Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score: Jags Offense, Colts RBs, Jahan Dotson (12/19 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  We recap Giants-Commanders to start the show while discussing Saquon Barkley's big game, Jahan Dotson's evolving role and what to expect from the Commanders running backs moving forward. Then we'll go through the news and notes (12:30) ... Advanced stats from Jacob (14:10) on Ja'Marr Chase and Chris Moore among others, and then Dan breaks down the Jaguars passing game (20:24). How much faith do we have in them at the Jets this week? ... Big Topics include the Colts RBs (30:10), Jerick McKinnon's role (33:25) and "Start Your Studs" vs. "Play the Matchups" (39:30)! ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this? No, I can't. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races, and he stays on his feet. He's just going to go the distance.

Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Sorry we're late, everybody. It was Schneider's fault. Welcome to the show. It's me, John. I'm Bob Store. On a Monday afternoon. What are we talking about today?

Of course, we've got the advanced stats for you. Our four big topics today, the Colts running backs with Jonathan Taylor potentially out for the rest of the season and two tasty matchups coming up, Chargers and Giants, one of the most run-heavy teams since the coaching change. The Jaguars passing game. Jarek McKinnon, what the heck? Can someone make sense of it? And what do we do about starting players and

tough matches? How do you play the matchups? Playing the matchups in the fantasy postseason. Of course, we had the Giants and the Commanders last night. Yes, it was pass interference, but no, the Commanders weren't guaranteed a win even if they made the right call. 20 to 12 Giants with the win. We'll talk about that game, go through a few news items and etc.

Welcome. Happy Hanukkah, Jacob. Happy Hanukkah. Is that right or I really have no idea what that is. How the hell am I not getting a happy Hanukkah? Happy Hanukkah to Dan is really what it is. Happy Hanukkah to everybody celebrating and happy holidays.

It's a wonderful time of year. I choose to be an optimist right now. That's why I'm going to try to convince myself to start all my Jaguars this week in the Thursday game against the Jets. But we'll discuss that in a little bit. All right, guys. Let's go to the game. The Giants and the Commanders. It was a pretty exciting game.

I don't know. Jacob from a non-biased viewpoint, what did you think of that game last night? Was it enjoyable? It was, I guess, exciting is the right word. I don't really enjoy watching either team, especially Washington. But, like, it was close.

It was fun. Like, there was a lot of drama. There was. It was a big game. It had a nice crowd. You know? A lot of drama, sure. Alright, I'll let Dan talk about the Giants and Jacob can talk about the Commanders. What are your Giants takeaways, Dan? How about the

big game from Saquon Barkley, but a dud from Darius Slayton. What are your takeaways here? Yeah, a few interesting notes on the Giants offense. They made some key changes that I thought I at least had been calling for, for two or three weeks now, really happy to see them make the changes. They went to a lot more quick game in this out of the shotgun, which is something that they hadn't been doing all season. And that was, I mean, they've mixed it in at times, but they really started to lean heavily on it. The best drive of the night, the 98 yard touchdown

drive was a lot of shotgun from Daniel Jones. He's always been a more comfortable quarterback in shotgun at Duke. He ran out of the shotgun almost, I think like 85% of the snaps or something crazy like that. Same with Pat Shermer during his best season. So what that did was give more opportunities for players like Isaiah Hodgins, who are just running like simple slant flat combinations with Barkley taking the flat and open slant. And so Hodgins has kind of become the more, I guess you can say trusted wide receiver, or just in general, the more targeted receiver than Darius Slayton. Slayton is a player who I was a little higher on earlier in the season and Jacob had some great stats on him. The open rate stats were great, but if they're going to

transition the offense to more quick game, it doesn't suit Slayton as much as the older offense where they were under center taking, you know, five, seven step drops off play action and trying to dial up deep and intermediate shots to Slayton. So I think that's my first observation. My second is Saquon Barkley looked the freshest he's looked in over a month since that 35 carry game against Houston. Some really nifty spin moves.

He had the screen, you know, he caught that little pass in the flat where he totally juked a defender turned to one yard gain into a nine yard gain. The burst was back and that could be really important down the stretch on your fantasies. And I think he had just over 20 fantasy points last night. That could be a trend moving forward if he is running the way he looked last night. Yeah, he still didn't have an explosive play. I think his longest run was 15 yards or something like that. But I think if you just watched it, he looked a lot better. I really liked the way they used him in the passing game in particular. Just get him the ball and let him do some things. And he had five catches, which was great. He's had a lot of targets lately, and the yards per catch is still way down. But I was

honestly a little surprised. I didn't think he'd have that good of a game. Of course, he scored a touchdown. They score rushing touchdown almost every week. But it was nice to see for Saquon Barkley. You did get seven targets from Darius Slayton. You get the Vikings a touchdown. They score a rushing touchdown almost every week, but it was nice to see for Saquon Barkley. You did get seven targets from Darius Slayton. You get the Vikings next week. They're one of the worst pass defenses in football, so maybe he can bounce back. I do think that's an interesting point

that you're making about the style of play. I also see this comment from Office Depot. I don't know if it's like the CEO, but he's in our chat all the time. He said, Slayton's fumble lost me a playoff match. I lost by one point, but he didn't lose the fumble. But yeah, that wasn't considered a lost fumble. So do you play in a league where all fumbles are negative too?

Because if that is the case, I kind of like it. I was thinking about that the other day. Why shouldn't we penalize all fumbles instead of just lost fumbles? I don't know. It's not a bad take. I like that take. It's kind of interesting. It would be pretty bad for quarterbacks.

They fumble a lot. Yeah. All right, Jacob. On the flip side, the commanders got inside the five-yard line or around there. I don't know where that fumble was. Around the five-yard line twice. Didn't score. You had the fumble from Heineke.

You had the Brian Robinson touchdown, which was overturned or called back on a penalty that John Perry on postgame said should not have been called, the one on Terry McLaurin. And then you had, of course, the pass interference that wasn't called. But anyway, they scored 12 points. They left some points off the board. What are your takeaways from the commander side? I think the most exciting thing for the commanders, this is actually one of the guys I was going to talk about in the advanced that segment is john dotson we've seen back-to-back games um they've been pretty encouraging from him they have both come against the giants um and that's a matchup that you know schematically fits pretty well because new york's so aggressive defensively

um that they leave themselves open for downfield shots which is of course the types of routes the dotson is running but still uh he's targeted on over 20 percent of his routes in each of the past two games in his first seven games of his career he was not targeted on more than 17 percent of his routes in any of those games so that's exciting um area to share up around 30 in the past two games and that is cutting into mclaurin's uh workload a little bit we saw mclaurin really really just dominate um the target shares and area to chairs for washington for the past couple of months. But it's become a little bit more even distribution lately. So that's exciting for the rookie. The running back usage is really interesting. I don't know if it's actually

going to matter because they've got San Francisco next week. And Antonio Gibson isn't doing anything with the usage that he's getting. But Gibson continues to play more than Robinson in the red zone and completely dominate the passing downs. And so like this week, we saw 62% snap rate for Gibson, only 36% for Robinson. And I think Robinson's only red zone touch in the game was the one that got called back. Gibson completely dominated the snap share in the red zone as well. So it's going to be tough to trust either one of these guys or fantasy. I could see maybe Robinson or Gibson being a play against Cleveland in the fantasy championship game.

I agree. Yeah, there's sits against the Niners. Who isn't? But I think Robinson is running away with the running downs job. If you look at it, it looks really good. He does. You know, I mean, awesome. I think it's pretty obvious he was hampered by what happened to him.

It took him a while to sort of regain his footing, but he is running the ball well. I'm actually pretty excited about him. If you have Robinson and can make it to Week 17 against the Browns, I think you could be in for a really nice week. But I think against the Niners, it's probably not going to be pretty. One thing I want to add there before we move on is I think one thing holding back both Robinson and Gibson, specifically Robinson, is just simply

Ron Rivera and Scott Turner. And I love Scott Turner's offensive coordinator. I've said on the past and I stand by it. He's the most underrated. He's one of, if not the most underrated offensive play callers in the NFL. He had an incredible drive coming out of halftime to really just counter everything Wink Martindale did from a schematic standpoint. But they went away from the run in this game when they really shouldn't have. The Giants showed no signs of stopping the run game at any point. And that's been in his MO for a long time here with Washington and in the past with Carolina. He likes to throw.

He likes to throw a lot. It's a pass-heavy script. It's a pass-heavy game plan. It's a pass-heavy offensive system. So that is one thing that scares me out Robinson moving forward because I've seen it happen. I saw it happen last night. It made no sense to me when it happened. And it's not the first time this has happened. Great question here from the chat from squish fourth and one on the one yard line game on the

line. Who's getting the ball to win the game, Jacob, Adam, or Dan. I honestly think I should get the ball because I'm probably, well, I'm, I think Jacob, you're or Dan? I honestly think I should get the ball because I'm probably... I think, Jacob, you're probably a little too tall. When you're at the fourth and one, you really want leverage is important. You want to get square. You want to get low to the line of scrimmage. I'm five foot nine. You are?

You look so tall. He does look six, seven foot eight. I thought he was definitely... He's always standing up. I thought you were like six, one, 135. By the way, you're the tallest of the three of us. I'm like five, seven foot eight. No, I thought he was definitely. He's always standing up. Standing up. I thought you were like six, one, 135. By the way, you're the tallest of the three of us. I'm like five, eight and a half. I'm like five, eight and a half too.

But actually after seeing Adam, I think I was like a clear half inch taller that the one time we met. Would you agree with that, Adam? No. I had a half inch. No, we're the same height. We're the same height.

I don't know about that. We'll have to reevaluate that next time we see each other. It's Dan. Dan gets the goal line carry. I'm taking the goal line carry. Look at these guns. And I agree with Graham. Dan fumbles that ball.

100% of the time, Graham. You should have said 100, not zero. It's a fumble every time. It's a fumble. All right. So those are our takeaways from the Giants and the Commanders. And all right. Let's talk about Sportsline.

That's where Jacob comes from sports line world. And if you want to subscribe to sports line, get great gambling advice, great fantasy advice, really cool website with some analytics, uh, written work from our experts. It's, it's great stuff. So go to sportsline.com sign up nine 99 a month, which is nothing for gambling websites. I mean, people pay so much money for gambling advice. It's crazy. How about $9.99 a month, and your first month is $0.99? And if you can't afford that, Dan will lend you $0.99, although he can't afford it either because he won't pay $4 to watch Die Hard.

Don't you try to start painting that narrative. Let's recycle and retire that. I mean, let's retire that narrative. He won't buy Die Hard. It was not about the money i'm willing to buy diehard i did let me reiterate i didn't want to buy it on someone else's account and the other thing was to sign a first subscription i have now found a way to buy it for like 5.99 somebody a ton of people tweeted at me crapping on me thanks to you adam good but one more little

sell for sportsline recently i think last week mid week, they started putting up, and I love this player props on sports line player prop picks. And that is where you can get the biggest edge on the sports books through the player props. The sports books are really good at setting these lines, overs totals point spreads. We all know that sometimes it's amazing how close they get, but the player props, they are not as good on. They don't have as much information to work with. So now that those are up on Sportsline, rush over. Find your player props.

Find the analyst you like who's winning with those. And that's my final sell for Sportsline. I am going under Cam Akers' rushing prop tonight. 55 and a half. How much? 55 and a half. I think I like that. Look, if you play in the spread,

the Packers are favored by 7 and a half. If you think they're going to cover or come close, that's probably not a lot of carries for Cam Akers. Right. And his longest run of the year, I believe, is 15 yards. So I think he's going to need 15 carries to get close to 55 yards. So I'm going to take the under.

That's my prop. Also, what is this all about? Adam is being a jerk, says Matt. Dan gave a legit reason why he couldn't buy it on a borrowed account. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Matt. Bring a little logic to the situation. I really appreciate that.

Yeah, I'm not being a jerk. Jeez, he is killing me. Stooping low here, Matt. We're friends talking that mike remember when adam said he wouldn't roster to sean watson because because he felt like remember that whole thing that he was like still now you have him in like two leagues i saw him on the oil of bench no you absolutely did not i'm kidding i'm making that up i'm joking i'm joking all right yeah dan's being a jerk Alright news and notes

Colt McCoy left with a concussion It could be McSorley against the Bucs Over under 13 PPR fantasy points For DeAndre Hopkins against Tampa Bay Next week if McSorley is the quarterback Under

Did you say PPR? I'll go over I hope it's under I'm facing him in my matchup next week Under. Did you say PPR? Fall PPR? Uh-huh. I'll go over. Okay. I hope it's under because I'm facing him in my matchup next week in my big league. Ryan Tannehill

left in the first quarter but returned. We'll see how his ankle is doing. Jonathan Taylor could be out for the season. We are going to talk about the Colts running backs. Damian Pierce on IR.

To be honest with you, it was really a pretty light injury week. Thankfully. Bam Knight limped off, but he did come back. Don't know his status. I think he's going to play on Thursday. Justin Tucker missed two field goals in a game

for the first time since 2018. One of them was blocked. There were some defensive news items. How about, well, Cam Robinson left tackle for the Jaguars. That's not defensive, but he is out for the season. The Cleveland Browns

lost two starting defensive players. John Johnson, safety, and Jadeveon Clowney. Clowney with a concussion. Don't know the extent there. They get the Saints. Oh, I thought this was interesting, kind of on the lines of what we talk about on the show. The Steelers really clamped down against the run,

against the Panthers. They loaded the box. Sam Darnold was talking about that. They're going to see more of that. But the Steelers also used a defensive lineman. I think his name is Marvin Leal. 6'4", 290 pounds. They used him a lot.

So they basically just sold out against the run. They completely shut down the Panthers' offense. And you can expect similar blueprints going forward. Okay, Jacob, some of your favorite advanced stats from the weekend. Yeah, I already mentioned Dotson. I think it was an encouraging game for him. I also wanted to hit on Chris Moore.

The volume that we're seeing for Chris Moore is pretty ridiculous. He's basically, he's drawing the volume that we saw Nico Collins drawing, and he's also producing, which I think is interesting. That could be kind of an indictment on Collins, who somebody I was really excited for. But he's pretty much stepped in and drawn better volume right away. So over the past two weeks, 40% of Houston's first down targets have went to Chris Moore, which is one of the highest rates in the league. He has a 39% target share and a 45% area-outed share. Like I said, he's actually been producing on these, whereas they were pretty hollow

stat lines for Nico Collins most of the time. He's not been bad for his career, but he's never been somebody who's produced anywhere near what we've seen. I'm curious what you guys think of this. Is this just a blip? It's been back-to-back games of really solid underlying volume. I'm really pissed about Chris Moore. I'm sorry. I think he

had four catches for 42 yards on nine targets. That's nothing. I think he had all of it in the first half. I made a fairly bold call on Chris Moore this week. I thought he was kind of a borderline, I wouldn't say must start, but a recommended start in full PPR.

I thought he was going to have a really good game. And if you told me nine targets against the Chiefs, I would have thought, you know, at least six for 60 or something, which is kind of what I was hoping for. And he completely disappeared. So I think it's still a good call by you though, Adam, because the target volume was there.

You got the process was right. And honestly, that played out pretty correctly. It just didn't play out from a production standpoint. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I think if Collins and Cooks are both out next week, then I think he goes back to being a wide receiver three.

Yeah, I mean, you're probably going to get a minimum of nine targets. Minimum. And Titans and Jaguars the next two games. Yeah, really good matchups too. The Titans see as many wide receiver targets as just about any team in football. So he can't run on them. All right, what else you got?

Jamar Chase. I just wanted to bring this up again. Last week I brought up, it was his highest volume target game of his career. And of course that coincided with Tee Higgins and Tyler Ward being out. But those two were back and we again saw Jamar just dominate um first down targets 33 first down target share um in week 15

and a 34 target share 54 area to share in week 15 even with higgins a boy back so over the past two weeks 40 target share for the bangles um it's just really exciting to see this type of a trend possibly developing because we've never really seen him be somebody who completely dominates the target share he's gone by on just like ridiculous efficiency um so if he can continue to do this i think the sky's the limit we're talking about like probably the best receiver in fantasy if this is in any way sustainable um did you guys get to watch that game? I feel like T Higgins is not at full health, but I'm curious what you think. Well,

I didn't watch, I didn't watch it in those terms. I was going to say actually Carlton Davis did a terrific job against Jamar chase. Especially in the red zone. Didn't shadow him, but he did do a really nice job. I also got away with a couple of past interferences,

but I don't hear Bengals fans crying like the commanders fans, but no, I didn't see that. I don't know, Dan, if you have any insight on Higgins, not, I didn't hear Bengals fans crying like the commanders fans, but no, I didn't see that. I don't know, Dan, if you have any insight on Higgins, not, I didn't follow him enough.

So that would be something next time. Shout me out before the show, Jacob, I'll watch him a little more deeply, but yeah, I haven't got to that yet. And then the last thing I want to bring up was Jalen Waddle. This was a really encouraging game from him.

And we've had about a month straight of pretty discouraging underlying data for him. But yeah, he drew a target on 31% of his routes, had a 46% area yardage share, and just was consistently getting open down the field. So feel good about him going to the fantasy stretch run here. Okay. Let's see if I have just a few stats before we turn it over for the film review here. Yeah, I got this on Gabe Davis. Josh Allen, before the elbow injury in his first eight games, he threw 13 passes of 35 or more air yards. In his last six games since the elbow injury, he has thrown four passes of 35 plus air yards.

Only one of them has gone to Gabe Davis. I'm just not starting Gabe Davis anymore. Yeah. That was, I have a lot on McKinnon, but he's one of our topics. That's about it. How about Kirk Cousins

is fourth in the NFL in pass attempts? It's not an advanced stat, but it's a good thing to know. And I trust him this week against the Giants. I think he's going to have a good game.

Oh yeah, he will. Really good game coming for him. David Johnson ran more routes than Alvin Kamara this week against the Giants. I think he's going to have a good game. Oh, yeah, he will. Really good game coming for him. David Johnson ran more routes than Alvin Kamara this week. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's the stat of the show right there. Alvin Kamara ran nine routes. That is the stat of the show.

Me saying in week five that I wanted nothing to do with Kamara, I just want to throw that back because I get so many wrongs. He had like 108 total yards, something like that. He didn't have a bad game. They face Cleveland next week. Great. 108 yards, no touchdowns. Minimal involvement have a bad game. They face Cleveland next week. Great, 108 yards, no touchdowns. Minimal involvement in the pass game.

What is he now? Why is everybody killing me in the chat? What are they killing you for? Adam likes his fingers before he flips to the next page on his Kindle. That's good. What else we got? Adam's takes are as strong as Jonathan Taylor's. Oh, geez.

What did I do? I don't know. You ever hear about, you know, just like Omar once said, and to show you for some God awful reason, never seen. And you probably don't even know what I'm referencing. The wire, Dan. I get it. The wire. Omar Little once said, if you come at the king, you best not miss. Yeah. For the last time, I've seen the wire. It's a boring version of the wire. I've seen it. Omar Little once said, if you come at the king, you best not miss.

Yeah. For the last time, I've seen the wire. It's a boring version of The Shield. Go ahead and watch The Shield and get back to me. God, this take is...

You've never seen The Shield. How could you comment? I've actually seen every episode of The Shield. Love The Shield. Great show. In my top 15. Amazing show.

Amazing ending. The final season of The Shield was phenomenal. The last four or five episodes phenomenal stuff amazing as good as it gets the forest whitaker season best season of the show yeah um so i've seen the shield i've seen all great shows adam so nice try there i didn't know this about you this is good maybe i forgot i'm very impressed all right dan let's get your film review here what uh what are we watching this week let's dive into the film film

and as adam knows at length i do want to caveat this by saying this Cam Robinson injury for the Jaguars scares the hell out of me. He's their starting left tackle. And sometimes you can recover from left tackle injuries as an offense, but it usually doesn't happen the week after. If we remember, for example, earlier this season, when the Chargers lost Rashawn Slater, they're all pro left tackle. It took them a few games to start to get that pass game going. The first game, it looked like they couldn't even operate a drop back pass system. So I want to keep that in mind, but I want to say this. We had a really good spot this week with the Jaguars against the Cowboys.

Because as Adam mentioned on a previous podcast, and he was right, just two weeks ago, Lawrence and an offense struggled against the Lions. But what I saw on tape the week after that is a change in how they operated that offense, a much more aggressive pass, heavy attack, attacking different areas of the field, utilizing Evan Ingram up the seam, which was an important piece. So two things, as we went into this Cowboys game, I wanted answered one, would Evan Ingram be just a blip in the, you know, a blip and they wouldn't continue to use him and find

ways to have him open up their offense. And two, would it be okay? Well, they torched the titans pad past events but they go against the cowboys and now they're back to earth and both things remain true they continue to utilize evan ingram in the past game to help open up the rest of that offense up the scene and they beat a pretty damn good past defense in dallas i know they're not as good as they once were whatever but he torched them through the air trevor lawrence and they look just as good so i have the answer to my question you know assuming, assuming the cam Robinson injury at left tackle

doesn't kill them. My answer is this offense is now clicking and cooking and will be really good rest of season, including this game against the jets. One player I really focused on in this game for the film review was Zay Jones. Zay Jones is a player I talked about on this like five weeks ago as a must add. And I'm really happy that I did. Hopefully some of you scooped him up because this isn't a, this isn't, you know, fake, this isn't Fugazi. This is real stuff was, it was a Jones. And I, and I hope you like that Fugazi call there, Adam, because it's me trying to be Italian again,

but some of my notes, uh, film notes on Zay Jones early on, right away design, quick hitting screen to get him the ball at the line of scrimmage, allow him to run after the catch nine yard gain. He caught a touchdown on a mesh route, nothing crazy for him, just traffic over the middle. The 14 yard catch he made after that settled down really nice in between the linebacker and the safety for a hole shot. This is the reason why this offense is so good right now. Lawrence is more comfortable throwing these tight window hole shot throws than almost any quarterback in the NFL right now. They ISOed him one-on-one for a double move as the X receiver, which is essentially just, you know, the receiver lines up on the left side, um, in the red zone, they target him in the end zone. He didn't win that double move. It was incomplete.

Few plays later, later in the game, he runs an incredible double move on the right side as the flanker completely freezes the defender. Lawrence finds him, hits him for a 55 yard touchdown. Later in the game, he ran a deep out in the fourth quarter should have been another 18 yard game, but the DB grabbed them. No DPI. It's fine. But later in the game, a few plays after that on their fourth quarter game tying field goal drive, he does an excellent job working back to the quarterback on kind of like a broken play where his route was covered. And that just kind of shows what he is right now. He's Trevor Lawrence's best friend in the passing game. He works back to the quarterback. He has double moves.

He catches screens. He catches everything really thrown to him. So right now I'm very high on Zay Jones and that entire passing game right now. Evan Ingram as well, I think will continue to move forward and get, get the same kind of volume he's been getting. So those are my, my takeaway here is start Zay Jones. Don't think it's a, you know, random fluke game and continue to have some confidence in Evan Ingram as that worst

to back end tight end one. Zay Jones is now six in the NFL and end zone targets with 12. Christian Kirk has 10. He's 11th. DK Metcalf leads all receivers with 19 end zone targets. Stefan Diggs, Devante Adams,

Justin Jefferson have 15. Amari Cooper, 13. And Zay Jones and Cortland Sutton have 12. So we told you that last week that nobody throws in the end zone more often than Trevor Lawrence. And Zay Jones was the recipient of some of that,

certainly in week 16. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't know. I can't say, oh, Baltimore's great defense and Dallas is a great defense. Are the Jets better? I feel like they are. They are.

I feel like they're playing defensively. I think they have the best defense in football. No, San Fran. Okay, that's fair. They might have second best, though. Yeah, I mean, Denver's obviously very good, but they haven't been quite as good since the Chubb trade. If they get Quinn and Williams back

this week, it would be even better for them. And I'm going to be really interested to see what Sauce Gardner does in this matchup, because there's a lot of options for him. Is it going to be Kirk? I don't think he moves. I don't think he moves either, but he moves. Usually what they do is Reed plays right corner and Gardner plays left corner. Kirk's going to play in the slot more, so

I think he's going to avoid those guys more. Right. What is your overall level of confidence in the Jaguars offense on Thursday at the jets zero to 10? I really don't want to get burned by this with this cam Robinson injury and then putting in a random left tackle, but I'm going to go for it anyway and hope that doesn't matter somehow. And I'm going to go with a seven here, Jacob.

When all offenses click like this, sorry, go ahead, Jacob. I was going to say five, five or six. That's probably fair and safer. But sometimes these pass games just click, and then nothing can really stop them.

I think we might be at that point right now. I hope so. I mean, I hope this is the beginning of the career that everybody's hoping for for Trevor Lawrence. All right, so my Dynasty QB rankings were this morning on HQ, this afternoon on HQ. Mahomes, Allen, Hurts, Herbert, Burrow,

Lawrence. Ahead of Fields, ahead of Jackson. I would have Hurts the lowest of the guys you mentioned. Wow. Yeah. I'm okay saying that and of the guys you mentioned. Wow. Yeah. And I'm okay saying that, and I'm fine saying that. I have the least faith that he's going to be playing

for the longest of all those guys. And I like Hertz. I think he's made some really big strides. I don't need these guys to play until 40. I need the next five years. Okay. We're only talking about the next five years instead of the next 10.

I can understand that. And it's still possible. I mean, look, he's made some really good strides as a passer but things have been so nice around him this year with jalen hurts i mean is are the eagles every year going to have the best offensive line in football and arguably the best one two wide receiver combination maybe but the salary cap starts to you know at some point it doesn't you know always look that way with injuries and salary cap. I don't know. Sounds like some Eagles hate there. It's not Eagles hate. I've given a lot of praise.

I literally did a thread on Twitter last week praising Jalen Hurts. He is making some incredible plays, incredible throws. He's definitely evolved. I still like him as the sixth or seventh, but I just couldn't get myself to go with him over Herbert Burrow, maybe Lawrence. Squish in the chat says, Adam is the type of guy to yell Geronimo. That's such a wrong tape. Adam is the take.

Adam is the type of guy who's too scared to jump in the deep end of the pool. That's I grew up with a pool day and I jumped in the deep end all the time. Okay. Okay, fine. Adam is the guy who holds his nose when he jumps. No, I'm the guy who holds his nose when he drinks emergency because it tastes so terrible. By the way,

fake Italian Dan's film review on Zay Jones just said, Mamma Mia! Jacob, top five dynasty, top six dynasty quarterbacks. I think I agree with pretty much how you laid it out. I would probably move Hertz down a spot or two

if you're worried about longevity there, I think the easy, you know, parallel to draw is Kyler Murray. Um, people were really hunting him for dynasty just two or three years ago and it's really tanked quickly. Um, so if you don't believe in him and as a passer, then it could get ugly, but I think he's actually been, he's shown a lot of really encouraging signs as a passer. So I wouldn't, I don't know if that's a fair comparison or not. But yeah, no, I think you laid it out pretty much exactly how I would. Okay. Let's take a break.

When we come back, we'll talk about the Colts running backs. I think we've knocked out one of our big topics, which was Zay Jones and the Jaguars passing game. But we'll talk about Jarek McKinnon. Really interested to hear what you guys have to say about Jarek McKinnon. When we come back, we'll discuss that on Fantasy Football today. Welcome back. Thanks for listening to Beyond the Boxcore. And Schneier's getting killed for saying that Lawrence is better than Jalen Hurts.

Dynasty. I'll stand by it. It's not, it could easily be something this time next year, nobody's saying that's crazy at all or easily. Yeah. Or this time next week. No, I don't know.

I mean, just remember we're talking about it, but I think it's fair to say that was a little bit of an overstatement. I want to correct it and say, I would have hurts over Lawrence, but I would a hundred percent have burrow and Herbert over, over hurts. And I stand by that.

Okay. All right. Four big topics number one comes from campbell he wants us to talk about the colts running back situation jacob they have a just terrific matchups the chargers and the giants their next two games chargers at home giants on the road for the colts and since jeff saturday took over they are averaging 27 running back carries per game, but only 4.4

running back targets per game. They've just become extremely run heavy. And yeah, they're 1-5 or 1-4 with him, but the Dallas game was the only game that wasn't very competitive. Obviously, they had the 30-0 lead at halftime. They had the Eagles

on the ropes. They beat the Raiders. I don't remember the other game. Which one do you prefer, Moss or Jackson? Do you think we can start them? I think that we can start them. The matchups, like you said, are really good. I would have guessed

that it was going to be Deion Jackson, but the usage was definitely better for Zach Moss. And I think Zach Moss actually looks decent this year when given opportunities. So he's the one that I would lean towards the snap rate. Favorite Moss in the red zone. He saw more red zone rushing or red zone touches than any player in the NFL had eight. Deion Jackson had four in week 15 uh and yeah 67 snap rate for moss 32 for jackson um and he ran more routes as well so he's the one i would lean towards we have seen them really like give jackson all the workload in the past but um this week it was moss and it seems like he's

acclimated well and is ready to take on larger workload so i would lean towards him i completely agree with jacob on this by the way i think part of it is like he's acclimated well and is ready to take on a larger workload. So I would lean towards him. I completely agree with Jacob on this, by the way. I think part of it is one, he'll keep that red zone role. And two, they traded for Moss. They have to kind of see in a season like this one, what they have in him moving forward. Is he a piece they can build around?

Obviously not as like their main piece or foundation of a run game, but somebody who they think can be a contributor on their roster. And I know Deion Jackson is a similar player in that regard, but they didn't trade for Jackson. They kind of knew already what they have. Now it's time to kind of find out what they have in Moss. Yeah, and I would dismiss it, really, if it weren't the Chargers this week. But if they can just hang around, stay competitive, I think you could make a case of starting Zach Moss over...

Let's see. So who's over like Deontay Foreman against Detroit. You could definitely make that case. You could make a case for starting him over the Falcons guys against Baltimore. I think that's an easy case to make, even with Algier coming off that big game. If you had any interest in the Texans running back, You're not going to have that this week at Tennessee. No, not Ken Walker. Ken Walker is going to be back in your lineup.

You could consider maybe... Maybe Bryan Robinson. Yeah, that's a great point. Bryan Robinson at San Francisco. At least give yourself the option and pick up these guys. Start with Zach Moss. Give yourself the option. You know, Pacheco against Seattle?

I don't know. All right. So that's kind of a quick topic. Good stuff. Just want to point out that the final tally in carries was 24 for Moss and 13 for Jackson. Before Jackson fumbled, it was 18 for Moss and 13 for Jackson, and then Moss had the last six. All right, from Joey.

He just says, McKinnon! Six exclamation points. Jerry McKinnon has scored 32 or more PPR fantasy points in two straight games. And I struggle to figure out the why to this, Jacob. I wonder if it's a Hardman thing. I mean, if you really, his target share surge began as soon as Nicole Hardman went on IR.

So Hardman could be back this week, but is that what it is? Is it just a coincidence? How much are you buying it? Let's talk about McKinnon with six exclamation points. Yeah, I think I'm glad you brought up Hardman. I think that is a good point. They script a lot of short yardage things just to get the ball in Hardman's hands.

And I think we've seen that go to McKinnon a little bit more, especially with Kadarius Tony sideline Sattelan as well, just barely played this week. But he also is dominating the snap share in the red zone. Over the past two weeks, he has 85% against in his red zone snaps, which is the fifth highest among all running backs. He has a 61% route involvement rate the past two weeks, which is eighth highest among all running backs.

So there are some underlying data points here that give McKinnon He has a 61% route involvement rate the past two weeks, which is eighth highest amount of running backs. There are some underlying data points here that give McKinnon some semblance of a projectable fantasy value. I don't know if you should continue to expect him to be ripping off explosive plays and scoring touchdowns at the rate that he has, but he's in one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL. We've seen that he's the guy that they seem to trust. And it's been weird that these games have been close with the past two games been close.

And that's favored McKinnon, whereas like in the game script where they're clearly, you know, winning and just leading on the run. That's more of a Pacheco game script. So, yeah, it's interesting. I think he's like, how do you guys compare him to the Indianapolis guys that we'd like to sack Moss? Is he someone you're clearly starting because we've had the production, or do you favor the usage with Moss? Clearly starting him over the Colts, guys. Okay.

If it were one guy for the Colts, I would start that one guy ahead of McKinnon. But no, I agree. I think at this point, I'll buy into McKinnon, but I recognize there's a ton of downside, you know? Well, I'll say this about that. Like Jacob said,

it's weird that the chiefs have been in the, like they've been, you know, game scripts that can favor McKinnon, but I don't know, man, I feel like over the last few years of watching the chiefs, they just play down to their bad opponents.

This is just kind of what the chiefs are. It's just kind of what they've always been. If they have a good matchup, they'll play up to those good teams but i don't know if there's going to be any games or just blowing teams out that's not really the chiefs mo and i'll also say this just from an eye test standpoint with mckinnon he is like i talked about earlier how zay jones had a couple reps on film this week where he worked back toward the quarterback which i don't always see receivers doing kind of presenting yourself to the quarterback it's like a best friend quarterback's best friend m McKinnon does a really good job of that

in the past game as well. Like he knows where to be for my homes and he gets to the right spots from homes to find him. So I think there's some value to that as well. He just scares me as the player that were, you know, Oh, you gotta start McKinney, you gotta start McKinnon. And then it's going to be a total dud. When is CH coming back? Isn't that somewhat soon? He's eligible. He's missed four games, but I haven't heard a word about him. And I also don't really think he matters.

He doesn't. He was being really phased out. He had six carries in his last three games. It hasn't been a single year since he was drafted that I didn't draft at least one share of him. And there hasn't been a single time that I haven't regretted it. Yeah. So, all right. The touchdowns are what you really can't rely on,

I think, for McKinnon. I should say have regretted it. Sorry, that was stupid. That's okay. Hopefully you can rely on the catches at least. In the last six games, since Pacheco has really emerged, McKinnon's played 14 snaps inside the five-yard line.

That's second most on the team. Pacheco's played only six snaps. Wow. But McKinnon has one target inside the five yard line. Um, out of 10 targets out of 10 team targets, he has only one. Uh,

Pacheco has five carries from that range in the last six games compared to two for McKinnon. And you know, it's funny, like Kelsey's really the only guy that plays a lot in that range. Otherwise they mix and match quite a bit. It's not like McKinnon's there that much. He's just there more than the other guys,

other than Kelsey. We have a poll that I haven't mentioned. We'll get to our last topic in a moment, but I can't really comment on this one. But which is your favorite Christmas classic? Which Christmas classic do you prefer? Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman,

or How the Grinch Stole Christmas? Jacob, you want to help us out here? Which Grinch are we talking about? Jim Carrey? Shaver, is this like the books or what? No, these are the cartoons, the animated stuff. Right, right, right. Never seen any of them. Yeah, me either.

I think I saw Frosty the Snowman last year, last Christmas. I mean, look, he's a guy who has a high hit rate, but this is a straight-up miss from Tom. I don't know. Well, it's a little, you know, I think you should have clarified it was the cartoons, but that's all. You know this, Dan?

Yeah, Home Alone. I know some basic things. I think that, oh, he's got the Wet Bandits shirt. That's great. I saw it. I missed it live. He's got a lot of great Home Alone attire. He had a little Nero's Pizza hat last night.

That guy loves Home Alone. Yeah, he sure does. All right, I'm going to vote here just to see. I'm going to vote for, if I had to watch one, it'd be The Grinch. The Grinch is running away with it, 57%. Look at this guy, Daniel. He says he knows these are classics. He likes the bowl. He enjoys the bowl.

Never trust a Daniel that goes by Daniel. I think that... How did you miss these growing up? Daniel asks us. Well, I'll throw that to Jacob. Did you watch these growing up, Jacob? I watch all of them. I don't really remember Frosty,

the snowman, but I have seen all of them. Yeah, and my wife has too. So I think, you know, the people who celebrate Christmas got a lot of enjoyment out of that YouTube poll. It was a big win for Thomas Schaefer.

A big win. Way to go. All right, this one's from Tyler. Are matchup rankings more important that YouTube poll. It was a big win for Thomas Schaefer, a big win. Way to go. Uh, all right. This one's from Tyler. Are matchup rankings more important for certain positions or should you just trust your top options during the playoffs? It's a great question. Um,

I am of the belief, and this is not correct or based on science. So I'm curious to get both of your takes on it that I just don't bench my big names. I just don't do it. I don't find a way to do it. It's hard. I never do it.

I mean, look, it depends if there's a horrific matchup on the horizon injuries around them to their teammates, maybe, but I'm like, Josh Allen was a player who I know a lot of people were like telling me to bench even this week because it was that like cold,

windy, snowy game and one of my i'm like i'm not benching josh allen all right and what does he do he goes out and has like four passing touchdowns a rushing touchdown and the game wasn't even that cold or bad weather so i don't know i'm mostly starting my guys i don't think there's a science behind it but what do you guys do i think um that i mostly agree with, but there are a few exceptions. There are some guys who are very specific in the types of matchups that they do well against or don't do well against.

Some guys have very specific man for zone splits and things like that. And at this point in the season, we have so much data that we really can feel relatively confident in those splits. And so there are a few occasions like Amari Cooper stands out as someone who's like clearly better against man against press coverage teams that are have more aggressive defenses and has struggled against zone coverages a lot. And then he also has like road home splits as well. It's like,

there are some spots where I would be willing to sit a stud based on the matchup. And I think the fact that we're in the playoffs, like does present us with more information to feel more confident in those decisions. willing to sit a stud um based on the matchup and i i think the fact that we're in the playoffs like does present us with more information to feel more confident in those yeah decisions um or like some teams blitz at a really really high rate and that clearly affects the target distributions for certain quarterbacks or like the area artage in terms of like where the quarterback's going to look to throw are they going to get rid of it quickly, or are they fine-stunning against the blitz and taking deep shots

and finding guys open one-on-one. I cover all this on Sportsline. I go through schematic matchups and try to find the few specific defenses that really stand out as outliers and do present possible changing points for some of these guys, but mostly you're starting your studs. I could talk about this for a half hour. This is the age-old question.

To answer the first part of the question is, are matchup rankings more important for certain positions? That's interesting. I think probably the least important at wide receiver and tight end, you know, tight end's just its own thing, right? You've got your guys and whatever,

but the ones that are good. To me, it's more important at running back, but not everyone would agree with that. This was a bad week for me in terms of trying to guess the matchups and the performances because two guys that I was pretty low on were David Montgomery and Saquon Barkley. I wasn't telling everyone to David Montgomery and Saquon Barkley. And I wasn't

telling everyone to just outright sit Saquon Barkley or Montgomery, Montgomery, much more so than Barkley. Barkley is Barkley, but, but that's the thing. I didn't really think Barkley was Barkley. I thought that we had a six game sample showing that he's just not what we want him to be. Um, it was, it was fairly convincing. We haven't seen an explosive play in like a month and a half from him. And, um, I was a little surprised by the performance and the Washington running defense is really good. And I, you know, what I haven't done is I haven't looked at what he did on the last drive of the game. Cause I bet his numbers were much less impressive before that, but yet he still scored and he had five catches Montgomery. I thought the Eagles were going to steamroll them.

The Eagles, when they have Jordan Davis, they're an elite run defense. And Montgomery's not an elite running back. So I did not expect him to have 4.4 yards per carry or whatever. It wasn't a good week

for me in that regard. But, you know, I get a lot of those right. I get some of them wrong. You know, it's like any other thing. The harder part is when you say,

do you just trust your top options and go with your guys? Where do you draw the line? Right. you say, do you just trust your top options and go with your guys? Where do you draw the line? Right. David Montgomery, to me, is never in that group. No.

For Heath, he always is. You know, it's just a personal thing. Right. And how about Lamar Jackson this week? Is someone going to tell me that if I tell you to sit Lamar Jackson, I'm crazy, you got to start your studs? Lamar Jackson has been the number 17 wide receiver per game in his last,

I think eight starts quarterback quarterback. Oh yeah. Sorry. Quarterback. Yep. So I don't find him to be a stud. He's not someone I would start. Not without Rashad.

I'm probably going to start him, you know, I'm probably going to start in this week, but you know, like Kirk cousins versus Lamar Jackson. I think I'd go cousins cousins for sure. There's a lot of quarterbacks that go over Lamar. So I play the matchups, I think, more than other people do.

And when I'm wrong, it's how could you possibly sit the stud? When I'm right, it's, hey, guys, what are your questions for five big topics six weeks? What's wrong with this guy? What's wrong with this guy? It's like everybody wants to pile on when the stud doesn't do well. When the stud does well, you're an idiot forever thinking about benching him.

I think I'm a little bit more matchup swayed than other people. I'm not telling you that I'm right. I am more interested in the matchups, but never with Mahomes or anything like that. Never with the elites.

That being said, I would say running back is the position where I value the matchups the most and trying to guess game script a little bit. Like, the reason I didn't like Montgomery is because there's been,

in the games that Jordan Davis has played, there's been one running back with more than 13 or 14 carries against the Eagles. And he had 12. And he scored two touchdowns. What the hell can I do about that? I did not expect him to score two touchdowns. I don't know if there's anything you want to add on that but uh to me it's

i play the running back matchups more than anything else just one thing i want to add on that just because i brought it up earlier and i just want to hit a couple more stats and as i said with barkley he passed the eye test on tape as far as being back from an explosive standpoint there's also a couple other things to look into one and i mentioned this on the mailbag last week adam after thursday's practice said it was his best practice year he said he felt like himself sometimes it's gotta listen to the players and what they're telling you also he had five first downs over expected it's a stat advanced stat just to bring some advanced sets into it in that game it was the most of any single running back in a game since 2020 when alvin camara had

that six touchdown game so five rushing first downs over expected. But that's the thing. It's based on what he had done the previous six games. It was hard to predict that for Barkley. Oh, no, I completely agree. Right. Like all you could do is be like, is he telling the truth that he feels himself again in practice? Right.

So we've heard that from a lot of players and it doesn't always come very hard to expect that this stuff is it's not easy. You know't always come true. Very hard to expect that. This stuff is not easy. It's not easy to predict sports. We have to talk about a little bit of a controversy before we end the show. I'm going to try to find the comment here, because you did criticize Daniel Edinger for having the name Daniel, and then it was pointed out by Ethan. Dan, didn't you just tell Danny Garbo

to go by Dan or Daniel the other day? Because you said grown men or something, don't go by Danny, whatever you said. That is a great point, Ethan. So what's going on here? Even in the moment when I made that take, I did kind of think about that. And I am okay with Daniel in a professional setting.

That's why I kind of left it in there. Danny, under no circumstances. But Daniel, if it's a professional setting, you're working in an office, I understand. You're an important person in an important position at a company. Fine. But this is YouTube. This is fantasy football. Go by Dan.

All right, Jacob. We're not going to talk to you for another week. What are your Christmas plans? We are heading home for Christmas. So we're going to go from beautiful Tucson where it's 65 degrees to Nebraska and Kansas City. There's a huge snowstorm expected. I would rather not, personally. No, it'll be fun.

It'll be good to see everybody. But yeah, it's going to be brutal. Happy holidays. Dan, did you buy any gifts for anyone that you're really excited about? No. Did you? I mean, I just told my wife to tell me what she wants.

That's what it always is. It's hard to get excited. Right. So does this count, right? So she wanted a pillow like a special pillow so i got it for her and then as i'm buying it online i'm like should we just get the pair so i got it for yourself too that's such a bad gift by you now but i mean that's what she wanted ruin the gift by that. You should have just bought the other one a few months later.

I don't know. She gave me the green light. Now she's going to be like, this wasn't even a gift. She gave you the green light for now, but it's going to come back to haunt you later. She's not like that. I really don't know where to get her. I'm terrible with this. I got her socks.

It's so hard to get people gifts. She likes socks. All right, everybody. One suggestion I have for gift getting is buy experiences. Don't buy things. People are always more happy when you buy experiences, especially if you're part of it and that person's close to you. Oh, we're doing a white elephant.

You know what a white elephant is? No, what is that? It's the best. So, okay, let's say there's 10 adults at the Christmas party. Everyone buys a gift. For us, we did $30. $30 a gift for us. We did $30, $30 or under, right? You know, so we write it for 30 bucks. Everyone buys a gift, you wrap it, you display them all. And then you, you draw numbers one through 10. Okay. And let's say

you drew one. You're the first person to pick. You get to pick any of the unwrapped gifts. Okay. And then it's yours. Now you ideally want 10 because the later you go, you get to pick a gift. And if you don't like it, you get to steal someone else's gift. What do you mean you get to steal someone? Anyone gets to steal? You don't, if you're number one, you know, you're screwed. You'll get to steal anything. Only number one doesn't get to steal. Number 10 gets to steal any gift he or she wants. So the later you are, you get to steal. Now you don't have to play with that rule. You can just pick gifts at random, but inevitably if you have a good crowd, some of the gifts are going to be terrible,

but very funny. Some of the gifts are going to be really good gifts. So I bought, I hope nobody at my Christmas party is listening. Don't listen. One of the gifts, one of the White Elephant gifts is going to be a pair of socks, a pair of Sophia from the Golden Girls socks, and a mug of Bob Ross. And when you put hot liquid in it, a painting shows up. Oh, that's pretty cool, actually. There's no painting and there's no hot water. There's no painting. But if there's something hot in there, there's like a painting shows up.

So I totally recommend White Elephant. We have an amazing time every year we do it. That is fun. I like that. All right. Have a great day, everybody. We have an amazing time every year we do it. That is fun. I like that. All right. Have a great day, everybody. We'll talk to you tomorrow with the Waver Wire show, talking about those Colts running backs and more on Fantasy Football.