Fantasy Football Daily - De'Von Achane: The Unicorn Bellcow – Week 10 Essential Fantasy Football Insights | School of Scott

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

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Is D'Andre Hopkins a weekly high-end wide receiver two moving forward? Welcome to the School of Scott. I'm Theo Greminger. Every week, Scott Barrett and I are going to take a deeper dive into the box scores and help you become a better fantasy football manager. And everything that we discuss here on School of Scott is available to you through fantasy points. Through fantasy points data and through Scott's article, The Everything Report. And it's not called School of Scott because, It's the O'Greminger show.

We're welcome to Scott Barrett every single week here. We're chopping it up. We had the trade deadline today. We're going to get to that. But I got to get your opinion on D.Hops. We had a massive week for him. He finished his wide receiver four on the week. And it was just the impact he had on the offense.

Patrick Mahomes was with his first three touchdown game since week seven of 2023. Is D'Andre Hopkins here to stay? Yeah. So that's an interesting note to start off with was Patrick Mahomes is like one of the most disappointing fantasy quarterbacks. He exceeded 17 fantasy points once over his last 15 games heading into week seven. And then he had 18.2. So he exceeded that mark in week eight. And then 24.5 in week nine is highest and I don't know, 17 games, maybe even more than that. And maybe that's

the DeAndre Hopkins effect. You know, I think it's a little. too early to call it, but it's at least very encouraging. Hopkins, only a 62% route share. Keep in mind, he doesn't know the full playbook. So ideally, that should just continue to grow from there. He caught eight to nine targets for 86 yards and two scores. And this very much looked like the Rishi Rice rule. Andy Reid told us he would be playing the Rishie Rice role. And it looked a lot like it. He ran 45% of his routes from the slot. Six of his nine targets. came on slants, shallow crossers and screens. Those are like, you know, those manufactured touches, the Rishi Rice targets.

And we know that's a valuable role. Rice himself averaged 19.5 fantasy points per game over his last nine full games. So all this very encouraging, very exciting. I think, you know, he's a mid-range wide receiver three for me this week. And then I want to see that route share continue to climb. But I mean, yeah, this is all really. good, but it's also we have this broader sample of the chiefs being really content to just win with their defense and their ground game. It was a bit of a shootout last week. That's my thoughts.

What are you thinking with DeAndre Hopkins? Yeah, I think you sort of nailed it when you talk about how he's sort of still playing a limited role. And he was able to put up this massive scoring output. He had the two touchdown catches. But like you said, it's the limited routes. I think he can expand on that. And also it was about a 20% target share. And I think he can expand on that as well. And it's funny, you know, we're sitting here complaining at the beginning of the year about Patrick Mahomes's output when he's got like Rashi Rice and Xavier Worthy and Isaiah Pacheco. And now he's surrounded by all these old guys. And it's like the complete old guy, a revolution in Kansas City with Kareem Hunt, Travis Kelsey, and now D'Andre Hopkins. And we finally get a three touchdown week.

I don't know if that's static. I think Mahom. was one where the matchup helped him. I think Tampa Bay is a generous one to opposing quarterbacks. But hey, DeAndre Hopkins, if this role keeps expanding, I think I might be a little bit higher on him than you are this week. But I think you're probably the pragmatic one with the high-end wide receiver three role. But I think that could grow into like a mid-wide receiver two level role as long as he stays healthy. And the guy looks completely comfortable in Kansas City.

the guy's doing like the Remember the Titans dance. So it's great to see DeAndre Hopkins with like this immense joy chasing his first Super Bowl ring. So that's a fun one. Got to talk. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. I just want to see that route share continue to climb. But definitely could be easily a mid-range wide receiver too in this role, given what we saw with Rishie

Rice. Again, 19.5 fantasy points per game over his last nine full games. And for the folks at home who missed last week's episode, we were talking about. how perfectly suited we believe D'Andre Hopkins would be for this role because he averaged nearly three yards for route run from the slot last year, also ranked top six in slot ass. I remember he chuckled when I said that last week. And it's just, you know, for a player at his age, declining athleticism, but still a really strong route runner, power slot possession guy, I think this is the perfect role for him. And to your point, yeah, it's hilarious. What a plug-and-play

offenses has become just signing dudes off the street and trading for old guys who were last relevant four years ago. And it seems to be working. Yeah, no, for sure. And we absolutely, like in case this is your first time tuning into our show on YouTube or your first time listening to it on a podcast, Scott and I generally run pure on our predictions. So just a little warning, the info we give you is probably going to come true. But one guy that we've been high on for multiple weeks is Chase Brown. And it's sort of like the power of fantasy points data where this guy checks off the boxes so many metrics for so many weeks that you could almost foresee a breakout happening. Then you get Zach Moss breaking down. It's announced that Zach Moss is going to miss several weeks.

Travion Williams steps into the running back two role, a very limited player. And Chase Brown did exactly what you want. He finishes as RB4 on the week. gave you a 26.7 point performance in PPR leagues. And Scott, in terms of like all of the metrics you want to check off on, in terms of like SnapShare, it routes run, it was all there for Chase Brown. Now we get a trade. We're recording this on Trade Deadline Day.

And one of the more interesting trades of the day was Khalil Herbert, a player who's always been a very efficient runner in Chicago. gets traded to Cincinnati for a seventh round pick. Now, do you think that this is a Cincinnati's just needs a replacement for Zach Moss? Or do you think Cincinnati views Herbert as a guy that could be a potential split and really be a huge pain in the neck for Chase Brown managers? So it's sort of a, is this a positive for Chase Brown? Or is this a negative for Chase Brown?

Or are you sort of like, whatever, Chase Brown is fine? he's not going to get nuked by a guy that was the third string back in Chicago. Yeah, so this was annoying for me because I wrote up this, I was writing up this blur with Ryan in the Everything report. And it was like, okay, here we go. Chase Brown, absolutely winner by expected fantasy points last week. It was the most by any running back in any game this season. No other running back recorded a touch.

And Chase Brown, we've been hyping up on this show every single week, ranks top six and fantasy points per snap. And now he just had a snap share better than anyone in the top six has had all season. And then you have this trade. And this is, Khalil Herbert, keep in mind, is an analytics darling because he smashes in all of the important rushing efficiency metrics, rushing yards over expectation per carry, mistackles force per attempt, et cetera, et cetera. But I mean, the guy was, to your point, a third string running back.

And as for why that might be, well, I asked Brett Whitefield about it. He was like, well, first of all, he's one of the worst blockers I've ever seen. His vision's bad in spite of his efficiency. And he makes business decision. So the team hated it. Like the guy was, you know, smashing by yards per carry, any stat you want to look at, but not seeing the field. That's typically indicative of something else going on.

I'm still very, you know, long story short, I'm still very bullish on Chase, Brown, I think we're only going to see Herbert get a few carries this week. And they're basically, I think, going to monitor and see how he does if he has continues with that insane hyper-efficiency and maybe isn't making these business decisions or other things that Brett saw on tape. I think he could carve out like a 10 to 12 carry zero target sort of role. He's going to be a zero as a pass catcher. And this will also be contingent upon Chase Brown, you know, performing well. but but more way more so than not i'm very bullish on chase brown i think i think most likely it's a minimal workload uh for herbert but it's going to be contingent upon how he does over the

next few weeks yeah i think that what you actually said is a is a positive for chase brown because it's going to keep him in that high value touch role where zach moss was actually a real pain for him in terms of like earning targets it was odd for me to see zach moss you know that was partly because Zach Moss was just on the field, but Zach Moss was earning those targets. Yeah, I do want to say it was also the case that Chase Brown was sort of relegating Zach Moss to RB2 status. We were trending in that direction and then he suffered the injury. So like I do think this team is really high on Chase Brown and would trust him with an RB1 role. It's just a matter of like how many carries does Herbert get to spell him and then, you know, how effective is he with those carries?

For sure. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, Scott and I are going to discuss the bell cow usage for Devon A-chan, who might be the league winner for the rest of the season. Welcome back to School of Scott, Theo Greminger and Scott Barrett, breaking it down every single week right here at Fantasy Points. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel at Fantasy Points as well. You can get this show as a podcast or you can watch us on YouTube. And one great thing about watching us on YouTube is seeing how excited Scott is going to be when he's discussing this increased usage for Devon Achan. Scott, my question to you is, will Devon A. Chan lead all running backs in receptions when the season is over? He has more receptions than Breece Hall on fewer targets, like eight fewer targets, and one fewer games played. He's got to catch Bejohn Robinson. He's got to catch Alvin Kamara.

But leading running backs in receptions would be a massive, massive win for a player who we wanted this role to grow this year. But it's really been like crazier than anybody could even imagine in his role as a receiver. Just generally your thoughts for Devon A. Chan for the rest of the season. So you before the commercial break, you said Devon A. Chain bell cow. And he's not a bell cow to me. He's something that transcends bell cow status. And I treat these definitions. These are all mine.

They're very arbitrary. But this is what I've been doing for years. A workhorse is a running back who gets a lot of carries, but not a lot of targets. Right. So that's Derek Henry, Nick Chubb. And a bell cow is a player who gets a high, a lot of snaps carries targets and a high percentage of snaps carries targets within his own backfield. Devana A-chain is something entirely different where he looks like, he looks like,

here's how I said it. So in Tua's starts, A-Chain is averaging 17.8 receiving fantasy points per game. That would rank as the wide receiver 8. He's averaging 10 rushing fantasy points per game over that stretch, which would rank top 20 among running backs. So owning A-Chane is something like rostering Amun-Ross St. Brown and Jordan Mason and getting to start them both in one starting lineup spot, which is insane. Like, he is not just the RB1 on his team.

He's been the wide receiver one, which is insane. when you have Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle, as talented as they are, 17.8 receiving fantasy points per game above Tyreeks 14.5. By Target, share, he's basically tied with Tyreek, 20 to 22%. Jalen Waddle, all the way down at 12%. Absolute insane usage, insane production. His efficiency is back. Remember, several weeks ago, we were speculating he was playing through injury, but since the buy, he's been back at a 6.4 yards per carry. His usage and volume is getting even better. 80% route share last week,

which is insane for a running back. With Rahim Mostert fumbled, barely played after that. And so A-Cham was back to getting all of the goal line work. And like the whole thing about all this is it's working. It's working really well. And shout out to Danny Kelly, who pre-draft, Danny Kelly is the best running back film watcher, I know. Brett Whitefield's going to kill me for saying that, but his track record's crazy.

And he's not a hot take artist, and he said, Devon A. Chan is basically Tyreek Hill with a running back designation. And I know it's blasphemous to comp anyone to Tyree Kill, but this is the first time that it's ever actually worked. And so among all players, 50, routes on wide receiver routes, so lined up in the slot out wide, Devon Aitchan ranks top 10 in yards per hour, above Tyrico, above Jalen Waddle. He is crushing in this role. It is working. And I talked to the best Miami Dolphins beat writer. I don't know if this was on the record or off

the record, but we were victory lapping, you know, how we kind of saw this coming for Aachan, being more involved as a by the way Danny's new comp for him might be Percy Harvin but or maybe even Percy Harvin plus but I was talking to this beatwriter and you know pat on yourselves in the back and he was like but here's the thing is like I think it's going to get even better from here I'm like oh do you is like

defenses are just so content to take away the deep shot with you know Tyreek Hill Jalen Waddle and this is working so well that I think Tua It could just sit in the pocket and, you know, carve up the middle of the field like a Patrick Mahomes typically does, working in that short to enter. So, like, there's a chance this just keeps getting better and better. And so Ryan wrote this up initially where he said, I don't think there's a single running back I'd rather own than A-chan right now. And so I sort of edited it.

I warded it down a little bit. By the way, I can't pronounce the word water. So apologies. Watered it down a little bit. And then I talked to the beat writer. I read the whole blur back and I'm like, no, I think that's right. Like insane league wrecking potential. Like we're Christian McCaffrey, we'll see with the Achilles, but beyond that, like no one is sniffing

the potential he has to just absolutely break leagues. I mean, maybe Jamir Gibbs or the David Montgomery injury, but something like that. But yeah, insanely high floor, insanely high ceiling. I feel really good about that. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, there's what else, what else is there not to like? And I think that this is a like the, you know, you talked about sort of like Devon H. and what he's worth in terms of trying to quantify him. It's really like a complete unicorn.

And I've heard you talk about this in previous seasons about Christian McCaffrey, how Christian McCaffrey gives you sort of like a, at peak Christian McCaffrey was like getting an RB1, who also had reception totals sort of like a wide receiver too. combination and that's sort of like what we're seeing with devon a chan i also think what's so impactful about devon a chan is you mentioned tyrie kill it's sort of like irie kill was so good last year tyree kill was like a slight knock away from finishing as the wide receiver one overall and it's totally the devon a chan show so it's like the whole offensive philosophy at least right now with Tuotanga Voloa coming back

is getting Devon Achan the ball, using him in interesting ways. And I think that what Devon Achan's biggest impact is going to be the way that we kind of look at the running back position. We talked about this last year, sort of with the low BMI guys. But Devon Achan,

you're going to see people trying to like really search for getting a speed back that can use in multiple ways. I think that's sort of like going to be the future of the next few drafts, people trying to chase this unbelievable archetypal. And most likely or not, they're going to fail most of the time because he's just so unique. But you talked about McCaffrey. Well, I did want to say on Tyreek, maybe this, it feels like more of a leap of faith than it should be.

But I would view him as like a mid-range wide receiver one throughout the rest of the season. He's been dealing with a foot injury. You know, Tua missed all that time. And then in two of Tua's four starts, he faced the bills who have like historically owned him. He's never had more than 82 receiving yards in a game against them, which makes sense. They sell out to stop the deep ball. They've ranked top six and deep receiving yards per game allowed. And every single season, Sean McDermott's been there.

And so I do think, you know, he's going to improve. But yeah, this is a perfect segue into Christian McCaffrey where it's like the same thing where it's like, I don't know what to call this. It's something that almost transcends bell cow status, like the Uber Belcows. And Christian McCaffrey, you know, more career. receptions per game than Larry Fitzgerald, Julio Jones, Mike Evans, 91.4 rushing yards per game last season, had more than 100 fantasy points more than any other running back in fantasy last year. Obviously, massive league wrecking potential. The thing everyone wants to know is does he go back to that usage? Or with the double Achilles tendonitis, do they kind of scale things back?

and I kind of don't think so. You hear the comments from Kyle Shanahan talking about how, you know, teams are playing man coverage against them at a top five rate. This follows the Chiefs game plan against them in the Super Bowl last year and how much they miss Christian McCaffrey, whose targets per route run against man coverage, was highest on the team above even Brandon Ayyuk. And so they've really missed him. And with this four and four record, I don't think they have the luxury to really take it easy on him. And then just his mere presence on the field really changes how defense can attack them. Ultimately, I don't really know. But my personal lean is, and maybe this week is different because it's the first week back,

but my lean is he's kind of back to being the McCaffrey of old. And then just for the 49ers offense in general, I think this has a dramatic. impact on the efficiency of all key players involved. And we've been talking about this, but like George Kittle is easily overwhelmingly the overall tight end one to me. I think Debo, you look at his width without Brin and Iuk splits, could be a high-end wide receiver one. I think Joanne Jennings is being massively slept on.

More than likely than not, he's not going to be an every week contributor for you. But just like the league winning upside is there and not priced in. And then Brock Purdy, he, he's. He's averaging the exact same amount of fantasy points per game as he did last season. But that's because he's like 17% less efficient, but dropping back a 17% more often. I think he will benefit. I think potentially all these players can benefit from the return of Christian McAfro. And Scott, I knew you were incredibly bullish on Joanne Jennings a few weeks back when we had sort of the waiver-wire discussion when it was the Brandon I, you lost for the season.

and we went through all these guys. Do you think that there's a chance with the by week where it's like self-scouting that San Francisco might actually go with Purcell over Jennings if Jennings is fully healthy? Or do you think this is a, we're going to see what we had at the beginning of the season with Jennings? Or do you think there's a little bit of like uncertainty in this situation?

What's your gut reaction? Because I know for some, Purcell is going to be on waiver wires for them. Yeah, to me the heavy lean is just, Jawan, partly because of how effective he's been. He's top five in yards for route run. He's top three in separation. Win rate, he had that insane 50 fantasy point outing, which, you know, Debo's never had in his career.

And then it's also because Pearsall has missed so much time. You know, he joined the team a week later. He was hurt. He missed, you know, I don't know, six weeks. Then he picked up another injury. He missed a bunch of time. And then he got shot in the chest and, you know, he missed a bunch of it. So I just think he's raw.

I don't really think he's quite. ready, whereas Joanne Jennings has years of experience in this offense. But who knows? We'll see. You know, they drafted him high. We really bullish on the prospect. So you never really know, but myelina's Jennings. You know, it's going to be definitely an interesting one. When these teams come out of bi weeks, we learn a lot about them. I certainly agree with you that Christian McCaffrey, I don't think they bring them back just to like use him in some like James White role. It's going to be a lot of Christian McCaffrey or we'd see him sitting a little bit longer. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, Scott,

JSN, wide receiver one on the week, is this going to continue? Feeling festive. Catch classic holiday favorites, like Home Alone, the Santa Claus and Die Hard, along with holiday episodes from Family Guy, Abbott Elementary, and more with

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all the little and big things you need to make this season shine. But don't wait. Like leftovers at midnight, our Black Friday offers won't last. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca. slash Black Friday. IKEA, bring home to life. Welcome back to School of Scott. Scott, we had what we've been sort of been waiting for for a while. JSN was drafted in the first round in 2023. This is a player that was largely loved by all fantasy analysts. This is a guy that kind of projected to be this mega target earner.

There were some who were comparing him to like a future Cooper Cup. And we had a lot of disappointment last year. Like the rookie season was not a historical disappointment in terms of like a massive, massive bust. But he had steamed up to the sixth round in redraft ADP. He was a player that was drafted extremely highly. Some drafts ahead of Jemir Gibbs in our rookie draft. So for dynasty managers and for redraft managers, it was sort of like a very annoying first year. JSN earlier in the year gave us a very high target total week where he ends up with like 23

PPR points. But that was a game where it was really a volume driven one. This past week, the usage was insane. He averages 25 yards per reception. JSN finishes as the wide receiver one on the week puts up just ridiculous numbers. He gets you two touchdowns. And it's on 13. targets. But the final 37 point total doesn't even tell like the full story because he had two plays called back on penalties. This

could have been even more. D.K. Metcap, of course, was out. But do you think that this is like the game where the usage changes for JSN? Seattle has seen it and they're going to go with him for the rest of the year in some sort of an elevated role?

Or do we need to temper expectations? I would temper expectations. I mean, he could still smash. You know, he ranks ninth in XFP per game. But to me, this is more just a function of DK.K. Metcalf sitting out. He averages over 100 yards per game without Metcalf with Metcalf. That falls to like 38.4. And really the big difference here is without Metcalf, he's seeing a lot more downfield usage.

And he's been really good at that. For some reason, he's with Metcalf on the. field, he's sort of pigeonholed into this short underneath slot role, which maybe is not as well suited for. And so we're going to get D.K. Metcalf back after their buy this week. I think any game that Metcalf's out, I don't know, mid-range wide receiver two at least, any game with Metcalf, maybe more like a mid-range wide receiver, high-end wide receiver three. But I don't know. We'll see. You know, this is an offense that leads the league in catchable targets per game.

Gino's playing really well. And like I said, the volume has been there ninth and XFP per game. So maybe they just come to their senses and just, you know, try some more downfield stuff, even with Metcalf on the field. Sort of tricky for me to navigate. But hopefully, to your point, this is a sign of things to come. You know, maybe you saw how good he looked. There's no putting that genie back into the bottle.

Yeah, I think that this is one way. I'm really not sure which way it's going to go because he was just so good in this one. And it was like this role change. And I realized there was no D.K. Metcalf, but this is still a somewhat new system, somewhat new offensive coordinator. And this is a game where maybe they continue doing this. Maybe we see the ADOT rise for the second half of the season. Anyway, you cut it, it's still a massive positive. It was sort of like we did see JSN finally giving you like a peak Cooper Cup like performance and he was incredibly dominant.

So I'm not sure which way this is going to go. I think any way you cut it, if you have JSN, be really, really excited. But like Scott said, I mean, be willing to listen to like a sell high, especially for like you redraft managers because no DK Metcalf was extremely impactful. And when decathe returns, that's always been sort of a alpha, presence out there that's going to command targets. He's not just going to disappear for him. You also have the annoying presence of like Tyler Lockett. Lockett caught a touchdown as well. So there's definitely some, there's a lack of like answers here, but it was still super exciting and great to see a player that we were bullish on as a prospect, deliver the sort of performance

we knew he was capable of. Another prospect, well, you know, not really a prospect at this point, but a guy who's now had several starts under his belt, Drake May. In my waiver wire column, I had Drake May as the number one ad this week. I talked to a couple other people who write waiver wire columns, and it's sort of like, especially for single QB, there's usually a hesitance to rank a quarterback as the number one target. But for me, Scott, it's like we finally saw the rushing upside from Drake May. Like we saw it in a small sample against the Jets where he had the unbelievable touch

run before getting knocked out of the game. But now we saw like in a full effect where he gives you 95 rushing yards just looks fantastic evading past rushers as well. This is a big time, big time player. But how consistent are you projecting him to be? Like first of all, like let's take a step back, a bird's eye view, your initial reaction after seeing him for a few weeks in terms of his talent level in terms of his projection over a few years down the line if you want to take it there and then short term how you see him playing out for the rest of the season yeah so uh in 14 full quarters he's averaging about 60 rushing yards 21.6 fantasy points per four quarters would rank third or fourth best among all quarterbacks uh only jaden daniels has a higher scramble rate

So really underrated rushing upside. Our guy Scott D. Benedetto, who spent the last 10 years as a scout with the Browns, kind of broke down what he saw from May's film. In his last article, he writes an O-line, D-line article. And then at the end, it talks a little bit about a player he studied on film. And that was May, where he still has some things to work on and a bit raw as a prospect. But if anything, that just makes me more excited, more bullish, we're like, yeah, look how good he's been and he has room to grow and he's doing all this with a bottom three

supporting cast that should have a top three draft pick this year I'm I'm extremely bullish uh I and I kind of said this from the start where I was saying I think first I said very rich man's Daniel Jones then I said who you wanted Anthony Richardson to be this year and I just keep getting more and more optimistic. And yeah, I think low end QB1 moving forward at least. Squint and you can see Josh Allen. I think that's sort of like. I was scared to say that. Squint and you can see Josh Allen. I just saying that. Yeah. I mean, I think we're there. And I would say that for people who think that's a crazy one, like Drake May is way ahead of where Josh Allen was as a rookie. That's not even close. Um, and it's, you really nailed it. It's going to come down to the pieces

around them, you know, just to have like a, like a, you know, somewhere in the multiverse, did the Patriots draft like Ladd McConkey, uh, instead of Jalen Polk and or somebody, you know, like somebody could earn targets maybe right away. Um, like DeMario Douglas and Hunter Henry are his two most reliable weapons. The offensive line play is poor. or there's like so much you want to fade, but then you just watch him play. And it's like, this is the kind of guy that I want to have on my fantasy bench for the playoffs.

If I feel like I'm an underdog, I want to chase like an upside result. I want to be able to use a Drake May and hope he just goes nuts and scrambles for two touchdowns and passes for another one. I think the interceptions will clean up. We've seen it now in two of his starts where he threw multiple picks. That's part of being a young quarterback. and like you said, part of being in a bad situation.

But hey, I'm super bullish moving forward. Josh Allen sort of tormented this franchise for years and years. And now they've got a sort of a quasi-Josh Allen-like presence back there. So we're definitely there with Drake May, really, really strong player. One quarterback, though, I've got to get your opinion on, Scott, is Justin Herbert. And if this was week two, week three of the season, I wouldn't have thought that we would be talking about, the LA Chargers passing game, but you've had Justin Herbert averaging over 300 yards per game over the last three games. So this is not like a limit. It's not like a one game sample. This is

three games where the passing volume has ticked up. That's also coincided with their defense playing well. The Chargers sort of look like a more well-rounded team. From a fantasy perspective, are you trusting this sort of passing volume when it comes to Herbert? Or do you think that this is something where Greg Roman and Harbaugh could kind of revert back to the Stone Age over the next few weeks? I think they could. It's also not really insane volume, but a lot of hyper efficiency, which we've seen from Harbaugh, you know, despite these past catchers. I think this is encouraging. I think this is, you know, something to continue to monitor.

I don't know that he'll ever break into the QB1 territory for me. I think he's a great DFS play this week. But beyond that, I don't think there's too much to get excited about, except beyond, except maybe Ladd McConkey, hopefully this continues. And then we really see him take off in the second half, which we'll often see of rookies. Don't buy into Quentin Johnston. The dude has scored like 45% of his fantasy points on busted coverage.

that is so fluky. That's like the opposite of George Pickens, how he talked about like he's had 40 fantasy points called back due to penalty or negated due to penalty or called back. So he's not real. He's a mirage. He's a fraud. I had this thought last night and I didn't know where to put it.

It wasn't like good enough for a tweet. But it's like, you know like when you've seen Josh Allen play at his best and you're like maybe like five games per year and they're like, oh, that's definitely the best quarter. back in football. Justin Herbert with Baker-Mayfield swagger is that. Like, I just wish Herbert had that. The dude is a freak athlete.

He's like an athletic clone to Josh Allen, an athletic clone to Devin Singletary, like an NFL running back, except like seven inches taller and like 90 pounds heavier, which is crazy. Freak athlete, and he just doesn't run ever. You'd love to see that. Well, I mean, he's dealing with a bad foot.

foot injury, I think still. But anyway, I don't know. I just had that stupid galaxy brain. What do you think about that? Baker Mayfield, I think we got a workshopiest player in the NFL. We got to workshop that, but I think you're on to something big right there. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like the Baker Mayfield thinks he's the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. Deep down, I think if you really pressed him. And I think Herbert, there's always like a little bit of a conservative element to his game, which really benefited him early on. But yeah, you'd like to see him get a little bit more loose with it from the second half of the year. And so Scott is given out the PSA. We cannot trust 66-yard touchdowns from Quentin Johnston. You know, hey, they still count

in the scoring column. I think you're absolutely right. It's Ladd-McConkie, though. I think if you're going to go with Herbert, like looking for a stack, some sort of correlation play, definitely go with McConkey. And Dobbins is still getting incredible weekly usage. That's sort of a good segue. to the running back position. We have a couple of running backs that we had some very positive vibes from this past week in terms of their usage. And again, all of these statistical information that Scott is gonna reference is available to you

if you subscribe to Fantasy Points data. And if you use the code School 25, you can get 25% off of anything available to you at Fantasy Points. Let's talk a little bit about Tyrone Tracy and Remandre Stevenson, sort of your takeaways from what you saw in week nine and sort of their outlooks heading into week 10. You know, Remandre back to Belkow status, really good usage.

And like we said, you know, this, this offense is really taking a significant step forward under Drake May. Over his last two games, he's averaging 23 fantasy points per game, 19.7 XFP per game. those are top three numbers. Hopefully that continues. I think it will. You know, Gibson after he fumbled as barely played. And then Tyrone Tracy, yeah, my guy.

I love Tyrone Tracy so much. 74% backfield, XFP in Week 9, that was his best mark since Devin Singletary came back. I think you're going to struggle a bit with this Giants offense being somewhat incompetent, poor offensive line, especially without Andrew Thomas. But I'd like to see him get more involved as a receiver, which would make sense, considering the guy was a wide receiver in college. And he actually led his team in yards per route run, despite competing for targets against Sam Laporta and another NFL wide receiver.

But I digress. In any case, has a really good match at this week against the Panthers. So I think he's going to go off. I'd rank him as like a high end RB2, but probably closer to like a mid range low end, mid range to low end RB2 most weeks until the target volume kind of picks up. Yeah, Tyrone Tracy is one where I actually had Scott Bollinger, Jacks Falcone, of the undropables and the undrafted on Dynasty Life this week. And we've sort of talked about Tyrone Tracy.

Like Scott mentioned how much he liked him as a prospect. this is one where if you play best ball only or redraft only like Tracy is like the poster child for why you should play dynasty and have at least one dynasty share because this is like you you were very high on him Scott. I have a ton of Tyrone Tracy and Dynasty, but it's like we sort of saw this one coming with the athletic profile like you said, how he was a converted wide receiver. It's really remarkable for this guy to be this efficient, this early on, without really playing the position for that long. So I'm very bullish on him. And I know he's like this older player, but I think I'm bullish on him heading into like next year because I think the Giants have really found something.

And I agree with you, Ramandre Stevenson. He's been a beneficiary of the Patriots offense being able to put more pressure on opposing defenses with Drake May. I think Stevenson is here to stay. Let's pivot this over to the wide receiver position. I want to get your opinion on Zay Flowers. Zay Flowers is a guy where we've actually seen it now for four out of five weeks, where Zay has had over 100 receiving yards in four out of five weeks. The fifth game was like a non-existent game where he sort of disappeared, but four 100-yard receiving performances, and he finally gets a real smash game. Denver had been very stingy against opposing wide receivers in terms of giving up touchdowns. And Flowers scored two of them. The Ravens absolutely steamrolled

Denver. But Zay Flowers, it was like that second touchdown, Scott, where you're heading into the second half, he catches the ball in like the middle of the field, cuts towards the sideline. I think about 95% of NFL players just go out of bounds on that one. Zayflower cuts it up to the sideline and streaks right up all the way to the house. He looked so explosive on that play. And it was sort of like that high level mind, the really fast-twitch decision-making that you see from like really high-end wide receivers. Should we be very bullish on Zayflowers for the rest of the season? You think this is a sign of like more positives to come?

Or do you think sort of, hey, the touchdowns might be difficult to come by just based on the overall target volume? No, no, I think this, I think he's fully arrived. He's hit 21.5 fantasy points in five of eight healthy games, nine or more targets in the same number of games, averaging 121.3, receiving yards per game over his last four, insane target share. I think he's fully arrived. I think he's a fantasy stud, high-end wide receiver two at least. Per Josina Anderson, we shouldn't expect.

It was also interesting, like they're using him as the wide receiver one. They moved him all around the line of scrimmage, way more slot snaps last week to get him away from Patrick Certain. That's the sort of thing you do with your wide receiver one when he's the focal point of your offense. Lamar Jackson is absolutely bawling out of his mind this year. Easily, Fantasy's QB1, and he's not even really using his legs as much as he typically does.

He's hit 280 passing guards in five straight games, averaging over 300 yards per game, three touchdowns per game, with a league best 134.2 pass rating. This offense can fully support multiple fantasy relevant wide receivers. And so Deontay Johnson enters into the mix. Per Josina Anderson, we shouldn't expect him to do anything more than take the Nelson Agalore role, not eat into Bateman, not eat into flowers. And so I kind of buy that.

And for a team that plays a lot of 12 personnel, that really doesn't amount to all that much. And I really buy into that. We kind of talked about my conspiracy theory with Dave Tepper, the pettiest man alive. I will say his snap share dropped to 54%. So that's something to watch out for. But I really think that's just because, you know, this is a non-competitive 41 to 10 blowout. And his route share was up at 71%.

So not reading too much into that. But yeah, that's kind of my vibes on it. I think, you know, one of the most potent, deadly offenses in football. And by every measure, looks like the clear wide receiver one. And, you know, a hyper-efficient one at that. Yeah, no, I'll totally with you. Zay Flowers is one where if you have him, be very, very excited. And I actually think that he's a buy high in Dynasty because we're starting to really see him develop.

And it's only year two for him. Great week for your 2023 first round picks. You had Quentin Johnston, JSN, and Zay Flowers all going off. Even Jordan Addison scored a touchdown as well. So we're going to dive into a number of other wide receivers, some sort of change. values among veteran wideouts after a quick break. Last week on School of Scott, we both went crazy for Josh Downs. I said I would start Josh Downs over pretty much anybody.

I had Josh Downs as like low-end wide receiver one and not so good. Indianapolis goes into to Minnesota, very disappointing offensive performance all around, but certainly for Josh Downs. Scott, should we change anything with Josh Downs? still really for this season, it's been nothing but positives with him and Joe Flacco. Now we've seen sort of what a negative looks like. Is this a sign of things to come? Or is this a, don't worry, Josh Downs is going to be perfectly fine.

He's going to be perfectly fine. He's still a high-end wide receiver, too, in my eyes. It was just a bad game from Flacco against, and the offense up against a really tough defense. But he ranked top five among all wide receivers and target share. that's exactly what you want to see. I remain as bullish as ever. Yeah, me too. And I had a couple people in like my DMs this week about Josh Downs.

And I'm like, you know, I'm fine with Josh Downs. This was, it was just a very disappointing game in general. This was one where Minnesota has been so, so like fantasy friendly in terms of being like a pass funnel, allowing wide receiver production. This looked like it was going to be a really good one for Josh Downs. But I'm with you. I'm not worried about this one. I want to talk about Darno Mooney and Jacoby Myers. These are two players where,

Scott, you've been all over Jacobi Myers for like several weeks now and you're starting to see it. Jacobi Myers is like, I don't even know what I want to call him now. I think my trust level for him is like low end wide receiver two now. And Darnel Mooney is a guy that we really need to talk about. Mooney has his most touchdowns he's ever caught in his career in a single season.

Mooney also has, was incredible on a first read rate this past week when Drake London missed some time. And Mooney is, I believe, second overall among all wide receivers and catches over 20 yards. So he's just having a tremendous year in Atlanta. Sort of your thoughts on Myers and Mooney and your trust level for these two. Yeah, Jacoby Myers. I mean, he looks every bit the part of like a fantasy wide receiver one and insane usage, insane volume. And we've been talking about this for a number of weeks now. I will just say the level of uncertainty is raised a little bit with the offensive

coordinator change with potentially benching Gardner Minshew for Desmond Ritter, which would be really stupid. But yeah, I think mid-range wide receiver two, just because the volume usage has been that good. And he's done well with it, despite, you know, Las Vegas's offense, otherwise struggling, having the worst rushing game of any offense in like at least 20 years. And then Darnal Mooney, yeah, crazy. So Drake London suffered that injury.

Darnal Mooney catapulted into wide receiver one status, had a 67% first read target share, 67% first read target share, 40% raw target share. And so you look back since week two, he ranks ninth in Air, yards, eighth in Target, seventh in XFP, eighth in fantasy points, on a per game basis, top 13 in XFP per game, fantasy points per game. And the crazy thing is, like, this, this volume is well earned. It's deserved. He ranks behind only Justin Jefferson in total EPA among wide receivers. That's 19 spots ahead of Drake London. So if anything like he's deserving of more

volume. And so, yeah, this is, like I said, 13th in XFP per game, 13th in fantasy points per game. And like, how are people viewing him in their own leagues? Like wide receiver 26? I don't know. But yeah, I'd be starting him as an easy wide receiver too moving forward. Yeah. And I think sort of the lesson learned with Darno Mooney is these free agent signings. Like the writing was sort of on the wall for him to take an increased role, return back to like where he was like a year two in Chicago. But Atlanta had a plan for him. We heard Rahim Morris talk about him in a positive light in the off season and we've

certainly seen it. And Scott, it's like, what did it cost? What did Darno Mooney's breakout cost? Well, it sort of a little bit cost Kyle Pitts. How worried should fantasy managers be about Kyle Pitts right now for the rest of the season? it's been sort of a roller coaster ride for Kyle Pitts managers. It's like once you think you have it figured out and things are bad, he bounces back. Then once you get comfortable of him in your lineup, he regresses.

What do you think we see over the second half of the year with Pitts? Yeah, this show can remind me how bipolar we can get. So he had 65 receiving yards or more in four straight games. Last week scored 2.1 fantasy points on one target. But we did last week talk about him as a potential negative regression candidate. That looks right. He ranks 26th among all tight ends, fourth on his own team and first read target share. And then his route share is really falling off a cliff.

He's down to 55% over the last two weeks. That was down from 77% over his previous three. So at the very least, we know he's like a very volatile option, not super dependable. but I'd say still probably a very low end tight-in one. Yeah, it's really tough. I mean, especially because we didn't even talk about him today, but I certainly could have had a question on Bejan Robinson. We can talk about Bejan Robinson every single week

because he's really, really drawing those targets we love to see for the running back position. But it's like Drake London avoided anything serious with the hip injury. So, you know, we're really thankful for that one. But between London, Mooney and B. Sean, all three of those guys we know going into the week are going to earn their targets. So for me, it's like Pitts is sort of like the fourth man on the radar there, which makes him, even if it's very consolidated, a really tough one to trust in terms of, hey, we're enthusiastic about starting him every week.

So I think I'm with you. It's the tight end position. It's not like there's a million guys on the waiver wire most weeks that you're able to just plug in. They're going to be better than Kyle Pitts. So I think it's just sort of like temper expectations, hope that there is some matchup-based spike weeks to kind of offset the weeks that are going to be disappointing. But speaking of the Waverwire, speaking about tight ends, Mike Jaseki, Mike Jaseki is a player where there's been a correlation between Jaseki's production when T. Higgins misses games. And we saw it twice this year, but this past week we saw it in like a real spike week.

where and Scott, it feels super weird. We're like last week we're talking Kate Otten. This week we're talking Mike Jaseki. It's like bizarro world for a tight ends we're really discussing here on School of Scott. But Mike Jaseki gets us a 27 point performance, catches two touchdown passes. What are you, where are you out on him for the rest of the season,

especially with Eric All now looking like he suffered a potentially career, not career ending, but certainly a career affecting injury. Career derailing, yeah. derailing, yeah. Yeah, so I'm kind of not buying into this as being real. For KDot, and it for sure is. I just think this is like some weird thing that we've been forced to do without Higgins is moving just Sicky into like the power slot role and then that disappears when Higgins is healthy.

Eric All, you know, he was only mildly involved in the offense like a 25% route share. Kedaten, I mean, like easy high-end Titan 1 moving forward. Gisiki, I don't know, it really, you know, maybe a mid-range Titan 1 without Higgins. With Higgins, I don't know, I'd need to see a few really productive games before I buy into that. And don't forget, you know, it was just Siki who was seemingly featured last week, but it was supposed to be Jermaine Burton. And then you, what was your slot joke? Oh, yeah.

I said it was, I, so I split a main event team. with Scott and Abib Agbatobah, a friend of ours, who's a fantastic FFPC manager. He's won the grand prize 500K two years in a row. But if you're listening in Abeeb, I got you this year in the Hardway League. I'm ahead of Abee in one of our real competitive league. So I'm holding on to that one. But yeah, Beb, one of the best out there. I highly recommend first in 15 if you're looking for another podcast in your or in your feed.

That's Abe's podcast. but I send it to you guys. Jermaine Burton, literally, what a horrible, horrible week. Jermaine Burton was supposed to have not only increased usage, but he was supposed to have like his featured breakout game. So somewhere in the multiverse, those two touchdowns to Mike Jaseki end up going to Jermaine Burton. And then you see Joe Burrow just furious at him on the sideline. Just the body language was like intense, about as angry as you've ever seen Joe Burrow at a teammate or really at all ever.

Joe Burrow was just steaming around Burton. And then a few hours later, you see Jermaine Burton goes. And some people said he was wearing the same shirt he was wearing on the sidelines, just goes right to the casino, parks up at the slot machine. So I said it was elite slot usage by Jermaine Burton right there. So yeah, you never know what you're going to get in the NFL. Here at school, Scott, we did it for a few weeks. Now we're trying to get back to it.

We want to take your question. So make sure you're following Scott. and I on X. We're going to drop once a week until the end of the year, basically a day where we're going to have you post your questions. We have a couple of interesting ones this week. We're going to start with Nick Olo at Sicilian Olo on X. Cooper Cup or George Pickens rest of the season, Scott. Cup. Cup for me as well. Okay, we're going to go. We had a Quentin Johnston one. We're not even going to answer that one because Scott already eviscerated him. Here's a good one from Mitchell Mom and is Who is Mimo on X? How do you think about youth versus skill slash fit?

Particularly I'm trying to value Josh Downs versus D'Andre Hopkins breakout. So it's sort of like a, I saw the disappointment with Josh Downs this past week and I saw DeAndre Hopkins put up a smash week. It's sort of like a, do I trust what just happened versus several weeks in the past? I'm still going Josh Downs if I had to pick one for the rest of the season. I'm guessing you're in the same boat there, Scott. Yeah, for sure. Okay, let's take one more. This is an interesting one from Freddie.

It's at L. Freddie 22 on X. And he says, what do we do with Jalen Waddle in redraft and in Dynasty? This is a frustrating one for fantasy managers. Do you see, what do you see sort of playing out here when it comes to Waddle? I have no, it's so bizarre because like I'm so convinced this is an extremely talented player, but it's like he's redundant to Tyreek Hill, who's maybe the greatest deep threat of all time. And then he's apparently redundant to Devon Achan, who's like elite in this short to intermediate area of the field. I don't think there's anything you can do.

I don't think you could sell him for anything. And I don't think he's going to do anything. I will say he maintains elite contingent upside should Tua stay healthy and Tyreek get hurt or Achan get hurt. But unless that happens, I don't know, it's really rough right now. Yeah, it's about as bad as it gets. He's a guy where you can't put him in your lineup. And in Dynasty, this is a massive sunk cost. If you took him this year in a Dynasty startup, I'm talking Dynasty rankings with Thomas Tipple.

from from from from fantasy points as well a shout out to thomas but we're talking about guys and like where we're ranking them right now and i'm doing my own wide receiver dynasty rankings and i keep moving jalen wattle down and i don't want to be too reactionary this year with all the quarterback issues miami had but it's just like there's so many guys i'd rather have than him in dynasty that six months ago i would have laughed off that sort of trade uh that trade offer like Scott, right now, Zay Flowers or Jalen Waddle and Dynasty. Oh, Zay, easy. Jaden Reed. Jaden Reed and easy.

JSN. You know, there's all these guys where I've seen it now. And now we've got another class coming in next year where we've got guys like potentially Travis Hunter and Ted McMillan and all these guys come up in this class. So like, this has been a very poor year for Jalen Waddle after such a great start to his career. So I don't know what to tell you with that one other than just. be very frustrated. Scott, what do you have going on for the rest of the week here? Oh, boy, now I shift to DFS full time for the rest of the week. So check out outside the box. Check out

Slate Breakdown Sunday Update. Hang out with us in Discord. You need to be a premium sub or all in sub to access the DFS channel in Discord. That's typically where I live. What about you, Theo? Just grinding away. I've got my dynasty article coming out right here at fantasy points. And make sure, again, if you want to read Scott's article, want to read my article, and you want access to all this amazing data, use the code School 25. That's going to get you 25% off everything at Fantasy Points. And we're going to continue to crush it right here on the pod every single week. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel as well.

some great shows every single week right here over at fantasy points and we'll see you next week