Fantasy Football Today - 11/04: Injury Updates; In-Depth Look at the RB Position (Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

We've got Dr. Brandon Bowers on to give us some projected timetables for Jacoby Brissett, James Conner, Adam Thielen and more. Then Will Brinson joins the show (5:45) as he and Adam talk RBs! How does the position look compared to 2018? How highly do we value Josh Jacobs (13:40)? Can you trust Ronald Jones (21:30)? We then talk about A.J. Green's rest of season value (26:00) and get into a common Fantasy Football conundrum that might not have a solution (29:40). 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. Welcome, everybody, to Fantasy Football Today. Today we talk injuries, and we're going to take a big look at the running back position, kind of a mid-season evaluation of what we've seen at running back, some surprising trends, and a lot more. I'm Adam Azer. Later on in the show, Will Brinson's going to join me. Right now we're going to be joined by our injury expert, Dr. Brandon Bowers, as 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. Dr. Bowers, welcome back to the show. Thanks for coming on.

Adam, I appreciate you guys reaching out to talk some injuries. I'm ready to jump in. Let's do it. Jacoby Brissett, sprained MCL. What kind of timeline are we looking at there? With these MCL sprains, that's the ligament on the inner side of the knee, the medial collateral ligament. When it's a low-grade issue and a slight overstretch of that ligament, it typically carries a two to four-week return to play timetable. They're waiting, the team, the Colts currently on the MRI results to confirm the severity of this diagnosis here, and there's a chance that he doesn't play this weekend.

But if it is a low-grade injury, expect a two-to-four-week absence. Okay, yeah, he's got the Dolphins coming up, so we're hopeful for that. Anyway, you can still pick up Zach Paschal and maybe Brian Hoyer if you need someone. Adam Thielen and Deshaun Jackson, they play, they leave again. Deshaun Jackson's got to buy and Doug Peterson's hopeful that he'll be ready in a couple of weeks. Adam Thielen's got Dallas on the road next week. What do you think

about these guys dealing with the hamstring and Jackson with the abdominal core issue? Jackson, I'm a little bit more concerned about because if you remember Adam back at the beginning of the season, he was dealing with the same injury and he was recommended to get surgery, but Jackson said, Hey, thanks, but no thanks on the surgery went to conservative route. So there's a good chance that he's got what we call a sports hernia, which is an overstretched the muscles down kind of in that groin or lower abdomen region. So he's currently looking around for second and third opinions to determine the best course of course of action region. So he's currently looking around for second and third opinions to determine the best course of course of action here. So a chance that he's back in a couple weeks. Yes.

But I think this thing continues to linger the rest of the season. As for Thielen dealing with his hamstring re-aggravation, he sustained this injury in week seven, sat out last week and then re-injured it early in the contest this week. So being that it's a re-aggravation, I would anticipate that he's out a couple of weeks as well. When we're dealing with these soft tissue injuries and they recur, they really can become a headache and a long-term problem. So unfortunately, this may not be the last of the hamstring ailments for Adam Thielen. Oh man, what a shame. And I know a lot of people started him, so that's very disappointing. George Kittle, big game on Thursday against Arizona,

but he did hobble around and he played through the injury. Do you often see players play through an injury for the rest of a game and then still miss time afterwards? I mean, sometimes we do, being that he was able to return to the game and it's not a significant issue. It's usually a pretty good prognostic factor that they shouldn't miss long-term time. He received an MRI on Friday, and that showed that the injury was minor. So they're still looking to determine an accurate diagnosis.

But the fact that he was able to return to the game and the team has described the injury as minor is usually a good indication that he'll be able to continue to play and not miss significant time moving forward. All right, so look, it's not the biggest injury list today, but I did want to ask you about James Conner. He missed Week 9, and Jalen Samuels led the team in receiving. But do we have any idea what kind of absence we're looking at

with James Conner? You know, he's hopeful that he should be able to play this week, dealing with an AC joint sprain that happened in Week 8. He didn't play last week. And the nature of this injury on the point of the shoulder, it occurs as a direct blow to the shoulder or fall onto the ground. So for a running back who goes to lower his shoulder and take on contact from a defender, this can be significant. Now, if this is a low grade injury, Adam, a grade one or grade two type injury, then it's usually only a two or three week absence. So he seems hopeful that he'll be able to play in week 10 and he'll just take another good solid week of rehab without setback.

And I think that's very realistic. Hope so. Fingers crossed. And how can we follow you on Twitter, Dr. Bowers? On Twitter, you guys can find me at BLBowers12, breaking down all things NFL injuries for Sportsline with my weekly injury content that drops every Thursday. So keep an eye out for that. and I'll be discussing these injuries, anatomy, physiology, return to play timetables, and a little bit more depth coming this Thursday. Excellent. Yes, please check it out on Sportsline. If you haven't joined Sportsline yet, it's really an awesome website

with a lot of great resources for fantasy and for gambling. It's $9.99 a month, but if you want your first month for a dollar, you can go to Sportsline, you can sign up, and use the promo code HUDDLE. Dr. Brandon Bowers, but if you want your first month for a dollar, you can go to Sportsline. You can sign up and use the promo code HUDDLE. Dr. Brandon Bowers, thank you so much for joining us. Adam, always a pleasure. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today as we talk running backs with Will Brinson. Miller Lite, the light beer brewed for people who love the taste of beer

and the perfect pairing for your game time. When Miller Lite set out to brew a light beer, they had to choose great taste or 90 calories per can. They chose both because they knew the best part of beer is the beer. Your game time tastes like Miller time. Learn more at MillerLite.ca. Must be legal drinking age. Welcome back. Okay, so we were supposed to have Chris on today, Learn more at MillerLight.ca. Must be legal drinking age. in general, kind of do some comparisons 2018 versus 2019 and talk about Ronald Jones, talk about

the best rookie running back so far and there's that. Also we're going to talk about AJ Green and answer a very fun email at fantasyfootball at cbsi.com There we go. Hey, what's up Will? Hey, Flayden and whatnot.

I actually have separate music for Will that I'll play in a little bit. I'm going to give him his proper walk-up music. How was your fantasy week nine? Boy, I got to tell you, before you answer your question, I'll just selfishly say I have a lot at stake. I have like six match-ups that are going to be decided tonight. So big night for me. You know,

I don't think I've had that many. I mean, it's not surprising that tonight would be a big night for a lot of people. I just, Monday that is, I just haven't had that many matchups come down to Monday for some reason. It feels like they've all been decided on Sunday. I had an okay.

I had a huge matchup in my main, in my, in my, in my long, my longest league that I've been in. Go on. It's my buddy Nate. Fortunately, he had Christian McCaffrey and Derek Henry.

Oh, wow. Boy, McCaffrey is incredible. And that's going to bring us into our first topic. Let's talk about running backs so far, just the state of the position. And by the way, we have an Apple Podcast mailbag. You know, you leave us a nice review. We'll read your question. We do that on Wednesdays and on Saturdays.

And we have a lot of other podcasts, including the Pick 6 podcast, which is hosted by Will Brinson. What's coming up this week on Pick 6? Oh, man, it's so good. We got our Monday night recap, of course. We also have the Brady Quinn football show, which will come out on Wednesday morning. That is on YouTube as well. Then we're going to do fantasy with Heath Cummings and BMAC. And then a PIX pod with Pete Prisco and RJ White, as well as multiple preview shows with Jared Dubin throughout the week.

We're up to like eight shows a week now. So if you like football and you're one of those random people on Twitter who like to... If you're not one of those random people who like to attack me because you don't like me on this Fantasy Football Today podcast, by all means, check it out. Yeah, no, it's an excellent show.

And go to cbssports.com slash podcasts to see a full list of our shows. So I was trying to, you know, thinking about my overall thoughts on the running back situation. And what came to mind is like, man, we have a lot more committees this year and we might, but then there's these stats. Here are your carries per game leader. And I should say we're through nine weeks, basically with one game left, things are going to look different after 17 weeks, you know, mid season stats are not going to be the same as end of season. But

you know, last year we had one running back average 19 carries per game. It was Ezekiel Elliott. Minimum of 100 carries. This year we have eight running backs averaging 19 or more carries per game. Zeke averaged like 20 carries last year.

Christian McCaffrey is leading the NFL with 20.6 carries. And then Marlon Mack, Dalvin Cook, Carson, Fournette, Zeke, Chubb, Josh Jacobs, all of them, 19 to 20 carries per game. So that shocked me. Ezekiel, like last year, Todd Gurley was second in the NFL in carries per game.

He'd be ninth this year. So that really surprised me. You're saying last year his second place carries per game would be ninth this year. Correct. So a lot more players getting 19 carries, 20 carries per game. Eight of them. I think just, I mean, not that we need to dig into each one,

but I do think you can anecdotally sort of point to the situations and the play callers involved in the shift in offensive philosophy or the drafting of a high rookie or the injury to a quarterback and kind of say, all right, these teams are forced to run the ball a lot more in those situations. But look, if you drafted two running backs early on in your fantasy draft, you are doing really well right now. Maybe. Unless you drafted Joe Bix. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. If you, yeah right. If you went Nick Chubb, Dalvin Cook, or Christian McCaffrey, Chris Carson early on, you're feeling pretty good about it.

So, I mean, that's sort of how it turns sometimes. Let me give two more stats because here are two differences last year to this year. The elite running backs last year were super elite. This year, it's really only Cook and McCaffrey. In PPR, Aaron Jones and Eckler have been really good. But in terms of scoring, in 2018, we had seven running backs give you 17 non-PPR fantasy points per game and eight running backs, 20 PPR fantasy points per game. So 17 in non, 20 in PPR. We had seven or eight running backs do that last year. Right now, only McCaffrey and Cook are doing that.

So Zeke's been very good. Barkley's been very good. They haven't run away from the pack like they did last year. Same with Kamara. We are probably going to get more 50-catch running backs than we had last year. Last year, we had 16. It's just going to keep going up every year.

But this, I think, is the biggest, most noteworthy change from last year to this year. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I was going to give another stat. This upcoming stat is the most noteworthy change. If you look at the difference between RB12 and RB24, last year there was about a two, two and a half point difference between RB12 and RB24. This year it's 3.25 to three and a half, depending on the scoring. So at the top, I don't think the elites,

other than Cook and McCaffrey, have pulled away from the Josh Jacobs, Derrick Henry, Mark Ingrams, Aaron Jones. The elites haven't pulled away from them yet. But when you start talking about the true number one heavy carry guys versus RB24, that is where we are seeing a bigger difference this year compared to last year. Well, and then to really build on that point, I think it's a great point, Adam, when you start to dig into the wide receivers, right? If you drafted two running backs early, that means you were probably, and I'm going to do air quotes here, stuck getting Chris Godwin and Kenny Galladay as your wide receiver one and wide receiver two or some combo like that, right? Like you ended up with one of those guys, maybe a, or a Stefan digs or

an Amari Cooper, um, Cooper cup is a guy you would like, you would have been targeting aggressively with the waiver wire. Maybe you went and got DJ Chark, or maybe you went and got like, I went Michael Thomas and Deandre Hopkins in a league and I was thrilled with it, but I didn't draft many more wide receivers. And I missed out on a bunch of guys who went big. So my point is that if you invested in those top tier running backs, you also accidentally probably got a top tier wide receiver as well because of how that position is shook out. Yeah. Wide receiver is so disappointing at the top in so many cases. But in terms of the running backs, I do think that we're getting, for me anyway, I've never started more committee running backs than I have this year.

You know, I got Jamal Williams in my lineups and I've got Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman. In one league, I started both Packers running backs this week. In another league, I started both Broncos running backs this week. And in both cases, you had one good and one terrible. You know, you're looking at different one terrible um you know you just you're looking at different standards now when you're talking about your number two number three running backs or maybe your number three number four running backs if you have a better team and um that to me is just saying like you've got to do whatever you can do to get these 18 to 20 carry guys and there are there are a number of them and our second question is actually about josh jacobs how high is josh jacobs rest of season this is from red eye jedi um name some guys you're

now ranking behind jacobs and jacobs is one of those guys averaging 19 or more carries per game he's the number six running back in non-ppr the number 12 running back in ppr on a per game basis so um you know it's just sort of an observation you know like like tarik cohen doesn't really do it for me this year you know you got to get if you think all right i was a bad example but but but that's it that's a committee backfield you know tarik cohen was taken with the top six like a pick in the first six rounds i mean like i hated him i didn't want him i didn't want him at all i mean like in a p league, he was probably taken in the same reasonable range as Josh Jacobs, right? No. Maybe a little later.

Within 20 picks, I'd say. Okay. But I mean, Jacobs is going late third, early fourth. Tariq Cohen is going late fifth, early sixth, or whatever it is. But you're still sort of, you know, you probably built up your team with wide receivers and you were supplementing running backs. I mean, Jacobs would be a first round pick if we drafted, I mean, right? So that's a good question.

I think he's probably a second round pick in PPR because he's on pace for 22 catches, I think. But before I talk about Josh Jacobs, please let me remind you about Little Caesars. Have you 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 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. Last running back stat. Sorry, I know I'm jumping around. This is shocking to me. The five highest scoring

teams in points per game. Now, defensive touchdowns might influence this a little bit too, but the five highest scoring teams do not have a top 12 PPR running back. That would be Baltimore, New England, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and Kansas City. That's incredible. There's such a correlation between great running backs and great offenses.

But I don't, I don't, well, I mean, not to, I don't think that's that surprising. If you're talking about the top, the top 10 teams in points per game, top five. Yeah. I mean, Baltimore has a running quarterback. Well, I know it's not surprising that those teams themselves don't have a top, a top 12 running back. It's surprising that none of the five highest scoring teams have a top 12

running back. That's like, yeah, but the five highest scoring teams, the Buccaneers are the exception here because they just can't run the ball. They pass the ball. But the Chiefs are an okay running team. San Francisco, great running team.

Baltimore, the best running team. These are committees, though. Yeah, in an ideal world. And look, those teams also, again, with the exception of the Buccaneers, those teams are largely good. They have good records. So they're not, you know, they're probably, I mean, if Baltimore gets up on Miami, and they did, you know, early in the season in Arizona,

they're not going to just give Mark Ingram 30 carries and burn him through in the first two weeks. And so I think that's really the difference. The Patriots obviously are a team with a committee back. The 49ers have two or three, three or four great running backs that they can rotate in with different roles. The Buccaneers can't run, so they just pass all the time, and their defense stinks, so they have to pass.

And then the Chiefs have been hit or miss, I think, in terms of running the ball. All right, so let's talk about Josh Jacobs here. And like I said, he's number six in points per game in non-PPR. He's number 12 in PPR. He has a very favorable schedule coming up. His next one, two, three, four matchups are against teams He's number 12 in PPR. He has a very favorable schedule coming up. His next one, two, three, four matchups are against teams that rank 23 of them,

are against teams that rank 26 or worse against the run, against running backs. And the other one is the Jets in that stretch. He gets the Chargers in week 16, which is beautiful. I would caution you that the Chargers defense looked awesome against the Packers yesterday with Melvin Ingram coming back and oh my God, Derwin James will be back very soon. So I would not

treat the Chargers as a A-plus rushing matchup even though the stats might say that. I would downgrade them more like a B-minus. Well, they did. Okay, that's a good point. They did lose Denzel Perryman, though. He had an injury, not sure the severity, in this game in Week 8. But, yeah, what do you think?

Like Josh Jacobs. The question was who is ranked behind Jacobs now? So, guys, coming into the year, I think here's the best example. Would you rather have Leonard Fournette or Josh Jacobs the rest of the year? But, I think that here's the best example. Would you rather have Leonard for net or Josh Jacobs rest of year? But you know,

believe it or not, I think I'd rather have for net. I had to take Jacob because for net has 22 catches. That's it. Or am I looking at last year? No, I'm a, yeah,

I knew I was looking at last year for nets. Probably got close to 35. Oh, it's 40 catches. Yeah. I could see that. They're so similar. I would take Fournette. I would take Fournette because he is more involved

in the passing game, and Jacobs has had some bad games. Fournette has had incredibly bad touchdown luck. He has one rushing touchdown this year. I'm going to give a stat, though, about Josh Jacobs. This is cool. He has the third most red zone carries, the fourth most carries inside the 10, the

sixth most inside the 5, and there are 28 running backs with five or more carries inside the five-yard line. Only David Montgomery and Kerryon Johnson have a higher percentage of their team's carries from inside the five.

So he gets 80%. That's a ton. He's not losing goal line touches, but neither is Fournette, but Aaron Jones might, you know, Nick Chubb. I don't think he will, but cream hunts coming back. Who knows? I would still take Chubb over Jacobs. Would you? Yeah, I think, man, I got, look, I'll say this. I was wrong about the Raiders. John Gruden is doing an awesome job in terms of play calling this year. Their defense isn't very good, and it's not going to be very good. They're going to be involved in a lot of high-scoring games, I think. They get the Chargers twice, the Chiefs again.

What do they have? The Jaguars. They got the Bengals, the Jets, the Chiefs. They have the Chargers, Bengals, Jets, Chiefs, Titans, Jags, Chargers, Broncos. Yeah. Right. So they have situations where they're either going to be involved in high scoring games and Jacobs is just the guy who's out on the field.

He's going to get carries or they're going to be up big on the, theoretically on the Jets and the Bengals and be running the ball down, down their throat. So I just think he set up for success. That offensive line is playing a lot better than anybody thought it would under Tom Cable. And Jacobs is the guy. And Gruden, look, Gruden used one of the first Khalil Mack pick on Josh Jacobs. If Josh Jacobs wins offensive rookie of the year, which is still possible, probably not likely with the quarterbacks, but possible, if he wins that award and the Bears finish like 5-11, Gruden is going to

be peacocking all offseason about it. And I think that is part of his motivation. I think he's the coach of the year. I know that's crazy because they're not that good, but they should be a lot worse than they are. And they lost their most explosive player right before the season started. And they're competitive. I think he's doing an amazing

job. He's doing a great job. Shanahan's obviously a major frontrunner, but I love what Gruden's doing. If he's not the coach of the year think he's doing an amazing job. He's doing a great job. Shanahan's obviously a major frontrunner, but I love what Gruden's doing. If he's not the coach of the year, he's a finalist. Frank Wright's there too. This guy, Bill Belichick in New England. Yeah, whatever. They played one good team and they lost.

He only has three Coach of the Year awards in his entire career. He's six Super Bowls. He probably needs more. All right, from Neil Slayton, can you really trust Ronald Jones? He got 53% of the snaps on Sunday against Seattle in a

game that was largely a pass fest. Bruce Arians came out and said, I believe, just a little while ago, that Rojo deserves to be the starter. I think, yes, you can trust him. I would not suggest, however, that the Buccaneers are going to magically become

a run-heavy team. Like they are, you know, I don't know if funnel defense is like the hot word in fantasy these days, but they're a funnel defense and they are great against the run, but they hemorrhage passing yards on defense, so they're going to have to pass to keep up with other teams.

There are some potentially interesting matchups there for Rojo, including the Arizona Cardinals. It's not the best schedule going forward. It's okay. Falcons, Jags in weeks 12 and 13 is very nice. The Falcons have had a good run defense. But they give up points. And that's what leads to short yardage rushing touchdowns.

The question is, will he get them? Because according to ProFootballReference.com, and I don't know if their stats are updated, but I think they are. Snaps are not updated through today. They're not? I didn't see snaps for Rojo. Oh, no, no, no. I'm talking red zone.

Yeah, yeah. Everything is updated from the games is updated through week nine. Yeah. Okay. He has zero carries inside the five. However, he does have. That's not true. He does have two five yard touchdown runs.

Okay. Okay. Maybe he got two carries from the five. Yeah, yeah. Definitely a short yardage touchdowns. But Peyton Barber was working near the goal line yesterday. So, look, here's the thing. You have to keep in mind,

if a running back is not involved in the passing game, it limits their ceiling a little bit, which you need to know for Josh Jacobs. When it comes to Ronald Jones, that doesn't really matter because you have to add him. He's a massive waiver wire priority. Can you trust him? I think we take that on a week-to-week

basis, but Bruce Arians actually said last week, and I didn't see this quote until today, he's gotten much better at blitz pickup. We've talked about it. He's improved each week, which should get him more snaps, but as far as two-minute, Daria is one of the best ones that we have so far, knowing who to block and how to block them, but I think Ronald's going to have a hell of a

future. That's what he said last week. Today, as Will already mentioned, Bruce Arians said that Ronald Jones is earning more snaps. This is a high-scoring offense, fourth most points per game in the NFL. If he can get the goal line carries, he could be close to a must start. However, he's not an explosive guy. He's had two games all year where Ronald Jones has averaged more than four yards per carry, granted not a ton of carries.

But I trust him as a no doubt about it waiver wire pickup. I'm not there yet as a must start. Is that fair? Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I mean, if he's available, I think this is one of those that's not – I don't know if we really talked about it whenever Kerryon Johnson got hurt because I don't remember anything because I'm old and have a child. But like Ty Johnson, I was just not that high on picking up

because I didn't trust how they would use him. But I think if Ronald Jones is available in your league, you should use that. If you have a top waiver priority, you should use it on him because not that he's going to be a league winner, but I think he's a guy you can plug in at a flex spot or an RB2 spot that can really boost your floor on a week-to-week basis for the stretch run. Yep, absolutely.

All right, everybody, make sure you're using the SeatGeek app if you need to go to an event. So it may not be today. It may not be this weekend. But the next time you're like, hey, I want to go to a game, concert, comedy, theater, whatever it is, use the SeatGeek app and get $10 off your first purchase with our promo code FFT. SeatGeek makes it really easy. How easy could it be if ticketing sites actually care? Well, SeatGeek does care. They've got millions of live event tickets and a price match guarantee, and they prove that there is a better way. So you can bring in all these tickets into one place and just make it so simple to find great deals.

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purchase. All you need is our promo code FFT. $10 off your first purchase on SeatGeek. Again, that promo code is FFT for $10 off. Will, what are your expectations for AJ Green rest of season? Man, I don't know. I've got him in one league,

I think one out of 14, which is obviously not that much exposure to him. I tend not to draft injured wide receivers or wide receivers who were injured before the season. But I would be at least interested in dabbling in him in terms of trying to trade or buy low. If somebody was out there, maybe they're struggling around 500, you've got a good record and you want to get it back

because I think that Ryan Finley will at least be given the opportunity to pass abundantly so that way the Bengals can see what they have in the rookie quarterback. He's an older guy, Finley, older guy, veteran, accurate short yardage throws, not great down the field. So that should be a concern for people who are hoping Green's going to come in and catch bombs from him. But if they can block enough, which they really can't do, give him some play action shots, I think you could take him down there. But yeah, I mean, I think Green is probably, at best,

you want to trust him as a wide receiver three or a flex. Okay, yeah. I mean, I would have been more optimistic if Dalton were still the quarterback there. Because I know that AJ Green is the top 12 wide receiver every year with Andy Dalton. And I didn't think Dalton was, you know, he's not a great quarterback. Look, this is the a great quarterback, but. Look, this is the final year of his deal. So like he is literally an unrestricted free agent after this season.

I cannot fathom a scenario where A.J. Green fights through an injury for a winless team. Like if they're 0-11 and he's got a nagging ankle injury, is he going to play? That's a good point. You know what I mean? He's not going to lay his personal financial, not stability, but he's not going to lay it on the line for a winless Bengals team. If they were fighting for the playoffs, I think he'd be out there gunning it because he's a good dude. He cares about that team. He's been a great teammate and a great soldier for him. But I don't think you can trust him to be a really productive player down the street. So A.J. Green is an unrestricted free agent?

Yes. This is the final year of A.J. Green's deal. Andy Dalton has one more year left. Okay. So, yeah, would you rather have Juju Smith-Schuster or A.J. Green? I would rather have Juju. Terry McLaurin or A.J. Green? Green.

Yeah. Well, I know that Green is back in week 10. Yeah, I mean, we'll find out. That seems to be the expectation. But he's been expected that before. Do you want to hear something crazy? Sure. This is a good stat for you.

I'm actually writing this up right now for my Sorting the Sunday Pile column. Do you know how many games, Adam, have been played this season in two hours and 45 minutes or less? I'm going to say two, and both of them are Bills games. No, close. There have been three of those games. One of them is a Bills game. Okay. And it was the Bills game from this past week when they played the Redskins.

All three Redskins games since Bill Callahan took over. Oh. The only three games of the season that have been under two hours and 45 minutes. 236, 239, and 240. This dude is fast forwarding. He's simming through the season. I just don't know. And I know that

Terry, Scary Terry or whatever he's called and Dwayne Haskins went to school together at Ohio State and they've got that connection there. I just don't think you can trust them to throw the ball enough times that you can feel great about having Terry McLaurin down the stretch on your fantasy team. That's a really, really good stat.

Right, it was that game against the Niners, one of the fastest games in so many years. McLaurin! That's his nickname, by the way. And last question is from Kevin. Is there a way to fix fantasy? It's supposed to mirror real life football. But when Adam Thielen goes out, my fantasy team takes a zero.

The Vikings don't take a zero. They put in a backup. Thoughts on a league slash team designating a backup running back, wide receiver, or quarterback each week that you get the points for if your player plays less than one quarter? So I like this idea in fantasy baseball where if you have a pitcher who's supposed to be a two-start pitcher and he gets scratched, maybe you're able to change your rotation.

I just think the randomness of fantasy football is such that you're kind of stuck with it. I mean, if you start somebody who gets hurt on the first play, that sucks, but it all evens out. The universe is fairly cosmic in that sense. Wouldn't you hate to lose because the guy or girl you were facing had an injury and then the designated backup had a huge game, even though they originally benched that player and now they get the points for that player? Yeah.

And, like, I think that there would be a whole lot of shadiness involved with it. You'd have to create, first of all, from a back-end perspective of setting up leagues like that would be a huge pain in the in the bottom as we say in the brinson household like you would have to create a slot that automatically slid into it so our developers would be furious about that um and then you would have tons of controversy if you tried to do it from a designated ahead of time so it's like oh i forgot to designate it i'll just put, I don't know, DJ Chark with three touchdowns in there. It's like, no, I'm not going to do that. You could do it like there's a cap.

Like your backup player either gets five more points or less or what he actually scored. But the only thing that I think I could be in favor of is doing a team QB league where if you want Aaron Rodgers, you just draft the Packers quarterbacks. The only difference... I don't know that you do this in a two-quarterback league, but in a one-quarterback league, the only difference is the injury scenario

where you get credit for all the points that the quarterbacks score in that game. That's the only fix I see. In terms of running backs, wide receivers getting hurt in tight ends, I agree with Will. Just let it go. One other thing you could do is if this guy and his league mates or this girl and his league mates, whoever it is, are on the same page,

what you do is agree that if somebody gets hurt and is ruled out for a game in the first quarter, you give them the average of their points scored so far that season. You know what I mean? So if Adam Thielen's ruled out in week eight in the first quarter, you get the average of his first seven weeks. Will Brinson, everybody. We'll have Chris on next week. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Adam Azer. We'll talk to you on Tuesday with the waiver.