Fantasy Football Today - 10 Deep Waiver Wire Adds with guest Adam Pfeifer of FTN Fantasy, plus rankings risers and fallers! (10/03 Fantasy Football Dynasty Podcast)

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Looking to dominate your fantasy league just like your redraft league? Look no further than Fantasy Football Today Dynasty hosted by our very own Heath Cummings! Download and follow Fantasy Football Today Dynasty on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you find your podcasts.  Adam Pfeifer of FTN Fantasy joins Heath Cummings on FFT Dynasty! First, the guys discuss James Cook, Gabe Davis, Dalton Kincaid, and everything Bills-related (2:20). Then, they discuss big news around the lead, including Jonathan Taylor (9:20) and Cooper Kupp (12:50), who are expected to return to practice this week. Next, the guys discuss deep waiver wire targets like Zach Wilson (21:00), Jaleel McLaughlin, Keaton Mitchell (24:25), Michael Wilson (28:35), and others. Finally, the guys wrap up with dynasty risers and fallers, including De'Von Achane (37:30), Kyren Williams (39:50), Puka Nacua (44:40), Calvin Ridley (46:20), Tee Higgins (50:50), Darren Waller, and more! Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings, joined today by Adam Pfeiffer of FTN.

Adam, what is up? You are dressed in the Bills colors today. We were talking before we hopped on. I mean, it's my entire wardrobe, so it would be very odd if I wasn't wearing anything Bills related. But especially after Sunday. I mean, massive win. Turns out Josh Allen is still good at football after week one. Shocked.

But yeah, I mean, I have to. I have to wear Bills pretty much six days out of the week. But I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, and you've been on the show once before. What I generally like to do with people is I'll go three questions for the guest. We've already done that with you. So today we're going to do three questions about the Buffalo Bills and Dynasty.

So you dressed the part. We'll also have some deep waiver wire ads. We will go over risers and fallers. And we've got big news to discuss. Jonathan Taylor may be coming back. Cooper Cup may be coming back.athan taylor may be coming back cooper cup may be coming back jameson williams may be coming back dallas goddard may be mattering to the eagles offense all kinds of exciting things happening in the fantasy football world let's get started though

with three questions about the bills and dynasty i do think a really interesting team because obviously josh allen is either qb1 or qb2 or qb3 in dynasty stefan diggs a little bit old but a clear top two or three guy for contenders right now and still a top 12 guy for everybody else and then a lot of question marks um james cook we'll start with him love the usage outside of the red zone so far this year. Looks like we might actually have a running back for the bills. Catch 50 passes. He's still young, wildly efficient.

How high is too high to rank James Cook and dynasty? Yeah, it's really tough because we just saw, and like, as a massive bills fan, I've also been a huge fan of Devin Singletary's. He is not as talented as James Cook, but we did see them, you know, use Singletary in a similar like 16 to 18 touch role. And then

once he had his rookie contract up, they moved on. So I don't think that's like out of the range of possibilities, but at the same time, like James Cook is more explosive. He's better in the passing game. And we've seen that with, obviously, the Bills. After that week one game, it was like, Josh, you have to start taking the layups. And that was the key for me in the offseason was, will Ken Dorsey design more layups for Josh Allen? Then defense has to start moving up, and then you can take the deep shots. And that's what we've seen the last three weeks, where the Raiders game, it was all checkdowns. A lot of that, again, was the Washington game. And then last week, it was kind of likeiders game, it was all checkdowns. A lot of that again was the Washington game.

And then last week it was kind of like, okay, everything was working, but no, like you said, I mean, James Cook's use, target shares like doubled this season. It was like 6% last year. It's hovering around 12% this season. Last week was interesting too, because he finally got the short yard of touchdown going into that game. I believe he had played three snaps from inside the five Latavious Murray and

Damian Harris going into last week had combined for like 12. So obviously he played a little bit. He played a couple, two carries inside the five on Sunday scored one of them. I do think it's a little bit like, I don't want to say it's a fluke, but like they handed the ball off and then went really fast. Hurry up.

They were trying. I thought it seemed very intentional they were going to get james cook a touchdown well i mean situation josh allen clearly wanted him in the end zone yeah josh allen pushed him from behind to get in if he even got in yeah i don't actually i actually didn't think he got in but the question how high is too high like i don't i don't think he's a top 12 running back. That's where I think – I'm right on the edge of that. I actually have him just inside.

I want to ask some guys who are similar age, James Cook or Javante Williams in Dynasty. If you ask me, even before the season, when we knew Javante would be slow to come out of the season, I probably would have still leaned Javante. But based off – because we saw James Cook super efficient as a rookie last season, albeit on a small sample size. But he's been really good again this year. The offense – and that's the thing, too, with the Bills. When I talk about players outside of, obviously, like, Stephon Diggs for Dynasty, this whole team is young. Like, Josh Allen, young, and he's not going anywhere. Same thing with the management. Same thing with the head coach.

And I thought the Bills' run game has been a pleasant surprise. So I would actually go James Cook now. I would, too. James Cook or DeAndre Swift. These last three games have made this very interesting now because, I mean, Swift's still on a one-year deal. And like,

I would, I would still lean Cook just because we know he'll be on a top five offense for at least the next couple of seasons. But if you told me Swift got re-upped with the Eagles, it'd be a very, very interesting discussion. One more. You can just give the one word answer. Cause we're going to Swift got re-upped with the Eagles, it'd be a very, very interesting discussion. One more, and you can just give the one-word answer, because we're going to talk about this guy as a faller at the end of the show,

James Cook or Andre Stevenson? James Cook. Easily James Cook for me. So, yeah, I do actually have him just inside the top 12. Yeah, maybe he is inside the top 12. I haven't done a redo of dynasty ranks, because I've been doing so much seasonal stuff. But, yeah, I mean, he's been very polarizing too, I feel like, for the last four months, right?

Question number two, will Gabe Davis ever be anything more than what he has been? And I'm not putting Gabe Davis down when I say that. I think he is a fantastic guy to have in your lineup as a number three wide receiver or a flex. He might score you 15 or 20 fantasy points that week. He might get one target. He might still score 15 fantasy points on one target. You just never really know exactly, but very good at his role. Is he ever anything more than this? Is he ever a 20% target share guy? I mean, not when you have Stefan Diggs there, obviously. But I think Gabriel Davis is just always going to be a upside wide receiver three, like you said.

And that's fine. I think in this offense, like, he is somebody that's been much better if you look at his splits against zone coverage. So I feel like we talk about that a lot with, like, Kandibo, in terms of the zone man splits. Davis has been really good against teams that play a lot of zone. Look at the Raiders game. He had 90 in a touchdown. They play mostly zone. Last week, Vic Fangio has played a lot more zone with Miami compared to years

past when they've been so man heavy. He scored. You're hoping he scores on six, maybe seven targets for his ceiling. And that's fine for a wide receiver three, especially where, you know, this time last season he was being drafted as high as we've ever seen. So, yeah, I think the way you worded it is perfectly like I don't think he'll surpass this, which is still a lot of weeks where he'll be a top 20 receiver. And some weeks we'll have three catches for 40 yards and won't score. I did want to just address a question I saw in the chat before we get to our last bill question.

Do I spend every fab dollar on Julio McLaughlin? We've got waiver wire coming up. We're going to spend a lot of time on the rookie running back and what we're doing, but I lean towards probably, and it's a deep dynasty league. Question number three, Dalton Kincaid. Is he going to happen this year or can we wait to 2024 to buy low my my rookie tight end strategy and it's failing miserably with sam laporta right now

but for the most part my strategy has been let's just wait until the following october and we'll buy them cheaper than they were in the rookie draft because rookie tight ends are almost always bad um so far it looks like not a bad strategy with Mayer or with Kincaid. Not working out so well with Laporta. Do you think Kincaid gets it going at all this year, or is he just a long-term play? I think he gets it going this year. I think we've also, because we knew going into season

that rookie tight ends rarely are incredibly productive, then we've seen what Sam Laporta's done, and now we're like, okay, what's going on with Kincaid? What's going on with Michael Mayer? Kincaid will get it going this year. I don't think he's going to be to the point where it's like, we view him as somebody you have to start every week. Like Laporta suddenly a top six tight end.

But I mean, just last week, season high in, you know, he started to play more. He ran a season high in terms of percentage of routes run. He had a 17% target share, which was tied for a season high. What I want to see from the Bills is they're using him right now in very, very, very low risk plays, right?

It's a lot of chipping a defensive lineman and then leaking out for a quick pass. They're not using him as essentially the you know, essentially the slot wide receiver that we've heard, which rarely happens, I feel like. But there are occasions like last week against Miami where he does line up in the slot against a linebacker and it's game over. So I think the Bills want him at some point to be in that Cole Beasley role, not saying he's going to catch 80 passes. But yeah, I think there's going to be a stretch at some point this season where he starts to be close to what we hope for. But in terms of expecting what we've seen from Sam Laporta,

probably more so next year. Right. I think that's probably right. That's enough on the Bills. Let's get to the big news. Jonathan Taylor going to return to practice, I believe, tomorrow. He will be active at the 21-day window will be opened. His head coach actually saying it's a possibility that we could see him this week. They've had conversations and they're positive.

Now, I've not heard anything from Taylor or from Taylor's camp that suggests that his feeling towards playing for the Colts on his current contract has actually changed. He's currently my RB6 in Dynasty. I think he could come back this week, start, and become RB2 in Dynasty this week if we knew he was all the way back in with the Colts. How are you handling Taylor? Do you feel confident he's coming back to play for Indianapolis? Do you feel confident he's going to make it more than a game

before he needs to come out for another injury? I mean, what's what's your feeling right now on him? So I feel like when we do a lot of this fantasy analysis, it's it's OK to just not know. I have no clue what to expect from Jonathan Taylor, to be honest. But I will say if he gets anything close and I can't believe I'm saying this this point in the season, if he gets anything close to what we're seeing from Zach Moss usage, yeah, he's going to be, you know, at worst, you know, a top three running back in Dynasty because Zach Moss is like, he's like at 40. He's touching, he's either seeing a carry or a target on like 42% of his snaps. It's the highest rate in the NFL. It's higher than McCaffrey. It's the highest rate in the NFL. It's higher than McCaffrey. It's insane.

And then you add the fact that Shane Steichen and Anthony Richardson look fantastic and the offense looks like it's going to be better than league average at this point with what we've seen from Richardson. He's been unbelievable. And then the fact that Jonathan Taylor is still really good at football. So yeah, I think as long as he stays healthy, I don't know what's going on. I did see,

I think Jay Glazer reported yesterday or the day before that no teams have made any offers to the Colts for Jonathan Taylor, which kind of makes sense considering Miami has the best running back in NFL history now all of a sudden, which is good for them. And then Minnesota obviously made that trade for acres. So I don't know if there is a team. Well,

there's one that I think makes a ton of sense baltimore yeah as somebody that has a really good dynasty team with jonathan taylor i would not be opposed to that right then kind of everybody wins right taylor gets a great spot where he can get all the work zach moss can still be useful um so i don't know what's going on with with the situation but i do know if he's playing for the Colts and gets the Zach Moss role, he's going to be really, really good. I would feel more comfortable with Taylor almost anywhere next week than in Indianapolis, just because, and, and some of this is speculation on my part, some of it, the NFL speculating on, they sent a letter to the players association saying, stop advising running backs to not play through through injuries.

It's a violation of our agreement. But Taylor has done so far the best job of all the running backs of not having to play for four weeks or practice for eight weeks and getting paid for all of it. And so I do have concern that if he's not going to trade him, he's not going to play through anything. That's really my only concern. I would going to rush him back. We're going to talk about Puka Nakua because he continues to skyrocket up the dynasty rankings in just a little bit. But do you view Cup as just as soon as he's back, he's Cooper Cup again?

Or are you thinking as a Cooper Cup dynasty manager, this might be my last off ramp with people thinking that he's about ready to come back? Yeah, it's really tough because like you have the situation where at worst, like even if you think Cooper Cup goes back to being this, you know, 32% target share player and everything. And worst case is Puka goes to like the Robert Woods role. The difference is, and I love Robert Woods, he's actually one of my favorite players in the league. The difference between that is when he was with the Rams, he wasn't getting open at this rate. He wasn't getting targets at this rate.

He was getting seven, eight targets a lot of games, but he's also getting those jet sweeps. And we've seen them do that a little bit with Puka because he did that in college too. But the way he's getting he did that in college too, but the way he's getting open against zone coverage and everything like this is not a fluke. So, and the way Stafford's playing, like, I think cup is somebody you're starting at the second he's active, obviously, but like, I don't know if he's back to being,

because like preseason I had cup is my wide receiver three. Like I had him ahead of Terry kill, which obviously looks terrible right now. But I think, I don't, I had Kup as my wide receiver three. Like, I had him ahead of Tyreek Hill, which obviously looks terrible right now. But I think – I don't think – I guess the best way to put it is I don't think this is going to be Cooper Kup 32% target share because – and the other thing, too, is I agree with you. I don't think he plays this week. I think they can be cautious with him. They're 2-2. It's not just Puka that's played well.

They're getting great contributions from Tutu Atwell and karen williams stafford's playing well the defense is playing way better than anybody expected so i think they should and would be wise to kind of ease him in so but it's very interesting to see what happens and my news item number three jameson williams is back eligible to return this week this i I need you to shine some sunshine on Jamison Williams. Get people excited. I don't have him on the team. I would trade him right now, honestly. So you're not going to help here.

I think we should at least remember that there were a lot of people coming in the last year that thought Jamison Williams might have been the best wide receiver in that class. He is an extremely talented dude i just am afraid like i don't he's i don't think he's taking josh reynolds off the field i think he's taking khalif raymond's role when he's ready and that's not this week yeah um he's going to be added a lot but kind of the same thing i said for cooper cup now, it makes more sense because he's 30. So maybe it is the last chance to get off. But, man, I would be just about ready to sell Jamison Williams right now if I had him.

Yeah, so I'm no help to you. I literally was going into this. As soon as I saw the news that he was eligible to return this week, perfect opportunity to trade him. Not that he's not a talented player, and not that he's not going to have some really, really impressive games, but it's not just the fact that Josh Reynolds doesn't come off the field, like you said. They have Sam Laporta, who's like,

they're already not throwing the ball at a massive rate anyway. I believe they lead the NFL in red zone rush rate, which Dave Montgomery's going to have 38 touchdowns. throwing the ball at a massive rate anyway. I believe they lead the NFL in red zone rush rate, which, you know, Dave Montgomery is going to have 38 touchdowns. So, but then you add the fact that saves Jared Goff throws 32 passes in a game. I'm going to,

I was getting eight to 10. Laporta is getting six to eight. I mean, Gibbs would hope is getting, yeah, I just, I think James Williams is going to be like, almost like Gabe Davis,

but in an offense that's not throwing the ball as much and isn't quite as good well and he's got a ways to go to get to Gabe Davis all right he played six games last year he caught one pass yeah and the thing with Davis too like he doesn't come off the field right he's gonna he's going to run and play as many snaps run as many routes as play as many snaps as anybody and like Jameson Williams this team still plays a lot of two tight end sets when they go wide receivers, I think it's going to be on and around Josh Reynolds. So, yeah, I would use this opportunity to try to trade him, especially if you are hurting at running back or something like that. So I want to just go through a few names here.

I'll try to keep it to the young guys here. Inkdell over Jamison Williams? Yes, not even close for me nico especially with the way cj stroud's playing nico over jameson yep jameson or gabe davis and dynasty that's tough because this is this is a contract year for davis but i kind of think like he's he's a captain for that team i think they kind of bring him back. So I'm going Gabe Davis, obviously. I've got Jamison just, that's the only one of the guys that I asked that I have Jamison ahead of, and it's just barely.

One more, and this isn't really big news, but we did want to talk about him, and the Eagles were talking about Dallas Goddard. He's still a part of the game plan, Adam. It's hard to lower him too much based on performance because all the tight ends who are around him have been terrible also. Do you have any hope for Dallas Goddard? Are you ranking him like a starter on a weekly basis right now? And is he still a top 10 guy for dynasty purposes? So Goddard is so interesting because on a per-target basis, there haven't been four tight ends better than him over the past three seasons.

The problem is right now, he's still running routes all the time. The problem is with the Seagulls offense, it's they're running the ball more and more effectively. They're fifth, I believe. They're like 63% red zone rush rate, which is top five in the NFL. We know when they get inside the five, it's either going to Swift or they get even closer. We know what they're like 63 red zone rush rate which is top five in the nfl we know when they get inside the five it's either going to swift or they get even closer we know what they're doing and then it's this rpo scheme offense still which when they run the rpos it's going to aj brown if they're throwing the ball because that's how these plays are set up and like dallas goddard like after that week one game where he had zero catches they designed some screens for him which

they occasionally do he had two screen targets in that minnesota game where he had zero catches, they designed some screens for him, which they occasionally do. He had two screen targets in that Minnesota game where he had like five catches for 20 yards. And he has he's had one sense. Like, I just think. And the other thing I this is my concern going into the season. Do you want to guess how many end zone targets Dallas Goddard has since 2021? Like four. It's exactly four. So well done.

I think two of them might have been from Gardner Minshew. Right. This team doesn't throw in the red zone very much, especially this year. And they hard, like they haven't, even when they do, it's not gone to Dallas Goddard. So it's, again, it's almost like it's not quite to the Kyle Pitts level because like Goddard's still giving you something most weeks. He's also not competing for targets with Johnny Smith. But yeah, you're kind of like stuck because like Laporta we're,

we're starting over him. Right. But like after that, like, are you really starting? That's a bad example. Cause he's out a couple of weeks now, but you weren't,

I don't think you were going Frymuth over him. I don't think you're going Hunter Henry over him. I might go Hunter Henry over him. I think I go, I think I'd go Cole commit over him. I think I'd go Cole Komet over him. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to see it against a non-Broncos team. And I love Justin Fields, and he played great regardless of the opponent. But yeah, I would like to see this offense really be functional

for a couple weeks. But I don't think it's crazy to have Komet and Henry over him over him it's just been and then in that same kind of quote you talked about with sirianni he was he was he was doing what we hate coaches to do for tight ends and gushing about his run blocking like yeah he gets tough yeah all right let's take a short break and then we will get into the uh the deep dive waiver wire right after this. Okay, Adam. So the way we like to do this is we look for guys who are rostered in 10% of CBS leagues or fewer.

Some of these guys are still rostered in a lot of dynasty leagues. I understand that, but some of these guys are not. And at the top of the list at quarterback, it's a short list. It's Zach Wilson and Taylor Heineke, and Heineke's not actually a starter yet zach wilson probably his most impressive game that i can remember in the last year and a half now he gets to go play against those broncos

is he a surefire qb2 starter this week is there any hope that you know like he got off this season terrible start looks awful but also playing a top five defense three weeks in a row it seemed like and then the chiefs defense has been very good as well this season is there hope that as the schedule lightens up zach wilson can maybe grow a little bit as a quarterback and take advantage of the fact that he's got garrett wilson and breeze hall and pieced together a decent QB2 season? Yeah. So the other thing other than Zach Wilson that impressed me in that game, I think that was the best game we've seen Nathaniel Hackett call in years because what did

we all expect the Jets to do once Aaron Rodgers got hurt? It was run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, rely on the defense. I don't think they can actually do that because, especially if you're not giving Brees like 90% of the work, because Dal ball, run the ball, rely on the defense. I don't think they can actually do that because especially if you're not giving brace like 90% of the work, because Dalvin cook's been like the least efficient running back in the league. So if you try to run on a first and second down, all of a sudden it's third and eight. And then you have Zach Wilson and third long against these good defenses. So what Hackett did last week was against the chiefs was play action on first

down and get ahead of the sticks and Wilson looked more comfortable. So yeah, like I was actually thinking about this yesterday. Like, are you starting Zach Wilson over Joe Burrow this week? I am 100% starting Zach Wilson over Joe Burrow this week. That's what I'm saying. Like, and then the Broncos, I mean, they're allowing like almost four points per drive, like insane, most a 10.2% passing touchdown rate, highest yards per attempt. I mean, we saw like, it's just, they are just unbelievably bad.

So that's that line two 45 and two. If that Wilson did that again, I would not be shocked. Yeah. I think he's definitely an ad in the super flex league. Make sure that he's rostered one quarterback. I would start him over, bro. I'd start him over Dak against San Francisco this week. Also.

So that's, that's a couple of guys. we did not think we'd be saying that the other guy heineke like we're just we're just hoping that arthur smith benches desmond ritter at some point um and then heineke i think would probably be a qb2 and i think we'd probably see the pass rate go up a little bit for the falcons there were a couple of guys who got a chance to start. Rookie quarterbacks, both rostered in about 5% of leagues. Aiden O'Connell, we got AOC and DTR, I guess, for the Browns. Do you have any impressions from those guys? I thought as a passer, O'Connell looked okay. His pocket presence was pretty terrible.

I didn't see anything at all that I liked from DTR. Yes. O'Connell had this weird thing where he just didn't target Devontae Adams until second half, which in your first career start seems really suboptimal to not throw to one of the three best wide receivers

in the world. But then he started to get it going in the second half. I actually didn't see much of the Cleveland-Baltimore game. DTR was obviously really exciting in the preseason, but we expect Deshaun Watson. I think Deshaun Watson was cleared to play in that game, but they were being safe. I think Watson's going to be back under center.

Garoppolo, I still believe, is in the concussion protocol unless something came out today. Something to keep an eye on. But I'm actually very, just at least, happy that the Raiders went with O'Connell instead of Brian Hoyer. Yes, that was nice. And I think if I had to stash one of these guys, it would probably be O'Connell just because it seems more likely that Jimmy G will go down with an injury this year than Deshaun Watson. It's probably delayed this long enough.

Julio McLaughlin, 3% rostereded 10 yards per carry last week it was the bears looks like the most explosive bros running back if you one of my favorite things that has happened since we started this podcast i don't know back in april is that when this happens when puka happened week one i get these tweets from guys hey you guys talked about him back in april back in may back in june and we did definitely talk about this guy as kind of sean payton's pet project how do you see this broncos running back room kind of moving forward and somebody asked in a deep dynasty league which i think you would expect that mclaughlin was rostered in most of those, but not all certainly, is he worth a full 100% of the fab? It's got to be pretty close in a deep Dynasty League.

It's not like he went from healthy scratch, zero snaps, to playing when Javante went out. He was getting – they had a design toss play i think it was week three in the red zone it was for him right and he scored he's shown a lot of burst and like when giovante went out samajipiran i believe is still playing most of the two minute work but like i've seen kind of conflicting stuff with giovante he might miss one to two weeks he might still be able to play this week but still like he's clearly somebody that needs to be added in Dynasty Leagues, whether Gervonta plays or not. And then you add the fact that he could be out one to two weeks.

Yeah, I mean, the offense has looked obviously much improved. The only thing I worry about is, like, will this defense be able to not, you know, give up 40 points? And will he be able to get 15 carries in a given game if he starts? Because I still think they trust Samajit Piran in the two-minute drill, which he was playing a lot last week. But yeah, I think he's pretty close to somebody that you have to kind of just go for in a deep dynasty league if you're hurting at running back. The other running back I had on the list, and it's somebody I've had a lot of tweets, relatively considering, about Keaton Mitchell. He's on the ir for the ravens obviously

they've got the jk dobbins situation they're trying to piecemeal it together with gus edwards and justice hill and melvin gordon and mitchell kind of like mclaughlin he's got some some some uh some burst ability if he can get all the way back to what he was. Is this somebody you're interested in, in kind of rostering and stashing? A little bit. I think the usage from the Ravens running backs last week, Justice Hill was limited coming off the turf toe. So Gus got a lot of the work.

I just worry that like this team has been clearly, I don't know if they've been comfortable because they've just been so depleted at running back, but they've been perfectly fine giving these veterans, you know, Kenny and Drake, Melvin Gordon, maybe work, but they also probably know what they have in every running back on that team, except for Keaton Mitchell. So from just that point of view, it's definitely worth a speculative ad. The other thing too, with the Ravens, this has not been the offense we expected in the offseason they lead the NFL in neutral script rush rate they're ahead of Atlanta they're running the ball 53 percent of the time in neutral game script so it's not like it's okay even even I thought when Dobbins went out they would just go okay we're going to this pass heavy offense that they kind of alluded to but they've also been

missing wide receivers too so um yeah, I think he's worth a definite look. Have they had one game this season with their top three wide receivers and Mark Andrews healthy? So week one, Andrews was out. Week two, they had Odell leave. He didn't play the second half.

And then week three, Odell didn't play, and then obviously Odell didn't play. And Bateman didn't play. And then obviously Odell didn't play. And Bateman didn't play. And Bateman didn't play, yeah. So we've not really seen that pass offense with all of the weapons there. This team just every year, especially early in the year, they're missing like eight key players every single year.

I don't know how they do it. They'd probably like to figure out how to stop doing it. At wide receiver, I've got a couple of guys who are 5% rostered. Michael Wilson should% rostered. Michael Wilson should be rostered in all dynasty leagues. He was just a rookie that was selected, but 5%. I mean, there are leagues that only have two or three rounds of rookie drafts. Maybe he didn't get picked. You think he, like, what I struggle with is Marquise Brown's going to be the clear number one,

and they're throwing the ball to their tight ends at a 25% to 30% clip. Even when Kyler comes back, can Wilson matter this year for fantasy with Brown as the number one and the tight ends getting this many targets? I think he can because I think on that final drive on Sunday, I think Ertz had like five targets or something. He was doing nothing until that last drive of the I think Ertz had like five targets or something like he was doing nothing until that last drive of the game right in garbage time uh his target rate and I've kind of been tracking this Josh Dobbs and I think he said like six starts or something over the past couple of

seasons five six starts in those starts he's targeting tight ends like 35 percent of the time I think it went down obviously after last week but they're not using Rondo Moore in a different way in this new offense it's's still a lot of short. He's still like bottom five in ADOT, and then he's getting a couple jet sweeps. So his role hasn't changed. So it's really like Michael Wilson as the two. And Josh Jobs is playing really good football. So, yeah, like he obviously should have been drafted in every rookie draft.

But like you mentioned, in case it's more of a shallow rookie draft, yeah, make sure you go get him. But I think he should be the widest receiver, too, for this team the rest of the season. And I expect the targets to go down from these tight ends, especially with Dobbs playing the way he's been playing. And then any interest at all in Nick Westbrook, if Traylon Burks misses another game, Westbrook was involved,

DeAndre Hopkins doesn't seem to be quite 100% right now. That's the thing. Hopkins, he was limited again yesterday on Sunday. Right. And it's like, I can't take practice reports away from him or Henry because they aren't going to practice a lot this year. But if he keeps not practicing and then being limited, he was like under 70% routes on Sunday.

Like he's still getting targets when he's out there. But yeah, I think that's an interesting call because obviously Traylon didn't play, but at the same time too, like this could be a team too. I know they won yesterday, but like, I still don't, I'm still not overly impressed with them.

Like what if they're, what if they're two and six at some point, you know, they could be a team that trades some players, you know, they're basically playing the Colts for the lead in the division this week. That entire division is sitting at 2-2. Trevor Lawrence has got Buffalo.

And the Colts and the Titans are playing. One of them is going to win and be 3-2 and be in first place. Probably sole possession of first place in that division. Yeah, I guess that's a good point. Jacksonville has been off to a slow start. And then Houston and Indianapolis have been really, really impressive. And Tennessee's obviously still 2-2 as well.

But overall, I do like the call, especially because Hopkins, he's not playing a lot in three-wide sets or in two-wide sets because he's been less than 100%. And then at tight end, and I was pretty interested actually in both of these guys,

but Tyler Conklin, Durham Smythe. Smythe had the game where he was kind of injured and not a part of the offense, had four targets last week. But when Wilson got going against the Chiefs, it was a lot of Conklin. And he had some moments last year as kind of a high volume member of this pass offense. It wouldn't surprise me that much if Conklin was second or third in targets on a weekly basis behind garrett wilson and he's just seven percent rostered smith just two percent i think any time you're desperate for a tight end stream just choosing smith and hoping he catches one of two as touchdown passes makes sense but conklin i think could actually be a high-end tight end to the rest of the year yeah Yeah. And especially this week, I mean, both have really good matchups. Durham Smythe is really interesting because I had him, we had Jalen Waddle out in week three. I was like, okay, this is a good spot to maybe stream Durham Smythe. And then it was Julian Hill who was active for the first time.

He ran all the routes. And then I was like, okay, well, Smythe's probably done last week. It goes back to Durham Smythe running most of the routes. So maybe they're kind of doing a week-to-week thing. But, yeah, I'm definitely interested in Conklin. He looked good. Like you mentioned last year, he had some weeks last year. And Garrett Wilson should get his 30% target share.

But after that, it's really up for grabs. And, again, when all else fails, just look for players against Denver at this point. Jasmine in the comments, Durham smooth. And let's take a short break, and then we'll get to the Dynasty risers and fallers. Okay, before we get to risers and fallers, I think it's really, I'm sorry. I've got to put this up now.

The smooth is loose. It's fantastic. The quarterback position in Dynasty right now, I think, is fascinating. And it's mostly fascinating after the top four or so. I think everybody mostly would agree. Right now, especially, it's Mahomes, it's Hur's hurts it's alan in some order if you want to put it alan mahomes hurts or whatever those three are the top three quarterbacks in fantasy i feel like since he's the only guy in the top six who hasn't really struggled that much i

lamar's still my number four quarterback for dynasty purposes same he was my four coming in then it gets really difficult because i really want to put richardson five i really do i have richardson five yeah he is my number five quarterback and so we're agreeing on the top five and i i think like probably the next two for me are herbert and tua yep Yep. With where we stand right now. So now obviously we haven't said Joe Burrow yet. And we haven't said Trevor Lawrence yet. And we haven't said Justin Fields, who was a top five dynasty quarterback for a lot of people just a month ago. The problem with the Bears is they're going to have two top five picks.

Right. In the NFL draft. And then the guy, and you mentioned it how well he's playing like how how much longer does CJ Stroud have to do this before he's in this conversation he's done it already like the other thing too is the Bobby Slowick offense obviously he was the passing game coordinator in San Fran it's been as advertised like Like it's been, and that's why I thought the combination was so fun because Stroud is so accurate, especially in the middle of the field, and that's where Collins has won.

That's where Tank Dell has won. And it's been perfect. And he's doing this without three offensive linemen. So I've seen enough. Like he's an elite prospect. He's played. You can't list five quarterbacks that have played elite prospect. He's played. You can't, you can't list five quarterbacks that have played better than him this

year. Like you can't. So I see, I'm going to put you on the spot. We got my homes hurts. Alan Jackson, Richardson, Herbert to a,

those are the top seven in whatever order you want. You've got, you got to rank the next five who are, who are the next five currently in dynasty. Okay. So I still feel like burrow should be on here uh-huh so i'm gonna go burrow and then i'm gonna go right to stroud burrow stroud i need three more lawrence i'll still go fields but if they... We have the same top 11. I think 12 is almost impossible.

You could say 17 different names, and I'd have a hard time arguing. Who would be your number 12? Dak, Kyler, Brock Purdy. Jordan Love, Deshaun Watson, Bryce Young, just because he's young. Russell Wilson's back. I'm going to put him up there.

Kirk Cousins is a top five quarterback this year. I'll put him... There are 11 11 quarterbacks i think now that are qb ones i actually have it um and i might be emphasizing this year a little bit too much but i actually have it stroud lawrence burrow fields um but i i can't think of a reason to rank trevor lawrence aboveJ. Stroud right now. Yeah, it's totally fair. I know it's only been four games, but I've seen enough. It's not like he's having 360 yards and four touchdowns off just straight garbage time with multiple interceptions and checking it down.

He is making some of the best throws some of the best anticipation throws um yeah like you should be all in on cj stroud and like i'm trying to think of their opponents they faced what indianapolis pittsburgh um jackson no not jacksonville yeah jacksonville where he destroyed them obviously yeah so he's just been again they're probably going to play a lot of bad teams this year they won they won like two games last year so the schedule is going to be relatively easy that division not exactly stacked especially in terms of past defense might be one of the worst in the league okay let's get to the risers and the fallers now and we've gone long enough you said the best running back in the nfl he might be third behind mcafree and and bajon robinson but uh devon a chan has moved up he was my rb20 coming into the week one week he's at rb13 what is i haven't looked do you know what his his rank is for the position and fantasy points through what eight quarters essentially four or five he's played like eight quarters

absolutely absurd and again like dave made this comment on our sunday night podcast because i'm always the guy and it's a fantasy football meme look how great this guy's been here's why he can't do this anymore like he's obviously not going to average 10 yards per carry i would love to know how you feel about kyron williams at that rate then yes we're going to talk about him in just a moment um but where where should like is he a top 12 dynasty running back immediately does he have to like prove that he can handle more than 10 touches in a game before that happens yeah it's so tough because you obviously don't expect this efficiency to continue i don't i don't know if't know if Jeff Wilson will even be a factor at this point. Because we saw the usage was still in favor of Mostert.

And then Mostert fumbled twice on Sunday. A-Chain was getting the carries inside the 10 before, like in the first quarter. When both teams scored two touchdowns. There was one where they just ran it with him. Then there was one where they had him in Tyreek. Tyreek was emotion. They ran a reverse with a chain. Like I use,

everybody knew it when he was drafted. It is the perfect fit for him and his offense. And we're seeing that come to fruition. I worry a little bit about the offensive line for Miami, but like he can, again, not this, not this level production every week, but even if most are still gets his, you know, snaps.

And even if Jeff Wilson gets a little bit, when he comes back, he, he can still get, you know, a hundred total yards on 14, 13 touches. Like if he has a hundred total yards and scores multiple touchdowns again this week, and he's facing the giants. So why not right there are going to people people ranking him at rb2 or three in dynasty um i i try to move things a little more slowly so that we don't have these boomerangs all over the place but like we started with a guy james cook who i said is a top 12 running back you'd rather have a chan than cook it's really close

yeah you're clearly asking the wrong person okay let's talk about kyron williams he was RB24. He is up to RB20 for me now. I still think this could all fall apart. This is the opposite of A-chan in that Kyron Williams is not really doing that many things that I find that impressive. But he's the clear workhorse back. And even if he's 29 and he's Derek Henry's agent, you only get this one year. That's probably worthy of a top 24 running back in dynasty with the state of the position right now. You're,

you're concerned about Williams as well. Are you trying to sell, or do you think contenders can at least bank on this for this year? So I'm torn because there's really nobody that can stop him from getting this workload. Like Zach Evans can stop him from getting this workload. Like, Zach Evans can't even get on the field. Like, they're not training for anybody. Ronnie Rivers is the clear number two right now.

Yeah, and he actually looked pretty good on his touches. But it was literally like the third quarter where he came in and just gave Kyron a little bit of rest. Then the fourth quarter in overtime was all Kyron again. I do think this touchdown rate is insane. I do think it's pretty annoying for anybody that keeps streaming Matthew Stafford in good matchups. I also like he – I think he has a hip issue right now. Nothing serious, I don't think. But like I just don't think he can go the whole season getting 25 opportunities per game at his size.

But then who else are they giving the ball to so all right i don't think like there's i'm usually either like you either trade him high now or you don't i'm fine with either route honestly if you want to hold on to him and just just because i don't think there's anybody coming to take away now mcveigh talked about it leading into last week that he can't keep getting 100 of the snaps and he did go down but it didn't matter because he touched the ball almost every time he was on the field but like I'm fine if you trade him at his peak value I'm also fine if you just ride it out and say you know what there's nobody else that can stop him from getting maybe not 25 28 touches but like and again that game went to overtime but 18 to 23 touches per game feels like pretty safe

for him right now yeah I think he's someone like if, if he's found money on a team that's not really quite ready to contend yet, then I'm selling as quick as I can. Cause I have zero confidence that he's going to be a starting running back even next year. Yeah. But if I'm a contender, I'm just going to,

I'm just going to take that found money and try to try to go win the league. And like, I thought this team would be drafting somebody in the Charbonnet range at the NFL draft, and they didn't. You would think, despite how good Williams has been, they will be drafting a running back relatively early compared to most teams in the league, barring anything crazy, Jonathan Taylor trade, et cetera, this time next year.

One more running back in the risers, Khalil Herbert from RB40 up to RB31. I was so encouraged. And it's what we'd seen for most of the season when the Bears were competitive. Herbert was playing most of the snaps, but we hadn't seen the Bears be competitive for an entire game. So I didn't know if that would continue to be the case. Herbert looked very good against a fantastic matchup. He's the clear lead back. They're going to have plenty of games where they're way behind, but I think they'll be more competitive than they have been early in the year. Herbert, do you think that he should be ahead of Kyron Williams? I think it's easy to make the argument he's a better rusher,

but the situation's probably not quite as good right now, and I don't think either of them have a long-term future, right? Herbert's tough because, for the most part, in games he's played without Dave Montgomery, dating back to the last couple of seasons, he's been awesome. And then obviously this year he got off to a slow start. They had Donta Foreman active for the first two weeks. But yeah, last week, the Bears traditionally,

when Montgomery was there, Montgomery would play first two drives herbert would come in for the third then they'd go back to montgomery they went away from that usage to start the season but last week they went right back to that and that's why herbert played as much as he did and roshan didn't play as much you do have to worry about what happens if the bears are trailing any game again um but like it's not like herbert came off the field for every third down, every two-minute snap last week. So I was pretty encouraged as well. I do think he's a good player.

But this wouldn't be a bad opportunity to trade high as well just because there's going to be a lot of uncertainty with the Bears given what their record is right now going into next season. And they had a 28-7 lead at one point last week. I don't think they will have that again this year. No two wide receivers moving up in the rankings. And I feel like one of these guys, I might be too high on one of these guys.

I might be too low on, I know one of them that you're going to say I'm too low on. So Puka moved up from wide receiver 29 to wide receiver 18 for me. He is now the number three rookie wide receiver for me behind only JSN and Addison. It still feels a little bit uncomfortable, but I just couldn't ignore another week, that monstrous performance.

I think you've got to believe at this time, and then we'll see how bad it is when Cooper Cup comes back. And then Nicoins was my wide receiver 43 that was too low he's now my wide receiver 35 i assume you think that's still too low how high would you have nico ranked do you think he could legitimately be a number one wide receiver yeah so with with puka i think it's interesting like where would you rank it's tough because the ages are massively different but like if if Robert Woods was a rookie playing this way, like,

like it's, he's, he's in the Robert Woods role and then some, and like the, he's, he's his production. It's like so ridiculously good that you can't even, you can't even call it a fluke.

It's kind of like a Chan though. It's kind of like, it's like it's double the time or not quite double. Cause it's three out of four weeks, I guess, but like, it's just so outlandish that it's hard to know how serious to take it. I just think to be able to get open at this rate

and get targets at this rate, it's legit. For Collins, you said what, wide receiver 35? 35. I honestly think that feels about right. Would you rather have him or his teammate Tank Dell in Dynasty? I love Tank Dell as a prospect, I thought. And the other thing with Tank Dell, too, is everybody was like, oh, is he going to be able to win on the outside because he's small?

He's played out wide like 73% of the time. It's not been a problem. I would still, I think think rather slightly have collins but yeah i think collins belongs in like the i don't know like johan dodson deontay johnson type range okay i i if you kept him at what 43 i definitely would have thought that was too low but 35 feels perfectly fine all right i i'll take it he is currently between marquise brown and calvin ridley in my dynasty rankings and ridley is one of the fallers we can just we can go right there right now week one happened and i tweeted well we don't have to wonder dangerous for us we don't we don't

have to wonder if calvinley's still Calvin Ridley. He's clearly still Calvin Ridley. Look at what he just did. And it's not been that at all anymore. A couple of bad drops, a couple of injury scares, really struggling with press coverage, and he's been shadowed by a couple of elite corners, or maybe elite corners, and not been able to get in.

The Bills love to play press, so that'll be interesting this week. Right. Not been able to get off the line of scrimmage. And really, I think two of his three touchdowns were just him standing in the back of the end zone, and the defense lost him, and Trevor found him. Yep. How are you feeling about Ridley? Is Christian Kirk's this team's number one wide receiver again it's tough because we've also seen no zay jones the last two weeks and after week one and i myself included the the worry was christian kirks not playing when they're in two wide sets

so we'll see if zay jones is back what that does but um yeah the other thing with ridley too for dynasty is we forget because he hasn't played in a while. He's, like, almost 30 years old. 28, yeah. Yeah, which I always overlook because we're so used to him being so good coming out of Alabama. And then he obviously didn't play for a while. But, yeah, I think Ridley's somewhere in between what we've seen and what we saw in Week 1. Like, I don't think he's – because after Week 1, it one it was okay he's probably a top 12 receiver right i don't and i don't think he's obviously this bad because again like if he catches a couple passes weeks two and three we might be talking about him completely

differently especially because a couple of drops like the drop last in week three was just the perfect throw from lawrence over the shoulder would have been like a 30 yard touchdown so um maybe like maybe there is some rust to shake off even though we didn't see it in week one right um so i think ridley is kind of in between what we saw in week one and what we're seeing right now he's not as bad as we're seeing right now uh that's for sure are you buying as a contender if you're a contender there's been a couple bad weeks and you're win now squad is that somebody you want as your number two wide receiver? I honestly think I might look elsewhere, but in general, I like, I'm fine with the idea of it, but I might just look like a little bit like,

like I might honestly lean Collins at this rate, just because Trevor Lawrence is really good. We know that, but like Collins is, we don't have to worry about like tank. That will have his eight target games and stuff like that. But I think Collins is, is more of the one on his team definitively than Calvin Rid ridley is which is kind of crazy to say but i think we kind of have to get to that point at this point remandre stevenson was rb14 back down to rb18 for me i was a low guy on stevenson for about six months this offseason and then bought in at the

end of the offseason and man he's he and this patriots offense has just looked terrible i kind of feel like now thinking about it, I've got Ramondre two spots ahead of Kyron Williams. I'm not 100% sure that I'm happy with that. Where are you at on Ramondre? Are you willing to brush off this slow start? Are things going to get better? I'm a little worried.

The run game has been completely inefficient. The offensive line has been bad. What saved Stevenson the first couple weeks was massive production in the two-minute drill. Right. And he's still playing the two-minute drill offense. Like the Zeke report was pretty much bogus on Sunday about him getting starters workload.

But I just think Stevenson – like we thought this offense would be not anything unbelievable, but way more efficient than it has been. He's had some tough matchups, right? Dallas, the Jets. So he's had some tough spots. But yeah, like I'm I definitely think he should be a follower for sure. And we've got two more. Let's go with the wide receiver T Higgins.

I don't know how long he's going to be out. Don't know how many games he has left with Joe Burrow. Don't know how many of those games Joe Burrow is going to be healthy. Higgins with the rib injury. He's fallen from wide receiver 12 to wide receiver 19. This sets up a nice would-you-rather in Dynasty, T. Higgins or Puka? It's so tough because it seems like it's inevitable

that he won't be back with the Bengals at this point, which scares me. But how long does Stafford have left for the Rams? I think, I think I would lean Puka. And it sucks because it's hard. Yes.

I love tea so much, but between him, maybe missing a few weeks with the rib borough, not being healthy, even when he's like, we don't know if borough is going to be healthy all year. I don't know if the Bengals, what if the Bengals are one in five?

Well, that's what I, and I just said this, like obviously tongue in cheek, but like if I'm the Bengals and I'm playing Madden, Burrow's going on the IR and I'm trading T Higgins as soon as he's healthy. I'm going into next year with Burrow, Jamar Chase and Marvin Harrison. And just destroying everybody. But yes, I, I'm, I'm getting concerned that T Higgins is just going to be a kind of a low-end number two wide receiver.

It's going to be so interesting if we get to see next season Burrow with just Chase and Higgins with someone else and who is more impacted by that. I like trying to think of some potential landing spots just because I'm pretty much sold that he will not be back with the Bengals at this point. Well, maybe the Chiefs decide that wide receiver by committee doesn't actually work. Yeah, they need to play Rushie Rice more. I believe they're definitely going to. Last one, Darren Waller was tight end. I was hoping we wouldn't have to talk about anything remotely relatable to that game yesterday, but here we are.

Well, you know, we don't have Dan here. We don't have Adam here, so we can speak honestly. The whole thing looks like a disaster, and Darren Waller is not old enough and doesn't have the injury history to be able to sustain a disaster. This could be, we could be rapidly approaching the end of the Darren Wall to sustain a disaster like this could be we could be rapidly

approaching the end of the darren waller as a tight end one era i was completely wrong i talked about it after the thursday night game against san francisco i was like why i don't get why everybody's worried about waller he dominated the target share in week one but didn't play in the second half because he was a little bit banged up and it was a blowout week two against the Cardinals. Good matchup. He had like 76 yards week three. Didn't play well against San Fran, but again,

bad matchup. I was like, this is nothing to worry about. And like, he might be the best offensive lineman at this point. So I don't like, there was a lot of plays where he wasn't running routes yesterday. That's a concern.

There are scheming targets for Wanda Robinson for four yards of pop. That's a concern. Daniel Jones isn't playing well. That's a concern. Like scheming targets for wanda robinson for four yards a pop that's a concern daniel jones isn't playing well that's a concern like i have gotten to the point where i wasn't worried to yes this is this sounds like it could be a disaster i it looked like a disaster on tv last night especially i didn't like the body language we were getting from brian dable really um and and the other, too, is I tweeted it. If you had Waller on one of your fantasy teams, don't watch the replay that Daniel Jones interception because he was wide open in the corner of the end zone. Right.

I do think that there is an opportunity that the Dolphins are going to put up 40 in the first half and Waller has some success and maybe you've got an off-ramp there. I'm not quite to the selling low point, but he is tight end 11 for me. He is actually just behind Kittle. And I think if you told me that everybody in San Francisco

was going to be healthy the rest of the year, I'd probably prefer Waddle to Kittle or Waller to Kittle. But Kittle has that out that something could happen to mcafree something could happen to debo something could happen to iuk and he could matter again i don't know what that out is for darren waller and and like kittle we know he has a lot of these like low floor or yeah low floor games when everybody's healthy but he could have two catches and outperform darren waller a lot of weeks at this rate. It's really bad. Brian D'Abel, I've been disappointed with, too.

I know the offensive line's been a train wreck, but there's been – they talked about it on the broadcast yesterday. Seattle's missing their two starting tackles, and they went with a lot more creativity with play action and stuff like that to at least just stop the pass rush for a half a second. CJ Stroud has, I think, averaged one and a half starting offensive lineman per game. And they've got all kinds of good things going on. Yeah. I don't need to hear about the injuries. Everybody's got injuries. We don't have any injuries though.

And we're all done here. Adam really appreciate you joining me again. Tell the people where they can find you and what you've got going on right now. Yeah. I appreciate it. It was, it was a blast.

Uh, FTN fantasy.com. Um, a lot of great stuff. I do this massive game-by-game article every week, which is really fun. I'll be starting to write more of that once we get off this. And we also have DVOA now, Aaron Schatz and everybody with the DVOA. It's live at FTN Fantasy. So it's been really fun to see that and all the amazing work that Aaron and a lot of the writers do over there, especially with DVO related content, which it's awesome because we didn't know where the home would be for DVOA.

And it's honestly a pleasure to have it at FTN Fantasy. So check that out. And we have honestly like had to look at uh nba media day was yesterday so we do a lot of basketball content as well which i am a little bit worried about because i do both basketball and football but we will cross that bridge when we get to it yeah that that is uh i've been in that uh two sport range and uh it's not quite as fun as it looks but good luck with that thank you adam thank you jasmine thank you shaper thank you for everybody who listened and we will talk to you next tuesday