Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score: Barkley, Kamara, Deshaun Watson and More (11/28 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

We'll recap Packers-Eagles to start the show and debate what the Packers offense would look like if Jordan Love were starting. Also, what has changed with DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown since Dallas Goedert's injury? ... News and notes (11:15), advanced stats from Jacob (18:50) on James Conner, Marquise Brown and Ken Walker, plus some film review from Dan (25:15) on the Jaguars offense ... Four Big Topics beginning with Josh Jacobs (35:00)! What did we get wrong in the preseason, and who is the next Jacobs? What do we expect from Deshaun Watson as he returns from suspension (42:00)? How much do we trust Alvin Kamara and Saquon Barkley (47:30)? And are we ready to believe in Garrett Wilson, Isiah Pacheco and Gus Edwards (54:10)? We've got advanced stats on all of these players ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the show. It is Beyond the Box score on Monday, recapping Philadelphia and Green Bay and getting ready for Deshaun Watson's return. What about Saquon Barkley and Alvin Kamara? Can we start these guys going forward? How much do we trust Isaiah Pacheco?

And more to talk about here. Of course, some advanced stats. When was the last time the three of us were together? We didn't do it together last week, did we? Two weeks ago, I think. No, I feel like it was three weeks ago. I feel like one time Jacob was sick. One time Dan was too cool. Never too cool.

I agree with that. That's a good point. You weren't sick. Where the hell were you last week? Anyway, it is good to have everyone back. I have a lot going on, Adam. I'm sure. Yeah, let's sure. I'm sure. All right. So, yeah, let's just go.

Philadelphia, 40. Green Bay, 33. Aaron Rodgers, ribs, says he's going to play next week. But Schneier, this is, I think, a potential nightmare for Packers fantasy assets. because even if he plays and then he's got to buy after that. So hopefully he can get healthy. It seems so realistic. Seems so possible, so possible that they could shut him down at some point. Jordan Love did look very good last night. But your overall thoughts on Packers offensive options going forward? I'm still very excited about my favorite player

from the Packers, Christian Watson, who after last night commanded, I think since he's kind of made his debut, he's commanded, or since he started to take more of the snaps, he's commanded a 28% target share, which is really high. His air yards are off the charts.

So I still think, and on that crosser, I mean, he showed what I loved about him on film on that crosser He took for a touchdown. If you get the ball to him in space, he has the breakaway speed to just house and beat angles all the time. So I think regardless who's at quarterback love or Rogers, Watson will still be a fantasy option that I want to play every week. He's become a weekly play for me. And I know again, like, look, it's a 28% target share. And that means, and the only at six targets last night, but that's partially because the Packers are not the most pass heavy football team. And so despite all that, I love, that was my key takeaway that I'm still sticking with Christian Watson. And I'll say this about Jordan love. I thought this was the best he's looked

since he entered the NFL. He had a start earlier in his career against the chiefs where Steve's back. No, it was just like, all right, I'm stacking the box every play and I'm blitzing you almost every play. And he could, and he looked like helpless out there in this game. He looked more in command. He still has the same traits that like drew him to the drew the Packers to him, which are that really quick release, effortless throwing motion. The ball placement was a little off at times. And I think that's going to be the case. He wasn't one of my favorite prospects, but I felt like he looked a lot comfortable. So if he does need to operate that offense, I still have a little bit more faith in Christian Watson,

maintaining his fantasy value. You don't even talk about like Aaron Jones, Christian Watson is your favorite fantasy asset on the Packers. You saw right now, if he was, you would rather have, he's outscored Aaron Jones in the last three weeks. Okay. So, so you would look me with a straight face. You would look at me in the eye and say, I'd rather have Christian Watson than Aaron Jones.

That's what you're saying. I mean, it's a tough call. It's Watson than Aaron Jones. That's what you're saying. I mean, it's a tough call. It's not a tough call. It's not a tough call. Come on. Even if you end up being right about that, there's no way you could take Christian Watson over Aaron Jones. You got to take Aaron Jones. I mean

of the people that were not locking in as starters every week, the Dillons, the Cobbs, the Lazards. I said I would take him over to Lazard two weeks ago, and I stand by that. I have to come around on that one. He's just such

a talented player. But what do you think, Jacob? If they end up going to Jordan Love, this is a great matchup at Chicago. Then they do have their bye. Rogers, like I said, says he wants to play. But just in general, what would this team look like without Aaron Rodgers? Would there be any must-starts? I think Dan is right.

I agree with him that I'm still probably going to have Watts in the top 30 at the wide receiver position in a matchup against Chicago. And then in most neutral matchups, he's probably still going to be top 36 guy. I don't think it's going to be a significant drop off from what we've seen with Rogers. Honestly. Um, I could be wrong on that, but I think love has played reasonably well when we've seen him have opportunities. Um, and it's been kind of brutal in green Bay lately. So I don't know if it's going to get significantly worse. Um, so I think both him and Lazard are guys you can start if you need to. And you're obviously feeling more excited about Watson at this point.

Okay. So how about we'll go over to the Eagle? By the way, I disagree with everything, but that's okay. What do you disagree with? I just think I'm going to go to Jordan Love's game log. He played at Kansas City last year. He started his only start, 19 of 34, 190 yards and a touchdown. Imagine Aaron Rodgers facing the Chiefs and throwing 34 passes for 190 yards.

I remember, let me see the Devontae Adams stat line in that game. It was 14 targets. He turned that into six catches for 42 yards. You know, it's just, when you see these experienced quarterbacks who maybe they're not even playing that well, but they have such a command of the

offense, maybe you don't even realize their value until they're out, like a Roethlisberger, for example. I think it would be pretty bad, but I would say that at no point did I ever feel as encouraged about Jordan Love than last night. It's possible that he has just gotten better. Apparently on the broadcast,

they said that he has cleaned up his fundamentals and has a better command of the offense. So maybe that could unlock something. But I absolutely, as a guy who has Aaron Jones in a lot of leagues, I absolutely am rooting for Aaron Rodgers to get healthy, stay healthy, hopefully get healed up after the bye week

in week 14 and finish strong. But they are basically, they are basically they are almost out of playoff contention so right um it's a concern now the eagles i will say this regards to that concern though adam yeah just one thing on that if this is truly aaron rogers's last season like i think everybody's assuming it is and i think he's hinted it will be i feel like he'll make every effort to come back complain even if the season is lost from a playoff standpoint. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think so. From the Eagles perspective, anything jump out of you? You had an unbelievable game from Jalen Hurts, even though he kept losing touchdowns early in the game. But Dan, anything jump out of you from the Eagles? Nothing that really stood out to me about the Eagles.

I mean, I feel like with this passing game last week, at least, we saw it funnel almost, not entirely, but at a really high rate, I think 38% through Smith and A.J. Brown with Goddard out. This week, we saw other players get involved. Quez Watkins caught the touchdown. So I don't feel like we can count on it being as defined of a passing game as the Dolphins, where it's a lot of waddle and hill. So that I'm kind of toning back a bit of my optimism,

I guess, for Devante Smith to be in every week type of guy, I guess that would be my key takeaway in there. I'll push back on that. Yeah. Push, push Dan. I mean,

we still saw 60% of the targets go to those two players this week. They just need the touchdowns. Um, and Devante Smith and the two games since, uh, Dallas gutter has been injured, week they just think of the touchdowns um and davante smith in the two games since uh dallas goddard has been injured has a 38 percent target share and 55 percent air literature um he was targeted on 40 of philly's first downs this past week they're clearly you know going to

him um and they aren't using him in this like limiting short yardage role that they had been prior to the injury it's been really weird what they've done because like before goddard got hurt smith was occupying this super short yardage role um which is not i don't think ideal for his skill set and since the goddard injury they've moved aj brown into that role um where smith has been working more downfield and he hasn't had big results but like the volume that we've seen for Smith these past two weeks is really, really exciting. So I think he's top 24 guy right now. And that's how you get owned live on air. That's me getting owned by Jacob.

Can anyone make any sense of the route depth change? Because past two weeks, Devonta Smith's route depth is 9.7 yards. AJ Brown's is down to 8.1. It's basically just flipped from what we had seen previously. I have no idea why. It could be the Goddard injury, right? They need to... A.J. Brown always made more sense in that in-breaking route role.

I have no idea. I agree. I guess I don't know why they're using Devonta that way to begin with. To begin with, yeah, right. Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting because A.J. Brown, actually, I think he has 67 or fewer yards in six of his last seven games. Yeah.

Is that a red flag for you guys? Yeah, especially if he's going to be running this short yardage role. Prior to these past two weeks, that's basically what we had seen from Devonta, where his yardage upside was super, super limited. He had one game where he had 90, but other than that, he had like five out of six games,

Devante Smith with fewer than 60 yards, if I remember right. I don't know. It's been really weird. Like I was talking to Pat Fitzmaurice for fantasy pros a couple of weeks ago, and he really expected Devante to step into like a star role with Goddard out.

He expected a lot of those short targets to funnel to him. And he has seen a huge increase of targets, but has been working down the field. It seems, I don't know. None of it has made sense. It seems like if AJ Brown is moving into this role and Goddard is out, it would seem like AJ Brown would be dominating the targets,

but that's not really what we've seen. Okay. I still feel like they're under, they're like misutilizing Devante Smith anyway, in this offense. Remember him at Bama, how they use so much of that, like I candy stuff with him,

pre-snap motion, throw it to him right around the line of scrimmage, get blocker set up. And I don't see enough of that in the Seagulls offense. Yeah. Pretty good matchup this week against Tennessee. Like they have been really susceptible to the, the deep ball.

So I think we can see an explosive game. Not as much lately though. I mean, no, that's true. Yeah. I mean, I could go into that

stat but it's like much much better since they're by week and i don't think any team has scored more than 20 points against them since they're by week including the chiefs including the bangles bangles yeah i believe in the uh in the titans defense it's uh it's a good it's definitely a good one and what a game i mean that's that's going to be... We've got some serious fights. Like, even Giants-Commanders is a huge game next week. But you've got 49ers-Dolphins. You've got Titans-Eagles. You've got...

Bill's Patriots is interesting. I mean, I think... I don't know the schedule, everything off the top of my head. But I think it's setting up to be a great week. Jets-Vikings is a pretty big game when you look at the records. Oh, Chiefs-Bengals, hello. I knew there was one I was forgetting. Yeah, like next week is a crazy good week.

All right, so that's it for the Philadelphia and Green Bay game. I mean, Miles Sanders was awesome, obviously. I don't know that this really changes his fantasy value. It just happened to be you've seen his floor and his ceiling in the last few weeks. Two straight games with fewer than six PPR fantasy points. And then he goes off yesterday, Miles Sanders, for 143 yards, two touchdowns. He also had three catches after having two catches in his previous five games.

So hopefully you started Miles Sanders. He was started in 74% of leagues. News and notes. So we're waiting to see on McCaffrey and Elijah Mitchell. You can expect Mitchell to miss some time. Don't know about Christian McCaffrey. Hopefully we'll have more information as we get our Waver Wire show going tomorrow.

Travis Etienne was apparently cleared to return, but he did not return. So they were playing it cautiously with him. He should be good for the Detroit game. I do wonder, though, if maybe they take some work off his plate and maybe they throw the ball a little bit more, which would be great, great obviously for Trevor Lawrence. Michael Carter left with an ankle injury.

He could miss some time. They have Bam Knight, Zidanovin Knight. They could have James Robinson back. What's your level of interest guys in Zidanovin White if Carter misses some time?

He looked really good. He had over 100 scrimmage yards, and the usage was good, too. Zonovan White. I'm sorry. I knew I butchered his name. Zonovan Knight. I meant to put it in the notes. Yeah, sorry about that.

Zonovan Bam Knight is his name. Yeah, go ahead, Jacob. My bad. Usage was good. He played well. I think if Carter's out i i don't know man robinson it seems like it's done like maybe he'll come back and have a role but like they've just they've just been going further and further away from and i don't know if he's not healthy

just not the same guy i don't know but i didn't really understand the fit in general with robinson when they traded for him right like he's not a one-cut zone runner. I think Zonovan Knight actually is. He looked good getting vertical really fast in that Jets offense. I don't see why they look at the film of Zonovan Knight and then turn back to Robinson based on what they've seen with him. expected to play this week. Allen Robinson's out for the season. Darnell Mooney's going to miss some time. Sam Darnold is going to start in week 14 after their buy at Seattle. That's all that they would commit to at this point. Probably going to get Kyle Allen next week again for the Texans. Of course, you have Aaron Rodgers with the injured ribs, some defensive injuries that are key. Chicago safety Eddie Jackson left with an injury.

Also offensive line injuries. We'll throw those in here too. Both Dolphins starting tackles left with injuries. The important one is obviously Teron Armstead. I don't think they're going to have him for this game at San Francisco, and they allowed four sacks after Teron Armstead left the game. I don't think they allowed any before, but obviously franchise left tackle, recent

offseason addition, and they may not have him, so that's a tough blow for the Dolphins. Tristan Wirfs. Tristan Wirfs has a high ankle sprain. He's a tough blow for the Dolphins. Tristan Wirfs. Tristan Wirfs has a high ankle sprain. He's the right tackle for the Bucs. And he's one of the few reliable guys they have on the line. So he has a high ankle sprain, and his timetable is unknown.

Two starters went out on the offensive line for the Chargers. Miles Garrett aggravated his shoulder. I thought that was pretty interesting. It was the shoulder he hurt in the car accident, and he was playing through a lot of pain. So hopefully Miles Garrett canated his shoulder. I thought that was pretty interesting. It was the shoulder he hurt in the car accident, and he was playing through a lot of pain. So hopefully Miles Garrett can get through that there at Houston this week. And Darnell Savage. Oh, a couple injuries last night at the safety position.

Darnell Savage for the Packers, C.J. Gardner-Johnson for the Eagles. Minnesota cornerback Andrew Booth could be out for the season with a knee injury. He wasn't really playing a lot. He did play 94% of the snaps against the Cowboys, but wasn't a big contributor this season. It's still obviously a depth piece that the Vikings would love to have. And how about this? Your stat of the week.

The Jaguars were 0-183 when trailing by seven or more points in the last minute of regulation. And then they beat the Ravens on Sunday. They are now 1-183. Holy cow. All right, guys, I'm going to let you take it away with the stats.

But the one thing that really jumped out, the playing time that jumped out for me as we look at some of the key stats from Week 12, Juju Smith-Schuster played 38% of the snaps. does anybody know what the heck happened with juju smith schuster no it was weird um i it's possibly just not they were easing him in i mean that's what you would think but it was a concussion you know it wasn't right not to not to uh play down the severity of concussions but they're not like ankles where you're either good or you're not. And even Marquez Valdez-Scanley played something like 60% of the snaps,

and he's usually a lot higher than that. So maybe they just ran the ball so much. I don't know. I think a lot of it had to do with the game script. They were up and they weren't trailing in this game and they weren't really, there was no, at no point where you felt like the chiefs had to really put their foot on the gas. Cause he did make that one big back shoulder catch where it like showed off his like improved rapport with my homes. He made the catch, got the first down and like went right back to the sideline and put like the big coat on.

So it was like, that's like it for the day. So like when they needed him, they used him. But what stands out to me about the chiefs usage, and I'm curious to get your take on this, Jacob. I really like what I'm starting to see from sky more. They're finally starting to use him for this offense. That's now 10 catches in the last two games for more. He also had two design red zone touches.

One was a throwback to my homes, but the other one was like the play we've seen them use, you know, Terry kill and Nicole Hardman and all these other players that fast three where they use them as like a fast three or a fast four, get them in pre-snap motion, get the ball out to him. So I'm really starting to think that Sky Moore could be potentially a useful player to have on your roster moving forward. Yeah, back-to-back games where he's drawn targets

on over 30% of his routes. Really exciting stuff from Sky. All right, so that's a bit of the Chiefs passing game. I'm hoping we can trust Juju Smith-Schuster against the Bengals because that could be a shootout this week. All right, Jacob, take it away with these statistics. Also, did you guys see Brian Robinson's hat?

Yeah, that was weird. What the heck? It was like four sizes bigger than his hat, Jacob. And he said, my buddy runs a hat company. Yeah, can we get a picture of that? Thomas, can you bring up Brian Robinson's hat? Just trust me. You just search for it.

It's very easy to find. And we'll bring it up. It was one of the funniest things I think I've ever seen, including Dan doing his Eddie Vedder impression before the show started today. That was very funny. All right. What stats jumped out at you, J.K. J.K. Gibbs.

J.A. Gibbs underscore 23. Jacob Gibbs, that's your name. Wait, sorry. We have the hat. Look at this hat. I got it. Hat trumps off. Look at that hat.

That's his hat. I've never seen anything like it. Me either. Wow. Okay, I'll remove the hat go ahead jacob uh let's start in arizona so again just insane usage for james connor 97 snap rate 88 route involvement rate the next highest at the running back position is 76 75 72 like he's lapping the field um and arizona's offense has looked a little bit better. And on that note, Marquise Brown is back and played a huge role. He was targeted on half of Arizona's first downs,

which is huge there. I didn't know how emphasized he would be when both him and Hopkins were back. It's just one data point, but at least what we have so far suggests that he's, you know, maybe the guy that they're going to run the offense through. Hopkins still saw more air yardage, but Brown had an air yardage share above 30%. Target share was, I think, 28%. And then the interesting note was that they moved him into the slot. With Ronda Moore out, 60% of his routes came from the slot.

He'd never been above 50% in a game in his career. And that's just, that's interesting for him as a player. I don't know if it's going to, you know, be the same when Rondell gets back, but it's interesting that they, he could be used primarily in the slot. We've never really seen that. And he's been more efficient from the slot than from the perimeter throughout his career, but targeted a higher rate and average more yards per outrun.

So I don't know why they would though. I mean, I feel like, I feel like they got the buy this week. And as soon as Rondell Moore and or Greg Dorch is healthy, doesn't it just make sense that one of those guys plays the slot role? I think so, but they do mix in a lot of guys in this slot and they often run, you know, multiple slots.

Um, so I, I think it's just, it's just an interesting expansion of his role. I don't, like I said, I don't know if it's going to stick. That's not the main point.

The main point is he's back. He played all the snaps. He led the team at targets. Can I complain about something real quick here? And that's what this show is all about, right? Venting frustrations. This pitch count stuff, this is my least favorite thing. Dealing with weather and dealing with pitch counts.

They said, Cliff Kingsbury said, Marquise Brown was going to be on a pitch count. He played 98% of the snaps. What was his pitch count? 500? I mean, it's so hard to know when these guys are coming back from injury what to do with them. It's so hard to know how weather is going to impact fantasy.

So those are my, Sunday morning, those are my least favorite starter questions. You have to ask them, I get it. But they're the hardest ones to answer because I just have no idea. I never in a million years thought Marquise Brown was going to play all but like two snaps yesterday. So sorry. That's just me venting. No, that's frustrating because you want to be giving an informed opinion, and sometimes you're just guessing when it comes to that stuff, and that sucks.

So I also wanted to mention real quick the kenneth walker's route involvement rate was down we'd seen his receiving role expanded um and his targets were way up um the previous game for seattle and this was a great matchup for him to be targeted the raiders have allowed the highest target per run rate to the running back position this year um but he only saw one target and it was his route involvement rate was still above 50%, which isn't bad, but it's not what we saw previously. So that's frustrating. On that note, Kyron Williams for the Rams,

the rookie running back that they've been so excited to get back all year, came in and immediately played a huge role here. He had a 72% route involvement rate, which was the fifth highest at the running back position this week. Played 71% of the snaps and had more rushing attempts than Cam Akers, which really surprised me. I expected him to have the passing down roll. I did not expect him to just straight up out-touch Cam Akers on early downs. He didn't look very good.

And the Rams are not very good, obviously. So I really don't know how much appeal there really is here, but the usage was there. Oh, boy, what a bad team they are. I mean, terrible offense, lines beat up. Allen Robinson's out for the year like that. This is not a huge deal, but gosh, they're awful. I wanted to add something on Ken Walker because I was looking into him this morning.

So of all running backs with 80 or more carries, I think there are 42 of them. He is second to last in percentage of carries for zero or negative yards. And that is, he has the highest percentage. James Robinson is the only running back with a higher percentage of carries that have gone for zero or negative yards than Ken Walker. Looking at all running backs with a minimum of 80 carries this year, he is dead last, I believe, in carries that have gone for five or more yards.

So a percentage of carries that have gone for five or more yards. It's 42nd out of 42nd. So that surprised me. The area where Ken Walker does measure very well is the explosive plays. He's fourth in explosive run rate, which is carries of 12 or more yards, according to True Media.

Again, of all running backs with 80 or more carries. So, you know, he's saving himself with big plays. A big play, according to True Media, is 12 or more yards. His first carry of the game was a 12-yard touchdown, and it was gorgeous. After that, he had, I think, 13 carries for 14 yards, something like that.

Yeah, 13 carries for 14 yards and a touchdown. So it's a little concerning with Ken Walker here, especially if you can't rely on that role in the passing game. There's just a lot of negative carries. I'm not at Damian Pierce level with Ken Walker. I don't know how you feel about Ken Walker. I think he's terrific, but we are seeing a lot of really bad nothing carries for him. And if he doesn't get the big play, then it's it's a little rocky. Yeah, one of my biggest issues with with Ken

Walker, from what I've seen, is they're just not really running that diverse of a run scheme there in Seattle. It's you know, it's Shane Waldron. He comes from that coaching tree. It's a lot of zone. It's a lot of outside zone. And when outside zone is working well, it's working great earlier in the season. It looked great with Penny when, when Walker first hit the scene,

it looked great. And now teams are figuring out a way to stop that outside zone. I thought the giants kind of put a little bit of a blueprint on there. And since then, it's been tough for the Seattle defense, the Raiders who are not really known as a good run defense, completely shut that outside zone run game down. It's not a very diverse scheme.

We're not seeing a lot of interesting elements like use some power gap or get him to the perimeter often. So I just feel like right now with pitches and stuff like that and pin pull. So I just feel like right now it's not the run game. The blocking scheme to me in the run game itself is not really operating in sync. So it's less Walker for me talent-wise and more just I'm not feeling great about the Seattle run game, like the blocking scheme to me in the run game itself is not really operating in sync. So it's less Walker for me talent wise and more just, I'm not feeling great about the Seattle run game. What stats did you want to highlight Mr. Schneier? Well, I want to start with a film observation because that's kind of where my specialty really lies anyway, over the stats.

Jacobs is the stack guy. I just try to compete with him and I never, you know, live up to the hype and live up to Jacob's impressive, you know, stat digging week to week basis. But I do think I can come up with some decent film observations. And today I had the opportunity to go back and watch the Jacksonville Jaguars offense on film. Why did I do that? Well, on the mailbag episode last week, Adam and I were asked, we're, we're posed with a question and a bet like against this, you know, and look, the Ravens defense had been really good since Roquan Smith was traded to them. Like you could talk about early in the season when they gave up that huge

comeback to the dolphins and all those things, but they had really tightened up since then. So someone's like better bet Adam and I, that Trevor Lawrence would score 30 fantasy points. And Adam and I were like, well, better lives. Basically.

Of course he did score that 30 plus range. And if you watch the film, what I really like about Trevor Lawrence and what I saw with that Jaguars passing game, they started to take advantage of what he does best, the quarterback coming out of this bye week. And what is that? Well, it's his ability to throw velocity and ball placement and anticipation outside the hashes. So that means like you have the hash marks in the NFL, you have the 40, just think of it like a yard line, the 40 yard line, the 40 yard line. A lot of throws are thrown in between that for quarterbacks, the quarterbacks who can throw

velocity and touch outside. Those are known as the NFL throws. Those are the guys who you think have like the elite arm talent. Those are the guys who can challenge defenses in a way that's hard to stop. And that's what we saw with the Ravens. They had a tough time stopping Lawrence because he was throwing so consistently with so much velocity outside the numbers. And that's what we saw with the Ravens. They had a tough time stopping Lawrence because he was throwing so consistently with so much lossy outside the numbers. And one of the key benefactors of that was Zay Jones. His role has changed. I'd love to get your take on this, Jacob, but his role changed a lot coming out of the biweek. They started to finally utilize him outside the numbers in that intermediate to deep range. One of the best throws of the game during that comeback was an outside the numbers throw outside the left hash is a Jones where Lawrence released it before he really got to his spot way at way before he got out of his break.

So I think right now with the Jaguars and Doug Peterson did during the bye week is figure out what Lawrence does best as a quarterback and start to utilize that. And what he does best is hardest to stop in the NFL. It is very hard to play zone against quarterbacks who can consistently challenge outside the hash marks in the intermediate and deep areas of the field. So I'm very excited about what I saw with Lawrence in this past game.

I'm very excited about them moving forward. Cool. That was pretty good. That was pretty good film review. Hell yeah. Yeah. They moved Christian Kirk

like his slot rate was up and his average depth of target was down this week. And we have seen Zay Jones has had a really low ADOT, which is uncharacteristic for what we've seen from the rest of his career. His ADOT prior to this past week was like 7.5 yards. This week it was up around 10 and Kirk's was down. And so, yeah, I'm glad that you saw that on film as well. It's exciting to see him being used more down the perimeter.

And yeah, the usage of this week was incredible. Well, it's not that exciting for me, who is, you know, who likes Christian Kirk quite a bit. Well, I would say this. Zay Jones is someone who I'm targeting on all my waiver wires after watching that tape. I benched him in a league.

And to be fair, I mean, the Ravens defense, it's not like they played poorly until that final drive. One of the touchdowns was, I think, a fumble recovery about the 15 yard line or something like that. So that's what the Jaguars scored.

So, but no, but Zayv Jones was having a huge game the entire time and he's had eight or more targets in six games and he scored double digit PPR fantasy points in five of those six games.

And it always correlates with how many pass attempts Trevor Lawrence throws. And I think they're probably going to have to, like the next two opponents for Zay Jones are the Titans and the Lions, or Lions and the Titans in that order. They are third and fourth in most wide receiver targets per game,

you know, seen defensively. So yeah, I think Jose Day Jones is pretty interesting. Any other filmy stuff? By the way, if you're the film guy and

Jacob's the stack guy, what the hell am I? You're the guy, Adam. You do it all. You're the utility guy. Damn right. You're the utility guy. Well, going from being

the guy to the utility guy is actually, you just turned me from Aaron Judge into, gosh gosh like who would be into um isaiah kind of for lefa so thank you no no no you're you're one of the better utility guys out there so great let's keep it there as far as film yeah great no i mean i meant that nicely as far as film goes that was kind of the only tape i got a chance to get to today but i have a couple you know just outside of that stats that i researched today to write the newsletter for FFT.

So one thing I really wanted to point to is Rashad White, because there was some speculation that second year back Keyshawn Vaughn could kind of like split the role with white or play a lot of the passing downs because look, he's year two. Tom and Rashad White is a rookie and Tom Brady's Tom Brady. He wants to have running backs in there who are good in pass, bro, who know what they're doing. That just simply wasn't the case. I mean, he played 90% of the snaps or shot white. He had 14 carries Vaughn just had four, he had 73% route partition, uh, participation. So he was really used as a route runner, not as a blocker on passing downs. 21% target share was, was whopping good. And he handled over 80 of the team short yardage 85 of the long distance downs he didn't miss a single snap in the two minute

offense so i don't know if fournette is going to miss another week but if he does rashad white remains a locked in rb1 all he needed on that stat line was a touchdown to put him over the top there i know you know he didn't get it this week but that's not to say it won't happen next week and even once fournette comes back, Adam and Jacob, I think that he's earned himself at least kind of like a 40%, 50% share moving forward. This could really hurt Fournette. Oh, yeah, big time.

I think they said they were going to ride the hot hand. He's done nothing to not be the hot hand. And he had a great nine catches. It's insane. But good day for Rashad White. Latavius Murray was another guy who played a whole bunch of snaps, played over 80%. Kyron Williams played 70%.

Jacob talked about him. We got to talk about Garrett Wilson too, right? He's part of our big topics. Okay. So the only other thing I wanted to mention was DJ Moore really outplayed Patrick Sertan. He had a lot of yardage on Sertan. He had the touchdown on Sertan. He had a 20-yard catch against him, and then he had, I think, a 52-yard catch against him at the very end of the game.

And we just wanted to bring that up. He's going into his bye, but Sertan has had a bit of a rough stretch here. He got schooled on that Devontae Adams touchdown in overtime. That lost them the game and did not really do a good enough job on DJ Moore, who despite, I think, Sam Darnold threw 19 passes, DJ Moore had a big game, about 100 yards and a touchdown. All right. Go ahead. Two that are quick.

I wanted to mention that Traylon Burks did run more routes than Nick Westbrook-Akene this week, which he didn't the week before. He just drew targets at a really high rate the week before, but he's third on the team in routes. This week he was right up there at Rubber Woods in terms of routes run, and he had 108 air yards, so really exciting stuff for him. And then I just wanted to highlight the Cleveland guys again because, I mean, maybe at this point it's too late to buy them.

They might be properly valued, but we saw David Njoku's. His usage was a lot better this week. He's not being eased in anymore. He's playing the full role. And then Amari Cooper over the past couple of weeks has started to really take back command as Donovan Peoples-Jones had legitimately started to cut into Amari's role for like a month and a half straight. But the last two weeks has been pretty much all Amari's look like the alpha. and if these two guys are going to play those roles with deshaun watson back if watson is

even like 80 85 of what we've seen in years past amari cooper is like a top eight top 10 wide receiver and in joke is like a top six tight end just to add some numbers to that and she'll got a 22 target share and that's an incredibly high rate. 78% route participation rate is even more interesting to me because that means when he was on the field, he wasn't really used as a blocker. He was used as a receiver. You guys got to give him the respect he deserves and call him by his name, which is Njoku.

I can't let my University of Miami guy go. What did I say? Njoku? A lot of people are calling him Njoku. Njoku. All right. We're going to take a break here, get to our big topics when we come back. Josh Jacobs, he's good. Deshaun Watson, he's good.

Garrett Wilson is good. Alvin Kamara and Saquon Barkley, they are terrible, of course. We'll tell you all about it right after this on Fantasy Football Today. Did you know that across Ontario, utility damage happens 19 times a day? That's over 4,222 incidents a year. Don't let your next dig be one that causes costly delays or safety risks. Before you break ground,

make it a point to request a locate. It's not just the law. It's a step to keep your team and community safe. Visit OntarioOneCall.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. Big topic number one comes from Sean Collender. Why is Josh Jacobs the best?

How is the entire industry wrong on Josh Jacobs? How can we avoid the Josh Jacobs situations moving forward? Who is next year's Josh Jacobs? So that's what he asks. Jacobs right now. Yeah, he is the number one running back in non and half PPR. He is number two in full PPR, and he is coming off a 303 yard game with two touchdowns and 48.3 PPR

fantasy points. Dan, your thoughts on Josh Jacobs? Yes, obviously as somebody who was off Josh Jacobs this year, often last offseason I was right, often this offseason I was wrong. What we can avoid is this. Maybe we can start to weigh the factors a little differently. So the reason why I was off Josh Jacobs was because of the coaching change. Josh McDaniels comes over.

He comes from New England. They had never really run a one-back system ever, except for the Corey Dillon years, which are like the mid-2000s with the balachek and josh mcdaniels was his coordinator for all but those like that short stint with the broncos for mcdaniels and so we even saw the buzz right during training camp he was using multiple backs they had brandon bolden on the roster amir abdul was a guarantee to take the passing downs and you thought maybe zamir white who they handpicked that staff, would ultimately eat into Jacobs' early down role.

Now, we factored all that in really heavily. We also factored in, and this is the one that really stands out to me, that they didn't pick up his fifth-year option. But might that have actually been a good thing for his fantasy value, right? If you don't pick up his fifth-year option, you're more willing probably as a coaching staff to run him into the ground and better, you know, and those aren't the best way to describe it. It's a kind of a brute way to describe that, but to kind of give him that massive workload. And that's what we're seeing now. They, for the first time in Josh McDaniel's really career as a,

as a coordinator and as a coach, he's leaned on one back. And so that's the one factor that stands out to me. The other one is this Josh Jacobs. This is, I always come back to this when I miss with Jacobs. Jacobs is still like, cause somebody posted about this, like from a dynasty standpoint. I mean, I remember early in September, it might've been Heath and it really jumped out to me.

We're like, we are so quick to rule out these backs, but he's still on his rookie contract. He was a first round pick for a reason because NFL scouts felt like he had the tools to be in every down back and he's still really young. What is Josh Jacobs? 24, 25 right now. I believe he's 24 years old.

So maybe just, maybe we look at the draft pedigree. We look at the age. We look at the, the fact that he wasn't really, you know, didn't have high usage rates. Um, and we just think about it differently moving forward. That's the only thing I can think of because I do put a lot of weight generally on the coaching and the tendencies of the coaching. And in this case, it just totally backfired. Yeah.

I think you outlined it really well. Another thing with Jacobs is, do you remember the, in the hall of fame game he was playing and it's just like, yeah, what, what is this? Right.

Yeah. Yeah. That I didn't really take all that seriously, but just another thing. It just all added up, and everybody got so down on him. Well, I know that the previous two years he had finished, I think, around RB12, something like that. But those are like the middle of stats.

Those are like the guys you never want to use. No, it was per game. But still, it wasn't that impressive. The per carry, the explosive plays. I like guys who can make big plays. So you're looking at a guy who really needed a lot of volume because he wasn't making big plays two years in a row, had a terrible offensive line,

and this year they're 26th in run blocking, according to PFF. So that hasn't changed. We thought for sure that he was not going to be in every down back. I mean, like every single report indicated that. So we thought he was, you know, like a round five pick, round six maybe if you really didn't like Josh Jacobs. It was not like we were completely avoiding him. And when you say who's the next one,

I think it's pretty unlikely that, you know, I just don't think there's going to be a repeat. I think it's like unlikely that, you know, that I just don't think there's going to be a repeat. I think it's like saying, who's the next Cooper Cup? You know, it's just, it's not that easy to do. He's having an incredibly good season. We were, everyone was wrong. I don't know that we were wrong in our thought process.

I think there was a lot more, much more evidence against him than for him. And I guess, yeah, I mean, much more evidence against him than for him. And, uh, I guess, yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess, okay.

Last thing is like you, you should probably favor a guy like Josh Jacobs who has the pedigree and his rookie season. He was really good over someone like miles Gaskin and Mike Davis, those guys who might have better opportunities in a particular year, but we don't think they're very good at all. So that could be the mistake we made. That's it. Yeah. And I would say one thing to think about moving forward. I don't want to cut you off, Jacob. I'll let you speak after this. But one thing to think about moving forward is

I was equally as concerned with that Raiders offensive line. And you mentioned it, Adam, it hasn't really improved us, at least according to pro football focus. But maybe moving forward, one thing we consider is what's more impactful on a running back, the offensive line rankings, according to pro football focus, or the addition of a receiver, an X, a true X receiver, arguably one of the best in the game, like Devante Adams. And what that could mean schematically on the other side of the ball. Well, defenses are playing their safeties further back.

Defenses are using extra defensive backs or linebackers and bracket coverage to assign to Devante Adams on every play. And that opens up one gap in the run lane or something like that to really make things easier for a running back. So maybe we consider like, okay, Devante Adams is there, or if some team makes a massive acquisition at wide receiver like that, what will it do for the run game? Cause I think we're seeing something similar in Miami, right? Like last year, Miami's running backs were an albatross. I remember every week, nobody was creating anything in that run game for Miami. And we couldn't fit. Not only could we not figure out a bunny back to start, we always kept saying like, Oh my God, this offensive line is so bad. We can never trust a Miami running back. They didn't

really prove that offensive line all that much. Taryn arms is great, but the numbers haven't shown they've improved that much, but what's happening. Well, teams are playing safeties, 20 yards, two years, like safeties and corners, like 15 yards, at least off the ball because of a Hill and waddle.

And it opens up a lot in the run game. Okay. Yep. That's a good point. He, he, he, he,

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he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he has in the past, which I think is interesting because at times this year, the Raiders' offense has completely run through him, but he's below the league average in the percentage of his runs that he's faced that boxes, which I think just kind of attests to Dan's point about Devonta Adams making such a big impact. And then if I were to throw out two names who are possibly next year's

Josh Jacobs, I think Jonathan Taylor and Najee Harris both make sense um i don't think nasha's as good of a runner as jacobs i don't know if jonathan taylor is either but he might be um but they're both guys who we were really really excited about and then their efficiency numbers have dropped off as they played through injuries um their offensive line has been a problem and we could easily see them not projected for a three down roll next year but they also could end up just being the entire you know force of their offense everything running through those

guys and surprisingly good for fantasy which i don't know there were just two names that stuck out to me all right let's go to rich rich mackle haney are you starting Deshaun Watson? Who are you starting over Deshaun Watson next week? I'm thinking of starting Watson over Josh Allen. I mean, whichever way the question is worded, the question is about Deshaun Watson. So he is coming back this week to face his old team, the Houston Texans. And Jacob, what are your expectations for Deshaun Watson?

I've got him at QB eight currently. So I would not start him over Josh Allen, but I would start him over Gino deck, Prescott, Tom Brady, Derek Carr, those guys. And I think you can make a case, I guess, over like Tua against San Francisco. But I wouldn't start him over Justin Herbert or Joe Burrow. Lamar Jackson versus Denver, maybe.

I don't know. What do you guys think? I would start him over Lamar Jackson versus Denver, maybe? I don't know. What do you guys think? I would start him over Lamar Jackson against Denver for sure. I would also start him over Tua against San Fran, mostly because I'm really alarmed by the injuries at the offensive tackle positions

for Tua and that Dolphins offense against the 49ers front. You'd start him over Tua Tungavailoa? Yes, I would. Oh, boy. I don't like that matchup for two. That San Fran D line is. I know the best, the sex.

I know you're, you're, I mean, if Taryn Armstead plays and there are others, I forgot who was, I can't believe Taryn Armstead is not going to play. And their right tackle is a guy who's barely first. Who was it? Jackson. I think Austin Jackson. Oh yeah. Austin.

He's barely played all year. And they moved him from like left guard to right. Yeah. He's not a good option anyway. That scares me, though, because Tua's a left-handed quarterback, doesn't really have any option at right tackle or left tackle for this week against the best front. I'd start him over, too.

Well, I just don't know what to expect from him. I mean, first of all, this is a great situation that he's walking into. If you just look at Jacoby Brissett, he's having a career year. Baker Mayfield, I think it's pretty obvious, is better in Cleveland than in Carolina. It might just be a really good scheme. I know, Dan, you've talked very glowingly about the scheme there. You've got Cooper.

He's either been thrown to Hopkins, but then the one year where he didn't have Hopkins, he was throwing to Will Fuller and Brandon Cooks. He threw for 5,000 yards, almost. Led the league in passing. So he's got a decent receiving core. And the difference this year is that they are definitely throwing the ball more than they ever did.

You know, this was a team that was usually bottom five in pass attempts. They're 18th in pass attempts per game. Because they're giving up the third most points per game in the NFL. That's not going to be the case this week against the Texans. I would not love him so much against the Texans because teams don't throw against the Texans. They run, run, run, and this is the Browns. Nick Chubb is going to go crazy.

However, it's his first game in a year and a half. He's facing the Texans. You've got to figure they want to get him scored some points against his old team, right? There's definitely a storyline there that's pretty intriguing. So I would start Tua over him, but I would definitely start him over Lamar Jackson. Gibbs, you got to break the tie here.

Tua or Deshaun Watson? I have Tua ranked one spot ahead of him, but I think it's really, really close, and I'm probably going to end up moving Deshaun ahead of him. Okay, we got some very heavy talk in the chat today. My goodness. What is it? It's very strange.

You can talk about whatever you want, but it's a little strange. But this is why you should be watching on YouTube, everybody. All right. So what was I going to say? What is this comment about? This isn't Sandlot pickup family turkey bowl,

Adam. What are you talking about, Rushman? What does that mean? What is he talking about? Is that in regards to what I said about Deshaun Watson? Like scoring against the Texans? You don't think that he's going to be extra motivated to score touchdowns against the Texans?

Did you see how that thing ended? People like scoring against teams that they used to play for. This is a big deal for Deshaun Watson, I would imagine. The bigger question, though, that I didn't address is, what percentage of Deshaun Watson is he going to be playing to? He hasn't played in so long. It is a brand-new system. He didn't really have a lot of preseason run and all that stuff. Is he just going back to being the top five quarterback he's been

basically every year or top six per game, or is there going to be an acclimation period? Give give me your 30 seconds thought 30 second thoughts on that we can move on i think there's a chance there could be a one maybe two game acclimation period but after that i'll go because like you said i like his weapons cooper joku Joku. Wait, what is it? No, no, no, no. Cooper, Najoku, Donovan, Peoples, Jones. Love the offensive line. Love Kevin Savancy calling and designing plays. And more importantly than that, love the game script potential.

Like you mentioned earlier, they're throwing more than they ever had to because their defense stinks this year. They can't stop anybody in the run game. And so all of those factors lead me to believe that after a couple games where he gets the rapport down with these receivers you know gets actual game reps with them he could be like a fantasy star for the playoffs i'm very i'm very high on his upside yeah i agree with dan i think upside wise like he could be one of the best quarterbacks in fantasy he's got really great weapons there um but i'm projecting him at about 85 of the player that we've seen in the past at least to start out here because he just hasn't played football in so long

yeah yep all right and uh we'll move on to our next topic here it's about two struggling running backs it's from only meat still start your studs camara and barkley so camara is at tampa bay this week barkley has Washington. So those are not easy matchups. Both of them are really struggling. Kamara has been worse than Barkley. How about Barkley? His last six games, he is averaging 3.6 yards per carry. He has two carries of 20 or more yards in those six games. Whereas in his first five games, Barkley averaged 5.5 yards per carry and had five carries of 20 or more yards. Excuse me, guys. Do you think that Saquon Barkley and Alvin Kamara in general are starts in week 12? Again, it is Barkley against the Commanders and Kamara against at I have him I think at running back 13 or 14 this week um and Barkley is right in that range but I'm definitely worried about it Dan and I were tweeting about this um and you

pointed it out he has been significantly worse um over the second half of the season he's avoiding tackles at like half the rate that he was early in the season not rushing um for explosive plays and this is a terrible matchup Washingtonhington stevens has been really good lately and they're better against the run than they're against the pass um so yeah i say quan you're you're betting on volume but that's the other thing his his underlying volume rates aren't as strong as they were earlier in the year either his route involvement rate has been down for like a month and a half yeah and he already wasn't drawing targets at a high per route rate and so like now that he also has fewer routes,

it's tough to project him for more than three or four targets on any given week. And Washington even plays a ton of man. Five to six targets in their last three losses each game. So they've lost three of their last four games. He's had five to six targets in all three games. So that helps. He's actually been targeted much higher per route rate lately,

which I think might be kind of fluky. And so, like, if he doesn't have the routes and that rate normalizes to what we saw prior to that, then, like, it could be really bad. But do you think that has anything to do with Wanda Robinson being out last week, with Wanda Robinson missing time in general? I don't know. All right, well, look, three or four catches is basically, you know,

a good day for Saquon Barkley, so we can just end it there. What's your take on these two guys, Dan? I'm actually a lot higher moving forward on Barkley than Kamara, and I'm not high on either of these players given the factors. I'll start with Kamara. Kamara saw just 32% of the Saints' total carries this week. He's just not a workhorse back. So then if you don't have a workhorse back, you need him to be a dynamo as a receiver.

He had six receptions for 37 yards. The targets are there. He had seven targets, but these are bad targets. They're not utilizing them down the field. Andy Dalton is not a good thrower of the football at this point. And he's not a good player to be operating that offense. It's a insanely low ceiling offense. And I just don't have any interest. Not to say the giants are a higher high ceiling offense, but they feel like

a much higher ceiling offense than the saints to me right now, or at least considerably higher when you also factor in the volume. Now, as far as Barkley goes, there are reasons to be optimistic on the horizon. So I'll start with those before getting into the negatives. The reason to be optimistic are the giants are getting a lot healthier on their offensive line. And more importantly, they might be getting Daniel Bellinger back the tight end. The running game really fell off completely once Daniel Bellinger was out of the mix because they don't have any other tight ends who can block the way he can. They also lost Evan Neal. That hurt them and the injuries on the interior offensive line. They've had a revolving door there, but there is also on the negative side, which I said I promised I'll get to, if you look at every single trend as Jacob broke down,

yards over expected has been unbelievably bad during the stretch versus in the early season where he was way above expected yards. And it really started when he had that shoulder injury earlier this season against the Green Bay Packers. That's when the downfall started. And he doesn't talk about it. The Giants aren't talking about the injury there's nothing on it but you can tell that he's not running with the same juice you can tell that you know not not just he's not it's not like he's not as physical it's just like he doesn't look the same out there right now

when you watch him on tape and i think every giants fan who's watched the tape along with us on our podcast big blue banner quick shout out because we break down the tape. But Nick, myself and you know, the co myself and my co host both agree he has not looked the same on tape. So I think the issue is there more is like the injury situation with Saquon Barkley moving forward. So I can't really be too high on either. But I'm definitely going to take the guy with offensive line reinforcements coming back with actual volume versus Camara who, you know, doesn't even get 32% of his carries in a week. And Barkley, at least, he has 15 or more fantasy points

in all but two games this year. Kamara would kill for 15 fantasy points lately. But some of that is just touchdowns. Barkley's scoring touchdowns, and Kamara has scored touchdowns in one game all year. He scored three touchdowns against the Raiders. Those are his only touchdowns of the season.

But last week, Jacob, I pointed out that when they have gotten to the five-yard line, it's been rare, but he has been the guy in the game, and he, of course, fumbled at the one-yard line in this game on a catch. Here's the biggest number that I'm looking at for Alvin Kamara. Let me just tell you that the Carolina Panthers are last in the NFL with 56.4 plays per game. In this four-game stretch for Alvin Kamara, where he's been pretty bad,

the Saints are averaging 51 plays per game. That is pathetic. That is five below the Panthers' season average, which is worse than the nfl so those types of things i feel like that will normalize a little bit you can't be that bad in plays per game it's so and that could be four extra touches or something like that maybe you know from maybe three extra touches but maybe that's enough uh to give you something from camara uh so what did you say you had him like in the 13 to 15 range, those guys, both of them.

Yeah. That's a really good point that you just brought up on the Saints overall offensive play volume. I knew it had been bad. I didn't realize it was that bad for an extended period like that. Yeah. So, you know, I, I think things could get better for these guys, but there's a lot of really interesting factors at play. That was a very good Giants breakdown there, Dan. So thank you. Thank you. From Ryan Cook. Can we get Andy Dalton out of here?

I know, right? What is going on with this Andy Dalton situation? It's the foot. It's not playing well. Why is he starting? It's the foot. I'm 100% convinced. That's what Dennis Allen basically said. He said Jameis Winston is not going to be 100% this year because of his foot. And

I do not think there's any reason why he'd be sticking with Andy Dalton otherwise. They're tanking. No, they're not even tanking. They don't even have their draft pick. They traded to the Eagles. Yeah. From Ryan Cook. So, I need to be quick on this, guys. I'm sorry. But he wants

a circle of trust for Garrett Wilson, Isaiah Pacheco, and Gus Edwards. So, 0-10 on the trust-o-meter. 10 is a complete trust. Zero is zero trust. Garrett Wilson, Pacheco, and Gus Edwards, give me a number for each. Jacob. Garrett Wilson, the player, I'm going nine, nine or 10. In terms of his fantasy outlook week to week on the jets we're gonna go with a seven uh pacheco any week that the chiefs are probably going to play with a week uh with a lead which is most weeks he's like a seven or an eight he had 12 red zone touches this week 12 the next highest was

seven um gus edwards six he he came back and dominated the rushing share, um, played over half the snaps, which is great. First came back. What was your number on Pacheco? Seven. So two sevens and a six. Yeah. Hmm.

Okay. Dan, I'm going to go with an eight for Garrett Wilson. Obviously the talent would be a nine or a 10 for me, but the jets pass situation, I don't think we'll look as good as it looked against a bears defense. It's been awful. Uh, and basically every category Pacheco is somebody I talked about last podcast

loving, and I know you weren't as high on him, Adam, but like Jacob said, this is the chief's offense and he's getting all those red zone touches and Clyde Edwards layers. Now on IR, I did see a little bit of Ronald Jones. That was interesting, but I'll go eight on Pacheco. I'm high there too. And then the last player player who was that again uh gus edwards gus edwards i'll give a seven there as long as he doesn't fumble he should still they they proved like once he came back like it's his job it's kenyan drake's not going to mix in but the fumble maybe cost them the game so if he starts to fumble puts another ball on the ground that's when i would lower that all the way down to like a three jk dobbins is going to practice this week i don't

expect him to play this week, but his return could be on the horizon, which would cut into Gus Edwards' work. I'll believe it when I see it with Dobbins. So this is very format-specific, okay? Okay. So Garrett Wilson's a seven in any format. Heath has been asking, believe it or not,

he's a top 20 wide receiver rest of season as long as Zach Wilson is in the quarterback. Think about the guys who we talk about as top 20, right? We're talking Juju, we're talking Olave, we're talking Terry McLaurin, Garrett Wilson's in that mix, Christian Kirk. I mean, there are not even close to 20 wide receivers who you just trust every week.

So Garrett Wilson is absolutely in that group. And looking at wide receiver 20 in full PPR, it's averaging about a point per game less than each of the previous two years. It's a bad year for wide receivers. So in that regard, I do trust Garrett Wilson.

I'll just say Mike White was not anything special yesterday. His air yards per pass attempt were 5.75, which would be the lowest in football if it were for a full season. It'll be a little higher than that going forward,

but he was just very, very safe. Good for him. And then, of course... But he does offer some... Yeah, go ahead. Of course, you had the safety Eddie Jackson hurting his foot on the Garrett Wilson touchdown that led to 37 yards after the catch on a touchdown with the safety laying on the ground.

So I just want to... It was an encouraging start, but I am not even close to considering Mike White. If you're thinking about him off the waiver wire, think again. I do not think that, although the Vikings suck, and then he's got the Bills who are extremely beat up, and then he's got the Lions. Schedule's great, but that's more for Wilson for me than White.

For the other two guys, in a full PPR league, Pacheco and Gus Edwards are three or fours for me. Full PPR. Pacheco. In his last three games, Pacheco and full PPR has been RB 31, RB 22. And this week he had 22 carries.

He scored a touchdown and he was RB 15. So if he doesn't score there, he's got one catch in his last three games. I think he has three catches on the season. They don't, they don't usually run this much. So I think full PPR specifically, I'm not starting him. And Gus Edwards is basically the same exact thing. So there you go.

Nice. Were you going to say something? I like it. No, I like it. Okay. Non-PPR, half PPR, much more interested in Pacheco and Gus Edwards. I'd prefer Pacheco because I think Dobbins could be a pain in the butt for Gus Edwards.

All right, guys. Thank you. Good show. Good to have you guys back together again. It's good to be back. All right, so yeah, J.K. Dobbins is just coming in. He's going to practice this week. That means his window is open.

He's got 21 days. Joe Mixon remains in the concussion protocol, by the way. That just popped across the news tracker. Yeah, I don't like that. I don't like that. I need to be some Mixon. My seasons are in the balance. Shout out to the Badgers, by the way.

As you're looking at this big W, they just hired Luke Fickle to be their new head coach. Let me tell you, this is one of the most exciting hires I've ever had as a fan of this team. Okay. Good luck to you. This is how I felt a year ago when the Hurricanes hired Mario Cristobal. And now we're 5-7. We'll talk to you all tomorrow with the waiver wire on Fantasy Football Today.