Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Box Score Week Four (10/03 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

We've got big injury news to get to, but first we recap Chiefs-Bucs (3:45). Are we still selling high on CEH? Are we concerned about Leonard Fournette's role? What did we notice about Travis Kelce's targets? ... News and notes (13:40) and more thoughts on the Alvin Kamara controversy (16:35). Then we'll give you some interesting notes on snap shares and other advanced stats (21:50) as Breece Hall's role continues to grow, the Cowboys running backs could have more success going forward, Rondale Moore's usage stood out and Dan is impressed with George Pickens ... Five Big Topics! Denver's backfield (34:05), buy low candidates (36:30), Week 4 was awesome for running backs (42:25), ranking the rookie wide receivers (45:05) and addressing the state of the tight end position (50:00) ... 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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Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Today on the show, tight ends are terrible. The Chiefs are awesome. They whooped the Bucs last night. What's going on in the backfield for the Broncos? Who do we like going forward? How much do we like Melvin Gordon? How much do we like Mike Boone?

And more. This is Beyond the Box Score. Simple stats from one advanced person and two simple people.'m adam azer with some mystery i don't know who i'm talking about with dan schneier and jacob gibbs you can follow jacob at j a gibbs underscore 23 and dan schneier is at dan schneier nfl a little presumptuous to think that you are like the dan schneier of the n. It's just, I don't know, a little braggadocious. But anyway, happy Monday to you guys.

Jacob, I want you to clarify what you meant last week, but also I know you watched that game last night, and you must have been very happy. Chiefs fan, 41-31 win. Yeah, I watched that game. That was a great one. And I do watch as many games as I realistically can. I'm just also spending so much time analyzing data and producing content and everything that for me personally, it is destructive to try to make myself watch every single game. It's something I've done in the past and I get super burned out and then I don't even want to think about football because it's too much. I'm doing like 80 to 100 hours of work every week if I'm watching every single game. And it's just way too much for any human to do and do it efficiently and productively,

at least for me. So yeah, I understand why people heard that. And I'm like, this analyst doesn't even watch the games. Like, what is he doing? He's just talking. I get it. I get it. I didn't mean to offend. I should have been more clear. I like football for the record. I like football, okay? I like my job. I like watching the games. And you're damn good at it because we need the analytics, too. We need the advanced stats. Take a look at Jacob's Twitter page from today.

It's unloading stats on us, a lot of which we'll discuss today. Excellent. But I will say this, Adam, before you introduce me. It's a little more presumptuous of you to have adamazer as your only twitter handle when my handle leads people to believe okay i'm gonna come here i'm gonna get nfl related content when they go to yours what are they expecting crappy takes on oreos the discussion that you think the morning time is 11 you think it's afternoon and 11 11 28 a.m things of that nature yeah so maybe it's just be adamazer at it should be just at Adam Azer random.

And it was even more presumptuous of you to think that I was going to introduce you. But that is Dan Schneier. And we're going to have one more person joining us later today, and his name is Richard Vinson. He made a big donation to St. Jude, and he won a guest spot on our show, and he's going to come talk tight ends with us a little bit later. Our five big topics today, Kyle Pitts and more broadly,

the state of the tight end position, Melvin Gordon and Mike Boone and the state of the Broncos backfield, buy low and sell high guys. Week four running back surge. There were six running backs who scored 25 or more points in PPR in week four. That was as many as we had in the first

three weeks combined. So week four running back production was great. And we'll talk about the rookie wide receivers as Garrett Wilson had a down day, but Drake London, a bit of a down day, but still good stuff from Olave, Romeo Dobbs, encouraging stuff. Dotson, we'll talk about those guys. Let's start though with Kansas City 41 and Tampa Bay 31. And the Chiefs, you know, they recovered a fumbled kickoff on the opening play of the game and really never looked back. They had the ball for 38 minutes and 38 seconds. So they dominated time of possession. And Dan, what were your major fantasy takeaways from Kansas City 41, Tampa Bay 31? The biggest takeaway by far for me in this game was we finally saw the emergence of Rashad White in a role that some were expecting for him before

the season. Others were like, ah, he's never going to play with Tom Brady. He's got to have somebody he trusts back there. And then he fumbles on the kickoff, the opening kickoff, and still gets this kind of role, which says a lot about what the coaches envisioned for him before that fumble and in general for him. he ended up with a 50% rushing snap share. Uh, these are all stats according to Jacob Gibbs that I'm pulling up. Like I mentioned, we were referencing a lot of this dude's advanced stats, despite the fact that he doesn't always watch Sunday night football on the show. He had a 50% red zone snap rate, which I thought was even more important. And he actually ran just eight fewer routes than Leonard

Fournette. And that's really where the value had been coming from Fournette. The running game is not really going anywhere with their current state of the offensive line, but he is a talented back who looked really good on film as far as creating force, missed tackles and creating yards after contact. Now, if he's actually getting the snaps in this offense and offense that I think will improve, maybe it won't get to the level of last year, but it will certainly improve. That's something to keep an eye on. So that was by far and away my biggest takeaway.

But yeah, and they barely ran the ball. They ran the ball six times. It's one of the lowest times a team has ever run the ball in football history. And they also had a game maybe last year or two years ago where they ran like five times. And White had three, Fournette had three. Fournette played seven third down snaps.

White played three. I mean, obviously this doesn't make Rashad White fantasy relevant as a starter or anything, but does it hurt Leonard Fournette, Dan? I'll follow up with that. I mean, you could sit here and say, okay, Fournette barely got any work. He did catch a touchdown though.

Maybe you could throw a buy low tag on him or something like that, but not if you think Rashad White's going to do anything meaningful to Leonard Fournette's role. What do you think? Yeah, I think it definitely hurts Leonard Fournette's value the rest of the way, for me at least, because this was somebody before we talked about on the mailbag, maybe looking at him as a buy low. That was when we saw him getting the insane snap shares and getting, like you said, all of the red zone work, all the receiving work. If he's going to be in any, and I'm not saying this will be a split, but if he's going

to be in anything that resembles anywhere close to the shares that we just went over, then that's a big, big knock on Leonard Fournette, especially right now with a run game. That's not really generating much before contact for these backs. So it's really is up to him to have that kind of pure workhorse role. I think for Leonard Fournette to be an actual RB, someone with RB1 upside. I'll wrap up my thoughts on the Bucs here, and then we'll go over to Jacob with his thoughts on the Chiefs. And Jacob, you can chime in

on anything else you want. But Brady, I think, is going to be awesome. All he needs is Evans and Godwin. As long as he has them, I think he's going to be good. I'm pretty much done with Julio Jones. I could see him playing more as he gets healthier,

but I don't know what to expect at this point, nor do I expect him to stay healthy necessarily. So I think Julio Jones, if you're 3-1 or 4-0, you don't have to drop him, but you certainly can. If you're 2-2 or worse, you probably are wasting a roster spot on Julio Jones, a 71% roster. Jacob can talk about Kate Otten, who played a big role after Cameron Brait went out.

But basically, I think Fournette's still a must-start guy. Maybe he's reduced a little bit, but he's still a must-start. And so are Brady and Evans and Godwin. Jacob, thoughts on the Chiefs or any Bucs leftovers? Yeah, so you mentioned Kate Otten, third-round rookie tight end for the Bucs. Shared a lot of chemistry with Trask this preseason, and there was a lot of chemistry uh with uh Tresk this preseason and just uh there was a lot of positive news on his relationship with Brady um building up to the season which is surprising for a rookie tight end and we saw it come to fruition here uh Cameron Bray had a second

quarter concussion Kate Otten ran around on 25 of 28 dropbacks uh following that concussion so like he ran around 25 of 28 dropbacks i think chris godwin had 25 routes and mike evans had 26 routes so he's like up there with the leaders on the team routes run and just that opportunity is exciting in this offense for sure um nothing else on the bucks on the chiefs the only thing i would mention is that sky more got a little bit more involved um we really haven't seen him play hardly at all i think he had a route involvement below 10% through the first three games. And that was at 26% in week four. So that's exciting.

Their receivers really have not shown much. And it seems like they might want to get the rookie going a little bit. Another thing, this is just something I've noticed on Travis Kelsey. I look at first down data a lot. And Travis Kelsey has one of the lowest first down target per run rates in the NFL, which is really strange. And I don't think it's something that's going to continue, but it does at least maybe point towards the fact that the chiefs aren't going out of their way to get Kelsey like way more involved with Tyree Kilgon. We have a month worth of data now. Um, and his role hasn't necessarily changed in a big way. They're just taking what's there.

Um, and I think defenses are doing a lot to take away Travis Kelsey. Um, he's still the number one tight end though, by big way. They're just taking what's there. And I think defenses are doing a lot to take away Travis Kelsey. He's still the number one tight end, though, by the way. Mark Andrews is the number one tight end. No, no. It was one bad week for Mark Andrews, but he's the number one tight end last year. He's the number one tight end this year. Well, but I'm telling you,

the points right now are Travis Kelsey over Mark Andrews. Yeah, I know. And by the way, they have the same amount of targets and catches, basically. It's very close. And Travis Kelsey has 62 more yards.

I don't know what you think about that. And he gets all the end zone and green zone targets on the Chiefs, too. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm not worried about Kelsey. I think this kind of lowers the ceiling. A lot of people were expecting him to take a big step forward with Tyreek out. And that's not what his splits before the season suggested, and that's not what we've seen so far.

We've got to talk about Clyde Edwards-Ziller, guys. He was starting in 62% of leagues. I know we didn't love him on the podcast. He ends up with 19 carries for 92 yards and a touchdown. He had nine of those carries in the fourth quarter after the Chiefs took a 17-point lead. He was definitely killing the clock. He was certainly splitting

with Pacheco. McKinnon was in near the goal line a little bit. McKinnon only had two touches. But Clyde with another huge game. I think he's RB4. He's top five running back for sure. RB4, yeah. I mean, is he still a sell high? What's the deal here with Clyde, Jacob?

Yeah, I would sell him for sure. I mean, there's tons of stats floating around uh the twitterverse that just point towards how uh much of an outlier this has been um the usage really hasn't improved at all uh i think we've highlighted each week he's not he doesn't have the passing down role he's seeing some targets and finding the end zone on them but like it's not like he's getting a ton of targets and he's definitely going to have the routes run. And yeah, now he's splitting some early down work with Pacheco, who they seem to be slowly getting more and more

involved. Yeah, I don't think his value is going to be any higher than it is right now. Maybe he'll keep scoring two touchdowns every week, but in terms of where his perceived value is, this is probably the peak. Would you rather have Clyde or Josh Jacobs coming off a huge game? I think the usage points towards Josh Jacobs.

What we saw from Jacobs this week was extremely exciting. I think the perceived value is probably higher on Clyde though, right? Like that's a tough, that's a really good question. I think I personally would rather have Jacobs. Dan. So I would rather have Clyde. And I think my thought on Clyde is this.

Okay. So throughout his career until this point, he's been incredibly unlucky when it comes to the touchdowns this year, he's been incredibly lucky when it comes to the touchdowns and in fantasy, one of the safest bets you can make is selling on players who are scoring touchdowns at a rate that can't be sustainable. But at the same time, part of why we bought into Clyde Edwards at layer from the start when he was drafted by the chiefs is that he was going to be within this offense and that he was going to get a lot of opportunities. And yes, we saw Jarek McKinnon get a red zone

touch or a red zone tart, whatever it was this week. But if you watch the chiefs right now, and I'm sure Jacob can just, I test this for me and back it up by the eye test. I know he's not a huge eye test guy or a fan of the eye test, but let's just ask him. I think there's clearly two backs that are the best backs in this backfield right now. Jarek McKinnon looks to me, wash compared to what he ever was. I don't really think he was any kind of special talent to begin with, but to me, he looks like the worst back. So at some point to me, I have a feeling that he'll be phased out of this offense and it will be mostly Pacheco and Clyde Edwards, a layer that now, now that doesn't really back up. You know, there's, that's not backed up by the data that, that obviously Jacob can reference so far, but it's a matter of projection. And for me,

I feel like we're getting finally what we asked for out of Clyde Edwards, a layer, the touchdowns in a high scoring offense, they will come down, but it's just a matter of, if you think McKinnon will maintain the role that he has moving forward. I personally don't. They've just never really shown any indication that they want Clyde in that role. They've pretty much always found a way

to not give that role to him. Yeah, that's right. If you just want to speculate based on talent, I guess it's possible that he could work his way into that role. And if that happens, then yeah, he would be really exciting for fantasy. He'd probably be a top 15 guy. Here's a good one, I think.

If you don't mind me saying so. Clyde Edwards-Ziller or Melvin Gordon with Javante out for the year? I'll take Clyde. Yeah, I'm also taking Clyde. Let's move on here.

The point Jacob made, let's just wrap up. The point Jacob made here is the best point. You're never going to get more value in a trade for Clyde. All right. All right. Let's move on here. Let's just wrap up with the point Jacob made here is the best point. You're never going to get more value in a trade for Clyde than you are right now based on that touchdown total. So if you do want to sell high, now is the time. All right. Make sure you go to Sportsline and check out all the great content there, including what Jacob Gibbs is offering. And there is a monthly subscription, but it's very cheap for what you're going to get on Sportsline.com. You're going to get awesome gambling advice. You make that money back instantly. You get fantasy advice.

There's DFS advice with the best DFS experts. Go to Sportsline.com. Check it out. You're going to love it, especially if you're a gambler or you love the DFS stuff. And we have the Fantasy Football Today DFS podcast. You can listen to that as well. So go to Sportsline.com. Injuries, news, and notes.

Javante Williams is out for the season with a torn ACL. We're going to talk about that. It's one sportsline.com. Injuries, news, and notes. Javante Williams is out for the season with a torn ACL. We're going to talk about that. It's one of our big topics. Cordaro Patterson is on IR. All right. If Tyler Algier and Caleb Huntley and Mike Boone are out there on your waiver wire, Dan, who gets the biggest bid? Algier will get the biggest bid for me. And look, this is not a talent i loved coming out of college i feel like he was mostly a runner just took what was there for him but i watched this atlanta game this was one of the first games i watched back today this morning and i really like some of the things that atlanta is doing in the run game it's very diverse run game and they're

getting a lot of different looks there and it's all based at least right now, what's going on at the quarterback situation because there is some accounting for Mariota as a runner right now. So given what they're doing in the run game and what Algiers showed, which was more than I saw on his college tape, even in just one week, he would be number one for me of that group. All right. Traylon Burke's out indefinitely with turf toe. You can certainly look for Robert Woods on the waiver wire.

He's available in some leagues. Rashad Bateman has a mid-foot injury, and he missed some time in yesterday's game. Definitely with turf toe. You can certainly look for Robert Woods on the waiver wire. He's available in some leagues. Rashad Bateman has a midfoot injury, and he missed some time in yesterday's game. They don't think it's serious. Gus Edwards is going to start practicing for the Ravens. He's eligible to come off pup. He won't come off this week, I don't think,

but he's getting back into the mix. Justice Hill does not have a long-term injury. And Jahan Dotson for Washington, he's out one to two weeks with a hamstring injury. Some of news items are just coming across here so just learning about bateman and dotson for example and uh just learning now that uh evan neal should be fine but kenny galladay evan neal is the giant starting right tackle kenny galladay does not look promising to start this week so please can we get cadarious tony Wanda Robinson on there? Please, for goodness sake. Meanwhile, Daniel Jones is day-to-day.

They're hoping he can play in London against the Packers. Tua Tungabailoa out this week. So it's Teddy Bridgewater at the Jets. Might not be the worst option. We have, of course, the Waver Wire show coming up on Tuesday. Sam Darnold is eligible to return, but still not close

to returning. And ordinarily, I wouldn't even mention that, but they could use a new quarterback there. I don't know if Darnold's the answer, but he's not quite ready to return from his ankle injury. The Colts playing Thursday night against the Broncos. They will not have Shaquille Leonard. They're starting linebacker who barely played at all in week four and didn't play in any of the first three weeks, but superstar linebacker, tough year. He's a concussion right now. DeForest Buckner is also a key to their run defense because this was the first week, week four, they played the Titans. First week that the Colts struggled

against the run. DeForest Buckner played 35% of the snaps. He's usually 70% to 80% or so. We've got to keep track on his status. He's probably going to play, but how healthy is he? Meanwhile, another team that struggled against the run for the first time was Jacksonville. And their defensive tackle, Fadukasi, left with an injury. He's day-to-day. And Doug Peterson is optimistic about Zay Jones this week. All right, let's see.

I've got an email of the day I want to read real quick from Chad in Oklahoma City. He says, Adam, why oh why do you hate fantasy football commissioners and also integrity? I hate integrity, in case you haven't heard. My head almost exploded as I listened to you whine like a child on behalf of the sleeping Camara Brigade during your week four recap. Let me get this straight. You expect me, a fantasy commissioner, to judge the internet of, I think that meant to be intent, to judge the intent of league managers X minutes, hours, or days after they straight up neglected to update their lineups.

And I'm supposed to do that on the honor system for everyone? Because I'd have to, you know. No, absolutely not. Outside of known website issues that physically prevented them from setting a lineup, never. If you don't update your lineup,

you live with the results, always. That is fantasy blanking football. In 12 years as a commissioner of my fantasy football league, not one manager has ever been so lazy or self-involved to ask me to do something like this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is fantasy sports, not jacks. I'm a commissioner, not a babysitter. Just take all your Camaro whining and ball it up into some ugly participation trophy that will never, ever be allowed in one of my leagues. Grow up, Adam. Wow. So I was giving a little bit of leeway

to the managers who woke up and were shocked that Alvin Camaro did not play. And I thought maybe it'd be okay to allow them to make a swap. But I guess I'm just a big stupid baby and I like participation trophies, Dad. What can I tell you? I could tell you that.

I don't know what people who are playing in leagues that, you know, what people who live on the West Coast were supposed to do. Were they expected to get up at 5 a.m. to check in actives for this game when all week the expectation was that Kamara was going to play and i just don't understand like or were they supposed to get up at 5 45 give it a little yeah still at half like what is the point

like what are we doing here do we want i just don't understand we had this whole debate in my main home league because the same thing happened to one of our managers and yes he was on east coast time but he has a newborn baby and like checked his lineup about 30 minutes before inactives and saw everything was good and then like spent time with his baby like i just like do we want zeros in lineups that's the thing i don't understand about this it's like i just don't like the idea of like any league that has a zero in a lineup i'm that commission that texts people and some of my other friends get mad but when there's a inactive in the lineup or an injury in the lineup still and it's sunday i text that owner and be like hey man you gotta you gotta

move this player out even if it's against me i do it and it's just like i don't get why we want zeros in the lineups it just doesn't make sense to me jacob what's your what's your take on this and man i have such a tough decision to make in the podcast league because someone had an illegal lineup and he's asking me to fix it for him and he's going to win. He might not win. What was the illegal about it? It was entirely illegal. First of all, he has... I don't know what happened.

He has too many guys on his team, one too many players on his team. He said he went to bed and he set his lineup as follows and he told me his lineup. Then he checked the score this afternoon and he sees he has an illegal lineup with. And he told me his lineup. And then he checked the score this afternoon and he sees he has an illegal lineup with only three random players on the bench. And he had like two or three quarterbacks, he had four running back, you know, stuff like

that. It was just completely wrong. But I don't want, I mean, this is a fun league. It's not even for money. He made a donation to St. Jude to get in the league, but he's probably going to win. If I say, I don't know what, I don't know what to do i i have been so stressed about it i've been ignoring the email and i have to make a decision i have to make a decision today jacob help us out here what should we do uh i'm i'm fine letting people up hook on this honestly unless it's like a really serious um high dollar money buying type of league um but yeah, you guys are big babies. You need to grow up. I just don't like, why do people want to like technicality win?

Like, oh, you technically, you didn't check your lineup at 5.33 a.m. West Coast time. I'm sorry, Mr. California. You get a fat zero out of Kamara. Obviously, the intention of the owner is never to start. The manager is never to start

a zero in the lineup. Why? I just don't get it. The Kamara thing is much more understandable than the, than this guy who just didn't check his lineup until midday. That's a problem. He said it was fine when he said it, when he went to bed.

So I don't know. I'm one thing I might do is say, all right, listen, I'm going to give you the points for a tiebreaker purpose. I'm not going to give you a zero, but you're, you're gonna,

but I'm giving you a loss no matter what. I might do that, but at some point, I'm the commissioner, and they're all just going to have to deal with it, and I'm going to have to announce it to the league and set a precedent, and I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to be like,

look, unless it's a Camara-type situation with a London game, and you're not awake, then if you don't check your lineup at 1 o'clock, there's nothing I can do for you, and I also don't believe his excuse that the app screwed up, because that just doesn't happen. Yeah, that sounds fishy.

Yeah. All right, guys. Thank you. Our Apple podcast comment of the day is from Ms. Zark, and Ms. Zark says, Silence of the Lambs is a horror movie. You guys agree or disagree? You probably never have seen it, is my guess. I've seen that that movie yes one time horror movie i wouldn't call it a horror movie i call it a psychological thriller right yeah all right i agree not a horror movie all right snap shares

and other stuff what stood out to you guys when you look at some of the uh the target shares snap whatever it may be jacob dan jacob why don't you kick it off what stood out to you in the in the snaps in this whatever i don't even know how to it's a simple simple person trying to come up with a name for a segment has saved me jacob anti-fragility the big takeaway is definitely bruce hall i feel like he's um maybe the most uh overlooked like underlying data um winner from week four um so his snap rate was up to 67 percent up from 41 percent across the first three weeks his route involvement rate was 63 percent up from 36 percent so we're in a route on third uh 63 percent of the jets drop backs um and that that is what's key because he really hasn't been targeted a high rate and he was he only saw two

targets this week so i think people might not realize how big of a change it really was. And he also saw 65% of the running back rushing attempts up from 43%. So if that is sustainable, that's RB1 usage. To be above 60%, all those rates is really, really exciting. Yeah, he is surging right now. Antonio Gibson is fading. He played 41% of the snaps. We know Brian Robinson is coming back.

Travis Etienne played two more snaps than James Robinson, which has happened in both of Jacksonville's losses. James Robinson has had combined 20 touches in two losses and a combined 45 touches in two wins. Their next games are against Houston, Indianapolis, and the Giants, so that could be good for James Robinson. But that's something I'm keeping an eye on here, the game script for the Jaguars running backs.

There's a lot of stuff here. Dan, I'll throw it to you. Go ahead. I'm sure Jacob has like 15 other things he can contribute. But go ahead, Dan. Your turn. I want to look at two new quarterback situations. That's what I like to look at.

I think it's the most actionable advice you can have for fantasy, at least as a fantasy analyst. So I start with Kenny Pickett, small sample size, albeit I know that, but keep in mind, Kenny Pickett also worked throughout training camp and the preseason with a certain set, a group of receivers. One of those before, at least early on in preseason and training camp and really throughout, cause I'm sure he ran with that team. I need to double check. That was George Pickett, the phenom rookie receiver. Phenom? Phenom.

Okay. I think he literally, yeah. I mean, he was, I really felt like he was the best receiver prospect. Not backing off phenom at all. Not backing off at all. Not named Jameson Williams. He has the size. He has every trait that you can want.

Now he has to put it together still. But with Kenny Pickett in week four, and these are all, again, stats courtesy of Jacob Gibbs. Shout out to Jacob. We're lucky to have him on the show. 33% target share, 49% air yardage share. And then he totaled that. And then he put it together with a box score share, a stat line of four catches for 71 yards. Big things could be coming for George Pickens with Kenny Pickett at quarterback. So that's something that's, that stands out because there are plenty of leagues right now where managers have cut Kenny, uh, George Pickens with Kenny Pickett at quarterback. So that's something that's, that stands out because there are plenty of leagues right now where managers have cut Kenny,

uh, George Pickens before this week. And this could be an excellent opportunity for you to scoop someone off the wire. Who's not written about in every article, though. Hopefully he'll be in ours, but you know,

not the hot name of the week, but I like him a lot. The other thing was what's going to happen with the jet situation with Zach Wilson making his debut. I wanted to see what happened there. Um, and obviously as high kind of predicted and expected when we talked about start sits this week,

it wasn't great for Garrett Wilson. And, you know, Wilson is a phenomenal player, probably the best receiver on that team. And he did run a good percentage of routes. I think Jared Smola put out that he had 86% route rate. Elijah Moore, 91% Corey Davis, 73%. But as far as the targets went, it wasn't what we were expecting. It wasn't what we were hoping for. And now we have 129 route sample size that Jacob pointed out as well that I'm looking at where 31 targets for Corey Davis, 21 for Elijah Moore. Like there, this is

not, I feel like with Wilson in now we're going to get a more diversified target share there with the jets and even you know as jacob mentioned breeze hall could still play a factor there so i feel like the garrett wilson the days of garrett wilson being a lock and load just throw him in your starting lineup like he was those first three weeks might be over the most exciting quarterback in football is zach wil. Every time he throws, there are so many outcomes that are possible. Pick six, a long touchdown, an airmail throw. I mean, it's just like, it is so fun. He is the wheel that I spin, you know, like with all these potential outcomes.

He is like just a joy to watch, as long as you're not a Jets fan. Then he's not a joy to watch. How about this, guys? like just a joy to watch as long as you're not a Jets fan. That is not a joy to watch. How about this, guys? Ezekiel Elliott had 11 more carries than Tony Pollard, played 15 more snaps than Tony Pollard. This is the percentage of eight-man fronts that they have seen this year.

In week one, Tony Pollard, this is with Dak Prescott, Tony Pollard saw eight men in the box, 17% of his carries, Zeke on 10%. Since then, weeks two through four, 30% for Pollard, 28.6% for Zeke. So maybe things get easier for them when Dak Prescott comes back, Jacob. What do you think about that? Yeah, I love that poll there. That's a good stat, and I think it might be easier for them going forward. Pollard is somebody I've been selling anywhere I can

and you probably can after this week, but after last week you should have. His usage is just not improved at all. It's going to take an injury for Zeke, I think, for him to be consistently fantasy relevant. Otherwise, you're just banking on huge plays. Give me something else, Jacob. Give me some more stat-y, share-y

stuff. Sure. Let's talk about rondo more um so it wasn't a big week for rondo more i think he only had three catches for 11 yards um but the underlying data is pretty encouraging ran a route on 33 of 35 dropbacks he was tied with marquise brown for the team lead on routes run um and he had a 32 air yardage share which is something that never happens uh for ron delmore and so what's interesting is he's actually used downfield a little bit as a rookie his average route depth was 0.9 yards like not even one um in his first game this year was 5.9 yards his average depth of target last year is 1.4 yards it was 11.6 yards um in week four they

moved him out of the slot a lot um which was not something they did last year last year almost 80 percent of routes were in the slot um this year or in week four it was 20 that's actually something i'm a little bit worried about but i think when deandre hopkins and aj green are back in the mix he'll be more in the slot but it's just interesting that they're willing to use him that way he was involved in two receiver sets a lot more than he had been as a rookie. Yeah. So it's just,

they, we, we had heard that he's going to, you know, kind of play the Christian Kirk role. And I was a little skeptical. I thought he was probably going to be used around the line of scrimmage because that's,

we'd seen from in college and as a rookie in a way that we really have never seen with anyone else. But at least in his first game back, he played almost every single passing play and was used downfield quite a bit. All right. I'm going to be a wet blanket today just on a few things that you guys have said. Like Rondo Moore,

he played 86% of the snaps in his first game back and Greg Dorch played 36%. So it was more. The only problem is I don't think anyone's starting him next week against Philadelphia. And then he's got one more game at Seattle and then Hopkins comes back. So I just feel like we may have missed our window to, to really be able to rely on Rondo more.

Um, because then, you know, he's fighting with Marquise Brown, Deandre Hopkins and Zach Ertz and maybe AJ green. Uh, and then with Pickens Kingsbury. Yeah.

And with Pickens, like I love Pickens. I've been calling him a phenom for a while. I don't know if anybody else is going to pick up on that. But they just have the worst schedule coming up. Bills, Bucks, Dolphins, Eagles, then a bye, then the Saints, then the Bengals. It's just...

And what, Deontay Johnson's not going to disappear. So, I mean, I can't imagine I'd leave him unrostered. I think you got to at least take the chance. He's 63 going to disappear. I can't imagine I'd leave him un-rostered. I think you've got to at least take the chance. He's 63% rostered. This is George Pickens we're talking about here, but it's just not an ideal situation because that schedule sucks.

I get the excitement. Real quick, Jacob, I just wanted to mention two more replacement receivers. Josh Palmer, I don't know what happened. Did he get hurt? He only played... Oh, okay.

All right, he got hurt. He played 56% of the snaps. He was playing 91% to 93% of the snaps without Keenan Allen. So I think if Keenan Allen's out again, I don't think you should shy away from Josh Palmer. And Mac Hollins, if Hunter Renfro's out again, you don't have to shy away from him. I know he had a bad game.

It was against Denver. And he played 96% of the snaps. So Palmer and Hollins are guys that probably only matter if Keenan Allen and Hunter Renfro are out, respectively, or maybe Mike Williams and Nabate Adams down the road. But just wanted to give you reasons why they had bad games. For Palmer, it was an injury. For Hollins, I'm thinking it was Denver.

But he's also Mac Hollins. All right, Jacob, last injury. For Hollins, I'm thinking it was Denver, but he's also Matt Collins. All right, Jacob, last thing. What do you got? On Rondell, I just wanted to say that it's more of a dynasty take here that this is a possibility now that he could be someone who is a downfield route runner.

That's not something we had any idea of going into the year. So I just wanted to make that note for people who care about Rondell more at all. This is interesting at the very least. And the last thing i'll note is damien pierce ran more routes than rex burkhead this week um so obviously he had the big play and he continues to dominate the rushing usage but um yeah he ran 50 of the routes um burkhead was at 39 in weeks one through three damien pierce only ran around 25 the drop backs so that is a notable change for sure but let me follow up on that because what do you make of the fact that pierce only played i

think one snap on third down so that's the thing like it's how first and second down catches are great but i i wonder are they less reliable than you know than the third down stuff yeah yeah i don't want to overstate it he didn't um you know play any of the two minute snaps or anything like that like i think burkhead is clearly like if it's a obvious passing down it's probably going to be rex burkhead um but he's coming off the field a little bit less than he had been previously he did have six catches um just more encouraging than what we'd seen in the first few weeks and one more roster stash note i would want to throw out there i was really pleased to see the seahawks scrap any ideas of like a multi-back with getting anyone but Kenneth Walker and Rashad Penny involved. This week, they obviously started to funnel that just with Walker and Penny. Walker, to me, is one of the best stashes you can have right now on your bench for a multitude of reasons, talent mostly, but also that Seahawks offensive line is gelling, especially in the run game, a lot faster than people projected. They took two offensive tackles, obviously early in this draft, and both of them are playing good football right now, specifically in the run game.

So I would keep an eye on Walker as a potential bench stash that could really help you down the line. All right. By the way, Damian Pierce, last thing on him in the last three weeks, he has 49 carries. Rex Burkett has three. You just don't see a lot of guys dominate their backfield carries the way he is. All right, we're going to take a break here. We're running late, but we'll get to our five big topics when we come back on Fantasy Football today. Welcome back, guys. I'm going to have to impose a time limit on us here.

We have a guest waiting for us in the lobby, and also we have a lot to get to so our first big topic comes from ted s his topic is just the denver backfield now we know giovante williams unfortunately out for the season with a torn acl dan give me your take on the denver backfield i'm going to give you guys three minutes at most on each topic here we'll go kind of quickly give me your take on the broncos backfield. It's like a Tony Reale, Adam Reale type of style here around the horn.

My take on this backfield is despite what we saw this week, it is going to be Melvin Gordon's backfield. They trust him in so many more situations than Mike Boone, but it's not going to be a situation where Gordon

is dominating the entire backfield. So I lean toward Gordon. Obviously, he's rostered in most leagues, but I still think Boone is worth throwing, you know, throwing some kind of waiver claim on. Jacob?

Yeah, I agree. It is interesting that what we saw with the fumbles for Melvin Gordon, Boone played 63% of the snaps after Gervonta went down, ran around on 12-17 dropbacks, only five routes for Melvin Gordon. So if Melvin continues to falter in this way, they at least trust Boone in that role,

which is interesting. I wouldn't have expected that type of route involvement. It's amazing how things change, right? If Javante Williams had torn his ACL in week two and Melvin Gordon was coming off two, you know, solid looking games in the first two games of the season, you know, we'd probably be thinking of Melvin Gordon as a clear must start, a borderline top 12 guy.

But over the last two weeks, his yards per carry has been terrible. He had one really tough matchup I think it was in week three against San Francisco. He was bad. And then he had only three carries yesterday. And now Melvin Gordon has four fumbles in four games. He's been one of the

worst rushers in the NFL in terms of efficiency and all the advanced stats. And he was really good last year. Yeah. So, I mean, things have changed so much. If I had just asked you either at the beginning of this season or two weeks ago, hey, Javante's out for the year. Where's Melvin Gordon?

I think the answer's a lot different right now. But I think there's a possibility that he's still going to be really, really awesome and a complete must-start and a total steal for anyone who drafted him. Right? I mean, I can't rule that out. No. It's a weird situation

because it's a new coaching staff and clearly they had like a Belichickian you fumble, you're out type of feel for it. Now, I don't think that will carry over, but we'll have to see. All right. Next topic is from InRainbows. Buy low, sell high, trade dark targets.

Go in-depth now that it's week four. I mean, it's like things change so much every week. It's such a frustrating topic. It's a great topic to talk trade. I get it. But we've been telling you to trade Clyde Edwards-Ziller for how long? And we look so stupid every week.

And we're still telling you to trade him. Anyway, Jacob, you have any guys that you really want to acquire or trade away? True by Lowe's, I noted DJ Moore. His usage was better this week. We already talked about George Pickens. Darnell Mooney finally showed

some signs of life, had better usage this week and also had the big catch. I think Michael Pittman is interesting. With Jonathan Taylor going down, this offense I would expect to be more pass-heavy. He's the clear widest everyone there he could put up some really ridiculous uh volume numbers um Kyle Pitts can't quit him um the usage was not good this week but if you can get him for really cheap I think that the upside is worth it wow there just aren't very many there just aren't tight ends that are running downfield routes the way that he does um he just

brings so much upside um even if he's only running around on 60 percent of the dropbacks like he's right now which is ridiculous um dalvin cook i think is somebody you could buy low on i saw somebody send me a trade a screenshot that they traded clyde edwards a layer for dalvin cook um if you can do that you do that immediately and then the last one i would mention as a clear by low is uh kyler murray he had three designed russians in week four he only had three in the first three weeks. He's got a lot of his weapons coming back. Like we've talked about at length, we don't trust the offense or the coaching,

but I think there are better days ahead for Kyler. It's interesting because he's been very good for fantasy, but I think everybody's kind of aware that the Cardinals have been a total mess, so there still might be a little perception there, a by-low perception on Kyler. I don't know that I agree with a lot of your buy lows. Obviously, I would give up CEH for Dalvin Cook, but my concern is with specifically DJ Moore and Kyle Pitts. I don't know that these offenses can support their talent. And if I'm going to buy

low, I think I want to buy low on a player who's on a really good offense. I'd be more tempted to buy low on Gabriel Davis than DJ Moore, for example. Both of them have major concerns, but I just don't trust the Panthers. They definitely tried to get DJ Moore more involved and led to 50 yards. Kyle Pitts, man, they've thrown 38 passes in the last two games or something like that.

That's low, but they're always going to be low volume. So I't know man like it's got to be really low especially with yeah dan and i were talking before we get on it's hard to find like true by lows um so there's a lot of guys that i think are undervalued like drake london even chris alabe jaylen waddle cd lamb breeze hall where like they're not appropriately valued and i would be buying them right now um but if we're looking like for truly like by lows these are the guys i came up with and it's not pretty you know you don't want dj more on your team you don't want darnell mooney i get it yeah all right mooney was the other i just don't trust the offense dan how about you i went over some of the buy lows already and pickens and kenneth walker again is a huge one for me i got a couple

buy mediums how about that this is of different, but let's do it. I'm buying now on Miles Sanders, a player who I've been off on for a while, mostly because of the role that he has now within the red zone. And because I'm just buying running backs behind these dominant offensive lines with massive shares. And he's one of them. Another player who kind of fits that billing who I've never been on in my career. Adam, you're going to be stunned. Oh, is it Singletary? No, no, Singletary.

No, no, no. It's still not going to be Singletary for me. I still worry about how that's going to play out the rest of the season. But Josh Jacobs, man, I can't believe I'm doing this to myself. But I went back. I watched that game. It was another one I watched. Jacobs starting to look a little bit more like that player

that he was coming out of Bama, you know, a top 20 Daniel Jeremiah had him, I think is a top 15 prospect overall, all things considered he had 28 carries 144 has played 86% of the early down snaps this season. It's it just isn't what the main reason for me fading him before this year is Josh McDaniels was the head coach and Josh McDaniels does crazy things with running backs, but that's not the case right now. He's being utilized in a way we haven't really seen a Belichick, you know, since the days, like when they had Corey Dillon over in the Patriots utilize a running back. So he's another one who I consider potential by high or by whatever you want to call these guys by medium right now. So those, if I'm looking for running back help right now, I'm really interested in Miles Sanders

and I'm interested in Josh Jacobs as well. All right, I'll give you a couple of quarterbacks, Derek Carr and Kirk Cousins. I think they can be low-end starters with big weeks coming. You know, Kirk Cousins has thrown 38 or more pass attempts in three straight games. That is the first time he's done that since 2018.

And they're a run, they're a pass team now. I mean, they, that's what they passed the ball dalvin cook and al and alexander madison have combined for one carry inside the five yard line so far uh and that'll change i mean they'll get a little bit more balanced in that regard but they just throw the ball a lot car is ninth in past attempts but he's only three behind kirk cousins who's fifth in past attempts so there's a big tie basically right around fifth. And Carr's coming off a game against Denver. And I think Denver's pass defense is exceptional.

And I think their run defense stinks, by the way. So I'd be looking at those guys if you really need a quarterback because they're both coming off bad weeks and better times I think are ahead for Cousins and Carr. Could be this week. Carr's got the Chiefs. He's going to have to throw a lot.

Cousins has the Bears. They're not good. All right, and Joe Mixon. I don't know if Joe Mixon is a buy low, but he's averaging 2.7 yards per carry. They still love him, and he's still going to catch so many passes because of the coverages they're seeing.

Zach Taylor had just a quote about how much he trusts Joe Mixon. A.J. Dillon is a guy that I would consider. He's getting a ton of work. I think he's a better running back than what we've seen. I don't know where his explosiveness is. He's not making any big plays, but look at their next three games. Giants, Jets, Washington. You don't think there's going to be some opportunities for A.J. Dillon here to score some points and be good. I think there will be. All right. We got one from our guy, Robert Thomas. Week four running back share.

A running back surge, real or imagined? Any historical data? I don't know if we have anything like that, Jacob, but what'd you think? In weeks, like I said, weeks one, two, and three, we had six running backs hit the 25 point mark. We had six in week four alone in PPR. We had 10 running backs get 20 points.

We had 17 in the first three weeks combined. And, uh, and a lot, you know, a lot of it were guys that we were starting. It wasn't like just random guys off the street. It was players that were actually helping us in fantasy. What'd you think, Jacob? Yeah, I've got some data on it. Um, so in 2021, 63% of offensive touchdowns came through the air, 37% on the on the ground um in weeks one through three it was 68 up from 63 32 on the ground um down from 37 so it was a little high on the passing side um in week four we had a clear outlier um or maybe just regression from what we've seen the first three weeks um 53 of touchdowns came through the air 47 percent came on the ground i think that's the main culprit here we saw people like austin eckler who were huge touchdown

producers and had not got in in the first three weeks um score three times um i think that's really the the big difference here at the running back position this week okay dan what do you think you make anything of it i don't have any any key takeaways from it i kind of feel like jacob nailed it i will say this though saquon barkley right now is the rb1 overall and he still is the lowest scoring rb1 through four weeks i think i believe since i saw since you're such a homer he's not even the rb1 oh he's not rb1 overall i thought i saw rb1 overall who's rb1 overall nick chubb is two two points ahead of saquon Barkley. Okay. And Nick Chubb has six catches. I must have seen this in full PPR.

It is full PPR. Full PPR. Well, I stand corrected. No, I mean, it could depend on the website you're using. Okay. Well, our website, I got to go by that. And it's Nick Chubb, so I stand corrected. And I will say this, though.

It's still, I believe I saw the scoring rb1 through four weeks since 2015 so wow we're still not where we need to be here with these top scoring running back with the these top ranked running backs it was a really encouraging week though you've had two good games in a row from derrick henry with him catching passes which i think is huge you've had um you had eckler with the three touchdown game you know bark with 31 carries, which I think is too much. You had Jack Taylor jamming the ball to mix in seven times to the goal line. Yeah, yeah, there you go. McCaffrey with nine.

I love that. I love McCaffrey with nine catches. It definitely seemed like Matt Rule and Ben McAdoo were listening to fantasy managers who had DJ Moore and Christian McCaffrey. All right. Anyway, let's go to Lewis for our fourth one. Big topic number four. Rookie-wide receivers have had an impact.

Rate them rest of season. Will you be more bullish on rookie-wide receivers in 2023? So, Dan, why don't you rate the rookie-wide receivers rest of season? So I'll start by saying no, I will not be more bullish because I'm always bullish on rookie receivers. I am a big rookie receiver drafter, so nothing will change there. They're one of the free, they're one of the only free square edges you have left in fantasy with how much information is out there just because no one's seen them play.

So there's still uncertainty before the draft. Now, as far as rest of season goes, my number one rank receiver rest of season is Chris Olave by far. I love what he was able to do with a backup quarterback in there and Andy Dalton. We saw a lot of other receivers who have been hot at the rook at the Gates as rookies struggle a bit with quarterback change. They're not a lot of there, but Garrett Wilson didn't put up the same kind of fantasy points. And obviously now with Traylon Burke's injury that that rules him out of the running. So I would start with Olave as my one number two would be an interesting debate to have.

I might lean toward George Pickens. Are you saying Drake London is your three? I'm sorry. I missed Drake London. Drake London is definitely the two. Those are the two obvious ones. The one and two are obvious. Are you still sticking with Olave ahead of London? I have Olave ahead of London. Yeah. I love what I've

seen from, I mean, a lot of the air yards alone would probably put me in, in, would probably put him in the running, but the fact that he was able to do it last week, he's just clearly the key, the key component in that game plan right now, um, for new Orleans and they're throwing the ball downfield a little bit more. I mean, look, Drake London's awesome, but if you have a game like you had last week where the Falcons threw the ball, what? How many attempts? 17, 19, 17 or 10. Like, I think it was either 19 or seven. I think it was seven for 19. Like you just how much how how can I count on Drake London as a weekly score?

And same thing goes for pits. If they have this style game plan, run, run the ball. So right now it'd be those two. And then I probably put as my three the rest of the way. Garrett Wilson. But look, a case can be made to get on your radar. Jamison Williams. I think a case can be made for Romeo Dobbs, too.

And Romeo Dobbs. You're right. I shouldn't have even forgotten Romeo Dobbs. So there are different. Once it gets to that past the two, I think there's a lot of arguments to be made for all the remaining rookies there in the top end there. What do you think, Jacob? Yeah, so I'm really excited for Chris Alave as well. Um, we talked about last week how, um, unprecedented the air yardage has been

and the gave, you know, examples of receivers who have started off a season with the number of air yards that Chris Alave has had. They've almost all been top 15. They have all been top 15 fantasy receivers. Um, so I think it's fair to put him as one even though i think like that shocked me i was my answer was going to be clearly drake london is number one um drake london has the highest target per run rate of any wide receiver in the nfl um he has a 34 target share and a 32 area share the thing that dan pointed out is like everything i just cited is a rate stat yeah um and so if you're you know passing 20 times a game it doesn't matter that much if you're drawing 34 of the targets um but i would expect um just through regression alone that atlanta is going to pass the ball more um and be playing from behind more um so i i still

think london would be my one alave would be my two uh gary wilson is my three i mean we have three rookies in the top 10 and target per run right now, which is just insane. Drake London's first, Garrett Wilson's ninth, Chris Alave's 10th. So Wilson would be my three, but I would not be surprised if that changes over the next couple of weeks. I'm a little bit worried about what we saw this week.

Jameson Williams is four, which is interesting. I think I would actually have Dobbs and then Pickens and then Jameson Williams. But there's a lot of upside for Williams to come on and just light it on fire right away, especially if Detroit's receivers are still banged up. There was one guy I wanted to mention, and I'm blanking on it. What do you think, Adam? Let me try to remember who it was. Wanda Robinson. I think Wanda Robinson.

That's exactly right. Yep. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, somebody's going to have to catch passes for that, but it's the worst receiving core in football. I, you know, hoping it's Canary's Tony, but Wanda Robinson could definitely have a role, definitely have a role. And he's not just somebody like he had a higher target per route run rate than Drake London last year, which Drake London had the third highest of any receiver over the past five

years. Like Wanda really has extremely exciting collegiate data and then was taken in the second round like he could be a stud and like the situation is set up perfectly like it wouldn't surprise me at all if a month from now we're doing this discussion and wandel is like two or three yeah look out green bay here come the three and one giants oh yeah and here comes our special guest who has been waiting for so long, and I feel terrible about it. Totally my fault. I am sorry. So we had an opportunity to get on the show with a St. Jude donation, and Richard Vinson was kind enough to donate.

And thank you for that, Richard. And welcome to Fantasy Football today. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Not a problem waiting. I've been a fan of the show for a long time. And I think the best compliment I can give you guys is even in years i don't have a team i still tune in listen to you guys just hear the banter and the uh the teasing and everything it's a it's a great show well then you must love dan schneier because that's basically that's all he does is

tease yeah uh where are you where do you live where are you you from? I'm outside of Los Angeles. All right. So did you have Kamara? What happened with Kamara in your league this weekend? I don't know. I don't have him, fortunately, so I didn't see that. But yeah, it just sounds like a mess. The living game is always through everything.

Would you have asked the commissioner for some leeway if you had Kamara and it's 6.30 in the morning, you're sleeping, and he's inactive, and you wake up, and it's like, what the hell? And somebody said he was a game time decision. No, he was not. This was a total shock. So Richard, would you have asked for some leeway there? Yeah, I think if I were the commissioner league,

I think I would just go in and say, okay, if I were running the team, this is who would have been the next guy up and put him in there. Unless you get to it before the 10 o'clock game start. Or for us, it's 10 o'clock. Right. Oh, that's so weird.

God, it's so weird watching football at 10 o'clock. I know you wanted to talk tight ends. So welcome to the show and let's talk about tight ends. Our last topic was going to be about Kyle Pitts. We'll expand it to tight end. So what are your thoughts, Richard? Well, you mentioned your stat about the running backs being the worst since, what, 2014? I don't know if you have something similar for all the positions

because it seems like a lot of positions have been kind of rough. But the tight ends, I mean, I know at the beginning of the year, there was kind of the idea that there was like a top tier and then everyone else was just kind of a mess. But now is that top tier just Kelsey and everyone? I mean, i've got like goddard and guys like that are they just all interchangeable if you don't have kelsey well andrews i think it's certainly i feel like andrews can still can still certainly qualify

there especially from a like a snap share standpoint from a target share standpoint it's a great question though past those two is there anyone you can trust to be the every week difference maker difference maker versus every week starters probably also up for debate yeah i mean and you know what goddard is actually one of the most interesting guys because from a statistical standpoint he is off the charts yards per target yards per catch he's had more than 60 yards in three or four games in the one game he didn't he left with an injury and and didn't play his normal snaps here but he just jalen hurts just does not throw him the ball in or near the end zone it's it's really weird um i have a stat on this dallas goddard has five end zone uh two end zone targets since the start

of the 2021 season mark andrews has 20. Travis Kelsey has nine. Hunter Henry, I think, is second on the list. His end zone targets two of them, and he has five touchdowns since the start of 2021, and two of them came from Gardner Minshew. If Jalen Hurts ever starts throwing the ball to Dallas Goddard near the end zone

and he can score some touchdowns, he could join this group. That's how good of a player he has been, basically, but he's just missing the important targets. But Jacob, what is your take on the tight end position in general? Going into the year, it was like everybody's situation got worse except for Kelsey and Andrews. Pitt's situation got worse with the quarterback. Waller adds Devontae Adams. Kittle, we thought it was, you know, Trey Lance. Now, I guess it's the same. Goddard adds A.J. Brown. And it's really played out kind of that way. Everybody sucks except for the top two. What do you think, Jacob?

It's really rough. I think we could get a big game from Kittle tonight and feel a little bit better about him as being like the clear next three. Because right now, we don't really even know who tight end three is. Like in fantasy, it's it's tj hawkinson so far um but you know that's obviously boosted by the big week with the monroe st brown out um yeah it's really it's really brutal out here i feel good if i've got um like zackerts david and joku some of those guys are just filling in every down roll um and are at least like going to get you a set amount of points each week um but you're like totally rolling the dice with some of the other guys i would mention pat fryer muth um continues to show really encouraging underlying data i don't know if i trust this the stealers offense and like you said the upcoming schedule is brutal um but like it is exciting

what we've seen from him in year two so like he's someone who could emerge um among the group of just nothingness that we have beyond the top two guys. I'm going to put is Hodgkins. Hodgkinson. Is he like a high sell high after the big week? Or do you think he can? Yeah, for sure. We didn't get to sell highs and he but he was like the clear for me.

So high. Like if you could trade Hawkinson for Darren Waller and something else or like Kyle Pitts and maybe quite a bit else, like I would do that for sure. Damn, you got a really good team, Richard. I got Richard's team up here. He's got Goddard, Lamar Jackson, Dalvin Cook, Tony Pollard, but he also has Miles Sanders and Cordero Patterson.

He'll be without for four weeks. And Brees Hall on the bench. Dear God. Jamar Chase, Tyreek Hill, Mike Evans. Is this a 10-team league? Yeah, it's a family 10-team. Still. It's not ultra-competitive.

It's really good. I'm probably the only person who does any listening to anything. So it's usually pretty one-sided. But my son has a team. My wife has a team. That's fun, man. That's really fun. Yeah, I think for you, you just stand pat with Dallas Goddard.

He's been really good. Just needs to catch the touchdowns. Let me ask Dan and Jacob here. Zach Ertz, he's a top five tight end right now. When Hopkins comes back, is he still a must-start tight end?

I think given the state of the position, he is. I was going to say, must-start given the state of the position he is. Given the state of position, it's probably yes, because you're throwing him in there and he doesn't get a chance to anyone else to catch a touchdown that week, but it definitely deflates his value. I'll ask Richard this first, then you guys can answer. If you're redrafting

again today, how many players go ahead of Kelsey or Andrews, whoever your favorite tight end is? How many players go ahead? Kelsey or Andrews, whoever your favorite tight end is? How many players go ahead? At this point, watching Kelsey on Sunday, it's just, I don't know. I mean, so many of the top running backs have been bad, the top wide receivers.

I mean, he's got to be one of the highest. It's hard to believe it, but I don't know. It's hard to say who would go above him. The only no-brainer is Cup. Do I trust the Giants running game that much? I agree. The only no-brainer to me is Cup. That's the only absolute no-brainer.

And then there are plenty of arguments, but guys like Derrick Henry and Joe Mixon and Dalvin Cook, I think I'd take Kelsey over them, guys. I don't know how you feel about it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you feel about it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're talking to me.

Who's one of the biggest believers in the tight end weekly advantage. You know, when you have guys like even Goddard there, who's a, who's somebody we're starting every week and he can put together a two point week at any point. Right. And that goes for a lot of these guys.

It just happened to Mark Andrews for the record. He had three points. Well, I've been happy with Goddard and I think think Kelsey is averaging twice as many points as he is. It's not close. That's a good point. Yeah, I think they're probably top eight picks at worst. Yeah, for sure.

We'll have the same argument next year. I tweeted this last week. It's PPR points over the past calendar year, and we've got 460 for Cooper Cup, then 396 for Jonathan Taylor taylor and then 350 to 367 there's a group of like six guys which is including mark andrews and there's a huge drop off 24 to the next tight end and then 40 behind mark andrews is tied in three during that time um wow and so the case i made is like behind cup is andrews truly the most valuable player in fantasy uh he didn't look like it this week obviously he had a down week and kelsey has So the case I made is like behind cup is Andrew's truly the most valuable player in fantasy.

Uh, he didn't look like it this week, obviously at a down week and Kelsey is caught up with him. That discrepancy probably isn't 24% anymore. It's probably like 18 or something. Um, but like the fact that he's producing as high as Austin Eckler, Justin Jefferson, Devante Adams,

guys like that over the past calendar year, and he gives you a positional advantage. Like I think you legitimately could make the case that he's like a top five fantasy asset, both the Titans. Really? I would just say one thing. Last week was the first week in that stretch that Mark Andrews has played with a healthy J.K. Dobbins.

I mean, it was technically the second week, but Dobbins only had nine touches in week three. He had 17 touches in week four. He scored two touchdowns. So that's just the only thing I want to see is do they get back to running the ball a little bit more? Do they get more balanced? And does that pull Kelsey ahead of Andrews?

Because you're obviously, Jacob, like totally Andrews over Kelsey. Yeah, I mean, that's what we've seen for quite a while now, yeah. Yeah, I think I'm Kelsey over Andrews, but love them both. Richard, I'm sorry to make you wait. Is there anything else you'd like to chat about

before you leave? Sure. I guess the only thing I'll say is I love the Adam Azor stats. I know you get a lot of grief for them on the show but I'll say I don't get to see every game and I certainly don't remember every game I see.

I don't always agree with the Azor stat but you pointed out this guy last year, he missed two games with an injury or his quarterback was hurt and he played in a blizzard and whatever else. I don't necessarily need to agree with it, but at least you remind me. I go, oh, you know, okay, maybe, you know, I can think about it a little bit and decide, you know.

That's the point. But that's just an Acer stat. That's the point is to put a little context and decide, you know, you know, and so that's the point, but that's just an Acer. That's the point is to, is to put a little context on it, not to make a definitive statement. One of the Acer stats that's killing me right now is Gabe Davis without Emmanuel Sanders last year. Uh, all the, the involvement that he had and how good he was without Emmanuel Sanders last year. And, um, it's just not carrying over.

And Josh Allen is not throwing the ball downfield, which is welcome to the NFL right now. Hurting Gabe Davis, obviously. Richard, thank you. That's a great way to end the show. Complimenting an Azerstat. That is really terrific. Thank you very much to Richard Vinson, to Jacob Gibbs, to Dan Schneier,

all of you for watching and listening. Thomas Schaefer, our producer. We will talk to you tomorrow with The Waiver Wire on Fantasy Football Today. I are all of you for watching and listening. Thomas Schaefer, our producer. We will talk to you tomorrow with the waiver wire on fantasy football.