season of his contract, maybe the final season of his career, given how many awful injuries he suffered. But the Ravens have to move on on some level. I know Justice Hill scored two touchdowns, but Gus Edwards looked like the better runner.

Yeah, this is going to be a trick. situation. Justice Hill comes in and, you know, he gets the goal line carries too. You'd think that Gus Edwards, the bigger back might be more of that option. But Justice Hill came in and cut both of those touchdowns. Justice Hill was kind of the preferred guy at first. He was kind of the number two. And then as the game went along, you, as you're right, Joe, he, Gus Edwards played a little bit better. I'm giving Edwards the slight edge here when we're looking at the waiver wire just because You know, he has a longer track record of playing well. And Justice Hill, you know, he literally scored his first two touchdowns

since his rookie season in 2019. So not a long track record for him. I think they're, they could be in the market here. We could see we got Leonard Fournett out there. We got Kareem Hunt. Melvin Gordon's on their practice squad. I think this is, we've seen this last couple of years with this Baltimore Ravens backfield.

It's been kind of a mess with J.K. Dobbins out of the mix. you know waiver wire talk here i'm not i'm not shooting my load here uh you know you know blowing all my money here on the on the on my fab budget on this this back bill it's going to be a headache or graham you were drafting gus edwards a ton in best ball i did as well um not not predicting the j k dobbins injury but there was a point of this off season where jk daubbins was essentially holding out that's why i was doing it how are you approaching this waiver situation Like Tom, you know, Gus Edwards is probably the 1A. They're going to sign somebody they have to.

Justice Hill had... This is what Four Nett and Kareem Hunt were waiting for. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And there was some, you know, Justice Hill had eight carries yesterday, two touchdowns, but his eight carries went for nine yards. I mean, a long sample with Hill has shown us that he's a replacement level, if not worse, runner.

Gus Edwards will get the early down stuff. I imagine he'll get some goal line work too. But like Tom was saying, I mean, this is probably just a mess. I mean, likely he catches one pass for four yards. Are you kidding me? Their passing game was broken, man. I mean, it was literally broken. It's like the same thing with Kelsey.

It was the worst timing because I think they were planning on having Andrews, obviously. And then it was just like, okay, we're going to hold them out. And then the game plan's broken by then, you know. Yeah. And then, but they didn't need them because Houston couldn't score. Zay Flowers, 10 targets. Hello, welcome to the NFL young fella. Looks like their number one receiver right now.

I think Bateman was more of a, I don't want to say like part-time player because that, that insinuates that he was on the field for like 30% of the snaps. I think it was more than that. But Zayflowers and Beckham are the starters here. Flipping over to Houston, C.J. Stroud was as predicted in the mismatch report. C.J. Stroud was under siege in the entire game. He was sacked five times. Every time I looked up, he was under pressure.

Nico Collins, 11 targets, Robert Woods, 10 targets. Damien Pierce, 11 carries, and he looked far better Graham than Devin Singletary did, who had 15 yards on seven carries. Pierce also got three targets. But again, not a whole lot of fantasy production here for Pierce. I think he had 6.7 PPR points. He got a bell-cout-ish role, but it didn't really translate behind an offensive line

that is absolutely decimated right now. Yeah, it's actually a little concerning for him. Only a 28% route share. It means he was only on the field for 28% of the Texans pass plays. Like you mentioned, he did get three targets when he was out there. I was expecting that to be a lot higher. I wanted that to be a lot higher for him this season. I do think game situation might.

Yeah. A lot of the Mike Boone was playing, you know, when it was kind of out of reach, I think they, but this could be a thing with him, though. This Texan team's going to be pretty shitty this year. So they can be getting blown out. So it's something to watch. But I do think the game situation played a little bit into this. For sure.

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, Devin Singletary also got seven carries, but like you mentioned, Joe, he did not look particularly inspiring on them. No, Cincinnati at Cleveland. Cleveland wins this one, 24 to 3 in sloppy conditions. And this game never really took off. I mean, Joe Burrow doesn't practice. Let's start with Cincinnati, Tom. This is a game for Cincinnati.

Well, I think you might remember Cincinnati got up to a really slow start last year. Like I think. Oh, yeah. This is, I gave out a bet on Sunday morning. I'm like, we're fading the Bengals here. They start out slow. He's from, we talked about on. the point spread show.

Zach Taylor comes from the Sean McVeigh school. They don't play anybody in the preseason. And I think they're one in seven. I mean, they lost the Steelers last year in the season opener. They lost to the Cooper Rush Cowboys. You know, touchdown favorites in both of those games to start last year. Zach Taylor was like one in seven straight up coming into in the first two weeks of the season. So this, you know, it wasn't predictable.

But, you know, there was a little. red crumbs there that this could be a slow start. And Joe Burroughs come back off of calf injury. So honestly, you know, this is one of those. We will say this a bunch on this show. I think it's just ignoring it. Yeah. It's, we're going to go back to Burrow.

We're going to go back to Higgins. You know, it was eight targets and no, you know, it was just an ugly overall game. It was a bad game. Yep. And it probably would have been a little better if it wasn't sloppy conditions. But it was a bad, bad football game. Joe Mixing, true bell cow here,

which again, we'll say this a lot on this show. True Belcal, and it didn't translate to massive fantasy production because of sloppy conditions. Graham, I posited this in our group chat. I kind of said like, it feels like, and Tom, you just alluded to it, it feels like as frustrating as this is for fantasy and as frustrating as it is for fans, it feels like coaches would rather start 0-1, 0-2 than lose a key player in the preseason. Yeah, logically, it makes a lot of sense. And I think I shot back and I was like, you know, not only that, we've got the extra week now.

So, you know, there's less incentive to be really, really sharp week one. You know, you have an extra game to kind of make it up. And yeah, you're going right back to Bengals. They're going to be completely fine week two. I got to say, Jamar Chase, you know, nine targets, T. Higgins, eight targets, zero for zero. You've got to go right back to T. Higgins with eight targets. I mean, that is unbelievable. Eight targets from Burrow and catch zero passes.

Yeah, I don't know. If you have a good backup option, maybe you wait and see next week on Borough, but he's going to be fine. We know he's going to be fine. I'm a little bit more concerned with Deshawn Watson Graham on the flip side. And the only reason is we haven't seen Deshawn Watson play good football in coming up on three years now. Yeah, it's the truth. And watching that game yesterday, he was skipping passes. He was skipping passes, man.

I mean, he threw a couple short to open receivers. He had one to Elijah Moore. He was open. He had one where Cooper was open. The accuracy was not there. You can say, okay, it was raining. Fine. You know, he's played in a lot of bad weather games, but you're right.

I mean, this is, we're going on a long time where he hasn't thrown the ball. Well, I will say, and this was kind of like the whole point why I was buying back in for fantasy is, you know, he's scrambling more. We saw it yesterday. We saw it yesterday. Kevin Stefanski was saying all off season. He wants Watson to move more, and that's what we saw yesterday. Zone read stuff with Nick Chubb. That'll be nice all season two.

So Watson being increasing his scrambling will really help. But yeah, I think for apex ceiling, Watson, it's looking more and more likely. We're not going to get the same top five quarterback he once was. Nick Chubb, this is one of the running backs who actually did something for fantasy. 18 characters for 106 yards. Four targets, four receptions for Nick Chub. If he's catching two to four passes a week, hello. low. And also, of note, Jerome Ford looks pretty terrible. 15 carries for 36 yards, including

a long of 17. So he got 19 yards on his other 14 carries, and he lost the fumble. So Nick Chub's going to be a belkow here. Anything you hope for for fantasy. I mean, Nick Chubb could be, well, he could be the guy. I mean, he is. He could be, you know, maybe not if McCaffrey, but yeah, he could could be that R. B1 and Echler, but Echler was 50-50 with Joshua Kelly. So something to keep up. We'll get on to that later. But yeah,

and the only reason Ford really got a lot of run is because, you know, Bengals had three points and weren't even keeping it close here and competitive. So I don't know if he'll be like a 90% guy, but he could easily get in that 70% to 80% range, you know, most weeks. I just pulled it up in the data suite. First half, Nick Chubb, 60% Snapshare. Jerome Ford, 32%.

So, I mean, that's a huge boost for Chubb. He was at 50% last year up. Anywhere up to 60, that's huge. It's nice. Jacksonville at Indianapolis, the Jags take this one, 31, 21, 21, Graham, I'm going to start with you with your Duval Jags. Travis E.TN is the big story for me.

He didn't catch more than three passes in a game last year. He catches five in this one to go with 18 carries. Moreover, Tank Biggsby had a Cadarius Tony level bad game. in this one. So, yeah, Travis E.TN, let's put him up because I think, I think maybe I overthought. I didn't draft ETN a lot. Maybe I overthought this. I think Bigsby will get more involved as the season goes along, but ETS look really good in this game. Yes, he did. And he, the Colts have a really good front seven. They're terrible, obviously, in the back end. I mean, Calvin Ridley proved that. He just absolutely shredded him. But yeah, man, ETS, not only did he look great,

not only did he get an amazing workload, but like you said, Bigsby really, really struggled in short yardage. He had a ball clang off his helmet that went up in the air for a pick. You obviously have the mental miscue with a fumble on Trevor Lawrence's play. You know, I think we were all kind of on this agreement that ETN is like way better than Tank Bigsby, and people kind of took it a little too far. But, I mean, ETN, man, E is looking really, really good. And it's almost like second year players that were drafted in the first round and are extremely talented,

tend to ball out on good offenses in the second year. So, yeah, I think a lot of people overthought E.TN. He was a really good fourth round pick, man. Really good fourth round pick. Now, at receiver, one of the preseason height masters, Tom, Calvin Ridley comes out and follows through on it. Eight catches for 100 and yards and a touchdown. 11 targets for Calvin Ridley.

I want to get both of y'all's opinion on this. I was talking to Paul Kelly on the Series XM Game Day show. And I said, look, everybody's going to freak out about Christian Kirk. And look, rightfully so. He had one catch for nine yards after catching 90 passes last year. I do wonder, Tom, if this is a little bit similar to last year's Eagles opener, when J. Lyon Hertz had this shiny new toy in A.J. Brown. And A.J. Brown's out there going ham.

Meanwhile, Devante Smith doesn't catch a pass in week one last year. Could you see something like that happening and like and then Lawrence coming back next week and saying, all right, I wanted to get Calvin going, but we're going to get Christian going this week. What do you think or are you a little more down on Kirk? No, I'm legitimately concerned here. We saw it in the preseason. They were taking them off the field when they were going two wide receiver sets and in looking at the snap count. Zay Jones was the, you know, in SnapShare. He was up at 89% of the snaps. Calvin Ridley was 8.81. And Christian, Kirk was at 60%. That's very concerning to me. We know Doug, you know, this is going to be a primary 11 personnel team, but Doug does have some two tight end back. You know, that's in his background too.

So I think we're, we might be living with a Kirk like sitting at a 55 to 65, 70% snap share moving forward. And that, you know, just takes away opportunities for them to get targets and catches. So I, I don't think this is the same. type of situation here. I'm, I'm legitimately concerned here. He's, he's down for me to this week. What do you think, Graham? Yeah, same. Yeah, it's a legit concern, the SnapShare. I think it'll come up. They play the Chiefs next week. You know, that's going to be a game where they're going to have to, you know, press. We'll see. If Kirk is not on the field, like more than, you know, 75% route

share next week, then I'm, I'm going to press the panic button. But for now, he's definitely down. Let's move on. Oh, let's talk about the Colts. First and foremost, I benched Anthony Richardson, where I had him. I have them in a league where I bench him for Aaron Rogers. I'm still okay with that. I'm freaking kicking myself. In another league, I'd be lined up for a win except I benched him for Danny freaking dimes. I just wanted. I wanted to see it first. And I saw it. I thought he looked pretty good. I mean, there were definitely some rookie moments for Richardson, but 10 carries for 40 yards. I don't know what else. Like Michael Pittman had a strong game. He's startable, obviously. The only receiver who's startable here.

The Colts Graham might have effed around and found out about the Arby's Don't Matter thing because Dion Jackson was abominable in this game. Yeah. Yeah, he is not a, he's not an NFL back. Jonathan Taylor, week five, I think they've probably got that circled in their calendar. Anthony Richardson has like a reminder in his calendar for J.T. coming back. He's supposed to, there was a Shepter report that came out early Sunday morning. I'm going to add that. Well, you have a little market report article.

here, I'm putting that in there. I was going to mention that because Schefter was like, he's healthy, he could have passed a physical if he needed to today, and I mean, if that's the case, man. Here's the tweet. It is, quote, going to pass his physical and could pass it today per source.

Taylor is planning to be ready to play as early as week five when he is eligible to come off the Pupplist. Now it doesn't say eligible to play for the Colts, which is like, because I don't know, I'm sure that trade request is still outstanding, but you can tell Jonathan Taylor's agent just took that box score and he's printing it out and faxing it to Jim Mersey this morning.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't even know Jake Funk was on the roster. That was news to me whenever I saw him get two carriers. I saw Evan Hall did have a picked up a knee injury. So in the short term here, I put Zach Moss relatively high on the list here. Sounds like he was getting close to a return last week. I don't know if he was cleared for contact. that's going to be something to watch here.

We're not playing any of these backs if it's not Zach Moss for the next three weeks. Tampa Bay 20, Minnesota 17, looking at the box score and honestly, looking at the game on television, watching, I don't know, I have no idea how Minnesota lost this game. It's like the last year,

I think there was a bunch of, I have no idea how Minnesota won this game. This year, it's, I have no idea how Minnesota lost this game. And I think that's going to be maybe a recurring trend. Tom, they were eight, what they ate, no? in one score games last year time or something like that.

I don't know. Yeah. 13 and 0 in one possession games, I believe. And then they lost the one possession game against the Giants in the playoffs. And that's right. And lose the first game of the season in a one possession game. So it all evens out in the end. Hashtag aggression. I'm just going to mention a couple of things for the Vikings because they're very similar to

what they were last year. Addison kind of slides right into the feeling role. He's a startable wide receiver three. Alexander Madison had a borderline bell cow role in this game. They struggled to run. run the football, but Madison was way better than Ty Chandler, who had three carries for zero yards in this one. But I want to flip over to Tampa Bay because, look, Baker is Baker, Graham. Yep. But he threw the ball 34 times Evans and Godwin were targeted on 16 of them.

Yeah. And like we predicted, you know, Brian Flores blitz the absolute crap out of Baker in that game, just watching it. There was an extra guy coming at Baker almost every single drawback. I'll look at the bullets numbers when we have the games charted. But yeah, you got the ball out quick to Evans and Godwin. And that's all we really want. It's like, okay, I know Evans isn't going to drop the eight for 152 hammers probably anymore, but like this works. You know, this is a great spot.

You know, Vikings outside corners are not going to be very good. To me, though, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that Evans is the guy over Godwin. He still looks fantastic. He could get traded by midseason at this point with how good he looks. I want to kick it to you guys, though. what did you guys think about Rashad, Rashad White? Like you got the huge workload,

but didn't really go anywhere. Yeah, he didn't do much with it at all. And then Tucker came in and played more than the second half, and he didn't go anywhere. Yeah, that was the one thing that would caught my eye that he, Tucker was getting,

it was in the fourth quarter run. I add him to the waiver wire just because I don't know if it was maybe injury related. I just thought it was interesting that we're in this tight game here. We've used Rashad White all game long. And then the fourth quarter, it's not cutting time and Sean Tucker is out there and

Rashad White is on the bench so Tom I do wonder if White picked up a very minor injury because I'm never seeing a tweet maybe from a Bucks writer during the game that he was like on the sideline working on something so that it's possible. Yeah because I didn't I'm always looking at like post game injury stuff and there really wasn't anything on White that I could find. I mean there's probably 20, 20 occasions during a game

where a guy picks up an injury, but it's not severe enough to be reported. Exactly. So, but like here's the thing about Rashad White for fantasy, startable. He had 19 touches in this game. He didn't go anywhere with those 19 touches. You know, there's, we've mentioned that with multiple running backs, though, after week one where they got these big workload and didn't really do anything with it. I think it is concerning because he was one of the least efficient backs in the NFL last year.

Certainly his week one performance is going to be among the least efficient this year, but it's not like Sean Tucker came in there and set the world on fire. They couldn't run the ball. So, um, well, well, yeah, the 19 touches was nice. A little concern with just the two targets, though. That's, that's what, because that's kind of his appeal. I thought he would be good for three or four catches each week. And, uh, just, just the two targets. We know Baker, you know, he hasn't been afraid to target running backs, uh, in, you know, he's been a big checkdown. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that's kind of my bigger concern here, uh, the two targets in this game. Tennessee at New Orleans, 1615, New Orleans wins this one.

Tom, if Ryan Tannahill could throw a halfway accurate ball, Chigacanquo would still be wrong. That was brutal. Yeah, that was a tough one. That was a perfectly designed, you know. Great play ball. They caught him off guard. Flea flicker, yeah.

You know, a little wheel route with a flea flicker and just put a little loft on the ball and let him run under it. You know, 45, 50-yard touchdown score. And he comes through. And instead it gets a blanked here with just the two targets, a little concerning. This offense is going to go. I mean, we kind of figured everywhere DeAndre Hopkins goes,

the passing game runs through him. And no different here with 13 targets right away. He's, I think he's basically for his career, averaging up over 10 targets a game. So nothing's changed here in Tennessee. at least in week one. One of these years, you'll fade Derek Henry and be right. But there he goes again. I mean, 118 yards from scrim, 19 yards from scrimmage, even with Tannhill. Tannhill was 16 to 34 with three picks in this game, guys. So if you're a Chigacanko, Stan like me, you can't

just look at the box. I mean, you can. He had two targets, but man, he should have had a touchdown. And if I'm not mistaken, I think his other target was an end zone target as well. But I might be mistaken there. But nonetheless, just like Dallas gotter, just like Travis Kelsey, just like Mark Andrews, you got a goose egg from Chig this week. The biggest takeaway from Chig and the biggest positive sign I can point to 83% snapshot. I mean, last year, dude, he didn't have a snapshot above 65% last year. So like he's the guy. Horrible matchup, Tommy, you and I were talking about this on Sunday. This is a brutal matchup. Saints have always been so good against tight ends. So, you know, I'm going right back to Chig. Yeah, we, yeah, that was one thing.

thing on the show with John on Sunday. We kind of cautioned against him. We told people to go elsewhere for at least this week. But I'm right there with you. Just looking at it from PFF here from Nathan Janke. It's 30 routes run on 40 dropbacks. So we'll get our fantasy points data stats in the near future. But that is extremely positive here.

If he gets dropped this week, which he's probably going to be a popular drop on the waiver wire, I would be picking him up right away. this week. New Orleans, very condensed, which I really like. Jamal Williams had 18 carries. We knew this was a brutal matchup. The Titans were the best run defense in the NFL last year. The receiving workload, very encouraging in my mind, Graham. Ten targets for Alave, okay, he was drafted to do that. Eight targets for Michael Thomas, not as much as Alave, but okay, he was drafted to do that. Rashid Shaheed, six targets, five for 89 and a touchdown. Rashid Shaheed was my most drafted wide receiver through like August 1st in best balls.

Like this guy is now usable in season long leagues. And I wasn't sure I was going to get there for him. But Rashid Shahid is legitimate, Graham. This guy is really good. Yeah, they're all good. And Carr looked great. I mean, car was probably the best quarterback in the early window.

Yeah. With the exception of the red zone, which is a recurring problem, by the way for him. Yeah, they struggled. They struggled. But, man, car was good. I got to say,

Michael Thomas is not washed, guys. The dude looks like Michael Thomas. Chris Alave will be the wide receiver one here, but there's going to be weeks where Michael Thomas, you know, scores, you know, seven for 80 and two touchdowns. And Chris Alave, you know, doesn't really do much in the box score.

But, yeah, overarching thing, man, Saints passing offense looks ready to go. I just put all of them up. I'm not sure how I'm going to end up writing all of this. But, I mean, really, Saints pass game looked great. And I think you can start Alave and Thomas with confidence moving forward. and Shaheed is probably a really good depth wide receiver four and has contingent upside of Thomas misses more time.

I want a Juan Johnson yardage over prop and I won it on one catch because he had a 27 yard reception. He also had five targets. So Juan Johnson is certainly a rosterable tight end. Sorry, Tom, San Francisco at Pittsburgh. 30 to seven, San Francisco boat raced them. Kenny Pickett was atrocious in this game. Tom, I said texted our Yinser group chat

and I said, well, you've got to get picking a little bit of credit for that last drive before halftime. You were like, no, I don't. He was awful on that drive, too. Deonté Johnson was wide open on a little slant, threw it way behind him. The past of Anthony McFarlane on fourth and three was goddamn terrible, too. He was lucky McFarlane made a good play on it and converted the first down. So, yeah, I wasn't giving them even credit for that drive. So it is just one game.

I'm not going to go completely over there. It was a horrible matchup. It was, you know, San Francisco has the best defense in the league. And they were ready to play. Yeah, Bosa was back. So, yeah, I'm not going to hit the complete panic button here, you know, right out of the gates. But Deonti Johnson, that looked like a pretty severe hamstring injury. We'll get more information on it.

Next, you know, I think Toml does his noon press conference on Tuesdays. So we'll probably get more information then. But I mean, from the looks of it, that looks like it has the potential to be an IR stint. We'll see the full extent. But it looked like somebody, you know, sniper shot him right in the back of the leg there. And he was in big pain. So Calvin Austin and Alan Robinson time. So we're concerned about guys creating separation in this passing game without Deonté Johnson.

And we also have had part of. She should have had a huge first half, by the way. Oh, yeah. Absolutely massive. Yeah, so. He was always open. He's always open. It is insane.

Deonti is always open. The answer to Najee Harris versus Jalen Warren was no, by the way. And again, the, the, the, the, the, the, the matchup played into the into that. I mean, Noggi, Noggi actually looked pretty spry, I thought. But I, I mean, he had eight touches. What are you, what are you going to evaluate for? Like, I mean, Jailin Warren had five catches. for 12 yards.

Yeah, and looking at it a little more, first half snaps, Najee was at 63%. Warren was at 30%. Obviously, you know, this game was over pretty much in the first half. So if you want to paint a rosier picture for Najee, you could say, okay, when the game was kind of

in hand, it was nausea, but yeah. They scored right before halftime, and then McCaffrey housed one on the first half of the second. And that's when the game was over. Yeah. San Francisco, not a whole lot. Like, look who produced. Everybody, what do you want to produce? Iuk had eight targets. Iuke looks phenomenal. John's already going

to victory lap that one enough for us so we can Scottle victory lap that one enough for us. So we don't have to do it on this show. McCaffrey looked great. Debo Samuel looked great. Debo had seven touches, including two rush attempts. Kittle only caught three passes, but he had six targets. And in this week for tight ends, I guess we'll take the three catches and say, well, at least it wasn't Dallas Goddard, you know, at least it wasn't Mark Andrews. So, yeah, I will say on Kittle, though. I mean, we were low. on him all summer here and I feel like he's the low man here on the on the totem pole um brandon iuk looks like he's ready to ascend to another tier of wide receiver we know what debo samuel can do

christian mcalfrey on that uh 65 yard touchdown run so um i i'd feel a little bit worried if i was kittal even if i was a kiddle owner even with the six targets this i will this is this is the six game we've seen purdy mcalfrey iuke and debo all play and kittle has always been the the fourth guy. You know, he's always, he has been behind those other three. He's a mid tight end one. He's,

that's what he is. Because he's so talented, because he's so gifted, you have to still consider. And like, there's only so few weekly startable tight ends. Because Kittles so talented,

he's basically a weekly starter. And you just hope you catch one of the blowup weeks for him. Basically. The one thing I will say, first and foremost, Purdy can play. I'm not trying to,

I'm not trying to argue against that. That boy's got some turnover luck regression coming though. Yeah. He had the butt recovery here. He did lose a fumble. He had a couple of passes that should have been picked off. And look, I think Kyle Shanahan will live with that. Just keep that in mind that the turnover look is going to turn around at some point for him. I will say, though, I was just watching,

you know, both second year quarterbacks. He's, he's definitely fearless. He's not, he's willing to let it, you know, uncork it. And I think he hangs in the pocket, man. Yes, he hangs in the He has pocket presence too. There was a couple times where he felt the defender on his backside. He spun outside the pocket and made a play. So, you know, as we, you know, party might be the better quarterback between these two. Obviously a long way to go. But he was very impressive here, at least in week one.

Washington and Arizona, we had a couple of backs in this game who got Belkow usage and didn't do a whole lot with it. Are you sensing a theme here, guys? Washington, Brian Robinson. 19 carries. No other commander had more than three. Antonio Gibson lost another fumble in this game. Brian Robinson also had two targets. He caught one for a touchdown, which was a big help. On the flip side, James Connor, 14 carries, five targets. He had 12 fantasy points on 14 carries and five targets. But both of these guys, Tom, startable RB2s until further notice. Yeah, it was weird. Chris Rodriguez got a carry real early in the game.

I ended up just playing, you know, three snaps the rest of the way. Yeah, that was kind of weird. But yeah, I have concerns this commander's offensive line. We knew this was going to be a potentially weak spot for this offense. It was, it's the weakest spot on this offense. And Howe was under pressure the entire game. Against Arizona. Yes, against Arizona.

He took six sacks. Robinson 3.1 yards per carry. he's probably going to be a sub, he's probably going to be a sub four yards of carry. We're going to need a lot of volume out of him. He cut that first pass early in the game for the touchdown and, you know, just one other target the rest of the way. So we like the usage out of Robinson. Gibson is tripping up already.

But yeah, it's, it's going to be ugly inefficient RB2 usage here. Jahan Dotson seven targets. Terry McLaren just four. McClain was coming off the injury. Curtis Samuel led this team in receiving. I think I highlighted that in the mismatch report, by the way. Myself on the back, which I used him in DFS. I did not. Logan Thomas eight targets. Scott just perked up somewhere, wherever he is. On the flip side, I mean, Josh, Josh Dobbs, 21 to 30. I mean, he's doing a thankless job here, guys. Yeah, what do you want me to do? I mean, he was installed a couple weeks, you know, before the season starts. Markees Brown might be

Gympie. His number one part was Sackertz who I don't know if you guys watched much of this game. He looked like he couldn't move. I'm wondering if they want to trade him. I really don't know what's going on there. They showcased him. Yeah, I was shocked that he was 77% SnapShare in this game. I thought they would be more of a 50-50

with Trey McBride. I don't know. They were. Ertz looks toast to me. Let's move on. Green Bay at Chicago. Green Bay wins this one, 38 to 20. Jordan Love, man. Oh my God. Jordan Packers fans are on another plane right now

because Jordan Love played circles around Justin Fields in this game. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. It was not. Yeah. I mean, watching the game, I don't know what the Bears were thinking. I mean, their whole game plan was screenplays. But, I mean, without Christian Watson,

without Romeo Dubs playing a full-time snapshot. I mean, love looked good, man. The game plan was great. They ran it well. Like this offense is going to look good. So, Watson, that's the thing. I know. I know.

Dobbs, by the way, this guy's a pretty good little receiver. You know, I know we hyped him last year. He was a fourth round rookie who caught 40 passes and scored three touchdowns. Any, you tell any team, hey, that receiver you drafted on day three this year is going to catch 40 passes and score three touchdowns this year. They take that. So Dobbs is a pretty good player.

They like him in the reds. only scored twice. Aaron Jones is a star. He picked up a hamstring injury, something to monitor, and it is something to monitor because AJ Dillon was atrocious in this game. Yeah, I probably wouldn't hit the panic button just yet, but yeah, we want to see what Aaron Jones is availability here. I think that was a lopside game whenever he left, you know, he scored the long touchdown by multiple scores at that point. I might have been up three scores at that point. So no need to rush him back into the lineup. But yeah, we'll see about his availability.

I don't think we'll see a lot of Patrick Taylor. It's going to be, you know, Dylan has RB1 potential if Jones is out a week or two. Luke Musgrave, I think he answered the bell three for 50 in his first NFL game on four times again. Should add a touchdown. Love just under threw him and he lost his. Yeah. Flipping over to the Bears.

Again, I want to go back to what I said at the beginning of that. podcast. You could not, you can't panic about a week one game, you know, like so many of these teams, eventually Justin Fields has to do something, right? Like as a passer, I saw, I saw the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, four passing on anything over 10 air yards, including an interception. Well, that's kind of what I was getting out. Their game plan was just so conservative. And they just, it was just all like short routes and then check it down to the brian windhorst let me do the brian win horse why is it why was their game playing so conservative i get it but man i mean like you got to you got to take some

shots like they they got dj more who can get downfield they've got mooney you can get down field i mean that ball that fields through to mooney for the touchdown was it was a nice ball i get it i get it look fields his accuracy was horrible last year i mean it was probably not going to be charted on this game But I think they got to try. You got to try to throw it. Well, I think they will and then they have to figure out what their future is. DJ, you bring in DJ more. You trade the number one pick,

and he has two targets for 25 yards. I mean, you can't tell me that the bears weren't drawn up some designed stuff. Here's my thing. Like going back to their game plan last year, week one, this was the same thing Luke Getzzi did then. You know, it was a super, uber conservative game plan. and then they eventually opened it up. I'm crossing my fingers.

That's the hope here. But like, man, I really was hoping we'd see a little bit more. And it's, you know, condensed game plan, but also Fields was really bad. Like, I don't want to make any excuses here. Yeah. Interesting is Rishon Johnson. Five carries for 20 yards and a touchdown, six for 35 receiving, almost all of that when the game was out of hand. Tom, did you see anything here?

I mean, Khalil Herbert was getting a lot of usage early. He was the leading receiver for a while in this game. but Roshan Johnson comes in late and actually looks halfway decent. Yeah, it's tough to decipher this. I still think Herbert is a, you know, RB2 at this point. Deonté Foreman is probably going to mix in here. But I did add Roshan Johnson to the Waverwire as, you know, kind of a guy to stash away, even though it was garbage time and, you know,

that they weren't playing. You know, I thought he was impressive. And we knew coming into this year that there was a potential that he could be the best passing back. He excelled in pass protection and he showed well as a receiver here. So there's probably some room for his, you know, his role to grow here. So I still think Herbert's the guy, but I think Roshan Johnson is a nice little stash here if you're looking for a potential upside, you know, rookie running back on your bench. I'm going to have you guys help me with this one. The Raiders and the Broncos. I didn't see a ton of this game, but the Raiders beat the Broncos 17 to

16. T-Bro, was it same old Russ to you? So this is when I'm writing up the waiver wire 4 o'clock. So I don't get to watch these games too closely. But yeah, it doesn't look like it. I mean, this is a matchup that he torched last year and two chances. Yeah. I mean, he completed a high number of his pet, 27 of 34, but only for 177 yards. So I, you know, I.

Yeah, I don't know if I want to kill him for the first game with a new, do, yeah, coordinator and new coach. I'm definitely not because I mean his yeah his top receiver was Samajai P. Ryan that he was throwing to Brandon Johnson and little Jordan Humphrey out there like you know something. Great Dols got hurt. Yeah, Dulcich got hurt in the game. I mean, it also sounds like Judy could have played like he was legitimately close. So I think once Judy gets back, we'll know more and they'll have a legitimate three wide receiver set between he, Mems and Sutton. Yeah, I thought the Mims that was a little, that was concerning. He was at just a 27% snapshot. He was buried behind, you know, B. Johnson and Little Jordan and Lil Jordan. That was why I was not Lil, by the way.

He's huge. He's not. He's big Jordan. I thought that was a tight end. Yeah. Guys, continuing the theme, Javante Williams, 19 opportunities in this game did not reach 10 fantasy points in the PPR. But I'm not going to take that as a negative. I thought the fact that he's out there handling.

19 opportunities is a great sign. And Samajai P. Rine gives them a perfect third down back. Like Samajie, I call him a coach's pet running back. He just does everything right. He doesn't necessarily do it well, but he does it right. And that's going to get Samajai P Ryan snaps, Graham. Yep, it will. And it will all season.

This is going to be a backfield heavy offense. I'm expecting, you know, Williams to continue to be like 15 carries, Samajay 8. And then like you said, you know, it'll be a split in terms of the passing down work. obviously we really didn't see any red zone usage because they didn't really move the ball super well. So that's still like kind of the one question I have here is is who gets the goal line work. My lean is Giovante, which will obviously make him the better fantasy back. But yeah, Piron's going to be a thorn in his side all year. Let's move on over to the Raiders.

And I mean, talk about condensed. Hey, guys, Josh Jacobs, 22 opportunities in this game as the bell cow back. Did he reach 10 fantasy points, Tom? You're a guest. I'm going to say no. No, he did not. Bad week for running backs, guys. Hello.

Jacoby Myers. All right. They signed him. They had a plan for him. This guy is one of the top two or three receivers on the slate. Ten targets, nine catches, 81 yards, and two touchdowns. Coinciding with Patrick Sartan, shadowing Devante Adams. Is Jacob Myers, he, bro, a startable wide receiver three?

I think so I don't think we're going to see this kind of used as you said Certain is you know that's a unique matchup they'll get it twice a year Devante Adams is probably going to be good for you know eight to 12 targets most weeks he even got nine targets this week even in the tough matchup so Myers bigger issue is he took a big hit at the end of the game and yeah suffered a concussion so it looks like he might be out of commission against the bills in week too so He's like one of those fringe waiver. He's like 55% owned in legs. I definitely think he's worth adding.

He kind of excels in the areas of the field where Jimmy Garoppolo has always excelled in that like, you know, five to 15 yard range. And, you know, he's in the middle of the field. So I do think there's reason to believe his success will continue to carry over. But this shouldn't be the norm here with Devante Adams. still the clear number one target here. Miami 36, the Chargers 34. The good news for me is I stacked this game in DFS. The bad news for me. I didn't use Tyreek as part of that stack. Nonetheless, because I stacked this game

and every other game was a dud, I still doubled my money. But nonetheless, let's start with Miami. In a week like this. Okay. You're not surviving Tyreek Hill. Nope. If you got Tyreek, you probably lost, almost certainly, in my opinion, unless you had like Iyuk and McCaffrey. That was a rough go of it.

I mean, Graham, I don't know what I need to say. Mike McDaniel's a wizard. I thought Tua played pretty freaking well. Remember, this is the defense that gave Tua fit last year, Graham. So credit to McDaniel, credit to Tua, and obviously Tyree kills an all-time great. He is. is and Mike McDaniel deserves a lot of credit. So what the Chargers did last year is they took away the middle of the field. They made Tua throw to the boundaries and they tried to get pressure.

In this game, they opened up the middle of the field early. I mean, they were hitting Tyreek over the middle. They hit Waddle over the middle twice for big gains. And then they opened up the vertical game. I mean, Tyreek was just running past everybody. I'm writing Tyreek and Tua is up. I think right now, Tyreek, if you were redrafting, should be going like, I mean, Scott and I were talking about this. I think, Joe, you and I were talking about this too. Like, if you're, you know, doing projections, Tyreek has, like, an equal chance of finishing as the wide receiver one is Jefferson and Chase.

Yeah. And no one was really drafting that way. I mean, especially in, like, I mean, I still thought he was the top five pick, but yeah. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I had him there. I had him as my third overall pick. Man, I mean, if you're redrafting this week, like, I think you can make a case for Tyreek as wide receiver one.

And we've got to move to up, man. Like, he answered all the doubters. Oh, he played extremely well. Outside of that, outside of the pick, he had the bad red zone pick. It was a horrible decision on that ball. But man, I mean, after that, besides that, he was awesome in that game. So, yeah, two at Tyreek up. And I got to say, Rahimo Starr, it looked good.

Got all the, pretty much all of the important backfield stuff with no Devon A chain. A chain, I'm not sure. Did we get word if he was a healthy scratch? He was a healthy scratch. Yep. He is in the dog house. Well, he had the shoulder injury, but man, he's tired. Salmon Ahmed got the first carry in this game, by the way.

Yeah, but then you got a good three more, right? On the flip side, was it? I mean, aside from the fact that Josh Kelly and Austin Echler split carries, I don't know if this is going to be a Bijan-Aljir situation going forward, guys, but Echler has been begging. As a matter of fact, I talked to him about it. He wants somebody who's going to rotate in with him, and Joshua Kelly looked freaking awesome in this game.

He just didn't look as good as Echlor because, well, Echler. Yeah, he looked good going back to the preseason too. He busted off a long touchdown run and I think their second game. He was 70 plus yards. And just a continuation of this, he's taken well to Kellamore's offense here right around. I think it was basically a 50-50 split here in a game that was a shootout. Chargers are going to play in a lot of shootouts. But, you know, if they get into some grinder games, there's a chance that maybe Kelly

you know, gets more touches than Austin Echler in the future. So I thought that was at least notable that we had a 70 point game and Joshua Kelly was on the field for 39% of the snaps, 48% overall and got 16 carries. So I'm not going to hit the panic button here with Austin Echler. He was a first round pick, but I think it's at least a situation to monitor here. It's not ideal if you're, you know, the guy that used a first round pick on is right around a 50. 50% snapshot. Mike Williams was evaluated for a concussion, but I think he came back. He returned.

Yeah, he came in the game. He had a big catch that almost won the Chargers game for him. Real quick on Echler, I kind of view it as an upgrade. Rashon Slater and Corey Lindley are both healthy. I mean, this run game is going to be so much better this year. I don't think Echler ever really was going to be the guy that we can expect to get like, you know, 20 carries game. He's always going to split touches.

So, you know, honestly, I think Chargers' offensive line and their run game is going to be a lot better this year. Echler's still going to get a lot of red zone work. Yeah, man, you know, it's, there's going to be games where Kelly is going to vulture a touchdown and you're going to be pissed. But, I mean, this is still, Eckler, still the premier touchdown score. By the way, Justin Herbert. We have not, we don't have our charted stats out for this game yet.

We have a few, but not this one. I'm wondering what his A dot was in this game. Just curious. I was wondering the same thing. I thought I saw stuff in a halftime. It was like six or seven yards, but that was. Well, if you look, I mean, They just were running the ball so, so effectively.

They didn't really have to throw it. So I just want to go back to Tua because this will obviously play. Because whether you say something good or bad about Tua, it always plays on social media. Brett Whitefield is in my Discord DMs right now absolutely raving about him. And it literally inspired him to write a weekly article. Brett's going to call it Brett Whitefield's game ball. And he's going to write like based on film and data. he's going to hand out a game ball every week

and this week it's going to Tuotonga by Loa. Brett is raving about him. Let me give you the quote from Brett. I literally he, this is five minutes ago. I need to write a Tua article. Quote, he plays like he did yesterday all season, not talking statistics. He will be the MVP running away.

Clinical performance. So good review from Brett Whitefield on toua. Let's move on to Philadelphia at New England. Another one of those weird games with the, elite quarterback playing in a condensed offense. The Eagles win this one 25 to 20 in a just very bizarre game. Kenny Gainwell was the bell cow back running away for the Eagles. Guys, Kenny Gainwell, he had 18 opportunities.

He did cross 10 fantasy points, but just barely, are you sensing a theme in this week? He's a usable player, though. I mean, the drum beats, I was trying to ignore the drum beats i'm still i'm still more in the caplin area like he he does everything pretty well he just doesn't have juice but rashott pennies a healthy scratch graham dandre swift gets two touches in this game yeah that i thought it was i thought it was a weird game i thought it was a weird game yeah it was a weird game uh belichick had a great game plan um a j brown is pretty limited until like the literal end of the

game. The weather was bad. The weather was bad. Yeah. I got to ask you, Joe, I mean, you're the Eagles guy here. That, the Swift usage was the most surprising thing, right? Like, okay, we heard, you know, Rashad Penny's going to be healthy scratch, like hours, hours before the game. And I thought that meant. Exactly. All of us were like Swift. I mean, that's the question. What was your read on Swift here? So watching this game, I don't think the Eagles ever got into a rhythm. Like, ever. And, and, And last year, they got into rhythm so easily. I just think it was a weird game. And then the good news is, guys,

Jaylon hurts through the ball 33 times and 20 of the targets were directed at AJ Brown and Devonte Smith. So that's not changing. Problem. Goddard got one, though. That's another tight end that really struggled. Romo did point out a couple of times where Goddard should have been targeted. It was in the second half.

If you guys were watching that game, Romo pointed out a couple of times. Goddert should have been targeted. And I think Bill just had kind of Jalen Hertz a little shook in that game. And it's just one of those things. And Jail and Hurts are going to be good on defense, man. They are. And really good on defense.

I will tell you one other thing. I thought Bill O'Brien called an awesome game. Yeah. Look at that. A competent offensive coordinator with even just kind of replacement level receivers, no Devante Parker, Tyquant Thornton's hurt, like doing it through Kendrick Born and Hunter Henry. And they move the ball.

Yeah. And like, you know, Mac Jones. Was there a game last year where he comes running to the sideline yelling at Patricia and Judge and whatever and said, wasn't it like stop effing running it? It's not working. Yeah. Well, guess what? It wasn't working in this game. And Mac Jones threw the ball 54 times and I thought it pretty freaking good doing it. Yeah.

And he got Kendrick born, you know, Bill O'Brien got Kendrick born and Hunter Henry involved. Those were two guys that had a lot of success with Mack Jones during his rookie season when he was at his best. and then Tweedled D and Tweedledum decided not to play those guys and, you know, target. Hunter Henry, like, wasn't targeted in the red zone at all last year. So, you know, Bourne was in the lineup. He goes off for two touchdowns. And Hunter Henry's targeted in the end, you know,

in the end zone and converts a touchdown. Just like both of these guys should be rostered, folks. Both of these guys should be rostered. Dude, shout out to my boy. Reader receiver three in 14 team leagues. Like, shout out to my boy, Andrew Callahan, who's on, on the franchise focus podcast said

Kendrick Bourne and Hunter Henry. That's what he said. And, you know, he called Stevenson last year. By the way, not freaking out about Ramandre, the Eagles run defense is going to be a problem. Jordan Davis was a monster in this game. Jalen Carter was a monster in this game.

I know the analytics and the numbers all say run game doesn't matter and maybe run defense doesn't matter too much for winning games, but holy shit, Jordan Davis is unbelievable in the running. He's unguarded. He's literally unguarded. He made splash plays, which is what you want to see from a guy with his. And by the way, Ramondri came into this game sick. He had a stomach bug. So it's understandable if he

looks sluggish, but he still, I mean, he still caught six passes for six in the passing game again. Yes, he did. He bailed us out again. He always does. L.A. and Seattle, talk about surprising result of the week. L.A. smokes the Seahawks 30 to 13. Stafford was really freaking good. Graham, I'm going to start with you with the backfield because I wish we had yelled this. louder. I know that we can go back and find instances of us saying, hey, Kyron Williams is their third downback? Carin Williams might be more than their third down back. Yeah, he might. 15 for 52 and two touchdowns. He didn't have a reception. Cam Acres, 22 carries. Tell me Cam Acres has 22 carries in week one. I'd be really happy. He has 22 carries and a touchdown and doesn't

cross 10 PPR fantasy points. What's your read here, ma'am? Brutal. I mean, it's, it, this is, So when I was buying when we were drafting Kyron and I was saying he's a good late round pick I was like oh it'll just play on passing downs and it'll be Cam as the early down guy. This is a split. Not just that. You get them on our PC teams? Yeah, we do have them on one of our teams. Kiron might be like the guy.

And late in the game when that game was like salted away, I mean, they're up multiple scores. It was Cam Makers getting like, you know, the last grinding bit of carries. They're arresting Kiron Williams. And Sean McVeigh was saying all offseason like Kiron's our job. guy like you know he's saying cam acres is going to play a big role but like he was hyping kaird williams in the same you are right i'm looking at the game like holy crap it would have been an 80-20 snap share split without these last couple drives for acres holy crap i didn't really i was i was shocked honestly legitimately shocked at the usage um we had to also talk real quick

i got a kick at you guys about van jefferson i mean this kind of felt like a changing of the guard with this you know puka nukua obviously great game plan by mcvay Even better play by Stafford. If you're watching the game, you know, the next couple of days, Stafford was on fire and on fire on third downs too. I mean, what do you guys think about this receiver group until Cup gets back? I mean,

Pook and Nakua earned 15 targets from Matthew Stafford in his first game. I think that's, yeah, that speaks volumes there. Yeah, I'm playing him. I'm playing Nakua. He's going to be the,

you know, obviously the big waiver wire guy this week. Yeah. And so is Kyr. They might have the two. They do. They are there at the top of the list. Running back and that wide receiver for me.

We'll see what John does. But I think those two should be the guys to get. And I think they're sub 10% owned. I mean, I know Nakua is. And I would guess Kyron Williams is sub 10% as well. So, yeah. Oh, I have Kyron in the Tom. I went zero RB in our 14 team collegiate league.

And Kyron was like my last pick. I'm so fired up about that. I took some Graham advice. And I know, I know, um, our boy Josh Moyer is going is run into the way this morning to check out. Well, he was already doing it to me because I have Nakuwa. I believe in that list. Yeah, you picked them up in this morning.

I picked them up before the game. So we, we, we got, we got the, uh, we got the, uh, Los Angeles Rams covered. Yeah, we, we each have, uh, each have that covered. A bad game for the Seahawks, um, against the defense that has Aaron Donald and not a whole lot else. What do you what do guys see here? You know what I do the ATS picks. I'm freaking kicking my ass for whatever reason just like Sean McVeigh absolutely owns. Even last year when his teams were you know just completely decimated at the end of last year. They both you know they tight games covered both of them. You know he's covered six straight games in this matchup. It was like I'm

and I'm just kicking myself that didn't do it. enough studying and forgot that fact and it's, you know, it was just a complete demolition. And Seattle, the two injuries to watch was at tackle.

They lost both their, Charles Cross and Abraham Lucas. It doesn't sound like they're very serious injuries, but then again, it's Pete Carroll talking, so they might be done for the season. The time you listen to this podcast. Kenneth Walker was Bell Cow usage guy.

17 opportunities to just three for Charbonnet. What did Kenneth Walker do with that? 10.7 fantasy points. Are you sensing a theme? You should have throughout this podcast. Let's go to Sunday night, and I don't even know what to do with this game. Yeah, we can go through this one quick.

If you were to tell me, the Cowboys were going to win this game 40 to nothing, and you would get like four points out of Dak Prescott. Just a brutal week, dude. I mean, just Daniel Jones was awful. That cowboy defense is going to be a problem. The best news is that Darren Waller is apparently healthy. Yep.

Three for 36, he led them in. He did say there were some stuff after the game, though. He's concerned about it. It's the same hamstring that was given him issues. Oh, that's Las Vegas. There's some comments he made after the game. He's, you know, he says he has it like a bigger team helping him manage it. but if somebody is writing up that player,

you might want to look at that. Yeah, Tom, link me to that tweet. I put him as a watch. I'll put it in there. Yeah. I just all floating around this morning. Yeah, it's out there. It's a tweet with him with like his shirt off.

He's got like an old suit jacket on. Tony Pollard was Belkow usage and actually came through with that Belkow usage because he scored two touchdowns. You know, I don't think Dak looked great. He didn't need to. I mean, like, I don't know what else. What else? Joe, you said this to me like three years ago.

And it's just stuck with me. And it's, it made my life a lot easier when thinking about the cowboys. You're like, Dak Prescott's Kurt Cousins. I was like, oh, okay, that's perfect. Okay, I'm good. You know, that's literally he's the same exact guy. He's a pocket passer who can make the plays. But there's going to be, there's going to be times where you're left scratching your head.

Obviously, this game got out of it. It doesn't matter. Like, it doesn't matter this week. Yeah, I got to say real quick on Pollard before we get out of here, this is the exact type of usage you wanted to see. The exact type. I mean, last year we saw Zeke get all the goal line red zone work. And I was noting that, you know, even if we give like Pollard like a quarter of the red zone work, it would take him from like a back end front end front. And a back end, a back end Rby one to a front end one.

That's what he's going to be this year. I mean, this is stellar. All the red zone work, get a bunch of early down work. Rico Dowdowdell mixes in. And, you know, they're going to be in an obviously. a ton of more close games, but guys, this Cowboys defense is the best in the NFL. Their team speed is insane. Micah Parsons is unguardable.

I knew they were going to. They're going to be in so many good game scripts. Yeah, for Pollard, exactly. And you might have to downgrade games scripts. You might have to downgrade DAC and Cid Lam a bit. I mean, now, look, I think this is a uniquely bad matchup for the Giants because they were just going after Evan Neal. I mean, Evan Neal was moving around out there like a big piece of fish.

I mean, like, I'll never stop doing that. So that, I know it was coming, Joe. By our offensive line coach when I was, when I was playing football, offensive line coach, his name was, was a coach Jones, a big guy, you know, I mean, he was an offensive line coach. And I played, I played tight end. So obviously, you know, you work in over there. And then he told our right guard one day that he was moving around like a piece of fish.

and I just I use that now when whenever an offensive lineman's really struggling I'd say he's moving around out there like a big piece of fish and I don't know if anybody could have guarded Mike Parsons last night his hair

Oh no but I mean Evan Neal like I just said week one uniquely bad matchup for a guy who had a really rough season last year so not a whole lot to glean from this the Giants will be better than that for sure but anyway guys Thank you for joining us for the first edition of the Market Report podcast here at FantasyPoints.com.

We'll be with you every Monday. We'll get this out probably around lunchtime and then the article will go up a little bit later in the day. Thanks everybody for listening. For Graham and Tom, I'm Joe. Tom and I'll be with you tomorrow to break down the waiver wire. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. and come join the roster at fantasy points.com.