Fantasy Football Today - 10/07: Injury Updates, Players to Trust and Buy or Sell (Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

Dr. David Chao stops by with the latest on Patrick Mahomes, Saquon Barkley, Mason Rudolph and more. And then we bring on Will Brinson and another great guest Mike Tagliere of FantasyPros! Should we  be concerned about the KC offense? What's the deal with their RBs? Is Melvin Gordon a Top 12 RB rest of season? Also can we trust James Conner, Larry Fitzgerald and a few others? We also have Buy or Sell and your emails at [e-mail] 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

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at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Quick heads up to our listeners today. Thanks for tuning in, by the way. Our first guest today is Dr. David Chow. He's going to give you the injury rundown. He's got some really interesting things to say about Saquon Barkley,

Mason Rudolph, et cetera. But his cell phone reception was a little bit spotty, so I do apologize for that. You should be able to understand everything, but just wanted to give you a heads up. All right, enjoy the show. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. Email us at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. It's time to dominate your fantasy league.

Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. All right, everybody, hope you're having a great Monday so far. Getting ready for the Waiver Wire show tomorrow morning. But until then, let's talk some injuries, and then we'll bring on Will Brinson and a special guest, Mike Tagliere from Fantasy Pros, to talk about some fantasy values. We welcome you to the Fantasy Football Today road tour presented by Little Caesars. Pizza for dinner tonight?

How about ordering your favorite online from Little Caesars and using Pizza Portal Pickup? It's the latest, greatest, and hottest way to pick up a pizza without even going to the register. Welcoming back Dr. David Chow at ProFootballDoc on Twitter and ProFootballDoc.com. Dr. Chow, thanks for coming on. How are you doing? Good.

Thanks for having me. And I want to point out that a few weeks ago, you expressed some concern about Patrick Mahomes' ankle. I want to point out that a few weeks ago, you expressed some concern about Patrick Mahomes' ankle. I want to start there. And, you know, he re-injured it yesterday and was limping around. It was pretty bad. What did you see there with Mahomes? Pretty clearly, he re-aggravated the week one high ankle sprain.

If you think back all the way to week one, he limped around the last part of that game, too. And then, you know, he's looked good. He's played through. But, you know, obviously got it stepped on and tweaked again and looking around again now. And kind of starting back at square zero. He's a warrior. He's not going to miss any time. But it may affect him in terms of what he can do.

But he's such a superior athlete. It won't affect him that much. So you think this is just something that he'll have to just deal with and play through it? Well, he already has, right? Yeah. It happened week one, and everyone's talking about him as an MVP again, and he's been playing through it.

So is it a setback? For sure, right? I mean, he's aggravated. Don't be shocked if he's limited practice or something, but he's not going to miss the next game. Right. I think he's still going to be effective. Will he be 100 percent himself? Maybe not.

Right. But he's won that way already before. Do you think we're going to see Saquon Barkley this week beating that timetable? Now they have the Thursday game against the Patriots. What do you thinking? Saquon Barkley, fantasy owner, starts to get a little excited. I hate to be flying the ointments here, but I say no. I've been saying no.

Look, Saquon's an unbelievable athlete, right? And everyone got excited because of the video that some beat reporters were circulating about him being in practice. But the reality is this. He was going about two-thirds, three-quarters speed, and he looks great, right? He's just that good of an athlete. And yes, he's doing very well on his recovery, but he's still human. And what was his designation last week at practice?

DNP, right? And so now you have a quick turnaround for Thursday. If he was DNP last week and not active on Sunday, what are the realistic chances of Thursday? Not great. I mean, is it impossible? No, but he certainly won't be fully effective. And what you can't have is to rush him back on Thursday and have a setback and then the Giants play short. I get it. Wayne Gallman probably is not going to get cleared from his concussion, so they're short already.

But you can't have a setback to Saquon Barkley. I do not think he plays. Look, do I think he beats the timeline? My original timeline was four to six weeks, and four weeks will be the next week in week seven. And he's doing very well, so I would take that.

Yeah, I think people, fantasy owners should take that if he even has to miss another game. Let's get Saquon back healthy here, and we'll talk about who to pick up in the Giants' backfield, if anyone, on tomorrow's show on the Waiver Wire show. So the best running back in football right now is Christian McCaffrey. He's just unbelievable, and he was dealing with some cramps at the end of his week five game. Is there anything more that meets the eye

there or just simple cramps? No big deal. Well, I mean, from the outside, it looks like cramps, no big deal. And shouldn't have any effect for the next week. It is a little bit of a sign that he's being used a lot, right? I mean, we know he is being utilized a lot. And he's tough and he's all over the place. He's probably another guy who's up there in the MVP conversation right now. They'll just have to be a little more careful with the utilization,

but he's still going to be their workhorse. Were there any other injuries? It was a pretty quiet week for injuries. I know Amari Cooper, Marquise Brown, Mark Andrews, they got hurt. They came back in. Philip Dorsett, they're kind of downplaying the injury for him, saying it's not expected to be serious. Anything else that really jumps out at you, Dr. Chow? Well, certainly every week there's lots of injuries. Don't tell Kimiko Touré that there weren't serious injuries, ankle fracture, dislocation.

And don't tell James O'Shaughnessy, not serious, the backup tight end for the Jaguars towards ACL. But in terms of the name fantasy players, Philip Dorsett, hamstring, it's described as minor, but I guess it's only minor when it's not your hamstring and it's not your fantasy player. He's still described as weak to weak, so that certainly implies he's going to miss some time. Marquise Brown left with a right ankle injury. That's something to watch because the original injury was the leftless Frank, and I still don't think he was 100%. Look, I know he had a great first two weeks, 233 yards and I think three touchdowns. And what's he done since the last three weeks? One touchdown and under 100 yards combined. He's still not playing full snaps. And now with something on the other side,

without a proverbial good leg or foot to stand on, he may be hampered some here. He did come back in the game, which is awesome, did make a catch, but obviously his week one and two performance were fantastic, and week three, four, five came back down to earth a little bit. So there's always a bunch of injuries out there still. Devontae Adams still probably isn't going to be ready next week, so the list is always there. What was your reaction when you saw the hit on Mason Rudolph

and Rudolph seemingly just being out on the grass there? Well, yeah, it seemed like he was out before he hit the grass. He kind of went down like a rag doll, right? And probably got two blows to his head, one from the hit to the jaw from Earl Thomas and the second one when he just fell limp to the ground and hit his head, one from the hit to the jaw from Earl Thomas and the second one when he just fell limp to the ground and hit his head on the ground. Look, the optics were horrible, right?

A cart that may not have worked, you know, the face mask off, being sort of, you know, walked off with people, you know, holding him up. The optics were not good at all. But the reality is he went to the hospital. He seems okay. The whole card incident wasn't that big a deal. Look, it certainly looked funny to have his face mask off, but that's a good precaution if they were worried about his breathing or airway in any way, shape, or form to have

access. And look, I hope he makes it back. I don't think it's going to be this coming week for Sunday night football. The Sanford quarterback, the third stringer, is going to be the guy who gets to start for Pittsburgh because I don't see how he can get cleared seven days after having gone to the hospital. Dr. Chow, thanks so much for coming on. Great stuff, as always.

Thank you. You can follow him at ProFootballDoc and go to the website, ProFootballDoc.com. And I want to remind everyone about FanDuel. It was a good week for me on FanDuel. Look, I had a lot of Patriots. I had Tom Brady, the Patriots DST,

Julian Edelman, and Josh Gordon. That was my main lineup. Gordon didn't hit, but the other three did. So, you know, that's it. Just find a stack that you really like and play it and get a little variety in your lineups too. You have multiple lineups just in case your stack doesn't work out, but it's not hard. It's not hard to win. There are more ways to win than ever on FanDuel. And if you haven't signed up yet, you've got a great opportunity. You go to FanDuel.com slash FFT, FanDuel.com slash FFT, make a $5 deposit or make a $20 deposit rather, get $5 in site credit

every week for four weeks. So you put 20 in, you get 20 back, and you can use those five bucks to join our contest, which I'll tell you about later in the week. But if you're worried, oh, it's too much money. No, there are contests for a dollar or it's not enough money. No, there are big high stakes contests. With the knowledge you have from listening to this podcast, I think you're going to do pretty well on FanDuel. So again, sign up right now. FanDuel.com slash FFT. Put in 20 bucks and get a $20 bonus. You'll get $5 in site credit every week for four weeks.

Go to FanDuel.com slash FFT or download the FanDuel app. All right, here we go. We thank Dr. Chow for coming on. And now Will Brinson's here. What's up, Will? How you doing, man? Oh, Adam, I couldn't be more thrilled to talk to you on this glorious Monday. I just arrived back from Stanford, Connecticut. Literally walked in the door right before we talked and found my office somewhat discombobulated because my wife and her friend were up here under the guise of cleaning. I'm not sure I believe them because all my settings are messed up.

Yes, they were podcasting, obviously, in your absence. You have a podcast. You have the Pick 6 podcast. I have a podcast. It's this one. Mike Tagliere has a podcast. He's on the show with us now. He's from Fantasy Pros. You can follow him on Twitter at MikeTagliereNFL.

It's spelled T-A-G-L-I-E-R-E NFL. And the Fantasy Pros Football Podcast is the name of the show. Thanks so much, Mike, for coming on. It's great to have you. Of course, man. It's good to talk some football, especially after a week that we just had where football kind of went the way it was supposed to for, I would say that 90% of the things that happened this week were supposed to happen. And that's always a good week. I mean, unfortunately, it makes for a really bad waiver wire week, but it is what it is. We'll take it.

Yes, absolutely. Hopefully we don't have to pick up, you know, Eli Penny or something like that. And we'll get Saquon back on Thursday. But Mike is on his way. We're in a league with him, the IDP League. He's on his way to a 4-1 record, unless Dante Pettis scores about 150 points tonight.

It's PPR, so you never know, but he looks good there. A couple things I got to promote real quick here. Our Facebook group, please join it. Fantasy Football Today and CBS Sports HQ. CBS Sports HQ, of course, 24-7 streaming. Download the CBS Sports HQ

app. By the way, in our Facebook group, thanks to everybody for participating in the contest. We'll have another one every week for you. All right, so let's start with a couple of running back situations. Mike, I'll throw to you. Let's look at the Chiefs. Damian Williams comes back. Now, Andy Reid said he wanted to throw the ball a lot in this game.

They ended up losing. It was a very good game on Sunday night. But Damian Williams got nine carries and three catches. LeSean McCoy had two touches. Damian Williams or Darrell Williams did not have one. And, you know, Reed said he wanted to throw the ball. He wanted to take advantage of a depleted secondary. But what do you make of this? Almost no work for LeSean McCoy. I think it's Andy Reed was being honest this offseason when he said this is going to be a timeshare, guys. It's not going to be, you know, the one man system that we've

been running here. And he's continually showed that even going back to week one, Damian Williams didn't receive a big workload. I thought with him being out multiple weeks, it was going to be a situation where Reed was going to make him pay for that. Because if you remember back in the preseason, Andy Reed was basically saying, you know, Sean McCoy is here in practice and Damian Williams is missing time. So, I mean, if he's going to continue to miss time, he's going to lose his job. And it was almost like something like, why would you say that? You know, this, this guy's battling a hamstring injury. Why would you rush him back from that? So it's a messy backfield. And unfortunately it's not allowing to, it's not allowing any, we can't trust any of these guys

on a weekly basis. I mean, LaShawn McCoy, two touches, even though he's been pretty good in his role, Daryl Williams has been fantastic when he's seen the field, but Damian Williams appears to be the guy, but this offense struggling with Patrick Mahomes right now. And this is worrisome because the Colts, by the way, they were without their top two safeties last on Sunday night. They were without their starting inside linebacker to know that they weren't moving the ball effectively. I am kind of concerned about this offense right now. So unfortunately, Damian Williams is the leader and I still don't think that he could be started as anything more than like a low end RB two. The problem for the Colts guys is that they are currently 26th in the NFL in terms of rushing attempts. That's not good.

Who the Colts or the chiefs, the chiefs, the chiefs, you know? Yeah. The chiefs, the chiefs are supposed to be this dynamic, high powered offense. I mean, but the, but you know, if they have no balance, in my opinion, it's not going to be feasible for them to be this dynamic, high-powered offense. I mean, but, you know, if they have no balance, in my opinion, it's not going to be feasible for them to be, you know, look, they were only like 23rd last year. But, I mean, they're like 16th in yards, 7th in rushing touchdown, and 6th in yards per attempt. So they're at least efficient last year.

But, you know, this year they just haven't been efficient at all. They're 20th in yards per attempt, 13th in touchdowns, 25th in yards. They don't have that efficiency and that balance in terms of being able to run the ball effectively. Patrick Mahomes is now hobbled, which means that these pass rushers are going to be able to get after him a little bit easier, especially with the injuries on the offensive line. And the defense isn't any better either, right? This is the formula that teams figured out late last year how to beat the Chiefs, which is,

we saw it with the Ravens who took them to overtime, the Seahawks who beat them in a primetime game, a high-scoring primetime game, but nonetheless, and the Chargers did it as well. You run the ball,

you control the clock, you just grind on that defense, and then you keep the ball out of Patrick Mahomes' hands. Now the problem is the Colts have given us the blueprint again in week five

instead of like week 10 or 11. So I think I would be concerned about the Chiefs offense, especially the running backs. I think Tyreek Hill, when he comes back, which could be this week. Why does he change everything?

Well, they were playing the game without Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins. And then he got hurt. I mean, their offense is not complete right now. Welcome to Sammy Watkins' career. All right, but you don't think

Tyreek Hill changes things? He's a game. He's one of the best players. Yeah, but I mean, like, Byron Pringle was wide open in the end zone. I mean, yeah, they'll shift some coverages. Come on, Will. Tyreek Hill changes things for them. I mean, they had the ball for like 23 minutes yesterday,

so this just wasn't a good game for them. Tyreek Hill does not mean that they're going to hold the ball longer. No, no, no, no, no. Obviously, their run defense has to get better. But I'm just saying this was the worst of the Chiefs' offense. This was the worst of it. I guess. It's only going to get better than this.

Adam, I would look at that. Why would it get better? Look at the teams they have coming up with their schedule. Who cares? They're the Chiefs. They're the best offense in football. That's ignorant. That's ignorant. I think that's a South Park line.

It is. They have the Texans who have Whitney I think that's a South Park line. It is. They have the Texans who have Whitney Merciless playing his tail off in a contract year. The Texans? Did you see what the Falcons did to the Texans? The Texans' defense is not very good. You don't think the Chiefs are going to score on the Texans? They'll put up points where they have a pass rush. It's going to be a problem with a

hobbled Mahomes. If they have Tyreek Hill and or Sammy Watkins, I mean, they're going to play a lot better than this. This is a horrible game. All right, let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move on. Then they have thereek Hill and or Sammy Watkins, I mean, they're going to play a lot better. This is a horrible game. All right, let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move on. Then they have the Broncos, the Packers, and the Vikings, and the Titans. They don't care.

They don't care. They don't care about the defense that they're playing. They're the best offensive football. The Chargers running backs, Mike. Did you watch last night? Yes, they had a terrible game. They had a terrible game. Will, have you seen the last, what, 16, 17, 18, 24 games?

No, 22 games before yesterday? Talk about an unstoppable offense here. Yeah, that was the first game under Patrick Mahomes, actually, that the Chiefs offense scored fewer than 26 points. Come on, Will. Which is just madness. That's crazy. All right, Mike, the Chargers running back.

Melvin Gordon was great in the passing game last year, and Eckler had 15 catches yesterday. So do you think Melvin Gordon is going to be mostly like three catches a game? Or do you think he can get, are you thinking about like a, well, okay, 16 game pace catches. What do you think for Melvin Gordon? It's pretty important to his production, I'd say. Yeah, I don't see his passing production going away. It's more of like – this is a factor of like the – Phillip Rivers having a bad game. He struggled the entire game, and he's turned into a check-down monster.

He looked like Derek Carr. He threw 16 targets to Austin Eckler. Melvin Gordon, by the way, still saw six targets. So it's like if we're looking at the role that he was playing last year in this offense, if he's getting, you know, anywhere five to seven targets per game, that's, that's elite production out of your running back to know that he saw 12 of the 15 carries available is more telling to me. That means Melvin Gordon's walking back into this role. Austin Eckler, by the way, fumbled again on the goal line, going back to the preseason, he fumbled and he's fumbled twice now,

once against the lions, once against Denver. So he's losing that role. Like Melvin Gordon is getting the goal line role and that's the role you want in this offense. Yes. Eckler is going to eat into some of that production, but part of the production that Eckler is getting in the passing game is due to the wide receiver injuries they had. So Chris Harris jr. Was like shadowing, uh, Keenan Allen last week. That was always going to be a tough matchup. Mike Williams is not getting separation. Phillip rivers didn't have, didn't basically just didn't pull the ball up high enough. Multiple times picked off throwing to him. Travis Benjamin has been in and out of the lineup hurt. Dontrell Inman's hurt. It's like they don't have receivers. So this was more of

a product of game script and everything kind of flowing Eckler's way. But Melvin Gordon is, I'm going to view him as a top 12 running back for the rest of the season. I know some people are unwilling to move on from Austin Eckler, but this offense moved well and Eckler was fine for what he did, but he still is what he is. He's the backup to Melvin Gordon. And I'm going to put Eckler as a high end RB3 moving forward, kind of like a James White of this offense. That's how I'm going to treat Austin Eckler, whereas Melvin Gordon is going to be somewhat

the Sonny Michelle playing, you know, maybe getting more opportunities on the goal line just because the Patriots are throwing the ball 37-plus times per game. I think they're both playable, but Melvin Gordon is definitely the one I would prefer to own. I'm going to ask you guys if we can trust some players that have been a little up and down this season. But first, I'm going to ask you, if you've ordered a pizza online from Little Caesars yet,

if not, you're missing out on Pizza Portal Pickup. What is Pizza Portal Pickup? It's like getting pizza right out of the oven yourself. You walk in, you enter a code on the portal, a door opens, and you're off with your favorite pizza. And whatever pizza you order, it'll have crazy, crazy amounts of toppings. It's fun. Give it a try. But it's only available at Little Caesars Pizza Pizza. Do you think you can trust these guys rest of season? Pretty straightforward segment here. Josh Jacobs. Yeah. Started in only 48% of leagues. Had a monster game with 123 yards, two touchdowns against the Bears, plus 20 receiving yards. Will, I know he's going

into his bye, but do you think we can trust Josh Jacobs rest of season? How about that for a revenge game by the way like everyone was talking about khalil mac for the revenge game josh jacobs is the guy the raiders drafted with the khalil mac pick and he goes out there and has two rush touchdowns at 123 yards against against uh khalil mac and and that defense um yeah i think i i think in if if the raiders are going to be good or better than we thought they were and the game script is going to be positive in the sense that they will be running from ahead, then I will trust Josh Jacobs.

I mean, I still don't know that I'm buying in on the Raiders. I think you have to a little bit more just because of some of the games that they've looked against the Colts and against the Bears. But they have a bunch of high-scoring offenses over the next four weeks, Packers, Texans, Lions, and Chargers. Of course, they have the Chiefs again. And so I would be a little bit worried that if they're chasing points that Josh Jacobs will not be trustworthy.

So I don't really know what my answer is, but I'll say yes, game script dependent. Yeah, I can feel that. All right, let's go to James Connor, Mike. So I mentioned this on the show yesterday, but he now has, going back to last year, 10 straight games with 15 or fewer carries and 65 or fewer rushing yards. It's pretty crazy.

Do you think you can trust James Connor? I'm sure everybody's going to mostly start him, but trust him as a real, like a RB1, I guess, rest of season. Absolutely not. If you can get anywhere close to RB1 value for James Conner right now, do it. You know, he's coming off a game where he scored a touchdown, so people might be more willing. You know, you're selling these players on name value. There's a reason I didn't want Le'Veon Bell in drafts in the first round. Like, if you landed him in the second round, fine, like whatever, but these players are not a reason that

you're going to win a fantasy championship. Understand that. Like like what you strive for when you head into the fantasy playoffs, what you're looking for is stability in your fantasy lineup. And you do not have that with a backup quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. This team is slowly going under. And it's like, as soon as they're eliminated, they may see what they have in Jalen Samuels as a workhorse running back because James Conner has been nicked up on and off throughout the entire season. He dealt with a knee injury. He's dealt with an ankle injury. I'm not excited about this offense at all. It's like you want to tie yourselves to offenses that have high score,

like a lot of opportunities around the goal line, and the Steelers are just not going to have that with Mason Rudolph under center. All right. Would you guys rather have James Conner or Melvin Gordon going forward? Will, I'll start with you. I would say James. I mean, Melvin Gordon going forward? Will, I'll start with you. I would say Melvin Gordon. I think what you saw with the Chargers and sort of their struggle on Sunday was them trying to force-feed Melvin Gordon into the offense

and it not clicking as well as maybe they hoped right away. So I would take Gordon. I don't think I really want anybody on the Steelers moving forward. Mike, I assume you agree. It's Gordon, 100%. Will, can you trust Larry Fitzgerald going forward? Yeah. I've trusted Larry Fitzgerald since like 1990.

He does have seven targets from five yards out or closer. That's awesome. Only one in his last two games, but that's still a ton. But, you know, this is kind of what I feared, Mike. He gets off to this great start at 113 yards, 104 yards in the last three games, less than 60 yards. So do you think you can trust him, Fitzgerald? Yeah, for sure. Kyler Murray hasn't been very good. I'll say that. But the volume is going to be there for this offense.

And he's going to be continually targeted. And you're chasing targets at the wide receiver position. It's so volatile. And you know, so basically looking at Kyler Murray's 2% touchdown rate over the first five games, that's one of the lowest in the NFL. It's going to come up. Even if you don't like Kyler Murray, the quarterback, you know, that's going to come up. And some of those touchdowns are going to start funneling to Fitzgerald because the slot role, as we know, as we've seen with Chris Godwin, uh, we see these slot wide receivers score more touchdowns than the perimeter wide receivers. Most of the time, if there's equal talent, just because they're

getting better matchups. A lot of times the nickel cornerbacks that Cliff Kingsbury's offense sees might be a backup safety or even a third string cornerback because they run a lot of four wide receiver sets, forcing them into some odd situations and tests. It basically tests the depth of the opposing roster. And Larry Fitzgerald has been the beneficiary of that. And when Christian Kirk comes back, it's going to continue to be that way. Like Kirk is seeing targets. That's fine. But Fitzgerald is the proven one. He's the guy with the hands that we're kind of seeing Kyler Murray just gravitating towards as a stable presence. And I would say too, I think the best way to describe Fitz

would be a high floor flex. But they have Atlanta, Giants, Saints, 49ers, Buccaneers, 49ers before their Week 12 line. That's a really choice schedule. All right, one more wide receiver here. Let's go with DJ Moore. I didn't want him this week

because he had very few targets with Kyle Allen. And then, of course course he got the targets, eight of them, six catches, 91 yards against Jacksonville. Solid game for DJ Moore. Will,

do you trust DJ Moore? Do you think you can trust him going forward? Yeah. I mean, you know, you don't want to have him as your wide receiver one, obviously. Like I think wide receiver three with the upside to be a wide receiver two is

probably closer to what it is. But like I told you guys two weeks ago, when kyle allen comes in kyle allen like the offense is going to be designed to get kyle allen short easy throws to dj moore curtis samuel and christian mccaffrey that allow them to pick up yards after catch and they're going to get peppered with targets because the panthers are going to have to throw some they're going to want to try and ease the load on christian mccaffrey they don't have another running back to do it with. So you have to sort of do it by, like you have to manufacture it with these short little targets to Moore and Samuel.

And so I think that Arizona game where you got two targets and one catch, thankfully one was a touchdown, I think that's going to be the aberration. I think you're going to see five targets plus for him moving forward. It's not going to be that 10 to 14 target that you saw the first couple of weeks, but more as a high-end wide receiver three, low-end wide receiver two. Does that make sense? Yeah. All right.

Well, it's the top 30, we'll call them. So we're going to let Mike go in a second here, and then Will and I are going to finish up with some buy or sell and some emails. But I did want to read one email, and it was from Scott. And it just says, holy crap, look at my score. So he sent me some screenshots.

At the time, he was winning 304 to 87. Update, it's 304. He still has Beckham. 304 to 116. The second highest scoring team in his league has 168 points and he has 304 points. So I just thought it was amazing. I don't know if you guys have ever had a week like this, but he had Dak Prescott. He still has Beckham. He could get to 330. He had a Marty Cooper, Michael Thomas, Dalvin Cook, Leonard Fournette. He had Darren Wall or whatever. Of course he had

Will Fuller and he had the Eagles DST. But second highest score is 168, and this dude's got 304 points with Beckham still to play. I want to give a shout out to Scott. That is an amazing week, and congratulations. Mike, yeah. I had a lineup that got

233 points in Daily Fantasy, and I cashed 60 bucks. I was going to say Christian McCaffrey, Adam Thielen, Alan Robinson, and Will Fuller. And I didn't make any money. Yeah, no, it's crazy. I had a, I had a, I had multiple lineups on draft Kings that scored over 260 points. And, and basically, I mean, I profited for the week, but it wasn't like a massive week. Usually if you're scoring 230 points,

you're winning tournaments. And it's like to barely come out, like, I mean, I probably made 20%. And it's like, that is nothing considering, like I had a lot, my top lineup, I think it was like 266 points, which is kind of ridiculous. Like there was four players in my lineup

with 40 plus points. And it's like, how did I not win more money this week? But like I said, a lot of things went the way that they were supposed to this week. Mike, thanks for coming on, man. We appreciate it. Of course. Good talking to you guys.

Take care. Mike Tagliere, host of the Fantasy Pros Football Podcast. You can follow him at Mike Tagliere, T-A-G-L-I-E-R-E, at Mike Tagliere NFL on Twitter. All right, Will and I will be right back to do some buy or sell.

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It's just you and me, Will. Let's get to the elephant in the room. You deceived me last week. You tried to deceive me. Oh, yeah. I did not. I did not try to deceive you. Yes, you did. That was your goal. Your goal was to pull a fast one

on me and all the other Saquon Barkley owners out there. That's what you were trying to do. Well, no. No, I mean, there was positive news surrounding Saquon Barkley's status. He was running at training camp, and I was already interested in buying

low on him. In leagues where I had like 2-2 or 3-1 or 4-0. I don't think I have any undefeated teams. training camp and I was already interested in buying low on him just you know in in leagues where I had like was two and two or three and one or four and oh I don't think I have any undefeated teams but um so I made a bunch of Saquon offers and I feel like the offer I made you was a very fair offer it's not like I mean now in response to your criticism that I tried to deceive you I as I pointed out on Twitter and I would say it to your face, like, you are a professional fantasy football analyst. I was driving. I was driving.

But, like, why would you not just wait to accept the trade? I did. So I didn't. I came home. You sent me the trade offer. And while you were on the air recording a Pick 6 podcast with Heath, being like, should I go try to deceive all the St.

Juan Barkley owners right now? And Heath, of course, Heath was like, yeah, do it. I all the St. Paul Barkley owners right now? And Heath, of course, Heath was like, yeah, do it. I'm assuming that's what Heath said. He's Heath. And I get the trade offer, and it looked good. You know, I give up Barkley, and I'm one in three.

I need a win. I give up Barkley and Fuller for Diggs and Mixon. Fuller, just say. Will Fuller, you say. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I want to see if Will Fuller would have won me the week. Did you win or lose this week?

I lost. Oh, man. I put up a 166 and beat Pete Prisco by 33 points. He had a 133. Oh, my. Good for you. Yeah, no. Look at this freaking team.

I mean, what's wrong with Philip Rivers? Four points. Todd Gurley. Joe Mixon. Stefan Diggs. Keenan Allen. Josh Gordon. Tyler Eifert.

This was an O.J. Howard league. I had Philip Lindsay. Whatever. It sucks. It sucks. I liked this team when I drafted it. But Will Fuller would have won me the week. Yeah, Will Fuller would have won me the week.

Well, it depends on what Kittle does tonight. But yeah, I made the trade. I came home before I made the trade i came home um before i made the trade i read some stuff i didn't read enough i guess i didn't see but but dr david chow already said on today's show that he doesn't expect saquon barkley back this week nor should he play this week why would you play against the pantry until a short week yeah so so if you told me that if you told me when we made the trade that Barkley was out another two weeks, I still would have made the trade. Right.

I didn't think Barkley was going to play against the Vikings. I mean, that would have been insane if he did that. I don't think he'll play Thursday. I think it'd be stupid. Like, you're 2-3 now if you're the Giants, right? And you won two really impressive games, but Danny Dimes came back to earth. You're playing the best defensive football on a team that you don't expect to beat. You're 16-point dogs on the road on a Thursday night.

Don't play him on four days. Let him get the extra 10 days of rest and get ready for the Cardinals to go win that game. So I would be surprised if he played. It's not like I – the thing that sucks for you and even Saquon now is the Will Fuller thing. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, Phil Fuller, I guess I can't really say that I'd take Fuller over Diggs rest of season, or that I'd take Diggs over Fuller. But when we made the trade, I would have taken Diggs over Fuller.

But, you know, what a bummer. And Nixon just needs to score. Nixon needs some A.J. Green in his life to get a better offense to score some points on. All right, Will, so let's do some buy or sell here from the listeners. Let's start with the Leonard Fournette one, I believe, is our first one. Yeah. Leonard Fournette is a top five running back

rest of season from Josh Wills. Buy or sell? I will buy that. I think Let's name some running backs. McCaffrey. Let's start and get the easy ones out of here. I think that you're starting at six,

unless you're putting them ahead of the... I was trying to do the quick math. Look, Dalvin Cook, Christian McCaffrey, Zeke Elliott, and Saquon are your top four, right? Yeah, well, Kamara. Kamara, yes, I guess you are starting at six yeah. Well, Kamara. Kamara, yes. I guess you are starting at six. I mean, like Kamara hasn't really been that great without Drew Brees.

Like we need to, like we should address that. You know, so I could see taking Fournette, I suppose, because he just gets so much freaking work. But at the end of the day, I'm not quite there yet. Fournette's third in Russia. Nick Chubb's out there, too. So here's what I would say. I will buy the concept.

I will sell, actually, Wagerum on him being a top five point scoring running back in fantasy. But I mean, I think when you look at a guy like Fernette, you're talking about a talent that they have to feed because they had Gardner Minshew back there. Ran really well against the Panthers defense. Gets the Saints, Bengals, Jets, and Texans coming up. Colts, Titans, Buccaneers, Chargers, Raiders after the bye. And then, whoo, Raiders and Falcons for the fantasy playoffs. Hello, Mr. Frenette. Nice.

Nice. All right, buy or sell from Lucas. Terry McLaurin is a wide receiver two rest of season. And Lucas adds only eight PPR points against the Patriots, but one of only three players in the last 22 that stuff on Gilmore face with over 50 yards. I don't know if that's true, but that's a very interesting stat.

But yeah, I'm going to sell it on McLaurin as a wide receiver too. I just think the offense is going to be awful and eventually he'll be a victim of that. Well, I'll, I'll sell it because i look i think two things couple of things here with the redskins um bruce allen uh notable liar through

the teeth said that uh bill callahan is is not going to bill callahan can make the choice at quarterback please they are playing duane haskins this weekend at Miami. They smell a win in Miami. They want to go get it bad. And if you get a win with Dwayne Haskins, the first week after you fire your coach, you're going to drop, you know, uh, you know, trot out all these, like all this like PR stuff and, and, and try to bury Jay Gruden. So I expect Dwayne Haskins to play. I also expect, I think Adrian Peterson is an awesome play this week. I think they will run him 40 times against the dolphins to get a win and hope that he can have play this week. I think they will run him 40 times against the Dolphins to get a win and hope that he can have a huge game.

I think it'll be a more run-centric offense. I think that, you know, Haskins is going to play most of the games the rest of the season because that's where they're going to turn with Jay Gruden gone now. And I know Haskins and McLaurin played college together, but I would be very concerned about the prospect of Dwayne Haskins helping Terry McLaurin as a as a as a fantasy player so I would say sell and he's a wide receiver three the sports dude 15 buy or sell

DJ Chark is a wide receiver one rest of season bye this guy's a star yeah but I mean are we really buying him as one of the 12 best wide receivers I that's just feels kind of I mean, are we really buying him as one of the 12 best wide receivers? That just feels kind of unattainable. I mean, the problem is like, okay, what about this? Could we buy or sell him as a wide receiver one for the entire season? As in he'll finish top 12? As he'll finish top 12, yes. Yeah, I think I could buy that. I mean, is there any reason to sell him at this point,

or is he just that good? Well, I mean, if you can sell him. No, no, I mean, I don't mean literally like in fantasy sell him at this point or is he just that good well i mean if you can sell him no no i mean i don't mean literally like in fantasy so i mean like is there any reason not to believe in him i guess i don't think so i mean they need to keep playing minsu loves him i mean like that touchdown throw is incredible um look look here's the reality is that there are i mean a couple weeks ago it's like keenan allen is easily going to finish as the number one wide receiver. You know, you can, like Cortland Sutton is a top 12 wide receiver right now. You know, that's, it might be a breakout year,

but I don't think he's going to finish there. There's a lot of studs who are outside the top 12. I mean, a guy like a Kenny Galladay, you know, DeAndre Hopkins, obviously, Juju Smith-Schuster, probably not going to make a move up there, but plenty of guys who can make some head. Sure, sure.

So like I would, I mean, I would sell rest of season, but I would buy finishes the year as a wide receiver one. In PPR, he is number five. Godwin, Michael Thomas, Cooper Cup, Amari Cooper, DJ Chark. I would assume that we would rank 12 guys ahead of him. But, yeah, look, he's a must start, and we're pretty much buying him even if he's not top 12. I, it's so early in the year, Adam. I mean, Will Fuller is a top 12 wide receiver and he's had one good game. Right. True. Buy or sell from Daniel Jones is painfully mediocre.

Eli Manning may return as a starter if Jones continues to be mediocre. Is that Big Cane 65? No, I don't know. His Twitter name is Daniel Jones is painfully mediocre. Is that Big Cane 65? No, I don't know. His Twitter name is Daniel Jones is Painfully Mediocre. That's his Twitter name. Eli Manning may return as a starter if Jones continues to be mediocre. Sell, sell, sell, sell.

100% sell. Jones is good. He's playing tough defenses. He'll be bad on Thursday. He'll be good this season. By the way, I would like to say I don't think that I don't think the Patriots defense is actually the best defense in football. I think the Bears. I think the Bears are the best defense in football. The Bills are better than the Bears. The Bills might be the best defense in football.

I just... You know, the Patriots have really had such a JV schedule. I do think their DST has been arguably the most valuable player in fantasy. I mean, they're just so much better than every other DST so far. But I suspect you call them the best defense in football. I suspect that like if everybody played the same team every week, you know, that they wouldn't be the best. The Patriots have been the beneficiaries of several quarterback injuries and a very easy schedule to start this year. And they have a good defense.

Don't get me wrong, but I don't think they quite have the bears. They just don't have those types of playmakers. I don't know if the Bills do either, but people buy it. People like the Bills. Are they going to miss the playoffs? I picked them to miss the playoffs when they were 3-0.

I thought they'd lose. Yeah, I thought they'd lose this game at Tennessee, so this one sets me back a bit. Have you seen the rest of their schedule before they're coming out of the bye? They still have two Dolphins, the Jets. I mean, there are five games out of the bye are Dol still have two dolphins, the jets. I mean, there, there are five games out of the buyer,

dolphins, Eagles, Redskins, Browns, dolphins. I mean, that's three, three and two.

Yeah. That gets them to seven wins. They're probably making the playoffs. And then they have the Steelers, the Broncos, the jets again later. They're probably making. All right.

Last one from Matt. Buy or sell. Brandon Cooks is a flex at best rest of season. I mean, I'm going to sell that. Flex at best? No. Well, I mean, it depends on what happens with this. Like, is he going to miss any time?

Right. If he misses time with a concussion, then yeah. I mean, he's probably going to end up in that flex range. But I tend to think that when you look at cooks, um, you see, like, I think the, I think the Rams passing offense is going to get going a little bit more as the season goes along. I thought it was really interesting, uh, out of one, one of the things that I think they did in that game against Seattle was try to use a lot more two tight end sets. And I think that's what they're going to try and operate out of instead of the three wide receiver stuff they'd been doing previously. And so I think that's what they're going to try and operate out of instead of the three wide receiver stuff they've been doing previously.

And so I think Gerald Everett is going to be a fantasy-relevant tight end. Tyler Higbee might be like a deeper league or bi-week guy you can go with. That will take away a little bit from Cooks and everybody. I think he's a wide receiver two at best, but not a wide receiver one. Okay. And not a flex. He's better than that. He's somewhere in between.

Yeah. Cool. All right. We are done for today. I want to thank Will Brinson, Mike Tagliere, and Dr. David Chow. It was a busy show today. It was an informative show and good stuff. Will, we will not be trading again anytime soon.

But we will talk on Monday. We will. I'll talk to you on Monday, Will Brinson. Go Braves. Will's one of those fake Braves. Yeah, I do nothing as we speak right now. One of those fake Braves fans who didn't grow up in Atlanta, but, you know, whatever. That is preposterous. There's no teams in the South. His eyes just popped out of his head.

That was awesome. He's like, what? The Braves are my favorite sports team of all time. It's behind it. Okay. All right. Go Braves. Good luck.

All right. For Will Brinson, I'm Adam Azer. We'll talk to you on Tuesday, everybody.