Fantasy Football Daily - Every Quarterback is Hurt | Week 9 Fantasy Football Market Report

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan), Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley), and Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) recap all of the Week 8 fantasy football action with actionable news, nuggets, and stats to get you ready for Week 9 waivers and lineup preparation. SIGN UP FOR FANTASY POINTS WITH CODE GURRIFIC25 AT CHECKOUT FOR 25% OFF: ⁠⁠https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/⁠⁠ 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 FantasyPoint.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. It's week nine in the NFL season here. We're wrapping up week eight with the Monday night football game tonight. Guys, I hope you escaped without injury while you were watching football yesterday. catching astray because there was a lot. And guys, here's the problem. It was at the quarterback position, which is typically the least injured position of the skill positions.

And I got to be honest, man, like everybody's kind of dropping. And even guys who are playing are playing hurt. And it's pretty nasty out there. I hope everybody enjoyed their day, watching some football. There were a lot of scores out there, a lot of touchdowns. But we're going to have to navigate these waters here with the injuries. And I'm glad to do so. My name's Joe Dillon. And I'm with Tom Browley and Graham Barfield. as we do every Monday morning for the Market Report podcast on the Fantasy Points Podcast Network. Good to be with everybody on a Monday morning. Guys, welcome into the show.

Anything hurting for you today, T.Brow. Joe, I've been like keeping my eye out for free rushers all morning here. I mean, I'm like the same age as Kirkie and Aaron Rogers. Like, if there's a rusher coming at me free, I might blow out my Achilles too. So I've been keeping an extra eye out for anybody that's going to try to sack me here this morning. Get those calves workout in. I know. Yeah, get those calf raises in.

Hit the leg press. Get the calf raises in, too. Make sure there's a kill. That strength. What a shame. But we're going to go game by game and we'll get to every game as we do a, as we recap the injuries, the usage and everything you need to know. Game by game here, guys, we got a full slate of games because the NFL

inexplicably has buys into week 14 and none in week eight. All right. Well, let's get to the, let's get to the, Thursday night game. It's the bills in the Buccaneers. The bills win this one 24 to 18. I don't think there were too many injuries in this one. T-Bro, obviously, you recap this game already. What did you what do you see here? And Gabe Davis, yeah, that was a two, the two big takeaways for me were more of the Dalton Cicade, Khalil Shakir, no Dawson Knox in this game. When a more 11 personnel and like up to this point, Deonti Hardy and trench. Yeah, and it worked.

They actually got their better young players on the field instead of, you know, Deonti Hardy and Trent Sherfield and Dawson Knox, they, you know, got these young guys out in the field and they were making plays. So that was kind of my big takeaway. Dalton Concade is a must start tight end for at least the next three weeks. And they have, he has great matchups to Cincinnati, Denver and the Jets, all tight end funnels the next couple of weeks. So, and the other big takeaway was Rashad White's pass. in game usage for the Buccaneers. It's been kind of trending upwards.

I think the Dave Canales realizes that they're not going to run the ball at all this season. Nobody behind them can can. So we're going to get Rashad White the ball out in space, let him try to make defenders miss. So White's, you know, we've been on this all year. He's missed cat. He's not a bell cow type of back. But he excels as a receiver. And it was notable to me that.

maybe this is a change of how they are approaching the offense here, getting him involved more as a receiver. He's not a Belcal back, but he's their best running back. I've tried to get. Oh, no, no. I totally agree. Yeah. Che Sean Vaughn is running a quicksand out there.

And Sean Tucker's can't even get on the field at this point. Yeah, Chase Edmonds was in there. They're giving them all the Edmonds backed up to their own goal line. I'm like, oh, boy. He had a, you know, Tom, I know you said they can't run up, but he had a lane wide open. And he just completely messed it. He stinks.

White's going to keep playing. Real quick on the bill side, the only note I really have is like, like Tom said, they went away from the 12 personnel. And I actually think that's going to help their offense. This year, it's just slowed them down this year, getting Kincaid on the field full time and then letting, you know, Alan do his thing, obviously, with Diggs and Davis on the outside, then they'll rotate in the slot.

Like, I think it just makes their offense better. And moving forward, I don't think Knox will have a big role when he comes back from that wrist injury. I think Kincaid, if he keeps playing like this, I guess he'll take over as the full-time starter and 11 personnel. Carolina and Houston was an ugly one. Houston was a popular DFS stack ram, as you well know, and this was a disaster. C.J. Stroud got nothing going.

I don't know what the Panthers did over the buy, but they got that defense short up nice and good. Nico Collins laid an egg, tank Dell laid an egg. And here is the problem for Houston. We started to see signs two weeks ago. of Devin Singletary taking over this backfield. Here's the problem. Not only did Damian Pierce and Devin Singletary kind of split the work right down the middle.

They got Mike Boone involved. So now we have three useless fantasy running backs. And that is, that's the worst thing we could see, Tom. I have Singletary in a couple of spots. Maybe if there's nobody to pick up this week, I'll hold on to them to see if they decide to go to do it again. But the problem is, Pierce was actually more effective in this game for the first time all season. and it's just going to encourage them to keep that three-man rotation going for it.

Yeah, and Boone was working then a little bit before the buy, but yeah, 17% snapshot in this game. We're trending towards having no usable backs in this backfield. Pierce has been under 10 fantasy points in three straight games. Singletary, you know, his role's not quite big enough. And they're not running the ball well enough anyway. They lost another offensive lineman in this game with Jared Patterson going down. center. So this, this offensive line continues to struggle to even open up holes. And, yeah, this is a backfield that, frankly, I don't really want a part of at this point. It's fine.

Taking a shot on Singletary, put them out the end of your bench. But I don't think it's going to be happening for any of these backs anytime soon. Well, you know, and then down at the goal line, you got to get Beck involved. You know, and then he had a fumble. Yeah. Pierce had that. He had the touchdown. And then the next play they gave it to backed. a little bit of run bad for Pierce. But yeah, man, I mean, it's backfield committee with Devin Singletary. Pretty brutal. We're back in there.

Unless we see a sea change, there's going to be nothing here for fantasy going forward. Tom, just really quick on Stroud, bad game concerned here. I mean, this was a nuts matchup. And, I mean, he threw for 140. Yeah, I don't know what to take away from this. This was such a weird game. And it's just no offense of flow. So I don't really know what to take away from this gun.

And this was frankly a game that they didn't really show a whole lot on the Red Zone channel. So I can't even say like he was missing a lot of passes. I mean, the numbers don't look awful. 16 to 24. They just didn't have the ball very much. They didn't have the ball. They had 10 penalties. I mean, just brutal out of the buy.

Yeah, they had a couple drive-killing penalties. Yeah, the big thing to me was just, you know, Collins only throwing 24 passes. or excuse me, I'm looking at Nico Collins Stroudling for 24 passes. So I know all the talk into this game was Jay Glazer came out and he's like, well, you know, Houston had a deal for the number one pick and they would have traded up. And if they, if the deal was consummated, they would have made Bryce Young the number one overall pick. So they had Bryce Young higher than C.J. Stroud. Everybody's like, oh, my God.

The best deals are the ones you don't make. And that still might be the case. But Graham, Bryce Young did out play. CJ Stroud in this one. And speaking of no help, I mean, their run game was atrocious too. Icky Aquano was basically letting guys just get to Bryce Young all game.

And Young played a really good game. I mean, he threw some dots, Graham. Obviously, from a fantasy perspective, he's not a fantasy relevant quarterback. But noteworthy is that of his 31 targeted throws, 16 were to Adam Thielen or Jonathan Mingo, something near Graham?

Yeah, I think there is. I think there is. They changed play callers, offensive coordinator Thomas Brown. He's a former running back coach. You know, Reich took a step aside, let Thomas Brown call the plays out of the buy. Offense looked better, looked a lot better.

They got Mingo involved, like you mentioned. That was something that I noted before the buyer. I mean, they only got three targets in their last game in week six. And then their backfield. Miles Sanders was completely demoted to carries. Chuba Hubbard got fifth. 10 carries. So, man, they gave him all that money this offseason, and it only took eight weeks for Chuba Hubbard to become the starter.

I think that will eventually, it'll eventually become a committee because Chuba's still just a guy. Miles Sanders could still be hurt. But yeah, I mean, that was the big takeaways to me. One, that Mingo is finally involved in their throwing the ball downfield. Joe, did you see it? They threw it to DJ Chark downfield, too. He got a 20-yard target. It was unbelievable.

So, yeah, a little bit of definitely a little bit of positivity moving forward from the panes. is out of their buy for sure. Yeah, this is another backfield, though, a third, we're having a third part. They got Blackshear involved. Black shear was at 15% of the snap. So this is, you know, could be, turn out to be two very similar backfields

where it's just like low, you know, lower octane offenses with three guys involved. Yeah, it's, I, the Panthers are kind of in the same boat as the Texans right now. Hubbard is the guy if you're playing somebody out of this backfield, but he could go 15 for, 28 like he did yesterday and one of their, you know, better offensive performances from Bryce young to this point of the season. Yeah. So like it's easy to say Frank Reich was like,

we're going to ride the hot hand in this backfield, right? The problem is to ride the hot hand, you have to have a hand that's hot in the first place and they did not have one. Both hands are cold. Yeah. So that's when you get the third black share. Yeah. That's when you get the third hand involved. Yeah, just a bad, just a bad situation in that backfield, but good for Bryce Young without the assistance of a run game to play a good game here and get the Panthers in the win column. You know, I'm going to be honest. And Graham, you're going to know exactly. First and foremost, yes, I'm an Eagles fan. Okay, so I always hate the Dallas Cowboys, but I'm sick of the Dallas Cowboys. Can you play a normal game? Nope. They have played,

they have played seven games. Unbelievable. One of them, one has been decided by fewer than 12 points, and this game was not either. The Cowboys win 43 to 20. The Rams got called, I think, for an illegal contact on what would have been their third sack of Dallas's first possession. Give Dallas a new set of downs. And right after that, as soon as that penalty was called, not that I knew it at the time, but that game was over.

Because Dallas marched right down the field and then everything that could go wrong for the Rams did go wrong. And Tom, it consummated with Matthew Stafford getting injured on his throwing thumb. And here is what they did. Sean McVeigh, obviously is a great coach, all right? We're not going to pick on him like we're going to pick on Farty-Arty. But Sean McVeigh, Matthew Stafford, according to McVeigh, initially injured his throwing

thumb in the first half. He aggravated it and then was out for the game after diving into the end zone on a Philly special style two-point conversion. Why are you calling that play? When your quarterback has an injured hand and it requires him to catch the football time. I mean, come on, Sean. I know, like, you had to do something. The game was out of reach.

But now, if this is a Justin Field style injury, we're going to be without Matthew Stafford for a couple of weeks. Yeah. And looking at the opening lines this morning, Green Bay's favored by two points against the Rams. So there's certainly some uncertainty if Stafford's going to be available. and that's going to have huge ramifications for the rest of this offense, as we saw a cup, 10 targets, 21 receiving yards. Nakua was a little bit better with seven targets and 43 receiving yards. But if we have Matt Stafford out for a game or two,

or however long he's going to be out, this is probably going to be a lot of, as we kind of saw last yesterday, it was a lot of Royce Freeman and Darrell Henderson in the second half, even as they were trailing by multiple scores. They just had no confidence to really just throw the ball around the field here. So this is going to be a killer for this offense. And we'll get to another killer a little bit later here with Kirk Cousins. But this is an offense that could be pretty unusable.

And they're going up against a Packers team this week. That could be a really low scoring, just a drag of a game up there. So we'll see how the Stafford injury pans out. I'm not feeling optimistic here. It feels like this is probably going to be at least like a weak injury, week or two injury. I know, I know.

And we're hoping, obviously Rams get a buy in week 10. So maybe Stafford sits week nine and he gets right through week 10. But I mean, yeah, with him, man, I mean,

it could be a multi-week injury. It would just, I mean, it would kill this office. Did he have a thumb issue last year, too? You know, I thought he had a little bit of a stretch before he had the next, well,

yeah, the shoulder. The shoulder, yeah. The shoulder and neck issue. I don't, I don't remember a thumb. He might have, though. Yeah, he might have.

I thought he may have for a little stretch last year, too. But, yeah, we'll see. I mean, real quick, we'll get Kyron Williams back then, too, I think. I think week 11 is the date they're targeting for him. I mean, no, I think they're out through a week 11. Yeah, they're back week 12 because this is only the second game that they're both out. So, yeah. Yeah, you're right.

The Seahawks game would be the third game. So, yeah, week 12 for Kyron. Dang. Yeah, well, offense is kind of falling apart then. I mean, it sucks, though, because it's like the Vikings, too. It's like they're finally starting to put it all together, get cup and the Kua back. Yeah, brutal. Stafford's had multiple thumb injuries, by the way.

Yeah, I was going to say, I thought he, yeah. He played through it in 2020 and 2021, but he's had multiple. I mean, Matthew Stafford's tough SOB, man. That guy's going to be in pain after his career. Over on the Cowboys side, again, like, Dak Prescott, I think this might actually have been his first game is a top 12 fantasy quarterback obviously played a great game. They put Cooper Russian at the end and Tony Pollard cannot score actual fantasy points. It's unbelievable. But they decided this game, we're going to throw the ball. We're going to get it to C.D.

Lamb. Prescott targets C.D. Lamb 14 times. No other cowboy has more than four, Graham. Yes, sir. Mike McCarthy, good job out of the buy. Give him a little bit of credit. Scheme that up Lamb and Ferguson. We'll give them a little credit. It looked good for sure. Sure. They obviously took the two weeks off and we're like, all right, let's just build the whole offense around CD Lamb and it worked. So credit them real quick on Tony Pollard. I mean, this is just like some insane variance, just insane levels of run bad, right? Like they blow out the Patriots four games ago. Pollard doesn't have to do much. Then they get blown out by the Niners. They finally playing a good game against the Chargers. Dack was great in that game. I think the QB1 for fantasy that week. Pollard drops a touchdown and the end zone got seven targets, 80 yards in that game.

He at maybe not a drop is maybe a little too far. Jack did kind of put it in the wrong spot. And then they get, you know, they're in another blowout in this game. It's just been what can go wrong, will go wrong for the Cowboys. This coming week, they get the Eagles like you're saying, I think, Joe, finally a tight game. Maybe. Eagles could blow them out, too. I'll just note, like, Lamb had seven or fewer targets in his five of his first six games.

It was at a 21. a half percent target share. So to see him basically double up what he's been averaging with 14 targets is at least a good sign. Hopefully this continues. I mean, the rest of these receivers are let's feed the bottle lamb. He's the Eagles have figured it out with AJ Brown like, hey, let's just pepper him with targets every damn game. Cidid lamb is, I'm not saying he's that level of player, but he needs to be in the 10 target range, you know, the target, you know, the range of 10 targets every week. Brandon Cooks is a last man on the bench type of guy and Jake Ferguson

is a usable tight end. That's kind of what this is and you can drop Michael Gallup fucking stamps. Like get them all. I mean, I understand you need to play three receivers so, but like, yeah, they made a huge miscalculation resigning him and not. Just a little bit.

Watching Amari Cooper go off most weeks in Cleveland with that at least when he's at quarterback situation. Minnesota 24, Green Bay, And there's two big news stories from this game, and it's obviously both the quarterbacks. And number one, I mean, I'm depressed. Pour one out.

Because we love to make fun of Kerkie. And he's, you know, Magoo, you know. But there's one thing that Kirk did. And I said this on my morning show on YouTube. He throws the ball to their good players. And like when we've seen some of these offenses, you know, the Eagles who are actually really good at this, giving the ball to Kenny Gainwell inside the five-yard line.

The Bengals throwing, designing a target for Irv Smith out down at the goal line. And disaster happens. Like, Kirk Cousins has never been that guy. He throws the ball to good players. And I don't know what they're going to do because right now they're in the thick of it. And in the NFC, they're in a division where they are clearly the second best team. Can you go to Jaron Hall? I don't know.

But, I mean, obviously, Graham will start with you. This is a massive blow to their entire offense. and it just sucks. Like if you have Jefferson, Jordan Addison was looking like a league winner. I just don't know if we can say that's going to be the case anymore. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,

the Vikings don't really have a whole lot of options. Yeah, and it's one of those things too, Joe, like you were saying, I mean, they started one three. They've won three straight now. Finally get a little bit of positive momentum. Yeah, it's just brutal. I mean, Jefferson's back in two weeks, can be back, I should say, in two weeks.

We don't know if he'll actually be back. in two weeks. We'll see on that. Yeah, it's just, it's just absolutely brutal. Tom, what do they open up at this week? Do you know? They were four point underdogs in Atlanta. So, I mean, they probably would have been close to pick them. I would think after being, maybe one. They probably would have gotten one or two. I think. Yeah. So it's just absolutely brutal. I think cousins might be having the best season of his career, quite honestly. He was. He was second in the NFL and passing coming into week two. Yeah. Coming into week. He's leading the league in complete.

He leaves, you know, this leading the league in completions, attempts and touchdown passes behind only Tua and passing yards. And this offensive line, I thought, has really started to come together. We saw Christian Dar esau's playing really well. Yeah. Yeah. Hearsals playing really well. 44 dropbacks, no sacks. I mean, this was a pass heavy team that, you know, we don't have many of those type of teams in this league right now.

Every goddamn total is sitting at 38 points. and now we're down one of the most useful fantasy teams here. T.J. Ockinson's been a top three option. Now he's, I mean, he's been relying on volume, and now that volume's gone. Addison stepped up while Jefferson's out. Jefferson's going to be back in a couple of weeks. He's not going to be the wide receiver one anymore. And they just don't have any many avenues here.

I don't know what they do. Colt McCoy's name has been, you know, floated about. I'm sure that gets you guys all excited. Hey, he's too busy host an underdog show with Josh Norris, man. So I just don't know what they can do here. I don't think they'll turn to Jaron Hall. It might have to be Sean Banyan.

It's Case Keenham. Discount Tony Romo back in there, baby. Is he down Houston? I think he's going to Houston with his third trainer, I think. Ryan Tannihill. I mean, we'll get to Tennessee. Who knows about his ankle? Who knows about that?

Yeah, but right, right. He's hurt. And like, the other problem here is, by the way, I don't think we ever actually saw in case you were living under a rock. I don't think we ever actually said that Kirk Cousins is feared to have blown out his Achilles. We were just pouring one out without actually saying what the injury is. But it pretty cut and dry, you can diagnose those with a very simple mechanical test. What they do is, guys, the trainer squeezes your calf in a spot.

And if your foot reflexively flexes, means you're a killer. Tens attached and working properly. If your foot doesn't go anywhere, it means it's torn. That's how simple it is to diagnose a torn Achilles. And unfortunately, I think they knew right away with Kirk Cousins that he blew out his Achilles. This backfield, here's another one. Like Texan style, they're trying to find a hot hand and neither one was.

Madison or Cam Acres. Acres got the touchdown, but neither one had any room to run. 2.1 yards per carry for acres, 1.9. And now you have to imagine it's going to get worse. without Kirk Cousins, Jaron Hall, a rookie quarterback in there. Good luck, guys. And then on the other side. The only thing I could say is they'll probably go more run heavy than it happened, obviously.

But that's the catch 22, right? Because all their good players are the receivers. They don't have good running back. The funniest thing yesterday about the Vikings running back stat lines, they both had gains of 10 yards and they both averaged two yards per carry. I mean, that's like so, so freaking hard to do. I mean, it's going to be bad, man. This is, it's going to be bad.

Green Bay, like, like, I, um, now I obviously don't watch the film and the tape intimately the way like guys like Brett do or the way film and analysts do. But I did see, um, uh, one of, one of the, one of the former NFL quarterback Twitter heads, not O'Sullivan. Um, I think it was Kurt Benkirt, actually. Remember Kurt Benkirt Tom from Illinois? Kurt, Ben, Kurt. I just love his name.

It just rolls off the term. That rolls off the tongue. He's like the extremely white version of God, sham god. Kurt Benkirt. Green Bay, he said, Jordan Love is not playing well, but I challenge you to find any quarterback who would succeed in this situation.

And usually that's something that people say when they want to defend their boy, but it's kind of brutal, man. Like the offensive line's not protecting them. Jordan loves not seeing things well. This entire operation is a disaster right now, Graham. It is. Yeah, he's not, you know, loves obviously not playing well.

I don't want to, like, take away from that. But I think he's right. I think Ben Cart's right. I follow him on Twitter, by the way. He's a good follow. Offense is broken, man. It's fully broken. I was watching the game last week and then rewatch it.

They've got receivers running routes in the same spot. I was mentioning this a couple days ago, but, like, LaFleur is kind of trying to run the same Rogers offense where they always have the same jet motion and they're trying to set, you know, layer things up. It's the same offense. I don't want to like, I think Matt LaFour is a good coach. I just think he might be having a bad year. I don't want you guys to think that I don't think LaFore is a good coach. It's not like Arthur Smith, but this is, this, it's right now, this is this offense is, is kind of broken.

I mean, Watson and Dobbs get nine and eight targets, but I mean, it's just, it's insane to me watching this team. How few just easy access throws they get. They don't throw with any timing or rhythm over the middle, and they don't, give their guys screens on the outside to get these guys in space. I mean, it's, it's wild. It is absolutely wild right now. And then their backfield, you know, Aaron Jones has been dealing with a hamstring injury all year.

He's still limited and split carries seven to six with AJ Dillon, who can't run anymore. I mean, they keep talking about wanting to add a third back. That is not your problem, Green Bay. You don't need a third back. You have two pretty good ones. Your problem is you can't get first downs with your passing game.

That's your entire problem. And in the defense of, Jordan Love, again, the one, the one play I did see was they had, I think at the end of that game, they had like three Red Zone series that amounted to absolutely nothing. And it was, I think it was like a second and five. And they ran, Graham, what would be a quick access throw? They ran a quick slant. Dantavion Wix was coming from right through his Wix. From formation. Love put it right on him for first down. He dropped football. And then they ended up turning the ball over and down. That's kind of, that's my point. Joe, why are we running that with

Havian Wicks. Why aren't we running that with Dubs? Why aren't we running that with Watson? Even Jane Reed. Jane Reed had a good game. You know, like, what, what are we doing? Why are we rotating these guys in here and putting them on the field in key situations? I mean, it's just, I mean, it's a whole downgrade for this offense. I mean, Watson and Dobbs, Watson and Dobbs had 17 targets and had 51 yards receiving. Some of that is the Blitz. You know, Flores is obviously blitz heavy. Love was trying to get the ball out fast. But that's also kind of my point. You know they're going to blitz. Get the ball out fast to your best players. It's it's not that hard. It really is not that hard. The Indianapolis cults are the dead nuts over team of 2023. We need one of them out there.

3827. They play it they lose again, but they play at such a high pace. The Saints win this one 30, 3827. Tate some hill man. Just to just start them at tight end. I mean, if you have them, like I know I know when you do, he's going to have one carry. for two yards, but like, yeah, I mean, they brought in Jamal Williams to be their goal line back and it's Tayson Hill's the goal line back all of us. And it's working.

I mean, hey, it's been successful. He did lose his passing game role. So Joanne Johnson was back in the mix. So you're going to be completely relying on the, on the goal line stuff with Taysam Hill. But he still, he still ran some route. So he could still get a catcher two. But yeah, he's usable at this tight end position right now.

It's as crazy as it is. It always happens. It's like Taysa, it's midseason. Gotta get him involved. He's going to be here to ruin fantasy teams and drive you absolutely nuts once you start to trust him. If you can't beat him, join him. I mean, just pick him up and start him.

You know? Joe, Tase him is inevitable. Just accept it. TASM is inevitable. It's going to happen. Tom, like you were saying, I was putting TASM as like a YOLO streamer in my Star Sit article for the last couple of weeks.

I pulled him this week. Because Joanne Johnson's back. You only got one target. Taysam only got one target. Yeah. He got nine carries. I will say 44% snapshot for TASM. That's by far the lowest he's had in the last three weeks.

So there's probably, you're probably chasing a little bit. But I mean, I can't, after the top six or seven, then you add in Kincade. I mean, you could absolutely make a case for Taysam.

Yeah, back into buy weeks here. So the poll gets a little, you know, it shrinks a little bit here. No, he's in play. Alvin Camara, is he three on the, which running backs do you want rest of season? McCaffrey, Echler, yeah.

Is he above it? Yeah, I guess, well, I was, I would have Ackler ahead of him, just the office. I didn't have Echler on mine. I had E.T.N. Okay. Yeah. The way he's playing, I think you could, yeah, you could make the case for him. Yeah, so he's probably, he's certainly top five, but I think you can make an argument for him as high as like three.

I think, yeah, three or four. Yeah, absolutely. What's up with Olave? Like, yeah, I mean, they missed another downfield target yesterday. I will say that's the best Derek Carr has played all year. The timing was there. That one deep throw, they hit the shit, Shaheed. So Olave was the clear out on the over.

And then they ran, basically, they ran an over with Shaheed on the, the post and car through an absolute dime. I mean, he's, he, I know he played like shit and he was thrown, you know, playing through a couple injuries, but I think this is, this is the best car has played all year. Yeah. So I think, honestly, I think Alavi's a really good by low. I think he's a really good by low. And by the way, right. And look, how am I supposed to sit a guy who's got nine targets, 15 targets, 10 targets in his last three games?

His worst game of the season was the one catch for four yards against Tampa in that game where Derek Carson not. Yeah, he was hurt. Yeah. You know, so I don't know. Anyway, flipping on over to Indianapolis, of course, it looks like Jonathan Taylor takes the game over, taking the backfield over, getting all the red zone touches. And I'm like, to Paul Kelly, I'm like, oh, my God,

he's going to go for 170 in this game after I saw what he did on the opening. I think he had one touch after halftime. Yeah, one carry, I believe it was. What the heck? Are you doing, guys? One catch. I'll give him one catch as well. So yeah, I mean, it's got to be some chatter that maybe there's an injury involved here or, you know, I don't know. Like maybe are they setting like a touch count or a snap count for them?

Maybe. And they hit that and they're like, we got to pull them here, but they really didn't give us much of an explanation. Zach boss came into this game hurt. Yeah. Yeah. 61% snapshot for Taylor's easily a season high. I wonder if the game was like, no one involved. Yeah.

I wonder if just the game got away from them, you know, a little bit. second half and they're just like okay we'll just play moss uh i don't i'm gonna have to look into the numbers on that because just watching the game i remember i mean i don't remember seeing taylor a whole lot in the second half yeah it was six carries overall in in the second half taylor had one of them and moss had five of them so yeah there you go it wasn't a it was a two score game for much of the the second half as well so yeah i mean that's like the only explanation outside of a you know some sort of aggravation of the injury so we'll have Yeah.

Something's going on there. Maybe we'll get some more information on that. But it was very frustrating because it looked like Taylor was finally ready to have like that one massive game that we roll. And this is game that shot out. You know, it was, you know, 55 points in this one, 65 points in this one. So, yeah, that was pretty frustrating. His lack of usage in the second half. Josh Downs and Michael Pittman start him every week.

I mean, like, Michael Pittman had the ultimate squeaky wheel drive on that opening. I think he caught, it was a seven play. Yeah, he was four passes. Yeah, it was a seven play opening drive that resulted in the Pittman touchdown. And yeah, I think he just, they basically gave him the ball in every play. So good on hit, Michael Pittman. The Dolphins and the Patriots, Dolphins win this one 3117. I don't think we need to focus too much on the dolphins, guys.

I mean, Tua played a good game, but his best probably against Belichick, even though that interception he threw in the first half was a Belichickian tricking interception. Um, Moster, most are got a deodorant touchdown. Um, there's, that's the only thing really a note for me out of this is that Wilson kind of overtook Ahmed there in the, in the backfield. But yeah, like that's not real important here because I, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. A Chan's going to be back. I don't know if Jeff Wilson has any like fantasy viability this year. Because a chance is going to be back. It's really changed in the back. Jaylon Waddle. Jalen Waddle and Devonte Smith both had their games. that were clearly coming this week.

Just like eventually that talent was going to win out. So I don't think anybody here was worried about Jalen Waddle, but like Tyreek was on such a heater that, and he still is, that you know, that sometimes there's just not going to be enough balls going around. The thing about, yeah, the thing about Mosterd is maybe we watch him just because A. Chan is going to, I think he's going to miss one more game. Yeah. And then, and there's rumors that they're looking for another running back,

but maybe A. Chan is that guy if he comes back and plays well. Yeah, I threw Moster on the watch list. I remember seeing a quote from McDaniel before, basically right before they put him on IR and he was basically saying like, yeah, we're not expecting him to miss more than four games. So I think they're all expecting H&H. Yeah, and they have their buy in that mix as well. So I think they're on by after the, yeah, they're playing the Chiefs in Frankfurt.

And I think it's after, you know, so it should be week 10. And you should be back week 11 then. Yeah, yeah. Week 11 should be the H& week. All right, let's go to the Patriots guys. And like here's the thing is like, I do kind of feel bad because they finally figured out your best receivers are Kendrick Bourne and Pop Douglas. Get them on the field. And now they might not have Kendrick Bourne.

Yeah. He might have blown his knee out. It looks like certainly an injury that's going to get him to miss time and then freaking juju scores a touchdown late in that game. But the Patriot offense, if Kendrick Bourne's not going to be there for Mack Jones, it's back. back to slum on it for old Mac. Yeah, I added DeMario to the waiver wire. He's the one guy that has some juice here. They did kind of opt to play him over Juju until the Kendrick Bourne injury.

And they've been, you know, taken snaps away from Devonte Parker as well. He was down 43% in this game. So, you know, DeMario Douglas is the one guy now if, like, Born is out of the mix that I would take a shot on. But, you're probably going to be pretty disappointed most weeks. if you're playing receivers out of this Patriots receiving course. So, yeah, it's a major committee here. I'm even looking at Jalen Rieger, 58% of the snaps. So he was playing ahead of Devante Parker at the X there.

That's when you're really hurting. Yeah, maybe Devante Parker should retire. That's a sign whenever Jalen Rieger passes you. Is, is born, Borns not Waverwire, right? No, no, he's picked up pretty heavily. Well, not heavily, but he's in that 50 to 60%. So yeah, we should write him up because people are starting to use them. Yeah, the hope is forborne.

That is from Rapsheet, obviously used to cover the Patriots. So he's still plugged in there, I would think. That hope is that it's an MCL injury and not an ACL is the hope. But obviously, the MRI will confirm. Oh, my God, Jets and Giants. You want to skip it? Pretty much. I just want to get a shot in at the Giants.

The Giants who, in the 21st century, there have been two modes of the New York Giants. Number one, the worst football team you have ever watched. Number two, the worst football team you've ever seen win the Super Bowl. Those are the two modes. That's pretty accurate. The only two teams, the only two instances of a team having net negative passing yards in the last 14 NFL seasons were both games by the New York Giants. This was one of them.

They had a funny like a clown passing offense with Tommy DeVito. Daniel Jones apparently is cleared for contact. and at the very least they took my advice they did not put him back in against the Jets which is what they shouldn't have done um like darren wallers heard again guys i would think we're going to have to expect him to miss time now with that that hammy um he's going to have to hang it up soon um say like somebody yeah i think yeah i think the report from shepter as well was that daniel jones is not going to be ready till week 10 so it might be i don't know what there's something up there's well they said he's cleared for contact well he's cleared for contact well Well, I know, but the Schefter report yesterday morning was like, they're not going to push them for next week. Yeah, so, but that, I mean, that could completely change after what just happened to Tyrod. So, but that was the initial report yesterday from Schefter. It was week 10 was the, that was the target date.

So, uh, this is brutal. This is just, I'll say the giants opened up as four, three and a half point underdogs to the Raiders on the road. So that tells you, they think Jones is how desperate, how desperate it is right now. So yeah, they think Jones is going to play if that's the number. The Jets, Breece Hall, 12 carries for 17 yards. They were keen on him. Fortunately, he's amazing as a receiver as well, got the long touchdown.

Garrett Wilson, a hundred yards in this environment. I mean, good on him, good on him, dude. But, all right, and I've had enough of this. Oh, that's enough. Here's another game, Jacksonville and Pittsburgh. E.N, there was a little bit of an ankle scare there, T, T, bro. But he comes back and an octopus, he puts up an octopus on the 15th. 56-yard touchdown. What happened there? Did the Joey Porter Jr. try to pick it and then it got behind me.

I didn't need to see a fuller breakdown, but they, I think they certainly, Press Taylor and Doug Peterson drew up something pretty nice there to kind of bait him into taking the curl route. And ETN just went right down the sideline. They had both the safety and JPJ bit on the curl route there. So just left ETN wide open and he took it to the house and he continues to deliver with a touchdown every week. but yeah this this was also kind of a you know a little bit of a not a breakout but Lawrence put together a pretty nice because that was not those weren't easy conditions that they were playing and it was no sloppy out there kind of that misty sloppy rain and on that turf in in Pittsburgh so to throw 2432 for 292 I thought that was a pretty strong showing for

Lawrence as well so and we love them they hey it's the same guys every week especially when zay Jones is out of the mix you play him. Ridley's been up and down, but other than that, it's Kirk, Ingram, E.T.N. every week. And then just depends on if Ridley's going to show up or not. So we'd love this team for fantasy. Calvin Ridley had a little bit of a bounce back. Six for 83 is kind of a wide receiver three. Christian Kirk, not a huge game for him, but you kind of have to keep starting him. And then Tom, I don't even know if I want to ask poor Graham about this team. I mean, the Steelers offensively. Kenny Pickett's got the rib injury.

is it to be careful what you wish for situation Tom with Kenny Pickett get hurting and Mitchie poo coming in here. I don't know if there's much difference, but I mean, that was a pretty brutal, no call on that, you know, leading with all of his weight there, driving picket into the ground. I know Deontay Johnson was a little upset after the game. That was pretty entertaining. He was noted on. He needs to have a podcast, man. The stuff he was saying about Canada, too, is pretty good last week. You don't got to like it, but you got to respect it. Issuing the correction on my previous post regarding Steelers,

offensive coordinator, Matt Canada, you do not under any circumstances, got to hand it to him. It was atrocious. Deonti, you know, let me tell you, the NFL always in the bag for noted legacy franchise, Jacksonville Jaguars. Yes, exactly. But, yeah, Deontay, you know, upgrade for him. He came into the game with a hamstring injury.

So pop back up on the injury report and played and had 14 targets. He dropped the potential long gain on the first series. Yeah, he did. Yeah, picket just slightly overthrew it. But Deontes should have had it and should have gone for about 40 yards. But I think dating back even the last year, because it looks like Steelers play Thursday night against the Titans. So it's probably going to be Mitch Trubisky time. And he's, he's fed Deontay in the, you know, when he had his like three game stint to start the season last year. And so, you know, slight edge to Deonté here. But Pickens, how about that touchdown where he just jumps over the two defenders and gets in the end. He's awesome. He's incredible. And the only have. I would like to see Deontay and pick it in like an actual NFL offense. It's unbelievable. By the way, Najee and Warren, straight down. down the middle, but now it's like almost like there's no role for either one.

It's like, because Naji was the one to put up the big numbers in the passing game in this game. It's the worst type of split. Yeah, it's the worst type of split because it's compartmentalized. You know, it's like they have their own roles. You know, Naji at least got five dump offs in this game, but that was just game script. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's brutal. It's brutal out here. Yeah.

Noggi's three of his catches were on that final drug. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't overreact to that. Ideally, ideally. man, you're not using these guys. You're not using Steelers backfield this year. Yeah, they're, they are the quintessential by week. I need six points kind of guys. You know, like these dudes. And you pray.

Atlanta and Tennessee, well, let's start with Tennessee because. Hon. Will Levis out there balling. Brian Tannenhill had two touchdown passes this year. Will loves to have four in this game. And like, here's now the question. See, with an impressive win is three and four. Do they kind of, do they kind of, do they kind of unplug the phones. Like, because I think everybody here wants them to see, I would love them to trade Derek Henry to a team that needs Derek Henry

to make Derek Henry fantasy relevant somewhere and give us Ty J. Spears, like, but are they going to with like, Willis, that fan base is probably all like jazzed up right now. Levis baby, you know, Billy Jeans. Like, what do you guys think here? I mean, I thought, I should keep it plugged in to see if they get any Tannahill offers.

And then, no, that's a good point. Yeah, I think if anybody's going to get moved, it'll be Tannahill. But then he's got the ankle injury. And this is the second time he's hurt that ankle. I cannot imagine, you know, if any team is going to go out and spend crazy on Tannhill. I don't think Henry's getting moved. I think Vrable would quit on the spot if they trade Henry after they traded A.J. Brown.

And Vrable would be apocalyptic. His tantrum when they traded AJ Brown. Guess what? He was right. Yeah, he was right. He was absolutely right. He was right. This isn't like hindsight.

He was right in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Levis, man, I was dead wrong about him. He was awesome. Laser show yesterday. Like, aggressive downfield throwing and against a team, by the way, guys, who was pretty good. Like, AJ Terrell is playing well. Jeff Akuta's playing pretty well.

Like these Falcons, I'm not saying they're like a top 10 defense, but they're pretty good. No, they were playing well. Well, Grady Jarrett got hurt, which is obviously a huge blow. He's probably their best defensive player outside of AJ Terrell. He blew out of his ACL. The way Levis played, the aggressive downfield, like, this could end up. You know, being a major benefit for Derek Henry, you know, you can't just, you know, stack the box. And if you're, if they're going to stack the box like the Falcons did yesterday, Levis showed that he can get it up over the top.

Now look, we're going to take shots with him. Levis played one game. All right. It was a, it was a very good game. We've seen him in college, you know, have these awful games. So maybe we're like, oh, my God, DeAndre Hopkins to the moon and all this stuff. And then, you know, Levis goes eight of 23 next week. So let's, let's pump the brakes. but this is encouraging and they're obviously tom you said on tana hill they'd be stupid not to train them if they get a legitimate offer because why would you go back to tannhill at this point there's no reason you have to see if you have levis if levis is your guy yeah and i know i think the fan base would literally revolt if they go back to tannie yeah they don't no one wants to see tana hill

no we've been through liking fans want to see tana hill yeah alken fans might want to see tann hill but but nobody by the way uh super sharp lance zero line called Will Levis J. Cutler out of college. And that's like, that has stuck with me. It's like if he can hit his ceiling, if he's Cutler and he's kind of just this gunslinger laser show type, dude, that's perfect for fantasy. We'll take that. Let's move on over to Atlanta. Arthur Smith. He's your favorite coach, right, Joe? Desmond Ritter apparently cleared concussion protocol. And we have a lot of faith in Des. We didn't bench him for performance reasons. I also just love that they bring in H.B. Heineke.

and he immediately puts a receiver in the H. Like, because I think Drake London pulled his groin going, trying to catch a ball between. Stretch it out for a ball. That was a ball over the middle. It was a hospital ball too. Yeah. Oh, boy.

London said he's going to be okay, but players always say that. Bejohn, at least he got the late touchdown because he didn't catch any of his five targets. Just like Arthur Smith, I know everybody in the fantasy football community freaked out about this, but it's true. Why is Jonu Smith?

We're getting so pissed off that they're throwing the ball to Jono Smith. They decide now to throw the ball with John who's. I mean, for the love of all that is holy. Yeah. Joe, Joe, I know what I'm getting you for Christmas. I'm going to get you a little sign Artie Smith poster. Or just like a little mustache.

You can get him a little mustache so he can. That X, too. Yeah, yeah. Now you'll get it after Christmas. Christmas. Yes. We don't use FedEx in this house. Screw you, Arthur Smith. Philadelphia and Washington, I'm going to tell you right now, Eagles fans would rather play the Kansas City Chiefs 10 weeks in a row than have to see the commanders on the other side of the field again. I don't know what it is about the Eagles that turned Sam Howell into freaking Aaron Rogers, but the Eagles escaped 3831. They got a couple of timely defensive plays. You know,

The Eagles are, they're one of those teams that like, we love them because they give the ball to their good players. But how, how long, Graham, have I been harbored on this Kenny game well stuff? Why? Yeah. Why? Almost lost in the game. Almost lost in the game, man. I mean, he, I think, Joe, it has to be because of past protection, right? Like they trust them there. That's a big part of it. But other than that, why is he touching the ball? I mean, if you trust him in pass, bro, you can give him a few dump offs.

But why are we using him in the red zone? I mean, the dude has no burst. and he doesn't swift dude swift runs hard like i think everybody thinks of swift is like this elusive guy and he is he has been breaking tackles all year i have not seen gain well run through a defender in his NFL career or make anybody miss yeah he literally does nothing well he's the uh he's the uh game dude he's the the way knight character uh from space jam well i may not be very tall but i'm slow and he gain well that's that's uh j brown we think of this. We have never seen a receiver do this. 125 yards in six straight games. It is the heater

of heaters. And like, and that's been the problem with Devante Smith. Like, by the way, Jalen Hertz in this game, 15 passes to AJ Brunner Devante Smith. 15 completions for 229 yards and three. Oh, geez. I didn't even realize that they were all completions, all those tournaments. Well, there was one by Devante that probably wasn't that Ron Rivera didn't challenge. But, uh, you know. Yeah, the Devontas Smith catch. I think that was the third down there. I don't think. That was a catch. They hurried that up.

But, hey, he got there anyway. And then Julio Jones giving them a little something. He's playing, this is what they got him to do, play limited snaps and make plays in the red zone. And he scores a touchdown. I mean, you're not picking up Julio Jones, obviously. But Julio's making up for all that lost time when he was catching 130 passes in Atlanta and scoring four touchdowns a season. All he's going to do with the Eagles to score touchdowns. Fliping on over to Washington, guys, I just, I don't know what to say.

I mean, Sam Pals on pace to get sacked 100 times. they only get them once. Of course, it was on, it was a game ceiling play because it was a sack fumble. But I mean, the guy has a laser. And John Dotson finally got with James and Crowder. I mean, if you had a Curtis Samuel prop or if you had a Curtis Samuel in your lineup, that's got to make you sick to your stomach because he left with, I think, a toe injury. And James, Crowder goes. Yeah, he came in with a foot injury. Yeah. Yeah, I think he might have reacorated it. Yeah, he had 14 snaps and had four kept. You know, it was just an absolute blowup spot there out of the spot.

I don't know what it is. Like this Eagle defense, and this is what it is. It's a week-to-week league, right? This Eagle defense made the dolphins look like a mediocre offense. And they make Sam Howe look like the next great quarterback in the NFL. It's just one of those things, man. By the way, notable that Brian Robinson was the back in this game. And Chris Rodriguez did not have a touch.

I have no idea what they're doing there. Yeah, I think they're literally Tom. I'm just grasping for something. Oh, we should probably mention that Jalen Hertz was 29 to 38 for 319 with four touchdowns. But according to Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, Mike Sealsky, he's getting pretty frequent treatment on that bone bruise in his knee, in his left knee, I think. 4Ks, which is very, yeah, like, at the very least, I think people are glad we have an explanation for why he doesn't look great as a runner.

And what I think the Eagles are trying to do is literally get him through the Dallas game next week and get them to that buy. Yeah. That's what they're trying to get him some treatment. Obviously, the, the tush push failed for the first time. They swatted the ball out of his ease hands for the first time. Yeah, it can be stopped and then the Eagles ran the variation. Oh, my, that swift touchdown was so sick.

That was so great. Cleveland in Seattle, Seattle wins 24 to 20. I was recording my morning show when Cleveland melted down. I saw Bill Simmons tweeting about it, which means he probably lost a bet on the Browns. What happened? Did they throw the ball on a third? third and 10 or a third down third and three and Stephansky called a, you know,

called a pass play like most coaches do. And they didn't, it got intercepted. And then a couple big play, you know, Noah fan had a big catch down the sideline. And then Jackson Smith and Jigbaugh made a play in the red zone there, got him the victory. So yeah, yeah, Bill, I guess Bill wanted them to run the ball into the line and punt it and make

Seattle go to the dist, which I get. I mean, Seattle. Well, the Eagles lost a game because of the same kind of decision a couple weeks ago against the Jets. right? Yeah, Seattle came out of the gates real quick in this game, but it was a struggle for most of the most, you know, ever. Yeah, they didn't score for between.

Charbonnet. Yeah, they scored with a minute left in the, in the first quarter, and they didn't score again until the final minute of the game. So, yeah, I guess that does have some, you know, that warrants some, you know, just run it right into the line, pun it and make them go to the distance. But, yeah, that's what happened, you know. Charbonnet out snapped Kenny Walker.

So clearly that calf is a problem. that's got to be a watch. Just say they played him. He had a long run, but Charbonnet out snapped him. Guys, we do have official news from Mike Garifolo. Kendrick Bourne has a torn ACL.

Oh, so much so much for that MCL talk yesterday. Yeah. And on the Cleveland side, PJ Walker stinks. I mean, like, I know he had some moments in this game.

I don't know. He had a couple nice chunk plays to Omar Cooper. They had a big play to In Joku, but man, he's, yeah, he's not. And Joku's an after the catch guy.

You know, like that's, that's what he is. Yeah, they've been actually like scheming plays up for one of their most athletic receivers since Walker came. You know, a couple nice screens and Joku's capable of doing that. You know, whenever Watson does come back, it'd be nice if they did that shit with Injoku going forward. But we'll see what they do because he was very quiet with Watson in the lineup. Jerome Ford, I think he had like a carry for a negative yards. And then they were giving the ball to hunt and strong. And then Ford just magically reappeared in the second half.

that became a nasty three-headed backfield. Yeah, that was, yeah. Everybody is between 24 and 27% of the snap or 20 snaps overall, 35 to 31%. So, yeah, it was pretty. If you're looking for this to condense, Pierre Strong had 82 yards from scrimmage. Is it going to condense? Yeah, Strongs looked decent this year for sure.

And, you know, Brown's obviously one of the teams that an early buyer. So, you know, Ford's not going to get, you know, the week off to kind of get right. It very well could be a three-man backfield. Cream Hunt's been fine, too. He's been good inside the red zone for them, too. He's always good and past. That's your guy that I'd probably prefer to have right now because you know he's the red zone guy. Exactly. Yeah. Real quick on Walker, he came into this game with an injury, but he was off the injury report. Can't tell me it didn't affect him. The fact that Zach Charbonnet out snapped him, though.

Yeah, I'll look into that more. Sharbonnet is one of those guys, Joe, where he's like, he does everything, like, well, but like nothing extremely, well. Like you watch Walker and it's like, okay, yeah, I get why he starts. You know, he's got the explosive element. But I think if Charbonnet were to make starts, like he would be a fantasy RB one. Oh, for sure. He would absolutely be a fantasy RB one. Baltimore and Arizona, not a great game for the passing offense for Baltimore, but at least Mark Andrews scored. Zay Flowers had seven targets and got 19 yards on them. Just, uh, I saw Lamar kind of complaining about the passing offense. Not, not like about the play calling, but just saying we've got to do more. Goddell was complaining too.

Oh, yeah. He was throwing a temper. O'Dowdell's got to stop, man. He can't jump anymore. I've watched O'Dell every single week. Dude cannot jump anymore. He, yeah, just. Yeah.

I mean, unbelievable. Gus Edwards, three touchdowns. You can use them as long as they don't add a running back at the deadline, which they could. On the Arizona side, I think Jonathan Gannon said Josh Dobbs is going to remain their quarterback in week nine. Yeah. That's kind of the plan.

Kyler, it's the home game, week 10 against the Falcons. So yeah, it's going to be another Dobbs week here. So you got to pray that they get garbage time like they did again in this game. Trey McBride though. Start him. Pick him up.

Yeah. DeMercado until James Connor gets back. Of course, they had that one game after everybody picked him up that they didn't use them. And since then, he's looked like a pretty good feeling back. Yeah. Yeah. He's, Jamie Williams got hurt in this game, so it kind of thinned it out a little bit.

So, Keanuth, Ingram, thanks. I was just about to say, it's going to be all demarcato next week. Ingram's just a guy. By the way, Trey McBride is good, man. Small sample is really, really good coming into the game. And then, I mean, to get 14 targets, Ravens have one of the most athletic linebacking groups in the NFL too. I mean, Roquant Smith was healthy and played. It's really impressive stuff for McBride.

So, you know, fingers crossed here. I mean, I know we're losing Darren Waller. T.J. Hawkinson might be taking a step back. but between Kincaid and McBride, there's like some actual excitement from some young tight ends here. It's a fantasy tight ends are actually training up a little bit here, boys. Let's go. Denver and Kansas City, Denver broke the streak. Hadn't beaten Kansas City since Peyton Manning was their quarterback.

I'm going to complain a little bit. I had a bad beat. I had Jerry Judy under the receiving yards, 44 and a half. He catches like two passes on one drive for 50 yards and doesn't catch a pass. Yep, with you, Joe. I was a nasty one. The first, the 39 yard or down the field is the first time Jerry Judy's been physical in his life. And I'm like, you got to be kidding, mate.

Get out of here. I mean, I don't know. Wheels up. Yeah, wheels. 30 touches for Javonte. McLaughlin is only their hurry up back. And McCleckland, they only use when they need a change of pace when they're not in a hurry-up situation. So, yeah, Javonte looks great.

Yvante looks awesome, man. Cuts were awesome two weeks ago. He's starting to get that burst back to. He's not a burner. He's never going to be a guy who's going to run away from people. But making defenders miss. This is kind of what I expected this game plan to be from Peyton. Like just come out and just run the shit out of the ball.

Keep Mojones off the field. Russ only had to throw it 19 times. But I will continue to say Russell Wilson is playing well. Oh, I don't think. I think Sean Payton is sick of him in this game. Really? Oh, yeah, like his pocket presence on some of those sacks. That's Russ.

That's Russ. That's Russ. That's the same guy. That's my point. Russ is the same guy he has always been. Last year, he looked completely dead in that offense. This year it's the same Russ. He's super inconsistent.

He has streaks of, you know, play where he's dropping dimes. And he has streaks of play where he's taking insane sacks and holding the ball too long. But for this offense, he's much, much better this year. That's my point. All court does a score touchdowns too. Yeah. unbelievable. The Kansas City. I have him, but in fantasy teams. I don't

play. I'm like, he's not going to score another touchdown again this week. No, he goes every week. He's inevitable, Tom. Yeah, Kansas City, just a terrible game for them. Mahomes was awful. Yeah, this is worse. Oh, even if you're sick, everybody's going to blame it on that. And maybe that's the, maybe that's the case. But I don't know,

burn the tape game for Kansas City. I couldn't imagine playing the flu in that cold, playing with the flu in the cold yesterday. It was freaking frigid here. So maybe there was something up to that. I will say Rishi Rice continues to trend up. Dude's awesome. Yeah.

He's, he's pretty good here. And what's the snaps? Yep, 61% of yeah. He's starting to, he's trending up in that 60% range the last couple of weeks. So Skybor certainly isn't it? Another drop for him in the end zone. Yeah, this. I thought Patrick Mahomes was going to absolutely murder him at mile high.

Oh my God. He was so pissed after that. This guy has, this guy has these small. arms the NFL. It's unbelievable. Like watching him try to catch a ball. I mean, yeah, that was that Denver game a couple of weeks ago, too. Mahomes threw a perfect pass of the pilot. He didn't have the long enough forms to catch that one either.

Yeah. It's not it. Cincinnati. Just, no, just real quick. Pacheco has the horrible game. He got two targets on the opening two drives. Went for negative 10 yards. But just by like backfield share, I mean, this is his backfield.

C.E.H is not playing. cannon's dead. I just wanted to know if you're, you know, Pacheco's had a couple of down, down weeks here. Don't be overly concerned. It's nothing with him. It's just been just variance. Backfield is all his here. Cincinnati in San Francisco, Cincinnati wins 3117. Let's just be quick on Cincinnati. Joe Mixen had the positive regression game in terms of uses that Scott's been looking for for about three years. He finally got it. He looked great, as a matter of fact. Awesome. Joe Burrow was amazing in this game. Just wheels up on the entire Cincinnati offense, a full-on upgrade. I mean, I know like they got off to the rough start. They got off to the rough start last year.

And Tom, now they're looking like a Super Bowl team again. Yeah, it's three straight wins, three straight covers. And they're now the favorites going against Buffalo this week. That that line flipped. They were underdogs and the look ahead line on that. And now they're favorites and for good reason. The only thing I'm a little, uh, a little worried about is Higgins. 67% of the snaps in this game. Coming off the buy, thought he would be more healthy than he was. I don't know if this is by design.

How do you say the Princeton guys named Joe? Yoshibosh. Is this kind of plan? Trent and Irwin was at 27%. I don't know if he's still. I'm just going to chalk it up to Higgins not being maybe 100% yet, but yeah. I mean, that's my lean too.

We'll see if we haven't. any more information. By the way, Andreya Yoshevas should have been a tennis player. That guy, that's a tennis name right there. Oh, absolutely. Oh, my God. He's, he's the kind of guy who, like, he's a fringe top 10 player, but he's definitely going to win at least one French Open.

Yeah. He's a Clay specialist, you know? 2028 French Open winner, Andrew Yoshavash. Yeah, he's like, he's built like a tennis player too. He's like, yeah, he is. Five tall. Yeah, he's a, that year that Jokovic got knocked out in the quarters by that, yeah, Yoshavovov.

Josh is going to take it. It's like Gustavo Kirton, you know, like get a random French Open championship. San Francisco, turnover regression has hit Bigcock Brock hard. And this is, but by the way, this is what he was at Iowa State. He was no, no, there are literal YouTube clips of Brock Purdy's tragic turnovers at Iowa State. He had a few in that, that Clemson. I think they played Clemson in that cheese at bowl once. Yeah. He had a few of them in there. One of my wife's students, Mario Goodrich, was the MVP of that game. Hey. Because he had a pick six off of Brock Purdy.

That's great. That's great. Well, when the 49ers go to the Super Bowl this year, he'll have a great story. And say he picked off a Super Bowl playing quarterback. I still think the Niners are great, man. I think Mario would either go to the Super Bowl with the Eagles as he did last year. Yeah. Sorry, Joe.

I still think the Niners are great, man. I really do. Purdy obviously had a couple. The one, that first pick was horrific. it was horrific. You know, they're going into the buy. They'll get Debo healthy. They'll get McCaffrey healthy.

Who, by the way, I don't want to freak anybody out. McCaffrey has lost a step just watching these games. He's been awesome for a fantasy. It does not matter because the volume has been great. But, you know, getting him healthy throughout the buy, I think the Niners are going to be just fine. And how, dude, the most like obvious split in fantasy football is when Debo sits, just play George Kittle in every single lineup.

Like, play him in Dio. bet is over is nine for 149 he caught i think three balls and garbage time in that last drive but still he was awesome yesterday so uh kittle and i yuk man every single time debo's out those two are just the nuts we didn't waste any targets on joan jennings this week and that's why i love shanahs a little bit on ray mccl ray i i love shanan because he's always like this like if he if if the guy's missing one of his key guys is missing he will i mean it's it's super redistribute it to his better redistributed i yuk and kittle And yeah, there you go.

All right. Let's go to the final game, the Chargers and the Bears. The Chargers did what was expected of them. What? I know. I was talking about a group chat. That's possible. I was going to cover.

Yeah. And the Chargers actually did. Yeah, we thought they would. Ice invasion, you know, they showed some things, but looks like a division two quarterback making his second career start. Justin Herbert plays very well. Okay. the Charter still can't run the football, which is a concern.

But when Austin Ecklers your extension of the run game in the passing game, that helps. Obviously, Josh Palmer is a watch situation here. By the way, Johnson going a little bit. You know what the single most annoying Twitter debate is right now? No, no. Which has surpassed. It's almost surpassed, though, is Brock Purdy's system quarterback one? Which is actually interesting to me because I think yes and no.

But the people who had, I guess everybody in dynasty dynasty bros really like aggressively flag planted on Quentin Johnston. Okay. Whether oh, I think he's great or I think he stinks. And now everybody's victory lapping every week. And like people are like,

oh, good game for Quentin Johnson. And then there's bros up there. Oh, he only had 12% target share. What are you talking about? You know? I'm like, all right.

Like, like, come on. Well, you might have to sink or swim here, because Josh Palmer is doing with this knee injury. And it looked like he was going to miss the entirety of the game. He went down early.

It came back pretty quick and played. I was like, how it looked like he got shot in the knee the way he was acting. Yeah, I think it was like a decoy situation, just like, hey, you go take some space up out there if you can for Palmer. So unfortunate for him. And real quick, Herbert did play great yesterday, Joe. But he missed Keenan again. I mean, he overthrew Keenan again for a chunk play. It's been three straight weeks where there's been a lot of meat left on the bone for Keenan.

I mean, he could be awesome. Like you're obviously never taking him out of lineups, but man, I mean, Keenan could legitimately have like, man, he missed a touchdown last week. Two touchdowns against the Cowboys.

You can have 25 more fantasy points, maybe 25. At least. Real quick, we got to talk about this Bears backfield. Yeah, this is brutal. And we might get Cleal Herbert back here soon.

Yeah, Darrenton Evans actually played this week. I actually think they, they probably want Roshan to play. Like, I think that was a very clear effort by them to get Roshan involved,

which I think maybe if I had one takeaway, it's that. But Darrington Evans getting the touchdown. Yeah, he was kind of like the hurry up back. I have a feeling this is going to be another one of those backfields

where we're going to see three guys involved. I mean, maybe I think Foreman's running well enough that they're not just going to make him a healthy scratch again when Herbert comes back. So, I mean, my question. One of these guys has to be a healthy scratch.

Well, I would think Evans, probably, yeah, I would think Evans taken out and they well, you know what? We say that. We say that though. Who's going to play special teams? Just Rocheon doesn't play special teams, doesn't? That's true. Because I think that's, I think that was the reason why former was the healthy scratch because they have three backs that don't, don't play on special teams right now. Homer does. Johnson does too. So, yeah, maybe. Roshon does. Yeah, Roshon plays special teams. Yes, he does. Oh, he, he, he, he He's a he's a core special teamer. Yeah.

Yeah, Rochon does, but Foreman won't. So maybe Foreman is the scratch. Maybe he will be. What I want, I want, I want Forman to get traded somewhere here in the next day. He could, man. He's not. I don't know what the Cowboys are doing. Go get hit.

I mean, that would suck for Pollard. But like, overall, I think he's kind of like what they kind of need in that backfield right now next to Pollard. So I hope they move. You're the bears, you know, you have a chance to have a two high pick. Get a six round pick. form, you know? They might have, the bears might have, what, the first two picks, right?

I, you know what? Well, Carolina won a game, so that's, you know. Just can't he game well play special teams? Because I'm just like thinking. Just try to get them the hell out of Philly. Yeah, you want to go for Foreman. You want Eagles. It's just like somebody, somebody who goes forward.

I know, you know, like, that's the thing about Foreman is just like, yeah, he's a healthy scratch. And like, game. Yeah, I don't understand. Like, it would make no sense for them not to shop him. Like, he's played well enough the last couple of weeks. Yeah, Gamewell's not a core special teamer. So, yeah.

So like, get him off. I'm tired of this guy. I did not expect the podcast to end with Deonté Foreman trade talk. There you go. Everybody was getting around for. Yeah, because I've got to try to get this article written, the, the market report article written, because let me tell you something. Um,

uh, this is not an exfurtrum, whatever they call. Comcast has infinity. Spectrum has something, whatever the, whatever they call it.

Uh, it's charter spectrum, whatever. Um, I'm tired of these people. Tired of them. I call, I called the lovely,

uh, a customer service, uh, a, uh, Sparkle last night. Uh, I was, I said to her,

I know it's not your fault Sparkle, but, uh, let me tell you something. I'm sick. That's what I said right there on, I said on, on area. I said,

I said, I said, guys, I got to be a Karen. I got to Karen it up. And I didn't lean too heavily into my Karen is caroning. But they're getting out here at 1 p.m. And I'm rambling on about this. We got to get this podcast posted the article up. Graham Barfield, Tom Brawley.

I'm Joe Dolan. FantasyPoint.com. Grific 25 gets you 25% off any content package, not the data sweep because that's already 75% off. And the content packages are already 50% off because we're halfway through the season. So 25% on top. top of 50%. That's 133 and a third percent chance. Yeah, basically. $3.99, basically. We've given out subs for free. All right. All right, guys. Take it easy. Everyone hope you enjoyed.

And we'll talk to you later. 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 FantasyPoint.com.