Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score: GB-DAL Recap, Revisiting Draft Strategies, New Backfield Splits, Buy Low WRs? (09/29 Fantasy Football Podcast)
Episode Date: September 29, 2025A wild 40-40 tie on Sunday night with a lot of Fantasy points! Let's recap Packers-Cowboys (3:30). Can we trust a Packers wide receiver going forward? Is Javonte Williams the Fantasy MVP? Sell high on... Jordan Love? We also transition into a discussion about the Chargers WRs (13:10) ... News and notes (22:40) and some snap counts (27:05) and other stats to know ... Four Big Topics: Major changes in backfields (29:30); Brian Thomas Jr. and Jerry Jeudy (41:00); Derrick Henry and Justice Hill (48:40); Looking back on our draft strategies (55:15) ... Email us at fantasyfootball@cbsi.com Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Shop our store: shop.cbssports.com/fantasy SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837 FOLLOW FFT DFS on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5zU7pBvGK3KPhfb69Q1hNr?si=1c5030a3b1a64be2 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday 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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This is fantasy football today from CBS sports.
What a play!
Can you believe this?
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It's time to dominate your fantasy league.
Off to the races, and he stays on his feet.
It's just going to go the distance.
Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.
All right, what's going on, everybody?
It is Monday, Monday, September 29th.
Yes, got it.
Nailed it.
Welcome to fantasy football today, presented by
I bet MGM, the sports book born in Vegas.
And no one's going to be able to say that I didn't get anything right on today's show.
I got the date right.
It took me a minute.
What's up?
Dan, how can you even wear that shirt?
What are you talking about?
The Giants won yesterday against a 3-0 Chargers team.
They became the first team since 2008 to be an 0-3 team and beat a 3-0 team.
Oh, wow.
But have you ever seen white men can't jump?
No.
Jacob, have you ever seen white men can't jump?
Yeah, it's a classic.
And thank you to the Giants for getting that win,
Massachusetts fans.
I mean, I've seen clips of it,
and I was a huge fan of Rosie Perez in that.
Yeah, it's great.
But there's one of her famous quotes is sometimes when you win,
you really lose.
And that's what it feels like with the Giants losing league neighbors.
Yeah, I think so.
Okay.
So today we can't have anything in life.
No, we can't have anything nice.
Green Bay and Dallas tied last night, wild game,
super fun game, a score that we've never seen before in NFL history,
40 to 40.
We're going to talk about our big topics today are about, yeah, I think basically this show is the Brian Thomas Jr. show.
So he'll be discussed.
Also, backfield splits what we're seeing in New Orleans, in Houston, Seattle, Arizona.
What will it look like for Pittsburgh moving forward?
What about Derek Henry?
We're going to talk about him and draft strategies that we might do differently if we could do it all over again.
But let's start with Green Bay 40, Dallas 40.
after this game, both teams are currently top six in points per game.
Dallas is first in yards per game, just ahead of Buffalo.
They have played two overtimes, though, so keep that in mind.
They are sixth in yards per play.
Green Bay is 11th in yards per play.
So this was everything we wanted it to be.
Pretty much everyone was good.
Maybe Tucker Kraft a little bit disappointing, but yeah, bonanza to the max.
Jacob, takeaways from Green Bay and Dallas?
uh let's let's just go ahead and victory lap george pickens dan how about that wide receiver five
and fantasy through a month of football my most rostered player across my 23 leagues
oh i mean that's all well and good but what happens when cd lamb comes back because george pickens
his target share do i have his target share yes in four games his target share was 12.1 percent
17.3 percent and then the last two games without lamb 20.5 percent and 29
percent last night.
So that's, I don't know how good he's going to be when Lamb comes back.
Lamb gets all the targets.
Yeah, I was, I was psyched to see him succeed without Lamb.
This matchup has been absolutely brutal for wide receivers.
This is the first wide receiver to succeed against the Packers for fantasy.
Debo is the closest.
I think Debo had 17 fantasy points.
And stylistically, this matchup fits Debo's skill set a lot better.
I was really nervous about somebody like Pickett.
who typically wins deep down the field on the perimeter.
And I was really curious how the target distribution would find form without C.D. Lamb.
I didn't know if we would get a lot more of Pickens.
That's kind of what Brian Schottenheimer alluded to when he talked about.
The situation was that we'd see more Turpin, more Ferguson, more of the catch-and-run guys.
But yeah, 33 points against this Jeff Haffley, Green Bay Packers defense.
We've seen Terry McLaurin only go for 10, Amon-Han-Rown for 9.
Jameson Williams for six, Jerry Judy for three,
Cedric Tillman for six against this defense.
So this is extremely encouraging.
I think when Lamb's back,
that's actually like best case scenario for Pickens.
Oh, I don't agree at all because I just don't think he's going to get the targets.
I kind of know what you're getting at here,
but I think the proof is kind of in the pudding.
I gave you the target share of the first two games.
It was pretty low.
So I don't think I really expected him to get a time.
of targets he's he can be a big yards per target guy he's a big play threat i think this is an
extreme outlier for efficiency got eight out of 11 targets i think there's going to be a lot of
games if it's like just him asked to do everything where he's going to have like three catches on
11 targets i don't i have a few things that to agree with on here one he was wasn't he if
i'm not mistaken very much so efficient last year with russell wilson and the steelers like he would
be eight you know getting nine targets catching eight of them i just think generally
speaking, he's a very good player. I would probably tend to agree with Adam that C.D. Lamb's return
is not a good thing for him because it won't be just like this overload of the entire past game
felt designed in my mind around him, especially once they got into like have to have it mode toward
overtime. But he's a really good football player who's going to score a lot of touchdowns. The Cowboys
games are going to look like this almost every game. If they can score 40 against the Packers,
they can score 40 against anyone, it seems like this year. And their defense does not, like they had some
moments, but their defense still stinks, and they're going to run that
Eberflu zone all year and get torn up by most teams.
So the game script's going to be amazing.
This is why I wanted C.D. Lamb, an amazing player with the best quarterback of his career,
who's going to score a lot more touchdown than he ever did, right?
Like, what is he up to now from a touchdown standpoint, Jacob or Adam?
You might know this, too, because that was a big factor for me.
He topped out at five during his career with the Steelers, despite scoring eight in his
freshman season at Georgia.
He's always obviously profiled as a big touchdown guest.
better. He has four already. He's almost matched his career high. And he leads the NFL and
end zone targets. He's tied right. And that will go down when Lamb is back. I don't know. He led
the team when Lamb was there. He had. So yeah, I mean, it might go down, but this is a guy that
they are looking for in the end zone. Now, some of the end zone targets are deep balls, by the way.
They're not all, you know, five years. We'll take them. Yeah, but that's, that's one thing that I talked
about yesterday morning when we were talking about George Pickens, because I was saying to start him,
I think we liked him, but he is getting that end zone role.
They like him there, and he's been good.
I'm not disputing it.
I just think that, you know, it was an overtime game.
They played the entire overtime through a ton of passes, which they are going to do a lot,
and no lamb.
There is just a difference between pickings with lamb and pickens without lamb is all I was trying to say.
It's fair.
On the Packer's side, do you think they're like the bills.
Really good, but they just spread that ball around.
Yep.
Is any wide receiver going to consistently stand out on this team from a fantasy standpoint?
If I had to bet, I'm curious to get Jacobs take on this.
If I had to bet, it would be Romeo Dobbs as crazy.
I mean, not the one we're projecting.
I just think that the role that he has in this offense and the trust that Jordan Love has for Dobbs in the Red Zone overcomes anything else.
Like, I want to believe in Matthew Golden.
I love his talent.
I thought he made two great catches in this game, and it doesn't matter.
He doesn't get the ball.
They tried to design something for him in the red zone, which I thought was a really
dumb play that ultimately ended up losing them the game at the end of the game, that
screen, which obviously was never going to work and put them in a second and 13,
bad behind the clock.
It was just a terrible play call.
But other than that, I didn't see too much design for him in this game.
So I don't want to trust him.
Obviously, Dantavian Wicks, I feel bad for anyone who started him.
That's another bust for any time you start Dundavian Wicks, and he's supposed to blow up.
he never does so like he was started in two percent of leagues so don't worry about it okay okay
it was made yeah and jake it was the two percent the one i trust the most out is not even a
receiver it's sucker craft you said it was he was the only disappointment for you adam but he came
inches away from two touchdowns in this game uh so it wasn't really of disappointment to me it was
just kind of bad luck so as far as it goes i'm not really trusting anyone in this offense if i had
to pick it would be dobs in the passing game you're saying and the wide receiver's ever
everyone's going to keep starting craft and
I love after the first two games I you know I did that research basically over the last
five years almost every single tight end that's averaged 13 or more ppr fantasy points per game I
think once you get to that mark you're really having a a really good season you're standing out
from the crowd almost every tight end who's hit 13 points per game has had a target per out run
rate of around 22 to 23% or higher and that's what craft had the first two games but the last
two games, it's been 17.4% and 13.5%. So it's pretty frustrating. Jacob, thoughts here?
I want to get a note in on Matthew Golden. He spent almost all of his time in week four in
his slot. His slot rate through the first three weeks was 23%, 43%, 26%. That was up to 70% in week
four. He also was used as the pre-snap motion player a lot more. So that is interesting that
It might not be just go balls or bust.
But he did catch a go ball.
Yes, he did.
Good call at him.
And on that play, two wide receivers could have caught a go-rout, a go-ball.
And Golden was the one who came down with it.
Boy, the Cowboys are the worst.
And the thing is, if you look at the Giants going from week two to weeks three and four,
if you look at Caleb Williams going from week three to week four,
the Cowboys are a fantasy boost.
and you should maybe consider selling Jordan Love, for example,
who's playing great.
But you have to remember Jordan Love's past attempts in his first three games
were 22, 31, and 25.
Yesterday, he threw 43 times in overtime and had his best game.
The Cowboys are going to give fantasy players their best or second best
or third best games of the season.
It seems like all year long.
So just something to keep in mind.
That's a good point.
Okay.
And then the last thing, I don't think we will spend time on this,
but Giovante Williams might be the fantasy MVP,
just in terms of draft value.
It is going to be.
I was going to say that we do need to talk about Giovante.
We just did last week on Beyond the Box score,
like an entire episode dedicated towards offensive lines
and how they're helping the run games.
And I thought it was really notable that they continue to be able to just move the ball
with consistency.
With injuries,
multiple injuries on the offensive line.
It's kind of crazy.
It's a scheme thing.
And they're going to get healthier on the offensive.
of line. And Miles Sanders
got injured in this game. I don't know if he
returned after the injury. He said he was going to try to
play through it. Jaden Blue is still not
a big factor here. Like, this is Javante's
team. He gets targets in the run
game. I'm sorry, gets targets in the passing game
and he's useful there. I watch him, and I didn't
watch this week's tape, but I watched him in the past
the past few weeks on tape. And then this game
on broadcast, he's looking
more like the North Carolina version. He's not as explosive.
But what I mean by that is he's doing
a great job of these little microcuts.
That's the only way I can describe them.
to create space for himself and really process these runs really, really well to get forward
and to create positive gains.
He looks good to me.
He's not going away.
He's in a perfect situation.
He should be viewed as a RB1 rest of the season.
I don't really understand why you wouldn't unless they're still bias against him as a player
based on his past and how he looked.
There's no real reason not to.
He's in a great offensive situation that's going to score a lot of touchdowns.
He gets roll up passing game work and there's no one really around him.
So, I mean, I traded, I bought him high two weeks ago, and I'm happy I bought high on him.
I think some players are worth buying high on.
Is Quentin Johnson worth buying high on?
Yes.
It depends on what the prices.
I think yes was clearly the answer like two or three weeks ago after week two, after week three.
I'm curious where he's going to be this.
We can perceive value because now it's like we have a whole month of confirmation, you know?
Everybody's saying he's a goodbye now.
Yeah, well, I'll say this, Jake.
This is another topic we don't have to get into right now because it's
side we have too much other stuff but we'd spent last week on beyond the box
core saying our one of our favorite by high or by low candidates was lad mcconkey they're
watching a full game of mcconkey and i'll let you know after i watch the tape if i can confirm this
i don't know if i'm staying with that take anymore like i don't i don't know if i have confidence
in mcconkey being what we hoped he could be rest of season we need mcconkey to have confidence in
mccan yeah he's dropping passes he's feeling better my guy yeah that's the big problem right now
And BTJ, like, in their heads.
Yep.
Let me tell you the rookie yard per route run rate leaders since 2013.
The best rookie seasons and yards per out run.
I think that's the earliest we have for yard per outrun rate data.
In 2013 was the amazing rookie class led by Odell Beckham, who's number one.
So best rookie seasons yards per outrun, Odell Beckham, AJ Brown, Justin Jefferson,
Pooka, Jamar Chase, at your top five.
Number six, Brian Thomas Jr.
Number seven, Chris Olave, number eight, Rishi Rice, number nine, Ladd McComkey.
So the first five players are, you know, Beckham, A.J. Brown, Jefferson, Puka, Jamar Chase.
The next four, three of them just haven't, you know, I can't say anything about Rishie Rice, obviously.
But Brian Thomas Jr., huge bust.
Chris Olave just hasn't been able to take the next step.
Rishi Rice, TBD,
Lab McConkey,
huge bust this year.
It's interesting.
If you just were to look at
Lab McConkey's player page
with his advanced match,
oh, the one that we're showing right now,
everything is just so down.
I mean, if you scroll over,
oh, there's yards per outrun rate,
they're underline.
2.4 yards per outrun last year.
1.09.
That is horrible.
His yak, I believe,
is way down, right?
His yak per catch is miserable.
His catch rate.
I mean, it just, I don't, if we were playing fantasy baseball,
we'd be looking at these guys going,
regression is about to come.
We don't get into it like this with fantasy baseball.
We just say like, oh, this guy was so good.
He's had a bad month.
He's going to be great.
Like, he's going to go on a hot streak.
And that's what I want to think about Ladd-McConkie and Brian Thomas Jr.
Who we're going to talk about.
But it's so different because in baseball, you know,
it's a one-on-one sport in a lot of ways.
You're matched up against a pitcher and you as a hitter for,
in this example will regress to the mean most of the time.
In football, there's so many different factors around you that can change.
And in this case, I think have changed like Quinton Johnson has developed as a wide receiver
and become a much better player for the charts.
Also, Maureen Hampton looked awesome last game.
So I think that's his role will continue to grow as well, which is both things not good
for Alad McConkey.
I'll kind of push back on this.
And I think it's good to bring it back to the George Pickens thing too.
I was just looking at the splits when, you know, T. Higgins is off the field.
That's just what came to mind.
We don't have enough of a sample size with Jamar off the field to, like, see how it's affected T really.
But T misses a lot of time.
And when he's been off the field, Jamar's been not as good.
Like, fantasy points per outrun, fantasy points per target.
They've forced fed him the ball more.
And there have been spike weeks that have come with that, where he had.
has 15 targets or whatever, which is out of the usual flow of the offense because it has
to funnel through him.
But that, just like in reference to Pickens, I do think is relevant.
That's what I said earlier is like, I think if you have a functional offensive environment
as a whole and you have C.D. Lamb who scares the crap out of defenses, like is one of
the three or five players in the entire NFL, like top three or five that you have to game plan
for, I think that really does affect everyone else on the team.
and especially pickens.
If you can get him in one-on-ones,
if you can get him in situations
where this has to catch and beat one guy
and then he can create a huge play.
I think it's only good for him if CD-LAM is there.
I'll take the, over a larger sample size,
I'll take the trade-off in his target share
dropping from 27% to 20% or whatever.
I think the target share through the first three games was low,
but I actually, I don't think that's really that representative
of what we're going to get from him
over a larger sample size.
you know he was it was his first three games with the new offense and they weren't really designing
a whole lot to him um so yeah i'm i'm encouraged by what we just saw but i do think it's only
gonna be a good thing when we get land back healthy hopefully and on the mconkey on the macaque thing
i know like i know it's scary that it's like well we've got this piece and q j's better and we've got
ken and we've got gadston now is good and and hampton is good and like as long as he's good like
I think it's still fine.
Like I think he's still a buy or a hold.
I don't think he can possibly keep averaging, you know, this, like what he's done so
far.
I think the yak is going to come up.
There have been a few plays where he and Herbert just barely missed.
Right.
He got shoestring tackled or whatever.
As long as he could get good, like with his mental, I think having this overpowering
offense is only a good thing.
But then, again, like the Joe Alt injury, it might be the.
It's a deal for all of this.
Yeah, it's apparently a high ankle, it could be a high ankle sprain for Joe Walt.
So that could be a month.
And that means both tackles are out right now.
And boy, it could linger.
Like, I just don't like that with the tackle.
It won't look as, yeah, exactly.
Coming back from a high ankle sprain is not a guarantee.
A lot of the players who come back just aren't very good or aren't playing at the same level.
I will say it won't look as bad as it did against the Giants because they have a premier pass
rushers that not every team will have.
But the numbers were crazy.
Herbert was pressured on over 50% of his dropback,
despite getting rid of the football at under 2.5 seconds,
which makes almost no sense.
Like Herbert was in tune with what he needed to do,
get rid of the ball, process where to go with it,
and he was still getting pressure.
There's going to be times where he's not going to be able to process it as fast,
and the pressure is going to lead to sacks or groundings.
It could get really ugly there.
All right, we're going to take a break,
and we'll come back, give you the news and notes.
Not really much has changed from yesterday,
but there's an update on Odo Beckham on Malik Neighbors.
We'll give you the snap counts you need to know
and our four big topics after this.
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Okay, welcome back to this edition of Beyond the Box Score.
What do we have on the rest of the Beyond the Boxcore episodes this week?
Yeah, so I mentioned that we did the running back version of the offensive line overview.
I think that's still relevant.
If you want to go check that out, we looked at every single team and how their line is helping or hurting them.
We saw in week four that, like, all it took was a little bit of space for Ashton Genty, and we get this huge breakout.
He had negative two yards before contact through the first three weeks.
This week, he had 17, which is still not.
a lot because he had over 20 carries.
So he's getting fewer than one yard blocked before contact per rush.
And just that was enough for him to have 30 freaking plus fantasy points.
So we looked at every offensive line and just kind of help you like understand how you
should maybe feel about some of this stuff through the first month because there's a lot
of moving pieces that try to keep up with them fantasy through this first month.
And this week, Dan and I are going to do the same thing for pass protection.
He brought up the stuff with Herbert.
like that's it's definitely relevant um especially with some of these receivers who are running deeper
routes down the field right um maybe there just hasn't been a good opportunity for those to develop
um maybe their team has played an abnormal amount of like really good pass rushes so far stuff like
that um so that'll be on wednesday and on tuesday we're just doing like the classic
looking through rest of season rankings give me some trade targets just trying to help um
give you some actionable takeaways you know on top of just the more nitty gritty stuff
And some of the new guys coming at the mix.
I'm excited to talk about Woody Marks.
Yeah.
By the way, I have an update on that.
I'll tell you the latest on Joe Mixen in just the moment.
So Lamar Jackson has a hamstring injury.
They have a buy in three weeks.
They have Houston and the Rams than a buy.
I have absolutely no idea when he will be back.
We will keep you posted, of course, on Lamar Jackson.
I feel like it's got to be at least right.
He would have came back in that game if he was able to.
They're getting their butts kicked.
Wasn't it still a positive?
It was the beginning of the fifth quarter.
It was not time to pull the starters yet.
Yeah, yeah.
It wasn't far from that, I think, I think.
So we'll find out.
Whenever we find out, we'll let you know.
You'll probably know before we tell you.
Miles Sanders left with an ankle injury.
Malik Neighbors did tear his ACL.
He's out for the season.
Don't know if there's any more damage than that.
Darnel Mooney has a hamstring injury,
but he probably will be back after the week's five by.
So they have Buffalo in week six.
Calvin Austin left with a shoulder injury
Cedric Tillman hamstring injury
and we are going to talk about Jerry Judy later
and Ricky Pearsall left with the knee injury
on the offensive line
Baltimore left tackle Ronnie Stanley left
in the first half
two Vikings left with injuries
they're at Cleveland next week
actually they're facing Cleveland in Europe
Joe Alt we mentioned
Cleveland just acquired Cam Robinson from Houston
Cam Robinson is probably not
that impactful of a player he was
It might hurt them.
It was benched this week, but Cleveland, they lost their left tackle for the season,
so they needed tackle, and their right tackle was out for this past game.
Colton Miller, the Raiders left tackle.
He has probably a high ankle sprain, it seems, and they don't have a buy until week,
five, six, eight, and Lane Johnson, Philadelphia, right tackle left with a shoulder injury.
We know Baltimore's super beat up on defense.
We know Tampa Bay.
Six starters, I think, for Baltimore.
It's crazy.
Yeah, they were.
out six starters yesterday. Tampa Bay had
five defensive players leave yesterday's game.
I have not seen any updates on them,
but that's why I kind of like Sam Darnold
this week if you need
a streamer for a few
reasons. One, it's tough to run on
Tampa Bay. Two, they score
a lot of points, so they often make you
throw. And three, they
lost five defensive players yesterday,
but I'm not assuming all of them will be
out next week or anything, but we'll say.
All right, let's get into the snap counts.
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I want to talk smack to Dan about something
but it's not really my M.O.
I'm not a smack talker.
You know what, let's...
Yeah?
I want to hear it.
Yeah, you froze a little, but now I want to hear it.
I froze.
I thought you froze, whatever.
Somebody.
You know who froze?
The New York Mets froze for the last three and a half months.
Oh, you want to talk smack about the Mets?
I don't care about it.
You know I don't really care about the Mets.
I know you don't care.
And we're like a fake fan, essentially, in the sense of what real fans go through.
Like, once football season starts, I could care less about baseball.
But I'll watch on the playoffs if the Mets had made it, but if obviously they didn't make it.
I mean, it's very funny.
Good job.
Good job.
The Yankees aren't going anywhere.
Everyone knows who watches baseball.
The Yankees are also cooked for this year.
That bullpen will blow up in the in the postseason.
And I'll be there.
it and you know what i've become less of a yankee hater i grew up a yankee hater and i'm not a
yankee anymore because it's too much it's too hypocritical for me to be a yankee hater because
i hated them because i always thought baseball was so stupid that it didn't have a salary cap
and the yankees when i was a kid just spent like gobs more than anyone but now that's what the
met's too hypocritical to just say that um so eh you know what the met's stink
whatever the giants awesome league neighbors that's what i'm concerned with okay do you know
who the yankees are playing in the playoffs
No. Is it Cleveland?
It is a three-game set.
Oh, no, it's Boston.
With the Boston Red Sox.
Yeah.
That's how little I care about baseball.
Like, I just, once football's back, it's just out of my mind at that point.
Yeah, that's exciting stuff.
All right.
Snap counts.
Mark Andrews had his lowest route participant.
Oh, you know what, though?
I didn't check if, I should check if this was the case in the first three quarters.
Yeah, before Cooper Rush came in.
He may have just been, yeah, he may have just been benched.
That's on me.
You know, everyone got benched at the end.
I'm not sure.
But I did think it was maybe the return of Isaiah likely.
So I'm going to go check in on that unless Jacob knows it already.
Xavier Worthy played only 59% of the snaps, and he had such a good game.
So I'm really excited for him.
Tyquan Thornton played only 34% of the snaps.
Teteroa McMillan was not shadowed by Christian Gonzalez.
That did not happen.
I only watched maybe a quarter and a half of the snaps, but it was pretty clear.
Gonzalez was staying on one side of the field.
They were in zone a lot.
And I saw Jacob's tweet about Travion Henderson's
route participation, his routes run anyway.
Do you have that info?
Because that was not good.
It wasn't good.
No, this was early charting.
I'll double check right now.
But what I saw was that Trayvon Henderson ran five total routes in week four, which is not
what you want.
From Andre Stevenson, ran 17 for comparison.
Let's see where we've got.
Yep, five routes, 23% route rate.
So that's significantly lower than the first three weeks, any of those games.
I just feel like when we do our Sunday night recap,
shows and Trayvion Henderson is a bust every week, even though he scored this week.
It feels like the guys seem to think that it's going to happen eventually.
I don't want to speak for them, but I don't know.
I'm just not sure.
I'm just not sure it's going to happen.
Another fumble might be what it takes, but do you guys think that he's worth buying low on
Trayvion Henderson, that he's going to have a big second half maybe?
Where are you guys on that?
I would buy super low.
Like if I'm 4 and 0, 3 and 1, even 2 and 2 and feel good about my team, I would buy low on Henderson.
Okay, I have an update for you.
Mark Andrews route participation rate with Lamar Jackson on the field in four games.
73%, 79%, 71%, 63%.
So low, but not as low as I thought.
But he did have a third of Lamar Jackson's targets.
Okay.
Anything else, Jacob, in terms of stats, snap counts, anything like that you want to get
into.
No, not specifically.
I mean, I've got a bunch of stuff,
but I didn't prepare anything.
I'm just ready for these topics.
Okay, so let's get into it.
Our first topic is from JC,
and he wants to know about new backfield splits and values.
He mentioned the Steelers, the Saints, the Texans,
the Seahawks, and the Cardinals.
We will talk about Derek Henry and Justice Hill in a little bit,
but Dan, I'll throw it to you first.
Do you see, where do you see any type of major change
in those five mentioned backfields?
Steelers, Saints, Texans, Seahawks, Cardinals?
I think the clear-cut major change,
obviously not including the Cardinals with Benson injury and what happened there,
would be the Texans with Woody Marks,
and I'll let Jacob kind of expound on some of the stats and some of the numbers there.
The one that's intriguing to me, the sleeper one,
and obviously with Steelers, there's just a surprise inactive.
I don't know if that it will hold.
The intriguing one, because I think he's still not rostered in a lot of leagues,
is Kendry Miller and the Saints.
So a major uptick last week, this past week,
including a red zone role.
He was a player who I liked a lot coming out at TCU,
thought he had a really good tape and was one of my guys in that draft class,
did get drafted with pretty good capital
and just kind of fizzled out with the past coaching staff.
It's finally healthy and maybe offering something,
I think, in the run game that Alvin Camerick cannot currently offer them.
Okay. Jacob, how about you?
Which backfield would you highlight here?
Yeah, let's talk about Woody Marks.
59% snap rate, 50% route rate.
and it was something that I was tracking throughout the game
and it just kind of kept creeping up
and he played really well.
I tweeted out of cut up if you want to watch the film of Woody Marks.
He's been one of the biggest surprises this year of film that I've watched
where he had a ton of receptions in college,
a truly ridiculous amount of receptions.
And so people were sort of intrigued by him for fantasy as a prospect,
but his rushing efficiency was awful in college.
And so it was like, what can he be?
Like, can we expect this to become anything?
at the NFL, I think maybe the best comparison is like Kairn Williams or something in terms of
that kind of a profile where they weren't a good Russia really in college. And like Kiron,
he was very good in Mann Gap scheme, which is what Houston has really leaned into more than any
team. What I've really noticed is he's more elusive than I expected. And so yeah, they just
kept leaning into him. He ended up with 21 touches. He was the only running back to play in the
red zone. And it's the receiving upside, you know, the people are real excited about for sure.
I mean, we've speculated on this for a couple weeks now
where it's like Nick Chubb is probably the easiest
running back to supplant in the NFL among starters
and I think we're seeing it come to fruition.
Ultimately, did you give your Joe Mixin update?
Oh, geez, no, I'm sorry.
Let me go ahead and read it.
So, D'Amico Ryans was talking today
and he, you know what, here we go.
This is from Aaron Wilson.
Texans coach D'Amico Ryan specifically indicated
that Joe Mixon is not ready to return.
turn at this time. And then he goes on to say, not to make O'Ryan's, but Aaron Wilson, per
sources, it will be much longer, if at all, for mixing to get back on the field. Yeah. I mean,
that seems like that's where we're at. But what I was going to say is ultimately it is probably
one of the least valuable backfield situations in the league. The run blocking is not very good,
and the offense overall is not very good. It worked this week against the Titans. But I would
timber my expectations with
it's fair marks it's still like if you can get a running back who's playing a ton and
getting targets that's valuable so go for it um if you want to blow a ton of fab on him i think
that's fine and make sense but i i don't think like i wouldn't watch this film against the
titans and get where you're like thinking that this guy is like in the tootin tier and stuff
like that um bashal to like a lot of these really exciting young running backs um i just think
like this offense is not nearly as good as like the jaguar
as running game has been so far. We've seen ETN just like crushing. And a lot of that is because
the blocking scheme has been awesome. It's not nearly as good as Washington's run game has been,
you know, with Bill Kroski-Marrant where there's a reason we've been so excited for these running
backs that potentially step into a larger role. And you haven't heard as much about Marks. To me,
it's because one, like I said, he wasn't very good as a rusher in college and two,
what's the upside really for this offense? But everything this week was awesome.
Yeah. On the Kintra Miller note, it was kind of
similar where like he got a lot of red zone work his first carry of the game
came at the 18 yard line and he broke multiple tackles on his way to a touchdown and like
okay like just kept giving him more and more work and I think he's he's looked pretty good like
this preseason I thought he looked pretty good this is the healthiest he's looked in a while
like probably as a pro and this is a guy that people were really excited about he's got size and
athleticism um and alvin camera has not played great so far um so the the final breakdown was
15 rushes for Camara, 11 for Miller.
Miller got a lot of red zone work.
But you know, you see 69% route rate here for Camara,
five targets for Camara.
I think it's that he's just kind of like,
it's not the same coordinator,
but like the Jamal Williams compliment to Camara,
like that kind of backed coming in
and doing more of the short yardage stuff
and hopefully giving them some explosiveness on early down.
So unless Camara gets traded or hurt,
it probably won't matter for fantasy
because you don't get the targets.
No, it won't matter for fantasy
in terms of Kendry Miller's values.
value and a lot of people feel like Camara could get traded, but, um, but it could certainly
matter if Camara starts losing touches and Kendra Miller is not going to take over this
job, but because Camara, like Camara has averaged more than four yards per carry in three
of four games. He had one terrible game against the Seahawks. Other than that, he's, I guess, been
okay. He's not ever making explosive plays. And he's had two good games with targets, two bad
games with targets. His target per route run rate is by far a career low. His yards per
catch is hideous right now. What's the averaging 3.2 yards per catch or something like
that? 3.8 yards per catch. His career yards per catch is 8.2. But yeah, if Camara loses
the goal line role, which we don't even know if he has, they've run eight plays inside the
five yard line. Well, actually, that's kind of a lot eight plays inside the five yard line. Yeah,
it's middle of the pack. They've thrown a pass on
seven of them. He has been on the field for all eight of them.
So I'm going to say right now he has the goal line roll, but they have only, they have
the highest pass rate inside the five yard line in the NFL, small sample size, but they've
thrown on seven of eight of those plays. But they both have one touchdown this season, and I
think they were both 18 yards out. So, but he always had lost that role to Taysam Hill,
because Camara has been really bad from the goal line, from like the one to three yard line.
He's been pretty bad the last few years. So I wouldn't be shocked if Kendry Miller
took that job, but I don't think I'm ready to say anything yet. As far as Seattle goes,
well, as far as Arizona goes, everything you saw from DeMercato was super late in that game
when they were playing catch-up. I am pretty excited about Benson as, I don't know how good
he is. I don't know how good he's going to be, but I'm excited about his role. So I do think
he's someone that you're going to go into most weeks going, all right, I'm going to start Benson,
unless I happen to have better options.
He's not one of those guys where you're going,
I'm going to sit Benson unless I'm really stuck.
I think he enters the discussion as a starter,
as an RB2 most weeks.
I am going to make some by-low offers on Benson
because he's coming off kind of a bad game,
but it's those catches that really get me excited.
And then for Seattle, I think it is kind of a bummer
because, Dan, you seem to disagree with me,
but I said with you, me and Jamie, I think,
like Ken Walker just gives them something that Sharper.
I agree. I agree with that. There are different backs, though.
Like, Charbonnet is just a totally, he's more of an interior runner, and he runs with a different level of patience.
But I mean, I've watched that last game. Walker's obviously a better talent. I want to make that clear.
Yeah. But Charbonnet is obviously the goal line back.
Yeah. Not to say he'll get every goal line carry, but it's going to, it's going to be really annoying for Ken Walker managers.
Really annoying. And I don't, I think it's here to stay.
Yes. I guess like Walker could start be running so well. But don't forget.
Well, this is what I said, like, two weeks ago, and I was like, just follow what Mike McDonald, the head coach said when he quoted.
He's like, this guy is one of my favorite players on the team, Charbonnet, the way he prepares, the way he shows up for work.
Like, they're giving him a role for that reason.
He's helping, he's one of those, like, team captain type players.
Yeah.
So that's, I think we're probably on the same page there.
Anybody want to add anything about Seattle, Arizona, or we haven't even talked about Pittsburgh.
I mean, do you think.
Sean McVease has pretty similar stuff about Blake Corum.
I think we could see Kenneth Walker continue to see his role grow.
grown each week.
It's grown each week?
His touches have grown each week.
Well, one week, Charbonnet missed.
Right.
Last week, yeah, last week they ran the ball a lot, and Walker had, what, 18 carries?
It's 19 carries to Charbonnet's 12.
It's really, it's the passing downs, you know, the two-minute drill stuff is going to be Charbonnet.
The goal-line stuff might be Charbonnet.
But for Pittsburgh, you know, you talk about how Nick Chubb seemed so obvious that he could be replaced.
Well, Jalen Warren has been really bad so far.
He's averaging 3.1 yards per carry, his longest runs.
Take it back.
Jalen Warren has not been so bad so far.
He said no problem.
Okay, well, you know what?
They were both really bad, inefficient, the first three weeks.
And then this week was the best we've seen a Steelers running back.
Look at this tweet.
This is before the blow-up game from Kenny Gainwell,
running back eight in fantasy points per touch since entering the NFL
in between James Cook and Bijon Robinson.
Gainwell, not Warren.
I would have thought that would have been Warren.
it's PPR and he got really boosted by his early career stuff like anytime he's getting the ball
it was just like mostly through the passing game so what happens in week six when they're back
from by I think it might look pretty similar to week one would be my guess I think gain
will probably be more involved than he was the weeks leading up to week four I hate the
Steelers. We can't have the, they suck. And they drive me crazy from a fantasy standpoint. I'm sorry,
but we can't have a split. We just can't have it. Because one thing they've given us,
they've given us a running back worth starting four weeks in a row. But it's mostly because
it catches. We can't have a split. I won't accept it. All right, we're going to take a break,
though. I will accept that. When we come back, we'll talk about Brian Thomas Jr. and Jerry Judy and
Derek Henry, et cetera, after this. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next
adventure. This fall get double points on every qualified stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at
BestWestern. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. Gurwin wants us to talk about
Brian Thomas Jr. was started in 71% of leagues and he had five catches for 49 yards on seven
targets. He had one carry for seven yards at San Francisco. Does anybody have any hope for Brian
Thomas Jr.? or a considerable amount of hope for Brian Thomas Jr. turning it around?
I haven't for a while.
I was out on it last week when we discussed it on BTB.
It's just,
it's not for me.
I mean,
I'm basically exactly where I was last week where there's parts of the run
the game that's working and I believe in Liam Cohen.
Yes.
But the play from Trevor Lawrence is not where we need it to be.
Yep.
So betting on that to improve and Brian Thomas Jr.
To like get it together is basically just like just a leap of faith on Liam Cohen.
Which, no,
I don't really feel that compelled to do.
Uh, I, I'm excited by everything he's done as a schemer, but like, I don't know about the vibes there kind of weird, you know.
They are odd vibes, but they're winning. They are winning. Yeah, but yeah, like the weirdest vibes for a three and one team ever.
The Robert's all that stuff walking off the field and like, even his players are just kind of like, come on. Like, no, like, don't do this. Like, and it's been that way the whole time. Like, Trevor's waving him off and stuff. And he's just like, I don't know. I'd rather just not.
Uh, the one thing that's really been missing for Brian Thomas Jr. The big plays, he had a, he had a, he had a,
21.1% explosive play rate last year.
What's that a 17-yard catch or more?
16-17.
It's 9.4% this year.
Trevor Lawrence is now 2 of 12 on past attempts of 20 or more air yards.
He has not completed one to Brian Thomas Jr.
The only big play he's really had was that busted coverage play
that ended up getting C.J. Gardner Johnson cut off Texans.
And I guess, look, last year, he had almost 1,300 yards,
Brian Thomas, Jr.
They averaged
218.6
gross passing yards per game.
This year they're averaging
211.3.
It's not that much worse.
Right?
I mean, he was doing it last year
and it's not like they had
a great passing offense.
They threw 19 touchdowns last year.
And he had 10 of them.
So I don't know if it's just,
it's easy to blame Trevor Lawrence,
but they didn't have a good passing offense last year.
They just kept hitting on these home runs.
he was so explosive, and he's not hitting on them this year.
Yeah, it's definitely both of them.
It's not just Trevor Lawrence.
But it's like even if B.J. was playing a lot better.
I don't know if it would really matter that much because of Trevor Lawrence.
All right.
How about Jerry Judy?
Jerry Judy did have nine targets yesterday.
He had a drop.
It wasn't the easiest catch, but that could have been about a 30-yard gain.
Yeah.
He got shadowed by DJ Reed until DJ Reed got hurt.
but obviously it's been a miserable year.
He scored 11.6 fantasy points in week one
and hasn't touched double digits since in full PPR.
So Cedric Tillman leads the team in red zone, green zone and end zone targets
and Tilderman might miss some time with a hamstring injury.
Do you have any hope for Jerry Judy, Dan?
No.
I think, I mean, you just mentioned earlier this podcast that they traded for Cam Robinson.
that is all I need to know to tell me that this passing game isn't going to get much better.
He can't play in the NFL at this point.
If the Texans can't play him, it's is failed in each the last two opportunities that he's gotten.
So I don't know how that passing game improves overall, which is what Judy needs, health in the passing game.
And I actually think that Gabriel will make things worse when they, and they are going to go to him at some point.
I do think the absence of Cedric Tillman could help him.
That's the only reason I wouldn't drop Jerry Judy right now.
Yeah, what I was going to say on Judy is it's always been a super concentrated target
distribution where it's like two guys.
It's like all him and in Joku, but now it's like four guys.
And they're kind of getting Isaiah Bond involved too.
And Flacko hasn't been what we thought he was going to be.
He was one of the least accurate quarterbacks in week four on the year.
He's like slightly below, you know, the middle of the pack.
And so we need him to be more accurate.
We need the overall volume of the offense to increase,
because he's able to be accurate and sustained drives.
So it's like not only the turnovers from Flacko,
but also like just down to down and consistency a little more than we've seen in the past.
And the fact that the targets are being, you know,
four or five guys are getting targets instead of just a two.
And the result is here you go.
You see on the screen,
why does he were 54 for Judy through a month?
Still better than Brian or than Travis Hunter.
The Travis Hunter stuff is unreal.
It's crazy
I've made this chart
And it's looking at targets per route run
And first downs per route run
And so like with your opportunities
How productive are you being like moving the chains
And BTJ is not good of course
But like Travis Hunter is by far the worst player
The only players
Out of 80 receivers that have enough routes run
The only players with worst first down per route run rates
Are Tyler Lockin and Johan Dotson
And like those guys don't even get targets
you know so like of course they're not producing first talents but travis is actually getting targets
and almost nothing is ever coming from them we have one play to show for it through a month
when i see and if those of you who would like to see it and aren't seeing can you go back to that
graphic by any chance um youtube.com slash fantasy football today when i see graphic like this
i think to myself i am so stupid i can't i don't even want to do the the 30 seconds of
of thinking to be like what is this showing i am the only the only thing i could do for a living
is talk about sports because i just i don't have it in me to just be like oh i'm just like
when i see this it's like reading the encyclopedia it's so daunting to me that's why we have jacob
to break it down for you make it easier on you know yeah we don't really get a lot of feature
articles anymore yeah but if i see an article i know i've said this on the podcast before but
If I'm reading a story on a website and I see an article and the first letter of the
sentence of the paragraph is like a capital letter, you know, that style where it's like,
oh, I know this is about to be a really long exploratory feature.
I click X immediately.
I am just, I am out.
Instantly.
Basically what you're telling the show in us is that you have Matt's bad case of ADHD.
I just cannot.
I cannot, anything that's going to require me thinking I'm just, no, obviously I'm exaggerating.
So I would like for you guys
If you have a chance to watch Jerry Judy
And his routes from week four
Because I thought that he was doing really well
I thought he was really winning
Beating DJ Reed
Who I mentioned he got away with a lot of illegal contact
Against Zay Flowers
So he got whistle for one against Jerry Judy
Right by the end zone
I thought he was getting open a lot
And Flacco just wasn't you know
You can't see it every play right
But didn't see him
I still think he's a talented receiver
And I think the Tillman injury
Actually could boost
him a little bit as they have Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Miami, New England coming up.
It's manageable.
Yeah, I mean, it's just the same reason I decided to avoid him in all fantasy drafts this
summer is the same reason that stands now.
I don't like buying receivers in awful past games.
It's just so hard for me to care about him winning all these routes from a fantasy
standpoint because that doesn't really give us points.
Yeah, no, you're right.
All right, let's go to our next topic.
It's from Rob.
It says the Ravens Backfield splits between Henry and Hill, should we be concerned?
Jacob, should we be concerned?
No, I guess if you think the Ravens might continue to run into games like this,
which is definitely possible because they can't stop their run right now.
It's like nothing has really changed from past years.
I don't think like Justice Hill is playing his way into a bigger role or anything.
It's just like we need the Ravens to be able to raven, you know, and they're not.
Yeah.
Well, my concern is like less so even that.
And I assume the question is mostly centered around.
Do we have concern for Derek Henry, who was a fantasy?
he stalwart last year drafted to be that again this year and the expectation was unless he gets
hurt we're probably going to get that from him my bigger concern is less so the game script though
that's a big concern as well so i'm happy you pointed that out and well without lamar on the field
and who knows how long will be out for that's not a good run game anymore like most of the reason
i think derrick henry works is because defenses have to account for lamar jackson and they run a ton of
zone read and every single defensive end has to hold up before they just crash and they just and if they're
going to be crashing. This Ravens O line is not a good run blocking O line and Ronnie Stanley's
now hurt. Who knows what that's going to do to it. So it was basically winning in the run game
purely from defenses having to account for Lamar Jackson. It's essentially playing like 10 on 11 in
my mind when he's your quarterback with his own read run game. So that's gone. I think you're taking
a little bit of credit away from Derek Henry. He's awesome for sure. But I'm and I'm not saying that's not
like he's amazing. Once he gets going, you can see what he can do in the open field. But you can also
see all the plays where the Ravens don't block it.
up well and he stopped the line of scrimmage because there are been a lot of those as well
and it's such a one-dimensional run game when lamar jackson is not in the game well so actually i'm glad you brought
that up bill barnwell wrote an article on esPN.com about the ravens run game and they are doing well
from a yards per carry standpoint standpoint they are doing well from a explosive play standpoint but i'll
just read exactly from from bill barnwell the ravens last year the ravens were second in the league
when they ran the ball per NFL next-gen stats success rate,
which measures how often a team stays on schedule
by generating positive EPA.
This year, even while they average more than six yards per carry,
the Ravens are 28th in success rate when they run the ball,
take Jackson out of the mix,
and their running backs are 30th in success rate.
There are still explosive plays, which are great,
but outside of those one or two big runs per game,
the Ravens are getting shut down when they run.
Basically, they are still get, and then I just paraphrase,
Basically, they're still getting big plays, but too many bus plays, getting stuffed, as Dan just mentioned, a lot.
And that is a big problem here.
And then you just wonder, is this just a small sample size, just a fluke?
I mean, they didn't look good in week one against the Chiefs last year.
The Chiefs have a really good run defense, and that's who they played yesterday.
The Lions sometimes, they're a little inconsistent, but sometimes they have a really good run defense, and that's who they played last week.
So the schedule is going to get easier.
I made a trade offer.
I cannot imagine it's going to get accepted.
but I offered Quentin Johnston for Derek Henry
in a 14 team PPR league
I want to get Derek Henry
I think a lot of people are going to
panicking about it. I still believe in him
once Lamar is in a game.
I believe in him without Lamar.
I am out on Henry
during the Cooper Rush.
What do you mean you're out on Henry?
You're going to be sitting there.
I'm out as Henry as somebody who's not going to sit him.
You obviously play him.
We have nobody to play in fantasy.
It's a death.
There's just nothing in the landscape.
Like every single third round pick is the bus.
But I just don't believe
he can be the fantasy
he's stalwart he's been with Cooper Rush at quarterback. And I stand by that strongly.
By the way, Cedric Tillman's going to miss weeks with his hamstring injury. Jacob, how do you
feel about Derek Henry? Yeah, we did the running back show last week where we looked at like
the offensive environment and how it's helping the running back. And last year, Baltimore
would have been top 10 easily. The line played surprisingly well. The coaching was great.
And Lamar Jackson is like such a huge boost. But I think we only had them like 16th or something.
They're behind, like, the Patriots and some teams like that.
And, like, there's really only 10 or 12 teams that are working right now.
So for them to not even be close to inside of that, I think it's just a reflection of where they're at.
I think the stat you gave is really astute Adam.
And it's like outside of Lamar, like, nothing's working.
So I would definitely be nervous if Lamar misses time.
And even right now, like, we need a number of things to get going.
It's always been a fragile equation for Henry.
I don't know if people realize that because he always puts up points.
But in terms of like expected fantasy points and then players being outliers and way outproducing their expected fantasy points, he's at the very top every year.
He does this where he somehow doubles up his expected fantasy points.
Yeah, because he's incredible.
Because he's incredible.
And then also because of this situation, like being in Baltimore helps with that for sure.
Yes, because there was good game script all the time last year.
Now the game script, they're one and three.
Lamar might be out and they have a million injuries on defense.
That's going to really impact his fantasy value.
It could.
Last year, they didn't have a blowout loss.
They lost seven, six games last year, including the playoffs.
They did not lose any of them by more than seven points.
Right.
But even with that said, he only averaged 15 carries per game.
The catches didn't go up.
And he averaged 13.5 PPR fantasy points per game in their six losses.
Again, that's including the postseason.
So I could see the cause for concern.
But I also remember people freaking out about Derek Henry after week one last year when he played
the Chiefs didn't look good, scored a touchdown,
going, oh, he's slow, he's washed, he's washed,
obviously not washed, is incredible.
Yes.
And look, if Lamar Jackson's not out,
they're going to run their offense through Derek Henry.
I mean, they're going to have to run the ball.
And by the way, Cooper Rush is not that bad.
Cooper Rush is not, I strongly disagree.
I bet the Browns would do backflips as they had Cooper Rush.
Who?
The Browns.
No, I strongly disagree.
I think Cooper Rush would be terrible on the Browns.
I'm saying he's better than what they're getting
a quarterback right now i don't think cooper rush i do not think so at all not that flag
he's done pretty well he's done pretty well filling in for the cowboys in good situation with dallas
with what was a great offensive line and cd lamb and a lot of weapons let's see how he does with
it's not like ronny stanley i don't know the details details on ronnie stanley but it's it hasn't been
declared out for the season i think we're being a little he's a fine backup but i don't think
he's a he's a yeah he's a fine backup right he can he can get the job done he could be okay
all i guess not maybe i'm wrong maybe i may i may be wrong i mean i may be wrong i may
I'm legitimately curious about the next topic.
That's why I gave the date at the top of the show,
because I told you.
I wasn't going to say a lot of right things today.
Jacob, the next topic is from Stu 33.
The quarter season look back, analysis of 2025 draft strategies,
what worked and what didn't?
I love this question.
Do you want to start?
Jacob, I'll go after you.
Yeah, I've got a cool data viz.
Adam, you talk about looking, too much.
You talk about looking to that chart and like it blowing your mind.
I feel when I look at Hayden Wigs charts, this guy's awesome. So shout out Hayden on Twitter
for sure. He's got here. It's color coded. I don't know if I can make this any better for you
guys. So you won't be able to see the names, but I can talk you through it and you can see the
colors. The green is running back. The purple is wide receiver. Down here at the bottom of the
blue is tied in. And you might be able to see the red in between the green and purple lines. That's
quarterback. And so this is looking at where everybody was drafted. So on the left most players are
you know, Bijon Robinson, Jumeer Gibbs, Jumar Chase over there.
On the far right side of this, you have Dippo Samuel, Romadunze, Chris Alave, even Stefan
Diggs. So that's like what, round six or something like that. We've got basically the first
six rounds here. And it's looking at replacement level over expectation at their ADP.
And so at the very top, like the most elite wide receivers have been huge smashes. That's
Puka. That's a Monarch, St. Brown. And then guys like Jamar Chase have just
basically been at expectation.
George Pickens looks like a huge smash.
Javon, or Jackson Smith and Jigba, Garrett Wilson, are big wins so far, even at, you know,
round three, ADP.
And then green is mostly dominating.
Early round running back is mostly dominating.
They're not giving you quite as big wins as Puka and Sun God have.
But, you know, after those two, it's like basically all green here at the top, right?
And so that's running back.
So early round running back is not, this is not, you said round six, round seven or so.
We're not seeing Javante Williams.
We're not seeing Quentin Johnston.
No, we'll get to that after this.
This is looking at the early rounds.
And the further left it is, then that's the earlier picks.
And so anything like on the left half of this photo is the first three rounds.
And that's where you're seeing most of the green players be the highest,
which is running backs are mostly winning in the early rounds.
Thank you for saying it because I know the people who are not watching, they can't see.
But I think Jacob's doing a very good job of laying out the visual.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The other takeaway I had, you can't really say anything with the tight-ins because
Friken Bowers and Kittle have both been hurt.
Trey McBride has outproduced his pick, but it's just tough to say anything about like
early round tight-in as a strategy.
But you can, I think, say something about early round QBs, which is they continue to look
foolproof.
Like basically, we talked about this a lot before the draft where it's like, these are the
easy button.
If you have a round three pick that you think could outproduce them, maybe you hit on that,
you know, like James Cook absolutely has.
but most of the time Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, even Jalen Hertz, are your safest bets.
Jalen Hertz hasn't had a huge season.
He's right in line with expectation here on this chart, whereas Lamar and Josh Allen are above it.
They're really, really good picks.
So as long as these mobile quarterbacks stay healthy, then they're probably going to smash.
I will say this on one note, though.
I am ready to turn the page for probably good for me on early round, tight end.
We say this every year
We say this every year
And I gave myself an exception this year
Because I thought Brock Bowers was a generational talent
But what it turns out to be
Is that generational talent
Doesn't like supersede
Scheme and roll in the offense
He's hurt
You don't know right
I think you're coming to this conclusion too quickly
Because Kittles hurt
We'll stay
And it's not about being hurt
No Kittles hurt
I mean Kittle wasn't
It really only applied this year
To Bowers and McBride
Those were the two people
Who would be taken up top
Kittle was maybe a round or two later, which is still fair.
But by that point, you're getting into a different range of receivers and running backs
that you're passing up on and quarterbacks for that matter.
You kind of miss that elite tier.
As far as those first two guys go, I think last year, the entire Raiders offense was designed
around Bowers.
And I know you're saying he's hurt Jacob, and hopefully that's the case.
His role was completely different in week one.
He was going to smash in that role.
Maybe.
Maybe I hope you're right.
He also played New England in week one.
But I mean, I tend to agree.
There was one stat that I sort of looked at
and I tried to figure out the commonality
between the tight ends in the last five or six years
that have just smashed.
That have been worthy of a top 18 or so.
It's like just Hall of Famers.
Like Kelsey and no one else.
I mean, you had Earths in there once upon a time, I think.
You have Kelsey three times.
You have Mark Andrews had a season in there.
You had Darren Waller in there.
And he messed.
After the season he had, you then drafted him high.
Hold on.
You're George Kittle in there.
I might be forgetting one, but all of them, except maybe Andrews, all of them were on these
offenses that passed for more yards than I ever could see the Raiders or the Cardinals doing this year.
I think that's fair.
On these very prolific passing offenses, and I just couldn't see, you know, I couldn't see
the Raiders getting up to 4,300 passing yards or something like that this year.
That's fair.
I can't remember the exact numbers.
So that actually was the main reason I didn't draft Bowers in any leagues.
But then after week one, I was like, I think I made a big mistake here.
And last, yesterday, he got six of 21 targets.
No, it's all garbage time targets at the end.
And they were short.
They only threw 21 passes.
The target was bad.
But even beyond just the Bowers point to me, it's like I had already sworn off drafting
any of these mid-round tight ends, like the Leportis and whatever.
Those to me are always wasted picks.
But like the key reason is the same reason why I should have been,
sworn off drafting the Bowers McBride's type because it's the easiest position by far
to find late round sleepers and values in my late round sleeper this year was was Ferguson he's the
number one scoring fantasy line we had on jacob and we did our sleeper show and beyond the box
score we had Ryan heath on or i believe it was Ryan heath we had a bunch of guests one of them
had a hunter henry as his sleeper he's the number two scoring tight end and then number three is
another sleeper at tight end that a lot of people like dalton concade who's basically only number
three tight end because he scores a touchdown all the time in that offense but
that was believed to be the case because it was talked about all offseason how you know you're at bills camp
and it's just always it's always kinkade in the red zone they're just looking for me kinkade in the red zone
but those are the top three scores and you didn't use no draft capital get any of them it's just
i am not going to do it again i'm done with it this is it for me i'll find my sleeper and i'll probably
be right because it was very easy to locate those three as sleepers this year okay and even kyle
pitts like he's let's see well let's talk about it in august 2026 yeah we will and i hope i don't do it
Again, I hope this is it for me.
Let's get our next data presentation here.
Yeah, I think the late-round tied-in thing is totally fair.
Outside of bringing up Kincaid as an example, I think that's complete randomness.
He's tight-end three.
Exactly.
I think that doesn't matter at all.
I think that's completely random.
But it shows how dumb the position is.
It shows why I don't want to waste capital on.
Or even, like, I don't know.
Like, even if you were willing to draft Kincaid, like, would you be starting every
week?
Like, maybe if you have to.
He doesn't even been rostered every week.
You know, he's been in the 70% range and roster rate a lot.
He doesn't even play that many snaps, and it doesn't even matter.
He's a little fluky.
He's a little fluky.
You don't have to do much at tight ends of score is the point.
All right, go ahead, Jacob.
But you also could get, you know,
Joanne Johnson off the waiver wire and be starting him the whole time.
Like, I think that's a fair point.
If you look at this chart, you'll see a lot of blue creeping up here.
Jake Ferguson at the very top here, Hunter Henry is the next highest one there.
So to Dan's point, like, yes,
lay around tied in has continued to look like a good strategy.
The only reason I think that you would do the Bowers thing is if you do believe
that he can buck all the trends that Adam laid out with
the team level stuff and him being that kind of a talent,
which was a risky bet,
which I think honestly is one of the,
my biggest personal misses this year is like placing a lot of really high,
like extreme risk bets off of like belief in the talent.
That happened with DGJ,
that happened with Ladman Konki,
that happened with Travis Hauer,
that happened with Bowers,
where it's like, I don't know.
Golden, it's happening with Golden as well.
Okay, no, that's a late round pick.
get what you're saying. You're talking about early round picks. You're talking about
rookies, basically, that you bought into, and I don't blame you. I cannot believe how bad
Brian Thomas Jr. has been. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense that
AJ Brown has been this bad, right? Sometimes it just doesn't make sense, and we don't have to
necessarily have regrets over it. I mean, a lot of guys have been busts, and I don't know that
we did anything wrong. It's just the nature of sports. Also, it's only been four weeks.
I would place the Ladd-McConkie bet again a hundred times out of 100 for what it's worth.
I have no regrets about that one.
It's interesting, too, though, just to touch back on what Jacob said at the start of this conversation,
I feel like we go through this every year, Adam and Jacob, where the middle rounds,
and not even the middle rounds, the early middle rounds, starting with like round three,
and then through like four, five, six, or just filled with busts.
Of course.
But if we keep saying, of course, to that, at some point, it is worth the opportunity cost
to pass up on a wide receiver running back bet there to get one of these elite quarterbacks
who, like Jacob outlined, and like we've seen now for three years in a row, are returning
great value.
But we've said that all off season.
I mean, that's when we were taking these guys.
I thought it was too small of a win, and I never really made that bet except for one,
one quarterback league where I draft the Lamar.
And also, like, we have the lay round QBs, you know, like that have also looked great.
Drake May, Caleb Williams, like, it's been a pretty easy bet for several years in a row now
to go for the talented running late round QB that's cheap,
and they often hit.
It's been a bad bet a few times,
like when Anthony Richardson pushed up into round six or whatever,
Justin Fields' price felt a bit prohibitive at times this draft season,
but then you were able to get them a little bit later,
so that might be a good pick still.
But that was where I landed with QB is like,
if you don't get one early, it's fine,
because you have these guys insofar they have been hits.
As I look at the middle round here, what stands out to me,
these young middle round receivers are crushing.
I don't know if there's,
I don't want to attach to any takeaway from this through four weeks.
Just observing what has happened with this middle range,
the brutal picks have been the running backs.
Like Travis E.N. is hit and we still worry a little bit that maybe he'll lose some work as the year goes on.
Javante Williams has hit.
Other than that,
it's like pretty much all bad picks.
David Montgomery is up here,
but I don't, that seemed like mostly a one-week spike thing.
Cam Scataboo's up here because he had a teammate injury.
Jordan Mason's up here because he had a teammate injury.
Kenneth Walker and Chuba Hubbard are like barely holding the line where they're like right at
expectation.
But other than that, it's like you've got Camara, you've got R.J. Harvey, Henderson, James
Connor, unfortunately, got injured.
Pacheco, Tony Pollard, Dandre Swift, Aaron Jones, also injured, but really wasn't.
He was already losing work before the injury.
even like Kairn Williams,
Breast Hall,
like they're kind of like
right at the line too
and all those other guys
are below the line.
So the running back picks
have been probably the worst ones
you can make in this range.
Yeah,
and it makes sense
because last year
the running backs were amazing.
So we knew it was just foolscold.
But look,
I think we should definitely check in on this
in a few weeks
because things changed very quickly.
I was just thinking about
that round four to five wide receiver range,
really about four to six,
which is where I just loved living in that range.
I actually think a lot of them
been have been busts. Xavier Worthy's
been a bust only because of injury.
Let's see. Cortland
Sutton and Garrett Wilson have been really good. DJ Moore
has been horrible. Devante
Smith has been Devante Smith. Not really
that good. Tetero and McMillan has been
kind of a bust. I mean, we like the talent
but the production hasn't really been there.
Pickens has been good. Flower is good. James
Williams horrible. Calvin Ridley
worse than Jameson Williams. Jerry
Judy, horrible pick. Ricky
Pierceall, frustrating.
Yeah, so I could keep going. Then you have some good
You have Debo and Abuka.
I guess it's been about a 50% rate, which isn't bad.
It's definitely a feel thing, but it feels to me like this year more than any year through
four weeks, there's just been so many bust picks in all rounds of the drafts.
Like, the players who are scoring a lot in fantasy are players who are either not drafted
or drafted really late, the Quentin Johnson's, the Hunter Henrys, the Jake Ferguson's of
the world.
So it's hard for me to even come to too many takeaways based on that.
I just think the NFL's changing a lot.
There's a lot of injuries.
There's a lot of passing games that don't.
stick together year over year and don't contribute the same way.
And the same now we're seeing, as you mentioned,
with these running backs in the run game as well.
A lot of these teams aren't blocking the same way they used to
and aren't as healthy in the run game either.
All right, we got to go.
I actually am three minutes late for another podcast.
But I want to end with my thoughts on the new kickoff rule,
which I think is ridiculous.
This is basically arena football at this point.
These teams score late in the game,
and they have almost no chance of keeping the opponent out of field goal range
because they're getting the ball at the,
the 40-yard line after these returns, basically.
It's just you don't even know what to do.
Do you take a touchback and have it come out to the 35?
It's just ridiculous.
I know we want more kickoffs and they're exciting.
But do we have to think of everything in five-yard increments?
Maybe we can put the ball at the 32 and a half-yard line.
Maybe that would be a good compromise.
Like, can we be, this is so ridiculous.
I really can't stand it the way the field position has changed so dramatically.
It's just, it's unfair.
It's already impossible to play defense.
You get called penalty on everything.
Almost every defensive penalty is an automatic first down.
It could be third and 25.
You commit an illegal contact penalty.
It's an automatic first down.
And now you're making it even harder by giving teams the ball at the 35-yard line or better on so many drives.
So that's my rant.
And that will do it.
For the most part, I agree with it.
I don't like this new kickoff rule at all.
And I think NFL is so unwilling to make major changes to their rules in general,
despite some things that you can come up with that make a lot of sense.
But then all of a sudden they make these drastic changes to the kickoff rules that impact the game in a major way.
Like, you're seeing teams return it to the 40 and these key drop 46-yard lines.
At the end of the game.
And then they need two completions to kick a field goal.
I'm sorry, I do have to go.
Jamie's waiting for me to record FFT Express.
So we will talk to you tomorrow on both FFT and beyond the box.
We'll subscribe to both feeds and see you.
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