Fantasy Football Daily - Fantasy Football Risers & Fallers: Brian Thomas Jr. BREAKOUT STAR | School of Scott

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Welcome to School of Scott, the ultimate fantasy football masterclass hosted by Scott Barrett of FantasyPoints.com. In this episode, Scott welcomes Theo Gremminger on for a breakdown of key takeaways from "The Everything Report." Week 6 Everything Report - https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/the-everything-report-week-6#/ Where to find us: http://twitter.com/ScottbarrettDFB http://twitter.com/TheOGFantasy Find Our Podcasts Here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/podcasts#/ https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/the-everything-report-week-4#/ Use promo code SCOREMORE for 10% off your subscription. Subscribe to FantasyPoints for FREE - https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/ FantasyPoints Website - https://www.fantasypoints.com NEW! Data Suite - https://data.fantasypoints.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/FantasyPts Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FantasyPts Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/FantasyPts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is Brian Thomas Jr. The next alpha wide receiver one in the NFL? Are Cincinnati's wide receivers and their insane target share what you need to win in fantasy this season? Welcome to School of Scott, the Fantasy Football podcast where we take a deeper look into the box scores and make you better at playing fantasy football. And we're not calling it School of Scott because I like the sound of it.

It's because I'm joined every week by Scott Barrett of Fantasy. I'm Theo Greminger. We're ready to rock. We're ready to take a look back at week five. Focus on the things that were important and get you ready to win in week six. Scott, how are you doing tonight, my man? I'm doing great. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited. You always get me pumped up, energized. I love it. Yeah, no, we're ready to rock. And shout out to everybody who's been subscribing to the podcast. Go ahead and do so if you haven't. You can get it multiple ways anywhere you get your podcast. go ahead if you enjoy this podcast, give us a five-star reviews.

But every single week, we dive into- Real quick, if you're listening to this on the Fantasy Points Now feed, means you're listening to it on a Friday. So when you go ahead and subscribe to School of Scott, you can get it on a Wednesday morning. So do that. And leave a five-star review. Absolutely, absolutely.

And all of the information that you're going to hear on this show is available to you if you subscribe to Fantasy. points. Everything that we get from this show sheet is from Scott's Everything report or from fantasy points data suite. So go ahead and check that out. And we've got a special for you. Use the code school 25. And that's going to get you 25% off anything at fantasy points. Go ahead and check that out. But we led the show off with Ryan. Real quick. I need to give a special shout out. So everything report usually drops Wednesday mornings. but today we got it out at Tuesday about 5 p.m.

And that's one of the perks of hiring Ryan Heath full-time, which we did last week. Ryan Heath, I have been calling for over a year now, unironically, the golden boy, just because he does not miss. He just hits a home run at every at bat. And so he helped me out with the Everything report. So he got it up early.

I think this might be the best it's ever been. So a huge shout out to Ryan Heath. Yeah, big shout out to Ryan Heath. Ryan Heath is the man. Make sure you're checking out all of his work over at Fantasy Points. And also his dynasty takes over at Dynasty Points. Great podcast also on the Fantasy Points Network. But I want to give a shout out.

And it's to Brian Thomas Jr. Because I got Brian Thomas Jr. In a bunch of Dynasty leagues. I had people telling me I was ridiculous for drafting him ahead of Ladd-McConkey and making the argument for BTJ over Ladd-McConkey in some dynasty rookie drafts. Well, where are we at today? Ladd-McConkie still looks good,

but Brian Thomas Jr., Scott, we're talking about a guy who, this is maybe a top-10 dynasty value at the wide receiver right now. What are you seeing your takeaways from seeing this ascension of Brian Thomas Jr. over the last few weeks, not only his scoring output, but the numbers behind the numbers.

And really, the way he looks out there, he moves differently. Yeah. So he's seen eight or more targets in three straight games, ranked sixth among all wide receivers and yards. He ranks eighth in yards per route run. What might be most impressive about that is he's one of only like four or five receivers who averages over 2.5 yards per route run against both man and zone coverage.

And it's all like the elite wide receivers you can think of, except Joanne Jennings is also in there. The only reason why I didn't tweet that out. He has through the first five weeks, the third most yards per route run of any rookie wide receiver in any season since at least 2000, all the wide receivers on that list, like the top 10 or all the best wide receivers you can think of. Yeah, I mean, this looks real. This looks awesome. You know, you could worry a little bit about the quarterback play, but Trevor Lawrence was awesome last week. He had the highest catchable throw rate of any quarterback in the fantasy points data era just last week.

So that's encouraging. But yeah, like I said, I knew this big blow-up game was coming. I love this schematic matchup for him. But what was most encouraging was over the previous two weeks, the volume was there and the production was there, despite those being worst possible matchups for him. and best possible matchups for Christian Kirk. And so then finally last week, it was a matchup way better for his skill set.

And he goes off. I do want to talk a little bit about the prospect. So I did all my, I do a, you know, my rookie model articles, which are a million words long. And Brian Thomas Jr. was one of the ones I really struggle with. And I argued it a few different ways. I think the key stat from that, was that last season, 75% of his yards came on just two routes, the go route or the hitch.

And the only other time we've ever seen something like that from a wide receiver who hit was D.K. Metcalf, who over his last two season in college, 71% of his yards came on just two routes. You want to guess what those routes were the go route and the hitch. And so you could argue that two different ways. And I think during dynasty season, I was a little more pessimistic. I was like, well, he had a limited route tree in college, which is what all the film experts said. And so I think he's a little raw. I think he could be a little slow to develop in the pros. I think he might be able to buy low on him after an underwhelming rookie season. And then in preseason, just watching the preseason tape, he looked incredible.

I sort of argued at the opposite way, which is like, you know, such an open-ended stat. The pro side of this argument is you can just say the dude is a freak he's a he's a future superstar he had nearly 900 yards last season just on two routes that's supposed to be a bad thing like watch what he does with real NFL coaching uh and he develops another tool on the tool belt and like you can go on fantasy points data you can dive into the numbers you can see the targets he's getting and he's really running a very diverse route tree and having a tremendous amount of success with that he is getting open he's producing against zone against man against single high against too high he looks like an absolute stud he's a freak athlete he looks like a complete receiver uh yeah

just btj all day baby it's easy to get excited about this um i know uh we were talking to thomas a little bit earlier who's in a week six dynasty startup because he's a madman like that shout out to the Dynasty Points podcast. And BTJ just went 13th overall in that draft. I don't know that I'm ready to put him above Marvin Harrison Jr. Romo Dunsey. But clear rookie wide receiver four, probably a mid-range wide receiver two this week. And among any player, like one of the best odds of being like one of the league winners you needed to have. Snap Up Ancestry DNA's lowest price ever in our incredible cyber sale. With 50% off Ancestry DNA kits, it's the perfect time to help a loved one unwrap the past.

And with their latest update, they'll discover their family origins like never before, with even more precise regions and new and exclusive features. Their best gift, our lowest price. 50% off Ancestry DNA, only until December 2nd. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. Brian Thomas Jr. versus those other three sort of very insulated players, and certainly in Dynasty, but BTJ, when we're talking about him, we're talking about also a 21-year-old, you brought up the elite

athleticism, sort of incredible combine numbers. I do remember your, like, heated discussions, not arguments, really more of like heated discussions with Brett Whitefield. during the draft process about BTJ. But BTJ also playing at LSU alongside Malik Neighbors, you have to think maybe they didn't challenge him in the, really in the types of routes he was running because he happened to play next to a guy like Malik Neighbors, not to get too deep into the process.

But that's an interesting one, Roma Dunzae versus Brian Thomas. I think right now, if you agree with Scott and you really kind of wouldn't put him past Roma, Dunesay, you can go get Roma Dunzee for Brian Thomas in a ton of leagues right now. I think people have people are there. I, I, I think I would have BTJ over Rome right now. And I loved Rome, like, Rome, I thought was like a better prospect than Drake London. And, you know, I love Drake London. But with BTJ, it was really just like wild range of outcomes. And that's why I struggled

with him so much, but like tantalizing upside. And like right now, we're, are we at. It looks like that upside argument was the right argument to make. And like, damn, like he could really take this, the league by storm. And I don't want to name drop too much here, but regarding like my pre-draft analysis, I was DMing with a NFL, a director of analytics for an NFL team this offseason. And they saw a lot of the same things I was saying with BTJ, where it was a tricky e-vout, but where are we today? And it's like generationally good yards per route run for a rookie, like anything over 2.00 yards per route run for a rookie is considered elite.

And he's at 2.88. And like typically rookie wide receiver, their second half yards per route run is significantly better than the first half. So yeah, it's just again, like it's he could be a league record this year. Yeah, I write the dynasty stock report. overt fantasy points. And last week I had Brian Thomas. I was like a week early,

had him as a guy who's been this massive winner and then he has a spike week. I had Trevor Lawrence in one of the dynasty losers based on his, he was quarterback 25 at the time. Maybe this past week sort of woke him up. Again, Trevor Lawrence, only 25 years old. It's been a disappointing season for him. But you do bring up, you know, the big game that he just had.

Maybe the offense is kind of ticking up. We're going to touch a little bit later on the Travis E.T.N. tank Bigsby situation. But yeah, Brian Thomas Jr. If you drafted him, you're sitting on, I think a locked in wide receiver two moving forward with upside weeks as well. Got to talk about what's going on in Cincinnati. Because one of the subjects we discussed last week, Scott, was the curious case of Jamar Chase's like raw target totals, where Jamar Chase was averaging 16 and a half ppr points heading into week five's game. But the total targets were lacking. It was his lowest target share in his entire career. And lo and behold, we get the

Jamar Chase smash game. They target Jamar Chase 12 times. An absolutely epic game for fantasy football with Baltimore edging out Cincinnati, just a complete shootout. But the big takeaway for me is last week we touched on how highly targeted T. Higgins has been since he returned. And we see T. Higgins now put up back-to-back weeks with double-digit targets. He has 10 targets. Then he has 14 targets this past week. So you're

talking about T. Higgins has been targeted 30 times in three games. This is, we're talking about pretty high-level targets for T. Higgins. I've got to actually double check that one. But T. Higgins and Jemar Chase, you discussed their target share, their collective target share over the

past two weeks. Why don't you share kind of what you wrote in the everything report and just how bullish are you on this wide receiver duo moving forward yeah last week uh 70 percent of Cincinnati's yards uh 67 percent of their targets went to just chase and Higgins and so there's a few reasons why this offense is so sexy and why you want to be invested in it and part of the reason is they rank second and pass rate over expectation basically means they're passing at an at typically high rate relative to what you would expect given game script and down in distance. And that's really been the case over the past two or three years.

Whenever Joe Burrow is healthy, Cincinnati easily had the highest pass rate over expectation in the league. So that's one part of it. Also, that should continue given their one and four record, given how bad the defense is. The other part is Joe Burrow looks awesome and incredible. And then the other part is how highly condensed and concentrated it is, at least right now, really just makes Chase and Higgins that much more valuable. You brought up Chase's declining targets, and I wanted to just go to a quick little tangent on this.

You and I talked about this quite a bit in the off season. where I was like, I feel like we're collectively underrating the impact of these extended holdouts for these wide receivers. I just don't know what to do about it. You know, like you're not moving C.D. Lamb out of the top five. You're not moving Jamar Chase out of the top five. I did bump Higgins up. Didn't really do anything else with Brandon I. You maybe just bump him down a little bit. But you're sort of seeing that play out where you brought up Jamar Chase's lack of targets. It doesn't, doesn't really matter. The dude is absolutely smashing. But with Jamar Chase, you know, his first read target share went from 31% to 25% this year. CD-Land went from like 35% to 25% this

year. Brandon Iuke, 27% to 22%. And so you have to wonder if that plays a role there. I wonder if, you know, Higgins really seeing the better target volume, Jamar Chase is doing significantly more with less, but still much higher than expected target volume for Higgins. You have to wonder if, well, the fact that Chase wasn't there, maybe it just led to improved rapport between Higgins and Chase. But yeah, just based on everything I said, this looks like this could be one of the most potent, powerful passing attacks to be invested in in fantasy. And like Joe Burrow, I was kind of beating this drum all off season is he was the ADP QB8 on NFL.com. But if you looked at over his last 25 healthy games, fully healthy games, he ranked behind only Josh Allen and fantasy points per game.

He was only like 0.2 fantasy points per game behind, but he was like 1.6 above Jalen Hertz and then like 2.8 above Lamar Jackson. And he was sort of an afterthought. I was legitimately worried about that wrist injury. But outside of that, you know, you know, you know, Yeah, like, I mean, with Hagan's back fully healthy, this offense looks incredible. It sort of reminds you a little bit of the 2022 Miami Dolphins with that concentration of targets. And in that season, you ended up getting Tyree Kill having maybe his best season as a pro. I believe it was right up towards the top. You also had Jill and Waddle right outside of wide receiver one land.

I believe he was like wide receiver 13 on the year. So I think that's where we're headed. And T. Higgins, the timing for this could not be better. He is going to get the absolute bag this off season. When you look at some of these contracts have gone out to wide receivers. I mean, holy cow, T. Higgins is about to set a career high in targets per game. He's showing he can handle a high level target share. And then just Scott, just ballpark off the top of your head.

There's got to be like 12, 13 teams out there that view T. Higgins. as an instant wide receiver one, maybe more. This has always been a very talented player sort of in Jamar Chase's shadow. So that's one to keep in mind. If you're in a Dynasty League and you've got T. Higgins, this guy is a great target, whether you're win now or you're in a rebuild mode because this guy's going to get a massive, massive contract this offseason. But I want to stay with pass rate over expectation.

I think that this is something that you continually bring up in your written work. And I think this is something that is something that we should take a deeper dive in. You wrote about it this week in the Everything report. You sort of did like a mini deep dive into it. There was a couple of other teams that you specifically looked at. What are some of your takeaways with the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Yeah, I just want to say pass right over to expectation is something we've been highlighting for years. It's something we've had in the back end.

We're going to get that added to the Fantasy Points data suite in a week. or two. So be on the lookout for that. Yeah, Seattle. I mean, over the last four weeks, they ranked second, third, second, and then first in pass rate over expectation. The lead the league this year ahead of the Bengals. Gino Smith over the last four weeks leads all quarterbacks and dropbacks per game. He's basically playing like 5.5 quarters per game to Lamar Jackson's four. And so obviously that has a trickle-down impact on the wide receivers. D.K.K. Metcalf and JSN both ranked top 12 and XFP. Metcalf, top six, and fantasy points. He's been the more efficient of the group, but I do expect JSN to rebound. He's had some

tough slot matchups. And then this hasn't been really terrible at all for Kenneth Walker. But, I mean, there are going to be people who look at his five carries last week and start to panic. I'd say like on the flip side, the bright side of that is he very much looks like an every down player where maybe in years past he was just an early down workhorse. But his route share is great, his snap shares great. He had a career high eight targets last week, top seven in target share. Right now he ranks seventh among all running backs and XFP per game, third in fantasy points per game.

He's also really good, by the way, leads all running backs and mistackles force per touch. I think he's like a lock to finish as like at worst a low end RB1. There's a chance that Seattle continues to lean this pass heavy. Their defense, it seems as struggling. They've given up basically like a perfect passer rating to Jared Gough and Daniel Jones these last two weeks. And like Gav was really struggling heading into that matchup in Jones. Like we all know who Jones is. I will just say they have faced some tough run defenses over this band and Mike McDaniel

after the loss did say, listen, we really need to get this run game going. Walker needs to get the ball more. He's earned it. He deserves it. And so I can see that happening. I can see that happening this week. 49ers look like a run funnel for whatever reason. Teams are running on them at an at typically high rate measured by the same stat,

PROE pass rate over expectation at a bottom five rate, or a top five run rate over expectation. Yeah, so before we dive into Tampa Bay, yeah, I love your call on Kenneth Walker. It's the targets. And I talked about this last week in my article. Like Ken Walker's target share has ticked up this year based on anything we've seen in his first two seasons of his career. And it was like a subtle tick up. It was like two and a half percentage points. But this week with the eight target game, that sort of gave him a bailout this week.

And what's really exciting is he had 14.6 ppr points this week. And that is the lowest number of points scored by Seattle's top running back scorer in any week this year. So I think we've seen like what the floor is. Every other week of the season, you've seen a Seattle running back give you an RB one week. Two weeks with Zach Charbonnet, two weeks with Ken Walker, plus all the great stuff we're seeing with Gino Smith and D.K. Metcalf, we feel really strongly about what Ryan Grubb has brought to that offense. Went from being a team that ran like the fewest plays in football at such a slow pace to now a team that's running a ton of plays.

Very exciting stuff. What is your takeaway with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense? Also with a new offensive coordinator and Liam Cohen. Yeah, top three in pass rate over expectation. Baker Mayfield is like, what, third or fourth in fantasy points per dropback? and he's dropping back a tons. Like, that's awesome for him. Godwin and Evans both ranked top 10 and fantasy points scored.

And like, really, I don't see any reason why we should expect this to change. This is just clearly the strength of the offense. And I don't think Tampa Bay had any other option, even if he did want to lean more run heavy. Rashad White never averaged more than 3.7 yards per carry in any of his three seasons. He's a really good pass catcher, not a great runner. And then as much as I like Bucky, and he's still 5-9, 194 pounds. So I don't know how much, I don't know how much, you know,

I don't know that you could trust him with a heavy workload. So yeah, this again, like this would not be the first time. I don't even think it would be the second time that we've seen Evans and Godwin both finish top 12 and fantasy points. So good chance it happens again. I wish I had way more Baker Mayfield in basketball leagues. because I kind of felt like last year was a fluke. No, he's he's bawling out and he looks good.

Offense looks good. Love the usage for Chris Godwin in this Cooper Cup slot role. Easily leads all players in first downs per route run. That's one of the best, stickiest, most predictive stats. Evans is getting open at a top five rate. He just looks incredible, but hard to compete with Godwin and all these manufactured touches, these screens, these shallow crosses. is crossers, just that usage is so valuable.

So yeah, I think you got to rank them as top 10 options every single week and buy into the notion that, yeah, Mayfield might out produce, you know, like Patrick Mahomes and another other quarterbacks he wouldn't have expected leading into the season. Mayfield is QB3 heading into week six. He was a top 12 QB score last year. This guy looks so comfortable. And we actually had a tremendous Thursday night game last week where it was Atlanta, Tampa Bay,

where the whole talk of fantasy on Friday morning was Kirk Cousins. But I walked away from it saying, wow, Baker Mayfield just looks tremendous. He had another three touchdown passes. And he's also being an opportunistic scrambler, which has always been sort of part of his game, but it just looks better. It's like the offense has slowed down for him. You brought up Rashad White. you're also seeing less touches for the running back position than we saw in the Dave Canales offense.

So it's really, like you said, the concentration of targets to these two wide receivers where last year we had the huge ADP win for Mike Evans. This year, both of these guys are going to beat ADP. So I totally with you. But it was not all like happiness and and, you know, all this joy from your pass rate over expectation takeaways. you also had to talk about the New York Jets. Robert Sala fired. We are recording this on Tuesday evening.

Robert Sala was fired Tuesday morning. I was on the air doing my WaverWire podcast and all these people in the chat start dropping all the Robert Sala fired stuff. So I've been diving into it today. But what are your takeaways on this offense so far? And do we have any hope that Robert Sala's replacement sort of changes it?

And a little caveat, Nathaniel Hackett's still the offensive coordinator. So that was a little surprising to me. If you're going to try, if you're going to fire one, why not fire the other? So basically unpack everything here. Why would you fire Hackett? He's doing his job perfectly. He is he is the patsy figurehead, not the actual OC. Aaron Rogers is the actual OC.

And Hackett is the one who just gets up on that podium and eats shit nonstop for the, for the, the, the true play. caller Aaron Rogers. Yeah, it's hilarious. Apparently, Sala was planning on firing Hackett this week, and instead he gets fired. Hackett gets to keep his job. There's like real reports. I think like Albert Breer was talking about this, was that like it wasn't a coincidence that this came right after the London game. Woody Johnson was the ambassador to England in the Trump White House or whatever. And so like, you know, he's at the game with all of his buddies getting roasted because Rogers, the jet stink. And then he, he feels like he has to make a move. He has to fire the coach. And I was just like, oh, this is just like me and everyone else I know who, you know, is getting

roasted by their group chat after like Kyle Pitts does nothing through four weeks. And then you rage cut him. And Woody Johnson basically just did the same thing. Um, yeah. So anyway, all this is funny, uh, but, you know, you lose solid. It doesn't change a single thing. It doesn't not going to have an impact. Defensive minded head coach with a pretty good defense. Luckily, this, this interim head coach, the DC is really good as well. So I don't see too much changing. Things are obviously really rough. Yeah. So jets are the only team to rank bottom five in yards per carry and yards per pass attempt. Uh, Brees Hall is averaging just five point three fantasy. points for game the last two weeks. Aaron Rogers last two weeks, 96 pass attempts, most in the

league, 15th in passing yards. All this is horrible. And so what do you blame it on? I don't think you really blame it on Aaron Rogers, honestly. Like, I think he kind of looks good just based on what I've seen on film. Catchable throw rate isn't great, but it's really not terrible. I think what's happening is he has the quickest time to throw of any season of his career by a landslide. this offensive line is really not good through the air. On the run, they're even worse. Dead last and adjusted yards before contact per attempt. For perspective, Baltimore's offensive line is 5x that number.

And so that's really what it is to me, is it just the worst offensive line in football by far. Maybe the trade for Devante Adams, that can help open things up for Garrett Wilson, but it doesn't fix the offensive line, which again is the biggest issue. And probably like what matters most for a team with a 40-year-old quarterback who came into the game last week's game with a swollen knee and then was limping throughout the fourth quarter with an ankle sprain. And, you know, the last two weeks were like really tough matchups. But part of the problem is like look at his matchups over the next two weeks.

It doesn't get any better. It gets worse. Bill's Steelers, T.J. Watt against this offensive line and a gimpy, 40-year-old Aaron Rogers. So what do you do if you own these players? I think if you're a Garrett Wilson owner, you have to be pleased with the results. 22 targets. This is the most XFP in any week of any player in Fantasy Points data history. That's crazy.

but like in 45.7 expected fantasy points. But in light of that, his 29.1 actual fantasy points a little overwhelming. But still, you know, you're going to take those points if you're a Garrett Wilson owner because he was overdue for some real production. But yeah, I don't know what you do, man.

I think you just hope and pray Aaron Rogers makes it through these next two games alive. And then slowly, the offensive line, better continuity, the gel, something happens. And they start to improve. Like I do think things are going to get better so long as everyone stays healthy. Breece Hall, I'm not, I'm not panicking. It's not good.

It's really not good. But I'm not panicking. I think he's not the high-end RB1 you drafted him to be. But he's certainly not going to be anything less than a low-end RB1. The usage is still really good. the XFP is still really good, even with Brayland Allen. I think he's just sort of who he was last year. And remember last year, he finished as the overall RB2.

But since the start of last season, like one of the most volatile boomer bus players in fantasy, since the start of last season over his top 50% of games, he averaged 25 fantasy points per game. And his bottom 50% of games, 7.9 fantasy points per game. And I think it's going to look a little bit like that. He is a home run hitter. So, you know, those weeks where he hits one of those home runs, it's going to be awesome. But plenty of other weeks, it's going to be rough.

I don't really know that there's anything to act on here. I think you just got to hold and hope. The only real consideration for fantasy managers would be potentially trading Garrett Wilson coming off of his incredible game. And I think that's sort of a... Oh, you think people are buying? I do think people are buying. I think 22 targets and 29 points will get a lot of people to think that, hey, we self-scouted this and this is Garrett Wilson season.

You're going to get the usage that you drafted at the one-two turn. I think there will be some managers with that. But the Brees Hall one, we talked about last week, and Jeff Oldbrick taking over as head coach, defensive coordinator, guys pretty jacked, got this old school defensive mentality, and you got this 240 pound back in Braylen Allen, I continue to worry about this. And I had the same conversation with you that I also had it with Scott Bollinger, Jacks Falcone on his pod where he said the same thing as you,

where it's sort of like, don't worry about Bruce Hall. But I continue to worry about it because I think when things go south, you get old school football mentality people in there, it's not like Nathaniel Hackett is some Clint Kubiak, Ben Johnson, like modern thinker. So the head coach in there now is a defensive coordinator, and now you've got this 240 pound back. I just lost a close game.

Maybe my old school mentality goes on, and I say we've got to start getting Braylen Allen 15 carries every single game, no matter what. Maybe he saps away a couple more targets from Breece Hall. That's just my devil's advocate pushback. I'd be shocked, man. Let's not forget how unbelievable Breeze Hall was last year in a worse situation than this.

As bad as things are with the Jets, you don't have Zach Wilson under center. So I get Braylen Allen's good, but Breeze Hall, elite rushing efficiency, one of the best explosive play threats at the running back position, amazing through the air. I will see.

He's a tremendous talent. You're right to panic a little bit, but I wouldn't go overboard. Tremendous talent. I'll also bring this one up to you, Scott. The last three weeks, a lot of those, those Breece Hall targets that we saw in the first few weeks of the year are going to Tyler Conklin. And we know the real offensive coordinator there is Aaron Rogers. So it's like, is Aaron Rogers starting to use?

I don't know. The whole thing has me like Galaxy braining it. You bring up the Devante Adams trade. How about we get Bruce Hall in a Las Vegas Raiders uniform getting 26 touches every single game? Antonio Pierce would stand on his head. Braylin Allen, we get a blackjack split. Braylon Allen gets 25 carries a game. Everybody's happy.

Everybody's happy, except for maybe Jets fans who lost Brees Hall. But fantasy managers, I think, would be happy with that situation. So that's just my galaxy brain one. We can't talk too much about the jet. I like that one. Yeah, you know, we're going to, we're going to workshop that one. We're going to workshop that one and see if we can't run with that a little bit. So we got through the pass rate over expectation.

We talked about Cincinnati, and I don't want to be too Bengals-centric. But I do have to ask you about Chase Brown's ceiling, potentially in an offense without Zach Moss. Now, Zach Moss is dealing with some sort of an ankle thing. We have a lack of clarity as to the severity of this. And then we also have to talk about another potential opportunity for a backup running back with Ty Chandler in Minnesota. The Minnesota one is different because Aaron Jones has the buy week this week. but Aaron Jones played 12 games last year.

Now he's dealing with a hip. Ty Chandler seems like a like for like replacement. And then Chase Brown, this incredible explosive metrics guy who checks off a ton of boxes in fantasy points data. Sort of your expectations for Brown and also for Chandler, if these two guys have the backfield seemingly to themselves. Yeah. Well, Brown last year was like one of the. had an explosive carry at one of the highest rates in the league, but his success rate was worse in the league. And like, Zach Moss was super underrated by that stat last year. I think he was

like top five. And so, you know, I was like, I liked him. He was, you know, a player I kept up for in the draft plan, but like still thought it was a long shot. I'm like, he's probably just a home run hitter and he trusts Zach Moss more. But he looks amazing this year. He ranks fourth best by yards after contact per attempt, ninth best by mistackles force per attempt of, you know, 60 plus qualifying running backs. Better, best of all, I think he, at least heading into last week, he led in stuff rate. So really good improvement there. Yeah, if Moss is out, if Moss is out, there's value.

Just on goal line work alone, this is a really valuable backfield. but they rank, the Bengals rank collectively eighth best in backfield XFP per game. So, you know, if he gets, you know, 80% of that, we could be talking about, you know, high-end RB2, low-end RB1 production. And I kind of would guess that's what he would get. But last I heard was Zach Moss, the injury wasn't as bad as they thought. And he could be okay to play this week. But we'll see.

Tyler Chandler, I really think it's just like a one-week. thing with him. Like, so they have their buy this week and then Aaron Jones probably misses the next and then comes back. And yeah, he'll be valuable that week. You'd probably be a high end RB2. And that's, that's worth getting excited about. But yeah, I really think this is Aaron Jones backfield when he's healthy. He's just, he just looks so good. And Tyler Chandler does not look great to me. And the numbers back that up. But, you know, if he does really well, I worry a little bit.

We could see Minnesota cap Jones usage just because, you know, he's older, has a long injury history. Green Bay was really intentional about limiting his staffs. But I'm hoping that's not the case because I own a ton of Aaron Jones. Yeah, Aaron Jones has looked fantastic. and he looked fantastic in the NFL playoffs. The usage has been ideal. And the offensive quality for Minnesota is much better than we thought it would be.

But once you get a 29 years old and the injury bug opens up, things can happen. So I think Ty Chandler is sort of like if he's available in your league, there's a lot of running backs this week where people are looking to add them for kind of instant points. whereas Ty Chandler is a little bit more of a long game, but it's hard to get access to this offense. And this offense, I think we can both agree is easily a top 10 offense in the league. So I think Ty Chandler is worth taking a shot on.

Got to talk about the backfield that everybody's talking about. We already talked about Brian Thomas Jr. Jacksonville gets their first win of the year. They score the most points of the year, and they did it behind Brian Thomas Jr. a rookie and Tank Bigsby, their second year running back out of Auburn. We've touched on this briefly earlier in the season right here on School of Scott, but this was sort of the exclamation point game for Tank Bigsby.

He gets two rushing scores. He has over 100 yards rushing. He catches a long pass. He gets basically a catch and run like a 28-yard reception. He looks fantastic. What's your expectations for this backfield move? moving forward. Can Tank Bigsby be the 60 and a 6040 split with ETN? Hey, if you, if you want to hear what I have to say, you can read the article,

but I want to hear what you have to say because you called this. You 100% called this. So let me hear your thoughts. School of Theo. Well, school of Theo here is tank bigsby's been a guy that I really was encouraging people to add after week one in the waiver wire show and article. and Tank Bigsby just looked good to me. Now you've had this happen multiple times this year. Tank Bigsby has three out of the four highest rushing outputs over Jacksonville's last 14 games played,

all under Doug Peterson. And it's sort of a, the efficiency of Tank Bigsby, this has been a guy that they drafted in the third round out of Auburn. Now you're starting to see it weekend, week out. And Travis Eton, last year, it's sort of like the Rashad White corollary, where you brought up how Bucky Irving is this smaller back, so he's a little bit less of a threat. The difference here is, Tank Bigsby is doing this, and he's 220 pounds, and he's younger,

and he's got the juice, and he's got a coach that is willing to use multiple running backs historically. So for me, this is kind of a perfect storm, where I've seen some people that I really respect in fantasy saying that Tank Biggsby don't go too crazy on the waiver wire if he's still, available in your league. I'm kind of the opposite. I think if he happens to be still available in your league, this is the kind of opportunity you don't pass up and you've kind of pushed the chips in here. I mean, most leagues, I think a lot of leagues that were in, he's rostered. But there are leagues out there. I mean, the guys available in like 77% of leagues right now. But I don't think that a changing of the guard is necessarily out of the equation, especially when you factor in that they

won the game and they played so well behind this guy. How can you put that back in the box for Travis ETN? I just I just don't necessarily see it the same way others do. Yeah, we never see trade like fun, fantasy relevant trades anymore, but Jaguars are one and four. Like that, that's, at TN could be on the move. It wouldn't shock me. That would be awesome as well. I think we could pick a number of teams that we would love to see him land on. Man, we're galaxy braining some trades. You know it's week six. when you start to do that sort of stuff, Scott. I want Michael Mayer to the commanders.

I want that one too. Where does he, Ben? What's going to be personal issue out two weeks? Brock Bowers is a stud. Let's make it happen. Max Crosby, let's send him to my giants. I'll give a serious capital for that. I want to see Ben Sinit get some run

if we're going to Galaxy Brain Washington Commanders. Zach Ertz had eight targets last week and did literally nothing. So yeah, let's get a tight end with some juice for Jamie Daniel. He is so underrated. Zachertz is so good at running a beautiful route, getting open and gaining zero yak. There's zero yak ever. But according to ass, he's getting open at one of the highest rates. So he does that well.

you know Kingsbury trusts him uh but yeah I wasn't as much of a synod guy as you were but certainly more upside if if you throw him and just because you're going to have a yak expectation expectation above zero that there you go it doesn't he has an opportunity to get some yak as opposed to catching the ball and falling down like Zach Hertz does at this stage is yeah yeah but he's he is really good at getting open catching the ball and then falling down no for sure what are we doing with the Miami offense, Scott. I think a lot of people are really, really hoping that Tua Tua Tua Tua Tua is back in week eight and sort of saves everyone.

What are your expectations of just how the season moves along? Tyree Kill, Jalen Wattle have been unbelievably bad over like the last four weeks. And you have Devon A-chan now concussed and banged up heading into the buy. I think he's been banged up. Yeah, I agree. But I mean, it was encouraging. sign the running game looked back at least last week, although maybe now you have to worry it's a three-way committee or something. Yeah, I mean, it's just how high was Tyreek being drafted? How

high was Jalen Waddled being drafted? How did they look with a healthy Tua? And then you, you bring in two quarterbacks who are probably not top 50 quarterbacks in the NFL. Yeah, if you're, If you're one of these five and oh teams, four and one teams, yeah, absolutely be trying to buy low on an Achan, a Tyreek, a Jalen Waddle. Because if one of these one and four owners, yeah, has one of those guys, like, they don't have the luxury of waiting until Tua returns, but you might. Yeah, I think that's sort of the way to play it. You brought up the rushing production this week. And we saw Jalen Wright sort of have his breakout week, 13 rushes, I believe, for 80. 36 yards. And he looks explosive. He did it alongside

to Raheem Mostert, but Mostert was already banged up. I think we talked about Ty Chandler. Jalen Wright is also a guy, especially in leagues where you have players like Bigsby, players like Tracy available to you on the waiver wire. Like Wright might be a guy that you're able to pick up. That's an interesting one because A. Chan, he's taking so many hits. Now you've got the concussion. That's an interesting kind of fluid situation from we come back. But Yeah, I mean, you're going to get a two of bailout for Waddle and Hill. I think this could be the time to kind of kick the tires on Jalen Waddle.

Hill is not going to go for cheap. The Hill manager knows that Tua is going to come back. But with the depth of the wide receiver position and the frustration with Jailen Waddle, I think you might be able to get him for a lot cheaper than you should. So that's one to kind of kick the tires on. I want to talk about buy weeks. Scott, one of the biggest things we saw last year in the NFL was, Dallas's usage for CD-LAM post-by week.

And a lot of times we see this with smart NFL franchises or sometimes desperate NFL franchises. You get an opportunity to self-scout and you see changes made, sometimes in terms of snaps played, sometimes in terms of targets, sometimes in terms of the play calling in general. But that by-week, if you're doing it right,

can be very beneficial. Who is a player or situation for a team that was on a by week last week that you're most interested in seeing the usage potential usage changes or role changes for in week six? Yo, this is such a good point to be making. You should do this every week on the School of Scott. This is so crucial, so critical. I am a big DFS player. First half of the week, everything report, second half of the week. I'm all in on DFS.

And like, if you're a DFS player, you know how rapidly things can change in the NFL where look at the Cowboys last year before the buy. They were one of the most run heavy offenses in football and it wasn't really working. After the buy, they were the most pass heavy offense in football. Doc Prescott led all quarterbacks, including Josh Allen and fantasy points per game after the buy. C.D. Lamb led all players in fantasy points per game after the buy with like eight more or five more fantasy points per game than the next closest wide receiver.

That happens all the time. Or you see it with like a rookie who wasn't involved is now a full-time player with like a great usage, schemed usage. And they're like, you can look back on a season and you can see like a team having seasons within seasons like, oh, this was when they did this and then this is when they did this. And yeah, I think we have to be cognizant of that. Looking at the teams that are run by, Detroit, Philly, Chargers, Titans, I think, I think Eagles, you have to expect Jalen Hertz to start looking more like the Jalen Hertz of old. Before the by, we did see them bring the QB push push back and be.

successful with that. And then he gets his superstar wide receivers back and fully healthy. That's going to be big. With the Lions, I think the big player I want to watch is Sam LaPorta. Leporta has like one of the worst asses in football right now. You look at him versus Trey McBride. He both basically run the same number of routes. McBride's been open 22 times. Laporta only eight. What is that? I really think that's injury. I think he's, I don't think he's healthy. He missed nearly all of training camp with a bad hamstring, that he sprained his ankle in week two. I think he should be fully healthy after this by. I think we see some, a nice little positive regression from him. I think also be on the lookout for Jemir Gibbs. I read a lot of Beat writer reports or like Albert Breer, these insiders.

and multiple of them said be on the lookout for Jemir Gibbs specifically in the second half of the season. They want to get him running like real wide receiver routes and it's going to open up the offense, but that's a second half thing. So be on the lookout for that. Chargers, I got to talk about my boy Ladd-McConkie. I'll just say like this offense is stuck in the Stone Ages. the Chargers easily ranked dead last and catchable targets per game. They're just too run heavy, too slow-paced.

But I do think we're going to see Ladd McConkey get more involved, and we'll see if he can rise above that situation. With the Titans, I don't know. Maybe we see Pollard just be a full-on belcow. Maybe, I don't know, Will Levis is rough. I don't know. What are your thoughts? Leporta, you nailed it. I think Leporta is the one where we really need to see it. He was so effective last year. And now he's really one of the worst picks you could have made in a draft because you were having to use the tight end one overall to draft him. People were enthusiastically drafting him as an edge. And he's been anything but it. He's been like six and a half points per game. He's been worse than Dalton Kincaid in terms of points per game. So we would love to see a get right game for Sam.

Leporta coming off a bye. For me, this is one where you touched on Jalen Hertz. We're going to see AJ Brown come back. And this is sort of like we saw the AJ Brown give you a very strong week one. Now he's missed all these games. I'm looking for AJ Brown to come back and really, really establish himself. Philly's got a get right environment against this reeling Cleveland Brown's team. So I love it. I think it's always super exciting. I think one low key one is Gus Edwards has been not good this year. Does L.A. mix in another running back behind J.K. Dobbins and maybe we have some excitement for on the waiver wire or something like that. Like Galaxy Brain, give Harbaugh a little time off. And you know the guy's staring at like a bunch of backup running back, seeing what he can get out of

those guys. So it's always a ton of fun post-by week. And we have we have buy weeks this week and then nothing in week eight, which is kind of a weird little anomaly. And then we have buy weeks in week nine. So try to be a week ahead with your buy weeks. Hopefully this is a reminder to you to go check out, see which guys you're going to be missing and make your waiver wire claims. When you're flying Emirates business class, sampling our range of vintage wines from the largest selection in the skies, you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates. Fly better.

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there is a rice's We had a turn back the clock night in Kansas City. Kansas City gets the win over New Orleans. Karim Hunt and Juju Smith-Schuster both produced. Where are we at with these guys? This is also a team entering their byweek. So when we come back post-by-week for Kansas City, is Kareem Hunt an RB2?

And is J-Ju-Smith-Schuster sort of a viable wide receiver 3 slash flex for us every week in fantasy? So Kareem Hunt is not an RB2. Last two weeks, just a 54% snapshot. But Pyrine is the preferred goal lineback, 63% snapshot inside the 10. And then you have to worry about Clyde Edwards-Halier. Like, CEEH might have the best odds of being the RB1 just because, I don't know, Andy Reid talked him up all offseason for whatever reason. And, you know, Kareem Hunt was signed off the street two weeks ago.

I don't know how much they really like him. I just think they like him more than start Carson Steele, and I don't blame them for that. Juju, yeah, I think isn't someone I'm getting excited about. I don't have a lot of faith in. He had 130 yards. You know, that's great with somewhat similar usage to Rishi Rice, just that he had a lot of quick slants and shallow crossers. but only a 59% route share 50 of his yards came on one play where Tyron Matthew fell down

and I think he had another big play that came off of a deflection from a defender yeah I don't know it's juju smith schuster we know who he is yeah his knees are have an insane amount of wear and tear on them. There are like my grandmother's nursing home, there are ladies with fresher knees than Juju. There you go. That's, I love that one. Juju is the weirdest thing about Juju is 27 years old.

It feels like Juju is like 33 years old. He's been in the league forever. You know, this is a player where if you grabbed him last week, it's great. But now it's going to cost you such a significant amount of fab. It's really a price check situation at this point. more so than anything.

Kareem Hunt, that's an interesting one. I would push back that maybe the snaps increase because he wasn't with them in the preseason. So he's still sort of like getting his legs here in this role, even though it's a coach he's familiar with. Obviously, the system is not. He could be. It could be.

I just have my own personal biases and I just really think he's dust and just cooked at this stage of his career. I think Travis Kelsey is the beneficiary of the, Rishi Rice injury. You look at his usage in the last two weeks. It's basically aligned with where he was at in 2022, just in terms of route share and first three target share. All these numbers are massively up. You know, he was an afterthought with the healthy Rishi Rice. And now it seems like he's in the Rishi Rice role, which the Rishie Rice role was basically just the Travis Kelsey role from years past where, you know, a lot of manufactured touches.

screens, short area work, a lot of yak. And I think Kelsey still got it. It was just a matter of, of, you know, trying to preserve him. Maybe they don't have that luxury anymore. Maybe they're going to try and force a combination of like, Juju and Justin Lawson into that role. I don't know, but that's just where I'm leaning right now. They had so many four tight end packages in the game against the Saints.

That was really a little bit odd. We've continually. seed Andy Reid do like three tight end packages. There has been seasons where they continually were in two tight end sets, but they're really, really leaning into it. Maybe that's a landing spot for Michael Mayor. But we got to talk about a year two wide receiver that is thriving. And the number one scorer out of the 2023 tight end class right now is not Sam LaPorta. It's not Dalton Kincaid. It's Tucker Kraft. Tucker Kraft has been the wide receiver one for consistent. consecutive weeks in fantasy. This is a player that people are getting really excited about.

Wide receiver one. Is that what you said? Excuse me. Excuse me. Tight end one for back to back weeks. Excuse me, guys. Tight end one for back to back weeks. Is Scott Barrett enthusiastic about Tucker Kraft moving forward? And if so, how enthusiastic. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean he'd come down hard on you. Yeah. I mean, it's just really tremendous usage these last these last few weeks. I think he's a mid-range wide, I almost did the same thing, mid-range tight end one. What's interesting is like he's not really gaining any of these yards or catches on like, I don't know, real routes. It's a lot of manufactured touches and screens and shallow crossers.

Like we keep talking, but I mean, like, that's a valuable role. That means he has like a guaranteed floor. And this is like one of the most potent offenses in football. dealing with, I don't know, Romeo Dobbs' issues, but also Christian Watson's injury in Don Tavian Wicks being unable to catch the ball. So again, like, I don't think he's going to be the overall tight-in-one, but I think you're going to be starting him as a mid-range tight-end one until he proves otherwise. Yeah, I think that's, you sort of nailed it. Mid-range tight-end one, which is still like found money for where you got him. He's sort of a tight-end bailout play for a lot of

fantasy managers out there. And a real testament to this organization, they drafted Tucker Kraft 28 picks after getting Jaden Reed. You brought up Dontavian Wix. That 2023 rookie class has given them nine touchdowns this year out of those three guys combined. So really a well done drafting. It used to sort of be the joke franchise. We used to make fun of Green Bay's draft process, but they've certainly hit on a lot of these guys recently. Let's go. I remember watching that presser and they were asked about that and they were like historically this has worked out well for us uh you know you might remember five years earlier we drafted a cornerback in the second round and then took a cornerback uh in the third round right after that but that second cornerback ended up becoming our

starter and like one of our best players in our history and we never played the the first cornerback so you know if if that's what happens here that works out and like that is what happened here like let's not forget Tucker Kraft, I was drafting a ton of Luke Musgrave in baseball. And it was, you know, it was like, well, you know, well, Musgrave was the starter last season to start the year, then he got hurt. Then Kraft came in, played a little bit better. But Kraft's missing all of training camp with this brutal injury. You have to think Musgrave is the heavy favorite. No, Kraft overcame all that. And Musgrave is an afterthought and craft looks great. Yeah, it's, it's super interesting and and scott you remember that from the from the press conference because

you watch every single post draft press conference not everybody knows that but that's another great thing to subscribe to fantasy points for uh scott how many hours of of press conference ballpark post draft did you hit this year oh uh it was probably like 60 to 80 i i love it though it was it was so much fun i was uh i downloaded this like uh emulator game on my phone so I could play Pokemon on my iPhone. And so I would just sit on this couch behind me and play Pokemon. And I'd have the presser up and I'd have my laptop here. So I would take notes and transcribe what needed to be true.

It was an absolute blast. It was honestly one of the highlights in my offseason. It's always one of the more interesting takeaways. You're always a great guy to talk to after the NFL draft because of that. Like your player takes are strong. But that's sort of like the sicko mentality that like you get like you get like those little nuggets. It's, I can remember the Chris Rodriguez conversation. Right, right, right.

It's high level stuff. It takes a lot of dedication, though. Big hat tip on that one. Let's go rapid fire for a few questions before we wrap it up. Who would you rather have rest of season? Rashid, Shaheed, or Chris Alave? Oh my God. What a great question.

I've been doing this thing this year where like a lot of my, a lot of my redraft takes have come to fruition. And then in like DFS or whatever, like I, I fade that. And then it burns me where it's just like, no, my retraft take was just really strong. And I kind of want to do the same thing here because this has been a drum. I have been beating for a long time. It's like Chris Olavay, second round draft pick, Rashid Shaheed, 16th round draft pick. But if you looked at heading into the season over their previous 20 games together, Olive averaged just, I don't know, 15 more yards per game.

They were basically tied in yards per route run. And then what are you seeing this year? It looks like Shaheed is the wide receiver one where it's not just the fact that he's this elite deep threat. And he is. He is an elite, elite deep threat. But now he's also these last two weeks getting this short area work to bolster his

floor. And that is a powerful combination. He looks awesome. He looks great. I think I think part of it is you know, Lave had the tougher cornerback matchup last week and he's probably going to have the tougher cornerback matchup most weeks. I can't answer.

I'll state if you. Yeah, please, please. It's Rashid Shaheed. Is it? Is it? It's Rashid Shaheed. I'm like scared to say that. I like the one life raft for Chris Alave is we're probably going to see it looks like

Spencer Rattler is going to get an opportunity. opportunity to start if Derek Carr misses significant time. Is it? That's what they say. It could be Jake Hainer. It could be Spencer Rattler. I would assume Hainer as well, who was the next man in on Monday night. But Rattler was a guy that they liked in the draft process, certainly a more pedigreed player than Jake Hainer.

Like Spencer Rattler, I'd be interested to get. I wish we had like Brett Whitefield sitting here right here. I'm sure you have some takes on Rattler. But Rattler was a guy that I thought had a chance to go in the third round to be a day two pick was really the standout quarterback at the Senior Bowl. And that was with Bo Nixon attendance, Michael Pennix in attendance. Rattler was the guy that had a lot of people super enthusiastic. So if this Saints franchise views him, were you at the Senior Bowl? No, I'm going this year. I got to go this year. I've got to go. Come on. Long story. Long story. I'm going to be at the

senior ball. Don't worry. Don't worry. Let's get a house. Let's get it. Let's go to Senior Bowl. Let's get after it. But Spencer Rattler, I think that's interesting. But it's sort of like a, that's the life preserver for Chris Olavé, is do one of these young quarterbacks view him as this guy that they need to have slight tunnel vision for? I don't know. But if it's a similar situation to what we see in the first few weeks, it's Rashid Shaheed.

And Scott, I'll say this. Derek Carr, there was plenty of moments in that Chiefs game where he was like force feeding it to Rashid Shaheed on like 30-yard go routes, 40-yard go-rots, and he's well covered, and he's forcing it to him, like, a yolo balls down to Rashid Shaheed. So I don't know. And also Chris Alave let me down last night. I only needed like five points. He couldn't give it to me. And I lost a big matchup. So it's definitely Rashid Shahid. Rapid fire. I think I think Shaheed might just be the new Tyler Lockett.

My question to you is who is Chris Alave? Is he just massively overrated? See, I always want to give Chris Alave lifelines. I think he is quite overrated. He has scored a lot for us, though, in fantasy. I think at the end of the day, he's a solid, low-end wide-receiver two. And if you go into your season thinking that, and then you're happy when he finishes wide receiver 18, then I think you're fine. But it's when we kind of make him into this potential wide-receiver 1,

he always lets us down. It's two straight years. And Rashid Shaheed is a Weber State player. This guy is the second most famous Weber State grad since Damien Lillard. He's just playing unbelievable. So, yeah, Shout out to you. Shout out to Ryan Heath. And also shout out to Andrew Cooper for Fantasy Alarm.

You three guys collectively were singing the Rashid Shaheed praises all off season long. Scott, we got to wrap it up soon. A couple more rapid fire questions. Remandre Stevenson had a big game. Javante Williams is playing a lot better since he was about to lose his job. Now he's had two straight good games. Denver's won three in a row. Same thing with DeAndre Swift. We were supposed to see a Rocheon Johnson takeover. Instead, it's been DeAndre Swift. playing fantastic, getting great usage. The low-end RB2s slash high-end RB3s, Ramandre, Javante, DeAndre,

which are you most comfortable with rest of season? I know none of these three as you like standing on your head, but if you had to pick one of these three for your fantasy football roster, who would it be? Yes, Swift, just on the last two weeks alone. I think third and XFP two weeks ago, first last week. Um, he's, it is a committee, but it's less of a committee than the other two you just talked about where he's getting all of the most valuable work as a past catcher. Uh, 75% of the snaps inside the 10. Uh, and it's just the, the most important thing is just this looks like the much better offense or at least the offense, but with the most upside long term.

Yeah, I think you, you nailed it with the quality of the offense. Denver, that's going to be very telling to see what happens with LA coming off the by. They could get shut down this week. That three-game winning streak could quickly come to an end. And then Romandre Stevenson, like the guys had two really good games, but also a ton of fumbles. And Drake May taking over is sort of a wild card for Remandre. I've seen a lot of arguments that it's going to elevate his usage and potential fantasy production. But Drake May is also a potential vulture around the goal line.

You could see a little bit of a one-man gang mentality for Drake May really with his rushing attempts. he could actually vulture remandre. So it's definitely DeAndre Swift. Last question, C.D. Lamb, disappointing start and unbelievable last four games here from Jalen Tolbert. Three out of the last four weeks with 13 PPR points or more. Is Jalen Tolbert having a year three breakout? Is this something where it's going to be sustainable, where he's going to give us somewhere in this range of scoring? And when is C.D. Lamb going to turn it on and give us C.D. Lamb from last year.

type outputs. Oh, you're, I think it's on mute, Scott. I do this every, every there you go. You're still good. You're still good. You're never going to get that 10 seconds back, everyone. CD Lamb and Jalen told her. Yeah. Did you see, did you see Lam screaming at DAC or, or, you know, people were trying to lip read what he said? Yeah, there's a lot of this AI like lip reading going on now on Twitter. I don't think it's all correct. I think like I there, there's, I don't know. I don't ever trust the, the lip reading, lip reading Twitter out there. I think it has to change.

I really think it has to. Perhaps after this, you know, we saw that with A.J. Brown where he had that scuffle with J. Helens and then he had, I don't know, 15 targets and five straight games after that.

He was just too good last year. It just doesn't make any sense. Maybe this ties into the holdout. I don't know, but for sure, it has to change. Jalen Tolbert definitely has to. to be the betting favorite to step up in the short term, at least until Brandon Cox is back in

week 10. He had a team high 10 targets last week, caught eight for 87 and a score. He looked really good. He came out on a play at the end. He had an injury. They called a timeout for him, put him back in, immediately went to him in the red zone, scored a touchdown. And there was an interesting note from a Cowboys beatwriter who said he talked to Dak during training camp. he said that the wide receiver he spends the most time with in the summer historically has a great season and that this year it was Jalen Tolbert. So everyone remembers the breakfast club narrative with Cooper and Puka. Maybe that's Tolbert here. Yeah. You know, Tolbert was a guy that they drafted in the third round of the NFL draft. He's been sort of a bust. But yeah, you're starting to

see it this year. I love that narrative. That was a great, great write up. Highly recommend you check out the rest of Scott's article School of Scott. Check out my dynasty stock report as well. Also every week at Fantasy Points. Scott, what do you have going on the rest of the week? Yeah, be on the lookout for Outside the Box, my DFS show, Sunday Update, DFS show, and my article, Slate Breakdown coming Saturday morning for DFS. Yeah, and stick with us here at School of Scott. We've got you covered all season long. We're going to help you win your fantasy league. and we're going to help you become a better fantasy football manager.