Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score: Ravens and Packers Passing Games, Backfield Takeovers, Kareem Hunt League Winner??? (09/30 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

The Bills got whipped last night, but it's the Ravens that have more Fantasy concerns as Mark Andrews and Zay Flowers were dreadful again. We start the show by recapping that game (3:00) and then update you on the latest news (16:00) ... Advanced stats galore (17:15) on Brian Thomas Jr., Drake London, Diontae Johnson, the Bengals running backs and more before we get to our Four Big Topics beginning with what to expect from the Packers passing game going forward (38:10). Dontayvion Wicks or Romeo Doubs? Can Jayden Reed keep this up? ... We talk about the backfield splits (46:30) for the Jets, Bengals, Jaguars and Bucs, Kareem Hunt's 2024 debut (52:05) and what to expect from George Pickens and Justin Fields (54:15) going forward ... Email us at [e-mail] Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday SUBSCRIBE to FFT Express on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-express/id1528634304 Follow FFT Express on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qyGWfETSBFaciPrtvoWCC?si=6529cbee20634da8 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837 FOLLOW FFT DFS on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5zU7pBvGK3KPhfb69Q1hNr?si=1c5030a3b1a64be2 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday 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." Visit the betting arena on CBSSports.com for all the latest sportsbook reviews and sportsbook promos. 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

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for?

Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. 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. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this?

I had no idea. 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. Oh, it is beyond the box score time on Monday afternoon. Welcome, everybody, to Fantasy Football Today, presented by BetMGM, the sportsbook born in Vegas. Adam Azer here with Jacob Gibbs.

We have got some heavy lifting to do. No Schneier today. Do you feel pressure, Jacob? Do you feel like you have to talk twice as much or three times as much, I guess? No, no pressure. I do wonder if we might get wrapped up here with everything in like 30 minutes. What do we do now? Do we argue about something?

Do we have food takes? I don't know what to do. It's a void that I don't know if I'm ready to fill. That's not my expertise. No, I know. When I sent out the tweet for the big topics, I'm not answering any more tight end questions. This position's horrible.

Kelsey's good again. Drop Andrews. We'll get into Baltimore, Buffalo. You can drop Andrews if you want. But yes, the position stinks. Let's just deal with it. I don't know. It was one of those weeks where maybe there wasn't a major... There weren't that many major storylines. Thankfully, there weren't that

many major injuries. We'll see what Jacob's got cooking as he looks in the side of the lab, under the hood, beyond the box score, or whatever. All the advanced stuff. Beyond the box lab, under the hood, beyond the box score, or whatever, all the advanced stuff. Beyond the box score, by the way, is Thursday. What time do you guys record that, you and Dan?

Typically in the afternoon. It's normally live on YouTube by like 5 p.m. Eastern or something like that. All right, so check it out, youtube.com slash fantasyfootball today. Injury update for tonight, Raheem Mostert not expected to play. I don't think that really changes anything, but Mostert not expected to play. It's better for HM, but don't start

Wright or Wilson or anything, but that's your update here. All right. Let's talk about Buffalo and Baltimore. Just a whooping. 35-10 Ravens. They gained 427 total yards, 236 total yards for the Bills. I think Josh Allen, let me double check here. He went from QB1 to QB5 or something like that. And Lamar Jackson is now QB1 in CBS scoring, six points per passing touchdown lead. Oh, no, he's not. He's not.

He is less than a point behind. Jaden Daniel. Baker Mayfield. Oh my gosh, yes. Josh Allen is QB5. Right now, you look at the quarterback scoring on a per-game basis. There are six quarterbacks averaging 23 or more fantasy points per game. The number one quarterback per game is actually Jordan Love.

He's averaging 27 points per game. Then it's Mayfield, 25.5. Lamar Jackson, 25.3. Sam Darnold, 25.1. Jaden Daniels, 24.4. Josh Allen, 23.3. They've got a pretty big lead on everyone else. Anyway, I'm done talking now.

Give me your Buffalo takeaways from last night's game. It was a strange game for Buffalo. So yeah, fantasy purposes, it's kind of the same thing with Kincaid. Actually, before we even get into play specific stuff, it's like, this is the first time we've seen Buffalo not be able to kind of control the game with James Cook, right?

They've kind of been doing that every other game and then this game didn't really work and got disjointed and it kind of fell apart. And that's going to be interesting to see what happens going forward because obviously defenses know that Cook is the center of the offense, but if defenses really sell out to stop the run, then like... You're hearing that, right? What is it?

It's like birds outside it's very funny i can close that if you need um it's very peaceful yeah we're chilling we've got to after that week but yeah it's like if if defenses can stop the run then like what is what does this offense have in terms of answers it's basically just Khalil Shakir no one else is really winning that much um i brought up Kincaid because they clearly featured him early in the game and then he just kind of disappears. And that's kind of been a theme for him. I was talking to my buddy about it last night. I was like, I don't really know how he becomes the target hog that we thought he might be, where the offensive passing game does funnel through him if he can't get open and can't win when it's not designed to him um and he's like yeah it feels

like it just takes a long time for young tight ends to establish continuity and trust with a quarterback he's like when plays break down i feel like i see dawson knox be the guy who finds a hole in his own more often or like improvs with josh allen that gets a target than kate does and that's what we've seen when kelsey's been the guy for my homes is like there's some design stuff but really so much of what kelsey does is like the play breaks down he wins and him and my homes are on the same page on where he's going to be and we just haven't seen that from kate a whole lot we saw that in uh the end zone in week two or three when he got that touchdown. That was an improv play. But for the most part, he's kind of disappeared as games go on and they

get off the script a little bit. So I don't know, I just continue to be a little bit worried about him. Shakir looks awesome, continues to look awesome. I've been posting the per route leaders, yards per route, targets per route out first downs per route through the first month of football. And he's up there, man, like with the top 10 receivers and basically all of it. And so he's playing more than he ever has.

And I think he's going to continue to be somebody you can trust in fantasy. Other than that, I don't have much on the Buffalo side. Like, do you have any, I completely agree. I completely agree.

I'm not going to, you know, reach and try to come away with major takeaways. They've had some really weird game scripts. They've had one, you know, competitive game this year, I think, Buffalo. So, you know, that just kind of throws everything off. Like James Cook, I think he's only had one game with more than 11 carries. But here's, I guess, maybe one concerning thing.

But again, this does go hand in hand with the game scripts. Josh Allen has thrown 30 or fewer passes in four consecutive games for the first time in his career, at least in the regular season. I haven't looked at the postseason. But it did happen three times in a row last year. So that's three times in a row and four times in a row, 30 or fewer pass attempts since Joe Brady took over as the offensive coordinator. I think it's fine for Allen, and I think it's a little bit of a weird, fluky stat because three of their four games have been blowouts one way or the other. But yeah, Allen, I'm not worried at all about Allen.

He might still be QB1. If you want to call him QB2, 3, whatever, I don't care. But he's still going to be amazing. Cook, I think, is going to be amazing. The weirdest thing in this game was Ty Johnson getting that goal line touchdown. That was so weird. I don't know what the explanation was. Not like they were in hurry up and kept the personnel on the field. I don't know what that was about, but James Cook basically had had that role. Josh Allen still doesn't have a carry inside the five yard line this year. So I don't know. I have

no explanation from that. I'm assuming that next time up, it's probably James Cook. But you know what? I think hopefully they throw a little bit more and that will help Khalil Shakir because he is someone I am starting to trust more. He had 62 yards on five targets and we just need more pass attempts. All right. So we agree. Not much going on there with the with the bills on the other side of the ball. This is where it's at. Right. I made the worst trade I've ever made in my life yesterday. I traded for Patrick Mahomes, Zay Flowers, and Mark Andrews. Just an absolutely awful trade. I gave up Malik Neighbors, Nico Collins, and Brees Hall.

No, I didn't give that up, but I still lost the trade. What the hell is going on here with 15 pass attempts last week, 18 pass attempts this week. I'm not going to criticize them. They're doing the right thing. Derrick Henry is on fire right now. He had 199 yards and a touchdown. A week after having 151 yards and two touchdowns,

he also caught three passes and caught a touchdown. The Bills struggle against pass-catching running backs. They did last year. So far, they do this year. But, okay, your thoughts on Andrews and Flowers. Go ahead. It was second straight game where Andrews has played less than half of the snaps. I will say like they've been really weird games. They've, the Ravens have had a lead on 108 out of 114 off to plays in the last two games, which is really unsustainable. Obviously it's almost a hundred percent, not even like a tire lead actually been leading that we can lead getting

leads early and just holding up the whole game. Um, which the first two games, we didn't see that at all. They were only playing with lead on 24% of their place in the first two games. And so a lot of people were panicking about Henry after the first two games, I was like, I think it's just going to normalize. Um, and that's kind of what we've seen is game to game this stuff can be pretty random um but yeah he looks amazing his top speed in the on that run was i think the second highest of any player this year maybe the second highest when you're running back um and you saw like the deep to backs had a long runway to try to catch him and we're not getting any ground so that's just really really cool um not to him for the record i've just like he i thought he was going to be a bust i no longer think der I thought he was going to be a bust.

I no longer think Derek Henry's going to be a bust. I'm taking the L. Yeah, their line is played better than I thought it would. Lamar's pressure rate isn't quite as high as I thought it would be. After the first couple weeks, I was a little bit worried about it, but they've really shored things up. Buffalo has not typically been a team that's all that easy to run on. Yeah, I think things will get better for the passing game,

especially for Zay Flowers. I'm not worried because they've really funneled things through him. But the volume was just so low overall here. Yeah, I don't know. Are you worried about the target distribution with so much of it going to Hill? It's just kind of a one-game thing. I made that trade really for Zay Flowers. I thought, this guy's going to have a big year.

He's getting so many targets per route run, target share. They weren't throwing all that much. But the offense looks completely different than it did the first two games. And they were 0-2 in the first two games, and they were very pass-heavy, 41 and 34 pass attempts. They were 2-0 in their last two games, and they've done it behind Derrick Henry. So I think if they throw the ball 25 or more times, which isn't asking a lot, you know, Flowers should be solid. But if they are going to be this good running the ball, then, yeah,

I'm worried about Flowers, and I'm obviously extremely worried about Andrews. Can you drop Mark Andrews? I can't really sit here and say that you shouldn't. It's not like Travis Kelsey. I think the only player on waivers that I might consider dropping him for is Tucker Kraft because

there might be something there with Tucker Kraft. Andrew's probably someone I'm just going to start because that's tight end. It's passing games in general. You know, we'll talk about Justin Fields later. Justin Fields is averaging 19.9 fantasy points per game and six point per passing touchdown leagues. That makes Justin Fields QB nine per game last year. If he had averaged that he would have been QB 15, maybe, maybe even

worse. So, you know, passing is down. Um, yeah, I, I'm terrified for Andrews, but Flowers, I guess I'd call him a buy low, but only if people are really freaking out because I think that I probably just made a really bad call and a terrible decision. And I was probably wrong about Flowers, but we'll see. I'm just a little worried about Flowers because he's still not winning intermediate or deep. It's like all, like he has a really high target rate

and everything, but it's so much just short stuff. i don't know hey i that was something i was worried about him coming into the league and then he didn't disprove it anyway as a rookie and it's just like i don't is he a route winner like is he somebody who wins down the field or is he just a catch and run guy which is really good as a catcher right right right if he gets enough targets like rishi rice has basically been a catch and run guy if he gets enough targets then like she rice has basically been a catch and run guy. If he gets enough targets, then flowers can do so much after the catch that, you know, I was pretty hopeful for him,

but it's, it's really just about past volume. I still believe in the flowers, the player, but if Derek Henry is going to be this good, it's just going to screw everyone. So, and I don't really,

I don't know what to say about justice Hill. It just, you, you, you should have him on your bench, but you, he's just as likely to get you five fantasy points as he is 18 or whatever.

I was not going to have what he had last night, but two huge games for him, two bad games for him. Six catches in two games, two catches in two games. Flip a coin. I have no idea. All right, good stuff. Well, if you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use the bonus code FANTASY. You're going to get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on

your first wager with BetMGM. Here's how it works. Download the BetMGM app. Sign up using the bonus code FANTASY. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game. You'll receive up to $1,500 in bonus bets if your bet loses. Just make sure you use the bonus code FANTASY when you sign up. You have nice birds outside your house. You know what I have, Jacob? I have woodpeckers.

And they are awful. And you're not allowed to kill them, which I wouldn't do anyway. But they are home destroyers. Like, I hate them. I hate them so much. I hate Woody Woodpecker. I didn't do anyway, but they are home destroyers. Like I hate them. I hate them so much. I hate Woody Woodpecker. I didn't know. They're beautiful. They're awful. They're just menaces. And that's what I get for having a house that has wood. So yeah, we are living a peaceful life here in the Midwest. There you go. I'm going to take a break. We got news and notes

and some advanced metrics and then our four big topics. What are our four big topics? Should have told you that earlier, but here we go. Packers passing game, backfield splits, the committees, you know, people worried about Brees Hall, Travis Etienne, Zach Moss, Rashad White, the Chiefs backfield, and can we trust Justin Fields as a starter? We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today.

Did you know that across Ontario, utility damage happens 19 times a day? That's over 4,222 incidents a year. Don't let your next dig be one that causes costly delays or safety risks. Before you break ground, make it a point to request a locate. It's not just the law. It's a step to keep your team and community safe. Visit OntarioOneCall.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report.

Welcome back, everybody. Commiserating in the chat with people who have wood siding. Some guy's losing his insurance because it is a wood house. That sucks. Yeah. Woodhouse wood siding. Not so great. Okay. News and notes. Aaron Rogers playing hurt.

Anthony Richardson hoping to be back next week. McCaffrey early November, according to Ian Rapp, we're hoping for early November. Nick Chubb could start practicing this week. Jonathan Taylor might, I don't know if they confirmed it or not. Might be a high ankle sprain for Jonathan Taylor.

That is bad news. And he's on the team of mine with Mark Andrews and Zay Flowers. So honestly, I don't even care. That season's over. Team sucks. Emma Holmes, by the way. Yeah, but honestly, in all seriousness, the high ankle sprain really hurt Taylor, I think it was two years ago.

He came back. He wasn't as good. He missed time. So I really hope it's not a high ankle sprain really hurt Taylor. I think it was two years ago. He came back. He wasn't as good. He missed time. So I really hope it's not a high ankle sprain for Taylor. Andy Reid said that he would go back to Carson Steele in upcoming games. So we'll discuss that later. And wide receiver news. We're still waiting for confirmation on Rasheed Rice.

The fear is that it's a torn ACL. Christian Watson, he has a high ankle sprain. He could go on IR. And Dallas Goddard apparently left with an injury. He's got a bye coming up. Taysom Hill, though, left in the second quarter. And I'll leave it at that for the news and notes. All right, Jacob, you are up.

What advanced metrics really popped this week for you? So I want to start with Brian Thomas Jr. He's somebody we've talked about a lot on this show. I've been super, super excited. Obviously, I just love the rookies. And he was the one who impressed me the most this preseason. And he has backed it up as thoroughly and believably as possible during the season. He looks like he's just uncoverable. Um, he looks to me like one of the scariest guys you could have to cover in the NFL already as a rookie. Um, and we're seeing the offense start to funnel more looks his way. Um, he's not just a deep ball guy. He's, he still is being used that way a lot to clear stuff out. But yeah, I went back and watched every route that he ran this week and he had a couple where, um, Lawrence just missed them and he had a couple where Lawrence just missed them. And he had a couple other ones where he just didn't see him.

And even with that said, he still had a really good game. He's the wide receiver 12 in fantasy points before Monday night football. He'll get caught by DK Metcalf. So he won't quite be top 12, but like still, that's so impressive for a rookie at the beginning of the year. Who also has had some tough matchups he also hasn't been the wide receiver one in routes he's been third in routes behind gabe davis and christian kirk and we could see that shift where he's basically out there for every play um so like think about i don't want to compare him to nico collins that's not what i'm doing here but nico coll last year, he had like a 70%, 75% route rate. This year it's

at like a hundred percent. And so his per route data actually hasn't changed from last year, but because he's playing so many more snaps, he has 480 receiving yards in the next closest is like three 90. He's on pace for 2000 receiving yards, Nico Collins. And that's kind of something, the same type of effect that we see with rookies happen quite often is they go from 50, 60, 70, 80% of the snaps and routes early on to by the end of the year, they're playing a full game and just dominating if they're able to sustain that per route production. That's what we saw with Rasheed Rice last year. And so I just wanted to start with Thomas because because like man he he's so exciting this is a match against houston who has a really good defense really good pass rush good cornerback play i will say almost all of the production this week came against lassiter their second round rookie cornerback he was just getting toasted on the

left side um when he was against eric stingley he really didn't have much um i was i was hoping that it might be against stingley he was just like big boyley, he really didn't have much. I was hoping that it might be against Stingley. He was just like big boy and even Stingley out there, but no, Stingley is really, really good. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, maybe they should have moved Stingley around a little bit. Yeah, they don't really. Covering Gabe Davis a little bit too much.

Right. Drake London, I think, is somebody you keep buying low. I know you guys are frustrated with that, but his usage was really good. In a game where things kind of fell apart for Atlanta. Um, that the pressure rate was really high again for Kirk cousins,

39%. He's been one of the most pressured quarterbacks this year, which is frustrating. Cause I thought that line was going to be really good this year. Have they had injuries that you know of the Falcons? Yeah. Yeah. They were missing two starters this week.

They got hurt on Sunday night last week against the chiefs. I thought that was right. I lose track of which line is, which I like do it each week, follow the reports and then kind of lose it. Cause I'm just looking at too much information. Um, truly.

Uh, but yeah, the, the line has kind of been a problem. And then we saw the usage for like pits, Bijan be frustrating in this game. Um, Algiers have more carriers than bijan

and kyle pits had a 56 percent route participation rate which is by far as low as his previous low as 74 but drake london did not see anything drop off he continued to dominate in terms of underlying targets and everything 35 percent target share 50 percent area share since week one he has a 30 target per route run rate and a two yard per route run rate. That's excluding that week one game where they didn't run a real NFL offense to accommodate for Kirk Cousins or whatever was going on with his health. But since then, it's been like Drake London near the very top of the NFL in first three targets and everything else. So he's definitely someone I would buy low on. Are you in on that or are you just kind of sick of him?

No, I mean, look, I think targets are, you can talk about all the metrics in the world, targets are the most important for wide receivers, right? Yeah, so I love that he is among the league leaders in target share. Just looking at weeks one through three, weeks, no, sorry, let me do weeks two through four is what I meant to do.

So I'll just update it here. But even for full season, he's top 10 in target share, looking at wide receivers, or actually this is all players, with 20 or more targets. But since week two, weeks two through four, Drake London is fifth in target share. And that's behind Malik Neighbors, Amon Ross St. Brown, Marvin Harrison, and Deontay Johnson.

So that's great. The problem with London is that he does nothing, still does absolutely nothing after the catch. You see his yards, getting like 60 yards on a good day. I think that he could have some big plays. He's breaking more tackles. They're using him over the middle a lot more. They're using him in the same role as Pukunukua last year.

And that's a huge change from last year where he was mostly perimeter bound. So I do think some of those could turn into big plays in time. I think he's a better yak guy than people realize. But yeah, so far the yardage has been suppressed. I think that could improve. Overall, just like Atlanta's offense is running really cold. They were dead last in total plays, offensive plays.

Again, this week only 51 plays. They've really struggled to convert third downs on the year. If you look at their third down percentage conversion rate to the other teams that are in the bottom five with them, it doesn't make any sense. Their offensive success rate is right about the league average. All the other teams are terrible. So I think, I do think things are going to balance out for Atlanta. They didn't even have an offensive touchdown this week. I think it's just been a weird, weird small sample size. So London in particular I'm excited about, but even like Bijan,

I know it's been frustrating, but I think he'll probably be better. But yeah, on the target note, I wanted to move to Deontay Johnson. Oh yeah, can I ask you a question? Because I saw on Twitter, I think it was actually in our YouTube comments, we were talking about Bijan yesterday, and someone said, should I trade Malik Neighbors for Bijan Robinson? What would you do there? Wow. Um, assuming it makes sense positionally, I think that I would do that. And I know people are going to hate that. That's not popular right

now. Obviously Malik neighbors is the hottest name in fantasy, but I, yeah, that's really tough. Yeah. I think I would probably right, if I really needed the running back, I think it's a pretty fair trade. Bichon's got to be better than this. I mean, come on. Yeah, for sure. And he's still so involved in the passing game. And if you're saying that they haven't run a lot of plays,

then I think that's actually a really important note. Because, you know, like this game, they had the ball for like 23 and a half minutes. They scored a special teams touchdown, a defensive touchdown that really obviously is going to hurt your play volume. Okay. Go ahead. Next up. I'm sorry. You were saying targets are the most important. Um, that's the name of the game. Deontay Johnson, 14 targets per game. Since Andy Dalton has taken over a quarterback, Andy Dalton weeks, three and weeks for had the lowest pressure rate of any quarterback, both weeks, the Pan four had the lowest pressure rate of any quarterback both weeks.

The Panthers have the lowest pressure rate of any team this year. Their offensive line got beefed up this summer and is playing really, really well. Obviously, we've seen Dalton is playing pretty well, and we're seeing just more plays and more targets as a result. Deontay is completely dominating, 24 points per game in PPR over the past two games. Xavier Liggett, rookie, had 10 targets this week, 91 air yards, 20 PPR points. Without Adam Thielen, I think we're going to see the target distribution just be like really concentrated on these two. I'm excited to go watch the film on, what, do you say Liggett or Liggett? I feel like everyone says look at you it i was

saying that but it's league it that's what that's how he pronounces it so yeah i don't know if that's right or not but you got it you got it i'm gonna pick this word for it um i want to watch and see if he's winning on more than just like athleticism um but i haven't got to carolina film yet but really encouraging underlying stuff for him. Um, a couple of bears notes, only four routes for Gerald Everett this week. And so that's really exciting that we're kind of apparently done with all of that, hopefully, um, where he's cutting into Cole Komet. Cause talk about like, watch the tape. Cole Komet looks amazing to me. I watched him and I'm like, this is one of the best Titans that is in the NFL right now. Yeah, I know.

And we, I think it's partially because we don't have a lot of tight ends are playing at a high level. But yeah, as I've watched Chicago, I've been really, really frustrated with the play calling and the route designs. But the players are encouraging. Roman Dunze looks so good. He's winning in so many different ways. Keenan Allen is still like a dependable guy. And Cole Komet's really good. And obviously DJ Moore's really good.

So I think it could come together. DeAndre Swift played well, which is good. People have been waiting on that. And finally, the usage has been good for Swift all year. Yeah, except Shuri Artich, except Skoline, because he never gets those. Right. They went with Roshan in this game.

That is really, like, I don't know what to make of the seven catches. You know, that was really like, I don't know what to make of the seven catches. You know, that was, that was kind of out of nowhere, but obviously he's capable of, of being a good pass catcher. When he kind of came in the league, Swift was really good at that.

And, uh, if he's going to catch passes fine, but if not, if it's two, three catches a game and he's losing pretty much all the goal line work, that is a problem. But it was, it was nice to see him wake up.

Yeah, for sure. Speaking of losing goal line work, two touchdowns for Chase Brown this week was a huge surprise. 15 rushes for Brown, 15 rushes for Moss. Apparently, Moss got banged up and missed a few drives. I haven't watched that game. 58% snap rates, though, for Moss compared to 42% for Brown 15 routes run for Moss 10 for Brown um I don't know Chase Brown has run extremely well this year yes he he does balance things a

little bit too often for my liking and obviously he struggles in pass protection which is why he struggled to get on the field but it feels like he is building momentum and playing his way into a larger role just because every time they give him the ball, he does something with it. I was not a big Chase Brown guy, but man, it's hard to deny what he's doing. Same. I feel the same way. I still feel like they don't want him to be an every down running back. I don't think Zach Moss is going to lose his job. Zach Moss has run almost every single third down route, so he's got that. But I was trying to look up this, that,

um, so if you give me a moment here, but Joe Burrow just hasn't been throwing. Like, it's great. It's great that, uh, Zach Moss has run like so many routes on third down. He's got three targets on third down.

So if Joe Burrow is never going to throw to him on third down, it doesn't really matter. And I'm looking at, it's now two years in a row. Let's go back to 2022 of Joe Burrow, not throwing to running backs on third down being toward the very bottom in both 2023 and the first four weeks of 2024. We're loading here. Okay. 2022, he was an eighth. So we'll see, but you know, it'd be great if he would get those targets, but it's a pretty meaningless role.

If he's on the field field almost every single third down and has three targets in four games on that down. So who would you, if you had to choose one rest of season, who would it be? I would go with Moss.

I do think, like, if the Bengals are going to be competitive, he's the one that they trust. I don't, I would be really surprised if we ever see Brown, like, playing third downs and playing important reps for them

just because the emphasis of this game is the passing game or of this team is the passing game and protecting Joe Burrow yeah uh so Eric All the rookie tied in for Cincinnati you might remember um we brought him up like way back in the summer as one of Dan and I's favorite like breakout tight end sleeper guys and he continues to he continues to play more each week his snap rate was a season high but he didn't run a lot of routes and so that's going to be something to monitor going forward is giziki's snap rate fell way down but he still ran a lot more routes than all but all still had a pretty productive game he was targeted four times caught all of them for 28 yards and his per route data on the year is like as good or better than basically

any tight end. So if we see this guy, every time you watch the broadcast, they're talking about how much Cincinnati loves this guy. If we see him eventually get a full-time role, um, if we see Kosicki get booted out of there, which has happened to multiple stops in his career,

I think this could be a really interesting, like top 10 type of fantasy tight end that no one even drafted. Yeah. Obviously disappointing for anyone who started Mike Asiki. I think I started him in one or two leagues. Well, one of them was tight end premium, but it didn't really matter as he did nothing.

All right, Eric, I'll keep an eye on him. And anything else? Sure, yeah. 33% target share for Tee Higgins. That was the highest since 2021. So that was just kind of interesting. You see his snap share? I don't know what happened there.

Chase played 79% of the snaps. Higgins, 64%. That's interesting. 76%. It was not like that last week. I don't know what that was all about. Stefan Diggs has been scoring touchdowns, but might be one of the best sell highs in fantasy.

His per route data is way down. 22% target per route run rate, even with an average depth of target of only 7.2 yards. And so that is going to make it pretty tough for him to contribute yards. That's just a really low-efficiency combination. Maybe he'll get targeted more. I don't know. I don't really know why he would be targeted a whole lot more

when Nico Collins is just presenting this omniscient presence that's literally always open. By the way, I'm looking at it right now. ESPN has their receiver metrics where they track you know who's open the most the top two this is going into week four so updated september 26th stefan diggs had the highest open rating and nico collins had the second highest that's cool where did what was the source this is espn yeah they track every route of every receiver yeah they have three they have an open rating a catch rating and a yak rating and then overall so overall the

best receiver the best receiver i think in yeah the highest score was stefan dicks that is really cool and i want to say on that note we have seth walder from espn analytics coming on beyond the box score this week, leading up to week five. And so I'll be able to pick his brain about what goes into all of those scores and everything. Maybe he has some Stefan Diggs thoughts, so be sure to tune in. I am sorry. I was wrong. Sorry, I'll let you put that on one side. I was wrong.

I was looking at the wrong column. So Diggs and Collins were one and two in overall rating. They're three and four in open rating. Malik Neighbors is one. George Pickens is two. That's going into week four. All right, so I'm sorry. So promote that again.

One sec. Go on, go ahead. This Thursday's episode, we have a guest on each week for this Beyond the Box score show that Dan and I are doing. And it's going to be Seth Wilder from ESPN Analytics.

And so we'll be able to talk about all the open scores and all of that and then other stuff. Like I'm really curious to talk to him about not pre-snap motion, but motion right at the snap. talk about all the open scores and all of that. And then other stuff, like I'm really curious to talk to him about, um, not pre snap motion, but motion right at the snap. Like you've probably seen the Dolphins.

Don Tavian Wicks did a lot of that, I believe. It was pretty cool. It's like arena football. Yeah. Yeah. So he's got all that information. Whereas like,

I don't have that available to me through true media. That's something that's specific to ESPN. And so we'll get to talk to him about that and just which teams are using that more and which teams are using it well. ESPN analytics.com slash receivers if anybody wants to take a look at this. All right, give me one more

and then we'll get on to our four big topics. Sure. So Jalen Polk played a lot more. I'm giving you two more. Jalen Polk played a lot more and I just think two more jalen polk played a lot more and i just think that's interesting because he hadn't been and he let the patriots in routes then the rams on the tutu atwell note and pre-snap motion and all that they completely abandoned all the two tight end stuff that they did last week and so as a result we saw jordan whittington with a 97

percent route rate the highest on the team last week week, it was, I think, 48%. And as a result of playing more, he got more targets. He led the team with a 28% target share. And so earlier today, I tweeted out a list of rookie wide receivers who in their first four games, actually just rookie players, good Brock Bowers and Sam LaPorte are included in this, rookie players who in their first four games average 20 routes per game

with a 2.0 yard per route run rate or higher and a 10% first down per route run rate or higher. And the list is only 13 players long. It's like rookie season, Cooper Cub, rookie season, Terry McLaurin, Calvin Ridley, Sam Laporta, Drake London, Puka Nakua, Justin Jefferson. We have four guys doing it this year malik neighbors brian thomas jr lad mcconkey i think he has looked amazing and brock

bowers um and he doesn't jordan whittington didn't hit the route qualifier but he that's because he didn't play a lot in the first couple games but he's playing a lot more now full-time role this past week he would join this group if i expanded it to like 10 routes per game instead of 20 um so that's just one last interesting note to leave you on because the rams loved this guy this summer they couldn't stop talking about him and tutu atwell has been one of the most efficient wide receivers in football yards per target i think he's second or something like that behind jayden reed i think i put my minimum at like 20 targets or something like that so all right we're going to take a break. We'll talk about the Packers passing game.

One of the notes I was going to give was that Tucker Kraft played 86% of the snaps. But we'll talk about the Packers when we come back. Which wide receiver should you get if you can choose between, say, Dobbs and Wicks? And Dobbs is 49% rostered. Wicks is 13% rostered. We'll also talk about Kareem Hunt, backfield splits and Justin Fields. And we'll be right back on fantasy football today.

Got to take here in the chat that I saw. That was really, we have a Mr. Popinski is one of our frequent commenters. That's a character from punch out. And then this guy said, so to Popinski is greater than bald bull and that is i really have to disagree with that ball bull is one of the most iconic

they're all pretty iconic in punch out but ball bull is the one who does the bull charge that goes which is like the music or the sound you hear when you turn on the game ball ball and you have to play ball, ball twice. And he's really hard. Soda Popinski's easy. This is a terrible take, Bob Gnusz. Terrible take. I will say Popinski's the one that I recognize.

I vaguely know what you're talking about with the bull rush and everything, but I just looked at the two characters and Soda is the one I recognize. Soda Popinski's very fun. I think he goes like he laughs at you like that yeah and when you knock him out he puts his gloves up to his mouth like he's drinking a soda but ball bull is really hard ball ball is one of the first characters you play that's like whoa this guy how do i beat the bull charge? Dude, Adam equals Glass Joe. Oh, that's cool.

Glass Joe, of course, being the first character in the game who's very, very easy to beat. All right, so let's go to the Packers passing game. That was our first topic from a variety of people on Twitter. Jordan Love, as I mentioned, he is QB1 per game. He's only played two games. We scored 36.2 fantasy points against the Vikings on 54 pass attempts. And he scored 20.4 fantasy points against the Eagles in week one on 34 pass attempts. And just keep in mind, a week ago, the Bears passing game looked great. They threw 52

passes. Just remember the Packers passing game, they threw 54 and they didn't really do that much in the first three quarters. They went nuts in the fourth quarter. But in general, I mean, look, Jordan, this is an offense that I would want pieces of. This is a good offense. We don't have a ton of those right now. I think the Packers are a gift to fantasy. Anyway, what's your take on the receiving core

with Christian Watson out? Let's say he's going to miss a few weeks. He might end up on IR. What's your take? The Packers are a gift of fantasy. I completely agree. I love Matt on the floor. I love Jordan love.

They're so aggressive. Um, and we'll truly like test every blade of grass. And so that is really, really fun and exciting for the pass catchers. I think it was a really good note to bring up how much Tucker craft is playing. Uh,

he was somebody who I advise people like for waiver wires to stash, probably one of the best stashes in fantasy football because tight end is just this horrible position and he's playing almost every snap. And when Love gets back, he has fantasy relevancy. The first thing to say with Christian Watson is that Dontavion Wicks played basically every snap after Watson went down.

I thought it was possible that there might be some kind of rotation involving Bo Melton because he's somebody who's played well in the past and they like him a lot. And maybe that will still happen, but he only ran six routes, Bo Melton. It was pretty much all wicks. The next thing I would say is that Jayden Reed did not see his role change in any meaningful way. He didn't play any two receiver formations. Those are all just Wicks and Romeo Dobbs. So Reed was still just the three receiver set guy. He ran a ton of routes in this game, but he was tied with Dobbs for third and targets behind Kraft and Wicks. Yeah, crazy, crazy volume for Dontavian Wicks in this game. 13 targets, 24% target share, 200 air yards, 35% target share. I'm going to mute myself and let you talk and close this door.

Oh, that is awesome. Yeah. Here's the thing. So I obviously went back, I watched all the dropbacks for Jordan Love and Wicks might have a bit of a drops problem. He had at least two drops in this game and one of the touchdowns he caught, he was wide open in the end zone, no one near him, and he almost dropped that one. So I don't really pay too much attention to drops. Even people who drop the ball a lot, it's still a fairly infrequent occurrence. But if you're going to drop it that much, you might lose targets. So I think the gut reaction is to go out and get Wicks over Dobbs

because he had five more targets. He had a much bigger game. And Dobbs is kind of a little boring. So I would get Wicks. I think Dobbs is safer, though. I think Wicks has much higher ceiling but a lower floor. I think they're both worth adding.

But I would prefer Wicks to Dobbs. Jacob, do you agree? You're on mute. I definitely agree. So I wanted to give you a list of receivers who Dontavia and Wicks is in the same range of PPR points per route run since the start of last year, which was his rookie season. So Jane Reed, first off, since the start of last year, for both of these guys, Jane Reed has averaged more PPR points per route run than A.J. Brown. By the way, that's just his, uh, receiving totals,

just receiving no rushing added in, um, with rushing he's yeah. He's up there like just below Debo Samuel as one of the most like per opportunity basis, one of the most productive players, um, in the NFL. And this is just, it's so crazy because it's these guys as rookies competing against like prime, you know, career DK Metcalf and stuff like that. Um, with Reed, it's not quite as relevant because his role isn't going to change. He's not getting more routes. Um, he saw a ton of routes in this game because they were getting blown out. Um, but with W wix we might legitimately have like a 90 95 percent route rate um and so i don't know if this will translate exactly like a per route production basis but it's really really interesting so he's averaged on taving wicks has averaged 0.43 ppr points per route in his career

that's the same as dk meccaf that's just below davante adams chris alave and jamar chase 0.44 0.45 for chase um brian thomas jr i just noticed it's a 0.49 but that's why i say all the sample size though to react to of course um but yeah john taming weeks has been really really good and i heard you talking about drops do you know what drops are the most correlated with targets it's you know you have to be getting open and getting targeted to drop the ball and to be, you know, proving that you're somebody who can get open enough to get 13 targets in a game. Um, that's really, really impressive. And that to me is much more noteworthy than dropping the ball. Did you, uh, would you drop Keenan Allen and or Romo Dunze for Wicks and or Dobbs? No Dobbs. Yeah, you could drop Keenan for Wicks.

I don't think I would drop out Dunze for Wicks unless you're really desperate for short-term help. We don't even know what the deal is with Watson. I think Dunze is so good he's not quite as athletic and as explosive as brian thomas jr but it's the same kind of like aura when you watch him where it's just like that guy is giving defenses problems that guy's scaring defenses because he's so his routes are so crisp and you have no idea where he's going because he has so he has so much space you have to account for because of how good of a route runner he is. Um, and, and because his frame, like he's just, I don't know, he he's so good, man. So last thing here is, is Jaden Reed. You know, I think people are going

to expect a big bump maybe for him. I don't really know that that's going to happen. Honestly, Watson wasn't really playing all that much. He wasn't really doing all that much. And the question for Reed is, you know, is he, is he, I don't necessarily believe this. Like I would just keep him. I would just keep him. I wouldn't trade him. He's just awesome.

But is he maybe even a sell high? Because I think he's doing things that are so incredibly efficient, like 15 yards per target leading the NFL. He's still playing. He has the highest, if not the highest, one of the highest slot target leading the NFL. He's still playing. He has the highest, if not the highest, one of the highest slot rates in the NFL. He's in the slot over 80% of the time, basically. 86% in week four.

He doesn't run the deepest routes, but he does get targeted downfield. But I don't know. I just feel like what he's doing is maybe unsustainable. I'm wondering if he's actually a sell high. What do you think on Reed? I, I think it like makes sense to look at the numbers, like the spreadsheets as people like to say, and like make come to that conclusion. But man, Reed is just so freaking good that I don't, I don't agree. I don't think that it makes sense to sell them. Um, to me it's like kind of the Nico Collins effect where, yeah, his per target everything efficiency is like unbelievable.

It seems like it has to drop, but I don't know. It's an unbelievable player in one of the best offensive environments in the NFL. Amazing quarterback, amazing play caller, and they use three receivers a ton. There are probably going to be games where they get caller, and they use three receivers a ton. There are probably going to be games where they get a lead and they just ride Josh Jacobs, but this team likes to pass. It's been like that the whole time. They pass in the red zone more than any team during the

Matt LaFleur era. But it's changed. Aren't they using three receiver sets more than they were the last couple years? Because they were like 20th in three receiver rate. So that's a change. Yeah. That has something to do with re yeah. Cause you got to get that guy in the field.

Right. It's a good point. So I looked before the season started and the only player over the last seven seasons, cause that's when true media first started recording slot rates. The only player that had a real standout season, like, wow,

that was awesome with a 70% slot rate or higher was Tyler Boyd in 2018. He had 76 catches over 1,000 yards and seven touchdowns in 14 games. There have been some other 1,000-yard guys. I mean, I guess you could say like Hunter Wren. No, Hunter Wren ran for 65.6% slot rate, but he had 1,000 yards and nine touchdowns.

But this is not a great list. I think Jaden Reed is going to smash that. He's just like, forget history. He's just really good. I'm going to buy into it. All right, let's go to our next big topic. And that would be, should the owners from Black Rose, should the owners of Brees Hall, Rashad White, Travis Etienne, and Zach Moss get out while they can before they lose more of their respective backfields? Who would you be worried about from that group of four? Brees Hall, Rashad White, Travis Etienne, and Zach Moss get out while they can before they lose more of their respective backfields. Who would you be worried about from that group of four? Brees Hall, Rashad White, Travis Etienne, Zach Moss.

White and Etienne. We talked about Moss already, and I do think Chase Brown is going to get more rushing work. But yeah, White had played 100% of the red zone snaps through the first three weeks, and then we saw this week five red zone touches for bucky irving and zero for white um i think bucky is just outplaying him and we're going to slowly see more and more of bucky in all areas i think that he even could take passing down work from white which is really like what we're hanging on to with whiteieda in terms of fantasy relevancy. Etienne has just not looked very good this year. I invite you to watch his carries from yesterday. Yeah, I haven't watched yesterday's.

I was actually pretty impressed, because I would have totally agreed with you, but I actually thought he ran the ball pretty well yesterday. But that's just one game. I think the longer trend, you're right. He just hasn't really looked that good. He certainly doesn't look like a first-round pick in the NFL draft. Yeah, and Tank Bigsby

has looked good. He didn't lose a lot of playing time last week four. Bigsby only played 28% of the snaps or something, which I thought was strange. Did he get banged up again, or is he maybe not all the way back? First of all, Travis Etienne apparently had a shoulder injury, but I don't look, I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but it seemed, I don't think he started the game. Let me see who they listed as a starter.

When I first saw that game, he was on the bench and they said, and then they said shoulder injury. And then he came in. I feel like he got benched, you know, because, because Peterson said he wanted to shake things up. I could be totally wrong. He is listed as a starter. So maybe he played on the first snap, but he Peterson said he wanted to shake things up after they went 0-3. So I, it's possible they were trying to send a message. I really hate getting into that. I don't like to be, you know, thinking about stuff like that locker room stuff, but I was confused by it. I didn't see any shoulder injury. And then he came in and seemed like, you know, he played a pretty normal, a normal role. Um, but yeah, like I am definitely worried about ETM because Bigsby came in and worked near the goal line. So look, these guys are not getting enough work. If they don't score the touchdowns,

they're going to be busts. And Rashad White, I think is like definitely going to be a bust. I've not a lot of hope for him. He's not good. I'm sorry. You know, I've talked about a lot of things I've gotten wrong today. I mean, I was wrong on Derek Henry. I just made this horrible trade for Zay Flowers. I was right about Rashad White. You know, I said it over and over again when they drafted Bucky Irving. I mean, I was saying, I'm not really worried about Rashad White losing his receiving role because he's really good at that. I'm worried about him losing his rushing role because he's been basically the most inefficient running back in football the last two years. So that's happening. I'm terrified of that. I'd rather have Bucky Irving rest of season.

Moss and Brown, you know, one of them is going to be great if the other gets hurt. Otherwise, I think they're both flexes. Brees Hall, I'm not worried about, Jacob. It is disappointing. Maybe he won't return the value that we thought, but I think he leads the NFL. He leads all running backs and catches. That's going to change tonight. A-Chan will be first, most likely, and Hall will be second. But Brees Hall is the man. To me, this is just a slow start. Braylon Allen's a bigger factor than I thought he would, and he's been really good. So if I were drafting today, how many running backs would I take ahead of Brees Hall? Barkley? Honestly, in full PPR, that might be it.

Am I forgetting anyone? I wouldn't take Derrick Henry in full PPR over Brees Hall. Kamara, maybe I'm crazy, but I would go Barkley one, Hall two, Kamara three, Bijan four, Henry 5, Kyron 6, and then we'll start talking about McCaffrey at some point. But that's probably my top six. Yeah, I think that's fair.

I will say the Jets worry me. They play so slow compared to the rest of the league. Yeah, I'm not super worried about Breeze. 18% target rate um target share and his rushing efficiency is like obviously down but so much of that is just that he's he's getting crushed behind the line of scrimmage so often he has eight yards before contact on the year um which is just that's really frustrating but is other than that his rushing efficiency looks fairly similar to last year um i always wonder when the backup comes in and does better on a per carry basis if the defense is is playing it differently you know because i remember it would happen with like

um gosh i can't even remember who the backup was for saquon barkley but they would come in and do better than barkley and like you see barley is in and do better than Barkley. And then like, you see, Barkley's still a lot better than those guys. Like we're seeing it now. So I don't know if Braylon Allen got the job and was the guy if things would change, but it does seem to happen. Yeah, go ahead.

Braylon does have like way, way more yards before contact than Breeze. But yeah, he also looks just more explosive, I feel like. All right, let's go to our next. This was, I think, an easy one from KingKoopa88. The Chiefs backfield. Is Kareem Hunt a league winner? I'm going with a resounding hell no on this one.

What do you think? Yeah, I'll give it a hell no. He looked pretty good yesterday and they gave him a lot of work. I don't really think he looked that good. I thought he looked, he had a 10 yard run on first and 15. He had a nine yard run on second and 20. And other than that, he just ran straight. He didn't do anything. In my opinion, he did not, according to true media, he did not have an avoided tackle. There's only 14 carries,

so you're not always going to get one. But I saw basically Carson Steele. I just saw a guy running straight, and his two best carries were in passing situations. So Heath said he looked good yesterday. You said he looked good yesterday. I'm worried you guys may have Chiefs-colored glasses because I thought Kareem Hunt

did not really look good at all. Yeah, that's fair. I think maybe I'm a good relative to expectations because I think Samajapiran has looked pretty good, too. And has probably more juice than Hunt does. He's not doing anything spectacular, but he does run really hard. I heard Dave say, like, you wouldn't be surprised if he slows down after a few games. I would agree with that, too. Because this is the most explosive hunt has

looked, uh, last year he was hurt, but, uh, he was, he was not running with much explosiveness. Um, but yeah, nine of 11 rush stems for hunt in the second half. I think he'll have a role on short yardage situations, but I do, it wouldn't surprise me if they go back to see it. Wouldn't surprise me. Steel starts the game next week. Yeah. And I wouldn't surprise me if Clyde Edwards starts the game next week. That's the other wouldn't surprise me if Clyde Edwards-Hilaire starts the game next week. That's the other X factor here that I seem to be the only one who takes it seriously at all. I have no idea if he's coming back.

I hope he does. And also, like, Pacheco's not out for the year. So, right, like, we've got maybe another five weeks. I don't even know. And they may have a bye in there as well. Yeah, they have a bye in two weeks. So this is probably not going to be a great situation. But if Kareem Hunt had gotten that goal line touchdown,

maybe I'd feel better. I don't know what that was all about. That was like Ty Johnson scoring. Why did Samaj P. Ryan get the goal line touchdown? Very strange. All right, next topic is from Good Boy Troy. Can we trust Justin Fields as a starter going forward? He scored 34 points against the Colts

after scoring 20.4 fantasy points against the Chargers. And he is the number nine quarterback per game in six point and number seven per game in four point. This is Justin Fields here. And here's what you might be going, oh, well, they were trailing and he finally had a throw and he had a huge game.

Well, he threw 34 pass attempts and scored 34 fantasy points against the Colts. But last week they won. They beat the Chargers in a very close back and forth game and he threw 32 passes and he scored 20.4 fantasy points.

So he actually only had two more pass attempts this week compared to last week, but he turned that into about 77 more yards. Sorry, doing the math in my head, 77 more yards. And plus he had two rushing touchdowns. Uh, do you think Justin Fields is a starter going forward, Jacob? I do. Yeah. I've been really pleasantly surprised by what we're seeing in this offense. They're making things real easy for fields and he's finally getting some yak from his receivers these past couple of games, um, which was not happening at all in the first couple. And we're seeing him run a little bit more, which is good. Um, his scramble rate on the year is really high. Uh, he just has had such a low number of dropbacks that it hasn't resulted in a

ton of rushing and he hasn't been very efficient as a rusher, but I think that's, I think that's random. I don't know. I haven't, I'll just admit that I have not watched a lot of the Arthur Smith, uh, Pittsburgh Steelers show.

Um, but maybe I did watch his snaps. I, I watched, uh, in preparation for this answer, I watched all of Justin Fields' dropbacks, and I was honestly pretty...

How was that? You know, I don't see guys... Like, I watched the Packers, and guys are getting open. I don't really see that from the Steelers. They don't have as talented receiving core, obviously. But, you know, unfortunately, they lost the starting guard for this season

to a torn Achilles. But I thought the pass protection was pretty solid. You saw some some bad plays from fields. But overall, I would have to give him a an A minus or a B plus. I thought he played pretty well. And the best thing that he does in terms of the passing game is he extends plays. And I think that's a really good fit for a guy like George Pickens, who can improv a little bit. You know, they were there. In fact, Pickens

dropped a touchdown, just hit him right in the hands on a play where Justin Fields got out of the pocket, extended the play, threw a nice ball into the end zone and Pickens dropped it. It didn't matter for Fields. He scored a rushing touchdown on the next play. But I was of this mindset that we really need Russell Wilson for Pickens. There's no question Russell Wilson will throw more touchdowns than Justin Fields. But I think Fields can actually be good for Pickens because of that scramble ability, because it can turn into big plays

downfield. We saw it last year with the Bears. I think we could see it again. I'm pretty happy with the way Fields is playing. I really am. I think he's going to be under the microscope where every time he takes a sack or fumbles or throws an interception, people are going to kill him for it. As if the other quarterbacks,

like Sam Darnold made some pretty bad decisions yesterday as well. But Justin Fields, like people are going to kill him and they're waiting for him to fail. But I'm actually okay with it. And pass volume is my only concern as it relates to Pickens. If they can throw about 30

passes, like if you told me every week that they're going to throw 30 passes, Pickens is going to be probably a top 18 receiver for me. There are going to be games where they throw 22 or something. That's going to hurt. But yeah, I'm going to go ahead and give Justin Fields my seal of approval. He's playing much more conservatively. Like the the air yards are way down. And the completion percentage is 70%. He's never been 62%. So, he's a different version. And that version's

a little bit boring and not great for fantasy. But he's a must-roster guy and someone that you can start in good matchups. There you go. I think you nailed it. Yeah.

I talked for three minutes straight. Sorry about that. I think that was perfect. All right. That could be it for Beyond the Box score. Sorry about that. I think that was perfect. All right. That could be it for Beyond the Box score. How about that? Pretty chill episode. Yeah, man.

Go out there. Go out there and get a little lounge chair, sit with the birds. What's the weather like? Where are you, Missouri? I am in Kansas City. It's going to be 85 today, but we've had some really great weather this past weekend. I went golfing, and it was like 70 degrees. Just perfect. You golf too? Not really. I mostly rode me and my brother went and just kind of

rode around in a golf cart with my buddies golfed. I wish you could be there for the vibes. I wish you were good and you could be Dan. I would make me so happy to just, yeah, you could be Dan. That'd be great. So please work on that. Um, anyway, Dan will be back next week. We're, we're pumped about that. And we thank Jacob and all of you for watching and listening. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow with the waiver wire on Fantasy Football Today. We'll talk to you tomorrow.