Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score: Chargers-Steelers, Justin Jefferson, Zay Flowers, TreVeyon Henderson, Troy Franklin and More (11/10 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

Our thoughts on Steelers-Chargers (3:05) with Justin Herbert having another disappointing game without Joe Alt, but that doesn't mean we're sour on Herbert. What do we make of DK Metcalf and Quentin Johnston? ... News and notes (16:35) and snap counts and advanced metrics (18:30) you need to know! We talk about the Seahawks offense, how the Bears backfield played out and which running backs dominated the snaps ... Buy or Sell for TreVeyon Henderson (39:00), Zay Flowers (46:00), Justin Jefferson (50:50), Troy Franklin (55:45), Jerry Jeudy and the quarterback position in 2025 and beyond (1:00:40) ... Email us at [e-mail] Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shop our store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shop.cbssports.com/fantasy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. This is fantasy football today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this? It's a no idea. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races and he stays on his feet.

It's just going to go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Today on Beyond the Box Score, advanced ads from simple people, what's the deal with Justin Jefferson? Is he even a top 24 wide receiver rest of season? Well, of course he is, but is he a top 12 guy? What about Zay Flowers? What do you need to know about him? Trayvion Henderson, is this the start of something big?

Jerry Judy, is this the start of something big? And what do we make of that Chargers Steelers game last night? The Chargers, I think they had a 3% blitz rate last night. 3%. And it worked pretty well in a 2510 win. This is Fantasy Football today presented by BetMGM. make it legendary adam azer jacob gibbs dan schneier what's up guys how was your dan schneier how was your weekend uh well it was great in the sense that i got in the last probably the last round of golf for new jersey golfers uh saturday was unreal out of nowhere

60 degrees sunny like i came in like winter gear took off the winter hat took off the went so it was great um lost a match on 18 that part wasn't so great but the rest of it was great um and then it got ruined because the giants are the giants and all they want to do is make our lives miserable at them. So good then bad. Yeah, the Giants also lost the match on 18, which they've done three times this year. Jacob, were you bored during the Chiefs by week? I hate the Giants by week. I don't know how you feel. It was nice. The Chiefs have been a little bit stressful this year. They're kind of all over the place. But yeah, this is a super fun weekend of football, I thought. Yeah, it was unless you needed to win matchups with Aronday Gads and getting just five or six points, which he's done all here

except for this week. I lost three matches because of that. Three? Oh, no, that's terrible. All right. So, Arrani Gadsden, by the way, has the knee injury and, you know, we're waiting to see he's going to have an MRI on his knee, which is never good. Not a good sign. Yeah, but we won't

jump to any conclusions with Arrani Gadsden. Obviously, it could have a big impact on the Chargers passing game. But let's get into that game. Chargers 25, Pittsburgh 10. and Jacob, what stands out to you from a fantasy perspective? Yeah, the Gadsden injury could be huge for sure. I feel like the biggest takeaway here was they really kind of force things to Quentin

Johnston in this game. So that could be huge because we, Dan and I have speculated a lot and beyond the box score that the tackle problem for the Chargers could be like kind of a Quentin Johnson problem because he'd been used primarily as the ex-receiver to stretch the field. but he played more than the other receivers and also got 10 targets as they designed more stuff around the line of scrimmage. Of course, McConkey's the one who pops off. He's incredible. Another game where Kenan Allen's playing time was just down. He's like pretty much only playing in three receiver sets. And so I think he'll have some good games, but they're getting

Trey Harris, the rookie involved. They really like him as a blocker. So the role has been reduced for the veteran. And that's probably what you can expect going forward. Another good Justin Herbert game. I've got some, like, it didn't end up being a huge fantasy game for him, but like, this is the absolute floor given the infrastructure of where he's at right now. So I've got some stats on him that we'll get into later with the quarterbacks. I don't know.

I am not so thrilled with this Justin Herbert development because, again, I mean, you see the, you see the result of not having his starting tackles. and season high, 64% of his throws were in under two and a half seconds. That's the third highest of any quarterback this week. His three games with his lowest percentage or highest percentage of throws in under two and a half seconds are all games without Joe Alt. He had a 4.7 yard A dot, second lowest of the season. I mean, that's ridiculous. He didn't throw a deep ball, really.

He threw barely any. So I think when you look at here are the games that Joe Alt either left with a injury or missed the game. Six point per passing touchdown leagues. Fourteen and a half points at the Giants. 16.6 against Washington, 22.8 at Miami. 33.9 against the Colts. 31.7 at Tennessee, all played about half that game and 16.7 last night.

So we've got two great games, one good game, three bad games in this sample size. And other than that, when he has had Joe Alt, he's been pretty money. like a guaranteed great game, basically, unless he's at Denver. So I, with this quarterback landscape, I'm not so sure that he's top. I think he's in that mix of, you know, 8 to 15. He could finish anywhere there. But I'm not sure we got a league-winning quarterback, in my opinion, in Herbert. There were, like, no intermediate shots and no deep shots, as you mentioned, Adam.

It felt like everything was quick game, and that may be the case moving forward. But part of that is also how the Steelers play defense. and what that forces you to do as an offense. I was looking ahead. There are some better days ahead. Raiders on the schedule, Cowboys on the schedule. Jaguars even to some extent.

Oh, no, no, not to some extent. The Jaguars are an amazing matchup. They are getting torched through the air. And that's next week. That's a great matchup. So that does help. You're right. And then it's Raiders right after that.

So there are good matchups ahead. To me, it's game script, right? Like, it's almost only game script. They ran ball 25 times. It beat the crap out of the Steelers and their defense played really, really well. which hasn't always been the case and it's like week 14 Philly

week 15 Kansas City Week 16 Dallas like that's what I'm excited about for him is like the potential to get into more back and forth games where they have to pass which is what we've seen basically all year true okay I just I feel like there might be some games where we're going well this is what it looks like without his tackles

you know he's under pressure all game he really wasn't this game because he got the ball out so quick but because he just ran quick game yeah exactly yeah and with Quentin Johnston five catches 42 yards on 10 targets Quentin Johnston had six targets in this game at or behind the line of scrimmage. I think he had six the entire season, yeah, but going into the game. This was not Quentin Johnson.

You guys are 100% right to think that this Joe Alt injury would hurt Quentin Johnson because it has in the past. So they have this completely different role for him in this game, which didn't really work. I mean, it wasn't a good game despite 10 targets scored 9.2 PPR fantasy points. But at least he got targeted and first read target. and all that stuff. That's great. Design stuff for him. And then you also have the Gadsden injury. So if Gadsden misses time,

then everything we're going to say today is probably irrelevant. But I think the Chargers have been and remain one of the toughest teams to project because they just have a lot of malice to feed. But if you get this scenario, guys, where it's like, Keenan's not really doing much. She's being phased out a little bit. Orronday Gadsden misses time. Obviously, everyone's starting McConkey.

I think you might start seeing that Quentin Johnson start percentage go up. Yeah. what was it was last night it was 72 percent which is still pretty high uh but could stay that or be even higher i guess i'm what i'm saying is it could be a good thing for him okay i just think this is the floor for herbert is the last thing on him like this is this is better than the worst game for josh allen for patrick mohomes for jalen hertz this is his worst game all year and before it got out of hand in the second half they were leaning more on the past yeah 17 of 25 videl rush attempts came the second half sure that's true they they got to a point like

They were stalling out early in the game. They were trying to go under center, and they got to the point where they did go back into their pass-first ways before the end of the game where they kind of took the air out of the ball, which is a good sign. I just am a little bit concerned

how much of this quick game is sustainable. I think my point was less about Herbert and more about the quarterback position. You have to be so good this year to stand out at the quarterback position. That's true. And without his tackles, with Gatston, maybe missing time,

it might limit that ability for Herbert. He's going to have to keep running a lot. He's among the best rushing quarterbacks this year, but he's never done anything quite like that with his legs. But, okay, for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan, just a terrible game. Like Aaron Rogers said it, like, I had a bad game. I was bad. I have to be better.

Mike Tomlin said, we were bad, we'll be back. I thought it was interesting that a 3% blitz rate might have been one blitz. One or two bits is all game. That's what Minter does, yeah. guys didn't they weren't open you know like so what do you think yeah so that's interesting i think i think i think iron rogers being a little hard on himself personally he missed the third of metcalf early that's a difficult throw he made some really really good throws and high level reads in this game his receivers just not on the same page with him whether it's galvin austin or roman wilson

whoever it may be you could just see the timing is way off arin rogers is throwing to a spot where he expects them to be and they're not there a lot that's a really bad sign but then also it's like if you just do what the chargers did you mention it they They did in Blitz. They just played super, super, super gap sound in the run game. They just gap down in the run game. You kind of can just beat this Arthur Smith offense, right? Just gap out in the run game, which is what they did.

So Warren wasn't able to do much at all. That takes away all of the what they've done offensively, which is basically used the run action game to create stuff in the play action game. And so now Roger just to be more of a drop-back passer with receivers who he's not on the same page with, who are running routes to spots where he's not throwing the football to. And D.K. Metcalf, who Jacob and I have discussed a lot on our show, we're not huge believers in him as like a pure route winner or like somebody who Rogers can rely on in the past like he has with Devante Adams and at times Garrett Wilson he can make big plays he's a crazy athlete but there's just not many options if teams force the Steelers to be pass first and to operate in that way and so we'll see what happens not every defense is going to be able to do what the Chargers did defensively in the run game though yeah and the Chargers have a solid defense metcalf I think is obviously a hot topic here He's now, after having three of his last four games with eight or fewer PPR fantasy points, just dreadful stuff.

He's now number 33 per game in full PPR. And if you just look at his metrics, you know, yards per target, yards per route, run, yards per catch, this and that, that's not the problem. It's the targets. He's on pace for 104 targets. Let's say, whatever it is. It's the low one hundredths. Yeah. It's, he just, it's unbelievable.

He just doesn't get, he's seven targets this game. That's, let's jump for joy. He got to seven. Usually he's five or six. So they had to pass first for once. That's the thing. And they're not going to have to, they're not going to go, they don't want to do that. But they've been, look, here are the past attempts for them, the last four games.

Last five games, 30, 34, 36, 35, 31. And he's been terrible in three of those games. Yeah. So it's more, it's more than that. He just, his target chair is not good. mean like total volume like that they entered the game 18th in past attempts i think i saw from aaron rogers was mid pack or just under it but a lot of these are off run action and it's like to the tight end or it's like a leak route to one of those two tight ends or to the running back

in the passing game it's not like drop back metcalf's running an in breaker or backside dig and rogers is seeing it and throwing it you just don't see a lot of traditional wins for metcalf in the past game all right well they get cincinnati next week and i'd say oh that's great that's awesome. Well, he struggled against Cincinnati two weeks ago. Yeah, I don't know, right. I don't think he can count on him. He scored eight points against them. Rogers had a good game. He's a huge game. Rogers do four

touchdowns in this game. I think three in that game. I think three or all four of them maybe went to the tight ends. Yep. All right, any final thoughts on this one? Kamani-Vidal. Yeah, Vidal's a good runner. I don't know what's going to happen with the Hampton situation. Definitely somebody to keep stashing. And I think this game, you know, it further solidifies the role for Warren is really good.

He just needs the right game script and he needs to face off a matchup against the right defenses. Okay. And there you go. Sunday night. Really bad game. Great fun week. Actually,

the one o'clock games are really fun. Everything else was garbage. Like the Thursday was horrible. The Thursday was horrible. The Thursday was horrible. Yeah. It was horrible. You're right.

Tonight might be really good, though. I hope so. I really hope so. Okay. Beyond the box score, this is not the only show this week, not the only episode. Jacob,

what do we have to look forward to on Beyond the Box score? We're just doing the classics like keeping you guys on track. this week, Dan and I don't have anything, huge plan, just like doing rest of season rankings, getting, like, I don't want it to sound boring, though. There is a bunch to talk about, right?

Like, there's a bunch of shifting, running back rooms and all of that. So getting into some player profiles, getting into rest season rankings, some trade targets, just trying to get everything synced up here as we head into the end of the season, make sure we're all on the same page. I mean, listen, there's a reason they call me the plug God

and Jacob, the workhorse. Okay, listen, that was one of the worst plugs i've ever heard in the history of this show but i still love jacob and i get it but let me just be clear it's not just going to be playing the hits which are also very good to play and we've had some of our best shows while playing the hits we're going to be delivering you some interesting notes uh we have a show tomorrow that i'm excited about 10 mind-blowing stats the first 10 weeks of vanity football just gives you a little perspective on 10 different players and how to move forward with those players so we've got good stuff coming but i know i know what jacob was trying to say no that's the reason i am the plug god and

he is we got a lot to talk about today and i want to talk about it you know okay there You got good stuff coming. Check out of the show if you want to. The plug guide or the rundown killer. You make the call. All right. When we come back, we'll get your news and notes for you. We have a season-ending injury you should know about.

We'll be right back on FFT. Quarterback news, Jackson Dart left with a concussion. They get the Packers in week 11. Running back, Chris Rodriguez, shoulder. Terrell Jennings left with an injury. Zonovan Knight, ankle injury. Wide receiver is probably the biggest one here is Garrett Wilson, re-injuring his knee.

and we'll see what the future holds for Garrett Wilson and Devante Adams with an oblique injury they sounded optimistic that he'll be able to play in a huge game against the Seahawks in week 11 Arronday Gadsden with the knee injury he's going to have the MRI and Dalton Kincaid left with a hamstring injury so we did lose two must start tight ends or close to must start tight ends

that's that's a tough break and we'll see how long those injuries are just seeing now that CJ Stroud remains in the concussion protocol that's guess not a huge surprise but hopefully he can get back for week 11. He unfortunately will not have his teammate, M.J. Stewart, a safety for the Texans. He's out for the season.

Minnesota linebacker Jonathan Grenard left in the second half. Another cornerback for the commanders got hurt. Steelers cornerback, Darius Slay left with a concussion. They're going to need him against the Bengals next week. Las Vegas offensive linemen Jackson Powers Johnson is going on IR. He could be out for the season. They've struggled to run the ball. They can't afford that injury, and then, unfortunately, they're getting it.

And that's, you know, those are the main defensive injuries. Before we get into the snap counts, let's talk about BetMGM, all right? It's time for football at BetMGM. Register with BetMGM to get instant access to the best variety of parlay selection features, no sweat and boost tokens, live betting options, and much more. New players can receive up to $1,500 back in bonus bets with the bonus code, fantasy if they don't win their first bet you don't want to miss out on any of the hard hitting action at bet mgm place your money line parlay bets and more today bet mgm make it legendary

all right jacob uh what uh jumps out at you as we look at the you know the advanced metrics the snap counts those types of things yeah let me give you another quick jackson smith run run down here so the yard per route run rate just keeps going up it's insane uh 8.4 5 yards per route run in week 10, eight? What the heck? So that puts him at 4.67 on the year with a 6.53 rate in the two games following Seattle's by week for reference, the highest single season rate on true media, which dates back to 2013, belongs to the Tyree Kill at 3.8.5.

So Jason is at 4.67. There have only been 10 receiver seasons above three in the 12 years that I have that data. So like the Tyree kill season was something really special. There's only two seasons above 3.5. It's Tyree Kill and then Puka Nakua last year where he didn't even have a full season of data because I think he only played 12 games or whatever. So only two above 3.5, only 12 above 3 over the past,

no, only 10 above 3, over the past 12 years. Jayeson is approaching five yards per route run. Really ridiculous stuff. I did want to talk a little bit more about Seattle's offense because we got Rashid Shaheed in. I was wondering if maybe we would see more three receiver sets, but there really was no change, no increase, 42% of their plays in the first half at three more receivers on the field.

Their season-long rate is 40%. That's the third lowest. So I think basically, for now at least, it looks like Shaheed is just kind of in the Tori Horton role. He rotated in a little bit more. It was an 85% route rate for JSN, 69% for Cup, 62% for Shaheed. So a little bit more of the Cup stuff went to Shahid. in the first half it was 80% for Cups, 60% for Shaheed.

Again, no Tori Horton in this game. Right, but just to draw a parallel, Jacoby Myers only had a 50% route participation rate. So, Shahid had a higher percentage than that. So you could just... She had he played in this offense, though. All right, but it is his first game with the team, so I don't guess.

All right, fair enough, fair point. I want to talk about the running backs, because I know it was another frustrating week for Kenneth Walker, but some of the underlying stuff is continuing to, like, build and work in his direction where maybe it could be a good second half of the season. I know it probably feels like I'm kind of obsessed with the Seattle team, but I mean, they are putting up ridiculous points, you know, every week at this point. If you want to, like, learn more about this and why it's working so well and how defenses might adapt to it and how it could change, I'll point you in the direction of last week's Thursday episode on Beyond the Box score. We talk about matchups and stuff at the end, but like the beginning of the show, we got into the X's and O's of what Clint Kubiak is doing to dictate what defenses kind of feel like they have to do to try to defend him. And I think it's leading to demons really playing against the run in a way that is like opening up all this downfield stuff because they have so many big packages on the field, lots of tight ends, lots of fullbacks and running backs and stuff.

So we're seeing these ridiculous JSN numbers, but I feel like at some point it has to shift. and that would then maybe open things up more for the running backs. So I continue to be interested in these two running backs. We did see some red zone touchdowns in this game. And I think as things potentially shoot over to the running backs, especially if one were to miss any time, that these guys could be really good for fantasy. And they're free, right?

Like anybody who had Kenneth Walker or Charbonnet is like so sick of it. So they're interesting guys to buy low on potentially. So the Kenneth Walker, the Kenneth Walker stats are 52% first half snap rate for Walker in this game compared to 42% for Charbonnet. And that we saw last week, it was like the first time all year that Walker got more snaps. And it is worth noting that he was injured the beginning of the year. So I feel like things are kind of shifting over to him more. He did have a 50% first half red zone snap rate, had two carries, one of them from the three yard line. But it was Sharbonnet, 29% red zone snap rate.

and George Halani, who scored the red zone touchdown. So extremely frustrating stuff for Walker, but in terms of just like upside at running back, this is probably the cheapest exposure to upside that you're going to get really good player and a really good offense that nobody wants on their fantasy team. Yeah. If one of them gets hurt,

you are talking about the league winning potential. And even if they do, if defenses play them different, I think Walker could just start ripping off explosive plays. And he could score touchdowns. We saw two running back touchdowns in this game. Like, the office is playing so well. Yeah.

And, you know, just to clarify, right? So it's two weeks in a row where he's gotten, I think, a combined, Ken Walker, combined three carries from the three-yard line. And he couldn't get in. When they get to the one-yard line, that is Zach Charbonnet's territory, basically every time. If they're at the two-yard line, I don't know what's going to happen. But Walker's gotten two, a few carries from the three.

He can't get in. Charbonnet will finish the job from the one. I think there was a pass interference call after Walker's carry from the three that set up first and goal from the one, and then Charbonnet was in for that, and then they had a false start penalty, and then I think Halani got the six-yard touchdown run

or something like that. I can't remember. Yep. All right. Anything else, Jacob? So that's Seattle. Oh, yeah, you know, I was just looking at one of my leagues, because I have JSN in two leagues. I only have them in one league where I can make a trade. The other is Scott Fishbowl, no trades. And I think I want to sell.

like mega high and I was thinking what would it take Jackson Smith and Jigba I'm looking at the Justin Jefferson team because we're going to talk about him later Jackson and Jigba for Jefferson and what

what would the second piece have to be why would you do that to you this is the idea behind that like this guy has Jefferson and Barclay is that a ridiculous trade no but like I don't think it's a good one honestly like I'll be honest with you

like, I'm not sold I want Jefferson on my team because then I have to start him every week. I have no problem starting him every week. That's an overreaction. And I just think that as great as JSN is, this reminds me of when Aaron Judge was hitting 400. It's like, you know, Aaron Judge is the best player in baseball. I know, I like that you're trying to sell high on regression. But he's not going to hit 400, you know? But try to target players who you can count on rest of season.

I don't know what makes you say that we can count on Justin Jefferson rest of season when I think Thomas put in the comments. Jay J.J. McCarthy can't even complete 50% of his passes. First of all, I said Sequan Barclay was going to be in that trade, too. I didn't just say it just to Jefferson. Jefferson was your key cog, though. Like, you started with Jefferson. I think he's a good buy-low. I do.

I think he had the third lowest yards per target of his career yesterday. He's never going to be this bad again, you know, like this year anyway, in all likelihood. Things will get better. I don't think he was very good with Carson once, though, this year either. He hasn't been that good. He only has two touchdowns. Right. But he's still, he's still.

he's still really good he's still Justin Jefferson like there's some regression coming for him I think he's really good but that doesn't necessarily matter for fantasy I think that regardless of his quarterback situation I think he will get better that's my point

okay fine now I'm looking I have JSN I'm looking at the Abuka team there we go now we're talking okay I just don't think he has a second player that I like he has a jailer oh he has Ken Walker but no it couldn't be Walker and Abuka for JSN no

and the Jefferson thing could work out like Jefferson has a 32, 33% target share with J.J. McCarthy, which I love. Like, it could get better. But yeah, I would have a really hard time trading Jason unless it's something I feel really good about. Like, just overwhelming value coming back to me with like one guy who feels really, really good.

I guess Sakewon is basically that. Unless I have to, unless I'm like, I'm starting terrible players every week and I need these flex villains. I'm not trading them. Okay. I feel similar. Anything else?

Yeah, I've got more snap rates and stuff. Is that where you want to stay there? I have some stuff. Yeah, let's, I'll go through it here. Dan Campbell took over as Detroit's play caller. I didn't really have time to dig into this. You guys have anything on that by any chance? I'm going to later, but not yet.

Okay. They were awesome. I mean, they used Gibbs in the past game in the red zone I like that, but I have to look into that game as well more. One of the things that really hurt the Vikings yesterday, they had eight false starts. And they were kind of complaining about some of the stuff the Ravens were doing, Not saying it was illegal, but maybe like a little cheap getting them to jump.

But you commit eight false starts. You're putting your quarterback in a tough situation. Jacobi Myers, 50% route participation rate. Shaheed, 62%. Bejohn Robinson played 86% of the snaps. It just seems a little fluky that Al Jir had the big game. You want to compare Alec Pierce and Josh Downs. Josh Downs played half as many snaps as Alex Pierce.

It's not even so atypical. That happens all the time. This is awesome. If you can get Bejohn Plus for Jason, would do that. Okay. I'll look at that. There we go.

Now we're talking. Tyrone Tracy played two-thirds of the snaps. Darius Slayton had a good game. He only played 62% of the snaps because of the hamstring injury. Colston Loveland, I was hoping for a little bit more of him and a little bit less of commit, but they were pretty even with their snaps and pretty even with their routes. One thing I'll say, just from having watched that game live and then on the film, it felt like when they actually needed to get their past game going, they did,

and Loveland was the Kikog in their past game in the second half. So if I'm a coach and I watch the tapeback and I see that, I will look to get him more involved earlier moving forward. I hope that's the case. I don't know if it is. The one catch he made on third and ten was one of the best guys, Colson Loveland. And also in that game, so DeAndre Swift ended up playing 62% of the snaps, Menangai 38. But I thought what was interesting was in the fourth quarter. It was pretty even in the first three quarters.

In the fourth quarter, when they made their comeback, Swift, maybe that's because they were throwing and, you know, Swift played 14. snaps and Menangai played four. Yeah, that's going to happen. Whenever they're in comeback throw mode, two minute, four minute drill, that's going to be swift. Well, that's pretty much every game for them. Hopefully you guys can look into this.

I'm thinking maybe the Texans, they may have gotten their rookie receivers a little more involved. Christian Kirk's snap rate was pretty low. I think it was under 50%. So that could be something that you guys will be on. And Aaron Jones played 71% of the snaps. Travion Henderson, 84%.

Mac Hollins, 79% with booty out. Rashad White, 72%, but basically splitting the carries with Tucker, getting the passing downs work. Pook and Akua only played 51% of the snaps, which was a little low. I mean, even though they were well ahead late in the game, it still struck me as low for Puka. You know, it's coming off to see his first half splits on that

just because the second half, they were just up by so much. I'll get that. Kamani Vidal played 93% of the snaps. While I look up the Rams route participation, rate in, that's Jalen Ramsey, not the Rams, in week 10 in the first half, I can do it right now, first quarter, second quarter, Pooka Nakua's route participation rate was 66%, 67%. So he was, I would say, not a full-time player in this game coming off the injury. It's still great. All right, Jacob, I'm out of stats.

I've got a few. So you mentioned the young guys did play a little bit more, and they got more targets for those receivers Jalen Knoll and Xavier, or not Sam, but mixing them up, Jane Higgins. Woody Marks played way more too, 78% snap rate, season high. This was his first start of the year. So good stuff there. He appeared to have a pretty bad injury at one point, but came back in and played, had a good game.

So that's all interesting. I don't think that Nick Chub got hurt. Did anybody see anything on that? He barely played. No, I saw him in the game late, too. So I don't think it was that at all. So they might just be moving to the young guys. which is interesting.

Not snap rate related, but I just want to point out how freaking good Devon A-chan has been. Of course, he had a 40-point game. He had nine avoided tackles, which now gives him four out of 10 games this year with eight or more avoided tackles per PFFs charting.

Compare that to years one and two when he only had one game with eight or more avoided tackles out of 28 games. So we know the speed is there. We know the receiving is now there too. But like this, he's always had the vision of the speed to get these big, plays. But now he's like stacking the ability to make people miss and get more consistent yardage over and over and over. And he's just so good for fantasies at Chee Code because of the

receiving. So he has a 20% or higher target share in seven out of 10 games this year in his first two seasons. That was only four games out of 28. He has a 25% or higher target share in 50% of his games this year compared to 7% of his games in the first two years. So he's just leveled up and Like, you never know how much you can trust Miami's offense, but like he's kind of on this CMC type of trajectory for fantasy. He does it in a little bit of a different way because of the big plays. But the fantasy outlook for him is just so, so good if this offense doesn't completely tank and they just beat the bills.

They looked a lot better, you know? So maybe you get lucky and we get this all year because like if we do, it looks really good for him. It looks really good for Jalen Waddle as well, looking like a potential wide receiver. one type of player for fantasy um my other two notes you hit on swift but i just wanted to like drive home the the point here like how good it was so 61% snap rate is his highest since week four um he was the starter he had a 71% snap rate win in the red zone 13 carries for 80 yards 57% route rate that's good eight targets so he was running back four this week and expected

fantasy points per the fantasy points data model behind only jonathan taylor divan hn and christian mccaffrey this run game has worked really well all year um and chicago i know it was like a weird game where they ended up playing behind and stuff but like i feel like there's enough underlying stuff that's been kind of coming together for this offense um as the year goes on that like i have some hope that even though the schedule's kind of brutal down the stretch that swift might be able to still be pretty good for fantasy so I just thought everything was really encouraging because I was I was curious if Monaga

might have a larger role but really I mean it was a 39% snapper for him he had one red zone attempt and happened to get in but it was Swift playing the bulk of the snaps in the red zone still and looking like the clear starter but you know

I feel like I misinterpreted my own stat earlier about the two running backs and Brian Daibel got fired by the way whoa that just happened yeah let's go big blue bander did you really just oh no you are unbelievable no no what you expect you just dropped that out of random way yeah uh well actually they were saying it in the chat um whoops yeah that was surprising i'm sorry adam it was not surprising at all i got

one total before this no no oh i thought you meant the dable firing the dable firing was not surprising No, that wasn't, for the Giants, it is, though. They don't often do these in-season firings. I said it on the show yesterday. I mean, it just, everyone seemed to be on the same page. He couldn't lose another game like that. Ridiculous. But anyway, they split the carries, they split the reps almost evenly the first three quarters.

They were going drive by drive by drive. So I think if Swift had more work in the red zone, it was either his drive led him there. Because Minanga had a touchdown early in the game. Or it was just, all in the fourth quarter when they were in comeback mode. So I don't know. I'm not going to say one way or the other. I guess I could see your optimism.

I mean, he outplayed Menangai for sure. If people expected Menangai to just come in and take the job, and it's like, hey, Swift was playing really well before he missed that game with an injury. So it was looking like kind of a bad split, but then if they're trailing, it's going to be Swift, okay. He was playing pretty well, but Mononga was already, like, kind of taking the job. Like, he wasn't taking it over entirely, but he was taking a lot. And then he had, like, the biggest game of any rookie all year, like almost 200 scrimmage yards and a big win, you know?

Like, to me, it felt realistic that he could at least take a really meaningful role. I think, yeah, no, I wasn't just, he, I think he has. I think he has taken a meaningful role. I think it's still a little cloudy. I wouldn't, I wouldn't buy into DeAndre Swift as a must start running back on a week-to-week basis, I guess. Ooh, Dan Schneier interim head coach. Who is it? You.

Oh, me? You're telling me there was an interim head coach name, too. I was about to, you know what, on air again. No, I'm kidding. Table firing as expected as better breathing while wearing a nose strip. So, yeah, that could have been worded better, but that's a funny joke. All right. I stand by the nose strip.

I golf with a nose strip this weekend, like a whole new man. Next year, when we play tennis, Adam, I will be wearing that nose strip. I think it will lead to at least three more. three more games for me great yeah over over five sets maybe so um uh oh uh no timetable for bucky irving we're just seeing yeah that's that's frustrating and jk daubbins i didn't mention that injury someone yelled at me in the chat for it you were right too though and dick jay godbis has have a foot injury and we're still waiting to hear i mean it's been four days i'm surprised we haven't heard anything we've heard plenty from him he's like constantly venting on twitter about the the hip

tackle needing to be banned. So I hope he's doing all right. Yeah. All right, I think we'll take a break and get to our buyer sell portion on Trayvion Henderson, Zayflowers, Jerry Judy, Justin Jefferson, Troy Franklin, and the quarterback position as a whole. We'll be right back on fantasy football today. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Oh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo, great idea.

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or visit comexonterio.ca. What's good, y'all? It's Vaughn Miller, Super Bowl MVP, Sagmaster, and now your host of Free Rain. This is where NFL meets Real Talk. Every week, I'm bringing you inside the game from Lock, locker room stories to league-wide headlines. You want football IQ locker room insight and real conversations with the people shaping the league. Welcome to Free Range with Vaughn Miller, where nothing is off limits and every down counts.

New episodes every Wednesday. Listen and follow Free Range with me, Vaughn Miller, wherever you get your podcast. Jacob, I didn't mean to step all over the swift stuff. Do you think he's a must start running back? No. Okay. Yeah, if it sounded defensive at all, it was just that I didn't want the, Menongai thing to be downplayed, like, I think it was realistic that he could have earned a leading role in the backfield, where Swift was more just like a specialized player, like maybe he plays a little bit more on passing downs. And then he comes in for like outside zone type runs and stuff like that. But the bulk of the work goes to Monongai. And I do think it's meaningful that right away, that was not the case. In fact, Swift did look like the lead back, got the start. Everything was arrow up for him, even if it was not to say that he's going to have 70,

percent of the work going forward like what you alluded to with the way that the drives play out that's definitely something that happens week to week you can be kind of random with these backs yeah um but like the the fact that it did work out that way can only be good i think yeah okay all right cool we're on the same page then uh let's do some buy or sell here i want to thank our audience for your submissions here this is from yo carson by travion henderson sells they flowers do you more or less agree with that sentiment dan by travion henderson sells a flowers i'm to be the last on that bandwagon with zay flowers i am not selling zay flowers by any means at this point why we disagree so oh nice okay believe in zayflowers uh believe in look the touchdowns haven't come

for him yet they came at the beginning of the season we need some better game script and we need them to get in situations where they need to throw the football more often but he's been very good on his limited target so i'm still in on that as far as trivion henderson goes that's a tricky one for me. We broke down one of the plays together as a group, us three before we started, before we started recording. And it was like,

well, it's pretty, the second touchdown was, I don't want to say luck base, but like the Tampa Bay Bucke's defense back has contained on the outside. He's spilling everything back inside. So, you know,

Henderson kind of cuts it back inside for which should be a no yard game and just gets bounced out by his linemen. So it's like in some ways lucky. I don't know. I'm not there yet with Henderson. They know luck about 22 miles. per hour. No, the speed is real.

And we knew, yeah. The players, the ball carriers with a 22, that have hit 22 miles per hour this year are Brian Thomas Jr. Jumeer Gibbs and Jonathan Taylor and now Travianne Anderson. Yeah, this is the picture here. I want to buy on the talent and the team is really good. The context is there. I just want to, it's so hard for me to trust Josh McDaniels offense when it comes

to like one running back within that offense. Well, also, you know, this, so here's the picture of the first one. The old bump and bounce. He bumps into his line. and bounces outside and scores a touchdown. That's the second one. Here's a picture of the first one. Did Hunter Henry get away with a little holding there?

Pretty close, but absolutely terrible defense by Tampa Bay. They had no safety back there. I don't know what they were thinking. And then this hole opens up and he just runs right through it for, that was the 55-yard touchdown, I think. He is the second Patriots running back, I believe, to have two 50-yard carries in a game. The other was Lawrence Moroni. and it's exciting. And also with Trevion Henderson playing

and Remandre Stevenson out, he's had two straight games with a 70% route participation rate, which is way up. And that's usually where Ramandre is at. My skepticism is, first of all, that second touchdown was a little bit lucky,

but he's a playmaker, right? Like, if he bounces at the outside, he's going to run 22 miles per hour and make something happen that other guys can't. But I don't know that they're going to trust him in between the tackles. This play was in between the tackles,

right? This first touchdown run. Most of his good runs are outside. So I feel like Trevion will be the change. Maybe that kind of change a pace guy, Ramandre could still be the lead back. I don't know. Like I said on yesterday's show,

I really feel like he could be a league winner or one of the best sell highs. I just don't know what they're going to do here. And I don't know what Remandre's coming back. If you look at a schedule rest of season, depending on what app you use, you know, has green red. They're literally all green matchups.

Yep. It's Jets, Bengals, Giants, then buy. And then, like, two potential shootouts against the bills and the Ravens and then the Jets again. And the bills have a terrible run. Sold. Sold. I'm in.

I'm back in. Right? Like, that's so nice. That schedule is just too good. I'd be really surprised if he goes away completely. Oh, all you go. Even if it is, like, the role you're talking about where it's like maybe 35, 40% of the snaps or something like that, that's not ideal, but you still can probably flex them. And then there's, if anything happens to Remandre, like, we've got, we've got this.

I wanted to point out that he is. he's playing well, he's playing better, I think, which is relevant because the increase in the workload has mostly been a product of teammate injuries. But weeks went through seven, he had a 15% avoided tackle rate over the past three weeks. I even removed the big runs just to like get a, you know, just down to down. What are we looking at here? 29% avoided tackle rates. That's almost a double. And then he had 2.4 yards after contact per rush, weeks went through seven the past three weeks with those long runs removed, runs of 30 or more yards. are moved still 3.22 yards after contact per rush, which is a really good number.

So I do think he's playing a lot better. The vision is, I mean, if you watch his college tape, like he was doing this all the time, right, just running into alignment and then bouncing it around. Like, the question was, can he do this against pros already? Yes. Like, the speed is very, very real. Would you rather have Swift or Henderson rest of season? That's a great question.

Yeah. I think I would choose Swift. I would, before listening to this analysis from Jacob, choose Swift, I think now, listening to that schedule, man, like, I think I'm choosing Henderson. That's such a juicy schedule down the stretch run. And I've looked at Swift before this because I have them on one team. It's not a great schedule. I don't think down the stretch run. The chat says, Henderson is a league winner.

It might be. Isn't this hilarious, though, like three weeks ago? So I tweet out there every week. I tweet out like the rookies like, here's every touch from this week, you know, and you can follow and look at each week. three weeks ago his video was 15 seconds long like that's that was every touch for that week and everybody was just like he's dead he's done like I'm so sick of this drop him drop him drop him and now it's like yep he's the league winning rookie for sure yeah that's all it takes um so dan i think people want your reaction to um dable getting fired and mike kofka being named the head coach

or the interim head coach yeah i mean it had to be done i think dable's done a good job better job than people realize of getting Jackson Dark comfortable and giving him concepts. And even in some of these games, like winning the chess match last year, I mean, last game against the Bears, he did a great job against Dennis Allen. But he's not a good coach. He's a very bad head coach in every other way and fast. He coach is scared. He's blown an insane amount of fourth quarter leads with the same script every time.

It's short field goals in the red zone. It's punting on the opponent's side of the field. It's run, run, pass, and punt game script toward the end of the games leads. So he had to go. Two collapses like the ones he had, Denver and Chicago. are more than enough. As far as Kafka goes, he'll get his little run. He's had multiple head coach interviews before this. I want to see what, what stamp he puts on the offense. We don't even know what the offense is going to look like. Like Jackson Dart may not play. And I'll say this,

Adam, now that he's gone, Brian Dable, I hope Kafka is of the mindset of if Jackson Dark can't play, if it's one or two a concussion, it's James Winston time. We're not going back to us. It's James Winston. For real. Yep. I think it, I please, Russell is Wilson. Wilson. is just not capable of moving this always. He's done, dude. He's done. Yeah, he is. All right. So if your team signs Russell Wilson next year to be their stopgap quarterback, sell everyone in fantasy on that team. What was the big disagreement on Zay Flowers? Yeah, I've got some stats that I think will be interesting to people. And honestly, like, he looks very similar to Justin Jefferson. So I think that'll be a good segue here.

So in games that Lamar Jackson has played, he's averaged 14 PPR points per game. That would be wide receiver 20 that's like right ahead of ladman conkey and quentin johnston i think all these guys kind of fit into a similar range where they're wide receiver two's that we know are really good players and there's upside for more but something about the role isn't quite locking it into that wide receiver one range and for him it is the lack of involvement in the red zone 5.6 percent target per run rate in the red zone with lamar this year which is just way way way too low so he has to score his touchdowns outside of the red zone which he can do he's actually had a number of plays already this year where he almost did and he got brought down to the one yard line we know he has

you know the electric athleticism to get long plays and turn them into touchdowns and Lamar can hit him in that intermediate range for these long plays overall with Lamar Jackson he has a 26% target share which is actually down slightly from his number on the year 29% on the year 31% first read rate with Lamar 34% rate overall on the year that's higher than Rishi Rice it's just below just than Jefferson so the volume is really, really good. With Lamar, he's averaged 2.52 yards per route run. So the volume is really good and the player is really good.

That would be wide receiver three just ahead of like Drake London and Monterey St. Brown. Those guys are at the 2.5 mark and then you've got obviously Puka and Jason way above everybody else. So I think everything like sets up well in terms of the player and then like when Lamar comes back being able to potentially like multiply that into some big numbers and really high efficiency and downfield success. We just need touchdowns.

And I think the fact that they're facing the rest of the season schedule to me looks like one that could facilitate some of these broken plays and touchdowns. You never want to predict that. But it's like they've got the Jets. They've got two matchups against the Bengals. Those are two of the worst tackling teams in the NFL. So you could have long touchdowns there. And then week 16 and 17 are much better tackling teams, but they're both potential

shootouts. is the Patriots and the Packers. So, like, the worst case is that he just stays where he's at, which is fine. It's like a low-end wide receiver two, and he's been really surprisingly consistent in that role. And I think that's because of the massive volume. But there is this upside that if he can score some touchdowns, get some long plays, everything there, like, is wide receiver two, and then it can only elevate from there. So that's where I'm out with him is I think the price is going to be basically that wide receiver two range,

but there is upside for him to pass that. Yeah, that's a great way to break it down. The floor is what he's already doing. Why would it fall any further? And the ceiling, which you're not having to pay for, is still high. I don't want to say crazy high. It's hard to say that. He just doesn't have enough involvement in their red zone offense for that.

Yeah, but my optimism for flowers, I'm going to give you his 17-game pace with Lamar Jackson this year, six games, compared to his 17-game pace last year if you remove week 18 when he played 20% of the snaps. Last year, 121 targets, this year 119. Last year, 78 catches. This year, 91. Last year, 112 yards. This year, 1,258. That is 13 more catches and about 140 more yards.

Last year, four touchdowns, this year, three. You talk about the terrible route, the target per route run rate in the red zone. Last year, he had seven red zone, six green zone, nine. end zone targets. The end zone target number is actually not bad. The red zone green zone is not good, but seven red zones, six green zone, nine end zone targets for Flowers last year. This year in six games with Omar Jackson, he has one red zone, one green zone, one end zone.

So I think I would say even this route, this participation level in the red zone, green zone, end zone is lower than I would expect it to be. And we've mentioned Zay Flowers on the Wednesday show as not you. guys, but Jamie Heath, Dave, as a possible by-low, and I've been pretty skeptical, but now I actually think I'm in. He is so good, and I think eventually he's going to catch touchdowns. I said this yesterday, but it just, yeah, you guys said it right. I mean, he's not having a bad season with Lamar Jackson.

He's usually getting you 12 or more PPR fantasy points. If he starts scoring some touchdowns, which he's capable of doing, then there are going to be some good weeks left, but, you know, you don't want to pay up too much, but I think this is, this may be the lowest. of Zayflower's value all year. The Ravens are tied with the dolphins for 31st and offensive plays per game, too, which I think really has affected things here.

Wow. Correct. All right, the real Luke, I don't think we're going to get to all of our topics unless we set like a time limit. So maybe we'll just try to do three or four minutes per topic. Rapid fire it. The real Luke says,

buy or sell, Justin Jefferson is a top 24 wide receiver rest of season. Two quick stats. I already gave 32% target share with J.J. McCarthy. He's only, though, with that. only had 9.5 catchable expected fantasy points per game, which puts them in the same range for the year as Zayflowers, Ladd-McConkie, Marvin Harrison Jr.,

Cortland Sutton, D.K. McCaff, some guys who are really good players, but like the situation, something about it isn't quite right. So for them to climb above that, they have to be really, really good and just kind of run hot with variants. That's kind of weirdly, I think, where we're at with Justin Jefferson. and I've had him like in that wide receiver two range and rest season rankings for a while now. I think that's basically where we're at.

Yes, that's from Thomas Schaper. Producer Thomas coming in the clutch here. Here's Justin Jefferson's average receiving yards per game with every starting quarterback he's played with. Kirk Cousins, 98.9 or with these starting quarterbacks, he's played with some other guys. Carson Wentz, 95.4. That was five games.

Four games with Cousins was a sample size. 90.2 yards per game with Sam Darnold, 17 game sample size. Blah, bwam, bong, bong, bong, 52.3 with J.J. McCarthy. And look, things are going to get better. There it is. Blah, blah, blah. It wasn't bad. Things are going to get better, but that's like half the receiving yards per game is every other

one of those quarterbacks in smaller sample size, obviously. I mean, look, the yards will come up. The target share's there. Will the touchdowns be there? I mean, J.J. McCarthy profiles to me the rest of season as it may be one, two, if you're lucky passing touchdown kind of guy every week he'll run some in obviously but doesn't help jefferson so as far as like we're limiting him to the question which is like a wide receiver two back end wide receiver two he should be able to fit into that range right of course yeah but as far

as the hope of like you may be trading a jsn for jefferson as your main piece in return as adam suggested earlier just kidding i know he also included barclay in that uh no i'm out on that i would take him 100 times out of 100 over Zayflowers. I'd much rather Zayflowers. Not much rather. I'd rather slightly rather Zayflowers. Not much rather. That's insane. Is it? Yes.

One has J.J. McCarthy. He just had 12 targets. I mean, look, obviously they threw a lot more of them what they wanted to do. The ugly targets. I'll make any bet with you for anything. I mean, like, I'll spot you three games in tennis if I

lose. There's no way I'm losing. I would never need you to spot me games in tennis. The second set was six four. Let's please back that up. The second set, I will never ever ask for you to be spotting me anything in tennis. Okay, because you're not going to get it because I will smash you in this. I don't want it. Let's hear from the chat.

Who would you rather have Jefferson or Flowers? You can just give us one word in. Probably, it's probably Jefferson. It's going to be Jefferson. By the way, probably. It's not a guarantee. All right, we'll do some kind of fun bet. I mean, I don't even, the flowers is like not a great guy to go with, but fine, fine.

I think they're really similar. That's why I gave the expected fantasy points on catchable targets during the J.J. McCarthy starts, it's 9.5. Flowers is rate on the year is 9.9. And then it's just like, what can you do beyond that? They're both really, really good players with a ball in their hands and getting separation. I know, like, everybody's going to go Jefferson, but like, I don't know if people realize how good Flowers has been. He's not just in Jefferson, though. I mean, oh, he's not. No, he's not. But Lamar Jackson is way, way, way better than Judge McCarthy. He is. But, but, but, no, I'm not going to shave my head. But his wife's busy, too

busy to shave something. Okay. That was funny. What was I going to say? Oh, can we maybe, maybe lighten up a little bit on J.J. McCarthy? The guy has made four starts in his

career. I know. I think it's possible he could get a little bit better before we make a retire. The Ravens defense has been coming along to some extent. Oh, big time. That is a good defense. That's tough to pass against. All right, let's get to our next topic. I got to look at the schedules to make

that bet if I wanted to actually make that bet. You know what? I don't have to look at the schedules because I'm so confident in that bet. Okay. All right. Denech says, I need Dan in my fantasy league right now.

Well, guess what, Denech? You probably don't want to be in too many of my leagues. CBS sports leagues. I'm doing great in all of them. So you want to join us next year. Go join the FFTE Open Schneier division

where I'm in first or second place. Come on. There is. Nobody. Come play. Come play. Not only, he's the plug God,

even for his own fantasy teams. No, Big Burger is going through a little rough stretch, though. I think I might lose again this week. Probably Troy Franklin over Justin Jefferson Anzee Flowers, right? You want to go to Troy Franklin or Jerry Judy right now?

I definitely want to talk about Chris McBride. Jefferson will probably outscore flowers. I get it. I do not want to talk about Judy. He's Justin Jefferson. He's a phenomenal player. But we know there's some reliance in fantasy on quarterback play. Otherwise, like, why would Marvin Harrison and Tray McBride be so much better,

specifically McBride without Kyler Murray? All right. I think we're done here. Let's go to Troy Franklin. And Nick Drum says, buy or sell Troy Franklin, who's coming off five catches for 40 yards and one touchdown on nine targets. The numbers on Troy Franklin and Cortland Sutton are crazy. 27% target share over the past month for Franklin

compared to 19% for Cortland Sutton. 47% air yardage share for Franklin compared to 27% for Sutton. So that's crazy on its face, right? 47 to 27%. What's really even crazier than that is that Sutton has more catchable air yards than Franklin during that time. Franklin's just getting so many of these bombs from Knicks that amount to nothing, leads the NFL and uncatchable air yards.

over the past month. So I did just want to start with the base level stats there, clearly favoring Franklin. If you take a little bit further and look at the first re-targets, each of the past four games, Troy Franklin is at a higher first-re-target rate than Sutton. In fact, his lowest first-re-target rate over the past month in any game is higher than Sutton's highest first-reterget rate.

So for whatever reason, they've shifted things where it's like Franklin is the top target on the team. It's by design. They get short stuff to them. they also take long shots to him. The result is 16 PPR points for game over the past month for Franklin compared to 11 for Sutton. So it's not good. It's all focused on Franklin and it's not even actually.

I mean, 16 is no joke, but like I don't know if we can count on it with Bonex playing the way that he is. And then the result is like, can you use any of these guys? Marvin Mims being out has definitely helped Troy Franklin. So when we get back to like kind of normal, if they're running it through Franklin I don't know if I'm confident enough in that Nick's the Franklin connection to start him

even with this great usage whereas with Sudden I was confident even though you knew it might be a little bit up and down with Nick's because he's so freaking good he can just win these one of ones no matter who's on him

and you can go get the ball so it's just weird right now like I don't want to start Sudden and I don't really want to start Franklin unless I have to yeah I think part of it is like but at least as far as the first read stuff goes is they've had to change schematically what they're doing offensively due to Bo Nix's struggles.

I think that's the only way to look at it, right? He was playing better football last year. They also had a lot of plays last year that were designed like deep overrouts to Cortland Sutton where Nix would break pocket, bootleg out and like hit those overrouts. The only real time I ever really see Nick's accurate is when he's on the move, which is a weird thing for a quarterback. It seems like when he's in the pocket, his feet are moving it all. times never set and his accuracy is terrible but when he's on the move and he doesn't have to

actually set his feet he can kind of all arm throw it he seems to be more accurate so they need to get back to doing like those route combinations with sudden on the deep over and nicks just rolling out and hitting him i don't really know where other ways to get him the football he's not really operating any kind of drop back pass game where you can throw like timing routes outbreakers or deep routes with any kind of ball placement that would like lead to catches for sudden right i mean like yeah man i don't want to talk about nix we do it all the time people saw he we got him on the island game and people saw like it was a bad island game man if you watch that on prime vision it was it was tough to watch yeah it's a shame uh would

you rather have sutton or franklin rest of season i think franklin because they're going to scheme him more offense i'll go as sudden you can't take franklin he hasn't been he hasn't been i don't really want either so it's just like a that situation you know what sudden can be deemed offense for Franklin you know what Sutton can be Franklin can't be that there's no way Franklin is more upside he might have a safer floor but I didn't say it's more upside I know so let's just take the upside come on all right I guess I'll take the upside

but the problem is at least with Franklin I can bench him a lot of weeks because I'm not name branded into starting him with Sutton I might be like I got to start Sutton again this might be the week in some ways I'd rather Franklin just for that standpoint the role has been so ridiculous a good for Franklin

it's like everything it's deep targets it's first retargets when they get in the red zone he has like one of the highest target shares of any freaking player in the league. Like, Kavanaugh said it best. Prefer Flandic him because he's easier to bench. There we go. There we go. That's where I'm at.

Yeah, then why don't you just take him over, I'm going to take him over Justin Jefferson? All right. We're going to skip Jerry Judy, but, you know, he's a good player. He finally had a good game, but we're just not really. Sell, sell any Dylan Gabriel receiver at any point for me. Okay. Let's see. I'm not going to get the Jets defense.

I mean, I'll talk about Judy a lot on the show tomorrow, the waiver wire. The guy that we were drafting in the seventh round finally had a good game. I think it's at least worth considering here. And no joke who's not as involved as he was. His route participation rate's been down. All right. This is from Canada, Jim. Buy or sell, there is not a, we have three minutes left, guys.

Buy or sell Canada? I have to go to... Just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. Just joking. It's not even a good joke. I have to go do an episode with Jamie, so I got three to four minutes left. Buy or sell. is not a single quarterback worth drafting in the top 50 overall next season.

So there's, I mean, if Patrick Mahomes has 23 fantasy points per game and four point passing touchdown leagues, that's the only quarterback ahead of Josh Allen Lamar and Hertz. So like, we were three for four on the elite quarterbacks this year. That's a really good hit rate. That's why you've taken a shot on these quarterbacks is because they historically have a really good hit rate. There have been some higher upside hits in that round three, four range.

Jackson Smith of Jigba, Jonathan Taylor, if you got him in round three. But there been a ton of misses, too, Chase Brown, AJ Brown, Amarian Hampton, Terry McLauran, George Kittle, Marvin Harrison, Jr., Kenneth Walker. Even, like, Ladd, McConkey, T. Higgins have been up and down. Yeah, totally. The only real difference is there's way more quarterback scoring 20 plus points per game this year, which I don't, maybe you can predict that. Like, we were there on Drake May, but some of them are kind of random. You know, Matthew Stafford has an 8% touchdown rate. Only Lamar Jackson had a higher rate last year.

his career rate with the Rams is 5%. So, like, that's including this years. I mean, he's on pay. Matthew Stafford's on pace for 47 passing touchdowns over 17 games. Like, I think some of this has to probably pull back a little bit, even Drake May, 6.6% passing touchdown rate.

The only guys that hit that rate last year were Lamar, Baker, Jared Gough, and Joe Burrow. So, like, maybe he sustains that. Justin Herbert is another guy who's averaging 20 plus. He's on pace for 709 dropbacks compared to 573 last year, 517 in 20203. Herbert already has more rushing yards this year

than he hasn't any season. So to me, like a lot of these have been kind of random. And I do think that like you're probably safest sticking with that quarterback in the round three, four range, even if it maybe isn't the highest upside path because there are a lot of busts in that range this year. Yeah.

Quarterbacks are safe. We're also, sorry, go ahead, Adam. No, just go ahead, go ahead. There just were also some obvious. hits, though, that we were targeting later, Jacob. Yeah, Davis Mills. Davis Mills was QB1 this week. Well, yeah, there's that.

But Drake May was like a glaring value that was so obvious. And there's just going to be that every year. So it's just, it depends what league you play. If you play in auction leagues, I think it's a lot different than playing in a snake draft where you can't just sit and wait to get a, if you know Drake May is like an obvious value, you can't really get him unless, I mean, you can. That was our plan this year was like, you can just get Drake May. But what if you don't get Drake May?

If somebody reaches from around nine, then we're like, okay, well, then you go. what I mean? That's why you got to play in auction league. Then you go with J.J. McCarthy, and that didn't work out at all, you know? Or that for you, it's like go with Trevor Lawrence or Stroud or whatever. That didn't work out. I think it's a lot of hubris to just assume that like you're going to hit the third round wide receiver and you're going to get the quarterback and it's going to be the right one. It's like you can just grab the third round quarterback and it's probably going to hit

is where we're at with these guys. Good point. Last thing, just taking a look at the amount of quarterbacks who are averaging 22 or more fantasy points per game in six point for passing touchdown league. Jacob talked about four point. Six point per passing touchdown leagues. How many are averaging 22 or more per game? And that would be 12 right now.

Jeez. Looking, yeah, that's a lot. But it's not a lot compared to, you know, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 years ago. So I looked at the last decade of how many quarterbacks average 22 points per game from weeks 1 through 10. Remember, it's 12 this year. So beginning in 2015, here are the amount of quarterbacks again, 22 points per game or more from weeks 1 through 10.

In 2015, 11, then 12, 7, 7, 15, 8, 8, 16, 12. But the last three years, only 8, 8, and 5. That was 22, 22, 23, and 4. 8, 8, and 5 quarterbacks have hit 22 or more per game, weeks 1 through 10. This year 12. Then I looked, how about at the end of the season? And in the previous 10 years, there's been a decrease of, you know, quarterbacks who were averaging 22 or more fantasy points per game, six times.

One time it was the same. Three times there was an increase of plus one, plus two, and plus four. There have been two years or been minus six, or one year minus six, in one year minus six, one year minus four, minus three, minus three. It's more likely, I think, based on the last decade, to have a decrease in quarterback production over the next half of the season than an increase. Maybe that's because of weather at the end of the year. I think that could be part of it.

But also this year was another year where they, probably, I haven't seen average field position, but they did something to increase offense. So I'm not all that surprised with the new kickoff rules that we just have more points. But quarterbacks are just having huge year this year. It's an amazing season for quarterbacks. I have to go. I'm sorry. Thank you very much to Dan and Jacob.

One interesting news, Joe Burrow will return to practice day in a limited capacity. Wow. Yes, he did. That is huge. All right. We'll talk to you tomorrow with waiver. wire, subscribe to the Beyond the Box score feed, get all their great content. Thanks for watching, listen to everybody. See you.