Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score: Chiefs Offense, Broncos RBs and More (10/02 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts Is there something wrong with Travis Kelce and the Chiefs offense in general? We discuss that plus Isiah Pacheco's big start and the Jets encouraging performance ... News and notes (11:24) and advanced stats (15:15) on Nico Collins, Rashee Rice, De'Von Achane, Michael Wilson, Jaleel McLaughlin and more. Then Dan gives us some film review (31:15) on the Jaguars offense and why Travis Etienne and Calvin Ridley struggled in Week 4 ... Five Big Topics: Buy low and sell high guys (40:55); Justin Fields, D.J. Moore and their big days (45:30); the Texans passing game (50:10), news vs. noise (51:55) and Khalil Herbert (53:00) ... Email us at [e-mail] SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 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. Welcome, everybody, to Monday's edition of Beyond the Boxscore Advanced Stats for, from, not for Simple People, from Simple People. I almost insulted the entire audience. Sorry about that. Adam Acer, Jacob Gibbs, and Dan Schneier. Schneier, who are you excited to talk about today? I'm very, very excited to talk about a few players, one being Khalil Herbert, two being,

for not as exciting reasons, Calvin Ridley and Travis Etienne. Okay. Jacob Gibbs, who are you excited to talk about? Rasheed Rice. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Rasheed Rice with three catches yesterday. Hey, we need to get Heath

on here. I'm excited for Rasheed Rice. He hasn't had the big breakout yet, but that's part of why I'm so excited for him. I can get him cheap. I feel like I've been the Rasheed Rice. Yeah, he hasn't done anything. He hasn't had the big breakout yet, but that's part of why I'm so excited for him. I can get him cheap. I feel like I've been the Rasheed Rice guy. You don't need Heath.

I've been all about it. Stash Rasheed Rice. Stash Rasheed Rice. 38% rostered. He led the team. He led the non-Kelsey team in targets, other than Kelsey.

I tweeted the other day the target per route right leaders, and then I get all caps Heath yelling at me, lower the qualifier to 39 routes, you coward. He day, like, the target per route rate leaders, and then I get all caps Heath yelling at me, lower the qualifier to 39 routes, you coward. It's like, you've been on my tail all year about Rishi Rice. Listen, I have some hot takes,

but the first one I was going to say was, I definitely want Josh Allen ahead of Patrick Mahomes. And I thought about, you know, I probably still do. Let's talk about this Jets-Chiefs game. 23-20, Chiefs beat the Jets. Today we have our five big topics. I'll give you a little sneak peek. We'll talk about the Texans passing game.

A lot of questions about that. Three straight games with right around 25 fantasy points and six-point leagues for C.J. Stroud. Buy low and sell high. DJ Moore and Justin Fields, what we think about them with Justin Fields coming off by far his best passing game ever. How to separate news from noise

like Ezekiel Elliott's going to play more, those types of things. And Jacob Gibbs was right about Khalil Herbert. That was one of the comments we got. That's one of our topics. What was his reasoning and where do I get those data? So we'll talk about all of that, but first we'll start with Chiefs Jets. And yeah, I mean, I'm a little disappointed with Mahomes. I'm not going to lie. He's the number five quarterback and six point per passing touchdown leagues.

He's number four and four point. He's running a ton. But look at his upcoming schedule. And I know this doesn't usually matter for Patrick Mahomes. But is he going to be QB one? Is he going to be amazing? Because he's only been that once this year. He had two good games, good, very good, great, and then bad last night for Mahomes. But he is facing teams, his upcoming schedule, these teams rank 23rd, 32nd, 28th, 32nd, 29th, 30th, and 27th against quarterbacks. So even though he's still great, he could be even better, but I don't, I'm not feeling, I'm not feeling so great about the chiefs offense. Maybe they just need to get these, uh, great matchups coming up here, Jacob, but you know, I'm not like they're great. They're good. Yeah. But they're not what we expected right now. I think they're still figuring things out. I think going

into the year that was, everybody kind of knew that was going to be the case with such young receivers. And I really do think that Rishi Rice is going to make a difference when he gets on the field a lot more. He's drawn targets at one of the highest rates of any player in the league. And we're starting to see him continue to be acclimated into the offense. I think they'll figure it out. The chiefs,

they're weirdly the youngest team in the NFL, like one of the very youngest teams in the NFL. And they've done this. We talked about how good their quarterback group is. Like they, they're weirdly the youngest team in the NFL, like one of the very youngest teams in the NFL. And they've done this. We talked about how good their cornerback group is. They just kind of do this, I think, as a way to extend Patrick Mahomes' window. And that's where they're at with the wide receiver room right now. Other than Marcus Valdez-Scanling, it's very, very young.

I think it'll get figured out. How are we feeling about it? Go ahead, Dan. My thoughts on this offense are interesting. So we have a little bit of a carryover. I'll decide if they're interesting. You can give me your thoughts. We'll decide if they're interesting.

But go on. By the way, for those who don't know, I'll be meeting up with Adam tonight at the Giants game. That's right. One of the only games we get to go to. I can't wait to just box him out immediately when I get there, give him a little bully-type push just to really let him know who is the better athlete and who's the stronger man. I was still the last time i saw adam the first time i saw adam when he was

taller than me you know when you look at adam you just get the feeling he's like five six but he's actually like almost like six foot it feels like though he'll tell me that's really like five ten and i'm not even five nine i have to round up to tell people don't say that don't say that because that means i'm not even five eight but back to the analysis here here are my thoughts on the chiefs offense there's a little bit of a carryover effect from last year when teams took away the big play and the chiefs were able to beat that with efficiency understanding where to sit in zones and this year they haven't scored a passing touchdown of more than 10 yards the entire season and we're now four weeks into the season that's carrying over getting worse it was's interesting for me to watch the Jets defense, which doesn't play a lot of too high,

play too high against the chiefs. That's going to happen all year. And last year they beat it with Travis Kelsey this year. I got to be honest with you guys. I don't have any data to back this up, but I'm curious to get your take on this. I test wise, Travis Kelsey does not look that healthy to me. He doesn't look the same. He doesn't look as explosive with his route running or after the catch is where I really notice it. And there's been some weird reps from my homes to the ball. He threw it to Marcus Valdez, Scanley last night that bounced to him on the deep ball. I was like, that never happens with my homes. I never seen underthrowing receivers ever. So I have weird vibes going on with the chiefs right now,

mostly stemming from Kelsey to me, who doesn't look the same and from deems continuing to play the same way that top down defense against the chief Chiefs and you really need to be so efficient to beat those kinds of defenses and right now without the chemistry between Rasheed Rice and Patrick Mahomes or you know Sky Moore and Patrick Mahomes who didn't play a lot last year is now playing a ton of snaps get Aries Tony and Patrick Mahomes who doesn't ever play because he's always injured though I guess he played and made it through this game. There's not enough chemistry to beat the zones and to beat this style of defense. They need to know where they're going to be at.

The timing has to be impeccable. So I am a little concerned. I don't have Mahomes as the QB1 rest of the way. You don't think that'll improve, though? It will improve, I hope. But it all, to me, depends on if Kelsey can be Kelsey. And I'm very nervous about what I've seen from Kelsey right now, which I shouldn't be saying right now for those listening in case our boss Adi is

listening because we have an interesting trade discussion going on with Kelsey and I'll be moving Kelsey potentially. So I don't want to go too hard into that, but just kidding. I'll reveal all. I don't know. Do you guys feel like Kelsey is moving the same way post catch? I can't I can't comment on that, but I can tell you that he's averaging 6.2 yards per target, I think. Or is it 5.2 yards per target? It's really low. 5.6, right in the middle. 5.6 yards per target, which is horrible. And for Kelsey, his career average is 9 yards per target.

And I did have that thought that, you know, the Chiefs offense doesn't really look like itself. And is that because Travis Kelsey hurried back from a knee injury and isn't quite right yet. Those types of things tend to, I feel like, they tend to resolve themselves throughout the year. But I also think they're missing the juju of this offense, which hopefully becomes Rasheed Rice. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

I also think they're a lot worse with, blanking on his name right now, the Jaguars right tackle, the tackle who they signed to play right tackle. Oh, God. He's Juwan Taylor? Juwan Taylor. They're a worse offensive line this year, blanking on his name right now, the Jaguars right tackle, the tackle who they signed to play right tackle. Oh God, he, Jawan Taylor. Jawan Taylor.

Like they are a worse offensive line this year. We just want Taylor out there. He's having a really bad year. Yeah. All right. Well, we don't have to spend a ton of time. Look,

I guess this was just, I thought an interesting topic because Alan was better than my homes in 2021. He was better than my homes before the shoulder injury last year. I don't really see a reason not to take, not to move Mahomes from QB1 personally. Obviously, Anthony Richardson is going to be QB1 anyway, so it's all a moot point. On the Jets side, Pacheco, by the way, had a great game, and it just looks like he's going to have a good year.

So let's go to the Jets side of the ball. Jacob, any thoughts on the Jets? The volume was there for Wilson for Garrett Wilson I think that was actually kind of a bottom range of outcomes game for him given how well Zach Wilson played and the if we can get the problem with the Jets previously has been that their rush rate has been way too high because it feels like they're just not comfortable with everything Zach Wilson and offense that was probably going to be mostly led by Aaron Rodgers and now it's Nathaniel Hackett with a different quarterback like they've just been super super conservative but like if we can

get those volume numbers up a little bit then maybe wilson can get there he's been somebody i've been super out on but like i that was what stood out to me and the breeze halls continues to play a little bit more uh his rap participation went up again for the fourth straight week yeah it's gonna be a while before i trust him, though. I mean, we need to see more than six carries or whatever it is. I know he's really good. How about this stat? Sorry to cut you off, Dan, but this is beyond the box after all. My Jets

fan friend just fired up about the penalties last night and the non-call when Jermaine Johnson was getting held on the Mahomes run. But he also said, this is from Michael Nanya. I don't know. Yeah, Michael Nanya, the best there is in Jets analysis.

Okay, Michael Nanya says, 14 plays with Dalvin Cook on the field. The Jets averaged 3.4 yards per play. They had two first downs. 43 plays with Cook off the field. They averaged 6.8 yards per play. That's double. And they had 16 first downs

i mean it could be some coincidence but hopefully we'll get some momentum here for breeze hall but i think you got to see it first you got to see more of a workload first before you trust him and can we wrap on that dan i'm sorry to cut you off i just want to get some other stuff just a quick thing i was going to say it looked like the first time all year like the jets are actually running a real offense with zach wilson instead trying to do run, run, pass on third down, try to win a game 10 to 7. And that's just going to be better for the entire offense. Garrett Wilson, Brees Hall.

And early, I thought they were going to finally feature Brees Hall. It looked like it early in the first quarter and second quarter. And then they kind of went away from that. And I think you got to let this guy get in a rhythm. So that's all I have to say on that. Okay. I've got some comments here about Dan's height. Dan, the can is 5'4".

Dan is too small. Dan is the Muggsy Bogues of FFT. That explains it. Dan isn't sitting on the can. He's standing on a crate. He's standing on a crate. That was a good one. That was good.

All right. All right. All right. Let's move on here. We have Sportsline is something you can subscribe to for $9.99 a month. Your first month is a dollar. Go to Sportsline.com. All this great stuff you hear from Jacob, there's about 100 times more of it on Sportsline.com. Plus, it's really a gambling site, too.

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Also, our live stream tonight at 7.30 p.m. Eastern. I will not be there because Dan and I are going to be tailgating in theory depending on the traffic. But we will have a live stream tonight At 7.30 p.m. Eastern, I will not be there because Dan and I are going to be tailgating, in theory,

depending on the traffic. But we will have a live stream tonight at 7.30 p.m. YouTube.com slash Fantasy Football Today, plus Thursday night at 7.30 p.m. before the game and Sunday mornings, 11.30 a.m. We have big crowds on Sunday mornings. We have a lot of fun. Please join the fun. News and notes, Justin Herbert, I think he has a fractured finger.

He messed up his finger pretty bad. It's on his non-throwing hand, but he's going to be okay. I shouldn't miss any time. They have a bye week. Kenny Pickett might miss some time. Mitchell Trubisky came in and looked horrible, but I don't know that he's going to be much worse than Kenny Pickett. They have Baltimore and then a bye. Mack Jones will remain the starter. Javante Williams has a hip injury. It doesn't appear too serious, but we're going to talk about Jaleel McLaughlin today. Can I call him HN Light?

It's like the same thing. He's really fast. Looks like he needs more touches. He's elusive. He had a, whatever this means, he had a 100% avoid rate on his seven carries in week four, Jaleel McLaughlin.

So he's avoiding tackles a lot. All right, we'll talk about him a little bit more. Typically, people who reference stats don't start by saying, whatever this means. I was just asking Jacob. Devontae Adams hurt his shoulder. He was able to return to the game, but he's in a lot of pain. So we'll see if he's able to play this week against the Packers.

Devontae Adams. Mike Evans hamstring. Tee Higgins, fractured ribs, Pat Frymuth, hamstring, and some others. Chase Claypool, fired. Teron Armstead for the Dolphins. He left in the second quarter. Thank you, Dad, for laughing 10 seconds later. I appreciate that. That was funny.

The Bears gave up the 34th pick in the draft for Chase Claypool. What a disaster that trade was. And it was so obviously bad at the time. But right now, if the season ended today, the Bears would have the first pick in the draft. And the Bears would have the second pick in the draft. They would have the first two picks. Can you imagine if they land on that

and they could go Caleb Williams and Marvin Harrison Jr.? That is epic. That would be awesome. Mike Tomlin said, Changes are coming. Hashtag blame Canada. We do that? That's good. Thank you. Thank you. You're on fire today with these. Thank you. I'm using all my good jokes. I'm going to have nothing left by the time we get to the

tailgate. And I did some Googling. I did some Googling. I want to know what you guys think of these Google results. I Googled, and maybe I'll try a different search engine. I don I know. I'll show you the Mina Kimes article from ESPN like two, three years ago on Justin Herbert, where I think this is briefly touched on. And obviously, people who are doctors have some people who are doctors have photographic memories. How do you think they get through med school? Like, it's a very tough sledding. You need to have a good photographic type memory. And I believe Justin Herbert has that type of photographic memory. Very scientific stuff here. Beyond the box score, ladies and gentlemen.

We'll take a break. We got some advanced stats. When we come back, Jacob will tell us what they are, and I'll say, whatever that means. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football Today. Did you know 66% of utility damage is caused by not requesting a locate? Don't let your project become part of this statistic. A quick locate request can save you from unexpected downtime, financial penalties, and keep you safe.

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All right. Time for advanced stats from an advanced person. I've got some on Michael Wilson and Jaleel McLaughlin, who I figure are going to be two hot waiver wire priorities. But first, let's hear what Jacob has to say. What do you got, Jacob? So I want to bring up Nico Collins. The Texans have been just the topic of conversation for us each week, trying to figure out these wide receivers.

And I just want to point out that he's still running the third most routes on the team both robert woods and tank dell ran more routes than him again this week and as much as i love nico he's definitely running hot so yard per route run rate leaders uh through a month of football we've got brandon iuk at 4.71 because he's just that good tyree kill 3.95 n95 Nico Collins 3.42 so that's way way above anything we've seen from Nico in the past in the past even somebody who gets targets but really isn't that efficient obviously we have better quarterback play but like this rate's got to come down it's boosted by big catches he has 10 catches of 20 plus yards already uh Justin Justin Jefferson has 14 through a month which seems insane uh no

one else has double digits so nico collins is really good i really believe that if you if you read matt harman's work he totally believes in everything we've seen from but it's been about as good as it could possibly get in terms of the production um the efficiency on the targets that he has and i saw that the te Texans average, they're there. They have the second most yak per catch in the NFL, their receivers, not just their wide receivers, all of them.

And the dolphins are number one. Yeah, go ahead, man. But my only thought on that is, and that's a great stat you pulled up, Adam, what are those two teams have in common?

The dolphins and Texans, they're running essentially the same offensive system. They're both coming from that San Francisco 49ers system. I don't know where the Niners rank on that. Yards have to catch. I'm sure they're pretty high. And I'll say this about Nico Collins. When I studied his tape coming out of Michigan, he was one of the clearest examples.

And I thought Donovan Peoples-Jones would also fit into this billing. But Collins was even better, especially because he went to the Senior Bowl that week. I mean, I'm sorry, that season and just dominated the senior bowl and the one-on-ones. He was like one of those guys in that Michigan. There was a range of Michigan years where they just had unbelievably bad quarterback play and offensive coordinating just as bad as it gets. And it wasted a talent like Collins. So he comes to the NFL.

No one really knows about him, but maybe just maybe the talent was always there. And finally, now he's in a system that can take advantage of his skillset with good quarterback play, which we're seeing all so far. So like, I get what you're saying, Jacob, and I understand it. And I do think there is some concern for me with what happens when defense coordinators get eight games of tape on CJ Stroud and can start to take away the things

he keeps leaning on within the system. But Collins himself, to me, I think we could be looking at a breakout from a really good talent who just was hidden by Michigan's really bad system and bad quarterback play. No doubt. Yeah, no, that's how I feel about Collins but I do think he this is as good as it's going to get um so if you Chris Alave if you like do something around those type those two players or something like that like there's a lot of people who are struggling that I think like Nico is at the peak of his value and I just want to bring that up to like he's still okay third on his team in rats Ryan that's just weird and a little bit concerning and it's gonna be tough for him to continue to produce like this yeah i really do want to talk about rashid rice so this is the

first in addition to being top five and target per reverend ray which is really exciting mahomes has targeted him 36 of the targets when he and mahomes been on the field together have gone to rashid rice he also played a lot more this week, and it wasn't due to blowout. Last week, it was due to blowout. He played 38% of the snaps in week three when Mahomes was on the field, so it didn't go up that much. In week four, that was up to 50%. And he was second.

It was Marquez, Valdez, Scanling, Jess, and Watson, 21 routes each. And then Rishi Rice and Sky Moore were both with 17 routes. Kadarius Tony at 12 so he's legitimately getting worked back into the offense more and more each week and I when he came into the league a lot of people thought him as a deep threat I thought based off what I found it from his collegiate stuff that he was at his best as a yard after the catch guy and a big slot and they talked about using him all over i think he makes so much sense as the juju replacement and that's like clearly i think what's missing and i think he might have more juice than juju and juju had a good season last year for fantasy like i i legitimately think

he's one of the best buys there is right now yeah go ahead and pick him up off waivers rishi rice would you if you had to pick up one receiver would you you pick up Michael Wilson coming off a huge game or Rasheed Rice? I have serious concerns about Wilson from a prospect profile standpoint. I'm curious what you think, Dan. Analytically, I just don't like what I saw at all. He was always hurt. That was the thing. He was always hurt.

His prospect profile. Michael Wilson. I'll say this about Michael Wilson. I am concerned long term about the injuries just because of how hard he cuts, but he had some of the best film in the entire draft class, in my opinion. And I don't even think it's close to be completely honest. And he came to the senior bowl and look just as dominant in the senior bowl. It's very Nico Collins ask, but his ability to hard cut.

I mean, he sets up routes. He's one of the most advanced route runners to come out in this draft class. I thought he had wide receiver one upside in this draft class, but the injuries are what held him back. And Stanford, obviously the quarterback play wasn't great there. I know they had Tanner McKee, but I felt like it was never that great there. So I am still with him long-term because of the way he cut, how hard he cuts. He has that like Darius Tony style of cutting really hard.

And that leads to injuries in my opinion. But having said that when he's on the field, I thought his film was great, but I agree the analytics weren't great because he was hurt a lot and it wasn't just like the baseline analytics like buka nakua was always hurt but like his underlying stuff is really good michael wilson's underlying stuff is like the worst of any receiver ever evaluated other than like jonathan mingo his parata is terrible but like you said quarterback is a problem we've seen guys like johan dodson they had really bad quarterback play they actually were a lot better zay flowers really bad quarterback play so his parata is bad but he's actually a good player um so yeah

i've been really curious did you watch michael wilson this week adam yes i actually want to get in and watch his yeah well so i i didn't watch i didn't watch his routes i watched his targets so i didn't have time to watch all the routes but michael wilson um he leads all wide receivers minimum of 80 routes run an explosive catch rate i. I think that's a 17-yard catch as defined by True Media. The top six in that category are Wilson, Josh Reynolds, DK Metcalf, Olamide Zaccheaus, who only has three catches,

Jalen Waddell, and Nico Collins. You get a lot of guys, explosive catch rate, you get a lot of guys who, like a Darius Slayton, who pretty much only get targeted deep. And when they do catch the ball, it's a big play. I thought he looked excellent. He had a 69-yard catch and run against the Cowboys last week

that was on busted coverage, so he's wide open. What I found interesting was like, you know, it's easy to say, oh, Josh Dobbs looked good if you didn't really watch the tape, watch the game. But I went back and I did watch a lot of his deep throw. I watched all of Josh Dobbs looked good, if you didn't really watch the tape, watch the game. But I went back and I did watch a lot of his deep throw. I watched all of Josh Dobbs' deep throws. He has been a horrible deep ball thrower, except when he's throwing to Michael Wilson. He's thrown three deep balls to Wilson, and he's completed all of them.

Overall, so actually I took out week one, because Dobbs didn't really play that well in week one. He played Washington. Since then, he's completed five of 13 passes of 20 or more air yards, 0 of 5 on throws of 30 or more air yards. So he's been horrible. Like Justin Fields is 0 of 6. Mack Jones is 0 of 6. Dobbs is 0 of 5.

These guys are not throwing the ball. His off-target rate, Dobbs' off-target rate is one of the worst in the NFL. But when he targets Michael Wilson, he's dropping dimes. He's missing everyone else and he's throwing these amazing throws to Wilson. So I wonder what that's all about. Seems a little fluky, but I have to say he, Wilson looked really good. He had a nice catch, a short yardage catch. He picked up a first down on, um, he made a nice play. It made a nice double move, I think on his touchdown. So I was impressed. Uh was impressed. But having to be such a downfield guy,

you know, 10-plus yard, route depth, super high ADOT, I don't love that profile, personally. And I think I had a little bit of a reality check on Josh Dobbs. In my mind, Dobbs is playing really well, but I think he's probably not playing that well. I think he's probably a little bit of Baker Mayfield-like, except he's rushing. He's like the second- most rushing yards among quarterbacks,

so that helps his fantasy production. So I would say Jamie called Michael Wilson a must-add. I would say there's probably a team in your league that needs Michael Wilson. It may not be your team, you know, if you're good at wide receiver. But yeah, he probably should be something like 40% to 50% rostered instead of like 5% that he is now.

I don't know if that was a decent breakdown. Yeah. That was a good breakdown. I'd clearly rather have Josh Palmer. It's just like a recent waiver guy. I would much rather have him. But would you rather have Quentin Johnston, who's done nothing? I think there's a lot more upside with Johnston,

so I'm going to say yes. Even with everything we've said about Michael Wilson, he's only been targeted on 15.5% of his routes, which was a problem at the collegiate level as well. And you've talked about just the type of role that he's playing. It's going to be really, really inconsistent, even if he does give weeks like this. And it's possible this is the only good,

really this explosive performance we'll see all year, just because I don't expect Arizona to be producing very many points. And so it's just going to be really hard within that framework for him to be fantasy relevant okay any other advanced stats you want to give isaiah pacheco i keep bringing him up but like we keep seeing new career highs he had 36 of the chiefs total opportunities so rushes or targets in week four we've seen that rate rise progressively each week. Last week's was a career high. This week's is a new career high. He has accounted for 34% of Kansas City's red zone opportunities

when Patrick Mahomes has been on the field. As a rookie, his rate was only above 25% in two games all season. And so that's one where we've talked about being frustrated with Chiefs running backs because we never know where the opportunities are going to go in the red zone. And just last week we saw three running back touchdowns before Pacheco got his first one. But in terms of like the red zone opportunities that he's getting,

that rate is actually up there among some of the highest at the running back position and is much higher than we saw at all last year. So I think things are really turning towards him being low end RB two mid, mid range RB two potentially. Yeah. And if the chiefs office like mid mid range RB two potentially. Yeah. And the chiefs office, like he has even more things out. Yeah.

If the chiefs office figures things out, like we talked, it's not right now, but like they started scoring 30 plus points, but check it could be an RB one. Yeah. He's a buy high for me for sure. If teams are going to keep playing the chiefs,

the way they play them with that too high look, and they're playing so far off the ball with those safeties, it's just inviting the Chiefs to run the football and Pacheco is a good runner of the football. I do worry about his health. The way that he runs man. Did you guys watch that touchdown run? Did you see Ben Gretsch's

tweet about inserting the most possible effort? Yes, he said something like what did Ben Gretsch say? He said something like running back is supposed to eliminate all movement or unnecessary movement. He said yeah, you hear in back's supposed to eliminate all movement or something, unnecessary movement. No, he said, yeah, you hear in the scouting community a lot the term wasted movement from a running back and how they don't have a lot of wasted movement.

And he said Pacheco is the complete opposite of this. Yeah. I noticed that when I was watching his highlights from Rutgers on YouTube. It's just like... For sure. It's like he's just always shaking. There could be a defender five yards away, and he's juking already.

It's so funny. But he gets the job done. And you know what? Here's another stat for Pacheco. And this may not seem like a lot. He's averaging three targets per game. Is that a lot? No.

He was averaging 1.2 targets per game last year. Right. And when he gets the ball in his hands, he threw his career 9.6 yards per catch, and it's only 23 catches. But double the targets per game is not nothing it does help i think the touchdowns are still concerned though personally he was the bottom of the barrel when it came to running back targets last year in terms of her route rate like

the absolute bottom and now his rap participation is much higher and he's getting targeted at a higher rate all right any other chiefs you want to talk about is this we're just doing chiefs that's all chiefs um are we going to talk about a channel more detail because i he definitely saw a role expansion this week and it's worth mentioning now and you called that too i think you said like why is everybody so high on raheem mostard it basically split yeah because each and week three in week one hn was super involved in the first half like almost as involved as mostly had more carries in the first half of week one of week or of the first half of week three sorry and he also had way more red zone opportunities in the first half in that game and so like it wasn't just a blowout thing and then we see in week four 66 snap rate for a-chan up from 42

route participation was 68 that's great uh they don't throw to the running backs at time but like that's really really high that's shocked me and then over the past two games, he has 10 opportunities from inside the 10-yard line, and Raheem Mostert only has two. Hmm. Yeah, he's incredible. I don't know what else to say. I mean, he's just stats, eyeball test, basic stats, advanced, whatever it is.

The dude's freaking incredible. Just let me answer this question here from Senor Football. Do you guys prefer Swift or Pacheco rest of season? That's really tough. I think I'm going to go with Swift. I'm going to go with Swift as well, but it's close, and I like them both a lot

as bye-hi guys. All right. I only have one advanced stat to give. I gave all my Michael Wilson stuff, but I wanted to talk about Jaleel McLaughlin. He did have a 100% avoid rate. He averaged eight yards after contact per carry,

which was second best in week four behind Devon Achan. And on a smaller scale, on a lesser scale, what I'm seeing from him does remind me a little bit of Achan. And I don't know, like I'm not qualified to say this, but Javante Williams just doesn't really look fast right now. It should be expected after tearing his ACL last year. He's had some good runs. I watched most

of his carries this morning. He had some good runs. I think the vision looks pretty good. He's making something out of nothing, but he's not breaking away, really. McLaughlin is just kind of shot out of a cannon. He's small, just like A-chan. He's like 65% of A-chan, basically.

But he's like 5'7", 185 pounds. But I don't know. It gives them a different dimension. It gives them a different change of pace. And he was really elusive in week four. I was very impressed with McLaughlin. Apparently, Williams may not miss any time with this injury, so I don't know what to make of it,

but I don't think Piran's a big factor, and I think they've got a chance here with McLaughlin. If they want to be a little bit bold, they've got a chance here to revive their run game a little bit. I don't feel like you guys are feeling the same way, though. I thought he looked great, and they loved him in the preseason. Oh, okay, good. I didn't have a chance to watch his tape this week,

so I'll get back to you on that. Yeah, every time he gets the ball, it's like, who's that? Exactly. There's life in the Denver offense for the first time in two years. Yeah. Yeah, the Denver offense. The Denver offense has done a lot of, I don't know, it's not necessarily garbage time, but it's been a lot of... It's not necessarily garbage time, but it's

been a lot of late... The Hail Mary, the comeback against the Bears. I don't think they've been that good, but McLaughlin maybe can inject a little life into them. I almost want Williams to miss a game so McLaughlin could get some run.

The Jaguars struggled again offensively, Dan, and you took a look at ETN and Ridley. What did you see? Yeah, broke down ETN and Ridley. Let's start with ETN. They're running a lot of inside zone, and obviously inside zone can be a little bit confusing

to chart with duo because duo and inside zone look a lot alike. But when I watched Travis ETN find success last year, it was a lot of times with gap schemes, some pin and pull concepts. They finally ran a pin and pull concept late in the game. He picked up six yards, probably the best run of the game. But the thing with Etienne right now is one, he had a tough matchup. The Falcons are incredibly gap sound in this game. I mean, you could see it throughout the game. It was some of the most disciplined run defense I've seen. And I looked at the numbers and they're not even really a top 15 run defense by EPA.

They were 18th, the Falcon. So I was surprised by that. Clay's Campbell had an amazing game. Sorry, wait a second. I messed this one up. The Falcons actually lead the NFL in rush defense. Oh, okay. So I got that one wrong.

That was complete. That was a bad take. I was looking at a different game. So they lead the NFL in rush defense EPA, and it was obvious in this game. So that I give ETN a little bit of credit for. And again, I feel like with ETN, it's a lot of wasted movement.

We talked about not wasted movement. It's a lot of wasted movement with ETN, watching his feet move, and not a lot of setting up the blockers and vision cutbacks. I mean, there's a lot of just follow the play as it is. I juxtapose this versus watching Khalil Herbert, who we're going to talk about a little bit later on the

show. And it's honestly just like watching two completely different backs. And I like watching the Khalil Herbert style better because there's very little wasted movement in the backfield. He sets up his blocks and he uses the cutback lane a lot instead of just following the play as it's designed to the play side. And I think that kind of hurts ETN unless they're going to start doing more of what I said earlier, which is that power gap pin pull concept stuff that really worked for the Jaguars last season. I don't really know why they went away from it in this game. I haven't watched a lot of ETN tape before this. So I don't know if it's a new thing for the season. Maybe it's something that they brought into, you know, use more inside zone and duo this year. I'm not exactly sure, but it's not really working

for them. And it didn't work in this game. There weren't a lot of cutback lanes, really. There weren't a lot of lanes really for ETN in this game. One of the best run defense games I've seen all season, Clay's Campbell, what an addition for the Falcons. They got him for 7 million when the Giants are paying 8 million to A'shaun Robinson, who looks nothing like him on tape to be completely honest. So I think a lot of this was the matchup guys, but this is my biggest concern with ETN coming into the season. Like there's not that much of a role in the passing game, right? No,

there is going to come down to. Kind of. They set up a screen for him. He was, you saw that screen. He was so close to breaking that. Whoever made that tackle. That was a great play.

He was close to breaking it, but it was really well set up. I don't know how much of that was ETN. It was a good design and setup, but like any actual check down game, that's not Lawrence isn't looking for him a lot outside of the design stuff in the passing game. And then the touchdowns, it's like, this is my problem with DTN when we were drafting him in round three and why I never got him because I don't know where the points come from outside of the, you know, outside of rushing efficiency, which isn't going to happen

every game. You know, the Falcon, I mean, I'm sorry, the Jaguars offensive line didn't block. Well, they brought in extra blockers to help. They brought in a third offensive tackle on some plays. It worked a little bit, but didn't work for the most part. So this was a tough matchup. I'm going to chalk it up to that, but I just am not a big fan of how ETN runs with the football. Okay. Ridley, uh uh two targets was lucky enough to get wide open on a busted coverage there uh what you see from him so ridley i'm gonna start with a jacob gibbs stat uh the jacksonville jaguars target share over the past three games 29 christian kirk 22 evan ingram 15 calvin ridley 10 travis etn in this game, AJ Terrell played him,

shadowed him almost the entire game. And he beat him on the first snap with the press man jam technique. It was an easy win for him. And then he just played a lot of press man without the jam throughout the rest of the game. And he stayed with him on almost every single snap. First play. The second possession was another win for Terrell.

The touchdown was on a busted coverage. I don't really think that's impressive by Ridley at all. The switch release to get a free release with two or five left in the first quarter. You know, Terrell's playing off coverage for the first time, all game, everything else was pressed, man. Ridley tries to throttle down, rip a vertical Terrell's right with him. Step-for-step 1157 was the first time I even saw Terrell not lined up against Ridley. They finally moved Ridley to the slot where he got a free release vertical up the seam, but he didn't really create much separation despite the design to get him the free release with the switch release, uh, you know, in the slot, the second catch of the game he had was just not really him beating AJ Terrell. It was designed rollout, right? Quick out no yards

after the catch. So there were a couple of plays I did see where Atlanta did use bracket coverage over Ridley with a safety over the top, but most of it was just AJ Terrell in press man. And one thing I said in the off season guys was when he was with Atlanta teams, tried to play him press man, Calvin Ridley, and he beat that consistently. And I thought that was going to be the biggest reason why Trevor Lawrence was going to potentially have a breakout season. Cause he finally had a receiver who can win against press man on the outside, but he's not beating that. And another thing I noticed with this Jaguars offense now watching them for some reason, and I'm not exactly sure why Trevor Lawrence is not thrown with the same kind of anticipation he threw with last season. When he went through that toward stretch, he's

missing receivers downfield. He's not processing the field the same way he did last season. And it's a big problem right now for the Jacksonville Jaguars offense. In addition to Calvin Ridley, not beating press man. But I, you know, some of this is matchup, right? Like it's the first game I studied Calvin Ridley faces AJ Terrell, probably one of the best press man corners in the NFL. What happens when he faces, you know, corners who he can beat in press man? Will it make things more easy for Trevor Lawrence week one? It was right. He just kept throwing to Calvin Ridley because he kept beating that coverage, but I'm not exactly sure that will happen every week, and I am a little bit concerned with Trevor Lawrence's

anticipatory throwing and processing right now. That's interesting. So I thought Lawrence had a really good game. It wasn't a fantasy good game, but I thought he played very well. I thought last week he played well. I didn't like him in this week. Okay. Ridley, I don't see a ton of shutdown corners on his schedule coming up.

I've said this like 100 times now, so I'm sorry. uh, Ridley, I don't see a ton of shutdown corners on his schedule coming up. You know, he was, I've said this like a hundred times now, so I'm sorry, but luxurious need in week two, Calvin Ridley, uh, getting shut down by him. And then Terrell in week four, Buffalo just lost your Davias white for the season.

Uh, they still been very good against wide receivers, but Buffalo, the Colts are an easy matchup. The saints are not, the Steelers can't cover anyone. San Francisco. It's debatable. Uh, Tennessee, Houston, maybe, matchup. The Saints are not. The Steelers can't cover anyone. San Francisco,

it's debatable. Tennessee, Houston, maybe. But I don't see a ton of tough corners. Maybe later in the year if Cleveland and Baltimore are healthy. But hopefully, I'm nervous about them this week against Buffalo, even though the game's in London or somewhere in Europe.

Notre Dame is why it should help. It should help. Yeah, and Buffalo has to travel, and Jacksonville doesn't. But all right, let's take a break here, and we'll come back. We'll get into our five big topics. You good, Jacob? Did you want to get in there?

I'm sorry. No, I was just going to say Buffalo does use press coverage at one of the highest rates, so that'll be a really good test for him next week to not have to face in a lead corner but still face a ton of press. Yeah, he's been awful against press coverage this this year he's averaging one yard per out run

um he actually he really struggled with the press his first two years in atlanta and then like dan said he was really good matt harman says the same thing and then also his stats bared out so there's hope that he can be that guy but he has not been this year and i think part of the issue is like in this game one final thing adam we'll wrap it up like in the first week of the season when i watch ridley they were using him to his best advantage to his best skill set in my opinion which means what he's best at is getting in and out of his breaks at the top of his routes and then in this game it felt like they were just using him on a lot of verticals and posts and things that were just shooting him up the seam and that's not really where he wins he's not that

explosive and fast in my opinion he wasn't separating from man coverage on the vertical plane so i just think they need to get back to utilizing him better i've got some quick usage data on etn2 so the reason i asked dan to look into him is because the role has been as good as it could possibly be his route right participation is up from 49 last year to 64 that's one of the highest of any running backs but he's still not being targeted he's being targeted on 15 of his routes up from 14 last year and that's something dan alluded to is they just they aren't throwing the running back position they aren't designing stuff to him very much and so like what happens if tank bigsby does take more work or what happens if he doesn't if etn isn't able to handle this workload and wears down or gets hurt like i think i if i had etn

which i don't have him hardly anywhere i'd be waiting for a good game or two and then probably looking to move him because i think this is the best case scenario and he's just not really producing i don't yeah i think you guys are being a little hard on him after a bad game because after three weeks he looked pretty good you know i think he's had two really good games and two bad games um but he's still catching passes you know he had three catches in this game even if he's not getting a lot of targets per route run, he's running a ton of routes. He's getting three, four catches. The touchdowns are a concern. I'm more of a believer

in him, but I also don't think he's suited to be running into linebackers and defensive linemen 15 to 20 times a game. If I had ETN, I would make it a point to trade for Tank Bigsby. Hopefully, you don't have to give up too much. I bet Jacob was laughing earlier at some of the Adam looks like the kind of guy things from the chat.

This one was my favorite. Adam looks like the lead singer of a Maroon 5 cover band. That's awesome. That's a good one. I could, yeah. And she will be loved. I bet Adam has a favorite blankie. Oh, God, that was bad.

That was bad, yeah. So I do not have a favorite blankie. In fact, right that was bad. That was bad, yeah. So I do not have a favorite blankie. In fact, right now, I've been sleeping without a blanket because I can't find it. We moved on Friday, and everything's in boxes, and I've been sleeping with a sheet for the last three days. All right, we'll be right back for the five big topics on fantasy football today. All right, welcome back here. Adam Levine. Sorry, Adam Azer here with Dan Schneier and Jacob Gibbs. Five big topics.

Do you think we can do this in 12 minutes? What do you think? Yeah, we got this. Okay. You and I have it. I don't know about Dan. This one's from Benjamin Murray. Hidden gems versus fool's gold.

After four weeks, who has underperformed but will eventually be really good? And who has played well but we expect them to decline soon? Jacob, you can have the first word tajay spears the most clear hidden gym to me he's been unbelievable pff loves him in terms of what he's done as a rusher and a pass blocker he's been better than derrick henry in both aspects he's getting a lot of snaps and if anything were to happen to henry i think he would be the guy i I think he would be like a top 15, top 12 type of fantasy running back. He's been really, really good. We've already talked about Rishi Rice. I also want to bring up Jordan Addison coming off a zero target game,

if you can go buy him. The Vikings ran 48 plays this past week, which is like less than one percentile, first percentile of games since the start of 2022. So that's not going to happen again. that was just a bad run out for him but he still ran around on almost 75 percent of the dropbacks and he's looked really good the last guy i want to bring up is chris alave like i don't know if you can call him hidden jim everybody knows chris alave is good obviously but bad game last week he hasn't found the end zone yet um but he's still drawing targets at a

really high rate all the underlying stuff looks really really good end zone yet, but he's still drawing targets at a really high rate. All the underlying stuff looks really, really good for Olave. He's just a stud. Well, but the tractors would say Kamara comes back and Olave disappears. And I don't know. I am assuming

Derek Carr's shoulder had something to do with the fact that he threw 14 passes to Kamara, but that's a short-term concern for me. Yeah, I think But that's a short-term concern for me. Yeah, I think that's fair, short-term. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was laughing at some of the...

Adam looks like the kind of guy that would highlight the comment that shows him in the best light of an Adam looks like thread. So freaking true. He always highlights the best comments from him and the worst from me. Adam lets his wife change the tire on the side of the road, LOL. That is so true. That is so frickin' true. And by the way, the other day, about two months ago, I had a flat tire.

And for the first time in my life, I changed a tire. I went on YouTube, and I looked it up, and I made it happen. And you know what? It felt so good. It seems like the simplest thing, but as somebody like me, no one would ever describe me as a man's man. I am not handsy. I'm not good with tools, but you know what? I figured it out and it felt great to figure that actually out. I don't know if Adam's ever done it. If you think that I'm the kind of guy who would let my wife change the tire, you are crazy. I would absolutely call someone to help. All right. What do you got, Dan, for either buy lows or sell highs, basically?

I'm going to defer to Jacob on these. I already took up enough time with film review, and I know you made a little snide comment about it earlier, but film review takes time, okay? You can't just zip right through it. So I'll save the rest of my airtime for the other players I watched on tape. Well, Jalen Waddell, I think, is such a buy low, right?

I mean, I know it's been a struggle. He had a touchdown called back. I don't have any underlying data or anything like that. He's just Jalen Waddle. He's too damn good. He's going to get going. I'm wondering, we have a question about this later, but yes, I would sell high on, oh, sorry, Schaefer put a buy low up.

Oh, there we go. Sell high. There we go. The lower third matches. I would sell high on DJ Moore. Justin Fields just had the best game, not even close, the best passing game of his career. Obviously, the Broncos are one of the worst defenses in football.

So I would sell on Moore. All right. That's fine. I'm wondering what to do with Puka Nakua, Jacob. I put him in the buy low category because obviously he's been a total stud, but I do think there's a sense of impending doom once Cooper Cup comes back. But, you know, I'm not really sure. Maybe we should just call him a buy high.

What do you think about Puka Nakua? Yeah, yeah, he's a buy high. His per route data is so crazy, man. And they used him down the field a lot more this past week, which is interesting. Two guys I would be selling on is Tutu Atwell and Kyron Williamsiams i think when cooper cup comes back he's going to soak up all this stuff i think things are going to look a lot different this offense and i think it's possible we even see two to come off of the field because i don't know who's going to play the x for them

i think that that's going to be van jefferson it's never really been cup i think it's gonna be van jefferson still even though he hasn't played well and if not i think it's possible that it's Puka. We haven't seen Puka play the X hardly at all. That wasn't really, really played in college either, but like he has been working down the field more. So yeah,

I would sell those two. I'm not selling Puka though. I think I would be really shocked, especially like coming off of the game winning touchdown. Like if Matthew suffers so much trust in him right now, like he's going to continue to be involved, I think. Okay. Let's go to our next one from Ryan Smith, sell high on fields and DJ more. So I just sort of alluded to this. Justin Fields just had a 335 yard for touchdown game. It was only the second game in his career with more than two

touchdown passes. His previous career high in yards was 291 yards. So I think it's a perfect time to at least sell high on Moore. If you don't want to sell high on Fields, I get it. But I think Moore, like last week, Moore had garbage time production after a terrible game. This week he faced the Broncos. So I don't think he stinks. I'm not saying you've got to get him off your

roster. But again, Olave or someone Jalen Waddell, it it probably had to be a package or something like that. I think more is going to be very up and down this year. Dan, what are your thoughts? So this is one of the games I watched on tape. This is to me, one of the best sell high quote unquote, or we sell now, whatever you want to call it opportunities you can get. So in this matchup, let's just put things into perspective. You said earlier, Adam Broncos have one of the worst defense in the NFL.

That's actually not true. They have the stone worst, by far worst defense in the NFL. The Broncos' pass DVOA is negative 69.81. That's more than double as bad as the next worst team against the pass, who is the Bears, and negative 35.73, or just under double as bad. They have the second worst run defense. And you understood the wire with those math skills?

Mm-hmm. It was basically double, okay? Basically double. Okay. Now let me say this. This was an interesting game. Yeah. They had a good game plan, the Bears.

It was a lot of the boot action stuff, right? Fake the handoff, roll your quarterback left or right, find the crosser, find the open space. It worked for a while in the first half. Why is that? This Broncos defense is absolutely terrible. Total blown coverage on the commit touchdown, a 22 yard or two commit off the boot action. Another insane busted coverage.

Things you just don't see when you watch tape of most NFL defenses. But, but there was also examples that I didn't like from Justin Fields. The touchdown throw to DJ Moore. I don't think he needs to go back shoulder there. The one he tiptoed and some people don't think it was a catch. The safety was middle of the field closed on that, which for those who don't know, that means like when it's a one high safety look and he's in the middle of the field and the, and the outsides are open.

And so he's never making it back to that throw. That throw needs to be inside. And he has his shoulder squared on that balance base. It's trying to throw back shoulder. Maybe. I don't know if he's trying to place the ball there. I'm not sure. But what we saw in the second half was once the Broncos kind of figured out what the Bears were doing with this boot action stuff,

and this is similar to what happened to the Giants last season when they opened up their season for the first eight games running a very similar style offense, and then defense figured it out. It was done. They started attacking it the right way. They started not respecting the run and attacking fieldse uh fields one led to a fumble recovery there was one good play i like from fields the third and seven was 614 in the third quarter uh this was one of the best plays i've ever seen from justin fields just because he worked through his full

progression away from the first and second reads on the play side to hit the backside crosser that's something you don't see a lot but again that fourth quarter fumble on the boot action play was just like yep we figured this out the Broncos as bad as we are as a defense. And like I said, they are the by far worst defense in the NFL right now to an insane level, busted coverages left and right. They still figured out the game plan. And I don't think bears can just roll that game plan back every single week against better defenses who are more disciplined. So I have major concerns with the Chicago bears. Nothing. What I saw on film told me that this is them getting past something that just tells me

they had a good game plan against a really bad defense. And I agree with you on DJ more. He wasn't even the first read on a lot of plays. A lot of what he caught was just quick curls and slants, nothing too impressive there in my opinion. So yeah, I have a lot of concerns. This is big sell high up quote unquote-unquote high opportunity for me. I do like Fields' schedule. Washington, Minnesota, Raiders, and Chargers, pretty favorable for a quarterback. But he's just a difficult... He just usually doesn't throw this much.

He, we hope, would run a little bit more for his fantasy value. It would not be good for Moore. Anything you want to add, Jacob? No, I'm honestly having a hard time keeping up with the conversation because I look at the YouTube comment section, the live chat, just to like see if there's any interesting questions or anything. And like, it's totally devolved into people making jokes about the kind of person that

Dan is. And it's just, it's too much fun. It's honestly so distracting that I had to close YouTube. Yeah, I think what you said makes sense, Dan. I think it was the perfect setup and I would be down to sell either of them if we can get a good price for them. Look at this. Dan looks like the type of guy to put his fantasy accolades on his Tinder profile. That's so bad.

All right, let's go to the next one here from TheDynastyDeegan. What do we make of the Houston passing game? How good is Stroud's start? Can we go back to Tank Dell? Is Nico for real? Can we stream Robert Woods? So we've already touched on this a little bit. I honestly didn't really think this was the best CJ Stroud game. Lowest completion percentage by far of his season, 16 for 30. And I think Nico Collins really did a lot of the heavy lifting for Stroud, but hey,

that's not, I mean, that's part of part of the appeal right Collins and Dell can make some plays after the catch but it did shock me to see Dolphins one Texans two at yak per catch yards after catch on a per reception basis so they're doing a lot of good things after the catch which is certainly helping Stroud but I guess who's just buying into Stroud as a fantasy starter at quarterback? I don't know if I'm buying in as a fantasy starter for one quarterback leagues, but I think we're getting close.

I'm buying the offense as a whole. I really like what we've seen from Bobby Sloak. And you keep bringing up that point, how they parallel the Dolphins. And that's the same tree. That's the same coaching tree. And we've seen it have success at pretty much every stop along the way to this point.

And so like, I think it makes the most sense to kind of believe it. We've seen it for a month, continue to look good. And they have lots of different ways to beat you. And the offensive line is only to get better. Right. So I'm,

I'm pretty in. Yeah. And tank bell. Yeah. Tanks for real tanks targets fell a little bit, but his route involvement is right up there. I think he's still a huge part of this offense. Yeah. And Tank fell. Yeah, Tank's for real. Tank's targets fell a little bit, but his route involvement is right up there. I think he's still a huge part of this offense. Yeah.

I mean, you'd like to get to the point with these guys where they can have a bad game and we can not question it, which obviously we have to. It's four games into the year. But Nico had a terrible game in week three, and he came back and he was one of the best receivers in week four. Aldi's Tomatoes says, news versus noise. Elliott to play Tomatoes says, news versus noise,

Elliott to play more, Akers to play more, et cetera. How to sort when to actually be concerned, Dan? That's a good question. I think what we saw this week was a lot of the insider news didn't come true. We thought Zico Elliott would have a big role against his old team.

That didn't come true. Same thing with Akers. And there were a few others that I'm blanking on now that just didn't play out. I just think ultimately you shouldn't put too much credence into these insider notes because they're not coming from the team. They're not coming from the coaching staff. And so they're just coming from people who cover the team and they are not really seeing much at practice. To be honest, they only have a little, the only a little bit the media is exposed to every week

out of practice and you know, nothing that they could put out on twitter so i just don't read into any of it adam i follow things like jacob's advanced stats and the film and i go off of that yeah jaylen warren wasn't this week but it's like every other week we hear that jaylen warren's going to play more and by the way jaylen warren a lot of his carries several of his carries came in super super garbage time at the very end of the game but we keep seeing oh he's going to usurp Najee Harris and it just doesn't happen. Last one is from Blue Truth. Jacob Gibbs was right about Khalil Herbert this week.

What was his reasoning again and where do I get those data? So Herbert played way more. In the first three weeks, if he looked at neutral game scripts, when the score was within six points either way, he played like almost 70 percent of the snaps and so any was dominating the running back rush share as well and so it

was predicted to be a close game obviously the matchup is fantastic and so i just trusted the way we'd seen was that he's the start they really roshan most of his work had come in garbage time i get that from true media i don't do you guys know of anywhere you can look at splits specific to like when the game was close yeah you can go to sportsline and follow your articles every week you're going to be on the box score article where you go into all of this you have a dfs helper where you go into all of this and all of the data that you're curating and finding and doing a good job of sifting through is all on sportsline so that is where to find it you go to sportsline you type in j in Jacob's name and you find it there. And that's the best advice I can have because he's putting out incredible data there. You put some out on Twitter too. I would like you to hide

a little bit more and have people direct you to sports line. That's the businessman in me, but that's where you find it. And he's making, you know, you're putting out plays every week between beyond the box score and the DFS helper that I think will help people in season-long leagues too. Because if you read that DFS helper, that's also a big help for big, tough lineup decisions like decision that I know a lot of people had this week with Khalil Herbert. And when you're done, I want to talk a little bit

about Herbert as well from what I saw on tape. Well, let's talk about also how you value him going forward because I think it's very dangerous to really value anyone after a Broncos game right i mean this is as good as it gets so they get washington minnesota's actually seems to have a pretty decent run defense um you know we don't have to break down the schedule but this is the first even remotely good game i think that khalil herbert has had so how are we feeling about him going forward so that's the thing i mean like you watch khalil herbert on tape and it's amazing to me that he wouldn't have

this role every week because he's by far and away the best running back on this Bears roster. And I like Roshan Johnson. That doesn't mean I don't like him, but Khalil Herbert does an incredible job of just processing runs, pressing. Like this is my favorite thing about watching him on film that I don't see a lot with guys like ETN that bothers me. He does a great job of pressing vertical. Like for example, 835 and quarter two. And I bring up these examples in case people want to look at the tape and they have game pass 835 in the second quarter, he presses vertical to set

up the cut to get over the tackle. And he does that in so many ways, like 904, 901 in the fourth quarter, he's dead in the hole. He finds the cutback lane. He just does a great job of setting up his runs by pressing into one gap and then shooting into another gap and having the patience and the skinny. He's so skinny through holes. It's those short, choppier steps, very little wasted movement with his feet. I just think he's a really good runner. And then obviously the play, I believe it was 13-01 in the third quarter

where he finds the cutback lane and then runs for like 12 yards after contact through a pile that looks like he's just pushing forward such a low center of gravity and such excellent contact balance. And at the risk of confirming the bias of the person in the chat who earlier said that I look like the guy who would put one of my fantasy accolades in my Tinder profile. Well, I will go over one of my fantasy accolades because in April before the draft where Khalil Herbert was drafted in 2021, I said he was the best value running back in the entire class. And I wrote a dynasty article about him that anyone could find any off season. Me and Dave do scouting reports. And I said, this guy could have

immediate impact in redraft and is the guy you want dynasty. His film at Virginia was filthy looking good. He reminded me in some ways of Tiki Barber, the old giants running back and his ability to get in and out of his cut so smoothly with waste of movement and then have that low center of gravity and yards after contact upside. And he hit immediately in the NFL. And I think they just got to give him the role. They just got to trust him. And that's all they're like, if he's just on the field, he's going to score fantasy points. But like you said, Adam, he doesn't have the best schedule coming up. He's not going to face the Broncos run defense every week, which by the way, is second worst in defensive EPA. Yeah.

But, um, so that's the issue for Herbert from a fantasy standpoint, but I do think he's one of the most underrated backs in the NFL. He's very good. First in yards after contact per rush since the start of 2022, eighth and avoided tackle rate. Like that's,

I mean, it was just such a perfect storm for him here against Denver. I don't, we can't expect that every week. There are going to be weeks where he gets game scripted out, where they're playing from behind. They don't seem to like him that much on passing downs, and he drops a lot of passes.

But yeah, in games like this where they could keep it close, he's an RB2. All right. Thank you, guys. Appreciate your time. Just going to throw this up there because I always pick on Dan, but this is from Andrew. I can't get over how funny Dan is such good comedic timing. Thank you, Andrew.

This one, he watches a lot of TV. Yeah, he does. He has a laugh track in his head. Uh, and then from DC Valentine, I heard a plop,

Dan. Listen, it's been a long show. I drank a lot of water. Yeah. All right. Well, listen, I'll be a towering over Dan Schneier at MetLife stadium tonight. I have some plans to meet. Yeah. All right. Well, listen, I'll be towering over

Dan Schneier at MetLife Stadium tonight. I have some plans to meet up with some listeners, so I hope to do that. And we'll talk to you tomorrow with the waiver wire. Actually, we'll talk to you tonight at 730. Check out the live stream tonight to get you ready for the game and answer any questions you have. And waiver wire tomorrow morning. Thanks for watching this.