Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score: Javonte, Ekeler, Rookie WRs (10/23 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts Are we still starting DeVonta Smith at this point? He's one of the players we'll highlight as we recap Eagles-Dolphins at the top of the show before moving on to the news and notes (10:45) and snap shares (16:50) ... Jacob and Dan tell us what the advanced metrics and the game film say about Jaxon Smith-Njigba (17:35), George Pickens (24:00) and Javonte Williams (31:35), plus more usage notes (34:05) on Puka Nacua, Josh Downs and Jahmyr Gibbs ... Five Big Topics: Ranking the rookie wide receivers (43:35); Our Top 5 players rest of season (48:55); Our thoughts on Kendrick Bourne and Rashee Rice (51:40); Our thoughts on Austin Ekeler and Aaron Jones (55:50); Calvin Ridley's struggles (1:02:00) SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Well, the game of the week, game of the season, was supposed to be, didn't exactly live up to the hype. Philadelphia 31, Miami 17. It wasn't bad, it wasn't bad, but we didn't get exactly what we were looking for. And the Eagles didn't get a penalty the entire night, even though they committed many penalties throughout the night.

Welcome to the show, everybody. Beyond the box score, I don't care about the outcome of the game, but it was pretty bad officiating around the NFL. I have to say that in week seven. Not the best week for the referees. We'll talk about the Eagles and the Dolphins. We'll rank rookie-wide receivers rest of season. We'll give you our top five overall rest of season

if we were redrafting today. We'll talk about, what else? Rasheed Rice and Kendrick Bourne, Calvin Ridley, and more on Beyond the Box score. Beyond the Box score is back to what it should be. Advanced stats from simple people. And last week, Jacob wasn't here.

And the show was terrible. It was the worst show we've ever done. Dan was horrible. I was, you know, I was good, but I was dragged down by Dan. I was horrible. Dan you know i was good but i was dragged down by dan i was horrible dan was worse and so i was horrible did you just say i'm just kidding well but we are glad to have jacob back all right i was definitely off without jacob so i am glad to have him back yeah absolutely um are you wearing headphones no you're not wearing headphones uh schneier okay you want me to no

that's okay it's fine um j Jacob, welcome back. How was your vacation from me and Dan? It was great. I am feeling much better, and I think I just needed a week away from you guys, honestly. Yeah, something about it. It just changed things for me. I feel great. Got a lot to talk about today. I'm excited. We do. I know. And that's my advice to listeners. If you ever are not feeling well, you probably just need a week away from me and Dan, so just listen less. The Eagles, we'll start with Eagles Dolphins. 31-17 Eagles. They had the ball for...

Are you not going to let me recap my Florida week? Not yet, dude. You don't start this show with nonsense. The mailbag is one thing. Not beyond the box score. Okay. The Eagles had the ball for 36 minutes and 43 seconds. So that's what they do.

Jalen Waddell was in and out of the game with a back injury. Jalen Hurts has a leg injury, and we don't know the severity of it, but it's not nothing, it seems. That's the way they were talking about it. But anyway, Jacob, what were your takeaways from a fantasy standpoint from this game? Yeah, it was another big game for Dallas Goddard. Set up perfectly for him, the matchup there.

It did not set up necessarily for A.J. Brown, the matchup going into the game, but we still saw another huge game from A.J.B. And I just, it's obviously everybody knows how good A.J.B. is, but I just wanted to point out like this is his second year in the system and we're seeing him do what we had seen every year other than last year which is completely dominate the targets when he was in tennessee obviously not as much target competition but he was like the predominant target hog in the entire nfl on a per route basis and i was curious like in his second year in the offense being more integrated in if we might see something like this um and i don't necessarily overreact to you know seven games but he looks like the clear alpha and one of the best offenses in the nfl so we're going to get get to who's our top five if we drafted today. I think he's in that, which is pretty nuts. I think the ceiling is really, really high for him,

especially if the offense really kind of figures things out. Yeah, pretty impressive stuff from A.J. Brown, like always. Yeah, he did not make my top five, but he was definitely in consideration. And A.J. Brown currently is wide receiver four per game behind Tyreek Hill, Stefan Diggs, and Justin Jefferson. And he's just having a monster year, 809 yards in seven games. And I don't really know, Dan, what to say about Devontae Smith at this point. I really thought he was going to have a big game, but, yeah, I mean, it's kind of related.

I mean, A.J. Brown is just too much of a target hog right now. And also Dallas Goddard is there. And also DeAndre Swift is there. So it's not happening for Devontae Smith. He is outside the top 30 at wide receiver at the moment, which is also where he was last year before the Dallas Goddard injury. And then his season changed. But what are your thoughts on Smith?

Do you still think he's a must-start guy? Yeah, I thought we'd get a little squeaky wheel here like we got with Devante Adams this week because earlier in the game, they were looking to Smith and Smith had a big drop, I would call it. I don't know if you could definitely consider it a drop. It was a tough play to make,

but that was a 20, 25 yard play that he didn't come down with. That might've changed, you know, would've changed his box score a little bit. Ultimately, like you said, Adam, that would have only led to what? Six targets instead of five. It's not the role we were hoping for. It's not the role we wanted. You made a great point there. I think about his post pre and post numbers with Dallas Goddard's

injury last year. Well, Goddard's healthy this year. So obviously that's not a good sign for him. I don't think it just don't think there's enough pieces in this pie with how well they run the football with the Andre Swift to, to kind of get both of these guys going if A.J. Brown is going to be this much of a target hog like he has been. Smith was started in 88% of leagues, four catches for 49 yards on five targets. So, yeah, I don't really know. I don't know what to say at this point.

I was saying buy low. He's going to turn it around. I feel like at this point, he might be so cheap that you could still buy low and have an, hopefully a number two wide receiver. Who's going to have some big weeks. I still feel like there are big weeks coming for Smith, but also if you want to, if you don't want to do that, then I mean, Jalen hurts, we got to see how this leg injuries, you know, this, that could be a factor too, but I'm kind of at a loss for words here with Devante Smith. I don't know, Jacob, do you have anything or we're just, you know you know this kind of sucks and that's that yeah i think davante smith is

really good and you just are going to be patient and if you want to buy i think that that makes sense because he's still in an elite offense if anything happens to one of those other pieces then all of a sudden he's one of the most valuable players in fantasy and it's possible that he just outright earns a larger target share we We saw that happen last year. Over the second half of the year, he out-targeted A.J. Brown from week eight or nine on, so he can do it. Yeah, I would just be patient if he can.

Okay, tough break, I guess, for DeAndre Swift, who didn't get the touchdown. Kenneth Gainwell did. That was weird, but Swift's still the lead back there. All right, let's go to the Dolphins' side of the ball, Dan. What stood out to you from a fantasy standpoint? Well, it stood out that we could see potentially bad game script. We haven't really seen that too much this year. And it held back Raheem Mostert, who looked good on a carrier too, but ultimately didn't get a lot of touches in this game. And that was what stood out the most

to me, I would say. Obviously, the Jalen Waddell injury kind of, I think, impacted their game plan and what they wanted to do to attack the Eagles. So that wasn't great for them. But, you know, this is a team that lost an offensive lineman in the game. They couldn't afford to lose. And Isaiah Wynn, that also hurt them. And they're down a lot of players on the offensive line right now. It hasn't been an issue to this point with the Dolphins because, too, is anticipation and because of how much speed they've had on the field. But it was an issue in this game.

That's not going to happen every week. They're not going to face a D line like the Eagles every week, but in these tougher matchups, when it gets colder, game script is not going the way they want them to do. This is an offense that we can still see when they fall behind, isn't playing at that same level as when they can control the game script and they're playing from ahead.

That's a good point about Isaiah Wynn. Cause you know, obviously Teron Armstead is out. He's on IR, hopefully back at some point soon. That was the third game he's missed. So that's the starting left side of the offensive line against that defensive line.

It just can't run the ball on that. And I think they started getting to the perimeter a little bit with Raheem Mostert in the second half, and that was working a little bit better. But at that point, it was too little too late, and the Eagles controlled the clock. So just bad game script. Tua Tungabailoa, by the way, has now scored fewer than 16 points in three of seven games.

He has one solid game. He scored 21 points against the Giants. He has three huge games and three bad games. I don't really know what to make of it. It is what it is. He's the number five quarterback overall. He's the number six quarterback per game. You're going to start him just about every week.

You know what they're capable of. Typically, when he had had a bad game, it was because either Mostert or A-Chan had 100-plus yards and two rushing touchdowns. This was just different. This was just a bad performance by the Dolphins, and I think the waddle injury, like you said, hurt. Anything else here, guys, on the Dolphins?

Not on this game. All right. Look, yeah, what is there to say? These are still going to be two of the best offenses in football. You're going to start these guys most of the time. I know if you didn't know what happened, you saw the Waddle stat line, it wasn't good.

But when he was on the field, it was actually making a pretty big impact just dealing with the back injury. All right. We've got Sportsline. We've got great content on Sportsline. Jacob, what can we find from you on Sportsline on a weekly basis? First off, I've got a promo code.

You asked me last time, and I was unprepared, but I got one. RJ took care of me. Thanks. Shout out, RJ White. Legend. Promo code Gibbs. First month for $1. And then it's very cheap after that.

You can find all my work there, all the crazy stats. You see me tweeting out. There's much more on Sportsline every week. We go beyond the box score. So we've got an article version of this episode, basically, where I help you make lineup decisions, kind of sort through all of the positions, different tiers at each position, help you understand which players are bringing more upside and different ranges of outcomes and stuff like that. DFS stuff, if you're into, you know, playing daily fantasy sports, there's lots of content and stuff like that. DFS stuff, if you're into playing daily fantasy sports, there's lots of content for you as well. And then each week I do a week by week

or a game by game breakdown that has all sorts of nuggets for every advanced matchup that you've got across the board. I have a great DFS tip for everybody is the best way to learn is from experience. So I'm in a DFS with uh one friend and his friends or whatever it's like a every week we set a lineup is a 50 entry fee for the year and every week the highest scorer gets some money and then i think at the end of the year the highest scorer gets some money whatever so here's what you shouldn't do you shouldn't almost every week like i do forget to set your lineup and then i get a frantic text. Then I get a text at about 1.15 from our colleague, Darst,

who runs this thing. And he says, you forgot to set your lineup. And then I have to set a lineup with only the players in the four o'clock slate. So that does make things very challenging. Yesterday, I think I had Stafford. I did have Kelsey.

I came in fifth out of 10 with only the four o'clock players. But I'm going to try to set a lineup earlier in the week so I don have Kelsey. I came in fifth out of 10 with only the 4 o'clock players. But I'm going to try to set a lineup earlier in the week so I don't forget. And that is, you can't find that information on Sportsline. You can only find that here. Anyway, promo code Gibbs, G-I-B-B-S, $1 for your first month. Give it a shot on Sportsline.

And then $9.99 after that. News and notes. Great news. Christian McCaffrey is going to play tonight. And Daniel LaRusso is going to fight. And Bijan Robinson should be ready for next week. All of the Arthur Smith criticism, by the way. I think everyone on the internet owes him an apology.

Austin Eckler actually heard his... I didn't realize this. He briefly left. He heard his other ankle yesterday. He did play through it, but it was the opposite ankle from the high ankle sprain in week one. Saquon Barkley hyper-extended his elbow, played through it, gets the

Jets in week eight. Jerome Ford ankle. Keaton Mitchell hurt his hamstring. See how long Dave wants to keep hanging on to him. Deshaun Watson left in the first quarter. I thought it wasn't a huge deal. He'll be back in week eight. I'm not so

sure, listening to the post-game comments now with Deshaun Watson. That could be an extended absence. Christian Watson left in the fourth quarter. I haven't seen anything on. I don't think it's so bad. Luke Musgrave, not sure about his status, ankle injury. The

Packers also had three defensive players, two defensive backs and a defensive lineman, all leave with injuries. They have Minnesota. And I'm not sure if any of them were able to come back, but they're a beat up team right now, the Green Bay Packers. And that's more or less, I mean, Nick Bolton, linebacker for the Chiefs, dislocating his wrist, that's a big deal. I also didn't realize that Seattle was playing without two starting offensive linemen, two of their interior linemen, I think a guard and a center. So it was a disappointing game, I think, for Ken Walker,

given the amount of carries he had and no Charbonnet. He was fine, but perhaps that had something to do with it. And also Seattle edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu left with a strained pec, and that could be a big injury for them. All right, when we come back, Dan wants to tell us about his Florida trip. We'll give you some snap count.

I want to hear about it too. And I also want to make fun of Dan for something he said about Florida last week that I forgot to do on the spot. Oh, God. You have to remind me about that. All right, we'll be right back with plenty of

advanced stats and fun stories after this. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters. Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations. Or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada. Insurance designed for life. Did you know that across Ontario, utility damage happens 19 times a day?

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who won. I'm definitely going to say Schaefer won. Beat you by eight strokes. He beat me by way more than eight strokes if you're counting. Though, if Don and Thomas might than eight strokes. If you're counting though, if Don Thomas might come on here and tell you in a second, I don't think it was Thomas's best day.

You could see the talent was there and the flashes were there, but I think he'd tell you himself, right, Thomas. I don't think you would call that your best day you've ever had. It was not my best day. I shot 90. The last time I played there,

I shot 83. So seven strokes. That's the type of talent he has. You could see it in his stroke. Like the dude's got a great swing. He's been playing his whole life. I picked there, I shot 83, so seven strokes difference. That's the type of talent he has. You could see it in his stroke. The dude's got a great swing. He's been playing his whole life. I picked up the sport this summer. But my funny story about that golf.

Wait, did I cut you off, Thomas? Do you have something you want to get to? No, no, no, no, no. Okay, my funny story about that. Great day, great way to end the trip. Golfing with Thomas, my friend Jordan, who lives down there, and a new friend of mine, Connor, who works for us at CBS Sports. I didn't know him until then, but great dude, great fun day out there. And I got to say this, Florida golf is unreal.

We paid $27 for a course that was nicer than some of the $80 courses I play on back in New Jersey, like straight up nicer in every possible way. And part of that was because Thomas got me some kind of like frequent flyers deal or something. It was supposed to be like 42, but either way, when you go play golf for $27 on a beautiful course. And here's my funny story from that. I went into the golf thinking, I know Thomas a little bit. I've worked with him now for like a year and a half. And tell me if I'm right on this. This was your initial read as well, Adam and Jacob.

Thomas just has like that demeanor and that voice of the guy who you would just think would never like get mad or frustrated or yell at someone. And I told him that in the golf course, like, oh, no, no, I will yell. And then finally I saw it start to come out when he hit a drive into the woods, slams the driver on the tee box. A couple of those moments, a couple of, you know, curse words that you never hear from Thomas Schaefer. Oh, yeah. A Thomas Schaefer curse, occasional, you know, GD,

like just some things out there that, you know, you just didn't expect from Thomas Schaefer curse, occasional GD, just some things out there that you just didn't expect from Thomas Schaefer over there. He seems like that guy who's never going to get overwhelmed, overworked up, but he had a couple moments like that, and it was fun to watch. And Dan just picked up the game, and he said he sucks and all this. This guy was hitting every fairway out there. We just got to get in the lab and work on that short game. Thomas is going to help work with me. We're going to come

back to Florida soon just so I can work with Thomas. The other thing, he was playing with my backup set of clubs that I don't even know where I got them. A set that he's never played with and Dan was killing it. God, I love this podcast. He didn't even have to rent clubs.

What are the economically efficient day? Just the only thing Dan is last week you called it Southern Florida. No one calls it Southern. It's South Florida. Please don't ever call it Southern Florida. It's South Florida. It's a wow. That was amazing.

I'm so happy that you mentioned that Tom is about all those fairways. I hit with my drives. I don't drive far yet, but I was hitting a lot of fairways. All right. All right, let's get into some snap counts and some advanced stats. I don't really have a lot here, so I'll throw it over to Jacob. But Deontay Johnson only played 66.6%. He played two-thirds of the snaps, Deontay Johnson,

in his first game back. Daryl Henderson played 10 more snaps than Royce Freeman. They both played eight snaps on third down. It seemed more of a, well, this was Henderson's drive, this was Freeman's drive type of thing. I don't know if I'm reading in too much to the snap counts there. It might have just been that Henderson's drives were longer or something like that.

Amari DiMercato played 80% of the snaps. Very impressive there. All right, Jacob, what do you have from your advanced stats and all those types of things? What do you want to talk about? Yeah, we got three advanced stat topics. I want to get some discussion on each of these, hear from you guys. Dan looked into some of these on the film side of things as well. Then I've got some quick usage notes that I'll go through.

The first topic is Jackson, Smith, and Jba we finally got signs of life dynasty managers can breathe a big sigh of relief after this one he ran a lot more downfield routes than we had seen previously so his average route depth by week is per true media average route depth is the distance from the line of scrimmage where the initial cut in the route comes on average 5.7 6.4 6.1 6.9 5.3 yards were his first five games that was up to 11.4 so almost a double in week seven so Jake Bobo actually played a little bit more he led the team in routes and I thought maybe you know it was a good performance from JSN but it was still a lot of the same stuff, short yardage only type stuff. But then I saw this and looked into his route tree a little bit more,

his air yards, all that was pretty encouraging. Led the team in air yards, led the team in targets. So really exciting stuff for JSN. And I think it's not just the dynasty note. I think season-long managers need to take note of this as well. He's available in quite a few leagues, honestly. And I think a late season, like full-on of this as well. He's available in quite a few leagues, honestly. And I think a late-season, like, full-on breakout is still well within his range of outcomes.

What did you say? Did you watch out for Jason? Did you watch out for Jason? Yes, I had a chance. Go ahead. Sorry. I had a chance to break down Jason on tape. You know, most of the time we come back on the same page of this, Jacob, but I will provide feedback when I don't.

And I wasn't as encouraged by the tape as maybe you as maybe you were by the stats so his touchdown was just a purely broken simple coverage breakdown by arizona where they don't pass off the route and he's wide open on a post i was encouraged by what you said that he lined up more on the outside and had more routes as an x or z but i wonder if that was because metcalf't out. Something I also found discouraging was the fact that he only had one target the entire second half of that game. I didn't really understand why. I didn't see anything that reminded me too much of what I saw on tape at Ohio State, except for one play, which was very encouraging.

With 826 in the second quarter, for those who want to watch on NFL Game Pass and have the film, Gino came back to him on back-to-back plays. And on the second play, he won on the outside as a boundary with a beautiful display of what I believe he's best at, which is that ability to stop on the dime, sink his hips and then create separation at the top of his routes. Then that's what he did on that plane. You could watch that.

I put it on Twitter. You can watch the Arizona D back. He, you know, comes two to three yards off the ball or off JSN when he makes that break and he gets into his break. So that's like the stuff I want to see a little bit more of. And I want to see a little bit more post-catch. There was one play they threw to him designed around line of scrimmage. He had an okay move post-catch, but I wasn't as encouraged as I really thought I would be, Jacob. And when a lot of those air yards did come on that broken coverage breakdown from Arizona on his touchdown, it does give me a little bit of stop

there. Um, I have more positive notes to talk about the other players you wanted me to highlight and Jacob, but I still want to see a little more from Jason. That's cool. I mean, we're not trying to just gas people up here. Like I, yeah, I wanted to hear what we actually thought about him. I, I thought, you know, he was going to have a bigger second half and the fact that he was kind of quiet, I did take note of that. I think it's mostly just encouraging to see that he was used in this role at all because we've seen absolutely nothing showing any sort of upside with how he's been used through the first five or six weeks. So that is encouraging.

And to me, Tyler Lockett doesn't look like the same player. Um, I don't want to overreact to that, but he is getting older and he did not take advantage of the, you know, absence of DK Metcalf here and his per route data is much worse this year. Um, so I think the window is open for Jason to potentially be a fantasy difference maker down the stretch, which previous to this, all we had was hope we hadn't seen anything really. That's fair.

Yeah. Actually, the bigger story for me coming out of the game was Tyler Lockett without DK Metcalf. They're just not doing anything against the bad defense in Arizona. Now they only threw 24 passes. They only threw nine in the second half. So one second half target for JSN, you know, it's only on nine pass attempts. Uh, but I, I mean, this is what I was talking about going into the season. And, I mean, I'll try to update it now. He's had two – Tyler Lockett has had two games with more than 68 yards in his last 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 –

in his last 17 regular season games. He's had two games with more than 68 yards. And then throw in the playoff game when he had 39 yards on eight targets. So that's 18 games, more than 68 yards, twice for Tyler Lockett. And a big issue is they're not really utilizing him on the vertical plane. That's where he had a lot of his fantasy success. For whatever reason, they're not dialing that up. Or maybe it's I haven't studied him as closely,acob and adam but could be that he's not creating that

same kind of separation at that level that he used to be i'd maybe take a look in that after this podcast and get back to you guys on that but it's something to keep an eye on for sure because if he's not creating that same vertical separation what is he really doing for this offense that's true he hasn't they've been using dk meccaf downfield way more than they ever have um even more than when he was a rookie and that's kind of coming the expense of ty locker and i've been curious about why that is if he's just they don't feel like he's as effective on those routes as he has been uh because they had it seemed like they had been trying to turn dk meccaf into like a true wide receiver one winning on slants winning on lots of short stuff and just feeding targets to him um but that hasn't really been the way he's been used this year

when he's been healthy. I'm concerned about Lockett. Last thing on the Seahawks here is the last three games they've given up three points at the Giants, 17 points at the Bengals, 10 points against the Cardinals. They are better defensively. Now, they obviously haven't faced great offenses. The Bengals are not quite the Bengals.

They're just running the ball and not throwing a lot and throwing conservatively. So they're just like, they kind of flipped the switch last year with Geno. And they just said, all right, let's be a passing team. They threw a lot. And they've gone right back to their Pete Carroll roots of trying to win with defense and ground and pound.

It's not a great development. You hope maybe they'll start playing teams that are going to score more. But I don't know about week eight against Cleveland. You know, Washington, the Rams, they got the Niners coming up twice. They got some higher scoring teams on the schedule. But right now their defense is playing well

and they're not throwing much. Okay, we will have to be a little bit faster with the rest of this stuff as we have a long show ahead of us. So what do you want to say about the Steelers? Yeah, the next big topic is George Pickens. You mentioned that Deontay only played two thirds of the routes, but it was still incredibly encouraging what we saw from Pickens. We've never really seen him have a game like this with Deontay healthy. Week seven target share leaders. We've got AJ Brown, 50%, 47% to Tyreek Hill, 44% to Puka Nakua, 39% to

Amonra St. Brown, 35% to George Pickens. That is easily the highest data point he's ever given us with Deontay healthy. And I was really encouraged when I looked at his routes, they only used him on go corner or post routes, 31% of his routes. So this is something I've cited a ton is that he's normally over 50% on those routes. And that is a huge problem for him because those routes just don't lead to targets for really anybody other than like Justin Jefferson and Chris Alave. But they are using him more and more on slants. And I thought that might not stick with Deontay back, but it did.

They use him in a lot of slants, a lot of ends, a lot of hitches and stuff like that. And so this was not a good matchup for Pickens. When we've seen pickens have his two big games this year it's been kind of predictable even though it's been very good defenses and the browns and the ravens it's very physical defenses he's a very he fits a very specific archetype he's very very good against press coverage and beating man coverage and that's when he shined this was not that matchup the rams play very soft zone they're like you beat us with long drives and i did not think we would see that from kenny pickett and matt kennedys offense but we actually did and pickens was a huge part of that um so like to me this is the most

encouraging game of george pickens career full stop not even close and i'm curious what you saw dan uh this one you know i will gas up because the film was phenomenal on george pickens is absolutely phenomenal i think he is one of the few potential true alpha X receivers you can line up as the actual X receiver. And then sometimes it's three by one as the backside, but sometimes just the lone one receiver on that side and he will win. He won on a slant early, like you talked about where he created so much separation with his release off the line of scrimmage. That was a 17 yard gain on what should have been a four or five yard gain later in the game on third and nine, it could have been an even bigger game. This is 743 left in the first quarter for those who want to see on game film. Pickett threw a deep ball out of

bounds where Pickens won, had a step, and you know with his ability to make contested catches, you got to give him a chance, but it was out of bounds. Later in the game on second and nine with 522 in the second quarter, Pickett came back to Pickens on a back shoulder for 20 yards, and here's what really impressed me on both of those plays, Jacob and Adam on both of those plays, the post, the post snap and pick it has his eyes, the quarterback on the safety on the side of who's on the side of the field with George Pickens, both before and after the snap on both plays, that safety rotated down post snap. What happened immediately when that safety rotated down post snap picket made decision in his head that now I know because the safety rotated down, down post snap. What happened immediately when that safety rotated down post snap picket made decision in his head that now I know because the safety rotated down, down post snap pickens,

George Pickens is going to have a one-on-one the outside. I'm going there. He just made the decision to go there both times, that kind of confidence that he showed in him. One was a ball pickens on 39 through out of bounds. Pickens could have had the catch, but pick it, missed the throw. The other one was a back shoulder for 20 yard gain. And like you said, there were dig routes on film. There were slants. There were all different kinds of routes. Anytime he saw one-on-one with Pickens, he tried to get him the football, which is awesome to see from a fantasy standpoint. This was big time. Like I have been hesitant with Pickens because of George, mostly just because I don't like Kenny Pickett and Matt Canada, but there were more, there was, first of all, the Steelers came out in this game,

shotgun 11 personnel. I love to see that they weren't just kind of shelling that, you know, that shell style offense, maybe with Deontay Johnson back on the field, we're going to see an expansion of what Mac Canada has to offer as a play car. I don't know, but it certainly felt like it in this game. So it was really encouraging for me as well, Jacob, especially with George Pickens. And look, if he's going to get those one-on-ones in the outside, got to give him the chance. Pickett knows that and he was giving him those chances. I love it. I heard on the broadcast

that Pickett said, if I get a chance to throw to George Pickens one-on-one, I'm doing it. Totally backed up what you were saying there. My only issue is the Steelers scored 17 points and had 300 total yards. No, no. How many points did they score? I scored 17 points and had 300 total yards.

Yeah. No, no. How many points did they score? I'm sorry. They had 17 first downs. 24, I think. They scored 24 points. And they had 300 total yards. And they were lucky they got a short field a couple times, I think, to score.

So it was still a struggle for them. To me, he profiles very similarly to someone like Chris Alave or Mike Evans. I don't think he's been as good of a player as those guys, so I have a hard time putting him in that tier. But what we're seeing right now, I think he belongs in that range. Like an offense we don't feel great about that maybe will produce a lot of empty air yards,

but the role is there for him in the same way it is for somebody like Alave or Evans or even Nico Collins, everybody's favorite sleeper now. Would you take all those guys over him? What do you have on that? That's a great question. I'd definitely take Olave and Evans over Pickens.

I love what I saw from Pickens' game. Yeah, go ahead. And I hate what we're seeing in New Orleans. I hate what we're seeing in New Orleans. I don't know if I want to go all in yet on a Kenny Pickett offense for reasons Adam kind of alluded to but it's so much tougher for these defenses to to use that bracket coverage that umbrella coverage over kenny pickens when deontay johnson is on the field and like you just said adam that was confirmed on

film when he saw that safety rotate down he was going to pick it so that's a great sign i feel like for a fantasy standpoint i'm not disputing that, but I think you got to give Evans credit. I'm a big Evans skeptic, but you got to give him credit. Olave, I think Olave's been fine.

He had a couple of games where Derek Carr, one game, Derek Carr couldn't throw the ball downfield. Another game was just a bad day. But,

I mean, I like Olave. Every time he touches the ball, it's just his speed. It just really jumps off the page. But, I guess you could say Kamara's hurting Olave, and I get that, but I can't

take pickings over Olave. I don't have any beef with Olave right now. I would call him a buy-low. What's wrong with what you're seeing from the Saints, Jacob? They just aren't targeting Olave at the rate that I would like, and when they do, it's uncatchable at one of the highest rates of any player in the NFL.

I just think it's, it's been worse than it was last year with Andy Dalton. Heath has talked about this a lot. Their car is just, I don't know, man. I do not like what we're seeing from car at all. Maybe it's just health,

but he's captain check down right now. And when he does throw deep, it's been terrible. Well, I don't know, man. I mean, a lot of he's got doubleit targets in five of seven games.

That's because they're producing absolutely ridiculous play volume. The Saints had like 87 plays, which is more than anyone's had in any game this year, and it's like the third or fourth most since the start of 2022. The other thing that I want to mention, because the Jacksonville game, 15 targets, 57 yards for

Olave, their offensive line, the Saints' offensive line so beat up. That, I think, is a bigger issue. And that is why I think Derek Carr is getting rid of the ball so quickly. Against Tampa Bay, it was definitely his arm, his elbow. Last week against Jacksonville, it was

the pass rush. I mean, he was just skittish. So they definitely need to get healthy on the line. That will help. But I am definitely taking Olave and Evans over Pickens. I think it's kind of a toss-up with Nico Collins. How do you rank him, Jacob? I think I would take all of them over Pickens,

but I think he is approaching that territory. And if we get even one or two more games strung together like this with similar data points, where he's not just the downfield threat, he's not running all these go-corner post routes, I think he could easily surpass all of them. Okay, last thing from you, Jacob. So Denver's backfield usage is swinging more and more

towards Javante Williams, and he is also looking more and more like himself each week. So I'm really excited about that. When healthy, Javante Williams is one of the most explosive rushers in the league. He can beat opposing tacklers in so many different ways and break off explosive runs. And so I just love to see this, love to see him getting healthy.

He did not avoid his avoided tackle rate per true media was not above 20% in any of his first four games. The past two games, it's at 30 and 40%. And then, yeah, we saw season high in snap rate season high in route involvement rate for him this week um over the past month giovante ranks third and avoided tackle rate fourth in yards after contact per rush and second in explosive rush rate only one running back is ahead of him in all three categories and it's jillian mclaughlin only an 18 snap rate for mclaugh this week though, for what it's worth.

This is an underrated storyline for sure. The big, big winner for Javante because he had a touchdown called back to 96 total yards. Did you take a look at him, Dan? Yeah, I got to see his film,

his film backed up what Jacob is saying. So a few things I saw, he was economical on majority of his runs processed the, the cutback lanes, process the blocks. Well, he showed off on a lot of these plays, that jump cut that he had on his UNC film, um, specifically on an outside zone run for nine yards later in the game, but his most impressive run by far, if you guys want to check it out on tape is nine 52 in the third quarter. They ran inside zone. He had 21 yard gain. I mean, that was the Javante Williams I saw at UNC.

That ability, just low pad level at all times, explode once he gets the football away from contact. He forced a missed tackle on inside penetration earlier in the game, which I thought was really good. He had two runs of 11 plus yards on his first four attempts. He had a really smart high IQ run on the second run of the game, which was an inside zone. He did a great job processing the play. He knows the cutback lane is left, but he presses right immediately to set up that cutback lane and then uses that excellent jump cut that I was talking about to get an extra 15 yards. He actually got contacted on that play sooner than I expected after the jump cut, broke that tackle, got another 10 after contact. He was more explosive getting

downhill. He looked a lot more like that back I saw on unc and you know we always say like when players are coming off major injuries acl especially like give them some time to kind of regain their form that could be happening right here with javante williams and this could be a great time to buy low all right um anything else anything else yeah just some quick usage notes and you guys can when i'm done talk about any of these that you want i first i need to take an l on dj more he's somebody we've we've talked about on here and i was too low on him basically going into the year it was a math problem and i didn't think that he would be able to be productive in this offense because he would have to have like a 30 percent target share which is something we've never seen from dj more even when he's had not

very much target competition in the past but that's exactly what he's doing um so since his week one dud and the games following that his target shares are 32 33 40 28 30 and 25 percent super consistent with tons of upside as well um from week two on he's wide receiver five and target share 31 wide receiver six in area ordered share and wider six wide receiver six in fantasy points per game as well take all this with a grain of salt the offense right now um tyson badgen had a two yard average depth of target this week um just a ton of checkdowns and so like it's gonna be really tough to be fantasy relevant within that framework um but in terms of like dj more the player isolated from everything else around him this is the best we've ever seen him um he he's caught 80 of his targets he's producing

explosive plays like crazy like he's seeing all this downfield work and still catching 80 of his targets he's really you could say that makes him regression candidate regression candidate yeah and there are there are tons of things that point towards him as being a clear regression candidate um so like yeah don't i'm not saying that DJ Moore, since he's a wide receiver, six in all these metrics, should be valued that way. It's just like, look at what DJ Moore is doing. This is honestly incredible. It's unlike anything we've ever seen from him,

and he's been really, really, really good at different points in his career, but this is, I think, the best we've ever seen. Pukunukuwa, so I'm going to take an L, but now we get to take a W. Pukunukuwa, since cooper cup return in week five puka nakua has a 37 percent target share in those three games compared to 34 for cooper cup which is just insane i can't wait to see his uh first read target data we don't have that quite yet josh downs another super super exciting rookie receiver when him and Gardner Minshew and Michael Pittman have all been on the field together, Josh Downs actually has the most

targets. He's only out there for three series sets. So Pittman has out-targeted him overall. But we're seeing Josh Downs. I just talked with Matt Harmon of Reception Perception on FFT Dynasty last week about Josh Downs. He's so good at winning in single-man coverage, and we saw that again in this week. We saw it the week before on his red zone touchdown where he just makes a quick move, breaks off a guy wide open, touchdown. I think it's really, really impressive

what we've seen from him so far, and I just want to bring him up. He's a late-season breakout candidate. I mean, really, he's already breaking out at this point. Josh Downs, yeah i like i said yesterday i think josh downs should be the number one waiver wire priority it's he's criminally under man on the roster and i said that i said that last week so yeah go ahead we're going to talk about all the rookie receivers in a little more detail later rishi rice just want to point out the at his

highest route participation of the year 64 64%. His previous high was 51%. Marquez Valdez-Scanling was the only receiver with more routes run. Only Travis Kelsey had more targets. So good note for Roshi Rice, who just continues to build that momentum. And then Jameer Gibbs, highest route participation of any player in week seven, which is awesome. The first time we saw him fill in for David Montgomery, he really wasn't used the way we would have liked to see as a pass catcher. But this week he was 10 targets. So like super, super excited about Gibbs.

I didn't think he, the offense didn't look good. And I said earlier in the, when we were talking about this before show, I don't want to get into big David Montgomery thing, but clearly the office looks worse. I think when Montgomery is not in there, but overall the usage, everything, all the underlying stuff for Jameer Gibbs is really encouraging. You have got to be kidding me, Jameer! I have some film notes on that, too,

that I just want to go over real quick with the Lions offense and then we'll get into some topics for sure. I just feel like with this, you're right. You can make the case that the offense doesn't work as well with Dave Montgomery, but I'll give a little nod to Adam on here that I just feel like when I... One thing that gets overlooked by a lot of people when you're in a game script like that, because pressure killed the lions on the first two series,

just unbelievable pressure by Baltimore. The past production wasn't there. Good design. This Baltimore defense, by the way, in my opinion, might be the best in the NFL. I really do think that watching them on film, it's so fricking obvious, but next thing they know after the first two series where pressure killed them on both their downs it's 21 nothing at that point so then you're trying spacing concepts that don't work on second and long golf's not moving off his reach it's just like it's 28 nothing then so game scrub kind of ruined in my opinion any chance of that but i did get a chance to look at jameson williams so i know you wanted me to look at uh jacob because he's another guy who has all these unrealized air yards. But I think it's important to note the context of those air yards.

They had two bombs and total garbage time on back-to-back plays with 308 and two and two minutes ago, down 38 to six. The first one I didn't love. The second one was a good example of what Jameson can offer. Incredible release off the line of scrimmage created about two yard separation, next level gear. But there were issues with Jamesison Williams in this game. The interception on the fourth and one that got through to Williams.

I mean, that's just a communication issue that shouldn't be happening in week seven of a season. You got Jamison Williams running the post and you got Jared Goff throwing the go ball. And also it was a good disguise by Baltimore who had a safety looking like he was down in the box, coming into the box post snap and then he pre-snap and he rotates post snap to just uh to the deep half where damon jameson williams is understanding that's where they want to kind of go with the football but you know ultimately when it comes to jameson williams the first play of the game was designed target for him on a comeback route felt like he rounded his route out atop his break and so the ball looks

under thrown but is likely thrown to the depth at where it's supposed to be targeted to. But the route was rounded out and not ran well. I there's things I like about Jameson Williams. Like I talk about on that last go route of the game, but there's also just things I don't like. And I don't think they're on the same page at all right now, Goff and Williams. So I'm,

I was high on him last week and what he can do for the offense, as far as what he can do now, fantasy wise, I can see why, you know, they're hesitant to play him so much because he's still making mental errors that you know we should expect because he hasn't played a lot with this offense but what does that mean for us in fantasy it means when can we expect him to be a consistent player i don't know if that time is anytime soon yeah only 45 percent route participation in this game um he did see a lot

of opportunities 143 air yards with no receiving yards. But yeah, it's going to be tough with that route, right? Yeah, okay. And we do have a comment here. It says, Jay Gibbs is great. Campbell trying to save him for stretch run.

I don't know which Jay Gibbs they're talking about there. I think it's Jacob. I do too. Thank you. Your last note was about Amari de mercado oh yeah you already hit on it his usage was really through the roof he had the second highest running back rush share so they completely went away from kianta ingram and it was all de mercado um part of it was

probably game script but yeah he's the clear passing downs guy and if we see this again like going forward then he's like a top 24 running back top 20 ppr guy um so yeah just worth a note the lions are kind of weird to me by the way because i just don't think jameer i don't know why they drafted jameer gibbs he doesn't fit what dan campbell wants to be i they should have just drafted another offensive lineman or something like that i mean maybe they are better with montgomery maybe that's just the style they want to be is just really physical. I don't know what any of this means for Jameer Gibbs. If he had comes back and has another big game next week,

as I assume Montgomery is going to miss this upcoming week. I don't know that for sure. If he has another big game, who are they playing in this week? They're playing. What if, what if, what if Craig Reynolds is healthier and then a bigger part of the game plan? I think that was kind of the hidden thing here. this week they're playing Vegas.

What if Craig Reynolds is healthier and then a bigger part of the game plan? I think that was kind of the hidden thing here. He was not healthy. They forced him to play this game because they didn't really have any other options. He didn't play a lot in this game, Craig Reynolds. He had a touch early, too, on the first series, but still didn't play a lot. If Gibbs has two big games

in a row, right? This past week at Baltimore, and a lot of it was late, obviously. And then Vegas at home. If they beat him and he's good again, if they beat Vegas and he's good again, right? And then they go in their bye week. What does that look like coming out of the bye? I mean, Montgomery's not losing his job, but hopefully they can start using Gibbs more in the passing game, which, as Jacob mentioned, they did in this game.

All right. Let's take a break here. We still have our five big topics and we'll rank rookie wide receivers. We'll give you our top five for the rest of the season. We'll talk about Calvin Ridley again and we'll be right back on Fantasy Football today. All right, folks, here we go.

Justin Snow wants to talk about the emergence of rookie wide receivers and how you'd rank them rest of the season. I am going to say Puka nakua is number one guys everybody agree okay easy one all right so then after that what do you got jacob rank the rank the rookie wide receivers yeah it's been like honestly a really exciting year for the rookie receivers once again which is amazing because we haven't even had a real breakout from the top three guys the first round guys in this class um and yeah i think zay flowers

is who i would have next um the underlying data for him has been really encouraging he's kind of fumbled the bag a little bit on some of these opportunities um but to come in and immediately the plan mark andrews as the top target is really, really impressive. I would go Jackson Smith and jig, but next I, I, after hearing Dan, I might move him down a little bit.

But after that, I would go Jordan Addison, Rishi rice, tank Dell, Josh downs. And then if you want to keep going, we got Jonathan, Jonathan mango,

Quinn Johnson, Michael Wilson, Jane Reed, Jalen Hyatt. All right. For me, or sorry, Michael Wilson, Jaden Reed, Jalen Hyatt. All right. For me, or sorry, Adam, do you want to give yours? I have no idea where to rank Tank Dell. No idea.

That is the toughest one. Now, go ahead. Go ahead. So I think my one and two are the same as Jacob, Puka, then Zay. I think that's a nice tier break. Then it gets tougher. I still, you know, I was somewhat down on Jason just from this game

tape jacob but long term i still see opportunity there because i'm going off his film at ohio state fantasy playoffs jason gets philadelphia then tennessee then pittsburgh and that's beautiful it is nice so i don't want to totally rule him out but i want to put a player up there and i'm not gonna i don't know you know it's very hard right now to rank players like adam said like tank dell how close is he? Cause when he's playing on the field, he's been unbelievable fantasy wise. Jordan Addison, is he out of him? But I want to give some props here to Josh Downs, because here's the thing with Josh

Downs. He's not, we're not going back to Anthony Richardson at all. He's out for the season. The rapport that Josh Downs built with Gardner Minshew, when he first got the team and he was working with that second team offense a lot is showing. It's carrying over. And like Jacob said, he was awesome on tape at UNC working with Drake May. He gets open underneath.

He wins those two-way routes in the slot. He wins against man coverage. He could seriously just be a top three or top four rookie rest of the season because of that rapport, which we've seen carry over so many times in fantasy football, how important that quarterback to receive a rapport is, uh, with Gardner Minshew. Uh, so I would put him maybe up there as four or five for me. I really like Josh downs rest away. And one other player I want to shout out here. Um, obviously I want to put Rasheed rice over this player. I want to pray for you. Who's three for you. Three probably is Jordan Addison. If I had to Addison Dell, Josh downs in that same three to five range i'm not sure where to rank them or sorry json also so those in that three to six range right there and then the next

range of players that i want to you know rishi rice worth talking about but the next play of players i want to bring up because he's so damn good on tape oh it's jaylen highland highland high there he is yeah because look he deserves some credit for looking damn good on tape. And he came inches away from a touchdown in this game too, on a third and one in the red zone or 32 in the red zone, 25 yard touchdown would have changed his whole stat line in this game. They're still expanding it. Brian Dable said like,

there's still a lot of things he doesn't do well, but we've learned now that the only way for him to get better is by putting him on the field. And so they're finally putting them on the field these past two games. And I know only five targets in this game, but if he catches that touchdown, that was inches away, that's a stat line. We can all get behind. He's so explosive.

He's so good against man. And if, if, you know, hopefully it carries over to when Daniel Jones comes back on the field, Adam, but finally the giants are seeing if you're going to rotate those safeties post snap and give Jalen Hyatt a one-on-one, just like Tyrod Taylor said. Tyrod said, I told Jalen Hyatt before the game, if you get a one-on-one, I'm throwing your way. It doesn't matter the down and distance. And that was true. He threw him second and nine. He threw him third and two on a go route. He doesn't care if he gets one-on-one, he's going to throw it. And hopefully that carries over

Daniel Jones because he's going to get one-on-ones. That's how this offense is designed. That's how teams play the Giants. And so if he gets those one-on-ones. That's how this offense is designed. That's how teams play the Giants. And so if he gets those one-on-ones and the quarterback's going there with the football, he could be interesting the rest of the way too. Okay, my ranking is Puka, Flowers, Addison. It's kind of an easy top three for me. I'm going to go Rice for Dell five, Downs six,

but a pretty interchangeable list there. My concern with downs is that it feel like Jonathan Taylor is pretty much back. And I feel like Zach Moss is going to be a part of it too. And they might just be, especially with all the turnovers that Gardner Minshew is committing. They're going to try to be run heavy if they can, if they're not giving up 30 plus points,

they've been super run heavy. And I think that you're right. That's why I've done so low. I love him as a player, but I do worry about the offensive environment for him. But I am going to take him over JSN. I love JSN. I love him as a player. I could see something happening. I think JSN has more

upside than the guys in front of him, except for maybe the top three. If this were an upside list, JSN would probably be fourth. But I got to see him do something good with DK Metcalf on the field before I buy in. All right, this is from Scott.

If you were redrafting today, what would your top five in PPR be? I would go CMC1. Do we all agree on that? Just given the state of the running back position and what we're seeing from him? That's what I had. I would go Tyreek01. Okay, Tyreek was two for me.

This is PPR, by the way. Full point PPR. He's two. Okay. Tyreek was two for me. This is PPR, by the way, two point PPR. He's two. You dumb ass. What? McCaffrey, Tyreek. Is McCaffrey two for you,

Dan? No, this is where it gets out of here. Get this guy out of here. Okay. I'm still going McCaffrey too. I just, the injury,

I know he's playing tonight, but it's an oblique. I just get a little scared off of it. But okay, I'll say the oblique is nothing. I'll go McCaffrey, too. Travis Kelsey? Yep. Kelsey is three. Four for me is where it gets interesting.

Yeah, top three I think was pretty easy. I had cup four. Did you say cup? Cooper Cup and AJ Brown four and five. Yeah. So I think I have AJ Cup four. Did you say Cup? Cooper Cup and AJ Beer, four and five. Cup four, yeah. So I think I have AJ Brown four. And then it's between Cup and Diggs for five. And I'm sorry, yeah, Cup and Diggs for five.

I love Diggs' role also. I have Diggs five. So I went McCaffrey, Hill, Kelsey, Cup, Diggs. And then I think I would put AJ.J. Brown sixth, but I think, honestly, it just wouldn't surprise me if A.J. Brown were still a fantastic option, but that Devontae Smith started

getting more targets. There is that obstacle potentially there. At what point is there a number two running back? Is there a running back they were putting up there? That was my point. Is there even two running back? Is there a running back they were putting up there? That was my point. Is there even a running back in the conversation?

No, A. B, if we change this to half PPR, would the answer be yes? Probably not. You have to go all the way down to standard to really even consider. But I could see that changing. Who? Taylor. I think better times are ahead for Eckler.

We'll talk about him soon. Taylor is starting to trend up. I wouldn't be shocked if bijan especially in half ppr or are you taking any of them over these nine targeted guys not right now no no and so what does that say back to the argument we had on our first beyond the box score show anti-fragility eckler already injured you know every one of these top backs injured or not performing at the level we expected. It's getting tougher and tougher to justify these. You only get one or two first round

pick, a second round pick every year. I only get one first round pick a year. I know. I met a person at the second round pick. Or in auctions, you only get a few big buys. Just getting tougher and tougher to use those on running backs, I think. All right.

I'd love to continue this. Okay, Jacob, give me your top five. Sorry. Finish the top five. No, we already hit on them. CMC, Tyreek, Kelsey, Cup, AJB. Okay. Okay.

From Jim, Kendrick Bourne and Rasheed Rice are they must start receivers going forward? I don't know if you guys were able to watch Kendrick Bourne. I watched all of his targets from the last two games. Whoa. Yes. I don't know if you guys were able to watch Kendrick Bourne. I watched all of his targets from the last two games. I did not. And that's kind of a lot of targets actually. That's 18 targets. Kendrick Bourne is not an explosive player. He is

not going to wow you on film at all, but they are obviously very intent on getting him involved. It's wide receiver screens. It's four red zone targets over the last two games. They are doing a lot to get him going. His air yards, oh my gosh, his ADOT in the last two games.

Let me see, against Las Vegas, his ADOT was two yards. Against Buffalo, it was 1.9. So that's good and bad. You're not going to get explosive plays, but you are potentially going to get a very high catch rate. He definitely feels to me like the kind of player you add and drop in two weeks. But I will say there is no doubt the way they're using him.

For example, two wide receiver screens in both games to Kendrick Bourne in each of the last two games. He's playing 90% of the snaps. He even got come in motion at the two-yard line or three-yard line, a little pop pass to him. That's reserved for your playmakers, right? So I think they really want to get Kendrick Bourne going. I don't think the I don't think. The Juju absence matters. But.

Juju is a short area target. Who averages five targets per game. And he's missed the last two games. So maybe it is a few targets. Here and there. For Kendrick Bourne. Obviously Rasheed Rice. Is ahead of Kendrick Bourne.

Right now. And in a three receiver league. Rice is a borderline. Must start. I think. Bourne. I am more intrigued. When I see how intentional.

They are about it. But. Still pretty skeptical. Of a guy. at this point in his career on an offense that's thrown for like 200 or fewer yards, I think in four or five of seven games. So that's my Kendrick Bourne spiel. He's not a must start, but more interested in adding him than I was yesterday. To me, Bourne is clearly benefiting from Juju's absence. You hit on him with the low adot

stuff even with these past two games his average depth of target is still 10.6 on the year this hasn't typically been who he's been he's been somebody who's used down the field more but i think with juju at this point like being a clear l for the patriots they're kind of shifting born into more of this type of a role to me actually the guy who's intriguing to talk about for new england is demario douglas who got a ton of preseason hype uh sixth round rookie he played a season high in snaps this week was second on the team among the wide receivers in routes run and if you just look at his per route data he ranks 17th in the nfl and target per route run rate. His yard per route run rate is really good as well.

Take that with a grain of salt because he's only run 88 routes. But this is a guy who the team really liked what they saw from this summer. And he's been very productive. Clearly their most productive explosive receiver went on the field. So he's a name to note. Okay, let's put him in the rookie rankings um so i that gives me a good opportunity to bring up jalen hyatt um to just throw a little water on dan's take here jalen hyatt has been targeted on 8.9 percent of his routes run which ranks 110th

out of 112 qualified wide receivers. It's almost impossible to produce in fantasy with this type of a role. He could have got there this past week because it was like the ideal matchup. Washington just like gives up big plays like crazy. Yeah, they do. And they play Washington again later this year. But like outside of those types of matchups,

it's going to be wildly unpredictable expecting anything from Hyatt with these kind of targets. Yeah, but listen, man, this is vindictive, Jacob. This is about JSN. Dan uses his film to crap on JSN. Jacob's like, just wait till Dan brings up a giant. I am going to just destroy him. I want to make clear, I didn't crap on JSN.

Just didn't love the film from this game. Let's go to our next topic here. I hate to rush you along, but this is a more important one. I think, what do you do from William here? What do you do with Austin Eckler and Aaron Jones? Dan,

what's your take on this? I want to go back to my preseason take with Aaron Jones, a player who was on my avoid list, the clear cut avoid for me because I thought this offense would be horrible. I was correct. He's not even the feature, not even the full-time, you know,

workhorse role in a bad offense, not good. So I'm not buying him at all moving forward. As far as Eckler goes, I kind of agree with you, Adam, good times are probably ahead, but I need to watch the tape to know, because I just didn't see the tape on this game. And I know they were in the game for a little while, at least into the third quarter. So game script wasn't awful there, but you know, is the role in the past game the way it was the same way it was supposed to be? Maybe Jacob has some stats on that. Is his efficient? Is he running the same way as he, is he having explosive plays yards after contact?

He is not at all. I, in fact, he had a, he had a, okay, wait, where's the, uh, the big play note I had on Eckler. Um, uh, he had a 55 yard run against Miami in week one. Other than that, Austin Eckler's longest run is 11 yards. He has 44 carries this year, and only three of them have gone for more than six yards. So I do want to point out that he suffered the high ankle sprain. That could still be a problem. I also want to point out that his numbers are really bad in the first three games of this season. Granted, it's over seven weeks. His rushing numbers were even worse in the first three games of last season.

He averaged two and a half yards per carry. He did not have a run of longer than eight yards, I believe. Yeah, I think it was eight yards in the first three games of week of 2022. And then in the last 14 games, he was on pace for 1700 total yards and he averaged 4.9 yards per carry. And, you know, the running is one thing. Where the hell are the targets? Is this a Kellen Moore thing?

One catch for one yard. Because his target per out run rate, I mean, everything, Justin Herbert's running back target rate, everything is way down. I mean, for Herbert, he's throwing to running backs 10.4% of the time. The last three, the four seasons for Dak Prescott compared to Dak Prescott under Kellen Moore, 21.3%, 15.6%, 18%, 18%. So let's just say an average of 18% of running back targets for Dak Prescott.

Justin Herbert's at 10.4%. Now, I probably should have done just weeks one, six, and seven because he didn't throw to Josh Kelly at all. But, yeah, I mean, all right, I'm sorry. You know, I'm rambling a little bit here. But there are some underlying – No, these bit here, but there are some good stats. These are really good numbers. These are some underlying concerns.

With the Kellen Moore offense, it's going to look different. Joe Lombardi's offense was designed to check down through that running back. Kellen Moore, and look, Dak Prescott's a different kind of quarterback than Herbert. He works through his progressions faster than Justin Herbert, and that gets him maybe down to the running back.

Justin Herbert is looking downfield always, so I don't really foresee that role growing too much for Eckler personally, in the pass game at least. Oh, I don't know. I mean, it's going to grow a lot. It's going to grow. It's so minimal right now. But I just can't help it.

He's growing 22 points in week one. He was Eckler in week one. He scored 26 points in week one. He only had four catches, but that's not bad. And then, I don't know, man. Jacob, what are your thoughts? My summary is I think Eckler is a buy low. I do. I just hope he's healthy. Yeah, I'm trying

not to overreact too much. We don't have very many data points on Eckler, but the target rates are really bad. But two of those games came against really man-heavy defenses and running backs are targeted at a much lower rate when facing man coverage. That was the Cowboys and the Chiefs, the two games where his targets were down particularly.

Yeah, I view him as the RB2 probably. We were talking about that earlier, like who could push into that range. I think it could be him. I know it doesn't feel good, Dan, but... Yeah, it's less on you than more on just how bad the state of RB2 is right now. Right. The offensive setup is good and could get a lot better,

and I think that these rates will come up. Aaron Jones, I do think he's not healthy. He played less than 40% of the time. He took such a break off before playing this game. Yeah, but he was limited in practice all week. It just doesn't make any sense. He barely played. In week one, week one was the only time he was healthy,

and he got hurt in the third quarter. And in week one, he had nine carries, and before his injury, A.J. Dillon had six. No, seven. So it's still going to be a split. It's frustrating. Again, I mean, I don't think he stinks like i don't think he's going to be garbage i think he's also going to be a top 18 running back i think he's gonna be top 18 running back it's possible because of how bad

running back is but it's like i said in the preseason it's hard to find a way for him to score points in this offense one of the one of the like football analytics doctors twitter doctors who i actually like because everything he does is based off of data um i apologize to him because i don't have his name right here i've been looking for the tweet i can't find it but he expected aaron jones to be eased in and be even at even after coming back for a couple weeks to still only be like 80 90 efficiency and he thinks that it makes sense everything that we've seen so far and that he should be back to assuming no setback he should be back to aaron jones within two or three games of returning um which if that happens then yeah this is clearly a buy low opportunity because week one he was a huge part of this offense and it looked like the team was finally ready to just

go away from aj dylan and stop trying to force that, which I think makes total sense because A.J. Dillon has not helped them at all. Any A.J. Dillon play has been a negative one for the most part. So I'm cautiously optimistic that we could get a late-season surge from Eric Jones. Touchdowns, I think, will be hard to come by. I mean, if you just look at Week 1, this is obviously a small-as-hell sample. They had first and goal at the 7. A.J. Dillon carried for 5 yards. They had second and goal at the seven. A.J. Dillon carried for five yards. They had second and goal at the two. A.J. Dillon

carried for one yard. They had third and goal at the one. Okay, it's third down. Aaron Jones comes in. One yard touchdown run. But I do think A.J. Dillon will have that role. I think we only have one more topic or did I? I didn't skip one, did I? Calvin Ridley. Yeah, it's Calvin Ridley. But that's our fifth, right?

Is Calvin Ridley a boomer bust wide receiver too like Gabe Davis? This is from Joey. Must clarify, Gabe Davis to me is a boomer bust wide receiver three at this point. But maybe I'm the only one who feels that way. But yeah, I spoke a lot about Calvin Ridley on Friday, so I will let you guys talk about it here.

Jacob, first word on Ridley? I think Gabe Davis is actually a decent comparison. I think Ridley has the potential to end up being a better player than Davis for fantasy and obviously for real life. We've seen that from him in a way that we've never seen from Gabe. But in terms of the way that he wins, the types of targets that he's going to draw, it's outside big boy wide receiver stuff. It's downfield shots.

And the games that we've seen him struggle in struggling i think it's been kind of predictable he's struggled against very physical press coverage heavy teams aj terrell marshall latimore it's he hasn't looked like himself for his press coverage i talked to matt harman that's the one area where he is concerned matt harman everything else he says he thinks looks good from calvin ridley and trevor lawrence and the connection there so i think when you have him in spots like that, he's going to be more of a boom bus receiver, like someone like Gabe Davis. Um,

but outside of those games, which really there aren't very many defenses in the NFL like that anymore. Most teams are pretty zone heavy. Um, outside of that, I think you can trust Calvin Ridley. So looking at his remaining schedule, San Francisco weekend is a tough matchup.

They play a lot of press coverage and then weeks 14 and 15 he gets cleveland and baltimore who are two of the most physical aggressive defenses in the nfl and those are tough spots for him as well but outside of that these look pretty pretty soft matchups pretty winnable matchups for him i think in those matchups he's a top 15 guy still that this might be bias on my part because I love Calvin Ridley, but I think we've seen him win in those matchups. Yeah. Like you said, Jacob, it does come down to that, though. What he was brought in to do was to beat Pressman on the outside,

on the vertical plane, which is supposed to unlock Trevor Lawrence. Like you said, the fact that he doesn't look the same way he did before leaving the NFL, it's not a great sign for the Jaguars offense as a whole or him. But like you said, there will be matchups where that won't be the case and teams won't be playing him like that. So that is a sign to potentially bounce back. It's just a matter of does he still have that gear? He did have 122 yards against Buffalo, who uses a ton of press coverage as well

and doesn't have just the elite top-end cornerbacks like some of these other teams. I think it's been tough sledding. These are really tough matchups. They are. I brought that up. I brought that up. It didn't make sense that he would have a good

game against New Orleans. I just think it's discouraging that Calvin Ridley can't win in a bad matchup. I never thought that was going to be the case with him. I thought he'd be matchup proof. He's not even close to that. And he usually peaks at eight targets because Trevor Lawrence is spreading the ball around and

Travis Etienne is stealing all the touchdowns. He has three straight games with two rushing touchdowns, which is a franchise record. That's it for Beyond the Box score. Thanks for watching and listening, everybody. We appreciate it. We'll talk to you tomorrow with the waiver wire. Actually, we'll see you tonight.

We got a live stream tonight before the game. If you still have a chance to start Christian McCaffrey, go for it. And we'll talk to you tonight at 7.30 p.m. YouTube.com slash fantasy. Adios.