Fantasy Football Today - 10/21: Injury Updates and TE Talk (Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

Dr. David Chao is back with some QB injury outlooks. How likely to suit up are Matt Ryan and Drew Brees this week? We also ask Dr. Chao about Kerryon Johnson, Davante Adams and more injured players. Dr. Chao also talks a bit about his background and his time with the Chargers. Then we're joined by Will Brinson and Chris Towers to talk about five big topics. The first three are about TEs as we tell you why Zach Ertz's production shouldn't be that surprising to Fantasy owners (15:00), what's up with Evan Engram (23:00), how we feel about the TE position in general (27:10), plus what Kareem Hunt's return means for Nick Chubb (35:00) and who could be traded ahead of the trade deadline (40:00). 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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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Hope week seven went well for everybody. We still have one more game to go. I wish you good fortune tonight in Monday Night Football. And this is the Monday afternoon episode of Fantasy Football Today. Welcome 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. I'm Adam Azer. We'll talk tight ends with Will and Chris a little bit later, but right now we got big-time injury updates, a lot of fantasy-relevant injuries, and we got Dr. Chow joining us. Dr. David Chow, welcome back to the show.

How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to have you. Please follow him on Twitter at ProFootballDoc and go to his website, ProFootballDoc.com. Get all the information you need. He's given us great insight on Saquon Barkley, on Devontae Adams,

on everybody we've asked him about. So, of course, we're going to ask him about a lot of guys today. Matt Ryan, trying to get ready for the Seahawks, limped off with an ankle injury in the third quarter. What do you think about Matt Ryan right now, Dr. Chow? Well, by video, it's a right high ankle sprain when Aaron Donald tried to tackle him and rolled up on his right ankle. I don't see any current updates right now other than that.

We have to decide. We have to see how much swelling there is. But I don't think this is a long-term injury for Matt Ryan. Is he guaranteed to play next week? We don't know yet. But it's not a long-term injury at this point

in time. Okay. And he has a bye in week nine. So you would think, based on what you're saying, week 10 would be the worst case? I don't want to say that, but it seems realistic what you're saying, week 10 would be the worst case? I don't want to say that, but it seems realistic he should be back by week 10 at the latest? Yeah.

I mean, what I can tell you, he's not going to have that Tua ankle surgery for the high ankle. He's going to be okay. How about Drew Brees? Drew Brees hoping to play this week against Arizona,

and they also have a bye in week nine. Well, I'm sure Drew Brees hoping to play, and the Saints can't wait to get him back i'm sure and it's in drew's nature to do everything you can to come back and play early but week six this week is the first realistic chance this is the target date that we said from the beginning now remember technically it's a little short than short shorter than six weeks

because he didn't have the surgery the day after the injury. It took him a couple of days to sort it out. So it's more like five and a half. So he might not be up to play because of that. But remember the silliness of a few weeks ago, people were excited. He threw a ball and he was going to play. I was like, no, it's still going to be closer to six weeks. And here we are. But I'm getting the feeling that even though Drew wants to play, because there's going to be a little bit of soreness, because it's really closer to five and a half weeks from the surgery, it might be where the Saints step in and say, Drew, we love you and thank you for being ready to play, but let's ride with Teddy one more week. A, he's 5-0. B, we don't want to re-aggravate your thumb. Someone karate chops it or something. C, we have the bye week next. Let's really get it to a higher level, and that's the luxury

that can happen. I guarantee you if Teddy Bridgewater were 0-5, they'd be playing Drew this week, but I have a feeling they may wait until after the bye at this point in time. And Breeze, I know the fantasy owners want him back. Four of his next five opponents rank 26th

or worse against quarterbacks in terms of fantasy points allowed. So big, nice part of the schedule is coming up. We are not going to see Cam Newton this week at San Francisco. What's your take on that? Look, Kyle Allen's also done a nice job, and they're also winning games with their backup quarterback. So no need to rush. And when do you think Cam Newton can be healthy enough to come back?

He might practice this week. Yeah? He might practice this week. Yeah, he might practice this week. From the get-go when he was injured, based on what he was saying and the team was saying, I expected an absence of four to six weeks. And right now, since they're rolling well, they may stick strictly to their we're not playing him until he's 100% definition. Look, once again, if they were 0-4 with Kyle Allen with the bye week, they might say 95% rounds up to 100, let's ride, right? But because Kyle Allen seems to be doing well, they have the luxury of saying,

yep, we're sticking to it. We're going to wait until Cam Newton is really 100% as opposed to 95%. And I'm just guessing with that number where he's at right now, etc. And don't be surprised if you see him practicing soon. But ultimately they'll have a decision to make, but probably not going to be, well, definitely not going to be made this week. It's already been made for Kyle Holland.

Ron Rivera's already announced it. I'm sure you've seen that in all your times as the Chargers doctor. You know, coaches weighing, wait until a guy is 100% versus we need to win right now. How involved is the medical staff in those types of decisions? Well, Adam, here's the way that I handled it. I tried not to be authoritarian and say, this guy can't play, this guy can play. I mean, a lot of times it's shades of gray, right?

I mean, let's look last night, the Sunday night game. I don't think the two Cowboys tackles, Lael Collins on the right and Tyrone Smith on the left, were anywhere near 100%. They weren't their Pro Bowl selves. They gave up sacks, they gave up hits, and they gave up holding penalties. But due to the nature of the game, the fact that there's a bye next week, so a little more time to rest, and here's the NFC East showdown at home, it was all hands on deck.

We don't care if you're 80%. Let's go kind of thing. And that's what everyone did. So there's no question there's a lot of judgment in what goes on. I often would have conversations with the athletic trainer, with the coach, with the GM, whoever wanted to know information, just giving them the relative information. Okay, player A is 85%. If you're saying player B for us isn't 85% of player A, and we really need him this game, this position. Fine, but this is his effectiveness,

and this is the chances of re-injury and setback. You make the decision. You get the big dollars. I would always step in when I said when it was dangerous for someone to play. If it's a matter of effectiveness and risk of re-injury where it's not permanent damage, those were things where I would sort of set the table on more than making the ultimate decision. But my information obviously leaned players and teams and coaches in a certain direction or another. Were you this big of a football junkie before you got the job with the Chargers? Because I mean, that must have been a dream job for you. You just you love football. It's awesome. Well, I think the key in life and,

you know, I was always a sports fan and there's no question I liked football, but, uh, being in the NFL, you know, you gotta look what you do right. And, uh, to, to do well at it, if it's just a job to you, I don't think you're going to do well at whatever you do in life. And so if you're going to do the job, you might as well love it. And I always liked sports and I liked sports at a level beyond just, you know, looking at the injuries. And so I immersed myself into it. And that's part of like, you know, Adam, what I do now looking at video, that was all an

accident that stemmed from when I was in the NFL, after looking at a guy on the field, on the sidelines in the locker room, and the next day after an MRI, doing the little hole before he's met with the GM, the head athletic trainer and I would go upstairs into the video room, and Brian Duddy and the video guys would pull up the game copy and the coach's film and show us the injuries. And what were we doing? Look, everyone in the building looked at film on Monday. I felt like I should too. What were we doing with it? I mean, we already examined the player. I don't know.

Maybe we'll learn something about how something happened or, or change something. It was just doing research and studying. And this inadvertently has come into now what I'm doing now that the chargers are in LA and I'm not doing hands-on football stuff. It's looking at videos because we can reverse engineer what happened. That's kind of how we got there. And it's sort of, I don't know, just like you, Adam, pride in your craft. Yeah. Well, it's really interesting stuff. I'm wondering if you saw

anything on film, on tape from Kerryon Johnson and David Johnson. You didn't see much of David Johnson. He only played three snaps, but Kerryon and David Johnson both banged up right now. Well, it was easy to study the film on David Johnson because there wasn't much to study. I mean, his one carry, he was very tentative and whether it was a re-injury, an injury in pregame, or he just didn't feel right. He didn't look very good on that one carry, very tentative and he's out. And look, when that happens, usually teams reset and say, all right, why don't you just take a week off and let's retool for the following week. So in other words, I don't know

that David Johnson's going to play this next week, just because the team, you don't want that to happen twice, two times in a row, the whole fool me once thing, fool me twice thing, right? And not that David Johnson and the Cardinals are at ill will or there was any real fooling, but no one wants to make the same mistake twice there. And indeed, they're bringing in, what was it, Spencer Ware and Jay Ajayi for some workouts, et cetera. So I don't know that David Johnson's going to go.

Carry on Johnson has much more film to study, but the good news is that I didn't see any particular play of any traumatic injury. So I don't see it being a horrible deal. It could be that I missed it, or it could be just a chronic something that built up or an overuse. We'll have to wait and see. Obviously, put that sleeve slash brace on, and we'll have to see what happens. But I don't have a great indication of what it is. But in some ways, that's good, right? We know it's not an ACL or a patella dislocation. Those would be pretty

obvious. Okay. We'll hope for the best there for both Carrion and David Johnson. Carrion's already had his bye. David Johnson has a late bye. He's got four more games before he hits the bye week. Last guy I want to talk to you about. We've got a big Packers Chiefs game.

How likely do you think it is that we get Devontae Adams back in our fantasy lineups and back on the field this week? I wouldn't count on it. I've been saying more like November. You've been really bumming me out every week with Devontae. He's so important to my fantasy teams. He's killing me. Oh oh man i i see the personal motivation there but no here's the thing like uh whenever players are saying they don't have a timeline that means they're not that close and he said recently there's no timeline and we've

talked about how important the big toe is and And remember way back when, when this happened three and a half weeks ago on that Thursday, everyone jumped to the news and it was good news. No real structural damage, no surgery, but that doesn't mean there's no damage, right? And this is what I said. He's going to be a multi-week absence. He's now three. My thought is he's going four and I hope he plays week five, but it's still to be seen. Look, you can be wrong. Maybe he'll play week four,

but I don't know that he's going to play that effectively if he does. And certainly they've done a great job without him this week. Right. I mean, Aaron Rogers, oh my gosh, five, six touchdowns, five passing touchdowns. I mean, 400 plus yards. I mean, and that's without your number one wide receiver. That was a pretty special performance. Yeah, it sure was. I think people are going to start him anyway at Kansas City, and hopefully Adams is there, but hear what you're saying

and we'll be patient. And, Dr. Chow, thank you very much for coming on. Much appreciated, as always. All right, sorry for the bad news on Devontae Adams. It's okay. We love the great information and great stuff. And remember to follow him on Twitter, at ProFootballDoc, and the website is ProFootballDoc.com.

Quick break here on Fantasy Football today. A lot of tight end talk when we come back. Is Evan Ingram in trouble? Is Zach Ertz just going to have a bad year? We'll talk about it after this. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage.

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join me every Monday. So we say thank you to Dr. Chow and we say hello to Chris Towers and Will Brinson. Reminding you though, if you want your questions read on the show, you could always leave us a question and a comment in Apple Podcasts. We'd appreciate that. And we have plenty of podcasts for you to listen to.

If you go to CBSSports.com slash podcast, you can see a full list of our shows. All right. Let's get some intro music going here. Not thrilled with today's selections, guys. Why don't people understand my intentions? All right. Oingo boingo. Chris Towers, our weird scientist, is here.

What's up, Chris? That's what we're going with. Okay. I didn't quite understand the bit you were doing. It's not one of my best. Do you have any fun stats for us today? I got a few stats, yeah. Throw one out.

Fun they are. Give me a fun one. Give me a something some kind of stat we got a lot of tight end questions coming up from the listeners so i looked it up 17.5 percent of dropbacks this season have been with two tight ends on the field that is an increase of two percent from last season we're seeing that more and yet uh it doesn't feel like tight ends are actually being used more in passing offenses, which is really weird. And

oh wait, some weird signs playing. Let me get my other song queued up. If you want to listen to the Pick 6 podcast, it's awesome. It is hosted by Will Brinson. And Will, we welcome you to the show. How are you today? I'm doing great, Adam. I didn't know if you were going to play music or if I was going to

did you get a welcome song for me? is it coming up? is it like Bon Jovi slowly building in? you don't hear it? he has nice hair he kind of has like Disney prince hair he does, it's true on his chest

welcome Will I couldn't think of anything, so I gave Will a lot of... You know what is very odd? Yesterday on Sunday, my mom's birthday, we were down at the beach, and I lost a piece of electronic equipment. She was looking for it. She actually

stumbled across a DVD, an Aladdin DVD. Well, I guess I picked the right song for you then. All right, guys. We have five topics from our listeners. The first one is actually for me. What is up with Zach Ertz? The other thing we're going to talk about, Nick Chubb with the impending return of Kareem Hunt in a few weeks, Evan Ingram and his one catch for six yards on five targets.

We're going to talk about tight ends in general and who could benefit from being traded. Chris, I'll give you the first word. What's going on with Zach Ertz? Two catches for 38 yards on five targets. Had a long completion overturned as well. Terrible game. And so far, on a per-game basis,

he is the number 10 tight end in non-PPR and number nine in PPR. So I guess he's kind of just been Zach Ertz. Yes. Maybe the real question is, what happened to Zach Ertz in 2018? Because you look at his on pace, he's on pace for 135 targets,

80 catches, 923 yards, two touchdowns. Last year, 116 catches, 1163 yards, eight touchdowns. That's a monster season. But then the three seasons before that, you look at his yardage total, 824, 816, 853.

And that was in 14 games, 14 games and 15 games. He's pretty much just been the Zach Ertz that he had always been before 2018. And so maybe the real question isn't what's wrong with Zach Ertz. It's what went right for Zach Ertz in 2018. And I don't think that explains all of it. I will say because there are things going wrong both with him and with the Eagles passing game writ large. He has a career-low catch rate of 59.3%, career-low yards per attempt. His catchable target rate is way down.

It was 85% last season compared to 71.7% this season. So the quarterback play is clearly hurting him. He's actually getting a few more targets than he did pre-2018, so that doesn't quite explain it. But I think the easiest answer is 2018 was a career year, and then we go from there. I think Chris is 100% correct. If you eliminate 2018, and I know that sounds weird,

but if you just took it out, we would be saying, oh, Zach Hurts is doing Zach Hurts things and he's due for some touchdown regression. The other thing, if you take the games that Nick Foles played in from 2018, it was a total of five games. He had 50 targets in those five games. I mean, that's a lot.

And one of the final games was, you know, 24-0 win over Washington. He finished with 156 targets last year. That's unsustainable from the tight end position. 1,163 yards are probably not going to happen. Now, his catch rate is down, and as Chris mentioned, the catchable balls is down. Yards per target is down even from his pre-2018 levels.

You know, his receptions per game are down a little bit. But, I mean, by and large, he's just having a slightly down year if you take out 2018. And we should have realized that as Dallas Goddard continued to become a part of this offense, as they sort of tried to run the ball more effectively, you know, add Jordan Howard, Miles Sanders, that, you know, there was going to be a smaller target share. And that's just sort of the reality of it.

People expecting people drafted Zach or it's expecting to get 2018. Zach hurts the same with george kittle and it's just it's just not happening and that's just kind of regression yeah and that there are some interesting things going on with both of them but i think a big thing to keep in mind with zackerts and this is a an eagles problem they're what two and four three and four they've been a pretty big disappointment carson once just hasn't been very good this year. His on-target rate, according to Sports Info Solutions, is 73.8%. Last year, it was 80.8%. With Nick Foles in 2018, it was 87.2%. So it's not just that maybe I don't think Zach Ertz has lost a step. And yeah,

he's just kind of been pre-2018 Zach Ertz, but he would be helped a lot by a Carson Wentz who can actually get him the ball more effectively. So that's been a big issue for him as well. Sure, yeah. I was going to bring up all the same things. He does look a lot like Zach Ertz, only with on pace for just two touchdowns. And what is Zach Ertz from 2016 and 17, let's say,

in this environment? Well, in 2017, he played 14 games. He had 824 yards and eight touchdowns and 74 catches. He was on pace for 85, 942, and 9. He was the number three tight end in fantasy. I think he could still be going forward if he's just normal Zach Ertz and not 2018 Zach Ertz. A top five guy, he just needs to catch more touchdowns and

the weird thing is zackerts is tied for the most red zone targets in the nfl but in the green zone inside the 10 yard line he has only one target so he's getting a ton of targets on red zone plays but not green zone plays could be completely fluky could be that they're double teaming him i also want to see what happens when thehaun Jackson comes back because this offense is boring. Like they don't have an explosive guy and they need Deshaun Jackson and maybe he helps everyone. But yeah, I mean, they are 20th in passing and that's really surprising for them.

Okay, so I'll finish it by, Chris, am I allowed to talk about the draft we're doing right now? Sure, yeah. Okay, so we're doing a draft right now for rest of season. We started it last night, and hopefully we'll be done by the end of today. We are in the middle of round seven in a 12-team PPR draft, and here's the order of the tight ends. Travis Kelsey went, what, 28th overall?

No, 27th. Not even close. No, 27th, right? 27th. 27th overall. No tight ends in the first two weeks. No, 27th, right? 27th. 27th overall. No tight ends in the first two rounds. No, guys. He definitely went in the third.

Travis Kelsey went in the third round. Yeah. Oh, that is 27th overall. I'm the end. Carry on. Okay. Thank you, Will. Yeah, Travis Kelsey went 27th.

George Kittle went 30th. The next tight end off the board was Darren Waller. No, Evan Ingram, which might be a bad pick, in round four. Darren Waller. Then Austin Hooper. Then Hunter Henry in round five. And then I took Zach Ertz in round five. So that was like 52nd overall.

He was what? Tight end six? One, two, three, seven. He felt too far. One, two, three, four, five, six one two three seven one two three four five six tight end seven oh fine well you look at that and who went ahead of zach ertz that you would take ertz over well like i know austin hooper's been a lot better than him this season but austin hooper's 2018 season would have been a bad zach ertz season so you take Ertz over Hooper, you're saying?

No, yeah. Hell yeah. I take Ertz over Hooper. What about Henry? What about Waller? What about Ingram? We talked about pre-2019. Waller was not a factor.

Who cares? He's breaking out. He's a new guy. He's good. But Zach Ertz has done this before. I think you take Ertz. I would rather have Ingram. Obviously, I took Ingram before Ertz.

Oh, sorry. I didn't realize that. I think you can put Ertz as early as number three. I think he's still in that conversation. Well, and look, also, it's worth noting, this draft is a rest-of-season draft. So we're drafting for week eight and beyond, right? I mean, unless I'm missing the point here.

And the Eagles have a pretty friendly schedule down the stretch. They get the Bills and Bears the next two weeks before their bye, which is not ideal. And then the Patriots, they have four horrible games in a row. And then it gets good. The 16 is Dolphins, Giants, Redskins, Cowboys. That's pretty good. Okay. So that's cool.

That's cool. I was happy to take Zach Ertz as the seventh tight end off the board. Scheduling is why I took Hunter Henry, by the way, they have the Raiders twice chiefs, once Jaguars Broncos are kind of checked out to, you know, it's a good point. All right. We're going to talk about Evan Ingram then. Why don't we transition to that question? Uh, but have you ordered 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 a 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. So Neil Slayton asked us to talk about Evan Ingram. He had one catch for six yards on five targets against Arizona. In six games, he has had 116 yards, 48, 113, 54, 42, and six yards. The reason, Chris, why I thought it might have been a little early is I am getting a little worried about Daniel Jones.

Sure. Golden Tate's back. Sterling Shepard probably back soon. Saquon Barkley back. So I have a little less faith in Ingram than I did. You took him as the tight end three. Yeah, the quarterback play in New York has been really, really bad so far. The team yards per attempt is down.

It was 7.2 yards per attempt last season, which isn't very good at six point four this season. It's been horrendous. This is this is a good reminder. And we're getting a couple of reminders specifically regarding the New York Giants when we say, well, things can't be worse. And then Odell Beckham goes and plays with Baker Mayfield when, you know, Baker Mayfield can't stop vomiting all over himself all over the field and you know Daniel Jones we say well Giants can't be worse with without Eli Manning well maybe they can be but the thing is things will get better you know I don't think Daniel Jones is going to play as poorly moving forward as he has he's going to get better with experience and you know I think you were going over the numbers but Ingram's pace right now is 91 catches, 1,011 yards, five touchdowns.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah, but that's, that's okay. So that's one game with Eli Manning and that's, and without Golden Tate and the set, cause he's had four pretty bad games, five bad games and two great games. Both of the great games came without Golden Tate. One of them was against Tampa Bay when Saquon Barkley was out. One of them was with Eli Manning. So I don't really think he's going to play to that pace. In fact, I don't think he will. Again, but I think he's going to play better.

Than his pace? Daniel Jones is going to play better than he has so far. Sorry. I hope so. But, you know, if he couldn't get it done against Arizona, it was the other tight end, Red Ellison, with the touchdown. That was disappointing. Sorry, Heath. Will.

Sorry. Will. Have great hair. Where are you on Evan Ingram? Well, I mean, I just think that I think what you see from Daniel Jones is a rookie quarterback in a quasi-questionable system with a not-so-great offensive line and making some mistakes.

He's just in over his head, and he's making some mistakes. And I think he missed Evan Ingram open a couple of times. He just read the wrong stuff and didn't throw it to Evan Ingram, and he had an opportunity to convert it. He got five targets for—we only caught one of them. He had a bad drop, too. He should have had a 30-yard gain or something. He had a bad drop. Yeah, I mean, if he has a 30-yard

gain and gets the touchdown instead of Red Ellison and didn't, wasn't there a touchdown called back? Or wasn't he like almost he almost got the touchdown and then I don't remember that. Didn't people were mad that Red Ellison got it or was that Fabian Moreau instead of Darren Waller? Might have been Fabian. Yeah, it was that. But at any rate, I don't remember that. People were mad that red Ellison got it. Or is that Fabian Moreau instead of Darren Waller? Might've been.

Yeah, that's, it was that. Um, but at any rate, like, I don't think that, I just think they're going to be ups and they're going to be downs.

And I think that Evan Ingram is a guy, if I, if I have a really good record that I'm targeting, uh, because fantasy playoffs and down the stretch, the next couple of games are not ideal. I mean, they get the lions,

Cowboys jets, week 11 by bears Packers, but then the final three gamesboys, Jets, week 11 bye, Bears, Packers, but then the final three games of the fantasy season, Eagles, Dolphins, Redskins. There's real potential for some points down the stretch for Evan Ingram. Okay, so then let's talk about, by the way, just to be clear,

I don't dislike Evan Ingram. I'm just not as high as I was on him before because a few weeks ago, I thought I would take him over Ertz. I would go Ertz over Ingram. Obviously Chris wouldn't. How about you Heath Will? I would take

I think I would take Ertz. It's pretty close. Look, Carson Wentz isn't playing well. Dallas Goddard's there. There's positives and negatives for both guys. And by the way, Evan Ingram also got jabbed in the eyeball. He did.

Yeah, probably didn't help. Okay, Heath's eye. So Kevin Beck says, The tight end position, what happened to it? Why is it so weak and the effects from teams using it like the running back position instead of a feature one? They have two or three that each do one thing the best. So that's kind of what Chris was talking about.

I don't really agree with tight end being weak. I just think last year was, when you talk about the top three, right, of Kittle, Ertz, Kelsey, not in that order. You're talking about a historic tight end season. season so compared to last year maybe it's a little weak but we actually have more tight ends this year averaging eight non-ppr and 13 ppr fantasy points which to me is like the sign of a pretty good tight end we had five last year we have six this year we had three in 2017 i chris i don't think that it's weak to be honest i actually think it's a strong year for tight ends it's just uh we don't have a true true like elite standout nobody really worthy of a second round pick or anything like that i think the bigger issue is darren waller and austin hooper and even hunter henry have played

like guys who would be worth drafting in the second or third round they're all averaging at least 17.5 ppr points per game so it's more just that they don't have the track record. Hunter Henry obviously has the pedigree. He's someone that we expected to be that. If we were redrafting in week 12 and he was still playing like this, he would absolutely be someone who we would be looking at in the second or third round. If Darrell Waller goes through the rest of the season like this, he's really athletic.

We know Derek Carr doesn't like to throw the ball downfield, so Waller's been his safety blanket. I think it's more a question of those guys who haven't proven it in the past, and you can even throw Mark Andrews in there to a certain extent. The three fumbles yesterday, obviously. And a drop touchdown too, man.

Rough day. There have been some real flashes from the position, and it's just a question of can Austin Hooper keep this up? Can Darren Waller keep this up? Can these guys keep this up? Travis Kelsey, Zach Ertz, George Kittle, I think will be better than that moving

forward. Sorry, give me your 5- ten second thought on the tight end position, then we'll throw it to Will Heath. I think the tight end position is fine. I think there are enough that most teams in your league are

going to feel okay. And George Kittle is going to be better than this moving forward. Keith Will. Here's the deal. It's all market value slash perception. That's the problem right now is that we were told going into drafts or we told people going into drafts and I, I acted on it too, um, that you needed to, if you wanted to have an elite tight end guarantee and guaranteed to have one, you needed to invest in early round pick in one. And so a lot of people

who listened to our advice or, uh, you know, are in leagues with us or follow what we do, either you drafted Kelsey at the end of round one or the beginning of round two. You've invested a second or third round pick in Zach Ertz and George Kittle. You invested a four, five, six type of round pick in Hunter Henry, in Evan Ingram, or in O.J. Howard. O.J. Howard has been a total unmitigated disaster. Hunter Henry's been hurt for much of the year. Evan Ingram has been very up and down because he's playing with a rookie quarterback. Travis Kelsey is the fourth quarterback, fourth tight end in terms of fantasy points per game. George Kittle is below Evan

Ingram and Mark Andrews. And Zach Hurts is below Will Disley, who flashed and then was lost for the year. So to me, it is more about the misperception. People invested a lot in a premium tight end and have not gotten the results. And I think that's causing people to question the position. Whereas if you'd gotten Kelsey in the fifth round, you'd be like, I got a steal here. Right.

No, it's a more even position than we thought. But I think to me, there are more, I guess, reliable options than I would have thought, and that's including Will Disley. I mean, like Will Disley had emerged as, I think, a must-start guy. It's a shame we don't have him. So let's talk about the guys that we think.

How many guys, how many tight ends do we think are, no doubt about it, must-start? It doesn't mean they're going to have a good game. They might have bad games, but you're starting them, and you don't necessarily need to roster two if you have these guys okay so obviously kelsey kittle urts ingram henry that's five i think there's 10 hooper's got to be in that group right waller's there henry's there i said i said henry so andrews is eight so then who's 10 who's nine and ten i think Olsen's there. Ooh, I don't know.

You have to take it relative to the rest of the position. Olsen's there. Well, but Olsen, I mean, Olsen had a good game against the Bucs, who are the second worst team against tight ends, and his good game was four catches for 52 yards. The two games before that, he had a combined two catches for five yards.

Yeah, I mean, that's tight end. Yeah, but that's really bad. If you own greg olsen you're starting it otherwise you're starting like darren fells or vance mcdonald well that yeah that's where i have greg olsen i'm not looking for another tight end and i'll throw gerald everett in there yeah i was i was gonna go with him too the workload that he's gotten over the last four games in particular i think it's 34 targets in the last four games including two games with at least 10. So to me, I think there's a big difference between number eight and number nine.

If number eight is someone in the Mark Andrews, Darren Waller, Austin Hooper group, and number nine and 10 are Greg Olson and Gerald Everett, I think there's a difference there. But I think there's a bigger drop-off between 10 and 11. Possibly. Then that's cool. I think we're just tearing it down But I think there's a bigger drop-off between 10 and 11. Possibly. That's cool. I think we're just tearing it down.

Let's put it this way. If you executed a trade in a fantasy league that landed you Hunter Henry and you already had Greg Olson, would you cut Greg Olson? Yes, I did cut Greg Olson. I had Kelsey. So here's what happened. I had Kelsey. I picked up Olson when he was hot.

I tried to trade him, and nobody was really biting. And then he had two terrible games in a row, and then an okay game in London. And I think I dropped him before that London game because I knew he had his bye. So that's a 12-team league. I don't think Olsen's too dependable. They got four guys to feed there and not a great passing offense. Do you think a Cam Newton return would help Greg Olsen's too dependable. They got four guys to feed there and not a great passing offense.

Do you think a Cam Newton return would help Greg Olsen? If Cam's healthy, yes. If Cam's not healthy, no. Actually, you know what? I'll side with Acer here and say that there are eight guys that are must start. And I'm sorting these by fantasy points per game so far in the year, which includes Hunter Henry at the top. I think he might be the number one tight end moving forward. Hunter Henry, Austin Hooper, Darren Waller, Travis Kelsey, Mark Andrews, Evan Ingram,

George Kittle, and Zach Ertz. I think those are the eight must start guys. If you had Greg Olson and you had Gerald Everett or TJ Hawkinson, you would play it on a week to week matchup. You wouldn't definitely start them every week. Sure. Right. Okay, cool. And you could start them every week in your-week matchup. You wouldn't definitely start them every week. Right. Sure. Right. Okay, cool. And you could start them every week in your FanDuel lineup. You can do that. You can see it was inexpensive. I mean, Hunter Henry was like the seventh most expensive tight end.

He was in all my FanDuel lineups. Of course, I had a Falcon stack, so that didn't work. But Hunter Henry did his part. You can get on FanDuel right now. Sign up and use the URL FanDuel.com slash FFT. FanDuel.com slash fft fanduel.com slash fft when you make a 20 dollar deposit you get 20 bucks in total bonus just make that first deposit of 20 and you get extra five dollars in site credit every week for four weeks take those five dollars put them towards

our fanduel contest which i'll tell you about later in the week but the url is fanduel.com slash fft and it's just I mean, it's just an opportunity when if you're not loving your regular seasonal leagues, or maybe you are and you just want to play more, this is an opportunity to have a new team every week. Don't worry about injuries. Don't worry about bye weeks. Don't worry about tough matchups. Just get a new team.

As many as you want. Play for as much or as little as you want. And have an awesome time. It's just super fun. Absolutely love Fanduel. Go to Fanduel.com slash FFT Go to fanduel.com slash FFT, fanduel.com slash FFT, or download the FanDuel app. Two more questions, fellas. Here's one from Mike Long.

Kareem Hunt just started practicing. Does that hurt Nick Chubb? I feel like you guys will disagree on that one. Nick Chubb is the number three running back in points per game in non-PPR, number four in PPR. He's had a bye, but this is per game basis. He's top four. Will Kareem Hunt

hurt Nick Chubb, and how much? No. Not at all. I don't think it's going to be a huge deal. When you look at Nick Chubb's production, he's so freaking efficient that I, I just don't think you're going to see a major drop off. I mean, his, his, uh, carries are 17, 18, 23, 20,

16, and 20. That's, that's not, I mean, it's a lot of carries, but it's not like he's, you know, 30 carries a game and requiring that many carries to get to, to get to where he is in terms of production. Uh, you know, he maxed out this past week or two weeks ago, excuse me, with, uh, five catches on six targets and only had 17 receiving yards against the Seahawks. So it's not like he's a monster threat in the passing game. I feel like maybe that's where they'll use Kareem hunt a little bit more and Kareem hunt's coming off sports hernia surgery. I don't think he's just going to step in and magically take 10 carries away from Nick Chubb. In fact, I would argue that Nick Chubb is a good buy low because his owner with Kareem Hunt coming back is probably a little bit panicked. He's got 84% of the Browns running back touches.

I can't say for sure, but I would expect that's one of the highest marks. Probably. That's going down. So if he goes down to 70% moving forward and Kareem Hunt gets 25% and then Dontrell Hilliard gets two touches a game, that's still a ton of touches for Nick Chubb because he's averaging, he's at 140 through six games. It's probably better for him

that that pace comes down a little bit, but I still think he's going to be right around 20 touches per game. And that gives him, he could lose three touches per game from what he's had so far and still get to there. It's kind of interesting. Cause I think everybody sort of feels that way. And that's how I felt on draft day.

And I think we all like Nick Chubb. I liked him a lot. And I just didn't, I was like, look, he's going to win the job. He's going to keep the job. He's going to be awesome.

And then what are they going to do? They're going to take him out of that feature role. But at the same time, Kareem Hunt's really good. I mean, let's going to win the job. He's going to keep the job. He's going to be awesome. And then what are they going to do? They're going to take him out of that feature role. But at the same time, Kareem Hunt's really good. I mean, let's not forget, Kareem Hunt is a really, really good running back. Sure, but he signed for one year. I think it'd be foolish, though, to not use him at all or to use him for just like five touches a game. I'm probably a little bit more worried.

Where did he go in this draft? A little bit more worried than you guys are but still think he's an end of the first round pick kind of player I just don't think he's like a top five he went 7th overall behind Le'Veon Bell, Alvin Kamara, Zeke Dalvin, Saquon, and CMC not in that order

it's justifiable would you rather have Leonard Fournette or Nick Chubb rest of the season? that's the one I think Fournette. I have no problem if you say Fournette. Fournette's having a great year. I mean, like he's... I think he's third...

Is he second in the league in rushing? He is, right? Here's one. He's just not scoring. We all agree that the Browns offense is going to be better moving forward than it has been so far, right? I think that... Their matchups are juicy. I don't agree. They can't play this poorly.

Let's talk about that. They had the Bengals twice and the Dolphins. Yeah, but the Bengals they have in week 17. Here's the thing to keep in mind, though. Cardinals? Baker Mayfield has 11 interceptions. I think per PFF, six of them have been graded as not his fault

uh he has five more interceptions than interceptable passes based on their grading that's a really hard ratio to keep up they've their opponents have run i'm looking at the numbers doing it off the top of my head it looks like something like 35 more plays than them there are going to be more plays that the browns run moving forward than they've run so far. And so they've had about 27, 28 running back touches per game so far. If they get that up to 30, 31, Kareem Hunt can get 11. That'd be plenty for Kareem Hunt. He'd still make an impact and still leave Nick Chubb. I look at it a lot like I look at Arizona with Chase Edmonds' breakout game where I think Chase Edmonds has a role now.

I think he's going to get 10 touches per game. I just think David Johnson's still going to get 18 to 20. I think that Chubb is going to still get the goal line work and still be great. I think if I have one concern, it might be, as I think Chris said it, might be the catches because he's got 20 catches in five games or six games. But he's had three or more in five out of six games. So I, you know, that could be something that comes down, but he is still going to be an elite player or we're all on the same page there. Their schedule, they have Buffalo, New England,

Pittsburgh twice. It really kind of depends on how you feel about Pittsburgh, but their defense has been really good. Buffalo, New England, Pittsburgh twice at Baltimore in week 16. Yes, he did destroy Baltimore, but that was without Brandon Williams. Their defense is so good. Their run defense is so good without Brandon Williams. But there are some easy matchups in there as well. There's Arizona. There's Miami. All right, last question, guys. Who could benefit from

being traded? The NFL trade deadline is fun now. We get trades. This is awesome. You don't just talk about it in fantasy baseball anymore. So, Will, who's on the move this week? Well, not Trent Williams because the Redskins are morons. That would be a big boost for potentially Baker Mayfield, Nick Chubb, Odell Beckham. If Trent Williams were to be traded to the Browns,

and apparently John Dorsey has tried multiple times, has gotten nothing from the Redskins, that could be a huge swing if they were able to actually pull it off. A.J. Green, I think, is probably the name that everybody's watching. Everybody wants Bill Belichick to go get him. I just don't know that the Bengals are going to trade

anybody. I don't think they're going to do it. They're a mom and pop operation that like to keep their players and they're too dumb to get the draft picks that they should get from A.J. Green, Andy Dalton and whoever else they could potentially deal. So, you know, I think Emmanuel Sanders is probably the name to watch in terms of guys who are guaranteed to be traded and will end up somewhere a la Demarius Thomas last year. I think the Patriots make a lot of sense for him as well. They need receiving help. Clearly, John Elway can't think of himself as in competition with New England, and trading Emmanuel Sanders there would be a big boon for Tom Brady,

Manny Sanders, and I don't know who else. Kenyon Drake, I guess. But I was trying to go through this because that report came out, I think, Sunday morning. I was trying to go through it and think, like, where could Kenyon Drake get traded to where he might actually have a role? And maybe Tampa Bay, but they've shown no interest in upgrading their running back room. It's really hard to find a team that could actually make use of Kenyon Drake

in a way that the Dolphins aren't. But I think maybe sideways to that is like Mark Walton could benefit from a Kenyon Drake trade. He's looked okay in the passing game. He's actually looked pretty good as a runner, but it's the worst situation in football for a running back. And Kalen Balazs is somehow the goal line. I don't trust him anywhere for good reason. And then he gets two goal line carries in a row. I know. It's so crazy. He has a touchdown in two straight games, right then he gets two goal line carries in a row. I know.

It's so crazy. He has a touchdown in two straight games, right, Kalen Balazs? It's crazy. Deshaun Hamilton would, in theory, benefit any team, if Manuel Sanders gets traded, any team facing the Broncos could benefit if they trade Chris Harris and or Von Miller. I wonder what it does to Cortland Sutton,

who people probably in our draft that we're doing now probably thought I reached for him I took Cortland Sutton 57th overall no it was fine oh no no I didn't 45th overall I was around too early

45th overall in a three receiver league right after DJ Chark and Tyler Boyd I'm pretty high on Cortland Sutton. He's on pace for about 1,300 yards and 80 catches. I was going to take him on the turn there. I took Robert Woods and Hunter Henry instead. Cortland Sutton probably would have ended up on my team. The one concern I would have is that if this goes really south

and Drew Locke comes back, they might throw Drew Locke in there. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. But I wonder if Sutton right now needs Emmanuel Sanders on the field with him to benefit him or if he would benefit from no Sanders and a target increase.

I don't think he can benefit. I don't think taking Sanders away is going to help him. You know what I mean? I don't know. I think I'd rather have Sanders there if I'm a Sutton owner. Okay.

Well, guys, good stuff. Thank you. You too. Great stuff. Sutton owner. Okay. Well, guys, good stuff. Thank you. You too. Great stuff. Great chat today. We didn't even yell about the Chiefs today. I'm officially worried about the Chiefs offense, Will. Well, I didn't know that the

Holmes is going to hurt his ankle. No, but you were right. I mean, you called it. They're in trouble. The next three weeks, my home's going to be terrible. Thanks for, but you were right. I mean, you called it. They're in trouble. The next three weeks, Mahomes could be terrible. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you on Tuesday with The Waiver Wire. For Will and Chris and Dr. David Chow, I'm Adam Azer. Thanks for listening.