Fantasy Football Daily - Week 7 Waiver Wire and Injuries

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) and Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley) talk Week 7 Waiver Wire pickups, with Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc) discussing recent injuries and return to play timelines. --- 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 for the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.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. Hi, everybody. It's week seven on the Fantasy Points podcast. It's Tuesday morning here, October 19th. My name is Joe Dolan. On Tuesdays, we go through the injuries. We go through the waiver wires. It is, guys, not just because of injuries, but it's a bloodbath this week. Six teams are on by, including teams like the Steelers and the Vikings and the Cowboys, teams that have a lot of fantasy relevant options.

So you are going to be starting some skank this week. I think it's unavoidable, especially if you've got injuries. And to break down those injuries, we have Dr. Edwin Porous, Dr. of physical therapy. And Edwin, you're actually preparing to go actually be a doctor of physical therapy. You've been a piece of crap for about a month and a half here. But you're back in the realm of the working today. You were, as they say, the colloquialism is between jobs.

Yes, I was, Joe. I was between jobs, taking some time off, a little bit of a hiatus, and I was a piece of crap, basically up until like 11 o'clock last night when I realized, oh, I should probably text Joe and let him know what my schedule is today. So we're a little, we're a little pressed for time, but that'll be good. It'll make me concise. And Joe, I don't want you to think that it's going to go without saying that. I was going to make a really, you know, hacky pun about Urban Meyer and how he grinded it out and how he grinded long, grind it hard, finally grind it out of win.

But I think that would really take away from the royal disappointment that we saw out of the Miami. But we can talk about injuries, too. Oh, holy crap. So, Edwin, first and foremost, I want to ask. you, I know your physical therapy. Sure. Are you in on the science of hangovers? Do you know what a hangover is?

Like, what is a hangover? I think we've had this conversation before actually on this podcast, Joe. So the current, at least of the last time that I checked, because I don't look into this often, the last time that I checked, the alcohol dehydrates you to the point where you do have some sort of microdehydration of your spinal cord and your brain actually sits a little bit without cushion on the rest of the structures around your brain causing headaches. And then you also mess up the microflora in your gut. So you don't have as many good bacteria floating around.

So you feel like crap. And that's what gives you the sort of nausea stuff. So what I've been doing, and this is totally anecdotal. And it's helped me sort of curb the hangovers, Joe, buy some kombucha tea, drink about half of that bottle before you go to bed and just chug some water. And I think it'll help. kombucha tea i'm always not medical advice by the way that's totally anecdotal i'm i'm scared to like try kombucha tea it's okay it's it's it's like a fizzy tea and and it doesn't have great

flavor but it's definitely good for you it's good for you but it tastes like shit okay all right like everything else okay anyway all right let's get to injuries here um let's start uh with guys who were already injured and might be nearing a return or in some cases are farther away from return. And let's start with Jerry Judy, who was like our first major injury of the year. And here we are. He got hurt in week one. And now it's week seven.

He's got to be nearing a return from what you thought was a pretty severe high ankle spring. Yeah. So this is sort of falling in line with that four to six week report from Shepter. We know that Fangio came out yesterday and specifically said he's got a quote, less than 50% chance to play on Thursday. I think if it was a Sunday game, he would probably go. But you can plan on having Jerry Judy in week eight, which is fantastic.

And another guy that I didn't mention here is Michael Thomas, who, based on the averages, he is sort of on the outer edge of average in terms of return to play after this specific surgery and the whole drama episode that went down with him over in New Orleans. But my timeline was based on a very arbitrary June 15th surgery. I don't actually know if he did finally undergo surgery June 15th. So give or take a couple of weeks, my original timeline for him, I thought was week seven. Now we're being told he's quote a couple weeks out.

So I think you can expect to see Michael Thomas in week eight or nine. I do think it'll take a little bit of a ramp up period, but not long because they've given him plenty of time here. So that's another guy, two guys coming off very similar injuries. Let's now get to somebody who, oh, he didn't suffer a setback this week, Edwin. We just put him on IR anyway. Christian McCaffrey. Yeah.

I mean, you weren't, you didn't see it. It was at practice. very clearly a set. Yeah, I mean, it was very obviously a setback. I mean, this guy went from a week of limited practice, one limited practice, then a downgrade, and then being placed on IR and you know, Carolina trying to pull the wool over our eyes and tell us that it wasn't a setback. It was very obviously a setback, which is really frustrating, Joe. You have players like Chase Claypool, AJ Brown, Sterling Shepard, all these, even just this year, right? So all these, all these players who are relatively of the same age of Christian McCaffrey, and they were able to,

to come back after about one missed game or so. And really, then another guy we're going to talk about Julio Jones this week. He's the older dude with the more severe hamstring strain. He's the one that's having these recurrences. Like, this is not supposed to be the way it goes for Christian Capri. I think we've hit critical mass with the massive workloads that he's hitting. I mean, what human on earth can handle 95% of snaps when he's healthy in like 25 plus touches in the NFL?

I think that's critical mass. I think, and I hate to criticize other medical staffs when I don't. know what their inner workings are, but I would say that it's probably time to look into the mirror to see how they handle Christian McCaffrey. But now, yep, the soonest you will see Christian McCaffrey is week nine or 10. So that's what we're, that's what we're staring at in the face. So hopefully you have Chuba Hubbard. Chris Carson, we talked about this last week. He's now missed multiple games. But let's tie this in, though, with the fact that his backup, who played pretty well against the Steelers, Alex Collins, has a butt. He does have a butt, Joe. He does indeed

That's what they say with the injuries. Oh, he's got a hamstring. Well, Alex, Collins has a butt. Yeah, so he's got what we would call an ass contusion because Pete Carroll came out and said that he got. Exactly. That's what I told my patients. You have an ass contusion.

He got a helmet to the glute, essentially a glute hip. Pete Carroll, who's very rosy with injuries, as we know, said it wasn't that big of a deal. But this could end up costing him a game or so, which another, I think, under sort of talked about point because people I think are tired of him at the. this point and I'm not. I'm going to ride this this wave out as long as I can. Rashad Penny will be activated from IR this week. So they're going to get some reinforcements. Rashad Penny, Joe, who's had just the worst possible luck that you could have coming in as a

rookie, broke his hand, got behind on the playbook, the front office and the coaching staff didn't agree on the pick in the first place. He was finally coming on, had the ACL tear. Then he probably had some floating, you know, bone fragment, something had to have another procedure. Now he's dealing with the soft tissue stuff that happened in week one. I really think, Joe, this can be the time. Now that Chris Carson has this chronic arthritic neck, now that Alex Collins has shown,

he's kind of, you know, he can be okay with enough volume, but he's pretty much dust. I do think that this could be a time for Rashad Penny to show out. Okay, interesting. See, I like when you give a little bit of a take as well, but Rashad Petty is somebody who everybody's forgotten about. No, just stay. Maybe stash him away. See what happens here.

Damien Williams is coming off the COVID list. well, there's no guarantee he comes off the COVID list, but he missed last week's game. Again, this is a protocol situation. Yes, exactly. It is a protocol situation, but I do want to point out we assume he's going to come off the IR, but we also assume that he tested positive and didn't have symptoms. If he tested positive and had symptoms, this is going to be something that he's going to have to clear with the medical staff.

He's going to have to pass basically a strength and conditioning, sort of conditioning test. He's going to have to clear all these measures. So what I'm saying here with Damien Williams, the reason I wanted to bring him up is don't drop Khalil Herbert just yet. Oh, I'm not dropping him. Edwin, he looked freaking great. He did. He looked fantastic, didn't he?

He really got buried on that depth chart. And then COVID and injuries really brought him to the top. Yeah, they have a good group of running backs in that building. Okay, let's talk about Trey Lance, who was not practicing yesterday. Now, the 49ers are coming off a bye week. So they were getting some work in. I have to imagine Trey Lance is not going to play this week. And it looks like Jimmy Garoppolo, who's coming off a calf injury, will in a little bit of a twist of fate here.

Yeah, right. Isn't that interesting? So Trey Lance is not practicing. We don't know specifically what this injury is. They called it a, quote, sprained knee. I'm going to assume that it's some sort of MCL mechanism because sometimes finding these injuries is like finding a needle in the haystack if I just go back and watch the game and there's no obvious injury. So this is going to be, and Kyle Shanahan did say this is going to be a one to two week thing, quote, for Trey Lance. So we're going to get the Jim and Garoppolo experience another week probably.

And then honestly, then we'll see what happens. Who knows what's going to happen at that point. All right. So we're going to get to some of the injuries that happened this week and some, which are aggravations of older injuries. But first, I need you to come prop up on Thrive Fantasy this football season. Thrive Fantasy is a daily fantasy sports and e-sports app for player props. With Thrive, you can eliminate countless hours of research and focus on only the top-tier athletes who have the biggest impact on the game.

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Download Thrive Fantasy on the app store or the Google Play Store or by visiting www.com and then tune into the extra points live stream every Sunday morning to find out some of our favorite Thrive Fantasy props for the day. and prop up today. Everyone, let's talk about some of the key injuries from week six. The Brown's backfield already reeling. They play on Thursday night football. Kareem Hunt suffered a calf injury, and fortunately, I mean, when I saw where he grabbed, I was fearful of an Achilles tear, a non-contact injury. That is not the case here, but he has a pretty severe calf injury. He goes on IR. Oh, by the way, Nick Chubb already missed practice and a game last week with a calf injury, which I didn't even see. I think we were kind of surprised that he didn't practice, but we've got their top two backs in what was the best backfield in the NFL now perilously thin with Kareem Hunt and Nick Chubb both dealing with calf injuries.

Yeah, I saw a rumor that they were going to sign you and I to the team here, Joe. So they're really running thin with Dernis Johnson. So you probably weigh a little less than I do. I'll be the thunder and you'll be the lightning. There we go. We can both be the thunder, baby. Well, I'm happy to be the thunder. Do you have a one at the start of your weight? I don't. I don't have a one at the start of my weight. Okay. All right. So you're a little, you're a little less lightning than me. The last time I told my wife, the next time I have a one at the start of my weight, she'll be a widow. So I thought you were going to say the next time you have a one, you're going to legally change your name to white lightning. Yeah, yeah. No, she'll be a widow because I'll have been decomposed for a while. So, so Kareem Hunt, right.

calf injury, calf injury that he luckily did avoid the Achilles, which is great. Ian Rappaport says this is going to be about a four to six week injury. I would agree with that. I would say probably somewhere between the four-ish, maybe five at worst based on the data week injury. They're probably going to place him on IR.

Nick Chubb, I don't think he's going to go this week. I haven't seen the estimated practice reports, Joe. I don't know if you have. I don't know if he would have practiced yesterday, if they would have estimated that he would have practiced. They are not ruling him out yet, but I'm still skeptical because, I mean, he didn't practice all the last week and they play on Thursday. Exactly. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't count on having Nick Chubb. So it is, it is once again, de Ernest Johnson season in the Cleveland.

No practice for Chubb, by the way. No practice. Okay. So basically, I think Nick Chub can come back in week eight because they didn't place him on IR. And so that's really the best case scenario you can hope for at this point. There's more with the Browns, though. Odell Beckham and Baker are both dealing with shoulder injuries. And the Baker one, oh, you know, it wasn't like the typical shoulder mechanic, at least that I, you know, when a guy gets sandwiched and it looks like a collarbone. But it looked like Edwin, he got like twisted over his already injured left shoulder. Oh, man, he was obviously in a lot of pain. Yeah, he was in a lot of pain.

This is something that's really going to take a while. He's probably Joe going to need surgery at the end of the season. He's going to probably try to give it a go on Thursday. If he goes, the bottom line is he's highly volatile. With that non-throwing shoulder, it's hard to even elevate the arm. It's painful. It's grinding. It's not something that is very pleasant to play through.

He's probably going to try to play through anyway. He'll be highly volatile. It's hard to sort of stabilize the ball. Getting hit, obviously, the way that he did is very, very likely at this point. He has chronic subluxations. Like I said, he'll probably need surgery. So Baker Mayfield might actually. sit out this Thursday night game. And if he does play, he's highly volatile and someone I'm

staying away from in DFS especially. And no doubt about it. And Odell Beckham, did you see the injury? I didn't see the O'Dell Beckham injury. Um, it was something that looked a bit a C joint-ish. Um, he was able to come back into the game. He would have been limited yesterday by their estimates. So this isn't something that I'm too concerned about with OBJ. Okay. Yeah, he did not practice on Monday, but I mean, we'll see if they're just being cautious there. Now let's talk Antonio Gibson, you have been of the mind, you know, he's like, oh, this isn't painful. And, you know, like, you're like, mm-hmm. And now the shin crept up and he played through it, but this is obviously something that is not going away for Antonio Gibson with the stress factor in the shin.

Yeah. And so here's the interesting part, Joe. I assume that it was also part of the, because he was ruled out with the shin injury. So that both things might be true here. He was stressed. He might have been ruled out with the shin injury and shin pain. They ended up taking, taking an MRI of his calf. So it's a calf sort of soft tissue season here in 2021 post-COVID era. Well, I don't want to say post-COVID. We're in the middle of the COVID era. This is sort of, I think, an afterwave, after shock, all these soft tissue injuries

of the altered workloads. So basically what you're hoping for with Antonio Gibson is that this is a no absence, obviously, his best case scenario. They MRIed his calf. They think that everything's okay, but really this might turn into a Nick Chubb scenario where he misses a game or two. Even at that, Antonio Gibson is just a guy that's banged up. He's getting banged up. He's banged up last year.

Obviously, he's playing through and he has some spike weeks. But I really think that, you know, as this season goes on, they're going to have to give it a rest at some point. So for rest of season outlook on Antonio Gibson, I'd say he's highly volatile. He's a back that if you're struggling out running back, I don't even really want him. on my roster, because, you know, especially as an anchor, because things can just go south at any point with this stress fraction and now the cap. Yeah, my, I'm in a neighborhood league and I was reluctant to join the league, Edwin, because I'm like, you know, I don't want these people to think I'm hustling them.

And there's no upside for me either because if I win, well, I'm supposed to. And if I lose Hardy Har Har Har Har, look at this Joker. Like, he's a fraud. My first two picks were Christian McCaffrey and Antonio Gibson. Oh, bless your heart. So guess which of my teams is doing the worst? Bless your heart. That one.

Dak Prescott has a calf injury. Edwin, it does kind of sound like if they played this week, he might be up in the air, but they're on by this week. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like this actually might be something that would have limited DAC or kept DAC out. I watched the play. It didn't seem like anything crazy out of the ordinary.

Again, probably just an altered workloads, COVID-related issue. here for soft tissue strains in 2021. But they took an MRI and DAC joked after the at the press conference. He's like, we have a bi week this week. So I just was trying to give you guys something to talk about. McCarthy said they didn't think that it was a big idea and that the, the buy week is right around the corner and has perfect timing. So I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

Yeah, we'll see next week if he's not practicing, but nothing to really worry about right now. Another soft tissue injury, Julio Jones, hamstring. He comes back on the field this week. He leaves the field with the hamstring injury. Um, it just feels like this Julio injury and this Julio trade is going to be like a big what if for the Tennessee Titans. Oh, man. Just, Julio Jones is really, the situation is frustrating, man, because it's almost, I don't want to say predictable, because I did say by the end of the off season, I think that Julio is going to be fine. Because usually these guys are fine.

This is, it sounds like a lingering impact from 2020 where he tried to play through this hamstring injury twice. He ended up missing time last year. He's missing time this year. 32, Joe, is not, you know, an old age in terms of everyday life. For an NFL player, resting, recovering, playing against, you know, guys who are quite literally almost 10 years younger than he is. And he's been doing this for so long. It's just catching up to him.

He can't recover as fast and as quickly as the NFL would want, would, you know, require of him. This might imply that it's time to put Julio on a. I.R. for the Titans, they might say, all right, let's just shut him down because, you know, especially after last night, they might be thinking we're a playoff team. There's no reason to push him. So this might lead to Julio Jones being placed on IR, but we know that he's stubborn. We know that he's going to try to play through it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I would advise he doesn't because all of a sudden now Tennessee, who just hadn't been able to get anything going offensively,

I mean, now Derek Henry is carrying them. Literally. I mean, just unfreaking believable, this guy. Now, that's somebody, I think people might want to study medically because they're, the guy's a freak show. Anyway, an injury that happened last night, I didn't actually see this. Maybe it's because I was passing out on the couch. Dawson Knox goes down and it's a hand injury. Now, this had to happen late, Edwin, because he played 79% of the snaps in the game. He had three catches.

He threw a two-point conversion, which I know want some people their fantasy matchups to Josh Allen. But you said it's a hand injury. Yeah, it's a hand injury. The reports are that he actually sustained the hand injury prior to that Philly special, which I thought was interesting because he looked really crappy throwing that. But he looked like a shovel pass, like a knuckle ball. I don't know what he was. Anyway, they pulled it off.

So it was before that. I'm going to have to go back and find it to see exactly what happened. I'm going to assume that their concern is for some sort of fracture. he might have had his hand sort of crashed in between two helmets, but I for now would plan for no Dawson Knox in week, what are we now, Joe? What did we say? Seven. Preliminarily, don't, you know, don't panic yet, but this might turn into sort of a situation

like a Chris Godwin from last year or even a Will Fuller from this year. So for now, make contingency plans on. No, the tight end position is just crucifying us each and every week. I'm sick and tired of it. Edwin, we'll get into the science of crucifixion on a future podcast. But thank you for joining me, man. Go back and go start to see some patience. You're orientating today.

Orientation, Joe. Thanks, man. Yeah, all right, all right. We'll get to Ben Cucanus. Beck Cucanus will give us a word from our sponsors. And then we'll bring in Tom Browley to talk Waver Wire in the Bloodbath. That is week number seven. Right after this.

Thank you very much, Ben. And Tom. Tom Brawley's here, by the way, at Tom Brawley on Twitter. 21 Broly 10 if you want to read the entire WaverWire article this week. But I've got a spoiler for you. There's really not a lot of guys at the top of the WaverWire this week who people are going to be spending a lot of Fab on. Maybe the good news is there won't be a rat race.

You don't need to go out there and in a week where there's six teams on by where you have to go nuts. However, Tom, there are going to be teams starting some absolute crap this week. week seven and it's unavoidable. Guys are hurt. Six teams are on by, including some very good fantasy teams. It's just a mess. It really is a mess, Tom.

And we're going to have to talk about some of these lower end options this week. I mean, it's just one of those weeks where don't worry if you're starting, I'm on, heck, I'd be excited to start on Ross St. Brown this week. Like, don't worry if you're starting Chester Rogers. There's going to be people who have to do that too. Yeah, it's, we got the bills on. on by Cowboys, Jaguars, Chargers, Vikings, and Steelers. So, I mean, there are plenty of big-time fantasy assets on that team, on those six teams. We have the injuries piling up at the running back

position. You know, we're going to be down to Deerunis Johnson and Demetri Felton at running back in Cleveland after having two RB1 studs coming out of that roster. So this is, it's a tough time of ear right now. There's not a whole lot out there on the waiver wire to help you out. So don't feel terrible if you're trotting out some real scrubs here this week. We're going to be patching together, but we'll try to give you some even some just like one-off guys here that might be worth of worth a look here to maybe give you some just a little bit of fantasy juice here this week. It's going to be a rough one. We're going to have some low scores out there this week. No doubt about it. So let's start now with, let's start with a couple of backfields. And let's start with those Browns guys. Deerunish Johnson, Tom, is slow, but he can grind it out. Demetrick Felton has basically played more receiver than running back this year. It's looking like that's going to be the Cleveland backfield on Thursday night here against the Broncos. Yeah, it's looking like Kareem Hunt will be placed on the IR this week. He's looking at an extended absence. He's going to be probably out for at least a month.

Nick Chubb, I mean, fingers crossed, but it, you know, it's a long shot that he's going to play this weekend. You know, maybe if they were playing on Sunday, we might have an outside chance, but the Thursday night, you know, this being a Thursday night game, probably, you know, it really hinders his chances of playing this week. So we're down to Dearnis Johnson and Felton here. And I really don't have too much, you know, revelatory statements to make about these guys. as you said, Johnson is a bit of a plotter here. He's going to, you know, they're going to stick it in his belly 15 times, and they're hoping he can average three and a half, four yards of carry.

And, you know, maybe he gets a touchdown for you. You know, Broncos defense has, you know, falling apart here a little bit since their three and O start. So, you know, the offense is, you know, this is a run first offense. So he should at least get opportunities and maybe gives you a chance at scoring a touchdown this week. And Felton, you know, he hasn't been, he had a, he popped, you know, early in the season. I think it was back in week two. You know, has been relatively quiet since then. But, you know, with all the injuries and, you know, if you go look at that Cleveland Brown's injury report, it's, it's pretty gruesome, you know, Odell Beckham's on it now. Chance Jarvis Landry's back this week. But, you know, Felton's, Felton's been playing more as a wide receiver than in the backfield. But, you know, um, Maybe he has, you know, they kind of use them all over the field here this week.

Should get some backfield snaps. So in PPR formats, maybe he's a guy to look at to, you know, hopefully give you a three or four catches in this game and, you know, just some production here. But it's going to be kind of ugly here moving forward. Hopefully we get Nick Chubb back in that backfield starting next week. But it looks like it's going to be Johnson and Felton here this week. I mean, just utterly disgusting.

And by the way, Baker Mayfield, Nodell Beckham are hurt. So, I mean, it's a run-first team with, uh, with no quarterback, no receivers and no running backs, but, you know, besides. Yeah, and their whole defense is hurt, too. It's, uh, it's no wonder their, that spread has come all the way down to the Browns minus three this week. I think it'll be up at like five and a half. So it, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets under a field goal here this week. I mean, it might be at a point where, I mean, with the way with Baker, obviously in severe pain, it, we might be at the point where Case Keatham's the better option, just. for a couple of weeks. I mean, yeah, I don't know what their options are really at this point. I mean, I don't know if Rest is really going to, you know, be, you know, but he needs something. I mean, if that arm is just going to keep, you know, separating, it's, it's an ugly situation for the Browns right now. The Washington backfield, Antonio Gibson, Edwin's now worried about the calf. He's got a shin. The MRI at his calf. Tom, we're at the point here. We're in by weeks. J.D. McKissick might be

like a weekly flex at this point. Yeah, I don't, he's only owned in 42% of Yahoo leagues. I don't know how it isn't about 60 or 70% at this point. This is your last chance to get him. You know, he's getting more involved as a runner. And, you know, he, he, you know, he's playing a lot as a receiver anyway. So, you know, we're, you know, we're very concerned about Gibson at this point. You know, he's playing through the, the stress fracture in his shin here. This team, this is a team that's been one of the underperformers this year, sitting at two and four. If it keeps heading south here, there's a chance that they could shut them down in the future here. So if you're an Antonio

Gibson owner, I would be looking at Jared Patterson, a rookie out of Buffalo. He's only 2% owned. He should be, you know, even if you're not an Antonio Gibson owner, you should maybe be looking to go pick him up and maybe have a back that's going to be, you know, leading the team and rush it, you know, getting the most carries in a backfield year in just a matter of weeks. So, you know, now is the time to pounce on these, you know, the Washington football team running backs behind Antonio Gibson in case his injury situation gets worse here. Another back where, who actually ended up, I think, running the most routes in the New England backfield was Ramandre Stevenson. Tom, I mean, against Dowell, I thought Damien Harris

looked freaking awesome. but the problem is they don't trust them in passing game situations. And they, so they're going to play somebody else there. Stevenson, I actually thought that was Bolden making plays in the passing game. It was Stevenson. He's got an opportunity now to work into a rotation here. That is not to say anything about Damien Harris, who looked awesome as the lead back coming off the chest injury.

But it does seem like Damian Harris's snap shares kind of capped at 50%, maybe even in a good game script and Stevenson's going to, going to work in here. Yeah, you're right. Joe, I was having the same issue. I think they're both 36 and 38 or so they have very similar number 28 and 38. I was so confused watching that game. But Stevenson is now, you know, I don't, there's, we can never take anything for granted with a Bill Belichick backfield, uh, but, uh, they have every incentive to keep putting more on this kid's plate. Brandon Bolton is just a guy. He's, he's more of a special team player than anything else. They probably ideally would like him to get back to focusing more on special teams and

heading up those units and, you know, getting him off the field a little bit more. And, you know, they spent a pick on Stevenson, put him in the doghouse early in the year after a fumble. But, you know, I thought he looked pretty good as a receiver. It was only eight routes to seven routes for Stevenson over Bolden. But it's at least notable that it was the first time that he's ran more routes than I'm in, run more routes than I'm in. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Stevenson, all of a sudden, we've touched on everything that's going on at the running back position and with buys, he's going to be a viable RB2 slash flex for a lot of teams

this week. You know, hopefully he can continue to see passes in the passing game, but, you know, we saw him finish at the goal line as well. Damien Harris had played a long series, got winded, Stevenson came in and finished it off at the goal line. So there's going to be opportunities for him here. James White is out of this, you know, out of this back field with his injury. So we've seen that. It's a very viable fantasy role, that passing back in a Patriots offense. So this is, you know, probably your last chance to snatch up Stevenson here.

Edwin talks about Rashad Penny on the injury part of the podcast. And he seems pretty optimistic about his recovery. Chris Carson's on IR. He's got the neck. Alex Collins has the butt. Yeah, the butt and tip there. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Rashad Penny, DJ Dallas, and heck, there might even be some people who might say, hey, look, Travis Homer made a couple of plays in the passing game and all I need is a few catches and get a few points. The problem is here, it could be a messy Seattle backfield, but we know what did Pete Carroll come out and say after that game? You know, even in the loss, he's like at halftime, we have to go out and we have to run the ball. Alex Collins had a nice game.

They're going to run the ball with Gino-Smith, the quarterback. It doesn't matter who's back there. They're going to try to run it. Yeah, we've touched on a lot of guys that maybe can pick up and, you know, playing this this week. Penny is more of a guy. You're looking long-term here.

You stash them. I still think, we'll see about Alex Collins' status this week. It kind of feels like he'll be able to play this week. And he's kind of, he kind of vaulted ahead of him in training camp anyway. But Penny's the more, you know, he's when everything is right, you know, he's the most dynamic option in his backfield, but injuries have kind of ravaged his career here in recent seasons. But, you know, if there's a chance that he gets back to full strength here, Chris Carson is not right. You know, he has this arthritic neck issue that they're pushing it, you know, pushing the can down the road here,

giving them a couple weeks here by putting them on the IR, but it doesn't seem like he's going to be getting better, you know, back to 100% this season. Alex Collins, you know, has played fairly well, but, you know, he's just an above average option in this backfield. So Penny is a guy I'd be picking up and stashing and hope he starts to flash in his opportunities. And maybe there's a chance that he, you know, runs this backfield at some point in the near future. One guy who I want to point out here, they're going on by next week, not this week, but next. Tom, the Ravens have this throwback fields. Like they have all these guys who have all run for 1,000 yards, but none of them since 2017. But watching their game this past week against the Chargers, I honestly think Devante Freeman looks the best of their running backs.

Oh, I totally agree with you, Joe. He had a little pep in a step. He was running some guys over, making guys missing in space as well. You know, Latavius Murray has looked plodding all season long. Levy on Bell. I forget what Graham put in her text message. He looks like a lawnmower out there. He's up grass. So Freeman looks like the best option here. We don't know what Latavius Murray's looking at here. He looks in pretty big pain there coming off the field in that week six victory.

As he said, they do have a buy week. Maybe there's a chance that they're like, all right, let's just sit them down here. You might sit week seven. Yeah, let him sit here week seven at least. Let them get right. right? We got Tyson Williams behind him here. So we have another body here that can sub in here. But, you know, just the way Freeman's played here, there's just more signs of life from here.

So, you know, maybe there's a chance that he can become the top back in his back. You know, I don't know if it's going to be a real fruitful position here. I still think they're going to be rotating all these guys. But, you know, maybe he can get to, you know, 45, 50 percent of the snaps and maybe have the most opportunities to score touchdowns in this backfield eventually. Monkey Knife Fight, the fastest growing daily fantasy sports site on the planet is a daily fantasy sports operator offering a unique style of player props. And one of the things we really love about MKF is that you simply don't have to spend

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Remember the code Fantasy PTS for that deposit bonus. And you can also find out more information on the Fantasy Points homepage. Tom, I mean, we can't just go through everybody who's on the Waverwire article. 21 Braille 10, by the way, if you want to read the whole thing. There's about 100 names on here. So I just want to touch on another couple of guys. Two at the wide receiver position in particular, Rashad Bateman and Ty Whitehall.

Yeah, Bateman, you know, this was his first NFL action. He was a first round pick, and he came right out, took over Sammy Watkins' his spot and, you know, matched Mark Andrews with a team best six targets last week. You know, he's not going to be, I don't think he's going to be getting the money throws from, from Lamar Jackson, the deep shots like Marquise Brown gets, but he's going to get these, you know, intermediate throws. And he has a chance to, you know, kind of settle in as a four to five, you know, catch guy, you know, 50 to 60 yards. And maybe he scored some touchdowns here.

So great first signs from him, you know, stepped into a big role right away. And, you know, he ran, he played on 65% of the snaps. That game was a blowout. They were pulling out a lot of their guys in the fourth quarter. So he, you know, right away, he was probably looking at, you know, if it was a competitive game, 80 to 90% of that snap, percent of the snaps in his first game. So great, great initial signs there for Bateman. And Hilton, you know, he got right back to being the Texans killer there.

Four catches for 80 yards. But he did pick up a quad injury. They play Monday night. That's going to make this situation a little bit hairy for our purposes for the waiver wire. You know, definitely somebody you still want to pick up, though. Still has some juice. Looked like, you know, he saw just four targets and caught them all. So, you know, getting off on the right foot with Carson Wentz, his new quarterback here.

He's been a guy in the past that's taken some time to get, you know, some good chemistry going with his quarterback. So we saw with Philip Rivers last year, it really took until the end of November, early December there for him to get going. but he still has some juice in those legs. And Joe, I'll give you a couple. You know, this is, we're a desperation time here.

Yeah. This week. So a couple like dart throws. Maybe you pick them up and you hope they play and they, you know, give you a couple big plays. A guy, you know, that's been forgotten about in Green Bay here, Marquez Valdez Scantling, he had a hamstring injury. He's eligible to return this week.

We haven't heard if he's going to play or not. But they haven't really had somebody step up in his absence. They haven't. I mean, Randall Cobb had a good game against the Steelers. The first week he was off, but just nothing from Lazard and Cobb the last two weeks. So they play the Washington football team. And their secondary has been giving up big plays left and right this season. So if he's healthy enough to be, you know, picked up off the IR, he could be a guy.

You could be, you know, throwing into your lineup this week and just hoping he hits a long one. And the other one is Donovan People Jones here. We know that, you know, Denver's secondary, I mean, they gave up a bunch of big plays. I think seven plays of 25 plus yards against the Broncos last week. Henry Ruggs ripped them a couple times. You know, they've been, it was the Steelers the week before with Deonti Johnson and Chase Claypole catching long touchdown passes. So, you know, Odell Beckham's on the injury report, Jarvis Landry, we don't know. So maybe he continues the, he's on a nice little run here the last two weeks.

So he's widely available at 1% of it. At tight end, we talked with Edwin, Dawson Knox picked up an injury. We don't know what the status is there. Go get Ricky Seals Jones people. I mean, you could maybe use them for just this week. If Logan Thomas can't come off IR, you can keep using him. They literally use him in Logan Thomas's role. He has 100% of that role.

Yeah, and he just missed having a great game. Two weeks ago, you know, it came back. The regressed in the positive way here. He got wide open behind the chief secondary last week, scores the long touchdown. You know, he's a tight end one here for as long as Logan Thomas is out of lineup. So, I mean, even if you have a top guy at the position right now, I might be picking them up and you could consider them for a flex spot if you're really hurting.

You know, don't love to usually play two tight ends. But when we're getting into these week six lineups here with six teams on by and running back injuries all over the place. And, you know, it's not out of the question that you could use a guy like Ricky Seals Jones in a flex spot. Yeah. And then, Tom, there's going to be some big time quarterbacks on by this week. Some guys who you might be able to be interested in picking up, maybe Carson Wentz.

Again, we just talked about, though, all of a sudden now his receiving gores back to being injured again. Teddy Bridgewater plays that devastated Brown's defense on Thursday night. James Winston. has the Seahawks coming up this week, but then the Bucks. And then a guy, I mean, look, the team sucks. They're awful. The vibes are terrible.

But Tuatunga Viloa has the Falcons this week. Yeah. And, you know, it was a, you know, he was playing the Jaguar's defense. He got to throw that caveat in there. But, you know, he didn't have Devante Parker, didn't have Will Fuller. And he still put up some pretty big numbers for fantasy, 202 fantasy points. So I thought it was a pretty good sign. He ran a little bit, too.

He had 22 rushing yards. you know, he's certainly viable. And maybe, you know, he's got the Falcons this week in a matchup with Houston in three weeks here. So he's got some beatable matchups in the near future. Hopefully he gets a full receiving court here as well. Sounds like Devante. Devonte Parker was pretty close to playing last week, but couldn't quite get there. So, you know, hopefully he gets a couple extra bodies at receiver for him to to excel here against the Falcons.

The Waverwire article of FantasyPoint.com is massive. And I mean, there are guys, like, you might be talking, shouting at your car radio, your shower radio, your computer, wherever you're listening to this is saying, Dolan and Brawley, you idiots. Like, my league's a 16-te team league and Devante Freeman's already rostered. Like, trust me, we have guys in this article. You can pick up who might be usable in your league this week, but we just can't talk about them all here. So go to fantasy points.com. 21 Broly 10 gets you an extra 10%. off on top of the discount that we already have because, you know, we're a third of the way

through the season. So our site is discounted up to this point. We can still help you get into the playoffs, win in the playoffs. Trust me, you will be glad you did. He is Tom Broly at Tom Broly on Twitter. I'm Joe Dolan at FG underscore Dolan on Twitter. Edwin Poros is at FB injury doc on Twitter. Make sure you follow him as well. Thanks everybody for the week seven waiver wire podcast. Throw some tweets out to us. Who are the big is skanks you're starting this week because we'll we'll love to hear them because tom i'm already looking in our 14 team our long-term league half my team's on by i mean i'm going to have to pick up some absolute ass to play in that week it's gonna be it's gonna be brutal out there this week be

careful out there and uh you know whoever you pick up off the way more i hope they give you like eight points you might that might be like a gem this week uh all right that's it see everybody talk to you next week thanks for tuning in with this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform and come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com.