Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score Week 3 (09/26 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

We're coming at you with plenty of advanced stats and other numbers you may have missed from Sunday's games. First, let's talk about 49ers-Broncos (1:30). Is there any hope for Russell Wilson? How frustrating is the Broncos backfield? What were our big 49ers takeaways? ... Big news updates (11:04) on a star left tackle, Joe Mixon, D'Andre Swift, Tua and more. Then we'll give you some advanced metrics that stood out from Week 3 (16:30), talk about Romeo Doubs (24:00) and the Ravens offensive identity (26:55). Oh, and what's the best 90's kids sports movie (30:30)? ... Five Big Topics! Tom Brady's outlook (32:30), the state of the quarterback position (35:00), the state of the Cardinals offense (39:45), Chris Olave's awesome start (44:00) and how to use your bench spots (46:35) ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Welcome, everybody. Monday afternoon, time to go beyond the box score. Advanced stats from simple people. Still working on the tagline, but that's what I have for week three as we recap Sunday's action with some of the statistics that just don't show up and that you probably don't even know about maybe in some cases, and that hopefully Jacob and Dan can educate you a little bit today.

I'm Adam Azer with Jacob Gibbs and Dan Schneier. We'll talk about yards per route run and target rate and backfield snap counts and third down rates and all those good things, but also just general buy low, sell high. And what's wrong with Tom Brady? Of course, we'll talk about Sunday night football. All right, guys. What'd you think of Sunday night football, Jacobs?

11 to 10. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't waste any time energy watching that game. I'll be guys. What'd you think of Sunday Night Football, Jacobs? 11 to 10. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't waste any time or energy watching that game, I'll be honest. What? Why not? I'm not somebody who has to watch the games. I think that that is kind of a destructive habit,

especially when it's as bad as that game. Oh, no. I have to. I love watching the games, man, especially all the Cortland Sutton targets in the world. That was exciting. It came down to the wire for me in one of my leagues. I needed that pick six.

I came up two points short. The Broncos DST was not quite good enough. So, yeah, I was into it. That's the good thing about fantasy. It turns a garbage game into something exciting. Dan, the 49ers lost Trent Williams and the Chargers lost Rashawn Slater. But speaking in this game here,

I had the stat. I had the advanced stat. It was great. And I can't find it now. I will find it. But they averaged something like six yards per play in the first half and something like four yards per play

in the second half. And Trent Williams was a big difference maker maker when he left uh the offense really struggled yeah i'm the opposite of jacob i do like to i don't miss games to the point where i do watch like the replays of games now i have youtube tv so it tapes a lot of games but i also watch it on game pass i am to a fault in i test believer i like to go by what I see. I especially think, you know, I like to mix it in like exact, like all the advanced sets that we gain from having true media, from having people like Jacob on staff who do an excellent job digging them and uncovering them. I use that all within the context of also the game, what I watch.

And, you know, my thoughts on this game were two, twofold one, everyone, you know, announcing, oh my God, maybe this Jimmy G, this Trey Lance injury and Jimmy G coming into the starting quarterback spot is good for all the 49ers fantasy players. I think they got to take a step back and reconsider that. Jimmy Garoppolo, I thought, had one of the worst games I've seen by any quarterback this season. I know it doesn't show up as much in the box score, but he missed a wide open D-boat Samuel touchdown and a beautiful design by Kyle Shanahan to get him one-on-one against the linebacker, Josie jewel. The, I mean,

he hit the pass, but he had to stop for it. Samuel. And it was no touchdown. He missed a few open reads for touchdown. So there was one late in the game on a Debo Samuel release from the slot vert. So this is a quarterback who from a clean pocket,

misses a lot of targets from a ball placement standpoint and has no mobility. So I think he's worse for the offense. That's one of my take. Yeah, I do. Well, he might be worse for the overall offense, but

he is going to throw for a lot more yards than Trey Lance was. I know everyone says that. It's not like this is a guessing game. We already know what Jimmy Garoppolo is. But we don't know anything about Trey Lance. We had such a small sample. But he wasn't going to throw enough. He wasn't going to throw enough.

This is a rusher. He's a running quarterback. That's not why they drafted no they didn't draft him for that when he's early in the system i agree and we'll never know because he's injured and there's a lot of people taking victory laps now on lance's demise quote unquote with a small sample size but as he got more comfortable in that offense i actually thought he would add more to the passing game which was one of my big big beliefs in the offseason we'll never know anyway back to the other side of the ball. Man, oh, man, that Broncos offense.

We knew it was going to take time with Russ learning a new system that had no semblance of what he had run in Seattle and learned all the terminology there for so long. But with Hackett, too, as the play caller and as the coach, it's just it's not what you want. And I think it's going to continue to take time there. We talked last week. Do I trust Brady or Russell Wilson? I went Brady. I think he edged him slightly in points, right? I think it was nine. Yeah. Yes, he did. He did. He scored 12 points. I guess I scored eight. I had like an unofficial Wilson versus Wentz bet. And I think I won by two. Like, Wilson eight, Wentz six.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, okay, the stat I gave earlier was it's even more dramatic. First half, the 49ers averaged 6.2 yards per play. Second half, they averaged 3.7 yards per play. And left tackle Trent Williams did miss most of the second half. And this is a tough team to lose your stud left tackle, one of the best in the business. The Broncos were all over Garoppolo. Jerry Judy only played 59% of the snaps. He

came into the game hurt. He was barely started. That ended up being a good play by fantasy managers. He played 89% of the snaps in week one, 59% of the snaps in week two. Wilson did not exactly have his best weapons out there just Sutton basically doing all the work eight catches 97 yards but Wilson is the story here

the other Wilson by the way just encouraging thing there for Jeff Wilson he played 73 percent of the snaps had a really good game caught three passes had a late fumble that crushed them but from a fantasy standpoint yeah pretty good uh good anyway, completely dominating the running back carries. Let's talk about Russell Wilson here, guys. And do you think he's a buy low or do you think he's a bust at this point? Jacob, you have the first word. Wilson scoring eight points. So that's 19.8 points, 13.1 points and eight points in three games.

Jacob, go ahead. Russell Wilson. I just like we've talked about each passing week that the offense continues to look this way. I continue to get more worried and think that he might be a bust. I think both him and Brady are going to be better. We talked about them last. We think they could be by lows. But I don't have much confidence in it

right now. I really don't have much on Russ. I would mention on Judy that he ran 30 routes. So 30 routes for him, 39 for Sutton. I think they just kind of were keeping him off the field when they could because he got banged up last week, so why have him in the run blocking? I think it would be better for him going forward. I do love the connection with Sutton right now.

It's exactly what I was banking on. Even though you were tilting off a bit last night on Twitter with all caps, I need more from Sutton moment. That was fun. Well, I needed more from the offensive line. They weren't really doing much. What did you think about the running backs here? Oh, go ahead.

Yeah, yeah. Want to get a word on Wilson? Just a quick thing. I actually am buying low on Wilson. I'm not expecting this to turn around right away. That's kind of my point. It's going to take time to learn the system here. But he was an incredible defensive play by

the defensive back away from a 75 yard touchdown to jerry judy on a perfectly thrown deep deep post there and then on the third and four earlier in the game that bogged down to drive jerry judy runs a great route and gets open and wilson just doesn't have the timing down he doesn't have the connection similar earlier judy ran a choice route and he went broke inside on an in-breaker, and Russell Wilson threw the ball outside. That's going to take time, and I think once they get that down, they're going to be a much better passing offense.

Yeah, I think overall, I was talking about this on the show yesterday, but think about who are the quarterbacks so far that have just been much worse than we thought. The ones that come to mind pretty much... Brady, yeah. I don't think Brady's playing poorly. He just has no weapons. You mean that come to mind, pretty much... Brady, yeah. I don't think Brady's playing poorly. He just has no weapons. Oh, you mean just worse.

Okay, gotcha. I thought you meant fantasy. Who's playing like crap? Who's playing like crap? There are five that come to mind, and all of them have new teams or coaches. And they're Fields, Wilson, Wentz, Matt Ryan, and Baker Mayfield.

And Ryan is maybe not... I don't know if he belongs on that list, but all these guys are playing. And I think Wentz has been playing like crap, personally. I mean, I know he had two 30-point fantasy games, but, you know, it takes time. These are new systems, new teams, new surroundings. I don't think it's a coincidence.

And for Fields, it's a new coaching staff, obviously. I think you could throw Daniel Jones in that mix as well. I know the completion percentage is high, but the air yards is pathetically low. The yards per attempt is pathetically low. They're just asking him to basically operate in-breaker, easy in-breakers off of RPOs. So right now he would probably be in the mix as well.

The word of the day is in-breakers, by the way, if you are playing at home. Javante Williams. What's an in-breaker,iams what's an in breaker adam it's it's an in breaking right give me a break well you didn't know anti-fragility so yeah i didn't know anti-fragility i do thank you still and after not knowing you double down on how much you hated it that was the part that i thought you could have done a little better on the double town you could have been like you know what i get it now and i like it

giovante williams and melvin Gordon, very even in the touches. I think 18 to 17. Melvin Gordon gets the goal line touchdown. After a week, Jacob, last week, week two, it looked like it was all Javante, basically. So what do you think? Is this going to be a seesaw year in terms of role? I hope not.

It was definitely a bummer, especially what really got me was the routes run. Javante and Melvin each ran 13 routes on 40 total dropbacks. So in week two, Javante ran 20 routes on 35 dropbacks. We saw nine for Melvin Gordon, only five for Mike Boone. This past week,

it was 13 Javante, 13 Melvin Gordon, and 11 for Mike Boone. That's so gross. That's terrible for fantasy. Everyone is a bust this year, except for like three players. Everyone is a bust. that's so gross. That's terrible for fantasy. Everyone is a bust this year, except for like three players.

Everyone is a bust. Okay. That's going to do it for our recap of that game. And we, I have on. So if you're watching right now, I have a giant shirt on. Dan and I are going to the game tonight.

And underneath my giant shirt, I've got a fantasy football today shirt on. I like that. You can got a Fantasy Football Today shirt on. Oh, I like that. You can get a Fantasy Football Today shirt. You can get a Fantasy Football Today mug, a glass, a hat, a hoodie. Awesome stuff. Go to our merchandise store. Go to the CBS Sports store and get T-shirts, mugs, sweatpants, laser engraved pint glasses, hats, water bottles, and more to remind your buddies how you got the inside scoop to crush them in fantasy. Right now, Fantasy Football Today listeners will get 20% off

their order when they use this code exclusive to this podcast, Fantasy Football 20, during checkout. Fantasy Football 20 is the code. And the best way to go there is you could just Google CBS Sports Store Fantasy Football Today. You could can just do a search or there's a link in the episode description in itunes or wherever you're listening and there's a link in the episode description on youtube but if you want to just google cbs sports.com store or cbs cbs sports store fantasy football today it'll take you there and use the promo code fantasy football 20 to get 20 off your purchase we do have some big news today deandre swift could miss some time with a shoulder injury jamal williams is 70 rostered and we have a whole waiver wire show coming up tomorrow but uh is jamal williams ahead of alexander madison

khalil herbert just because of time frame dan yeah he is easily my number one target i mean jamal williams has year to date the most snaps targets and total touches inside the red zone total. He has eight touches there and 11 snaps in the red zone. I think given how dominant that Detroit Lions offensive line has been, especially in the run game, he's to me a potential RB one top 12 weekly play. If Swift is out, like, is there a possibility they start to mix in other running backs? Maybe, but ultimately they trust him on third downs.

They trust him in the red zone and red zone. They trust him between the twenties. Why is he not an RB, a top 12 RB with that kind of offensive line? If Swift is out. So he, to me, is somebody I'm willing to, depending on the Swift injury and what kind of timetable we get, I will be willing to dump a lot of budget on Jamal Williams. I hope you can get him. His 70% roster is obviously a shallow league kind of thing,

but Jamal Williams has 696 carries in his career. How many of them do you think have gone for more than 25 yards? Out of 696? More than 25 yards? Yeah. Seven. Dan? 25 yards. He. Seven. Dan? 25 yards.

He's definitely not a 25-yard rusher. I'm going to put it at... Because this is an Acer stat, and those usually either involve trick questions or massive... Just give me a number. One. One.

You're right. One run in his entire career. I know the Acer stat is too well. entire career. I know the Acer stats too well. He stinks. I can pinpoint Acer stats. This is all I'm saying. He's just, you know, he's like DeAndre Swift. We're not expecting that.

DeAndre Swift has 250-yard carries this year. Already. Jamal Williams is zero in 696 runs. Mack Jones has a severe high ankle sprain. How many did James Conner have last year? I'd be curious because he was an unbelievable fit. You know, just to kind of frame a reference. Yeah, but he averaged three points something yards per carry last year.

If you want to look at his career. Conner you're talking about? Yeah. But I'm just saying he had such a good fantasy season for us last year. You're right. Despite not really being able to do anything from a breakaway standpoint. That's a good point. He's a must-have.

Must-have player. I'm not disputing that. Mac Jones, severe high ankle sprain. He could be out a while. Rashawn Slater is out. Yeah, Rashawn Slater's out for the season for the Chargers. That's their star second-year left tackle. Jacob,

interested in buying low on Justin Herbert, or are you genuinely concerned, or both? Yeah, I am concerned. I just don't like the way the Chargers are handling it. Yeah, I just am staying away from it. Why the hell was he

in at the end of the game? He said he wanted to be. He said he wanted to be in with his teammates and he didn't want to quit on them. Sure. Yeah, that's the decisions. It's so asinine. and he didn't want to quit on them. Sure. He makes the decisions. It's so asinine.

Yeah, look, I think that obviously this is a huge loss. And they're also, I don't know how long Corey Lindsley's at their center. I'm guessing not that much longer. But this is the lowest I think his value is going to be, possibly, possibly. His lowest value is going to be all year. And you kind of need a difference making quarterback because there are four or five teams in your league that have one. And this might be your chance to get Herbert. I still think he can be great.

I mean, Burrow was great last year with a terrible offensive line. It's a problem. Maybe it limits his upside, but I think you shouldn't judge. Like he needs Keenan Allen backing. Hopefully that'll happen next week. Right. My issue is Allen bat needs Allen back but also like i for my just from watching the chargers i decided to watch yesterday's game on the replay today no giants game to work with so i had to

watch some other some other stuff and yeah there's a massive difference if you watch that game when slater is is in the game versus when he comes out It's almost like an offense that can't move the ball. But at the same time, that's to be expected in game when an injury like that happens. They'll adjust. They'll obviously scheme around it by having people chip and things of that nature. But they don't have any offensive tackle depth,

so they are going to have to take receivers out of routes to use in pass protection. That's never a good thing. But my biggest issue watching the Chargers this year, man, maybe it's because Keenan Allen is out. I just don't see a lot of vertical separation with the receiver group, But my biggest issue watching the Chargers this year, man, I maybe it's because Keenan Allen is out. I just don't see a lot of vertical separation with the receiver group. And I don't really see a lot of separation in general because I'm pretty disappointed what I've seen out of Mike Williams with that receiver group. So it's just like now he has problems in the offensive line receivers who can't separate vertically.

I just don't know if that's a buy low for me. And Eckler doesn't have a single run of 10 plus yards this year. Like that's not what Eckler is supposed to be. All good points. Joe Mixon is worse than Eckler. He has an ankle injury too, and he's averaging 2.8 yards per carry. And gosh,

he has something like nine runs for negative yardage and eight for no gain. I was reading on cleveland.com today. It's, I might've mixed those two numbers up, but Mixon's got an ankle issue, so you might want to look at Samaj P. Ryan because they're playing on Thursday, and they're playing against the Dolphins,

who may not have Tua Tungavailoa. Those will be big ones. I mean, I would think he's going to play. It's a back injury, but I'm getting some news right here. Just going to read it in a second. But yeah, Tua and Mixon in jeopardy for the Thursday game at Cincinnati,

and some Bucs news here. will have evans back this week julio jones is expected to play and not sure yet on chris goblin all right let's look at some snap count stuff and more jacob was there anything you wanted to point out you want me to go through it or you know you haven't talked much so i want to throw it to you uh no uh the only real note I have here is on Kamara. We'll get to him. But his route involvement rate was a lot more encouraging than what we have seen. Obviously, he was a little bit injured earlier, but it was really low in week one.

But it was up to 62%, which is more in line with last year, 65%. So that's encouraging. And his snap shit, I think this was the first game in the last two years now, two seasons, that he played 70% of the snaps with Mark Ingram playing. So I know it was a disappointing game for Kamara. He fumbled and Ingram scored the touchdown, but the snaps were great. I guess the route involvement was great. And he actually has drawn a target this year on one third of his routes without michael thomas on the field and only 22.6 of his routes with michael thomas on the field it's a small sample size but something

to keep an eye on dan anything jump out to you from all the snap counts i think the one thing that i would say stood out the most is just this clyde edwards elair role it's not what i it's not where we want it to be and yet he's still scoring so many fantasy points because of the red zone touchdowns that screams typically a buy a sell high type situation with edwards lair and i can get on board with that depending on what you're receiving a return the question becomes though not is this sustainable because that's stupid thing to say from a touchdown standpoint but this is still one of the best offenses in the nfl regardless of where they're at right now i think it's only going to get better as those receivers get on the same page

with Patrick Mahomes. So it still is, you're still trading away the primary red zone guy. I know they mix in McKinnon there and sometimes Pacheco. So I'm not as sold on that, but I did think it's interesting that he hasn't really stood out there. Um, and I also think it's interesting that Eli Moore is playing more snaps than Garrett Wilson, but Garrett Wilson is out producing him. So I know that's not what Jacob wants to hear, probably, as the main Eli Moore truth here. And I love Eli Moore, too. But it's possible that the Jets just drafted a better overall receiver, at least as far as drawing targets goes, with Joe Flacco, I should say.

Yeah, what do you think, Jacob? And what do you think about Zach Wilson, who is most likely going to start this week for them? Yeah, I mean, Zach Wilson has actually been worse for Elijah Moore in the splits that we have seen throughout Moore's career. So I don't know. Anything is better than what we've seen so far. Truly, Elijah Moore has the highest average route depth of any player in the NFL. And Flacco, up until this week, really has not been looking downfield at all. And so it could get better. Garrett Wilson has not been better at drawing targets throughout any you know

extended sample size we've seen on the tube but Garrett Wilson is really good I was really really high on him as well I just didn't think that he was going to come in and take things away from more like he has but like it was definitely within the range of possibilities that he's good enough to do that. And that's what we've seen so far. It could just be what continues to happen. Um, what's really interesting to me on the jets is the running back, uh, situation we saw in week two. Um, they played Ty Johnson a ton and I think Brees Hall only ran like seven routes. Um, but in week three, Ty Johnson only played one snap. Brees Hall ran 27 routes compared to 19 for Michael Carter.

Brees Hall was in for 10 of 16 two-minute drill routes. And he had 11 third down routes compared to just two for Michael Carter. So if he can get – I have no idea what to expect because they've just been all over the place with it week to week right but if breeze can get those passing down reps that's really exciting uh he what he's not someone who was targeted at a high rate in college he just had a massive you know uh overall route run um total but so far through three weeks he has the highest target per run rate of any player in the nfl he's been targeted on 35% of his routes. So that's Brees Hall we're talking about here.

And for the first time this season, he actually out snapped Michael Carter by only two snaps, but you know, he is perhaps closing the gap, perhaps earning a bigger role, or perhaps we have no idea what's going to happen in week four. You know, I Wilson.

Yeah, I keep, I keep drawing parallels to this year's jets backfield to last year's Broncos backfield. But I might as well just draw parallels to this year from this year's Jets backfield to this year's Broncos backfield where week by week we don't know. But yeah, do you guys who we talked about this last night with Heath and Dave, do you think that the Brees Hall breakout is coming? My argument against it was, I just don't think Michael Carter's going away and it's going to be like Melvin Gordon and Javante last season. I don't know that the true must-start breakout is coming.

Maybe the flex breakout is coming or it's already here. I don't know. But Jacob, you got the first word. Do you think the Brees Hall breakout is coming? I think he's looked really, really good. Like his efficiency metrics, his ability to draw targets everything that we've seen when he's been given an opportunity to play has been much better than i expected um so if the opportunity increases it's definitely possible um but like you said as long as carter's healthy i think he

is going to be involved the team he's the heartbeat of the offense you know like the team really likes him and he's an important part of what they do so i i would be surprised if we see a true breakout into like rb1 even you know high in rb2 territory for breeze i'm gonna go with no also not because of breeze hall though i mean this is a prospect who came in very similarly from an athletic comp standpoint to jonathan taylor and saquon barkley his film at iowa state is phenomenal one of the most patient one-cut runners perfect fit for the system all reasons i liked him but like you said adam how Jonathan Taylor and Saquon Barkley. His film at Iowa state is phenomenal. One of the most patient one cut runners, perfect fit for the system. All reasons I liked him,

but like you said, Adam, how can you break out in a jets offense where Michael Carter is not going to lose his role? And the bigger issue for me here is I just think this offense from a volume standpoint in the passing game is going to look so much different when Zach Wilson gets on the field. I don't think they're going to be as efficient in the passing game.

Unfortunately, I have to say that about Zach Wilson. I don't think they're going to be as efficient in the passing game. Unfortunately, I have to say that about Zach Wilson. I don't think they're going to pass as much as the running backs. I think that's going to take a massive drop off. Did not do that at all last year. Hell out of me. Yeah. And that's a veteran move. Joe Flacco is a veteran. We'll check down to the backs a lot. That's something he goes through his progressions. He gets there. So that's number one concern for me, the target volume for the running backs once they put in the second year quarterback with very few starts under his belt all right i'll give you a few more things

here and then we'll move on to our five big topics which is going to be a lot of quarterback talk uh detroit cornerback jeff okuda i think this is his third year or fourth year he's coming back from an achilles injuries of a former top pick top five pick out of Ohio State. And I hope he was top five. He might have been like, I thought he was three. He was close. I think he was three. Yeah, something like that. Anyway, I just looked just now on PFF.

They have him as like the 60th best cornerback in coverage grade. But everybody's raving about him. And he is shutting people down. Devontae Smith in week one. Justin Jefferson in week three. Who did they play in week two? Oh. They played the Commanders.

Or no. Washington? Yeah, they played Washington, right? Yeah, Commanders. Yeah, was it McLaurin? So whatever. Okuda has been terrific this year. And he could be a shutdown cornerback

that we have to pay attention to. He was basically shadowing Justin Jefferson yesterday and got some help, but really did a great job. Let's see. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say it's been good to see him come around. He was a top prospect. He really struggled at the beginning of his NFL career, and now he's taken well to that system.

Okay. End zone target leaders through three games. Devontae? Yeah? I was just going to say one thing I didn't want to get to before we got there, maybe, but I didn't want you to lose your train of thought, was we didn't touch enough on the Romeo Dubs outing, I feel like. That was really, I thought, one of the bigger takeaways from this week.

Big waiver wire priority for you, Romeo Dobbs. Oh, yeah, Dobbs. I don't know why I still call him Dubs, but that'll be something I'll improve on. We'll give your fantasy team some Dubs. Yeah, exactly. W's wins. I'm curious to get Jacob's take on this. Like if this is sustainable, because everything we saw yesterday was this is the first real sign of any wide receiver in that on that Packers team showing off any kind of, you know, ability to dominate targets, ability to, you know, he played a ton of snaps for them.

It wasn't like they were taking him in and out putting him in on certain situations is this sustainable jacob once they get healthier at receiver i hope so i i think you know the route involvement the snap rate and everything was great yesterday what i will bring up on dobbs is that uh his average depth of target is 4.4 yards which is just really strange um given like how we saw him using the preseason and what I saw in his collegiate data. I don't know if that's going to continue or not, but he has drawn a lot of targets,

but they haven't necessarily been high-volume targets. He does not have, I think his area of share is 15% or something. Alright, thank you for the detour here. End zone target leaders. He's worth talking about. Devontae Adams and Garrett Wilson have seven apiece. Jamar Chase has six.

Stefan Diggs and DK Metcalf and Justin Jefferson have five. Those are your primary leaders and end zone targets. Devontae, Garrett Wilson. I mean, Garrett Wilson is in that company right now. Devontae Adams, Jamar Chase, Stefan Diggs, DK Metcalf and Justin Jefferson. Still have Alan Robinson high on there. He has four.

So if you're holding out hope for him, that's, you know, the reason why Zay Jones and Mac Hollins are actually on that list. And they're waiver wire wide receivers that we'll discuss tomorrow. Ramondre Stevenson played 16 more snaps and Damian Harris ran 14 more routes than Damian Harris. Traylon Burks played a career,

a season, a career high season, high 69% of the snaps. Cam Akers. Yeah. Let me just give one more and then I'll throw it to Cam Akers and Daryl Henderson played the same amount of snaps and they ran the same amount of routes.

They combined for one target. Akers had 12 carries. Henderson had four and Akers fumbled at the goal line, but his coach Sean McVay said that if they had run more plays, they, all they did was kneel it down after that fumble. If they had gone back out there, Akers would have been out there. He wanted to give him some confidence to say he's still his guy, but whatever, something like that. Go ahead, Jacob. Yeah, just on Trelon, it was a season-high snap rate, 69%, which is great,

but I think more importantly, he ran around on 27 of 28 dropbacks. So they were clearly getting him out there when they were passing the ball. Yeah, he had more routes around than Robert Woods, who had 25 compared to 27 for Burks. And last thing here, among teams who have played three games, which is almost everyone, the Baltimore Ravens have the fewest

running back rush attempts. And this is where they've ranked in the last four seasons in running back rush attempts. 9th, 7th, 30th, and. Ninth, seventh, thirtieth. And now, after tonight, it will be 32nd. Wow. So, they have changed their identity.

I don't know if J.K. Dobbins' health will change that. But they are Lamar Jackson's team. I mean, they have been. But he is the guy running the ball for them. They just don't hand it off. And that's a great point by you because a lot of people expected going into the season that there would be all this regression around Mark Andrews in this Baltimore passing game. But no one really considered.

Maybe they just trust Lamar Jackson's development as a passer, and he's looked damn good as a passer this season. In my opinion, not a great setup. Besides Rashad Batemaneman no one creates any kind of separation with the receivers and weirdly enough at least to me Rashad Bateman isn't even playing all the snaps I find the whole Bateman coming off the field thing I don't know why that that's the case right now and hopefully that'll change moving forward because it's obviously impacted his target volume in some ways at least but what he's done with with that receiver core

right now with an offensive line that's just not even close to what it used to be, I think they're moving forward in a direction where they realize the best way for them to move the ball is through Lamar Jackson. On the Baltimore thing, I will say just a small note. On first downs, their dropback rate was only 40% in week three. It had been 53% and 60% the two weeks prior. That's the only dropback rate that I noticed that stood out. Like neutral situations was about the same.

The first half dropback rate was about the same. The overall dropback rate was about the same. So it could be nothing. But like if you are looking for any underlying data point that might suggest that they are going to be more run heavy on first downs, they were more run heavy in week three. Okay. And we are going to take a break. When come back we have our five big topics but first i want to look at the youtube

poll which is really interesting what is it he's just you know schaefer's getting better and better with these what is your favorite 90s kids sports movie oh is. Is it A, The Sandlot, B, Little Giants, C, The Mighty Ducks, or D, Space Jam? The results. Wow. When we come back. Sandlot, Little Giants, Mighty Ducks, or Space Jam? What is your favorite 90s kids sports movie? We need to give our takes, too.

Yeah, of course. I mean, that's what we're here for. We will be right back on Fantasy Football today. Welcome back. Okay. Five right back on Fantasy Football today. Welcome back. Okay, five big topics start with Tom Brady, but big topic number zero is this poll on YouTube here. Okay, what's your favorite 90s kids sports movie? Is it The Sandlot, Little Giants, The Mighty Ducks, or Space Jam?

It is a runaway right now. I won't tell you what it is. All right, Jacob, you can go first. Well, it's important to bring up that I was born in 1994. So a lot of these I've seen, but they weren't necessarily nostalgic movies. What came to mind for me was Like Mike, but I just looked it up.

It actually came out in 2002. Okay, I've never even heard of that movie. Don't even try to mix that in with these. I know. That would lead to disaster. I'm just a big, I i'm a basketball guy so i'll go with space gym i guess okay dan that's it this is one of the toughest polls thomas has ever created i don't think we'll ever get a tougher poll considering to me all four are pretty much on the same it's true dude these are four elite level movies i mean how do you even pick it's a good one most people would expect me to pick little giants out of bias but i'm not going to go Little Giants.

You know, my pick actually is Mighty Ducks. I love the Mighty Ducks, and I've seen that movie the most. I'm not even sure Original is my favorite because 2 and 3 are so good. Oh, my gosh. What? Just stop. You were doing great. You were really doing great.

You were hitting a home run. D2 is awesome. I mean, yes, D2 is fun, but it's a stupid movie with the Bash Brothers at the end going crazy and stuff like that. Who doesn't love the Bash Brothers? I do love the Bash Brothers. It's not as good of a movie as the original Mighty Ducks. The original Mighty Ducks

is great. Mighty Ducks was also my answer. I'm just going to stop you before you embarrass yourself anymore. Mighty Ducks was also my answer, but we just going to stop you before you embarrass yourself anymore. Mighty Ducks was also my answer, but we are getting our butts kicked by the Sandlot, which has 50% of the vote. You know, though, the problem with that is it's probably skewed

toward an older audience is all going Sandlot, right? No, I think Mighty Ducks and Sandlot would be... Okay. Just because baseball is a bit of an older sport. That's my kind of yeah i think again i just just stop you were doing great man i really knew that one wasn't gonna let's get to our five big topics jacob you get the first word this is from tyler c is there any hope for tom

brady this season yeah yeah i think so for sure right like uh offense gets healthier um i think things could definitely turn around like We talked about last week, we're a little bit worried about the drop back rate there going a little bit more run heavy. And there are definitely reasons for concern, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he turns things around. I think he's going to be great.

Yeah. I would not have ranked him high if I knew he didn't have Chris Godwin, Julio Jones, or Mike Evans, which was the case last week. And Evans got thrown out two weeks ago. Or I said last week. I mean yesterday. Evans got thrown out eight days ago.

And he's had Chris Godwin for almost none of the season. He's had Julio Jones for one game. No chance. Things are going to turn around very soon for Tom Brady. I do think he may not have the ceiling that he had. This is what we talked about when we noticed just how run-heavy they were. It hurts his ceiling. But, you know, we got into it in the second question,

which is also about quarterbacks. You can't be bad at quarterback. You can't. And it's hard this year because there's only like five good quarterbacks right now. That'll change, I think. And I think Brady's going to be part of that change, Dan. I think there's a lot of hope for him. Yeah, he's also big time by low for me for a multitude of reasons.

One, you said it. They just don't look like right now they trust to let him throw the ball without these receivers on the field. I mean, look, you asked him yesterday to Colt Beasley was on the field. This dude was signed days ago with zero chemistry, doesn't know the system, and he's expected to play on the field. And there were routes where it looked like Brady and Beasley weren't on the same page. That's not going to continue. And if you saw at the end of the game, when they finally took the training wheels off and let him go into tempo offense, he was throwing the ball really well. And he moved the ball all the way down the field for a touchdown. And so that's the type of thing that you can still get if they trust

it. Now I have been concerned about losing Bruce Arians because Bruce Arians was, I don't give a crap. I'm throwing the ball downfield early. Often, I don't care how much we're leading by. I don't think that's going to be the same. So I don't think the ceiling is quite as high, but he's certainly going to get to a much higher level than he's been at once he has Godwin and Evans on the field. Julio's another story. I know he's going to try to play through this PCL. I don't trust that Julio is going to be able to stay healthy, though, for any extended period of time. I just think he needs Godwin and Evans.

When he has that, he's going to be a must-start quarterback, basically. Even ran yesterday. I think that was called back, wasn't it? That run he had. That was a fun run, though. That was a fun run. This is from Imtiaz Khan. The quarterback dead zone after the first six or so quarterbacks

drafted. I had a long conversation with the guys about this on yesterday's show, but basically the reason why we don't take Josh Allen in the first round is because we think Joe Burrow and

Tom Brady and Russell Wilson and Dak Prescott and Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr and Trey Lance. And I say, yeah, I did. All those guys that we took in the mid rounds, not going to be as good, but they're still going to be awesome. And it has not played out. So far, it is an extremely shallow position, Jacob. How do you see the quarterback landscape shaping up going forward? Yeah, I'm feeling really good in the leagues where i drafted um kirk cousins derrick car to uh some of those you know

mid-round guys because they've actually you know really produced well and seem set up um to continue to do so but yeah it's basically like if you took one of the elite guys um you're set and if not you're kind of scrambling it's kind of the same thing at tight end. Honestly, like both positions have been so ugly so far. Right. But don't you buy it more with tight end. I think quarterback will end up being a deep position.

I think there've been some extenuating circumstances. Like Dak has heard Brady's got these receivers out. I thought Stafford played a terrific game yesterday and got unlucky with two drop touchdown passes. Such a slow pace in that game. It was just so hard to watch. Both those teams were just grinding. Look at how many total plays the Rams had in that game on offense.

It's unbearable almost to watch. That play clock is just draining to two seconds every play. It was hard to watch at times. Well, all I'm saying is I have no hope for tight ends. But I do have hope for these dead zone quarterbacks who have been bad so far. I think Russ will get better too. Yeah, I hope so. I mean,

Rogers is actually being, you know, he's not tearing it up, but he's playing really well and he's been okay the last couple of weeks. Jacob, I just want to press you on that again. Do you think there is a huge difference between couple of weeks. I know just so Jacob, I just want to press you on that again. Um, do you, do you think there is a huge difference between Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts,

let's say my homes and everyone else, Jacob? Yeah, I, I want to think that we could see better days ahead for Kyler Murray. But I also just don't trust the coaching staff, the infrastructure there in Arizona at all. That's part of our next question, actually. Right. And then, yeah, I think Russ and Brady, I think your point of comparing it to tight end is valid.

There are more guys in that mid-range who are underperforming who I feel like have a chance of emerging and joining that elite tier at quarterback than at tight end. guys um in that mid-range who are underperforming who i feel like have a chance of emerging and joining that elite tier at quarterback than at tight end like i feel a lot better about those guys than t.j hawkinson or you know pat fryer move to whoever you're drafting in that range of tight end um i think there are there's glimmers of hope for some of these quarterbacks still oh yeah go ahead i was just gonna say i think there's a couple things working in play here i mean over the last two seasons i believe chris towers did some good research on this um and quarterback scoring has been very i don't want to say lopsided but very top heavy now for two

straight years but but over that same time span over the last two years the best bet from an adp value standpoint has been drafting a quarterback in the 9 to 12 range. That just doesn't seem likely to me. Like that's going to be the case anymore this year. Adam, as you brought up trade Lance already injured, right? Tom Brady might get back to a certain point. We're not certain on that.

And Russell Wilson was Carl Russell Wilson and Dak Prescott were the two other players within that nine to 12 ADP range and in two injuries, obviously, but right now it's starting to feel like there is, it's getting even more top heavy with the players you mentioned. The other thing that we have to consider that just overall right now it's starting to feel like there is it's getting even more top heavy with the players you mentioned the other thing that we have to consider just overall right now and i don't know if this will continue i doubt it will scoring has been down big time in the nfl it was 24 points per team this is also uh courtesy of chris towers in our daily newsletter that you can get sent to your inbox every day for free it was 5500,500 words with advanced stats, snap counts, snap shares

on every single game for every Monday morning. This is an amazing newsletter. You should literally all sign up for this if you enjoy the beyond the box score type stats and stuff. But anyway, scoring across the league was down from 24.0 points per game in weeks one to two last season to 21.4 this season. And then as we enter Monday night football, the league's only averaging 20.37 points per game in week three. So that number went even further down. I think that's due to regress as well. And when that happens, there will be other quarterbacks who kind of can step into that range, hopefully.

It was a low-scoring fantasy week for sure. A lot of really ugly scores. All right, topic number three comes from C3P Joe. I like that, C3P Joe. Cardinals offense. That's all C3P Joe said. Cardinals offense. Dan, what's going on with the Cardinals offense? I think Jacob alluded to a little bit of it, a little bit of what me and him are concerned about earlier. This is a really bad coaching staff. It's a really bad offensive system. They don't use pre-stat motion often. They didn't use pre-stamp motion often.

They didn't do a lot of things to make life easier for the quarterback. And ultimately that's playing a big factor here. In addition to something we can't just overlook, which is one, the entire infrastructure of the team has been kind of crumpling in recent years. They haven't upgraded their offensive line at all. Really. It's not a good offensive line and they just lost Justin Pugh. They're starting left guard this week. That's only going to make things worse there. In addition to that, they don't really have any receivers they can trust outside of Marquise Brown right now. AJ Green, I guess he was their starter. He went down. Greg Dortch is now playing the role they envisioned for Rondell Moore. So things will get better as those receivers get

healthier, but there's still going to be this looming concern for me the rest of the season that cliff Kingsbury is calling the plays and designing the offense and that their offensive line is a crumpling infrastructure. That's only getting worse via injury. Yeah. 31st and pre-snap motion 28th and 28th and play action. Like they just, there are things that are clearly boost efficiency.

They just don't do them. Who's 32nd in pre-snap motion? Houston. That juggernaut offense. Yeah, man. Do you think it'll get better, Jacob? Do you have faith in them very vanilla isn't that the craziest part he was supposed to bring this like crazy system to the nfl that was

perfect for kyler murray and it's the most vanilla offense basically in football yeah it's it's gross he has the uh third lowest average depth of target which could easily be the second lowest if daniel jones um has an a dot above six today. No, I'll take the under. Yeah, they're not throwing downfield. This is one of the least explosive offenses in football so far. They have not scored a point in the first quarter. They have one touchdown in the

first half through three games. There are seven teams, seven teams this year that don't have a 40-yard pass play. Listen to the other six. One of them is the Rams, which is surprising. The Colts, Steelers, Seahawks, Browns, Falcons. Right?

That makes sense. Rams and Cardinals. I want to double-check on the Rams, by the way, not being on there, because I feel like, how do they not have one? But the Cardinals definitely don't. The Cardinals' longest play, they have a run of 30 yards and a pass of 30 yards.

As Jacob mentioned, they're not throwing the ball downfield. ADOT's way down for Kyler, for Marquise Brown. The question is, will the combination of DeAndre Hopkins in three more weeks, after three more weeks, and eventually Rondell Moore solve

these problems or these season-long problems hopefully it's amazing to me they haven't been able to get trey mcbride more involved in this offense they go up and they spend a premium pick to get him he's a receiver receiving first option and you have every injury in the world to receiving options and he's just not involved right now either it's like this offense operates through zach ertz and marquise brown marquise brown's a pretty good receiver zach ertz is decent at getting open i guess but offers nothing after the catch so i don't know yeah uh yeah the rams also do not have a 40 yard pass play very surprising that is surprising all right well kyler had been good for fantasy because of these heroic fourth quarters. Each of the first two weeks, he does not come through.

His next games are Carolina, Philadelphia, Seattle, New Orleans, Minnesota, Seattle. So there's a mixture of good matchups and bad matchups, and I think you're pretty much just going to start him. He's the entire offense. We could talk about Connor. Do you guys think Connor is a must start? He looked really bad this week.

I don't know if I trust his health. Okay. Yeah, I think Jacob's right there. All right, this is from Eric MB. Eric MB. I thought you might have gone one time without it. Nope. He was so close.

Is Chris Olave this year's Jamar Chase? Yeah, I've got some fun stats on Olave. It's mostly just about air yardage but really it's kind of unprecedented what we've seen so he has 536 air yards through three weeks um the next highest in the nfl is 376 for mark andrews wow um and really it's it's he just he brings this really unique combination of being able to draw targets at a decent rate 26.4 percent target per hour on rate that's probably going to drop um but the fact that it's even above 20 percent when he has an average depth of target of 18.5 yards is just going to result in massive air yards and

that's what we've seen so far um and so over the past 10 seasons here are the air yardage leaders through week three and followed by their fantasy finish that year so what they went on to do after having this really hot start in this specific stat air yards 566 for calvin johnson finishes the wide receiver 15 and 13 games 560 for calvin ridley in 2020 finishes wide receiver 5 548 for Julio Jones, finishes wide receiver 4. 537 for Mike Evans, wide receiver 3. 536 for Jeremy Macklin, wide receiver 9. Chris Alavi has 536.

So everyone we've seen there has been a top 10 fantasy receiver. Wow. Calvin probably was per game. Right, yeah. I don't know if that means that Chris Alavi is going to. Obviously, a lot of this is just boosted by that one crazy game week too. Um,

but still that that's pretty crazy list. I got another step for you. I got a Gibbsy stat for you here. Getting Gibbsy, uh, his target per route run with Michael Thomas on the field, 24.7% target per route run with Michael Thomas off the field, 33.3% target per route run. With Michael Thomas off the field, 33.3% target per route run rate. So we'll see if Michael Thomas...

Michael Thomas apparently and Jarvis Landry don't have serious injuries. I do hope they're back this week. But even more targets can be expected if Michael Thomas is out. And our last one... All right, wait, I'm sorry. Let me wrap it up with Chris Olave here. Is he your favorite rookie wide receiver or is it still Drake London? Or Garrett Wilson? Or Jahan Dotson? up with chris olave here is he your favorite rookie wide receiver or is it still drake london or garrett wilson or johan hudson i mean it's clearly london is the one that's the one for me

yeah yeah um i think you can make a case for him over garrett wilson like that like this is really exciting if he's able to continue to drop targets anywhere near this rate on such a deep rat tree and he's only 79 percent rostered, 13% started for Chris Olave. So that's going to go up. And let's go to our last topic here from TheRealMattyS, weighing productive end-of-bench spots with potential breakout rookies. Who do you put at the end of your bench, Schneier? Do you put James Cook, the potential breakout rookie,

or Sterling Shepard, the boring veteran who's productive? Yeah, I'm always swinging for upside. I would always keep a guy like Cook over a player like Sterling Shepard, depending on the complexion of your roster and your league settings, of course. This is something to consider. If you have short benches and injured starters, you don't really have an option to hold on to guys like Cook. But in a deeper league with a deeper bench and a healthy starting lineup,

there are players. Cook wouldn't be the top for me right now. I think the top would be Jamison Williams. Um, and I think there are a few others that come to mind. Rondell Moore is a player who I definitely am looking to stash right now, given the role we've seen from Greg Dorch, that is going to be Moore's role at some point. And he has a lot more talent to take off with it. So those would be two names that come before James Cook for me, but definitely looking to stash upside over boring veterans. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. We do appreciate your time on this Monday, and we'll see you at the Giants game tonight.

Dan and I are going to not wear white, even though we're supposed to wear white. It's ridiculous. I will buy white if there's a guy in the parking lot selling those white shirts, which there typically is. I will buy that shirt. That's an interesting concept.

No, I don't think I will. I bought this shirt that I'm wearing. I bought it a few weeks ago for the season. I'm not going to not wear it at the game. Why couldn't we blue out? Why doesn't it be a white out? It should have been a blue out. The white out was a terrible idea.

The Cowboys visiting team is a team that wears white. That's the other thing, right? They're giving us white towels. We're getting towels today. We're going to have to wait. We'll have the towels. Love the towels. All right.

So I see Pierre is going to be at the game in our YouTube chat. Pierre, hit me up on reply to my thread on my tweet. Reply to my tweet, and I'll try to meet up with some listeners today. I'm sure I'll be able to spot Dan's very average hair from across the parking lot, so I'll be tailgating with him. Not even comparable. That's it for us, everybody. Take care.

See ya.