Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score! Deep Dive Into Week 1 (09/11 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: September 11, 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 We've got the advanced stats, film review, snap counts, coverage schemes and more from Week 1 that will provide some context to what we saw on Sunday. First, let's recap Cowboys-Giants (2:42) with our thoughts on Darren Waller, Jake Ferguson and the rest of the relevant players. We've also got news and notes (8:35) and advanced stats (13:10) on Puka Nacua, Luke Musgrave, Zay Flowers and more intriguing players from Week 1 ... We can learn a lot from snap counts, so we'll tell you what stood out (25:10). Kyren Williams played a lot more than Cam Akers. Christian Kirk and Kyle Pitts didn't play as much as we had hoped ... Dan gives us his film review (34:50) of the Ravens offense and their questionable offensive line, plus why Rachaad White had a bad game at Minnesota. Then we finish with Five Big Topics (46:40) and explain what went wrong for the Seahawks passing game ... 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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It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races! And he stays on his feet! He's just gotta go the distance! Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Welcome to Beyond the Boxscore. Advanced stats from simple people. We are fired up for our first edition here of the 2023 season,

recapping week one. You know, the Sunday night recap is a lot of fun. I very much enjoy that show. It's very emotional. It's raw. It's right after the games have ended. You know, you're mad about things. You're excited about things.

You get that. But this is the deeper dive, okay? You read the recaps. You look at the box scores a little bit closer. You get the advanced stats. You watch the tape or the film, whatever it's on these days. And you react to it and you get some more informed opinions, especially when you take a look at the snap counts and how that breaks down.

So we're excited for this and I hope you're all excited too. For those of you waiting on YouTube, thanks a lot for hanging around. We had some Schneier-related delays today. True. Sorry, I had to throw that in there. It's better than what you did, how you referred to Heath last night on the show. I did.

Yeah, I was mad about that. That's okay. That was out there for the world to consume. I'm a loser. Snap off. You know, I understand. Heath snaps me off too when he refers the giants he just the way he talks about daniel jones and the giants it's as if he didn't watch half of the other quarterbacks play football yesterday don't worry about him we have we

will recap the sunday night game that's the one game we didn't get to on sunday night show you heard dan jacob gibbs welcome to be on the box score jacob your creation it is so so good to be back we got a lot to talk about. Yeah, and if people are wondering why we're delayed, we have a question here from Albert. Was Dan's toilet clogged? Probably what it was. So yesterday was not a great fantasy day.

The quarterback struggled, got a little bit better later in the day. You know, there was a lot of bad weather yesterday, so there's that. There was also a lack of preseason involvement. We heard Nick Sirianni kind of lamenting not getting the Eagles in at all, the Eagles starters in during the preseason. So hopefully things pick up.

Before we get into all the advanced stats and the things to know, and basically a whole show about Puka Nakua, I have a feeling, because the first person I ever heard talk about Puka Nakua after the draft was Jacob Gibbs. We did an episode, and he was like, I really want to talk about Pukaunuku after the draft was Jacob Gibbs. We did an episode and he was like,

I really want to talk about Pukunuku. I'm thinking, what? Okay. Go ahead, man. We'll get into that. But Dallas 40 and the Giants nothing. And Dallas recorded seven sacks and pressured Daniel Jones on 68.2% of his dropbacks.

68.2% of his dropbacks he was pressured. The second highest pressure rate in week one was Green Bay at 56.3% against Justin Fields. All right, Dan, other than vomiting many, many times, what was your reaction to this embarrassment here? But from a fantasy standpoint, what did you see? From a fantasy standpoint, there is going to be a lot to be discussed if andrew thomas the giant star left tackle all pro left tackle who's going for an

mri today on his hamstring who by the way injured his hamstring on the first on that punt block or field goal block return for a touchdown they put him back into the game despite game film that i posted on twitter before this podcast adam that showed on the interception return for a touchdown, he gave it his all trying to fight over to make the tackle, basically couldn't move and fell to the ground and yet played another two quarters in a blowout loss, which by the way, I have a lot of qualms with coach Brian Dable about doing that. But if that injury got worse by playing, playing through it, and this MRI comes back bad for the Giants, this to me will be an exact replica of what we saw with the Chargers and Justin Herbert last year.

What was that? It was an offense that while everyone blames Joe Lombardi for, the reality of the situation was if you can't trust your pass redaction, you cannot run a traditional drop back offense. That leads to things like play action, roll out, bootleg, run the ball. And in that spot, I will downgrade the entire Giants offense and passing attack. I become very worried about Darren Waller. I become very worried about anyone breaking on the passing game. I become very worried about Daniel Jones.

Because if you can't pass protect, and last night the Giants could not pass protect with Andrew Thomas on the field, they are going to be in a much worse situation without him. Things will get really dire. So that is my main takeaway for fantasy. Follow the Andrew Thomas news at left tackle. It's going to be really bad for the giants this year. Unfortunately, now not every D line will be the Cowboys Cowboys D line. Look, made them look like a Super Bowl contender last night, Adam. They really did. That's not going to be every week, but regardless, the chargers just went through this last year. We saw what it did to their fantasy offense. And I know what it can do if the Giants lose their star left tackle.

So my main concern right now is the pass production and the injury to Andrew Thomas. Okay. I was also a little concerned about Tua yesterday because he didn't have Teron Armstead. And we saw in 2022, he was terrible without Teron Armstead. And he was the best player in fantasy, basically, yesterday. But you're right. I mean, they just don't have a good offensive line without Andrew Thomas.

Waller, though, I mean, Waller's stat line, not good, but he didn't play, basically. He played five snaps in the second half. So Waller was the only Giant that had more than seven receiving yards in the first half. He and Barkley were the only ones who had any receiving yards. And Waller had three for 36 on five targets in a half, basically, in which the Giants just, you know,

played the worst game they could possibly play. So, you know, if you're sitting there concerned about Darren Waller, and that's actually one of the questions we have. We have five big topics today. We'll talk about tight ends. Really wasn't that bad of a game. He was super involved, led the team in routes and targets in the first half by a mile in targets. So I think that's exactly what you wanted to see. It just was

obviously an awful game. On the flip side, Jacob, what are your Cowboys impressions? Anything from Dallas? The one thing I know in Dallas is I love to see Tony Pollard with a 67% route involvement rate. That's a percentage of the team's dropbacks that he ran a route on. That's exactly what his rate was in previous games without Ezekiel Elliott that we had seen. And so this offseason, I read about which running backs could get to 85 or more targets. That's five targets per game.

And the reason I use that benchmark is that has led to RB1 upside. That's kind of like been needed for true RB1 upside. And... Are you saying the number one running back the number one running back in fantasy and i think pollard absolutely can get that and just to see him right away filling that role is really exciting there are a lot of things here i'm brandon cooks had a bad game but we'll wait and see very few pass attempts right 24 pass attempts

for dac 143 yards but jake ferguson jake. Jake Ferguson had seven targets. He had every red zone target for the Cowboys. Four. He had the only end zone target for the Cowboys. That's all great news. Bad news is he played pretty badly. He had two drops. But I don't think you should just drop Jake Ferguson

because he filled that Dallas tight end role. He didn't do a great job, but he filled the role. The role is there. That do a great job, but he filled the role. The role is there. That is a good sign, at least in week one. So something to keep in mind. I think he joined the crew, Adam. Did a great job this offseason just breaking down how valuable that role is,

the Cowboys tight end in a Dak Prescott offense. So I think you follow what you just talked about and what Jacob just talked about. The targets, the volume, more so than the drops because the drops will come and go. So I think he is definitely someone on the tight end, one radar rest of season. And for what it's worth on Ferguson, his per route data last year on a decent amount of routes was better than anything we've seen from Dalton Schultz.

Like it was significantly better than Schultz as a rookie. And then Schultz didn't get to the same yard per run that Ferguson had last year as a rookie until his fourth year in Dallas. So I think it was definitely upside there. All right, that is the Giants and the Cowboys, or really just the Cowboys. 40-0, they win, and their DST changed a lot of fantasy games last night,

that's for sure. Tonight, 7.30 p.m. Eastern, join us live, youtube.com slash fantasyfootball today for a little bit of a live stream, chatting, whatever you want to talk about. Whatever's on your mind. If you have start-sit questions for Monday night, great. If you have waiver-wire questions, great. Whatever you want to talk about, join us live at 7.30 until about 8.10, 8.15,

a little bit before kickoff, youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday. Let's take a look at the news and notes. J.K. Dobbins, of course, tore his Achilles. We talked about it yesterday. Do you guys have any strong feelings about Gus Edwards versus Justice Hill or maybe taking a shot on Kareem Hunt or Leonard Fournette or Melvin Gordon or something like that? My my feelings on this and we're going to get to this when we have our section about breaking down the tape on Lamar Jackson, the Baltimore offense, Raven Baltimore Ravens

offense. This is and I'll get to more of this later. The worst Ravens offensive line I've seen in my entire lifetime since I started watching football in 2000. And that was when I really got into it. I thought that both, and this, I compare it to the film I watched last year. Cause we did a JK Dobbin segment on beyond the box score at the end of last season, once he came back and there were good holes. And I think part of the issue is you go away from Greg Roman, who had his issues calling pass plays as an offensive coordinator, but really designed the run incredibly well for the Ravens over the last several years, you have Todd Monk and a new offensive coordinator. Didn't see much diversity in the run game. And also there wasn't many good one-on-one blocks either. And they did

have major injuries in this game. Ronnie Staley left this game with a knee injury, did not return. That's their left tackle. They're starting center, Tyra Linderbaum. These are two of their best, if not best, offensive linemen. Left the game with an ankle injury, did not return. So we'll talk a little bit more about this because it was worse in pass production than the run game. But I did feel like there was the worst blocking I've seen and the worst play from the Ravens' offensive line

in a single game since I can remember watching this team. And those two guys, they did play, Stanley and Linderbaum. They played most of the game. Stanley played 80%. Linderbaum played over 90%, so it's not like they were hurt the whole game. The Texans had the 12th highest pressure rate. It actually was a strength of the Texans last year.

They were pretty good at pressuring the quarterback. All right, but do you want to pick up? Guess Edwards or Justice Hill or someone else? As far as fantasy goes, I'm going to be looking to pick up Edwards. I feel like Edwards took the first two drives after the Tobbins injury, which stands out to me. Also, he did make a couple interesting runs where he was really decisive, got through the hole, picked up his 4-6, And I think that's something they'll probably be looking for.

So Edwards would be my early lead. Jacob, who's the running back that you want to add right now? I would assume Kenneth Gainwell would be number one. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we have Edwards. We have Kyron Williams. We have Roshan Johnson, maybe in some leagues. Who's the running back you'd want to add? Gainwell is clearly the guy. Honestly, it was kind of a disappointing week for running backs. Normally, we have at least one or two guys to stand on week one, but no one really is that exciting to me.

Roshan I like as a prospect, and I think he's the only one in Chicago's backfield who has the chance to potentially fill a three-down kind of role because he can play on passing downs. He's somebody who I drafted some in deeper leagues, so I think he's worth a speculative ad because he had a good week one. Let's do trivia. Gus Edwards has played 53 games in his career. How many catches does he have?

53. Nine. I think it's single digits. 18. More news items for you here. Deontay Johnson, we know that. I don't know anything new. Deontay Johnson, we know that. I'll just try to... I don't know anything new on Deontay Johnson.

Pittsburgh had a rough day. Not only did they get their butts kicked, they lost Deontay Johnson, Cameron Hayward, and Chouk Okorafor, who's their right tackle. He's in the concussion protocol. Anthony Richardson said he actually hurt his knee in the first quarter when he hit it on the turf, and then he left in the final minute protocol. Anthony Richardson said he actually hurt his knee in the first quarter when he hit it on the turf, and then he left in the final

minute a yard away from the end zone, and Gardner Minshew could not get them in. Greg Dulcich, leg. Aaron Jones said he felt, I think he said he felt a pinch in his hamstring. He doesn't seem too concerned. Jacoby Myers, concussion. Yeah, Baltimore, in addition to losing two offensive linemen

and J.K. Dobbins starting safety, Marcus Williams left in the second quarter. What is it with the Ravens and injuries? Oh, more offensive lines. Actually, both Seattle offensive tackles left with injuries. They are at Detroit. Aiden Hutchinson could have a field day in week two. Did you mention Jack Conklin?

Conklin is out for the season. Right tackle for the Browns. That's tough. ACL and MCL. Pat Frymouth got hurt too. I haven't heard anything. He came back. Did he come back? Yeah, he came back. Minnesota lost starting center Garrett Bradbury in the second quarter. He missed five games last year.

The Patriots had a lot of trouble running the football. They faced a talented defensive front. Their rookie first-round pick, Jalen Carter, led the team with six pressures, by the way. Saw that on ESPN for the Eagles. But the Patriots were playing without both of their starting guards. They were inactive in that game.

Let's get to some snap counts. Actually, you know what? Jacob's been waiting long enough. Let's get to some advanced stats. What do you got what? Jacob's been waiting long enough. Let's get to some advanced stats. What do you got on the advanced stats front that really jumps out from week one? So Darren Waller we mentioned. Actually, no, we'll get to him

in the actual question. Puka Nakua, we got to start there. You brought up that episode we did on Beyond the Boxport this summer where we talked about Puka and I want to bring up Luke Musgrave as well. Both those guys have had strong cams, looked really good in week one and both of them were featured in that episode dan brought up luke musgrave that was back in like early may or something so nakua had 15 targets um

and the reason that that is really important outside of the result is that he had the highest target per route run rate um career target per route run rate at the college level of any prospect coming in to this year's draft and of wider series prospects over the past five years his career yard per route run rate is higher than anyone other than jaylen waddle so he legit might be really good he just had a disjointed career due to injuries and other things i think that's why he fell to the fifth round but they've loved him this has been a steady drumbeat all summer that has been leading up to this i really don't think it's a fluke um and then the other guy to mention is tutu atwell played really well in that game too and everybody loves to write off tutu if you look at tutu's career numbers at this point he's averaging almost two yards per route run on over 200 routes

and so i think he's also interesting i think one of those two guys is going to win the flanker spot it's whoever stafford's going to trust more and they're definitely going to draw targets over van jefferson i think they could draw targets over tyler higby that's what we saw in week one so i think even when cooper cup is back stafford looked really good great yeah i wouldn't be surprised i didn't the pff grades aren't out but i wouldn't be surprised if he's one of the top you know three quarterbacks epa per drop back i think it was two and number one and stafford number two i think i saw this morning on true media he was great yeah um nico collins is another guy that we have to bring up i i love nico he's another guy where the per route data is really important because he's had a disjointed career at the nfl level um but when he's been on the field he's shown real progress

over the last few years and that carried over into week one 11 targets 158 air yards 61 of houston's air yards he's the clear coat wide receiver one in an offense that's going to be playing from behind a lot and i really thought they would lean on the ground game here and just kind of handle cj stroud with the kid gloves but cj stroud dropped back past 52 times that's the second most of any quarterback in week one so if we see anything like this going forward i think part of that is you don't want to run against baltimore but like man that there's just like massive massive upside for nico collins if this role is replicable in terms of the dropbacks i want to talk a little

bit about puka nakua adam if i can just because that's a player who I got a chance to watch on film. Obviously, Jacob discussed him. And I really want to give you credit, first of all, Jacob, for bringing him up on that May show that we discussed because he was not someone who was on my radar. I didn't get a chance to watch any pre-draft film on him. And then I started to watch him a little bit more after that episode. And then in this game against the Seattle Seahawks' first game, I got to say, I think he could be real. I think this could be the, I think this could legitimately be the free agent pickup of week one and potentially the year. I was incredibly surprised. The two reps that stand out the most, I want to bring up both happen at the end of the game in the fourth quarter. The first one was, was seven 50 in quarter four. And this is just for anyone who does buy NFL game pass and does have a chance to watch the tape and maybe wants to go back and watch the route I'm talking about at 750 in the fourth quarter. It was a corner route that he ran and the hand fighting through contact at first through the contact point and then the ability to extend away from his frame, make the

catch near the sideline, tap the toes in and get in. That was a really good play, but I was even more impressed by a play a couple of plays later with 507 left in the fourth quarter where he just had a rant, ran a vertical route and immediately one off the line of scrimmage with a really incredible release. I'm looking for releases off the line of scrimmage when I'm watching vertical routes or receivers, because the receivers who are the best in the NFL to me are the ones who can create that separation off the line of scrimmage, just using their just using their head fakes just not letting the corners who by the way in this specific rep i'm referring to the corner had press man coverage not get that jam and he stacked the receiver got two to three steps you guys might remember this one it was down the left sideline yeah it was just overthrown for

matt staff it was like that was like a 40 yard touchdown or something it's a 40 yard touchdown other to add to his already incredible stat line and And it was against Tariq Woolen, their best corner. And it was against Tariq Woolen. Exactly, Adam, who was a great corner last year. Great point as well. So a lot of what he did in this game was kind of just beat these cover six looks, a lot of deep digs. And that was kind of just, in my opinion, Sean McVay taking advantage of the opposing defensive coordinator's game plan and really doing a great job there. But those two routes specifically looked like really good routes. And he also had a really nice post-catch move to get 16 yards on a third down early in the game. One of his only slot snaps, he played most of his snaps on the boundary. I don't know if people expect him to

be a slot receiver, but I like the fact that he won on the boundary because that means once Cooper cup does return to the field, there's still a big role for him here. And I got to say this last part, I was stunned. I was absolutely stunned at how well the Rams offensive line played in this game because all off season, we heard this is going to be one of the worst offensive lines, the NFL, they have to trade with the Steelers to get somebody on their roster at the end of camp. And last year we had a similar, and I'm not saying this is going to be the same thing. It's only week one. It's only one game, but I was a little bit thinking this was a tough matchup against the Seahawks. They have a solid D line,

but all last year we said, let's not buy into any Raiders. This O-line is going to be so bad for the Raiders. We can't do Josh Jacobs. We can't do Adams. The O-line is going to be so bad, and it just turned out to not matter last year. The scheme was good enough.

The O-line was better than expected. I wonder if the Rams are going to be in a similar situation this year with Stafford looking this good already. And honestly, just the whole line blocked better than I could have ever expected. I thought it would derail the entire game. It did not. So these are things that I'm looking at in week one. I was incredibly impressed with Akua and honestly, in the leagues that he's not in, I will be spending a, I shouldn't say this on the show. Cause a lot of people listen to this show that are in my leagues, but I will be allocating a nice chunk toward him in free agent tomorrow night. Yeah, I will too.

I only have one concern, and maybe I shouldn't be concerned because Seattle, I think they gave up the third fewest fantasy points to the wide receivers last year. They were terrific, and they did not have Devin Witherspoon, their first-round pick in this game. And they didn't have Jamal Adams either, but they didn't have those guys last year. But, I mean, look at the schedule. We got San Francisco this week. We got Cincinnati after that.

I think they're going to be good on defense, but can't really tell from week one. Indianapolis, okay, that's a good matchup. Philadelphia, Arizona's good. Pittsburgh, Dallas, Green Bay, then a bye. It's not great but i think you just have to you can't be concerned about it i mean mcveigh can scheme these guys open he can get open so easily niku is a great route runner as dan already detailed so he's great

with the ball in a sense too he had like 250 yards and five rushing touchdowns in his last season like yeah he's really really good that route on the third down, Jacob, he had a really good post-catch move to create another nine yards. I want to hit on a few tight ends quickly. Yeah. Luke Musgrave, 80% route involvement, had more air yards than any tight end. He had an 18-yard average depth of target,

and he could have had two touchdowns easily. He's legit. All the hype that we've seen in terms of the role he's going to play is real. Let's pump the brakes a little bit no christian watson and romeo dobbs played fewer than half the snaps so i could see him having a low target rate but i'm just saying he's out there on the field 80 of the time running routes that's huge okay durham smith you want to talk about people running a ton of routes great offense 90 round involvement rate adam don't don't realize that seven targets in the first half I think he's somebody

for deeper leagues and then the last one Dolphins tight end Durham Smythe go ahead you can roll your eyes at this one everyone does Chig Okonkwo 75% round involvement rate is way way better than what we saw last year he didn't do a touchdown but Ryan Tannehill made the worst throw I've seen in the week

he had no one clean his pocket I've ever seen did you see his throw to Tajay Spears? That was just as bad. Is he shot? I don't know. Is he shot? Yeah, that's one of the biggest questions. Like I said, the PFF grades,

I wouldn't be surprised if he's the lowest graded quarterback. He was so bad. Yeah, it was bad. But I'm just excited to see him out there because he really, playing time, is the only issue for Oconquo last year. Yeah, good stuff. I mean, Burks played a ton.

Oconquo played a ton. Neither of them did anything. Tannehill was horrible. But Tannehill was bad, no matter who they played. But the Saints, second half of the year, they basically had the best defense in football. Fewest yards per play. I think second fewest points per game.

They didn't have such hard competition but they were really good uh quick yeah quick calvin really said yeah yeah 36 first read rate so he was the first read for trevor lawrence 36 of the time which would have ranked third last year this is per fantasy points suite data suite and this is also per the data suite last year trevor lawrence threw to his first rate at the highest rate of any quarterback in the NFL. And I think he's really just really going to be locked into Calvin Ridley. I had a bold take and it was backed by data that really could be the wide

receiver one, like the wide receiver one in fantasy this year. And it's, it makes sense with the amount of routes and targets that are going to be produced in that offense. And if Lawrence is just locked in them him like we saw in week one, I think it's full send. I think he's like a top five fantasy receiver.

Wow. I'll just go through a few advanced stats quickly, and then Dan, you can take over if you have any. Justin Fields averaged a career low 4.1 intended air yards per pass attempt. This guy used to throw the ball downfield a lot. Didn't do it in this game. That was per ESPN. Your target per route

run rate leaders with a minimum of 25 routes in week one were Tyreek Hill and Pukanukua. Tied for first. DeAndre Hopkins, Zay Flowers,

and Calvin Ridley. Flowers had a 2.8 yard average depth of target for what it's worth. Those are... Wow. ...Ronsal Moore kind of targets. I have a lot of thoughts.

I watched the entire Ravens offense. He's terrific. Isn't he terrific? Oh, my God. He's worth. Those are... Wow. Ronson Moore kind of targets. I have a lot of thoughts. I watched the entire... He's terrific. Isn't he terrific? Oh, my God. He's cool. Jaw-dropping player. I just... I hate that I don't have any Zay Flowers.

And the five worst quarterback EPAs per dropback... Or, yeah, expected points added per dropback were Joe Burrow, Daniel Jones, Kenny Pickett, Ryan Tannehill,

and Josh Dobbs. And those quarterbacks, those quarterbacks, at least the first four, I don't know about Dobbs. They were under pressure a lot. Um, all right.

Anything, Dan, or should we take a break? No, we can move on. All right. Let's take a break. We got five big questions to get to.

There'll be at the end of the show. Cause I want Dan and Jacob to give all the stats and film review that they want, but we'll talk about tight end position after week one, which of course didn't feature the two best tight ends in fantasy. The Rams running backs, great wide receivers on bad offenses,

the Seahawks offense, and why we should even bother playing fantasy football anymore. We will be right back. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years,

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It's having the spend that powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days and the ability to reach further with access to over 1400 airport lounges worldwide redefine possible with business platinum that's the powerful backing of american express terms and conditions. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Well, at least people aren't overreacting after week one, right? Let's get to some snap count stuff. Zach Charbonnet only played 24% of the snaps. Ken Walker led the team in third down snaps as well.

But, you know, would it be surprising to see Charbonnet play more in week two? No. And Ken Walker was not the two-minute drill guy, so that's worth noting. Kyron Williams played two-thirds of the snaps. Cam Akers played 35%. Wow. Williams played 14 third-down snaps compared to three for Akers.

I just don't know, guys, how you could even look at that backfield right now and say that Kyron Williams isn't ahead of Cam Akers. It could be one of those things that flips next week, and maybe there was a reason for it, and it's a fool you. We have seen that before. I remember a few years ago, Daryl Henderson and Malcolm Brown and Cam Akers as a rookie, I think, and we couldn't figure it out.

But gosh, week one is a knockout win for Kyron Williams, Jacob. What do you think? Yeah, for sure. 10% route involvement rate for Cam Akers, 74% for Kyron Williams, Jacob. What do you think? Yeah, for sure. 10% route involvement rate for K-Makers, 74% for Kyron Williams. Williams got more carries from inside the 10. There's no way around it. Like, everything looks better for him.

And K-Makers, that's tough. I don't know. Like, he was somebody I was pretty much all the way out on, and I just don't see... I don't know. He's barely rosterable, in my opinion. Obviously, you have to hold on him and hope for more, but that's about as bad as it gets.

Okay. Zero in my rosters as well, Jacob. We were on the same page there. Yeah, same actually. Easy fade. Maybe one, but if it happened, it was reluctantly. Kyron Williams, 11% rostered, will certainly be added in many leagues.

Kyle Pitts played only 62% of the snaps. But 90% round involvement right yeah i don't we can just give up on him that's fine but that freaking offense man like they won the game 24 to 10 and that is like the worst thing that could have happened if you have kyle pitts and drake lund on your fantasy teams because now you know arthur smith's like well look it worked he loves it He loves it so much. Drake wanted to play 90% of the snaps and didn't catch a pass. What did he have? One target?

One target. Come on. He threw 18 passes. They're going to play Green Bay, Detroit, and Jacksonville in their next three games. I really hope that they can't throw 18 passes. I hope it's more like 30. But also, Ritter was bad. I didn't watch all of that,

but I was reading about it today in one of the Atlanta papers, and he just was apparently just bad or not good at all. Tank Dell played only 48% of the snaps. That was fourth most among Houston receivers. You know, can be patient there. But Damian Pierce played only 45%

of the snaps. Mike Boone was the third down guy. Boone played 11 third downs. I mean, Mike Boone, wow,

that's a surprise. I came off Pierce at the very end of the draft cycle when I did a little research and looked into the injuries on the Texas offensive line. Last year,

they made a big trade up to get Canyon Green, the offensive lineman. He got injured for the year and then multiple of their injuries came across that line. Last year, they made a big trade up to get Kenyon Green, the offensive lineman. He got injured for the year. And then multiple other injuries came across that line. They ended up starting four random guys that they weren't expecting to for the first game of that season. That offensive line could be an epic disaster for the entire season,

given the situation and the fact that you cannot find offensive linemen across the NFL at this point. Like Giants fans, some of you are coming to me today. What are we going to do? Let's trade for an offensive line, trade for an offensive lineman. What do you think? Teams just have backup offensive linemen. They can afford to trade you. You're done. You don't have an offensive lineman. Now you're done. There are no free agents. There's no trade options. And that Texans offensive line scares the hell out of me. So I went off of Pierce

at the very end of draft season for that reason. And I don't know, I know you love him from a talent standpoint, Jacob, and I do too. And there's some great stats from last year, but I'm very, very nervous about that situation. Me too. Yeah. No, the line definitely scared the crap out of me as we're getting closer and closer to the season. And then to see him come out and only play 47% of snaps, not get passing downs. That's definitely concerning. Yeah. but again, like you said, you don't run on the Ravens. Once they got Roquan Smith last year, they were just impenetrable, basically.

And I think I said if there was one probably start player that I was most nervous about in week one, it was Damian Pierce, and I wanted to get away from him. So it's just kind of the worst possible thing. The fact that he's not the third down back in week one is troubling, but we'll see if anything changes. Rashad Bateman played 34% of the snaps.

Beckham and Flowers played most of the snaps. Christian Kirk only played 60% of the snaps. I was surprised by that. I've got a list of all the receivers who came off of the field when their offense ran two receiver sets. Do you want to hear the fantasy reality of the guys? So Kirk and Bateman you just mentioned i kirk that's what we saw in the preseason this is how they ran the offense zay jones was on the outside kirk came off the field

when they went to two receiver set so i'm a little bit worried about that bateman i think we could see him take some obj's role as the year goes on i think they may be eased them in but the other guys um jackson smith and jigba came off the field jayden reed for the packers jordan addison came off the field in two receiver sets. Josh Downs, he actually drew a lot of targets, but yeah, he only played in three receiver sets. Curtis Samuel, of course. Trey Palmer.

Elijah Moore. Rondell Moore. Elijah Moore led the team in routes, but I think that had a lot to do with Amari Cooper getting banged up. He did come off the field in two receiver sets. And then, yeah, Tutu Atwell is the last one. So that's two receiver sets, right? Well, the thing about Kirk is

it's not like he played a lot more in the slot in week one than he did last year. I think it was like 71% slot rate in week one and 67% in 2022. So I figured if he came off the field in two receiver sets this year, he probably did last year, too, to Marvin Jones and Zay Jones.

That was just my guess. But he played, you know, mostly 85%, 90% of the snaps per game last year. So I was just confused. And then as far as the two-receiver sets go, are those typically running plays anyway and don't really matter, Jacob? Well, you get a lot of play-action throws, which are really, really efficient from those sets. And Kirk, he played more than Marvin Jones

from two receiver sets, if I remember correctly. I'm pretty sure I dug into it this offseason. All right, yeah. KJ Osborne played ahead of Addison in the two receiver sets. I mean, Osborne played 91%, Addison 56%. But that's the kind of thing you could see that changing fairly early in the season.

Yeah, for sure. Addison was really, really good when he was on the field, for what it was worth. He demanded like 30% of. Yeah, for sure. Addison was really, really good when he was on the field for what it was worth. He demanded like 30% of the targets, I think. 21% target share, 36% area to share when he was on the field. Rashad White and James Conner

are basically every down backs. Are they good? Are they on good offenses? You know, these are questions, but it's something to think about. I mean, these guys really don't come off the field much. I watch the Bucs offense too for the run game,

so we can get to that a little bit later. All right, we will get to that. Last few things here. All three Bears running backs played 21 to 29 snaps. Rashawn Johnson, I think, had really a lot of the garbage time stuff. Raheem Moser played 30 more snaps than Savan Ahmed. And Javante Williams and Samajay Piran

played the same amount of snaps and had pretty similar stat lines. But Williams had five more carries. And Kendrick Bourne played 91% of the snaps and Juju played 54% of the snaps. Was he one of the guys who came off the field, Jacob? Juju? Juju.

He just barely played in the second half. I don't know. They said that it's like situational and maybe that they just wanted other guys who were more vertical threats when they were trying to catch up but yeah he i'm worried about his health let's get some film study from uh from our librarian dan schneier breaking down the film with the projector you gotta go in the stacks in the library stacks library stacks oh man they're just just hearing that word stacks reminds me of college when i used to grind out like 10 hours of study before

a final after i barely went to class that oops i didn't mean to say that on air but i'm sorry i actually would hate it if you did what i'm about to do to you if you did to me so you're not allowed to do it but i'm i'm sorry if i if i reminded you of wisconsin because they oh no no really bad this weekend bring that up they didn't play really bad they are completely screwed they did get screwed yeah they did game and it reminds every wisconsin fan of that other pack 12 game from a couple years ago where the refs admittedly made one of the worst mistakes in the history of reffing and And I just disgusted with Pac-12. Yeah, reffing.

Disgusted with Pac-12. I'm officiating. Disgusted with Pac-12 refs. They don't belong in the... Get rid of it. Get rid of the Pac-12. Get rid of those refs. Was it Pac-12 refs for a Pac-12 home game?

It's never like that. It's usually a different conference. I don't know who that is reffing these Pac-12 games. I don't think it was. It's disasters that go down in every Pac-12 game I watch. And I'm sick of it. And anyway, let's get back to the show. Film review. Film review. What do you got? Review. I'm going to start with the Lamar Jackson Ravens offense. Cause we did with, yeah, that was one we really wanted to pinpoint Adam. So some things I noticed from the, the Ravens offense, a lot of pre-snap motion and misdirection out of 11

personnel from the shotgun. So that's the first thing that we're going to see. That's different from the Greg Roman days in Todd Munkin's offense. And this was something that worked really well for teams like the giants last year when Mike Cap, uh, Capcom, Brian Dable introduced it. It did not work well in this game. In my mind, a couple of times they were able to get flowers going with this and we'll talk about some of that, but I think the issue was the Texans were really uber prepared for what they were going to do for what Monkham was going to do, which is surprising considering he didn't really have much film. And this is all first half, by the way, I'll talk about how different things were in the second half versus the first half. But I want to say this, D'Amico Ryan's, the new head coach of the

Texans is insanely underrated as a defensive schemer and coordinator. I know people know him as good, but he's taking over this Texans defense. And I think there is going to be a big situation here where people are just not realizing how good this Texans defense could be this year because of Ryans alone. There was pressure. One of the key takeaways from this game, watching it on tape, there was pressure in Lamar Jackson's face on a consistent basis. I don't know if the stats bear this out, Jacob and Adam, but on film and it was less so in the second half, but on film in the first half, it was a disaster. I talked about earlier how there were injuries to Ronnie Staley and Linderbaum. Yes, they played most of the game, but they didn't look that good. Even when they played, um, a few interesting things to bring out early, a lot of

bubble screens in this offense to the wide receivers specifically Zay Flowers just get the ball out fast to him on the on their outside hope the blocking can come I felt like the biggest issue in this game for me Adam was a lot of the route combinations from Todd Munkin were just not creating much separation at or at all early on like yes there was some pressure but also lamar jackson dropping back and there was not much separation whatsoever which was surprising to me given the upgrades they've made at wide receiver i thought the first interception to zay flowers was a horrific uh decision by lamar jackson say flowers ran a third on third and six he ran a crosser jackson was incredibly late with the ball it has to come out way in front of the receiver instead he threw it behind him.

Terrible throw right there. Jackson, at least in the first half to me, did not look comfortable within the new system, which is to be expected. Yeah, and no Mark Andrews, right? No Mark Andrews hurts as well. But things started to get a little better. Just for those following along, in the first quarter with 139, if you want to check it out on Game Pass,

Lamar Jackson had a really nice hole shot on a third and five to uh zay flowers that means in between the coverage he looked off the safety on the right um this is the type of stuff i expect to happen more as he gets more comfortable but there were also some really exotic pass brush looks from domico ryan's and the texans they ran a cover zero on a third and long that crushed lamar jackson the pressure was just constantly getting there a lot a few more cover zero looks i saw thing. I also want to point out though, about this game. And this was, I put it up on Twitter for those who want to check it out. I want to see the film on this. There was a route on, let me see what it was. I don't remember the down and distance.

There was a Zay Flowers pivot route that he ran. And just for those who don't know, a pivot route is when the wide receiver runs kind of what looks like a drag route underneath and then pivots and breaks back toward the outside. The amount of separation that he created on this pivot route from the corner and then for him to catch it and the ability to turn upfield so smoothly. And so, and this was the type of stuff you saw. If you watch his Boston college film, he was my favorite receiver to watch in this draft class. I thought Jackson was the best receiver, but he was my favorite to watch. It was explosive. It was exciting. He created another 15 yards of separation. That's the type of stuff that you look at and you say, Zay Flowers could be that rookie wide receiver who breaks out. But again,

my main takeaways here is Lamar looks a lot more comfortable in the second half. Wasn't as comfortable in the first half. I think they adjusted well to the blitzing and to the pressure that the Texans were doing with the Miko Rhynes. But there are definitely some kinks to be worked out here. And as I said earlier, Adam, this is the worst I've seen the Ravens offensive line look in a long time. And that does scare me a little bit. Okay. One final thing. One final thing.

And I put this one up on Twitter, too. Just like the Zay Flowers clip. If anyone wants to go check it out. There was a route that Odo Beckham ran at the end toward the end of the game. And I think you guys saw it. It was a big, long catch down the left sideline. Yep. That was vintage OBJ because the release he had on the line of scrimmage made it sold it completely to the cornerback. Like he was going to break toward the post and then he breaks back outside, stacks the corner perfectly to get on top of him, giving the corner no chance to make a play on the football and then extends fully for the football, brings in the catch.

That was what Odell Beckham looked like in his prime. I know people are wondering if he's back, if he's done, if he doesn't have anything left in his game, but he had it there. And I'm still a little bit pretty. I was excited about OBJ in the preseason. I remain excited about him now. Yeah, he only had three targets on 22 pass attempts, but he did draw two pass interference penalties. So that doesn't count, but they were productive plays for the Ravens.

I asked you to watch the running backs in the Minnesota-Tampa Bay game. They weren't really great. Madison scored, had a nice touchdown. I think it was a catch. But what did you think of Madison and Rashad White? So I may have misinterpreted you on this one, Adam. Oh, sorry. I thought you were thinking about just the Bucs running backs.

Oh, that's fine. We'll have to get back to the Minnesota running backs. But as far as the Bucs running backs go, here's my thoughts on what I saw from the Bucs running backs. There are two plays that I put up on Twitter as well. Second and four run with 35 seconds left in the first quarter, and then a third and four run right after that. On both of these runs, Rashad White processed them incredibly poorly.

On the first one, second and four with 35 seconds left in the first quarter, White simply needs to plant, get vertical, and get through the hole. It was blocked up really well. The Bucs executed an excellent double team up front, and then the other offensive lineman got to the second level, sealed off. He decided to bounce outside, and it turned into a gain of zero. This would have been a minimum of five if he just planted, got vertical through that crease.

Minimum of five. He could have broke it. If it's a good running back, could break that for a long one. Then on third and four, they run this outside run from shotgun. It's well blocked again, almost even better blocked, but white continues to flow vertically horizontally on this. Doesn't plant to get vertical when he has this wide open gap, he could easily plant and get vertical, pick up the first down.

Doesn't do it again. Very next drive. Watching them right now. Very next drive. Sean Tucker starts the, starts the next drive. I don't know what that means, but he has a really good run on that first drive he makes a defender miss who gets immediate penetration in the backfield just i feel like sean tucker just such a better job of using his feet to decisively move and one thing i saw on rashad white's tape coming out of college which really

bothered me i thought he was an interesting playmaker who could be good in the passing game, but I bought, I didn't like the way he ran. I thought he processed poorly. It was just this hesitation he has. I know it worked for Le'Veon Bell at one point. He's really the only running back I've seen make it work, but it seems like every time he gets the football behind the backfield, he's just hesitant. He's waiting, he's hesitant. And that split second often kills him. It often, the, you know, the crease in the hole, it closes up. You don't have that much time as a runner. You have to be decisive. You have to get vertical in a lot of these spots.

And also I just felt like his jump cuts, he had a few jump cuts in this game. They're just not smooth. It's smooth. He takes these massive jump cuts, Rashad white, and he loses a lot of time and ground when he does it. Um, so the blocking wasn't great. Like there were some runs where it just wasn't blocked up well for white, but there were a lot of good examples

also of situations where, you know, white missed a lot of yards. He didn't process the yards well. And it's again, it's not something I didn't expect coming into this game, but it's something that is happening. And I'm curious to see how long this leash is going to be for Rashad white because I'm not pressed at all. Yeah. That's concerning. I told you about the, uh, you know,

playing 80% of the snaps, but I don't think he's a buy low personally. He was really bad as a rusher last year. He was worse than Linda for net. Um, so that's definitely concerning. Really. The target upside is what can maybe save him for fantasy.

He was a really good receiving prospect. Um, and he drew targets at a higher rate than Fournette last year, and we know Fournette has had multiple seasons with 80-plus targets. So that's kind of the saving grace for White. But yeah, he struggled a lot as a rusher last year, and I thought maybe there was just going to be a learning curve for him because he didn't have a ton of college reps.

So to see him doing the same thing right out the gate is definitely a concern. Chris Towers on FFTN5 said that Rashad White's next gen stats were just awful in terms of, you know, he was like a minus something horrible in terms of the yards expected or what he should have gotten. I don't remember whatever the hell it was, but this is an advanced that show. So the one that I don't really know the name of, but is cool, said that Rashad White was really bad yesterday. So there you go. Most of them say that he was really bad.

Yeah. All right. I watched some Anthony Richardson film. I wanted to see it for myself because I'm so far so bad on my Anthony Richardson call. And I mean, through 37 passes, which I didn't know if he'd get to that in more than a handful of games. Can I say something real quick, Adam? I feel like you got backed into this strong stance on Anthony Richardson. A little bit.

You kind of made it like a joke at first, and you said your thing. At the point in time, I feel like it was like, everyone bring out a hot take. It was part of the segment, whatever we were on. And then they just barreled you into this feeling of like, I hate Anthony Richardson. I'm the harshest on him. So I don't think it's been the fairest thing, but go on.

No, I take responsibility for it. But look, he was, whereas C.J. Stroud, every time there was pressure on C.J. Stroud, he was running for his life trying to make something happen, and it didn't always work. Richardson did a great job just getting the ball out of his hands. He was very decisive, but everything was short. He threw two passes of 20 or more air yards, and they were barely 20 or more air yards.

He didn't throw downfield really once the entire game. He had one play that was a scramble where he threw it downfield like a prayer to one of the tight ends, Mo'Ally Cox. And then he had one to Michael Pittman that he overthrew. And I think the fact that he overthrew it was the only reason that it ended up being 20 air yards. It was like a 16-yard throw. But, you know, so there's that.

I mean, he didn't do anything. The game plan was extremely simple. He executed it pretty well, though. I was impressed. Fourth quarter was rough for him. It was by far his worst quarter. I don't know why he only had 25 rushing yards. No, he had 40, I guess, at the end.

But that's still kind of low for him. He needs more than that. Did he have a 42-yard rush come back? Because at one point, I looked and he had 70-something rushing yards, and then that got taken away. I don't know what happened. Yeah, I think he did, actually.

But 23 fantasy points in week one is outstanding. Gets a pretty tough test next week with Houston. It'll be a nice chess match. Surprisingly tough test, yeah. On Richardson, the big thing to me

is the pace with which they're playing. Indianapolis played at the fastest pace of any team in the preseason and that was really exciting but who knows what's going to translate week one they played at the second fastest pace the patriots played insanely fast i don't know if anybody else noted that but like 14.4 remaining seconds per play on the clock for the patriots is there any way jacob to determine if that was true in both halves the first like because i wonder if that was true in both halves the first?

Because I wonder if that's because they fell behind so quick. I can look into that. I do have situation neutral pace, and the Patriots were still by far the highest. The Colts actually dropped a little bit when the game was close. They were playing catch-up, and that raised that pace a little bit. That's the O'Brien thing. The other thing for you hit on, Adam, for Anthony Richardson,

5.8-yard average depth of target um just real quick here the lowest eight odds i put this in the chat for the youtube guys we've talked about several of these guys though 3.1 justin fields 3.5 desmond ritter we talked about a little bit earlier 50 of desmond ritter's past attempts went to the running back group right four for russell wilson 4.6 for lamar jackson 4.9 for Geno Smith, and then 5.8 for Anthony Richardson. Where was Jones? I feel like he was low last night. Daniel Jones, 6.

I mean, he's always low. No, that's not... Sorry, guys. He had more sacks than air yards per pass attempt. Seven sacks, six yards per pass attempt. Air yards. All right, we got to take a break. We have five minutes for five big topics.

We have actually covered a lot of them. But we'll end the show... Yeah, we did the Rams. Yeah, we did the Seahawks. We have five minutes for five big topics. We've actually covered a lot of them, but we'll end the show. Yeah, we did the Seahawks. We didn't do the Seahawks, actually. Oh, that was really interesting. I'd love to tell you what I noticed in the stats, Barrett, out for the Seahawks passing game and what the hell happened with them. So that's one of our last

topics. We'll be right back. Miller Lite. The light beer brewed for people who love the taste of beer and the perfect pairing for your game time. When Miller Lite set out to brew a light beer, they had to choose great taste or 90 calories per can. They chose both because they knew the best part of beer is the beer. Your game time tastes like Miller time.

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right. Jeff Warren says, how should we approach the tight end position when players like Waller and Goddard didn't get any targets, but didn't get the targets? Your top tight ends of week one were Hunter Henry. They all started with H. Hunter Henry, Hayden Hurston, HeJay Hawkinson,

and then Donald Parham, Evan Ingram, Blake Bell, Cole Komet. Only six tight ends caught a touchdown in week one. Dan, how should we approach the tight end position? I think similar to how we've approached it the past few years. It's becoming random, almost like kickers and defenses to some extent. When you look at it on a weekly basis, it's Kelsey or Buss to me still. Maybe Andrews can change that when he comes back. I think if, like I said, the situation

with, and look, Dallas Goddard will have his random good games. The situation with Waller continues. I don't know if I can trust Waller to be what I thought he was going to be preseason if Andrew Thomas is injured and that O-line is a disaster. Wait a second. Let's go to the Chargers. Let me give you Darren Waller's

first half rates here. 86% round involvement rate, 42% target share, 55% area yardage share. And he's not going to be a downfield guy. So if Andrew Thomas is hurt, he has a hamstring injury. It's not like he's out for the year like Slater was basically out for most of the year. So let's say he just misses a few

games. But even still, I think he can overcome it because he's going to have a fairly low ADOT and he's still going to be the number one target. It's going to hurt the offense if they lose maybe one of the best tackles in football. My thought behind it, Adam, is he's not. Keenan Allen was fine, you know?

Who? Keenan Allen was fine when he was healthy. Yeah, Keenan Allen's fine because you can just hit those quick slots. But my thought behind it is, like, I'm wondering from just an NFL, like, X's and O's standpoint, like, does the offense change so much where now you're just a run, run, run team that runs play action, bootleg, throw the ball, dump the down, like that type of thing?

Because I saw that a lot from the Chargers last year. I don't think they can do it, Dan. Their schedule, they're going to give up too many points. They're going to give up too many points, I think. Yeah, definitely a possibility as well. Listen, don't worry about the tight ends. You have your top two guys back next week, hopefully. I think Jacob and I

are encouraged by Waller. Goddard, Jacob, what's your thought on that? I'll tell you, there were only three games last year where all three of the top receivers for the Eagles, the two receivers in Goddard, all three of them had 50 or more yards in the same game. It happened only three times last year.

I talked about that math problem. It's going to show up sometimes like this, but Nick Sirianni was like, this can never happen again with Dallas Goddard. What are your thoughts, Jacob? Yeah, I think he's too good to not score more points than that. He ran 95% of the routes, which is the highest of any tight end in week one. So in your point per route run leagues, you did great. In actual actually, yeah, it sucked, but I think if you look at Dallas Goddard's per route data over his career, he's actually one of the best tight ends in the NFL right now. And it's going to be better than this. I think Jalen Hertz was rusty. Like you said, the first team offense didn't really play in the preseason. I

think it's going to get better. And I just want to read the quote from Sirianni. This reminds me a lot of last year against the lions. That was week one. Devontae Smith had no catches against the Lions last year. This year it was Dallas. We can't go a game without getting him the football. He's too good of a playmaker, but there are some things that the Patriots did that made it difficult for us to be able to get him some quick, easy touches. That happens, and so some of the plays that you think you can get easy touches for your guys quick don't necessarily happen for your backs and tight ends when you play a patriot style defense so again hats off to them all right let's go to the rams running back usage that's the second topic but i think we covered that guys yeah we did would you take would you just straight up take kyron williams over cam acres rest of season no there's more

upside with acres i think this what we saw last week was like the absolute best case outcome for karen um he's never been a good rusher he's not a good athlete um so i'm not excited about him i mostly just want to stay away from the situation entirely right same all right well if they're going to be better than we expected then maybe we shouldn't stay away from it entirely i mean i thought they were going to be dreadful it's been a terrible situation for running backs even when the rams have been good right In terms of expected fantasy points at the running back position. Unless they get back to the girly levels, but I don't know if they're back to that level. Oh, yeah.

It's how girly is different. This one's from Dan. What to do with great receivers on bad offenses? Now, calling them bad offenses is one thing. I think you're saying maybe bad passing games. Sure. He's saying Drake London, DJ Moore, and DeAndre Hopkins. They had very

different games, especially Hopkins, because he had a ton of targets. And he was shadowed by Marshawn Lattimore. Not shadowed, but he faced Lattimore a lot. Lattimore didn't really move around, but he was on Lattimore's side a lot. Lattimore had a great game. I would say he kicked Hopkins' ass, personally. But what do

you do with London, DJ Moore, and Hopkins, guys? I'm a little worried that Hopkins might be washed. I was a little worried about that going into the year, and I've heard that from real-life NFL people. And then he got the absolute best possible. He was the first read on 42% of Tennessee's targets. No one was higher in week one. 85% of his targets were catchable.

True Media had it at 100%. He got seven. No way. I disagree with that entirely. It's two different data providers both saying the same thing. I mean, he was blanketed on some of his throws and two of them were intercepted

because he was blanketed on them. Those count? They have to count. I mean, I don't... I watched that game film. He did not really get open that much. He got his stuff a few times, but I feel like that's not really what makes DeAndre Hopkins so special.

He's a contested catch guy. He did not make contested catches in this game. But I'm a little worried that the age is starting to show. I just haven't really watched enough Hopkins film to compare it. But I would say this. If you never watched a football game and you watched the film of Hopkins in week one, you

wouldn't really be impressed. Yeah. Moving on, what scares me a lot about the Drake London situation, he was a player I love. His talent is through the roof. He could be an actual breakout star wide receiver. Got all these Garrett Wilson hype, all that. If he had a good quarterback situation and if he had a good passing situation. But I just don't like if they're winning games, Atlanta, they're not going to change how they won these games.

And they're not winning these games by throwing the football. So I hope, I guess there will be situations where they need to throw, and then we can go back to London, but it's scary because at the end of the season, when Ritter came in London at a great target share, things were looking okay. It looked like he figured out at least a way to move the ball with his arm going to London, but that didn't happen this week. As Jacob mentioned, almost all, you know, hard, huge majority of the targets went to running backs which you know is what it is but i'm scared as hell from that situation as well um and then was the who was the last receiver the last one was dj more and i i didn't get a

chance to watch all of this but i do think he saw a pretty good share of of jair alexander in this game i'll try to google that and see if i can i'll say this about that situation well that may be true adam and jr alexander has obviously done a good job against justin jefferson in the past our last game though to be fair that was a lot of rolled coverage his way and a lot of actual using schematics to take him away less alexander in my personal opinion i'll say this adam i was not impressed and i haven't watched this whole game i watched like a quarter of it on tape and i have to watch it on tape and i saw obviously some highlights through red zone i was not impressed and I haven't watched this whole game. I watched like a quarter of it on tape and I have to watch it on tape. And I saw obviously some highlights through red zone. I was not impressed with the way Justin Fields moved that offense. I was not impressed with the

way Justin Fields processed back there, which has been an issue for him his entire career. And if Justin Fields is going to process as poorly as he did as a passer, I don't care that DJ Moore is the number one receiver. I don't care that things worked in training camp. I talked about this with Giants fans last night. Like you get this hype out of training camp. Training camp is padless practices against your own team. Preseason is not anything. These scrimmage that they have in the preseason, they're not worth real.

And they're not really worth 2% of what an actual game is worth. And so listen, if Justin Fields can't keep the offense on track in rhythm and he can't process the passing game, I am worried about DJ Moore and anyone who would be a receiver there. And it's not a DJ Moore issue. And it's not even like a targets in game one issue or who's guarding him. It's more of a Justin Fields issue. So I have to track that Adam, because I need to see improvement there from Justin Fields and a major jump at this point. I was extremely worried about DJ Moore. It's a Justin Fields issue and it's a math issue just with the number of dropbacks that they have that actually lead to targets in Chicago.

And week one was as bad as it could have been on both accounts. I wouldn't view him as a top 30 receiver going forward. Oh, wow. I had him at like 30 going into the year. If I did my rankings right now, I don't know if I'd have him as a top 30 receiver going forward. I think I had him at like 30 going into the year. If I did my rings right now, I don't know if I'd have him as a top 36 receiver. But he threw 37 passes, Justin Fields. Yeah.

And he produced like 112 air yards or something. And he was off target on 25% of them. But that was weird. Because he's been a pretty high air yards quarterback, right? He's not afraid to chuck it deep. So I'm hoping that that changes.

Look, I would buy low on DJ Moore, but I wouldn't expect him to be good every week. I don't think he's going to win you your league. In order for him to be Stefan Diggs going to the Bills or Cooper Cup getting Matthew Stafford, the quarterback's going to have to be great. I don't think you can be a league-winning wide receiver with Justin Fields

as your quarterback because Fields is just running too much, probably not going to throw 37 times most weeks. They're not going to get blown out every week. So I get that. The ceiling is capped. Maybe there was a little bit too much hype, but I mean, look, he was being drafted in the same area as DeAndre Hopkins, a little

bit ahead of Drake London, same area as DK Metcalf, Debo Samuel. Debo wasn't great. He was a lot better than DJ Moore. Not many of those guys had big, weak ones that I can think of off the top of my head. So he's a number two wide receiver, I think. I mean, I'm not like jumping to buy low on him or anything like that, but I don't think he's going to be outside the top 30, Jacob. All right.

So you called your shot. I do think Jair Alexander had a lot to do with this game because I saw a headline that said he blanketed DJ Moore, but it was behind a paywall, which is really annoying, so I didn't get to read it, but that's something to keep in mind here. His next game is against Tampa

Bay, which is a respectable secondary. All right. The Seahaw, which is a respectable secondary. All right. The Seahawks offense is our last topic. And the big thing here is that the Rams just took away the deep ball. And the Seahawks barely had the ball. They had the ball for like 20. I've got detail on that if you want to. Yeah.

Less than 21 minutes, I think, of possession. And this team lived on the deep ball and the big play. And Gino Smith was so good at it last year. What can you tell us about what happened in week one? The Rams use a ton of cover four and cover six. They use cover for 37% of the time up from 11% last year. They did not have a defensive coordinator change. So that was a game specific thing that they did here. They use cover six, 24 percent of the time up from 15 percent those two coverage schemes keep things in front of the defense they lead to short passing and gino smith has actually been decent against them but his average depth of target has fallen way way down when he faces those two schemes and in the second game against the seahawks last year

in week 18 um we saw the the Rams use these schemes a lot more and Gino struggled in that game. So if I had to guess, I think they learned something there. They came out and really emphasized this. They had all off season to prepare for week one and it bothered Gino. And if I had to guess, it's going to be better for Seattle going forward. Well, it's not going to be better if Cross and Lucas, their two starting tackles, don't get back, but they will need that because they lost. Cross played 75% of the snaps. Lucas played 69% of the snaps.

So that was a tough blow for them. What did they leave with, Adam, injury-wise? I'm not sure, honestly. I'll take a look at that after. They look great. The first two possessions, Seattle really went down the field and scored 10 points on two possessions, and then after that, they just couldn't convert.

It reminded me so much of the Broncos from last year. They couldn't convert a third down. They couldn't possess the ball. So anything to say here? I mean, are these guys buy lows? I don't know if DK scored the touchdown if people are buying low, but Lockett was... I think yes, buy low on these guys.

Yeah? Okay. I think it depends solely on the health of those two tackles. If both are out for an extended period of time, I think this offense will turn into an absolute disaster. Okay. All right, guys. Good job. All right. Yeah, this was fun. That was fun.

I want to thank everybody for watching. We had a great audience here on YouTube. Please hit the Like button if you enjoyed what you saw. Back with the waiver wire on Tuesday morning with Dave and Jamie. And it's actually going to be delayed a little bit, about 9.15. Usually we record around 8.40. Do that 9.15 Eastern. That's not Schneier's fault, I promise you.

And go pack 12 reps. See you later.