Fantasy Football Daily - Week 9 Fantasy Football: League-Winning Players & Rising Trends | School of Scott

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Welcome to School of Scott, the ultimate fantasy football masterclass hosted by Scott Barrett of FantasyPoints.com. In this episode, Scott and Theo Gremminger breakdown key takeaways from "The Everything Report." Week 9 Everything Report - https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/the-everything-report-week-9#/ 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

Anthony Richardson has now been benched, seemingly for the rest of the season. What does that do to Josh Downs, Jonathan Taylor, Michael Pittman, and the rest of the Indianapolis Colts? We're talking about league winners. We're talking about different fantasy football trends. A lot has shifted this week. This is the School of Scott Fantasy Football podcast. We are taking a deeper dive into the box scores and helping you become a better fantasy football player. I'm Theo Graminger.

Every week, I'm joined by Scott Barrett. hence the school of Scott. And everything we're discussing here on the school of Scott can be found in Scott Barrett's Everything Report, as well as fantasy points data. And if you want access to the stuff we're talking about, use the code School 25 and take a look for yourself. Scott, you got so much to unwrap.

How are you doing today? This is like a wild, wild week yet again. But we got to start off at the top. Your reaction to the Anthony Richardson benching. First, like a bird's eye view, Scott. was it the correct decision and what does it do to all the weapons in indianapolis yeah so so the decision i think is really interesting you and i sort of debated this you were uh on on brett's side of the aisle i was kind of i just think there's more to the story here um so like i i get why

you could say this is kind of stupid it's like okay maybe you can make the playoffs with flaco but you're not going to be a a super bowl team and this really kneecaps you long term. Anthony Richardson, you know, exciting young prospect player who you spent top five draft capital on. He only has like 20, 25 starts since high school. So he needs this experience. You put his numbers up against Josh Allen's rookie season. And, you know, it's the exact same, you know, really poor efficiency, to be fair. You know, Josh Allen was a total outlier. But Buffalo, you know, stuck with him. And it paid dividends. And, you know, know this was a player who when he was coming out we were saying might have that sort of

josh allen upside here's what i'll say though is one of my sources told me week two or week three of the season they were talking to one of indianapolis's young wide receivers who said um richardson quote unquote richardson is not it i asked him to uh i asked him to you know uh meet with me in the off season, meet with me after practice, meet with me on, you know, a day without practice to, you know, get some extra reps in, toss the ball around, whatever. And he was like, nah, I'm good. And so this young receiver went to one of the older, more veteran receivers. I was like, you know, maybe it's just because, you know, I'm not likely to be a starter. I'm young. Hey, can you, can you talk to our quarterback, see if we can get some extra reps in? And the

veteran receiver did that Richardson said, nah, I'm good. This is what my source told me. I don't know how true this is, but that's what he told me. And so I don't think you make a decision like this unless something like this isn't true. You know, so like you're maybe you're not putting the extra reps in. There's work ethic concerns. You're not spending enough time watching tape as you should be. And to be fair, like we've seen zero growth from year one to year to maybe negative growth and zero growth as the season has progressed. So I think I think that's what explains this decision is there's sort of information behind the scenes that we're not privy to, which would be something along the lines of you're not

putting in the necessary effort. You risk losing the locker room, sticking with this guy, et cetera. As for as for what this means for the past catchers and the offense as a whole, it's, yeah, this is what we've been looking forward to. You know, every week and everything reports since about week three, I've been saying, you know, if Richardson gets benched, if Deshaun Watson gets benched, it's, it's wheels up, you know, it's is Joe Flacco elite. He's probably not an elite, like, real life NFL quarterback, but he's, he's proven to be an elite fantasy force multiplier for the three different teams he's played for over the last three seasons. You look back when he was with the Jets, it was like, uh, With Zach Wilson starting, the Jets were bottom two in passing guards per game. With Joe Flacco and the other backup starting, they were top two in passing yards per game, which was crazy last year from week 14 on.

Flacco was the QB2 by fantasy points per game. Amari Cooper was the wide receiver one. David and Joku was the tight end one or the wide receiver three. And then you look at this season with Joe Flacco games Joe Flacco started, the Colts are averaging 30. one catchable targets per game leads all teams and anthony richards since starts basically half that 16.2 dead last among all teams with no other team really looking all that close and so yeah to me the big takeaway here so i think josh downs is a league winner and you know i kind of was arguing all offseason i'm never going to be drafting michael pitman why because josh downs is such a better value

and you looked at their production last year when Downs is a rookie, and it was basically the same when they were both healthy and both on the field. And so right now he's just totally out alfing Michael Pittman, who, to be fair, I has been dealing with a pretty serious back injury, but nonetheless, and you look at three games with Flacco. Downs would be leading all wide receivers and catchable targets per game, would rank top seven in fantasy points per game with Richardson. he's about 66th in catchable targets per game 52nd in fantasy points per game you know that's in spite of

his his big game last week but yeah i i see massive league winning potential here you know i got some questions cedric tilman or josh downs on waivers and to me that's easy uh i would not even close not even close yeah i would levels to this thing man that's right that's right so i would i would break the bank for for a josh downs if he's on your waiver one yeah no i love a lot of what you said i think that like my initial reaction is from a pure NFL perspective, if I'm going to draft somebody who's inexperienced, they need the start. So it was very poor process from the start. I think devil's advocate is the teams that are become self-aware that something's not working and move on. That's proven to be like historically a good bet. You go back to like Josh Rosen

being passed by for Kyler Murray for that sort of instance. So I think there was, the Colts obviously messed that one up. Houston Texans look smarter every single day. they walk away with Will Anderson and certainly C.J. Stroud in the same draft with Bryce Young and now Anthony Richardson both benched. That's your top four. Anderson dominating the defensive side of the ball. C.J. Stroud, a big time winner at the NFL level. Love what you said about Josh Downs. Josh Downs is certainly like, I was asked a start sit question. And it was like I was listed like a bunch of guys who you would probably classify the two of us would probably classify as at the very least like an exciting flex. And I was listed. I was listed like a bunch of guys who you would probably classify as at the very least like an exciting flex. And I was. want to start Josh Downs over every one of them. The only one I wasn't starting him over was like Drake London. Like Josh Downs, the production that we've seen in four games with, well, three games with Flacco and then the most recent game, which was last week, where he really seemed to pass Michael Pittman by in every way, is he's had 15.9 or more fantasy points four times. That's elite category. Then you talk about where he lines up, where he's an elite winner in the slot.

But this is like a guy complete wheels up, explosive player. Josh Downs, like, you can't stress this enough. If your league mate does not value Josh Downs, like somewhere as like a high-end wide receiver two right now, this needs to be a player you go and trade for. I love all of that. And I think you said a couple interesting things about like starting experience. I actually think that the Richardson, the Richardson sort of failure. And any way you cut it, it's sort of a failure.

You nailed it. He played better before the injury as well, which is a. another sort of like talking point. But when you look at the young quarterbacks who are successful right now that have certainly gained dynasty value or gained NFL value this year, Jaden Daniels had 55 college starts, Bo Nix had 61 college starts, Brock Purdy, 47 college starts, and then Caleb Williams, 37, Drake May 30, and C.J. Sprout even had 25, even though, like, you know, he sat for a little while. So I think that there's going to be a little bit more of a movement for we want polished products. And a lot of these players who are in Anthony Richardson shoes are going to stay in

college and make an extra million dollars in NIL and come to the league with more experience. So I think it's going to actually make quarterback play better moving forward on sort of all levels. And not to get to like Dynasty-ish or Devi-ish, but the two best college prospects right now for us in Dynasty, Cam Ward and Shadur Sanders are both going to enter the NFL with a lot of as well, so a huge cycle. We're going to take a quick break. And then we come back. We're going to briefly talk about Jonathan Taylor, what he looks like moving forward in

this offense. And we're going to touch upon Cedric Tillman, James Winston, and the evolving Cleveland Brown's offense. This is School of Scott. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the School of Scott. Theo Greminger with Scott Barrett every single week right here. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast.

Scott, I want to get your opinion on Jonathan Taylor here. I don't think this is being talked about. enough. I think there's a lot of talk about sort of Josh Downs and certainly a little bit of Michael Pittman. What's going to go on with those guys, their Ascension? What does this do for Jonathan Taylor? Does this move him up in a way? Or are you sort of neutral with your assessment of Taylor? I think I'm probably a little neutral. Maybe it's a slight upgrade. But, you know, like Taylor's been great. Like, he's super under, like at least from a DFS standpoint, he's super underrated. He's been like 2% owned every single week in DFS on DFS, even though the price tag isn't

very high. But he's averaging 20. Draft King's fantasy points per game over his last nine. He's hit 17.4 and all the two of those games. His usage is like arguably best in the league. He leads all running backs by backfield XFP market share last week, 83% of the snaps, 20 of 20 carries, 21. of 27 backfield routes. And so without Richardson, and then the Colts maybe lean on him a little bit less, lean more pass-heavy, less run-heavy. I think there's a slight efficiency ding just because with hyper-mobile quarterbacks, that's sort of a rushing game efficiency cheat code for the running backs.

But I think all that's going to be more than offset by improved efficiency, more sustained drives more redstone drives and the scoring potential so uh i would i would give a yeah a slight upgrade to jonathan taylor who looks great usage is great uh very talented player so yeah and of course of course uh you know no no touchdown vultures um from from joe flacco probably not very likely him him taking it in with his legs uh where you have that risk with anthony richards and although again maybe the bigger takeaways there's just more red zone drives with the more effective offense. Yeah, I think you're spot on with that. And I was actually very impressed by Jonathan Taylor's level of play coming back. There was no real ramp up. I think they were very smart

with how they kind of held him out and brought him back at the right time. Anybody thinking it was going to be somewhat of a committee for a week or two, that notion went away very quickly. Taylor with Flacco, he's a 20 carry-a-game guy. And they have a huge, a potential shootout type environment against Minnesota this week. It's a very, very exciting one with the amount of wide receiver success that Minnesota is allowed, but we can't spend the whole pod talking about Anthony Richardson being benched. We got to talk about James Winston. This has sort of been a skeleton key to open up everything in Cleveland. It's almost criminal looking back now about how they could keep James Winston on the bench because, Scott, we've been talking about for like three

weeks here about David and Joku, David and Joku, David and Joku, David and Joku, but we haven't had a chance to talk about what this could do to the wide receiver position. Really, we thought about when Amari Cooper moved dawn about how limited they might be at the wide receiver spot. But not only do we have Cedric Tillman coming on, but we also have Elijah Moore. And I thought you made a very good comment about how this might be the best situation Elijah Moore has ever had as a pro. Maybe share your thoughts on how you're viewing Cedric Tillman and how you're viewing Elijah Moore moving forward. And then you've got to share your thoughts on James. Yeah. So everyone just groaned when you brought up Elijah Moore.

We'll get to that in a little bit. I just, James Winston, dude, I love him so much. I've been hyping him up in everything report since like week two where it's like he is a great super flex dash.

It's only a matter of time. And boy, did he deliver. Deshawn Watson's having the worst quarterback season or start to a season of the new millennia by EPA per play, EPA per dropback. What is James Winston?

do the upset of the season, throws for 334 yards, three touchdowns. Best did Watson's Cleveland High by 45 yards. He had never thrown for 300 yards with the Browns. But now Winston and Flacco have done that in six of seven combined starts. His EPA per dropback average was double that of any Watson start with the Browns. And yeah, and so this had a massive trickle-down effect on you know, the tight end, David and Joku had a big game as we sort of expected, but Cedric Tillman stepped up to the tune of 30 or 29 fantasy points. I was not really buying into

what we saw last week. I thought this was a product of the backup connection and the shower narrative, if you guys know what those are, just because Tillman played high school ball with DTR and it was really DTR who locked onto him. And then Winston came into the game. And and targeted Judy, who's, you know, one of the top 17 highest paid wide receivers in football. And I'll take the L. No, Cedric Tillman looked awesome. Actually looked awesome, played great, super productive, made me a lot of money in DFS. But it was Elijah Moore who led the team in first read Target share, led the team in catchable air yards. He looks really good. Like, again, everyone's groaning because this is one of my biggest Ls of all time that it took me a while to take

the L on and I've finally taken the L on. And now we're back to talking about Elijah Moore. And it's just, yeah, this might be the best offensive environment of his career. The guy, like, analytically has always looked good. He just doesn't see catchable targets. On tape, he's always looked good. And, yeah, caught eight to 12 targets, 85 yards last week, above Judy for the second straight week. And, yeah, there's certainly some upside here. I don't know that it's, Cedric Tillman's going to, you know, put up, you know, average 25 fantasy points per game moving forward like he has the last two weeks. And Elijah Moore is going to get, you know, 12 plus targets.

But certainly the upside for that is there now. I think I need to see it another few weeks before I really buy into that. But it's just, yeah, when you have James Winston, instead of the worst quarterback in football, it really has this power. like this this massive upgrade to your offense and can have a power law impact for for fantasy for sure yeah it's it's like completely night and day with Cleveland and it's a very odd team because their overall record is terrible but now there's this sort of weekly optimism with james Winston at quarterback where you go from a deshawn Watson who was very very disliked for for obvious reasons off the field, but also a very guarded person in the way he approached the media

to James Winston, who is just this incredible sound bite. The guy's quoting Eminem talking about he's going to talk about this white boy from Detroit. And then he goes on and starts quoting Eminem. The guy's just one of the most likable guys in the NFL, you root for James. And I think it's interesting because I think there's a chance. I mean, James just beat the Ravens. If James can have this like second half of the season where there's some positivity there, could Cleveland choose to go with him next year, whether as a bridge quarterback or as just their quarterback? I mean, if you look at some of the recent success stories of the quarterback position, Baker Mayfield on his third NFL team, Baker is QB2 overall.

Gino is on his fourth NFL team, late breakout type guy. And then Sam Darnold on his third, I believe third NFL team. And Sam Darnold obviously is leading Minnesota to winning record. So I think it's sort of like the moneyball approach to the quarterback position. Does Cleveland choose to do that? It's also not to get too ahead of ourselves, not like the deepest quarterback class upcoming. Cleveland could also draft a quarterback and then just keep playing James. So I think everything's sort of open for that.

And then regarding Elijah Moore, this is like, Scott, you're never wrong, man. You're just early when it comes to takes. And Elijah Moore, we've seen him do it on an NFL field for prolonged weeks, not just like a couple of one-offs. Like rookie year Elijah Moore, go pop in the tape. The guy had several smash weeks. Obviously, year two, huge disappointment. And then Cleveland has been a sort of mess up situation. But anyway, you cut it, Moore and Tillman are ahead of Jerry Judy right now.

We don't really have to consider him as much. Those two guys seem to be the main wide receivers. And they're both day two NFL draft picks. One was a third rounder. One was a second rounder. and they're in a situation where they're going to see a lot of targets moving forward. So sort of never say never there. We also saw the return this week of Pukunakua.

And Pookanakua came back the same day, or excuse me, the same game as Cooper Cup. So L.A. talking about like teams changing it up and their outlook moving forward, L.A. gets back not one wide receiver one, but two wide receiver ones. And Scott, I thought it was super funny. the mental gymnastics people had with do I start Puka, do I bench Puka that first game, like decoy Puka, and then Puka just comes out and completely dominates. Your thoughts on the L.A. Rams, their outlook moving forward, and how we should consider Pukua and Cooper Cup in terms of their overall value, like how you would sort of rank them moving forward.

Yeah, I think the Rams are just now one of the top juggernaut offenses in both real life football and fantasy football, but especially fantasy football. Nate Tice had this great stat where it's like last year, when Kyron, Puka, and Cup were all on the field together, they averaged X EPA per play, which was far and away the best of any offense and would rank top 10 in any season since 2000. And now keep in mind,

last year, Cup was playing at far less than 100%. Even, you know, just coming back from injury, it's a lot different than what it was last year where he was at i don't know you the way you hear shaw mcvay talk about it is like he was playing it like it was a miracle he was on the field at all now things are different within that sample does include you know they scored 30 points against the best defense in football and then from a fantasy standpoint this offense is so heavily condensed around these three players it's just so much better for fantasy and it's really good for real life football um so how do i rank these players

I think there's an argument to be made. Kairn should be the RB one overall this week. Top three at a minimum. Leads all running backs in Snapshare, top five in XFP per game, top five in fantasy points per game, just saw a massive uptick in targets last week. A more efficient offense means more sustained drives, it means more plays, more red zone drives,

more touchdown potential for a guy who in this season and last season leads all players in Red Zone XFP per game. And then for the wide receivers, you know, it certainly looked like Nakua out Alfa'd Cup, although he only had one more target. He was kind of just more productive. If you factor in week one,

when they were on the field together, Cup is out targeted in Akua 18 to 13. Who should you rank higher? I don't know. I would just lean cup because that's how I had it in the off season. But it really seems like a toss-up. I think you're just both. I think you're just ranking both as top 10 wide receivers and starting both of them every week moving forward.

Yeah, don't split hairs. Just put them in your starting lineup. We're going to take another quick break. And when we come back, we're going to get Scott's opinion on what the Deontte Johnson acquisition does to the Baltimore Ravens. We'll be right back. So, Scott, we had another wide receiver trade this week. The AFC arms race continues. We saw DeAndre Hopkins go to the Kansas City Chiefs. Amari Cooper is a Buffalo Bill.

Devante Adams is a New York jet, and the Ravens, they had to go get one. So they go trade the Carolina Panthers for Deontay Johnson. What was interesting is of all the players I sort of mentioned, Deontay was the cheapest to acquire. Do you think this does anything to Baltimore, or is this a little bit more of a, of like a fancy depth piece for them? Yeah, this really doesn't make a lot of sense. Like, nothing about this makes sense. Like, Deonti Johnson should not be acquired for what he was acquired. Like, he is a much better talent.

We saw it with Annie Dalton on the field, you know, as superstar, elite separator. And he gets sold for peanuts, right? And then he goes to the Ravens. And then, like, that's such a weird team because they rank dead last in rate of 11 personnel. They're at 29% league average is 61%. So it's like, how does he even get on the field? Zay Flats, like I had just written up my blurb for Zay Flowers, and then this trade goes through and like, it was this glowing endorsement on Flowers.

Stephen O'Rourke, one of our data charters, had a video of Zay Flowers on a route last week. It was not a double move. It was like a septuple move. It was one of the sickest things I've ever seen. He's bawling out. He's playing out of his mind. He's really productive for fantasy. And then Baitman, an all-time ask God, who's like finally starting to produce, although

the target volume still not there. And then you add Deontay Johnson to the mix, another one of my all-time favorite players. And it's like, there has to be an odd man out, or they just overnight go from 29% to like 75%, 11 personnel, which I really don't see happening.

Jazeena Anderson just told us a couple hours ago that flowers and Bateman are still going to be the starters. So maybe Deontay just like, really isn't going to have a tremendous impact or he's just depth, which is just like crazy. But like based on the price you paid, I certainly get that. It's just like he's so much more talented than that. And so I wonder if maybe, you know, I don't want to be too conspiratorial, but it's like

the Richardson thing where there's more going on that we're not aware of where, you know, Dave Tepper just really strikes me as like a stubborn, stubborn sort of guy. And so maybe, you know, Deonté was like demanding a trade, and that's why we didn't see him on the field. And Tepper knew, you know, he's trying to get a bag, right? He's about to be a free agent. He wants to get paid. So where could I put him where he's, you know, he's kind of, he's not going to see the ball. He's not going to improve his stock.

Oh, I know. I'll trade him to Baltimore. Like, it's certainly conceivable to me that, like, Houston. maybe offered more or a team like that would have offered more. But, you know, screw this guy. You know, I'll send him somewhere where he's not going to be a starter. And then for the Ravens, that makes sense. It's like, oh, really good player, basically free.

And, you know, we're blocking the Texans. There might be some off-the-field stuff with Deonti that made him cheap. I don't know. Maybe that's too conspiratorial. But the whole thing was just really weird to me to make a lot of sense. I think if you take Josina Anderson, what she said, said at face value, you have to, you know, maybe Doc, say flowers a little bit, Doc, Doc Bateman a little bit. And then like, you're not starting Deontay until you see something.

But if you can't have Mark Andrews up to, you know, a 60% route share with regularity, I don't have any trust in him. I really don't have any trust in Bateman. And just hopefully hopefully this helps Lamar a little bit and it doesn't hurt flowers too much. Yeah, I think there's a lot to unwrap there. I do agree with you that there is some conspiracy theory behind this because Baltimore blocked several teams that they might have to face off against. And they didn't allow those teams to cover up needs. And they, this was like a completely like a luxury ad for them. But Scott, I do think it's like this is this is one of the first years where we actually have some concerns about Baltimore's defense in the playoffs.

usually their defense is one that we're really excited to start every week in fantasy. This year, Baltimore is actually allowing 26 points per game. So they've been in several shootouts. And I think they're building upon a strength by adding Deontay Johnson. You bring up the 11 personnel. Maybe Todd Munkin feels more comfortable in 11. He certainly tried to do that last year. They had one of the heaviest 11 personnel teams in the NFL in his first year at the helm.

So a lot to unpack. any way you cut it, it's not great. It's not good for Mark Andrews. It kills Isaiah likely. And it hurts Rashad Bateman. So fantasy-wise, it hurts everybody. But it doesn't hurt Lamar Jackson, who looks insane and looks like a potential league winner at quarterback.

And it doesn't hurt Derek Henry, who's just bawling every single week. So definitely a very, very interesting one. Another thing we need to unpack is to Atunga Vailoa, he returned from injury. And Scott, for me, we're talking about. league winners this week. I had Ryan Heath over on Dynasty Life, one of my other podcasts, and Ryan was talking about how he would take Devon A. Chan over Sequin Barclay for the rest of the season. And I'm like, Ryan, come on, man. And you know what? A hat tip to Ryan because Devon A. Chan goes out and does this at the same week that Sequin Barclay gets vultured on

three Jalen Hertz touchdown. So Ryan, I apologize for the discourse. I think you might be right, man. I think Devon Aachen might be back to where he was at the beginning of the season, a league winner. Your thoughts on Tua's return and the impact that he had on the offense, specifically Aachen. Yeah, Aachan has beaten out Jalen Waddle in Target chair in three of three games with Tua Tago Volo. He looks like sort of the wide receiver too. We were arguing all offseason wide receiver three was a possibility, but this is kind of crazy. He's averaging 17.2 receiving fantasy points per game and these two a game. that would rank as the wide receiver 9 across the full season.

The concern here, of course, Rahim Mostert handled all five of the team's carries inside the 10-yard line. It was more of a split before that. Or H-H-H-H-H-N dominated when Moster was not on the field. When he was on the field, they were kind of splitting it. There was a small sample. I think realistically, H-H-H-H-H-N is like the RB7 moving forward. but if Moster gets hurt or we see more of a committee at the goal line instead of Rihim Moster

dominance, there's a chance he could be the overall RB1. That's certainly within the range of outcomes. And you'd like to see, you know, for a player who just had the most efficient season in NFL history last year, I want to see some, I want to see him go nuclear one of these weeks. We really haven't seen him housing, you know, 80-yard carries. like Derek Henry has, Sequin Barclay has, but that's coming. Yeah, I love it. And we also, like, you bring up, like, the huge spike week potential.

There was two touchdowns conceded to Rahe Moster in the same game. So for me, it's like, Scott, he's super insulated in his weekly value with this target share and these numbers of catches. He's actually fourth overall in terms of running back receptions right now, which is just massive for him. And moving forward, like, you can paint a picture where he can, pass by a couple of those guys ahead of them if he's going to get this sort of target share in a Tuatung of Iloa led offense. Potential huge scoring game this week. It's going to be a difficult

one for Miami to win, but we are absolutely rooting for a shootout in this Miami versus Buffalo game. I want to pivot over and I want to get your opinion on a player that I never really thought we would be discussing in terms of his fantasy football impact. But one player that has just been really coming on of late is Bo Nix. And I think he's sort of like the poster boy for you can't look at overall counting stats. You need to have context for what players have done lately because the first month of the season was rough. He had two weeks where he failed to crack like 10 quarterback points. But from weeks five through eight, Bo Nix was the quarterback three overall. And right now, depending on your scoring system, he's somewhere around.

round QB9 overall on the season. And he's doing it on a winning team, Scott. Your thoughts on Bo Nix and can he keep this up? And do you think that this was a huge step forward this past week with the three passing touchdowns? Or do you think that this was just a result of a matchup? And we should sort of temper our expectations there. Sort of unwrap Bo Nix. Yeah, it was it was probably at least partially due to the top three matchup. Good news, though. He gets another top three matchup this week. It's also due to much higher rushing floor than we expected. He's averaging 16.2 rushing fantasy points per game. That's 1.5 less than Lamar Jackson. That's 1.5 more than Josh Allen, which is really crazy. It's also a product of the Sean Payton system. We've seen

quarterbacks be so productive in that offense, like a 42-year-old, totally cooked True Breeze. We've seen Teddy Bridgewater. We've seen, you know, Taysam Hill obviously has rushing up, but a few other, you know, just totally backup caliber quarterbacks without much wide receiver help do well in this offense. I would temper expectations a little bit. I think he's a valuable streamer, probably a high-end QB2 moat moving forward. Like I'd be more excited about Winston. I'd be excited about Flacco, I think. Drake May for sure. But I mean, I could be wrong.

And he's certainly up there. And you'll at the very least, probably get another, you know, fringe top seven performance this week in a great spot. Yeah, what a world, Scott, where Bo Nix has more dynasty value than Anthony Richardson. If I told you that in August, you would have laughed in my face. What's interesting with Bo Nix is, I think from a long-term perspective, this is a pick that at the time Denver was criticized for making, but it's worked out incredibly well. And I think that there's a few teams like the Tennessee Titans that wish they could have

maybe rethought their process and gone with a potential Bo Nix, where they drafted this past year. And long term, this is the worst weapons that he's ever going to have. Like you talk about what they have at wide receiver, what they have at tight end. It's only going to go up from here. So I'm with you. I think that he's a really interesting streamer. he has the rushing upside as well. I believe he's top five right now in terms of quarterback rushing productivity across the board. And yeah, coming on as a passer. And I think when you see a young quarterback winning games, it sort of increases their comfort level.

And you start seeing better fantasy performances as well. So really like what we're seeing out of Bo Nix, but I think you're absolutely right to temper the expectations a little bit. So I got to take an L here because last week on several shows, shows and in an article, I talked about my concern level with James Cook in Buffalo. We both talked about it last week as well with Ray Davis coming on. And Ray Davis had obviously the 150-yard game when James Cook was missing. And then Ray Davis was targeted more often and had the touchdown in garbage time, but still with James Cook failing to deliver in week seven.

Well, week eight was anything but James Cook goes nuts. Ray Davis takes a big step back. Do you think this is something where we need to like reassess our evaluation? Or do you think this could be a, for whatever reason, Ray Davis just wasn't utilized for a game? Your thoughts on the James Cook explosion? Yeah, I'll take the L too. I was expecting more of a 50-50 split just due to how productive Ray Davis had been. But no, it was the James Cook show.

Yeah, I think probably they just trust Cook as the RB1. I mean, we'll just continue to monitor this situation and see how much this fluctuates next week and the week after. But yeah, it looks like, you know, the massive Ray Davis game never happened and just Cook is back to being who he was. Yeah, and the three targets, three catches for me, that was the one. Because if it was just rushing production, but they didn't throw to him. It's interesting. We'll see how it goes against Miami because James Cook, that was sort of his best game of the year was the Miami game. where he went absolutely nuts.

The bills just annihilated the dolphins. So this is a big one for Cook managers. I think if you see another very strong fantasy performance this week, then you sort of wheels up for James Cook rest of the way. Scott, let's quickly talk about George Pickens, because I think this is one where if you're a box score watcher, you're going to be a little more frustrated than watching the actual game. George Pickens was very close to having a big, big game.

Is he currently the most unlucky player in fantasy football? Well, he is, as a matter of fact, he's lost 35.3 fantasy points due to penalties and DPI. It's 40% more than the next closest wide receiver. I was talking about him being unlucky in wide receiver in week two and week three. In week one, he had, if you include penalties negated or plays negated due to penalty or overturned. He had four catches of 30 plus yards, something Tyreek Hill has never done in his entire career, but you factor in the, you know, plays negated. It was only one or two. And so he was already due for a positive regression in this regard. And then it couldn't get any worse last week. He had a touchdown wiped off the board due to penalty. He had another one overturned

because he got one foot down twice instead of both feet down once. And so, yeah, just this is fluky. This is bound to improve. This is going to regress the mean. He looks great with Russell Wilson. So I'm pretty bullish on him long term. This is just stuff like this happens in fantasy. It's just super outlierish and is going to regress to the mean.

Yeah. And we get a buy week for Pittsburgh this week. but I think when we come back after the buy, you're going to see George Pickens highly utilized. And Scott, you know, this is, if there's ever a player that's due for a huge spike week right after his buy week, it's going to be George Pickens.

We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, Scott and I are going to reveal what I think is the league winner moving forward and a player that I know Scott is super excited about as well. Scott, we started out the season talking about Nico Collins. as the league winner at wide receiver. Nico goes down with a hamstring injury. At the time, he was averaging 21 PPR points per game.

He was wide receiver two overall. And all the metrics were right there, talking about area yard chair, talking about target chair, talking about red zone targets. Everything was sort of shaping up. I would argue to you that after the Stefan Diggs injury, Nico Collins is an even better place when he comes back. are you there as well? And is there any other wide receiver that you would take over Nico Collins

rest of the season, assuming he's back in week 10? No, I don't think so. And credit to Brett on this, he was telling the all-off season that the Texans weren't going to be a good team this year. Like, I know their records really good, but like I think they've really underperform. C.J. Stroud is, you know, really underperform expectations. He was kind of arguing like the offense was. primarily like CJ Stroud's tape wasn't anywhere near as good as people were saying it was.

But he was a huge believer in Nico and he really thought he was propped up by a Straub was propped up by Nico. And yeah, that just looks right. Like this offense is really struggling, at least the passing game is really struggled without him. Collins on tape. I'm not a tape guy, but on tape to me looks like Julio Jones 2.0. every every metric is off the charts just like it was last year he leads all players in yards per route run fantasy points per route run if you adjust for the injury he suffered he's averaging 133.4 receiving yards per four quarters and you know it's it's a down year at the wide receiver position a lot of injuries so yeah he would be my my bet to be

you know, overall wide receiver one and, you know, certainly one of the most valuable players in all of fantasy. Yeah, no, I'm totally with you. And I think that they'll be pushed back to what we said because people are going to say, well, we just saw the game where it was like 21 pass attempts for Houston. This is a running back centric offense. I think that that's a result of Nico Collins not being there. They wouldn't have had that game plan if Nico was there in an even script situation against Green Bay, a two point loss. So this is like Nico Collins to the moon. I think. if you're a dynasty manager, I would kick the tires on a on a buy high and try to get him there. And if you're in a redraft league, I mean, if somebody's willing to even entertain the thought

of trading away Nico Collins, I think Scott sort of nailed it. It's like there are, you could count on one hand the number of wide receivers that I think could outscore him for the rest of the season. Everything is sort of in place for him to just have an unbelievable end of the year, just like it was shaping up to at the beginning, Scott, like it comes full circle. the league winner returns as the league winner. Another player who we haven't seen play yet, but it's certainly won a number of fantasy football titles for many who are listening in here, Christian McCaffrey.

Christian McCaffrey, they're on the San Francisco's on the by week, but there are some reports out there that we could see him return in week 10. Now, I want to ask you this. Let's say Christian McCaffrey comes back in week 10, but let's say that the usage is, maybe 70% of last year. Maybe they work in guys like Isaac Arendo. Maybe they work in a Jordan Mason if he's healthy.

And they take the ease off of Christian McCaffrey and they sort of ease him in thinking about the NFL playoffs. Where would you have him there in sort of a limited capacity? Yeah, I can certainly see that being the case. I think you have to preserve him for the playoffs or you want to. And, you know, Jordan Mason has played well. Isaac Garendos look good. So I can certainly see more of a committee. I just don't know, like, there's a universe where I don't rank Christian McCaffrey top six

every single week. He's just one of the all-time biggest freaks in fantasy football history. You look back over, I don't know, the last five seasons. Like, he's finished as the overall RB1 in like 60% of weeks, a top three fantasy running back in like 80% of weeks, which is like 4X the next closest running. Like just an all time absolute freak of nature. And so I think he's just like a top six running back. But to your point, you know, there's a lot we don't know with McAfrey.

So we're just going to have to wait and see and monitor moving forward. Yeah, I think you sort of nailed it. He's been super efficient with touchdown scoring alongside Brock Purdy in pretty much any game. the two of them have been next to one another. Then you factor in the success he has as a receiver. It's almost like if they want to take away some of the like the empty calorie touches and give those to Jordan Mason or Isaac Arendo and then have McCaffrey just be like the efficient player to get the RB targets and you know, the work inside the red zone.

That's almost a better scenario for him anyway, keeps him fresh and he just is like an efficiency monster for us. So yeah, that's that's one to monitor. That's sort of could be one. That's really, Scott, one of the shifting like landmines for fantasy football leagues right now. If that Christian McCaffrey manager has been able to sort of hang on and they're like five and three, even four and four, and they get back a 20 point per game running back, that's really going to decide fantasy football league. Super interesting year for just sort of the changing value. The team that's that's your number one seed right now certainly might be in trouble when we get to the playoffs with guys returning like Collins, Kukina Kua, and Christian McCaffrey. But so for all you age just out there that don't want to hear about old running backs, let's shift it over here.

Let's talk about Chris Alave because in the Everything report, you discussed Alave, you know, sort of his impact last week. And this was a really positive step for Alave. This is, we have no Rashid Shaheed for the rest of the season. New Orleans really needs Alave to be a target, a target king. And he certainly looked like it last week. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Spencer Rattler got benched. Jake Hainer came in, targeted Alave on nine of seven pass attempts.

But he should be getting Derek Carr back this week. Yeah, I would guess that that's kind of what happens without Shaheed is just obscene target volume. They don't really have anyone else. We saw this at times last year, even though the efficiency wasn't there when you were targeting Chris Alave. You know, he did have tremendous target volume. So yeah, I would bet on this continuing. Yeah. And you're sort of your enthusiasm level for him, though, Scott, because this is a player where I'm sure there's certain fantasy managers out there looking for like a buy low. And it's certainly last week makes his price a little bit higher. But do you consider with no Shaheed rest of the season, like Alave would be one that you'd be really excited

for. And just to add some context to this, in a lot of fantasy leagues, you know, people are looking at points per game, total fantasy points scored. And Chris Alave is averaging a career low 10.6 points per game right now, Scott, in PPR. So do you view this as somebody you really want to go out and get? Or is this somebody where you're kind of a little trepidious because of the, uh, the, the way the Saints' offense is looking as a whole. Yeah, I'd rank him as like a fringe top 15 wide receiver rest of season. I think, you know, if you could, you know, if you have league mates who are just going off of fantasy production, yeah, try and trade darnel Mooney for him. Try it and try and try and trade Garrett Wilson for him. I think that's a pretty big upgrade to your roster.

Yeah, but if somebody tries to trade, trade you, Chris Olavay for Josh Downs, you hang up the phone on him right away, Scott, right? Oh, oh, are we... Are we doing that? Josh Downs or Chris Oliva rest of the season. I think you're right. I think you're right. It's at least very close.

Yeah, for sure. I think I'm going Josh Downs on that one. Another crazy shifting values, guys. Let's talk about another player who we had the long discussion last week about Jalen McMillan and our enthusiasm for him, you know, with Chris Godwin and, and, and, and, and Mike Evans both on the shelf. Now, we, I'm not taking an L on this one because Jalen McMillan Macmillan led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in, in Routes Run. He led them in snaps, snap share at the wide receiver position. So he was like an, and I believe like an 82% snap share player. So like

Jailin McMillan, like I'm feeling okay. Obviously we didn't get the production we wanted. But the player who looked to benefit the most was Cade Otten. And Scott, I'll say that I write a waiver Overwire column for years now. And I used to use the word Cade Ottening as a way to get through at the tight end position like Tyler Conklining or Kate Ottening was like the way to use like that boring tight end who can go get me eight to 10 points and not be happy about it, but you could survive with it. I feel terrible about using that term because Kate Otten now looks like a guy who's going to impact fantasy football leagues. Your thoughts on Kate Otten in this new role alongside you know, Baker Mayfield, who continued to play well without his two wide receivers.

Yeah, that's hilarious. No, I am taking the L on Jalen McMillan, by the way. He just didn't come close to sniffing the Chris Godwin role, which is what we were hoping for. It just didn't run a lot of routes from the slot, didn't see any design targets. You know, he did lead the wide receivers and target share, but it was low. It was only 14 percent in a game Baker Mayfield went off. And yet, Kate Auden looks awesome. I was talking about this in my DFS articles every week where it was like a, because of the wide receiver injuries to Tampa, you know,

first it was McMillan miss some time, Trey Palmer missed some time. Like Kate Otten's a good DFS play this week. Kate Otten's a good DFS play this week. And then you lose, you know, you went from losing like tertiary options to losing the big, like big two, uh, with Baker Mayfield playing out of.

of this damn mind, by the way. QB2 by fantasy points per game, but just bawling out with a ton of volume. And so you remove those two. Yeah, it looks like Kate Otten is the wide receiver one. And then the wide receiver two once Evans returns, but absolute insane production, good volume, has hit 10 targets and back-to-back games.

Kate Otten really might be a thing. And like, this is what we're seeing at the tight end position where, you know, I was, you know, we were talking about Brock Bowers as the, Prince that was promised. But Jacobi Myers is back. We were also talking about Jacobi Myers not to sleep on him. And then you have George Kittle getting a big upgrade with No Brain and I.

You have Evan Ingram getting a tremendous upgrade without Christian Kirk. Remember, he was like a league winner down the stretch last year without Kirk. David and Joku getting the quarterback upgrade, Noah and Mari Cooper. Now you have Kate Otten too. And so like Brock Bauer's has slipped. He was looking like a potential power law player. And now you have these other tight ends stepping up due to injuries. Yeah, you have to be pretty excited if you're if you're a KDaten owner and you can't use his name in a derogatory way anymore.

Never, never again. Big apologies to the Otton family for using your last name in that negative context. Scott, last player we got to talk about. We talked about a number of players that I think look like league winners. And a one player who's really coming on, especially when you compare the ADP, price for him is Ladd McConkey. Ladd McConkey has now had six targets or more in I believe five straight games and McConkey had his best game as a pro this past week, six catches on six targets, gives you the two scores and just looked incredible, the way he moves. And what I thought

was interesting was after the big performance, Jim Harbaugh, who's about as like anti-wide, You just know the guy kind of loz wide receivers as a whole. But the guy who didn't get Nico Collins any production in college, he makes a point of comparing Ladd-McConkie to Steve Smith. And I thought this was like the ultimate compliment for a guy like Harbaugh, because Steve Smith is just like the defensive coordinator's favorite wide receiver. Like the wide receiver you would take to a street fight, the wide receiver who's like one of the toughest guys to ever play the position.

So for Harba to compare McConkey to Steve Smith, like I'm thinking this is like the start of a real run for Ladd McConkey. Am I crazy on that one? Or do you think this is a Ladd McConkey could give us like top 18 wide receiver production rest away? Yeah, I think it all depends on whether. So over the last two weeks, the Chargers ranked fifth in past rate over expectation. Before that, it was a would be league low. and like honestly like one of the lowest rates in years and so it's just is this a blip on the radar or is this real is this a trend and if it's real then yeah absolutely because we were saying all in the everything report for the however many weeks it's you know like the underlying usage

and production and efficiency looks great he ranks top 16 and fantasy points for route run he's tied with malik neighbors neighbors ranks what seventh and fantasy points per game macaque ranks what 30 first something like that and it's like so that that's the only real difference between it is just one team is dropping back a lot one team is dropping back very little and so yeah there's tremendous opportunity there there's he looks awesome he ranks behind only justin jefferson in yards for route run he's killing it and ass so So yeah, very bullish, very excited for Ladd-McConkie, but it's going to come down to the offensive environment. Yeah, no, you nailed it.

It's like he's got a cap target ceiling. You're never going to see a game where they're like, oh, we're just going to target Ladd-McConkey 15 times. That's not what this offense looks like. But I do think if he can consistently maintain eight targets, seven and a half targets, I think he's going to be super efficient, especially if the running game is efficient there in L.A. This was awesome today.

Everything we talked about in terms of data, in terms of stats, that can be yours as well. Fantasy points data. Use the code school 25. You're going to get 25% off. And you could get really anything you want at fantasy points. But fantasy points data, that's where we're getting all this information. And you'll have access to the Everything report every single week. Scott, what do you have coming up?

Just doing a bunch of DFS stuff throughout the remainder of the week. What about you, Theo? I'll give you a DFS play. DeAndre Swift this week. Lock and load. Lock and load, DeAndre Swift. And for me, my article, my dynasty article is dropping every single week at fantasy points, usually on Thursdays. So check that one out.

And yeah, we'll be bringing you school of Scott every single week. We're going to help you crush your leagues. And next week, we want to get to some listener questions. So look for Scott and I on X to put up a question at some point after Sunday. game. We'll put up a question tweet and we'll take a few of them next week. We want to help you win.

The Plan C playoffs are in the horizon guys. This is the time to go get those Ws. We will see you next week.