Fantasy Football Daily - WR Target Consolidation + Chase Brown's CMC-Level Usage | School of Scott

Episode Date: November 22, 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 break down key takeaways from "The Everything Report." Week 12 Everything Report - https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/the-everything-report-week-12#/ 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

When you fly in Emirates business class and you're picked up by your private, luxury, chauffeur-driven car, you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates. Fly better. How can wide receiver target consolidation help us in fantasy football? We're talking about the best wide receiver duos that are getting bombarded with targets. And the target chairs are moving up. I'm Theo Greminger, joined by Scott Barrett. This is School of Scott. We're going to dive into a number of subjects today,

but Scott, I first have to pick your brain on some of these wide receiver duos because this past week, you talked about this in your everything report over at fantasy points where you're starting to see the L.A. Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals really establish themselves as the wide receiver pairings you need in fantasy. That's right. And you deserve some credit for this, because you've been telling me we got to add this stat to the Fantasy Points Data Suite consolidation score. And so if you just look at the top two receivers in terms of target share

or first read target share, who stands out? Number one, it's Malik Neighbors plus one, Dale Robinson combining for 56.3%. Target share, number two, Pooka Nakuwa Cooper Cup, 53%. Then T. Higgins, Jamar Chase, 53%. And so, So Malik Neighbors, Wondell Robinson isn't that exciting to me. It's just not as productive of a passing attack. It's also Wondell Robinson is terrible. I think he ranks dead last among all receivers in EPA per target. And then it's Malik Neighbors really doing the heavy lifting,

just seeing a target share, a first-read target share that's the highest within fantasy points data history. So that dates back to like 2021. But yeah, it's the Rams. and is the Bengals really standing out to me. And yeah, this is in full games together we're looking at. So really stands out to me, really sexy, really prolific offenses with a really good quarterback.

And I'm buying into the notion that this is real. So Matthew Stafford over his, since over the last three, four weeks, whatever, since Pooka Nakuwa. Cooper Cup returned. He is averaging 20.8 fantasy points per game up from just 10.2 ranks behind only Joe Burrow and both passing yards passing touchdowns. And I think this is real because last year, if you looked at the splits, when the Rams had a healthy Cooper Cup, a healthy Pooka and a healthy Kyron Williams, the year averaging 0.18

EPA per play, not only would that have led the league, but it would have ranked top 10 this past millennia. What happened last week, those two wide receivers combined for a ridiculous 70.3% target share. They're balling out. Cup has hit double digit targets and 100 receiving yards both. In three of the four games, he cleared a 60% snap share. Nakua, he's recorded seven plus receptions and 95 plus receiving yards both in all three of the games he's played on at least 35% of at team snaps. I think they're both easy, mid-range to low-end wide receiver ones in fantasy. I feel really good about that. And then Joe Burrow, it's sort of the same thing. He's hit 30 fantasy points in each of his last three games. T. Higgins missed two of those. And Burroughs has been more

productive with Higgins. Jamar Chase has been more productive with T. Higgins. Higgins averages, ranks third and first read target share this year, well above Jamar Chase. He's the wide receiver one of this team by volume. Jamar Chase is the wide receiver one of all of fantasy in raw production, nearly three fantasy points per game more than next closest. But like, let's not sleep on T. Higgins. He's cleared a 35% first-re target share in each of his last five games. Only three wide receivers have more than that all year.

And we know Higgins has missed some time. He's averaging 20.8 fantasy points per game in those games. Only Jamar Chase ranks higher if over the full season. And so once again, another low-end wide receiver one at worst in T. Higgins, the overall wide receiver one in Jamar Chase. And both Rams wide receivers might be mid-range wide receiver ones. If you had to ask me to pick a favorite, I'll tell you it's not easy. Cooper Cup without Nakuwa on the field is averaging like 15.3 targets per four quarters.

With Nekua, he's still leading 11 targets per four full quarters to Nakuas 10. But I will say in the three full games, they played together, 40% first three target share for Nakuwa, 31% for Cup, slightly lean right now for Nakuwa. But I don't feel too convicted or too confident in that. I'd say probably this week, most weeks moving forward, closer to mid-range wide receiver ones than low-end wide receiver ones. Yeah. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. They're both awesome. And like you said, with the consolidation you're getting, this point.

past week was nuts. It was like 70% of the Rams targets were going to those two players. And it's sort of a perfect storm because when you wrote about this in the Everything report, you know, you already talked about like Wondell and neighbors obviously are handcuffed by the quality of their offense. And also like you said, Wondell Robinson with the limitations he has. Then you've got the Jets with Devante Adams and Garrett Wilson, all sorts of issues there. Philadelphia with AJ Brown and Devontas Smith, those guys are actually limited by the passing volume in Philly and the rushing production, but it's a perfect storm. I mean, Scott, if you had to pick a wide receiver duo and quarterback combination that you could pick, if you could say, give me the

consolidation on literally any two wide receivers, the Bengals and the Rams would have been the two teams, you know, you had circle, maybe with a couple others, but they would have been towards the top. So it's really a perfect storm for us. And, you know, you talked about Joe Burrow, how he's been over the last three weeks, he's been the QB1 overall. But Matt Stafford, since Pookonakuwa and Cooper Cup return, he's actually been the QB7. So Matt Stafford is right there on that streaming radar. This is the kind of guy where if you're looking for spot starts, Stafford can give that to you. So absolutely love that.

Yeah, I just want to say for like the upside, like here's how impactful this is. Like it really could be the case that in 80% of all. leagues like the championship winner had at least one of these wide receivers and you because you brought up a great point it's like if we asked for this this offseason it probably would have been these two teams why because these are proven elite wide receivers really good quarterbacks and that's that's how impactful it could be when you have a super potent passing offense and it's condensed to this degree and let's not sleep on the running backs either like the both of these offense it's like the two wide receivers and the running back, and that's it. And it's one of the best, most potent offenses in

football. So, well, I'm sure we'll talk about Kyron. I'm sure we'll talk about Chase Brown. But, yeah, these are, these are two, like I talk about power law players in fantasy. There are power law offenses as well. And these for sure look like power law offenses to me. Yeah, and let's build on that because a lot of the work you do in the offseason, Scott, you know, you've talked about your exodia players and specifically play callers in general, just how successful Sean McVeigh has been in terms of churning out fantasy production. And like when it comes to the Bengals,

it's like the game flow is really adding to it. So maybe touch on McVeigh's success over the years, just how successful he's been. So there's relatively few league winners in any given season, but you look back at what Sean McVeigh has given us the past seven years it was 2017 Todd Gurley 2018 Todd Gurley 2023 Kyron 2021 Cooper Cup last year Pook and Nakuwa 2019 Tyler Higbee 2018 Brandon Cooks and Robert Woods all qualified and so it's something like 35% of all league winners over the last seven years have come from this Sean

Nick Bay offense which is just insane and so yeah this is this is like the the sort of offense you want to be invested in, and exactly why I did that play caller piece this past off season, and we did that long podcast together on your other platform. Because that's what it comes down to. It's like it's really impactful, really important. And it could be the case, like, like I said, you know, 80% of all championship winners that this season had at least one of these four

wide receivers we're talking about. Yeah, and this could be the great equalizer sort of, the year of the running back is the wide receiver consolidation in a perfect situation where you're like, why did those Sequin Barclay and Derek Henry teams all sort of bow out because they went up against a Jamar Chase, a Joe Burrow stack or a Cooper Cup, Matt Stafford stack that just went absolutely bonkers. We're going to take a quick break and we come back. We're going to talk about Chase Brown. I know we seem to talk about him every week, but he is looking like the league We'll be right back.

Welcome back to School of Scott. I'm Theo Graminger with Scott Barrett. And everything that we discuss here on School of Scott, you can have access to. You can have access to Scott's Everything Report, written every single week over at Fantasy Points. You also have access to the award-winning statistical information you can get over at Fantasy Points Data. The Fantasy Points Data Suite is awesome.

And we have a code for you. School 25 gets you 25% off of pretty much anything you want over at fantasy points right now. But Scott, getting back to it, let's talk a little bit Chase Brown, because every week we seem to, it's been like a slow buildup, a slow drip where we were doing this like two months ago. And it's like, look at all of Chase Brown's underlying metrics if he only were to get increased usage or if he were to pass Zach Moss by or if he were to X, Y, Z. and all of a sudden, it's everything. The guy's getting 100% of the touches. The guy is smashing. He was a, I believe, RB3 over the last three weeks play.

Where are we out on Chase Brown? Is he the league wrecker? Yeah, I believe so. He's had every single backfield touch over the last three weeks, played on 85% of the team snaps, 62% route share, 15% target share, averaging 27.1, or no, 0.2 XFP per game. That is 35% better than the next closest running back. That is prime Christian McCaffrey, Ladanian Tomlinson type usage. We're talking about 20.7 carries per game,

8.0 targets per game. That means he's totally immune to game script. He's not at all game script sensitive. He's an Uber bell cow. And, you know, how hyped up we were for Devon H. several weeks ago, it's like even better than that. The issue with him is like he's been below average and efficiency. And I think that's fine. Like I think we could like bake that in, even if we like assume that sort of continues. I still think this is like I think this is an easy top three fantasy running back moving forward.

Maybe I would trade him straight up for Christian McCaffrey. But beyond that, it's like I think I'd think I'd rather have him than out. I think I'd rather have him than Sequin than Derek Henry. Joe Mixon, I don't know. Maybe that maybe that one's a little bit trickier, but still I feel like I kind of trust this volume that's both, you know, as a runner and as a receiver on such a potent offense a little bit more. Yeah, I think you sort of nailed it. It's the upside that Chase Brown brings. All of those guys are attractive options in your lineup moving forward. But with Chase Brown, the lack of quality behind him also.

And really, it's funny to me, I would have expected by now that you would have seen a little bit of Khalil Herbert. It was almost like, why did you go get Khalil Herbert over Travion Williams when you're giving Khalil Herbert a Travion Williams-esque touch distribution? So I guess it's an insurance policy,

but we love it. Chase Brown is just, it's complete wheels up for him. And you have this opportunity for the buy week. you know, we'll see how Cincinnati comes out of it, but you could see even more like slight wrinkles to really amplify the two wide receivers plus Brown. So I'm very, very excited about that. And you have desperation football where Cincinnati is in must win mode every single week. They already were, but it's going to be even more

amplified certain rumors out there that could be even a coaching change in Cincinnati. So that's one that we're absolutely circling. Let's pivot over to a different team. this past week in the Everything report, you talked a lot about the Los Angeles Chargers passing game. This is another subject where I think we were a little bit ahead of everybody else in fantasy because we talked about the increased passing volume for Justin Herbert, maybe the passing game in L.A. being more efficient and starting to ramp up a little bit. Now I think this week, everybody's sort of writing about that. but Ladd McConkey specifically, this is one where we've talked about him earlier in the year as a elite separator scored very, very highly over at fantasy points and your ass score. But McConkey now is just starting to really, really come on.

And I think when you're looking at McConkey, this is a guy where maybe he's a fringe wide receiver one for the rest of the year. I mean, where are you at on Ladd right now? Yeah, I'm extremely bullish. Um, so cross the full season right now. This year he ranks third in mistackles force per reception. Fifth in man ass. We got to rebrand that. We got to rebrand it.

Uh, average separation score against man coverage, uh, 11th in first downs per route run, uh, which is like the goat stat for wide receivers. And 14th tied with Jamar Chase in yards per route run. And so it's just if, if the charger is PROE pass rate, over expectation remains as high as it's been over the last four or five weeks where, you know, it's top five up from second worst. Or if he jumps from like 25th in Target share to, you know, just fringe top 15, he could easily be one of the season's top league winners throughout your fantasy playoffs. And so what I said in the article is like, I do think this PROE pass rate over

expectation is real. And we should be buying into it. Justin Herbert, by the way, is very sneaky. He's going to go absolutely nuclear this week in a best possible matchup against the Ravens. But yeah, so he's passing more. He's also running more, which is what we've always wanted from him, a freak athlete, you know,

athletic clone to Josh Allen, Greg Roman, formerly known as like a mobile quarterback whisperer. So I do think that sticks. Quentin Johnson, I don't think is real. I think they're doing a good job of maximizing his skill set, you know, kind of avoiding him in areas. He's always really, you know, bottom 10 and ass, more horizontal routes where he can highlight that yards after

the catchability. But, you know, one of the craziest stats is, I don't know, something like, yeah, he's just getting lucky with busted coverage. He scored 31 fantasy points on busted coverage, far and away the most of any wide receiver. You take that out. He falls to just 64th in fantasy points per game. I don't know. I would like to see fewer targets. for Quentin Johnston. Fewer targets for Will Dissley as well. And like let's let's let's let's see what, what our guy McConkey can do in a sort of alpha wide receiver one, Keenan Allen-esque role. Yeah. And and like you alluded to, the Baltimore Ravens have actually allowed the most passing yardage as a team this season, which is absolutely nuts when you think about how good Baltimore

has been defensively for such a long period of time under Harbaugh. But yeah, we've got the Harbaugh Brother Bowl, the Har Bowl, whatever you want to call it. That's going to be a lit game this week. And that's a game with big-time AFC playoff implications as well. So I'm really excited about that one. That game on paper looks a lot better than we thought it ever would have when the schedule was first released this past year. So that's actually a game where we're looking to cram in multiple players if you're a DFS.

player potentially. But yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it with McConkey. This is a guy where we love the profile athletically coming out. We loved his potential to do damage in fantasy. And I think it's all sort of coming into fruition. You also have rookie wide receivers a lot of times they seem to ramp it up this time of year, Scott. Do you bet on that notion where we're sort of looking for rookie wide receivers to kind of step

their game up over the second half of the season towards the end of the season, that's something that seems like anecdotally like it happens a lot. That's typically what happens. Yes. And, you know, if a guy comes out immediately and is just like, you know, dominating everyone, like maybe, maybe BTJ, you could say, like you wouldn't expect too much of a climb. But for Aladdin Conkie, I do think so. You know, it's, it's consistent volume, but it's certainly not like clear alpha wide receiver one volume. And this is what we see. And it's for rookie running backs, too, as well. You do see an increase in usage and increase in production in the second half.

And that's why we buy rookies, you know, because of that upside to carry you throughout the fantasy playoffs. And I certainly think that has that in his range of outcomes. And in fact, it seems fairly likely. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, Scott's going to tell you just how much. many Cleveland Brown pass catchers, you need to cram into every single fantasy lineup this week. Welcome back to School of Scott. Scott, James Winston was good James this past week in terms of

passing yardage. Went absolutely nuts, nearly 400 passing yards this past week. And we've got a situation where David and Joku was in everybody's lineup. This is a player we've talked about here on School of Scott for weeks and weeks. But now you've got multiple white. receiver is not just Cedric Tillman being propped up. Jerry Judy, massive game. Elijah Moore catches a touchdown pass. Where are you at on the hierarchy of the Cleveland Brown's wide receivers and this Brown's passing game? How sort of confident are you in starting these guys? The issue here is it's not a very consolidated offense. Like how good it is for the Rams and the Bengals, it's just two receivers, right now it's pretty spread out between these three wide receivers and this tight end that's that's not

really ideal it hasn't seemed to matter too much but the key highlight here is that if if it does become more condensed if one of these players emerges as an alpha they would possess massive league winning league wrecking potential and so tillman's unowned in 35% of yahoo leagues judy's unowned in about 50% Elijah Moore's unowned in 92% or at least at least when this article dropped yesterday, it's probably changed after the most recent waiver run. But this week, it's a tough match against the Steelers. Given everything we know, I think I would have Tillman as like a low-end wide receiver two, high-end wide receiver three.

Judy as a mid-range wide receiver three, Elijah as a high-end wide receiver four, and Joku as a mid-range tight-end one. but it's just like, it's kind of crazy that like, you know, James Winston is very capable of supporting four fantasy relevant receivers. And, you know, honestly, I might be even like a little too pessimistic here just because of what we've seen these last three weeks. Yeah, I mean, the schedule is difficult upcoming, but there, you know, we do get that Bengals matchup. You know, that's, that one is one to circle on December 19th. Um, and, and, and,

I think it's funny because the whole dichotomy of fantasy analysis with this team, it was like the starting quarterback and Amari Cooper are there and we cannot start any single player on the team. And then the backup quarterback with like Cedric Tillman, Elijah Moore and Jerry Judy are in there. And we want to start everyone. We want to find like we're breaking ties with Cleveland wide receivers right now in the flex. It's very exciting how everything sort of shifted around. Let's talk a little bit about Kiron Williams because this is a player, and I'll give a shout

out to J.J. Zachariason was talking about this this week, sort of how like Kiron Williams, a lot of the scoring was sort of front-loaded. I know you wrote about this as well. So there's a lot of really smart people discussing it because the fantasy scoring has shifted more towards the wide receivers in L.A. Do you think this is something that is going to balance itself out and you're going to see some big Kyron Williams performances coming up? Or do you think it's something where we need to kind of be downgrading our expectations for Kyron because of, again, the success of the passing game? Yeah. So Ryan Heath had this great stat. In games with Cooper Cup and Puka Nakua active,

the Rams are the second most pass heavy offense inside the 10. Without them, they were the seventh most run-heavy offense inside the 10. And that's just like such a large part of where Puka Nakua's fantasy value comes from last year, easily led all players in Red Zone XFP per game. It comprised a massive chunk of his volume-based expectation. I will say, I do think this balances out. I think it's just a little bit fluky. I think game script sort of played a role.

Rams also down both starting tackles. last week, that played a role. And so, yeah, he hasn't scored a rushing touchdown in each of his last four games. But keep in mind, before that, he went nine straight. So I do think there's going to be, you know, somewhere in between those two figures. Let's stick at the running back position. Let's talk a little bit about Cam Acres involvement in Minnesota and its effect on Aaron Jones. Aaron Jones is a player that Scott, for many, many weeks you were super, super excited about in this offense. Now it's back-to-back weeks of Acres getting touches. Where are we at on Jones?

You're sort of your expectations for him moving forward and the impact of a second back getting touches in this offense is having on him. Yeah, so I love Jones. He was easily one of my highest own players in basketball this year. It was just like, I think we could see Aaron Jones used as the bell cow in this office. offense. And we did see that. And we saw, you know, pretty great results despite being the most unlucky running back in the touchdown department. You're looking at XTD versus actual TD touchdowns. And then, of course, now he's no longer a bell count. Why? Because he's had this long, extensive injury history. And, you know, maybe they don't really trust him just like the Packers

never trusted him. So we were right and then we were wrong. And right. And right. Now, maybe it was just like Jones has barely practiced these last few weeks, and he returns to that great workload. I would sort of be betting against that. I think they're going to try and preserve him for the playoffs. And we see more Kim Acres plotting his way into the backs of his own line than for, I don't know, another five weeks or so. But we'll see. You know, he could still be hyperproductive as long as he gets healthy just because he's always been, you know, one of the most efficient players on a per touch basis. But yeah, disappointing usage over the last few weeks. Yeah. And I think it's it's very front loaded stats for him. But 29 years old, this is a guy that Minnesota wants to be fully fully healthy and ready to rock. And I think that's one factor that we need to keep an eye on with

some of these older backs is do teams decide to sort of mix in keep guys fresh, especially contenders? that's something that can kind of really affect us as fantasy managers because there's been so many of these backs who haven't gotten injured and have taken a lot of wear and tear. Jones is definitely one of them. So yeah, and if you're ever in a draft with Scott, you're going to be able to get Wondell Robinson, Quentin Johnston, and Cam Acres pretty much anytime you want,

because I don't think Scott's ever going to draft those guys based on some of the comments today. Let's talk about Thomas Brown, because we saw the first game with Brown as the play caller in Chicago. Of course, Shane Waldron was fired. I saw Caleb Williams apologize to his teammates over the Shane Waldron firing,

which I thought was a sign of maturity, but it's like, you know, you don't really need to apologize for that one, Caleb, because we were all sort of excited to see that change. And I will say, from a fantasy perspective, there were a few interesting things that happened. Certainly you have to be excited about Roma Dunzei and also wide receiver targets in general were way up.

There were more screen passes called for DJ Moore this week. They seemed to be non-existent under Waldron. And you also had a split backfield. This was a little bit out of nowhere. Roshan Johnson had, I believe it was 41% of the rushing attempts. So there were some changes here. Sort of your takeaways, your trust factor, your general takeaway with Brown as a signal caller?

Yeah, I'm not very bullish. Like, I know Shane Waldron wasn't good, but what is Thomas Brown's track record? He was the offensive coordinator for like the worst quarterback season since Vietnam last year with Bryce Young. And, you know, I'm not bullish on this offense as a whole. Caleb Williams, a generational prospect supposedly has been generationally bad, the worst quarterback season in Fantasy Points Data history by catchable target rate by pressure to sack ratio. Two of the most important stats, I think, when it comes to evaluating quarterback play

independent of a supporting cast. And it hasn't been great for fantasy because this has been a really condensed target trait. Keenan Allen, DJ Moore, Roma, Dunesay all have within three targets, three catches of each other since week five. And so not that excited. If there is anyone to be excited about, certainly not DeAndre Swift, who like you said is seeing his use decline. It would be Romo Dunezay.

He had a 32% target share last week. That was the first time a Chicago wide receiver cleared a 28% target share all year. So mild, mild optimism, but really kind of down in this offense as a whole. Yeah, this is one too where it's like the complete opposite spectrum of what we see with like Cincinnati, even if we see this great wide receiver consolidation, it's the combination of poor quarterback play, great defensive play. And now you factor in the potential running back split. So let's pivot over to the D'Andre Swift, Roshan Johnson. Do you think this was like a result of them playing the Packers and they wanted to mix in a second back? Because we actually had a little

coach speak on this one, which I know you referenced. in the Everything report as well. Yeah. Matt Iber Fluse has always been like a big running back by committee proponent. And then Roshan had 10 of 24 carries with three of four inside the 10. And then he was, you know, talked about this touch split. And he was like, no, this is good. I really like this.

Chicago had each of their next five opponents, ranks bottom five and schedule adjusted fantasy points per game allowed to running back. so that's crazy. So yeah, vibes cannot be worse. If you could sell Swift for, I don't know, just about anything, I would go ahead and try and do that. So I said we'd get 60 seconds of this one in the school of Scott. Scott, the player who I know you're dying to talk about the most this week is Marquez

Valdez Scantlin, three touchdowns over the last two weeks. And I had to include him in my waiver wire article this week. It was like, I had to. I had to do it. He's getting the air yards. The targets are not high, but they're downfield targets. Any interest whatsoever in MBS. Yeah, he's had seven targets the last two weeks, and he's averaging 21.3 fantasy points

per game. That's crazy. You know, the, why I didn't consider MVS in DFS two weeks ago, but I did last week, by the way, was because, you know, we have this large sample of him playing with a prime Aaron Rogers and a prime Patrick Mahomes and doing absolutely nothing for fantasy. What I will say, and this sounds maybe kind of crazy, is like, I don't know that there's a better fit for MVS than Derrick Carr.

Because like the only thing he does well is the deep ball. And he's really good at it. You know, by throws 30 plus yards in the air or more over the last three seasons, no one is touching him. And so what's the only thing MVS does well, So the only thing Derek Hart is well, I think there's a chance he could be Rashid Shaheed-Light in this offense. I wouldn't be too bullish because, again, you know, the target volume just isn't there. He's running really hot with a 71% catchable target rate.

Given his like 26.4 ADOT, that should be closer to like 48%. But yeah, I mean, maybe he could be Rashid-Shahed Light in this offense. Wouldn't be the most shocking thing to me. but I'd like to see more targets for that to be real. Well, I know one person who had them two weeks ago in their sleepers article was me. Whoa. I had a little MBS there. Wish I would have played him in DFS that day.

Wow. I didn't. You know, sometimes, you know, sometimes you pull one out, you pull one. And it was just, I think it's just the opportunities in New Orleans. They have no one else. He's going to get the downfield targets. But like you said, this is really a mirage. And apologies to our school of Scott listeners.

This is probably the last time you're ever going to hear us discuss MVS on this show. So pour one out, guys. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the Seattle wide receivers. D.K. Metcalfe was back this week. We're going to see how Scott viewed the usage with JSN playing alongside DK. Metcalfe. We'll be right back. You and the Per Noelle, the pro of the embalage, Cado.

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And there's there's a RIS's. Welcome back to School of Scott. If you want access to anything Scott and I are referencing, you can get it all over at fantasy points. And the code school 25 gets you 25% off of anything you want, including fantasy points data.

Scott, let's talk about it. You wrote about this one and getting back to target consolidation. The Seattle Seahawks this past week ranked up there in terms of the two wide receivers really dominating the overall targets of the team. And this is sort of coincided with a little bit of a backtracking from Ken Walker's explosive fantasy production. So let's specifically look at Jackson Smith and Jigba and D.K. Metcalf. Now, JSN had this incredible production with DK. out. and he still is looking like rest of the season as the wide receiver, you tell me.

Yeah, so I don't really know. Ryan took this blurb in the Everything report, Ryan Heath, and that was intentional because, you know, I kept sort of like oscillating between, you know, was this really that great? I mean, it's super encouraging he could be this productive with D.K. Matcalf when really, you know, he's done almost nothing with Medcaf throughout his entire career. And then he had a few big games without Medcaf. And so that's encouraging. But then his usage kind of reverted back to what it was with Medcaf, where, you know, largely just the underneath stuff without Medcaf, a lot more work downfield.

And so I kind of don't feel like this is all that real. and Ryan noted in the blurb he benefited from a ton of quick targets in the two-minute drill and so really kind of Ryan just reached the same conclusion I did it was like I want to see more I don't I don't fully buy into this yet because really he had a big game but it was like his only third usable game of the season one of which came without D.K. Medcalf as I said so I just want to see more. I kind of need another week to feel good about it. But because I don't feel strongly in this, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Yeah. I mean, for me, I'm very bullish on JSN moving forward. I think that this is a offense, like we said, I think that this is an offense where they're still sort of figuring it

out. It's brand new coach, brand new OC. So again, I think the second half of the season could look a little bit different than the first. But with JSN, we've sort of seen them take the step forward where it's multiple strong weeks in a row. So I also like the fact that it was coming out of the buy week. Like that's sort of always the thing I'm looking for is, is the target volume sustainable? Like we see the guy get a 13 target game. Then they head into the buy week. They come out of it and he gets 11 again. So this is the first time in his career that he's had double-digit targets in consecutive weeks.

For me, I think everything's sort of pointing up for JSN. He's certainly a player that I've had to move up in my dynasty rankings. And I think rest of season rankings, JSN's going to be right there, Scott. Like, I don't know what his ceiling is because you guys do raise some red flags. I mean, you don't love seeing a guy go from like 25 yards per reception. in a smash week down to 11. So it's sort of like games with 11 yards per reception a bracketing a 25 yards per reception game. It's weird usage, but at the same time, it's consistent usage where he's getting the targets. He's fully healthy. JSN looks fully

acclimated and Gino Smith still has some swag as well. So I'm pretty bullish on JSN rest of the season. I think that he's the kind of guy that's going to get a great deal of momentum heading into 25. I can't, into 2012, 25, I can't wait till we do our 2025 mock draft show. We've got that plan down the line where Scott and I are going to try to predict ADP and share some thoughts there. But I believe JSN will be a guy that we're both excited about in a couple weeks. Yeah, I want to see him do it this week with, with Noah Fanback. Then, then I can go back to your sort of optimism. I have this issue with like players I was insanely high on and then made me look foolish. Like I need to, you really need to prove it.

Right. Like I as a prospect, I said JSN was Keenan Allen reincarnated. And, you know, I should be put in a stockade for saying that. But these last two weeks are, I don't know, we'll see. No, I think I think you were just ahead of schedule. And I think we talked about this with JSN too, where year one, we should have been a little more pessimistic because coming off of an injury, both at Ohio State and then having to get that surgery in the preseason. So like your optimism, like I think you're punishing yourself on the take. I think the comparison to Keenan Allen, I mean, hey, that's lofty, lofty praise. But it doesn't mean that JSN doesn't have potential to be a multi-season wide receiver one.

He's got the profile and also now has an offensive coordinator and head coach who are treating them sort of like a target magnet, much like Keenan Allen. I think you were right on that one. I think that you'll look smart for your JSN take over the next few seasons, but we'll see. This is a great segue, though, because we talked about JSN playing alongside DK. Metcalf. Now, we have George Kittle, who of course missed.

And we'll skip the Joanne Jennings discussion this week. Scott, you're going to be able to victory lap that one, I think, for a lot of the offseason. Your enthusiasm for Jennings when he became available on the first. waiver wire after iuk went down he looks like a rest of season wide receiver one but my question to you is the return of george kittle is this going to help or hurt christian mcalfrey because we're seeing mcalfrey get uh work as a receiver does kiddle potentially sap targets away from him does he potentially sap targets away from the wide receivers or is this a pie grows larger situation for everyone um i so i think i think kittle returning

should benefit McCaffrey. Rich Rebar had a great stat. This season, uh, without Kittle running backs averaging 3.7 yards per carry with Kittle, 5.7 yards per carry yards before contact basically doubles. And so I think getting him back in the lineup helps McAfree's efficiency. I think it actually hurts Joanne Jennings,

um, because there's some sort of redundancy to their role where they kind of work in similar areas of the field. well, actually, maybe not so much with Jennings in this X role. I don't know. I need to dig into that a little bit further. But yeah, that plays a role like it could with JSN. You know, his two big games.

One came without DK. Both came without Noah Fant. So I think it's important to look at that. And yeah, I kind of tweeted about this last week, but George Kittle might be my favorite player in the NFL might be the most underrated player, maybe the most valuable non-quarterback in football, not fantasy football, real football. You look at what he's done throughout his career,

leaves the position in yards per route run every single season, is also always one of the highest-graded blockers, according to PFF. And he's always hurt. He's always playing like seven different injuries. And so the big question, or like a question you see on Twitter a lot, is like, if you could ask God to turn injuries off for one player,

who would it have been? And Beau Jackson, everyone says. But I'd like to see it, Joe, George Kittle, right? You know, his reckless abandon and physicality and just not racking up multiple injuries and then playing through them in a way that like 99% of all other players would have been on IR. Yeah, no, I love it. I think that you're correct. And also, it totally makes sense that the efficiency for the running backs would be better alongside Kittle. I mean, he's such a mauler as a blocker, which is not something we always talk about.

but Scott, I would say like of like the of like the Mount Rushmore of fantasy football tight ends, he's probably the best blocker of all of them. When you think about like the guys who have really affected the game, like the Tony Gonzalez types, the Rob Grancowski's, the Jimmy Grams, Kittles just he's, he's a beast. I completely agree with you. That'll be an interesting one, but he's not going to catch Brock Bowers. Brock Bowers is going to be your tight end one overall finisher. that are you still on that track after last week um the kittle versus bowers rest of the season

which one you going with oh boy i don't know come on just say bowers got it you got to tilt that one after last week come on i think it's kiddle due to touchdown upside but um i don't know i love bower so much the word generational doesn't do him justice he's he's just such a freak of nature yeah and a shout out to the people who gave me heat this past off season for saying that he's big Jordie Nelson at tight end. That was on point. So we'll come back to that one. That's a great one.

Adam Thielen comes back this week. And people are going to say, why are you talking about Adam Thielen? But I loved seeing you sort of discuss Steeland. He's been a guy that I've written about in my waiver wire column for a couple weeks now because they didn't trade him. And it seems sort of weird because he seemed like the kind of guy that a number of teams would have treated sort of like a Mike Williams that you could go get down near the trade deadline and plug in play and get at least some sort of production.

But now he's going to return to Carolina. Bryce Young is behind center. And his wide receiver target competition, really his target competition is three rookies in Jalen Coker, Xavier Leggett, and Jatavian Sanders. Is there a chance that Adam Thielen could be a sneaky source of flex-es? production, wide receiver three production for you down the stretch? Yeah, I mean, probably not going to make a significant impact. He's 34 years old coming off of the hamstring. Probably not. But like at cost, you know, I want to add him off of waivers on every single one of my leagues just because I see

that upside. You know, don't forget through the first 11 weeks of last season with Bryce Young, Thielen ranked ninth in targets, 10th in fantasy points per game, 17.5. Legate ranks bottom seven in yards per target over expectation. Jalen Coker's a UDFA from Holy Cross. David Moore, I don't know, when has he ever been relevant? And so I wouldn't be shocked if Thielen just immediately becomes this target hog and, you know, Bryce Young trusts him more than the others to be in the right place at the right time. you know, we're outrunning technician, all that.

And it's also the Dave Canales, Mike Evans, Alpha X role that, you know, we were excited about this offseason. Yeah. I think that you sort of, you sort of nailed it. It's the role. And it's also the expectations here where we don't, with all the teams on buys in week 12 and then in week 14, Thielen could be helpful to you. It's sort of like, do you want to start DeMario Douglas?

Alec Pierce, Hachon Boutte, these are the kind of players that in deep leagues people are having to sift through where there is going to be people listening to this podcast and Adam Thielen's just going to be sitting there as a free agent because he's such an afterthought. He was effective last year. A lot of it was volume driven, but it's still, it's like that muscle memory for Bryce Young where he was hyper-locked on getting Adam Thiel in the ball, his most trustworthy target by far, even if Thielen's not quite as explosive, he still could make up for it in volume. So that's one that I have circled as sort of a sleeper this week. Got to talk to you about Noah Gray. Because speaking of old guys, Travis Kelsey this past week was out targeted and outproduced by Noah Gray.

Noah Gray ends up with five targets to Kelsey's four. And Noah Gray ends up with two touchdown catches. So Travis Kelsey was most likely a top three ranked tight end for pretty much anybody who does weekly rankings. And he gives you 2.8 ppr points. Gray, of course, gets you almost 20. Is this just a blip on the radar screen? I mean, you got to talk Travis Kelsey managers off of the ledge here, Scott. Anything to worry about here? Yeah, I'm inclined to believe it was just a blip.

Just like the 49ers game where Noah Gray led the team in receiving. and Kelsey similarly in that game saw a decline in route share. But you look at the larger sample since Rishi Rice went down, Kelsey 31.5% first read target share, 15.9 XFP per game. Both of those numbers easily lead all tight ends. And this is a position that is very prone to week-to-week variance. So I wouldn't sweat it. Maybe this is something real, but right now I'm just treating it as like a weird blip

on the radar. Yeah, probably a weird blip on the radar. They have the sort of get right game this week against Carolina. And this is also the game you get Pacheco back. So we'll keep an eye on this one. I would imagine that this is like, it's sort of just a we can't get too comfortable with Kelsey would be my one one takeaway where I feel like that's every tight end now. Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess you're right. I mean, listen, it's the guy had three straight weeks with more than 20 ppr points. He's allowed to have one three-pointer. As long as he returns back to, you know, that top-notch scoring this weekend in the fantasy football playoffs. Yeah, that was just a tilting one. I mean, if you're a Kelsey manager, so you're looking up, you see a tight end,

get a touchdown catch, and it's not Kelsey twice. I mean, that's about as tilting as it gets. Let's talk about the rookie quarterbacks. Let's briefly discuss Bo Nix and Jaden Daniels moving forward. Bo Nix has been on an absolute tear. This is a guy who has some very strong matchups coming up. And then, of course, Jaden Daniels, we haven't seen as many spike weeks with Daniels as we did earlier in the season. He's still a QB1, but sort of your expectations for both of these guys. Yeah, I think Bo Nix is playing out of his mind. I think he's one of the biggest surprises of the season.

Since week five, he ranks fourth in fantasy points per game. third in pass rating third and catchable throw rate second and turnover worthy throw rate keep in mind that's with like such a subpar supporting cast denver's receivers receivers have dropped a league high 167 air yards over this span and so like on twitter this like spurred a debate where it's like well this isn't real like look at his a dot is a dot is really low and uh denver's offensive line ranks really high by pressure rate over expectation and like Yeah, I think all that's fair. It's just, you know, like, why were we invested in Bo Nix this offseason?

Why was he one of my highest own basketball picks? It's because of Sean Payton. He has one of the best most fantasy-friendly environments for quarterback. You know, again, despite subpar pass catchers. Since 2018, we saw Taysam Hill average 20.5 fantasy points per start. A washed 40-year-old Drew Brees, average 19.8. 8, Russell Wilson 18, Trevor Simeon 18, Winston 17.2, Teddy Bridgewater, 17.1. All these numbers from like scrub backup quarterbacks is ahead of currently Patrick Mahomes

16.9, which would rank as the QB 14 by fantasy points per game. And so I'm inclined to believe this is real. He's running a lot, which is great and bolsters his floor. And then, And then Jaden Daniels, what's gone wrong with him? It was looking like an absolute league winner as cooled down. He's running less. I think it's just injuries. I think he's dealing with that rib injury. And then last week, it was his worst passing performance of the season.

He had a really bad cut on his throwing hand that had to get super glued closed. But I talked to Edwin Porris, fantasy points injury expert. He doesn't think that's going to be an issue. This week isn't going to be an issue. moving forward, either entry, I mean. And Dan Quinn said the exact same thing. To me, in a really good matchup, Daniels is back to being a mid-range QB1 at worst and for the rest of the season as well. Yeah, I'm with you.

And I think the Daniels one is it'll balance itself out. I think like we got peak Daniels in like that stretch of games like that Cincinnati game and then that Arizona game where maybe our expectations were a little bit too high. But I do think that everything is sort of like lined up for him to give you at least like mid QB1 numbers for the rest of the year. But the Bo Nix one, that one sort of gets me annoyed because I see a lot of smart people taking the, or I'll say not necessarily, I don't know if they're all smart, but they're analytical people taking the Bo Nix production is not real. it's it's such a cop out because this guy is winning football games this guy is producing in fantasy like we never really expected this to this level and I'll say that I know you were on him I know Sean Siegel a couple other people this offseason were on Bo Nix as like a value pick but even in your your wildest estimation you wouldn't have had him where he's at right now

But I think that it's also not taking into account that he's playing with probably the worst weapons he's ever going to have to play with. Besides Cortland Sutton, there isn't a single player on Denver that you'd be like, that guy's a real difference maker for him in terms of playmaking. Running back-wise, it's been sporadic play from multiple guys on the team, including Javante Williams. And when they say, you know, Bo Nix is low A-DOT, Bo Nix has a lot of time in the pocket. So that's what he was in college. He was a screen merchant in college who's very accurate and mobile. And they drafted him to do just that.

And he's fitting right into the system. And I think that a lot of times to punish a guy because he's a great fit in a system, we should actually be elevating him because it's a coaching staff that knows how to get production out of him and has a system in place that he can succeed in. So I don't get all this Bo Nix hate, if anything. Bo Nix is like found money for dynasty managers and bestball managers who drafted him because, oh my gosh, I need to draft another quarterback. They're looking great right now.

So shout out to Bo Nix. Bo Nix, you're not going to get disrespected here on School of Scott. We're rooting for you over here. Let's take a little galaxy brain here. We have T. Higgins. You've talked about how valuable his role is. This could be like such a massive shift this coming off season because T. Higgins is, is going to be a free agent.

And this is going to be a season where I don't think Cincinnati is going to extend them. I think this is going to be T. Higgins signing a mega contract with someone else. So let me ask you this. Who would be the team that you would like to see T. Higgins sign with the most, if it's not going to be the Bengals, a place where you think he could really, really thrive? And is there another position you've got your eye on this off season where there could be potential change?

where would I like to see him sign definitely the Bengals like I don't know how you could let this guy walk I know I know but like you he's just proved how integral he is to this offense and how much he elevates it where would I like to see him go I mean Denver is a good one right we were just griping about how Bo Nix doesn't have it what about probably New England there you go new England yeah I think that's the right one I think you get just excited if I told you T Higgins 140s 40 targets from Drake May next year. Oh, maybe. Then you're starting to get a little excited. But Denver, that would be a fun one as well. But I think it's sort of like he's shown he can absorb a, the target totals for T. Higgins, like for multiple seasons were lower than we wanted. And finally this year you've got that role.

So I love that one. I think that's going to be a sort of a cascade effect because wherever T. Higgins signs, he's going to be a guy who is an instant wide receiver. one because we're going to tell ourselves this is this is going to be 140, 140, 145 targets. And I think a lot of these teams who are going to give them this sort of contract are going to have to use them in that light. So it's also creating an opportunity where whoever gets that wide receiver two job

in Cincinnati, we know the value that that is with the Joe Burrow, Jemar Chase, wide receiver two. And this Bengals team might end up drafting one of the wide receivers that we're excited about in this draft class just as an instant replacement. So it's really a cascade effect. And I'll say for me, the Dallas Cowboys running back position. I've told this to a couple people. I talked with Ray Garvin the other day. And I told him, I said, your Cowboys are going to draft Ashton Genty. Like way, way, way too early. And he's like, no way. We're not doing it. I'm like, you're doing it. So I think the Dallas Cowboys are going to do it. And I think if that happens,

Ashton Gentie is going to be a top five pick for us. So Cowboys running back position. Yeah, I know. There you go. So yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe it would be like Ashton Jetty. The first ever rookie 101? First ever rookie 101 in Dallas.

I mean, it's like Jerry Jones's dream. And how many Ashton Genty Cowboys jerseys would be sold? I mean, he'd be the number one jersey all year. So I never say never. We saw him do it with Zeke Elliott. Maybe he'll do it again this year. I'm going to give you one more kind of off the cuff question because a shout to the FFPC. I did a trade target, a dynasty trade target article. You can read that over at

Fantasy Points because the FFPC has their trade deadline this week in their dynasty leagues. So I want to see, do you have a dynasty trade target and maybe a dynasty player you would look to trade away towards the deadline? Probably James Cook. We saw a massive decline in usage for him this past week. he scored on both of his carries inside the 10-yard line, but played a season low 38% snapshot, got out-snap by Ty Johnson in a game. The bills led the entire day.

And it's been unsustainable fantasy production relative to the volume all year. I think he's a good guy to sell high. People are just going to look at that fantasy point total, and not really look at the usage he got. No, I love it. For me, I'm kicking the tires on Tyrone and Tracy, no matter what, whether I'm a rebuilding team or a contending team, the schedule coming up is very strong.

And I actually think he'll have a ton of momentum heading into 2025. This is a player that I think people are sort of pushing aside long-term value because of his age and because of the. fact that he's a day three pick. But I think the Giants realize what they have. And I think this is a kind of guy that's going to actually survive the off season. And we're going to be super excited to draft him next year. Maybe at like the two, three turn, that kind of, that kind of hype this. I'm with you. So I love Tracy. But yeah, definitely check out my article over at fantasy points. Check out Scott's everything report. Scott, what do you have coming up rest of the week?

I shift to DFS. So you can check out all my DFS content over. Yeah. And stick with And stick with us right here at School of Scott. We're going to be back next week for Thanksgiving week. We're going to get you prepared to crush all of your Thanksgiving matchups. And we're going to get you ready for your fantasy football playoff.